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kerwritesthings · 4 years

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Here Comes The Sun

Summary: Sometimes the love we give and the love we feel drive us to do crazy things in the name of that love

Word Count: 3.6k

Warnings: soft and lovely and feels, however we be getting naughty my friends - smut alert!

Author Notes: This was sketched out a totally different way in my head. I had started that way. Then we took a turn to the smutty. Oops? #sorrynotsorry

This is part 5 in my series (whose name is still TBD) – the first four parts can be found here on my masterlist. No need to read them as most can be stand alone, however it helps give a little more context to the verse I’ve created if you do.

Many thanks to @whenidance & @sinplisticshawn for being my sounding boards to my insecurities and concerns with heading this way.

It’s fascinating to you to have such an inside look at his process. You’ve seen bits and pieces before, the tail end of the work on the last album. But this time, you have the chance to see things formulate at the very beginning. He’s taking it easy this week, partially because you’re around through the weekend but he’s also still coming off the high from Sunday. Your neck and his collarbone bearing the marks to prove it, aside from the few new pieces of hardware sitting on the piano downstairs that confirm it.

His room at the beach house has a massive window seat tucked into a wide bay window that faces out over the hill and down to the water. When he’s not been with you or in the studio, you find him tucked into the cushions, guitar strewn across his lap and journal balancing precariously on one knee.

It’s exactly how and where he is Wednesday morning when you finally wake up, missing the rumble from his chest behind you. “I should have known,” you say, half caught in your throat as you stretch. You look over at the clock on the bedside table and realize it’s earlier than you thought.

“I didn’t wake you up did I?” he asks, finishing a scribble on the paper before looking up at you fondly. “Something just hit me, and I wanted to get it down before I forgot. I was going to come wake you in a few when I was done. I do believe you and I have somewhere to be today.”

“Beach day,” you sigh happily. “Me and you and the sun and a cooler full of strawberry limeade and warmth and sand and did I mention the sun?”

He laughs brightly, “Should I leave you and the sun alone?”

“Perhaps Shawn, perhaps,” you smirk before bounding out of bed, his laugh bigger than before.

The weather is perfect that day, and the fact that the house has private beach access makes it even better. The two of you can truly relax and let go without worry. It’s been a while since you’ve been able to completely disconnect like this, even just for a few hours. You are both looking forward to it.

Making your way down the path hand in hand, beach bag slung on your shoulder and a cooler in your free hand, two chairs in his other, you can’t help but smile wider as the sound of the waves gets closer. “You lucked out finding this place,” you say. “Killer set up, the house and a private beach? I’m shocked it’s not more well talked about.”

“It’s not that old, plus I think the guys who own it are super selective. Don’t blame them. I really like the vibe here; it feels right and super comfortable, plus I like being a little out of the way. I’m already trying to talk my way into another block over the summer, especially when I know I can steal you away again. There’s still more places in that house I need to have my way with you in, like that gigantic outdoor rainfall shower,” he grins wickedly as your feet hit the softer sand.

You bump your hip against his and pull your hand back, “You’re incorrigible. Now, come on, I don’t want to waste any of this precious sunshine.”

You quickly dump all your belongings down to the sand setting up your little encampment for the day, far enough from the water to not get soaked by an errant wave, but still close enough to enjoy the views.

“I like this,” he says catching your hips in his hands before you go to lay on the blanket spread in front of your chairs, fingers dancing over the raised subtle pattern of your bathing suit while he mouths at your neck. You fight back the moan bubbling in your throat, leaning more against him instead. The deep berry tankini was definitely a little different than what you’ve worn before and you’re not too surprised he took notice.

“I don’t remember seeing you wear it. You look good in it. Really good. But remember, it’s a private beach,” he whispers as he nibbles at your ear, his hands skating up your sides. “I think it may look better tossed over the arm of my beach chair.”

“Shawn,” you whine, winding a hand back into his hair to tug at his unruly curls. “Don’t tempt me, honey.”

“But I want to tempt you,” he skirts his hands over your breasts, one hand cupping your left, while his fingers carefully trace the flesh peeking out above the hem of your suit on the right. “I want to have you right here on this beach. I want to make you come, baby. I’ve thought about it so many times since I got here and saw how secluded this sand is. We can finally do what we couldn’t in Mexico.”

Your mind flashes back to the moonlit walk on the beach in December, the wandering hands, his hot lips tracing over your shoulder, your mouth worrying a spot on his chest over his heart. You both wanted that memory, that moment of just more, but there was too much risk. As it was, you were pushing the boundaries on a beach where you could be discovered at any moment.

He slips his left hand down to your hip, pulling you flush against him. You’re bombarded by sensations; his bare chest against your back, his breath puffing more against your ear, and he’s impossibly hard against the soft swell of your ass. He dips his right index finger to tease and track across your nipple.

“Damnit Shawn,” you moan, pressing back against him. “You’re making it really hard to say no to you.”

“That’s the point,” he whispers, shifting his lips down your neck and across your shoulder, licking and biting his way over your skin. “It should be yes Shawn yes. Loudly. In that throaty voice of yours you get when you’re so turned on. While I’m inside you. Please baby.”

What little resolve you have left is fading and fast. He’s grinding against you now, slowly and methodically while his left hands trails from your hip across your stomach, his pinkie and ring finger sneaking under the waistband just to keep his hand against you. You know the risk is as minimal as it can be, but there’s always a chance. The last thing either of you need or want are pictures of a tryst leaked out. But the fucks you normally give are wearing down to nil.

“Fuck,” you bite out, squirming from the stimulation he’s providing and your eyes fluttering shut. The hand still threading around his curls grips tighter, making him groan against you.

“Let me make you feel good. Want you to fall apart on my tongue and fingers first, then slide into you to feel you come around me,” he sighs out, pulling you against him tighter, rutting into you harder.

Something breaks, snaps quickly like a rubber band, and you turn in his grasp. You loop your hands around his neck and surge up on your toes to sip from his lips.

“It’s so damn hard to say no to you, especially when you’re this wound up and so damn convincing. But, there’s too much sand for some of that, as much as I really want to come all over your mouth,” you mutter between gasps and the biting kisses that are progressively getting wetter. “Compromise? Fuck me, make me come on our blanket. Then I’ll make you come, riding you nice and slow on your beach chair, Shawn.”

“God yes, baby, yes,” he breathes out harshly against your cheek. His lips then start wandering down your jaw while pushing you back towards the sun-warmed cotton and his hands slide over you to take a firm grasp on your hips. Next thing you know he’s shifting you up, moving your legs to sling around his waist to tilt you gently down onto the old patchwork quilt. He eases down onto you, slotting one of his legs between yours and leaning on his forearms, just putting the right amount of his weight against you.

“I’m going to take my time with you,” he says into the soft skin of your neck, his tongue doing wicked things against your pulse point. “Going to take advantage of laying you out in this sunshine you love so much, show you exactly how much I love you, how much I adore you, exactly why I love making love with you.”

Your hands wander across his back and down over his ass, but then you grasp onto one of his biceps and his shoulder as he sucks down hard. You hiss out an exhale, your right leg coming up to hook against his hip as your hips tilt into him. He soothes the spot ever so lightly with just the tip of his tongue. He’s just started and he’s already making you lightheaded.

“I want to hear you, don’t hold back,” he asks, tracing a haphazard pattern across your neck down to your collarbone. He noses at each of the straps on your shoulders, sliding them down until they fall loose around your elbows. He slides his hands down your arms, lifting yours through the loops and then drops them into his hair. Your fingers find purchase around the swirls of his dark curls.

“Need to spend a little quality time here,” he purrs, his fingers pushing your top down to free your breasts. His mouth is wicked, you know this firsthand, and he’s proving it again. He alternates between lapping at you, sucking at your nipple and nibbling, lightly biting at the pebbled flesh while his pointer finger flicks over the other he’s not latched onto. You lose track of how much time his face is nestled there, and you can’t help but let out a chain of needy mewls and gasps. You crave more friction. You want nothing more to grind more against him, your hips start bucking against him. He knows he could make you come just from this, but you don’t want to come that way. Not today.

You tug at his curls to try to pull his mouth away, whimpering his name loudly, “Shawn, please, baby.”

His lips leave your nipple with a loud pop, shiny and red. He grins cheekily at you, chin propping up on your sternum while his fingers start their way down to the ties on your suit. “I’m not nearly done with you yet, dear. Need to make sure you’re nice and wound up, oh so wet for me,” he explains, nosing at the underside of your breast, while his hands make quick work of your top, then moves his attention the bows at your side.

“Damnit Shawn,” you keen out as he yanks the bottoms from you tossing both piece of your suit over to land on the seat of your chair, his hands kneading at your ass. He shifts himself down the blanket while he licks his way down your stomach, taking his time to leave marks along the way, ones that will last for a few days. But of course, because it’s him, he adds in blowing a raspberry or two on the way to make you giggle. He nudges your legs open, his head leaning up against your left thigh. You lean up onto your elbows to look down at him. He just looks at you for a few moments, eyes wide and dark, his fingers twitching against your flesh.

“Oh sweetheart,” he murmurs, his right index finger brushing ever so gently over your clit, then down to your entrance. “I know you said there’s too much sand, but I’m sorry, I might just need to take a tiny little taste. You’re so wet for me. God, that’s so hot.”

He draws his index finger into his mouth, sucking at the pad carefully, eyes wide open and locked onto yours. You squirm, partly from being turned on, partly from the look on his face. He gives you no warning, his lips going immediately for your clit with abandon. He’s overwhelming you, not expecting his mouth on you, alternating between kitten licks, sucking and teasing you with the tip of his tongue. You gasp, crying out his name loudly, your hands flying back into his hair. You’re not sure if you want to pull him away and off you or push him in closer.

“Shawn baby, please,” you choke out, breath catching. “I want to come around you, I need you inside me. No more teasing. I want you, need you.”

He looks up, a devilish grin across his face and is mouth is slick with you, “I love hearing you all breathy and fucked out for me.” He quickly wipes his mouth hastily with the back of his hand before leaning down for a bruising kiss. With him slightly preoccupied in trying to untie his shorts, you lean up and it’s your turn to catch him by surprise, knocking him onto his back.

“Change of plans, I’m riding you here and now,” you husk out, hovering over his knees making quick work of the knot he was struggling with, sliding his swimsuit off. If you weren’t so worked up, you’d make him squirm like he did to you, work him up with your hands and then your mouth. Right now, though, you want to fuck him. Badly.

Once you’ve tossed his suit aside, you go to reach for him. However, he’s got his right hand wrapped around his hard cock, stroking over it loosely and slowly. “C’mere baby,” he rasps out, half smile quirking his lips.

You’re mesmerized for a moment, watching him. It’s unfairly gorgeous, he’s gorgeous. You push his hand away gently, tracing a finger over his tattoo as you move, lining up your hips to his. Instead of sinking down onto him right away, you taunt him a bit, sliding the head of his dick through your wetness, nudging the head against your clit a few times. You can’t help but throw your head back and whine. His hands fly to your waist, pulling you down onto him as he grinds up against you with a deep groan.

“Can I slip inside you honey?” he bites out, pupils blown so you only see a small ring of golden around them as he pulls you down against him again. “Let me fuck you now baby, let me make you come. You know you want to.”

You nod, biting your lip, stretching up to your knees. He brushes your hand away, holding himself up so you can sink down. But not before teasing you one more time, flicking at your clit a few more times, first with his thumb before the head of his cock again.

“Shit Shawn,” you sigh out deeply as you slide down slowly, taking your time to feel, to enjoy the stretch and fullness. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He grasps onto you easily, letting you be in control of the speed, but you can see the clench in his jaw as you finally bottom out on him. “There you go sweetheart, you feel so good. Tight and warm around me,” he says through an exhale.

You can’t move yet, despite the amount of times you’ve enjoyed each other lately, it still takes you a moment or two to get used to him, especially when you’re on top. Even more so when he gets all mouthy like he is today. He twitches ever so slightly and slips just a bit deeper. It sends you reeling, whimpering and your head lolls back while you brace your hands on his chest.

“I should say I’m sorry but I’m not, not when you look that beautiful above me, blissed out,” his eyes soft, hands drawing loops across the tops of your thighs. “Whenever you’re ready.”

You start easily, a light rock, a swivel and circle of your hips. Your fingers flicking at his nipples. His eyes close, only for a moment though, his lips part as he takes a deep breath. Increasing the speed of the grinding, consciously clenching around him while still buried deep inside you, it makes him grip your knees tighter, his knuckles turning white.

“If I can’t hold back, you can’t either,” you fight out, watching him bite his lip, eyes still locked onto you. “I want to hear those delicious sounds from you, Shawn.” You slide up off his cock slowly, then slip back down quickly. It earns you a growl. Both slow on the up and down, a sigh with a head loll to the side. Quickly up and a slow way down, a hiss through his teeth.

After a few passes at each, you try to keep him growling, making faster passes, you bounce quicker on him. He braces his feet up, hands shifting to squeeze your hips and he starts meeting you for each thrust. He leans up, lapping and sucking at your breasts again. You can feel the build up at the pit of your stomach. You chase it, moving faster, grinding your hips on the down for stimulation on your clit.

“Baby, shit. I’m getting close, can you, touch me please. Make me come, I want to come, I want to come for you,” you babble out, so near blissing out completely.

He takes hold and surprises you this time, flipping you onto your back without sliding out. He pushes deeper, hitching your left thigh up over his hip and leaning your calf up against his arm. Your eyes start to flutter closed, overwhelmed. “Let me see those pretty eyes of yours. I want to see you when you fall apart and fall over the edge, when you come all over my cock,” he pleads, hips snapping into you.

His hand slips between the two of you, thumb making the up and over loop that he knows drives you over the edge. “Come on baby, just let go. Come for me,” he leans down, whispering into your ear before biting at the lobe.

That sparks everything. You lock eyes with him and cry out, arching your back. Your hands dig into his biceps as you shake, clenching around his dick. It overtakes you like a warm wave. He coaxes you through it, slowing and easing as you come down, nuzzling your neck.

“Damn,” you say, somewhere between a sigh and a whimper, hands making their way up to the nape of his neck. “Holy shit baby.” He’s still shallowly shifts his hips against you. Trying to respect how sensitive you are after you orgasm, but still being wound up himself.

“Your turn, I know how badly you want to come too,” you mutter into his cheek, twirling the damp curls at the base of his head. “I’m ok, take what you need honey, I can’t wait to feel you come inside me.”

“Fuck,” he bites into your shoulder as he speeds up, strokes getting deeper and faster. He hitches your leg up again, this time up over his shoulder. “You felt so good coming around my dick, baby. I’m not far off, you have me close.”

You skate your right hand down his ribs, grabbing a handful of his ass pushing him closer and he fights back a growl. “No holding back, sweetie. Feel it all. Just come. Let me feel you coming deep inside me. I know you want to.”

A few more stuttered thrusts and he’s grinding his hips as he tips his head, groaning your name deep and loud as he comes. He eases your leg down and leans fully down onto you, his head finding that spot he loves so much where your neck and shoulder meet. You feel his warm breath coming back down to normal, while your fingertips map the muscles of his shoulders and back.

“This was so much better than I even imagined,” he sighs happily, dusting kisses across your collarbone before leaning up onto his forearms to look at you. His smile is easy and soft, content and relaxed. He tucks a stray strand of hair up behind your ear. “I am so lucky to have you, in general, but then to have you like this? That you let me love you this way? I’m grateful. I love you; I love you more than I think I can say. Words aren’t enough. This isn’t even enough. You’re all encompassing. You’re everything you know?”

You get misty and can’t help but lean up to kiss him sweetly.

“Sex so good my little songwriting rockstar is speechless?” you tease with a giggle.

He starts to tickle you, “I’m trying to be sweet and loving here and you have to go be a smart ass.”

“But I’m your smart ass, the smart ass who knows exactly how you’re feeling. The one who loves you just as much. The one who doesn’t want to have anyone else other than you,” you say, cupping his cheek. “I love you Shawn, so much that it’s scary and exciting at the same time. I don’t want to know what it’s like not to love you.”

He turns to kiss your palm before leaning down to kiss you ever so gently, “Come on, let’s go take a dip. Don’t even think about putting that suit on yet. I have more plans for you. I promised my girl a day in the sun and I’m not letting her down.”

TAG LIST: @whenidance, @justinndavis, @sinplisticshawn, @hollandraul, @fallinallincurls, @itrocksmysocks, @rainbowshawn, @lasingphomustra, @illumecherry

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes fanfiction #shawn mendes oneshot #shawn mendes story #shawn mendes smut #shawn mendes fluff #shawn mendes blurb

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secretstories · 4 years

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Temporal Anomaly

This story is NOT canonical, but it was fun and I wanted to write it. Using a time travel trope for this one. Hope you enjoy :)

“Approaching temporal anomaly.”

“Admiral, maybe it's best if we get someone more… scientific to do this?”

Amidral Vir slowly engaged the jetpack in spurts costing through the blackness of space seriously glad he didn’t get vertigo as stars plunged into infinity on all sides leaving him floating in a vacuum of nothingness.

He knew people who had been driven mad by this experience, they used to call it cosmic hysteria before someone actually put a real name to it. He engaged his com, “That would be a good idea if any of you nerds knew how to use a jetpack. Just tell me what I’m looking for.

There was a pause over the end of the line for a moment before a voice came over the line slightly nasal making him think of pocket protectors and those little rubber things you put on the end of your finger to help turn pages, “Ok Admiral, when you get the the anomaly, I want you to hold up the device and press these buttons in sequence.”

He rolled his eyes. Ah yes someone more scientific to press a few buttons.

He floated a bit more forward stopping just short of something very…. Strange. From where he was it looked like he was staring into a fractured pane of glass where the individual pieces only remained together because there was no force acting on them. He could see the light on the front of his space suit being reflected back at him, and behind that his own silhouette.

“Are you guys sure this things is an anomaly…. Looks like someone just chucked out their broken mirror.”

“That’s what our scans are saying, Admiral.”

“Alright so I just” He paused, and sighed, “Which buttons was I supposed to press again.”

There was chuckling from the other end of the line as he walked through the instructions. He did as ordered only half listening to the chatter of the nerds on the other end of the line. Instead he got a closer look at the…. Whatever it was. The lite from his suit was too bright and scattered off the glass so much he couldn’t see his reflection, but, rather continued to blind himself.

“Some kind of warp tunnel?”

“No, warp tunnels are more volatile and tend to draw things into them. This would have already pulled the Admiral in if-”

He tried to tune them out and tilted his head this way and that

He shouldn't have let his mind wander. As krill had once said his rain was like a small child, and if left unsupervised it was prone to doing things it shouldn’t. He reached up a hand fingers parallel to the glass.

He slowly moved his hand forward his brain imagining the cool, slick surface of glass beneath his fingertips.

He felt as his glove impacted something.

“ADMIRAL N-”

And he was sucked violently forward, so violently it felt as if his body was going to rattle apart. He was spun this way and that pulled apart in all directions and then snapped back together like a rubber band. His feet flew over his head, he worked desperately to fight against the the blackness at the edge of his vision as he plunged downard into what must have been an infinite well of gravity, and then with a jolt, it stopped.

His head spun and his body hurt.

His hands and arms floated out to either side of his fingers trialing in the air beside him. His feet were kicked up before him and his head spun circles, far worse than they had during flight training.

And then he was

Gone.

Fading away with the stars overhead, and a bright light passing over his body.

***

“The suit is certainly huma, though I can’t say I have seen this model in a while.”

“And it has a jetpack! Hell yeah! Our mystery visitor has class.”

“Now, the real question remains. Who could it be? We are the only ship in this sector.

“Don’t tell me we are going to open it up and see a gooey corpse…. Eww.”

