#thyme!reader

He hated the pressure you put on yourself, always ensuring you were eating and drinking enough water. Some nights you even let him force you to fall asleep in his arms—before he'd have to unwrap himself to fall asleep, of course. Despite his very rare force, you knew he would never push it. If you didn't want to sleep, if you really only had one more chapter, he would wait patiently and ask again later. Coming up behind you, he started to rub at your shoulders, almost cringing at how tense you were under his hands.

"Baby?" he brought his lips down to press gently on top of your head, "Do you want to take a break?" Alex wasn't pushing you. You knew that as you sighed, melting under his kiss. If you had said no, he'd go back to his book on your bed. He wouldn't force you yet and he only pressed his lips again to your forehead when you looked up at him. Your exhaustion was written all over your face, your eyes breaking his heart. He knew you needed a break; whether you'd actually give yourself one, though, was another thing. But to his shock, you silently nodded your head.

"C'mon. I'll get you some new clothes to change into," he smiled, closing your laptop after a quick check for you that everything had been saved before helping you move to sit on the edge of the bed. You couldn't help the small smile that tugged on your features when the clothes he grabbed were his own, specifically the shirt he knew you loved wearing on your days off, freshly washed and smelling just like his signature detergent.

"Real proud of you, you know?" he whispered as he helped you out of your clothes, pressing soft kisses your shoulders. By the time he had finally slipped his shirt over your head, he was already urging you under the covers, telling you he'd help you wash your face later as he joined you.

"Can you talk to me? I just want to hear your voice," you whispered as you settled your head into his chest, eyes already closing. It didn't take any more convincing for him to agree. It had become one of his favorite parts of nights like these. Not because he enjoyed talking about himself but because it comforted you so deeply. He would never deny you that. He rambled on about his classes, the students he had to help in office hours, the essay he's been rewriting over and over, and how he got sidetracked in his English lecture the other day thinking of you.

"Which isn't too uncommon if you can believe that- …oh. You're asleep," his voice was quieter then, trailing at the end as he finally took a second to really look at you. His breath slowed to match the rhythm of your own as he smiled. His fingers reached up to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear before he shifted his weight just enough to slip from underneath you. He'd return to you within minutes of sleeping but the distance gave him one more moment to take in the sight of you, finally relaxed.

Shrugging off his jacket, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Things seemed well enough in order, and few things lay out of place along Gaul’s desk. Yet every creak of the pipes in the walls sent chills down his spine that he couldn’t place the reason for. Even as he set everything back where it belonged, there was a whisper in the wind of the ventilation system that felt too high-pitched, like a warning siren trying to tell him to run. 

17:12, the clock read as he sat down to finally catch up on what he had failed to be present for. There were days he wanted to long for the cruel torture of Highbottom’s revenge during the academy rather than be stuck in terribly long exams and annoyingly tedious papers. He would have much rather been present for the experiments Gaul had planned that day on some new use for the jabberjays he knew well. But as he reached the end of the report, he noticed two more pages attached to it. The first one was addressed to him. 

Coriolanus felt a pain in his chest as his eyes scanned the words, searching for the meaning in her rhymes to decipher her reason for leaving him something personally addressed. The longer he couldn’t make out the meaning, the harder it became to breathe until he looked at the final attached page—experiment notes. There hadn’t been a second experiment scheduled for the afternoon, but his eyes scanned the subject number, his heart stopping at the immediate recognition. 

His girl. 

She wasn’t scheduled to come in that day. He would have gone to her that night with his plan to get her out safely. He had figured out a temporary way to stop her heart, as he remembered reading about in some old sick love story. He would be able to fake her death long enough to get her far away from Gaul and never be harmed again. But it seemed Gaul had beaten him to the experiment. Antiarrhythmics. The same drug he had used to formulate his escape plan. But this wasn’t a unique formula he had concocted. It was the largest dose he’d ever seen in any of Gaul’s notes he had read. She wasn’t in the lab. She couldn’t be. He hadn’t seen any evidence of her when he walked in. 

  15:12. Almost exactly two hours before his arrival, Gaul had written that her heart had stopped. It had to be some cruel joke, a lesson for him to take away and learn from. He’d never try to cross her again if he could just know his girl was safe and alive. He didn’t want to believe it. If her heart had stopped… if she were dead, there would be a body. But the lab was surprisingly clean. He tried calling the phone he had set up for her in her small, decrepit apartment on the edge of the Capital. No answer. He tried again. 

“Pick up. C’mon, sweetheart. Pick up. Tell me you’re home.” His eyes darted over to the clock on the wall. 17:34. He kept mumbling to himself, nearly tossing the transmitter across the hall when he got no answer again. He resorted to searching the lab for any sign of her. It wasn’t until he had passed one of the rooms reserved for Gaul’s mutations that he caught a glimpse he’d never be able to forget from the corner of his eye. 

He opened the door slowly, hesitant that he might wake her, as though it wasn’t the only thing he desperately wanted to do. Her body lay on the floor in a heap, like she had been simply tossed in and forgotten about. Her hair lay spread out on the cold tile, not too dissimilar to the way it had lain on his pillow the few nights he had convinced her to come back home with him instead. Fingers trembling, he made his way across the room to her. She looked so peaceful, admittedly too peaceful. Even in his arms, he had never been able to fully soothe the furrow of her brows after everything she had been through. 

Coriolanus moved to kneel next to her, noting how her chest didn’t rise at all, and her deathly pale skin sent shivers down his spine. If he had just been on time… She was limp as he lifted her into his arms, not making a single sound. What he wouldn’t give for one more of her secret laughs. The ones he managed to slip out of her after the long days under Gaul’s microscope; the ones he knew only he got to hear. He had let himself do the one thing he swore never to do again with her, and Gaul had used it against him. 

Her head lulled against his chest as he moved to sit them down against the wall, a sensation he could almost convince himself was a conscious choice of her own. But she hadn’t moved; it had been a cruel trick of gravity. His hands were still shaking as he brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, unsure if his voice would stay steady if he dared speak. 

She had died alone. He knew Gaul was no comfort in her last moments, that she likely taunted her until her dying breath, and every ‘what if’ his brain could conjure ran through his thoughts. What if he had spoken out against Gaul sooner? What if he had come up with his plan faster? What if he had just been on time to the lab? He would have been an hour early. He would have had an hour to figure out how to stop Gaul–how to save her. 

Time passed slowly as he held her, counting every eyelash, every freckle, until he was certain the numbers would remain in his mind forever. She still had the scars of Gaul’s old experiments and the bruises and cuts of one from mere days ago. Cuts that he had cleaned and bandaged for her himself… when she was still alive. He had already memorized the placement of each scar before, but he went over her again like clockwork. The cut on her collarbone, the bite on her side, the long scar down the center of her chest. The antiarrhythmics hadn’t been injected; there was no sign of what had killed her, and maybe that had killed him a bit inside as well. She died as quietly as she had tried to live. Trying to sneak through the capital as quietly as a mouse, make enough of a living to support herself, and live peacefully. He hadn’t been able to give her that. 

He pressed his lips to her hairline, feeling the soft edge of a scar even there. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to make it better this time. There were many nights that the right words had come to him, comforting her when she thought she was better off dead. But now that she was the latter, every word in every language escaped him. He had hurt her with his own hands and his silence. Worst of all, he had abandoned her when she needed him most. There was no argument there. He had killed his songbird, and now he had killed his very own mouse. 

Three months. You hadn’t seen Alex Nilsen for three whole months, and if you were being honest in ways you were still trying to teach him to be, the distance was eating you alive. When you had texted your roommate that you bought a ticket to Chicago, they asked if you had made an impulsive midnight purchase again. But you had booked the plane at two in the afternoon. You were awake. You were stone-cold sober. And you missed your boyfriend more than words could express. Two flights and a layover were all that stood between you and him now, and you were getting increasingly antsy by the second.

However, in your excited daze from apartment to airport, you had missed the important step of the little white lie you were planning to tell Alex. When you hadn’t responded to his third text, he knew it would be borderline psychotic to send a fourth, but he was pacing the floor of his bedroom relentlessly. Your phone had died on the first flight, and your layover wasn’t long enough to find a charger station before boarding your second plane. All in all, it had been nearly eight hours since Alex had heard from you, and if it had been any other circumstance, he might have just considered you busy or assumed you were at work without telling him. But he seemed to be patient zero for the “missing his girlfriend” disease, and it defied everything he thought he knew about himself to feel so… clingy.

Clingy was an uncomfortable feeling for Alex. It was only a reminder of how much he loved you after all this time. To anyone else, that would have been a good thing, but to Alex, to the boy who watched how loving someone so deeply could destroy a person at a young age, it scared him to his very bones. If he had loved someone as long as his father had loved his mother and then lost them… He thought that he would never recover. It was in those small moments that he might have started to understand his father. 

