#xfamnet

“You know what I need?” You say suddenly, wiping your mouth with your sleeve as you pass him the bottle.

“What?” He asks, taking another swig.

“I need to get laid more often.” You state, as he pauses for a second, with a calculating stare. It doesn’t really process in your mind how suggestive his visage is, so you grab the wine bottle from his hand and take another drink. There’s a moment of silence, and you can practically hear the wheels turning in his head.

“I could help you out.” He finally answers. His voice is steady and nonchalant and maybe a little too casual for your liking, but hey, if he’s offering, who are you to say no?

And all too quickly, the bottle of wine is long forgotten and he hauls you into his lap. Your lips move fervently with his, tongues sliding against each other as his hands move to grip your hips. You’re both not too sure how this friends-with-benefits thing is supposed to work, but all he can focus on is the way your hips are grinding down onto his. Pulling away from him, Warren’s hands immediately pushes your skirt up to your hips, stroking you over your panties as you unclasp his belt. He raises his hips so he can push down his jeans and boxers, and practically tear your panties off. You cup his cheeks again and press your lips against his as he raises your hips up, and sinks you down on his length. It’s quick and fast and dirty and you wonder how he can make even a quickie feel so good.

When it’s over, you lean against his chest to catch your breath. His hands are still splayed out on your hips, and his head is leaning back onto the couch. You bury your face in the juncture of his neck, breathing in his cologne. You both sit there for a couple moments, before you decide that it's not a comfortable position. Tapping his shoulder weakly, he seems to get the point and moves you off his lap.

Warren chuckles as he watches you slip your panties back on, and you raise your brows curiously at him.

“What's so funny?” You ask him, as he runs a hand through his hair.

“The fact that you think I’m finished with you.” He says simply, sending a wave of heat throughout you once more. Bastard.

Even though you and Warren never explicitly set out any rules for your relationship, you certainly never felt angry at the fact that you were getting laid regularly. Being with Warren has its perks, you figured that out fairly quickly. For one, he always has good wine on hand. That's always a plus. Secondly, you always knew you really weren't one for vanilla sex, but you always had to keep your mouth shut for all the partners you had that weren't willing to explore anything even remotely kinky. But with Warren - he's more than willing to explore anything with you. The first time you do anything remotely kinky is after you model for him yet again for some photography project. You’re once again getting slightly too drunk, and accidentally slip that you have some fantasies that you've never acted on. The second that leaves your mouth, Warren is shifting closer to you, placing his hand casually on your thigh. “Oh yeah?” He drawls. “What kind of fantasies, baby girl?” And that's how you end up splayed out on his bed, legs spread for him as he holds a video camera in his hands. Needless to say, you threatened Warren with his life if that video got out anywhere. He just laughed, the sound low and rough and somehow so, so attractive. “Baby, this is for nights when you're busy.”

Being with Warren also means that you suddenly have a whole new collection of dainty lingerie and sex toys, courtesy of his “asshole father’s” cash, as he puts it. The only price you have to pay for it is letting him take pictures of you in the lingerie, and sometimes the photoshoots are even for a real project, not just for his own enjoyment; though you’d be lying if you said you didn’t also enjoy the photoshoots. There’s something about having him continually tell you how gorgeous you are while pointing a camera at you that’s good for your self esteem. The toys are what get you more excited, though. He bought ropes, but his favorite are the silk ribbons he uses to restrain you. One night he took some photos of your hands one night, bound up in the silk, and put some of the close study shots of your hands and wrists in his next art show- which was a fun risk to take, and when Warren invites you to his next small art show and you see the photos hanging on the wall, the thrill of the low level exhibitionism is enough to have you tugging him through an out of the way corridor and into an empty bathroom. It’s quick and rough and your moans are muffled against his mouth and his hand and at the back of your mind, you wonder when you got so daring, so explorative, and whether Warren is a bad influence, or just a really fun one.  

Another risk you and Warren indulge in is putting the dark room in the art department to good use after hours. The golden boy of the undergraduate art program was trusted with his own key, and he makes sure to abuse this power to the fullest of his ability. There have been multiple incidents in which Warren hauled you up on to the table, and fucked you thoroughly with his hand on your throat or over your mouth. The dark red lighting seems almost ironic, you suppose. There were also times in which he took several pictures of you on film in the dark room: with you on your knees, and his hand in your hair. (When you developed those pictures, you both couldn't stop laughing because “shit, Warren, we’ve defiled the sanctity of the dark room.”)

There are more body art photoshoots too, and despite always telling you he has the best intentions for the modesty of the shoot at the start, you both know it’s always a lie. You’ll start as professionally as possible, but infallibly, you both end up naked and the camera is forgotten on a shelf across the room and the paint or ink or chalk powder that started on your skin ends up smudged over both of you. It’s messy and exhausting and exhilarating and at the back of your mind you know you wouldn’t want to give up this kind of fun for anything. Maybe it should worry you, so instead you just don’t think about it.

