#cottoncandybrandy

Halloween weekend started with rain, cold freezing sheets of rain that seemed endless. Just a steady downpour that painted the streets silver and turns the world outside into a hazy watercolor. It was kind of weather that makes staying home feel less like a choice and more like a requirement. And for once, neither you nor Gator have anywhere to be. No shifts, no overtime, and no emergencies, just two days off together.

You spend most of Saturday curled up on the couch in one of Gator's hoodies while he sprawls beside you in a pair of grey cargo sweatpants with his boots kicked off onto the floor. A collection of low grade horror movies is stacked on the coffee table. Some empty takeout containers already littering the floor surrounding the couch.

Gator grabs another DVD from the pile, smirks at you and wiggles his eyebrows. "This one next." You squint at the cover, it looks like it was designed by someone with a low budget, way too much fake blood, and a deep love of slasher movies from the early 2000s. The killer stands front and center on the cover, an almost comically large kitchen knife covered in what looks like red paint held above his head. "Nope, not that one." Judging by the cover, the movie is poorly made but for some reason, fear still starts to bubble low in your gut. Gator pouts at you playfully. "Gator, no. The last three movies involved people getting stabbed by some freak in a mask." He moves so that he’s laying almost entirely on top of your body, his head rubbing against your chest through your sweatshirt. "Yeah doll, that’s kinda the point." You roll your eyes at him lovingly while shaking your head. "You're impossible." As he looks up at you, a smug grin spreads on his handsome face. "Love you too."

The movie marathon continues well into the evening. At some point his hands wander under the hem of your sweatshirt and settle just above your ribs, right below the swell of your breasts. You feel goosebumps start to rise all over your body as his hands move higher, cupping your breasts in his large hands. A small, breathy sigh leaves your lips as he takes your nipples between his thumb and forefinger, rolling them until they form hard peaks. 

He looks up at you, an innocent smile gracing his lips, while tugging lightly on the hem, you nod, biting your lip and moving to take the hoodie the rest of the way off. Once your top half is bare, he looks down at you with lust filled eyes, pupils blown wide. “So perfect for me, baby” He leans down and without breaking eye contact, licks a stripe from the bottom of your breast until he reaches your nipple. Greedily, he takes it into his mouth and starts his process of sucking, biting, and licking all over, kneading the other with his hand, before switching to the other side, making sure to give both equal attention. You let out a low moan as he harshly sucks a mark onto your chest, he responds by rolling his hips into yours in a way that almost has you seeing stars.

You feel yourself growing wetter and more desperate each second that he grinds his achingly hard cock against your clothed core. He’s lets out a surprised noise when you grab his head and pull his mouth up to yours, no longer able to keep yourself from licking into his mouth. As you reach down between your bodies and begin to palm his bulge, Gator breaks away from your kiss to rasp against your lips. “I guess those scary movies got you all worked up too, that right?” You nod against his lips and move to pull your shorts and underwear off while he tears his shirt from over his head. 

Before you can reach to start pulling his pants off too, he grabs you by the jaw and forces your mouth open. You know what he wants without having to say anything else, and god, you want it just as badly. He lets a string of spit fall from his mouth into yours, and lets out a filthy groan as you swallow it without hesitation. “You like that mama?” Your hand slips under the waistband of his sweatpants and boxers to find him rock hard and leaking precum from his tip. “Yeah, but not as much as you seemed to, baby.” You start to slowly stroke him from root to tip, smearing his precum along his length as you do so. He lets out a choked sound and then chuckles breathily, nodding down at you. 

His fingers find their way to your dripping core, absolutely desperate for some friction and attention. Your cunt clenches around nothing as he slowly runs the tips of his fingers through your soaked folds. He hums against your mouth “Mmm so wet. This all for me?” Before roughly thrusting two of his fingers into your aching hole. A shaky moan is punched out of your lungs. The two of you stay like that for another minute, maybe two, just feeling each other and letting moans and sighs travel between your mouths. 

As his fingers curl inside, he hits a spot in you that causes you to gasp against his lips. “Gator, I need you” That’s all it takes for him to pull his soaked fingers from you and slurp them clean, moving to prop your thighs open. He pushes into you in a single, rolling thrust, making pornographic moans fall from both of your mouths. Your breath catches in your throat as you adjust to his thick cock splitting you open. 

The crappy slasher movie plays on, the killer finally making his big reveal, but it falls on unlistening ears and unseeing eyes. All you can see, hear, or feel is Gator above you, inside of you, murmuring filthy praises into your ear as he thrusts into you incessantly. He was right, you were so worked up that you’re reaching your end much faster than expected, and he can feel it. You wrap your legs tighter around his hips, forcing him to go in even deeper, hitting that spot that nobody and nothing else had ever reached. With each thrust, your moans and his groans are growing louder and louder, bouncing off the walls. 

His thrusts start to grow faster and slightly erratic, and before you can do it, one of his hands reaches down and starts rubbing fast circles against your clit. “Come on baby, I want to see you cum on my cock.” His dirty words are the final push you needed to fall apart, as your walls clench and pulse around him you can feel him fighting off his orgasm. You reach up and take his face in your hands, your voice comes out breathy and broken up by moans as he helps you continue to ride out your orgasm. “Please Gator, I need you to fill me up baby” He lets out a ragged moan, kisses you roughly and immediately buries himself deep as your cunt milks his cock. 

The two of you lay just like that a while, lazily kissing each other and basking in the afterglow. You break the kiss to look into his eyes. “I love you, Gator” He’s smiling down at you with that lovestruck look he gets sometimes, just in complete awe of you. “I love you with all I got. How’d a screw up like me get someone as perfect as you, huh?” You just shook your head at him with a soft smile and gave him one last kiss to his lips before he moved to pull out and settle behind you on the couch. 

You feel completely content, you’re safe, happy, naked and warm in the arms of the man you love. Which is exactly why Gator decides to become a menace. The first prank happens around midnight. You pull Gator’s baggy sweatshirt back on and leave the living room to grab another drink.

When you return with a glass of water for yourself and a beer for Gator, all the lights are off. The television has gone dark, the house is utterly silent and still. "Very funny," you call out sarcastically. There’s no response.

You narrow your eyes in the darkness, but all you can make out is the empty couch with the blanket crumpled by the armrest and your clothes still scattered on the floor. "Gator." You drawl out his name in a warning tone, as a way to tell him ‘enough, I'm not playing this game’. But there’s still nothing. The hairs on the back of your neck raise as you feel a chill flow over your body. You know he's just messing with you. You know it. But the darkness still feels wrong, the stark silence feels wrong. You carefully step into the room, tiptoeing as if that will keep everything from slipping into chaos.

"Gator?" A hand reaches out and grabs your ankle from beneath the couch. You scream so loudly your own ears ring, your whole body jerks and somehow you manage not to spill either of the drinks in your hands. Gator bursts into a gasping, howling laughter. You immediately kick him, hard. "OW!" He shimmies out from under the couch, clad in his black boxers and socks. "You asshole!" He continues laughing while clutching his shoulder. "Oh my God, you should see your face." You glare at him with glassy eyes, still shaking from his little jumpscare. "I seriously hate you." He looks at you with a nearly sympathetic smile, still finding some humor in how scared you were. "You absolutely do not." And unfortunately, he's right. That only encourages him.

Over the next two weeks, Gator becomes increasingly creative and, in your opinion, very annoying. First a large plastic spider in your lunch bag, then a fake severed hand in the bathroom sink, complete with enough fake blood to fill the bathtub. The motion-activated skeleton hidden inside the closet scared you so badly, you swore your heart stopped in your chest. And every time you think you've survived the worst of it, another prank appears. You threaten murder, and he finds that hilarious.

One evening you come home after a grueling twelve-hour shift to discover a figure standing motionless in the hallway. You nearly have a heart attack, but then the figure begins laughing, and Gator removes the cheap Halloween mask. You throw a pillow at him, groaning in annoyance. "You fucker! What if I actually died?" He chuckles lowly at your wide eyed panic. "You didn't." If looks could kill, Gator would be six-feet under because of the glare you had fixed on him. "What if I did?" He shrugs, pulling off the mask fully and tossing it onto the table in the hall. "Then I'd feel real bad." You cross your arms over your chest and keep your glare fixed on his eyes. He pulls you against him and his laughter softens. "You'd haunt me." He plants a firm kiss to the crown of your head as you lean into his chest. "Damn right."

You meant it as a joke, but neither of you realize just how much those words will bother him later. By the second week of November, the pranks have become a little routine. It would almost be endearing if you didn’t find them so annoying and predictable. But you know Gator, you know the way he thinks and moves, and how he can’t stop himself from laughing before he can fully pull off the prank. You know every one of his stupid tricks, all of his ridiculous scare tactics. You’ve already seen every exaggerated attempt to make you scream.

So when the night arrives, your first instinct isn't fear, it's irritation. The double shift nearly kills you. The emergency department at Stark County Memorial Hospital is overflowing. You're already short-staffed, then someone calls out sick. Just when your night is starting to feel like it can’t get worse, a trauma patient arrives twenty minutes before your shift ends. Then another, then somehow another. By the time you've finally clocked out, the exhaustion has settled in you bone deep, like someone injected wet cement into your veins.

It is nearly midnight when you leave the hospital and make your way into the parking deck next door. Everyone on your shift had already left, making the section of the parking garage almost completely empty. Concrete pillars stretch into the shadows, and the flickering fluorescent lights buzz overhead. Your footsteps echo loudly through the desolate concrete structure, you pull your jacket tighter around yourself. All you want is sleep, food, and your big, warm boyfriend’s arms around you. Preferably all of those things, but not necessarily in that order.

Your car is parked on the fourth level of the parking deck. As you step off the elevator and walk in the direction of your car, you root through your purse to grab your keys, trying to make the process of getting home as fast as possible.

When you look up you stop walking, because a figure stands beside your vehicle. Motionless and waiting. Your eyes immediately narrow. "Oh come on, you've got to be kidding me." The figure doesn't move a muscle. The familiar black-and-white mask gleams beneath the overhead lights. Jack Skellington. The same stupid mask Gator bought weeks ago, the same mask he wore to scare you twice already. You bark out a sarcastic laugh, not because it's funny, but because it's ridiculous.

You pull out your phone and the figure remains completely still. The screen reflects your tired face as you go to call Gator, he answers on the second ring. "Hey, baby." You can hear the smile on his face, you roll your eyes and snort. "Real funny." There’s a long pause. "What?" Gator sounds confused and maybe just as tired as you are. "Seriously?" You’re growing annoyed and a little impatient. "What are you talking about?" He sounds even more lost than before. 

You start walking toward your car, toward the figure. "You really followed me to work for this?" He sounds almost dumb in his confusion, like he really doesn't have a clue what you’re talking about. "Followed you?" Irritation seeps through your tone. "You know what? This isn't even scary anymore." He makes a dejected noise before scoffing confused into the phone. But the figure remains silent, completely still and watching. Your irritation grows. "I'm serious, Gator. That's creepy as fuck."

Gator sounds almost annoyed when he asks, "What is?"

"Take off that mask or I swear I'm not touching you for a week." Several seconds pass between the two of you. Then: "...What mask?" You come to a complete stop. Something about his tone feels wrong. Not playful or teasing, like he’s really genuinely confused. You laugh again, less confidently, nerves starting to seep in and cloud your mind. "Okay, enough."

Concern immediately fills the space that confusion was taking up in his voice. "Baby, what's going on?" You stare at the figure. The figure stares back. "You're in that damn Jack Skellington mask standing by my car." Silence, just a heavy, terrible silence. Then you hear Gator inhale sharply. "Baby..." The irritation immediately drains from your body, a strange chill replaces it. "Gator?" You can hear him sit up straighter in the seat of his patrol car. "That isn't me." You don't respond yet, you can’t, your body is paralyzed with fear.

The figure still hasn't moved, still hasn't spoken. Your pulse begins climbing and your mind begins racing. If that isn’t Gator by your car… "Gator?" His tone is deep and authoritative when he answers. "Go back inside the hospital." For a second, you think you’re imagining all of this, that somehow Gator’s pranks have reached your subconscious and this is all a bad dream you need to be woken up from. "What?" You can hear the sirens from his patrol car coming through the phone, the rev of his engine as he speeds to get to you. "Go. Now." A knot forms in your stomach, your blood runs cold in your veins. "What are you talking about?"

"Get back inside." His voice sounds different, it’s sharper, scared. "Gator–"

"Do not go near your car." The figure tilts its head, very slowly, like a predator locking in on its prey just before the hunt begins. The movement is unnatural, curious and animalistic. Every instinct in your body suddenly screams. Run, you need to run, you need to move. "Gator..."

"Listen to me." The panic in his voice is unmistakable now. "Go back into the hospital and don't leave until I come inside to get you." You slowly take a step backward. The figure takes one forward, matching the pace you’ve set. Your heart stops in your chest, your voice comes out small and afraid. "Gator–" A tear runs down your cheek before you can even register that you’ve started crying. "Run."

The figure lunges forward aggressively. Everything happens at once. You scream as the hand grabs your arm so tightly you’re sure there will be fingerprints left behind. You twist violently in the hold, managing to slip your arm through your sleeve. Concrete rushes beneath your feet. The scream of his name tears from your lungs violently. "GATOR!" His voice explodes back through the speaker. "BABY?!"

You fight, at least you try to. Your instincts takes over, trying to do anything to free yourself and get out of this situation. There aren’t many thoughts going through your mind just pure survival instincts. You drive your elbow backward, it connects with something solid. The figure grunts, it’s not a monster, not a ghost, just a person, a real person. Terror floods through your body alongside adrenaline. You manage to rip free and start running like your life depends on it, because it does. Footsteps thunder behind you, gaining on you, getting closer every second, faster with every breath that escapes you.

Your shoe catches on a patch of uneven concrete, and you stumble hard, ankle twisting unnaturally in the process. Pain erupts through your foot and your phone falls from your hand onto the concrete beneath you, it skids a few feet away. Your steps falter for just a second but it’s enough, a hand grabs your the back of your scrub shirt.

You scream again, a deep, desperate sound that echoes in the space around you. Somewhere through the chaos you hear Gator’s muffled voice shouting your name through the phone. Then nothing, the line dies. All you can hear are your own desperate sobs and the heavy breathing of the person attacking you from behind the mask. And your world suddenly goes dark.

Gator breaks nearly every traffic law on the way to the hospital. The drive feels like hours even if it was probably only five minutes, maybe even less. Every slow-moving vehicle becomes an obstacle, every turn becomes a setback.

He calls your phone repeatedly, but there’s no answer. Again. No answer. Again. Nothing.

The fear building inside him is unlike anything he has ever experienced. And Gator knows fear, he's spent his entire life around violence, surrounded by threats, surrounded by people who disappear, and people who can make other people disappear. But this is different, this is you, Gator’s girl. The person who somehow became the center of his universe, his everything. The person who turned a house into a home. The person who taught him what peace felt like. But now you're gone, whoever took you away from him took his peace, and it won’t come back until you’re safe in his arms again.

By the time he reaches the parking garage, his hands are shaking violently. He speeds through the floors so quickly that he nearly crashes into parked cars and concrete pillars. Level one. Level two. Level three. Level four. Then he sees it.

Your phone, completely shattered. Parts lying crushed across the concrete. For one terrible second his brain refuses to process what he's looking at. Until he sees your purse. The contents are scattered everywhere. Your keys, wallet, lip balm, even your hospital badge with your cute little smiling face in the center. All thrown haphazardly across the ground.

"GOD DAMMIT!" His voice echoes through the empty garage. There is no response and no movement. Nothing but his own voice bouncing back at him like a cruel taunt.

Then he notices something else, in his stupor he hadn’t seen it before. One shoe, lying on its side, your shoe. Sitting several feet away, abandoned. Like evidence, proof, or the remnants of something awful happening to the woman he loves. The sight nearly destroys him. He picks it up with trembling fingers and the parking garage suddenly feels enormous, endless, a silent void. It feels like there are threats looming in the shadows, every corner feeling like someone in lurking just behind it waiting to trap him. His chest tightens. Not because he doesn't know what happened to you, but because he does. Someone made a plan, watched, waited, and then took you from him. And now you're gone.

The realization settles like poison. Gator stares at your shoe. His jaw clenches. His breathing becomes erratic and uneven, starting to quickly spiral into a full blown panic.

Then he notices something painted on one of the concrete pillars nearby. A small black symbol, nearly hidden and drawn in fresh paint. It’s crooked smiling face. Jack Skellington. For a moment his entire world stops, because Gator knows that mask. What he had been treating as dumb jokes, little things to scare you. Someone had been watching the two of you, someone knew your routine.

A cold pang of horror and dread shoots down his spine. He knows the timing, knows the weeks of stupid pranks. This wasn't random at all, it wasn’t some insane coincidence. The sicko waiting for you by your car had chosen that mask on purpose, they wanted you to think it was just your boyfriend. They wanted you to lower your guard, come in closer, make it easier to capture you. It had worked, and it was all Gator’s fault. Gator feels sick, the guilt hits harder than fear. Harder than the anger. Because if he hadn't spent two weeks turning everything into a joke, scaring you just to have you jump into his arms for comfort afterwards…

If he hadn't made the masks and jump scares normal– Maybe you would have run immediately. Maybe you would have recognized the danger sooner. The thought nearly crushes him. "No." His voice is raw and broken. "No." 

He closes his eyes.

For one brief second he sees your smile, hears your laugh, feels your hand slipping into his. And as quickly as the comfort of you came, the image disappears, and he’s back to the hellscape that is his new reality. Your sweet laughter is replaced by silence, your hand holding his is replaced by the emptiness between his clenched fingers, the image of you and the love he has for you is replaced by the unbearable emptiness of not knowing where you are.

Gator opens his eyes again. Something has changed within him, the panic and fear remains, but beneath it sits something colder, something much sharper, much more dangerous. Determination. The person who took you made one mistake, they left you alive long enough to fight, long enough to scream, long enough to leave evidence for Gator.

And that means they must still be out there. Still breathing your air somewhere, still walking around thinking they might have gotten away with it. They are wrong. Gator stares into the darkness of the parking garage and his grip tightens around your shoe. For the first time all night, his expression becomes completely emotionless. The kind of expression people fear instinctually, it’s the kind of expression that appears when something inside him shuts off.

"Please be okay."

His words are a desperate plea to the universe and the words disappear into the darkness and no answer comes back. Only the buzzing of the flickering fluorescent lights overhead, only empty concrete, only that heavy silence.

But somewhere beyond the garage walls, beyond the city lights, beyond the reach of anyone searching for you, someone is holding their breath. Because they have no idea what they've just started. Gator would go to hell and back to have you safe in his arms again.

part 2

The first thing you register as you wake up is the feeling of your body, you’re stiff, heavy and cold. There’s something obstructing your vision but you can’t tell what it is. When you try and move to uncover your eyes, you realize that your hands are bound behind your back. You try to move your legs but you discover that they’re also bound but to the legs of the chair you’re propped up in. 

Panic begins to settle in as you remember what happened in the parking garage. You remember that person standing by your car in the mask, you remember Gator’s voice calling out to you over the phone, you remember the struggle, but you can’t remember anything else. 

Before you can fully resign to panicking you hear an unfamiliar man’s voice gently say your name. Instantly, your entire body tenses, a combination of fear and anxiety runs a chill through your veins. The voice speaks out again, closer now, standing somewhere in front of you. “Are you finally awake?” Your lip trembles as you try to think of what to do, you’re completely incapacitated with no idea where you are or how long you’ve been gone. What can you do, what would Gator tell you to do? When you try to talk your voice cracks from disuse, you clear your throat and try to speak as calmly and confidently as possible. “I don’t know who you are, or why you’re doing this but if you just untie me-” He cuts you off with a small chuckle, almost like he’s finding this all endearing. You can hear him take a few more steps towards you, and then you feel the cloth lift from your eyes.

