GirlUnscripted

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You get off the train in the middle of the night, a little dizzy from the nap cut short and almost forget your duffel on the train.

Thankfully, your humble abode is the last stop the train's going to make before it circles back to London so you get a chance to go back and get your stuff before anyone thinks the worst and phones the bomb squad.

'Got off the train. No maniacs in sight.' You send to Kyle, wincing when you notice the time.

Almost 3 in the morning. Shit.

Probably best not to bother him this late.

The walk home is uneventful and quiet, the cold night air making you zip up your coat, teeth of your zipper unpleasantly scratching against the spot under your chin.

No one's awake this late at night and part of you is glad that none of your neighbors are out to say hello and ask about the weather and the service and the weekend and the way you are coated in the smell of another alpha, coming back with purple hickey all over your throat in the middle of the night on the last train from London.

You don't want to share that time with Kyle right now. No one knows about the talk you had or about him letting you nap on top of his body during the game. No one knows that it was your time with him and you don't want to share any of it with anyone while it is still so fresh in your mind.

You don't want to share Kyle.

The house is dark when you finally get home, closing the metal gate to your yard as quietly as possible — windows of the cottage blank and hollow.

Not a movement from the inside.

Good.

Still, the routine fog of war, like Ghost likes to call it, fills your head and you circle the house, picking the lock on the back entrance instead of walking in from the front, your steps silent on the usually creaky wooden floors.

You still under the stairs, not breathing, ears straining to catch someone else's breath.

A step on the wrong floorboard, maybe. Or the quiet, barely audibly click of stiff joints.

Silence presses on your eardrums and rings inside your head, surroundings just as you have left them.

You don't turn on the lights just yet, while you slowly check the first and then the second floor, swiping each room with the knife in hand.

Empty.

'All clear.' Simon's voice in your head comments and you get back on the first floor to finally close the back door and turn the electricity back on.

Unlike Ghost you don't change flats frequently, opting to stay in a house your grandmother left you, in a small town that didn't know trouble other than you living there.

Unlike Ghost you also never were pronounced dead, so it's a question of patience and a bit of luck to find out where exactly you stay off duty.

'Should've rigged the place.' Ghost in you comments and you sigh, clicking all the locks shut.

Making your routine window check before you take your boots off and really get comfortable.

"Wouldn't want to dodge the mercs barefoot, would we?" You mumble out loud, making sure that everything is fine.

Just the way you have left it before deployment, albeit dusty.

Another thing you completely forgot about is that the fridge's empty. Completely.

You have been away for a long time and came back in the middle of the night, of course, it's bloody empty. Makes you wistfully think back to Kyle's stocked pantry. Lucky sod has his mum prepping his flat when he comes back on leave.

Your stomach rumbles and you sigh even heavier, laying your forehead on the wooden countertop.

Fuck.

The food will have to wait till morning then.

And the shower will have to wait too — with the power back on, boiler will need at least an hour to heat up the water for you.

You look at the dust all around, wet muddy footprints left after your sweep across the house and sink back on the counter.

Maybe changing the flats is not the worst idea, at least this way you won't come back to the mess you've got no energy to clean up.

"If we lived someplace in the city, we'd have 24 hour shops close by." You say to no one in particular in the quiet of your kitchen and rub your face.

You won't move from your cottage, you know you won't.

For all the inconvenience you have to face and the perpetual paranoia of getting got in the hallway of your ancestral home, you just…you can't.

This place is the only thing that has ever been truly yours.

Not to mention that it costed a bloody fortune to fix up the roof and the heating systems and to replace all windows because previous ones were as old as you are and the draft was everywhere, which did very little good to your attempts to save on heating.

Had to replace the locks too, you think, glancing back at your back door, L.t. even came over once to test them out. That was certainly an occasion to open some bubbly for.

He cracked two of them, broke the third one and appreciatively stroked the fourth, pausing only to tell you that you can benefit from some wrought iron security bar on the inside of your front door.