His mind was racing with an endless spiral of being worried about you and being upset with being so concerned. He had essays to work on, assignments to finish, but all he could do was keep pacing as his anxiety wound itself tightly around his chest. You were fine. You were busy. You were-

It wasn’t until a knock on his small dorm room door that his torrent of internal anxious rambling came to a halt. He wasn’t expecting anyone as he made his way to the door, and when he peeked through the peephole in his door, his heart slammed into his chest so hard it took the air from his lungs. You were there.

“Alex, are you there-” your voice cut through his confusion as he swung the door open to see you properly. There you were, right in front of him. Still the same beautiful girl he knew and loved so deeply. 

“Hi,” you smiled, trying to hide your shock at his sudden movement, but he just stood frozen now. He didn’t know how to move. He didn’t know how to take you into his arms because he knew that once he did, there would be an irreversible change within him. He wouldn’t be able to let you go. All that love he had for you had burrowed under his skin, sinking deep into his chest, and the lack of you over the past months had just made it fester, itch, ache until he felt like seeing you was a different kind of overwhelming than ever before. 

“I wanted to surprise you… But my phone died at the airport, and I knew you were likely not doing too hot with not knowing if I was at work or in class or okay, and I ran here as fast as I could from the airport-” Fuck overwhelming. Not holding you was worse. He grabbed your wrist, stopping your words mid-sentence, and pulled you to him as his eyes watered with tears he didn’t want to let fall. You melted into him, wrapping your arms around him as you felt him slump back into you. He was so tired; you could feel it just by holding him.

“Hi. I’m here,” you whispered, taking a step forward to urge him away from the door, allowing you to kick it closed and give him the privacy you sensed he needed as his arms tightened around you. You knew some of the darker thoughts that had plagued him since he left Linfield, and the way they only grew the longer you were apart, making you unable to shoo them away back under the bed. There was a deep guilt in his bones about leaving his family behind, the life that he supported there endlessly after his mother’s passing, but you did your very best to ease that painful wound in him when you were there, bringing back a piece of home just for him. 

“Hi,” he finally let himself say, trusting his voice just enough not to break as his chest finally relaxed enough for his lungs to take a full, deep breath for the first time in months. His nose buried into your hair, and he took in the smell of your shampoo, familiar, comforting, and just as devastating as he imagined it would be. 

Before you knew it, you were shucking off your shoes and jacket to let your boyfriend drag you toward his bed.

“I missed you.”

“I know. I could tell,” you spoke gently as he pulled back the sheets he had made earlier that morning. 

“You could?” 

“Of course I could. I missed you too.” Alex softened at your confession. All of that uncomfortable feeling he had shamed himself for was reciprocated but coming from you, he thought it was much sweeter. He had no problem tangling his limbs up with yours to hold you to him under the sheets. His chin was tucked protectively over the top of your head, letting you get comfortable in his arms before pressing a kiss to your hair. The following silence was warm in a way he missed, and there was no need for racing thoughts or fidgeting fingers. He just melted into the bed with you, fingers tracing soft patterns on your shoulder as he pushed up your short sleeve to feel more of your skin. 

“Do I finally get to meet Poppy this time?” you teased as you looked up at him after a few minutes of comfort, and he sighed with a fond roll of his eyes.

“I can’t let you two meet,” he nearly whined, “She’ll love you too much. I want you all to myself.” You laughed at that, knowing he was likely right. From the few times Poppy had stolen his phone and managed to talk to you, you knew she was a vibrant spirit you would get along with alarmingly well. You were happy Alex had her, someone to ease the ache of missing you like your friends did for you, with your own nagging desire to be with him. Your eyes were stuck on his before you watched his gaze fall to your lips. Three months without kissing him had felt like an eternity now. 

He didn’t waste one more minute to lean down and press his lips to yours, letting you kiss him back before he maneuvered you on top of him, holding you flush to his chest. This was a different kind of ache he had become familiar with. A physical need to have you close. A chance to not have to use words to describe his love for you. There was an art to it. Something you were positive he must have mastered as he nudged his nose against yours when you paused for air, a silent plea to not leave him in a multitude of ways. Making out with him after months without felt like slipping into a freshly made bed. There was a comfort to it, in the way he held you and the way he cherished every bit you gave him in return for the parts he gave you. 

“I’m not letting you go, you know?” he whispered after flipping the two of you around on the bed, allowing him to bury his nose into the crook of your neck, peppering kisses along your shoulder. 

“I can just cancel my flight back.” Alex groaned at the thought of keeping you there with him, letting him keep the most valuable part of his life right next to him for eternity. He swore there was some baser instinct at play, wanting to hoard you safely in a cave just for himself. There was guilt laced into that as well however. He was proud of you, of the work you’d done in school for your career. Asking you to give that up for him? It was something he’d never do. 

It wasn’t until many hazy minutes later that you two were startled out of your reverie by the sound of Alex’s phone ringing, abandoned on the nightstand. You smiled at the contact photo you could see displayed under Poppy’s name, something she certainly set for herself when given Alex’s phone: a selfie of the two of them, Alex painfully unphotogenic as always while she tried to get him to smile with her. Seeing who was calling only made Alex groan as he resumed his previous work on your neck, a secret plan to make sure every centimeter of your skin had been kissed thoroughly. 

“Don’t-” he tried to mumble as you reached for his phone but you were picking it up before he could stop you.

“Hi Poppy. How can I help you?” you answered cheerfully and Alex could hear bits and pieces of Poppy’s squealing from his spot on top of you.

“Oh my god! Is this… He never lets me talk to you… I can’t believe you’re finally here… We absolutely need to meet… There’s this great restaurant-” Before you could reply to her endless rambling, Alex groaned and lifted his head to take the phone from you.

“Hey Poppy,” he grumbled as you giggled under him.

“No! Hand the phone back to her right now, Alex Nilsen or I swear-” 

“I’m gonna have to call you back.” You could hear faint remnants of Poppy’s protests before Alex made a show of hanging up the phone, eliciting more laughter from you. He tossed it to the floor with as little care as you were sure he could have about the object that kept him tied to you when you were away before bringing his lips back to your own. 

Coriolanus had rarely felt truly disturbed by Gaul’s experiments. Her mind was dark and twisted; he knew his own mind wasn’t too far from that. However, he had learned far too quickly that you were becoming a limit to what he could handle in her mad scientist lab. You had volunteered to be poked and prodded and injected and tested. You had volunteered to be Dr. Volumnia Gaul’s personal project, and Coriolanus was far too attached to it. He knew the university’s tuition wasn’t inexpensive even while his education was funded by the scientist herself, but to see his classmate, someone intelligent and capable, have to stoop to the levels of letting Gaul use you was something entirely different.

He wanted to save you. He wanted to take you so far from Gaul that she couldn’t even think about touching you again. The sound of your screams kept him up at night, and the sight of your blood distracted him in the middle of the day. He didn’t know how to survive your torture any longer. Standing idly by and watching your suffer didn’t feel right. But he owed Gaul his life, didn’t he? He needed to thank her for what he’d done for her, and yet he cursed her name for slowly killing you every day. The effects of her experiments started to show. The bags under your eyes darkened, and you were slower in answering questions in class. He could see how you tried to hide your wince when raising your arm or stretching out your legs. He wasn’t sure how much more you could take. 

The two of you had developed a routine of sorts. He’d always spend a moment with you before an experiment, trying to keep your mind off whatever horrors Gaul had prepared for you, and afterward, he would clean you up and make sure you ate and drank some water before taking you home. If your insistence on volunteering your body to Gaul’s science hadn’t made your financial trouble clear to Coriolanus, the state of the apartment he dropped you off at made it more than evident. 

You lived on the outskirts of the city, neighborhoods overrun by those who were on their way to being kicked to the districts. Every time Coriolanus brought you there, he couldn’t help but think you didn’t belong. He wanted to adorn you in every luxury possible, have you experience what it felt like not to suffer. But in a way, it made him understand you more. He felt a kinship to you, an understanding beyond what others would have in passing. He knew what it felt like to be in your situation. So when you first let him take you home after an experiment, he knew it was a sign of your trust in him. The same trust you bestowed on him every night since.

Whatever Gaul had injected you with tonight left you shaking even hours after the reversal. You couldn’t forget the feeling of losing control. The hallucinations clouded your brain before Coriolanus was forced to lay his hands on you. Gaul had made him hurt you, and even in your drugged state, you knew it caused him just as much pain as it did you. Neither of you spoke as he cleaned you up and applied a salve over the bruises. You two did not speak a word when Gaul excused herself for the night, reminding Coriolanus to initial his parts of the experiment log. You flinched when the door shut behind her before tears muddled your vision, and you bit down on your bottom lip to try and prevent their descent down your face. 

“Come home with me tonight,” his voice startled you, an interruption in the racing thoughts of your head, “Come home with me, and I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.” This hadn’t been the first time he mentioned it to you. The last few times he dropped you off at your apartment, he tried to convince you to stay in the car, to follow him back to his penthouse, and to spend the night. However, you were always halfway out the door, thanking Coriolanus for his help before stumbling up the stairs to your apartment when he didn’t need to help you walk. Tonight, he hadn’t bothered to wait before asking, moving a hand up to cup your cheek and wipe the tear that fell against your will.

