"How'd you sleep?" he asks quietly, voice rough with fatigue.

She huffs out a weak, humorless breath. "Not well."

He nods once. "Yeah. Me neither."

"I kept thinking about the gates," she admits. "About how close they are, but they have six guys on rotation."

Simon exhales slowly, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I've been thinking about the same thing." He looks at her then, really looks at her. 

"So what's the plan."

He hesitates, choosing his words carefully. "We talk to James today, we'll tell him that we want to move on and have a real civil conversation." His mouth tightens. "If they won't let us go... then we get the fuck out of here however we can. I don't want it to come to that. But I won't let them trap us. I won't let them keep you."

"We'll figure this out," he continues, squeezing her fingers. "I promise. One way or another."

She nods, tears threatening but not falling. He shifts closer and wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side. She leans into him immediately, resting her head against his shoulder like it's the most natural thing in the world. He lifts her hand and presses a soft kiss to her knuckles, lingering there for just a second longer than necessary.

"I've got you," he murmurs.

She closes her eyes. "I know."

They sit like that in silence, sharing warmth, sharing resolve, until the moment is shattered. The knock comes without warning. Just a single sharp rap against the door, precise and final, followed immediately by the scrape of metal as the bolt slides back.

"Just stay calm okay? Don't show them any fear." 

The door swings open. Men fill the frame, all eyes falling on her with a hunger that made her want to scream.

"Up," one of them says.

Jud stands first, holding his hand out for her to take as he guides her up. They walk through the camp in silence. Men pause in their work to watch them pass. Conversations stop. She keeps her eyes forward, her expression carefully empty, but her stomach churns as if it knows something her mind is still trying to deny.

James's office is a converted trailer set slightly apart from the rest of the camp. The door opens, and they are ushered inside. The moment they step through, the temperature seems to drop. Two guards move ahead of them, turning sharply and raising their rifles. The barrels point level with Jud's chest. A rifle is put up to her as well, her breath catches despite herself as she tries to calm her shaking hands. 

"That isn't necessary," Jud says calmly. "If you're going to point them," he says evenly, "Point them at me."

Her heart slams hard against her ribs. James watches the exchange with detached interest, hands still folded behind his back. For a long moment, he says nothing, letting the tension stretch until it becomes almost unbearable. Then he lifts one hand and the guards lower their rifles.

"You aren't leaving," James says plainly, as if discussing the weather. "It isn't safe out there."

"That isn't your decision to make," Jud replies. His voice is controlled, but there is a sharp edge to it now. "We've made it this far on our own."

James smiles faintly. "You've been lucky. Luck runs out."

"We can handle ourselves," She says.

James's gaze flicks to her for just a moment, lingering long enough to make her skin crawl. "You think you can," he says. "But you won't survive long out there. Not like this."

"We didn't ask to stay," Jud says. "You're holding us against our will."

James's expression finally hardens. "You may choose to see it that way, but it changes nothing. So in order for you to be successful here, I suggest you make yourselves at home and get to work," he says calmly. "Or I will have you escorted there."

The threat is not raised. It does not need to be. A silent understanding that pushing now would only make things worse. They turn and walk away without another word. Both being ushered to their jobs, not able to talk candidly.

At the kitchen, she finds Johnny already working, hands moving mechanically as he chops vegetables. His shoulders tense the moment he sees her. Johnny is washing his hands when she finds him. The kitchen is quieter than usual, the sharp edge of the morning rush already passed. Pots are stacked. Steam curls faintly from a pot left too long on the burner. He startles when he notices her standing in the doorway, like he hadn't heard her approach at all.

"Hey," she says softly. "Can I talk to you for a minute."

He looks past her immediately, scanning the hall. "You shouldn't be back here until 9."

"I know," she says. "I needed to talk to you alone."

He hesitates, then nods once, barely perceptible. "Make it quick."

She steps closer, lowering her voice until it's almost lost in the hum of the room. "I know you don't know me," she begins. "And I know you have no reason to help me. But we talked to James this morning. He won't let us leave."

Johnny's hands still. The water keeps running.

"I know something's wrong here," she continues, words coming faster now, urgency cracking through her calm. "I see the way they look at me. I feel it every time I walk across the yard. I know I'm not safe here, Johnny, and you warned me."

He turns the tap off too hard. The silence that follows is loud.

"I wish I could help you," he says quietly.

"You could," she replies immediately.

His jaw tightens. "They'll kill anyone who tries."

Her chest tightens painfully. "Please," she says. "Anything you know that could help."

He finally looks at her then, really looks at her. His eyes are glassy with fear, his face drawn and pale.

"They don't care about the priest," he says bluntly. "They care about you."

Her breath stutters. "What does that mean."

"It means," he says, voice dropping to a whisper, "they'd let him walk if it weren't for you. You're the problem. You're the prize."

He drags a hand through his hair, pacing once like a trapped animal. "Fuck," he mutters. Then again, louder, "Fuck. Fuck."

He stops in front of her, eyes darting to the door, to the walls, to the ceiling like it might be listening. "Okay," he says, voice shaking. "Okay, listen to me. They won't let you get away easily. It's been weeks since we've had a woman here."

"What do you mean, I thought there hadn't been any women here?"

Johnny does not answer right away. He swallows hard, eyes flicking to the doorway.

"They bring women in," he says finally. "They keep them. They use them. Until they die from the brutality of it, or they kill themselves."

She grips the counter, nausea rising fast and violently. His hands shake as he sets the knife down. He moves quickly, crosses the room and locks the door. The click sounds impossibly loud. He grabs her shoulders, eyes wide with urgency. "You have to leave. Today."

Her breath comes shallow. "How?"

"There's an opening in the fence behind the pig pen," he says. "It's loose. You can slip through it. You have to go during the breakfast rush when everyone's distracted."

"What about Jud?" she asks immediately.

Johnny hesitates. "They don't care about him," he admits. 

Her heart clenches. "I can't leave without him."

"If you both try, it'll be obvious," Johnny says. "You'll have at least two hours head start, but not with him."

She shakes her head. "I won't go without him."

Johnny exhales shakily. "I'll tell him. I'll make sure he knows."

She searches his face, desperate. "You promise?"

"I promise," he says. "Listen to me. Once you're through the fence, walk straight for two miles. Stay in the tree line until you hit the road. When you reach it, turn right. Keep going until you see a beat-up pickup hidden off the shoulder. It's ours, we keep a spare vehicle there in case of emergency."

Her pulse pounds. "Is it stocked?"

"Fully," he says. "Theres food, water, weapons, and a full tank. The keys are hidden behind the back right tire."

She throws her arms around him without thinking. He stiffens, then hugs her back just as tightly.

"Don't thank me, this is what's right." he says urgently. "You have to go. Okay? The rush will be the perfect time, people are filing in now, you can slip out. Here take my hoodie, cover your hair so if anyone sees you they won't identify you."

She nods, tears burning her eyes. He slips off his hoodie and hands it to her. She takes it in her shaking hands and tucks her hair into the hoodie. She nods tearfully and he looks at her "I promise I'll tell him, just go north and he'll find you okay?" 

"Okay," she nods.

They pull apart quickly when footsteps pass outside. Johnny unlocks the door, and they return to the food like nothing has happened, hands moving, heads down, fear buried deep. Johnny sets the pots out. She follows with the bowls, hands steady, face carefully neutral. The noise of the camp swells as men gather for lunch, voices overlapping, boots scraping, attention pulled inward toward food and routine. It is the busiest moment of the day, exactly like Johnny said it would be. When she passes him the last tray, Johnny looks at her. He does not speak. He only nods. Her stomach drops into her feet.

She turns without hesitation and slips through the back door of the kitchen, already gripping the kitchen knife she swiped earlier. The air outside hits her hard but she runs anyway. She cuts around the building, boots pounding dirt, heart slamming so loudly she is certain someone will hear it. The pig pen comes into view ahead, the stench strong. She veers toward it without thinking, legs burning, lungs screaming. She drops to the ground and slides under the fence.

The ridges tear at her skin immediately. The wire bites deep, slicing her forearms, her shoulder, her thigh. Pain flares hot and bright. She clamps her teeth together to keep from screaming as blood beads and smears across her skin. She forces herself forward inch by inch, fabric catching, skin ripping, breath stuttering with the effort. When she clears the fence, she rolls and scrambles to her feet, dizzy and shaking. She stumbles into the tree line and presses herself against the trunk of the nearest tree, chest heaving. Her hands tremble as she clutches the knife, knuckles white.

She peeks around the tree and scans the camp. No one is looking her way. She spots the guards at the base of the tower laughing, relaxed, weapons slung low as they swap shifts. She sprints into the trees, branches snapping against her arms, leaves whipping her face. She does not slow. She runs until her legs shake, until her lungs burn like fire, until the world narrows to nothing but forward.

When she finally breaks through the tree line and stumbles onto the road, her body gives out. She collapses onto the gravel, dropping the knife, hands braced against the ground as she gasps for air. Her chest heaves violently. Her vision blurs at the edges. Sweat drips down her face, stinging the cuts along her arms and legs. She wipes her forehead with a shaking hand and presses her forehead to the dirt, forcing herself to breathe.

-

Johnny is moving too fast, eyes down, hands shaking as he wipes an already clean counter. He jumps at the sound of the door opening.

"Compliments to the chef, great meal this morning, keep it up bud." James says

"Thank you sir, thats very kind of you."

"Where is she?" he asks. "So I can pay my compliments to her as well."

"The new girl? I don't know, she was just here she helped with the breakfast." Johnny says finally.

The lie is thin. James's hand comes down hard on the counter, the crack of it echoing through the kitchen. 

"Get everyone outside," he says calmly. "Now."

The camp erupts into motion within seconds. Men scramble to their feet, bowls abandoned, voices rising in confusion. James walks out into the open, scanning, counting, already knowing what he is going to find and hating it anyway.

"She's gone," someone says from near the pig pen.

The word lands like a spark in dry brush. James strides toward the fence, boots crushing dirt and gravel. He sees it immediately. The loose section. The bent wire. The blood smeared along the rusted metal, dark and fresh. Something in him snaps.

"SON OF A BITCH," he roars, the sound tearing out of him raw and furious. He kicks the fence hard enough to rattle it, then turns back toward the camp, face twisted with rage.

"LOCK IT DOWN," he shouts. "NOW."

Men scatter, running for towers, grabbing weapons, shouting to one another. James storms back into the center of camp, voice cutting through the chaos.

"She didn't get far," he snarls. "She's injured and she's alone."

He rounds on a group of guards. "Get eyes on the road. Both directions. Tree line too."

James stops dead. His expression changes. Something cold and deliberate settles over his anger.

"Bring him to me, I want Johnny here now," James says. 

He turns back toward the kitchen slowly, eyes cold now, fury compressed into something far more dangerous than rage. Two men follow him without being told. Another four peel off from the perimeter and fall in behind them, rifles slung, hands already flexing like they know what is coming. Johnny is still standing where James left him, hands braced on the counter, knuckles white. He looks up when the shadow falls across him, and whatever hope he had left dies instantly.

"You lied to me," James says quietly.

"I didn't," Johnny insists, voice shaking. "I swear, I don't know where she went."

James studies him for a long moment, head tilted slightly, like he is considering something curious rather than infuriating. Then he nods once.

"Take him," he says.

Hands grab Johnny before he can react. He stumbles, panics, tries to twist free, but there are too many of them. They drag him out of the kitchen and across the camp, past men who pretend not to see, past the church, past the pig pen where the bent wire still bleeds rust and blood. They throw him into a storage shed at the far edge of camp and slam the door shut behind them. Inside, the air is stale and dim. The only light comes through a narrow slit near the ceiling. James steps in last and closes the door himself.

"Sit," he says.

Johnny shakes his head violently. "Please. I didn't help her. I swear."

James sighs, like he is tired of being disappointed. "I don't believe you."

One of the men shoves Johnny down onto a crate. Another takes position behind him, fingers digging into his shoulders, pinning him in place. Johnny starts to cry, breath hitching, terror pouring out of him now that there is nowhere left to run.

"Don't fuck with me," James says conversationally. "You were alone with her. And then she vanished."

"I barley spoke to her," Johnny sobs. "I wouldn't betray you like that over some woman I just met!"

James leans forward until they are eye to eye. "You're lying," he says softly. "And I am running out of patience."

The first blow comes fast and hard, knocking the breath out of Johnny's lungs. He doubles over, gagging, pain ripping through him. Hands haul him upright again before he can collapse. James does not flinch. He watches with clinical focus, like a man testing a tool.

"Where did she go," James asks.

"I don't know," Johnny gasps.

Another strike. Then another. Never enough to knock him unconscious. They want him awake. They want him afraid. Johnny's cries echo off the metal walls, sharp and broken, until his voice starts to give out.

"I swear," he chokes. "I swear I don't know."

James straightens slowly, frustration creeping back into his expression. "You're protecting her," he says. "That tells me everything I need to know, your loyalty lies elsewhere."

He gestures, and the men change tactics. Johnny whimpers, shaking violently now, every nerve in his body screaming as they press him harder, pushing past fear into raw agony. Time loses meaning. Minutes stretch and blur. The shed fills with the sound of Johnny's sobbing, the scrape of boots. James watches him closely, he sees real terror there.

"Get him out of my sight," James says at last.

The men drag Johnny away, leaving him slumped and broken, sobbing quietly to himself as the door swings open again. James steps back into the light of the camp, jaw clenched, hands shaking now with barely restrained fury. He looks toward the tree line, toward the road beyond it, and something dark settles behind his eyes.

He turns sharply. "I want her found."

Men scatter immediately, weapons raised, voices barking orders as the hunt intensifies. Behind them, Johnny lies curled on the dirt, bruised and shaking, praying silently that she is already far away. And James does not stop moving until the entire camp is in motion, his control cracking at the edges, obsession driving him forward. Because this time, someone took something from him, and James does not forgive that. Jud is dragged from the church with far less ceremony than before.

The door opens and hands are on him immediately, rough and urgent, steering him through the camp before he can ask what is happening. His stomach knots as he takes in the energy around him. Men moving fast. He tried to stop them and ask questions, he had no idea what was going on, and he feared the worst.

They stop near the storage sheds. Jud sees Johnny before he sees James. Johnny is tied to a post near the fence, arms bound high enough that his shoulders shake with the strain. His head hangs forward, chin pressed to his chest. One eye is swollen shut. Blood mats his hair and streaks his face, dried and fresh mixed together. His shirt is torn. His body trembles uncontrollably, every breath shallow and ragged.

"Oh God," Jud breathes.

Johnny lifts his head weakly at the sound of his voice. His remaining eye flickers open, unfocused but pleading. James steps into his line of sight.

"She's gone," James says calmly.

The words hit Jud like a blow to the chest.

"What," he says, barely audible. "What do you mean, gone?"

"She escaped," James continues. "During the breakfast rush. Through the fence behind the pig pen."

Jud's heart slams violently. "No. You're lying."

James watches his face closely, measuring every reaction. Jud's breath turns sharp, uneven. Fear floods him fast and merciless. 

"Where is she," he demands. "Where did you take her."

"We did not take her," James replies. "She ran."

Jud looks back at Johnny, at the state he is in, horror blooming in his chest. "You did this to him."

"He lied to me," James says simply.

Johnny lets out a broken sound, something halfway between a sob and a cough. Jud takes a step toward him instinctively, only stopping when James raises a hand.

"You'll have time," James says. "I brought you here for a reason."

Jud turns back to him, eyes blazing. "If you touched her, if you are lying to me, I swear to God I will burn this place to the ground."

James does not react. If anything, he looks satisfied by the fury.

"I believe you care about her," James says. "That is why I am telling you the truth."

Jud's hands curl into fists. His voice shakes now, stripped of restraint.

"She wouldn't make it out there alone. That is why we are looking for her," James continues. "And that is why you are going to help us, you don't want to see her hurt, and neither do we."

"What do you want from me," he asks.

James gestures toward Johnny. "You are going to treat him. Keep him alive."

Jud nods immediately. "Untie him."

James hesitates only a second, then nods to the guards. They loosen Johnny just enough that Jud can reach him, though the ropes stay in place.

"And while you do," James adds, "you will get whatever information you can out of him. Where she went. How she planned it. Who helped her."

He crouches in front of Johnny, hands already assessing injuries, fingers gentle despite the urgency burning through him.

-

The guards do not leave at first. They linger too close, watching Jud's hands like they expect him to pull a weapon out of thin air. Johnny hangs there, barely conscious, blood drying in uneven streaks across his face and chest. Jud keeps his movements careful and controlled, the way he learned long before this place, the way he learned when panic only made things worse.

"I need something to clean his wounds," Jud says evenly. "I can't do anything like this."

One of the guards scoffs. "He'll live."

"Not if infection sets in," Jud replies. His voice does not rise. It does not plead. "You want answers from him. You won't get them if he dies."

James considers this from where he stands a few feet away. Then he nods once.

"Get him what he needs."

The guards hesitate, then move. One unties Johnny just enough to let Jud lower him to the ground. Another disappears toward the supply shed. When they return, they drop the items at Jud's feet and back away, weapons still slung but eyes sharp. Jud does not respond. Eventually, footsteps fade. Voices move farther off. The circle of attention loosens just enough to breathe. Jud kneels beside Johnny and begins to work, gently rinsing blood from his face, pressing cloth to split skin, murmuring steady reassurances that are as much for himself as for Johnny.

"Hey," he whispers. "You still with me pal?"

Johnny's eye flickers open. He swallows painfully. "They leave?"

"Yes" Jud says. "Talk to me, why are they hurting you?"

Johnny breathes out a weak laugh that turns into a cough. "I don't know how they found out."

Jud's hands still for a fraction of a second. "Tell me everything."

Johnny's voice is rough, barely more than air. "I told her about the truck. Two miles to the road north. There's a pickup hidden off the shoulder. It has a full tank, supplies, and keys behind the back right tire."

Jud closes his eyes briefly, relief and terror crashing together in his chest.

"They're probably going to find her, they realized a lot quicker than I thought. I thought she'd have more time." Johnny continues. Panic sharpens his words despite his injuries. "You need to go with them on the search. Do whatever you have to in order to get on the mission. You have to find her first."

Jud looks up sharply. "And If I don't?"

"They won't stop," Johnny says hoarsely. "Not if there's even a chance she's alive. That's how desperate they are. You have to make sure," Johnny whispers, "that if they find her, they don't bring her back."

Jud exhales shakily. "How," he asks quietly. "How do I do that?"

Johnny shakes his head weakly. "Death would be better than her fate here."

The words hang between them, heavy and terrifying. Jud presses the cloth more firmly against Johnny's shoulder, grounding himself in the simple, necessary task. 

"Thank you," he says finally. "For helping her."

Johnny's eye fills with tears. "It was the right thing to do."

Jud nods. "Yes," he agrees softly. "It was."

Jud finishes cleaning Johnny's wounds with hands that won't stop shaking, doing the best he can with what little they've given him. Blood stains the rags anyway. Johnny's breathing is shallow and uneven, his skin clammy beneath Jud's fingers. When there's nothing more he can do, Jud sits back on his heels, the weight of it crushing down on his chest. He presses his palms to his thighs, grounding himself, forcing his breathing to slow even as his heart hammers painfully against his ribs.

She was out there, alone and bleeding. The thought hits him like a physical blow. The men will be looking for her, they will tear the woods apart. He knew then in that moment that he would do whatever it took to make sure she was safe. He would lie, fight, lay down his life. If the cost of her freedom was his safety, then it is not a cost at all.

-

James was standing near the map table outside his office, fingers spread over a rough sketch of roads and tree lines, jaw tight with concentration. He does not look up when Jud approaches.

"You're not cleared to leave the perimeter," James says flatly.

"I know," he says. "That's why I'm asking."

James finally looks at him then, eyes sharp, already irritated. "The answer is no."

Jud does not react. He does not argue yet. He has learned that timing matters more than force.

"You don't want me here," Jud says evenly. "You want her found."

James's mouth tightens. "We are already looking."

"You're looking with guns," Jud replies. "She's hurt, she's terrified. If she sees armed men coming through the trees, she will run harder. She will hide. She will bleed out before she ever lets herself be taken."

James studies him, mulling over his words. Jud takes a slow breath. "She trusts me."

"She trusted you enough to run without you." James says coldly.

"She ran because she was scared," Jud answers. "And because she thought I'd come after her."

James scoffs. "You think she's waiting for you."

"I know she is," Jud says quietly. "Or she's moving toward somewhere she thinks I can reach her."

James steps closer, looming. "And what happens when you find her?"

Jud meets his gaze without flinching. "I'll convince her to come back,"

The lie slides out smoother than he expects. It lands heavy in his chest anyway. James watches him for a long moment, weighing something internal. "You're asking me to trust you."

"You already said you did," Jud replies carefully. "You said it when you put Johnny in my hands. You said it when you let me treat him."

James's eyes flick briefly toward the shed where Johnny lies guarded. Then back to Jud. James exhales sharply through his nose. "If you're lying to me then I'll make sure that she suffers worse."

"I just want her alive and safe," Jud says.

"You bring her back," James says slowly, "and this ends."

Jud nods. "I bring her back."

James gestures sharply. "Gear up."