“No, the suit is broadcasting vitals. WHoever is inside is just fine.

Adam struggled to open his eyes but when he did he was blinded and the world spun around him. He tried to lift his hands against the light, but his suit felt like led weight was boring down on him.

“He’s waking up” Someone announced

He groaned.

“Get the helmet off him or… her I suppose.”

There was a sharp hiss and the world around him was flooded with light. He grimaced and turned his head to the side.

There was a gasp from around the room.

“Well glaze my ass and call me a doughnut.”

“This is it, I have OFFICIALLY seen everything.”

“Holy shit!”

He grimaced past the light and managed to hold up a hand before his eyes. He blinked a few more times.

Someone stepped in blocking the light assailing his eyes, and finally he was able to drop his hand, and nearly leaped back in his skin. A man stood over him grinning from ear to ear, tall, broad shouldered snow white hair and…. An eyepatch.

“Well you are once handsome devil if I do say so myself.”

He sat up scrambling back a little.

The man grabbed his arms, “Whoa there champ, hold on before you crawl out of that suit.”

“Who the fuck are you!”

“Come on, son, ever looked in a mirror.”

His mouth opened and then closed and then opened again. He turned his head wincing at the light nearly crawling off the bed when his eyes fell on another shape. Small, brown grey, with large prismatic orange eyes.

“Fascinating.” Krill said. There was a loud snap as he pulled on a latex glove, “I guess probing is in order

He leaped to his feet pointing, “Hell no you little gremlin, keep away from me.”

“Wow, I remember you having a much better sense of humor.”

“Oh you boys stop harassing him, look he’s scared.” He turned his head towards the new voice falling upon wide bespectacled eyes, and long dark hair pulled back from her face in a tight bun. The lines around her eyes had deepened and her skin wasn’t so tight but, he would know that face anywhere.

“Katie.” He said in confusion.

She smiled at him, “That’s right, now get down from there, we promise we won't hurt you.” She glowered at Krill, “And we CERTAINLY won’t PROBE him either.”

Krill huffed, “killjoy.”

Slowly Adam crawled down from where he stood on the bed stealing glances at the white haired man off to his right, who was grinning at him. As soon as he was down the other guy moved forward taking him by the shoulder and turning him this way and that, “Wow its like looking in a mirror, only, you know some twenty years younger.”

The other man tilted his head back, “Forgot how handsome I am.”

Adam pulled his face away, “W-what is going on.”

The other man grinned, “ well why don't’ you tell us your side of the story, and we will try to fill in the holes.”

He rubbed the back of his head, “Well I was…. I was investigating a temporal anomaly and I.”

“You touched it, you touched it didn't you.” The older man interrupted.

He felt himself go red, “I…. no..”

“He he, looks so cute when I lie.”

“How do you know he’s lying.”

“How can’t you know. Look, his ears are all red.”

Adam reached up to cover his ears, “who are you.”

The older man rolled his eyes, “man I am dumb sometimes.” he held up his hands, there is only one explanation for this my young friend. He reached up wiggling his fingers through the air, “Time travel”

“Time travel?

He nodded, “Time travel. You see you are me and I am you just, you know older…. How old are you right now?”

“Twenty uh…. Twenty six?”

“Don’t look at me. I am Forty six and fabulous.”

Adam frowned, “But your hair.”

The older Adam frowned at him, “I go grey early, can you blame me. Look, I think you have some white hairs yourself. But you won’t find a man my age with a body like mine this side of Andromeda.”

“Sure you do.”

“Haven’t heard Sunny complain.”

Adam opened his mouth closed it and then, felt his face flush red again, “You….” He trailed off cutting the question short.

“Oh look at him, he's going red.”

Older Adam waved a hand, “Well that isn’t hard to do. Watch this.” he turned to look adam in the eye, “Sex.”

He felt his face flush even worse, and he turned away.

“Adam!” Katie scolded, “Stop tormenting him.”

Older Adam grinned, “But it’s so fun, I can finally understand why my brothers did.”

“I still think we should study him, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.” Krill was sayin. He didn’t sound like he had aged a day.

“Don’t you think that would be a little much, Krill. This is a lot to take in.”

Older Adam through an arm around his shoulders, turning his head to look at him, “Yeah we don’t want to do ‘science’ he wants to look at the ship.”

He took a deep breath, “I… I….”

“That would be a yes, don't worry he’s just getting his brain to boot up. Takes a minute when he’s nervous. Now get out of that smelly suit and let's take the grand tour.”

What other choice did he have, and he was given the privacy to pull off his suit and undersuit, at least that is until someone threw open the curtain and barged in. he nearly squealed and fell over, grabbing something to hold in front of him.

Older Adam just laughed, “nothing I haven’t seen, son…. Ha ha, son, thats funny.”

He did not lower the pillow he was holding in front of his private business, “Do you have any sense of personal boundaries.”

“Nope, those fled with age.” he doessed him a bundle and Adam ended up dropping the pillow on reflex just to catch the clothing sailing towards him.” His older self nodded in approval, and Adam felt himself go bright red again, “Those should fit, i mean we are the same size, haven't started shrinking yet.”

Adam awkwardly pulled on the proffered clothes finding it strange when he identified his own smell.

With one waved hand he was led from behind the curtain, and out to where the others were waiting. They stared at him, and he looked down at his feet.

“Come on, I’m excited for you to see this. Plus I have some serious advice for you.” older Adam grabbed him by the arm and walked him into the hall.

He looked around in awe almost immediately as a large spindly creature trudged past down the hall.

“What was that?”

“Just some new friends we have made in the last twenty or so years.” They walked up the hall and took the stairs down. The ship was darker than it used to be, much more lived in, but it was familiar.

“Here this way to the rec room.”

They turned a corner and the floor opened up into a familiar space, though it had more TV’s and even a vintage arcade game now. He nodded in approval, “Hey everyone, c’mere.”

The entire room looked up, and he sudden felt himself the center of more than a dozen eyes.

“Holy shit, is that?”

“yeah , yeah it is.”

Another man moved out of the crowd, and Adam felt his eyes widen, “Ramirez!” he looked up at the other man shaking hismelf, “You aged…. Really well, holy shit.” Ramirez grin, straight white smile lighting up his face, “That’s a compliment coming from you.

Adam snorted, “In your wildest dreams Ramirez.”

“ I’ve had wilder.”

He held out a hand, “Uncanny.” Adam took and looking down saw something glittering on his hand, “You’re married!”

Ramirez laughed and held up his hand, the wedding band glittering bright on his finger, “yep going on about ten years now.”

“Who? Tell me.”

Ramirez shook his head, “No, I don’t think I will.”

Other faces popped at him from out of the crowd, “Mav/” He asked wide eyed. The woman moved forward grinning wickedly. He hair was short on the sides and long on the top braided back into a viking-esque haircut, “Oh look it’s baby Adam’ how cute.”

Old Adam patted him on the back, “doesn’t it just remind you of the old days.”

“When you were still a raging idiot…. Oh wait, I was thinking of right ow.”

It was at the same time that the two of them frowned and responded with near identical “Hey.”s

The entire room laughed at that.

Ramirez looked at older Adam very seriously, “You know what I would do if I were you.”

Older Adam sighed, “Do I want to hear this?”

“If i was you.” Ramirez continued, “I would kiss myself/”

Adam blanched and old Adam roared with laughter, “Kiss yourself, Ramirez isn't that like…. Incest somehow.”

“Selfcest and I don’t think it counts, but seriously, thinking about it. You could know exactly how good you are at kissing and be able to work out any bugs.”

Adam backed away as older Adam looked at him contemplatively.. Adam backed into a wall, and older Adam just laughed slapping him on the back, “Oh stop looking so worried, I wouldn’t do that to you unless you wanted a go, but you aren't as fun as Ramirez.”

“But I am you.”

“I know, I remember what I was like.”

“What you ‘were’ like?”

He shrugged, “Yeah you loosen up as you get older, don’t worry kid. You can thank Sunny for that.”

He put a hand on his shoulder and led him out into the hallway.

“Sunny! Is she here?”

Older Adam beame, ‘I know that look. Lets see your 26 right, so you two are dating/”

He nodded a bit nervously.

“Yeah shes here, we’ll go see her next. She will want to see you for sure.”

Together they stepped down the hall and Adam nearly keeped ovr as a sudden shape appeared before them white and billowing in the hallway.

“And then there were two.” Conn Said, his dark eyes glittering rather maliciously.i the darkness.

“Convict.” Old Adam said.

He turned his dark eyes to look at Adam, “Same dumb different age.”

“Charming Conn.”

“You didn’t change much.” Adam muttered as the two of them pushed past Conn down the hall.

“Don’t let him fool you. He has gotten better as time has gone on. A real asset to this ship. Saved me from an assassin a few times.”

“Assassins!”

Old Adam shrugged, “Yeah Assassins, “People don’t like what I…. what you and I represent.”

“What do we represent?”

“The union between humanity and alien life of course, or the GA in general. We are the face of the galaxy my friend.”

Adam frowned, “When does that happen.”

“It already has you are just a bit dense, but soon enough you will see. Right now you are a household name for humans, and it only takes a few more years for your name to become intergalactic.”

He felt himself go a little weak as white- hair Adam smiled at him, “yeah, the Stress will turn you white early, but it's a good life, and so far I don’t regret anything I have done….. Tough there is one thing….”

He paused, and Adam leaned forward little to hear him feeling that this was important.

However, they were silenced rather quickly by a sudden massive shape scuttling towards them from across the ceiling, and then dropping onto the floor. Henearly leaped out of his kin.

But then the thing came into view, a massive adaptid, with blond fur on its face, “POS garbage system gonna need fixing.” The voice was strange, echoing unnaturally like it was coming from a static radio.

The adapted stopped and sniffed the air, its eyes fixing in on him with a hungry expression, one that turned to confused a moment later, its bright green eyes widening with confusion, “Father.”

“Glados!”

She turned her head to look at white hair Adam, “What is this, some kind of joke.”

He shook his head, “No glados. I younger me has come to visit from the past.” She sniffed at him.

“Holy shit.” he muttered, “Wh-what are yo undoing here.”

“What does it look like I’m doing! She snapped, trying to fix this POS ship is what I am trying to do, but the coil drivers are going bad and Narobi’s people forgot to order morem, so now I have to finagle the things back together. Do you know how hard it is to fit down those dark cramped hallways, and then every now and again some asshole runs into me and screams, practically defines me every time.” She snarled, showing great white glittering K-9 teeth.

Older Adam patted her on the shoulder, “Deep breaths Glados, everything will work out, I promise.

With a deep sigh, Glados did as told, taking two great heaving breaths before calming down.

“Better?”

She nodded her huge head, eyes softening a bit, “Anyway. I have to go fix this. It was interesting to see you again, father.” and then she turned around and scuttled into the darkness. As she departed Adam was surprised to find a shape clinging to her belly …. An adapted male.”

“She…. shes…. uh married? Dating?”

“Yes, though she's been looking for a third.” He chuckled, “She’s been trying to convince Conn, believe it or not.”

Adam snorted and nearly fell over, “What!”

“Imagine a bunch of baby adaptids who could survive in the vacuum of space. It would be one of the greatest evolutions their species has ever seen.”

He rubbed his head almost dizzy, “And is he considering it?”

Old Adam shrugged, “I don’t know. I think if we told him no directly to his face he might actually consider it, but I want to see if Glados can convince him first. I’d rather he agree on his own than out of spite.”

Adam held his head behind his back and shook his head, “This is all, this is insane.”

Old Adam snorted, “Not so much kid. This is your life.”

They were lead down through the next few hallways in near silence, “So what were you going to tell me earlier?”

Old Adam tilted his head, “What was…. Oh yeah! I remember now” he turned to look at him with a very serious expression stopping in the hallway and then laying a hand on his shoulder, “The one thing I regret.”

He waited on tenterhooks.

“Go on.”

“I regret not advancing my relationship with Sunny sooner. You love her, kid. You love her so much you don’t know what to do with yourself, but for some reason you are so worried and embarrassed about it that you can’t do it. I gey your nervous and awkward, but she doesnt care, and no one else that matters will care.”

He felt his face flush and his hands go warm, “I…. I don’t know about that I, I’m not.”

‘Not ready? Well lets be honest, you will never be ready,and the longer you wait to feel ready is the longer that beautiful warrior is going to go thinking that maybe….. Just maybe you are going to turn away and pick someone else. The longer you wait is the longer she is going to wonder if she is good enough, the longer she is going to think you are going to leave her for some human.”

He stood on the floor stunned, “She thinks that? But she’s never…”

“Never said anything. Of course she’s never said anything. She doesn’t want to drive you away, and she loves you enough that she wants you to be happy even if that means her being miserable” he grabbed Adam by the shoulders and nearly shook his brain out of his head, “You found her, I promise you found her ok, no need to look anymore, no need to worry. She isn’t going to leave you, no matter what you do, and possibly despite everything you do.”

His heart was hammering in his chest as the other man lead him up the hallway hand gripping around his wrist.

“So….so you two…. I’m … I mean you and Sunny are.”

Older Adam turned to look at him over his shoulder, “I challenged her to trial by unarmed combat seven years ago, and every day I regret that I hadn’t done it sooner.”

Adam sputtered, “Trial by unarmed combat but that!.”

Old Adam frowned at him, “I know what it is. I am leader of a drev clan too.”

hIs head was spinning, his heart was hammering and he felt ready to fall over as they turned the next corner and down into a little workshop that he recognized well. It was more cluttered than it had been before,and the walls were practically plastered with schematics and blueprints, but the smell of metal and adhesive were strong.

Old Adam left young Adam at the back of the room and walked forward to where a lone figure was sitting on a bench busy tinkering with a few pieces of equipment.

“Hey, hot stuff.” He said, leaning in to kiss her cheek, making Adam’s face flare red as he looked away.

The head lifted, bright light running over blue carapace, “Mmmmm hey snow white.”

“Never gonna let me live that down, huh.”

“Nope.”

“There is someone here I want you to see.’ He said, and the way he reached out, touching her arm tenderly made his entire body erupt into tiny fizzing bubbles. He swallowed hard and looked up at the ceiling.

Sunny looked over her shoulder and her eyes widened, freezing in place as she stared at him. He raised an awkward hand to wave, “Er…. hi.”

“No way…. Is this serious.”

Old Adam grinned, “yeah.”

Sunny shook her head in awe before the expression adjusted into a frown, “Great, now I have two children to take care of.” She looked pointedly at old Adam who just grinned.

She turned and looked Adam back over one more time, “I forgot how hot you used to be.’

His grin fell and he glowered at her, “Used to be!”

She grinned at him and shrugged, “What your old, and decrepit now.”

“I’m not even fifty!”

She stood and walked over looking down at him. Was it just him, or did she seem a little taller?

She brushed a hand through his hair, “You are adorable. What would you say to a fight.”

Old adam frowned again, “Hold on, why do you want to fight him”

She looked over her shoulder, “I don’t know he's younger…. More…. spry .”

“Spry!”

She grinned, “And probably a little more flexible too.”

“Now hold on, I don’t recall you complaining before.”

“Hard to complain when you are trying your best, but you know things get old…. Not so much stamina anymore.” She grinned again

Adam wanted to sink through the floor, and felt that he might if he got any warmer. As if he might sink through the floor and melt into a puddle.

“I’ll give you stamina, woman.”

Adam resisted the urge to cover his ears.

Sunny turned her head back to him looking almost hungry, “You always had a nice body.”

“You keep talking about this in the past tense, and I don’t appreciate it.” Old adam lifted his shirt and patted his abs, “See all six still there.”

Sunny raised an eyebrow, “Bet he's a little more….” She tilted her head to the side, “Firm.”

Older Adam looked scandalized by the comment and Adam himself just wanted to die, “Can we NOT talk about that please.”

Sunny sighed, “Still haven't gotten over that have you. She patted his shoulder. Took me FOREVER to convince you and lord was it difficult, but I swear if you just do it, than you won’t have a problem anymore.I swear it vanished overnight.”

“Please stop.”

She sighed, “Alright fine, but you better give younger me a chance sooner before this idiot did, I swear he regrets it with every fiber of his being.”

“I get it! I Get it! I am hearing what you are saying and now we can go ahead and stop right now.”

The two of them just laughed at his expense, and Sunny put an Arm around him, gently brushing a stray hair from his cheek, “I’m sorry, I know that makes you uncomfortable, we’ll stop.” He relaxed a little and a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.

Older Adam smiled a little, “Sorry, kid, guess I was having a little too much fun at my own expense.” He winked, though with the eyepatch it looked just like a blink.

Did he really do that that often?

“So…. aside form the other stuff, is there anything I should know? Any advice.”

Older Adam frowned and tapped his fingers, “IF you ever meet a cute little alien that looks like an eyeball with fuzzy hair, don’t touch it whatever you do.” he Shivered and grimaced.

“Um, turns out I am very very allergic to honey so any sort of scent or flavoring that involves it is not going to go well for me.” Sunny added, “So keep me away from it.”

He nodded.

“Also do not attempt any sort of inverted backspin with your jetpack. I was in traction for a month.”

Adam frowned, guess that sort of ruined his weekend plans .

Old Adam rubbed his chin, “Ad face it kid, you're going to get old, but that doesn't mean you should act old. I tried it once and it was miserable.” He prodded Adam in the chest, “Expect your left knee to give you shit and the fucking heartburn is killer, but keep up your workout routine for your own happiness.”

Sunny paused and then went very quiet, “IF I insist on seeing my mother…. Let me go, but don’t let me do it again. NEVER let me go back again.”

WOrried he nodded again unsure of what to do.

There was another pause, “Also, my brother Kanan, give him some poetry books next christmas.”

Adam snorted in surprise, but from the look on her face he went quiet, “Yeah, I think I can remember all that.”

Older Adam put a hand on his shoulder, “looks like they found the temporal anomaly, and it’s time to send you home kid.”

Older Adam accompanied him into the docking ebay wearing a space suit. It was very strange to hear himself give orders, but partially exhilarating at the same time. He…. he didn’t hate how he sounded when he was giving orders. A group of others came t osee him off and he got to see other members of the crew.

Nairobi, with a colorful scarf tied up on her head, Jackie standing Next to Simon, who looked just as stiff as ever, but managed a smile at him. There was Katie and Krill, who wandered forward and leaned up. He leaned down to listen to his friend expecting another sarcastic comment, but instead, “Relax Admiral, relax and maybe you won’t go grey so early.”

Adam smiled a little and stepped back glancing over at his older counterpart, “All told…. It looks kind of good on me.”

Krill shrugged, “Stress doesn’t, now get back to your people before they freak out.”

“You mean before YOU freak out?”

“Oh I am already freaking out I assure you. That is a fact of life.”

Adam smiled and stepped back as Sunny walked over. She put her hands on his shoulders and then leaned down gently resting her forehead against his before pulling away, “Be safe and try not to do anything overtly stupid, which i KNOW is a tall order.”

He grinned and pulled on his helmet. “No promises.”

She then turned her attention to older Adam, turning her head so he could kiss her on the cheek, reaching down to squeeze his hand, “Same goes for you, you hear me.”

He grinned, “Here you are to ruin all my fun.” She took the helmet from his hands gently placing it on for him with a tight snap before checking the seal and when smacking him about the head.

“Hey!”

“Yep, it works.” She announced laughing as she backed away, and the two of them turned.

They stood in the airock as it was depressurized, and their feet lifted off the ground as the door opened. Together they engaged their jetpacks and slowly coasted forward.

The universe unfurled around them.

It hit him now just as fresh as it had the first time, and he turned his head to look at the older Adam, who was already looking at him, and he was under the impression that his older self still felt the same way, which made him feel right.

At least that was something he’d never lose.

The temporal anomaly appeared before them as they reversed thrusters and came to a slow stop.