“Today was… We could both use the company tonight,” he explained quietly. You could feel the slightest tremor in his hands and could only imagine that he remembered tonight’s experiment just as sourly as you now did. Your feelings for Coriolanus were something you quickly discarded out of fear of Stockholm syndrome, unsure if they were real or not. But as his thumb rubbed over your cheekbone, you weren’t sure if you entirely cared about that fear for the night. 

“Just tonight,” your voice was shakier than you thought it would have been, but he made no comment on it, leaning forward to ghost his lips over your forehead before helping you stand. Your knees buckled, but he was quick enough to predict that and keep you upright.

“I’ll call for the car after we get you dressed.” His voice wasn’t much smoother than yours, but the kindness behind it made you wonder if it was reserved just for you, a distinct change in him that only you had the pleasure of seeing. You cringed when he helped you over to a new chair, one whose cushions weren’t soaked in spots with your own blood. Everything hurt. It usually did after experiments. But whatever Gaul had concocted this time was making you tired in the most uncomfortable way. Coriolanus’ hands were always gentle with you when he had the chance to be, as if alone with you, he could be something he never allowed himself to be otherwise. 

Those same gentle hands were the ones lifting your blood-soaked hospital gown off as his eyes trailed over your skin. Every scar became a reminder of past experiments, and he could recall most of them just by the placement and length of the scar alone. One along your collarbone had been the test of a new poison Gaul had created and soaked a blade in. The raised tissue on your side was a bite from one of Gaul’s newest mutants with the hope of saliva that would drive the tributes to the brink of insanity. Perhaps the scar that haunted him the most lay down the center of your chest, long and still red. She had performed surgery on you while you had to lie there awake, giving you a sedative that turned your body numb but kept your brain racing. Coriolanus held you for hours that night, fingers tracing along your arms to remind you that you could feel again. 

He washed your skin so lightly with a wet cloth that you weren’t sure if you were imagining it. Each scrub took away the remnants of the experiments that were left, the dried blood, the tears that left salty streaks. The only thing he couldn’t wash away were the bruises, the bruises he’d inflicted on you. When you caught sight of him staring at one on your shoulder, you grabbed his hand to stop him from wiping at it anymore.

“You didn’t want to. I know that. I knew it even when it was happening,” you whispered, voice tender and comforting as he took a deeper breath.

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

“No. But it makes you better than her.” Those few words sent a warmth to his chest he hadn’t known he needed. When he didn’t respond, you leaned forward to rest your head on his chest with a small sigh, unsure if it was with pain or relief. He tensed at the touch at first, like you found he almost always did before he brought a hand to the back of your shoulders and carded his other hand through your hair. He didn’t need to say anything, and neither did you. You both knew that being close was the only thing that would fix the anguish in your chest tonight. 

You two stayed like that for a few minutes, letting your chests move in sync with each breath until you took. Everything between you and Coriolanus felt foreign but in the most comforting way. He wasn’t the same as the rest of your life, and you weren’t the same as his. You became each other’s comfort even in the most uncommon of circumstances. Scientist and test subject were no longer an apt fit to describe the connection you carried. It had become something more profound than you knew how to define, which needed protection. 

He took his time dressing you, fingers trailing gently along your skin like he could heal you and everything Gaul did to you just by a soft touch. When his lips lingered by your forehead, he pressed them flush into a kiss this time. It felt like your insides had turned to pure liquid, a feeling stronger than anything Gaul’s drugs had given you before. You watched as he called for a car to be brought around before he helped you into your pants that had been discarded earlier for a gown. Your hand moved on its own accord to push his hair back from his eyes as the gel he usually kept in it loosened; the late hours and his incessant need to run his hands through his hair anxiously showed the slight curls you wished you could see more often. 

“Car’s here,” he spoke as he looked up at you, doing up the last button of your pants like a routine he knew all too well. Your lips tugged up in a soft smile as you nodded and let him help you back up, ignoring his offer to carry you. Your legs were weak, but you could still walk with his arm around your waist. His driver knew better than to ask questions about your state, but you felt their eyes on you as you slid into the back seat before Coriolanus moved in next to you. He stated that the only stop would be his penthouse tonight, and another small smile graced your features. 

Before he could ask questions, he fell under the fog in his eyes. His body was limp and tired, riding the waves that drove him closer to death. His mind wasn’t far off from there itself, welcoming the thought of being reconnected with his mother. Maybe death was a relief, an end to a tiring life on the run. His thoughts slowed as he felt the tug closer to the end. It felt never-ending, a warm embrace, the tickling of a flame’s warmth close to his skin. He felt clean, cleansed even, of all the blood, his own and those he had killed before. Maybe the angel had given him grace; perhaps he’d finally get heaven after all. 

He wouldn’t lie and say that he hadn’t been expecting to see the pearly gates when his eyes opened. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing instead, honestly. It wasn’t the sky or stars. It was wood. He wasn’t lying in the grass he’d be shot in. There was stone under his bones, underneath a layer of wool. When he turned his head, he was met with the sight of a fireplace, roaring to life with a slight breeze through an open window somewhere. Perhaps heaven was a house. 

“You’re awake,” a voice exclaimed from across the room. He couldn’t see who it came from at first, struggling to sit up with the pain radiating through his whole body, until the person ran over to his side.

“Oh, you don’t want to sit up. Don’t want to put too much strain on those stitches,” your voice was soft, all the more indication that you were indeed an angel come to guide him. It wasn’t until your fingers brushed along the skin of his shoulder that he realized his chest was bare, and he quickly looked down to see the nasty gash sewn together at his side. He had been shot; he knew that. But a part of him imagined that the afterlife wouldn’t bring him so much pain. 

"W-where am I?" he rasped, shocked by the scratch in his throat, but a clear sign he had been asleep far longer than he thought.

"My cottage. It's a few miles from where I found you. Just deeper into the woods." Billy didn't doubt your words necessarily, but as you examined him closer, your fingers delicate against him, he couldn't help but wonder how you had managed to get him so far. He watched your lips pull down into a frown as you poked along the edge of the stitches you had given him.

"This fucker certainly wants to be infected, but I won't let it," you whispered, mostly to yourself, making Billy smile a little. Turning to your supplies strewn along the side table, you grabbed a vial and some gauze before looking back at him. Your eyes widened as you froze at the sight of his smile still there, curiosity in his eyes, with his head tilted slightly.

"Who are you?" His voice was smoother when he talked quietly, and it sent a whole new sensation through your body.

"Me? …no one important, I guess. Just live out here and found you."

"Well, you saved me. Didn't let me die out there. That seems pretty important, doesn't it?" he suggested as you moved back closer to clean the wound again. You nearly jumped when he hissed at the feeling of the cleansing tincture under his skin.

"Sorry… I'm used to you being knocked out for this," you admitted sheepishly.

"Better to have it sting now than be in a heap of trouble if it gets infected, right?" he tried to reassure you, and he softened when you smiled in return. There was a comfortable silence that followed you two after that, the air growing warmer and pleasant through the cottage. He didn't know what he had done to deserve such luck as having someone like you find him out there when he needed someone most, but he had a feeling that you weren't written in the stars to be two ships passing in the night.

He had that confirmed for him the longer he stayed with you. At first, it was the excuse that you had to make sure his wound fully healed. You wouldn't let him help you with chores much or do much more than rest, something he couldn't remember the last time he had done. But by the end of the first week, you started to cave, letting him help dry dishes from a seat in the kitchen and fold laundry that you brought in from the line outside. However, you quickly took back his privileges on the latter when you hadn't properly separated your intimates from the rest, and you came back to a pile of your drawers folded next to the sheets you had handed him.

"I thought I- Oh god- You weren't supposed to- Fuck-" you stumbled over your words as you snatched your underwear from the spot next to him on the couch, your cheeks bright and warm with embarrassment. He had no intentions of embarrassing you, truthfully. If he had the opportunity to get up without you tying him to the couch, he would have casually put them away in your dresser for you, hoping you'd think you had simply forgotten that you folded them yourself later when you found them. But he wore a small smile at the way you flushed and nearly tripped over your two feet rushing to your room.

Your cottage was never dark during the day before Billy's arrival, but you swore that the sun was amplified off the man. When you had finally let him start moving around with you, under still strict instructions not to overwork himself, you two fell into a homely routine. He had started to wake up with you with the sunrise, following you out to the small chicken coop you maintained and standing behind you with a small basket as you collected eggs. There was a new kind of serendipity he felt being part of something so domestic and mundane compared to the life he knew before. Maybe the afterlife didn't have to start after death, or maybe he'd just been reborn.

He helped you cook lunches and dinners, and started to do the dishes for you when you'd finally allowed him. He relished in your cooking, not remembering the last time he had a truly homemade meal like the ones you offered him, something made with that special ingredient his mother used to use. It wasn't until the end of the month that he realized perhaps he couldn't stay forever.

"Do you have family you should get to? Surely they're worried about you if news got out that you're supposedly dead," you had asked one night in front of the fireplace, both of you holding a book while you sipped tea and he whiskey.