He puts some of the more anonymous photos of you in his art exhibitions, and you help him pick out the ones that would be deemed safe for public viewing. You refuse to compromise your privacy or your identity, but seeing the shots of your back or legs or arms or whatever Warren was photographing at the time appear on the walls of his student exhibits is more than a little thrilling. The two of you will kill time after sex by going through his photos and laughing together as you come up with bullshit artistic justifications for them so that he can submit them for a photography course credit in his portfolio. It’s fun and carefree and you tell yourself that it’s all platonic and for the most part, you believe it. You lose track of how many times you fall asleep in his bed or on his couch, and the times you wake up to him making coffee, naked in your little kitchen. It’s just platonic, you tell yourself. Nothing else. Just sex. We’re just friends. If you think about it too long, it might scare you a little how easily your lives fit together. So you just don’t think about it.

As much as you wish you could stay in this perfect little bubble of sex and art and wine, you can't. You're in the real world, and the real world has exams and schedules and feelings that refuse to just sit aside and not be dealt with.

Tonight, you're sitting on the foot of your bed with tears in your eyes. You're pretty sure you bombed an important test, and it seemed like every customer you had at work made it their personal goal to ruin your night - and had accomplished their mission without fail. You can’t remember the last time you felt so simultaneously furious and upset. Gripping your phone in your hand, your thumbs dance over Warren’s contact information, restless anger surging through your body like a second pulse. You're not sure why you're overthinking it because that's what you do. When you're both stressed or angry, you call each other and fuck it out. You shake your head, push any doubts of that aside quickly.

You still up?

It doesn't take long for him to reply.

I’ll be over in ten.

You don’t know whether you’re relieved or not, but it’s too late to go back now.

When he arrives, he's quick and straight to the point. He kisses you hard and filthy and pushes you back into your room, and turns you to your stomach where he fucks you hard with his hand on the back of your neck. It’s rough and a little angry and it's over as quickly as it started.

Afterwards, he pulls out of you with a huff and collapses onto his back. You lie there for a moment, trying to convince yourself that this has in fact made you feel better, instead of the exact opposite. But you're only human, and you can't just hide away emotions like that. The thing you want most is to have emotional vulnerability with Warren, but it just makes you hurt inside more knowing that he's not actually your boyfriend. It took a long time for you to get to this point; far longer than it should have. The heat from his body beside yours is making everything feel way too real, and the fact that you find his presence comforting is terrifying because you know this isn’t something you can rely on. You roll to your side the second you feel tears beginning to prick at the backs of your eyes, because the last thing you need is for him to see you like this. He shifts slightly in the bed behind you and you don’t think you’ve ever been so close to someone and yet so utterly distant from them.

Warren freezes when he hears the choked off, shaky gasp that escapes you. He isn't stupid, he knows that you're upset. He turns his head to see your body shake slightly, and he can hear you attempting to pull yourself together. Truth be told? This scares him. It scares him because he's never been good at handling emotions, let alone other people's emotions.

But there's something about you crying like this, that saddens him. It makes him want to comfort you, and tell you whatever is happening that's troubling you- it's going to be okay. In a perfect world, maybe he'd be able to do that. But this- comforting someone of their emotions- that's a whole new ballpark for Warren. So he shifts to his side, and tentatively places his hand on your shoulder. You visibly flinch at his touch, not used to something so gentle like that from him. The two of you don’t really do gentle, even at your most carefree and relaxed. Gentle just isn’t something that usually exists between you.  You relax into his touch as soon as he starts soothingly caressing the skin there, your eyes fluttering shut as you let yourself get a little lost in the soft touch. It’s not what you expected from him, but you’ll take what you can get in terms of a little tenderness, even if you know it’s a lie. Even if you know that it’ll just be more painful for you when he leaves after this. Your breath catches suddenly as he leans down and presses an almost chaste kiss to your neck, shifting slightly behind you to drops another kiss to your shoulder.

You know that this is his way of comforting you, but it just makes you even more emotional, because he's not your boyfriend. Not even close. This whole exchange just reminds you how fragile your agreement is becoming, and how you know it's not going to remain the same. Letting yourself get swept up in the lie the two of you were crafting would have consequences, and you had known that right from the start, when you embarked on this trainwreck of an arrangement months ago, but knowing that isn’t making it any less painful now that the illusion is falling apart. You don’t want to acknowledge your feelings for him, because that feels like admitting that whatever you feel is real, and not just a brief lapse in judgement.

Warren presses several more kisses over the curve of your shoulder, his touch more delicate than you’ve ever felt it, and you will yourself not to let out the sob you’re holding back. His fingers glide over your side for a second, before you feel the bed dip, and you hear the clasp of his belt. He’s redressing silently, processing what just happened. You hear him pause when he walks to the door, as if he’s going to say something, anything to make you feel better. But he doesn’t. He leaves you curled up in your bed, and the second the door closes, you finally let yourself cry.