You blink quickly as you look up at him and take in his appearance. He’s just a man, a completely normal looking man. No older than 35, he’s tall with a moderate build, you can tell he works out, he has pale skin and a mop of messy blonde hair on his head. Under normal circumstances he would probably even be considered a handsome guy. This isn’t how you expected your kidnapper to look at all. An eerily soft smile sits on his face as he watches you take in his appearance. You quickly look away from him to try and take in your surroundings, looking for any means of escaping. 

The room is lit by a few raw bulbs hanging down from the ceiling, there are two windows but they’re completely boarded up, the wallpaper has long peeled off of the wall and there’s a thick layer of dirt and dust coating the floors in the corners of the room. You notice a small table table against the wall behind him, but no other furniture aside from the chair you’re perched on.

When you turn to your right side to try and find the door, you see an IV pole with a half full parenteral nutrition bag hanging off of it. Your eyes follow the tube down and find it in your right arm. You hadn’t even had a chance to take in your own appearance yet, you were still wearing your scrub pants, but your scrub top had been removed, leaving only your thin long sleeve black shirt on. The next time you speak, your voice trembles as the words leave your mouth. “Why is there an IV in my arm?” He takes a deep breath before he responds, crossing his arms over his chest. “Well, you’ve been out for a couple days and I wasn’t sure when you’d be up,” Your jaw drops slightly and you can feel your eyes grow wider at his words, you’ve been out for days? 

The bewilderment must be written all over your face, because before he speaks he shoots you an almost sympathetic half-smile. “I didn’t mean to use so much midazolam back there, you just wouldn't stop fighting me.” The way that he says it, so calm, soft spoken and nearly polite, scares you more than anything he had said before. Because you know that the only way a person can just casually talk about sedating and kidnapping you, is if the person is completely and utterly insane. 

You’re stunned, you sit there with wide eyes and your mouth opening and closing like a fish. “Don’t be scared, I’m just trying to keep you safe. My name is Nathan.” He uses your silence as an opportunity to talk to you and tell you about how he’s been watching you. You feel your face morph into a frown as you listen to him talk about your work schedule, the grocery store you frequent, the gym you go to, and eventually your house, your relationship, but he won’t say Gator’s name. As he goes on talking, you realize that he knows nearly everything about you, he must have been watching you closely for months. He knows that you sleep with two pillows and on the right side of the bed, he knows which episode of your favorite show you saw last, he knows the brand of the tea you drink on nights you’re having trouble sleeping, he just knows too much.

You try to interrupt his speech, speaking as calm and softly as you can manage while you’re in hysterics internally. “If this is about the ranch, or Roy, I swear I don’t know anything.” He ignores you, continuing on his confusing rant. “...Nathan? I don’t know what you want from me. Please, is this about the Tillmans?” Your second question seems to spark his interest. His expression visibly sharpens, but only slightly, barely noticeable if you hadn’t already been staring at him and trying to decipher his motive in taking you. “He’s not a good guy. He clearly can’t take care of you in the way you need, that’s why I had to step in.” Your eyebrows burrow in confusion as you try to work out what he means by that. “So, this is about-” He cuts you off. “Your potential is being wasted. I’ve been watching and he doesn’t care about you, he doesn’t love you.” You shake your head at him in confusion because it still makes no sense to you. “Gator?!”

Anger flashes across his face as he quickly moves towards you and his words are roughly spat at you. “DON’T say his name.” Your neck strains as you turn your face as far to the right as you can and squeeze our eyes shut, bracing for impact, but nothing comes. He leans into your space, his face only inches away from you, with his hands firmly planted on the armrests at your sides. You can feel him move closer and then take a deep inhale against the side of your neck and up your hairline, then he whispers against the side of your face. “Don’t ruin this before it has a chance to start, I’ve been waiting for you for so long.” 

Your nose burns and you feel hot tears well up behind your eyelids, you try to focus on controlling your breathing, you don’t want to let this freak see you break. “...Nathan, please just let me-” He pushes himself off the chair with a huff and backs away from you, he turns around and you can see him fiddling with something on the table. “I tried to explain but clearly you just aren’t ready to listen yet.” Your voice is shaky as you try to reason with him, words sputtering uncontrollably from your mouth. “Nathan, I’m sorry! Let’s talk, come on. I just want to talk to you, please.” He turns around pointedly, a syringe in his hand. “No, it’s too late for that now. I’ll just need to wait a little longer.” You start thrashing violently in the chair, trying to free yourself, trying to back away from him as he stalks towards you angrily. “Please, Nathan! Don’t,” You sob as he sticks the needle in the side of your neck, and before you can hear his response, your world has gone dark again. 

Gator is a man on a mission. The security office at the hospital was small, there was only one small monitor with a few grainy camera angles shifting every few minutes. He stood behind the chair, spine taut as he waited for the footage to be pulled. And then, there you are, stepping off the elevator, tired and distracted. The timestamp crawled forward, you digging through your purse for your keys. The footage only shows you, the frame only barely missing your car and the masked figure. He watches you pause, can barely see the flicker of annoyance cross your face when you think it’s him pulling a prank on you. Time moves in slow motion for Gator as he watches your last interaction play out on the monitor in front of him. The audio is shitty and barely decipherable, but when you scream for him, it comes through the speakers loud and clear. The last thing he sees before the video cuts out is you, limp in the arms of a stranger, and the masked figure gently stroking a line down the side of your face. 

The security guard finally spoke up, Gator could tell that he was scared by the way his voice trembled. “That’s the full recording, there’s nothing else from that angle starting around 10 P.M.” Gator’s eyes still hadn’t left the black screen, he was fighting every instinct he had, trying to remain some level of composure. “What about other angles? Any vehicles that were seen leaving?” The guard quickly scrambled to check, typing quickly and opening different windows. He turned in his chair slowly to look at Gator, face twisted in fear. “There are no other angles with activity during the time frame.” Gator had a murderous gleam in his eye as he looked down at the sorry excuse of a ‘security guard’. He reached down and pulled the man up by his collar, fully prepared to beat more information out of him but before he had the chance, the man started sputtering out words. “Wait! Wait! I um- I did see a black truck turning out when I was doing my last perimeter!” That was enough for Gator. He roughly threw the man back down into the chair. “Get me a copy of that footage.”

The door to Roy’s office slammed hard enough to rattle the windows. Gator’s voice rang out in a booming roar. "What the hell do you mean there's nothing?" The deputy standing by Roy's desk flinched slightly backwards. "We um-we checked the highway cameras again. The truck doesn't show up again once it passes the county line." Gator snatched the folder from his hands, flipping through pages so violently they bent beneath his grip.

"No ransom." He threw the first page onto Roy's desk. "No phone call." Another page. "No goddamn note." Another, and he paused. "No body." His breathing had turned ragged. "Just that dumb fuckin’ smile but no her." The room fell into a complete, tense silence before Gator broke it again with his loud words. “WHERE IS SHE?”

Roy carefully eyed Gator, he had seen him act hotheaded and reckless, cruel and mean when he wanted to be, but he had never seen him like this. This was different, he was a man being ripped apart at the seams. He waited until the deputy had escaped the room before calmly speaking. "You done, boy?"

"No." Gator leaned both hands onto the desk, a predatory tilt to his head as he glared down at his father. "You tell me who would take her." The sheriff let out an exasperated sigh as he leaned back in his chair and looked at his son. "I don't know." Gator’s response came through gritted teeth. "Bullshit."

"Watch yourself now, Gator."

"You got enemies everywhere." His voice cracked–not with weakness, but with exhaustion stretched so tight it sounded like anger mixed with desperation. "State police. The feds. Drug Runners. The militia boys. Families. People whose land you stole." He punctuated each word with a fist slamming down harshly on the desk, again and again. Roy nodded up at him twice. "You think I forgot my own enemies?"

Gator’s face was red as he pointed his finger at Roy, voice raised. "You think I don't know what kind of people want this ranch burned down?" Roy didn't answer immediately, instead, he silently folded his hands. "If it was one of mine..." Gator froze. "...they would've wanted me to know." The words landed harder than shouting ever could, he continued. "There’d be a message for me. A picture, maybe a finger if they were cruel." The room grew colder. "They'd want leverage for negotiations." Roy looked directly at him. "They'd want me angry." He shook his head once, lips pursed as he finished. "This ain't that."

Gator stared and for several seconds he didn't move, didn't blink. "No." It came out barely louder than breathing. "No." He backed away from the desk. "No." His hands ran through his hair that had fallen from his usual slick back. "No, somebody took her. They had to." Roy stood from his seat slowly, like he was trying not to scare the wild animal that was standing in front of him. "Gator." He was becoming frantic. "No." He started pacing the length of the room, head held tight between his hands. "They're waiting, I know it. They're waiting for me to stop looking. They're waiting for me to think she's dead." His breathing became uneven.

The deputies outside listened through the thin office walls, but nobody dared to speak. One quietly crossed himself. Another intently whispered– "I ain't ever seen him like this."

It had been days. Every lead became an interrogation, every witness became a suspect, and every lie became personal. Gator tore apart abandoned trailers. He dragged information out of local dealers. He questioned truckers at gunpoint. He pulled surveillance footage from businesses that had nothing to do with the disappearance because maybe, just maybe, you'd been in the background. Walking into frame for half a second. But there wasn’t anything. All he had was the footage from the parking garage, and the still from a highway cam that spotted the truck heading out of town.

Nine days. It’s been nine days since Gator last saw you, since the last time he heard your voice. He spends almost all of his time at the station rewatching the grainy footage of you being attacked and taken. Each frame is burned into his mind and every sound is memorized, and rewatching it became his own way of punishing himself for failing you, for not getting there fast enough. He still hasn’t gone back to the house, there’s too much of you there, too many memories that he can’t let distract him. Gator can’t bring himself to eat or sleep, and even if he could sleep, he knew that his mind would just replay the footage and your screams all the same. He was right, you are haunting him. 

Time starts to move differently for you, days and hours are all meshed together in your mind, it’s like a thick cloud of fog had settled over you. You’ve been drifting in and out of consciousness for days, waking up unrestrained but with your wrists still too heavy to move, the sensation of being carried, steady fingers on your neck to check your pulse. It’s like you’ve been trapped in a terrifying, duplicative, loop. He comes in the room, rants about your life to you, when your tongue won’t cooperate to form words he gets mad at your response (or lack thereof), and then sedates you again. 

Something feels different when you wake up again, but you can’t quite make it out. You distantly hear music playing, a soft piano, like you would hear in a nice restaurant. When the blindfold is lifted from your eyes, you can tell you’re not in the same room as before. You see a table set for two, with flowers in the center and warm candles placed around the setting. Your wrists are no longer tied behind your back, instead they’re tied down to the armrests at your sides. Bile fills your throat as you realize the clothes you’re wearing are also different. He’s changed you into a short black dress, you can also tell that your hair is pulled back and away from your face. You notice the IV is also missing from your arm.

That’s when it hits you, what this is, what it’s supposed to be a recreation of. A memory surfaces, two years together, celebrated only a few months ago. Gator had taken you to a fancy Italian restaurant a few towns over. You’d spent the entire night laughing, holding hands, drinking wine and talking about your future together. This is almost identical. Almost. The flowers are in the same arrangement, the candles are perfectly placed, the same bottle of wine sits on the table. Every detail of that night has been recreated, with a disturbing and perfect amount of precision. 

You hear Nathan start to shift behind you, he lets out a noise that sounds almost like a satisfied chuckle. He slowly makes his way around to the side of the table where his chair is placed. Your jaw falls slack as you take in his appearance, completely appalled, you take a sharp inhale. 

“Oh my God.” 

He’s dyed his hair, cut, and styled it to match Gator’s exactly, the slit in the same placement on the side of his head. The boots, dark wash jeans, and black button up are nearly identical to the ones you know are sitting at home in the closet, the same outfit Gator wore that night. Even his posture is studied, mimicking the loose confidence you’ve seen Gator wear so many times before. “You like it?” Your eyes widened even more, he had put on an accent, just like Gator’s. It was clear he had spent a long time listening, learning Gator’s rhythm and cadence. 

The realization sinks in slowly. You knew Nathan was crazy, you knew he’d been watching you, but you didn't realize exactly how vile his targeted attention would feel. The only way you’ll survive this is to play the game his way, feed into whatever delusions are running through his head. You try to keep your voice steady but it still trembles with terror. “..What is this?” He pauses, smiles at you, then with an unnervingly calm voice says: “Our anniversary, you looked so happy that night. I just want us to be happy again.” You remain frozen as he continues. “I watched. I watched for a long time before that.” He paused. “I watched the way he looked at you. The way you would laugh before he even finished talking.” A terrified sob left your mouth before you could decide not to. He reaches his hand over to the top of your palm, grabbing your hand from above in a chilling embrace. 

Silent tears stream down your face as your mind races a million miles a minute. Nathan looks down at the carefully recreated table setting with fondness, when he speaks next it’s with his usual voice. “I thought… if I could understand this, that you would start to understand too.” Your body instinctively pushes back against the chair, trying fruitlessly to create distance between your bodies. He notices the way you pull away from him, hurt flashes across his expression. “I’m not going to hurt you, I just want to have dinner.” Your hands tighten around the arms of the chair as you think of a way to appease him. “...Okay, we can do that.”

An uncannily large smile lights up his face, and the act seems to start up again. “Want some wine, baby?” You freeze for a moment, disgust coursing through your veins before you remember that you need to see this through. Resisting him isn't an option anymore, you need to get out of here and you can’t if you’re constantly under sedation. A grimace forms on your face as you try to respond sweetly. “Yeah…. Gator, thank you.” He smiles at you lovingly before pouring you both a large glass of Chianti. The rest of your ‘anniversary dinner’ goes surprisingly smooth. You try to react with minimal disgust as he feeds you pasta and wine. Reciting the script from your conversation with Gator by his memory. 

Things are fine, almost tolerable and you can tell he’s enjoying himself, enjoying his starring role in this performance. At least he was until you’ve finished eating. He shifts to face you more directly, grabs the tops of your hands in his and starts to lean in. You immediately squeeze your eyes shut as you try and wish your way out of this nightmare. Your face is twisted in disgust, lips pursed together tightly as he lays a wet, sloppy kiss on you. His hand trails up the side of your body slowly, brushing the side of your chest, before landing on the nape of your neck to try and pull you in closer. A strangled whimper sounds from your throat and he pulls away, eyes blazing with anger. 

“Why are you making this so hard?” He stands up so quickly that his chair falls backwards behind him. You’re openly sobbing now, no longer able to keep up with the farce you had been forced into. He starts pacing the length of the table but his eyes are still locked on you. “I thought if I could be him, you would finally just love me.” 

Anger quickly moves into the space that despair had been taking up in your body. You finally found your voice, hoarsely yelling at him. “You’re fucking crazy!” That stops him in his tracks, he tilts his head and points at himself. “I am trying to protect you! He’s a bad man, a murderer.” You scoff before you respond, voice rising higher in disbelief. “You kidnapped me!” His face twists in confusion, like he doesn’t understand what could be wrong with the situation. “Because I love you!” 

You glare up at him and yell, venom dripping from your words. “I will never love you!” He moves quickly, roughly grabbing the back of the chair and drags you into the room you first woke up in. “Please! Nathan, I’m sorry I didn't mean it!” Your head whips around as he spins the chair to face him, he spits his words at you angrily. “I want you to sit here and think about how you can be a better girlfriend to me.” He releases his hold on the chair and you fall backwards onto the ground, the air is knocked out of your lungs and he stares down at you for a long moment before turning on his heel and walking out of the room, locking the door behind him. 

For a moment you panic, but then you realize a few things. He left you awake, he didn’t sedate you like he usually does. This is good, it gives you an opportunity to try and find out where you are. You twist your arms and legs, trying to get free of the ropes or even loosen them, but all it does is rub your skin raw. The night awake is spent screaming for help until your voice is just a raspy mess. The sun is up when sleep finally takes you, small patches of light shining through the boarded up windows. 

Hands pulling your chair upright wake you. Nathan is back, dressed as himself again. “Did you learn your lesson?” Your face twists in confusion at his question, you’re still so disoriented. “I thought we could have our first Thanksgiving as a couple.” When you try to speak, it comes out faint and whispery. “I don’t understand.” He rolls his eyes at you and reaches into his pocket. “We’ll try again soon.” And your world slowly faded to black yet again.

Thanksgiving on the ranch had come and gone without celebration. There hadn’t been anything for Gator to feel thankful for, not while you were still missing. The investigation still hadn’t moved an inch. Every briefing started and ended the same way. The footage of you from the parking garage. Then the single, grainy image of the black truck exiting stark county, no plates, no driver, no way to narrow down the search. By now, everyone on the task force could recite the details of your case from memory. 

Roy is staring down at stills of the surveillance footage in the conference room and when his phone rings, he picks it up without looking. “What.” The room slowly quiets as his conversation continues. “...Dickinson.” His expression doesn’t change. “You certain it fits?” A pause. “I understand.” His grip tightens until his knuckles turn white. “No, we’ll be there.” He hangs up, and for several seconds there’s silence while he stares at the black screen. A few deputies exchanged uneasy glances over the table, Roy doesn't look up at them. “Everyone out.” No one questions him, the room empties silently in seconds. 

Gator is outside loading a box of case files into the trunk of his patrol car. He hasn’t stopped moving. If he keeps moving, he doesn’t have to think too hard about every bad thing that could be happening to you. Roy walks across the lot to stand behind him. “Gator. Give me your gun.” He turns around slowly, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What? Wh-” Roy cuts him off. “Just do as you’re told.” Gator sees the look on his fathers face, he knows it well enough that he’s immediately filled with disquiet. He looks down, pulls the glock from his thigh holster and takes a deep breath before handing it over to Roy. 

Roy doesn’t waste a second, as soon as the gun is tucked in the back of his pants he speaks. “They found a body.” Gator felt his heart stop in his chest. “In Dickinson.” The silence that follows is deafening, he couldn’t speak even if he wanted to. “They want someone to go identify her.” The small amount of color left on Gator’s face drained on the spot. When he spoke his voice was small, he didn’t recognize the sound leaving his mouth. “They think it's…” Roy cut him off before he could finish. “They said she matches the description.” A small spark of hope flares in Gator’s chest. “They don’t know?” Roy nods once. “Let’s go find out.” 

Neither of them speaks for the first 20 miles. They’re together in Roy’s truck, Gator in the passenger seat, staring ahead at the highway that seems to stretch forever. Bare trees blur together beneath the cloudy winter sky. The heater hums quietly, but everything else in the car is silent. 

His leg bounces without him noticing it, his fingers are sore from cracking them repetitively, he feels small. Gator hadn't felt this way since he was a kid, after his mother was gone. Back then, every drive felt like this. Every time Roy told him to get in the truck, he’d spend the entire ride wondering if they would finally find her. The waiting had been unbearable for him, not knowing was worse than any answer. Now the same dread coils in his stomach, only this time it’s your face that he sees every time he closes his eyes. 

Gator lets out a shaky breath. “I keep thinkin’... what if she was scared?” His voice catches. “What if she thought I stopped looking?” Roy’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. “You really believe she’d think that?” Gator keeps his stare fixed out on the trees passing by. “No.” Roy releases an annoyed huff before he responds. “Then quit putting words in her mouth.” Gator looks over, Roy turns to meet his eye. “You ain’t stopped looking, and you won’t.” He pauses, his jaw sets. “...If she’s alive, you’ll find her.” It’s the closest thing to reassurance that Roy Tillman has ever managed. Gator nods, he doesn’t trust himself to speak. 