"Decent burrow." Simon said at the end, shaking his head when you offered him to stay for a couple days, decompressing together after the long deployment.

But less than wanting to get dropped in one of his faceless flats, your leftenant wanted only to get dropped in someone else's house, surrounded by baby pictures and old quilts.

He never stayed n one place for long, you think. Makes you wonder how his current arrangement's working out for him.

There are only so many places to rent with cash that are in the close proximity to Soap's.

Speaking of…

You swipe your phone's screen, unlocking it and the chat folder is just as quiet as before.

Nothing from Johnny so far.

You stare at your list of contacts for a minute, swipe down aimlessly, not really looking for anyone in particular.

You don't have that many people in your life.

Unlike Kyle you've got no family to fall back on, unlike Soap you have no pair to come home to. Neither do you have the set of large brass balls to invite yourself into someone's house and haunt it like l.t. did.

You think of Price for a moment and feel nauseous with aching that is slowly spreading from your chest to your head.

Settles in your temples — heavy — expands like it needs more space than you can give.

Takes it anyway.

John lives alone as far as you know. Doesn't bring anyone home and always declines invitations to come over. He is content with his life, satisfied with his career and relieved to never have to marry despite an occasional nudge from his now elderly parents.

John doesn't fall in love and doesn't do relationships, he ties his tubes in his middle twenties and isn't any worse for that.

Your captain doesn't hate his second gender, not per se, but sometimes you wonder whether he hates yours for the fabled 'advantage'.

For the lesser pressure, for the lack of expectations to marry as soon as possible, for the ease with which you are supposed to be left off the hook.

You aren't sure you feel the promised advantages, but you prefer not to raise the topic with him.

The lead omega of your pack does not take kindly to having his sergeant telling him how he's supposed to view the world when he's been in it longer.

When he has suffered his fair share of trouble.

As much as allowed you do love John Price.

You try to hope that so does he, even if it's a little.

Even if there are parts of you that will always make him bristle.

You try not to ponder why it's never the case with Kyle and choke down the childish envy, because you can, in all honesty, understand.

Kyle is a lot like John, Kyle has been by his side ever since the Taskforce was formed and Kyle is the golden protege of infamous captain.

Kyle is 'one of the lads'.

You, on the other hand, are just an alpha that Price shags when he's in a good mood, no matter how many people you kill for him.

Strictly business and nothing personal.

Not even when everything is as personal as it bloody gets.

Your stomach tightens again, hunger crawling up to your solar plexus — the hollow sucking feeling of it spreading.

Just one damn thing after another, you think, miserably and exhausted, sky lightening behind your kitchen windows.

Your pocket rustles when you try to stretch out the aching shoulders and Lord, if the light bulb that lit up above your head was real it would've lit up the entire place.

Kyle, good mate and good alpha that he is, has provided you with a little something for the road.

You fish out the half-smashed croissant and almost rip the brown paper it's wrapped in, hands trembling.

God-fucking-bless.

The pastry is cold and sweet, it flakes off on your fingers and around your mouth — chocolate filling of it spreading over your tongue, kicking in the 'life's worth living again, lads' feeling in your brain.

You finish it faster than you would've liked and lick your fingers clean, remembering about the juice box in your backpack while the last of Kyle's care dissolves on your tongue with the dough so buttery your toes almost curl in your boots.

"Cheers." You mumble, ripping the plastic cover of the paper straw (that's some irony, innit?) with your teeth, practically inhaling the peach ambrosia that the best most considerate sergeant in the world supplied you with.

Sugar of it is a divine fuel that will let you pull through the night and a really late morning before you get your hands on something more substantial.

High on sugar rush, you swipe your chat with Kyle open.

'Mate, I owe you my bloody life, the 'resupply' saved me tonight. A kingdom for this croissant, next time I see you, it's on sight, because I will be kissing you on both cheeks with maximum delicacy. Better bring your chapstick, just in case.'

