TMR CLICKITY CLACK

Sloane had been out with friends when she received the message. Correction, work friends, who in her personal opinion were pretty crap workers, but Sloane was admittedly a pretty crap friend so the playing field felt even. This was her attempt at making an effort (what she had explained to Junior as trying to fill up her life, but what in reality was her filling up the silence). A month had passed since she'd returned from Ireland and never had a month gone by so slow and so quickly simultaneously, always quickly when she wanted it slow (brief texts with Nash) and slow when she wanted it quickly (counting bloody sheep in the blur of the ceiling fan). She swirled the straw in a drink she hadn't bought herself and nodded at a story she wasn't listening to from a coworker whose name she had forgotten. And then she got the message: the wedding was cancelled.

Sloane, in poor character, felt the corner of her lips twitch, but this was not because she was happy for a moment that must have crushed her brother--though she wasn't unhappy. Sloane instinctively smirked at the news because, before she could fight it, she thought one thing proudly: how did Danica pull it off?

But the moment had passed as swiftly as she chugged the rest of her drink, exiting her conversation mid-sentence without so much as a goodbye. She called junior three times, nothing. She hailed a cab, called a fourth time, nothing.

She sent: Junior, what the fuck?

She sent: I know I can be a bitch but you can talk to me about this.

This repeated by day: work, out for drinks, found aimlessly texting her brother. Some nights she considered texting her sister, but she never did.

She sent: It's kind of killing me not to know. You're going to kill your favorite sister.

She sent: Hey, call me when you can.

She sent: Do you know any spells for when the tips of ear swabs get stuck in your ear?

After asking what was a truly bold question in the face of someone already undeniably vexed, Nash anticipated a quick dismissal — and Sloane didn’t disappoint. Or she did, but it was right on cue. His head shook, looking to the side but still not at her, something akin to a laugh escaping his lips before they curled inward and tightened up again. He couldn’t quite place the feeling, a mix between irritation and… amusement? If there was one thing he was sure of it was that Sloane would not just leave it there. She might spew something rash from her mouth, often vile and pungent, but she was far too cerebral to not spend time seriously considering it. When she spoke up again, Nash surprised himself by looking back up at Sloane. They knew each other so well, didn’t they?

“I didn’t ask to try and pry a confession out of you,” Nash explained. He wanted her to be clear on that. “If anything, I was just curious… trying to make sense of why she thought that would hurt you, I guess. I believe you, though, if you say you’re not jealous.” His words came out slowly, clearly still mulling over what Sloane had just said and unsure if he was believing himself. “I can’t pretend to know what is going on in Danica’s head. Not that I want to know, either, but I genuinely… and I could be wrong about this… don’t think that what they have is fake or anything like that. At least from my cousin’s point of view, I guess.” He shrugged, conceding that he only has one side of that story. Still, he thought his cousin too observant, too intelligent, to find himself under Danica’s manipulation. “Regardless, it’s clear she used it against you. Which was really shitty.” To them as well. “I’m really sorry she did that. Your sister shouldn’t be trying to make you feel shitty about anything. No one who cares about you should.”

Naturally, the opinions of strangers were sheer and rudimentary; she found herself most hostile to those who mattered. Those who’s opinions mattered. Some of her built up tension simmered down at Nash’s clarification, but she was still at the ready, internally crouched with her knee to the ground waiting for the sound of gunshot. Only, she was successful, he said he believed her, but the relief that should have brought her still felt wrong. She knew what she’d said was true in a flat way, but she didn’t know if Nash should believe her. “She knows that you’re important to me.” Sloane said matter-of-fact. Despite whatever seesaw the pair had been playing on for months, years, this much was obvious. Sloane spoke as a way to answer his confusion, why Danica thought that would hurt her, but after starting she didn’t know what else to say next. How else to explain. Only she’d recently realized herself. “Danica knew I would always choose her.” Sloane opted for instead, a vagueness that she predicted was enough to keep her from being a conspiracist. “There were...moments where it didn’t always seem that way to her. Clearly, she hasn’t taken well to it.” Sloane shrugged, simplifying what she’d gained after all this time. “I’ve since learned my lesson.” 

Nash’s insinuation that what Danica and Scamp have is real and genuine made Sloane nauseous. She knew Nash was optimistic but she never took him as naïve. Of course Scamp probably thought everything was grand, a pretty girl will do that to you, but Sloane was convinced Danica’s intentions had never been warm toned. Sure, she knew Scamp enough to assume he wasn’t foolish, but she grew up fooling people with her sister. They were the best at it; they had even fooled each other. “Believe what you want.” she said simply, and waited for the advice he’d probably give about how she was seeing things all wrong. She’d heard it from her eldest sister, to forget, to forgive, from her siblings and her parents. She should talk to Danica. Sloane was prepared for it, less defensive than she was bored, but the straight edge of her eyebrows softened when Nash...validated her. Didn’t make her feel crazy. Didn’t gaslight her. For a moment, Sloane didn’t even know what to do.

Warm to the touch, she let out a slow breath and watched him. When Sloane looked at Nash there was usually an urge to pounce on him, to touch him, to kiss whatever smirk he usually bore off his lips, but that was quieter now. She only ached to be closer to him. She wanted to cry and not to cry, but instead she did something equally as embarrassing. “...Thank you.” It hung between them and she didn’t punctuate it, wanting him to know she meant it wholly. 

She had almost said it then. She wanted to tell him that she loved him, but she worried it would ruin how loved she felt by him in that moment. “You don’t realize how...good it is to just hear somebody say something to me with no addendum.” She felt so inclined to admit, “I know this situation is...well it’s shit, but sometimes two things can be true without them having to be compatible.” Sloane knows she hasn’t been perfect lately, but she also knows that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been hurt either. Sometimes Danica’s wrong doings can be Danica’s wrong doings, not a blame they have to share. 

The corners of Nash’s lips twitched at her comment about how no one else had managed to capture as much of her attention as he had. They fell as quickly as they rose, thinking about Sloane and Danica’s relationship. Nothing had ever felt so foreign to him. Since hearing the way Scamp spoke about Danica, as unrecognizable as she sounded described to him by his cousin, Nash had managed to shed even the small bit of animosity he held for Sloane’s sister. While protective, he was even more open minded than most in meeting his own sister’s boyfriends and jealousy was not even on the table. He was not a twin, but he was confident that if he was one… he still would not have wound up in their position. 

Nothing Sloane said made Nash feel any better, but he was not expecting her to ease the sting of the realization that he was in the center of all of this. He was still sitting and she was still standing. He might have asked her to sit beside him if he was not feeling so tense. He didn’t know how to help, what to say, how he was supposed to act. He just couldn’t stop thinking about Danica being jealous of him. It made sense why she never allowed things between them to progress past playful banter… and now he was asking himself how playful it really was on her end. 

There was something on his mind, that he pondered on before letting himself ask. Ultimately, his curiosity outweighed any feeling that might have stopped him. “Do you think that hearing about her and Scamp has made you feel jealous at all?”