When they arrive at the morgue, an officer from Dickinson is already there waiting for them. “I’m real sorry.” He speaks quietly. “This way.” The hallway smells like disinfectant, everything echoes, every footstep lands too loud in the silence. The medical examiner waits beside a single covered gurney. Once Gator settles across from the man, he finally grabs the sheet and folds it back. He forces himself to look, immediately he exhales a breath he didn't realize he was holding. Her hair is long, too long, not the same length as yours. Her chin is different, she’s older. Still, he scans her once, twice, three times. HIs knees almost give out but he finally responds with a shake of his head. “No. No, that’s not my girl.” The examiner gently lowers the sheet back down and nods. “I’m sorry.” Roy speaks up, quieter than usual, more human, almost respectful. “So are we.”

Outside, the wind bites through their jackets. Gator leans against Roy’s truck, both hands gripping the hood. He laughs once, a broken and breathless sound that isn’t really laughter at all. Relief crashes into him so hard it hurts, then guilt follows immediately after. Someone else’s family is about to get the call that he’d been fearing. It isn’t you, but it is someone’s daughter, someone’s girlfriend. 

Roy steps up beside him, he doesn’t offer anything but a firm hand on Gator’s shoulder. “Listen to me. That wasn’t her in there.” Gator looks up at him. “So that means she’s still out there somewhere.” He pauses and puts his hands in his jacket pockets. “And as long as that’s true, you keep looking.” Gator swallows hard. For the first time since the parking garage footage cut to black, he lets himself start to believe that you’re still alive, just waiting for him to come find you. 

The next day passed quickly, hope had fueled Gator to try and find new evidence. He was back at the hospital, retracing your steps from the night you were taken when he got the call. A deputy had been looking into suspicious activity in neighboring towns and found something. There was a storage unit rented under a fake name, paid eight months in advance, all in cash. It wasn’t much, but it was all they had to go off of. 

The roll up door rattles loudly as it slides upward. Dust drifts through the beam of Gator’s flashlight and for a second, no one says anything. Roy steps inside first, his face screwed in disgust as he tries to make sense of the sight before him. “What the…” The room isn’t full of stolen property, weapons, or even stockpiling supplies. The walls are entirely covered, floor to ceiling, with photographs. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of them. Gator is frozen in place. Every inch of metal had been transformed into a sick collage. Your face, his face, the two of you together. A deputy whispers under his breath. “...Jesus H.”

Gator takes a step closer, at first the photos are ordinary. Just you leaving work, walking into the grocery store, getting gas. Each was complete with the date written beneath in black marker. Then there were the pictures of him. Some were taken outside the sheriffs office, buying coffee, even a few of him sleeping in his truck during long surveillance hours. His stomach tightens. Whoever had taken these photos had been able to get close, too close. 

When he turns to the next wall, he thinks he might be sick. An entire wall covered in pictures taken from outside of your house. You in the kitchen, laughing while washing dishes, Gator standing behind you with his arms wrapped around your waist. Another picture of your living room, you asleep on the couch with your head in Gator’s lap. Then pictures of your bedroom. The curtains hadn’t been fully closed, there was just barely enough of a gap. The color drains from his face and his hands shake as he goes to reach for the picture. “No…”

The deputy beside him looks away first. “Sherriff...” Roy doesn’t answer, he can’t. There are photographs no stranger should have. Pictures of you dancing in nothing but Gator’s shirt, the two of you lost in each other while sitting in the kitchen, you kissing him goodbye on the porch. A collection of private moments, intimate moments. 

Then somehow the pictures became more invasive. More pictures from your bedroom, some from the living room, but all sharing the same content. Your back arched in pleasure with Gator’s head between your thighs. Some of you gasping into his mouth as you rode him wildly. Even a few shots of you on your knees for him. Images that nobody should ever see, private images. One of the deputies quietly excuses himself from the room, the other follows but neither utters a word.

Gator feels something rise in his throat. His vision blurs and he stumbles back until he collides with a metal shelving unit. The sound echoes through the space. He can’t look away from the pictures. Whoever took you had been watching for at least six months, probably longer. They had watched you wake up, leave for work, come home, eat dinner, laugh, sleep, live. Every moment that you thought had been private now belonged to someone else too. He can feel his stomach turn violently, he barely makes it outside before dropping to one knee on the gravel. He retches but nothing comes up, he hasn’t eaten enough for that. All that comes are dry, painful breaths. 

Roy follows him out a moment later, staying silent at first. “They knew your routine, her routine.” Gator wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. His voice is hoarse when it comes out. “I never saw ‘em.” The words sound almost disbelieving. He squeezes his eyes shut. “I never saw anybody.” Roy rests a hand briefly on his shoulder. “They were good.” Gator’s fists clench and he shakes his head violently. “No. I should’ve seen ‘em.”

Inside the unit, deputies continue photographing everything before moving or touching it. One notices something unusual. “Sherriff?” Roy turns “What.” The deputy points. “This wall.” At first glance, it’s just another collection of photos, but then he sees it. Nearly all of the photos are labeled with dates, times, locations, but one isn’t. Instead someone has written a single sentence beneath the picture. She likes the sound of trains. It’s a photo of you standing outside of a cafe, smiling at something out of the frame. There isn’t anything unusual about it, except, in the distant background, only barely visible beyond the buildings, is a faded grain elevator. And behind it sits the front end of a weathered train. 

The deputy frowns. “Why write that?” Another deputy answers quietly. “Maybe because it mattered.” Gator walks back inside, his eyes fixed on the photograph. He doesn’t look at you, he looks past, at the background, at the train. And then a different picture catches his eye, one from a different day, you were dressed differently, but there it was in the back. The same grain elevator, the same rail line. 

It appears over and over again in the pictures, always somewhere within sight of that abandoned railroad. His breathing changes, fast and focused. He starts grabbing photos off of the wall. “They were choosing a place.” Another photo with the same rusted rail crossing, but this time also showing an abandoned warehouse in the distance. His mind is racing. “They kept bringing themselves back here.” He moves to lay the pictures out on a folding table. Every image was clustered around the same neglected stretch of railway that had once served a network of grain warehouses just west of town. Most of the buildings had been abandoned years ago, but some were still standing. They were completely forgotten, isolated, and absolutely perfect for someone who wanted privacy. 

Gator’s heart starts pounding violently in his chest. For the first time in nearly two weeks, the investigation is actually pointing somewhere. He grabs the nearest map of the area, his finger finds the old rail spur. “There.” Roy studies it. “Are you sure?” Gator’s answer comes quickly and with no hesitation. “No.” He grabs his jacket. “But it’s the first real lead we’ve had since they took her.” For the last twelve days, every clue had ended with a dead end, but there was finally a destination. And somewhere beyond those abandoned tracks, you were waiting for him. 

Thick flakes of snow blasts sideways across the empty highway, but Gator barely notices. His truck fishtails through snow drifts as he tears down the county road, headlights cutting white tunnels through the storm. The storage unit had been a nightmare made real. Once he had the location, he left, he hadn’t waited for anything. All he could think was ‘please be there, please be alive’.

The first thing you become aware of is the cold. It has settled into your bones, damp and unrelenting. It leaves your fingers numb where they’re tied tightly behind your back. Your head throbs, you don’t even remember what happened this time. One minute you were arguing with Nathan about his love for you, and the next you were waking up, not sure how long had passed, and feeling heavier than before. 

The blindfold that lays over your eyes scratches against swollen skin as you blink instinctively into the darkness. The building groans around you, wind and snow hitting hard against the walls from outside. “...You’re awake.” Nathan. His voice is gentle when he speaks, nothing like it sounded the last time you were awake. Your wrists flex uselessly against the rough material of the rope. You hear him let out a disappointed sigh. “You’re still not understanding.” 

A hand comes out of nowhere to brush your hair away from your face. It makes you flinch so violently that the chair scrapes across the floor. “I love you.” The words make your stomach churn. “I know you.” You squeeze your eyes shut beneath the blindfold. His footsteps circle you slowly, like a shark waiting for the right time to swallow you whole. “Eventually you’ll understand that I was helping you.” Your heart lurches, when you try to speak your voice is barely audible. “Gator is going to come for me.” He laughs, a sad, pitying sound. “No.” Your next words slip out before you can stop them. “He’s going to destroy you when he finds me.” He doesn’t respond, just leaves you alone in the room again. 

A while later you hear him return, steps frantic. You don’t know what could’ve gotten him so worked up, especially after his scarily calm demeanor earlier, but that’s when you hear it. Voices muffled, outside the building. Car doors slamming and the crunch of boots walking through snow. Nathan freezes for a second and his breathing quickens. “No…” He rushes over to you. Your pulse spikes, you can’t stop the hope from spreading. “It’s Gator, isn’t it?” 

His hands fumbled at the ropes around the chair, not to untie you, but to drag you upright. “He wasn’t supposed to find us. Come on.” Your legs give out instantly, you haven’t walked properly in days, maybe longer. He catches you under the arms, spitting behind gritted teeth. “Move.” A part of you is glad you hadn’t been able to walk, using it as an excuse to help you resist him just a little bit. “I can’t…” He groans as he starts to drag you across the wooden floors. Your shoulder crashes into something, a wall probably, and pain explodes through your side. 

Outside, a door slams open. “STARK COUNTY SHERRIFF!” Another voice. “SEARCH THE BUILDING!” Your heart starts pounding so hard that it hurts. Then, the voice you’ve been replaying in your head is calling out your name. You immediately burst into tears, screaming loud enough to make your throat hurt. “Gator! I’m here!” Nathan jerks you violently, hauling you backwards with an arm wrapped around your waist. “No! Shut up!” You stumble around blindly. “You’re coming with me.” The blindfold makes the world impossible to navigate, and your bound hands leave you utterly helpless. You can hear footsteps moving in closer. “Gator, I’m here!” He shouts back. “So am I! I’m coming!” 

Nathan panics and throws you back against a wall, you can feel him moving around and reaching for something, metal clinks. Then, instead of a knife ripping through you, you feel his hands wrap around your throat hard, too hard. Your airway collapses instantly. “No one else is allowed to have you.” Your eyes fly open beneath the blindfold, but you don’t see anything, only darkness. Your bound hands claw desperately at the wall behind you, you kick your feet wildly, weakly. Everything spins, your lungs are burning and you can hear shouting somewhere nearby. 

“GATOR!” Another voice yells out: “LEFT SIDE!” You can hear boots rattling the wooden floorboards, getting closer and closer. Your vision starts disappearing, the pressure on your neck only getting tighter and tighter. “If you won’t be with me-” A deafening gunshot echoes through the building, causing his grip to loosen slightly before tightening again with renewed force. Another shot, you can hear wood splintering. Someone crashes into you and the hands around your neck vanish. 

You collapse to your knees, coughing violently. The blindfold still covers your eyes, you can’t see a thing, only listen. There’s a punch, a body hitting the ground and someone screaming. “No!” It’s Gator, he’s really here. “You motherfucker.” Another impact, and a sickening crack. “You tried to take her away from me.” Another blow. You can hear Nathan’s sobs, his pleas for help, his begging Gator to stop. He doesn’t stop, but then you hear a loud crash, something heavy toppling over. You can hear Nathan trying to scramble back towards you, until Gator catches him. “No, you don’t get another step.” One final impact, and then silence. Nothing but the wind howling through the walls, and Gator’s ragged breathing. 

Someone says quietly– “Suspect is down.” Another person starts walking towards you but then you hear Gator, his voice coming out flat. “Don’t. I got her.” Boots approach you now, gentle but quick. “Hey… Hey baby,” His voice cracks completely. “I’m here, sweetheart.” You let out a relieved sob. “Gator…” His fingers tremble as he gently unties the blindfold. Cold, fluorescent flashlights blind you and for a moment, everything is blurry. Then– there he is, snow melting in his hair, blood splattered across his face and jacket, a bruise already forming on one cheek. His hazel eyes are red from crying, with deep purple circles underneath them, he looks just as broken as you feel. 

“Oh, baby…” He drops down to his knees in front of you, his hands shake so intensely that he fumbles with the ropes binding your wrists. "I'm sorry. I’m so sorry.” He can’t stop saying it, repeating it over and over again, his new mantra. “I’m sorry I wasn’t faster.” The rope falls away and your arms drop uselessly to your sides. Before you can think, he gathers you into his big arms. You nearly collapse into him. His coat is still freezing from the snow, but his embrace is impossibly warm. 

You desperately cling to him with all of the strength you can manage. “I knew..” Your voice trembles. “I knew you would come.” He buries his face against your neck, carefully avoiding the bruises already darkening your skin. “I would’ve burned the world down.” A broken laugh escapes your mouth. “I know.” He kisses your forehead, then your temples, then your hair, over and over again. Deputies quietly move around the two of you, no one interrupts, not for a long time. 

The emergency room is painfully bright. Doctors and nurses fuss over the bruising all over your body and the raw abrasions on your wrists and ankles. Your friend and coworker, Mel, asks you questions while running tests. You answer what you can, but mostly you watch Gator. He’s refused to leave your side. His chair is pulled up to the bed so close that his knees are pressing into it. 

A question that Mel asks knocks you out of your gawking. “...a rape kit?” Your eyes widen as you consider the possibility, you had been sedated for long stretches of time, and Nathan was obviously deranged, but wouldn’t you know? Your voice comes out small. “I-um, I don’t think so, but I was out for a long time. I know he changed my clothes.” Mel shoots you a sympathetic look. “Alright, then we’ll do an exam just in case. He can wait–” Gator squeezes your hand and you cut her off. “I want him here.” She just pauses for a second, looks between the two of you, and then nods quickly.

During the pelvic exam, Gator is standing next to the bed, facing you. You were both gripping each other's hands as a lifeline. Thankfully, it went by fast. Mel came back into the room. “Good news, no signs of any sexual assault. And–all things considered– you’re in good shape, so you can go back home tonight.” Tears well up in your eyes as you give her a soft smile and nod, not able to get any words out. 

You don’t remember the drive home from the hospital. One second you were in the car and the next you’re standing in the living room. Home, finally. It faintly smells like the pumpkin candle you’d been burning and laundry detergent. It was the exact same as you’d left it weeks ago. You’re safe. Your knees buckle and before you can stumble, Gator catches you. “I got you.” His voice comes out hoarse, it had been since he found you in that old warehouse. He doesn’t let you go until you’re sat on the edge of the bed. 

He rubs a hand over this face. “I’ll get the shower ready.” You nod up at him, completely exhausted. “Ok.” You hear the water running after he disappears into the bathroom. Opening cabinets, moving bottles around. He checks and adjusts the temperature three different times, muttering under his breath to himself as he does it. 

When he comes back, he kneels in front of you slowly. “You don’t gotta rush.” He grabs your hands and you gaze into his hazel eyes. “Whenever you’re ready.” You look in the direction of the bathroom before looking back at him. “..Will you stay with me?” The question comes out just louder than a whisper. For a heartbeat, he just stares into your eyes. Then his expression softens into a look so tender, it makes your chest ache. “Always, mama.” 

The steam fills the bathroom almost immediately, warm enough to chase away the chill that had been living in your bones ever since the nightmare began. Gator carefully helps you peel the oversized hospital sweatshirt from your body. His movements are almost painstakingly gentle, slow and reverent. Whenever fabric brushes against the raw skin around your wrists or ankles, he winces and stops, apologizing profusely. “You didn’t hurt me, Gator.” He keeps apologizing anyway. 

He steps into the shower behind you, still wearing his boxers, until he’s absolutely certain that you’re steady enough to stand on your own. He straightens up before slipping them off beneath the water, there’s nothing hurried or embarrassed about it. Neither of you are focused on that. This is about survival, not desire. 

You close your eyes as warm water trickles over your shoulders. The heat stings every raw patch of skin and bruise, before soothing the ache. Gator reaches for the shampoo. “Can I?” You nod. His fingers work through your hair with impossible care, massaging your scalp just enough to loosen knots without pulling. Neither of you says much as he gently washes your hair and body, using one broad hand to shield your face from the spray. All the words just feel too small.

Then with no hesitation, you step backward until your body is fully pressed against his chest. His arms wrap around you automatically and you melt into him. The warmth that surrounds your body isn’t just from the water anymore. His heartbeat thumps steadily against your back. You hadn’t realized how much you missed hearing it until now. For several long minutes, the only noise in the room is water hitting the tile and your breathing. 

Then, something shifts. A small tremor, you think he’s just shivering from the cold. Until it happens again. His chest gently shakes once, twice. Your brow furrows. “Gator? Baby?” There was no answer, the trembling starts again, and worse this time. You tilt your head back on his shoulder to look at his face. He’s looking down at your bruised, raw wrists. Jaw clenched so tightly it was shaking, tears slid silently down his face, disappearing into the shower water almost as soon as they fell. You can feel your heart cracking open in your chest. 

“Oh.” You carefully turn around in his arms. His big eyes squeeze shut the second he sees you looking. His voice comes out in a shaky whisper. “I’m sorry.” You frown up at him. “What are you apologizing for, honey?” His hands hover over your wrists, shaking and terrified to touch them. “It’s just-“ His voice cracks. “He tied you up.” You glance down, dark bruises line your wrists like shackles of reminder, skin so raw that even air brushing across it stings. Your ankles look pretty much the same. There are purple fingerprints dotting the skin on your throat.

You hadn’t looked at yourself too closely at the hospital. Now you understand why everyone had looked at you with that same sympathetic expression. “I should’ve found you sooner.” He shakes his head as his words come out broken and uneven. “If I’d just gotten there a day earlier.” Another tear slips from his eye. “He wouldn’t have done this to you.” He finally cups one of your wrists, barely touching the uninjured skin just above the bruises. ”He only hurt ya because I wasn’t there.” 

You shook your head gently but full of conviction. “No.” His eyes open. You repeat it more firmly. “No. He hurt me because he wanted to.” His reply came quiet, but you weren’t willing to hear it. “If I had just-“ You cut him off before he could finish his sentence. “Gator. You found me.” His eyes close, and he shakes his head side to side. “‘Not soon enough.” You grab him by the cheeks. “Stop. You found me.” The words hung still between the two of you. Your hand rises along his face, slowly brushing away his wet hair. “I got to come home because of you, Gator.” His face crumpled and he shook his head. “I was so scared.” You give him an understanding half smile. “I just kept thinking if I had just been better, if I had been faster-“ You shook your head at him, not insistently, just sure. “Gator, you came.” He looked at the floor. “I almost didn’t.” You move forward to lean your forehead against his. “But you did.” He leans into you further. The two of you stand together beneath the warm water as the tears are washed away by the spray. 

His voice is childishly small when he goes to speak. “I don’t think I could survive losing you.” You respond by wrapping your arms around him as far as your sore muscles will let you. “You won’t ever have to.” His arms tighten around you, not enough to hurt, just enough to reassure himself that you’re really there. Alive, breathing, and real. “I love you,” He murmurs into your damp hair. “So much it scares me.” You smile through your own tear filled eyes. “I love you too.” The two of you remain there until the water begins to cool, simply holding one another, relishing in the comfort you bring each other. No more words, you don’t need them.

Later, after fresh bandages and soft pajamas, Gator helps you into bed. He fusses over every pillow, blanket, and every tiny wince that leaves your mouth. “You comfortable?” It’s almost funny watching him use such an excessive amount of care. You hum your answer affirmatively. “Are you sure?” You laugh softly for what feels like the first time in forever. “Gator. You’ve asked me six times.” He gives you a deadpan look as he responds, completely serious. “I can ask seven.” After the playful glare you shoot at him, a faint smile finally appears on his face. “There she is.” 