You don’t sleep with Warren for a long time after that night. Every time you see him, it’s a reminder that you’re wanting something you can’t have. You should never have let it get this far, and now you’re frantically trying to haul yourself out of an emotional investment in an impossible situation, though if you’re being honest with yourself, it’s far too late to avoid an emotional investment. You’re already in way over your head. All you want is a distraction, and that’s why it feels like a miracle when James comes into your life. He’s in your literary analysis class, and he’s got a look in his eye that just draws you in. He’s nothing like Warren. He’s quiet, thoughtful, and isn’t reckless in any sense of the word. There’s no trace of Warren’s reckless energy in his eyes and you tell yourself that this is what you want, what you need right now. Something stable. Dependable. Safe. James is kind, and who are you to say no to a date with someone who’s as perfect as him?

He isn’t stupid. He’s heard the rumours about you and Warren around campus, and he was sure to ask you carefully and respectfully if you and Warren were still… doing what you were doing. No specifics were mentioned and he wasn’t using it against you. Just asking you where exactly the two of you stood.

Maybe, if you were a perfect person, you’d tell him the truth. You’d tell him the truth and you’d do what you’d had to do in order to resolve it, to get to know James better on the right terms. The right way. But you’re not a perfect person. As it turns out, you’re not even a good person, because you lie. You lie and tell him that it’s over, and that you’re willing to get to know James without any distractions from Warren. You do your best to push all the thoughts and memories of him away during the date with James, trying not to think about how different it feels when Warren holds your hand.

Throughout the next couple of weeks, you spend less and less time with Warren, and more and more time with James. The only time you even see Warren is when he calls you up in the dead of night, looking for stress relief or anger relief. You don’t stop seeing him entirely, though. And when you see him, it’s not quite hate sex, but the fun and the playfulness from all your previous hook ups is gone now, replaced with an almost bitter urgency.

“Been a while, princess,” he spits one night at two am when he comes over. He has you pressed up against the wall and his hand is around your throat and his eyes are dark. “Am I not good enough for you anymore?”

He’s never been jealous before. Not like this. He resents the time you spend with James and he doesn’t know how to handle it because he hasn’t had a real relationship since he was nineteen and naive and fresh out of high school, but god only knows he fucked that one up badly enough. He hasn’t seen Alex since he was leaving the state and they said they’d try long distance. He hasn’t spoken to him since then either. And in the time that has elapsed since that fell apart, Warren has had night after night of casual hook ups but he’s never cared about a hook up before, not like he does with you and as he watches you with James, he’s pretty sure his feelings are driving him insane, because every time he thinks about Alex and about how he ran away from feelings that seemed bigger than himself he feels like a goddamn coward. It was fear that stopped him reaching out then, but it’s the same paralyzing fear that keeps him picking up the phone and calling you at night.

James is as good and as sweet as a boy trying to earn the approval of your parents or your grandma, or whatever. He’s always happy and always looking to please. When he touches you, he’s reverent and delicate and almost careful; as if you’ll scold him like a child for doing something you’re not into. You almost pity him, because he doesn’t know that every time he touches you - you’re thinking of Warren. You’re thinking of Warren and how he grips your hips tightly and whispers filthy, profane words in your ear. James is nice, James is kind. The kind of boy parents only hope their child will settle down with. He’s safe. But he’s boring, and you know he deserves someone far better than you.

Balancing things between James and Warren was just barely within your capabilities to begin with, but as things get slowly more serious with James and you still don’t quite break it off with Warren, everything starts to feel like it’s spinning wildly out of your control. You know you’re a terrible person. That James deserves better and that you’re treating him appallingly. You’re constantly, painfully aware of just how fucked up your behaviour is at the moment, but you can’t help but feel that calling off whatever he’s trying to build between the two of you is admitting to yourself that you want something real with Warren, and you’re not ready to admit that to yourself yet. You’re not sure if you’ll ever be ready to admit that to yourself, even if you’re aware of it in the deepest recesses of your mind. You know Warren better than you think anyone else does, you know about his art and his habits and a bit about his dad, and you know that he’s reckless and self destructive and that he doesn’t do relationships. Which wasn’t a problem till now.

It takes just over three months for for your self destructive freefall to finally come to an end with a shattering impact. If you’re totally honest with yourself, you’re surprised it didn’t happen sooner. Everything has been spiralling far out of your grip and you can barely get yourself through the day at this point. Things were never supposed to be this complicated, but realistically, this was never going to be anything but complicated and you know it’s your fault. You haven’t had any real control over your trainwreck of a personal life since you started talking to James, but it seems to have taken time to catch up to you. You go over to James’s apartment after a class one day, and when you try to kiss him hello, he pulls back, his expression frigid. His voice is even and despite the self control he seems to be exerting, there’s a note of bitterness to it that makes you stand up a little straighter as you look at him quizzically. He tells you that it’s over. That whatever happened between you and Warren-whatever there was or maybe still is between you and Warren left you too emotionally unavailable for James to be with you. His hands are steady and his expression is ice cold as he tells you flatly that he wanted to make it work for the two of you, but you clearly didn’t.