The camp erupts into movement again. Men grab packs, rifles, radios. Boots crunch over gravel. Engines turn over. The search party forms fast, efficient, practiced. As he straps on the gear, his hands shake slightly. Lying is a sin. He knows that. He has preached that. If God is watching, then God saw the bruises on Johnny's body. God saw the way the men looked at her. God saw the fence cut into her skin. If this is a sin, then it is one he will carry gladly. Jud nods and falls into step as the gate opens.

As they move out into the trees, weapons raised, Jud's heart pounds with a different rhythm now. Every step away from the camp is a step closer to her. He bows his head briefly as they walk, not in prayer, but in promise.

Forgive me for what I have to do, he thinks. Just let me get to her first.

And with that, Jud follows the men into the woods. They move out in a loose line, boots crunching softly through dirt and dead leaves, rifles held at the ready. The men fan out instinctively, practiced in this, eyes scanning the ground, the trees, the spaces between. James walks near the front. Jud stays just behind him, weapon cradled in his hands like it belongs there, like it does not make his skin crawl.

Every step Jud takes is deliberate. He keeps his eyes on the ground, on the details the others miss. Broken twigs snapped low. Leaves disturbed in a way that does not belong to wind or animals. A faint smear of dark red on a rock, half-hidden by dirt. Blood. His chest tightens, but he does not slow. They move deeper into the woods, and Jud subtly adjusts his path, drifting a step to the right, then another. The direction Johnny told him plays on repeat in his head. She would have stayed low. She would have moved fast until she could not.

"There," one of the men mutters, pointing at the ground.

Jud crouches before James can, fingers brushing near the mark without touching it. "She fell here," he says quietly. "Slipped on the slope."

James nods, satisfied. "She's slowing down."

Jud forces himself not to react. They keep going. The woods thin gradually, light growing harsher, air sharper. Jud's pulse pounds in his ears as he spots another smear of blood on bark, higher this time. 

"Tracks split," someone says behind him.

Jud straightens. "She panicked," he says smoothly. "Ran for cover when she heard us."

James looks at him. "You think she doubled back."

"I think she went where she thought she'd disappear," Jud replies. "Tree line. Road."

James hesitates, then gestures sharply. "Two of you with me. The rest fan out."

Jud does not wait for instruction, permission, or a signal of any kind. The moment the edge of the clearing opens up in front of him, he angles toward the thinning woods without slowing, steps lengthening into something close to a run, breath tearing in and out of his lungs as branches snap back against his arms and shoulders, thorns scraping skin he barely feels because his heart is slamming so violently it threatens to drown out everything else.

She is crouched behind a tree near the edge of the clearing, knees pulled tight to her chest like she is trying to fold herself into something smaller, something invisible. Her hands are slick with blood, fingers trembling as she presses them hard against her forearm, the fabric of her sleeve dark and soaked. Her face is drained of color, eyes wide and frantic, darting at every crack of a branch or shift of shadow as if the world itself has turned predatory.

The sight of her hits him so hard his vision blurs and his stomach lurches violently, relief crashing through him in a wave so intense it nearly drops him to his knees. He does not slow. He does not think. His body takes over completely. In two strides he is there. He lets the rifle fall uselessly from his hand and closes the distance, grabbing her wrists firmly but carefully and pressing her back against the rough bark of the tree, his body angling instinctively to shield her from the open clearing behind them. One hand pins above her head, the other wraps around her wrist, solid and grounding, his mouth close to her ear as he forces his voice low and urgent.

"Angel," he whispers, breath shaking. "It's me. Don't scream."

Her body locks instantly, every muscle going rigid as terror spikes before recognition catches up. Her breath stutters violently, sharp and broken, her chest heaving against his.

"Jud," she whispers, disbelief cracking straight through her voice like the word itself might shatter if she says it too loud.

"I'm here," he says quickly, desperately, his forehead nearly brushing her temple. "I know. I've got you."

Her hands come up shakily and clutch at his chest like she is afraid he might disappear if she lets go. Tears spill over her lashes and track silently down her cheeks, hot and unchecked, her whole body trembling now that the shock has somewhere to go. He keeps one hand braced above her head, the other steady at her wrist, holding her there not to trap her but to keep her from bolting, to anchor her to something real.

"I thought I would never see you again." She whimpers.

"You did good," he murmurs, voice thick and breaking despite himself. "You did everything right."

A sound carries through the trees behind them, footsteps and voices getting closer. He presses his forehead to hers for half a second, eyes closing as if he is committing her face to memory all over again, his voice dropping to barely more than breath against her skin.

"We don't have time," he whispers. "You have to trust me. Completely."

She nods frantically, tears still spilling, eyes locked on his with absolute terror and absolute faith tangled together. He pulls back just enough to look at her fully, fear and resolve burning bright in his chest so hard it hurts.

"Angel," he says again, desperation cracking through his control. "I need you to trust me."

"I do, I trust you." She responds.

He drives her backward and down, using his weight to pin her against the ground, one knee braced beside her hip, one hand gripping her wrist hard enough to still it. She bucks beneath him, breath tearing out of her chest.

"Jud," she cries, voice breaking. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry!" he says hoarsely. "I'm so sorry,"

He clamps his hand over her mouth to muffle the sound, heart pounding so violently it hurts. Her eyes go wide, terrified, tears spilling freely now as she shakes beneath him. And then he does the thing he will never forgive himself for. He leans down and bites her forearm. Hard as he possibly could. 

Pain explodes through her arm, sharp and immediate, stealing the breath from her lungs. She screams into his palm, body arching violently as shock floods her system. Jud tastes blood instantly and jerks back, choking, horror crashing into him the second he realizes what he's done.

"Fuck," he gasps.

Her knee drives up with everything she has left. Jud cries out, the sound torn from him as he collapses sideways, hands scrambling uselessly as his body betrays him. He rolls away from her and retches violently into the grass, gagging, shaking, bile and blood mixing as his stomach convulses. She scrambles backward, sobbing, clutching her arm to her chest. Her whole body is shaking uncontrollably. She points the knife at him with both hands, blade trembling as badly as she is.

"Don't touch me," she sobs. "Don't come any closer."

Jud curls in on himself, gasping, eyes watering, one hand braced against the ground. He can barely breathe.

"I'm sorry," he chokes. "I'm so sorry."

"What the fuck?" she says, voice thin and disbelieving. "You hurt me."

"I had to Angel!"

"Fuck you!"

He lifts his head just enough to look at her, face wrecked with horror and grief. "Because if I didn't," he says brokenly, "they would take you back."

Footsteps crunch closer. Jud forces himself upright despite the pain, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He looks at her arm, at the mark already darkening against her skin, and tears spill freely down his face.

"They won't bring you back now," he whispers. "They'll think you've been bitten. They won't touch you."

She stares at him like she's seeing a stranger. She stands there shaking so hard it looks like her body might give out on her, fingers locked around the knife like it is the only thing tethering her to the ground, her bitten arm pulled tight against her chest, eyes wide and glassy as she stares at him in pure disbelief, like she is trying to understand how the same man who held her through the night could be the one who just broke her open like this.

Jud swallows, his chest burning, his vision blurring, and when he speaks his voice is low and urgent and already breaking under the weight of what he has done. He takes a step toward her, hands raised in surrender, every instinct screaming to touch her and knowing he no longer has that right.

"This was the only way," he says, and even to his own ears it sounds cruel. "Angel, please listen to me. There was no other way."

She shakes her head, tears spilling freely now, her breath coming in short, panicked bursts that scrape her lungs raw. 

"You hurt me," she says, like she still cannot believe it is real. In that moment she'd reverted back to the child who'd been hurt over and over by her father. "You scared me. You didn't even tell me what you were going to do."

"I didn't have time," he says desperately, words tumbling out of him. "They were right there. If you screamed, if they saw you, they would have taken you back. I couldn't let that happen. You had to go. You had to follow the plan Johnny gave you."

"Okay then lets go," 

"I can't come with you."

Her face crumples completely, grief and terror folding in on themselves. "You promised me," she whispers. "You promised we'd stay together, let's just go!"

"I can't!" he says fiercely, stepping closer despite himself. "I will find you. I swear it. I will find you! Just trust me. Please. You have to trust me one more time."

"I don't wanna be alone! I can't do this without you!"

"Take this, keep it with you," He says, grabbing her hand and wrapping the rosary around it. 

"No, I can't take this-"

"It'll keep you safe until I can find you again okay?" 

"Okay," She nods 

He looks at her bleeding arm "Follow the road north, wait for us to leave and circle back to the truck, keep driving, leave me clues to find you, okay? I will see you again, I swear to god," 

Footsteps crash through the underbrush before she can answer. Voices rise, sharp and close, men calling out to each other as the search party breaks through the trees. Jud's expression changes instantly, the softness vanishing, replaced by something hard and deliberate that terrifies her almost as much as the pain in her arm.

"No," she whispers over and over. "Jud, please. Please don't."

"I know, but they need to see that you're bitten, they won't bring you back, okay? This is the only way." he murmurs under his breath, his grip tightening as if that is the only thing keeping him upright. 

They break out into the clearing, and everything stops. Men freeze mid-step. Rifles come up in a chaotic wave. Someone swears. Someone gasps. Jud pulls her just far enough forward for them to see the wound on her arm, his hand still locked around her wrist as if he is afraid she might disappear if he lets go.

"She's infected," Jud says loudly, his voice cutting through the clearing with brutal clarity.

"Oh my God."

"Jesus Christ."

"Kill her! Kill her now."

She lets out a broken sound that barely resembles a sob, her knees buckling as the words hit her all at once, terror crashing through her body so hard she can barely stay standing. Jud steps directly in front of her, fully blocking her from view, his body a shield as rifles remain trained on them both. 

"No," he says sharply. "She's too far gone. We can't touch her. We have to let her go."

James moves forward slowly, his eyes flicking between them with unsettling calm. "Did you know?" he asks.

Jud shakes his head once, grief etched so deeply into his face it looks real even to himself. "I just found her like this."

One of them laughs darkly. "We could still get what we want before it's too late."

Jud turns on him so fast it's instinctive, fury exploding out of him. "You don't know if the virus transmits through sex," he snaps. "And even if it didn't, she's already dead, by the looks of it she has an hour max."

James watches her for a long moment as she sobs behind Jud, shaking so violently she can barely stay upright. 

"She won't last long out there," he says calmly. "If she turns, we'll put her down."

Jud does not argue. He cannot without breaking everything. He lets go of her wrist. The loss of his touch feels like being pushed off a cliff.

"Run," he whispers, his voice barely audible, already breaking apart. "Run now."

She looks at him then, really looks at him, like she wants to memorize his face, like she wants to scream at him and forgive him and hate him all at once, and for a heartbeat it looks like she might say something. Then she turns and runs, the men shout. A few surge forward instinctively.

James lifts his hand. "Let her go."

"She won't make it," someone says.

James's mouth twists into something cold and final. "No," he says. "She won't."

Jud stands there long after she is gone, his hands hanging uselessly at his sides, his chest caving in on itself as the reality of what he has done finally crushes down on him. He does not look away from the trees. He cannot.

She keeps moving until her body simply cannot anymore, until every muscle trembles with exhaustion and the ache in her arm has settled into a deep, relentless throb that pulses in time with her heart. When she finally slows, it is not because she feels safe, but because she understands that if she does not stop now, she will collapse somewhere far worse than this. She sinks down at the base of a tree, sobbing quietly, clutching her injured arm to her chest as if holding it close might somehow lessen the pain.

Her hands are slick with blood, and the sight of it makes her stomach churn, but panic never fully takes hold. She knows what to do. She always has. With shaking fingers, she grips the hem of her shirt and tears a long strip free, the sound sharp in the quiet woods. She wraps the fabric tightly around her arm, wincing as the pressure makes her vision blur, but she keeps going, tying it off as securely as she can. When she finishes, she presses her forehead against the rough bark of the tree and breathes, slow and deliberate, forcing her body to settle.

The fear comes in waves after that, but it is not the kind she expected. She is not angry. When she closes her eyes, she sees his face again, not as it was when he lunged at her, but as it was afterward, shattered and desperate and terrified of what he had done even as he knew he had to do it. She replays the moment in her mind over and over, and slowly, painfully, the truth settles in.

He had not attacked her. He had saved her. The realization hits her so hard it steals the breath from her lungs. She presses her back against the tree, staring up through the branches at the darkening sky, heart pounding with something dangerously close to awe. The way he had seen the danger closing in and made a choice no one else could have made, knowing it would cost her trust in that moment, knowing it would look monstrous, knowing it would hurt him just as much as it hurt her.

A quiet, broken sound escapes her as tears spill freely down her face, but this time they are not driven by fear. They are driven by love so fierce it frightens her. She loves him. She loves him in a way that feels irrevocable and terrifying and deeply rooted, the kind of love that recognizes intention even when the act itself is horrifying. She had been scared, yes, but the fear had not been of him. The fear had been of the moment itself, of the sudden violence, of not understanding yet what he was doing.

The second she understood, truly understood, something inside her had gone still. It had been him. Of course it had been him. He would never hurt her. Everything he had done had been to push her forward, to force her to run, to make sure there was no version of the world where those men could claim her again.

She pushes herself back to her feet and keeps moving, slower now, careful and deliberate, her body aching but her resolve steady. When she finds a tree with branches low and strong enough to climb, she drags herself up into it, settling into the crook of the trunk where the leaves are thickest. The cold creeps in quickly as night fully settles, and she curls in on herself, teeth chattering, her injured arm tucked protectively against her chest.

She does not sleep easily. She drifts in and out, waking at every sound, every shift of wind, every crack of a branch in the distance. The cold sinks into her bones, relentless and unforgiving, but even as her body shakes, her mind keeps circling back to him. To his voice in her ear telling her to run. To the way he had looked at her like letting her go was tearing him in half.

Your job before stripping was at an office. You were a receptionist, and it was a fantastic gig. The people were nice. Your hours were set, nine to five with weekends off. The women were lovely, regularly inviting you out to lunch with them. The men didn’t bat an eye at you. 

You didn’t have to worry about begging your landlord to give you a few more days to make rent. You didn’t have to fret about maxing out a credit card for all the necessities of your pets. You always had the money in your savings to pay it all back, thanks to holiday pays and overtime.

And for the first time in your life, you were happy. You were prepared for the future. You loved driving to work in your new car, lunch packed to exchange with your colleagues. 

Until one of your coworkers found an old webcam of yours. It started with one email that snowballed into everyone in the office watching you dirty talk to your camera. It was humiliating. No one looked your way any longer. You sat alone, often having to eat in your car to avoid the judgemental glares from the women and the perverted looks from the men. 

You’re not smart. You’re pathetic. You won’t amount to anything. You’re meant for one thing only. You’re meant for one thing only. You’re meant for one thing only. 

You’re meant for one thing only. 

You quit a week later, grabbed your belongings at the end of your shift and never returned. Your boss didn’t bother calling to ask if you were coming in. You were a stain on the business and they were glad to be rid of you. 

You met Geronimo a month later. You were putting in resume after resume into every company you found, even tried for cashier gigs. No one wanted you. You were resting on a bus bench, sobbing. You looked ridiculous, face puffy, snot falling down, and breaths hard and uneven. You thought little  of him sitting next to you. It is a public bus stop. You pulled out your pocket knife when he claimed he had a proposition for you. 

You were at his club a week later. The girls weren’t the nicest. It was clear the new girls were bad for their business, but they didn’t detest you. They helped you practice on the pole. You grinned when Yuri told you that you were made for stripping, crying about it later that night. 

You were dancing a week and a half later. You didn’t get as many clientele as the old girls, still stumbling in your comfortable pleasers. Yuri, the only girl who wouldn’t ignore you, advised you to be more confident. Men are attracted to that single attribute. Walk around like you own the place, show them who’s in charge. It was easy to do so when you realized the men who showed up at this place were all losers not deserving of much respect.

So, it’s not a shock that you agreed to Pope’s proposition. You’ve never been wanted. Not that he wanted you, he was using you like the others, and you realize this. You recognize that the sex is for him. The roleplay is for him. You perfect the role of the woman you’ve yet to meet, for him. All to keep him. 

You can’t explain why you want him. Why you search for him every single night, why you want to make him laugh when he drives you home after your shift at the club, or why you yearn for those moments of tenderness when he finishes and is pressing soft kisses to your face.  Why. Why. Why. It’s a never-ending stream of soul-crushing questions. 

“Another rump in the hay?” His voice pulls you out of your deep trance. You turn to him as he runs his fingers up and down your spine. His cool sheets are rumpled at your ass, over his own legs as well. 

You chuckle at his words, nose scrunched in disgust. “Rump in the hay? What the fuck?”

He scoffs, but it’s visible he’s not upset as he drops himself to lie back on his bed. “What do you want me to say?”

“Literally anything else.” He lightly smacks your ass as he gets up out of bed. “you are not leaving me here alone.” You sit up, using the sheet to cover your bare chest. “Last time you left me alone, I had to put up with Craig asking for a peek.” 

He huffs out a laugh as he grabs a t-shirt, throwing it on. “I’m assuming you didn’t give him one?” 

You roll your eyes. “Um, no? I’m a classy woman.” He looks over his shoulder. his expression makes you snag a pillow and throw it at his backside. “I’m a classy woman outside of work.” 

“Still not true.” 

“Asshole.” You huff as you put your clothes back on. “Give me a ride home.” 

“Get your own ride.” 

You snatch his keys, walking past him. “Shut up. Let’s go.” 

“You’re bossy.” He hums, following you and shutting his door behind him. 

“You like it.” His keys are being tossed back to him, sliding into the passenger seat when he unlocks it. His truck, despite being a neat freak, is peppered with a multitude of your items. Hair ties, hair clips, one of your necklaces wrapped around his rearview mirror, a few perfume oils in the center console, and glitter. Glitter on his seats, his car mats, and even on his steering wheel. He tried to clean it off when you first started getting rides from him, but he gave up. And you had to hide your content when you realized how much it looks like he has a girl. 

The drive to your apartment doesn’t take very long. Which saddens you, as now he’ll be off doig god-knows-what for days, not reaching out until he needs to release what he has pent up for Catherine. He parks in the parking lot of your apartment building. You sit there for a few moments. And embarrassingly so, you speak. “Are you free tomorrow?”

This doesn’t stun him. A part of you wishes it did because he’s used to this. He’s used to you asking for his plans in the upcoming days while he doesn’t ask about yours, nor does he truthfully answer you. 

“No.” Is his plain response. Nothing more, nothing less, like always. The sting of it would awaken any self-respecting woman. You’re not one of those. 

“Right,” you clear yout throat awkwardly. “Well, tell your brother it’s happy hour tomorrow at the club.”

“You can’t tell him?”

Your eyebrows furrow at the attitude in his words. As if what you're asking from him is such a drag. “No, I blocked him.”

He huffs, “then why invite him?”

“Because he tips well. What the fuck is your problem?” Like always, it turns sour. Something is always said or done. Someone always leaves upset for the night after an argument. Things are fine until they aren’t. You give him the sex he wants, with the act and name he wants and he makes it weird. His fantasy clearly upsets him but he won’t stop. 

And you won’t either. You do threaten it though. “So, what, Pope? Do you want to stop this because I'm more than happy to if it means I wont have to put up with this weird guilt thing that you make everyone’s problem.”

His scoff is loud and incredulous. “Not this again. It’s not fucking guilt. You're the one making it weird by making me your messenger.”

“Oh, get the fuck over yourself.” You angrily swing his truck door open, slamming it as he rolls his window.

“Come on, you’re being dramatic.” He calls out to you. 

“Wrap yourself around a tree for all I care!”

Happy hour comes along and while Geronimo doesn’t like it when his girls are high, you decide that's the only way you’d get through your shift without crashing out. Still, you try to compose yourself as best as you can, keeping up sober appearances around the customers and your boss. 

“And here is the entire reason why happy hour exists.” the tray of drinks in your hands spill a little at the sides with the way you jump at the booming voice. Craig sure knows how to make an entrance. 

You grin, “and why does that accomplishment belong to me?”  

“Cause youre the hottest piece of ass in this building for the next hour.”

Your laugh is an ugly snort, “yeah? So im ugly after the hour is up?”

He nods, taking your tray of drinks, "that's exactly it.”

“Asshole. That's for table three.” You chastise as you walk after him, surprised that Baz or Deran aren’t following after him tonight. “Where are the two gums at the soles of your shoes?”

He leaves the tray at table three and doesn’t let you apologize to them because the giant man is dragging you away. “Ah, is that your sneaky way of asking for Pope?”

You scoff, rolling your eyes at the mention of his oldest brother, even if you are itching to ask how he’s doing. You and Craig just aren’t that close to discuss this with. “No. I'm asking about Baz and Deran.”

He shrugs as he plops down on his seat, grabbing you to sit on his lap. He motions at the familiar server to bring him his usual, patting your bare thigh mindlessly. “They have some business to attend to. Pope too.”

“I didn’t ask about Pope.”

“But you wanted to, ballerina.” He uses the awful nickname he’s given you recently. “What the hell is going on between you two? I know you’re fucking. Which, by the way, I'm completely offended. Why the fuck did you give it up to him and not me?”

“You have this musty thing going on that completely turns me off.” He laughs, head thrown back, as if you made the funniest joke he’a ever heard. You're not joking but you won't burst his bubble.

“Whatever he did, I’m sure he's sorry. He's been a sulking mess around our moms. Being a fucking buzzkill.”