The mattress shifts beneath his weight as he climbs into the bed beside you. Without hesitation, he opens an arm and you scoot in close. Your body fits itself against his side instinctively, resting your head right over his beating heart. His hand settles carefully against your back, not possessively, but protective, as though he’s reminding himself you’re here. His thumb traces slow circles through your shirt until you’re breathing evens out. Just before sleep can claim you, you feel him press a lingering kiss into your hair. He whispers quietly in the silent room. “I’ve got you” Wrapped tightly in each other's arms, surrounded by the familiar comfort of home, the two of you drift to sleep together, holding on as though neither of you ever intends to let go again.

The weeks after that went by quickly. You and Gator were practically attached at the hip, both of you needing to feel each other. If you woke up in the middle of the night to get water, he was trailing just behind you, holding your hand sleepily. He’d cook dinner with your arms wrapped around him from behind. You spent days just wrapped in each other’s embrace. The routine you’d fallen into was good, things were finding their way back to your new version of normal, but something was still missing. 

Showering together has become a part of your new routine. You had tried to shower alone but Gator sat silently on the toilet seat and you could barely stand being even a few feet apart. It was fine, you’d seen each other naked hundreds, if not thousands, of times. But he wouldn’t touch you, at least not properly. The second that your kisses would start to grow hungrier, he would pull back and murmur some excuse about finishing up to get ready for bed. And you couldn’t take it anymore.

One night after your shower, you were drying off together like always, but before Gator could turn to get dressed you stopped him. He looks at you, confused for a moment. Your voice comes out small, barely above a whisper. “Gator. Please touch me.” He looks at you with pursed lips and furrowed brows. “I don’t wanna hurt you baby.” You grab both of his hands in yours. “You would never hurt me.” He inhaled deeply and nodded twice. 

The walk to your room is short, but it feels like miles. Your heart is racing as Gator leads you gently to stand by the bed. His towel falls to the ground, yours following seconds later. For a moment, neither of you move, you just stand and admire each other in a way you haven’t in a while. The first kiss is so sweet and gentle, but you’re quick to turn it filthy, sliding your hands to grip him by the nape of his neck, suckling gently on his bottom lip. He’s so gentle when his tongue finally brushes against yours. You trail your hand down the front of his chest, through the cluster of hair you love so much, and down further. But before you can reach for him, he stops you.

“Lay down for me mama.” You obey instantly, moving back towards the headboard to make room for him to join you. He shakes his head with a small smile on his lips. “Uh-uh.” Before you can ask what he means, he’s gently dragging you back down the bed, dropping to his knees in front of you. 

Your chest is heaving as you stare down at him, seeing him take a moment to just gaze at your wetness. After he’s done admiring you, he leans down and starts to plant open mouthed kisses to your inner thighs, gently sucking light marks into the skin there. Breathy sighs escape your lips as you watch him worship you with such care. 

When he finally puts his mouth on you, it’s so much better than you had imagined it. He gave a few slow, long licks, groaning at your sweet taste and gathering your wetness before diving in, gently fucking you with his tongue. “Fuck Gator, just like that,” your words were barely louder than a breath. He hums against you as you slide your hands down to grip his hair. The only sounds in the bedroom were your light moans and Gator devouring you lewdly. He pulled back slightly to mumble against you. “Taste so good baby,”

You stared down at him slack-jawed and wide eyed as he lifted his head let a mixture of your slick and his spit dribble down from his mouth onto your folds, while holding eye contact the entire time. He uses the pads of his middle and ring finger to rub slow circles around your clit, before carefully sliding his fingers inside your wet heat. You gasp as he gently latches onto your clit again, sucking and pumping his fingers at the same time. It sends you hurtling towards your release faster than you can believe it. You gasp, arching up into his mouth and pulling on his hair to keep him close. When you cum, it’s with a long moan, your orgasm rolling through your body in waves. It felt never ending, Gator’s mouth and hands coaxing more and more aftershocks from you until you were left shaking. 

When you finally come down from your high, his head is leaned against your inner thigh and he’s gazing up at you adoringly. “I missed you so much.” You smile softly and bite your lip at him. “Get up here.” Heat builds again in your body as Gator starts to leave a trail of open-mouthed kisses up your body. He pauses every few to look up at you. “So beautiful,” His gentle ministrations continue, slowing when he reaches your breasts to leave even more kisses along the swell and around your pert nipples. “So perfect for me,” 

When he finally reaches your face, you’re aching for him. He leans in and gives you one more slow, long kiss to the lips before settling himself above you. You can feel yourself growing wetter as you sneak a glance between your bodies, his long, thick cock just as pretty as the last time you’d seen it like this. He entered you slowly, carefully, but without hesitation. You felt every inch, every moment of the delicious invasion, and when he was fully sheathed, you both stopped, gasping, just feeling. “You’re so tight,” He murmured, his forehead resting against yours. Your voice is low and sultry as you respond. “Mmm you’re so big, Gator.”

At first, his movements were deep, languid rolls of his hips that had you both moaning softly into each others mouths. He kept his eyes on your face as he moved, needing to make sure he wasn’t hurting you, that you were okay. “You’re so handsome.” You reached your hand up and run it along the side of his face, his plump lips, his big eyes. “My handsome man.” He nodded while leaning into your touch. “Yours,” He answered, voice breaking. “Only yours baby.” 

His rhythm quickened, and the room was filled with the sounds of you, bodies meeting, breathless gasps, and muffled groans. “I love you so much, Gator,” He licked into your mouth before he responded, voice husky. “I love you more” 

He changed the angle slightly as he lifted your legs higher against his waist, making the pleasure grow deeper, more intense. You let out a loud moan and it seemed to spur him on, repeating the motion once, twice, three times. One of his hands found your clit, touching in rhythm with his thrusts, and the pleasure that had already been good became almost unbearable. 

“I’m gonna come, “ You warned, voice raising in pitch. “Oh god, Gator I’m gonna-”

“Come. I want you to come with me mama.” He buried his face in your neck, his movements growing more ragged, more urgent, and when you finally shattered, he followed a second later, a muffled groan into your skin, his whole body trembling. You stayed like that for a long time. His hand still touched your face, his fingers tracing your jaw as if you were the most precious thing in the world, because to him you were. 

The warmth of his body covered you completely, his weight pressing you into the mattress. His voice sounded near your ear, warm. “You don’t know how much I missed that.” You laugh lightly. “I think you just showed me.” He paused, then he kissed you, and the kiss was everything, despair and hope, hunger and devotion. All of the things you’ve been through together, expressed into a kiss. 

When he pulled away, there were tears in your eyes. “Thank you, Gator.” Concern flashes across his face, worried for a second that he had hurt you. He’s quick to move off of you and lean on his side, cradling your face in his big hands. “Thank you for saving me.” He only shakes his head at you, voice trembling. “You saved me. I wouldn’t have been able to live without ya.” 

You just shook your head at him, smiling like a fool in love. He moves to lay down fully, and you put your head on his chest, listening to your favorite sound as sleep threatens to take you. You made it home, you’re safe, and Gator is going to spend the rest of his life making sure those things never change. 

All Gator can think about is the diamond ring sitting in the bottom of his sock drawer, waiting for the right moment to ask the question.

part 3

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The first thing you notice is the light. It settles over everything in shades of amber and honey, turning the lake into a sheet of molten gold, the kind that feels warm even by just looking at it. The water ripples lazily beneath a warm summer breeze, carrying tiny flashes of sunlight toward the shoreline. Towering pines line the opposite bank, their reflections stretching long and dark across the smooth water’s surface until the wind breaks them apart.

The air smells like warm earth, sunscreen, and hint of gasoline. It should feel unfamiliar but it doesn’t. It feels like a place your body remembers even if you’ve never actually stood in it.

You’re sat on the hood of a blue pickup truck parked only a few yards from the lake’s shorefront. The metal beneath you is still warm from sitting in the sun all afternoon, and you absentmindedly swing your legs over the front bumper, heels tapping the bumper in a rhythm that isn’t quite a song.

Beside you sits someone you've never met, but even then, you actually do know him. Not in the same way that you might know your mother or your brother. And not because someone introduced you. You know him the way you know your own favorite color, you know him the same way you know how to breathe. It’s instinctual, a simple certainty that just exists in the world.

He's older than anyone you would usually spend time with, maybe twenty-something. His brown hair is messy from the breeze, falling into his eyes every few seconds until he pushes it back with an absent flick of his hand. A pair of sunglasses hang from the collar of his faded yellow shirt, and one slightly scuffed sneaker taps passively against the truck's bumper.

For a long while, neither of you says anything. The silence doesn’t feel like something that needs filling. It feels like you’ve already spent the afternoon talking and neither of you have anything left to say.

He tips his head toward the horizon, where the sun hangs low and orange just above the treeline. "You know, I think this is my favorite time of the day." 

You lean back on your palms, squinting at him. "Why?" 

He looks over at you, finally, and the light catches his eyes ina a way that makes them look almost lit from the inside. "'Cause everything just slows down." He nods toward the water, where the ripples had gone lazy and slow, catching the color of the sky. "It’s all calm. Nothing’s in a hurry to be anywhere else."

You consider that carefully. "I think I like mornings the best." 

His eyebrows go up. "Oh?"

"'Cause you still have the whole day left. Anything could still happen."

He laughs, soft and low, like it surprised him. "That's a pretty good reason." 

You smile at him. His smile widens to match it, like it’s contagious, like it’s the easiest thing in the world to catch.

The breeze picks up and tosses strands of hair across your face. Before you can lift a hand to fix it or brush them away, he reaches over and tucks it behind your ear without seeming to think about it at all, the kind of gesture that’s already been made a habit, worn smooth from being done a hundred times before. Neither of you comments on it, because it doesn’t feel like the moment needs anything else.

After a while, he speaks up again. "So," he says, and pauses just long enough that you return to look at him. "What do you think?"

"About what?" 

He spreads his arms out toward the lake, like he’s presenting it to you. "All of this." 

You glance around, playing along. "The trees?"

"The lake."

"The sunset?"

"Our life." 

You wrinkle your nose at him. "I don't know yet."

"No?"

"I'm still deciding." 

He laughs again, louder this time, tipping his head back like you’ve said something genuinely delightful. "Fair enough."

The quiet settles back over you, easy as a blanket. Somewhere behind you, birds call to each other in the trees. The lake keeps lapping softly against the shore in its slow, patient rhythm. You don't know why, but every few seconds you glance toward him just to make sure he's still there.

And every time, he is. 

Eventually he catches you doing it. "What?"

"I wasn't looking."

"You were."

"I wasn't."

"Were too."

"I wasn't!"

He narrows his eyes at you, mock-serious. "I think you're lying."

"I think you're wrong."

"Oh?"

He leans in, just slightly, like he’s letting you in on some valuable secret. "I never lose an argument."

"You definitely do."

"Nope, never. Not once in my life."

"I don't believe you."

"You should." He says it like it’s a simple fact. “I’m very convincing when I need to be.

"No you're not."

He places a hand over his heart as though you've wounded him. "That hurt."

"Good."

He gasps dramatically. "You're mean."

"I am not."

"You called me unconvincing."

"You are."

"I am delightful."

You reach over and shove at his shoulder, more fond than anything. "You are annoying."

He pretends to think. "...Those aren't mutually exclusive." 

You burst into laughter before you can stop yourself, and his whole face lights up at the sound. 

"There it is," he says.

"What?"

"I was waiting for you to laugh."

"Well, you made a stupid face. That’s why."

"It worked, didn’t it?"

"It did."

He seems strangely pleased with himself.

And then, something in the air changes. You feel it happen before he even moves. One of his eyebrows lifts. The corner of his mouth twitches, just barely, in a way you already recognize even though you shouldn’t. His eyes go bright with something you don;t have a name for yet, but your body does, because you’re scrambling backwards across the hood of the truck.  

You point at him immediately. "No."

"What?"

"I know that face."

"I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"You have a bad idea."

"I have an excellent idea."

"No."

He slides off the hood of the truck, unhurried, like he has all the time in the world. "I haven't even done anything."

"And you’re not going to."

"I really think I am."

"No, you’re not."

He takes one slow step toward you, hands loose at his sides, grin spreading wider with every inch. "So..." Another step. "...come here."

You shriek and bolt, jumping from the hood and hitting the ground running. Behind you, laughter erupts, loud and delighted. "Oh, you're fast!"

"I'm not talking to you!"

"You weren't talking to me before, either!"

You cut around the passenger side of the truck. He jogs after you, laughing loudly the whole time, not even really trying to catch you yet, like the chase itself is half of the fun. You dart around the back bumper just as he reaches the driver's side. For one triumphant second you think you've escaped. Then you round the corner, and he's already there, waiting for you with an elated smile gracing his face. 

"Oh."

He folds his arms. "Hey there." 

You immediately pivot to run in the opposite direction, but before you can make it two steps, strong arms wrap carefully around your waist, pulling you gently back against him. "Gotcha!"

"No fair!"

"It was entirely fair."

"You cheated!"

"I used strategy."

"I don't like strategy."

"I noticed."

You squirm and twist, already laughing helplessly despite the fact he hasn't done anything yet, you just know what’s coming, the way you already know most things about him. He looks down at you with exaggerated suspicion. "You're laughing awfully early for someone who hasn’t been tickled."

"'Cause I know what you're gonna do."

"Do you? Really?"

"You always—"

You stop yourself mid-sentence. Always? The word slips out before you even noticed reaching for it, and now it sits there in the air between you, too big for the moment. For just a heartbeat, something in his expression goes soft and almost sad, there and gone so fast you might’ve imagined it. 

Then the mischievous smile returns. "I always what?"

"...Nothing."

"I think you know."

"I don't."

"I think you definitely do."

His fingers find your sides before you can answer, and the laughter bursts out of you instantly uncontrollable. 

"No—!"

"That's not very convincing."

"Stop—"

"I haven't even started."

He wiggles his fingers against your ribs and your knees actually give out, both of you tumbling down into the grass beside the truck in a tangle of laughing and no, no, wait—

"Steve!" The name leaves your mouth effortlessly. Like you've said it hundreds of times. Neither of you questions it. He only laughs. "There she is."

"You cheat!"

"You said that already."

"I really mean it this time!"

He keeps at it until you’re both laughing too hard to do anything but lie there in the grass, chests heaving, faces turned up toward a sky gone soft with color. The sunset has deepened into streaks of pink and lavender, the gold from before gone quiet and blue around the edges. 

For several long moments neither of you speaks. You just lie there together, listening to the water. Hearing each other's laughter fade away into quiet smiles. The breeze tickles at your skin as it flows over your face. 

"I like finding you," Steve says, quiet now, all the teasing gone from his voice. 

You turn your head toward him. "What does that mean?" 

He doesn't answer right away. Instead he watches the sky as it changes colors, like the words are somewhere up there and he’s waiting for them to come down. "It means..." His voice trails off, and when it comes back it’s softer still.  "...I always know it's going to be a good dream. When it’s you."

Dream? You frown. "What dream?" 

He looks at you then, and something flickers behind his eyes, not quite sad, but close to it, close enough that you feel it in your own chest without understanding why. His smile doesn’t go anywhere, it just gets a little more careful. “You’ll understand someday.”

The wind turns warm, warmer than it should, and the lake starts to blur at the edges like watercolor left out in the rain. The sky bleeds white, and the world slips out from under you, soft as falling asleep inside a dream you didn;t know you were already having.

You wake up laughing. A real, full-bellied laughter, the kind that makes your stomach hurt and your cheeks ache.

Soft morning sunlight pours through the curtains, bright enough that you have to squint. Your quilt is tangled around your legs, and three of your stuffed animals have somehow ended up strewn across the floor, casualties of whatever you were dreaming of.

Your bedroom door creaks open, and your mother leans in, already smiling at the sound of you. "Well," she says, "sounds like someone woke up on the right side of the bed."

"I had a funny dream."

"Oh?"

"The funniest one ever."

She sits on the edge of your mattress, and you eagerly explain everything you can hold onto, tripping over the details in your hurry to get them out before they can fade.

"There was a lake."

"A lake?"

"And a truck."

"What color?"

"It was blue." She nods seriously, lips pursed, like this is an important piece of evidence. "That’s a very important detail."

"And there was a boy." 

Her eyebrow lifts. "A boy?"

"He chased me." 

Her voice climbs up, somewhere between amused and alarmed. "Oh?"

"But only ‘cause he wanted to make me laugh." 

That settles her and she smiles, brushing a strand of hair back from your face, the same gesture from the dream, though neither of you will ever know that. "And did he?" 

You grin so widely it pulls at your cheeks, nodding hard enough that your whole body seems to agree with you. "Yeah." 

She laughs. "Well. Sounds like a nice dream."

"It was." You pause, turning the words over before you let them out. "He was nice." 

And saying it out loud does something strange to your chest, a small, hollow ache, like homesickness for a place you’ve never been. You miss him. You don’t know how that’s even possible, missing someone you’ve never met, but you do, in the same uncomplicated way you knew his name before he ever told it to you.

Breakfast smells like butter and bacon and the specific warmth of a kitchen that’s been busy for a while already. Your father sits with the newspaper folded in one hand, and your older brother is loudly, dramatically, protesting the injustices of having to get dressed before nine in the morning. 

You climb into your chair and stir your cereal without really looking at it. "Dad?"

"Hm?"

"Can dreams belong to two people?"

The newspaper lowers just enough to reveal his eyes over the top of it. "What do you mean, Bug?"

You think of the right words, how to ask the question in a way that adults would understand. "Like..." You turn your spoon absentmindedly. "...if I dreamed about someone..." Your parents wait, looking at you expectantly. "...could they dream about me too?" 

Your brother snorts into his own cereal before replying. "You mean like magic?"

You shrug, suddenly feeling small about the whole thing. "I don't know." 

Your father chuckles, but not unkindly. "I don't think that's how dreams work, Bug." 

A frown slowly forms on your face before you speak again, unwilling to let the conversation end there. "But what if they did?" 

Your mother reaches over and squeezes your hand. "Dreams come from our imagination, sweetheart."

"But he felt real."

"Who did?"

"The boy."

"The one from your dream?"

You nod. "He had messy hair." you add, like this is important corroborating evidence.

Your brother groans and drops his forehead onto the table. "Oh no."

"What?"

"She's got a dream boyfriend."

"I do not!"

"You do." 

“James,” Your mom cuts in, admonishing your brother. “don’t make fun of your sister. You had a pretty wild imagination too, at her age.”

You scowl down at your cereal, starting to feel foolish for believing that your dream could be real. "I don't even know his name." 

James mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like that's even worse, and your parents laugh, not really at you, just at the particular, ridiculous sincerity that only comes out of a five-year-old defending a dream.

Still, you don't laugh along with them, because you know how it felt. The warmth of the sun, the smell of the lake, the sound of his laugh. 

But most of all, you remember the certainty in his voice when he said, I like finding you. Like it wasn’t the first time he had said it, like it wouldn’t be the last time.

Somehow… You know that he meant it.

The first thing Steve notices is how loud the world is. 

Not exactly the dream itself, the dream is quiet in its own way, thrumming with a kind of anticipation that makes his skin prickle. It’s the sound around it that’s loud: wind moving through metal bleachers in long, rhythmic gusts, almost like breathing. The air smells like cut grass baked too long under the sun, and something sugary drifting over from a concession stand somewhere behind him. Lemonade, maybe. Or just close enough that his mind decides it must be. 

He’s sitting halfway up a set of old stadium steps, and he’s not alone. There are people surrounding him on all sides, but none of them matter to him at all, because none of them are you.

The track below stretches in a perfect oval, glowing under the afternoon light like it’s been polished. Red paint, white lane lines, heat rippling just above the surface. It looks almost unreal, like something pulled out of a magazine instead of a real place.

And then, there you are. 

You’re older than him. Not by much, but enough that it feels important, the way small differences do when you’re six. You’re standing at the starting line with your hands braced on your knees, taking deep, careful breaths. You look focused, not exactly nervous, just coiled tightly, like everything inside you is waiting for the right moment to explode out and into motion.