"No one alive. Most of the people who mattered are… well, they're dead," he spoke plainly, unsure how else to say such a terrible thing. He had lost everyone, and now there was a fear in his heart that he'd lose you too.

"I'm so sorry, Billy," you whispered, voice heavy with grief for him. You couldn't imagine it. You had been lonely, sure, but you did have family, whether you spoke to them or not. You couldn't imagine the choice to see them being ripped from you entirely.

"It's okay. I've had a while to come to terms with it… Do you… Do you want me to leave?" he probed, quietly hoping for an answer he was unsure he'd get.

"No! No, I'm not kicking you out. I just… I don't want you to feel obligated to stay here if you want to leave. Just cause I saved you from dying doesn't mean you owe me your help with my life here." He hated that answer in all honesty. Even if he understood your sentiment, he was forever indebted to you. The angel who brought him back from the brink of death for a second chance. Billy the Kid had died that day, but he thought that maybe you had managed to revive a long-gone Billy Bonney from the depths of his soul. He felt closer to the man his ma wanted him to be than he did to the one he had been while running from the law. 

As the days passed, an unspoken tension grew, silences no longer comforting but instead heavy, weighing down on both you and Billy's chests. It didn't help that he had moved to sleeping in your bed next to you after he had pulled a muscle in his back, and you deemed him unable to sleep on the couch any longer.

"It's really not that bad-"

"My bed is far more comfortable, and I'll take the couch-"

"You are not sleeping on the couch, darling."

"Well then, I guess we're both sleeping in the bed," you had snapped, only to recognize a moment later what your words meant. The two of you had slipped under the covers that night in what had to be the most strained silence you had ever endured, staring at the ceiling for at least five minutes before you both turned away from each other to finally try and sleep.

Billy didn't understand what exactly had changed in the last week, as the words you two shared throughout the day grew fewer and fewer. He knew what he felt; he was scared that you wouldn't let him stay, that you would decide you didn't want him around anymore. But he couldn't decipher what feelings had occurred on your side to warrant the same kind of reaction. You both still moved in sync, going through the motions you had gotten so used to together, but every time you stepped away from him, it felt far deeper than physical. He was worried he was losing you every second.

The clouds were too dark when he woke up the next morning. The kind of dark that his pa would have considered boarding up the windows for before the rain started. But looking around the small cottage, you were nowhere to be found. Your jacket lay across the back of the chair in your bedroom, and your basket sat by the door still. Rain started to hit the windows in soft taps that directed his attention outside again. However, this time he finally caught sight of you.

When you had woken up to no sunshine beaming through the window, a deep-rooted anxiety overwhelmed you, slipping out of bed and into your boots quickly before running outside. Billy saw you just like that now, your nightgown getting muddy as you kneeled to peek under the chicken coop. He didn't think about changing either as he threw open the back door to bring you inside, grabbing your arm and pulling you up. He did his best to ignore the rain coming down that had already soaked you thoroughly while he stood between you and the outside.

"Darling, what are you doing? The storm is coming in fast," he spoke over the first crack of thunder through the garden. You looked at him, frantic, fear deep in your eyes as you got up, not even trying to brush the dirt off of you that dripped from your dress in small droplets to the floor. He wondered if you even knew it was there.

"Billy, one of the chickens is missing. I can't find her," you replied, barely able to focus on him as you looked past him into the yard desperately for the brown feathered puff currently missing from the coop. Your eyes were forced to look at him when he cupped your cheeks, wiping at dirt that had plastered itself to your cheeks in your pursuit.

"Baby, if you go back out there, you're going to get sick," he tried to reason, but it went in one ear and out the other with you.

"I have to find her. I can't lose her. The last storm-" you had started to explain, but a flash of brown had you breaking out of Billy's hold and trying to rush toward the trees before he could stop you. His hand barely managed to grab a hold of your wrist before he pulled you back behind the door, letting it close and seal you from the gruesome weather brewing outside.

"Billy... the storm- I can't- She's alone." Your last words cracked him right in two, bringing you closer as your knees buckled and you two sank to the ground in a pile of tangled limbs against the door. He ran a hand through your wet hair and tried to process the meaning behind your words until it finally clicked.

He had feared you'd want him gone, but you feared he'd want to leave. Neither of you wanted to be alone again.

"Baby, you're not alone. I'm right here. Rosie will be okay. The storm will pass," he whispered. Though he couldn't be confident about whether you two would find Rosie in the morning, every other statement was as true as could be. If he had his way, he'd never have to leave. He'd stay right there in your cottage with you for eternity.

"You'll leave eventually… everyone leaves or… or dies," you sobbed, unable to hold back the emotion you'd been safeguarding from him all week.

"But I'm not. Look at me, darling," he tilted your chin up to meet his eyes, the seriousness in them making you hold your breath subconsciously, "I'm not leaving or dying. You made sure of that second part. You saved me. You kept me from dying that day. You took me in and let me be reborn as the man I always wanted to be, and I can't… I can't thank you enough for that. So the very last thing I'm gonna even consider doing is leaving you. Not out of some duty to pay you back for saving me, but… but because I can't imagine this new life you gave me without you in it." 

"Oh," you whispered, your brain moving too slow to form more words than that in the moment, though you had wanted to so badly. Your tears had stopped pouring from your eyes as you looked at him in shock, and he smiled softly, wiping away the remnants until your cheeks were finally dry.

"Oh?" he whispered back, unable to help the hope he felt in his chest at the soft look in your eyes.

"I can't… I can't imagine doing this life without you either, Billy," you uttered, taking a deeper breath before adding, "I was so lonely before I found you. I didn't have… I've been on my own for so long that it felt like- like I'd always be alone." Billy tucked a strand of hair behind your ear before he moved to let you be closer to him, which really wasn't much closer at all, your chests already touching and faces barely inches apart.

"You're not alone. Not anymore. I'm here and I… I love you." It wasn't the first time he had said I love you to a girl; he'd often said it in a rush of emotion not long after meeting one, but this time he knew none of the other times counted. This was as real as could be; as real as the new life you'd given each other.

"You love me?"

"I love you. Thought you were an angel when I first met you, and maybe you really are. Maybe we just needed each other. Like we're each other's guardian angels," he whispered, face edging closer to yours. 

"Yeah? I like that. I know I needed you because life got a whole lot easier the second I had you here," you breathed as you brought your face close enough to brush your nose against his. The tension that had surrounded you two for the last week was nothing like the tension between the two of you now. This was electric and fierce, and it drowned out the clap of thunder, nearly shaking the door behind Billy.

"I like this new life with you, baby. I don't want anything else," he confessed, nudging your nose with his own before his lips faintly touched yours, and it suddenly lit a fire you didn't know if you wanted to be contained. That one spark broke the tension in a loud snap as you moved to press your lips to his with a desperation he quickly matched. You were both muddy from being outside, and the cold that had been seated deep in your bones quickly faded with the feeling of his hands roaming your body curiously. You wouldn't be shocked if you were made of pure fireworks in that moment, every movement of your lips with Billy's causing a new explosion.

"Bwak!"

You and Billy nearly jumped right off the floor at the sound coming from behind you, startling away from your kiss with a shriek. However, Billy quickly dissolved into soft laughter as he peered over your shoulder to find a certain brown chicken standing by your bedroom door.

"Rosie!" you gasped, turning to see the chicken in charge of all the mess you were covered in currently as Billy wrapped his arms around your waist. You sank back into his chest instinctively, letting his chin rest on your shoulder.

"I don't know how she slipped past us," he whispered, kissing your neck softly as you smiled.

"She just wanted to send me on a chase for her… worked out in my favor though," you confessed, turning your head to meet his lips again before adding, "I really should get you cleaned up, you know? You're filthy."

"I'm filthy? Baby, let me get you in front of your mirror and we'll see who is the dirtier one," he teased, but it gave you the perfect ammunition to shoot back a scandalous flirt.

Alex spent many nights in your tiny dorm room once you had finally upgraded to a single. The bed was still too small for his long legs, but he insisted that was “nothing that some cuddling couldn’t fix.” He proved that point now as he curled himself around you every morning, holding you with your back to his chest and his head tucked into the back of your shoulder. His legs tangled amongst yours and kept his feet from dangling off the end of the bed. Falling asleep was a challenge you two had found; trying to give him enough space not to touch while he fell asleep usually resulted in you squished against the wall until he reached for you in his sleep, and you finally fell asleep tucked into his chest. 

The sun beamed down on the two of you from your cracked window, letting in the cool breeze of the warmer spring mornings that Chicago had been blessed with as May arrived. The spring quarter would be wrapping up at the end of the month, and you both planned to enjoy every morning possible together in the small space; it had begun to feel like your own sanctuary. A sanctuary that popped like a bubble around the both of you as Alex’s phone started to ring. The all-too-familiar ringtone woke Alex from his sleep. He startled up, and you moved to grab the phone for him as he sat up. You recognized the name as much as you recognized the ringtone. David, his youngest brother, was calling.