You haven’t gotten a lot out of Pope but you know his relationship with his mother is tricky. Which, story of your life. Mothers are nothing but narcissistic parasites who feed off the misery of their children. But this is different. You don't speak much of your mother but you’ve let him know that she's an alcoholic that you don't speak to. He tenses up at the mention of her, nothing like Craig like when his eyes softly turn distant but ends up laughing it off. You know better than to ask though. He refuses to tell you about his day, much less will he tell you about his mommy issues. 

“What do you know about Catherine?” you ask suddenly. 

This drags his eyes off the show on the stage and back to you with an inquisitive look. “My sister-in-law?”

You nod, confirming. “Yeah, what's she like?”

“Um,” he clears his throat as he adjusts you on his lap. “Shes cool, I guess. A ball buster. She's always on Baz’s ass about our family business. Good mother though. Lena’s great, she's my booger.”

You disregard all else, “family business? Your mother’s buildings?”

He snorts, nodding. “Yeah, ballerina, our real estate.”

“The fuck does that mean?” He’s about to respond but you see the realization of what he's said, cross his face.

Instead, “know she was Pope’s childhood best friend. Don't remember her much from then, didn't pay her any attention. Our mom and Baz tell me he was in love with her.”

Your blood runs cold. You know this, of course it does but no one else has ever confirmed this. And Baz knows? This throws you for a loop. “Baz knows?”

He nods, “yeah. He doesn't care. It was a long time ago. Not like he’s still into her, that’d be fucking weird, man.”

You want to yell. You want to spill it all to him but if there’s one thing the Cody's are, is loyal. To each other, blood is thicker than water. It’s a code of honor between them. So you stay quiet. 

“It's his birthday.”

You almost gasp at his words, “what?”

He downs his drink, “yeah. We usually do paintball, skydive, and go to a club but he’s on his fucking period or something.” He pauses. “He has a twin. Had a twin. Maybe he misses her. I don't know. He's not exactly the forthcoming type.”

—

He’s washing his truck when you get to his home. His dark grey t-shirt is form fitting, darker where he’s wet from the soapy suds. 

You’re wearing a pair of too baggy sweatpants and Craig’s hoodie that you stole from his car, not caring that your slutty outfit is still digging into you beneath it. All you can focus on is Pope. Pope and his birthday and how you snapped at him yesterday. 

“Washing your car at night isn’t the brightest idea.” He had been so wrapped up in scrubbing away the muck that he hadn’t noticed you were there. His head snaps up to your smiling face, holding up a box, presenting it to him. “A little birdie told me it’s your birthday.” 

He eyes the cake carefully before his eyes meet yours again. “I don’t celebrate.” 

You scoff, “you weren’t able to, there’s a difference.” You put the cake down, sliding up the sleeves to Craig’s sweatshirt. You’re glad to be wearing your sketchers as you grab a sponge from the metal bucket, letting the soapy suds cover your hands. “I’ll help. The quicker you finish, the sooner we get to eat cake.” 

You plop the sponge down, wiping once before his hand grabs the wrist, stopping you. “Stop.” He mutters out. “It’s too cold.” 

“You’re doing it.” You retort. “Double standard—“ 

“You’re not seriously going to argue with me on my birthday.” 

You laugh, shaking your head. “Fine. I won’t argue with you today. But once that clock turns twelve, it’s fair game.” You nod at the cake, “grab it. I eyed it the entire bus ride here.” 

He does as told, picking the box up and following after you as you walk into his familiar home. He locks it behind him as you settle into his kitchen. Two plates, two forks, and a knife. 

“Sit.” He usually makes a snarky remark but he’s listening well. You realize he must be really out of it, he hasn't been this way with you since this entire ordeal began. 

You place it all down to his table, where the chip at the corner seems to be the most important thing around, his eyes stuck on it. You wish you could reach out and comfort him. But you still feel silly for snapping at him yesterday. 

You open the thin cardboard box of the cake and plop two candles into the blue and pink frosting. “The bakery only had a gender reveal cake left… no one picked it up.” You reach your hand out to him. “Lighter.” Because he always carries his own, you tease him about it. Now is not the time though. 

You light both the birthday candles, “one for you,” you light the next one. “One for your sister.” 

“What did you just say?” His voice is rough but not angry. Emotional, maybe. You can’t read him very well. 

“It’s your sister's birthday too.” You hum. “My sister and I are ten days apart. My mom was too cheap to celebrate separately so we always blew out candles together.”

He’s silent for a moment as you put the lighter down. “Where is she? Your sister…” 

“She died.” The smile on your face is sad but it’s there and that’s what matters. Or, that’s what Geronimo tells you when he’s trying to help his girls from their saddened moods. Strippers, as it turns out, are very sad people. “So I blow out two candles. Well, four in total. Two on mine. Two on hers. You’re lucky. You only do it once a year, I never know what to do with so much cake.” 

The candles are lit up between the two of you, his eyes watching them flicker for a moment. “Okay…” he’s about to blow but you instantly wave your hands. 

“Woah, woah!” You stop him. “You have to make a wish!” His expression seems slightly annoyed but you can’t care. “I’m serious. Birthday wishes are real. And you have two! I’m sure your sister won’t mind you taking hers.” 

He huffs, thinking for a second. “Fine. I wish—“

“Oh my god, you’re terrible at this.” You stop him from talking. “You can’t say it out loud! God, have you ever had a birthday? It won’t come true if you—“ 

“I wish you would shut up.” 

“Okay, well, now I’m never shutting up. That’s the birthday law.” 

He groans, “fine. I won’t say it out loud.” He blows the candles quickly, not giving you any room to interrupt him again. 

You grin, holding the knife out to him. “Want to see what the Walkers are having?”

He hesitates for a moment, sighing dramatically as he slices into the cake, the knife comes out brown. Your eyebrows furrow as he pushes the slice onto the plate. It’s a chocolate cake. No pink or blue. You huff, “what the fuck? Are they having a brown baby?” You cut up the cake some more after snatching the knife from him. “This is a fucking rip off. This shit was thirty-five bucks!” 

You finally look up at Pope to see his hands covering his face and his shoulders shaking. You’re immediately concerned, scooting your chair closer to him. “Are you…” you clear your throat, placing a single hand on his bicep. “Are you crying?” 

“I’m not crying.” He speaks in his fit of laughter, finally pulling his hands away. Your breath catches at the sight of him. His place is dim, too dark for you to see much of anything. But you can’t look away from the way his soft eyes crease as he laughs, face completely relaxed. 

You scoff, embarrassed to have read the situation wrong. And to be noticing him so tenderly. You replace your soft caress with a smack to his bicep. “Screw you. I was scared I did something wrong!” 

“You did!” He laughs. “They’re having a brown baby? Who the fuck talks like that?” 

You’re frowning, flushed with embarrassment. You look away from him, “shut up, asshole.” 

His laughter quiets down but you can still feel the amusement wafting off of him. His hand gently grasps your chin, making you look back at him. “Stop pouting.” A pause. “Is that the only gift you’ve got for me?”

You cackle, shoving his hand off of you. “You are not hitting this tonight.” 

He groans. “Come on. It’s my birthday! Birthday sex is a very real thing.”

You roll your eyes, shoving a fork into his slice of cake. “Nope. Ask Catherine.” You throw. 

“You’re my Catherine.” You hope the way you flinch isn’t noticeable. Of course it isn’t, Pope isn’t attentive to you in any way, and you’re slowly learning to live with it. He lightly pats your thigh. “Come on.”

You sigh, speaking with a bored tone. “Hey, Andrew. It’s me, Catherine! Want to have birthday sex?” 

He flicks your forehead, “Hello, Catherine. It is me, Andrew,” he adds to the joke. “I would love to have birthday sex with you.”

You laugh, “okay, Andrew, it is still me, Catherine. Let us have sex.”

He’s grabbing the sides of your chair, pulling you closer into him, lips meeting yours with a heavy and shaky breath. Your own body doesn’t hesitate, lips moving against his with vigor, fingers threading into the hair at the nape of his neck. His own hands slide down your body, gripping onto your hips and sliding you on his lap. 

The playful atmosphere melts away within seconds, his rough hands feeling you up. It’s how this always goes. Some days, all he wants is to bury his face in your cunt but those are becoming more and more rare as the days go on. 

It doesn’t take long for you to end up on his clean and fitted bed. His place is spotless, nothing like yours. You know that’s why he avoids your place. You don’t live in filth but you’re not tidy. One of the handful of times he’s been to yours, you were too worn out to notice him crawl out of your bed and clean your place. It went back to clean clothes hanging off chairs and your bed and makeup and water bottles everywhere. Now, you’re pretty much only at his. 

“That’s weird,” you huff, leaning on your arms to look up at him. “What could possibly turn you on about leaving my pleasers on?”

He gets slightly pouty, “what are pleasers? I said heels.” 

“Common misconception, rookie.” You hum, wiggling your foot clad in the black and silver accessorized pleaser. “While a form of heels, these are much better and weirdly, more comfortable.” 

He rolls his eyes, not entertained. “I love it when you tell me things I don’t care for. Please, keep going.” 

You laugh, head thrown back. “I don’t like this comfort you’re feeling with me. It’s made you mean. Where’s my shy Pope?” 

“Dead.” He tugs your sweats off, tossing them behind him. 

It’s your turn to roll your eyes, “you always speak to your Catherine’s like this?” 

He groans, letting his head fall to your shoulder. “Can you be quiet for a moment?” You can feel him wiggling atop of you, the clink of his belt, hand tugging once and he’s lining himself up into you. 

Before he pushes in, his voice is shaky, hands beside your face as he holds himself up. As usual, he looks vulnerable. Not only does he look vulnerable, he sounds it. His voice cracks, begs, even goes as far as whimpering. “Can you… you say the thing?” 

The thing.

The thing is what gets him off lately. What makes him moan louder and louder as he grinds into you. You nod, legs wrapping around his hips, pushing him into you, the intrusion making a breath of air shudder out of you. Your arms wrap around his neck, a hand threading into his head of hair. 

“Missed you, Pope.” It’s a switch. Your voice turns soft, your touch comforting against his back as your hands trail down. “I’m always thinking about you, my love.” You’ve only been guessing as to how Catherine would act with him. It makes you cringe if you think about it too hard, like you’re violating the poor woman. Not that you’re fond of her, with the way Craig speaks of her, you can’t believe anyone would like her. Calls her crazy, says she hinders Baz, whatever that means. Usually, you would know better than to believe a drug addict's words but you’re too blinded with jealousy. How could a woman have Pope and not want him? 

He’s breathing heavily into your ear as he moves tentatively. This is how it always starts. He needs to gather himself properly, let the roleplay settle. Some days, he’s quick and accepting of what you two are doing, others, it’s hard for him to focus, too ashamed. You can’t tell what he’s feeling yet. Not until his heavy breathing turns into moans.

Small gasps leave you as he pushes deep inside of you, his hips moving faster and harder as he gets it together. He likes it tonight, you decide. “Pope,” you moan, face twisted up in that familiar pleasure. You should have waited. You should have left those words until the end, until you got your own relief. “Happy birthday, Pope. I love you.” 

He’s spilling inside of you, a loud groan leaving him, hips stuttering into you as he fills you up. “Cath, oh, fuck, Cath!” You shut your eyes tight at the name being moaned into your ear. You don’t care for your orgasm then, you just wish it was your name. 

He’s lying back now, fully relaxed an hour later. You were too stuck. Your mind is hazy. Not from an intense orgasm like he is. You’re too upset. You’re aching from the absolute need you feel for him. You’re trying and trying to understand what it is that has got you hooked on him, why you can’t let this go even when all you want is to never see him again. 

You’re watching him. The slow rise and fall of his chest. The speckled freckles across his neck, no doubt from the Oceanside sun. His arm is strewn across his face, covering his eyes from the soft, cascading moonlight streaming in through his window. “Pope?” 

He hums, a rough one. It’s your sign to keep going. 

“Do you miss your sister?” 

You two sit in silence for a minute. “Yes.” 

“We could be at my place right now,” Pope sighs dramatically from his spot on the ground, looking up at you as you crawl around the stage. The club is completely empty. Which is extremely rare, Geronimo never closes. But half of his girls caught the stomach flu that’s going around and after one tried to tough it out, spilling their guts on a customer who demanded payment for his expensive shoes, he deemed the club a hazard. “Eating our meals.” 

You scoff from the stage, palms pressing against the black boards. “I got a meal. You got a fucking hamster meal. Who gets a protein style burger? Wack ass fucking hamburger.” 

“You’re just mad you can’t find your earring.” 

And it’s true. Your food was sitting cold in the back of his truck. You were frantic when you reached up to tug on your ear in an anxious tic, only to feel it empty. You made him pull over and search the vehicle with you. His truck was turned inside and out, seat covers yanked off harshly. You even grabbed his flashlight in his toolbox to search every dark nook and cranny. You were getting more and more frustrated. 

You threw the dressing rooms apart, even dug around in the bathroom. You searched behind the bar. Around the tables. Now on the stage. Nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. And you’re angry. 

You let out a loud yell, dropping yourself onto the cold floor. “This is the worst!” 

Pope leans over on the stage, watching as you flop around on the ground. “Was it expensive or something?” A pause before he continues. “I’ll just get you new ones. Better ones.” 

You turn to lie on your stomach, leaning your chin in the palm of your hand. “As much as that turns me on… it's the sentimental value that makes them important.” 

A single eyebrow of his raises, watching you carefully. “Sentimental?” The shock in his voice is evident and this makes you peek up. 

“What? What’s wrong with that?” 

He shrugs, hands drumming against the boards of the stage. “You’re not really a sentimental person.” 

The face you make shows how offended you are by his words. “What? Yes I am.” 

He shakes his head, “emotional? Sure. Sentimental? Nope.” 

You huff, sitting up on your ass and glaring at him. “Do you even know what you’re saying? You sound stupid.” 

The way he sighs makes your blood boil. “It’s always a fight with you.” His words make it worse. 

“Excuse me, you shrimp dick loser?” He was right on the emotional front. You let your feelings win constantly. You can never not have the last word in an argument. If something so much as slightly offends you, you pounce. You argue. You scratch. It’s how you survive against men. 

“There you go. I’m just saying you—“ 

“You,” you interrupt him, eyebrows furrowed in complete anger and disdain for him. “You don’t know me—“ 

“Because you don’t let me—“ 

“Because you don’t ask—“ 

“When am I supposed to ask—“ 

“When you’re not moaning another bitches name in my ear!” You’re standing up, pacing back and forth. “God, do you even hear yourself?! I’m not sentimental? You don’t know shit! You are so fucking stupid, it astounds me how  you get through your day to day life—“ 

“You done?” 

“No!” You seethe. “You are such a fucking loser pining after  a woman who doesn’t want you! I’m the emotional one?! You’re the one begging me for sex so you can rock your jollies off to the thought of your sister-in-law—“ 

“I found your earring.” 

You gasp, jumping off the stage and rushing to him. You grab the fake diamond earring, immediately inspecting it for any scratches. “Oh my god, my baby.” 

“Your baby?” You can hear the amusement in his tone but you’re wiping at your earring with care

You roll your eyes at him, “I know I'm not sentimental enough for you but my moms ex-boyfriend got me this.” 

“Your moms ex-boyfriend?”

You don’t care for the judgment in his tone as you speak, “yeah. He was… important to me. He was the only one who really cared for me. Obviously I changed the part that goes in my ear. I went to a jewelry store and had to pay extra but… I love them.” You don’t care for the silence as you tuck the earring safely into the zippered slot in your bag. 

“Tell me more.” You freeze, fingers fumbling with the zipper of your bag as you secure the strap. You fix it on your shoulder, looking back up at Pope. 

“About?” 

He shrugs, his hands in the front pocket of his jeans as he leans against the stage, watching you. “I know you have a dead sister. Your mother was kind of slutty. And you have a favorite father figure.” 

You huff out a laugh, taking a seat on one of the soft cushioned seats in the club, you two seemingly forgetting about your argument less than a minute ago. “He wasn’t really a father figure. They dated for eight months.” 

“Okay, so… tell me about those eight months.” 

And for the first time, you do. You tell him about Thomas Peterson and how you still have the low quality photos of you and him. Your cheek pressed up to his, the two of you grinning up at the cheap camera he bought at a random pharmacy. How he helped you, even when he was gone, even when he forgot about you. You tell him about the other men, the nice ones and the ones who ignored you. You tell him about the gifts you received. About your sister. Your other siblings you haven’t spoken to in years. All of it. 

By the end of it, you two are completely wrapped up in the conversation. He’s putting in his own two cents, how his mother was with men as well. How she treated them all growing up. He hesitates during some retellings, hiding something deeper, but you don’t pry. He’s already giving you enough. 

“And then?” You’ve never seen his posture not be perfect but he’s leaning on the table at your story. “What happened then?” 

You raise your arms, motioning to the club around you. “Now… I’m a stripper.” 

He taps his fingers against the table, nodding. He’s looking around the room, taking in the room with its full lighting on. The fluorescent lights show off every nook and cranny of the usually dim place. “This place is ugly.” 

You snort, walking over to the stage and hopping on. “You think? We see it like this before shift all the time. Sometimes it’s hard to get in the mood.” You lift your sleeves. “Have you ever danced on a pole?” 

He chuckles, watching you from his seat. “Can’t say that I have.” He settles into the seat, arms crossed over his chest, thick arms bulging through his top. “Gonna show me?”

Your hands grips onto the pole, letting yourself twirl slowly. “You’ve seen my performances plenty.” You grin. “And then some.” 

“Yes, but those are for everyone.” He begins as you place your other hand onto the silver pole. “Give me something for me.” 

“I do give you something that’s just for you.” You try, lifting your feet as you twirl yourself gracefully. 

“Stop stalling.” 

You place your feet back onto the floor, watching as he sits back. His eyes are hooded as he watches you. And the growing tent in his jeans is very visible. “We have In-n-out in the car.” 

“Rather watch you.” 

You laugh easily, zipping your sweater down teasingly. “Yeah? What do you want to watch, Mr. Cody?” 

He adjusts himself in his jeans, hand gripping his cock through the rough material. “Anything.” 

You roll your eyes as you tug the material off, leaving you naked from the waist up. You find it pointless to wear a bra around him, better to be comfortable. “Jeans too, baby.” 

“How bossy.” You hum but do as told, leaving you in your panties. “This is extremely unhygienic. And now your cock is out of your jeans? How naughty. The cameras don’t scare you?” 

He shakes his head, hand tugging at himself as he watches you. “Don’t work.” 

“And how do you know that?” You’ve lifted yourself completely off the floor and you begin with your show for him. Twirling, spreading your legs, giving him a view of your ass. 

“Part of my job.” 

“Ah, the mysterious career of yours,” his chest is rising and falling, breathing labored, dripping some spit to lather on his pretty and pink cock to keep stroking himself to you as you dance for him. “Want me to stop talking?” 

He groans, “no. Fuck, no. Keep talking. Like listening to you.” 

“Well, now I don’t know what to say.” You giggle, pulling off of the pole, leaning your backside on it to watch him as he undoes himself. 

“Get on your knees.” He commands, voice rough as his hand jerks around him. 

You’re usually a brat with him but you decide today isn’t the day to test him. You slowly fall to your knees, legs spread, showing off the way your panties stick to your wet cunt like a second skin. The sight of him turned on, touching himself to you, it turns you on more than you ever would have cared to admit. 

“Like this?” You ask sweetly. Unlike your normal fiery self. “That good enough for you, Pope-y?”

He groans, nodding hastily. You can tell he’s teetering over the edge, “yeah. Good. So fucking good. Look good…” 

You really thought this was for you. The way he was pumping at his cock was for you. The way his eyes danced on your tits was for you. You just had a heart to heart with him. You spilled each other's guts out to one another. 

“Look so good, Cath.” He moans. 

You’re frozen in your spot. Your blood runs cold and pounds loud in your ears. Your confidence washes away instantly, feeling more naked than ever before. He doesn’t see you. 

He will never see you. 

You pull away slowly. You can’t meet him here. You can’t go there. His place is too far and you have an early morning. A vet appointment for one of your many cats. A coworker needs a lift to the airport. Geronimo needs you to watch surveillance after shift. You’re too tired. You’re on your period. 

He doesn’t show up to the club. He hates it there, it’s m too noisy. Too many men tossing their money. Too many women wanting his money tossed at them. It’s an overstimulating nightmare for Andrew Cody. 

Not for Craig Cody. 

“Gonna shake that ass for me?” He grins, leaning on the counter of the bar you’re standing behind. 

You had just gotten off the stage, your trash bag full of money beside you and your dark purple thong riding up your ass. You still feel hot from the performance too, a sheen of sweat over your cleavage and smooth chest. Usually, you’d be calming down in the dressing room but the bartender is heavily pregnant and peeing every second. 

You turn, scoffing at the man. “Talk about my ass again and I’ll get you trespassed.” 

“Nah,” he drums his hands against the table. “I’m Gero’s best customer. Ain’t that right, old man?” He calls out to Geronimo as the fat man walks past them. 

“Leave me alone.” He mumbles as he keeps walking off, barking orders at the next girl that’s on. 

And back to Craig, “what are you doing here? It’s a Wednesday. The freaks come out on Wednesday’s.” 

“Well, shit, you should’ve told me that. Would’ve been here way sooner.” He humps the air. 

You grimace at the sight, throwing a wet rag at him. “Ew, you’re disgusting!” 