Sloane was never one to find discomfort in silence. She often preferred people didn’t bother her with trivial, personal things, and when she craved noise and chaos she found no trouble instigating it herself. Though, things had been much quieter without her usual right hand. But this kind of silence made her nauseous. The can of worms she opened crawled on her calves, sticking to the sweat at the bottom of her back, itching her all over. She crossed her arms to satisfy the urge and manicured fingers poked her hot, black leather jacket. She huffed. 

Sloane felt she knew Nash well, could tell his next move from a look in his eye, but she had never seen him so deflated. So still. He didn’t motion to her, barely looked at her, she couldn’t quite read him--but she wasn’t surprised. Stilted, yes. But when Nash finally spoke a question outlandish enough to turn Sloane red she barely skipped a breath. She knew him well. He had always been the one to say things aloud, to start conversations, to call her out. From Sloane, what am I to you? to Sloane, I’m in love with you to, well, unfortunately Sloane, are you jealous? Even though she was breathing steady she didn’t blink, barely winced at the light wind, couldn’t pull her eyes from him. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Her instinct was betrayal, disrespect. How dare someone ask her if she was jealous? In order to be jealous you have to favor a person, you have to want to be someone’s favorite. She could have killed him on the spot if she didn’t...you know. 

Instead, she thought hard about it. No one in her entire life had hurt her as much as Danica had these past few months. Not even her parents. They had never earned that kind of pull on her. If her rage was cloaked jealousy, if she was aiming her new glowing hatred for Scamp at Danica because that was supposed to be her receiving her sister’s love and attention, was that so bad? What had Scamp done to steal what had been hers, and how unfair of Danica to give it to him so freely, so selfishly. But that was what Sloane realized about the twins: stand them together and they're identical, separate them and show their true scales. Danica was selfish; Sloane had to be something else. 

That was when it hit. If Danica was selfish, Sloane had to be something else. If Danica was cruel, painless, strong, Sloane had to be something else. If Danica couldn’t be lonely, had to be spot-lit, Sloane had to be something else. If Danica had a partner easily, freely, wickedly, Sloane had to have something else. In order to be jealous you have to want the kind of thing someone else has that you can’t. Being jealous of Scamp for getting time with her sister was miniscule. The night prior, Sloane would’ve rather melted into acid on the floor of the bar than admit being jealous of Danica. But at least Danica got to have Scamp.

Dex couldn’t help the smile that unexpectedly bloomed on his lips when Evie pointed out his propensity for having favorites. “I don’t think he’ll get a better deal than being Art’s favorite, but I’ll take a spot on that ranking wherever.”

He burst into a full on laugh as he was asked to clarify on Evie’s extensive dating history. “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot you were such a charmer at 14,” he mocked. You take after me, he wanted to say, you’re just as much me inside as you are her outside.

Dex took a deep breath when it was clear he couldn’t hold off any longer. He ran a finger around the rim of his mug once before looking up at her. “There’s no easy way to broach any of this and you need to know before I even begin that you’ll have to forgive me. For a lot of things. I’ve missed one opportunity after the other since before you were born, when you were born, when you went to school. Things have constantly slipped through my fingers and I’ve just let them, somewhere along the line I decided it was easier to mourn a road not taken than to launch myself blindly into the unknown. But not anymore.”

He knew he wasn’t making any sense just yet and ran a hand over his mouth before continuing. “Evie, your grandmother never wanted me to have this conversation with you but I think I may have let the most valuable door in my life close recently and with this one is still in my control to leave open, I have to.

There’s never been a reason for you to know that it wasn’t arbitrary we became friends, that we were so close when you were in school. That I recognized you the second I saw you because you’re a spitting image of your mother. I hadn’t seen her since she-” Dex swallowed, feeling his throat dry painfully. “Since I was 19 but I could still see her in front of my eyes in you.”

“I understand why she didn’t want you to know or why your grandmother didn’t want you to know but that hasn’t made it easier all these years, being the secret that Suddon preferred to take to the grave with her.” He stopped, wondering when was the last time he’d said her name out loud. His eyes glistened against Evie’s but he pulled himself together. He had barely gleaned the surface of what he wanted to say, he couldn’t come unglued so soon.

Dex wondered for a moment if he should’ve asked her to meet him somewhere more private. If this wasn’t a conversation they could handle surrounded by people. “I loved her dearly and I know in her own way she loved me too. Still, she chose you and Julian and your father over me and I learned to respect that the older I got. But it never changed the truth of the matter, kid. You grew up with him because that’s the path that was picked for you but part of you has always been me.”

One thing about Evie, she was matter-of-fact. She was straight to the point. She found that as their conversation continued she offered Dex less in return; a smile here, a light laugh, a nod until she had given him only the room to inform her of what he gathered her here over. Her fingers toyed with the small earring that hung from her ear lobe, pieces of hair falling forward. 

By the deep inhale he took Evie had expected this to be somewhat of a speech, that he would need so much air to deliver simple news was unlikely, and she felt the breath Dex took catch in her own throat. A few sentences passed before she realized she’d been holding it, storing it for him in case he needed to come back for more, and she lightly released it through her nose to regain some sense of calmness. But she was not calm. For a moment, she feared he might be confessing his love for her. She was not unfamiliar to this kind of conversation, but it didn’t stop the anxiety of it, and had he not mentioned her birth or her grandmother she would have assumed this till the very end. 

The relief was temporary but she relaxed at the distraction of a mystery, of clues to be tied together with a string, and in her mind she laid down the groundwork for trying to reach a conclusion before he could finish. His connection to her grandmother, his connection to her, a mysterious unspoken conversation. She smiled at the mention of her mother, how she looked like her, how she’d heard that since she was a little girl. It’s hard looking like a dead woman, especially one you didn’t know, to have people look upon you and see in you a person you could barely envision. At some point Evie had leaned into it. She’d searched through photographs of her mother, perched at the end of Julian’s bed for short memories he could paint her, listened to her grandmother talk for hours. Evie had leaned into Suddon as a way to be close to her, but she scarcely missed her, did not feel her absence, only imagined it. 

The way Dex spoke of Suddon was different. Different from her grandmother, her brother, anyone else. Evie’s smile slowly fell as pieces fell into place, and a heat hit her forehead. Her ear lobe was dropped. She started straightening. Secret. Evie thought. To the grave. Evie thought harder, so much so that her head felt tense, that she wondered if she was smart enough, if she would reach the conclusion before him like she’d planned. 

It was near the end where Evie cared less about what the secret was and more that there was a secret at all. The idea that something concerning her had been unknown to her for what seemed like her whole life, kept from her, whatever it was did not matter. She’d learned that the betrayal was never in the item, but in the fact that it was stored. 

She swallowed, eyebrows knit. She concluded roughly that perhaps Dex and her mother had known each other intimately, but she couldn’t understand why that had anything to do with her, and if Dex was somehow still upset over it for so long why he needed to share this. Evie had past lovers that would live on her skin forever, but she only ever let them sink so deep. A long quiet fell over them and Evie made no attempt to fill it; she was unbothered by how uncomfortable it might seem. She cleared her throat, an eerie calmness to her that was perhaps more terrifying than backlash. “Dexter,” She started, tense fingers leaving her coffee and moving beneath the table to rest on her shaking thigh, which halted. In her independence she had learned to be the one to calm herself. She paused again, meditating on Dex’s tone: with him. Despite being the last to know about Ulyssius, Evolet had made peace with her family’s past, she had forgiven him because it was the only way. He loved her mother, this much she believed, and he was still her father. 