Kyle usually wakes up around 5 for his morning sprint for life or 'light exercise' as he calls it, so you make the best of the spike in your energy and get to cleaning the house before you drop down like a dead horse somewhere in the vicinity of your bed. Hopefully.

Otherwise you will pull a muscle and get stuck downstairs on the couch that is not long enough for your legs to stretch out fully.

True to his habit, Kyle responds at 4:56 in the morning, catching you fresh out of the shower and ready to sleep for the next 15 hours.

'With tongue?'

The implication actually makes you snort out loud typing in the response immediately.

'Other cheeks, bruv. Don't unbuckle your pants just yet, I am gonna cost you more than just one croissant.'

'True.' Kyle replies, sitting on the edge of his bathtub miles away, cheeks aching when you 'heart' his message. 'Will the cake do it for u then?'

The response is slower this time, probably because you actually contemplated whether or not that would be enough, filling him with light, laughter cracking at the back of his throat.

'It will. Get me the one with them edible glitters and your own mum won't recognise the raisin I will send her back in place of her son after I'm done with you.'

Idiot, Kyle thinks, grinning from ear to ear and 'hearts' your message in return, putting his phone away.

Alpha in him purrs with smug bone-deep satisfaction. You ate what he bought you. You were hungry and Kyle provided for you even while being miles away.

Not many omegas can do that now, can't they?

Means another thing too, Gaz in him comments while he squeezes the toothpaste out, means you live alone. Means there are no omegas with hot meals waiting for you from deployments, no sweet neighbors checking on your plants or bed.

So for the next three weeks or so Kyle can have your undivided attention in between your cat-naps and breaks for melancholic ripping of weed out of the ground.

You did mention you have that you have a garden there.

Makes him wonder if you'd let Kyle take care of it too. He is good with plants.

Patient and attentive, his mum used to say that even the sickest of them flourish under his touch.

Could offer you a helping hand, he thinks, tying his shoelaces and checks his chat with you one more time before the run. Maybe that can be a way to finally see your house and not just hear about it.

'Go catch some rest, mate. Can feel u stewing all the way over here. Ill talk to u later, ok?' He sends and something warm and large swallows his lungs when you 'heart' his message immediately.

'Have a good run, Kyle.' You type out and don't know whether to send it. Would that be too much?

Probably not, you two spent the last three days together, so it's not weird that you now know Kyle's approximate schedule or that his running shoes are bright blue, because Kyle thinks blue is his lucky colour.

It's not clingy, you reaffirm internally and send the text, almost throwing the phone away from yourself, we are just being nice too.

Maybe he is right, you should sleep and then eat and, maybe, unpack your bags.

Whichever order you fancy doing it in, that is.

There's routine you've developed over the years of service, after the first time you came back home aching all over and not knowing where to put yourself.

You were so early in your twenties at the time that the teenage felt like yesterday, while actual adulthood was a mirage that twisted in the cracking with heat air. You could still pull allnighters and survive your day on nothing but candy bar, large herbal brew and spite back then, when the ruts could have been dimmed down with Ibuprofen and some blockers.

Blessed days, some would say.

You'd come home, drop your things off in the hallways and walk yourself out to just give yourself a five before you'll need to start doing something, like feeding yourself, checking the backyard for weeds and rodents, nodding at neighbors in greetings like you are part of this entire ecosystem.

At the very beginning your grandmother took care of many things in your life — attentive and stubborn, beta who always left her word to be the last one, she never left you off the hook if only to teach a lesson.

Cared for you in a hundred different ways from care packages sent every month with treats and clothes and meds and bloody contraband (you still don't know how she managed to smuggle it in to you for years).

You were too old to be babied, but going away from home was scary at 18.

And she was the only one who called. The only one who cared.

Your emergency contact is still listed as her phone number — you kept it in service after her passing.

Practical decision, she'd say, because yeah, it was, kept people from dipping into your world.