He grabs the rag and tosses it back at you, “no. I’m here because your dog is hanging around me more than usual.” 

“My dog?” You question, genuinely confused by this mention. “I don’t get it.” 

“My brother.” 

You roll your eyes, annoyed by the thought of Pope. So you joke, “Aw, Deran misses me?”

“Oh, please, you’re the last woman he would ever miss.” 

The way he emphasizes the word piques your interest. “Wait… so you know?” 

He hums, a small smile on his lips. “Know what?” He feigns. 

You eye him carefully as you wipe a cup clean with a new rag. “Hmm… you know, Craig, when you’re not high out of your mind and not trying to motorboat me, you’re actually quite nice.” 

“I cannot stop staring at your tits.” 

You groan, putting the glass cup down. “You ruined it.” 

He laughs, “aw, come on! They’re in my face. Okay! Okay! Fuck, stop!” He can’t grab the limes you’re throwing his way any longer. “I’m kidding. You know I totally respect you as a woman.” 

“That doesn't even sound right coming from you.” You scoff. “There’s something else.” 

“Yeah, he’s miserable without you.” 

Now this really makes you laugh. “Right.” It takes everything in you to not explain why he misses you. Explain why Pope needs you so much. “Well, I need new dick. Getting tired of what I had.” You wipe the counter, trying to distract yourself. “Don’t suppose you want to volunteer?” 

“I will fuck you on this counter right now, you know this.” He downs a random shot that was forgotten on the table. “You’re Pope’s girl now, though.” 

“I’m not Pope’s anything.” You snap at Craig. “Seriously, all we do is hookup. That’s not special.” 

“Have you two emotionally fucked?”

You let out an incredulous laugh, “what?” 

“Have you two bared your souls to one another?” He rolls his eyes, as if exasperated by you. 

“Uhm… sorta?” 

“That’s it!” He slams his hand on the table making you jump, scolding him softly. “He fucked you emotionally and now he can’t get enough.” 

He can’t be more wrong. But you can’t exactly tell him that. So, you sigh dramatically instead. “Yeah. Maybe that’s it. Want your usual?”

—

“You are leaving me?” You caught Geronimo at his car before he could leave the clubs parking lot. 

The night is cold, the air biting your skin. Yet again, you had stolen Craig’s hoodie, using one of his old pair of sweats as well. “No, I’m not leaving. My sister needs help with her new baby—“

“You leave me!” The Russian man groans. “I need you. You not leave me!” 

It’s your turn to groan, “listen to me, fat man. I am not leaving you completely. I’m only going to Sacramento for a few weeks. I’ll still be back.” 

“I can feel this breaking.” He places his hand over his heart. “You okay with this? The breaking of my heart?” 

“Gero, you’re being dramatic. I’m coming back.” 

“You leave, you fired!”

“Gero, listen to me.” 

“No, you fired now!” 

“Gero, shut the fuck up and let me talk!” 

He nods, looking behind you. “Little man here.” 

You stiffen for a second but don’t bother turning. “Just… we’ll talk tomorrow, okay?” 

The Russian scoffs, “no, you fired.” And he gets into his car angrily, driving out of the parking lot with a screech. 

You turn to finally come face to face with Pope. “Andrew Cody,” you hum. “What brings you here?” 

“Are you really fired?” He questions. “I can help you. You wouldn’t have to work here again.” 

Your eyebrows raise in amusement at this, “what?” 

“I can help… maintain you.” 

You cackle, “Shut the fuck up, Pope.” It’s truly the last thing you expected to hear from him. “He fires me twice a day. He’s just butthurt he won’t be making money from me for a while.” 

“Okay…” he’s struggling to speak again. He hasn’t done that with you in a while. “What does that mean?” 

You wrap the hoodie tighter around you as another soft breeze hits. “What does what mean?” 

“Why won’t he be making money from you?” 

You hesitate being honest with him. The last thing you need is Andrew Cody knowing where you’re going. This won’t be a relaxing break, since you’ll be spending all of your free time helping your sister with a newborn but it’ll be a break from him. From him and his drama. Or, really, from him and the drama you bring to this. He’s never really given you an issue, not unless you start one first. But you can’t stop making issues that stem from the insecurity and jealousy embedded in you. 

You try to hold back. You really do, but he’s looking at you with those soft brown eyes of his. You’ve been able to see them angry, hurt, pleasured, confused and on rare occasions, soft in the way he’s being now. “I’m going to Sacramento for a few weeks.” 

“What?” He seems perturbed by this information. “Why are you going out there?” 

“My sister’s giving birth in a week. She needs my help.” 

His eyes widened for a fraction of a second, no doubt surprised at the mention of your sister. “You’re speaking with your sister?” 

You nod, shoving your hands into the pockets of Craig’s hoodie. “Yeah… I reached out to her last week. She got knocked up by some bum. Needs help. I think it’ll be nice for us.” 

“What about your cats?” 

You laugh, “what about my cats?” 

“What are you doing with them? You can’t leave them.” 

“No shit,” you snort. “I’m taking them with me.” 

“I can watch them.” 

“You don’t like animals.” You point out to him. 

He shrugs, “they’re cats. They don’t need much attention, right?” 

“That’s completely false. They need as much attention as dogs.” You huff, tucking your blowing hair behind your ear. “That’s your worst nightmare… litter changes.” 

“I can do it.” He sounds determined. 

Your face scrunches in confusion. “What is up with you? Why do you want to watch them so badly?” 

“Can’t I help out a friend?” 

You eye him carefully, unsure of what he’s trying to do here. It’s off-putting. “You’re being weird.” 

“That’s just my personality.” 

You don’t speak again. You’re standing there, arms crossed over your shivering body. You can’t figure out what to say to him. Looking at him, you know there’s no one else you want more. And that’s why you can’t be near him much longer. It’s why you need this break from him. It’s why you need to fight against these pathetic feelings that he’ll never reciprocate. 

“You’re coming back?” He asks, too soft. 

“Yeah.” Is your bored and lacking response. 

“I just don’t get why I can’t just watch your cats.” He starts again. 

“What the fuck is your issue, Pope?” You’re frustrated now, not understanding what’s going on. 

“Why won’t you let me watch them?” A pause, his fists clench and unclench. “If you’re coming back, it shouldn’t be an issue.” 

You scoff, shaking your head. “You’re not making any sense, Pope. I’m going back inside if you have nothing meaningful to add he—“ you’re trying to walk past him when his bigger and rough hand grabs your forearm, pulling you into him. 

Your breath stutters at the way his nose nudges against yours, his rising and falling chest pressed to yours. “What are you—“ 

“I need to make sure you’re coming back.” 

You can’t look at him. You’re looking at anything but the parts that make you want to reach out and keep giving him your all. Instead, you watch the tiny scar that dances on his cheek with every word he speaks. Not his eyes. Not his lips. “And you keeping my cats is going to ensure that?” 

He nods, nose rubbing against yours. Your eyes shut for a moment. You have to gather yourself. This isn't the life for you, it can’t be. This pathetic back and forth. The way he makes you want to crawl into a hole and wither away. The way your blood boils and you snap at him mindlessly, snarling the cruelest words you can conjure up at him. 

Instead, you pull your arm from his hand. “I don’t need to do that, Pope. I’ll be back and whether you believe me or not is none of my concern.” You’re hoping your words are harsh but you can’t hear much of anything as you avoid looking at him. “We’re less than friends. Remember that.” 

You’re gone for two months. And you don’t want to pull away. You’ve fallen completely in love with your niece. You never understood parents when they said a child changed their world. Getting to be there for your sister, cutting that child’s umbilical cord, and caring for the baby did change your world. 

So, when the time comes, you’re standing across from Geronimo, handing him a month’s notice. He doesn’t believe you at first. He tosses it into the trash and tells you to go back out there. But you remind him every single day that comes. 

You don’t see much of Craig during your first two weeks back. Or any of the brothers, really. You don’t call or text Pope, not like you used to when you were begging for his attention. And you want to, badly. But you hold back. You’re proud of yourself for the time in your long life. 

Fatima calls out sick your last week in Oceanside. So you’re behind the bar this shift. It's not as much money as performing but it’s something until you’re out of here. Geronimo’s upset with you so he gives you Fatima’s gig, a sort of punishment for leaving him. But he’s not an evil man, he knows a guy up in Sacramento, getting you a secured dancer position at another club. You pressed a kiss to his scratchy cheek, thanking him. 

You’ve packed all that you own into a rented U-Haul. It’s not much, but it’s all you’ve worked for while performing at the club. And you’ve been living on scraps for something like this. For the move. You never dreamt it would be to move in with your estranged older sister and her newborn all the way up to Sacramento but you’ve got enough to secure a bigger space for the three of you. You don’t know much about children but you figure she’ll need space. 

“Woah, do my eyes deceive me? Is that the hottest woman in all of Oceanside?” You’re pulled out of your thoughts, glancing up at Craig who’s leaning against the bar again, just like he was almost three months ago. “Missed you, ballerina.” 

You smack his hand that’s sprawled on the counter, “I’ve been here. Where have you been?” 

He shrugs, running a hand through his greasy hair. “Around. Working on a big project with my mother.” 

“Ah,” you hum knowingly. “A top secret mission. You Cody’s are full of mystery.”

He agrees with a nod as he watches a new dancer walk past, blatantly staring at her ass. “Could’ve had all this.” He turns back to you. “My body. My heart. My business mind. But you chose Pope.” 

“I didn’t choose anyone.” You deny vehemently. “Haven’t spoken to him.” You bite your tongue but it still comes out. “How’s he doing?” 

“Weird.” He shrugs. “Hey, is the new girl single?”

“What do you mean weird?” 

“Weird. Just weird. He’s always weird though. Is she?” 

“As far as I can tell, yeah.” 

You get to your empty apartment that night with his words eating away at you. Weird. Pope is being weird. You know that’s who he is. You know that Pope being weird isn’t out of the ordinary. But you can’t help but wonder what’s going on in that fucked up brain of his. If something is gnawing away at him. 

You sigh, dropping your bag onto your countertop. Shake it off. You have to shake it off. You’ve got a single week left here and once you’re gone, you won’t have to think twice about your life here. It’s done. It’s over. Ties with everyone need to be severed. 

You miss your cats but you left them behind when you decided Sacramento was the way to go for the next step of your life. You’re lonely. Too lonely. You groan loudly into your pillow, frustrated with your need to fill the void with a guy. Not just any guy, Andrew. The worst you know. Did a prison stint, cheated with his brother's wife, still daydreams about sleeping with his brother's wife. You're not sure which is worse, his record or lack of loyalty to his brother.

The only thing you have in your fridge are carrots, ranch, and a bottle of sweet and cheap wine. So, deciding that the last thing your car needs is more miles on it after fourteen plus hours of driving, you realize this is the best it’s going to get. Ordering-in costs too much money too, especially since you've decided most of your money will now go to your new niece. 

The ring camera hooked onto your door rings annoyingly, the familiar tune ringing through the door and the notification through your phone. “Geez, fucking psychos–” your words are cut off when you open the notification and see a distraught looking Pope. 

You should ignore him. You were going to ignore him, pretend you weren't home even though you had just yelled. But you can see the tears in his eyes even through your shitty camera quality. And this worries you. 

Your door is swung open quickly, eyes frantically searching his body. He gets into fights sometimes, from that mysterious Cody work of his, but he's never cried over it. There's no visible blood, no open wounds that need tending to– whatever it is that's got him like this, it's not physical. 

“Fuck,” your breath is shaky as you take him in, “what’s wrong, Pope? Talk to me.” Your hands are on his face, thumbs wiping at the streaks of tears rolling down his freckled cheeks. 

The sob that leaves him makes your heart ache, and before you can think, he's pressing his face to your shoulder, crying into you. “I fucked up…” you dont hesitate to wrap your arms around him. “Bad. I fucked up, I fucked up…” he’s repeating into you. 

You're asking what's wrong in the softest tone you've ever carried for him. Your own eyes are tearing up, hands rubbing up and down at his back, trying your best to soothe him. But nothing is working. He's repeating the same phrases, calling himself a monster, that he’s going to hell after what he's done. You didn't peg him as the religious type but you can't question that now. “Shit, Pope, you aint…” you release a shaky and fearful breath, "I gotta know what you did in order to–”

His lips meet yours hastily, his salty tears mixing into the heavy kiss you're sharing. You fall into him for a moment, missing the way he felt and tasted. That familiar scotch and mint. But the sob he cries against your lips makes you crash back into reality. 

You pull your lips from his, shaking your head as you wipe him off your skin. “Pope, stop. We can't do this, you're not okay.” 

His hands are on your face, pulling you back in. “We can, we can," his voice cracks and you can't tell if it's because of how terrible he is or if he desperately needs you. “I need you… please…”

You're turning over a new leaf. You're making a move you didn't think you'd ever have the balls to make. No more trashy men, no more loneliness, and no more destructive tendencies. It’s definitely easier said than done, of course.

You realize just how fucked up you truly are when you let him press up into you, groaning as he tugs your jeans down, mouth sucking bruises into your neck. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…” your breathing is heavy as his thumb rubs at your clit. Your lips desperately search for him, moaning into his mouth when you two meet. 

You're pushed onto the couch, letting him toss your jeans to the side, panties off as well. “Wait, Pope, you don't have to–” 

He doesn't let you finish as he sucks your clit into his mouth, “I need to. Fuck, I need to…” he groans into your heat, the vibrations running through your body. “Let me have this, please,” he's begging. Not completely unusual, but the name he moans is. Since starting this tryst with him, he's always moaned out for Catherine. Instead, it's your name he's repeating as he laps away at you. 

This pushes you into your orgasm sooner than you'd like. He eats away at you like a starved man, tongue flat and drinking up every drop of you. He only pulls back when your writhing turns uncomfortable, lips glistening and staring down at you, his breathing ragged.

He doesn't seem to notice your empty apartment, tugging his cock out of his jeans. Before he can move again, you place your hand on his wrist that’s tugging at his cock. “Wait, Pope. Talk to me.”

He refuses, shaking his head, “no. just… let me fuck you, please.”

You sigh, about to deny him but you won't. Maybe you can, maybe you've finally learned how to say no to Andrew Cody. But you won't do it. Instead, you let his cock nudge into you, let him fill you up like before. You watch him carefully as his face twists up in pleasure at the grip you have on him. “Pope, I–” 

He shuts you down again, “stop, just stop. Don't ask me again.” He whimpers in your ear as he slides in and out of you, arms shaking as he holds himself up. “Tell me… tell me… please…”

You're not playing as Catherine but the only way you can tell him such a thing is by pretending to be her. You're not sure that you can act this time. Even if your feelings for him are confusing and vary on the day, you know it's not love. A fucked up version of it maybe, but you’ve debased yourself too much around him. You're unsure if you can handle more. 

The words slip out easily when a single one of his tears falls to your chest, “I l-love you, Pope. I love you, fuck, love you.”

His hips are stuttering, and he’s crying into your neck. “Promise… promise you won’t leave me too.” 

Too. That sticks out. You won’t leave me too. Someone’s left him. It’s why he’s distraught. Your legs wrap around his waist, moving him to push deeper into you. You nod, agreeing in your hazy thoughts. “Promise, I promise, Pope. I’ll never- fuck, I’ll never leave you.” 

You two cum together that night. And you hold him for hours after. He’s too wrapped up in whatever trauma he’s reeling from, to take note of your apartment. How empty it is. How you’re leaving it all behind. 

He’s facing you, thumb caressing your cheek. For the first time all night, he looks calm. At peace. “Feeling better?” You ask softly, letting yourself fall into his touch. 

His voice is rough from his previous sobbing as he answers. “Yeah, yeah… feeling better.” He presses a warm kiss to the tip of your nose, lying his forehead against yours. “Thank you… you always make me… make me feel better.” 

You hum in content, letting him hold you on your couch. “Of course, Pope. I…” you clear your throat gently. “I care about you. Whenever you want to talk about it, I’m here.” A lie. You won't be here. You’ll never be there for him. And the thought makes you want to cry. 

He falls asleep, giving you the chance to slip out of his hold. You wrap your fluffy robe around your naked body as you slide into the bathroom. 

You don’t recognize yourself. You never have, really. There are deep bags under your eyes, skin having lost that glow of yours. Not that it was ever truly vibrant but it was never this dull. You’ve never been this dull. He’s sucking the life out of you. You’re letting him suck the life out of you. 

He wants you now that someone’s left him. Now that you’ve found even a tiny semblance of footing in your life, a reason for being— he wants you. 

You wonder if this is how your mother felt late at night after a long days of letting men use her. You wonder if she went from man after man to pull away from the one she really wanted. You wonder if she ever, at least once in her cruel life, wished you’d never be crying over your bathroom sink over a man. You remembered seeing her crying like this. Hiccuping silent sobs, gripping onto her chest, as if begging her heart to stop. 

You’ve never felt closer to your mother than you do now. 

—-

Leaving for your final shift is hard. It’s not supposed to be your final shift. You have three more in the books but you can’t handle any more of this. You need to leave sooner rather than later. 

Pope is sleeping like a log when you leave, not a single finger twitching. His long nights have caught up to him, which is helping you. You’ve packed the last of your stuff in your car, nothing but wrappers and the man who’s ruined you in your apartment. 

You mess up on countless drinks behind the bar. Most of the men scold you but a handful of them pity you. You’re not sure which is worse. One too many complaints to Geronimo and he tells you to go home. He doesn’t need the hassle of an emotional server. He’s confused when you wrap your arms around him, thanking him. He shoves you off, tells you to stop being such a crybaby. 

You’re on your way to your car when Craig’s familiar voice calls out to you. You turn, smiling softly at him. “Hey, Craig.”

His eyebrows furrow, “the hell is wrong with you?” 

You realize then that you haven’t told him you’re leaving. You sigh, grip tight around your bag. “I’m leaving.” 

“Well, duh. But this is really early for you.” 

You roll your eyes, “no, I mean, I’m leaving Oceanside.” You admit, wording yourself better. 

This stuns him. “What? Why? Where?” 

You nod with a small yawn, “yeah. Uhm, I have family out in Sacramento. Came to realize that’s what I need. It’s too… lonely out here.”

It takes a second but he eventually nods, “I get it. I’d go crazy without mine. When are you leaving?”

You glance down at your phone, it’s almost five and all you need to do is fill up your car and go. “Right now, actually.” 

“Geez,” he nudges your shoulder. “Late notice.” He pauses and the smile he shares with you is genuine. “Take care of yourself out there, ballerina. Always got a friend if you’re ever back in the city.”

“We’re friends?” You tease, nodding. “Thank you, Craig.” But this is too sentimental for the two of you. “Want to motorboat me before I go?” 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He gasps. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” 

“I’m kidding, pervert.” You punch his arm as you walk past him. “Bye, Craig.” 

Before you can climb into the driver's seat, he asks. “Pope doesn’t know?” 

You don’t hesitate. “No. He doesn’t.” 

He lets out a troubled whistle. “Sheesh. Did he screw up that bad?”

You laugh, “nah. I did.” 

“Find that hard to believe.” 

“Yeah, well,” you climb into your car with a sigh. “You’ve never had sex with me.” 

“Not for lack of trying!” He calls out as you reverse, flipping him off. 

The tall man waves his arms dramatically as you drive off, blowing kisses as he gets smaller and smaller until you can’t see him any longer. 

It’s not the Cody you wanted a goodbye from, but you’re also content it’s not the one who's broken you.

BE CAREFUL WHO YOU’RE NICE TO.

that should be, like, a fortune cookie saying. a PSA. a goddamn public service announcement played on loop at every fennel fields employee orientation. "warning: being a decent human being may result in obsessive bodyguard behavior from coworker." but no, no one warned you, and now you're here, staring at your phone at 11:47 PM on a tuesday, looking at a text that just says: "I'm outside."

you didn't ask him to be outside. you didn't invite him over. you didn't even tell him you were home tonight—except, oh wait, you did. sort of. kind of. technically you mentioned it at work like eight hours ago in passing, something about "finally getting a night off to watch that show everyone won't shut up about," and apparently adrian's brain put that down under critical intel that requires action.

it started three weeks ago.

well—if you're being honest, it started four weeks ago, but you didn't realize what was happening during week one. week one was just... adrian being adrian. weird, intense, probably-means-well-but-comes-off-unhinged. you know the type. or, actually, you don't know the type, because there IS no type like adrian. he's in his own category. his own special little bubble of what is happening right now. you worked the register, he worked the floor, and your interactions were limited to him asking where you wanted him to put the new shipment of napkins (you: "anywhere is fine." him: "no but where do YOU want them. specifically.") and trying not to make eye contact during the awkward silence that followed.

you'd stand there, hand hovering over the register scanner, wondering if this was flirting or a social skills deficit or if adrian had maybe never interacted with another human before and was learning in real-time. probably the third thing. maybe all three. he had this way of talking that was just off, like he'd learned social interaction from someone who'd also never spoken to a human.

but here's the thing—and you're self-aware enough to admit this, even if it makes you sound insane—adrian was kind of... cute?

no. not cute. that's not the right word. cute implies harmless, like a puppy or a small child. adrian was more like a cat that brings you dead birds and expects praise. unsettling but weirdly endearing? he had that dark curly hair that always looked like he'd just rolled out of bed (you'd caught yourself wondering if it was soft—stop it, brain), and those glasses he wore sometimes that made him look less like a busboy and more like a deranged grad student. and okay, fine, he had a nice smile. the kind that took over his whole face when you said literally anything positive to him, like you'd just told him he won the lottery instead of yeah, the napkins are fine there, thanks.

then one day, some middle-aged dude with a bad combover and an expired coupon for 10% off got mad that you wouldn't take it. policy is policy—you've been written up before for this exact thing, but he wasn't hearing it. he did that thing where men of a certain age lean over the counter to make themselves bigger, and he pointed at you, finger extended, the full accusatory gesture—and said, exact words: "you're gonna regret this."

with finger-guns. he made finger-guns while saying it. you laughed. you couldn't help it. it was so absurd, so cartoonish, that your brain shorter into nervous laughter. he stomped out. you manager, travis, poked his head out from the back office, asked if you were good, you said yeah, and that was that. incident over. you'd already forgotten about it by the time you clocked out.

adrian did not forget about it.

adrian, apparently, had been on the other side of the store, stacking boxes of industrial-size ketchup bottles, and had heard everything. you didn't even know he was within earshot until seven minutes later when he appeared at your register—materialized, really, like he'd teleported—looking weird. weirder than usual. he was breathing hard, like he'd sprinted over (from where? the ketchup aisle is like fifteen feet away?), and his eyes were doing that thing again. that wide, intense, unblinking thing that made you wonder if he was okay or if he was about to start speaking in tongues. "hey." his voice was aggressively casual. "that guy. the coupon guy."