When he read the name, Alex gave you an apologetic look that you shrugged off as you kissed his forehead and moved to get out of bed. You heard his hushed voice as he answered, the anxiety laced through it overpowering any frustration he had about being woken up. Slipping into the kitchen, you prepared two coffees, and when you came back, Alex was already half-dressed, slipping his legs into his khakis.

“I have to go to Linfield,” he announced, already sounding tired in a way you knew wasn’t from a lack of sleep. The sound of his already-present exhaustion made you want to hold him close, and he took one mug from you with a half-hearted smile and a kiss to your hairline before taking a sip and setting it down. Your anxiety started to claw its way through your chest, taking up all the space in your lungs as you watched Alex close himself off from you again. 

“I should be back tomorrow or the day after. I’ll take you out to dinner to make up for leaving so suddenly-”

“I’ll drive you.” You weren’t sure where your voice had come from, but you wouldn’t take the words back even if you could. You vowed not to push him, but you didn’t vow to let him drown when you could offer a hand to hold him above the surface. Alex froze where he was, dropping the shirt he had grabbed on the bed before facing you, chest bare and the morning sun illuminating him from behind. 

“Baby, no. I’m not taking you with me,” he tried to argue, “I’m not dragging you into this shit with my family.” You stepped forward, watching Alex contemplate a step back, and took his hands in yours as you tried to plead, “You’re not dragging me. I’ve been waiting to dive headfirst into it if you’d let me. Let me help, Alex. Whatever it is.” There was only hesitance in his eyes, looking at you as if he was worried the baggage he carried would turn you away from him. You laced your fingers through his as you quietly added.

“Let me in. You’re not going to lose me. No matter what it is.”  Three little words hung on the tip of your tongue, and no matter how badly you wanted to say them, you weren’t sure if they would help at that moment. You felt his hands tighten around yours as he thought over your words, every muscle in his body contracting and relaxing before he took a deeper breath and finally said, “Okay… but I’m driving. You know I wouldn’t be able to breathe the whole time if you drove.” You smiled as you brought a hand up to cup his jaw and guided his head down to kiss him softly. 

“I’ll get dressed and be ready in five,” you mumbled against his lips. 

“Take ten. I don’t want you to feel rushed.” 

~~~

Alex’s hand rested on your thigh as he drove to Linfield, anxiety drumming through his chest as you traced soothing circles on the back of his hand. You wished you could take every ounce of his unease from him and wrap him in warmth as you could feel him nearly shivering in his seat. It wasn’t until the two of you stopped to fill up on gas that he turned to face you, not having pulled away from the gas pump yet. 

“It’s my dad. That’s why David called me. He just… he never adjusted to my mom’s death,” he explained, eyes darting between your own and anywhere else in the car. “I stepped up when he couldn’t do it anymore.” Your heart sank as you took in the meaning of his words. Alex had to be a parent from an age when he should have only been a kid. His brothers counted on him in a way he never should have been asked to show up for them. Now, he was doing that again selflessly. 

“They just need my help to get my dad back on his feet. I don’t know what I’m walking into, and I don’t want you to think less of me-”

“Alex Nilsen, I could never think less of you for something like this." You brushed his curls back from his forehead as your voice softened. “I only think higher of you for it, honestly.” He tried to hide how his cheeks flushed, but you caught it immediately. Your thumb brushed over his reddened cheeks as you cupped his face and directed his eyes to yours. 

“Look at me. Whatever you’re walking into, I’m walking into it with you. Do you want me there- or maybe I could get your brothers out of the house? I could take them for dinner and a movie.” Alex sighed, the tension leaving his shoulders just slightly as he nodded and quietly responded, “That would be great. I think they could use it. I’ll pay you back for everything.” But you shook your head in response, “You absolutely will not. You’ll treat me to dinner when we get back to campus. That’s all I need.” You could see that light you loved in Alex’s eyes come back at your reassurance. He just needed someone who would go to bat for him in ways his family hadn’t before; you were more than willing to do that.

Even though you had managed to alleviate some of his stress at the gas station, you swore you could feel it come circling back around him the second the sign for Linfield came into view. His hand slowly tightened on your thigh until you pulled it off and laced your fingers through his, bringing his knuckles up to your lips with a whispered, “I’m here.” He waited for a red light to look over to you, and you could see that he wanted to say something, but instead, he gave you a half-hearted smile before fixing his eyes back on the road. 

His fingers flexed around your own as he pulled into the driveway before reclaiming his hand to put the car in park. He stayed looking forward as he sat in the driver’s seat for a moment, letting out a long sigh before you unbuckled your seatbelt and moved in your seat to fix his hair. 

“Do you want me to go in with you? Or wait out here for you to send your brothers out?” He let you continue to fuss over his hair, placing each curl back in place carefully for some sense of normalcy despite being back in the place he often dreaded returning. He waited another minute, relishing the feeling of your hands on him, before he turned his head to look at you.

“Wait out here? I just… I want to make it presentable, at least, maybe. I don’t know what it looks like in there.” You could tell he was in his head again, worrying this would be the straw that broke the camel’s back, the camel being your relationship. But you simply moved to press a kiss to his cheek, and he melted into your touch. 

“Text me if you need me back earlier or you need us to stay out later, okay?” Those three little words came rushing back to the tip of your tongue, as they always did lately, but you swallowed them down to try not to add any more stress into his bones, especially if he wasn’t ready to say them back. He smiled as best he could as he pressed a chaste kiss to your lips before getting out of the car, and you hopped over the center console to sit in the driver’s seat. 

~~~

Though you hadn’t met his brothers before, that was a small detail he often shared with pride about his life in Linfield. Bryce, Cameron, and David truly were something he held dear in his heart, and as you watched the teenage boys sit around you in a booth at a local diner, you understood why. They spent the whole dinner praising Alex and sharing details about the man you’d grown to love that you had only previously hoped to one day hear. 

“He used to make us peanut butter sandwiches for lunch all the time. It was easy to do when he had to try to wrangle us all up to go to school.” You smiled at how David talked about him, a love for his brother in his eyes that you understood too well. 

“He makes me peanut butter sandwiches when I’m sick,” you added before sipping your drink. You understood why Alex was fond of this place, even if it sometimes brought back chilling memories. It felt homey; you could understand why people settled down here. Bryce laughed as he set down his food to speak, but you were distracted by the buzzing of your phone–a text from Alex.

Whenever you want to bring them home, I’m just cleaning. You picked up bits and pieces of what the boys were discussing as you typed back.

How are you doing? How’s your dad? Three bubbles popped up in response before disappearing promptly. Even through the phone, you swore you could feel Alex’s hesitance; you wished you had some way to reassure him without a shadow of doubt that he can’t scare you away. 

It’s going to be okay. We can leave tonight, I think. You couldn’t hide your frown at his insistence to “protect” you from something that he didn’t need to. David nudged your side to get you to look back up at the boys all concerned around you.

“Is he okay?” Cameron asked, all three of them knowing who you were texting. 

“He’s okay. I think he just feels bad about leaving you guys. He loves you all so much. He’s got a different ring and text tone for you three,” you tried to explain, hoping to alleviate their stress, but Bryce simply frowned as he spoke. “We try not to bug him. We told him to go to Chicago when he got the offer. Normally, we can handle Dad still, or David can jump in as his favorite.” David tried to interject a protest, but Bryce kept talking, “I feel like we’re still taking advantage of him. It felt like we did as kids, at least.” You reached a hand across the table to squeeze Bryce’s hand reassuringly. 

“He loves you. He hasn’t told me much about his childhood, but he has told me about you guys. He talks about you with so much pride that I swear I feel it when he does.” The three boys all managed the same half-hearted smiles you were used to from Alex in this state. “Let’s finish up here and get you guys home to him, yeah? He’ll be happy to see you all.” You tried to cheer them up, but you could feel the melancholy the whole drive home until they walked in the door and made a beeline for Alex. You took the chance of Alex being distracted by his brothers’ loving rough housing to take in the sight of everything in front of you. Clothes were strewn about the living room, and takeout containers covered the kitchen's counters while tupperware filled the sink. On any other occasion, you’d scoff about the mess of boys, but you knew it was more than that here. This was a family that never fully learned how to heal from their loss. 

“You gonna stay the night? You could kick our ass at horse in the morning instead of going on a run.” Bryce asked as Alex looked to you. 

“We’ll be here in the morning. I look forward to watching these supposed basketball skills of his. We’ll be here as long as we can help,” you answered for Alex. He couldn’t ask you to stay, but you could tell him you would over and over again. Alex visibly relaxed at your words as he nudged his brothers away from him and told them to head to bed. You smiled at the collective groans as the boys went down the hall and yelled out goodnights to you, while Alex came up to wrap his arms around you, taking a deep breath from his spot nestled in your hair. 