You don't think about her voicemail that you kept calling up after the funeral not even knowing the fuck you expected to happen.

For her to pick up? Well, you've buried the ashes that afternoon, a tad late for that, innit?

So the phone kept ringing till you heard the familiar ping and her voice briskly greeting her caller, the usual lilt of her voice recommending: "If I am not picking up right now — leave your name and the purposes of the call so I can call you later. And pet, if that's you, tell me all about your day — I am missing you already. I will call you as soon as I can. Goodbye, now."

You don't know why you kept calling it.

What did it matter? Doing the exact same thing but expecting different result is the definition of insanity.

She wasn't coming back.

She wasn't going to listen now.

No one now was going to give a flying fuck how your deployment been.

How bloody unfair it was that a person so enormous was gone and life just kept going.

The sun was shining the next day, not a cloud in the sky and you drank till you couldn't fucking see in front of your eyes.

Called Ghost's burner — sobbing and slobbering, barely coherent just to reach the automated voicemail. Another one.

Fucking wailed like a baby, passively hoping that maybe he'll pick up, maybe you won't have to go to sleep the night after her funeral so completely alone.

But no one picked up.

You slept on the floor in the kitchen that night, too drunk to climb the stairs, curled up on the tiles and burning up with grief that you were not ready for.

What were you supposed to do now?

There was no one left at all of your familial pack.

There wasn't a new pack you could turn to either — you had no one but Ghost.

And Ghost wasn't picking up.

Away on an op, you learned later, completely off the books — the voicemail where you whimpered for him to please, please call me back, l.t., she's gone, I can't sleep, sir, please, just pick up, I don't want to be alone, please, I need you, pleasepleaseplease, just pick up, probably was at the bottom of some river at that point.

Pathetic, you think, slowly blinking up at the ceiling, you were young and as clingy as they got.

Good thing Ghost never got that message, saved you the humiliation.

But the small part of you — all that is left of your twenty-something self — remembers not relief, but tunnel-dark, crushing hopelessness. Remembers despair and grief and whimpering under the kitchen table like a kicked dog.

You were so completely alone back then.

Not much has really changed, passed through your mind as your eyes slide to the cobweb you didn't notice yesterday. Now a tiny spider was making his way to your wall, maybe having a better idea as to how to live a life, leaving you bundled up to your neck in blankets.

Tired and boneless, like one of the things this many-legged lad probably eats for supper.

First nights home are always the hardest, because the house haven't changed much.

You still use her perfume on the blankets and quilts after the wash to sleep better. Helps, to an extent. Confuses your alpha, searching for the family that is no longer there, because the scent persists and she didn't.

The first year after her death you did the stupid thing of going shopping for groceries straight off deployment.

Didn't realise that everyone and their mother would be telling you how sorry they are, how tired you look, how much you must work and that you simply cannot pass on the offer to come over for dinner sometime.

You awkwardly nodded, towering over old omegas and betas of the market and never went to a single offered dinner.

Weren't sure you could make it through one without starting to bawl right around dessert in someone's home surrounded by quilts and baby pictures.

This wasn't even your community, you thought, hiding at home till next deployment, it was hers and now she was gone.

And you were hardly a substitute.

You didn't remember everyone's birthdays, and anniversaries, didn't call for each big holiday, didn't know which gifts to bring or what's the right thing to say.

All the knowledge — it died with her before you got taught most of it.

And afterwards you weren't in much of a state to learn. No energy left to go out of your way.

If you were completely honest, you didn't see much of a point in it either — you were gone so often with your line of work and could tell so little about yourself.

Hardly a desirable member of the community, you had nothing to bring to the table when all you could do was curl under it and hope that it will start hurting less if you play dead.

So, after the initial misstep you came up with the routine for your leaves — late night train, house check, a bit of cleaning, some sleep, shopping for groceries around the time when most would go home for afternoon tea.