You know that should sting more than it does, but you also know that he’s right. No matter what you tried to tell yourself, you never quite managed to give anything real with James a chance. You know it makes you a bad person, but somewhere amidst the clandestine three am hookups with Warren, you had managed to make your peace with something less than sainthood. What does hurt is the look of shocked betrayal that crosses James’s face when you don’t try to protest or ask him to stay, you just nod silently and walk out. He had called it off, and he didn’t intend to stay, no matter what you said, but he wanted you to plead with him because that was how he thought it should go, and you’re just too damn tired to fight for him to stay when you didn’t really want him around in the first place. You didn’t set out to hurt him, but the clarity that comes with hindsight tells you that you also didn’t set out to make him happy.

The stark expression of unhappiness on his face stays with you as you walk back to your own place, leaving an insistent discomfort in it’s wake. Normally you would call Warren over and fuck him till you were too tired to do anything other than fall asleep, all thoughts of your problems temporarily left behind, but you don’t think you can face him right now. Not after that. As you fling your bags and keys onto a table and flop down onto your couch, your gaze falls on a large bottle of rum and a two litre bottle of diet coke sitting on the edge of your kitchen counter and a quiet, traitorous voice at the back of your mind whispers that you can’t face Warren sober but that there’s an easy way to fix that and to make you forget about James as well, at least for a moment.

You’re not entirely sure how much you drink, but what you do know is that you’re so far gone that the rum doesn’t make you cringe as you knock it back easily. Your makeup rubbed off long ago, and your cheeks are tear stained from when you first started drinking. As you hold the half empty bottle of rum in your hands, you look over at your phone and decide if calling Warren over to fuck him would really be in your best interest in this moment. It’s getting harder and harder for you to deny that you want to see him, and even though the distraction he’ll provide is a guaranteed brief reprieve, the sense of hollowness that is sure to come soon after is a daunting prospect. You pick up your phone and stare at his contact name, wondering if you really are a glutton for punishment.

He’s over within five minutes of you texting him, and the second he’s through the door you press yourself up against him. You yank him down by the back of the neck, and kiss him demandingly as your other hand moves to palm him over his jeans. “C’mon,” you mutter against his mouth, backing your bodies up until his lower back is pressing against the kitchen island. “Want you to fuck me.” Warren isn’t stupid. He could smell the alcohol the second he stepped into your apartment. He may be an asshole, but he knows the limits and this is past his. He pulls away from you and cups your cheek gently, taking in your bloodshot and tired eyes and the dry tear tracks on your face.

“Baby, I’m not going to fuck you while you’re drunk,” Warren says softly, voice quiet and even. “Not like this.” You’re pretty sure this is the first time he’s called you baby without the intention of sleeping with you, and that mixed with the alcohol and the sudden, painful reminder that wanting him the way you do has destroyed a relationship, makes you step back from him abruptly, wrapping your arms around your torso, and letting out an utterly helpless sob.

“Why?” You ask, voice shaking. “It hasn’t stopped you before.”

“We were both drunk those times,” he replies gently. He’s stepping towards you now, and you know you should back away, but you can’t bring yourself to walk away from him, because you’ve never pretended to be anything but selfish and right now all you want is for him to hold you so you can pretend, if only for a moment, that whatever exists between the two of you is something real and permanent and romantic. Not whatever imaginary bliss the two of you have created. “This is different. Just- just- just let me sort you out, okay?”

All you can do is nod weakly and let him take over, as he starts wiping away the tears that have dried on your cheeks. It’s silent between the two of you as he gently takes your hand in his, and walks you to your bathroom. He leads you in and sets you on the edge of the tub, as he starts up the shower. He rifles through your drawers to find some makeup wipes and kneels down in front of you, carefully wiping the remainder of your makeup from your cheeks. The tenderness is something entirely new from him, the delicacy with which he’s touching you something you haven’t seen from him before. It makes you angry and sad that he’s being so gentle with you, but you don’t say a word. You’ve already done enough damage.

He leaves for a moment to grab you a fresh pair of pajamas, and you’re undressing silently as he comes back. Warren averts his gaze from your body, as if he’s never seen you naked, and takes his leave from you once more.

You take your time in the shower, standing under the stream of water and trying not to think about what’s just happened and what it all means. You’re too tired to keep lying to yourself about what you want from him, but you can’t let yourself be anything other than realistic about what exists between the two of you. Friends with benefits isn’t always sustainable, as you’ve apparently proved to yourself. The sound of the water drumming against the tile isn’t loud enough to drown your thoughts our, but it makes everything feel a little hazy, a little far away. As if there’s a heavy curtain between you and your towering mountain of problems. You don’t want to step back into your immediate reality yet, so you stand under the water till you think you’re about to fall asleep standing up, then you force yourself to shut off the water and step out into the real world again. The cool air on your skin is jarring, and you shiver reflexively as the cold sinks into your bones, leaving you a little numb, though not enough to let you forget just how much of a mess you’ve gotten yourself into.