Older Adam turned to him, grabbing him by the front of the space suit as they looked, “You gotta promise to do one more thing for me kid, just one more.”

“Yeah, what”

“Waffles…. You, you tell her she’s a good girl, tell her she’s a good girl from me.” The man’s voice was partially choked up, “Can you do that?”

Adam nodded, “I’ll tell her.”

“Good,” And then he was shoved back into the temporal rift and vanished.

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semblanche · 5 years

Text

ask to be added/removed from my tag list!

current title: terras town

pov: third person, unknown number of narrators

genre: urban fantasy

status: first chapter done

summary:

Terras Town is another world, built on the laws of beasts.

Magic has warped its people to the point where bloodshed is seen as a side effect of breathing, and survival is just a stepping stone off others backs. Its people have no trust there, and their children have no shame. They have nothing our world would envy.

Terras Town is another world; the heavier side of the same coin.

Think of it as the first floor of a two story apartment, while we're lucky enough to stay on the second. The two worlds are kept apart by a thin magical barrier older than time itself - and twice as sensitive to change.

Terras Town is another world - and it should stay as such.

Which is why when Jekyll, seventeen year old high school 'drop-out' and aspiring graffiti artist, finds themself mysteriously trapped in Terras Town with no idea how to return, it's only a matter of time before the barrier breaks - and their world comes crashing down on them all.

Jekyll's only hope is a boy named Ben, who went mysteriously missing a few weeks back. Now it's up to Jekyll to find Ben so they can get back home - and make sure Ben has a home to get back to.

Terras Town is another world. And you can't get a taste of another world without it cutting your tongue.

(A story of a family that spills more blood than it's made of, all the wrong kinds of love, and bones that whisper only the truth.)

excerpt:

In the Desert, there is no rain.

The only pools to be found are pools of sand, sleek and scalding, a graveyard of lukewarm corpses and forgotten names.

Any dead man’s footsteps are long gone, swallowed and swept over by a law of nature not interested in the affairs of men - or maybe just by bad luck. Bad luck is what you’d need to have to be travelling across the Desert to begin with.

The heat in the Desert beats down in waves, almost tangible in their torture. They curl around the unlucky travelers’ throats and suck them dry, seep into their very skins and leave them raw and blistering.

In the Desert, there is no rain. And there sure as hell is no mercy.

Although, really, maybe such a fate was the mercy all along. If the travelers didn’t wish to die, then why would they try crossing the Desert to begin with? Its endless, glass-like expanses start at the town borders and carry on as far as the eye can see. There’s a beginning, sure, but no middle, no end. Maybe the travelers just hadn’t thought this far yet.

The two people currently crossing the Desert are not travelers.

They are cloaked in appropriate desert gear, with enough layers to keep the sun at bay but with enough space for the wind to filter through and breeze over their skin.

The shorter one walks with short, quick steps, her feet barely touching the ground. She is holding a large paper that looks like a map, and her eyes scour it hungrily, devouring every line.

Her taller friend trails behind her dutifully, occasionally taking a swig from the flask of water he's carrying and sighing just softly enough for her not to hear. His joy at being included battles with his dislike of what he’s being included in, and there is no sign of either side winning.

Every so often, the girl will stop, and her friend will crash into her. The girl will angrily scold him, find a thread in his heart to unravel just enough for her to pull a meek apology from his lips, and then return to her hunt. The cycle soon repeats.

They are a strange pair. But they are not travelers. Because unlike travelers, they've come prepared.

And unlike travelers, they intend to return home.

The girl, once again, stops. The boy crashes into her. Instinctively, he shrinks back, waiting for her reprimand. When it doesn't come, he takes courage.

“Sorry,” he says. “Wasn't looking where I was going.”

“Why would you,” the girl mumbles. Her eyes are still on the map. “I'm the one with the map. Everything all looks the same without it.”

“I'll give you that,” the boy, whose name is Egg, admits. He sighs, happy with the direction this conversation has taken. “So, are we lost, then?”

His relief was premature. The girl snaps to attention like a rubber band.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, looking at him like one might a particularly stubborn stain on their best shirt. “Of course not.”

“Of course not,” Egg agrees instantly. If his friend is a rubber band, he is play-doh, content with being shaped and molded however she sees fit if it means she’ll keep him around.

The girl, whose name is Eve, sighs. She turns the map upside down, then right side up again, as if that’ll change what’s drawn on it. “I know where we are,” she says firmly, more to herself than Egg. “I know where we are.”

“Of course you do,” Egg says comfortingly. It’s the wrong thing to say. Eve whips around to glower at him, already deep lines on her cheeks and forehead deepening with hatred.

“Do not patronize me,” she seethes. “You’re lucky I even brought you along.”

“I am,” Egg agrees humbly. “Thank you.”

“I could have left you behind. I didn’t need your help.”

“I know. Thank you.”

“And I do know where we are, you know. I’m not lost.”

This time, Egg has the sense to keep quiet. Eve waits for a second, eyebrows raised as if daring him to disagree– when he doesn’t, she turns away again with a huff of disgust. A moment passes as she looks over the map again. Egg wipes his forehead.

Around them, the sand shifts, the wind unraveling it like threads of a carpet beneath their feet. The sun is no closer to setting than it was when they first started their journey, but it’s starting to look like it’s thinking about it.

Time is running out.

And so is Eve's patience.

#writeblr #writers on tumblr #wip introduction #urban fantasy #lgbt fantasy #alternate universe #terras town #ya fantasy #original writing #she writes #whew boy this is long! and late #long and late #title of your sex tape

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knox-knocks · 5 years

Text

timeless ~ chapter 4

read on ao3

It was just after sunset in a bustling city and Andrew found himself walking down the side of a road. He wasn’t far from his hotel, a couple blocks maybe, but it was already out of view. The city had grown even larger since Andrew last found himself here, new skyscrapers reached for the sky, towering over the smaller, older buildings. Andrew imagined they would only get taller as space grew scarcer. Humanity would continue to go up until it couldn’t even remember the ground anymore.

Andrew thought he was doing just fine with his feet planted firmly on the ground.

The city must have repaired the sidewalks because the cement was smooth and unblemished under Andrew’s feet. There were no cracks or lines to step over, nothing to keep Andrew’s brain occupied except all the change around him, something he didn’t particularly care to think about.

It had been ten years and three days since Andrew last saw Neil Josten, ten years and three days since Neil died and Andrew, once again, was left to deal with the aftermath of a man with no ID, no proof of existence, dying in his apartment. Ten long years and three days since Andrew began his search for a solution, a way to put an end to Neil’s reoccurring deaths. Now Andrew was back in Columbia waiting for Neil to come back, just like he promised.

But Neil was late.

A part of Andrew, what started as a small whisper bubbling up in his chest transforming into something bigger, something less manageable, began to think that Neil wouldn’t be coming back at all. Neil did say that there was a chance he wouldn’t.

Panic was a wretched creature. It was just three days, Andrew reminded himself. For all he knew, Neil had been expunged from the void and was hiding out somewhere, waiting for him. Andrew sucked in a deep breath of fresh air and held it in his lungs. He’d stopped smoking about six years ago, the smoke never would have killed him and Andrew didn’t want it to. If there was a way to fix this, then Andrew would want fresh lungs to work with.

Andrew closed his eyes and tipped his head back, breathing in the warm autumn air. The sound of traffic filled his ears and an insect buzzed around his head. He’d stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, forcing the stream of people to go around him like a river flowing around a stone.

Renee had told him that immortals were souls separated from time, a disconnect from the very thing that dictated the world around him. He was a twig caught in a stream, the river of time diverting around him, leaving him behind.

Andrew opened his eyes and continued to walk.

It was almost midnight when Andrew heard it. The sound was nearly swallowed by the hustle and bustle of hundreds of people coming and going, but Andrew’s ears were attuned to the sound. He’d been waiting for it.

Nobody noticed when Neil Josten appeared out of thin air and stumbled forward, it was too dark to see or people simply didn’t care. Andrew caught him under his arms and pulled him to the side, out of the way of anybody who might run into him. Neil slumped against Andrew, shaking with exhaustion and relief. Neil’s hand curled around Andrew’s bicep in a weak grip.

“Hi,” Neil croaked, his voice scratched to hell. His body was skinny and battered, like the last few times he had been reborn. There was blood smeared on his face, dripping from his nose and a cut on his forehead. Andrew couldn’t remember if that cut had been there last time. Instead of dwelling on it, he wrapped an arm around Neil’s waist and pulled him against his chest. If anyone saw, they would have written it off as a hug. Maybe it was.

“Hey,” Andrew replied, soft. Neil dropped his head on Andrew’s shoulder.

“Wasn’t sure if I could make it out of the void this time,” he said into Andrew’s neck. “It was close, really close.”

Andrew could have said, let’s not talk about this here, or I missed you, or even a simple glad you’re back. But he stayed quiet. Nothing was quite so simple with Neil Josten.

“My hotel is around the corner. Can you walk?” Andrew asked. When Neil nodded, Andrew shrugged off his jacket and gave it to Neil to cover up his bloody shirt. Neil nodded his thanks and pulled the hood over his head.

Neil stumbled a few times when he walked, weak from another ten years in the void and readjusting to his legs, but Andrew was there with a careful arm around his waist or a hand on his shoulder to steady him. He’d be damned if he left Neil to die after just getting him back, and by falling off the damn curb for fuck’s sake.

The hotel was mostly empty when they arrived, and Andrew and Neil didn’t run into anyone on the way to Andrew’s room. At one point the hotel might have been grand, with high ceilings and intricate paintings that reminded Andrew of the Sistine chapel that had burned down years ago. But the building was sagging and faded in places from age and years of neglect, and the room Andrew paid a week’s stay for had hardly put a dent in his wallet.

Andrew unlocked the door and allowed Neil inside. He’d gotten a room with two twin beds, in case either one of them needed it. Neil didn’t notice or didn’t care, he kicked off his shoes and collapsed on top of the closest of the dinky beds. Andrew went past him to his duffel bag and dug out a pair of sweats and a t-shirt for himself and then some for Neil. He’d brought a couple extra pairs of clothing in Neil’s size so they wouldn’t have to share, but there was only enough for about a week. The rest of his and Neil’s clothes were in Andrew’s room at Fox Tower.

Neil was fast asleep but woke with a start when Andrew tossed his clothes at him.

“You need dinner before you go to sleep. You haven’t eaten anything for a decade,” Andrew said.

“I haven’t slept for a decade, either,” Neil pointed out, frowning at the flat pillows piled at the head of the bed. He batted at the useless square pillow with the scratchy sequins that was more for show than for usability and let it drop to the floor.

Andrew ignored that and dressed quickly, trading his black tank top for one of the old t-shirts he had carried with him throughout the years, soft with age and too many cycles in the washer. There was a hole in the collar, the threads tickled Andrew’s chin when he dipped his head down, but it was comfortable. He peeled off his armbands and threw them in the general direction of the duffel bag before changing into sweats, the hems worn from treading on them too much.

Neil hopped in the shower while Andrew got dressed so Andrew picked up his clothes and stuffed them in the duffel. After a few minutes Neil left the bathroom, steam swirling around his head, making the image of him hazy and distant. His face was still blotchy with bruises, but the blood was gone and he was already dressed in the clothes Andrew had given him. Neil sat on the foot of the bed, water dripping from wet hair, blinking sleepily.

Andrew felt Neil’s eyes on him when he passed by to get to the tiny kitchen in the hotel room, but he didn’t meet his gaze. He knew Neil was watching him as he dug through the even tinier refrigerator, and he didn’t acknowledge the frown tugging at Neil’s lips when he pulled out a frozen meal and stuck it in the microwave.

Andrew kept his eyes on the microwave, watching the plate of spaghetti turn slowly through the screen and wondering how many hotels even used microwaves anymore.

“Andrew,” Neil said. Andrew tilted his head toward him but kept his eyes on the dull light from the microwave. It beeped and Andrew took it out, grabbing the edges of the container to keep from burning his fingers. He peeled back the plastic sheet and stirred the contents with a fork and stuck it back in the microwave for another two minutes.

“I thought of you, you know.” Neil’s voice was soft. “When I was in the void and had to relive my deaths, I just kept thinking of you.”

The microwave beeped and Andrew jabbed at the button until the door opened. The spaghetti was steaming and Andrew burned the pad of his thumb on the container.

“I think it’s the only thing that got me through,” Neil mused. Andrew hadn’t heard him move, but his voice was closer than before. “I think I would have faded if it weren’t for you.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Andrew murmured and gave the spaghetti one last vigorous stir.

Neil hummed in obvious disagreement. He was close, Andrew could almost feel the heat from his body, the static between them, pulling them closer. Neil’s brush of fingers against Andrew’s sleeve, just barely grazing his skin, was a jolt of electricity. Andrew turned his head to face Neil, staring at the collar of his shirt to avoid seeing that soft look on his face that drove Andrew crazy.

Andrew’s heart beat hard in his chest, more of a fragment of a memory than an actual function that kept him alive. He turned his body so he was facing Neil fully and finally succumbed to the voice in his head whispering to give in. Andrew pulled him close around the waist, his hands rubbing up and down his back as he leaned his forehead against Neil’s. Neil breathed a sigh and curled his arms around Andrew’s neck, trickling his hands down until he and Andrew were fully engulfed in each other. The warmth from Neil’s palms was at once soothing and made him ache.

Something released in Andrew’s chest. He expected it to be like stretching a rubber band until it broke and snapped back against his hand, leaving behind stinging red marks, but instead it was the unraveling of a rope constricting his lungs, quiet and small yet a release of pressure.

It was all too much, surrounded by Neil’s scent, masked by the generic, flowery soap from the hotel bathroom, and Neil’s skin, clean and soft to the touch. Neil, Neil, Neil. After so long, finally, Neil. Andrew never wanted him to leave.

It was too much, so Andrew had to say, “I found a way to help you.”

Neil tensed and Andrew told himself that he hadn’t ruined it. He was about to pull away when Neil relaxed, tucking his head against Andrew’s neck, and whispered, “How?”

Andrew hummed and began to explain.

Technically, help had found Andrew in the form of Renee Walker. It had been eight years since Neil died, and Andrew was no closer to finding a solution than he was before. He was tired of the dead ends, the leads that lead to nothing, and the hopelessness dogging his steps. He was slipping back into the gray depression that left him adrift, aimless in the ample time he had. King helped, and if he hadn’t had to get out of bed every day to take care of her, he would have listened to the familiar voice whispering to him to give up, give up, give up.

The timeless, Renee had told him, were people who time affected differently than mortals, or in Andrew’s case, not at all. Renee was a time traveler, as was David Wymack, the director of Palmetto. Wymack was the man who founded Palmetto, an institute for the timeless, a safe haven of sorts, nearly twenty years ago. Andrew didn’t believe in safe havens, but Wymack and the other timeless had accepted Andrew immediately and he stayed with them for two years until it was time to collect Neil.

“You think they can do it?” Neil asked tentatively, his breath ghosting over Andrew’s skin.

Andrew shrugged, careful not to disturb Neil. “They’ll have to look at you first. Run tests to see if you’re able to endure the procedure.”

“But?”

“But it’s better than nothing.”

Neil nodded, and Andrew felt him swallow hard against his shoulder. He knew Neil must be scared, and maybe a little hopeful. They still had so much to talk about, a lot to discuss before Neil would be ready for a decision like that. But for now they stayed silent for a long moment, standing in the kitchen and breathing together as the minutes stretched in front of them. Andrew only pulled away when Neil’s stomach gave a loud rumble and he remembered the spaghetti sitting forgotten on the counter a few feet away.

The separate beds proved to be unneeded, as Andrew pulled Neil to one of them to share. That night, head pillowed atop Andrew’s chest and Andrew holding him tight, Neil fell asleep quickly.

Andrew watched the sun rise through the window. Neil was still asleep, breathing evenly and snoring a soft whistling sound. It wasn’t until the light spilled in from the window and lit Neil’s hair ablaze did he begin to stir.

Neil’s eyes fluttered open enough for Andrew to glimpse the color but he fell back asleep with a heavy sigh. Deciding to leave him there, Andrew carefully moved Neil off of him and sat up. Andrew rubbed his eyes, feeling a headache starting in his temples. He felt grungy and in desperate need of a shower. He felt like he accidentally slept for two weeks, despite not actually sleeping at all the past couple days.

Andrew stretched, feeling his spine crack. Yawning, Andrew glanced at Neil. He was still curled up under the sheets, hugging the pillow Andrew had just vacated.

The hotel bathroom was small and cramped with ornate marble counters that may have been shiny at one point, but were now left lackluster. The mirror was clear, at least, and Andrew considered his reflection, the smudges under his eyes, the weariness tugging at the lines of his face, far too young for the years he had lived. Andrew sighed and turned away.

All Andrew had to wash his body was the small containers of shampoo and conditioner and a thin bar of soap. Neil had used most of it the night before, but Andrew did his best at scrubbing away the past couple days, years, decades even. He turned the water off after he rinsed the suds out of his hair and already missed the hot water. He finished up in the bathroom by brushing his teeth and drying his hair with the last fluffy towel.

He felt worlds better after the shower, his body less stiff from sleepless nights and worrying. Neil was sitting up, groggy and with a serious case of bed head when Andrew left the bathroom. Neil blinked at him, his face creased from the pillow. Something soft settled in Andrew’s stomach as he plopped down on the bed. He felt the mattress shift underneath him as Neil moved, lowering himself so he was level with Andrew.

“Good morning,” Neil said. Andrew hummed, content just to look. The dark circles under Neil’s eyes had almost faded completely but his face was thinner than it should have been and the cuts and bruises still had a couple days to heal.

Andrew leaned forward, tired of the distance, and waited for Neil to meet him in the middle. Neil’s lips brushed his and it was as if the ten years between them dissipated. Andrew sighed into the kiss, relishing the feel of Neil against him.

They spent that day and the next in the hotel, lounging in bed and exchanging slow kisses. When they weren’t tangled up in each other, Neil was sleeping or flipping through the different channels the hotel television offered. Instead of going out to eat or making anything, they ordered takeout and had it delivered to their room. It was out of laziness and the lack of desire Andrew had to forfeit the quiet comfort he had with Neil more than anything.

They were sprawled out on the bed when Neil settled on a cheesy sitcom that Andrew didn’t know was still airing from 2074. Andrew squinted at the screen as the ridiculous characters did something ridiculous and let his head fall back against the headboard. “This is terrible.”

Neil snorted beside him but didn’t say anything. When Andrew sneaked a look at him from the corner of his eye, Neil was enthralled with the stupid thing. Andrew rolled his eyes, feeling perhaps a bit fond. The episode ended and Neil grabbed the remote to lower the volume.

“I want to see Columbia today,” he said. “I haven’t had the chance to look around the past couple times I’ve been here, and I bet it’s different than it was in 1995.”

“Okay,” Andrew said. “Get ready.”

A small smile curved Neil’s lips and he pressed a kiss to Andrew’s jaw. He rolled out of bed and dug through Andrew’s duffel for his clothes. He grabbed the nice green t-shirt and dark jeans, Andrew noted, before disappearing into the bathroom and leaving the door ajar behind him. They would look good on him.

Ten minutes passed and Neil still hadn’t left the bathroom. Andrew could hear the sink running, so Neil should be finishing up. Andrew checked the time on his phone. It was an older model from 2063, practically obsolete, but Renee had given it to him for cheap and it was more than what he needed. It was already half past eight in the morning, so they could grab some breakfast before spending the entire day walking around Columbia. Andrew slid his phone in his pocket and went to collect Neil.