“I have the guest bedroom all set up. You don’t have to help me finish all this,” he mumbled as he pressed a kiss behind your ear, but you shook your head. “I want to help. Where are the trash bags? I’ll deal with the kitchen while you get this into the laundry.” You motioned to the pile of clothes on the couch as you stepped away from him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder before walking into the kitchen. 

~~~

Moonlight seeped through the kitchen window when you heard a sniffle behind you. Your head snapped over to the living room where Alex was working to wipe down all the furniture, and you could see the glimmer of tears brimming his eyes. Taking quiet steps up to him, you took the rag from his hand and set it on the coffee table before guiding him to sit on the now clean couch. He just looked at you with what you swore may have been the saddest eyes, holding back his tears and his hands trembling in your hold. 

“‘s okay. I’m here. Just let it out,” you tried encouraging him as you brushed his hair back. One moment passed, then another, and then the dam broke. His tears fell, clearly against his will, and you brought a hand behind his head to let him bury his head into your chest. Shaking hands gripped your shirt below where he hid his face as if he was terrified you’d disappear; you were still sure that was a real fear of his. You rubbed his back as sobs racked his body, forcing him to melt into you and find comfort in that moment. 

“I shouldn’t have left,” he choked out after a few minutes, voice muffled by the fabric of your shirt. “They told me to go, and I listened, but they need me still.” Your heart broke at the sound of his every worry. He didn’t want to leave them, but you knew he wanted to live simultaneously. You let him drag himself down to rest his head on your thighs, holding onto you still, a silent plea not to leave him. 

“They told you to go,” you shushed his hiccuped sobs. “They wouldn’t have encouraged you to do it if they truly needed you all the time. When was the last time they asked you to come back?” He didn’t look up at you as he replied, “This is the first. But I just… Baby, they shouldn’t have to do this.” You ran your hand through his hair soothingly as you tried to think through how to word your thoughts about it all. 

“And neither should you, Alex. You’ve been gone nearly two years already. They’ve got it. They just got overwhelmed this time. The whole time we were at dinner, they all just talked about how wonderful you are. They hate thinking they’re taking advantage of you after everything you’ve already done for them.” You wiped his tears as they started to slow, one hand staying in his ear as his grip lessened, growing more sure you would stay. It took him a moment to force himself to sit back up, wanting to look you in the eyes when he quietly confessed. 

“I love you. Maybe this isn’t the place to say that for the first time, cleaning up my family’s mess, but I… I don’t want you to think otherwise. I love you.” You wipe his last tear as a nearly painfully wide smile graced your features. 

“I love you, Alex. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” He smiled back, no more half-hearted smile, but the big beautiful smile you were used to from him. “This isn’t a mess. If you want to see a mess, you’ve got to come to my parent’s house when my mom decorates for Christmas. It becomes a wreck then. This is nothing,” you joked, and it got a small chuckle out of him as he moved to cup your cheek, pulling your lips to his own. You both smelled of Windex and dust, but you swore you’d never had a better kiss than this. You wrapped your arms around his neck and let him pull you closer, smiling against his lips as you started to lose the air in your lungs, though you didn’t need it if you gave it to him. 

“Can we finish cleaning in the morning? I just want to go to bed with you. Bryce took over my room, so we’ll have to take the guest bed,” he asked breathlessly. He rested his forehead against yours, pressing a small kiss to your nose when you nodded. His hands ran through your hair as you pulled back to look at him. 

2008 ┈┈┈┈• ‧₊˚⊹

You were supposed to be spending the summer at home with your friends from school. You had been repeating that to your parents the whole drive up to the lake. Charlie had finally convinced his parents to get the new Mario Kart, and Alice had gotten the two-disc special edition of Enchanted from her grandmother to tide you two over for the fall release of Twilight. It was shaping up to be another amazing summer of days either too hot to go outside or running through the hose’s spray with water guns to cool down. At least until your parents announced they bought a house on Lake Eder last week. Charlie and Alice had promptly declared their jealousy of a lake house, but all you could think of was the loss of the memories you had planned to make. 

The trees were so green outside the car window. Even in your grumbling state, you could make the distinction that the lake made the whole world brighter around you. Even the flowers seemed more colorful than the ones at home. Bright white daisies and seemingly neon petunias painted the sides of the road leading down to the dazzling blue water. 

“And then right on Lincoln Meadow and we’re there,” your mother’s voice cut through your daydream as she finished giving your father the last directions to the house. Lincoln Meadow Road was the home to four houses, all well-spaced apart and painted strikingly different colors, like something right out of the movies that you and Alice would spend months obsessing over. The car passed one painted a banana yellow and a seaweed green before settling on what you thought might be the most boring one in the row. Grey sides and white shutters to match the picturesque white picket fence that divided your little section of the land from the navy blue house down the way, with a tire hung from their big willow tree. 

You couldn’t get out of the car, awestruck by the sliver of blue peaking through the trees, hinting at the incredible sight behind the new house your family was preparing to settle into for the next few months. There was an unease in your chest at the thought you could love it here, even if just for a few months. You longed to have your friends here to share it with you until you caught a glimpse of a shadow running down the peek you managed of the bordering house’s dock before the splash of the water made a soft echo through the street. 

“Are you coming, sweetheart?” your mother called from the porch, smiling as your father brought another suitcase from the car. Your eyes drifted back to the sliver of wood you could make out between the willow trees before you dragged yourself out of the backseat to explore the house. The first thing to catch your eye was the large stone fireplace, taking up a significant portion of the living room and making you cough on the soot kicked up as your mother opened the windows and let in the lake’s cool breeze.

“Oh dear, I’ll have to give that a good clean,” she laughed as you waved away the remaining particles around you to move toward the kitchen. You could remember the ramblings of your parents trying to excite you about the place and the word furnished had been thrown around a few too many times for you to understand until you stood in front of a clearly well-loved table that had the previous owner’s names etched into it from over the years. Anderson and Williams and Nilsen were among a long line of family names along the edge of the oak wood; now, clearly new, your family’s name capped off the end of the list. 

Your fingers brushed along the carving as the fresh water smell drifted in and flooded your senses. The creak of the stairs under your father’s feet and the soft hum of the fan above the living room startlingly made their way deep into your heart instantly. There was an undeniably bond with this place being formed and you didn’t know if there would ever be another place so perfect as you stared out the window to watch the small waves nip at the dock’s posts not far from the tan sand sprinkled along the edge of the water. 

“We’re going to go grab some food from the market down the street, sweetheart. Why don’t you go sit out on the dock? Just relax after the drive?” your father’s hand came to rest on your shoulder, nearly making you jump before you nodded.

“Yeah, that sounds nice. Pick me up some-”

“Strawberries. We know, my love,” you mother laughed as she entered the kitchen, hoisting her coat over her shoulders and handing you your bag from the car. You flushed at her remark as she pressed a kiss to your head, followed by your father repeating the action, before they both left you in the big house all alone. You wanted to explore your room upstairs but there was something in your chest pulling you out the backdoor and across the wood planks over the water. 

“Joe! Don’t jump from there!” Your head whipped to the left to the sound of a boy yelling, the blur you had seen early gaining a proper form now. There he was wading in the water, looking at the smaller boy on the edge of the dock near the shore. Brown hair sticking wet to his forehead and shoulders bobbing up and down in the water. 

“That’s too close to the rocks, buddy. Come closer to me,” the boy called out to who you could infer was Joe who was shaking his head profusely, refusing to move to deeper waters. 

“Joe, please. Ma will kill us both if we get hurt while she’s at work,” you could still hear his softer tone if you strained for it. You wanted to hear his voice more. Some form of youthful joy filled you just to listen to him. You didn’t have time for another thought about the boy in the water as the younger one jumped from the dock and he quickly dived over to get to him. The sand was warm under your feet as you realized you were running to the other dock, mind not catching up with what your body was doing until you were already tripping up onto the darker wood dock and calling out for a boy you didn’t know.

“Joe! Joe, are you okay?” The water was still rippling with the force of the two boys playing in it and even without it, you were sure you wouldn’t have been able to see the bottom. Was this really too close to the bottom? It looked deep enough to jump from several feet up without problem. You nearly fell back when the eldest boy popped out of the water a few feet away with Joe in hand. 

“Oh!” He nearly dropped the younger boy in surprise. Oh indeed, you thought to yourself. This boy was cute. Cuter than any of the boys at your school in the city. Up close, you could see his eyes and those are more startling than any sight you’d seen in the last hour without a doubt. They shimmered like the sunlight dancing on the lake’s surface, the color of the same cloudless sky above you. His wet hair mimicked the deep stain of the dock beneath your feet, color stolen right from the bark of the pine trees around you two. 

Three. There were three of you right there. And Joe was getting antsy being held up by what you assumed was his older brother. 

“Um… do you mind?” the boy asked as he held Joe out to you. You were sure the youngest could swim just fine on his own but it made you smile to consider his brother’s overprotectiveness. 