When you’re finished drying off, you pull on the pajamas he left out for you, taking a second to stare almost blankly at your reflection in the still foggy bathroom mirror. It feels like a weird moment of disconnect with reality as you take in your reflection. You can recognize yourself, but you feel so distant from everything that a part of you wonders if it’s actually your own reflection. Shuffling out into your room, you see he’s setting a glass of water on your nightstand accompanied with an advil for the morning. When Warren looks up, you’re both silent; waiting for a reaction from each other. Seconds tick by on the clock and still no reaction from either of you, both too scared to say anything right now. The room is rife with immense emotional volatility, as if a single wrong word could spark an inferno, utterly destroying whatever tense agreement remains between the two of you. Another second ticks by, then another. He comes over to you and takes his hand in yours, and tucks you in your bed. You’re sleepy and compliant under his gentle touch and it’s easy for him to carefully push you down to sit on the edge of the bed, slowly curling your legs under you as you settle down against your pillows. You look exhausted and beaten down and so unbelievably vulnerable that the surge of protectiveness Warren feels in response is simultaneously a surprise and the most natural response he could think of. He’s looking at you and all he wants is to comfort and to protect and to hold you, but he’s sure he breaks everything he touches and he knows how fucked up the relationship the two of you have is, but he couldn’t bring himself to cut you off even if he wanted to.  

When he moves to walk out into the living room, he’s halted by your hand circling his wrist. You’re not pulling him in for anything sexual, all you want is some sort of human contact. A little of the tenderness he showed you earlier. But he won’t be swayed, gently tugging his wrist out of your grasp. That’s always been one of your downfalls; wanting more than you can have, though you were always pretty self aware about that flaw when it came to Warren. He sighs and crouches next to your bed, pressing a kiss to your forehead and giving you a sad little smile. He wants to stay so desperately, but he can’t. It’s already hard for him to leave you like this and he knows if he stays, if he lets himself hold you, he might never be able to leave. It’ll only make everything more complicated, and he knows that it won’t help either of you in the long run.

So he stands, and tells himself it’s the right decision to leave before he does anything he’ll regret. He pads off into the living room, and settles down on your couch. His gaze wanders to the bottle of rum and coke on your coffee table, and he tries to shake off the overwhelming sense of guilt about everything that’s happened between the two of you. He can’t make it go, though and for possibly the first time, he lets himself actually think about the complete catastrophe of a situation he’s gotten the two of you in. You wanted this, he reminds himself. You got yourself involved in this mess and it’s your fault it went to shit like you should have known it would. His fingers are drumming absentmindedly on the edge of the coffee table as he reaches for the bottle of rum with the other hand. The apartment is silent but he’s almost painfully aware of your presence only a room over. His knuckles are white around the neck of the bottle as he takes a long gulp, sitting back against the sofa and trying to push any thought of going and lying down beside you out of his mind. He forces himself to stay put, and he knows he should probably just go back to his own place, but he can’t bring himself to leave. So he stays put, staring at the blank wall and drinking to try and make himself feel better. He comes to terms with his feelings, and he wonders if you’re both too far gone to reverse the damage.

Your ear-piercing alarm for your eight am lecture is what jolts you awake, and the splitting headache that follows almost instantaneously only makes the blaring of the alarm worse. Your hand comes down on the snooze button, and when you roll over to go back to sleep, you catch a glimpse of the water and advil, and it’s a bitter reminder of what you did-or rather, what you tried to do last night. When you finally manage to force yourself up out of bed, you don’t even bother changing out of your sweats and hoodie into something decent, because after all, you’re not the only one who’s going to be showing up to an eight a.m. lecture looking like they maybe got hit by a bus the previous night. Ignoring the throbbing in your temples, you down the entire glass of water and the advil quickly before walking into the living room. You’re intending to head directly out the door but the sight that greets you makes you freeze up.

Warren is stretched out as best he can on your shitty, small couch, face pressed against a cushion with a too-small blanket draped over him. He looks entirely out of place and uncomfortable on the couch, and yet somehow he fits into the rest of the room perfectly. Like he belongs here. You’re not completely sure why the fact he stayed makes you want to cry, but it does. You’re tearing up at the mere sight of him curled up on your couch, glasses on the coffee table, somehow far more vulnerable than you’ve ever seen him before and every part of you is conflicted because you want to run far away from all this mess and complication but part of you just wants to go and curl up beside him and you know you can’t do that. Wiping the tears off your cheeks with your shirtsleeve, you manage to tear your eyes away from him, heading quickly over to grab your keys and wallet from the tabletop before walking out the door. You’re definitely not quiet as you go, and you don’t want to think too hard about whether the slam of the door was an intentional outburst of frustration and hurt or just coincidence. The loud bang of the door rouses Warren, and the second he registers what’s happening, he’s scrambling up off the couch, trying to get your attention, to talk to you about the previous night, but before he can get any words out, you’re gone.