"yeah?" you were only half-listening, too busy doing your job like a normal person.

"did he threaten you?"

you looked up. "what?"

"because it sounded like he threatened you. that was definitely a threat, right? you should report that. or—or I can handle it. I can definitely handle it."

"it's fine. he's just a dick. this happens all the time."

"that's—" adrian blinked rapidly, like he was processing. "that's a gun gesture. that's a threat of violence. that's—he gestured a gun at you, and guns kill people, so that's a death threat, which means—"

"i really don't think—"

"—i'll take care of it."

he said it so simply, the way you'd say "I'll grab the mail" or "I'll take out the trash." just I'll take care of it, and then he walked away, back to the ketchup bottles, leaving you standing there with a growing sense of what the fuck just happened. you told yourself he meant reporting it to management. maybe filling out an incident report. travis was big on incident reports. maybe adrian was going to... file paperwork? that's a thing people do, right? normal workplace conflict resolution?

coupon guy never came back to the store.

also—and this is probably unrelated, definitely unrelated, completely unrelated—someone on the local facebook group posted grainy cell phone footage of what looked like a masked person in the fennel fields parking lot that same night. the post was very dramatic, all caps, lots of exclamation points: "VIGILANTE SIGHTING!!! IS NOWHERE SAFE???" you saw it while scrolling at 2 AM (insomnia is a bitch).

you wouldn't be entertaining any of this—the location tracking, the sudden appearances, the general weirdness—if there wasn't some part of you that found it... interesting. intriguing. the kind of story you'd tell your friends about while insisting it was "totally creepy" but secretly kind of enjoying the attention, because let's be honest, when was the last time someone paid this much attention to you? your ex couldn't remember your coffee order after two years. your parents forgot your birthday last year. and here's adrian, remembering that you mentioned wanting a quiet night in during a three-second conversation while restocking condiment packets.

adrian's outside, right now, while you're sitting on your couch in a three-day-old shirt that says "i paused my game to be here" (a lie, you don't play games, you bought it at target because it was five dollars), wearing shorts, trying to watch this show that everyone on the internet has been feral about for six months. you've made it through exactly twelve minutes. the main character just discovered her husband is a serial killer or a time traveler or something—you weren't fully paying attention because you were eating chips from the bag like an animal, and now adrian's outside.

you stare at the text, just those two words. "i'm outside." no context. no "hey are you busy" or "is it cool if i stop by" or any of the normal social conventions that people usually employ before showing up at someone's apartment at 11:47 PM on a fucking tuesday. your thumb hovers over the keyboard. you should ask why. you should ask how he even knows where you live—wait, no, you gave him your address last week when he insisted on sending you a link to that youtube video about proper kitchen knife maintenance and somehow that devolved into him asking for your address "in case of emergency" and you, like an idiot, gave it to him. so that's on you. that's your fault. you've enabled this.

you type why are you outside and the three dots appear instantly, like he's been staring at his phone. you can picture it: adrian in his car, probably that weird sedan that's both boring and unsettling, phone in hand, eyes on the screen, waiting for you to respond so he can pounce. the dots bounce. stop. bounce again. he's typing something long, this is going to be a whole thing. you can feel it. "you said you were watching the show," his text says. "i haven't seen it. i should probably see it. can i watch it with you."

this has been happening for three weeks. three weeks of adrian chase appearing wherever you are. at first you thought it was coincidence. the city's not that big, people run into each other, but then it kept happening, and happening, and happening, and the coincidences started feeling less like coincidences and more like a pattern. last thursday you mentioned—in passing, so casual you barely remember saying it—that you were going to grab coffee before your shift. "gonna hit up that coffee place on main." and when you walked into the coffee place, there was adrian, sitting at a table with two coffees. he looked up when you walked in and his whole face did this brightening thing like someone turned on a light inside his head, and went "oh hey! i got you a coffee. i remembered your order. is that right? i hope that's right. i paid attention last time."

he had. he'd paid attention. the coffee was exactly right, down to the specific amount of ice you prefer (light, because you drink slow and don't want it watered down). you should have been creeped out. you should have asked questions like how did you know i'd be here and have you been following me and is this a police matter, but instead you sat down, drank the coffee, and listened to adrian talk about his weekend (he deep-cleaned) and realized that this was nice. having someone remember your coffee order.

or the time you mentioned wanting to check out that new bookstore downtown. didn't say when. didn't invite anyone. just mentioned it to your coworker during a slow shift, something like "i heard there's a new bookstore with a cat, i love cats, might go this weekend." they nodded and went back to scrolling on their phone and you thought that was the end of it.

saturday afternoon you walked into the bookstore and there was adrian, crouched on the floor, petting the cat. he looked up when the door chimed and his face did the thing again—the light-up thing—and he went "you came! i was hoping you'd come today. i've been here for like two hours. this is gerald." he held up the cat. the cat looked resigned to its fate. "he's very soft. do you want to pet him?"

"adrian how did you know i'd be here today."

"you said you'd come this weekend."

"i didn't say when."

"well it's saturday. most people do weekend stuff on saturday. sunday is for like. chores and sadness. so i figured saturday."

"you've been here for two hours."

"i wanted to make sure i didn't miss you."

that's the thing you keep coming back to when you're trying to figure out if this is cute or concerning or both. adrian wants to see you. wants to spend time with you. wants to be around you. you look back at his text, can i watch it with you. pros of letting adrian come up. one: you won't be watching the show alone, and you're pretty sure there are going to be twists and you'll want someone to react with. two: adrian always brings snacks. he's a snack bringer. three: you're lonely. four: this might be the only social interaction you have this week and it's tuesday.

cons: one: it's 11:47 PM and letting someone into your apartment this late feels like a choices that future-you will judge. two: adrian is definitely obsessed with you in a way that's not normal. three: you're wearing shorts. four: what if he's a serial killer. no wait he can't be a serial killer he's too much of a golden retriever. serial killers are supposed to be charming and manipulative and adrian is just. intense. and earnest. and a lot.

you're overthinking this.

you’re about to type a response, something noncommittal, something that buys you time to make an actual decision like a functional adult, when there's a knock at your door. which means he's already inside the building. which means he bypassed the broken lock. which means he didn't wait for you to answer. he just invited himself up to your floor and is now knocking on your door like this is something people do. "are you fucking kidding me." you say out loud to your empty apartment.

another knock, more insistent this time. you get up and shuffle to the door to look through the peephole, and yeah, there he is. adrian chase, holding what looks like not one but two grocery bags. his glasses are sliding down his nose, wearing a jacket that's too heavy for the weather. he looks like an overeager puppy waiting to be let in from the rain except it's not raining and nobody asked him to come.

you open the door.

"you didn't answer your texts." he says immediately, like that justifies home invasion.

"i was typing—"

"you could have been in danger."

"i was on my couch."

"you could have been in danger on your couch." he says dead seriously. "people get attacked in their homes all the time. it's actually more common than—"

"how did you get into the building?”

"the lock is broken. i told you a week ago the lock is broken. anyone could get in, that's why i'm here."

"you got in because the lock is broken."

"well, yeah, but i'm one of the good ones."

"that's what they all say, adrian."

"who's they?"

"home invaders."

"i'm not invading i'm protecting." he hefts the grocery bags like they're evidence. "i brought supplies for the stakeout."

you stare at him. "the what.?”

"the stakeout? we're watching your apartment. making sure no one suspicious comes by."

"no we’re not we're watching a .. show?”

"yeah as a cover. it's called hiding in plain sight."

"hiding from who?"

"from whoever that guy sends."

there it is, the thing that's been driving all of this. the thing adrian's been obsessing over for three weeks. that one customer. the finger-guns guy. the expired-coupon guy. the man who said four words and then left and has probably never thought about you again in his entire life. "adrian," you say, and you're trying so hard to be patient. you're trying SO hard. "that guy is not sending anyone. that guy forgot about me seventeen seconds after he left the store."

"you don't know that, he THREATENED you."

"with finger-guns."

"finger-guns are a THREAT GESTURE."

"they're really not—"

"he pointed at you in an aggressive manner and verbally stated you would regret your actions. that's textbook threatening behavior, and now you have a target on your back."

you're going to pop a blood vessel right here in your doorway while adrian chase explains threat assessment to you like you're in an episode of CSI. "i don't have a target on my back."

"you don't know that, what if you're not fine."

"then i'll. i don't know. call the cops? like a normal person?"

"cops take seven minutes average response time in this neighborhood. a lot can happen in seven minutes."

"how do you know the response time—you know what. i don't want to know." you step aside because he's not leaving, you can tell he's not leaving, he's got that look. that determined look. like he's made a decision and physics itself couldn't move him. "just come in. but we're NOT doing a stakeout. we're watching television. like normal people. normally."

"normal people don't have broken building locks," he says, but he's already moving past you, toeing off his shoes, setting the grocery bags on your coffee table/ottoman situation with the kind of care someone might use when handling explosives. you close the door and lock it. the deadbolt you installed yourself because yes, fine, the building lock IS broken and your landlord sucks. you turn around and adrian's just standing there in your living room, looking around like he's cataloguing exits. threat assessment. whatever neurotic thing his brain is doing. "your window locks are good." he announces.

"i'm sorry?"

"i checked last week when i was doing a perimeter sweep. your window locks are actually really good. above average."

"you did a perimeter sweep of my building?”

"of course i did. how else would i know if it was secure?"

"most people don't. they just. live places. without doing perimeter sweeps."

"most people also don't have customers threatening them at work."

"oh my god—"

"i'm just being cautious." he's pulling things out of the grocery bags now. chips. your chips. and cookies. and candy. and what looks like—- is that a first aid kit. "because if something happens and i wasn't prepared, that's on me. that's my fault. i can't let that happen."

"okay, we can. watch the show. and you can do your whole..." you gesture at him, at the situation, at everything. "...bodyguard thing, but you have to sit down and you have to stop doing perimeter checks of my apartment because you're making me nervous."

"that's good." he says.

"what?"

"that i'm making you nervous. that means you're alert. aware of your surroundings."

"adrian that's not what that means."

"it's important to stay vigilant—"

"i'm going to sit down now," you announce. "and start this show and you're going to sit somewhere that's not right in front of my door blocking the exit—"

"i should be by the door in case someone tries to—"

"—and we're going to watch TV like NORMAL PEOPLE."

he considers this. you can see him considering it. weighing the pros and cons of door-blocking versus making you comfortable. finally he nods, grabs a bag of chips, and sits on your floor in front of the couch but angled so he can still see the door. because of course he angles himself toward the door. you sit down, pull the blanket over your legs, and grab the remote. "for the record," you say, "that guy is not coming back. no one is coming after me. i'm the most boring person alive."

"you're not boring," adrian passionately defends. "you're really not boring."

you don't know what to say to that, so you don't say anything. you just press play. the show starts. opening credits. moody music. some actress you vaguely recognize from that other show everyone was obsessed with two years ago. she's walking through a house, looking confused, touching things like she's never seen a lamp before. "do you think she has amnesia?" adrian asks.

"i don't know."

"she's touching everything like she doesn't know what things are. that's classic amnesia behavior."

"or she's just looking around. like people do."

"no one touches a lamp like that unless they've forgotten what lamps are."

you glance at him. he's completely serious. staring at the screen with this intense focus like he's studying for a test. you realize, this is maybe the saddest thing you've thought all week, that adrian probably doesn't do this a lot. just watch tv. hang out, be normal. he's got that energy, that lonely person energy, the kind where they get too excited about small things because small things don't happen to them very often.

you work with him four shifts a week, have for the past six months, and you've never seen him talk to anyone except you and the kitchen staff and that one time he had a full conversation with the espresso machine that you're pretty sure he thought was broken but was just unplugged. he busses tables. you host. sometimes serve when it's busy. the other servers think he's weird. you've heard them. "that guy's so fucking intense." "he stares." "why does he run everywhere. we're not THAT busy." and yeah, okay, adrian does run everywhere. does stare. is fucking intense. but he's also nice. he remembers that you don't like working the section near the kitchen because it gets too hot. he always buses your tables first. he brings you sprite when you're hungover even though you've never told him you're hungover. he just knows.

now he's here, in your apartment at midnight, because some guy did finger-guns at you three weeks ago and adrian decided that meant you need 24/7 protection. on screen the main character opens a closet and gasps. "see," adrian says. "time loop. i bet she's gonna find a version of herself."

"that's not. that's a completely different thing from amnesia."

"time loops can cause amnesia."

he shifts on the floor to adjust his position. you can tell he's uncomfortable. the floor is hard, you have like one decorative rug that's more aesthetic than functional and he's sitting half on it half off it. "you can sit on the couch." you hear yourself say.

adrian's head whips around so fast you're worried about his neck. "really?"

"the floor is uncomfortable."

"i don't mind—"

"you're fidgeting."

"i'm not fidgeting."

"you've adjusted your position four times in three minutes."

he stops mid-fidget. "oh."

"just. come sit up here."

he doesn't move. "are you sure.”

"oh my god yes just sit on the couch before i change my mind."

he scrambles up. scrambles is the word, he doesn't stand up like a normal person, he like. springs. launches himself from floor to couch in one uncoordinated movement that makes the whole couch shake. lands next to you, way closer than you expected, close enough that you can smell his detergent. something generic. tide maybe. and also, is that axe body spray? oh god it's definitely axe body spray. you didn't know people still used that. you thought that died in 2012. "sorry," he says. "too close?"

he starts to scoot away, but here's the thing you're realizing as he's about to put distance between you, you don't actually want him to move. which is. a whole thing you're going to have to unpack later. maybe in therapy. definitely in therapy. "you're fine.”

he stops. goes very very still, like if he doesn't move you won't notice he's there. which is insane because you're hyperaware of him being there. of his leg almost touching your leg. of the way he's sitting with his back straight, like he's in a job interview. "you can relax. " you tell him.

"i am relaxed."

"you look uncomfortable."

"i'm comfortable." he says it with absolutely no conviction. you could blow on him and he'd topple over.

you're about to say something else—something about how he needs to chill the fuck out—when his phone buzzes. he pulls it out. looks at it. frowns. "everything okay?" you ask.

"yeah it's just—-chris is asking where i am."

chris. you know chris. everyone knows chris. christopher smith. peacemaker. the guy who's been all over the news for that thing with the butterflies that you're still not entirely sure was real or some kind of mass hallucination. adrian talks about chris the way people talk about their best friend. their only friend. which. yeah. is probably accurate. "what'd you tell him?"

"that i'm on a stakeout."

"adrian—"

"he's asking if i need backup."

"oh my god do NOT bring peacemaker to my apartment."

"i'm telling him i'm fine." adrian's typing fast, frowning at his phone. "he's asking if this is about the threat against you."

you stare at him. "you told people about the finger-guns guy?"

"i told chris."

"WHY."

"he's my best friend! you tell your best friend when someone threatens someone you—" he stops. "someone you know."

someone you what. someone you care about? someone you like? someone you're obsessed with in a way that's definitely not healthy and requires professional intervention? "what did chris say?" you ask, because you cannot deal with the someone-you-what thing right now.

“he said i should handle it."

"handle it how?”

adrian looks at you, confused by all your pestering apparently, and blinks. "he didn't specify."

"adrian."

"i'm watching you. that's handling it! this is me handling it." he's already distracted. his eyes have wandered from the tv to your bookshelf. the one next to the tv that you haven't organized in like eight months. it's got books and random shit. a candle you never use. a succulent that's barely alive. some polaroids tucked into the side. "you have a lot of books." adrian comments suddenly.

"that's what bookshelves are for."

"have you read all of them?"

"...some of them."

"which ones?"

"i don't know. like. half?"

"why do you have books you haven't read?"

"because i want to read them. eventually."

"when?"

"i don't know adrian when i have time."

"you have time now."

"i'm watching tv with you."

"you could read instead."

"you asked to watch tv with me."

and now he's getting up, walking over to the bookshelf, crouching down, and pulling books out. this man who invited himself over to protect you from finger-guns guy is now examining your reading habits. "this one looks sad." he says, holding up a book with a blue cover.

"most books are sad."

"why do you read sad things?" he puts the book back. pulls out another one. "this one has a dog on it."

"yes."

"does the dog die?"

"i don't know i haven't read it."

"if the dog dies i don't think you should read it."

"noted."

he's methodically going through your shelf now. pulling books, reading the backs, making commentary. "this one's about murder." "this one's about space." "this one looks pretentious." and you're just sitting there, watching your weird coworker organize your life without being asked. "adrian what are you doing."

"looking."

"at my books."

"yeah."

"why."

"because they're yours. i want to know about them."

that's kind of sweet actually. in an invasive way. he's trying to know you through your stuff. through the things you own. the things you've chosen to keep. he moves from the bookshelf to your coffee table, picks up the remote, and examines it like he's never seen one before. "this has a lot of buttons." he observes.

"it's a universal remote."

"for what?"

"...universal things?"

"that's not specific."

"tv. sound bar. the little light thing."

"you have a light thing?"

"yeah the. the lamp that changes colors."

"why does it change colors?"

"for ambiance."

"what's ambiance?"

you stare at him. "do you not know what ambiance is?"

"i know what it is i just don't understand why you need it."

"it's. it makes the room feel different. cozy."

"your room already feels cozy."

"thank you?"

"you're welcome."

he puts the remote down. picks up a coaster. it's got a cat on it. your friend jess gave it to you as a joke because you don't even have a cat. "do you have a cat?" adrian asks.

"no."

"why do you have a cat coaster?"

"it was a gift."

"from who?"

"jess."

"why did she give you a cat coaster if you don't have a cat?"

"because it's funny."

"is it?"

"she thought it was."

"huh." he studies the coaster. turns it over. examines both sides. "i don't get it."

"the joke?"

"yeah."

"it's ironic."

"why is that funny?"

you don't have an answer for that. you're realizing adrian might not understand irony. like at all. he's so earnest. so literal. irony probably doesn't compute. "never mind."

he sits back down on the couch, closer this time. he doesn't seem to notice, or if he notices he doesn't care. he's looking at the tv now. the show's still playing. you've lost the plot entirely. “what's happening?" he asks.

"i have no idea."

"should we rewind?"

"i don't even care anymore."

"me neither."

you look at him. "then why are we still watching it?"

"i don't know. it seemed rude to turn it off."

"rude to who?"

"the tv?"

you laugh. "you think it's rude to turn off the tv?"

"i don't know how tvs feel about things."

"tvs don't have feelings."

"well, what if you're wrong and we've been hurting tv feelings this whole time?”

he's grinning, that little grin that means he's fucking with you, or he's serious, with adrian it's impossible to tell, and you're smiling. sitting here at 12:47 AM with your coworker who invited himself over and has spent the last forty minutes examining your possessions. you've had fun. actual fun. the kind you haven't had in. months? longer? you can't remember the last time someone came over and just existed with you.

you're realizing—as you sit here with your legs tucked under you and adrian's presence taking up space in your apartment—that you could let this continue. you could let him stay. let him sit here on your couch and talk about tv feelings and reorganize your bookshelf. you could fall asleep with him here. wake up to him still here. that's terrifying. that's way too much too fast. that's the kind of thing that happens in relationships.

there's no way you're letting adrian sleep over. if he stays he'll definitely touch more of your stuff, examine every object you own, probably organize your kitchen cabinets, and talk all night about everything. ask you questions at 3 AM like "do you think fish know they're wet" and you'll be too tired to tell him to shut up and you'll end up having a two-hour conversation about fish consciousness.

you need to kick him out. but like, nicely, because he's sweet in his weird obsessive way, and you don't want to hurt his feelings, don't want him to think you don't like him, because you do like him, unfortunately, against your better judgment. you like adrian chase. "hey." you say.

he looks at you. immediate attention. full focus. it's kind of overwhelming how he does that. "you have work tomorrow right?" you question, watching him watch you.

"yeah. closing shift."

"what time?"

"four to eleven."

"that's late."

"yeah."

"you should probably get some sleep. so you're prepared. for the shift."

he blinks at you. "it's only one AM."