Rapping lightly on the door frame, Andrew looked inside. Neil was dressed and his hair was no longer in disarray, but he was staring blankly at his hands, his toothbrush clutched in one hand and toothpaste in the other, the cap abandoned by the sink. Andrew narrowed his eyes. Neil wasn’t eyeing the crisscross of scars on his hands like he sometimes did, instead his eyes were glassy and empty.

“Neil,” Andrew called, firm enough to draw him back but quiet enough to not startle him. Neil didn’t respond, he didn’t even twitch. That wasn’t unusual by itself, sometimes when Neil was deep in the void it was hard to call him back on the first try.

“Neil,” Andrew said again. And then, “Abram.”

Neil tilted his head in Andrew’s direction and blinked slowly back to awareness as he came back to himself. He lifted his eyes to Andrew’s in the mirror. He still looked distant and unfocused. Andrew approached, careful and slow, and curled his hand around the nape of Neil’s neck. He kept his grip firm until he felt Neil’s body relax. “Ready to go?” Andrew asked.

“Yeah,” Neil said. “I just need to brush my teeth.”

The city was busy that morning, the streets bustling with people dressed in nice black suits, holding cups of coffee and rushing to their office jobs or people walking at a more leisurely pace, nowhere to be and nothing to do except to enjoy the warm October air.

Andrew tore a strip off his chocolate éclair and bumped his shoulder against Neil’s. They were heading down town, closer to where their old apartment was located. The apartment was long gone, a series of condos and office buildings in its place. A part of Andrew twinged at the thought. A year was not a long time compared to the lifespan of an immortal, but his and Neil’s apartment had been the first home Andrew had since his family’s farm burned down. He’d had different apartments since then, but it wasn’t the same.

But, Andrew thought, if everything went well, he and Neil could have another home to share, and this time they wouldn’t have to worry about losing it. It would be theirs and theirs alone. Andrew swallowed. Wymack told him not to get his hopes up, and he wasn’t, but it was the only solution Andrew had managed to find in the ten years he had been searching. And it was a pretty promising one.

One more day. Andrew just had to keep Neil alive until they headed to Palmetto and fix this for good.

“Is that Eden’s Twilight?” Neil asked, breaking Andrew out of his thoughts. He nodded his head to the building in front of them. “It’s so different.”

“They renovated everything about two years ago. Practically tore down the entire building and built it new again. I don’t know what it looks like inside, I haven’t gone in since 2067, but I didn’t stay for very long,” Andrew said. Neil stayed quiet. 2067 was the last time they were together, before Neil died of the fever.

Andrew nudged Neil to keep walking. This wasn’t what he wanted to show him.

They stopped a couple times along the way, Andrew pointing out new and old buildings and Neil commenting between bites of his fruit parfait.

“Holy shit,” Neil said with a grin. “It’s the Exy court.”

Andrew sighed. “They made a bigger one when Columbia started growing in population. The Dragons don’t play here anymore, they were replaced by the Columbia Badgers a while ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if they named the team after you.”

“Why, because I’m stubborn?”

“Because you stink.”

Neil tipped his head back and laughed. Andrew had missed that laugh, carefree and loud. When Andrew first met him, Neil never did anything loudly. He hung back and stayed quiet as if he was trying to fade away. The first time Neil laughed like that, Andrew realized his feelings for Neil went deeper than he first thought. Now, it settled something inside Andrew. Warmth grew in his chest until Andrew was sure he would explode.

“Will you play Exy with me? I’ll buy you your favorite chocolate,” Neil said, his neck craning to keep his eyes on the court.

“Later, Junkie,” Andrew said. “And Hershey’s doesn’t sell chocolate anymore.”

Neil made a sympathetic face and offered a bit of his yoghourt to Andrew in consolation. Andrew accepted the tiny dollop off of Neil’s spoon without a word. He wasn’t much of a fan of fruit parfait, but it was sweet and reminded him of Neil.

When they passed the row of tall condos that replaced their old apartment and started toward the oldest part of the city, Neil grew more curious.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

Andrew didn’t reply. Neil would find out soon enough.

Identical houses with various paint jobs lined the street in neat little rows, the shrubs and trees all trimmed neatly to keep the synchrony of the neighborhood. White picket fences and wide, open windows. It was just as unrecognizable to Andrew as it was to Neil because he hadn’t been to this side of town in over two hundred years. A fat ginger cat lazed in a bed of purple flowers, its large green eyes lazily following Neil and Andrew as they passed by. With a pang, it reminded Andrew a little of King. He missed her already.

It wasn’t the neighborhood that was important. It had only been around for less than fifty years, after all. Andrew didn’t care about the houses or the neat lawns or the cat. He stopped in front of an old schoolhouse, wooden walls cracked and decaying. It leaned precariously to the side, sagging with age. The lawn was green from regularly being watered, but the weeds had overgrown and little yellow dandelions popped up in groves. It was as much of a museum on the outside as it was on the inside.

“What is this?” Neil asked, his voice quiet. The air seemed still around them. Nothing disturbed the peace; even the birds were quiet despite the time of morning. Neil’s lips were pulled down in a slight frown. Andrew could see him glancing at Andrew from the corner of his eye.

Andrew took a deep breath. “My old home.”

Neil’s eyes widened as he looked back at the schoolhouse. He swayed on his feet, as if he were about to take a step closer and then decided against it. “This?” he asked.

“Not exactly. I told you my house burned down, and it did,” Andrew explained. “The entire farm was pretty much gone by the time the fire was put out. I sold the land and a couple years later they built a school right on top. Now the place is a museum or something.”

Andrew had looked it up a couple decades ago, curious and filled with longing for his old home and his late family. He was surprised to find the school was still standing, more surprised that the city hadn’t torn it down and built something new like everything else.

“Can we go in?” Neil asked.

Andrew looked at the overgrown grass, dotted with dandelions. He dragged his eyes along the dull red paint flaking off of the wood, the clear windows and white curtains inside. A bird chirped a cheery tune somewhere behind them, apparently done with the quiet. Andrew had promised himself he would never come back here after he buried the empty caskets. He never wanted to be reminded of his life here, but so much was different and, quietly, Andrew acknowledged that it didn’t hurt as much as it used to.

Grabbing Neil’s hand, Andrew led him inside.

The sun still had hours before it would begin to set, but Andrew and Neil made their way back to the hotel anyway. The schoolhouse museum was mostly a brief history of Columbia. It wasn’t that interesting, considering Andrew had witnessed the growth of the city with his own eyes, but he and Neil went through every exhibit and read each placard anyway. Between exhibits, Andrew whispered stories of his family and his life on the farm and quietly admitted that he missed them. In return, Neil began to open up about his own life before he first died. They stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant after Neil decided he was sick of takeout and leftovers, made a quick stop at a convenience store nearby, and headed back to the hotel.

Andrew could read the contentment in every relaxed line of Neil’s body. It looked good on him, this quiet happiness. It made something in Andrew thrum in every one of his veins, a buzzing, a sense of urgency pulsing through his body like a livewire. When they got back to the apartment, Andrew barely waited for the door to close behind them before he was pushing Neil up against the wood, rucking up his shirt with his hands to reveal bare skin and old scars, and murmuring an urgent yes or no.

Neil’s yes was hushed and laced with the same need pumping through Andrew’s body with every beat of his heart. He buried his hands in Andrew’s hair and let Andrew take him apart before they needed to move it to the bed.

Afterwards they lay facing each other, the sheets draped around them like liquid silk, sharing the space but not quite touching. Neil’s eyes were closed but he wasn’t asleep, and dappled light fell across his face, making his eyelashes cast shadows over flushed, freckled cheeks. He played with the bedding near Andrew’s hand, plucking at the fabric and smoothing it out again. All sense of desperation that accompanied their touches was gone, replaced with the softer need to simply be near each other. A smile tugged at Neil’s kiss-swollen lips and Andrew untangled his hand and traced it with his thumb.

Neil peeked open an eye and kissed the pad of Andrew’s finger. Andrew slid his hand around to the back of Neil’s neck and brushed the soft curls at his nape. Neil shifted so he was laying on his back and stretched, raising his arms above him and arching his back like a cat. He let his arms flop back down before turning his head back to Andrew and hooking their pinkies.

“We leave tomorrow,” Andrew said softly, not wanting to disturb the peace of the late afternoon.

“Palmetto,” Neil breathed. Andrew heard the quiet awe in his voice and fought back a frown. He told Neil not to get his hopes up – that they didn’t fully know if it would even work. But.

But Andrew felt the same small tug in his heart, the fell swoop in his stomach when he thought of a life with Neil – not just a life but a beginning, and an end without all the uncertainty. This was their chance, and Andrew wanted it badly.

It was too much to dwell upon, and thinking about it made Andrew’s heart ache – with anticipation and worry and everything in between. It was easier to think about the steps before, packing their things, leaving the hotel, boarding the train and arriving in Palmetto to introduce Neil to the rest of the timeless. This was certainty where everything after was not. This was easier, safer.

But the wonder in Neil’s eyes held, despite the hesitance in Andrew’s. Of course Andrew wanted it, not just for Neil but also for himself – mortality – but Neil wanted it most of all. He didn’t say it out loud, and he didn’t need to. Andrew could see his aching want to finally be released from the void after so many agonizing years in every line and twitch of his body.

Years of apathy and carefully cutting his emotions out like a tumor couldn’t stopper the flood of anxiety and dread in Andrew’s chest. Neil had made him feel, the thawing of a glacier, the drip, drip, drip of ice melting away to reveal the interior that had long since frozen over. Andrew, albeit slowly, was getting warm again. Except with the warmth, came fear.

And Andrew was very much afraid.

He could lose Neil forever. He, himself, could die without even knowing if he had saved Neil at all. Something could go wrong; Neil could be reclaimed by the void and Andrew wouldn’t know where to find him if he came back. He’d be lost, lost. Andrew couldn’t go through that again.

This was it. This was their only chance. Their only hope for their own salvation. Everything in Andrew told him to throw it out, get rid of it before it could take root and cause damage when it inevitably failed. Although he hadn’t felt it in decades, he was all too familiar with the dangerous tether called hope, and the sinking weight it always seemed to be attached to.

Andrew took a deep, steadying breath, and was relieved to hear it wasn’t as shaky as he felt on the inside. Neil’s eyes were droopy, and Andrew knew he was well on his way to sleep. The light was already fading, taking the radiance and the brilliant colors with it. Soon it would be dark, and then it would be time to go.

Andrew no longer had all the time in the world, and he could feel a new clock ticking in his chest, right alongside his heartbeat.

Palmetto was unchanged in the years Andrew had lived there. It was untouched by time, like the people that inhabited it. To outside eyes, it still looked like a university, even though the school had been closed down nearly twenty years ago due to education being transferred largely online. Few physical schools remained standing, and Palmetto was one of the last to be repurposed.

The tall white and orange buildings were still an eyesore, but Andrew had lived there for the past two years of his life, and he almost considered it a home. Neil’s eyes were wide as he took in the campus. His hand hung from the strap of Andrew’s duffel that he insisted on carrying, and he took a few steps towards the fence before rocking to a stop.

“This place used to be a school?” he asked.

Andrew had explained Palmetto’s history on the train ride there. It was only a forty-minute ride, the duration greatly reduced by the speed of the train, but it was more than enough time for him to tell Neil how Palmetto came to be, and how David Wymack went from coaching a college sports team to founding a safe house for the timeless.

The real function of Palmetto was largely unknown to the general public. Most people thought it was some sort of research facility – which wasn’t exactly untrue. But Palmetto’s resources were more expansive than that, and if an immortal or a time traveler were in need of help – or a void walker, in Neil’s case – Palmetto would find a way to help them.

“I told Wymack we’d be back today,” Andrew said, urging Neil to keep walking. “He’s an ornery old man and will be pissy if kept waiting.”

Andrew led Neil to the Lab. It used to be an Exy court, and by the look of Neil’s expression – like he had just swallowed a lemon – he could tell. Neil shot him a look but Andrew stared at him blankly.

“I’ll take you to the court in Columbia if you behave,” Andrew said before Neil could complain about the mistreatment of a former Exy court. Neil rolled his eyes but stopped when he saw the man waiting for them in the lobby.

“Andrew,” Wymack grunted in greeting. He didn’t look like a coach or a director of anything, dressed in jeans and a plain t-shirt, the flames of his tattoo climbing up his arms like ivy on a wall. His face was grizzled and lined from years of life and dealing with the misfits that inhabited the place. “I hope you’re not bringing more trouble to my door.”

Andrew stopped next to Neil and inclined his head towards Wymack with a blank stare. “Don’t be rude, Coach. He has a name.”

Neil shot Andrew an annoyed look for that, which Andrew smoothly ignored. Wymack eyed Neil up and down, from his tattered shoes to the collection of scars on his face. The attention didn’t seem to bother Neil so much as it used to, Andrew supposed he was used to it, but he did shrink under Wymack’s gaze like he expected Wymack to find him lacking and throw him out on the doorstep. But despite his gruff words and posturing, Andrew knew Wymack could never turn down someone in need.

“You can leave the bag in your room,” he said to Andrew. “Then meet me back at the Lab. Abby wants to see you.” This, he directed to Neil. Neil nodded but his eyes flicked around the room like he was counting exits and escape plans. Andrew hadn’t seen him this flighty since they first met. Andrew nudged his shoulder and gestured for Neil to follow him. With one last glance back at the Lab, Neil hooked his finger through Andrew’s belt loop and let Andrew lead him to Fox Tower.

Renee was waiting for them in the hall when Andrew arrived at his door with Neil in tow. He wasn’t surprised to see her; he knew she would want to meet Neil after hearing so much about him from Andrew.

Renee’s white-blonde hair was pushed back behind her ears, revealing several gleaming piercings, five different studs and loops in each ear, and the pastel tips of her hair were cut just above her shoulders. A silver cross hung from her neck, nearly tucked underneath her white button-down blouse. She smiled when she caught sight of the pair, Andrew first then Neil behind him. When they were close enough, Renee offered a hand for Neil to shake. Neil was hesitant, obviously wary of Renee’s serene expression, but took her hand and shook it once.

“Neil,” Renee said, her voice sweet, “Andrew has told me a lot about you. I’m Renee.”

Neil mumbled a hello and dropped his hand. Renee didn’t seem perturbed by his hesitance, instead she turned to Andrew and smiled again. She reached out her arm and Andrew let her pull him into a short hug. “It’s good to see you again, Andrew.”

“I’ve been gone a week. You people act like it’s been a year.”

“It’s been a lot longer for me, you know,” Renee countered neatly. Renee, like Wymack, was a time traveler. Andrew quirked an eyebrow at her but Renee’s calm smile betrayed nothing. Usually Renee spent her free time in the 1940’s, her girlfriend’s timeline. Andrew assumed she had been spending a lot of time with her, then.

“I hope you didn’t forget you were supposed to be watching my cat,” Andrew said, stepping past Renee and digging in his pocket for his keys.

“Of course I didn’t forget about King,” Renee said. “She missed you.”

Neil perked up at that. “You still have King?” he asked, craning his neck to see past Andrew’s shoulder. Andrew had barely opened the door before Neil slipped past him and let the duffel bag fall off his shoulder when he spotted the mangy gray furball lounging on the couch.

Andrew nodded his head towards Renee in thanks before following Neil inside. For the past two years, this had been his place to stay, somewhere he didn’t have to move on from before too many people noticed that he didn’t age. Cat toys were scattered across the living room, and he had actual furniture and a room with a bed and a mattress with sheets on it. Andrew had never been able to settle down anywhere for long, it was too risky and too much work to keep up pretenses of a normal life. But this was his, and this could be permanent if he so chooses.

King picked herself up from the couch and stretched before winding her body around Neil’s and Andrew’s legs. King had always been a friendly cat, but she headbutted Neil’s open palm with particular affection, purring loudly like an engine of an old car. She remembered him, Andrew realized, and noted the quiet satisfaction in his chest.

“Hi lovely,” Neil cooed, and Andrew should not have found it as endearing as he did. “It’s been awhile.”

King meowed in seeming agreement.

Andrew stooped down to scratch King behind the ears before scooping up the duffel Neil dropped and throwing it in the bedroom. Neil was seated on the couch, King kneading his thigh as he petted her. Andrew watched them for a moment, unnoticed in the hallway, before interrupting with a small tug on Neil’s hoodie.

“Come on,” he said. “Pissy old man waiting.”

“Right,” Neil said, and lowered King off his lap and back onto the couch.

Abby and Wymack were waiting in the lab when Andrew and Neil arrived. Abby wore a long lab coat, the white sleeves rolled up her arms and a clipboard clasped in her hands. She projected calm and support like she always did when a new time traveler or baby immortal showed up on Palmetto’s steps, and she must have sensed Neil’s anxiety. It was rolling off of him in waves. Andrew slid his hand to the back of Neil’s neck and gripped firmly. Neil twitched, leaning into Andrew’s hand the tiniest amount and drinking in the strength Andrew lent him.

“Neil Josten,” Abby said, transferring her clipboard to one hand so Neil could shake her hand. “I’m Doctor Abigail Winfield but you may call me Abby.”

“Hullo,” Neil said dully and shook her hand before slipping it into the pocket of his hoodie.

Abby smiled. It wasn’t the sweet, calm smile of Renee’s, or the goofy smile that split Matt Boyd’s face wide open. Her smile was meant for comfort. “It must be strange coming to this place full of people you don’t know who already seem to know you.”

“I have Andrew to blame for that,” Neil said without heat. His shoulders dropped a fraction and Andrew squeezed his neck once. “You think you can fix me?”

“I believe there is a procedure that may help you. I will tell you more about it tomorrow, but I’d really like to give you a tour of Palmetto and tell you more about the timeless. If that’s alright with you.”

Neil nodded slowly.

“Great.” Abby smiled her warm smile again and motioned to Wymack. “David will be accompanying us. Andrew –” Abby said to him, “are you coming with?”

Andrew looked to Neil, studying his face, the deep furrow between his brows and the small pucker of his lips. “I’ll be okay,” Neil said.

“He doesn’t need a babysitter.” Andrew tapped his finger on the back of Neil’s neck and withdrew his hand. “I’ll be at the Tower when you’re done.”

“There’s no one else like me,” Neil said a couple hours later, flopping down on Andrew’s bed. “But she said I’m similar to a time traveler.”

Andrew frowned, shoving around in the cupboard for something to eat. He was almost hungry. He hadn’t felt his stomach growl for nearly two hundred years and that – that was weird. It must have been some sort of placebo effect. “But you’re not time traveling at all. You live through all the years and you don’t age.”

Neil shrugged, an awkward motion from the way he was sunk in the mattress, his arms outstretched by his sides. “Maybe I do age though.” Andrew looked at him. “I mean, not in the void. But outside of it. I don’t know. Do I look like I’m twenty-four probably going on twenty-five?”

“You look the same as you always do. Except with more sulking.”

Neil groaned, throwing his hands up and letting them fall over his face. “This is so fucking weird. I don’t even know what time sick means. How can a soul be infected with time? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Andrew hummed noncommittally. He’d heard the spiel from Abby countless times: Immortals were souls separated from time and time travelers were souls intertwined with it. Mortals were souls dictated and void walkers, apparently, were souls infected by time. Andrew didn’t understand how it worked either, but at least it was straight forward.

“Everything’s just so overwhelming,” Neil muttered from the bed. Giving up his search for food, Andrew sat on the foot of the mattress beside Neil and waited for him to uncover his face. “My life has been a constant cycle of short lives and long deaths for decades, and now everything’s changing and it’s just so much information all at once.”

That, Andrew could understand. Going from living in shitty apartments and working temporary jobs, moving on every couple months or years, to staying in one place and being surrounded by people who understood – it was overwhelming. Andrew stretched out beside Neil, leaning on his elbow and pushing back the fringe of Neil’s hair from his forehead.

“We could look for another solution,” Andrew said quietly. Neil’s brow crinkled.