Your system left a lot to be desired, but it worked as much as you hoped it would.

The house became yours — to think, you didn't even plan for it not being yours, suddenly struck with the realisation that things might have been different. That you could lose everything in one day if the fate turned the other way and your grandmother didn't take care of everything for you. Like always.

So, from every paycheck you started fixing this and that around the place.

The roof, the gates, the windows and stairs. The decades old electric and plumbing.

A lot of work had to be done. Costed you a pretty penny.

But it gave you something to look forward to — an almost instantaneous positive change. Like there was still something you could do. Something for you to take care of when all else was gone.

The light shines through the lacy curtains — yellowish and warm — strokes the side of your face which only makes you to sink deeper in the pillows. Maybe you can just stay in today.

Who needs food? It's not like your rut is a week away, you can certainly manage all on empty stomach and empty pantry. Perhaps you can prove a point to Price and survive on worms from your garden, instead of going out and talking to people.

Life keeps going, but you don't really feel like you do outside of successful ops and repairs you do around the place.

You flop on your side, bundling up more in another blanket on top of the one you are curled in and squint at the windows. These will need a good scrub before winter.

So will the curtains, these you had to wash before deploying, but they seemed good enough to last another few months, so you didn't. And now the amount of dust there is probably enough to kill a small child.

Not like you have children over though, nowadays you don't really have any guests. People got the hint after a while of you pretending not to be home when someone knocked, so there haven't been a friendly visit for a cuppa in this house ever since his better owner died and left both the cottage and you to collect dust.

Your phone buzzes, the sudden vibration almost sending you up to the ceiling (twitchy after work out in the field, are we?) and you grab it, checking. Could be captain saying that you are needed for something very dangerous and 'need to know basis', could be Ghost finally dropping in for a chat, could be Johnny finally taking you up on your offer.

Anyone. Someone.

A reason not to hand-wash the fucking curtains so you can keep procrastinating over the inevitable task of it till Christmas.

'U had lunch already?' says the message instead, prompting you to turn on your stomach so that your shoulder cover the screen from the sun, your blankets tangling in your legs.

Kyle's checking in on you, you think, hating the traitorous warmth and wrap an arm around your pillow, propping yourself up on it.

'Just woke up. How was your run?' Is mundane and so boring, but Kyle texted you. Kyle is talking to you even though he doesn't have to any longer — you aren't his guest right now, you aren't a packmate with the first aid kit, you aren't even a mate he takes out for a pint.

You don't have to remain in his orbit, he has no obligation to tolerate you hovering there, so if he is being nice, you want him to be nice to you a little more often.

Maybe it won't be that bad this leave if he checks up on you once in a while, has a quick chat with you before going on with his day. You wouldn't mind that at all.

It's always better to watch someone's back in the distance than to not have anything to watch at all.

'Run was splendid, however I am pretty sure the crown will implement spying systems via pigeons. I keep seeing one and the same bird outside my window. Could be surveillance.' Kyle shares readily and you can feel your lips curling upwards. Here he goes with the conspiracy theories. 'What's the plan for supper then?'

'Mate, I promise pigeons aren't spying on you, maybe you just have kind eyes. Like one of them princesses — their hearts ache to help you in your sweatpants.' You propose instead, grinning when he reacts with 'thumbs down' on your text. 'And I am not sure yet. The house's fucking barren, I'm gonna do some shopping as soon as I get out of bed.'

If, you get out of bed, being the key part, but you don't think Kyle needs to know about that.

You'd be content spending your day just like that, talking with him about nothing, getting to poke your head in the warm sand of his attention before you will get ripped out of it like an overripe turnip.

Speaking of turnip, you did plan to plant some seeing as it's the start of winter. Could do with some garlic too, maybe even carrots if you are feeling adventurous.

If all is well perhaps some of them might survive until you return from the next shipment to god knows where.