Evie clung to the end of Dex’s words. Part of you had always been me. She could not clearly make sense of them in a way that felt realistic, but she knew that they tightened her. How many people could claim a part of her to keep? At the end, which parts were her own? He had named so many people in his spiel alone that Evie wondered if there were any parts left for herself.

Leo & Soren | Too Far Ahead

Moving back to school was always a quiet process for Soren. His maman, the source of life and liveliness when it came to most other facets of his home life, was hushed as September approached by the impending departure of her remaining baby. And even when Detlev visited, as he insisted on doing every year to see the youngest of his brothers off, the quiet snuck away from the outside world and into Soren’s mouth, making home inside of him instead. He felt singularly alone in taking off from King’s Cross even with his father’s hand on his shoulder, imparting upon him a solemn goodbye even though he looked on the precipice of saying so much more. Moving back to school had always been one of the rare times Soren did not crave peace and quiet, rather, he was waiting on his toes to be disturbed.

…In a different way than he was currently being plagued, that is. He had every reason to blame Leo for the conversation he found himself an unwilling participant in at the moment, seeing how it started with a comment on the red and yellow of his tie. He was more than happy to see a familiar mug come into view to take some responsibility for his predicament, and stepped toward his friend right away. The world was bursting with sound and color once more and Soren embraced it eagerly. Shuffling the knot of his own tie, the very one which had given him pause that morning in wonder of a world where he was more like Detlev, Soren nodded in response to Leo’s words before he even processed fully what he was agreeing to. 

He didn’t quite have the flashy words that Leo did, or that many others did, as displayed by the person beside him agreeing with more verbal enthusiasm than Soren himself could’ve mustered on the spot. So while it was rare for Soren to appreciate any kind of distraction at a time when Leo was around, he looked up all too quickly at the sound of a familiar, regaling voice overhead. 

Some professors gained class with age and experience. Others, were Dexter D’Angelo. The man seemed particularly formidable in size directly beside Soren, with his arms entwined over his broad chest and his ankles crossed as he leaned against the doorframe of his room. But his demeanor was anything but imposing as he greeted with a broad, “Morning kiddos.”

Dex’s gaze swept over each of the teens standing closest to him before it caught on Leo, surprised to see them in such good spirits where he was sure he was going to get a mouth or a handful regarding their placement this term. Still, if they were managing to hold it together this well to be supportive of the other boy in the group, who was undoubtedly their best friend, then so be it. There was something a little more fascinating and carefree that had caught Dex’s attention to address anyway. 

“So this is cute,” he gestured vaguely in Leo’s direction and then in Soren’s. “Temporary identity crises or did I just lose a bet about who would say something first?”

Soren could have reacted any way he wanted to Leo’s comments about the start of the sickest year yet, little could’ve killed the excitement that fueled their every move for the past few weeks. In Leo’s tall, lanky frame fit the wonder and thrill for the both of them, but Soren’s nod was enough to satisfy Leo. In such a small gesture they knew the two of them were on the same page. Leo grinned, and the only excitement battling it out with the new class was the excitement of getting to see Soren again, as though they hadn’t just seen each other a few weeks prior. Leo gave Dexter delayed attention, shifting to face the older man only at his recognition of the teenage pair’s switch-a-roo, proudly taking credit in their expression alone. “Fat, hot-dog eating champion, breakfast buffet morning to you too, Dex.” No way Leo was calling him professor. 

Leo stood tall, back as straight as it could get with their poor posture, and pressed their balled fists to her waist. “What’re you going on about? You were there when we got sorted, weren’t you?” Leo turned briefly to Soren for unspoken approval, or mostly to catch his face, to see if he was smiling. “You know, Dex...” Leo leaned in, hand coming up to cup their their mouth and say in a mock whisper that was not at all quiet, “you’re not that old for your memory to be waning.” Leo had learned the word waning from the last sitcom they binged with Uncle Phin, and had managed to sneak it into at least five sentences a week since then. This is the third time today, a new record. 

Raleigh felt a blow at Fraser’s exasperated realization of truths that he clearly did not like. He forced himself not to dwell on it though, the bigger priority being Fraser’s final answer, his executive decision despite all the smaller huffs and puffs. Even his latter absent words of acknowledgment for their situation, Raleigh breezed over, his gaze on the younger man keen and laser-focused in anticipation. It was when Fraser began to speak again that Raleigh snapped back into focus, aware of more than just the tenseness in his own shoulders. Fraser’s desires, rare on his lips even in the time they’d known each other, caught deliberately on Raleigh’s ears. There were obvious signs of distress in Fraser’s expression, clear to someone trained to read people by profession. But it wasn’t so much that Fraser was emotional that struck Raleigh, but the fact that he cared so much he’d become emotional, especially as he specified that he didn’t want to hide them. 

Raleigh thought back to the last time he was in this predicament with someone begging him to be open, and honest just one time. Back then, just hours before he’d ended up disastrously collapsed on a public bathroom floor, a simple request had been made from him. Bring me out to see your friends. Just for a little while, let me meet them, you said yourself they’re safe. Lincoln had pleaded with him but all through words behind a screen, long blue bubbles of endless reasoning with him at a time he wanted least to be reasoned with. There were no glossy brown eyes hammering into his memory then, no fluctuating intonation to twist his chest, no tangible evidence of a life he was irreparably impacting with his every breath. Just one man’s word against the other in a battle where neither was willing to budge. It had been simple even if it was devastating, the resounding answer in Raleigh’s mind was no. Everything else that occurred between them was built around it. No.

But this, right here, right now, was anything but simple. And the instinctive single word of rejection, solitude, and security that Raleigh had clung to his entire life was lost to him. Instead, he spat out his own plea, stepping forward unwittingly to emphasize his point. “It wasn’t-” he cut himself short, all the usual confidence and broadness of shoulders in him faltering for a moment as he bowed his chin to his chest. He was only willing to look back up when he trusted himself to continue clearly, “We weren’t private tonight. We came here, we came out, I-” The furrow in his brows implored Fraser to understand the gravity of the fact that they were around people tonight, both familiar and not. “I’m here…” the whisper was all that escaped him, but his mind ambled on that sure, it might have been uncomfortable and strange but they were there and they were together. It wasn’t great but it was a start and everyone had to start somewhere. The logic and reasoning cluttered his thoughts faster than he could summon words for them fitting to his character, and the effort would prove to be wasted in a few second’s time anyway. 