Andrew wasn’t surprised when he shook his head fervently and said, “No. This is it, there isn’t going to be another chance after this.”

“Did Abby tell you about the procedure, then?” Andrew asked, hesitantly. He wondered how Neil reacted. He wondered if he knew. If he knew what Andrew was planning, if he knew what could happen.

“A little. She didn’t go into details but she said it’s really risky and has only been attempted once before.” Neil perked up. “Kevin Day. It was successful for him. He was a time traveler, so was Kayleigh Day. Did you know that Wymack is his father?”

“I did,” Andrew said, grateful for his junkie’s addiction to Exy for the first time in his very long life. He didn’t know, then. He would never let it slide if he did. Andrew let out a small breath.

“He coaches the Foxes too. Imagine having a whole other life outside of your own timeline….” Neil trailed off. He frowned and worried at his lip. Andrew waited for him to spit it out. “Some people have two lives and I barely have one. Not one that matters, anyway.”

Andrew shifted so he was lying flush with Neil. They were pressed together from ankle to hip, hip to shoulder. Neil scooted over to make more space for the both of them and turned his head to face Andrew. “I mean, I have you and that matters. But I can’t even keep it for longer than a couple months at most.”

There was a sadness in Neil’s eyes, a yearning for something just out of reach. Andrew was familiar with that feeling too, and he hated it. He reached up, his hand trailing a path up Neil’s chest and jaw, and pressed his thumb into the corner of Neil’s mouth. “Even just a couple months is worth it with you.”

Neil’s face crumpled as he finally let his worry and fear from the past couple days, past couple decades break free and overflow like a dam bursting from holding back millions of gallons of water for far too long. He leaned in close, forehead barely brushing Andrew’s and let Andrew cradled his face with one hand.

Neither one of them moved until the shadows in the room took on a different dance. It was only in the late afternoon, but Neil’s breathing was getting slower, the rise and fall of his chest dragging until he was asleep. Andrew’s hand was still wedged between the bed and Neil’s cheek, but not wanting to disturb him, Andrew stayed where he was. Until there was a quiet knock at the door.

The three unhurried raps told Andrew that the matter wasn’t urgent, but no one would be knocking on his door if it weren’t important. Andrew wiggled his hand out from underneath Neil’s head and got up to answer the door.

“Hello, Andrew,” Betsy Dobson said when Andrew opened the door. Her round face was warm and open, and Andrew was grateful to see her.

“Bee,” Andrew greeted, and opened the door wider as an invitation to come in. “Neil’s asleep, but he sleeps like the dead.”

“I won’t be long.” Betsy didn’t step inside, but she inclined her head towards Andrew. “I was actually hoping to have a word with you.”

Andrew glanced back at Neil one more time, curled around the pillow in Andrew’s vacancy, and followed Betsy outside. The hallway was empty when they stepped outside, but Betsy continued down to the elevators and out of the Tower. They walked around the green, a large grassy area edged with trees and shrubs. A few birds chirped as they passed, but it was mostly quiet.

“It’s nice out today, don’t you think?” Betsy said, watching a bird hop from branch to branch above their heads. Andrew said nothing. It was relatively warm, but there was a chill in the wind that meant it would only get colder in the coming months. Winters have been shorter lately, but Andrew still despised the cold.

“What did you want to talk about,” Andrew asked in his dull monotone. Abby was the first to figure out Andrew’s plan, and she told Wymack immediately. But they couldn’t stop him, this was Andrew’s choice and he wasn’t going to let them talk him out of it. He wondered if Abby sent Betsy to try and dissuade him.

Instead, Betsy surprised Andrew. “I think,” she said, “that it would be beneficial for you to accompany me back in time.”

Andrew blinked. Betsy studied his carefully constructed mask and continued, “We’ve talked about your family before in our sessions and you said that you would have liked to have more closure over their deaths. I would like to give that to you.”

“You can take people through time with you?” Andrew asked, keeping his voice flat, his face even. He knew the answer to that question already because Renee had told him, but he couldn’t quite prod his brain into working.

Betsy nodded. “It is difficult, but possible. I’ve done it for several patients in the past and I believe this could be good for you.” Betsy stopped to nudge a pebble back into the dirt on the side of the path with her foot before continuing. “However, there are rules that must be followed. But I trust you will not find that difficult.”

Andrew swallowed. What Betsy was offering him, it didn’t seem plausible. She was a time traveler, and she could travel to any part of the past, no matter how far, but this wasn’t just time travel. This was seeing Nicky and Aaron again after two hundred years. This was finally saying goodbye. The thought almost made something in Andrew stir. He didn’t let it.

“I’ll give you a couple of days to think about it, and if you decide to go, I’ll prepare you.”

When Andrew didn’t respond, they circled around the green and headed back to Fox Tower. Betsy didn’t bring up Andrew’s family again but she filled in the silence with idle chat about the places she traveled to since Andrew was gone. They parted ways at his door, and Neil was still asleep when Andrew slipped back inside.

“You should do it,” Neil said between mouthfuls of noodles. He woke up right before dinnertime craving Chinese so Andrew ordered takeout for them to share. Four containers of food were scattered between them, and Andrew was fending off Neil’s fork with his own from the orange chicken. “When you see Aaron and Nicky, you could tell them to leave the house before it explodes and save their lives.”

Andrew shook his head, sifting through the fried rice for another piece of egg. “I can’t do anything that would change the timeline. At most, I would say goodbye and leave again. Anything else could get Bee and me stuck in a time loop.”

Neil grimaced and stole a piece of Andrew’s orange chicken. Andrew leveled him a glare but Neil popped it in his mouth with a smug glint in his eye. When he swallowed his stolen chicken he said, “Still, closure is good too. It would be nice to see them again.”

Maybe. It was true that Andrew never had the chance to say goodbye. It left him with a nagging hole in his side that dogged him throughout the years, no matter how much it had started to heal over. But Andrew didn’t know if he could be so close to them, knowing what was going to happen to them. He couldn’t go back and be helpless to save them just for a goodbye that they wouldn’t even know was a goodbye.

“If I can be fixed, then you can have a chance to see your family again, Andrew,” Neil said, meal forgotten. His gaze was keen on Andrew’s, open and earnest and Andrew wanted to resent him for it but he couldn’t.

“I’ll tell Bee I’ll go with her,” Andrew acquiesced, “and you’ll talk to Abby about the procedure. Tomorrow.”

Neil smiled. “Deal.”

After a breakfast made up of syrupy pancakes and eggs in the cafeteria with some of the others, Andrew and Neil split ways. Neil headed to the lab where Abby was waiting for him while Andrew walked the long, winding path to Betsy’s office. It wasn’t far from Fox Tower; Andrew spent the ten minutes it took to get there stepping over the cracks in the concrete and watching with interest as the birds hopped from branch to branch over his head. The sky was clear, devoid of any clouds and airplanes, and a light blue that reminded Andrew of a robin’s egg.

He kicked a rock with the toe of his boot and watched it skip across the sidewalk and disappear in the shrubs, scaring a couple pigeons taking shelter underneath the thick green branches. It was October already, but the leaves on the trees were still slow to change and the air was barely cool enough to warrant more than a long-sleeved shirt.

Betsy seemed to be waiting for him when he arrived outside her office. She wasn’t the only therapist in the building, but she specified with people dealing with the effects and consequences of time. Andrew wondered how well known the existence of immortals and time travelers were, if people knew about them and simply didn’t care or if it was all kept hush hush. He’d looked online the days before Palmetto, when he was searching for a way to help Neil, and maybe for other people like him, but he didn’t find much more than speculation and theories.

Andrew shook away the thought and raised his fist to knock. Betsy opened the door with a smile, not at all surprised to see him. “Andrew,” she greeted warmly, like she had every time Andrew found himself on her doorstep. “Would you like to come in? I was just about to warm up some milk for cocoa.”

Andrew took the invitation and found his usual seat on the lumpy couch with his back to the door. Betsy stuck a couple mugs in her ancient microwave – the yellow one with ‘time is of the essence!’ printed on it that Andrew had given to her as a joke, and the green stripy one that Andrew liked.

Andrew watched the cups turn on the glass plate inside before tearing his eyes away. He took a steadying breath and said, “I want to see my family.”

“There are rules, ones that must be followed very, very carefully,” Betsy said. “But I would be glad to take you.”

The microwave went off and Betsy removed the cups, stirring the milk with a tiny silver spoon. She spooned some of the caramel chocolate hot chocolate mix into both the mugs, and stirred them in. “Marshmallows?” she asked.

“Four marshmallows,” Andrew replied. It didn’t matter that he didn’t need to eat, or that the hot chocolate provided absolutely no nutritional benefit, he still enjoyed the warmth and sweetness of it. It was almost a ritual at this point, a cup of caramel chocolate cocoa with four marshmallows for every session with Bee.

Betsy handed over his mug and settled in the chair across from Andrew. “Time travel,” she said, “is a tricky thing. Time itself is fickle and cranky, if messed with or disturbed in any way, there will be consequences.”

“You talk about it like it’s a living thing,” Andrew said, sipping his cocoa.

Betsy smiled a knowing smile. “It is, in a way. It keeps our world running, it provides structure and keeps things moving smoothly. Like oil in gears. Even with people like me, who can grasp the strings of time and travel along them, there is still a certain rigidity to it. Control. We, not necessarily just mortals, are woven into the fabric of time.

“That is why it is so important that the time line must never be messed with. Small changes will most likely not have an effect, like running into someone or switching an apple for an orange. But bigger changes, like – ”

“ – preventing my family’s farm from blowing up will be detrimental and could change a lot more than their deaths,” Andrew interrupted, feeling irritated despite himself. “I know. The house blows up, my family dies, I become immortal. I’m not going to mess with that.”

“There are always loopholes, Andrew. Ways to get around the timeline without disrupting it. That’s what it means to be a time traveler, and that’s what is going to allow us to travel to the past.” Betsy set her cocoa on the table in front of her and laced her hands together. “Now, I know that it was a long time ago and memories can be faulty, but I need you to remember a time that we can jump to. It is of utmost importance that your past self never sees you, otherwise we will be doing a lot more than changing timelines.”

Andrew frowned. He didn’t like it, but it would have to work. “Right before the fire should work. I won’t be off from the pub for another couple hours but Aaron and Nicky should be at the house still.”

Betsy smiled. “Perfect. I will have to prep you, before we go. Time travel can be very uncomfortable to people who have never done it before. And if anything goes wrong, then you could be lost in time forever.”

That didn’t seem particularly pleasant, but Andrew motioned with his hand for Betsy to continue.

“Time travel feels a lot like being pulled through a thin straw. Your lungs will constrict and your body will feel too tight. Some people even feel like they’re underwater or that their heads are too big for their bodies. I suggest holding your breath. Luckily, the whole ordeal will only last for a couple seconds at most, and then it’s over.” Betsy leaned back in her chair, sipping at her hot chocolate. “We don’t have to worry about period-accurate clothing, since we will only be there long enough for you to talk to Aaron and Nicky. We will be in and out.”

“Okay,” Andrew said.

“Okay. Ready?”

Andrew stared. “Like, right now?”

“Why not?” Betsy’s eyes twinkled. “What better time than now?”

Andrew’s throat suddenly felt very dry. He placed his mug on the table and stood up. Betsy smiled and followed suit. Andrew watched as Betsy smoothed the lines from her shirt and adjusted the large, jeweled necklace she wore that day. He hadn’t realized that they’d be ready to go right away, it seemed too fast. Andrew’s heart sped up, in just a couple seconds he would be back in 1897 and he would see Aaron and Nicky again, talk to them even…

“What time is it exactly?” Betsy asked.

“December 16, 1897. The fire was in the evening so…seven. If we go around three in the afternoon, we should be fine.”

Betsy held out her hand and Andrew gripped it with his own. “Hold your breath,” she said, and then the ground was ripped from underneath Andrew’s feet.

Betsy was right – time travel was extremely uncomfortable. Andrew’s lungs tightened, and although he didn’t need to breathe it was horribly disorienting. He couldn’t see anything, whether it was because there was nothing to see or because Andrew couldn’t quite peel his eyes open, he didn’t know. He was hurting through the air, faster than the speed of light, he was falling, falling, falling, and then it was over.

Andrew opened his eyes, sucking in a breath of air he didn’t need. At first all he saw was light so bright it sent a spike through his skull and if it weren’t for Betsy’s steadying hand on his shoulder, he would have toppled right over into the snow. Andrew blinked until his vision cleared. Shit.The house, the roof intact, no burn marks, no ash coating the ground and turning the snow into a dirty slush. Everything as it was two hundred years ago. Then was now. They’d traveled back in time.

“I’ll wait in the barn,” Betsy said, breaking Andrew from his tiny existential crisis. “I recommend we leave in about thirty minutes.”

Andrew nodded, still a bit dazed from the jump. He approached the house; his feet and hands numb from cold and shock. The door opened and Nicky stepped outside, a basket propped on one hip and his free hand shielding his eyes from the sun. He caught sight of Andrew and carefully placed the basket on the porch away from the snow. Nicky walked toward him, unhurried like he had just seen Andrew a few hours before.

“Andrew!” Nicky called. His white shirt was dirty and he had suspenders hooked to his battered tweed trousers. He hopped down the steps to stand in front of Andrew, boots leaving deep indents in the snow. He was smiling but he looked confused. “What are you doing here? I thought you were at the pub. Uh, what are you wearing?”

Andrew didn’t respond, he couldn’t, not when the words were lodged in his throat. He took in Nicky’s button up shirt and thick jacket. Andrew remembered that jacket, of course he did. Nicky never went anywhere without it during the winter months and he had gotten Aaron and Andrew similar ones for their birthday a few years back.

“Andrew?” Nicky asked, frowning. His brow scrunched. He knew not to touch Andrew, especially when he was in a bad mood, but he wavered on his feet like he was thinking about it anyway. “Are you okay? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’d seen a ghost.” Nicky gave a little laugh, but Andrew could still see the concern in his brown eyes.

“I meant to fix the gate,” Andrew said. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around all of this. He’d been alive for two hundred years and never aged a day, but the thought of going through time, backwards instead of forward, was what dumbfounded him.

Nicky smiled, shaking his head. “That’s okay, you can just do it tonight. Or tomorrow, whichever. I’m making dinner tonight, stew with potatoes and carrots, all the good stuff. I went into town today and got everything. I was able to sell those hens I was telling you about.”

The door to the house opened again and Aaron poked his head outside, likely trying to see who Nicky was talking to. He caught sight of Andrew and raised his eyebrows.

“Skipping your job, too?” he called. “We need the money, Andrew.”

“It’s only a couple hours,” Andrew retorted. It was instinct to bicker with his brother after all. Even after so long he remembered the arguments, getting on Aaron’s nerves and Aaron getting on his. Each one the end of the world, now it all seemed so irrelevant now.

Aaron rolled his eyes. “Come inside at least. We can’t afford for y’all to get sick. And what the fuck are you wearing?”

It was warm in the house, with the wood stove burning away in the corner. The wood cracked and Andrew remembered the house collapsing, Aaron and Nicky trapped inside.

Betsy said he couldn’t change the timeline. But for a moment Andrew debated telling Nicky and Aaron to leave, to go to the pub and stay out of the house. He thought about turning the stove off completely, dumping all the smoldering, cracking longs into the snow outside and letting them cool where they wouldn’t harm anything.

For a long moment, the urge to stop all of this was so strong Andrew could feel the words on the tip of his tongue. Leave. Get away from here. He reined it in before he could do anything stupid.

Betsy’s words echoed in his head, there are loopholes, Andrew. Loopholes, loopholes, loopholes…

Nicky was chattering away in the kitchen, puttering about, while Aaron sat at the table, bent over a book. He was trying to get into the fancy university a few towns over in the big city to become a doctor. He studied all through that summer and winter, up until the very moment of the fire, it seemed. The books must have burned up in the flames too, pages curling, turning to black ash. If Aaron and Nicky didn’t survive, there was no way these books did.

They never found their bodies, Andrew had said to Neil once. Technically, these coffins are empty.

“There was a pretty gal I saw in town today, Aaron,” Nicky said from the kitchen. “Think you might be interested. She looked smart too.”

Aaron’s eyes flickered up from his book to meet Andrew’s and then back down again. There was a dark smudge of ink on his cheekbone “I don’t need a gal if I’m headin’ to school.”

Loopholes, loopholes.

“I know that, but in the meantime – ”

“I’m from the future,” Andrew said abruptly, putting the words out there before he could convince himself not to. A crash from the kitchen told Andrew that Nicky had dropped a pan, and Aaron was staring at Andrew like he’d grown two heads, book suddenly forgotten.

“The fuck,” Aaron said. Nicky fell from around the corner of the kitchen, mouth gaping open like a fish.

Andrew didn’t have time for this. The sun was already cresting the sky and beginning to sink. “I’m from the year 2077 and in a couple hours, you both are going to die. But you don’t have to.”

“Well Andrew’s officially lost it,” Aaron said, blinking like he hadn’t been betting on it for three years.

“Are you feeling okay, Andrew?” Nicky asked.

They never found their bodies.

Loopholes…

If Andrew brought Aaron and Nicky back with him to his present-day, the unattended stove still blows, the house still burns down, and past-Andrew still buries empty caskets. The timeline remains intact and Andrew’s family doesn’t die. Andrew never asked what would happen if they took someone from the past to present-day, but he knew it couldn’t have been that big of a deal considering Allison Reynold’s frequent appearances at Renee’s side.

Aaron and Nicky took a bit of convincing, and although they still looked thoroughly bewildered, they followed Andrew outside and into the barn Betsy was waiting in. Betsy’s lips thinned into a line when she saw them behind Andrew, but she waited for Andrew’s explanation.

“Their bodies were never found,” Andrew said. Betsy looked unconvinced. “If we take them away now, nothing gets changed. The timeline will not be disrupted.”

Betsy said nothing. She looked behind Andrew’s shoulder, to Aaron and Nicky. Aaron was staring hard at Andrew, eyes flicking from him to Betsy as he tried to make sense of what was happening. Nicky looked scared, eyes wide, shifting from foot to foot.

“Okay,” Betsy said. Andrew let his shoulders relax a notch. Then she turned to Aaron and Nicky palms outstretched, and smiled her warm smile. “This will feel very awkward, but whatever you do, don’t let go of mine and Andrew’s hands.”

The first thing they did when they got back was deliver Aaron and Nicky to the lab. They couldn’t go anywhere without getting a number of vaccines first, and when they were done – they had to come back in two weeks for round two – Andrew and Betsy introduced them to Wymack. He was not impressed with Andrew’s stunt, but unsurprised. As per usual with Andrew.

The entire time Nicky and Aaron gazed around them with wide eyes. Fox Tower was far from the tallest building in the area, but it was still impressively tall to Nicky and Aaron, who had never seen a skyscraper before. Nicky was practically jumping on the balls of his feet through the quick tour before getting the key to his room. Aaron was much quieter, but the look of amazement on his face never left as he studied every inch of the future.

“2077?” Aaron asked. When Andrew nodded, he said, “But how? You should be dead.”

“Later,” Andrew said, and gave him a push on the shoulder. When Aaron and Nicky were safely in their temporary room in the dorms, Andrew went back to his own room.

Neil wasn’t at the lab when Andrew arrived with Aaron and Nicky in tow, so Andrew assumed that he was already waiting inside. It was nearly six, and Andrew felt burnt out from all that had happened. Jumping through time, twice, seeing his old home, seeing his family again after so long. It was too much thrown at him all at once, no matter how he tried to prepare himself, and Andrew was exhausted. He didn’t want to do anything else, he wanted to close the door behind him, take a deep breath, and settle in with Neil for the night. He could check on Aaron and Nicky again tomorrow, but for the time being he was done and he was shutting himself off from the rest of the world.