Steve doesn’t know your name. He doesn’t know how he knows you at all, has never once been able to explain it to himself in a way that makes sense.. But he does know you, and it feels like he’s known you for a long time, much longer than his own six years should allow for.

The announcer’s voice crackles through a speaker, distorted and bright. Something about the lanes. Something about timing. Something about you. Steve leans forward slightly without realizing it.

“Ready…” 

The word stretches out. The atmosphere around him tightens. Even the air feels like it’s holding its breath.

Then the gun goes off, and you’re moving. 

Not fast in a panicked way, fast with certainty, like you've done this a thousand times even though you haven't, like you've been practicing your whole life for this exact thirty seconds. Steve is on his feet before he realizes he's stood up. Somewhere between the first bend and the straightaway, you're already pulling ahead, arms pumping clean and sure, feet light but powerful, like you're not so much running as choosing where gravity gets to take you.

The crowd rises around him in a wave. The roar of it reaches him strangely, like its distant, muffled, like it’s happening one room over. Steve can only hear his own heartbeat, clearer than anything else. And you, but you don’t look back. Not once, because you don’t need to.

By the final stretch, there’s no question left in it. You break the finish line with a burst of motion so clean it feels like it should mean something bigger than just a race.

The stadium explodes. Cheering, clapping, feet stomping the metal bleachers hard enough that Steve feels it in his own chest. People surge forward around him. He doesn't move. He can't look away from you.

You slow down, laughing now, breathless and glowing with the kind of happiness that can’t be contained by your body. You turn toward the sideline, and standing there waiting for you, are your parents. He knows they are your parents before his mind can explain how.

Your mother reaches you first, arms wrapping around you so tightly you almost stumble backward. Your father is right behind her, laughing, hands on your shoulders like he’s checking that you’re real.

They’re so outwardly proud of you. Completely immersed in celebrating you, not quiet or polite with their adoration. It makes something shift in Steve’s chest. An ache in his chest so warm and sharp all at once, and he doesn’t have a name for the feeling yet.

You’re talking, but he can’t hear the words clearly over the noise. Still, it doesn’t matter. The meaning is obvious in the way your face keeps breaking into laughter between sentences, in the way your mother keeps brushing sweat off your forehead like it’s something precious to her.

Your father lifts you clean off the ground for half a second; just enough to spin you before setting you back down. You’re smiling so hard it almost looks like it must hurt. Steve doesn’t understand why that makes his throat tighten. He doesn’t know you, but he’s proud of you anyway. That doesn’t make sense, but nothing about this does.

And then, without warning, your head turns. 

Not toward your family. Not toward the crowd. 

Towards him. Directly. Like you know exactly where he is sitting. Steve freezes. 

The stadium noise dulls, fading like it’s being pulled underwater. You’re still smiling. Still breathing hard. Still glowing with victory.

And for just a second, it feels like you’re looking right at him. Like you’ve always known he was there. Steve’s heart kicks hard, once.

Then the dream breaks.

When he wakes up, it feels like he’s surfacing from deep underwater. The ceiling above him is wrong. Too low, too familiar, and too small for what he was just standing inside of. Sunlight presses through the thin curtains and paints pale lines across his bedroom floor. He blinks once, twice. His chest still feels tight, like he’d been the one running.

For a moment, he just lies there. Trying to hold onto something he can’t name. There was a race, and there was a girl. She won. He knows that it matters, that she matters, even though he can’t quite remember why.

Steve turns his head toward the window. Outside, the neighborhood is already awake, a dog barking in someone’s backyard, a car rolling past slowly, a lawn mower starting up down the street like its announcing the start of an ordinary routine. But Steve doesn’t feel ordinary. He feels like something just happened somewhere else, something important. 

He swings his legs out of bed. The floor is cold against his feet. Downstairs, the house is quieter than it should be. Not empty exactly. Just… distant. His mother is already moving somewhere in the kitchen; he can hear the faint clatter of dishes, the soft shuffle of someone trying not to make too much noise and disturb whatever silence has settled over the house. His father is somewhere else, probably in his office. He’s not present in the way Steve has already learned to recognize without being told. 

Steve eats breakfast without tasting much of it, still turning the dream over in his mind. He keeps thinking about the way you looked when you crossed the finish line, like you belonged there, like the world was cheering because it finally got something right.

Later that morning, Steve finds the older boy down at the end of the street, kicking a second bike upright at the curb. The one who rides his bike fast and doesn’t wait for anyone. 

“Okay,” the boy says. “You’re gonna pedal, and you’re not gonna panic.”

“I don’t panic,” Steve says automatically, a small pout on his face. 

The boy gives him a flat look. “You panic.” 

Steve climbs onto the bike anyway. It feels too big under him, the handlebars wobbling beneath his grip like they’re testing whether he deserves to be up there at all. “Don’t look down,” the boy tells him.

“I’m not looking down.”

“You’re looking down.”

“I’m not—”

“Just pedal.” 

Steve begins to pedal. The bike jerks forward immediately, unstable, like it’s laughing at him. “I’m gonna fall,” he says, voice already wobbling harder than the handlebars.

“You’re not gonna fall.”

“I’m definitely gonna fall.”

“You’re not.”

“I am.”

The bike swerves hard underneath him and the world tilts. And then, somehow, it steadies. For one brief, impossible second, Steve is moving forward on his own, no hand holding the seat, no voice behind him keeping him upright. The wind hits his face differently. Sharper. Freer. 

“I’m doing it!” he blurts.

“You’re doing it,” the older boy confirms, jogging along behind, grinning.

Steve laughs, really laughs, for no reason he could explain except that it feels like there should be one. And then the boy lets go. Steve doesn’t notice at first, it takes a full three seconds before he realizes the voice behind him has disappeared. 

“Oh no.” He crashes into a hedge. Leaves scattering around him like green confetti.

The older boy is laughing so hard he has to sit down, and Steve, flat on his back in someone’s shrubbery, laughs right along with him. His knee stings from where he scraped it, but he doesn’t care.

By the time he gets home, the day feels both too long and not long enough.

The house is still doing its usual, half-empty thing. His mother is on the phone again. The babysitter arrives earlier than expected, already smiling in the distracted way of someone thinking ahead to whatever she’ll be doing once this shift is over.Steve nods at her politely. He is good at that now, being polite, being easy. Being someone who doesn’t ask too many questions or speak without being spoken to. 

Upstairs, he sits on the edge of his bed for a long time without turning on the radio or picking up a book. His room is small in the particular way all rooms are when you're six, full of things he didn't choose. A poster some decorator thought he might like. A shelf of toys gathering dust in the corner, untouched in longer than he could tell you. A window that looks out on a street that never changes.

He keeps thinking about the girl from the dream. The way she ran. The way she won. The way she looked at the end, like she could see him. Steve lies back slowly. The ceiling is still wrong, but the memory isn’t.

And for the first time, he finds himself hoping something he doesn’t fully understand will happen again. He wants to see her. Even if he doesn’t know her, because somehow, it already feels like he does. The afternoon drags in a way Steve doesn’t have a word for yet. Not slow exactly, more like stretched, or dragging. Like time itself is trying to decide whether it wants to stay or go on.

The house is quieter now that the babysitter has taken over the space his mother was filling earlier. Steve can hear her moving around downstairs, the radio turned on low, footsteps careful, the occasional clink of something in the kitchen, but none of it feels like it belongs to him.

He sits on the edge of his bed with his shoes still half on. The dream won’t leave him. Not the race. Not the crowd. Not the way you looked when you turned, like you already knew something important about him. Steve frowns slightly, because he doesn’t know what that means. He just knows it makes his chest feel warm and strange at the same time.

Downstairs, the babysitter calls something out, probably his name, but it doesn’t fully register for him. He answers anyway, just loud enough that it counts. “Yeah?”

“Dinner in a bit!”

“Okay!”

Normal words, it was a normal day. But nothing about him feels normal right now.

Later, when the sky starts shifting toward late afternoon gold, Steve finds himself outside again. The older boy is there, leaning on his bike like it’s the only thing in the world that belongs to him, and only him. “You coming back out tomorrow?” the boy asks. 

Steve hesitates, not sure. Then nods. “Yeah.”

“Good,” the boy says. “You were almost not terrible today.” 

Steve narrows his eyes. “C’mon, I was pretty good.”

“You crashed into a bush.”

“After I rode.”

“Barely.”

Steve opens his mouth to argue, then stops himself, because arguing feels less important than it should. Instead, he glances down the street. At nothing in particular, also at everything. “I had a weird dream,” he says finally. 

The older boy shrugs. “Yeah, everyone does.”

Steve considers that. “I think it was important.” That makes the boy actually look at him. “Important how?” Steve opens his mouth, closes it again. He doesn’t have the words to describe it, not yet. So he just says, “I don’t know.” The boy accepts that easily, like it’s a normal answer. “Yeah,” he says, nodding down at Steve. “That happens sometimes.”

Dinner is whatever it usually is with his babysitters.

Steve sits at the table while the babysitter moves between rooms, looking for something to entertain herself. She asks him about his day without really waiting for answers.

His father isn’t there and Steve doesn’t ask where he is. He has learned that questions like that don’t go anywhere useful. Instead, he eats quietly and carefully, like being unnoticed is a skill he’s practicing.

Steve goes upstairs early. Earlier than he needs to. Earlier than anyone suggests.

He sits on his bed. And for a while, he just listens to the house. Listens in the quiet, to the faint, distant sound of a television downstairs.

And then, without even meaning to, he starts thinking about you again. The girl from the dream. The runner. The one who turned at the end like she knew he was there.

Steve swings his legs slightly. Back and forth, again and again. “I wonder who you are,” he says quietly. No one answers and he wasn’t expecting anyone to. Still, the silence feels heavier after he speaks, like he admitted something he should’ve kept a secret.

He lies down slowly. The ceiling above him is the same as it always is. But tonight, it feels different. Less solid. Like something else might be waiting just beyond it.

Steve closes his eyes. At first, nothing happens. Just darkness. Then the track returns. The sound of cheering. The warm sunlight.

He exhales without realizing he was holding his breath. And there you are again. Not just as his memory, not as something fading or passing by, but as something continuing. You’re sitting down somewhere this time. Not running, just talking to someone he can’t see. Laughing at something he can’t hear.

Steve sits down beside you in the dream without thinking about it. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Hey,” he says. 

You turn toward him and smile. It’s a small smile, simple. But it hits him in a way he doesn’t understand yet. 

“Hi,” you say. 

And just like that, the day makes sense again. Even if he doesn’t know why.

When Steve wakes up again, it’s darker outside. The house has shifted into its nighttime quiet, the kind that feels deeper than daytime silence, like everything and everyone’s agreed to stop.

He lies still for a long time, just staring up at the ceiling. Trying to decide what part of the dream was real enough to matter. He doesn’t have a name for what he feels. He just knows he wants it again. Not the race, not the crowd, not even the running, just you.

Downstairs, the babysitter has turned off the television, the house settling down. And somewhere a clock keeps time in the dark.

Steve turns onto his side, pulling the blanket up a little higher, and closes his eyes again. Not because he’s tired, but because sleep feels like the only place something important might still be waiting for him.

And he doesn’t want to miss it. 

He doesn’t want to miss you.

next chapter

taglist:

Months had passed quietly since you returned home, the seasons slowly changing around you. The winter melted away into spring, and with it the bad memories and bruises washed away too. It had taken a lot of time and work, but you and Gator were healing. Eventually you both had to return to work, but now you had a parking spot near the hospital entrance, and two deputies that escorted you to and from the building. It was a lot, and it was ridiculous, but it was Gator. And it helped, having peace of mind was a gift you wouldn’t take for granted. The two of you were happy, closer than ever, and bonded by something that nobody else could really understand. 

You woke to a sliver of pale morning sun shining directly onto your eyes. A long, tired groan escapes your throat before you turn, burrowing your face almost completely in Gator’s armpit. His low chuckle shakes your face and his voice is rough with sleep when he speaks. “What are you doin’ in there, mama?” You huff out a breath through your nose and grumble. “Trying to sleep.” He just smiled at that, you didn’t need to see him to know that he was looking down at you. For a long while he just laid there with you, admiring your beauty, your bravery, you far you had come.

There were still nights when you woke up from nightmares screaming and in tears, heart racing. You still had days when a strange car parked outside for too long made your chest tighten. Sometimes even Gator still reached for you in the middle of the night just to reassure himself that you were really there. But there were a lot more mornings like this. Mornings that were peaceful, spent wrapped in each other, safe and happy.

His thumb brushes over the back of your head lightly. “Hey baby?” You hummed affirmatively in lieu of a response. “Would you want to go by the ranch and see the calves? Maybe have a picnic or somethin’,” He paused, hand rubbing circles into your shoulder. “Like old times.” A fond memory flashes through your brain, you and Gator riding around the ranch, looking at all of the new babies and naming them. Of course you had gone on dates since being back, but not in town, and none so exposed. There was still that fear lingering deep inside you, that someone could be watching again, waiting and collecting information. You lift your head to meet his eyes carefully. His hair is sticking up in every direction, eyes are still heavy with sleep as a nervous smile takes over his face, and somehow he’s never looked more handsome. A small smile makes its way onto your face and you nod. “Yeah, I’d really like that.” 

The sky is blue and the grass is a vivid green when you pull into the ranch. Tiny patches of stubborn wildflowers are beginning to bloom along the fence lines, and everything smells like fresh earth and clean air. You ride with the windows down, your arm hanging out the window as Gator drives slowly across the property in his truck. The warm breeze tangles your hair. “This is my favorite time of year,” You murmur. “I know.” Gator grabs your hand and squeezes once, twice. “Everything just feels..” You pause to search for the right words. “... new. Like at any second, anything could happen.” He understands exactly what you mean, maybe even more than you do. 

The truck bumps gently over a cattle guard before slowing near one of the pastures. “There they are.” Your heart nearly melts in your chest. “Oh my gosh,” The tiny calves bounce awkwardly after their mothers on impossibly long, unstable legs. “They’re so little.” One especially fluffy brown calf attempts to run, then immediately trips over its own feet, and stands back up as if absolutely nothing happened. 

And while you’re watching the calves, Gator’s watching you, a lovesick smile on his face. He sees a carefree kind of joy that hadn’t been there in a long time. “I love him.” Gator just nods, still smiling, not sure if he could ever stop. “I had a feelin’ you would.” You both climb out of the truck. The cows and their calves eye you curiously from a safe distance. One particularly small cream-colored calf wanders closer. “Oh..”Your voice is soft and careful as you crouch down slowly. “Hi, sweetheart.” The calf just blinks its enormous dark eyes at you. You turn to look at Gator and whisper. “What should we name him?” Gator folds his arms and winces before he speaks. “We shouldn’t. We’ll just get attached.” A frown takes over your face as you look back at the small calf. “But I already am. I think I’ll call you,” Your voice trails off as you pause to study the calf seriously. “...Biscuit.” 

You go on like this for the next few minutes, walking around and pointing at different calves. “That one’s Pepper.” Pointing at another one. “Ooo, she’s Daisy.” A particularly chubby calf catches your eye and you slow your steps dramatically. “That big one,” You grin wide. “That’s nugget.” Gator barks out a laugh loud enough to startle a few birds from a nearby tree. “Nugget?” 

Your words are broken up by giggles. “C’mon, Gate. He is absolutely a nugget.” 

“You are somethin’ else.” He watches you smiling at the calves, and his own expression softens. He still remembers months ago, finding you bruised, blindfolded, and terrified. Still remembers your voice calling out to him in the dark, remembers dropping to his knees beside you in the dark. He could still feel how you clung to him as he promised you over and over again that he had you, you were safe. So standing here now, watching you laugh at clumsy baby cows, feels like finally breathing after being stuck underwater. “Are you ready for lunch?” You turn and nod at him eagerly. “Absolutely!” 

He drives you further into the ranch’s property than you’ve ever been before. Eventually the truck reaches a secluded clearing beside a quiet pond that is surrounded by small, budding trees. The pond's blue water sparkles beneath the afternoon sun. “Wow, this is beautiful.” He chuckles, squeezing your thigh where he held it once, before turning the truck off. “Told ya.” You go to climb out, grabbing the folded blanket from your footwell. “I’ll set the blanket,” He reaches into the bed of the truck. “I’ll get the rest.” 

You wander in the direction of the pond, carrying the basket while Gator starts gathering the picnic basket. He opens it up swiftly and reaches inside, fingers brushing against the small velvet box. His heart immediately starts pounding. The ring had been sitting in the bottom of his sock drawer since September, he’d planned to ask months ago, but life just got in the way. Now the ring sits comfortably in his palm, today is the day. 

He takes one deep breath, in and out. He hears your gasp and then your voice, sounding stunned and a little frantic. The ring disappears into his jacket pocket as he grabs his glock, abandoning everything else. “Gator! Gator, come quick!” Immediately he books it, running towards you as fast as he can manage, gun drawn and expecting the worst. 

Gator stops so abruptly he nearly laughs from sheer relief. But what he finds makes his heart swell so much that he thinks his chest could explode. It’s just you smiling brightly, crouched down low, five little ducklings cradled gently in your arms. He lets out a relieved sigh and tucks his gun back into his waistband. “Babe,” You look up sheepishly, a faux pout on your face as you whisper in amazement. “Look at them! They’re so tiny!” He huffs a laugh and moves to crouch down next to you. “You scared the hell outta me with that.” 

A mother duck swims in circles at the edge of the pond, watching worriedly. “You oughta put them back before she gets out.” You nod at him, lowering your hands to let them back onto the ground. The ducklings stumble around uncertainly for a moment before tumbling into the water with tiny splashes. Immediately they paddle away towards their mother. You watch until they’re all hidden among the reeds, safe from any danger. Gator wraps an arm around your shoulder. “You’re gonna be the best mama someday.” You feel your chest fill with warmth as you look up at him, smiling thoughtfully. “Do you really think so?” He leans in and kisses the side of your head. “I know so.”

The blanket is spread beneath a large oak tree. After you eat, you’re just lying beside each other watching the clouds drift lazily overhead. Your fingers are intertwined, the breeze is warm against your skin and you can hear birds singing somewhere nearby. “This is perfect.” You sigh contentedly. “It is.” Silence settles between you comfortably. Gator can feel the small velvet box in his pocket, his heartbeat refusing to calm down. 

“I need to say somethin’,” His words come out quickly, almost stumbling over each other. You turn to look at him, noticing the sweat gathering along his temples and the queasy look on his face. Immediately you’re concerned, worried that he’s somehow fallen ill in the last half hour. “Gator? Are you okay?” He just nods once and moves to sit up. You shift onto your hip, sitting with your legs folded beneath you. His adam's apple bobs in his throat as he swallows. 

“I’ve been thinkin’ about this for a long time now.” He reaches for both of your hands, and you nod, brow furrowed in confusion but still trying to be supportive. “I know I’ve told you this a million times already,” A pause, he’s making eye contact with you now. “But I’ve never known anything as perfect as you.” He huffs out a breath. “I spent 26 years of my life thinkin’ that I would never change, and then you came along.”

His voice trembles slightly as he continues on. “You gave me something I’d never had before, someone to be better for.” You give his hands an encouraging squeeze. “You’re the best person I’ve ever known. I don’t know if I’ll ever deserve you.” You open your mouth to try and speak but he cuts you off. “No, I need to say this. Please let me say this.” 

He takes a steadying breath. “When I found you in that warehouse, I thought I’d lost you.” Your nose starts to burn and your eyes sting as tears well up in your eyes. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. And every day since then has felt like a gift.” A tear slips down your cheek and he is quick to lift his hand and brush it away. “You made this place feel like home. You made me feel like I could be somebody worth lovin’.” Your lips tremble. 