Raleigh’s entire body language shifted to see the streak of red mark its path along Fraser’s face and then his hand. He worked quickly to determine first that the man was alright, and wasn’t even allowed to dwell in his slight confusion of the poor timing Fraser mentioned before they were interrupted. Raleigh almost resented the regular bar patrons for having such a casual night. Had he not been standing in front of a man who had his unfettered time and attention, Raleigh would have taken a much greater issue to their lack of respect for Fraser’s personal space. He almost sidestepped to growl a biting, Watch it! in their general direction. But the aggression died in his throat with the distant knowledge that Fraser would slip even further from him to see him embroiled in a senseless test of ego and machismo. The kinetic ferocity in his eyes died down as his pupils shifted their way back to the man who had served as his fixed point on this entire ride, just in time to catch Fraser recentering on him as well. 

It was stabbing to hear Fraser’s answer finally come to fruition. To know after such a held breath what the executive decision was, painted with such unsurety and obligation. He’d desperately been steering towards the concession, as he always was in these sorts of situations, willing to manipulate any last ounce of sympathy a sane human could spare a person like him. But to feel as though he’d cornered and coerced Fraser into what he wanted at that moment was repulsive. The man sounded torn apart to give what he’d initially offered willingly and Raleigh’s brows furrowed impossibly to see him in such a way. He sucked in a breath, his own resolve coming about him in the most tsunamic manner, daunting in its immovability as he stepped forward into Fraser’s space, so close that alarm bells rang out in him, warning to glance over his shoulder and make sure no one was looking. The more he ignored the brightly flashing color in his mind in favor of placing his thumb over the dulled and dried red beside Fraser’s lip, the hotter his skin felt, ablaze with trepidation that he knew he would be remiss to succumb to.

It wasn’t necessary to rest his palm against Fraser’s cheek for his crisply whispered healing spell to be effective, but Raleigh wanted to. He wanted to feel the stain disappear from under his fingertip and look at the younger man from a proximity that he’d always enjoyed in moments when his reservations had been shed away. His eyes narrowed to maintain the gaze and stare so hard into Fraser that they watered- from the wind, from the nerves, he told himself. And when he was forced to bow his chin and blink away the prickling, Raleigh’s hand came with him, missing the familiar pressure of gentle stubble the moment he stepped back. 

“Don’t then,” Raleigh’s breath shook to get the words out, each one going against every last grain of self-preservation that controlled all facets of his life. He took a deep breath and even that wavered, making him look to the side briefly, shaking his head, willing himself to hold it together for just a little while longer when inevitably, this would all come crashing down around him. Forcing the muscles of his neck to turn back, he continued, “If you don’t think it’s the best choice, if you don’t want to, deep down, then don’t. I want you to-” He froze. Had he ever actually told Fraser that before? Honestly and truly, outside of the sheets where it was so easy to feel like a better version of himself? “I want you.” It felt smoother around the edges of his mouth the second time, but Raleigh snapped himself out of his experimentation, judging away the time and place, of which this was an ironic one.

“But you should be around me because you want to be.” Raleigh licked his lips, a huff leaving his nose as he found the overwhelmed heat in his eyes refusing to cooperate again. It couldn’t be that he was so frenzied at the notion that Fraser would actually take his advice that he was driven to this, right? Of course, his body was only having a physiological reaction to psychological duress. Of course.

“Tell me what you need,” Raleigh demanded in his urgent but leveled tone of voice. “If you need me to fuck off then say so. If you need me to apologize then make me. If you need me- want me- to stay then say it, but say it sure.” Another breath left his mouth in a cool rush, his fingers itching to run through his hair and give away the strain in him. Time and time again, Raleigh torpedoed the things that were good for and to him, his primal instinct for selfish survival serving as the trigger in each and every instance but this one. Now, the one time in his personal life that he felt even a shred worth the colors the sorting hat decided for him all those years ago would have the same outcome that every other disgusting decision he’d made before did. Ever since they’d walked out of the bar Raleigh was sure Fraser would be done with him but the difference now was that instead of grappling hysterically to stave it off, he was understanding of it. The truth, as it turned out, would at least begin to set him free.

Had Fraser managed a sip of his Sherry before stepping into the cold air surrounding the bar, maybe, just maybe he might’ve been able to brush off his dizziness to the alcohol. Bo had stuttered out prose on privacy, on being here tonight as a ‘we’, as a pairing, together, but Fraser was no longer sure what together meant for them. He was no longer sure what together had ever meant for them, if they’d been leaning on two different definitions to the same word, denotation dependent on circumstance. When Fraser felt himself stumble to his heel at the brush of the stranger’s shoulder, mixed with the cool trickle of blood from his nose, mixed with the muffled sound of Bo’s voice over the doorway music, he had nearly lost his sense of place. 

He was brought back solely by the coarse, familiar feel of skin against his skin. He knew those hands, the touch of them, the overworked grit of them, the clean curve of the nail. These were hands that had touched him before, hands that had touched him everywhere, and while usually his skin would tingle and rile from underneath at the stroke of them, this time he felt his chest swell and deflate---afraid to float. He finally looked over at Bo as those hands, those hands he thought, Bo’s hands found way to his cheek. The blood ceased and cleared. Fraser drowned in a rare rinse of being taken care of. He knew the man didn’t need to touch him, but had chosen to. Before Bo pulled his hand back Fraser thought not of what they were or weren’t, of whether Bo would continue to hide him, but only of the physical truth as it stood before him: regardless of what had transpired tonight, this was a man who cared for him.

This wasn’t a thought he could sit in long. 

Fraser was convinced he’d solved the problem, twice, but Bo clearly didn’t have intentions to make it easy for him. Panic tightened his chest as the other man listed options for Fraser to choose from, and his eyes darted from Bo’s shoulder to his chin to his abdomen to the lobe of his right ear to his face again. His throat dried and tightened and while the sentiment of being wanted by Bo should have eased him that hadn’t been part of what nerved him to begin with. Fraser hadn’t been concerned about whether or not Bo wanted to be with him, he at least knew this much. What truth Fraser lacked was whether or not Bo wanted to be with him enough. 

Fraser found himself overwhelmed and exhausted. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked him what he wanted, let alone what he needed. In the brief breaths between Bo’s questions Fraser tried to breath, as though he was using Bo’s shuttering chest as a guide. I don’t know. He panicked. Fraser didn’t like not knowing what to do. I don’t know. I don’t know. Tell me what you need. “I don’t know!” Fraser finally let out, and instantly put his hand to his head and turned away, but only briefly enough to inhale and turn back with a weighted adrenaline. He was both high-strung and strung-out. “I don’t know what I need. You know-” this was hard for him, he felt seen but in the naked way, where Bo had stripped him and gifted him what he’d always craved but at a time where he couldn’t eat it. But he knew what he wanted.

Nash would have been quick to chime in, but Sloane added an amendment to her previous statement that quieted the words that danced on his tongue, guarded by teeth and lips. It only quelled them for a moment. The more she spoke, the more he felt the surfacing. When had he started holding himself back with her, anyway? “I’ve befriended a lot of new people, many of whom you met tonight.” Despite how complicated things seemed between them, he had yet to vacate the spot he held for her in his life… despite half-hearted attempts to follow his cousin’s advice. “Still haven’t found anyone to replace you.” How could anyone else compare?