“Billy, I don’t need-” Joe tried to protest as you took Joe under his arms to pull him back up onto the dock. Billy. Billy… Billy. You wanted to try saying it out loud, feel the weight of it on your tongue, but you could hear the two brothers bickering as Billy pulled himself back onto the dock. 

“No, that's enough for today.”

“But Ma said-”

“Ma said if you were good and didn’t try to get hurt-”

“I didn’t try to-”

“I told you not to jump.”

“I’m sorry. I just moved in next door,” you interrupted the two, shocking the boys as their heads snapped back to look at you. The next words died in your throat as Billy took in the sight of you, eyes flicking up and down. Not in the gross way boys liked to do at the school dances Alice dragged you to, but just like he was observing you, looking at you the same way you’d done to him. 

“Ma said the transplants were moving in-”

“Joe! Go inside!” Billy snapped at his younger half as his cheeks reddened with embarrassment. It took the boy a moment to turn back to you fully but you admittedly let your eyes entertain themselves with his tan skin still dripping water from the lake. 

“Sorry about him. He’s in that phase where he just repeats everything he hears,” Billy apologized, forcing your eyes back up to his own while your cheeks grew hot, alarmingly not from the sun beaming down on you two. 

“I assume transplants are us city people?” you giggled, happy to tease him when he smiled shamefully.

“Few people in town call them that or the cottagers I think. You’re just the same as us really. You’re just smart enough to only want to be here for the best months of the year. Busiest but the best.” You had hope he was right about that fact as he held out his hand to you. “I’m Billy. That’s Joe as I think you already know.” You couldn’t remember the last time you had to shake someone’s hand but as you took Billy’s hand in your own, you were glad he’d offered it. A shock of electricity travelled up your spine and you had the feeling that the bond you felt with the house had found roots with this boy already. 

~

“Billy, don’t you dare!” you shouted across the water from your spot on the barge floating not far from the Bonney’s dock. The brunette stood at the start of the dock with a smile you knew all too well by the end of the summer. You scrambled off the barge as Billy ran down the dock, jumping into the water with a shout and spraying water all over your previous spot. 

“You are so rude! I was enjoying the last bits of sun,” you laughed as his head popped back above the lake’s surface. You were dreading returning to the city the next day, a stark contrast to what you had felt only a few months ago. Lake Eder and its surrounding town had turned out to be something completely different from what you had thought it would be. You had become inseparable to the boy next door alarmingly fast from your first meeting that sunny May afternoon and now as the sun started to set at the end of August, you didn’t quite know what you’d do without him. 

“Just making sure you wouldn’t miss me too much,” Billy chuckled as he pulled himself up onto the barge before holding out his hand for you to climb back on. His touch was welcome, wanted even, and you two lay down on the wet wood beneath you with matching smiles. 

“The buildings block most of the sun in the city. I’ll miss this,” you confessed, knowing that you meant more than just the sun. Alice and Charlie had been pestering you for days about coming home and yet, you couldn’t help feeling like you were leaving it instead. 

“You’ll be back for Thanksgiving though… and Christmas,” Billy reminded you, bumping his shoulder into yours, “I mean, it gets cold then so you won’t get much sun but there will be snow. Do you get a lot of snow in the city?” 

“Some. Most of it melts before it hits the sidewalks. It will be nice to have actual snow for Christmas.” Billy smiled, looking over at you talking with the sunset illuminating your profile like an angel to him. 

“We’ll have to make snow angels then. Joe will want to make a snowman but we can never get them lined up properly and they always end up just being one ball instead of three.” You laughed in reply, imagining Billy trying for hours to pile snow up for Joe. Over the three months you’d known the boy, you watched him bend over backwards for his little brother, always doing everything in his power to make the youngest happy. It had earned him his first nickname between the two of you. 

“Well, I’m sure we can still try, Ducky,” you giggled.

“Oh god, I was hoping that died.”

“It’s not going anywhere.” Billy rolled his eyes as you looked over at him.

“Well, you’re still my Berry. All your little seeds,” he teased. The nickname had come after the near hundredth time Billy had caught you eating strawberries out on the dock. One little tease about how you were growing seeds just like the fruit with the fresh sun-kissed freckles of summer appearing across your cheeks had locked it in for good. You wanted to hate the name but there was a warmth in Billy’s voice when he called you it that made you far less adamant it should disappear. 

“I’ll still be your Berry even when the freckles disappear by Thanksgiving,” you announced and you watched Billy glow under the now-pink and orange sky. 

“And I’ll still be your Ducky then too.” 

2024 ┈┈┈┈• ‧₊˚⊹

“Hello? Are you there?” The voice on the other end of the line spoke, shock coursing through your system at the unexpected call. Ten years ago, you had known no voices more than the Bonney brothers and now it was a foreign sound in your ears. 

“Billy?” you whispered, not trusting yourself to say anything more. Ten years since you had heard from him. Ten years since you had stopped giving him a reason to call. 

“Sorry, it’s Joe.” Not Billy was left unsaid but it still felt like a punch to the stomach. 

“Oh… Hi, Joe. Are you okay? Is… is Billy okay?” Dread coursed through your system for a moment before Joe nearly whispered, “He’s… okay. We’re okay.” There was more to that, you could tell, but you wouldn’t push the boy you had considered your own little brother for so long. Cutting Joe out of your life was a consequence of your actions with Billy but there wasn’t a day that went by that you didn’t still worry about the little boy who always jumped too close to the rocks. 

“I actually was calling with some news. Do you have a moment to talk?” You could hear his hesitance as you moved from your laptop set out on the counter of your small apartment in the city. 

“Yeah. I’ve got a moment. What’s going on?” Silence filled the line for what felt like an eternity before Joe spoke again. This time he sounded even more like the younger boy he used to be in your memories. 

“Our ma died. Few weeks ago.” Kathleen Bonney had died? Certainly you had heard him wrong. Kathleen… the woman who baked you fresh soda bread every June to celebrate your arrival to the lake and another loaf for the car ride home in August. The woman who wrote you a letter every week your first year of college, even after you had lost contact with her sons, to make sure you never felt too homesick while your parents were busy. The woman who loved you as one of her own and assured you would be your mother-in-law one day. She hadn’t been right about that in the end but it was hard to imagine she could die. She was invincible to the cruelties of the world through your young eyes. 

“The funeral is this weekend. I know it’s a late notice and I would have called you sooner but-”

“I’ll be there. I’ll be there, Joe. What day? I can be there Friday afternoon- or earlier if you need me earlier-”

“The funeral’s Sunday. I’m not in town till Saturday but Billy… He still lives at the house.” Your skin prickled at the mention of him again, at the thought you could see him in just a few days. Charlie had offered to keep you updated on the small snippets he managed to catch about Billy online but you had refused time and time again. Now you had really wished you had said yes at least once over the last decade. Uncertainty wrapped itself around your bones as you reassured your first love’s brother.

“I’ll be there, Joe. For your ma. For both of you.” He knew you were avoiding discussing the obvious question you both shared but he didn’t push you on it. Joe secretly hoped that, as devastating as the news was, it would mend the far-from-healed wounds made long ago. 

~

Lake Eder looked different. Well, the lake didn’t look different but the town did. The little antique shops surrounding the Bistro were now replaced with boutiques that you were certain had grown to double the price of anything else in town. There was still charm to the town but it had become as artificial as the candy you were popping in your mouth to distract yourself from what you were about to do. 

Joe didn’t get in until Saturday, but when your boss let you take two days off for bereavement, likely in hopes you wouldn’t take any more, you had managed to show up Thursday afternoon. You thought perhaps it was the same overwhelming pull you had felt to this place as a kid, the way you would pack your bag a week early for any lake trip. It was that same feeling that had you turning on Lincoln Meadow Road for the first time in a decade again. 

Billy’s truck was in the driveway and you knew it shouldn’t have been a shock but it felt like you had stepped 10 years into the past. The old truck looked just as good as the last day you had seen it. Rusted and beaten up but still a bright beautiful red that you knew he took care to preserve. It had been his father’s once and he took the passing down of the vehicle seriously. You knew that if he had kids, he’d be doing his darndest to pass it right on down to them. While you had expected the truck, you didn’t expect the figure stepping out of it as you parked along the curb. 

Billy was always pretty. He had been cute as a kid but quickly turned handsome around the age of 16 and it was evident at 28 that he hadn’t lost one bit of that even from afar. Black scrubs hugged his broad shoulders and the sleeves tightened around his biceps in a way that would have made your teenage self drool… it may have still made your 28-year-old self drool if you were being honest. His hair hadn’t grown much; it didn’t look too different than it did in the last days of summer before his ma had insisted she cut it for him before he went off for school. You had seen the way his scruff would grow in after lazy weekends off work at the lake house but it was more defined now, almost purposeful, even if you were sure that it had grown out after the news of his mother. 

He looked devastating. Both emotionally and physically. This was the boy you loved now turned man and you couldn’t peel your eyes away from him. You don’t know when you opened the door or when you made it halfway up the driveway until he seemed to notice your presence and turned to look at you. 

Time froze. The tides stopped rising. The wind didn’t blow through the trees. The birds went silent. 10 years of distance stood between the two of you as Billy catalogued the shape of you in front of him just as you had done to him seconds ago. Had he gotten taller? When his eyes finally met yours, you didn’t see the man in front of you. You saw Billy. You saw the endless nights of movies on the deck and Billy insisting he didn’t need to sleep before work in the morning. You saw days spent on his father’s old boat, then refurbished by Billy and Joe, and jumping off the edge of the cliffs on the other end of the lake. You saw the most pivotal time of your life all wrapped up into one unbelievable package that you never thought you’d see again. He was your past but no longer your present and future. 