“I wanna spend every spring with you.” He smiles. “Every summer, every fall, and every winter. I want to grow old with you and keep namin’ baby cows forever.” It’s only then that you fully understand what he’s doing, you start to laugh as more tears slip down your cheeks. 

“If you’ll let me, I’ll spend forever working to be the man you deserve.” He lets go of one of your hands and reaches into his pocket. Your breath catches as the velvet box catches the light. “Gator…” He shifts off of the blanket and onto one knee. Everything else disappears. The breeze, the pond, the birds, all you can see is him, Gator. Only the man who had fought through hell to bring you home. The man who still looked at you like you were the greatest thing he had ever known. He opens the box and the diamond catches the afternoon sunlight perfectly. “I love you.” His voice is steady now. 

“So..” He says your name once, slowly, faithfully. “Will you marry me?” You don’t even let him finish the breath before you’re nodding. “Yes.” It comes out as a laugh and a sob all at once. “Yes, Gator.” He starts blinking rapidly, shock filling his expression. “Really?” That makes you laugh harder. “Really, really.” His smile grows so big it almost doesn’t seem real. He slips the ring onto your finger with hands that tremble just enough for you to notice. It fits perfectly. 

The second it’s on, you’re throwing your arms around his neck. He catches you easily and the two of you tumble backwards in a fit of laughter. You kiss him once, then again, then again and again until you’re breathless. 

You whisper against his lips. “I love you,” 

“I love you too.” 

“So much.” 

“I love you more.” 

“No,” You smile. “I don’t think you do.” He rests his forehead against yours. “I think I win this one.” You both fall quiet. The pond ripples gently nearby, ducks paddling peacefully across the water. Somewhere in the distance, there are calves tripping over their feet. And for the first time in a very long time, the future feels endless.

taglist: (i just tagged everyone who asked to be for part 2)

The first thing you're aware of is the hum of the truck’s engine, low and steady underneath you, and the particular, worn-soft comfort of a bench seat that's clearly been sat in a thousand times before. You're tucked under Steve's shoulder, his arm slung loose and easy along the seatback behind you, left hand still resting on the wheel like it belongs there. The radio's turned off. Neither of you seems to mind the quiet.

You don't know how long you've been driving. You never do, in dreams like this, time seems to move the way it wants to, skipping whole stretches, landing you exactly where it needs you without bothering to explain the road in between. All you know is that you're older here, the two of you both settled into some easy, comfortable version of grown up that feels lived-in rather than borrowed, and that his blue truck smells like coffee and copy paper and something warm that you'd know anywhere, in any of your dreams, and at any age.

The truck slows. Turns. Gravel crunches under the tires as you pull into a driveway, and you sit up a little, blinking at the house in front of you, white clapboard, green shutters, and a porch big enough to hold a whole family's worth of summer evenings, wrapping generously around the front like the house is offering you a hug before you've even gotten out of the car.

"Steve." You look at him, then back at the house, then at him again. "What are we doing here?"

He's got that look on his face, the one you've come to know across a dozen different dreams now, the specific, badly-contained delight of someone who's been sitting on a secret and is about two seconds from bursting with it. "Oh. Surprise." He rubs the back of his neck, grinning so hard it's a wonder his face can hold it. "So, I talked to my parents, and — they're helping us with the down payment. Only if you want, as, uh. As an early wed—"

You don't let him finish the sentence.

You're not even sure what you're cutting off, not really, the word catches somewhere behind your ribs before your mind's fully caught up to it, some enormous, warm, terrifying shape you're not ready to look at head-on yet. So instead you just throw both arms around his neck and pull him in, hard, laughing as you hug him tightly, feeling his surprised laugh rumble up through his chest in response.

"That's a yes, I'm assuming," he says while smiling against the top of your head, voice doing something rough and pleased at once.

"That's a yes," you confirm, squeezing him tighter, not ready to let go of him just yet. "That's a yes, obviously, yes, whatever you were about to say, yes."

You walk through the house hand in hand, footsteps echoing loud and hollow through empty rooms that smell like fresh paint and old wood and so many possibilities. There's nothing in any of them yet, no furniture, no boxes, nothing but bare walls and clean floors and light pouring generously through windows that haven't been dressed with curtains.

"The kitchen's huge," Steve says, tugging you through a doorway, already gesturing at nothing like he's furnishing it in real time. "We could put the table right there. Big enough for– I don't know. People. However many people we end up with running around here."

"That's a very vague number."

"I like to keep my options open."

You wander from room to room like that, half real conversation and half pure, giddy imagination; a room upstairs that you can tell catches the morning light just right, which Steve immediately declares should be an office even though neither of you owns a desk yet; a smaller room next to it that you both go quiet in for a second too long, neither one quite saying out loud what it's clearly meant for, before Steve breaks the silence with something dumb about paint colors just to hear you laugh again.

By the time you make your way back outside, the sky's gone soft and gold, early evening settling warm over the porch, and you sit down together on the top step, shoulders pressed close, looking out at a yard that hasn’t been landscaped yet, at a street that's going to become the most familiar one you've ever known.

"We're gonna have so many good nights out here," you say, half to yourself.

"Yeah?" Steve tips his head against yours. "Like what?"

"I don't know yet. That's the fun part." You smile at the empty yard, already filling it in — a swing set, maybe, someday. Fireflies in July. Steve grilling something and burning it slightly every single time and insisting it's intentional and ‘for flavor’. "Fights on the porch swing we don't have yet. Christmas lights we'll definitely put up wrong the first year."

"Slow dancing," Steve adds, like it's the most obvious addition in the world.

You laugh. "We have no music."

"That," Steve says, already pushing up off the step, entirely too pleased with himself, "is a very easily solvable problem."

He jogs back to the truck, and you watch, delighted and a little bewildered, as he leans in through the open door and does something at the dash, and a second later, tinny and warm through the truck's open doors, a familiar, easy guitar starts up, Neil Young's voice drifting out low and unhurried into the evening air. Harvest Moon. He leaves both doors wide open, speakers angled out toward the porch like he's built you your own private, ridiculous concert hall out of a blue pickup and a brand new cassette tape.

"There," he says, walking back toward you, hand outstretched, grinning like he's just solved something much bigger than a lack of music. "Music."

"You are ridiculous."

"I'm resourceful." He pulls you up off the step, one hand warm at your waist, the other closing easy around yours. "Dance with me."

"On the porch, with no furniture, and truck speakers?"

"Exactly. It's very sophisticated." He's already swaying you both slowly into motion, unhurried, easy, the porch boards creaking soft beneath your feet in time with nothing in particular. "Very high-end. People would pay good money for an atmosphere like this."

You laugh again, helpless, forehead dropping to his chest, and he just holds you closer, humming slightly off-key along with the song drifting out across the empty yard. The evening goes soft and gold and slow around you both, no furniture, no boxes, no real life planned yet inside those bare, echoing walls, just the two of you swaying on a porch that's about to become the place you build an entire life on top of.

"I love you," Steve says, quiet, right against the crown of your head, like it's not a declaration so much as a fact he's simply reporting. "I love you so much it's honestly a little embarrassing."

"I love you too." You tip your head back to look at him, smiling so hard it aches in the good way, the only way. "Even though you just serenaded me with truck speakers."

"I think you love me especially because of the truck speakers."

You don't have a single argument for that. You just keep swaying instead, slow and unhurried, the last of the daylight sinking gold behind the house, Neil Young's voice looping soft and steady through the open truck doors like it has nowhere else in the world it needs to be either.

When you wake, there's no ache waiting for you this time, or maybe there is, but it's the good kind, warm and full instead of hollow, the kind that makes you lie there smiling at your own ceiling instead of aching for something you can't reach.

You don't call for anyone, and you haven't in years. You just reach for the flashlight, pull the notebook free, and write it all down while it's still fresh — the white house, the green shutters, the huge porch, the word he almost said before you hugged him and knocked the air from his chest.

A house. White with green shutters. He said his parents were helping with the down payment. But I didn't let him finish, I just hugged him, I don't even know why, I think I already knew what he was about to say and wasn't ready to hear it out loud yet.

We danced on the porch to a song I’m sure I’ve never heard before, playing out of the truck. No furniture in the whole house. But it didn't matter at all, because I was really with him.

You pause, pencil hovering the page, chewing your lip.

I don't know when this is supposed to happen, or if it ever will. But I hope it's true, I hope it can be real. I hope there's a white house with green shutters somewhere out there waiting for us, and a porch, and a song playing out of an old blue truck with the doors left open.

I hope I get to hear him almost say that word again someday. I hope, next time, I let him finish it.

You close the notebook, slide it back beneath the floorboard, and lie back against your pillow, still smiling, the whole warm shape of the dream settled comfortably in your chest instead of aching there for once. You fall back asleep easily, humming something that might be Neil Young or might just be the memory of it, and dream of nothing else at all that night.

You wake still holding onto the shape of that huge, some phantom warmth sitting stubborn across your shoulders even after your eyes are open and the ceiling above you is your own. Your arms lightly squeezing yourself as though you need to feel it to remember it even happening at all.

You lie there a long moment, just breathing, replaying it, the empty house, the boxes you never got to see, the way he said I love you like it wasn't a declaration so much as a fact he was simply reporting. It's already faded in the way dreams always do, softening at the edges even as you try to hold onto it, but something in your chest is still buzzing anyway, warm and stunned and a little bit like disbelief.

You've never felt anything even close to that in real life and it’s not like anything else you've got a name for. This felt bigger. Steadier. Like something that's already decided, somewhere far off, whether you're ready for it yet or not.

You don't know what to do with that. So you stay there a while longer just holding it, turning it over the way you turn over every detail from these dreams now, careful not to let it slip away too fast.

Your alarm clock goes off before you can get any further with the thought, jarring and insistent, and you finally drag yourself upright, blinking hard against the ordinary yellow light of your actual room.

You catch your own reflection in the bathroom mirror a minute later, cheeks still faintly warm, and you smile at yourself before you can stop it — a little embarrassed, a little giddy, already half a world away from a school day that hasn't even started yet.

The uniform is, without question, the worst part of going to Anderson Prep. It is still hanging exactly where you left it the night before, blue-and-white plaid draped over your desk chair like an accusation. You stare at it a second, willing it to somehow be less itchy than it was yesterday. It isn't. It never is.

You get dressed anyway, sliding the polo over your head, tugging the skirt straight, still faintly humming something you can't quite name under your breath, a melody you're pretty sure isn't real, isn't anything you've ever actually heard on a radio, and yet sits there in your chest this morning clear and complete, like it's been waiting there your whole life for you to finally notice it.

You've been wearing it six weeks now and you still haven't made peace with it — white or blue polo, your choice, paired with a blue-and-white plaid skirt that manages to be simultaneously itchy and somehow always slightly too short no matter how many times your mother lets the hem down. Margaret, when you complained about it over the phone last week, laughed so hard she had to put the receiver down for a second. "I’ll bet you look like a golf catalog," she told you, delighted, and you didn't have a single argument against that.

You miss Margaret at school, if you're honest, you miss the easy, uncomplicated shorthand of a friendship that's had years to wear itself smooth. But you talk on the phone most nights anyway, and she's still your best friend even split across two different schools now, and there's something almost freeing about starting somewhere brand new where nobody already has an opinion of you carved in from third grade onward.

You skipped the eighth grade. It's not a huge thing, and you tell people that exact sentence whenever it comes up, casual, unbothered, and mostly it lands exactly the way you want it to: a fact, not a headline. You're fourteen in a school full of fourteen-to-eighteen-year-olds, and if anything it's made you more of a known quantity rather than less, the new girl who's somehow already got a full lunch table three weeks in, already made varsity track and field as a freshman, already got herself invited to enough things that your mother's had to start keeping a running list on the kitchen calendar just to keep it all straight.

Ella Marsh is a big part of that. You share homeroom, and track, and, as of about four days into September, an entire shared language of eye-rolls and passed notes that makes even Anderson's dullest classes bearable. Ella's older sister Heather drives them both home most days, an arrangement you got folded into almost immediately, Heather waving you into the backseat of her ancient Buick on your second week like it had already been decided without anyone bothering to ask you.

Today, though, your mother's the one dropping you off, running late enough that you have to half-jog from the car to the gym doors, backpack thumping against your shoulder, the whole building already buzzing with the specific, chaotic energy of a mid-October pep rally.

"Go, go, you're gonna miss the good part," your mother says, already pulling away from the curb before you've even fully shut the door, and you take her at her word and run.

The gym is packed by the time you slide into the bleachers next to Ella, blue and white streamers sagging from the rafters, the pep band absolutely murdering something that's supposed to be a fight song with more enthusiasm than accuracy. GO JETS painted huge across a bedsheet banner someone's rigged up over the far basket, and underneath it, the whole varsity basketball team gets paraded out one by one to increasingly unhinged cheering, introduced by a booming, over-caffeinated assistant coach who clearly lives for this exact moment twice a season.

"Regional semifinals," Ella says, leaning into your shoulder to be heard over the noise, practically vibrating. "Against Hawkins High. If we win on Friday we go to state."

"Is that far for us?"

"I don't know, but everyone's acting like it's the moon landing, so." She grins, gesturing at the bleachers packed wall to wall. "I’m guessing this is basically the Super Bowl for Anderson."

The team lineup keeps going: names, positions, a solid three minutes just for the starting five, and that's when you spot him. Aaron Thomas, sophomore, number twenty-three, jogging out to a roar that's a little louder than most of the others, easy grin already in place like he was born knowing exactly how to work a crowd like this.

You've been on three dates with Aaron Thomas. You still get a little thrill just thinking that sentence to yourself, like it belongs to someone slightly older and much cooler than you actually are. First there was a movie. Then the dinner date at the diner after a Friday night game. And once, memorably, an entire three hours spent on his back porch doing nothing but talking, which somehow ended up being your favorite of them all.

He's the first boy you've ever had a real crush on, not a Clark-shaped flutter from three years and one different school ago, but something that feels bigger now, more solid, more like the genuine article. You still haven't fully worked out what to do with that.

Aaron scans the bleachers as the team lines up, easy and unhurried, like he's got nowhere else to be even mid-pep-rally, and then he finds you. He doesn't hesitate, doesn't look away fast the way most boys do when they get caught looking. Just grins, slow and sure, and winks.

An actual wink. At you. In front of the entire school.

"Oh my God," Ella hisses, grabbing your arm hard enough to leave a mark, and beside her, a girl named Priya you've known for exactly six weeks makes a sound like she's been personally wounded by how cute that was. "He winked at you. He winked at you in front of the entire gym."

"I saw it happen, Ella, I was there."

"I'm just saying, that's not a subtle move. That was a whole announcement." She's still gripping your arm, grinning so hard it looks like it hurts. "You're basically dating the star player. This is, like, a movie."

"We've been on three dates."

"Three dates and a very public wink," Priya corrects, delighted, and the two of them dissolve into muffled, hyperventilating giggling that you're fully complicit in no matter how hard you try to look unbothered about the whole thing. Your face is doing something warm and ridiculous that you can't fully control, so you give up trying.

After the pep rally lets out, the gym slowly draining into the hallway in one loud, streamer-strewn wave, you find Aaron waiting by the doors, gym bag slung over one shoulder, still a little pink from all the noise.

"So," he says, falling into step beside you like it's the easiest thing in the world. "You see that out there?"

"See what?"

"C'mon." He nudges your shoulder with his, grinning. "You saw it."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." You're fighting a smile so hard your cheeks ache with the effort. "I was very focused on the fight song."

"Sure you were." He shifts the bag on his shoulder, easy, confident in that specific way sophomore basketball players learn to be confident, and then, softer, less performed: "We're gonna wreck the Tigers on Friday, by the way. Just so you know."

"That’s a lot of big talk."

"Not talk. Fact." He stops at the end of the hallway, where you're supposed to peel off toward your locker and he's supposed to head for sophomore chemistry class, and looks at you with an expression that's trying very hard to be casual and missing by a comfortable margin. "I'll be dedicating every shot to you, if that helps our odds any."

"That is without a doubt, the corniest thing I have ever heard in my entire life."

"I know." He doesn't even try to deny it, grin widening instead, unbothered, pleased with himself in a way that's somehow more charming for how unashamed it is. "Is it working, though?"

You don't answer that directly. You don't have to, the answer's all over your face already, warm and obvious, and Aaron's grin just gets wider watching it land, like he already knew exactly what he was going to get before he said a word.

"See you on Friday," he says, already backing away in the direction of his class, still grinning. "Wear something blue. For team spirit."

"I go to this school, Aaron. I own approximately one hundred blue things."

"Yeah? Well… wear all of ‘em."

You're still smiling about it when you take your seat in homeroom ten minutes later, sliding into a seat in the back of class next to Ella, who takes one look at your face and immediately demands a full replay of the entire conversation, word for word, twice.

The school day goes by quickly, a few unremarkable quizzes and projects scattered into a day full of giddy whispers and more winks and soft smiles from Aaron across the hall and lunchroom. Even Heather, a junior, had heard about Aaron’s public displays of affection toward you. As you walked up to her car after seventh period, you heard the dramatic guitar and piano riffs from the chorus of Journey’s ‘Open Arms’, both Ella and Heather dramatically singing at you. “Oh my God! Enough,” You try to shield your face with your hands, as if that would make the song end faster, but it only spurs them on, making them sing louder and point in the direction of Aaron and his friends. They finally stop once you’ve slammed the door and laid yourself out on over the backseat, cheeks still burning with embarrassment. Heather smirking back at you as she turns the radio down. “What? Nothing else for your loverboy?” 

“You two are seriously the worst.” 

“Yeah, yeah. And you love it.” 

That night, worn out from the noise and the excitement and the particular, giddy exhaustion of a good day, you fall asleep faster than you have in weeks.

And somewhere in the quiet after, the way it always eventually finds you no matter how full your day's been with someone new and real and easy to love, you dream of Steve again.

The next school day goes by the way most of them do lately, ordinary, easy, the buzz of Friday's game still a low hum of anticipation under everything. Ella and Heather are both gone, off to Florida for their weird uncle's third wedding, a fact Ella relayed over the phone last night with the specific, resigned exhaustion of someone who has clearly given up questioning her family's choices. "It's going to be a whole thing," she said. "I'll tell you about everything on Monday."

Which means, after track practice, you're stuck waiting for your mom instead of piling into Heather's Buick like usual.

Which would be fine, except that she doesn't show up.

You wait by the gym doors for twenty minutes before you start to actually notice the waiting, watching car after car pull up and claim someone else's kid and pull away again. You use the old payphone bolted to the wall outside the gym, feeding it a dime with fingers that are starting to feel a little less patient than they were ten minutes ago. The phone at home rings and rings and rings. No answer.

You try again fifteen minutes later. Then again. By the fourth try, the sun's dipping low enough that the sky's gone that specific orangey-grey October color, and something under your annoyance has started to feel less like irritation and more like something else you don't have a name for yet.

Your dad's no help, he and James are somewhere else in Indiana this week, dragging themselves through campus tours for schools James swears he doesn't care about but keeps asking careful, over-prepared questions during anyway. You're on your own for this one.

You're still standing by the gym doors, arms crossed against the cooling air, when they swing open behind you and Aaron comes out, gym bag over his shoulder, hair still damp with sweat.

"Hey." He slows when he sees you, surprised. "Thought everybody cleared out of here an hour ago."

"Waiting for my mom. She's… running late, I guess." You try to say it light. It doesn't quite land that way. "What are you still doing here?"

"Extra shooting practice. Coach thinks I'm sandbagging on my free throws." He shrugs, easy. "A little extra practice never hurt anybody, right?"

You nod, biting your lip. "Very dedicated."

"That's me. Dedicated." He glances at the empty parking lot, then back at you, something shifting into a more genuine kind of attention. "You want a ride? I've got my brother's car today."