“Happiness does seem to be a foreign concept to her,” Nash scratched the back of his head, mumbling. At his porch, tensions were high. He could not have stood there looking any more clueless and out of place than he did, outside of his own home. He vetoed the thought of asking her if she wanted to rage about it more inside before even flirting with the idea. Her dismissal of the possibility that Danica could ever come around when it came to Nash just furthered his own silence. He was not sure that anything he said would actually hold any weight, at least in that conversation. Was Danica truly so stubborn, so ridiculous, that she couldn’t play nice? Especially if her and Scamp actually did make each other happy.

Nash noted that she skipped over one of his questions to ask the other, which felt like his fault for giving her an out. What she did choose to share with him, however, held his attention more than daring to ask again. At first, because with the way that Sloane continued to talk about Danica, it was very clear that whatever the hell was going on was serious. It was the word jealous that stood out at first. Then, the emphasis on Danica criminalizing Sloane for enjoying someone else’s company. If the previous comments about his own relationship with Sloane’s sister were too fresh on his mind to draw another conclusion, Sloane cemented the thought in his head by rubbing salt into a wound he didn’t know he had. Danica has always hated you.

Something in her words forced Nash to take a seat on the steps they stood in front of. She could stand if she chose to, but he was exhausted by all the vitriol spewed. He couldn’t imagine ever being in a situation like the one she was in, ever talking about his sister like she was. He knew their families were different, but it was just something he couldn’t and didn’t want to grasp. With a sigh, he looked up at her. 

“Because she’s jealous of me.” Even after saying the words, Nash questioned them… but what other conclusion was he supposed to draw from that, from everything she just said. That, even if he played just a small part in their family drama, Nash did play a part in it. 

Sloane hadn’t realized she was baiting Nash until he told her something she also hadn’t realized she wanted to hear. It may have been her desire to know if someone else had managed to charm him while she was so inelegantly pushing him away. An unexpected bubble of relief popped inside her sending warmth to her shoulders and sides. All she could do was look at him. She couldn’t tell if she was smiling, and she was only slightly, but it felt much wider on the inside. “It’s not an easy task.” But not impossible, apparently. She finally replied with a smug tilt of her head and a sly smirk of satisfaction, or pride. There was only a small ache, located on her lower spine, that itched over whether her sister had managed to replace her. But it was acute, like the pinch of a bug bite, and overshadowed by what she felt watching Nash tell her she was irreplaceable. “And you won’t be surprised to hear that most people back home have been terribly boring since you left.” Replacing him hadn’t been on her agenda. She had chosen loneliness. 

Despite the moment of bliss, the spiraling conversation left Sloane feeling distanced from Nash and caught in her own feelings. It wasn’t till he moved from her, till the end where she finally began to see him, that her thoughts had focused. Sloane used to always be focused; she was diligent, cognizant, calculative, but lately she felt erratic and overwhelmed and angry. Now, she was only focused on Nash as he moved to sit and she stood firmly. Tension built in her body and her stiff frame fought the momentum that pushed against it, urging to sit beside him, but she didn’t move--only focused. She focused on his expressions piece together what she hadn’t bothered to filter, because she was used to holding herself back around him. She should have done better. Weak, again. 

She focused on the way his eyebrows moved, and the trail of his bottom lip, and his eyes as they settled on what she knew to be true but suddenly felt sick to repeat. Caught in her own feelings, in what was conspiring between her and her other half, fumed at how Danica had made her feel, she hadn’t considered how things would make Nash feel. But that was the thing: Sloane scarcely considered how things affected others. Few times had she cared enough for it to factor into the choice she made. She felt different now, hurt but not by her own pain, a feeling she recognized but not one she welcomed often and not one she had any clue what to do with. This was the type of feeling that on instinct would send her fighting, but who was there to fight? She had already fought her sister; she had already fought herself. Without that option, Sloane didn’t know how to protect him. 

Sloane felt the need to place the blame on someone other than Nash so he didn’t blame himself, but she faltered when figuring out how to do so. She only told him what she believed was true. “I think Danica would’ve been jealous of anyone...who had that much of my attention.” Most of it, but Sloane had a few people she spoke to that her sister had found no issue with. Danica had chosen Nash specifically to hate, as if she’d known from the beginning, as if she could see it in Sloane’s eyes before either of them had understood. She’d asked Nash how long he’d known that Danica and Scamp were sleeping around. She should’ve asked Danica how long she knew Sloane and Nash were in love. “Unfortunately for everyone involved, no one else did.” 

Nash just stared at Sloane as she remarked on his being single, teasing him about it. Teasing had always been a huge part of their relationship, the back and forth a reliable sign of whether the two of them were feeling comfortable around the other… but he felt how even that had been affected by his recent confession once she teased him and he couldn’t let it slide right off his back. It stung. It stung because actually there were other girls but none of that mattered to him. Not really. It stung because of course he was single and she knew she was the reason why and was teasing him about it. Before it wouldn’t have made a difference, but it felt like a gut punch coming from her right then. Still, it didn’t change much. In fact, nothing had. He was still happy she was there, despite being freshly stung by her. 

It was her commenting on that night that gave him a voice again, having just realized he was fairly quiet for a stretch. Nash waited for her to add something onto the end of her apology and that’s exactly what she did. His first instinct, of course, was to tell her how wrong she was and continuing the banter but a question came to his mind. “Then, why did you call me, do you reckon?” He kept his eyes on forward, then to the ground where he found a rock to kick as they walked.

“Like I said  — when he first told me, I thought that he went mental or something… but after hearing him talk about it, I dunno, he seems happy.” Nash shrugged, remembering the day his cousin let him in on the nauseating reality that was him dating Sloane’s sister. After hearing the way he talked about her, seeing the look on his face, how could he do anything but be supportive? Even if it was Danica. His became more animated as he felt the need to bring up what, in his opinion, was a very good point. “And if Danica wants to stick around she’s going to have to get over whatever her problem with me is.” He didn’t know why she chose to act like she hated him, but he was sure the two of them could at least be civil around each other for Scamp’s sake. He anticipated quite a few missteps before they found their footing… provided she actually sticks around. 

Sloane returned to the conversation with a loaded question, but Nash was more focused on the her first comment. “I don’t know, a few weeks? A month?” He said, breezing past the question to ask her about what was really confusing him. “Why would she think…. why would Scamp and Danica being together hurt you?” That was the implication, right? If Danica was using her relationship with his cousin as ammunition, it was because it would hurt Sloane in some way. “What the hell is going on between you two?”

Sloane wasn’t particularly well-versed in this practice, but she was led to believe apologizing was usually enough. She figured pushing aside her pride and giving any apology in general would be a end-all-be-all, and because hers was so genuine she thought it would lay that part of their conversation to rest. She did not want to think more about the severely drunk version of herself that night, or about whatever they might’ve discussed, or about if the sex was sloppy, or anything at all. Surely, the last thing she expected was for him to ask her that. Quick-tongued and clever, Sloane was the kind of person who had an answer for everything. This time she faltered and it even slightly showed as a twitch on her face, as a hiccup in her step. 