"right but but you need to be alert. for work. can't be bussing tables if you're tired. that's dangerous."

"dangerous?"

"you could drop plates. or trip. workplace safety is important adrian."

"i've never dropped a plate."

"there's a first time for everything."

"i guess." he's looking at you weird, trying to figure something out. you can see his brain working. "are you tired?"

"me? no. i mean, kind of, but that's not. i'm just saying YOU should probably go home. and sleep. be responsible."

"oh." his face falls, just slightly. barely noticeable except you're noticing everything about him now. every micro expression. "you want me to leave."

"no i'm thinking about your wellbeing. sleep is important."

"i will eventually. but i'm fine now. i'm not tired."

he's not getting it. he thinks you're genuinely concerned about his sleep schedule, which you are, kind of, but that's not the point. "what about preparation?" you try. "for tomorrow. you probably need to, i don't know, prepare things. get your stuff ready."

"for bussing tables?"

"yeah."

"what stuff do i need?"

"i don't know. your bus. bussing supplies."

"we have those at work."

"right, but, personal supplies. things you bring."

"i don't bring anything."

"maybe you should start."

"like what?"

you're grasping. completely grasping. "i don't know. a. a water bottle. stay hydrated. very important."

"i can fill up a water bottle in the morning."

"takes time though. you should do it tonight. be efficient."

"it takes like thirty seconds."

"still, every second counts."

he's staring at you now, trying to decode what you're actually saying. you're so bad at this. "do you not want me here anymore?" he asks finally.

"what? no. i mean. i had fun. this was nice."

"but you want me to leave."

"i just think it's late. and we both have work. and it's responsible to get rest."

"you said you're not tired."

"i'm not but i will be. probably soon."

"so i could stay until you're tired?”

"adrian—"

"i don't mind, i like being here with you. this is the best night i've had in a while. maybe ever. i don't really have good nights. most nights are just nights. but this was good. you're good."

"i had a good time too," you say. "you're fun to hang out with."

"really?"

"yeah. you're weird but like, good weird. interesting weird."

he smiles. "you're the first person who's ever said that."

"that you're weird?"

"that it's good."

oh. that's sad. that's really fucking sad, and you're realizing that adrian probably doesn't get this a lot. people being nice to him. people wanting him around. people saying yeah you're weird but i like it. he's got chris, and that's probably it. everyone else probably thinks he's too much. and he is too much. he is intense. "you should go," you say. "not because i don't want you here, but because i do. want you here. and if you stay i'll want you to stay longer. and then it'll be 4 AM and we'll both be zombies at work tomorrow."

"you're kicking me out because you like me?"

"basically yeah."

"that doesn't make sense."

"i know but it's a boundaries thing. a self-preservation thing. if i don't make you leave now i won't make you leave at all."

"would that be bad?"

yes. yes it would be bad. it would be bad because you barely know him. because he's your coworker. because he tracks your location and does perimeter sweeps. because letting him stay means admitting this is something. means acknowledging that you want this to be something, and you're not ready for that. not tonight. not at 1 AM when you're tired and he's looking at you like that. “just go home adrian. please. we can do this again. hang out. watch tv. whatever. but tonight you need to go home."

he nods slowly, stands up, grabs his jacket, and he looks .. disappointed but also understanding, like he gets it even if he doesn't fully get it. "okay," he says. "i'll go."

"thank you."

"but i'm checking the perimeter first."

"fine. check your perimeter."

"our perimeter. it's your building. your perimeter."

he's at the door, putting on his shoes, taking his time like he's hoping you'll change your mind. tell him to stay. part of you wants to. part of you wants to say fuck it nevermind stay all night let's see what happens. but the rational part, the self-preservation part, the part that knows this is already too much, that part wins. "text me when you get home." you say.

he looks up, surprised. "really?"

"yeah. so i know you're safe. since you're so concerned about my safety it's only fair."

"okay!!! i will!!!"

"this was nice. i'm glad you came over."

his whole face lights up. "me too."

he's lingering. you realize he doesn't know how to leave. this guy has no idea what the social protocol for ending the night is, so you make the decision for him. "goodnight adrian."

"goodnight."

"go."

"i'm going."

and he does, finally, the door clicking shut behind him, his footsteps fading down the hallway. the building settles back into silence. you don't go to the window this time, you just sit there on your couch in the warm spot he left behind. this is a bad idea. this whole thing. letting your weird obsessive coworker into your apartment. into your life. letting yourself care about someone who thinks finger-guns are a credible threat and does security sweeps of your building at midnight.

but bad ideas have always been more interesting than good ones, and adrian chase is nothing if not interesting.

you turn off the lights. your apartment goes dark except for the streetlight glow through your window, the same window adrian checked last week during his "perimeter sweep." the same window he'll probably check again next week. and the week after that.

and you're realizing you're okay with that.

more than okay.

you're looking forward to it.

fuck.

STARTED 2.9.2026. POSTED 2.9.2026.

  ⸝⸝  masterlist  .ᐟ  𝜗𝜚

©️ latedeparture

You've been working at the Daily Planet for a couple of years now— kind of. You were in and out of their offices on a frequent basis on behalf of your boss at House of Vectra, whose PR division has something of an "outpost" within the news outlet's building. What better place to control their image out of, right?

That's all you really are— a PR Liaison, but with years of experience and seniority at the fashion house, you were weaselling your way into a "fabrication and materials researcher" position. Which… is not a real job at any other clothing company in the world.

"No, I apologize— Miss Vectra is in a meeting at the moment. However, you've reached the House of Vectra Public Relations Department. Is there anything I may answer for you?" You ask the reporter on the phone, spinning in your chair absentmindedly. It was the fourth call of this kind today; appeasing a journalist tasked with a piece on the upcoming Convergence couture show that was consuming the man-hours of everyone at the house and apparently many people on the outside as well.

"Yes, actually— if you don't mind." The voice responds, and you can hear the shuffle of a notebook being opened. "What can you share in regards to these 'never-before-seen materials' being teased in advertisements?"

"Nothing at this time." You answer, grabbing the edge of your desk to stop your spinning and quell the dizziness creeping in. You pick up your pencil, scribbling mindlessly on your in-progress sketch of a dress that lived exclusively in your dreams.

"Can we expect a specific palette? Public speculations are leaning toward more metallic tones."

You roll your eyes. Yes, of course you can expect metallic tones— this is House Vectra we're talking about, is it not? Metallics were all they really did. Metalicism, on an anti-heroistic platform, trying to bring "power" to the masses. (The masses that made over six figures annually, that is.)

"I am not at liberty to share any details in regard to the exclusive designs at this time." You recite kindly, though it was impossible to completely shut out the drone of your script. "I can help you acquire press passes to the event, however, if that would be of interest to you or your team."

Along with metallic tones, the coveted House of Vectra specialized in sharp angles, clean lines, architectural shapes— the type of fashion the upper classes thrived in and the lower viewed as "goofy". The type of overly technologized clothing that thrived on red carpets and was removed in MET Gala bathrooms to be exchanged for something you could actually move in without help.

You take down the contact information of the journalist eager for a chance at press passes to the show, and inform them that they are now on the (endlessly growing) waitlist, and now all they have to do is wait for a call.

No call will come; you're already sure of that by the time you hang up the phone.

You sigh quietly to yourself, putting your desk phone down and taking a sip of your iced lemonade while you settle in to get as much done on your design sketch as you can before the phone rings again in about twenty seconds.

"Hello, miss, excuse me? I'm sorry to interrupt, but—"

Your head snaps up, and you shove your sketchbook under a stack of papers next to you. "You're not interrupting anything! What can I help with?" You say, sitting up straighter and shifting to face the man standing on the other side of your desk more fully.

Wow, another girl working in fashion dreaming of being a designer herself. How cliché.

Your embarrassed assumption of his impression was, however, the furthest possible thing from the truth. Clark Kent's eyes linger on the now mostly covered pages of your sketches, knowing already that you were the perfect person for the job.

He'd seen you around the building before— in the short time he'd been here, that is. You carried that sketchbook around everywhere, keeping it tucked under your arm even when you were carrying boxes of highly confidential fabric samples (okay, maybe he used x-ray vision to peek once when he was in the elevator with you, but that was purely out of curiosity and he didn't know what they were or why they were confidential, and they have remained that way, he's never told anyone!) He's seen you with it sitting on the steps outside the building during lunch breaks, scribbling and erasing away over vaguely human-shaped forms drawn on the pages.

A creative mind, a passion, and clearly enough talent to get hired at that really fancy brand that he knew very little about but was known for experimental materials— you had to be the perfect girl for the job.

Well, it was worth asking, anyway.

"Hey, hi! I mean, hello, uh… miss." He grins, glancing around briefly to double-check that no one was paying too much attention— even though he looked ridiculously out of place on this floor. "My name is Clark Kent, I work for the Daily Planet."

"Yes! Right, I've seen you around a little bit." You smile, nudging the papers more over your sketchbook and folding your hands in your lap. "You're the new journalist upstairs."

"One of a few, yeah." He nods, fidgeting with the strap on his leather bookbag. "I was… hoping you might be able to help me with something. Can I—.. would you like to come over for dinner sometime? Whenever you're free."

Easily— that was the weirdest way you'd ever been asked out.

Easily, he realized how that sounded when your eyes widen slightly and your lips part without words.

"Not like that!" He insists quickly. "That sounds terrible— I… gosh, it's not what that sounded like. At all. It's work-related. Fashion-related, kind of… and I just need a second set of eyes on something, and I can pay you for your help, and I will make you dinner, but just… please?"

You were incredibly confused but certainly intrigued, and even if you definitely were not in the business of going to people's houses on the first date… he seemed incredibly harmless. He looked familiar— every time you'd seen him, he would give you that tight-lipped, dimpled smile and raise his hand in a wave, and that wasn't the behaviour of a predator, right?

"Sure, okay." You agree with a soft laugh and a shrug of the 'why not?' variety, reaching for your business card on the desk and handing one to him. "Text me the address, and we can figure out a time."

So, on Saturday evening, because apparently neither of you have any bigger plans, you're standing next to his dining table looking at crude and vague attempts he's made at drawing some clothes he'd like you to make for him.

"You want… indestructible workout clothes? What kind of reps are you doing?" You ask incredulously, raising an eyebrow as you look up at him before back down at the drawings. They weren't very helpful, but… they were cute.

Clark scratches the back of his neck, eyes widening a bit as he tries to piece together an excuse. "Uh… HIIT?"

"Okay." You reply, tilting your head and nodding slowly. "I mean, I know people who have done HIIT programs, and there usually isn't very much… fire involved." You tap one of the pages, particularly where he scribbled down a note about fireproofing.

He sighs, grimacing. Honestly, he didn't have much of a plan for explaining it to you. "Yeah, I, um… I'm a firefighter."

You look up at him again and just blink, obviously unconvinced.

He hadn't been outright rejected yet, though, so that was a good sign.

"I'm not a firefighter, but I'd like to be." He corrects, but your expression doesn't really change. "Okay, it's a long story, but to sum it up very briefly, I'm kind of like… metahuman, basically. And since I've moved here and been working at The Planet, I've seen that there's so much crime and danger concentrated in big cities, because I'm from Kansas and everything was great there and not so dangerous most of the time and I just—.. I want to help people."

Your eyes widen with confusion at first, but soften when his rambling trails off. You nod firmly, jaw set with more determination and less skepticism. "Let's do it, then."

He's surprised you don't have any follow-up questions, any real shock, but he's glad for it. Should he have told you that? Probably not, but you seemed trustworthy enough. You wanted to help, after all. He places his palms on the table next to you. "Okay. Let's do it."

The follow-up questions would come later, when you actually started trying to figure out what would work. When you got the answers you needed, scribbling his answers down in your sketchbook on a fresh page after you tried to recreate, with more familiar hands to clothing design, the drawings he'd done first.

"Wait, wait… If you're going to be flying, this won't work." You say, stopping in the middle of your sketch. The room was dim now, lit only by the lamp in the corner and the city lights streaming in from outside his windows. You'd been at it for hours, taking notes and trying to figure out logistics, wracking your brain for what kind of material would even withstand everything, until you stumbled across this seemingly obvious design flaw. "These materials are heavy. Even if you can wear it comfortably, everything would get torn right off you with wind resistance if you're going at the speed of sound. That defeats the purpose."

When he leans over your shoulder to get a closer look at the sketch, his breath warms your cheek.

He pauses, thinks for a moment and sits back again. "You're… probably right." He scrubs at his jaw with an open palm, trying to come up with some kind of solution, even though that's precisely why he had come to you.

"If we change the design it should be fine, I just need to… figure out what kind of material would accommodate being tighter but still allow freedom of movement. And lots of it." You continue.

Clark gets up, mumbling something about being right back, and you go back to restarting your design; pencil to paper.

"I have this." He says as he comes back, holding out the large bunch of red fabric in your direction. "I'm not sure if it's helpful, but it came with me from my home planet, Krypton?" He says it like you might know what that is, quickly realizes it's definitely impossible for you to know that, and then clears his throat. "It's gone now, but I figured it might… this is the kind of material we need. It can withstand everything I've ever put it through."

You take it, rubbing the fabric between your fingers and pulling at the weft to check the give. Needless to say, it was perfect. Light, stretchy, not too thin or too thick, and when you pulled on it, it seemed to be strong— not that you were metahuman enough (or at all) to test it thoroughly for what it was needed for. It had to be if he'd had it all his life, and it somehow never tarnished at all. It was in flawless condition.

Nodding, you turn the fabric in your hands and look at the branding stitched into the middle of the face. Yellow gold embroidery is the best way you can describe it, thick strands woven together almost into a large patch forming a diamond and black lines dividing it into a shape.

"What does the 'S' stand for?" You ask curiously, fingers tracing over it gently.

His brow furrows and he tilts his head, trying to see what you were seeing in the symbol. "'S'..?"

"Yeah," You nod, eyeing it thoughtfully and tracing over the letter you saw in it with your finger. "'S' as in sierra. Or super."

It clicks as you drag your finger over the design in demonstration, then he chuckles, shaking his head. "It's… that was the symbol for hope on Krypton." He explains, sitting on the arm of the couch next to you. "But I do kind of see it now, it does look like an 'S' now that you mention it. Huh."

"Did you want to use it?" You ask, holding the material up in gesture and he clearly hesitates.

"I'm not… opposed to that if it's necessary."

You shake your head. Obviously it had sentimental value, like a baby blanket or comfort toy. You wouldn't want to chop up your blanket either, even if all it did now was sit bunched up under your pillow while you tried to keep it close without damaging it. "We'll figure out something else." You insist. "Can I borrow it, though? Just to compare to other options."

Clark shoves his hands into his pockets. "Yeah, yeah, of course. Do what you need to do."

When you started at House of Vectra, you signed an NDA longer than the entirety of the Lord of the Rings series in paperback.

But something about this incredibly obscure project has breathed life back into the monotony of your job. It wasn't technically work, but it was fun. Clark had offered to pay you— several times, in fact— but you didn't even want that at this point. You were having the time of your life trying to bring his idea alive.

Even if you abandoned almost every aspect of his original scribbles of design that, no offense to him, could have been penned by a twelve-year-old in the margins of their science notes. You didn't want to, you really tried, but it was wholly impractical with every mock-up you made. And if he wanted to be some hero, to be a familiar face people knew they could rely on for help in moments of need, he needed to stand out.

It needed to be functional, eye-catching, and non-threatening in the way that Vectra's pieces often were purely by design. Intimidating, inaccessible, and everything that Clark Kent didn't want to be. You were more than up for the challenge.

You had the advantage of accessing the unused sample experimental materials from years past, fabrics declined by the visionary designer over the last decade, that sat untouched in a dusty closet in the basement of the Vectra building.

Or, you would have that advantage if you could actually find anything usable.

You stand in the cramped storage room now, phone clenched between your teeth to try and use the flashlight as both hands rummage through bins labelled with years you weren’t even employed there yet. Dust ghosts swirl every time you lift a bolt of fabric, and the smell is something in the surely untreaded territory between rust and mildew that makes you cough every time you drop it back down.

“Come on…” You mutter to yourself, shoving aside a roll of something that felt like aluminum foil.

It had been nearly a month since you first sat at Clark’s dining table, the two of you hunched over sketches until nearly midnight. A month of stolen hours, lunch breaks, and late evenings spent trying to reverse-engineer Kryptonian-level durability from abandoned Vectra prototypes. You had little success, but you did sometimes have coffee, sometimes takeout. Once, you had a pastry that he bought because you mentioned one single time in passing that you enjoyed them. The bar felt so low it was in hell— but you couldn't help but be giddy by his presence alone.

And every time he showed up, he asked the same gentle, hopeful thing. “Any updates?”

And every time, your heart sinks when you have to say, “Not yet. Soon.”

He never looks disappointed. Not even slightly. He always smiles and tells you it’s okay, that these things take time.

But it doesn’t stop you from wanting to have something to show him. One sample. One swatch. One breakthrough. Anything that proves you’re not just dragging him along for no reason— that you agreed when you couldn't do it. And this was an easy way to prove yourself! Even if it would likely cost you your job if you put your name on it.

Your phone buzzes against your teeth, rattling your skull and startling you so badly you almost drop a heavy box of rejected holographic mesh in awful neon shades on your feet. (You don't wonder why they were rejected.) You scramble to set them down before checking the message.

Clark: Hope it’s not a bad time. I was wondering how the search is going? No rush, I just figured I’d ask since you said you were doing some digging in storage today.

You stare at the text, chest tightening in the kind of way that has nothing to do with stress and everything to do with the memory of how his dimples looked when you left his place last weekend, when— without an update other than refined designs, concepts on paper— you had just ended up talking for hours into the night when the rest of the city was quiet.

God, he’s nice. (Too nice, maybe.)

You type out a reply.

Still gathering materials. I think I’m close. I’ll let you know as soon as I find anything promising.

You don’t tell him you’re covered in dust with little to no hope thus far, you don’t tell him you’ve been down here since six. You definitely don’t tell him you’re sure this storage closet is a biohazard to your lungs, like you remember some old Vectra product being. The fibres in the material had reacted to the artificial light in a way that made it put off fumes. It didn't make it past the runway, and it probably somehow ended up in here somewhere with you.

Phone silenced and put back in your mouth, you exhale, roll up your sleeves, and dive deeper into the back of the closet where the oldest, weirdest, and most experimental samples live. The ones no intern ever dared to touch. The ones the visionary designer reportedly called “too powerful, too unstable, or too ugly to release.”

Exactly the kind of thing you needed.

You’d been holed up in your apartment for hours, spread across the coffee table, floor, and basically your entire living room. Bags of scrap fabric surrounded sketches of reinforced seams and aerodynamic lines you guessed would be approximately his size. Covered in bits of thread and lint, you were too focused on comparing these scraps with what Clark had handed you, analyzing the give, the stretch, the subtle resilience each type had.

While you'd been in that dank basement, you had to operate off of feel and memory alone— but you were hopeful for what you'd gathered and managed to sneak out.

When he arrived, you were sitting ungracefully on the floor, bits of fabric strewn around you, pencil in hand, sketchbook open as you jotted down little notes in a list comparing the characteristics of everything you'd grabbed. You blinked at the knock, and a moment later, Clark was leaning in the doorway. You're not sure when your friendship evolved into him letting himself in, but you don't mind, blaming your habit of leaving the door unlocked.

“Hey,” he says, tilting his head like he wasn’t sure if he should be worried about what he’d stepped into.

“Okay,” you say urgently, sitting up straighter and pushing yourself over to make room for him on the floor next to you. “I have samples of materials that might work. I need your opinion.”

He crouched beside you, careful not to knock over anything. You laid out the first, a soft sheet of yellow fabric. It shone like sunlight even under the lamp-lighting of your apartment, and you held it between your fingers, stretching and releasing it, letting the tiny fibres spring back to demonstrate.

“This is Lumalite,” You explain. “Rejected only because it photographs unpredictably. It absorbs sunlight and converts it to heat for redistribution, designed for winter wear to keep the wearer warm, but no one wanted to wear yellow in the winter anyway. It's flexible, lightweight- I thought it could work well for your yellow-sun thing.” You say excitedly, gesturing vaguely at him.

Clark’s eyes linger on it, lips twitching up in a smile. “Wow… okay.” His voice low, curious as he finally sits down beside you and crosses his legs. God, his legs are long. “It’s… bright. But it sounds like it would probably be good. I don't know.”

You smile, practically throwing it at him before busying yourself looking for the next piece. “Exactly. And,” You hold up a second sample, a dark blue. “Aerosteel. It was tossed because of the colours it was produced in.”

“Too dark?” he asks.

“Too bright for Vectra's brand after the Lumalite incident,” You giggle. “It’s perfect for panels, torso, forearms, legs. Air resistance, high-speed motion, all of that. It’s weightless, breathable, and will flex with you.” You tap the fibres, showing him how they bent but didn’t tear, still looking sturdy and well-knit but without the stiffness. “Think of it as the invisible skeleton. Your movement shouldn’t damage it. At all. It was supposed to be part of a more workout casual line, but the House realized they didn't even want to be in that market after one season.”

Clark bends closer, brushing the edge of it with his fingertips as his shoulder nudges yours. “This… this actually feels stronger than my old… blanket.” Your chest tightens.