"Oh— no, that’s okay, I can walk." You wave a hand at the road like it's nothing, like the several miles between here and your house are a perfectly reasonable evening stroll. "Besides, knowing her, she’s just caught up watching some Remington Steele or something. She'll probably show up any minute."

"It's getting dark, though." He says it simply, not pushy about it, just plainly unwilling to let the sentence go. "C'mon, I'll get you home in ten minutes. Way faster than walking, and a lot less of me worrying about you getting hit by a car."

You cave, mostly because the sky really is going dim fast now, streetlights starting to flicker on down the block, and some practical part of you decides your mother would rather you take a ride than wander several miles in the dark and being stubborn about it.

The car ride is easy in a way you don't expect, there;s none of the nervous, overperformed charm from the hallway after the pep rally, just comfortable, unhurried conversation while the radio plays low. He tells you about his brother's terrible taste in cassette tapes. You tell him about Ella’s uncle's wedding saga, secondhand and increasingly ridiculous with every retelling. He laughs at all the right parts. You catch yourself doing that thing again, the warm, distracted thing where you're only half paying attention to your own sentences because you're too busy noticing how easy this feels.

"This is you, right?" he asks, slowing in front of your house.

"Yeah. Thanks for the ride."

He puts the car in park instead of just idling, which you clock immediately, and gets out to walk you to the door, an old-fashioned, faintly ridiculous gesture that still manages to make your stomach do something pleasant and complicated.

"Regionals Friday," he says at the door, hands in his pockets, looking unfairly pleased with himself for someone standing on a stranger's porch step. "You'll be there?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Good." He rocks back on his heels, grinning. "I meant what I said. About the dedicating my shots thing."

"You're going to embarrass yourself if you keep saying stuff like that."

"Worth the risk." He says it easy, sincere underneath the teasing, and something about the way he's looking at you makes the decision for you before you've fully thought it through, you lean up and press a quick kiss to his cheek, barely there, gone again almost before it's happened.

He goes a little pink. It's extremely satisfying.

"Okay," he says, a beat too late, clearly recalibrating. "Okay. Bye. See you Friday."

You watch him walk backwards to the car, nearly tripping off the curb once, waving the whole way, and you're still smiling about it as you let yourself inside and shut the door behind you.

You stand there a second with your back pressed flat against the door, giddy and warm all the way through, cheeks aching from how hard you're smiling at absolutely nothing.

"Mom?" you call, kicking off your shoes. "I'm home — you were supposed to pick me up, by the way, I had to get a ride from—"

The house is quiet. Too quiet, in a way that doesn't fully register until you're halfway down the hall, the good, giddy feeling from the porch already starting to curdle into something colder.

"Mom?"

You find her in the kitchen.

She's on the floor, one arm bent awkwardly beneath her, a mug shattered in pieces a few feet away like it fell from her hand on the way down. For one frozen second your mind refuses to process it as anything real, like some horrible trick of the evening light, some misread shape you'll laugh about in a second.

Then you're moving, dropping to your knees so hard it jars your whole body, hands shaking as you grab at her shoulder.

"Mom — Mom, wake up, c'mon—" Your voice comes out high and cracked, nothing like your own. You shake her again, harder. "Mommy? Mommy, please, wake up—"

She doesn't move. Her face is the wrong color. You don't have words for how wrong it is, just an animal, full-body certainty that something is catastrophically not okay.

You scramble for the kitchen phone, fingers fumbling the cord, dialing with hands that won't stop shaking. "I need an ambulance — my mom, she's not — she's on the floor, and she's not waking up, please—" You rattle off the address twice, voice breaking apart in the middle of it, and the woman on the other end tells you, calm and clear, to start compressions, to keep going, to stay on the line.

You do. You don't remember deciding to. You just remember your arms locking straight, the counting, the terrible give of her chest under your hands, the hot tears streaming down your face the entire time, some distant part of you screaming the whole time that this isn't supposed to be happening, not here, not tonight, not while you're still fourteen and still supposed to have both your parents forever.

The sirens feel like they take both no time at all and an entire lifetime to arrive.

Paramedics fill the kitchen fast, efficient, taking over the compressions with a terrible, practiced ease that makes the whole thing feel suddenly, horribly real in a way your own panicked attempt hadn't quite let it be.

"Caroline?" one of them says, loud, close to her ear, checking her eyes with a small light. "Caroline, can you hear me?"

Nothing. They keep working anyway, calling out things to each other in clipped, urgent shorthand you don't understand, and someone gently but firmly moves you back out of the way, asks your name, asks if there's anyone they can call.

You can't remember your own aunt's phone number for a full, humiliating thirty seconds before it surfaces.

They load your mother onto a gurney. You ride in the ambulance because nobody has time to argue about it, perched on a narrow bench seat while the paramedics keep working over her, the siren screaming somewhere above all of it, and you hold onto the edge of the bench so hard your knuckles go white, watching a stranger press their hands to your mother's chest over and over and over.

The waiting room at the hospital is fluorescent and freezing and entirely too quiet once they take her back through the double doors and leave you standing there alone, still in your track practice clothes, hands trembling uncontrollably.

A nurse guides you to a chair. Someone brings you a glass of water you don't touch. You're told, gently, that a doctor will come find you as soon as there's news, and then you're just sitting there, alone, in a plastic chair under buzzing lights, doing math in your head about how long as soon as is supposed to take.

You call your aunt from a payphone in the hallway, voice still not fully steady. She's quiet for a long, terrible second after you explain, and then, careful: "Sweetheart — your dad and James are actually here. In Indianapolis. They were down in Bloomington touring IU today." A beat. "I'll get them. I'm coming too. Just— just stay right there. Don't go anywhere."

You don't go anywhere, you couldn’t even if you wanted to. You sit in that plastic chair for what feels like several lifetimes, watching the doors, watching the clock, watching nurses cross back and forth without once being the one who's coming to tell you anything.

Your dad and James make it to the hospital first, faces white, James still in the collared shirt he wore for the campus tour. Your aunt arrives not long after. Nobody says much. You all just sit together in a tight, silent cluster, your father's hand a fixed, white-knuckled grip on your shoulder, until finally, finally, a doctor in dark blue scrubs pushes through the double doors and comes toward you with an expression you already understand before he opens his mouth.

"I'm so sorry," he says, gentle, direct, the words landing like something physical. "Your wife— your mother, she suffered a massive heart attack. We did everything we could. She didn't survive."

The waiting room goes very far away for a while after that. You're aware, distantly, of your father making a sound you've never heard him make before. Of James going completely, unnaturally still beside you. Of your own body doing something strange and disconnected, like you're watching all of it happen to someone else from several feet outside yourself.

You don't remember most of the drive home.

By the time you're out of the shower, skin scrubbed raw and pink from water that ran too hot for too long, the whole house has gone quiet in a way it's never once been quiet before, not empty-quiet, not everyone's-just-asleep quiet, but a different, permanent kind you don't have a name for and already know you're never going to stop noticing.

You lie in bed staring at the ceiling, hair still damp, chest hollowed out in a way that doesn't feel like it belongs to your actual body. You don't cry, not right now, you're somewhere past that, somewhere flat and grey and entirely too quiet inside your own head to produce anything as simple as tears.

You think, distantly, about Aaron's grin on the porch steps a few hours ago that now feels like it happened in a different lifetime. About the kiss to his cheek. About how impossibly, unbearably normal that moment was, and how it will forever be the last normal thing that happened before everything changed.

And somewhere underneath the flat, grey shock of it, some small, stubborn part of you reaches instead for the one place that's always been safe no matter what the day handed you.

Steve, you think, eyes finally slipping closed, exhaustion pulling you under whether you're ready or not. Please let me dream of Steve. Even if it's only for a little while.

You don't know if he can hear you. You never have.

You fall asleep hoping anyway.

The dream drops him onto a street that feels wrong before he even understands why, and the first thing Steve does — before anything else even registers — is look for a street sign.

There isn't one. Or maybe there is, but it won't hold still long enough to read, letters sliding and blurring the second he tries to focus on them, the way words in dreams always seem to slip sideways out of reach right when you need them most. He's about to give up on it, chalk it up to just another mystery he isn't allowed to solve, and then his eyes land on the porch light, the shape of the railing, the exact angle of the driveway sloping down toward the curb, and something in his chest goes cold and electric all at once.

He knows this house.

He's stood right here before, right at the edge of this exact lawn, watching streamers sag lopsided in a summer breeze, watching a crooked pink bow catch the porch light on the handle of a car parked at that exact same curb. This is the birthday house from his dream. The Camaro house. The place where he watched you turn sixteen and glow bright enough to fill an entire backyard with it.

It's the wrong season now, the trees gone bare instead of full and green, the porch stripped of streamers, the whole yard gone quiet and October-grey instead of the golden light of summer. But it's unmistakably the same place, and the recognition lands in his stomach like something dropped from a great height.

He doesn't know why he's here yet. He just knows, the way he always knows things in these dreams, that you're somewhere close. That something's wrong. And this time, for the first time, he actually knows where to look.

He follows the pull of it through the front door, weightless the way he always is here, carried along on the edge of something he doesn't get to touch — and then he sees you, and his whole chest goes cold all at once.

You're on your knees on the kitchen floor, hands shaking, shouting a word that breaks apart into pieces before it fully leaves your mouth. Mommy. Mommy, please. There's a woman on the floor in front of you, not moving, a shattered mug scattered a few feet away, and Steve understands with a sick, immediate lurch exactly what he's watching before his mind's even fully caught up to the shape of it.

"Hey, hey, hey," He's moving before he decides to, crossing the kitchen even though some old, tired part of him already knows it won't matter. "Hey, I'm right here—"

You don't hear him now, you never do.

He crouches beside you anyway, uselessly, close enough that he could touch your shoulder if touching anything here ever worked, watching your hands lock into position against her chest, counting under your breath in a voice gone high and cracked and nothing like the one he knows. He wants, more than he's ever wanted anything in his life, to be able to do something — hold you up, take some of the weight off your shoulders, anything — and all he can do is kneel there beside you in a kitchen he half-recognizes from a much happier night, powerless, just watching.

I'm here, he thinks, desperate, useless, willing it to reach you somehow even though nothing ever has before. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere.

The dream doesn't let him look away, and some quiet, better part of him doesn't want it to. If he can't help you, he can at least see you, he can at least make sure somebody, even a version of somebody who can't reach through, is with you for this.

He tries to hold onto every other detail as the paramedics arrive, filling the small kitchen fast and efficient — tries to catch a house number on the mailbox through the open front door, a street name, a city name on a passing patrol car, anything solid enough to matter outside a dream that won't stay still long enough to be mapped. The numbers blur every time he gets close. The words on the ambulance rearrange themselves the second he tries to read them straight on. He already knows the house, though — knows the porch, the curb, the exact slope of the driveway — and he holds onto that fact like a rope, even while everything else keeps sliding out of reach.

He rides along anyway, invisible, weightless, wedged into a corner of the ambulance he has no real claim to, watching a stranger's hands work over your mother's chest while the siren screams overhead and you sit rigid on the narrow bench, white-knuckled, silent in a way that scares him more than the shouting did.

"Caroline?" one of the paramedics says, loud, close to her ear. "Caroline, can you hear me?"

Steve doesn't know her name is Caroline until that exact second. He files it away like it might matter, like it's a piece of you he finally gets to keep.

The hospital waiting room is fluorescent and cold, and Steve stands at the edge of it, trying helplessly, uselessly, to read a sign over the entrance doors that keeps sliding out of focus every time his eyes land on it. Something Memorial. He can't get past the first word. He tries three times, four, some increasingly desperate part of him convinced that if he can just read the rest of it, he'll wake up with an actual, usable fact, an actual place, a real address, something he could point to on a map and say there, that's where she is, that's where I need to go.

It won't hold still for him. Nothing here will, except the one thing that already has.

He watches you sit alone in a plastic chair for what feels like a very long time, untouched water glass sweating on the table beside you, your whole body gone small and still in a way that has nothing to do with how he's ever seen you sit before — not the giddy energy from the birthday dream, not the patient warmth from the dragon quest, just flat, exhausted shock, waiting for a door to open.

He wants, so badly it aches somewhere behind his ribs, to sit down next to you. Not even to say anything useful even, just to be a warm, solid weight beside you so you're not doing this alone in a room full of strangers. He tries anyway, sitting down in the empty chair beside yours, close enough that in any real version of this world his shoulder would be pressed against yours.

You don't feel him there. Of course you don't. But he stays anyway, refusing to leave the chair even though it costs him nothing and gives you even less.

Your father arrives eventually, and a boy who must be your brother, both of them pale and stiff with a fear Steve recognizes instantly because it's a mirror of his own. An older woman joins them not long after — your aunt, maybe, Steve guesses, filing away every detail he can, every name he catches, in case any of it turns out to matter later. He watches your father's hand land heavy and white-knuckled on your shoulder. Watches your brother go unnaturally still beside you.

Then a doctor comes through the double doors with an expression Steve's seen enough times in his own life, in different rooms, over different kinds of bad news, to recognize instantly for exactly what it is.

He doesn't need to hear the words to know. He hears them anyway, and something in his own chest breaks quietly along with yours.

I'm so sorry.

This dream doesn't feel like the others. That's the thought that keeps surfacing underneath everything else, insistent, impossible to shake, it’s not like the soft, half-real texture of the babysitting dream, not even the sharp, adrenaline-clear edges of the race. This feels like something happening right now, somewhere, to a real person, in a house he's actually stood in front of before, on an actual street he could maybe, someday, find again if he just holds on tight enough to what he already knows. It doesn't feel like a story his mind built for him. It feels like a window he's looking through and can't climb into no matter how hard he tries.

He stays until the very end of it, refusing to let the dream release him early even as it starts to thin and blur at the edges the way they always eventually do, stays through the drive home he can't place either, through you sitting motionless on the edge of a bed in a room he's never seen, staring at nothing, hair still damp from a shower you don't seem to remember taking.

I'm here, he thinks again, one last time, useless and desperate and entirely sincere. I'm not leaving. Even if you can't feel me. I'm right here.

He wakes up already moving.

There's no slow, grey drift back into his own body this time, no long minute spent staring at his ceiling before he lets himself get up. He's out of bed and across the room before he's even fully processed being awake, hands fumbling at the shoebox of old baseball cards, shoving it aside hard enough to send a few cards scattering, notebook already open on his knee before he's back on the mattress.

His hands are shaking. He writes anyway, fast, messy, words crossing out and doubling back on themselves as he tries to get everything down before it starts slipping away the way it always does.

It's her house. The one from the birthday dream with the Camaro, the pink bow, the streamers. Same porch, same curb, no streamers this time, trees dead instead of alive. I KNOW this house. I've stood on that same lawn before.

Street sign still wouldn't hold still. Still couldn't make it out. But I know what the house looks like now. If I ever actually saw it in real life, I'd know it instantly.

Her mom's name is Caroline. Not sure about her dad, she has a brother, he’s older, maybe seventeen, eighteen? An aunt showed up later.

Hospital name started with something but I couldn't read past the first word. Something Memorial, I think. Maybe.

Her mom didn't make it. I watched the doctor tell them. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even sit close enough for her to feel it.

He stops, pencil pressed hard enough into the page that it nearly tears through, breathing like he's the one who just ran a mile instead of lain still in bed for eight hours.

I need to find her, he writes, underlining it twice, hard enough that the pencil nearly breaks. I know the house now. That has to mean something. If I can just remember enough of it — the porch, the driveway, the curb where the car sat — maybe I can actually find her. Maybe this isn't just a dream. It all felt too real to just be a dream.

He sits there a long time afterward, notebook open on his knee, staring at his own frantic handwriting like it might rearrange itself into an answer if he looks hard enough. It doesn't, not fully; the street name is already gone, dissolved the second he woke, and the exact number of houses down from the corner is already going soft and uncertain in his memory no matter how hard he tries to hold onto it. But the house itself stays. The porch. The curb. The bow. That much, at least, hasn't slipped through his fingers the way everything else always does.

He doesn't cry, not exactly. But something in his chest sits heavy and helpless and entirely too big for a fifteen-year-old boy in a quiet house to carry alone, and he stays sitting there in the dark for a long time afterward, notebook clutched against his chest, willing some part of the dream to reach back out and tell him where to go.

Please, he thinks, one last time, before exhaustion finally starts pulling him back under. Please just let me find you. Let me actually be there next time. Please.

It's not a wish he knows how to make properly.

But he makes it anyway.

Steve wakes up tired in a way sleep isn't supposed to fix.

No new details come to him this time, no fresh street name, no house number, nothing solid enough to add to the notebook still sitting open on his nightstand from the night before. Just the same restless, hollowed-out grief sitting low in his chest, the same helpless ache of having watched something he couldn't stop and couldn't reach. He lies there a long minute before he makes himself get up, chest heavy in a way that doesn't lift even after he splashes water on his face, even after he's dressed and downstairs and moving through the motions of an ordinary Friday morning.

It's game day. Regional semifinals. Jets versus Tigers, whoever the Jets turn out to be — some school he's never played before, from a town he's never had a reason to think about.

He's been practicing like it matters more than it should. Extra reps after regular practice all week, free throws until his arm aches, footwork drills long after Coach Cooper has locked up the gym and gone home. He couldn't tell you exactly why, if you asked him directly it was just some restless, driving need to be good tonight, better than good, like there's something specific riding on it even though nothing about tonight is any different from any other game he's ever played.

He doesn't let himself examine that too closely either. He's gotten good at not examining things too closely.

Two nights ago, he took Macey Richardson to the movie theatre.

She's pretty, and popular, and talked through basically the entire film, kept a running commentary on the actors, the plot, what her friend Deb had said about it already, whether the lead actress's haircut would work on her — none of it mean, exactly, just a constant, a steady stream of noise that made Steve's jaw ache from how hard he was working to keep his face pleasant about it.

He sat there in the dark, half-watching a movie he still couldn't tell you the plot of, and found himself thinking, with an intensity that honestly embarrassed him a little, about how different it would be if it were you sitting there instead. Quiet during the important parts. Laughing at the right moments instead of narrating over them. Maybe reaching over at some point just to steal some of his popcorn without asking, the way he's somehow certain, with zero actual evidence, that you would.

He didn't kiss Macey goodnight. Told himself it was because her mom was watching from the porch. Knew, somewhere quieter and more honest, that it wasn't really that.

Macey isn't unusual, if he's honest with himself. She's just the most recent one.

Steve's dated a lot since starting high school — more than a lot, probably, if anyone bothered to actually count. Movie dates. A note passed in the hallway that turned into three weeks of something that wasn't quite serious enough to call a relationship. A couple of late nights climbing through a window after curfew to kiss and sit and talk on someone's bedroom floor for an hour before sneaking back out again, nothing more to it than that, whatever anyone at school ends up whispering about it by Monday.

And every single time — every date, every note, every quiet hour spent with some girl who isn't you, there’s some old, stubborn part of him that’s looking. Not on purpose, not even consciously most days. Just an old habit his eyes and ears have picked up without his permission, catalogiing small, useless details against a girl he's never actually met.

A laugh that's a half-note too loud to be yours. Hair the wrong shade, the wrong texture, close but never quite right. A girl who drives a white toyota that makes his stomach drop for one stupid, disorienting second before he remembers it isn't the car from any dream he's ever had. A girl at a party last month wearing perfume that stopped him cold in the middle of a sentence, something warm and a little sweet underneath, close, so close, to something he half-remembers from the birthday dream, the one where you spun in the driveway in front of that ridiculous pink-bowed Camaro.

He's got an entire page in the back of the notebook devoted to that perfume. He knows exactly how embarrassing that is. He wrote it down anyway: vanilla, something floral he can't quite name, a little bit like the air right after rain, sitting there for twenty humiliating minutes trying to reconstruct a smell from a dream with the seriousness of a guy trying to identify a chemical compound. He'd never admit that page exists to a single living person.