If this had been months ago, in a situation like that Sloane assumes she would have likely called her sister. Thinking about it now, she couldn’t remember the last time she was that vulnerable with Danica, that raw, or that embarrassing. She couldn’t remember the last time her sister had ever seen her be weak, but she was weak. Just as she had said to Danica on her way out of the bachelorette party. Sloane was weak. She knew this now. 

If Sloane called Nash he would pick up, but a brief thought fluttered past her that if he called her at a random hour of the night she would pick up too. She realized as she walked beside Nash that in her moment of absolute weakness, at her lowest point, the only person in her life she could think herself comfortable enough to allow to witness it was him. Her best friend. Someone she loved. “Because I trust you.” She said plainly, as though it didn’t carry as much weight as it did. Trust for Sloane was more than missing, maybe even more than love. She loved her family, but she did not miss all of them in their absence, and she surely did not trust all of them. She cleared her throat. “You were my best friend once.” Her eyes thinned to glance at him, “I should like to think you still are, regardless of...” Everything, she thinks. “How much we’ve spoken lately.” Which is not much, for good reason. “I don’t carry a lot of desire to befriend more people.” Sloane joked.

Despite feeling closer to Nash earlier in the conversation Sloane noticed distance wedged between them as they stood before his porch, distance she could feel herself instigate with tension in her arms. The idea that Danica and Scamp were fucking at all was maddening, but the concept that Scamp could be happy with Danica left Sloane lightheaded. The way that Nash was talking about them made Sloane feel there was much much more she wasn’t aware of. “Happy?” Sloane’s head cocked, “You think Danica is capable of being happy? Capable of making someone else...” Her voice struck, stiff compared to the fluidity it had earlier in their banter. But she stopped herself, a furiousness coming on as well as a headache, before finishing that sentence. Regardless of how she felt about her sister now, Danica had made her happy once. 

Sloane by this point had looked past Nash, stepped back, and had turned away from the porch. She crossed her arms and took a second to run the facts back in her head deliberately like a detective. “Danica never will.” Sloane said low in her thought process, waving her hand dismissively. This was the one thing out of all the nonsense that Sloane was sure of. If Danica could not come around to Nash for her, Sloane couldn’t think of anything stronger her sister would bend for. 

Sloane finally turned back to Nash abruptly, “A month?” Fucking hell. But Sloane could barely take a moment to be hurt when Nash was already throwing a curveball of a question her way. Sloane blinked hard, glare softening to sea-sickness. She neglected the first question in favor of the second one, which was also painful, but easier to answer. “Danica is selfish, that’s what’s going on between us. She’s wicked and jealous. She can’t fathom me enjoying someone else’s company beside hers and criminalized me for it.” Criminalized me for you. She doesn’t say this, but it weighs heavy in her gut. “And now she’s...now she’s doing things she would have scorned me over. With Scamp, of all people, of every fucking bloke in London. Your cousin.” She can’t understand why he doesn’t think this is as crazy as she feels it is, crazy enough to warrant the way Danica revealed it to her at the bar, detailing every location Scamp had spread her sister thin. 

“Someone’s gotta show ‘em how it’s done, yeah?” Nash smiled brightly at her. “More responsibility is good, though! Unless…” he trailed off, allowing her to correct him if necessary. Even being drafted to a professional team, Nash had his days where he questioned everything and even had a few where he almost quit. When she teased him, he laughed and fixed his hair. “Well, I’ve always been a big deal. Nice to see everyone else catching on finally.” And because she wanted to play games, Nash felt he had no choice but to play back. “Oh, they definitely have been.” There had been an influx of attention from the ladies since becoming a Falcon, but figured that hanging around some of the more substantial players helped with that. The truth was he would have had options, had he been interested in pursuing anyone but the girl walked beside him.

When Sloane hesitated to finish, he took a quick moment to try and ease any anxiety she might have about the other night and show he was not bothered by it. “I was actually… it was nice to hear from you, no matter how drunk you were. Which was very.” He laughed, unapologetically amused thinking about some of the more ridiculous moments from that night. It faltered as his mind wandered to a specific moment, his arms wrapped around her as she cried against him. The thought of it broke his heart even now. “Just glad we got you home in one piece.”

Nash heard the way she dismissed Danica and Scamp’s situation to just fucking and — god, the thought of it still makes him kind of nauseous — he almost said something, but shakes away the thought of correcting her. He wasn’t sure how serious the two of them were, but Nash could tell from the few conversations he had with his cousin that he was into her beyond just the fun they were having. Regardless, he was still gauging what Sloane’s exact reaction to this revelation was, as well as what he was about to tell her. 

“Yeah.” The word came out in an uncomfortable laugh, moving to block the sun that seemed to be in her eyes. Not only did he know about them, but could remember the moment he found out vividly. “When Scamp told me, I thought he went mental or something.” The thought to tell Sloane about her sister and his cousin had never even crossed Nash’s mind. Between their own relationship being unclear for most of the time he knew and him living out his dream job, his mind had been elsewhere. “Danica tell you?” Surely that isn’t what she was going to say to say she was mad about… right?

Sloane noted the room he made for her, but she wasn’t entirely sure where she stood on the spectrum of responsibility. Sloane wasn’t usually drawn to heavy roles due to responsibility but to power. She worked well under pressure and was quick on her feet so responsibility never bothered her. That is, up until lately, where it seemed responsibility was demanding she care more than she was used to, asking her to handle a higher risk. So no, maybe responsibility wasn’t that good of a thing, but Sloane knew what she could rely on — “Unless nothing,” she smirked confidently, a not-answer, “I like a good challenge. I think I’ve just needed something…new.” She admitted because she didn’t think that actually meant anything, feeling trapped in herself. Her eyeroll at his comments was instinctual but pleasant; she liked the way it felt to react naturally, to be annoyed by him from too much fondness. She had missed it. “Yet, you’re still single.” In some way, this is a clarification. “So there can’t be that many girls.” Finally side by side at this point, she lightly hit her hip against his, and that was the last fun she had in the conversation.

Sloane, not commonly embarrassed, squirmed under her leather jacket at the thought of being very drunk in the worse way. She could only hope she still did a solid job sucking him off. She’d set a high bar in the past. “Sign of a good party.” She said sarcastically. There was a brief moment where she felt the urge to tell him she missed him too, that she should have reached out more, sober, but she only glanced away from him. It was weird physically rejecting things she would have told him easily in their earlier friendship now that she felt she had something to hide, that there was a slight chance she had miscalculated where they stood romantically. That, unbearably, she had been wrong. However, there was one thing she couldn’t deny him on principle. “Thanks for coming all that way.” She knew how much he hated apparating. But not without adding, “I would have made it home just fine…but, it’s better you were there.” It always was, she realized, and maybe that’s more than any I missed you. 