The suite was dark when Andrew entered, the only light emanating from the kitchen. Andrew wondered in Neil was already in the bedroom, if he too was tired of the day. King was sprawled on the couch in the living room, fluffy tail flicking with acknowledgement when Andrew scratched behind her ears. She yawned, stretching her legs before curling up on the cushion and falling asleep again.

Andrew didn’t feel like eating anything, he felt like changing out his jeans for sweatpants and curling up next to Neil under the blankets until morning. He reached for the kitchen light to turn if off but paused when he found Neil sitting alone at the table.

It didn’t look like he had eaten, there was nothing in front of him, no plate or even a cup of coffee, and there were no dishes in the sink. He sat perfectly still, back oddly straight in his chair, head bowed and staring at his hands clasped in his lap.

“Neil,” Andrew said quietly, thinking he must have been spacing, drifting somewhere in the void in his head. But Neil’s hands clenched and when he spoke, his voice was low, measured and careful.

“Were you ever planning on telling me?”

Andrew blinked. Uneasiness wormed its way into his stomach, making him feel unsettled and antsy. “Tell you what?”

Neil stood up from the table and when he turned around, Andrew could see how tight his face was, how the muscles in his jaw bobbed when he ground his teeth. There was a quiet sort of fury in his eyes. Blue pinpoints of fire. Andrew felt his shoulders lifting, his back going rigid with tension.

“The procedure requires a donor,” Neil said and cursed inwardly. “You knew that. Abby told me you were volunteered yourself.”

“It won’t kill me,” Andrew felt the need to say.

“Really?” Neil said. There was a hysterical edge to his voice and Andrew thought he might crack right open. “I’ll be sucking the life out of you Andrew. That doesn’t sound like death?”

“You’ll be sucking the time out of me, actually.”

“This isn’t fucking funny!” Neil’s voice had risen to a shout. “Did you seriously think that I wouldn’t realize? Or that I would be fine with it, that I wouldn’t fucking care that you sacrificed yourself just so I can live for another couple shitty years?”

Andrew ground his teeth together. “It won’t kill me, Neil. I’m just giving you time, something that I have plenty of. It’s been done once before and – ”

“And Kayleigh Day died. She hooked herself up to the fucking machines and it took everything out of her and she died.”

“Kevin Day lived. You’ll live too.”

“I don’t want to if you’re not with me. How can you expect me to just move on after this?” Neil said, incredulous. “After so long of only being allowed to be around enough to see that the world’s moved on without me only to die again before I could do something about it.” He paced the kitchen as he ranted, voice thick with anger. He made a cutting gesture with his hand and turned on Andrew again. “I’ve spent more time in the void than I’ve even been alive and I don’t know how to deal with that.”

“And you think I want to do it?” Andrew snarled. “I’ve lived for far too long and I’m sick of losing everyone who has ever mattered. I’m tired, Neil. I’m fucking tired of this shit.”

Neil shook his head. He’d stopped pacing and now he stood in the middle of the kitchen, shoulders hunched and fists curled loosely at his sides. The fluorescent light from the ceiling cast him in a yellow glow, washing out the fine details of him. He looked like a grainy photograph, old and warped with age. The furious wrinkle between his brows tightened as dragged his glare from the floor to Andrew’s face, mouth twitching as he thought of the words he wanted to say.

“I’m not going to help you kill yourself,” he decided on. “This is my choice, and I won’t go through with it.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

Neil didn’t say anything, just shook his head with that stubborn set to his mouth. Andrew took a step toward him but he held out his hand for Andrew to stop. “Just – just – ” he said. He made another sharp gesture with his hand before brushing past Andrew. “I’m going for a run.” He slammed the door shut on the way out.

Andrew kicked the leg of the table with a frustrated growl. He did it again, for good measure, and sunk into the chair Neil had vacated. He rubbed at his eyes, tired, too tired, and thought about going next door to where he’d left Aaron and Nicky but decided against it.

He didn’t know what he was doing anymore. He was just so fucking tired and he didn’t have the energy to find any other ways to pull himself through. His chest was tight, reminding Andrew a little of time traveling with Betsy, and for the first time in two centuries Andrew thought he might be dying.

Neil might be dying. He’d left so quickly Andrew couldn’t stop him, and who knew when he was due for another death. This argument that left Andrew feeling so drained could have been the last time he ever talked to Neil, ever saw him. He didn’t even say goodbye.

Tugging on his hair once, Andrew let his head drop to the table with a thunk. He stayed like that until he felt King’s soft fur against his legs and heard her quiet meow as she jumped up on the table. She knocked her head against Andrew’s and Andrew crooked his fingers in her fur, not petting or stroking her soft coat, just holding on.

It was hours later when the door opened and Neil returned, seemingly unharmed. Andrew had since moved to the couch to stare at the blank TV screen. He hadn’t bothered turning it on, he wouldn’t be able to focus on it or even hear the words over his loud thoughts.

Neil slipped in the room like a shadow. He closed the door behind him, toed off his shoes, and leaned against the wall with a heavy sigh, studying Andrew with an unreadable expression on his face. He didn’t look angry anymore, but Andrew detected the same ragged weariness he felt.

“I didn’t think you would come back,” Andrew said quietly.

“I wouldn’t just leave,” Neil replied, just as quiet.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Neil pushed off from the wall and sunk down on the cushion next to Andrew’s. He left several inches between them, close enough that Andrew could see his throat bob when he swallowed, but far away enough that he couldn’t feel his warmth. “I know,” Neil said and tipped his head back to rest against the back of the couch.

Seconds seemed to stretch into minutes in this silence, Neil tracking the pattern in the ceiling with his eyes, brow furrowed, and Andrew watching him do it. “I’m not fragile, Andrew. I’m not going to break as soon as someone touches me. You spend so much time worrying about me that you forget about yourself and I hate it. Whether or not I agree with the procedure, it is my choice and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Andrew thought about saying nothing, thought about letting that hang between them before it dissipated. But he didn’t want to fight anymore. They didn’t have the time. “If we don’t do anything then you’re going to die again,” he said. “There are no other ways.”

Neil tipped his head to look at him. His eyes looked like black pools in the lack of light. “I know that. But what if I wake up and you’re gone?” He inhaled a shaky breath. “I don’t know what I would do.”

This time, when Andrew moved toward him, Neil met him halfway. Andrew wrapped a hand around the back of Neil’s neck and pulled his head down on his shoulder. Neil’s breathing was erratic, broken as he hiccupped for air.

“Breathe, Neil,” Andrew said as if that could coax the air into Neil’s lungs by itself. “Just breathe.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” Neil gasped. He was shaking, trembling like a leaf. Andrew grabbed his hand and squeezed. “I can’t lose you.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Neil took a shuddering breath and let his head drop to Andrew’s chest, the tension draining from his body. He was still for a moment before he tugged far away enough to look Andrew in the eyes. “If I go through with this,” he said, eyes wide, desperate, “you have to promise me that you won’t go too far.”

Looking at Neil like this, falling apart while trying so hard to keep it together, Andrew would have given him anything. “I promise,” he said.

The next morning, Andrew went with Neil to the lab. Abby was at a table with a couple other people in lab coats when they entered, but Abby dismissed herself when she saw them.

“Hey,” she said, pushing up the sleeves of her lab coat and nodding at them. She turned to Neil. “You left kind of quickly yesterday. Everything alright?”

Neil nodded. “Just wasn’t feeling well. I’m fine.”

“Glad to hear it.” Abby turned her gaze on Andrew. “And Aaron and Nicky? How are they adjusting?”

Neil glanced at Andrew curiously. Andrew had filled him in after he had calmed down last night, but he hasn’t seen them yet. Aaron and Nicky were both dead to the world when Andrew checked on them, snoring soundly in their beds. Betsy told him it was often a side-effect for first time travelers, and they’d likely be sleeping it off all day.

“Sleeping off the adverse effects of being pulled through a straw and spit out in the future.” Andrew shrugged. “They’ll get used to it.”

“Mhm.” Abby looked slightly befuddled at his answer but brushed it off. “So, what brings you to the lab?”

“I want to do the procedure. I want you to fix this,” Neil said, gesturing to himself.

“And a donor?” Abby asked, her voice affecting obliviousness. She slid a look in Andrew’s direction. She knew that he was planning on giving his time over to Neil, she’d told him so after all, but Andrew answered anyway.

“Me.”

“Great,” Abby said carefully. “We can set an appointment and I’ll get the equipment ready. I know you both know of the dangers,” she pinned them both with a look “and although medicine and the study of time has progressed immensely since the last time this procedure was attempted, I can trust that it won’t be taken lightly.”

It wasn’t phrased as a question, but there was a certain uptick to her voice that told Andrew differently. Neil nodded, taking a deep breath. “We know what we’re getting into,” he said, glancing at Andrew. “We’ve already talked about it and decided that this is the best decision.”

Abby smiled and reached out her hand to squeeze Neil’s shoulder. He tensed, but only for a moment. “It’s going to be okay,” she said. Neil nodded, averting his eyes, and took a step back.

“We should go,” he mumbled and nodded a goodbye to Abby.

It was dinner time when there was a knock on the suite door. Neil and Andrew decided to eat in tonight, not wanting to have to deal with anyone in the cafeteria. Andrew knew the looks made Neil uncomfortable, and if he were being honest with himself, he didn’t necessarily want to be around anyone else either.

Neil got up to open the door, and Nicky poked his head inside to find Andrew on seated on the couch. “There you are!” he said, and looked Neil up and down. “And who’s this sweetie?”

“Neil,” Andrew grunted. “Come in and shut the door behind you.”

Aaron shoved past Nicky, looking groggy and rumpled from sleep. Heavy bags under his eyes told him he still wasn’t finished sleeping off the time travel. He ignored Neil completely and slumped in one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Nicky snorted and mimed sleeping before plopping down on the couch next to Andrew.

“I like the future,” he said, stretching out his feet and folding his hands behind his head. “It’s super nice. Loud, but nice. I like that box thing with the pictures – what’s it called? Aaron?”

“A television,” Aaron mumbled, half asleep, eyes closed and chin propped up in his hand. “You’re loud, Nicky. The future suits you.”

“What’s new.” Nicky shrugged and nearly toppled over when Andrew pushed his feet off the coffee table. Nicky didn’t seem to mind. He eyed Neil, a little more than curiously, and said, “Are you an immortal thing too? A time traveler?”

“Void walker,” Neil said, still standing by the door.

“Oh? That sounds interesting. What do you do?”

“Die a lot.”

Nicky blanked, for once in his life at a loss for words. He laughed a little, glancing at Andrew to see if it was a joke and when he didn’t get a response he grimaced. “Oh, um.” He looked to Aaron for help but Aaron was asleep. He rallied quickly. “How long have you two known each other?”

“We’ve been together for eighty-two years,” Andrew said. Nicky’s eyes bulged, his mouth dropping open into a wide O.

“Together? As in…involved? Partners?” he asked, almost a whisper. Andrew wasn’t surprised that was the part he focused on, rather than Andrew has been alive for over eighty years and still looks to be in his mid-twenties. When Andrew nodded, he gasped. “That’s allowed?”

“Welcomed,” Andrew said, and Nicky looked like he was about to cry. Andrew made a mental note to tell him about pride later.

“I love the future,” he declared, slumping back into the couch with a loud sigh.

Turns out, Nicky also loved Chinese takeout. Aaron woke up at the smell of food and devoured two and a half cartons of orange chicken by himself. Nicky chattered away as they ate, asking questions about Andrew’s life since 1897 and what is was like being an immortal. He avoided the topic of Neil’s deaths, and Neil seemed to appreciate that. Instead he badgered Neil for information about Andrew and what it was like being with him.

“He used to have the worst sleeping habits,” Nicky said, shaking his head. “I would wake up hours before sunrise to find him bothering the chickens in the coup.” He leaned forward with his hand shielding his mouth as if he were telling a secret. He lowered his voice into a fake-whisper. “He won’t admit it but I know he found it amusing to try and catch them. I don’t know how he didn’t lose any fingers to those beasts.”

Neil laughed, darting a look at Andrew. Andrew pretended to be annoyed, but he couldn’t be, really. He didn’t think Aaron or Nicky could get on his nerves, not after missing them for two hundred years. Not that he’d tell them that. He wouldn’t want them to think they could start getting away with things, now would he.

Halfway through dinner, Andrew noticed Aaron’s heavy stare on the side of his face. He caught the small glances he shot between him and Neil, knew he was making the connections. Idly, Andrew wondered what Aaron thought of it but decided he didn’t care.

When Nicky had absorbed Neil into a conversation about electricity, Aaron leaned over and whispered to Andrew, “Our deal?”

Andrew leveled him a stare. Their deal, to him, seemed so long ago that it hardly mattered. But to Aaron, that was days ago. “Burned in a fire,” Andrew said. Aaron pursed his lips, regarding his brother for a long moment before nodding curtly.

It didn’t take long for Nicky to tire himself out and for Aaron to lead him back to their suite. When they were gone, Neil sat next to Andrew on the couch and folded his legs up underneath him. “Your family is nice,” he said.

Andrew quirked an eyebrow. “Insufferable, you mean.”

Neil huffed out a laugh and bumped his head against Andrew’s. Andrew caught him and directed his head to his shoulder. “But they’re here,” Neil said.

“Observant,” Andrew said.

Neil traced his pinky along the shell of Andrew’s ear. “Three days.”

Andrew’s mouth twitched downwards at the non-sequitur. It took him a moment to realize Neil was talking about the procedure. In three days, Abby was going to hook Neil and Andrew up to a machine and Andrew was going to give a bit of the time ingrained into his soul over to Neil. He still didn’t get it, didn’t even understand how it could be possible or how it would work, but he’s seen so many things that shouldn’t have been possible these past couple days, that he decided not to think too hard about it.

Three days. These past few weeks have moved fast, and Andrew could already feel the anxiety nagging at him. Neil only had to make it three more days until the procedure, but what if he didn’t? Andrew knew better than most how sudden someone’s death could be, and a thought echoed in his head: What if Neil never even made it through the night?

Or worse, what if he lasted the three days, only for something to go wrong? The procedure wasn’t only just dangerous for Andrew, it could kill Neil just as much as it could Andrew. All this way, all this time, only for Neil to die anyway. Andrew grit his teeth and focused his breathing in one of the exercises Betsy taught him.

There was nothing he could do now. Either Neil died, or he didn’t. The procedure worked, or it won’t. Andrew went too far and lost himself, or he didn’t.

Neil was asleep, Andrew realized with a bit of a surprise. He hadn’t realized how tired Neil really was until he heard the quiet snores coming from him. Carefully, as not to disturb him, Andrew scooped Neil up in his arms and carried him to the bedroom. He took off his shoes and threw them in the corner and switched out his jeans for one of Andrew’s pajama pants. Andrew didn’t bother changing himself because he didn’t plan on sleeping, but he tucked Neil in and sat on the edge of the bed, wishing for the first time in years for a cigarette, and waited.

The day of the procedure, Neil spaced out three times before breakfast. For the most part, Andrew kept him tethered with a hand on the back of his neck, squeezing just enough to bring Neil back when he drifted. Neil picked at his food, hardly eating anything more than a few bites of toast. They decided to forgo the cafeteria that morning, and when Neil had choked down a few more bites of toast slathered with strawberry jam, Andrew and Neil dressed quickly.

Andrew finished brushing his teeth and spat in the sink, letting the water wash away the toothpaste spit. Neil was walking around the suite behind him, rummaging through drawers and pacing groves in the carpeted floor. Andrew watched him, leaning against the edge of the sink with his arms folded loosely across his chest.

“The bathroom is free,” Andrew called. Neil looked up, his gaze distant and hazy.

“Thanks,” he replied after a beat that lasted too long.

They walked to the lab, Andrew a step behind and Neil lagging behind. Neil’s anxiety was palpable in the air in the way his silence was strained, and how he kept his eyes averted, darting all around him like he was scanning for threats. Andrew fisted the sleeve of Neil’s hoodie and Neil seemed to take comfort from that.

A medical intern waited for them in the lobby and directed them to one of the rooms in the back. When Andrew found Aaron and Nicky waiting there, he quirked an eyebrow in question.

Nicky smiled his toothy grin and hopped up from his seat next to Aaron. “Hey! Matt told us you and Neil would be doing your procedure thing today. Me and Aaron wanted to be here.”

Andrew didn’t roll his eyes, but it was a close thing. He should have known that Aaron and Nicky would have had breakfast in the cafeteria, and it was only a matter of time until the gossips did what they did best – gossiped. Andrew almost regretted introducing his brother and his cousin to the timeless. He didn’t expect them to get along so well, at least not this quickly.

“So, what does this thing actually do?” Nicky asked. Aaron lifted his head from his place at one of the metal tables, and Andrew noticed he had been studying diagrams from a medical book. An intern with bouncy, strawberry-blonde curls had been pointing out the different pictures to Aaron and she looked up, blinking when she realized Aaron’s attention had shifted. Andrew narrowed his eyes at him but Aaron’s expression betrayed nothing.

“If successful, Andrew’s immortality will transfer to Neil and cancel out his time sickness.” Andrew hadn’t noticed when Abby entered the room, dressed in her white doctor’s coat. Nicky sent her a startled look. “They’d both be rendered mortal.”

“And if it’s not successful?” he asked.

Abby pressed her lips into a thin line. “Death. It’s a tricky procedure, but I have a team of doctors and assistants that will be helping me. Your brother is in safe hands.”

Nicky didn’t look any more reassured. He looked wildly from Andrew to Neil, before retreating back to Aaron for help.

“Are you going to cut them open?” Aaron asked bluntly. Andrew knew he was thinking of the surgeries performed in the nineteenth century. They were brutal and usually opened the body up to infection. Unless the surgeon was particularly skilled and delicate, people often didn’t live long after surgery.

“It’s not surgery. They will be hooked up to machines that will aid the transfer, but it’s mostly up to Andrew. He’ll have to focus his energy into transferring his immortality to Neil, and Neil will have to choose to receive it. It’ll will be quick, lasting only a couple of minutes at most.”

Aaron and Nicky exchanged a look but said nothing more.

“Katelyn,” Abby addressed the intern sitting next to Aaron. “is the equipment ready?”

“It’s all set up and ready to go,” she said. Andrew found her cheery attitude to be extremely annoying, close proximity to Aaron only increasing that ten-fold. The worst part was that Aaron didn’t seem to mind at all.

Abby ushered Andrew and Neil into a large room with machines Andrew didn’t know the purpose of hooked up to walls. Three separate monitors were set up around two metal tables. Andrew assumed they would show body functions such as heart rate and blood pressure, but he didn’t know if it would show his immortality and Neil’s, well, sickness. He wondered if immortality could even be shown on the screen, if it were a physical thing.

Abby left the room so Andrew and Neil could change into white hospital gowns, and knocked on the door a few minutes later to announce that she was coming back in. She directed Andrew and Neil to lay on the metal tables and then a stream of interns and assistants flooded into the room to power up the machines.

The metal was cool and uncomfortable under Andrew’s back, seeping the warmth from his skin and providing little comfort. He leaned his head back and tried to calm his rapidly beating heart. Beside him, he could hear that Neil’s breathing was a tad too quick. Andrew flicked a look at him and found him glancing from machine to machine with wide, panicked eyes.

“Neil, look at me,” Andrew said softly. Neil’s breath hitched and his head jerked to the side towards Andrew. Andrew reached out his hand and Neil gripped it like a lifeline. “I’m not going to let you go, okay?”

Neil nodded and took a deep breath. “Remember your promise,” he said, his voice strained.

“I remember,” Andrew said.