'If u didn't have no plans, I can call u later and we will shop together. I will be out for a few things mum needs, can keep u company.' Kyle offers suddenly and you pause, blinking at the message like you misread it. 'Can take a rain check if u'd rather not, no hard feelings.' He adds after a minute of your silence and you don't know what to do with the tremble in your fingers.

That's…that would be great, actually.

'Sure I can. What's the ETA?' You finally reply and Kyle 'hearts' your message.

'In an hour or so. I'll call u, ok?'

Okay, you think, pulling yourself upright and quickly text 'deal' before putting your phone away, more than okay. An hour gives you time to do few things around the house, wash the bloody curtains, hang them out to dry with the rest of the laundry.

An hour is a set time frame that finally gets you moving — gives you a mission to set on, gives you a flickering light at the end of the tunnel.

Because in an hour Kyle's going to call and you will get out of the house with his voice in your ears and it will be almost like he is there, walking down to the market with you.

Immediate positive change, you think, trying not to grin too hard.

And finally, some of it for you.

People often say 'do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life', probably meaning the fulfillment of knowing one's work is making some kind of change.

That the tail of your comet would graze people's life and for one moment spanning the entirety of this connection their skies would light up.

It's true for some people, you think, sure, that does happen to doctors saving lives and firemen rescuing kittens and craftsmen building community around their work.

Connecting with people on a level you can never seem to be able to access.

Your life isn't bad. You don't think it is.

Not many people get to earn their living doing art like yours without tapping into 'what sells' against 'what's mine'.

It's a rare opportunity. Some probably envy you.

They don't know me enough to envy, you think immediately and sit in your cool kitchen helplessly feeling how the tight knot grows in your chest with the tea choked on.

I don't mind being alone, you think, sizing up wood for the new 'passion' project, one of those you do in between commissions to make sure your spark isn't turning into flickering electrical light that kills local moth population.

It's convenient not to have anyone dragging me down or eating my favourite snacks or, even, messing up my good sheets because they can't stop turning in their sleep, you reason later, checking on your latest lacquer order that should arrive any day now.

It's convenient, echoes in your head when you tuck yourself in the corner of your couch, cool plush of it seemingly endless.

All that space and it's yours, aren't you lucky?

So what if it's empty?

It's no longer the case when Kyle comes into your life.

Or, more specifically, when you make Kyle and now have him following you around the house on wooden legs with wide attentive eyes of a bloodhound.

'Kyle shouldn't be a person, but he is now.' Passes through your head while you watch him stretch out your dad's old sweater with the width of his shoulders, impossibly real when he combs his fingers through the white of your curtains. Thumbs the lace of it when he sees you aren't looking.

You've made him beautiful and tall and charming.

You've given Kyle long beautiful arms and thick heaviness to thighs.

You carefully chiseled out his eyes and painted that little mole on the back of his neck.

You made him so someone would keep you company and now he's not yours to keep because you've made him too well, isn't that the irony?

Even now there isn't a connection that you can force to stay and warm your couch, and eat dinners with you, and watch your shows, and kiss your cheeks because they are simply happy you are in the room.

You make a noose out of the red string just for it to come apart fraying — seep through your fingers like sand, returning to the flow of fate because maybe it has never been your destiny to keep someone.

Maybe, what is yours is only the work you never run out of.

Maybe, what you are meant for is never someone's adoration, never companionship, never the tenderness you see in the movies.

But that's sort of the point, right?

Like a child knowing not to touch the cookie jar, you stash yours as high up as possible, but keep staring at it from the shadows under your kitchen cabinets.

Still hungry.

"You could leave." You tell Kyle in the evening, your legs in his lap — his warm fingers tipping under the hem of your socks.

Couch with him feels wonderfully full.

Gaz tilts his head slower than you know he can, watches you through the lashes, probably thinking that you'll add anything else.

You don't.

"Tired of me already?" He muses quietly.

Kyle doesn't ask 'why', doesn't ask 'where would I go', doesn't ask 'what's wrong with me'.