The way Nash answered her question solidified something in Sloane. She’d hardened at what felt like a dismissive and casual laugh as he stepped into her line of view and on instinct she felt herself pull an inch away. The sun she once begged to blind her haloed him and her eyelashes blinked quickly for clarity, the stiffness in her gut tensing like an under-worked muscle. This was not an appropriate time to watch him glow. She was eased only by the word mental, which she had mistaken for understanding. “Exactly!” She stepped back with a weighted nod. “Doesn’t that bother you? Danica practically despises you.” She assumed her sister wouldn’t do something like that without a motive. 

In a state of helplessness, Sloane had resorted to conspiracy. “And I just don’t und—” she started before it hit her, the question he’d asked with an obvious answer lingering between them. Sloane wondered who else knew before her. Was she the last to find out? She felt like a fool and wondered how many other secrets circled, how stupid she looked to people, how it had gotten past her. Part of her logically knew she couldn’t be angry with Nash, had he not thought of her, had he assumed she knew? How much had they not talked about lately, and how much of that was her fault? He had been loyal to his cousin, and Danica had been loyal to herself, but who had been loyal to Sloane? Not even in the womb had she ever felt lonely. For as long as she could remember, she’d had someone in her court. Now all that was left was a restless crowd. 

Fraser was a man of tears. He didn’t think it made it weak, his ability to be in touch with his feelings transferred to having to be in touch with everyone else’s, and so he didn’t forfeit reddening eyes upon finding out his best friend had been lying to him for years. Fraser was an outstanding citizen. He had not so much as left litter somewhere unapologetic. He was the kind of person who handled his taxes early, the kind of person who knew his neighbors. He had thought the other man moved through life similarly, but Fraser was beginning to realize Quest might have done those things for different reasons. 

Fraser might have been one to cry, but that was not equivalent to wearing his emotions on his sleeves, and his instinct was always to comfort the person next to him. In his youth, it had been his siblings. This time, there was a man permanently to his right, and all he could think about was what that meant for the cop and the criminal. Perhaps it was easier this way, too, not having to dwell in his own confusing feelings when he could try to hold something else, reaching to do something with his hands. He hadn’t yet shared his thoughts on the matter, not in full. He hadn’t yet stopped crying either, not in full. 

At night he laid on his back, hand to his heavy chest, head turned to the side to watch the weighted breathing of the man beside him trying to fall asleep. Something about that gave Fraser a brief drop of comfort. Even in his sleep Bo was stubborn, and at least that was consistent. The moment sizzled quickly into the burn in chest again, the one he gets when a problem is too big for him to solve, and his fingers started to static. He recognized this feeling, the rarity of it, crackling to his wrists. “I’m going to get a glass of water.” He said lowly, knowing Bo was still awake, knowing Bo knew he was still awake, and knowing Bo would turn to him if he rose in the middle of the night and left the room. Off the nightstand he swiped his phone and his wand, light shinning from the tip to the doorway as Fraser headed down the stairs.

He worried about what Bo was feeling, what steps he was going to take given his profession. Fraser had begun to understand the rank at which Quest fell in Bo’s life, and with how much he knew his partner he was aware how difficult it was to climb that high on the scale. Somehow, Quest being Fraser’s best friend and Quest being Bo’s good friend was almost equivalent. 

He worried about what Quest was feeling, if there was guilt he could tuck into the wood-cracks of his wands. Were there strands of regret? To keep such a secret from your loved ones, what did that feel like at his core? One might argue that selective truth is not lying, but it hurt all the same. It is not so much the lie that hurts as it is the lack of trust.

Jittery, the fridge light bleached his features, and when he poured himself a glass of water most of it landed on the kitchen counter. He lifted the glass halfway, then back down, then finally the full way to gulp. Fraser's body felt on the brink of purging, the way Boyd had described a bad hangover once, like his body was going to let whatever was plaguing his insides out against his will. He didn’t need a hangover for comparison; Fraser knew this feeling. It wasn’t common and he hadn’t experienced it in at least a few years, but every time he did it wasn’t the previous one he compared it to. Whenever Fraser had a panic attack he was eleven again. 

Instinctively, Fraser cupped his palms under the running kitchen faucet and splashed his face. The cold water made him hiss and he dripped onto the tile on his way to the bathroom, watching the wetness trail his nose in the sink mirror. He felt wet on his spine, beneath his arms, around his neck—and warm, warm everywhere. His knuckles caught and constricted and his rapid breathing clipped short and harsh until he felt lightheaded, hands rising to the mirror before blurring. He stumbled to the left and used the toilet for support, responsibly guiding his body down to the cold bathroom flooring. He did what he had taught himself, what had always eventually worked, and wrapped his adult arms over his childhood knees, tucked his head into the dark gap, and tried to focus on his breathing. 

He thought about the man upstairs who he loved, and he thought about the man who owned a shop nearby who he also loved, and he thought about everyone he had ever loved and whether or not loving and recognizing were consonant. Fraser thought about the people in his life who had managed to keep things from him: his sister who had lied about her career for a year, his partner who had hidden truths about his identity, his best friend who had led a double life. He wondered if he really knew anyone, if there were always more secrets to be revealed, if anyone in his life had ever been real with him. 

leo: good, knew you would

leo: don't know what's worse, the sound of eating slugs or the sound of you ditching me this fall to kiss up to davenport or anyone less interesting

leo: it's too late in the game to find a new best friend

leo: sealed. see you in december.

leo: and like, before then too. walkie you soon, fudge flies. over and out!

Leo had never been someone who got excited about the first day of classes. Uncle Phin would have to bribe them just to move in, even though he knew that most of the time Leo was partially faking the dread. Partially meaning the dread: Sure, Leo hated class and never adapted to sitting still for quite that long, often opting for fidgeting and levitating paper balls to the backs of kids’ heads. They hated the extra weight of their textbooks, the itchiness of the school uniform against their spine and elbows, their weekly sessions with their assigned counselor. At least in the summer no one ever asked Leo hard questions; no one ever made Leo feel like a problem to be solved. 

Partially faking the dread: Leo didn’t mind Hogwarts. They liked the stupid talking ghosts and trying to race the staircases, the smell of the grass after a close game, how noisy the Great Hall was in the mornings. They liked waking up to noise in the mornings, being a part of the noise, not the cause of it. Growing up an only child with cousins twice your age and spending summers in a big house with an old man made being around their peers a hell of a lot more tempting. By the end of the warmer months Leo had missed quidditch so much that the first place they always hit was the pitch—until Soren, that is. And this fall, Leo was ready to go before Phineas had flipped the first pancake.