Katelyn was the one who hooked Andrew up to the machine, chattering amiably all the way. She placed cold sticky pads all across his chest and forehead while another assistant did the same to Neil. Andrew had to withdraw his hand when Katelyn snapped wires to the buttons on the pads and placed a something over his thumb that was supposed to monitor his heart rate. The monitor in front of him displayed a picture of his heart and all its chambers, pulsing with every beat in his chest.

Once they were all hooked up, Abby told them that she would have to go behind a protective wall where she could control the machines.

“You will feel a slight tugging sensation,” she said. “Nausea is normal, and so is a little bit of a headache that may last for a couple days. Ready?”

Neil nodded and took another deep breath. Abby disappeared behind a wall, and then the wall disappeared, shimmering like a mirage. Abby’s voice as she gave orders to the other doctors was muffled, and Andrew realized it must have been some sort of glass. Neil twisted to look at Andrew the best he could with all the wires constricting his movement. His face was still pale and his expression tight, but he held Andrew’s gaze for as long he could. “See you on the other side,” he said and squeezed his eyes shut.

Andrew’s vision went black, and a slight tugging sensation wasn’t exactly how he would explain what he felt. It was similar to traveling through time in the sense that he felt his entire body was being squeezed into a small space, but different because he didn’t feel like he was moving. He could still feel the metal table under his back, but it was like all of his insides, his stomach, his lungs, his heart were being jostled from inside of him. His pulse pounded in his temples, and over his heartbeat he heard a loud whooshing noise.

Somehow, Andrew forced his eyes open and the room came into all-too sharp focus with bright fragmented colors that arranged in his brain to make his heart monitor, his heart beating rapidly on the screen. Andrew forced his head to the side and squinted to see Neil. Neil’s body convulsed on top of the table, his eyes and mouth stretched open in a silent scream. Sound came back all at once and Andrew could hear the choked gasps coming from him.

Panic overtook him and Andrew shot up, pawing at the patches on his chest, yanking at the wires as much as he could in his weakened state. He could feel the pain his head receding, he stopped feeling so shaken and his organs returned to their places. But Neil – Neil was still seizing.

Neil.

“Don’t stop,” Andrew ordered, bordering on shouting. He didn’t care that he was infringing on his promise. If this was the only deal he broke in his entire life, then it was fucking worth it. “Don’t fucking stop until Neil is okay.”

Muffled voices in his ears, a scream that Andrew couldn’t tell the origin of. The machines whirred, lighting up red warnings that Andrew didn’t need to know that something was very wrong. Andrew ignored them and pushed and pushed until his vision darkened at the edges and he fell back against the table.

He was gone, he was falling, he was lost. He couldn’t feel anything anymore.

The ringing in his ears turned into a dull beeping sound, and it was another couple minutes until he was able to force his eyes open. The patches on his chest were gone, but there was a circular IV in his arm and he was in an entirely new room. Andrew squinted, trying to remember what happened. The image of Neil on the table, dying, and the sucking darkness when Andrew tried to save him.

But Andrew was still here, and Neil wasn’t. He failed.

“Hey, Andrew, don’t sit up okay? Abby said you’ll be a little sore.” Nicky’s voice to his right was obviously meant to be soothing. A hand on his forehead pushed his hair back but Andrew pushed it away. He felt like he was imploding as grief ripped through his body, his organs collapsing on themselves until there was nothing left but his hollow shell. Nicky seemed oblivious to all of this. “Aaron is in the cafeteria getting us dinner. We didn’t know when you’d wake up, but we can always get more.”

“Where’s Neil?” Andrew croaked, his voice scratchy and near unintelligible. He swallowed and tried again. Even if it was over, even if he failed, he needed to know what happened. He didn’t care about food, despite the loud rumbling his empty stomach made.

Nicky hesitated, playing with the sheets by Andrew’s arm. Andrew couldn’t stand this. If he had only pushed harder, Neil would still be alive. Andrew had failed and now he was left with nothing to show for it but a severe headache. Neil was gone, and this time he wasn’t coming back. The back of Andrew’s eyes burned and his throat constricted painfully. He desperately tried to shove it away, lock it up before it overflowed but he couldn’t stop thinking of Neil. His smile, his laugh, the way his body jerked on the table like a rag doll.

“Nicky,” Andrew demanded. He hadn’t heard that desperate note in his own voice in a very, very long time. “What happened?”

“He’s still asleep,” Nicky assured. Andrew stilled. He was alive? Neil was still alive? “He’s pretty banged up, but Abby said he’ll be okay.”

The air was knocked out of Andrew, and yet it was the first time since he woke up that he could breathe. He stopped struggling against the sheets of the hospital bed, he felt all of his energy drain out of him and he slumped against the pillows. His throat worked. Neil was going to be okay. They were both going to be okay.

A part of Andrew never believed that he would make it through. He knew that when it came down to it, Andrew was always going to do everything he could to save Neil, even if that meant letting himself go. Andrew made Neil a promise, and he meant it, but making the promise while Neil was living and breathing was different than keeping it when he was dying.

“He’s okay,” Andrew repeated, having to taste the words to believe them.

“Yeah, Andrew. The procedure worked.”

He couldn’t wait any longer. Andrew forced his way up, pushing off of the pillows with his elbows. His body felt heavy, but Andrew managed to swing his legs over the edge of the bed.

“Hey, no. Don’t do that. Andrew – ” Nicky tried to coax Andrew back to lying down, but Andrew used Nicky’s shoulder as leverage to get down from the bed. “Wait a minute. Where are you going? Andrew?”

“Neil,” Andrew grunted. A tug on his arm reminded him that he was still attached to the IV. Andrew scratched at it with his fingers and peeled it off. It was a lot like the patches on his chest and forehead during the procedure, except tiny needles retracted from his skin when he removed it. A voice in the back of his head told him that removing an IV is bad, and messy, but there were hardly more than tiny pinpricks of blood that he wiped away with his thumb.

Andrew stumbled, his heartbeat still pounding in his temples, and Nicky caught his elbow. Instead of shaking him off, Andrew allowed Nicky to steady him and then made his way out of the room and down the hall.

They were still in the lab, just in different wing than where they had the procedure done. It wasn’t hard to find Neil’s room, there were only three other rooms in the medic wing, and only the one on the end was closed. Andrew opened the door and went through without knocking, Nicky quick behind him with an apology.

Abby was leaning over the bed, fiddling with wires and tapping at the monitor. She looked up at Andrew’s entrance, surprise and disapproval on her face. It turned into exasperation when she saw who had barged in. “Andrew? You should be resting. Neil isn’t going anywhere.”

Andrew ignored her, because there Neil was, laying in the bed with the blankets tucked around him. He looked pallid under the fluorescent hospital lights, his skin a shade paler than his usual golden tan, but otherwise unharmed. He was also hooked up to an IV, but the monitor recorded a strong, beating heart.

Abby looked annoyed when he pushed past her but she didn’t try to stop him. Neil was already stirring when Andrew came in, and when Andrew hooked his fingers in the collar of Neil’s hospital gown, he was beginning to blink open his eyes. Ocean blue, the color of a summer sky, Andrew didn’t care what color Neil’s eyes looked like, just that they were Neil’s and that a slow smile spread across his face like oil on water.

“Andrew,” he said, like it was the sweetest thing on his tongue. He reached his hand for Andrew and pulled him closer. Andrew climbed into the bed, keeping errant knees and elbows from accidentally jostling Neil, and curled his body around him. Neil shifted so his head rested on Andrew’s shoulder and clutched the fabric he found on Andrew’s chest.

Peppering kisses on Neil’s forehead, Andrew felt like he could finally breathe. He was alive, he was alive and Neil wasn’t going to die anytime soon. Abby had ushered Nicky out of the room to give Andrew and Neil some privacy but Andrew hardly noticed. He didn’t care. At that moment, the only thing that mattered was Neil’s lithe body cradled next to his, was Neil’s even breaths of air small puffs against Andrew’s neck.

Something welled up inside Andrew, expanding like a balloon. He pulled Neil tighter against him, refusing to ever let go. It was over, it was all over. Andrew felt a weight lifted from his chest, his entire body. He had Neil in his arms and they were okay.

Neil laughed, a small relieved sound, and sunk into Andrew’s embrace. They stayed like that for only a couple of minutes, but it felt like hours. Abby came back in the room, holding Andrew and Neil’s neatly-folded clothes in her arms. She placed them on the foot of the bed and smoothed the fabric with her hands.

“I’ll be back in a couple minutes to check on Neil’s stats again, and then you can get dressed and head home. How are you feeling?” Abby directed the last part at Andrew.

Andrew stared back at her, considering. His body ached, and his head still felt like someone had cleaved it in half with an axe, but he was breathing and so was Neil. They had the rest of their lives ahead of them, a life spent with each other. It was almost too much to hope for, and it made Andrew dizzy with the thought.

Andrew brushed his fingers against Neil’s wrist, over a tiny mole on his skin, and said, “Never been better.” He was only being a tiny bit ironic.

Abby let them be and then they were alone again. Neil was tracking his eyes across the painted black spots on the ceiling and Andrew traced his fingers over Neil’s scars, proof of what he lived through, proof that he was alive and that he had healed. Neil turned his head and met Andrew’s gaze, bumping their foreheads together.

“What was that about taking me to the Exy court later? I believe you even said you’d play with me,” Neil said, a pretty smile curling his pretty mouth.

Andrew snorted, devoid of its usual exasperation. “I don’t recall,” he said. Neil didn’t argue any further, he didn’t need to. They didn’t have all the time in the world, but they had a lifetime and that was enough. It was more than enough.

It was everything.

#aftg #tfc #andreil #all for the game #the foxhole court #tfc fic #i meant to post this on tumblr yesterday but the html wasn't working and my brain felt like goo #so i didn't feel like fixing it until today ksdjshd #my writing #mine #andrew minyard #neil josten

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austennerdita2533 · 7 years

Text

Day 6: Canon-ish

A/N: This is the first part of an intended 4-shot. Basically, my idea is to craft some kind of Klaroline kiss/moment for each season of the year while also showing the two of them at various points (and emotional states) in their relationship. I started thinking about how Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall all have a different look or feel about them, and I thought it would be fun to play with that thematically/symbolically. Plus, it’d give me an excuse to play with seasonal imagery.

Anyway, this part is Winter. It’s canon until Liz’s death and Caroline’s grappling with the loss. I’ve also ignored all things Stefan and Caroline. (Loss. Angst. Hurt and Comfort.)

This gave me loads of trouble, so if it’s terrible I apologize but I couldn’t bear to edit it any longer haha. Enjoy. :)

(FF.net)

xx Ashlee Bree

A Kiss For All Seasons

Part 1: Fold Into Me, Shivering

Winter’s kiss wisps across her forehead at a time of shivering delirium and despair.

She’s gone.

It’s not a dream because each breath in tastes metallic and rough, because each breath out rattles and hisses like a dented whiffle ball which has sunk beneath sediment and drowned in the shallowest of streams. It’s real life. It’s real loss, too. And real loss throbs.

It breaks—tearing, cracking, pulling, shattering, rupturing, wrenching a person into angles so painful or contradictory, that life itself feels distorted. It plunges emotions into a vise that’s so unbearable and inescapable at times, it almost feels impossible to still be alive let alone be expected to stand.

Or talk.

Or move.

Or think.

Or cry without wiping at eyes and waiting to find blood puddled on fingertips instead of tears.

At times, grief even makes it difficult to exist.

After someone dies, especially if you loved that person, the world begins to clutter in a way it never did before: it pinches in at the sides so all the noise can spill in unheard, unseen, clouding your mind and chest with smog that refuses to lift so you can breathe easy again. Everything becomes drenched in the blacks and purples and blues of a bruise, too, until there’s nothing left for us to do but crash to our knees. Until all we can do is shrink inside our gloomy new reality and burn our lung’s raw with missing.

In Caroline’s case, icicles splinter across her chest whenever she blinks against the harsh whites of morning to relive the tragedy all over again.

Mommy.

Instead of Liz’s death providing her with comfort or relief now that she’s no longer suffering, the unfair and untimely permanence of loss hollows her out until she’s raw—numb—freezing. The air around her tastes as toxic and as gritty lead. The din of life, which was once so variable and mellifluous and exhilarating to her ears, rings like television static in her head now. Blurring one minute of monotonous agony into the next without end. More than that, the rising sun in the distance (the same one that used to stream vivid, happy yellows through her window every morning), is far too weak or indirect to do anything besides snake across her moistened cheeks with it pale rays before it leaves her cold and dejected again.

Caroline’s parentless now. Alone. She’s still loved by a few friends, of course, but she feels so incredibly, unbelievably, disconnected from them all.

She’s more or less invisible. A ghost.

None of them see me. None of them know what I need.

She’s a ghost girl stuck in this endless life on her own: more hollow than haunted, more sorry and solitary than surviving. She’s an undead warrior on the outside, perhaps, but she’s all but a living, feeling woman shriveling into pieces of nothing within.

“Please don’t leave me,” her body trembles, the words scraping and shrieking inside her own mind as pain paralyzes them in place so they can’t slip down, so they can’t vault out from her throat. “I need you, Mommy, I still need you…”

But Liz is no longer there to answer. She has taken her last breath, has spoken her last goodbye.

There’s no one here who cares for Caroline unconditionally now…no one else who listens. There’s no one around to hold her hand, to kiss away her nightmares, to kill her insecurities so she can fulfill her dreams. There’s no one left who loves her in ‘alls’ instead of ‘somes’—no one.

How could leave me like this, Mommy? How?

Eyes dark-circled with sorrow and exhaustion, Caroline lies curled on one side of her mother’s bed with her knees hugged to her middle. She never stirs; she never sleeps. She stares out the paned window at a February sunrise obscured by indigo snowflakes that drip from the clouds like sleeted tears that the winter needs to cry. Fresh powder bleaches the ground and builds mounds so high they touch the trees, bending branches until they snap like broken rubber bands, burying all sounds of life beneath it except for the squawk of a nearby crow.

In places where the sky meets the horizon, bleak plums, grays, navies, and ivories scratch the edges of Caroline’s vision and almost make her long for blindness. The world outside as stark and as bone-chilling as the nightmare gnawing her apart on the inside:

Mom died, Mom’s DEAD.

But she can’t be gone, she…no! Mom? Mommy, where are you?

Mommy I—please stay. I need you to stay, okay? I’m not ready to live in a world without you. I—not yet.

It’s too soon, it’s too soon!

Mom?

MOMMY!!!?

Shadows scuttle along the walls. The floors. The furniture. Speckling her room like pox of rotting melancholy, they seem to grow larger and more formidable with each tick of the clock on the wall, their black edges curving into sharp spindly fingers that slice at entering streaks of light like a sword; their trunks expanding to root into corners as if they refuse to timber away.

Caroline, however, makes neither a move to halt their proliferation in her room nor to purge them from the space. Instead, she watches with blinking apathy as one detaches from the doorjamb at the far end of the room like a silky talon and crawls closer. It almost glides across the floor.

How will the shadow consume her, she wonders? With a bite? With a few nibbles? Or will it gulp her down whole and damn her to its full belly of despair, plummeting her into a pit of darkness with no end?

She watches as the shadow drifts forward with a slow yet assured grace. Its movements are cautious. Soundless except for the stray floorboard which creaks when it edges along the foot of the bed and crosses into streaks of daylight, exchanging shadow for skin, swapping an ‘it’ for a ‘him,’ as a man stoops to kneel beside her head.

This isn’t just any man, though.

Oh, no.

But one with eyes that are rimmed in lightning yellow. One who smells of cedar and cognac and cologne. Tastes of oranges dipped in rust. Touches with hands made of calloused buttercups. And snaps necks for sport.

He’s someone who charms a crowd with dimples and drawled threats before he strikes swiftly, and completely. He’s a wolf who’s determined to paint away his personal miseries with other’s blood. This is a man who often stars in Caroline’s dreams, and his face is one she not only recognizes, but knows—

Intimately.

“Kl-Klaus? Is that…is that really you?” she croaks uncertainly.

“It is.”

Dizzy, disbelieving, greens and blonds and brown leathers all swirl together in front of her, so she rubs at her puffy eyes then squints harder at the blurred shape of him. Her next words come out more froggy and weak than questioning.

“You came back. You’re—here,” Caroline says with a puff of breath. “You’re back in…back in Mystic Falls?”

“I am.”

“But I didn’t call or—no…no texts were sent?” He nods in confirmation of this, which puzzles her further. “You couldn’t have known that she—and the funeral? No way could you have been there because I, because I never…”

“Wait a minute,” her brows pinch, heavy lids lifting slowly to his face, “did you…did you break into the house?”

Klaus compresses his lips together, shrugs at her sheepishly. Caroline responds to this by smashing her face into her pillow with a groan and an agitated ‘un-freaking-believable.’ Then, in one swift movement, she throws the blankets over top of her and rolls over flat. Onto her back.

“Don’t be angry with me, love.”

She snorts. Pulls the covers higher.

“I realize my relationship with my family is dysfunctional at best,” he tries cautiously, his voice dipping low, “but I do have experience in parental loss. I know what it’s like. How it feels. The way it cuts you and—” she crosses her arms, holds her breath “—burns.”

Caroline cringes and squeezes her arms tight like she’s holding herself together.

“I only worried on your behalf because I know how deeply you cared for the sheriff, so I trailed you home…lingering outside in case you bolted with no reference to your humanity because I didn’t want you to do anything rash you’d regret later. I just, I wanted to keep you safe and protected. To…help you avoid any extra pain.”

"It wasn’t until you screamed that I couldn’t—it didn’t seem right to—not when you sounded so—how could I not look in?”

He pauses for a moment. Clears his throat, cracks his knuckles.

“Anyway, I thought you might be in want a friend,” he offers placatingly, pressing his palms flat against the sheets so he can lean forward a bit and hover above her. “Someone to be a shoulder. A punching bag. A hand for you to squeeze. Whatever…” his voice wobbles uncomfortably, “whatever it is you need.”

“And what if what I need is for you to, you know,” she swallows hard, “get the hell out?”

“Then I’ll go, Caroline.”

She tuts but it lacks bite. “Go where? Back outside to hide behind more snow until I snap?”

Resigned, almost as if he’d expected this kind of reaction, he draws back with a small hiss like he’s been stung, “No,” he answers cooly, his words heavy and flat, “I’ll do as you bid and head home. To Louisiana.”

The air between them becomes stagnant. Oppressive all of a sudden.

“You mean you’ll leave me here?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?” she asks.

“If that’s what you wish,” he sighs, “then yes.”

“Oh.”

Time seems to slow here, silence stretching and growing like a beanstalk weed between their two bodies. Klaus plucks at a mattress spring with his thumb, its notes sharp and discordant underneath her back as he stands to pivot on his heels, readying himself to glide back into the shadows from whence he came. Leaving her alone in Mystic Falls again, setting her free like he promised two years ago.

Caroline hears him shrug his arms into his jacket with a grunt. Or maybe it’s a growl? A humph? Regardless of the noise he makes, there seems to be a sluggish dereliction to his movements. A hesitancy to proceed. And it’s probably because he’s preparing himself for the long trek through miles upon miles of snow that’ll weigh him down like ice before he reaches New Orleans. All of that slush waiting to seep in, hoping to blacken his toes…

He’s more than likely dreading the sound of orange embers crunching into snowy ashes beneath his feet as he retreats from her warm hearth and stomps out through the door again. He probably loathes the idea of submerging himself into a frigid morning all because she’s almost commanded him to go. Leave.

To go off on his own and freeze like me.

At the thought, a fresh chill kisses the back of Caroline’s neck. It momentarily anesthetizes her lungs and she cannot breathe; she cannot think. She cannot feel anything except the frostbite which pricks down low, too low, and buries itself somewhere below skin deep.