Betsy Braddock and Warren have a very specific kind of friendship. Their sober interactions are limited strictly to small talk and occasionally making plans to get wasted together. When alcohol is involved, their conversation ranges from families to work to hookups and beyond. It’s very, very rare that Warren ever talks about how he’s feeling, but if he gets drunk enough to open up, then talking to Betsy actually helps. Her tolerance for pity parties is non existent and she’s a little pushy and blunt and somehow, even while completely shitfaced, she manages to cut directly to the centre of whatever Warren talks to her about. When she runs into him outside the art department later that day, after he’s left your place, she takes one look at him and says “I’m coming over tonight, Worthington. Make sure there’s enough alcohol.”

He knows what to expect from the night, and so when she comes over, he tells Betsy everything. How the first hookup happened, how it continued from there. The way things started to fall apart. Warren tells her the entire thing, steadily working his way through a large glass of vodka, explaining James and then what happened last night. And to his shock, she doesn’t even interrupt. Not even once. When he’s finished, he downs the remainder of the glass of vodka he’s been nursing, looking at her with an expectant expression.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Betsy says after what feels like a small eternity, looking at him like the answer should be blatantly obvious to him, even while astoundingly drunk. He just cocks his head to the side in mild offence and curiosity. She rolls her eyes and takes the bottle from him, pouring another glass out for herself before continuing “it’s fucking obvious. You love her. And she loves you.” Warren lets out a hollow laugh and runs a hand through his curls, giving Betsy a long, appraising look. All he does is pour another glass of the cheap vodka they’re drinking, and knock it back, ignoring the burn as he downs it.

“That’s not fucking helpful,” he retorts after a moment and she gives a short, incredulous laugh.

“‘Course it fucking is. You know exactly what I’m gonna tell you to do, you’re just too chicken to actually go do it. So if you were hoping I had another, easier solution, then tough shit,” she snaps back, a small smile of amusement tugging at her lips. Warren just groans and scrubs a hand over his face, squeezing his eyes shut to try and dissipate the pounding in his head.

“You know how bad I am with this shit, Bets,” He says eventually. “Let’s just say you’re right and she does- I don’t want to fuck this up. I don’t- I don’t want to fuck her up. I’m damaging. You know that. Remember Alex? I couldn’t fucking handle being away from him, and I just freaked out and stopped talking to him. I was scared and I panicked, so you’re entirely right about me being a coward. What if I hurt her?”

Betsy sighs in resignation, and wrestles the bottle out of his hand to take a swig of her own, keeping it out of his grip when she puts it down again, before saying “she’s a big girl. She knows what you’re like, and she knows what she’s getting herself in for with you. And you don’t want to hurt her. You know better now. You were basically a kid with Alex, you were so young then. Like, ridiculously young,” she explains in a patronizing voice, as if explaining something very simple for the thousandth time.

“Fuck you, I was nineteen,” Warren snaps back grumpily, glaring at Betsy and earning himself a long suffering eye roll.

“Barely legal, Worthington. Basically still kids. You’re not getting my point here. If you’re really worried about it then just fucking talk to her. I know you’re bad at that, but if you’re really that worried then write a fucking speech ahead of time or whatever, I don’t care but this is the only way you can actually figure this out for yourself,” Betsy fires back. Her words hit Warren like a bullet to the heart, and he realizes just how far gone he is for you. It’s always been there, from the moment you first slept together up until that night you got drunk. You were always there, but he spent so long convincing himself your hookups were only ever going to be a thing of convenience, that it took him until tonight to actually figure it out. He’s not sure how long he just sits there, dumbfounded, staring blankly at the table, but Betsy clears her throat loudly to get his attention and he jerks suddenly back to awareness. Getting up from the table, he makes it over to where his boots have been kicked off by the door and starts pulling them on before Betsy grabs his wrist and pulls him back to the table.

“I fuckin hope you’re not planning to go over and see her like this,” she says incredulously and Warren scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“It’s fine-I’m fine. I just gotta talk-”

“Your boots are on the wrong feet. You’re not fine. Just-just fucking slow down, okay? Spend the night working on your grand speech of love or whatever and then deliver it in the morning. Got it, casanova?” Betsy says, biting back a grin of amusement at Warren’s useless denials of his own sobriety.

“You can’t make me stay here,” Warren rolls his eyes in stubbornness already making his way to the door, only to be stopped by Betsy grabbing the back of his shirt to yank him back.

“Tomorrow. You’ll talk to her tomorrow. For now, get your shoes off and I’ll grab you some water and some aspirin, because you’re going to have a raging headache in the morning.” Betsy answers with authority, pushing Warren down on the couch.

He obeys, and watches as she grabs him the water and medicine. Warren’s already running through what he’s going to say to you, thinking of the seemingly endless variations of how the conversation could go. What if she wants me? What if she wants to be with me? What if she doesn’t? What if, what if, what if….

Betsy forces him down onto his bed and pushes the water into his hand, hanging around long enough to be sure he isn’t going to try and leave. The door swings shut behind her and Warren just stares blankly up at his ceiling, torn between trying to clear his mind so he can sleep and trying to think of what he’s going to say to you. He’s never been good with communicating his feelings verbally, and some over dramatic voice in the back of his mind says that this is the highest the stakes have ever been. He lies awake like that until exhaustion wins out over his own uncertainty, though his sleep is anything but restful.