“Joe called me,” you managed to croak out after the silence was too much to handle, but Billy didn’t say a word. He didn’t know how to. He just kept staring at you, like you’d disappear if he dared look away. 

“I’m sorry about your ma. I didn’t know she was sick… If I had known-” You didn’t have time to finish your sentence before Billy took two wide steps and wrapped his arms around you as tight as a kid with a teddy bear. You tensed for only a moment before melting into him, your arms winding around his back as you tried not to cry recognizing his scent still after all this time. 

“You’re here,” he whispered into your hair, the disbelief more evident in his voice than ever. Words felt too heavy on your tongue as you let yourself nod in response. This was all you had wanted for ten years, to be held by him even just one more time. Even with how things ended, you never stopped missing him. His presence had been such a constant in your life that losing it left a scar on your heart you couldn’t erase.

After a moment, he pulled you back to look at your face and you swore you lost your breath seeing him even closer than before. Every freckle you had memorized at the age of 18 had seemingly stuck in place, joined by a few new ones with what you imagined was a lengthy amount of time out on the lake still. You could have shivered at the thought of this Billy shirtless but it turned out you wouldn’t have to wait long as he picked you up, ignoring your squeal as he lifted you over his shoulder.

“Billy! Billy what are you-!” You tried to scream but he took off down the side of the house, down the path you knew all too well through the garden gate, having snuck through that same gate so many summers in a row. He didn’t wait to sprint down the dock, not bothering to shuck off his shoes before jumping and landing the two of you in the cold lake. You knew you probably should have been mad but there was a childish thrill to it that you couldn’t resist loving still. 

“Billy Bonney, I swear to god-” your shouts after surfacing the water were cut off by the sight of him peeling his scrub top off while wading in front of you. 

“You came home.” He said it like it was a fact. Perhaps it was. You thought Lake Eder may have been more of a home to you your whole life than the city. His broad shoulders shined under the sun as he chucked his top back onto the dock and a weaker version of you would have attached your lips to his neck in seconds when you caught sight of the prominent muscles. Instead you stared at him like a schoolgirl seeing a boyband for the first time in her life. The members just so happened to be called Billy’s biceps, shoulders, neck, and perfectly defined face. He was even more startlingly handsome when wet. 

The metal cuff around your ankle dug into your skin with each subtle pull, and while you knew there was no getting out of it, you couldn’t help continuing to try to free yourself. Your head shot up at the sight of an officer entering the room, broad shoulders and his head hung low to avoid eye contact. 

“12 minutes exactly. An awe-inspiring, disarming technique, officer…” your voice trailed off as the man in front of you raised his head in shock at you speaking. No. The man before you couldn’t be who you thought it was. You wanted to refuse it, tell him that whatever drug he had pumped through the vents wouldn’t get you to crack. But it was too real to be an illusion. Billy McCarty looked so different, yet standing in front of you was the same boy you had known so long ago. 

“You’re dead,” he took a slow step closer before you held a hand out defensively and continued, “Don’t you dare fucking move. I don’t know what cruel joke this is, but I’m not telling you shit.” He stared at you for a moment, not able to believe that the girl he loved years ago was right there, sitting in front of him. It wasn’t until he heard the soft mechanics of the door, reminding him where he was, that he forced himself to look away, turning his back to you. He didn’t hesitate before pressing a small red button next to the lock, effectively muting the conversation between the two of you from anyone outside. 

“Billy McCarty would never join the empire. Whatever you’ve done to try and trick me won’t work.” He could see how badly you wanted to believe just that as he flinched slightly at your words. Perhaps he should have left; he could have let you keep thinking he had died rather than the truth that he’d become the very thing you two swore never to be. He tried not to focus on the blood running down the side of your face, but it was nearly impossible. Clearly, you had pissed off the troopers who had moved you into the new cell for him to talk to you; their blaster left a small triangle cut just above your eyebrow. He wanted to clean you up, take off the cuff around your ankle, and confirm that you were really alive. He’d let you hate what he’d become as long as he knew you were alive and well. 

“They told me you were dead… the- the officers who took me said… I thought you were dead.” His voice was barely above a whisper, like he feared that talking too loudly would make you vanish with his breath. It was a heartbreaking realization as you registered his voice ringing through your ears. He really was there. You could still see the boy you knew ten years ago in his eyes, now far more tired than before but still him, but the sight of him in that uniform made you grimace. You remembered his favorite tattered shirt he would wear when you two snuck out at night and how most of his pants ended up with grass stains at the knees from the two of you running around the large open fields of your home planet. 

But now he looked too clean. It was too sleek. His flat, grey chest was only broken up by the small black belt around his waist. You could read the badge on his chest, and you shrunk back at the title he had earned. He was a General. The thought alone made bile rise up your throat. The boy you once knew better than yourself… the boy you once loved was an Imperial General. 

“And yet, you stayed with them, didn’t you? You stayed with them long enough to wear that uniform.” Your heartbreak laced your voice with a venom he’d never thought he’d hear from you before, each word twisting the knife in his gut more. A few minutes ago, you were dead. He had spent so long thinking he would never see you again; so many lonely years spent in a routine that wore him down to the bone and stripped him of any pride his ma would have had for him. He took in your appearance more momentarily, noting everything that had changed. Your hair had gotten a little darker; he assumed it had to be from hiding on some base, not as much time in the sun as the two of you used to spend growing up. He could point out a new scar or two, not counting the blaster cut that had stopped bleeding, but he was confident that would scar, too. Your eyes weren’t as bright. That was the most heartbreaking change for him. Your bright eyes were now a bit duller, the color drained, and he missed the child-like wonder he used to know there. 

“I had no choice… It was this or…” He tried to defend himself, but his voice trailed off. It wasn’t a lie, but it was the root of every bit of shame in his bones. The officers who had found him long ago had threatened him with death, telling him he’d meet the same fate as everyone he loved from his home planet, and to a young teenager, it had worked remarkably well. Perhaps he should have chosen death, but it had felt only faintly better to attend the Imperial Academy, something he wished he had the strength to laugh at when it happened. The ads for the academy were plastered over every Imperial shop growing up, promising a proud, fulfilling life: Don’t just dream about applying for the Academy, make it come true! …join the ranks of the proud. He was anything but proud of the life he had lived. 

“After everything… After they took everything from us-” you tried to question, not sure you could hear any excuse for why he would join the very thing that had destroyed both of your lives, but he cut you off just as fast.

“Exactly! I didn’t have anything else! My pa… my ma and Joe- You! I lost you!” He snapped, his voice loud and threatening to break. He didn’t mean to get so upset, but he hated you thinking of him like this, thinking he was a heartless General who regretted nothing. He had so many regrets, and now, seeing you in front of him, so many more. He couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if he had managed to escape the Empire. Would he have been able to find you? He knows he would have looked. He would have looked, never once wanting to accept your supposed death even if it drove him to the ends of the galaxy. 

“So you worked with them to rip more families apart?” Your voice wavered as you spoke, wanting not to believe what had happened after all this time.

“They would have killed me if I left.” His voice was weak, trying to defend the choice he had made. But he didn’t think he could defend them to himself either. He didn’t know how much longer he could stay there, his emotions overflowing as he saw the heartbreak in your eyes. He had broken your heart, and he couldn’t stop himself from making it worse when he turned and left the room. The halls to his quarters seemed never-ending as he tried to catch the breath he didn’t know he lost. Every second longer made the grey walls around him come closer.

The second the door to his quarters was locked behind him, he collapsed onto the floor, gasping for breath as sobs racked his body. He cried like he never had before, the kind where he swore his chest might just rip in two. He had loved you. He still did. And there you were on the same ship as him. Ten years of thinking you were gone, spending every night thinking he would never see you again, had never felt so long now that he knew you were never truly dead. But with that came a selfish voice, a part of him that regrettably wished he hadn’t seen you, more so that you hadn’t seen him, not like this. Your words were eating away at him. He had done things he would never be able to come back from, hurt people who would never deserve it, and taken the lives of innocent people. He disgusted himself. 

What he didn’t know was, not far below his quarter, you cried too. The troopers had escorted you to another cell, throwing you in with little care as to what injuries it could cause. Your ankle radiated pain up your leg that felt nearly as suffocating as being in the same room as Billy had. You tucked your head down to your knees, sobs shaking your whole figure as you thought back to moments ago. Billy was alive. He had been standing right before you, yet you felt like you could barely recognize him. He didn’t look right in a uniform, much less an Imperial one. His hair was shorter than he had used to keep it, probably up to some livery code. You noted a small scar on his forehead, the slight indent in his skin catching the light above in the room.