Finally, you pulled out the last sample, a strange silvery-threaded material that seemed to shimmer even in dim light. “Foranthread,” you say, “Forever-thread, basically. It's Bio-synthetic and self-repairing. I thought I could take it apart to the base threading and use it to bind everything together. Seams, stress points, it responds to touch and movement. It practically thinks for itself. I just need to figure out how to get it to… let me take it apart."

He leans back on his palms, blinking at you. “It… thinks?”

“Not literally,” You clarify quickly. “But it adapts to movement and stitches itself where tension increases. That way, if something’s under pressure, it’ll… kind of fix itself a little before it tears.” You held it up to him. “Like your blanket, in a way, but smarter because your blanket doesn't ever need to fix itself anyway, but this is probably the closest thing manmade."

He nods slowly, clearly impressed and nearly beaming at you now. “You… really thought this through.”

“I'm happy to. I'm having fun,” you reply honestly. “I mean, I have your blanket as a reference so it's easy anyway. I can test stretch, durability, colour absorption, and tear resistance. I can compare all three materials to it. It’s not perfect yet, but…” You glance at him, then back at the samples. “…I think it’s a start.”

Clark reached out, brushing his fingers over the Lumalite first, then Aerosteel, then the Foranthread. “A start? This is incredible. I mean… It seems perfect. I can't believe they didn't use this stuff.”

You laugh softly, but there's a warm flush creeping up your neck. “They make clothes for rich people, not heroes. Anyway, we still have a long way to go, but I needed you to see it. I wanted to make sure you’re happy with the choices before I tried to put anything together.”

He smiles, and the way it makes your stomach flip is totally unfair. “I’m more than happy. I’m… honestly blown away.”

You caught your reflection in the window behind him for just a second— your hair a mess, pencil smudges on your fingers, faint sweat across your forehead— but somehow it didn’t matter. You were showing him your work, and he was here, genuinely interested, letting you explain every detail, every choice, every tiny piece of discarded genius you’d scavenged from a decade of rejected materials.

Shaking it off, you push yourself up and scoop up your tailor's tape before dusting off your pants. "Can I take some measurements?"

When snow started falling over Metropolis, you weren't out skating in the park or drinking hot chocolate over the frozen pier. No, you were boarded up in your apartment with needle pricks in your fingers and hunched over your desk for so long you knew your posture would never recover. But it would all be worth it, you were convinced.

Until right now.

"Something looks off." You say, resting your weight on one hip while you take a bite out of the sweet apple in your hand. Your eyes narrow, head tilted as you look over Clark standing in front of you in what is hopefully the final version of the suit.

"It feels really… Tight." Your now-good-friend grumbles, grimacing a bit and pulling at the blue fabric around his hips.

"That's not it." You say quickly, shaking your head and covering your mouth as you chew. "Is it comfortable?"

"It's comfortable, just a bit… revealing, isn't it?"

Your eyes drift over his form analytically as he glances in the mirror again. The blue suit clung perfectly to his form, ideal for precisely what he needed, and it did look good! The yellow patch of Lumalite on his chest, matching the shape of the symbol from his blanket, flickered a little as he turned and the light hit it. It was perfect, practical, but something was missing.

"I mean, that's a little hard to avoid. If anything isn't skin-tight, it could just fly off. Bad for balance. Also, you said regular clothes have too much resistance." You answer clinically, looking finally up at his face again as his lips pull into a frown at his reflection. "And no, not too revealing . You look hot. Don't worry about that."

Clark scoffs, rolling his eyes but relaxing a bit anyway. "I don't want to look hot, I want to look trustworthy."

"Why can't you be both?" You laugh, munching again on your apple as you reach with your free hand to tug on the blue collar of the suit and unfold it for him.

Even if you were teasing him, you knew he was right. It was definitely missing something. If nothing else, the colour weight was uneven with the yellow emblem on the chest and the deeper blue boots you'd found just as a placeholder until you could figure out how to actually make some out of the right materials yourself, because that would be the hardest part.

"People won't take me seriously at all if I look like a male stripper."

You roll your eyes, pushing at his shoulder. "You don't."

Clark raises an eyebrow at you. "If I'm going to look like a party entertainer, I'd rather look like… I don't know, a magician, or something."

"Hm…" You hum, nodding in acknowledgement and taking another step back to look him over again.

Clark watches you then, and he can actually see that adorable moment where a lightbulb brightens behind your eyes and in your mind before you dart out of the room and return hardly a moment later with his blanket, promptly tying it around his neck and draping it over his back.

"Something like that?" You ask, nudging his chin back toward the mirror. He tracks your reflection first, the smile on your face as you drape it over his shoulders and level the bottom, pulling it out like a train. You obviously took his suggestion very seriously, but when he actually looks at it- with a cape, he understands why.

"Yeah…" He breaths, dimples popping up as he turns a bit and pulls at the knot in front of his neck. "Yes. Just like this, actually."

The blanket settles against his shoulders differently than it ever did bunched under a pillow or folded at the foot of his bed. It hangs with weight and intention now, the red catching the warm lamplight of your apartment and throwing it back in softer tones. Less relic, more life in the material again.

“Okay,” You murmur, more to yourself than to him. “That helps.”

“How?” He asks, still watching the mirror, still smiling like he’s trying not to.

You step back again, apple forgotten on the desk behind you by now. “Balance. Visually, I mean. The blue was doing too much work on its own. Your eye kept getting dragged up to the chest and nowhere else.” You gesture vaguely. “This anchors it. Gives it weight without making it heavy. Contrast, and all that.”

He nods, trusting you completely. You're the expert, after all.

“But,” You add, circling him now, eyes sharp again. “it also makes the rest of it look… unfinished.”

“Unfinished how?”

You stop in front of him, staring at him in the suit like it’s a puzzle that’s just a few pieces from completion. “I think… we want to see the blue is the foundation, not the statement.”

You cross to your desk, rifling through a stack of folded fabric until you pull out a smaller bundle of red, duller than the cape, denser, with a faint sheen when it catches the light.

Clark watches you carefully as you hold it up between your hands.

"I don't have anything exactly the same yet, but…"

You kneel in front of him before he can protest, holding the fabric against his hips, folding it experimentally. Your fingers move without hesitation now, muscle memory taking over as you test how it sits over the blue, folding and pinning it, shifting out of the way so he could see how everything balanced out in the mirror.

“It’s structurally redundant, but that’s not the point. It breaks the line. Gives people somewhere else to look. Keeps the suit from feeling… naked.”

Clark swallows, hands hovering awkwardly at his sides. “So they'll look… right at my crotch?”

“Yes, but it's juvenile, not exploitative,” You say quickly, glancing up at him. “Imagine it like… you've pulled your boxers on over your tights. It's more comfortable looking but not funny; no one will laugh if it looks right. Like those serious male runners who wear leggings with shorts on top, just more practical for what you will be doing. People trust things that look familiar. This makes you look dressed, not exposed, basically. Does that make sense?"

You tie it experimentally, shifting back to sit on your heels and assess it all together while he pokes his tongue into his cheek, eyes narrowing at his reflection as he tries to place what you were saying.

“I see it.” You nod to yourself, glancing up at him to see if he looks terribly uncomfortable or if he understood your vision.

Clark looks down at you, then back up at the mirror. He tilts his head, lips turning down as his eyebrows raise. He was skeptical, but he was getting it now. "I think I see it."

The red cuts the blue cleanly, grounding it. It makes the suit feel finished in a way it hadn’t before. Less like athletic wear or a stripping costume, more like a uniform. A symbol.

"Boots, also red. And a yellow belt to balance out the 'S' on the chest and on the cape." You add excitedly, standing up again. This was coming together quickly and beautifully and you were just so thrilled. "Yeah?"

You grab a random strip of leftover Lumalite to pull around his waist, standing behind him so he could see a mockup of it all together. "Obviously the belt will be belt and not fabric, but this is just so you can see it in blocking."

Clark nods, overly conscious of where your warm hand is balled behind him, pressed to his back to hold the temporary belt there. He swallows, nodding in agreement as he keeps his eyes on his own reflection in the mirror instead of just staring at you as you poked your head out from behind him to look as well. You just look so into it. He knew you loved your job, of course, but you loved doing your own thing more. He almost didn't want this to be done, so he could keep watching the brightness behind your eyes when you're doing simple things like this.

He studies his reflection again. Blue. Red. Gold at his chest and around his waist, glowing faintly under the apartment light. The cape settles against his back like it belongs there.

“You did all this.” He says, almost to himself.

You shrug, suddenly shy. “You gave me a good brief.”

“That’s not-” He stops, then tries again. “You could’ve made this look like anything.”

You meet his eyes in the mirror. “I didn’t want it to look like a costume.”

Something unspoken passes between you then. He nods.

“It doesn’t,” He says. “It looks… right.”

You smile before you can stop yourself.

Metropolis looks different from the air.

Clark has been high before— higher than planes, beyond the atmosphere, but this is the first time he feels meant to be there. The suit fits like a second skin, but not in the way regular clothes cling and catch in the air. It moves when he does, responds instead of resists. The AeroSteel holds steady when he flies and when he lands, the Foranthread in the seams flexes without complaint as he tears through the air.

And the cape, the blanket he'd allowed you to use and trim and attach to the shoulders securely, (the excess used for the "shorts" to match just right), flows perfectly without getting in the way.

He steps off the edge of a downtown rooftop and lets gravity take him for half a second longer than usual. Long enough to feel the drop in his stomach. Long enough to remember how it used to feel, jumping off haylofts back home and trusting he’d land softly.

He lifts, and the cape catches the air behind him, not pulling him back, not slowing him down. He levels out instinctively, surprised at how easy it feels, how balanced. You were right about all of it.

He laughs, breathless, the sound swallowed by the wind as he climbs higher, faster. The city becomes a grid of light beneath him, the river a dark ribbon dividing Metropolis from Bakerline.

And somehow, even now, up here in a cloudless night sky, he’s thinking of you.

About the way you’d pressed your thumb into a seam and frowned, muttering about stress points. About how you’d paced his apartment with a black mug from his cupboard full of hot chocolate, sipping occasionally and talking at the same time, explaining colour theory like it was information you were born with and not an obscure concept to someone who studied journalism. About how gentle you’d been with the cape every time you touched it.

He’d worn the blanket for years. Slept with it, hidden it, treated it like something fragile and sacred and a sad reminder of all that was really left from his parents and his people, but you’d made it alive again.

Clark banks left, then right, testing his turns. The red boots take the hit easily when he lands briefly on the top of a tower, the material holding firm beneath his feet. He pushes off again, harder this time, rocketing forward with a confidence he’s never had before.

People will see him soon. That thought settles in his chest, heavy and intimidating and real.

They’ll see the blue first. The red. The symbol.

They won’t see the hours you spent hunched over fabric samples. They won’t hear you talking through a design problem like you were thinking out loud for both of you. They won’t know that this suit exists because someone believed he deserved to look right, not just strong.

Clark slows, hovering above the city, cape rippling behind him with the very rhythm of the wind.

“I should tell her.” He mumbles to the empty sky, moreso to himself.

Not "thank you", because he’s already said that a hundred times.

Tell you how it feels. Tell you it works. Tell you that, for the first time since he arrived in Metropolis, he doesn’t feel like he’s pretending to be someone else and two people all at once because "Superman", as you'd jokingly called him, was just as "Clark Kent" as he'd hoped and more.

He turns back toward his apartment, already rehearsing what he’ll say, knowing full well it’ll come out awkward anyway but he doesn’t mind.

Because whatever this thing is between you, unfinished, still finding its shape, feels a lot like the suit did before you'd wrapped it up in a garment bag and presented it to him with a giddy smile and a red bow. A foundation in and of itself, and something worth designing together at your hands.

Snow is falling again when Clark finds you.

It’s not the dramatic type, no blizzard, no whiteout, but the pretty kind. Slow, soft flakes drifting down through Metropolis while everyone settled in for the ever-coveted "White Christmas" in a couple of days. Lights are strung along the streetlamps near the station, blinking in warm, uneven rhythms. Red, gold, and blue reflected in shop windows and the slushy puddles in corners of the pavement recently cleared by plows or shovels.

You're halfway down the block, coat buttoned meticulously, a warm-looking knit hat pulled down over your ears and one gloved hand dragging a small rolling suitcase behind you. You keep stopping to adjust it, muttering under your breath, the wheels catching on every crack in the sidewalk.

Clark lands the half block behind you, boots crunching softly into snow that's only previously been disturbed by your steps and the drag path of your suitcase.

The suit settles against his body the way it always does now, familiar and somehow more comfortable than it was the first time he put it on. The cape hangs heavy down his back, catching snowflakes that melt almost instantly against the fabric warming his shoulders. He doesn’t feel invincible in it, just held together, like he always felt growing up, curled up in it in front of the fire at his parents' farmhouse and watching snow just like this fall over the fields. But now it was thanks to your work, your magic hands on the material that incorporated it so seamlessly into his everyday.

He waits a second too long before fully catching up to you, watching you from behind as you wrestle the suitcase up over a small but terribly annoying rock under the snow, and then he clears his throat.

“Hey.”

You turn.

For half a heartbeat, your face is just surprise before recognition settles in, eyes going wide in a way that makes his chest ache.

“Oh,” You breathe, “Hey.”

He lifts a hand in a small wave, suddenly aware of how ridiculous that looks paired with everything else. “Hi.”

You stare at him. Not at his face— not at first. Your gaze drags over the suit, the cape, the red boots dusted with snow, the gold at his chest catching the street lights.

And then you smile.

“It moves the way it’s supposed to,” You say, like you can’t help yourself. And what else is there to say if not immediately diving into what's comfortable, what brought you together in the first place?

Clark lets out a breath of slight relief. “Yeah?”

You nod, stepping closer without thinking, eyes still tracking the lines of it. “The cape doesn’t pull you off balance. The belt cuts and evens everything where it should. And the blue…” She stops herself, finally looking up at him. “You look good.”

He swallows.

“I was hoping I’d catch you before you left,” He says.

You glance over your shoulder, toward the station entrance down at the end of the street. The departure board flickers overhead, announcing delays in tinny, indifferent tones you can recognize but not understand. “I’m still early,” You say. “Train’s not for another forty minutes, assuming it's on time.”

“Good,” He says, too quickly. Then softer, more honest, “I didn’t want to miss you.”

Snow drifts down into your hair, melting almost immediately.

“You could’ve texted.” You tease lightly.

He huffs out a laugh. “I know. I just—” He gestures vaguely at himself. “I wanted you to see it. In person.”

Your gaze drops again, fond and assessing all at once. “You’re actually using it,” You say.

“I am,” He grins proudly, pretending to adjust the front of a coat he wasn't wearing. “Carefully, of course.”

“Of course.” You echo, nodding in mock earnestness. "Although, you specifically requested it be indestructible, so this testing seems inadequate."

There’s a beat as he shrugs. The city hums around you, laughter ringing from a cracked window nearby, and bells jingle as a shop door opens and closes somewhere behind you that you don't pay too much mind to.

“You're heading home for Christmas, right?” Clark asks. You had mentioned it briefly in passing- being excited to get the time of work to go home and see your family.

You nod. “Just for a couple of days.”

He hesitates, then remembers the courage he'd spent days working up to finally use. “I could help with that, if you want.”

You raise an eyebrow at him. "Me going home?"

He gestures upward, sheepish despite everything. “Thought I might offer you a ride. I could fly you the rest of the way to the station, if you want. I know it’s—” He rushes on, nerves finally catching up to him. “You don’t have to. I just thought— it might be faster. And warmer. And maybe—”

You giggle, soft and surprised. “It's not far, I'll keep my feet on the ground for now. But thank you."

He nods, falling in step beside you. "I'll walk you, then."

"Thanks." You say again, cheeks pink from more than just the chill biting at your skin. "Were you in the area? People to save on this side of town?"

“Kind of,” He shrugs. “Mostly I'm just making excuses to find you.”

"All that just to see me drag a suitcase full of Christmas presents through the snow?" You laugh, yanking on the handle.

"To help a citizen in need, yes." He corrects, smoothly reaching down to take the case from you, closing the retractable handle and just carrying it by the fabric one on the side instead so it wouldn't get any wetter.

You tuck your hands into your pockets now that they're free. "Well, I hope this is the most serious crisis you'll have to deal with for the rest of the year, at least."

"So far it is, this is the eighteenth suitcase I've carried for someone this week." He jokes.

You roll your eyes, bumping your shoulder against his arm.

The sidewalk is slick beneath your boots, snow crunching underfoot as the station comes more clearly into view and you just walk in a comfortable and sweet silence.

You glance sideways at him.

The suit looks different out here. Not under harsh light or in front of mirrors or your apartment’s careful angles, but in motion and completed practice. Even in dim light, it feels bright. Hope? Maybe that's your personal bias, the warmth in your heart connecting to the symbol on his chest and back and the knowledge that he's here because he wants to be now, not because he needs your help anymore. He can pretend he's here because you needed his help, but you both know that even if it was inconvenient, you would likely be able to manage on your own with the suitcase he was now carrying.

And God, are you ever proud of that suit.

“You know,” You say after a moment, “I think we got it right.”

Clark looks at you instead of where he’s going. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” You nod. “It doesn’t feel like a project anymore. It feels… finished.”

He slows a little, delaying your approach to the station as much as possible just to feel close to you a little longer. “That’s because it is,” he says softly. “I don’t think I could’ve figured it out on my own. Thank you.”

You shrug, suddenly shy. “You did most of the hard parts.”

“Not even close.” He says, scoffing out a slight laugh as he shakes his head and then stops walking altogether.

You take one more step before realizing he’s fallen behind, turning back to look at him. The station doors loom just across the street by now, opening and closing with a gust of warm air each time that melts snow falling around its entrance.

“What’s wrong?” You ask.

“Nothing,” He says quickly, then sighs. “I just-.. if you’re going to be gone, even just for a couple of days, I didn’t want to let you leave without saying something.”

Your stomach flips.

“Oh,” You say, brilliantly articulate as always.

He sets the suitcase down between you, hands curling briefly into fists at his sides before he relaxes them again. Snow lands on his shoulders, the edge of the cape, and in your eyelashes, already beginning to melt.

“I’m not very good at this part,” He admits. “I keep thinking if I wait long enough, the right words will show up on their own. But I don’t think they’re going to.”

You smile gently. “You’ve done okay so far. I mean, you say a lot of words, and I don't think I've ever thought they were the wrong ones.”

He laughs, breath fogging in the air. “That’s generous of you.”

There’s a beat. Another. The quiet of a snow-coated street fills the space between you, but it feels strangely distant anyhow.

“I like you,” He says finally, spitting the words out and not giving himself another choice. “Not in a friendly way. I mean, it is in a friendly way, but also in more than a friendly way. Just—” He gestures vaguely between the two of you like that would help him make more sense. “In this way. Walking you to the train. Carrying your suitcase. Making excuses.”

Your chest tightens.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” You confess.

His eyes widen just a fraction, those perfect dimples just beginning to tighten his cheeks again. “Yeah?” He asks again, just like you: brilliantly articulate.

“Yeah,” You nod, stepping closer and looking down at your feet for a moment, your brown winter boots in front of his bright red ones. “I was starting to worry I was only your stylist. Or that you were just… extremely Midwestern.”

He laughs, relieved and bright. “We're those things too, I suppose.”

The moment settles, soft and fragile as the snow around you. You glance down at the suitcase, then back up at him.

“I should go.” You say quietly.

“I know,” he replies, just as quietly.

You hesitate before then leaning in, rising onto your toes. He meets you halfway without thinking, the kiss gentle and so warm despite the cold, lingering just long enough to make your heart stutter.

When you pull back, you’re both smiling like idiots.

“Merry Christmas,” You whisper.

“Merry Christmas,” He echoes.

He hands you the suitcase, fingers brushing yours as he does. You don’t let go right away.

“I’ll see you when I’m back.” You say.

“I’ll be right here.” He promises.

You believe him.

As you turn toward the station, you glance back once more. He’s still standing there, snow-dusted and just barely glowing gold at the chest. He waves, adorably, rocking back on his heels. You wave back as you cross the street, and he doesn't fly off to "save the city" until you're safe inside the train station with warm lips and the lingering heat that the symbol of hope burns into your heart.

They feel strong, warm and firm, and his head is turning to look at your mother as she agrees, as she tells him that you'll be taking over her position as the leader of the children's liturgy, and teaching CCD classes in her absence while she's recovering from her upcoming hip replacement. 

“She may even stay for Christmas for once,” Your mom needles, and it takes everything in you not to roll your eyes.

"Well," Reverend Duplenticy lets go of your hand, and clasps his together, "I'm looking forward to it." 

And that makes one of you.

-- 

Your childhood bedroom has remained untouched entirely: same posters on the wall, same canopy bed, same dent where you’d once thrown and smashed a snow globe out of frustration. The walls are still sky blue, though some of the corners are marred by dust and cobwebs, and the floor still creaks loudly in two places: by the closet, and just under the window. 

So much of it is unchanged—but you aren’t. You’ve grown in your time away from home. You’ve hardly come back since you left Chimney Rock, but in the handful of times you have, you’ve always fallen into old habits. 

Chimney Rock hadn’t been good for you before, and you know that you can’t let yourself fall into the mood that always took you over when you were there. 

