B E A U T Y (beast)

Each kiss is like a little flower petal plucked from the softest rose and caressed against his bruised, warm skin, her body rolling up against him and he doesn’t even care that his thighs are still sore from being kicked, doesn’t care that his arms have bruises the sizes of softballs. He holds around her all the same, sinks back in the chair with her and tries to make sense of her words as she presses them against his lips. 

“Love you too,” he manages first and pulls her back enough that he at least can look up at her and shake his head no. “Don’t apologize, alright… I did what I needed to do last night,” even if it wasn’t even half as bad as it could have been, and that was probably only for the better, all things considered. “I just need to… I don’t know. Unwind. Go to the beach, drink some drinks, don’t do anything, you know? But now, I can do it and come home with a brand new tan line on my body.”

He smiles, like a little sun, and kisses her again, and again, hands settling on her hips.

“But… what about for you though, babe? I-I don’t have any ring for you and I can’t… afford one right now.”

She doesn’t need a ring but she knows him and while it sounds outdated as hell she can only imagine how pleased he’d be to have something marking her as his. She still wears an anklet of puka shells around her right ankle to this day because he gave it to her, because that meant something to him as much as it did to her.

Bellamy sits frog-legged on his lap, thighs spread against his hips and her weight settled into her knees sunk into the chair cushion. She knows better than to put the fullness of her body against him no matter how needy his hands get. “I don’t want a diamond ring. You know I ain’t about that shit,” she points out. “If you wanna get me somethin’ make it somethin’ from you and that’s all I need. I don’t care what it is. Shit, you could make me a damn friendship bracelet and I’d wear it proud.”

Plump lips pull in a grimace, thankfully hidden mostly by the fact that she’s to his right and it’s his left side that tugs at his muscles. Even though they had talked over the course of the weeks she and Jay had been on their little trip, Nate still kept this new friend at an arm’s length distance, still had his walls up and kind of intended on just leaving them there. Bellamy, though, seemed the kind to find where the vines had grown strong and thick so she could slowly climb up, up, up, and she wouldn’t stop until she at least sat at the top of the walls of the kingdom so she could have a peek inside.

Nate’s reply is a shrug of his shoulders again, a sharp canine tooth squeezing a piece of flesh from the inside of his lips, like a way to stay grounded, or maybe even keep himself from just saying it out loud.

Can he spin the story in a way where she wouldn’t see the breadcrumbs… but he could still talk about it? 

“I just have… friends who can show off their partners and how happy they are together but, I feel like if I do, everyone’s gonna come after me, you know? ‘cause I’m… Alvey’s kid and I’m supposed to be focusing on just fighting and the press is… relentless especially after my, uh… my injury. Like it’s all about how I need to get back in the game but I’m not even 23 yet…” 

He shrugs again. That’s all, Bellamy. Please don’t read into it. Please don’t crawl up the vines. 

“So what’s yours…? I thought you were doing pretty good…” 

See, she’s always wanted a brother or a sister or just someone to tuck under her wing like a baby bird, like a chicken with a need to warm some eggs. Maybe ‘cos she was always lonely as fuck where she came from, or maybe ‘cos she’s a bossy know-it-all and she needs someone, at all times, to keep her from bossin’ around the wrong person.

But Nate isn’t quite as easy as all that. He’s got horns and a fight in him like his brother and Bellamy knows it’s just one wrong word and he might get her good with them things.

Lucky her that what she asks doesn’t bring out the bull right away, huh?

“Baby I know all about the press. Them fuckers get me all kinds of riled up. They know it, I know it, my dumb ass new agent knows it and all I got to say is fuck it. Fuck ‘em, fuck it, and fuck anyone who tells you not to say that. You’re right, you ARE barely twenty-three, so if you don’t wanna fight right now then do somethin’ else. It ain’t like you can’t live a good life without havin’ fights, jesus.”

Oh boy, but she had said she’d spill too, didn’t she? Bellamy groans and tips her head back.

“You did go to university, didn’t you?”

Lux Lefevre didn’t ask these sorts of questions on account of his particular need to move through meetings quicker than his lungs could think to sabotage him. When he was young, fresh faced and starting out under his own father? Well sure, maybe he’d be known for entertaining the small talk here or there.

He was, after all, a southern man, and they were famed for their genteel nature until they grew old enough to get away with the grumbling gruff that everyone excused and turned a blind eye against.

Heloise Bellamy is not her uncle. She doesn’t ask this question with a need to awkwardly interject with frivolous small talk. She asks because she wants to know an answer that really...

She already knows.

You can see that in the way she tilts her head, the way her smile uncurls like a flower’s petals on a sunny day, obnoxiously big, big, big so it can drink up all that sunshine greedy as ever.