"No." You stare at your hands clasped in your lap, trying not to think that his have not a blemish while your middle finger is slightly crooked from when you dropped a slab of marble on it. "I'm just saying—"

"I hear what you're sayin', baby." Kyle hums, cutting you off and leans closer — palms curled around your feet.

No way to run from this conversation when he's got you by the legs, eh?

"Are you plannin' on makin' someone else?" He asks, not blinking, because he doesn't really need to, because you forget to remind him that people do.

"What, like a new project?" You clarify, unsure. "I might, I'll need to fill up the space when you leave."

'When', you say, not 'if'.

"Oh?" Kyle's entirely too curious, the tilt of his head now unnatural.

Shouldn't have given him wooden joints.

"Who'd you make, babes? Maybe a bloke larger than me, perhaps with hair lighter?" He purrs, climbing on top of you. "Or maybe someone older? Would you like him with some nice 'stache, love?" Gaz's smile a little mean, when your face burns. "Could make someone bulkier too, I reckon, if you fancy one of them blokes that look a bit like a pittie."

"It's not that." The protest sounds weak and like a shark smelling blood Kyle follows the trail of it.

"Would you touch them too, baby? Give them lipstick kisses to stain the marble, lick down the cracks, panting and groping? Or maybe stroke their wax casts so they'd get nice and pliant under your fingers?" Kyle's needy like only favorites can be when the stream of attention starts thinning. "Would ya hump the bronze thighs you'd give them too? Would you get it all messed up? Would you clean it with your tongue? Would you whimper for them to come alive and touch you in return?" Each detail throws you in the water boiling, lightheaded and ashamed, because you did do this to him. You wanted him so much that someone heard it and made Kyle real. "You've made me, baby, I'm perfect for you. And now you don't want me? What did I do?"

The heat explodes in your stomach, spreads down and coats you with want swelling — bakes you from inside out, electricity buzzing down your fingers.

You have no right getting so fucking excited, but God help you.

"You didn't do anything." You say slower, swallowing with more effort than you ever needed for a task so simple. "I'm just offering you freedom. You could try new things. Maybe even meet someone else." The last one makes you wince and Gaz spots it immediately.

"I could." He agrees for the first time, sits on your hips — tall and immovable, heavy bulk of his pinning you down deliciously. "But I don't want to. What will we do with that?" Kyle asks, tone innocent when he starts slowly dragging his sweater off. "I don't want to leave and I don't want you to make anyone instead of me."

"That's a tall order." You comment, eyes trailing down his chest to the curls of happy trail.

"I wanna know if you like me." He continues, leaning down to brace on his forearms. "Want to stay here." Kyle murmurs, his face inches from yours and he smells like wood shavings and warm human skin, licks his lips when you glance up at him through the lashes.

To be or not to be, that's the real question, innit?

"Anything else?" You ask quieter and cup his cheek, marveling at the scratch of stubble you can feel with your palm.

God, he really isn't turning back into your statue now, is he?

"I really want to kiss you." Kyle shares, voice lower, voice cracking, voice coating your eardrums when he nuzzles in your palm, eyes still on you.

His lips find your palm, the beating pulse of your wrist, the tender spot down your forearm.

"Kyle," You hum, fingers sinking into the meat of his inner thigh — the one you made for him, "come here."

Is all the permission he really needs to finally catch your lips like he wanted to, teeth clicking against your because he is impatient, because he never kissed anyone before, because you laugh in his mouth and he wants to solder himself to your bones.

Wants to rearrange your ribcage, so he can squeeze his heart through and have it beat against yours, wants you to look up at him again like he is incredible.

Kyle wants a lot of things.

But you were right, that's a tall order even for someone who's been born few weeks prior.

He'll get his chance to be greedier.

Kyle's lips count down your sternum, tasting the beat of your heart as close as possible.

For now, he thinks, that's enough.

After all, what he really wanted can be summed in one very simple word.