You lower yourself onto the mattress, eyeing your suitcase where it sits in the corner of your room. Still packed, too. You could just pick it up, get in the car, hire a home health aid, and…And then you hear the whistle of the kettle downstairs, your mom hollering for the dog to get off of the couch. And you let yourself flop fully back onto the bed, drawing in a long, deep breath. 

A month. You can survive a month. You’ll teach children’s liturgy and CCD, keep your head on straight—and you will not, under any circumstances, think about that priest’s neck tattoo. 

-- 

You watch the kids chase one another around the church grounds as their parents chat, bundled against the cold in the wake of mass. You know that a few of the kids in children’s liturgy are also going to be in your CCD classes twice a week for the next few weeks, so you’re trying your best to match the names and faces that you’ve only loosely begun to associate with the gaggle of them. 

You sense someone coming up beside you, eye the triangular spread of his shadow before you feel the brush of his chasuble against your arm. 

“First children’s liturgy,” He speaks up before you can, “How’d it go?” 

“You’re being polite.” 

“Whaddayou mean?” 

You cast the reverend a sidelong glance, and he puffs out a soft laugh, letting his gaze drop to the ground before flitting back to yours. 

“It really wasn’t that bad,” He insists—but you know that he’s trying to soften the blow. 

The way the kids had acted in tracked for the way your mother always had been with them when you yourself was a child: an absolute doormat with everyone else, but a pillar of fire where you were concerned. And children's liturgy had started alright, but you’d quickly lost control of the class that took place in the small room off of the vestibule. What took the cake had been the group of them scream-singing Frozen lyrics at the tops of their lungs. 

You’d been hopeful that no one in the church had heard much of it, but the knowing smiles and stifled laughter that had rippled through the congregants as you led the kids back inside told you everything that you needed to know. You’d spent the rest of mass sitting on a bench in the garden, reveling in the warmth of the November sun and contemplating your entire life. 

“You could’ve come back in, rejoined the service," He adds. 

“Hm? Oh, no. No,” You chuckle softly, shaking your head, “Not really my, uh. Not really my thing.” 

“Mass isn’t your thing? Should I be worried that you’re teaching CCD?”

You look up, prepared to insist that there’s no need for him to be worried—but he’s smiling at you. You think there’s a hint of a tease there, too, but you resolve yourself not to read into it, looking toward the children again. 

“Don’t worry, father. I’ll keep ‘em on the straight and narrow.” 

-- 

You’re covering two CCD classes: the second grade, and the fifth grade. You review the materials while sitting in a cafe between remote meetings for work, opening the powerpoint that your mom has been using. What have you got for the second graders this week…

God is Angry

“Same,” You mutter, clicking through it. Genesis 3—the fall…Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. 

God is angry. Your brow furrows, and you lean back in your seat, toying with the handle on your coffee cup. God is angry. 

“Reviewing for this week’s class?”

“Jesus!” You startle slightly at the sound of his voice, and Jud holds his hands up in apology as you press your palm over your pounding heart.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“No, no. It’s okay,” You reassure him, “And yeah. Just refamiliarizing myself.” 

“Is everything alright? You seem unsettled, if you don’t mind my saying so.” 

“You mean besides the light heart attack you just gave me?”

His lips twist with a guilty smile. “You seemed unsettled before that.”

“I’m just…” You turn back to the screen, nodding toward it. “How this is phrased. It doesn’t sit well with me.” 

“May I?” He nods to the chair opposite you. 

“Oh—” No, say no. Whatever he thinks he should do or wants to do, whatever he’s offering, you don’t need the help. You don’t need to bed in this community any more than you already have. “Sure.” 

You expect him to sit across from you, but he’s taking hold of the chair and sliding it around to sit beside you. Oh—kay. 

“What gives you pause in teaching the lesson as it is?” He asks, leaning against the table beside you. “What about the phrasing doesn’t sit well?” 

“God is angry. God was angered, sure, but this makes it sound like He’s perpetually angry. I mean don’t get me wrong, He was kind of a dick in the Old Testament—sorry,” You wince, but he simply chuckles. 

“No, it’s alright. My mentor, Bishop Langstrom, used to say that in the Old Testament, the Lord was like a temperamental bachelor, but in the New Testament, becoming a father really changed Him.”

You huff a laugh. “That’s good.” You click through a couple of slides, take in the bullet points, pictures of an evil snake. “It’s just…” You sigh. “God used to scare the crap out of me when I was a kid. And I know that’s kind of the point sometimes, but hammering home these ideas of banishment, of sin. When you’re that small, it can freeze you into inaction...I don’t think children should be afraid of God if you’re trying to teach them to put their faith in Him.” 

“Is that fear why you stopped going to church?”

You tip your head a touch, casting a sidelong glance in his direction as you try to weigh how truthful you should be. You don’t want to insult him—not when he's made it his life.

“It’s not why. Didn’t help, but it’s not why.” You turn back to the slides. “I think this version of the lesson could work for the fifth graders, but for the little ones…There’s just gotta be a better way to teach this.” 

“Well,” Jud shifts in the seat beside you, “This is your lesson. You can teach it any way you see fit.” 

“My mom would hate that.” 

“Will your mom be in the room?” 

Not physically, but the specter of her disappointment willl be. “I guess not.”

“How would you have wanted it taught to you when you were a kid?” 

“I don’t know. Frame it a little more softly, I guess. That there are consequences for disobeying rules, you know, like getting your allowance held back for a week because you didn’t finish your chores—not that I’m saying being banished from the Garden of Eden is equal to getting your allowance taken away—” You hurry to cover, but he shakes his head. 

“It’s alright, I know what you mean. The older kids have more of a sense of the world, of consequences, but the little kids, they may not understand. And you’re right: they shouldn’t fear God.” 

You glance toward him again, finding a contemplative pout on his lips. When he meets your eye again, you allow yourself to hold his gaze. You smile a little bit as he does. 

“Rewrite it,” He urges, patting your shoulder. “You know what they need to hear.” 

“Thanks, father.” 

“Sure.” He stands, setting the chair back on the other side of the table. And you should let it go there, but—

“Hey, uh,” You shift in your seat. “Would it be okay if I sent the updated lesson over to you, just…Make sure I’m hitting all of the points? I’d show it to my mom, but she’d call me a blaspheming little heretic again and insist on continuing to teach when she’s supposed to be resting.” 

“‘Again’, how many times has she called you a blaspheming little heretic?” He chuckles, though his smile droops when you don’t tease in return. “Of course you—Yes, I’d be happy look over the slides when you’re done.” 

“Thanks. I’ll email ‘em to you?” 

“That works.” 

“Thank you.” 

“Have a good day.” 

“Yeah, you, too.” You give him a small smile as he leaves, and force yourself not to look after him, instead opening a new powerpoint presentation. You’ve got twenty minutes until you have to log on to your next meeting—that’s enough time to get a start on this. 

-- 

Just a lesson, that’s all it is. That’s all it should be. But emailing that powerpoint turns into a weekly meeting at the rectory to discuss the slides for CCD. You figure that he’s just being kind the first time, but the more time you spend with him, the more warmed you are by him. 

Holding his gaze is like basking in the warmest sun in winter, a solace in your otherwise chilly existence in Chimney Rock. Your lessons get better. You manage to get children’s liturgy under control. And—

“I understand you’ll be assisting with the Christmas concert for the children’s choir?” 

You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling as you watch him shuffle through a few things on the desk in the rectory’s office. 

“One of the parents asked if I can lend a hand,” You shrug. “And how’d you hear about that, exactly?” 

“Honestly?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Came up when I came by to take your mother’s confession. Not during the confession!” He points at you, a smile creeping onto his lips as you bite back a laugh. “I’m not breaking congregant-pastor confidentiality.” 

“Didn’t think you would, padre.” 

Jud’s smile widens, his head ducking, and you have to shake your head to clear the fluttering feeling welling in your belly. 

“Thanks again for coming to the house to take her confession,” You add. “She really appreciated it.” 

“Oh, I don’t mind. I know her hip’s been bothering her, the cold can make joints more stiff.”

“Uh-huh…Are you okay over there?” You ask, watching him shuffle through a few more papers, a precious wrinkle forming between his brows. 

“Uh…Yeah, it’s just, um…It’s in here somewhere. This all used to be very well-organized, but the system’s kinda shot. Louise comes in on like a weekly basis—lovely woman, volunteers, but she can’t keep it all straight and things have been busier with the holiday coming up, so. I can’t always keep up with all of this—Ah! Ha!” He unearths a bland folder and flips it open. “Here we go. Forms to offer a mass. Knew they were down there somewhere.” 

“Awesome,” You take it from him, eyeing the sections to be filled out. “I’ll get this to my mom.” 

“Great. And yeah, you can just return it whenever.” 

“Thanks.” You cast your eyes toward the sprawling mess on the desk. “Do you need help with, uh…” You wave toward it. 

“Huh? Oh, no,” He scrubs his hand across the back of his neck. “Just need to take, like, an afternoon and actually work through it.” 

“Okay.” 

“Thanks, though.” 

“I wasn’t offering,” You tease. Jud’s smile widens, and you have to fight the urge to shake your head again. You can’t clear the feeling out that way, not when he's watching you. 

“Hey, can I ask,” He rounds the desk, leaning back against it. “Why don’t you sit through mass?” 

Your brows pop up in surprise. 

“Oh. Uh,” You scramble for an answer. “I just stay back to clean up after children’s liturgy. Once the biblically-themed coloring pages and word searches come out and the crayons start flying, I mean, oof. It’s a war zone in there.” 

“Uh-huh. So what’s the real reason?” 

You chuckle, shaking your head. “I’m not gonna knock it to you, but religion’s just. It’s not my thing.” 

“Have you tried lately? When’s the last time you spoke to Him?” 

“The big JC? I dunno. It’s been a minute.” 

“Have you considered giving it a try?” 

“There something you know that I don’t? Are we back to toeing the line of congregant-pastor confidentiality?” 

Jud shakes his head. “I just mean that with your mom’s surgery coming up—it’s a difficult time. It can help to have somewhere to turn.” 

“Honestly father, I’m a real ER catholic. Only time I’m praying is if something goes really, seriously wrong.” 

“Well,” He plants his hands on the desk, and it takes everything in you not to look at them. “I will pray that you won’t need to.”  

“Appreciate you taking one for the team.” 

And his smile stays in place, but something in Jud’s eyes dims. It’s like a little kick in the teeth. You fidget with the form in your hands, eyes nervously sweeping the fields.

“I know I can come off as flippant, but I, um. I never mean anything that I say about this stuff maliciously.” 

“I’ve never felt that you did.” 

“Good. Okay,” You nod, taking a couple of steps back. “This is all getting a little too sincere for me, so I’m just,” You jerk your thumb over your shoulder. “I’m gonna go.”

“Sure—Hey, I know surgeries can be stressful, even when they’re routine, so if you need someone to talk to—not to pray, necessarily,” He hurries to clarify, and you nod. 

“I know what you mean. Thanks.” 

“Anytime.” 

And from most other people, you’d think that was a passing offer. 

But with Jud, you have little doubt that the man would ignore anyone’s call, even at the most inconvenient of times.

-- 

You know that she’s going to be fine. 

You told yourself that the week before, the day before, the night before—even when she insists on sitting you down and telling you where all of the important papers are: the will, financial documents, her funeral arrangements. 

"I filled this out for you, just in case," She slides the form to offer mass across the table toward you, and you blanch to see her name filled in. “It's the sort of thing you'd forget, but it's very important to me. And I want the catering for the gathering afterwards to be from Bernardi’s—”

“Catering? Mom, I’m not gonna need to know this stuff for tomorrow,” You argue. She props her hand up on her good hip, stares you straight in the eye, and insists: 

“Well you’re gonna regret saying that when I flatline on that table.” 

Wonder of wonders, she isn’t been able to comprehend why that upset you. 

You know she’s going to be fine. You’ve been saying that to yourself since you got up that morning; as the two of you orbited one another in stony, awkward silence; as you silently partook in the mandatory fasting she was required to do ahead of being anesthetized. 

You pack a few things for the hospital: a couple of books, your laptop, your headphones to tune everything else out until you get the text that she's in the recovery room—because that is the only text you’ll be getting. 

But when you open your bag to pull out your laptop, you hear the rustle of the beads, and you go still. You hesitantly let the laptop go and take them up instead, drawing out the old rosary beads that have a permanent home in your backpack, purse—whatever it is that you’re carrying on a given day. 

You eye the emerald-hued shine of them, draw your fingers over their coolness as your eyes drift to the silver, Christless cross, the arms of the remaining piece bent and disfigured. 

You don’t know how long you’ve been looking at them when you hear: “How’s it going?” 

You look up to see Jud standing there, a smile on his lips—though it seems to waver as he takes your manner in. 

“Is your mom alright?” He adds. 

“Yeah, fine. They took her back, like, ten minutes ago, I think. I doubt she’s even under yet. Just waiting.” You shift in your seat, fingers closing around the beads in almost an embarrassed fist. “What are you doing here?” 

“I had to attend to an elderly parishioner. Last rites.” 

“Shit, I’m sorry.” 

“S’alright,” He offers a sympathetic smile. “It’s all part of the tapestry.” 

You nod, gut twisting as you lower your gaze back to your hands. It’s only a few seconds before Jud is sitting in the vacant seat beside you, another moment before his fingers hesitantly reach out, brushing across the few rosary beads poking out from your grasp. It’s like being caught with your hand in the Lord’s cookie jar. 

You unfurl your fingers, revealing the full length of the rosary, and Jud looses a quiet hum. 

“They’re beautiful. May I?” 

You nod again, and Jud lifts them carefully. Your gaze follows them, takes in the tender way his fingertips smooth over the rosary as yours had, then still as he reaches the cross. 

“Are they your mother’s?” 

“...They’re mine.” 

You see Jud’s head turn toward you in your periphery, but he doesn’t say anything for a moment. Maybe he’s trying to find a way to broach the conversation without scaring you off. 

“What happened here?” He finally asks, and you eye the bent crucifix where it’s pillowed in his broad palm. 

“I don’t know.” Then, tipping your head a touch, “I was told something, but I don’t know if it’s true.” When Jud makes no answer, you glance toward him to find him simply waiting. You sigh through your nose. 

“When I was…God, what, eleven? Twelve? I was at a CCD retreat for Confirmation. Day-long, nothing crazy. But at the end of the day, the woman running the retreat pulled me aside. Took my hand, put the beads in them, and said, ‘I think you’re going to need these.’” 

“What did you think that meant?” 

“Honestly? That the bridge we were gonna have to go over on the way home was gonna collapse—I’m serious!” You can’t help but smile as Jud tries and fails to stifle a laugh. “I was a kid, all of that stuff was still glorious and mystical to me. I thought she knew something I didn’t. I clutched those things in my hands all the way home. But nothing happened.” You shake your head. “I don’t know, maybe she saw that I wasn’t in with the other kids. Maybe it’s something she did in every retreat for someone.” 

“And the cross?” 

“She said she was hit by a bus.” The reminder makes you shift uncomfortably in your seat, a shiver rippling down your spine. “That everything else was ruined, but that the cross had survived.” You shake your head, tipping it back against the wall. “I don’t…I don’t remember her face. Couldn’t tell you about her hair, her skin, her smile, but I remember the pain in her eyes. And I couldn’t understand…Why she was giving them to me.” 

“Maybe for moments like this.”

“Maybe. Kinda feels wrong to still have them,” You admit. “They should’ve gone to someone with faith.”

“There is no hard-and-fast rule on what faith is, you know, it varies from person-to-person. Not going to mass doesn’t mean you’re faithless.” 

“Not believing in God is kind of a qualifier, though, isn’t it?” 

“Do you not?” 

You turn a wary eye toward Jud, expecting disappointment—but there’s nothing but his usual warmth and curiosity. 

And chalk it up to the nerves, the panic that had risen in you when your mom had forced you to sit through that conversation last night, the growing and inappropriate interest that you’ve felt toward him for these last couple of weeks. But your truth spills out. 

“You make me want to.” 

You force your focus back to the beads, unwilling to witness what saying that may bring to his surface. Neither of you speak or move for a few moments. Jud holds the beads back out, and you take them. And then he lays his palm out on the armrest between you. 

“…This isn’t gonna get liturgical, is it?” You ask dryly. 

“Only if you want it to.” 

“I’d really rather it didn’t.”

“Okay.” 

A pause, an inviting little wiggle of his fingers that makes you laugh in spite of yourself, and then your hand rests atop his. His fingers close around yours as they had the first time you met, just as warm and sure. 

“I’ll wait with you.” 

“You don’t have to.” 

“I’m going to.” 

Your free hand smooths over the ridges of the beads, absently counting their number without allowing yourself to conjure up your well-remembered prayers. 

“Okay.”

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one night, as the two of you watched movies on his couch like you did every sunday, you lying down with your feet on his lap as rafe sat nursing a hangover and barely paying any attention to what was happening on the screen, he suddenly moved you forward on the couch, making himself room to lay behind you, his arm wrapping around you.

"what are you doing, idiot?" you laughed through your bite of a sour patch kid, slightly turning your head his way to see his eyes slowly closing, the man only pulling you closer, "shut up. 'm trying to watch the fucking movie."

"you're not watching shit." you rolled your eyes, bringing one of the candies to his lips, rafe vacuuming it into his mouth and starting to chew, but once he'd swallowed the candy, he looked at you with a lopsided grin, "got something prettier right here." the man mumbled, before attacking your neck with kisses.

on a bright summer day, as you laid down in the sun, listening to your friends grunting and arguing while playing volleyball with a small smile on your lips, until you heard a voice speak up.

"you here all alone?"

you propped yourself up on your elbows, lowering your sunglasses slightly to look up at the man standing up in front of you. "actually, i'm here with my-"

before you could finish your sentence, you heard a thud right next to you, looking to your left to see that a volleyball had landed right next to your towel, and as you looked up, you saw rafe rushing towards you as if he was on baywatch, a soft snort leaving your lips, covering your mouth with your hand.

"sorry. almost made that gorgeous head get hit by a ball." rafe grinned at you as he grabbed the ball before turning to the other guy with a nod of his head, getting up and running back to your other friends. you turned back to the guy, only for him to mumble, "sorry." and walk away.

that night rafe ended up fucking you harder than before, as if every time the head his cock hit that sweet spot in you was marking you from the inside, like every moan and arch of your back was proof of how much you were his, rafe's mouth mumbling the words "you're mine." all over again on your neck as he pressed kisses there, sucking the skin into his mouth, your nails leaving imprints on his back, trying to mark him just as much.

you tried acting like the cool, chill girl, even when he'd poke your nose with his ice cream, when he held you at night, when he thrust into you with curses mixed with compliments leaving his lips, when he pulled you into intense kisses that left you light-headed while his games were loading, when he'd smack your ass when you passed him, when he'd pull you into his lap around your friends casually as if nothing was out of the norm, when his voice was the first thing you heard in the morning and the last thing you heard before you went to sleep. when it was starting to get blurry as to where he ended and you began.

rafe woke up one morning to find you on the side of his bed you had started considering yours, your eyes still dopey from sleep, but fixed on him, a small smile on your lips. he let out a chuckle, rolling onto his back and rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, "the fuck you staring at?"

"you just look really peaceful while you sleep." you mumbled, voice still slightly drowsy with sleep, "that's corny as hell." rafe turned back to you, grinning, "what's on your mind, gorgeous?"

you bit down on your bottom lip, drawing patterns onto rafe's sheet as you wondered if you should ask what you were thinking about. "do you... do you like me?"

"of course." rafe scoffed, like you asked if the earth was round, "you're my best friend."

you hated to admit to yourself that his words caused a pang in your heart, but you let out a sigh, sitting up in his bed, letting the covers pool at your thighs as you looked up at him, "i mean... not like a friend."

rafe ran a hand over his head, letting out an exasperated sigh before turning back to you, his eyes somehow much more tired than before, "you know i care about you, fuckin'... a lot." his large hand cupped your cheek, "but you know i'm not ready for all that romantic... bullshit."

"yeah, i know..." you mumbled. "shit, don't give me that frown." rafe's thumb caressed the skin of your cheek, "if it would be with anyone, it'd be with you." he pressed a kiss on the side of your mouth, "you're my girl."

for the first time in the many mornings you'd spent together, that one was spent in silence.

after that, you didn't hear from him for days. usually he would've asked you to come over, texting you how he needed you within two days. but when over a week had gone by, you'd decided to text him.

YOU [10:41PM]: hey

RAFE [11:35PM]: hey

YOU [11:37PM]: what are you up to?

RAFE [12:07AM]: nothing special RAFE [12:08AM]: just @ home

YOU [12:11AM]: want me to come over?

RAFE [12:23AM]: nah not tonight RAFE [12:25AM]: kinda beat

you closed the text chain, trying not to overthink things. maybe he really was just tired, and didn't feel like hanging out. maybe he'd just been having a hard week. it was the mantra you repeated to yourself as you rolled around in bed trying to find sleep.

but the next morning, as you still lay in bed, when you were going through your friends' stories, you saw something on topper's story that made you pause.

yeah, rafe was at home the night before. but a grucial detail he neglected to mention, was that there was a girl sitting on his lap, his hand dangerously close to the hem of her dress, their lips locked together.

and you hated, that even though you technically had no right to feel jealous, you did, unable to stop imagining the girl in the picture on the side of rafe's bed you'd spent so many nights on. but what you hated even more was the way it made your eyes sting.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: there will be a second part teehee

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