When Warren wakes up the next morning, he’s hungover and exhausted, and he doesn’t have a particularly firm idea of how he should go about it, but it’s like his feelings for you are being shouted loudly and repeatedly in his mind and so even if he barely manages to stumble out of bed and get his shoes on the right feet, he knows he needs to tell you how he feels, because the weight of this secret that isn’t really a secret at all is weighing on his chest so heavily he thinks it might crush him if he doesn’t get it out. It’s some kind of miracle that he manages to get across campus to the art class you share with him, and when he sees you in the classroom, it feels like he’s been hit with a ton of bricks because he cares about you so goddamn much. Honestly, he must have been fucking blind or something to have missed it before. You look exhausted, though. So, so beautiful and so, so tired. There are dark circles under your eyes and you’re not wearing makeup and it stings that you won’t meet his gaze, but he knows he probably deserves it. Definitely deserves it. He can’t help but steal glances at you throughout the two-hour sketching block and he’s becoming increasingly on edge as the class nears the end. All the things he wants to tell you, all the things he knows he should have said that night months ago when you cried in his arms and he just left, they’re all still there, burning under the surface of his skin and he thinks absently that this is how it feels to catch fire. His work in class is messy and distracted and every smudged line on his paper seems to scream ‘you don’t deserve her’.

The class dismisses and you scoop up your things and hurry out of there as fast as you possibly can, without so much as a backwards glance at Warren. He follows after you resolutely though, driven by the endless chorus of ‘you care about her’ in his mind. He follows you through the art building, and you’re almost at the exit when he manages to catch you, reaching out to grab your wrist and pulling you into an empty classroom just to the side, closing the door behind him. The door clicks shut with an air of finality and you’re sure the expression on your face must be something between hysteria or panic, because you can’t deal with him right now, because he’s standing in front of you looking like he might punch you or kiss you, and you can’t quite figure out which and the walls feel like they’re starting to close in because you’re still desperately trying to run away from your feelings, but he’s making it impossible to ignore them.

Warren’s hands are shaky as he takes a deep breath and says “look, I just-I’m sorry about yanking you away like that I just really-I need to talk to you.” Your eyes are wide and your arms are clutched around yourself as if in protection. “I’m-fuck, I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry for all the bullshit I’ve put you through. None of it was fair or necessary and I’m just-I’m sorry.” He reflexively reaches up to run a hand through his already messy curls, nudging his glasses back up the bridge of his nose as a low-level thrill shoots through him, because this feels like the jumping point and if he keeps going, he knows there’s no turning back. “And you can tell me to fuck off or whatever, but I just-I need you to know-” his voice trails off and he clenches his hands briefly into fists to stop them shaking. A deep breath. A leap of faith. “I really fucking like you. Like, you’re all I think about. I care about you so goddamn much. I dunno, maybe it’s love, maybe I’m just fucking infatuated-I’ve never been good at emotions and knowing how I feel or-but you are always on my mind and I want you-I want to be with you. More than anything, basically.” He’s breathing hard when he finishes and it feels like he’s in freefall as he waits for your reaction.

Your heart is thundering in your chest so loudly and obviously that you’re surprised Warren can’t hear it. His last words reverberate through your entire body like an earthquake because it’s everything you’ve wanted to hear from him but you still feel like you’re falling apart and you have no goddamn clue what to tell him. The silence seems to stretch on for years as he watches you and you look helplessly back at him and the tension is building and building into something physically painful.

“I want you too.” You couldn’t have stopped the words from escaping even if you’d wanted to. Warren lets out a low, shaky breath and some of the visible tension slips from his shoulders as he takes a small, reflexive step towards, you, hesitating as if he’s not sure what you want-what you’re okay with. Your arms are still wrapped protectively around yourself as you continue “This-it scares the shit out of me, and I have no fucking clue what to do about it and it’s so-but I’m just-I am so sorry for the stupid shit I put on you and the things you put up with for me. I’m kind of-I’m still just so-fuck-” you break off abruptly, blinking back the tears you can feel pricking at the backs of your eyes. “Do you mean it? You said you-you care about me, is that-? I want to be with you but god, Warren. I know what you’re like. Maybe better than anyone. I want you but I don’t want you to hurt me.”

You’re still holding yourself apart from him and that stings maybe more than your words to. He knows you’re right. Warren has a long string of one night stands and drunken hook ups and failed relationships and honestly he wouldn’t blame you if you couldn’t overlook it. Suddenly the room shifts in his mind and it’s years previously and he’s not looking at you anymore, he’s looking at Alex. They’re standing apart and Alex is telling him he’s moving. That he wants to try and make it work. The memories are dizzying and utterly overwhelming and it’s making it even harder for Warren to think straight than it already was. It’s a completely different situation but it feels exactly the goddamn same because he completely fucked it up with Alex and he desperately wants to do things right with you but he doesn’t know how. He wants to reassure you, to make you understand that he hasn’t felt like this in fucking years, but it’s hard to get the words out.