The first day of classes couldn’t come soon enough, and Leo’s energy fed off the chatter in the halls, long bony fingers gripping tightly to the new Apparition book they’d bought with Soren under Gaby’s watch. Someone had fallen into step beside them exchanging how was your summers and are you ready for D’Angelo’s class? Leo, fueled by the excitement to see their best friend, merely responded with uh-huhs and yeahs until, “Got two front row seats with my name on it!" 

soren: and i have your back too.

soren: well then you'd better build up an appetite for slugs real quick cause i bet we'll find something interesting.

soren: shake on it. my arm's out too. over.

leo: good, knew you would

leo: don't know what's worse, the sound of eating slugs or the sound of you ditching me this fall to kiss up to davenport or anyone less interesting

leo: it's too late in the game to find a new best friend

leo: sealed. see you in december.

soren: that makes me feel better, but makes me feel even better knowing you have my back. [this time soren stops to smile before recalibrating.] ...bess doesn't stand a chance against us, we're gonna live in your radio's glory all year, maybe even longer!

soren: um professor d'angelo seems like his secrets should stay where they were buried, i don't wanna know how many people he's killed with that smile on his face. and it's always the seemingly boring ones with the most secrets, watch out. just cause you like davenport and don't want him to have any dooming secrets...

soren: /cadwell/, leo. he certainly won't change your grade until you start saying his name right. professors have ears on the back of their heads, they know these things. also he's...not that old? i think him and my dad are the same age, they're not /that/... anyway

[...]

soren: it's not. you're gonna love it here, there are a ton of little festivals for the holidays and the town's always covered in snow in december so you're gonna get to make the /coolest/ snowmen. potentially even cooler than me. over.

leo: you're you and i'm me. 'course i have your back.

leo: what're they feeding you over there? you're talking crazy! i'd eat slugs if a single cool thing turned up about him.

leo: don't go all teacher's pet on me, soren. not like they can hear us or anything. /we're/ the ones with the cool secret hearing radio. besides, most old people can't hear that well anyway. we're fine!

leo: .... [😊] deal.

leo: shake on it?

soren: bess from herbology is going to take this from us over my cold, dead body.

soren: could be interesting to see what kind of weird secrets the professors are exchanging when they think no one's listening. but what would we do with that kind of information? there are so many possibilities?

soren: yeah you do that. i'd tell you to be more careful on the bike but i know better. just make sure you have a ride by the next time i'm over or i'll leave you in the dust on oakley's and you can do your best the old school way on your feet.

[...]

soren: yeah, i'm here.

soren: for real, you wanna come by in the winter? ...over.

leo: bess from herbology couldn't take a pygmy puff in a fight if it was caged, no way she'll dead you

leo: and i wouldn't let her, anyway.

leo: merlin, hands down! i've just got this feeling professor d'angelo is into some freaky shit. like, that's a man who has secrets. i bet davenport is boring, though.

leo: we're smart, we'll come up with some good pranks. Maybe I can get professor broad-well to change my grade from last year if i find out something embarrassing, like if he's got a stupid tattoo or something. he seems like the kinda dweeb to have a stupid tattoo. he's alright looking though, for an old dude.

leo: you wish! i've been practicing on the wheels in your absence just so i could smoke you when you got back. but i'd still beat you barefoot!

leo: good, knew you would be

[...]

leo: ...it's not too far ahead?

[...]

soren: everyone's gonna be so jealous if you can make it work and bring it to school. the radio's gonna need its own security detail. we'll have to take shifts making sure it never falls into the wrong hands.

soren: also i could come back whenever you want me to. my parents like uncle phin and they like you.

soren: my mom will definitely say yes so just ask uncle phin when we can steal you. she asked if you wanted to come over again in the winter since it's nice here with snow. she likes to think super far ahead like that for everything, it's kinda sweet that she just assumes nothing's gonna change ever.

soren: fine fine, i can be an honorary gryffindor for one day. for you. over.

leo: yeah and i'm gonna wanna show everyone but tell the wrong blabber mouth - bess from herbology i'm talking to you - and someone'll probably confiscate it.

leo: i mean because i was already thinking of what kinds a signals we could tap into y'know? some of the professors are so old i'm sure they're still using old tech...mostly because i just don't like bess much.

leo: anyway, ...yeah? we're both pretty likable people. [a few rare moments of quiet because leo is smiling] i'll uh-get my bike fixed! it's taken a few hits since the last time you visited.

leo: alright, i'll let uncle phin know and then you can come steal me whenever, no notice required. [...]

leo: i'll be there in december, for sure. i'll make a snowman version of you, but like, cooler. get it, co-

“I just didn’t want to spend all my time with you in the bar, with that lot. As much as I love them, I see them every day. You, not so much.” He was speaking loudly to make sure that she heard him, only necessary because of the distance he had put between them. When he noticed, he allowed himself to slow down and match her pace. She responded to his smile with one of her own, but followed it up with a comment that brought a laugh out of him. Some might have ridden off comments like that as too arrogant, but Nash could not help but find them charming coming from Sloane. Plus, it wasn’t like she was wrong. “You’re not going to get an objection out of me.” His hands found a home in his pockets as he furrowed his brow, confused about what she was confused about. “Yeah, reassuring. As far as I can tell they like you. Really like you. Means they have good taste.”

“So…” They were still a couple minutes away from his flat and Nash had a plethora of questions he had yet to ask Sloane, about her drunken night and so much more. He bit his lip in contemplation of which to let escape his mouth, if any. He started off simple enough. “I feel like we haven’t gotten a chance to talk much since you got here. What’s been going on with you? What have I missed?” 

Sloane had been hyper aware of how little they’d been in contact lately in comparison to how they used to be, but she knew it was her doing and that was enough to make her stick to it—even if she had lost track of the reasons. She was always good at busying herself and she never had issues with missing people, out of sight out of mind, but lately missing seemed to be all she ever felt. Everything in her life had been off-kilter, like she was staring outward but her vision was focused slightly to the left, like trying to straighten a picture frame by eye. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him this. “We’ve both been so busy.” She said instead, which is true. He moved and has been working his ass off, she’d been eyeing a new promotion at work while simultaneously trying to decide if she wanted to quit her job entirely. “I’ve been taking on more responsibility at work—mostly because barely anyone else is competent.” She smirked, (mostly) in jest. Sloane had never had an existential crisis, but she had been trying to tweak anything in her life except for the real issues. “And look at you, running with the big boys, Mr. Hot Shot.” She yelled up at him as he yelled back at her, and this made her smile. “I bet the fangirls have been lining up.” She can’t help herself.

She watched his body gravitate and slow to find a home beside her, her traveling eyes taking the trip with him. She thought about how much he seemed to care about his team meeting her, liking her, and that did not bother her as much as it did that she found herself also caring. Sloane couldn’t remember the last time she cared if somebody liked her, surely not a group of muscle-headed strangers and Detlev fucking Diederich, but even with him had she entertained much longer than her record. But it was for Nash. “Well next time you need me to make you look good, I’ll try to be in town.”  

Nash started his so... and Sloane rolled her eyes immediately, hands tucked into her jacket, knowing him well enough to know where this was going. “I didn’t intend for you to see me like that. The other night.” She said outright with a stern jaw, already laying bricks for the wall she was about to build. “I was angry and I...” She used to feel like she could talk to him about most things, but now she couldn’t bring herself to actualize her feelings when he was part of them. There was lull as Sloane contemplated his question, and a question barked at the back of her throat but for once she found herself trying to swallow it. Normally she would say what she wanted despite the consequences but she didn’t know what she would do if she got an answer she knew was inevitable. For once, she had to decide if this moment with him was worth ruining for her own peace of mind. But then she realized that if she didn’t ask him this, she’d have to answer him instead.