They were the textbook definition of duality, him and her; She, the sun, bright and smart as the day was long, kind and creative, reasonable and calculated even in her most outrageous, sudden moments. He, the moon, sharp eyes and brash behavior, ego and jealousy-fueled greed and irrational thoughts, behaviors, decisions. She was golden brown and amber-eyes keeping all the knowledge and secrets of the world hidden in them for all eternity, he was bone white and his bright greens were like the new spring every day - a bit naive, maybe. 

That’s how he saw them, anyway. She, the stabilizer in his life - the only solid thing he had felt in years. He, the chaos she contained with nothing but a smile, a crocodile-grin laugh and some slim fingers running through his hair. 

He can’t bear to see her eyes fill up with tears this way, he can’t handle hearing how HER voice starts to quiver now and she tells him the most beautiful things any person would ever want to hear from another person. I’ll wait, she says, I’ll ask and ask and ask and I’ll love you until I can’t anymore in this natural plane of existence and GOD if that doesn’t feel so, so good…

He’s scared, Bellamy, of what he could end up doing to you. But your faith in him has kept him alive and kept him going ever since you met and he doesn’t want that to stop.

“Y..yes,” and he nods, his Adam’s apple bobs something FIERCE when he swallows that fear. “F-fuck yes. Yes I fucking will, Bellamy Heloise–” 

One hand closes the box and the other reaches to the back of her neck, and in a swoop of a motion he pulls her up as he leans down and steals her lips in a kiss, like the first wave of a stormy sea hitting the rocky shores up north. 

This is somethin’, ain’t it? Goin’ from the uncertainty that came with his goin’ off the rails after a loss to bein’ kissed so good that she felt a wildfire kickin’ up in her bones and burnin’ through her all the way to the tips of her god damn toes! Well that’s just how they are, but you know some folks like it that way, even if they don’t go around admittin’ to it none.

Sure, sure, he’ll say let’s settle down and have a baby and she’ll say let’s paint the baby’s room pink and he’ll say honey, i’m thinking of getting a new job, and she’ll say, of course dear, it only makes sense...

And then ten minutes later they got the baby’s room covered in rock n’ roll posters and he’s at the gym gettin’ ready for his next fight because that only makes sense and settling down don’t mean the same thing for all folks, y’see?

“I love you, I love you, I LOVE YOU,” she crows, and she’s practically drawn up into his lap only she knows he’s got himself some real stellar injuries so she’s careful as fuck about where her weight rests as she kisses him like drinkin’ water, like she needs that hydration somethin’ fierce.

He caught the sunscreen and rolled his eyes as he popped the cap open, pouring a good dollop out on his arms to smear slowly. He could get tan without turning into a crisp. Bellamy just happened to pick the only person in all of Venice who couldn’t get any kind of tan unless it was a lobster-red type of color. Shrugging his shoulders, he did what he was asked though, and rubbed a good handful out over his face and his buzz-cut head before putting on his sunglasses, too. 

“I don’t mean anything in particular,” he lied again, tossed the bottle back at her and by chance - it was planned, calculated - it bounced on her stomach. “Guess I’m just… I don’t know. Jealous, or something. But whatever.”

Jay fell into the sea with a yelp and Nate couldn’t help but chuckle quietly, shake his head.

“You really fell in love with that idiot, huh? If he didn’t charm the pants off of literally everyone, I’d be worried you had shit taste or something.” 

He smiles, knowing she’s watching. Two can play this game.

“So are you, like… planning on staying here, or…” 

“Hmmm...”

Oh, little brother, she’s on to your game. Though for him it ain’t much of a game as it is, you know, reality, and it’s kinda sad only she’s the kinda asshole who points out it could be worse. Well, internally anyhow. She knows how to filter her tongue.

Bellamy reaches for the tossed bottle and slides it back into a canvas bag sitting on her right. She’s already well covered, thank you very much.

“Yeah, I kinda did. Probably. I got this.. I mean I ain’t OBLIGATED to be anywhere in particular, but-” she wrinkles her nose. That jerk.

         ❝ ah! you can’t laugh about someone who  hasself-irony… ❞               his head was shaking and still grinning. 

          ❝ if you thought I spoke seriously, then I must wonder if you              also take dad-jokes and puns seriously? ❞

oh, bryce was not the kind of boy that was easily intimidated by money. or power. 

          ❝ mhmm… ❞ 

glass again placed against his lips as he was thinking. taking a sip of his drink, always only sips. he never got drunk in places like this… even though sometimes it helped acting like he was.

         ❝ the first is true, the second a lie. am I right? ❞

“i can laugh at what i please,” she shoots back, and no she doesn’t take them serious but maybe she rolls her eyes pretty hard when they’re used to pick up girls. who does that? these old men, before they get a couple of whiskeys down the gullet and make more classy asses of themselves with the raunchy shit they say when they think their old lady ain’t listenin’.

him? nah, he wouldn’t, not yet. he’s not old enough to get away with that ‘i’m too old to give a shit’ flair of attitude.

well shit.