“It’s-I-fuck, look I’ve made some terrible, shitty decisions with this kind of thing before, I-it was-but I haven’t felt anything quite like this before. It’s-it’s fucking terrifying-I can’t-you’re always on my mind. Always. And I know-it’s-I know I’ve hurt you and I’m so sorry. You deserve better-you deserve the goddamn world. I want-I want to be with you and make you happy and I want to be better for you. You deserve better and I want to be with you and I just-fuck, I’m just fucking terrible at this and I haven’t been this much of a mess in years, but even through all of the bullshit in my head, I want you. I want something real with you.” The last part comes out as a desperate plea, and the ensuing silence makes him feel like he’s balancing on knives because he can’t remember the last time he let himself be this vulnerable while sober. Probably while drunk as well. He isn’t sure right now, and he doesn’t quite care because all he can focus on is the way you’re staring at him, still not moving, still not saying anything. Just looking at him.

You take a steadying breath, because the intensity with which Warren is looking at you is entirely too much for you right now. An entire first year sculpture class could come barging into the classroom right now and neither of you would notice the other students. You’re both focused completely on each other. The tension in the room is rising quickly and it feels like the longer you remain silent, the harder it gets to breath. Flexing your fingers experimentally, you slowly unwind your arms from around yourself, taking a halting step towards him, tentatively closing the space between the two of you. The pounding of your heart is thrumming through your entire body and your gaze is fixed on his face as you inch closer to him. You’re scarcely an inch away, and you can hear the sharp intake of breath as you reach for his hand, hesitantly brushing your fingers against his. “If-if you mean what you said, then-” you break off, your voice shaking slightly. “Then I want-I want to try something real with you. I want-I want to be with you, Warren. Just-” your fingers slowly lace with his and his entire body seems to tense up, as if he can’t quite believe this is happening “-please just promise me that this is-that none of this is bullshit. I trust you, I just-I need to hear this. I need you to promise me.” Your voice is soft and pleading and Warren swallows hard, nodding almost imperceptibly.

“I promise. I’m not lying or bullshitting or-this is-this is everything. I’ve told you everything,” he says, barely louder than a whisper. You nod in return, studying his expression with an intensity that should feel unnatural to you, but somehow isn’t.

“I trust you,” you whisper back, and your actions feel like they’re not entirely your own as you lean in, closing the remaining distance between the two of you to kiss him softly.

And all at once, Warren can practically feel himself wholly and completely melt against you. His hands come to rest ever so carefully against your cheeks as you kiss him carefully, and he’s positive you’re the only thing tying him to the world right now. His fingertips against your cheeks feels like sparks igniting a firework in your belly; a feeling you’d been trying to coax out of James for months and months, denying the fact that only Warren could make you feel this way. The kiss is slow and fragile and vulnerable and utterly unlike any of the times you’ve kissed him before. There’s a delicate unspoken promise in the way he touches you, and even though all he’s really aware of is what a fucking relief it is to be able to touch you like this, he wants you to understand what this means to him; needs you to know how overwhelming what he feels for you is. You pull back after a moment, and Warren genuinely couldn’t say how long it’s been since you kissed him. Maybe a second, maybe years. It doesn’t matter. You’re looking at him with so much hope in your eyes it’s almost painful, even as he registers the flicker of anxiety in your expression. “I trust you,” you repeat, voice scarcely audible, but the words send shivers down his spine regardless.

His thumb skims delicately over your cheekbone and your head tilts slightly towards his touch. It feels like some part of you that had shut down, something in you that had been silenced is volubly, blatantly awake as you study his face. His features are so familiar to you, but the expression of almost awestruck reverence in his eyes damn near buckles your knees. This is new, but as his arm loops gently around your waist and he pulls you into his chest with a careful hesitation that has never been there before, it feels like this is exactly where you were always supposed to end up.

It feels like ages as you both stand there, utterly wrapped in one another. With your face pressed into his shirt, his cologne reminds you of all those sleepless nights after you slept together, when he’d lie back with a cigarette, telling you with a tired voice of all the things that he plans to do after college. And for once, that scent makes you feel at home.

Warren gently tilts your chin up to look at him, with that soft smile you’ve barely gotten to see previous to this afternoon's events.

“I want to take you out,” He says with an almost tentative tone. “Like on a date. A real date, with dinner and everything.”

You can’t help but to let out a watery laugh at that, and he joins you with a soft chuckle of his own as his shirtsleeves move to wipe the excess tears off your cheeks. His hands are warm and the cuff of his sweater is soft and it amazes you that this is even happening.

“You know what?” You say, finally able to form a coherent sentence as you smile weakly up at him. “I think I’d almost prefer to just go back to your place and order in, and take a nap with you.”

He can’t hide the grin that spreads over his face as you suggest that, and he wonders how he managed to push away any semblance of genuine feelings he had for you for so long. Warren smiles in delight and leans down to kiss your forehead, revelling in the soft little sigh you let out, and says, “whatever you want, sweetheart, we can do.”