None of it ever actually matches. He knows that going in, every time, and goes looking anyway.

He's a sophomore now, and the reputation's already fully formed around him, settled into place with a speed that still occasionally catches him off guard when he thinks about it directly. King Steve. He didn't choose the nickname, somebody started it as a joke sometime last spring and it just stuck, the way things do once enough people repeat them, but he's stopped correcting people about it. Easier to let it ride. Easier, honestly, to be it: easy, effortless, exactly the kind of guy people want at their party, want on their team, want walking them to their next class.

It does cost him something to keep up, some days, though he'd never say that part out loud either.

The school day passes the way it always does lately – smooth, practiced, barely requiring his attention. He catches a ride in with Doug Peters, a junior on varsity with a car and an aggressively loud cassette collection, and coasts through homeroom without really hearing a word of the announcements. Classes blur together the same easy way they usually do, teachers who like him enough to overlook the days he's clearly not fully present, friends who fill in the silence for him without ever seeming to notice there's a silence to fill.

By lunch, half the school's already buzzing about tonight's game, green and orange ribbons pinned to backpacks, a chalkboard outside the gym counting down the hours. Steve gets clapped on the back more times than he can count between fourth and fifth period, gets told good luck tonight, man by kids he's not sure he's ever actually spoken to.

He smiles through all of it. Says the right things back. Lets the day carry him along on its own easy momentum, the way it always does, while some separate, quieter part of him keeps circling back to a porch light and a curb and a car with a pink bow, and a name, Caroline, that means nothing to anyone else in this entire building but everything to him.

Tonight, he thinks, catching his reflection for a second in a dark classroom window between periods, not quite recognizing the tired weight still sitting behind his own eyes. Just get through tonight. Then maybe you can figure out what any of this actually means.

He doesn't have an answer for that either. He's getting used to not having one.

The bus is idling outside by the time last period lets out, exhaust curling grey in the October air, and Steve's got about four seconds of eye contact with Macey Richardson across the parking lot, just enough time to work up the nerve to blow her a stupid, showy kiss goodbye, before Tommy's arm lands heavy across his shoulders and spins him bodily toward the bus instead.

"No time for that, Romeo." Tommy's already vibrating with pre-game energy, grin wide and a little unhinged. "Tonight's the night, man. I can feel it. We're gonna wreck these guys."

"You said that before the Millbrook game."

"And we did wreck them. Selective memory, Harrington." Tommy claps him on the back hard enough to actually sting. "C'mon, get psyched. This is regionals."

Coach Cooper catches him right at the bus door, hand laying heavy on Steve's shoulder, voice pitched low and serious under the noise of the team piling on around them. "You're starting tonight."

Steve blinks. "I — seriously?"

"Seriously. You've earned it. Don't waste it." A firm, final clap on the shoulder, and then Cooper's moving on to bark something at Tommy about his shoelaces, and Steve's left standing there for one dazed second before somebody shoves him up the bus steps from behind.

The bus ride is loud in the specific, chaotic way team buses always are before a big game; someone's got a boom box going, half the guys shouting over it anyway, Tommy narrating an increasingly exaggerated version of last week's practice to anyone who'll listen. Steve sits near the back, half-present, letting the noise wash over him while his own thoughts drift somewhere quieter.

First he thinks about you, the way he always does when his mind's given an unguarded minute to wander, the porch light, a curb he still can't stop picturing even weeks later, the ambulance ride, you waiting all alone in a cold hospital. He thinks about his parents next, unprompted, the way that thought always seems to trail right behind the first one lately. He wonders, watching the dark fields roll by outside the window, if either of them even knows Hawkins made it this far. If it would even matter to them if they did.

He already knows the answer. He lets the bus noise drown the thought out anyway.

Anderson Prep's gym lot is already packed by the time the bus pulls in, floodlights bright over a crowd of parked cars, and the second Steve steps off the bus, something about the air stops him for half a second — familiar in a way he can't place, can't explain, gone again before he can hold onto it. Just a feeling. Cut grass somewhere nearby, maybe, or it’s just the electric, anticipatory hum of a crowd about to lose its mind over something. He shakes it off and follows the rest of the team inside.

The gym's loud and blue-and-white streamered, a banner reading WELCOME TIGERS is strung crooked over the visitor's entrance in what Steve assumes is supposed to be a joke. The bleachers are already filling in on both sides, packed tight, Hawkins' small traveling section clustered together near one end like an island.

He warms up expecting the usual — that easy, loose confidence that shows up whenever there's a ball in his hands and a crowd of people watching him. Instead, the nerves show up harder the longer warmups go on, tightening instead of loosening, some restless, unplaceable weight sitting behind his ribs that has nothing to do with basketball at all. He tells himself it's the starting spot. Tells himself it's regionals, that this is supposed to feel bigger than usual.

He doesn't fully believe himself. He plays anyway.

The game starts, and whatever nerves were sitting in his chest during warmups burn off fast the second the ball's actually in play. Steve's sharp tonight, sharper than usual, even for him, driving the lane clean on the second possession and sinking an easy layup, following it two minutes later with a jumper from the elbow that barely touches the rim on its way through. Seven points before the first quarter's even half over, none of it assisted, all of it just him finding gaps in Anderson's defense like the gaps were built for him specifically.

But number twenty-three just keeps getting in his way.

Steve doesn't know his name yet — some sophomore guard for Anderson, quick hands, quicker feet, already a genuine problem by the second quarter, stripping the ball clean off Steve twice in a row with an ease that makes Steve's jaw tighten every time it happens. That asshole, he thinks, watching the kid streak the other way for an easy transition bucket. Twice.

He notices something else too, watching Twenty-Three set up for a three near the top of the key, there’s a half-second where the guy’s eyes flick up into the crowd, searching for someone, or something, before he squares up and sinks the shot clean. Steve clocks it without really thinking about why it catches his attention. Files it away the way he files away everything lately, some old habit he can't quite turn off.

The rest of the half turns into a quiet, personal war neither of them acknowledges out loud — Steve driving, Twenty-Three answering; Twenty-Three pulling up from deep, Steve matching him basket for basket down the other end. Their strides start syncing up without either of them trying to, guarding each other tighter every time down the court, both of them fully locked into a fight that's stopped being about the scoreboard somewhere around the third quarter and started being about something neither one of them could actually explain if you asked.

With five minutes left on the clock and the score close enough to taste, Steve gets a hand in passing lanes he has no business getting a hand in, and Twenty-Three shoves him off the ball hard enough that the ref's whistle nearly goes up before deciding against it.

"You keep looking up at the stands," Steve says, low, catching his breath at the free-throw line a minute later, nodding toward where the kid had glanced up again just before his last shot. "What, you looking for something up there? Some balls, maybe? Might help your game."

Twenty-Three doesn't even blink. "Careful, Harrington." A glance at Steve's jersey number, easy, unbothered. "Jealousy's not a great look on a starter who can't buy an assist tonight."

"I don't need assists. I'm carrying this whole team."

"Sure looks like it." A grin, sharp, competitive. "From back here, watching you get stripped twice."

"That was one time."

"Felt like twice." Twenty-Three backs off toward his own line, already grinning wider. "Enjoy the L, man."

He doesn't get the L. Not exactly, the game stays a dead-even fight all the way down to the final possession, both teams trading baskets, both benches on their feet screaming, and it comes down to one final defensive stand where Steve gets a hand on a pass that isn't quite clean enough, tips it out of bounds with four seconds left, and Hawkins runs out the clock from the line.

Final score, Hawkins High wins by one point.

For about five minutes afterward, Steve feels like he's standing on top of the entire world.

The Hawkins side of the gym goes completely unhinged, half the team dogpiling near center court, Tommy screaming something incoherent directly into Steve's ear. Amanda Miller, a girl from his English class who apparently made the trip with her older sister, attaches herself under his arm at some point in the chaos, bright-eyed and delighted, telling anyone in earshot that she knew he'd carry the team tonight. Steve laughs along with all of it, easy, glowing, exactly the version of himself that's easiest to be in a moment like this.

It doesn't last, the way it never really does.

The bus ride home is quiet in a way the ride out never was — most of the team crashed out or half-asleep, the adrenaline finally burning off into simple exhaustion, streetlights sliding past the windows in long, tired stripes. Steve sits with his forehead against the cool glass, the whole loud, glowing high of the last hour already starting to fade into something flatter and more familiar.

The house is dark when he gets dropped off, exactly the way he already knew it would be. No car in the driveway. No note on the counter this time, not even the usual perfunctory one. Just quiet, and a fridge humming somewhere in the kitchen, and the particular echo of a house too big for one person to fill up all on his own.

He sits on the edge of his bed for a while, still in his uniform, letting the quiet settle over him. He thinks about you — the look on your face in that kitchen, the ambulance, Caroline, a name that means everything to him and nothing to anyone else in this whole town. He thinks about how strange it is to feel that loss sitting in his own chest for a girl who doesn't even exist to the rest of his life in any way that he could prove.

He doesn't get very far into the feeling before the phone rings.

It's Tommy, predictably, already three states past wasted, hollering something about a party at Rob Kessler's place, half the team already headed over, get your ass over here, Harrington, we won regionals. Steve almost says no. Almost tells him he's tired, that tonight was a lot, that he just wants to sit in the quiet and think of you for a little while longer.

He doesn't say any of that.

He showers instead, quick and unthinking, throws on a clean shirt, and heads out to go celebrate a win that already feels like it happened to someone else a very long time ago.

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The radio station feels unusually quiet.

It wasn’t silent– nothing in Hawkins is ever actually silent anymore, especially now due to the constant military presence–but it’s quiet enough that the only noise is the soft hum of radio equipment and the occasional crackle from the speakers. You’re sitting in one of the rolling chairs with your feet propped on the desk, absentmindedly thumbing through a magazine while Robin sorts through records nearby.

Steve had been gone for almost half an hour. The tower behind the WSQK station had been acting up again. A transmitter issue maybe, nothing serious. At least, that's what Nancy had told you after asking Steve for his help in fixing it. "I'm just climbing up there, fixing the connection, and climbing back down." You'd rolled your eyes but a small teasing smile remained on your face. "Yeah well the last time I heard that, you blew a fuse and we got trapped in the dark all night." He gasped and threw a playful glare your way. "Pshh, So? That only happened one time." You raised your eyebrow at him and smirked. "It happened twice." Steve rolled his eyes and pointed at you dramatically but then paused. "Hush."

You had all laughed at his playfully sassy disposition and he pulled you in by the back of your neck for a quick kiss to your lips. Then he'd grabbed the station’s tool bag and headed outside. It was all normal, a completely standard radio station maintenance task. Which is why the scream hit you like a truck. "HELP!" The sound echoed throughout the station. 

Nancy.

You jerk upright so fast the chair nearly tips over. The magazine falls forgotten onto the floor. There was another scream. Your name leaves Nancy’s mouth in a desperate plea.

"PLEASE HELP!"

The blood in your body ran cold, all of your muscles tensing involuntarily. You know immediately something must have gone terribly wrong. Nancy doesn’t scream or panic, and she has certainly never screamed for your help.

You’re moving through the radio station before your mind even registers it. You feel bile rising in your throat as your brain runs through all of the possible reasons she could be in such distress.

Jonathan is running towards the open door when you come barreling out. His face is white, not pale, completely white. Almost like every drop of blood has drained from his body. The sight alone sends panic racing through your chest.

"Nancy?" You call to her, silently hoping that what you’re seeing isn’t real. That somehow your mind is playing a horrible, rotten trick on you. She’s crouched beneath the tower, someone’s body laying beneath her trembling figure. That naive, hopeful part of your brain wishes that the person on the ground is anyone other than who your heart knows it is. 

"Steve." The single word nearly stops your heart. You don't wait for an explanation from Jonathan. You're already running. The tower rises tall above the station, metal looming overhead and dangerous.

You can faintly hear Robin questioning the situation behind you as you race across the grass.

Then you finally see him, see his face. And your world immediately starts to tilt sideways. Steve is lying on the ground beneath the tower, limp and motionless. The tool bag is several feet away. One of his gloves has been thrown clear across the gravel.

For a moment your brain refuses to process what you're seeing, because Steve doesn't sit still, ever. He's always restlessly moving, talking, complaining, laughing, breathing, but not now. Now he's completely motionless. You can feel tears welling up in your eyes as you approach his defunct frame. "Steve!" Your voice is frantic and shaking as you drop to your knees beside him.

Robin reaches you only a second later. She's already crying silently, shuddering breaths escaping her and she tries to make sense of what she’s seeing. You’ve never seen her so genuinely distressed, helpless or actually crying, which scares you more than anything. You’d only ever seen Robin cry out of laughter, aside from the one time she let a few frustrated tears fall after a particularly painful interaction with Vickie. "Oh God," she gasps.

Your eyes scan Steve’s form immediately. The summer after sophomore year flashes through your head. Long days at the Hawkins community pool, months full of sunburns, whistles, emergency drills, and Steve making fun of every CPR dummy. "His name is Gerald," he'd announced once, while dramatically carrying a dummy over his shoulders. You'd nearly drowned laughing, but now those memories just feel like knives stabbing your gut repeatedly. Because suddenly they're not memories anymore, they’re instructions.

Your hand finds Steve's shoulder. "Steve." No response. You shake him hard but he remains unmoving. "Steve!" Your stomach drops. No.

No, no, no. This can’t be happening, 

Nancy is crying and panicking openly now. "I found him like this." Your fingers move automatically to check him, trying to assess what you can do to bring him back to you. Your eyes keep scanning from his face down his chest, looking for breathing, looking for movement, just looking for anything. A horrible ringing fills your ears. You press two fingers against his neck, checking for a pulse– searching, waiting, mentally pleading. But there was nothing.

Your heart plummets. "No." The word comes out as a broken whisper. Robin looks at you. "What?" You check again, maybe you missed it. Maybe your hands are shaking too badly. Maybe– But there’s nothing. No pulse. No breathing. Just his skin under your fingers, still warm. The realization slams into you. Steve's heart has stopped, he’s not breathing, he is dead. For one terrible second you can't move. You don’t have any thoughts running through your head, no air moving through your lungs, you’re frozen.

Then Robin grabs your arm. Her voice breaking as she stares at you with wide, tear filled eyes. "You know CPR." The words snap you back into reality. Because she's right, out of everyone here, you're the only one who knows it well enough. The only one who had practiced it over and over. The only one besides Steve, and right now Steve is the one lying on the ground. Your vision blurs as you start to hyperventilate. "No." You grab his shoulders and shake him roughly once, twice… "No, no, no, no." 

Robin kneels beside you, her face streaked with tears. "What do we do?" You swallow hard, and think– you had plenty of training, you just need to remember your training. You tilt Steve's head back, check, open his airway, check, position your hands, check.

It’s all the exact same you'd practiced years ago. The same way Steve practiced right beside you, while making dirty jokes about using his newfound skills. The irony feels cruel.

As your hands settle on the center of his chest, the reality of your situation becomes unbearable. You are about to perform CPR on Steve Harrington. Your best friend, your soulmate. The idiot who steals your fries. The guy who always drives you home with a hand on your thigh. The guy who should be teasing you right now. Not lying still, without a pulse beneath your hands.

"Come on." Your voice comes out shaky. "Come on, Steve." Then you begin compressions and start counting. One. Two. Three. Four.

His body moves beneath your hands. Not because he's alive, because you're forcing his heart to work. The thought nearly destroys you. Five. Six. Seven.

Robin is sobbing quietly beside you. Eight. Nine. Ten.

You keep counting, because if you stop counting you'll start screaming. Fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five. Thirty.

You give rescue breaths, then immediately return to compressions. You can barely see through the tears that won’t stop coming.

Again.

Again.

Again.

The world narrows and nothing exists except the rhythm of your hands. Thirty compressions. Two breaths. Thirty compressions. Two breaths. Over and over. You can feel your arms begin to ache and grow tired. There is sweat beading on your temples and the back of your neck. You don't care, you don't even notice it. If doing this forever meant you would get him back, you would gladly sit here for the rest of your life.

"Come on, Steve." Compression. "Please just-" Compression. "Wake up." Compression.

Robin suddenly speaks. "Oh my god, he forgot." You can barely hear her over the sound of your own heaving breaths. "What?" Your voice comes out raw and gravelly. "He forgot to shut off the voltage." Her words hit like a punch. Your head snaps toward her. "What?!" Robin points shakily toward the tower. "The switch."

You look and immediately understand. The power indicator is still lit, still active, still carrying current. Steve never shut it off. He climbed anyway. Your stomach twists violently. The image forms in your mind instantly. You can see it with shocking clarity. Steve reaching the damaged section, him going to inspect the wiring. Then the shock– the current ripping through his body. The fall, the impact, all of it.

"You idiot." The words come out in a terrified gasp. "You absolute fucking idiot." Another round of compressions, another rescue breath. But nothing comes from him. No response, no movement, no pulse.

Your fear grows larger and your thoughts start racing. He should be responding. Why isn’t he responding? You don't know and you can't remember, all of your thoughts are branded with Steve’s name and prayers to any god that will listen. Horror starts to flood through your body, starting in your frantic brain and working its way through your system.

"Steve, baby? Ple–Please don’t do this."

You do compression after compression. Robin roughly swipes tears from her cheeks. "You can save him, you have to save him." Her voice is desperate and shaky but you can hear the desperate certainty underneath, and it makes your heart drop. Because you don't know if you can actually save him. You don't know if you'll be enough. You don't know if you're already too late, if he really might not make it this time.

Your arms are truly shaking now. Every push feels heavier than the last. But you don't stop, you can't stop. Because stopping means giving up. And you refuse, you absolutely refuse. "Steve. You’re not allowed to die, not yet." Your words are broken up by sobs, they come out angry and loud, but fear is the loudest. Tears spill down your face in hot bursts. 

"You promised me six nuggets and a road trip full of awful dad jokes." Each word is punctuated by another compression. Robin lets out a nervous laugh through her tears. You don't even know why you said it. Maybe because you're desperate. Maybe because talking keeps you from falling apart.

"You're supposed to be okay."

Compression.

"I love you."

Compression.

"So get up."

Compression.

"Please? Please don’t leave me honey."

But still, nothing. He remains silent and motionless. The silence is unbearable. The stillness is worse. You keep going. Thirty compressions. Two breaths.

Again and again and again.

Your entire body hurts. Your throat burns from screaming. Your chest feels hollow. And through it all, one thought keeps repeating. ‘Not Steve. Please not your Steve.’

Then–  A cough, tiny and weak, you could barely hear it over the sound of your blood pumping in your ears. You freeze, breath catching in your throat. Robin sits still, paralyzed by fear. Both of you stare and for one terrifying second nothing happens. Then Steve's chest jerks and heaves. A ragged gasp is torn from his throat.

Your heart stops and the words fall from your lips so softly, so full of love and desperation. "Steve? Babe?" Another cough rolls through his body, and finally air rushes into his lungs. A real breath. An actual breath.

Robin sobs. "Oh my God." You can barely breathe yourself. "Steve." His eyelids flutter, not fully opening yet. Just moving. But it's enough, he’s alive. Enough to send relief rushing through you so hard your vision goes white. "Steve."

Your hands find his face. And before you know it, you’ve pulled him up and into your lap, cradling his face gently, just needing to feel him. He’s warm, alive, actually alive.

His lips move slightly and you lean in even closer. "What is it baby?" He lets another weak breath escape. Then, somehow the idiot manages to whisper: "...ow." Robin bursts into hysterical laughter, tears still running down her cheeks. You start crying harder and, a pained smile, full of relief, makes its way onto your face. Because that's the most Steve response imaginable.