The whole world shifts inside her own head again as arctic wind gusts across a few remaining fragments of coziness: of old memories tinged pink with brandy smiles or marshmallow’d cheeks, of scarved hopes for the future knitted in bright, pretty patterns, of rich caroled dreams hummed sweetly into ears with full-bodied meaning, of soft painter’s hands which curled over top of stupid fears or desires like mittens to ease her shuddering, warming her to the bone. All of them slipping away on a sled she’s about to let crash straight through the North Pole so they may never resurface again.

Except how could she bear it? How could she survive the barrenness without them, all the cruelty? How could she find the strength to keep breathing after she lets one final sliver of warmth slip away because she’s bitter and hurting and broken? Where would her optimistic flames entomb themselves? In permafrost? In tundra? In icebergs crowding the sea?

Deep-down, Caroline knows that one biting word from her would silence Klaus for good. One more dismissive statement is all it would take to send him back to New Orleans where he belongs, thereby freeing her up to mope in this room forever. There’d be no more judgment to combat from him, no more concern. But to what end?

So her mouth can match the blue which has settled in around her heart since her mom passed away? So she can shudder harder at the falling flakes of grey and white which accumulate outside her window and aim to bury her beneath centuries of unrelenting snow? So life’s color can leak and harshen until it’s nothing more than a dead block of ice for her to kick?

As if winter isn’t teeth-chattering enough already!

Licking her lips, Caroline exhales before she slides the blanket down the bridge of nose enough to peek up at him. She rakes over his consternated expression. She watches when his body stiffens and squares in preparation of her next words. It’s as if he’s waiting for a dismissal to scythe through the air and lash him up.

“Okay, and what if—” she gulps, her voice dry and a little muffled. “What if I say I don’t want to be alone in this room right now? What then?”

Klaus’ eyes widen, hope spilling into their depths. But only for a second. A scratch of his chin followed by one, two, blinks and it sinks back into his pupils like an illusion. Like it was never there.

“I’ll make sure you aren’t. You won’t be, if that’s what you desire,” he says simply.

“And if I cry?”

He shrugs. “Then you cry.”

“I think I’m out of tissues.”

“You can use my clean sleeve then. I’m sure it’ll do just fine,” he offers drily.

She quirks an eyebrow. Shoots him a dubious look.

“What? I’m not allergic to tears, Caroline, for Christ’s sake.” He rolls his eyes. Wanders closer again. “Not immune to them either, unfortunately, if that’s what troubles you,” he adds under his breath.

Dragging a desk chair behind him, he erects it near her bedside table with a flick of his wrist. And sits.

“But you’re allergic to me, is that it?”

When he opens his mouth to respond only to slam it shut, puzzled, she gestures nonchalantly and says, “You can sit next to me on the bed, Klaus. There’s more than enough room for two, you know. It’s not like I think you have cooties or anything.”

Scooting over and up, she pats the open area with her hand. He doesn’t move.

“Well, come on then!” she tries again, less sarcastically this time. “Take off your shoes so you can climb in here. It’s drafty.”

After a few more seconds of gawking silence, Caroline, feeling both tired and fed up, rolls her eyes before she launches herself onto her knees to grab him by the hand, forcibly tugging him down onto the sheets beside her—shoes be damned!

They crash back against the pillows intertwined: Klaus’ arm braced ‘round her shoulders to cushion the fall; her nose scraping the lapels of his jacket. Her chin bangs against his clavicle and they tumble into the headboard cuddling. It’s an accident, of course, but one that feels comfortable. Oddly natural, too. And instead of shrugging him off or pushing him back so she can erect an elaborate pillow fort between them like she ordinarily would, she veers from expectation and tradition by throwing the blanket over his legs.

Next, she curls into the crook of his neck. Rests a hand in the center of his chest. Exhales. And thaws against his side as she listens to the rush of his ancient heartbeat, feeling it thrum through her own bones like this lullaby:

‘Hold me close; hold me tight; and everything else will be alright,’

Klaus initially tenses at the intimate contact. Afraid to move a muscle in case she changes her mind or wants to pull away, probably.

When she doesn’t, he relaxes. One hand drops atop the one of hers already on his chest while the other fingers silky tresses near her ear, plucking them strand by strand so they fall back against her sweatshirt with a sweet tap tap. His mouth also teases the crown of her head. It hovers close enough for her to feel each tickle of his breath against her skin, but remains far enough away that she misses the softness of his lips.

Sliding down lower onto the mattress, he kicks his shoes off onto the floor, lets a foot hook around her ankle, then folds her tighter into the furnace of his arms.

“I must say,” he murmurs against her hair, “a literal pillow is the last thing I expected to be for you today.”

“It’s only because I’m cold. February sucks and I miss my mom, okay? Don’t read too much into it.”

“Whatever you say, love.”

“Oh, shut up, will you? I can hear your smirk from here,” Caroline huffs into his shirt.

“Ah, sweet, sweet proximity.” Klaus sighs contentedly. “It’s half the battle, truth be told.”

“Ugh! You’re so exhausting.”

“I don’t see why,” he answers wryly, “it’s not as if I’m complaining.”

“No, but I know what you’re thinking.”

“Perhaps you do,” he hums in that assured, taunting way of his, “but you can’t fault me for being more than willing to comfort you given the chance.” His fingers draw soothing circles on her back. “So, if body heat is what you need from me right now, then fine—take every last ounce of mine and zip yourself up in it. Wrap it around you like a duvet, because it’s all yours.”

“Suuure,” Caroline drawls sleepily. She yawns. “Until I accidentally elbow you in the nose once I fall asleep, you mean.”

“No. I’m here and I won’t leave you. Not even if you make me bleed,” Klaus says, all pretense gone.

“Oh, you and your ridiculous promises. I swear!”

He responds to this with a low chuckle. It soon flattens into something more weighted and measured when he draws her in to deposit a sweet, earnest kiss across her forehead.

“Ridiculous or not, sweetheart, the promises I make to you I do and will keep. You can count on that,” he adds in a whisper. “You can count on me.”

Emotion clogs her throat at this; stings the corners of her eyes.

It’s right at that moment, with Klaus’ firm and unshakable finality, and his body spooned around her, that Caroline feels a ring of fire spring to life around her heart, thawing her all the way through with hope and waking her up to one devastatingly beautiful enormity: he’s the one person left who’s always wanted to be there for her. And he isn’t going anywhere. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not in a hundred more lifetimes.

“I guess we’ll have to wait and see about that, won’t we?” she shivers, cuddling closer and melding into his warmth.

“Don’t worry, love. Time is on our side.” She feels Klaus’ lips tug upward in smile. They sweep across her forehead again in kiss, but this time, they deliver promise as well as comfort, “We will.”

Thanks for reading. xx

#klaroline #klarolineauweek #klaroline drabbles #klaroline fanfiction #half agony half hope #ashlee bree's writing endeavors

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machihunnicutt · 7 years

Text

Small Hot Chocolate, No Whip (chapter 6 - and final)

(Or read on ao3.)

Chapter 6: Evan

Evan Hansen lived in feelings: the warmth of a paper coffee cup in his hand, the taste of laughter and Jared's cheap liquor in his throat, the stinging cold of snow beneath his worn tennis shoes and the joy of Connor Murphy's chapped lips on his. Feelings, not words or sounds or expressions traded in dizzying and confusing fashion, made the gears of his brain turn.

Anxiety was all about feeling. Panic was white hot and paralyzingly sometimes. Tears were wet and salty and felt like a hose in summertime: knotted and building up until his mom untangled it and the water came crashing in a burst that muddied the potting soil and drowned the more delicate flowers.

The alcohol dulled feelings and at the same time excited them. Everything felt louder and more blurred together like a cityscape through a rainy window. Feelings slipped from his grasp in the brightness and yet everything felt more.

Connor Murphy was wearing eyeliner. He could see it from across the room. The eyeliner brought out the weird colors of his eyes. Maybe Jared was right and he did have a thing for Murphys because Zoe looked radiant too. She'd curled her hair and was smiling brightly at Alana whose arm was hooked in hers.

When he looked at Connor Murphy he couldn't help but feel all over the place. The closer he came the more Evan felt.

"Hey Ev," he said. His voice was kind of hoarse and he looked like a dream.

Evan was going to kiss him tonight.

The next morning Evan woke up with a headache and drool on his face. The night came back in pieces: Connor's hair brushing against his face, the giddy high feeling just after they kissed, Jared's persistent teasing and Evan's ridiculous laughter all night afterward. Apparently he laughed a lot when he was drunk. He laughed a lot and he talked too loudly.

It was nearly 11 and he wanted to see Connor.

"Hey, are you alright?" Jared asked when he stumbled into the kitchen. The lights were too bright. Jared looked pretty haggard himself.

"I'm fine. Just hungover. Good party Jared."

"Thanks Ev, have you talked to Murphy yet?" He grinned. Jared was starting to warm up to Connor Murphy.

"Not yet...I was gonna go over to his house."

"Right now?"

"Yeah."

"Eager much?"

"Um...yeah. I want to make sure everything that h-happened when I was drunk is okay n-now that I'm sober."

Jared's expression softened. "He really likes you Ev. Those are like totally pining eyes. Trust me."

"Thanks...I um, it's probably a bad idea but..."

"No, it's okay. You should go. Tell the Murphys I said hi."

Evan didn't bother changing out of his pajamas. He tucked his plaid pajama pants into his snow boots and put on his coat. Connor's house wasn't far.

A slightly disheveled Connor Murphy answered the door. His hair was a mess and his eyes looked tired but he looked happy to see him. "Hey Hansen. What's up?"

"I..." This was stupid. His face burned as he realized the full extent of his actions. He'd shown up the next morning at the house of a boy he'd drunkenly kissed expecting...what? "I don't know really I just wanted to see you I guess."

"Well I'm glad you're here. Do you want to come in?"

Evan tugged at the edge of his coat. "I think we should talk about last night," he said so quickly it came out more like: Ithinkweshouldtalkaboutlastnight.

Connor's face fell. "Oh, okay we can.."

"I mean because I really liked last night and I want to make sure everything was okay."

"Hansen if you regret it we can just..." Connor snapped the rubber band on his wrist.

"No! No, that's not what I mean I've just never kissed anyone before and I worried that maybe I did it wrong. I kind of wanted to do it sober you know?"

Connor's eyes widened. The cold wind was chilling his legs through the pajama pants. "I was your first kiss?"

Evan looked down to avoid meeting his eyes. "I'm not l-like you. I don't have boys f-fawning all over me."

"I don't have boys fawning over me Ev. That was my first kiss too."

Evan's head shot up so quickly he thought his neck might've cracked. "It was? I'm so s-sorry! I didn't mean to..."

"It's fine Hansen." He reached forward and grabbed both of Evan's hands. His hands were warm. "I'm glad it was you."

"It didn't suck?" He asked. He hadn't thought about it when it was happening but he thought about it now. Evan was very good at overthinking. It had been good if he was remembering things correctly but there was a definite chance that he wasn't.

"It was great Hansen. You're a great kisser."

"You mean drunk me."

"No I mean you. Kiss me again. I'll prove it."

"I c-can't." He blushed. "I can't just k-kiss you."

"Why not? You did last night."

"I was drunk. I'm not that daring when I'm sober."

"Daring?" Connor let out a breathy laugh. "What are you scared of me?"

"No! It's not...a little. Like scared in the nervous excited way."

Connor was grinning. His breath was visible in the cold air. "Kiss me Ev," he repeated. "Kiss me and then come in and have some of Zoe's chocolate chip pancakes."

"Promise you won't laugh if it's bad?"

"I won't laugh. And it won't be bad."

"You're going go have to lean down a little."

"Alright."

It was nicer this time. The feeling was less tilting and heart pounding-ly in his throat. It was gentler and more calming. Connor's hand on his waist anchored him.

"It was good," Connor said when they broke apart. "Very good." It might have been his imagination but Connor looked a little pink.

"I can have pancakes then?"

"Yeah, come in before you freeze your ass off."

He could smell the pancakes before he could see Zoe making them. He was suddenly aware of how hungry he was and how badly his head still ached.

"I know you don't drink coffee but you look like you could really use a cup," Connor said, pouring him a mug and gesturing to a seat at the kitchen table. The more time he spent in the Murphy house the more he liked it. The table was cluttered with paperback novels and sheet music that Connor pushed aside to make room for the plates. The big windows let in the sun that gleamed brilliantly when reflected off the snow outside. Zoe had on the radio and a gentle voice announced the songs in between car dealership jingles. The Murphy house had the comfortable air of a place that was just waking up. Movements were slow and sleepy and Connor poured out the last of a jug of orange juice before opening a new bottle.

Zoe, dressed in a big sweatshirt with rips at the sleeves, smiled at him as she served up a couple of pancakes with a spatula. "Happy New Year Evan Hansen. Careful, those might be a little hot."

"Thanks Zoe," he replied. Connor was trying to manage his mess of hair. It was tangled around his face and stuck out in the back. He gave up after a moment and pulled the mess into a ponytail.

"Eat your pancakes Ev, they're world famous." Connor had a smile that made his shoulders relax and chest warm up from the inside. With a smile like that he was surprised he had been his first kiss and not some other boy, some beautiful, confident boy years ago who was better than him.

Evan sat across the table from the Murphy siblings and ate pancakes and drank coffee while they talked and laughed and ate their pancakes too.

"So," Zoe said at last, voice drawn out. Her foot was up on a chair and her brother was painting her toenails. "Are you two like a thing now or...?"

"Yes," Connor said. He smiled that smile at him again. "I mean...we are aren't we? You want to date right Evan?"

"Why would you say yes before you asked him doofus?"

"Yes, I want to date if you want to date."

"I want to date."

"You dorks are hopeless."

"Hey Ev do you wanna make out in my room?"

"S-sure."

"Hopeless!" Zoe repeated, getting up to clear the plates. "Make good choices Evan!"

Kissing Connor was all feeling. It was breathlessness and joy and Connor's hands on his skin. "You're really pretty," Evan blurted out. He tended to word vomit when he was nervous, that is if he wasn't stuttering. "Why do you want to...I mean I'm not like you. I'm not..."

"You're pretty too," he said. His eyes were big and shiny and full of something Evan felt in his jaw and chest and fingertips. He loved the way Connor looked at him.

"So how do we do this whole boyfriend thing?" Connor asked after they got tired of kissing (not that Evan would ever get tired of kissing him.)

"Um...I guess we k-keep going like usual but with more of that? And maybe we go out to dinner just the two of us?"

"Yeah, okay. I can do that. That doesn't seem as hard as..." Connor's jaw clenched. "I'm just good at fucking important things up you know? And this is important."

"You're not going to fuck anything up. I trust you."

"That makes one of us." He snapped the rubber band at his wrist again. It was a habit that made Evan nervous because he knew it meant Connor was nervous.

Evan kissed him. "Well you should have more faith in yourself."

"Like you're one to talk," he muttered. "And anyway you don't know about all of my past fuck ups. I'll find a way believe you me."

"Shut up, that's my boyfriend you're talking about."

The look on his face was priceless. He wondered if Connor got freckles in the summer. If he did Evan might just die.

"Say it again."

Evan laughed. "My boyfriend Connor Murphy. My cute, sweet, smart, and capable boyfriend Connor...what's your middle name?"

"Lionel."

"Connor Lionel Murphy."

"You're dumb," he said, but he was smiling.

"Yeah, and you need to brush your hair."

***

School started up again. Evan's classes got hard like they always did but this time he had Connor to study with and talk him through how to approach his professors about his anxiety.

And he helped Connor edit his piece for his personal essay writing class and made him soup when he got the flu.

They had movie nights every Thursday and most Fridays Evan had to wear a scarf or turtleneck to cover up the hickeys on his neck. They'd been dating for nearly three months and Connor Murphy had yet to fuck up. In fact he was doing excellently.

He gave him a lot of free hot chocolate. "Hey Hansen, you sure you don't want whipped cream? Or some mini marshmallows?"

"I'm good Con. What's up?" He looked up at him in his hoodie and work apron. He didn't look as tired as he used to and his complexion was less pale and cheeks less sunken.

Connor sat down. "Okay, so this was going to be a surprise but I know surprises make you anxious so I changed my mind."

"What are you talking about?"

He leaned in close. "You know how you said you never went to prom?"

"Yeah." He got a weird lonely feeling in the pit of his stomach. Prom made him think about high school which made him think about that day in the tree.

"And I said I didn't either remember?" He added quickly and Evan felt guilty for the way his expression had clouded.

"Yeah?"

"Well, I talked to Alana. Her parents own the shop I don't know if you knew that. Anyway, they're going to let us use the shop after hours to have our own prom. Zo and Alana wanna come and you can ask Jared and his nerd friends and Zoe's gonna get some music school kids to play a set and...get stop me if you hate this idea okay? Because you're allowed to hate it. I won't be mad or any..."

"You planned this all for m-me?" He croaked. If Connor Murphy got any sweeter Evan might turn into one of those people who posted about their significant other on social media ten times a day. He'd already tweeted a picture of Connor and a particularly cute latte design this morning.

"Yeah Ev, do you like it?"

"Of course I do." It wasn't that he never wanted to go to prom. If he could have gone with Connor Murphy back in high school he would've in a heartbeat. "When is it?"

"Next weekend. I think that's enough time to get outfits and corsages and everything? I don't want you to worry about anything. I'm running this show."

"Thank you."

Connor cocked his head to one side. "Why are you thanking me? I'm just as pumped for prom as you are. And anyway you're my boyfriend, I'm supposed to do these sort of big, dorky things for you."

"Well thank you anyway."

"You're very welcome." He kissed him. "Okay, I've gotta get back to work now but I'll talk to you later Hansen."

Back at home Evan threw himself on his bed and sighed in dramatic exasperation.

"Evan can I help you with something?" Jared asked, voice laced with sarcasm.

"What should I wear to Connor prom?" He groaned. "I have absolutely nothing that looks decent on me. I look like shit in everything Jared why is he still with me?"

"Whoa whoa whoa slow down there Hansen you're way hotter than Murphy and I'm not calling it Connor prom."

"I am not and you're not helping."

Jared went over to his closet and started rifling through it. "You know I don't hate him anymore right? I was wrong before. He's a good guy."

"Thanks, I know."

Jared flopped down beside him. "You've got that blue jacket and I've got some nice ties. Oh, or a bow tie that'd be nice."

"You're coming right? To prom?"

"Yeah..." Jared hesitated. "Actually there's this guy..."

"Yeah?" Evan's mouth quirked up.

"He's a junior, a TA for my advanced coding class..." Evan looked over to see the blush spreading over his roommate's face. "He's cute so I kept asking for his help with assignments and stuff even though I'm bomb at coding and I guess he caught on because last week he asked for my number."

"Ask him! Oh my god Jared what's his name?"

"Asher," he muttered. "I'm not sure he even really likes me. He's probably just being nice."

"Whoa whoa whoa are you or aren't you the insanely cool Jared Kleinman?"

Jared laughed. "Sure, whatever. I'll ask him."

They were quiet for a long moment. Evan tried to figure out whether or not the blue jacket was awful.

"Hey are you and Murphy like...good? Like are you happy Ev?"

"I'm really happy."

"I'm glad. I want to be happy," he muttered.

"Hey can I give you a hug?"

"Sure, nerd. Sure."

***

Zoe Murphy was an actual angel. She looked like an angel in her lavender dress that matched the tie Alana was going to wear. She sounded like an angel when she told him Connor prom wouldn't have a huge crowd and that Connor had been planning everything for weeks.

"He thought it was a stupid idea but I convinced him it wasn't so you should really be thanking me," she said smugly. "Now what is this outfit crisis?"

Evan chewed on his lip and showed her the dark blue jacket with matching dress pants and light blue button up. He'd borrowed a bow tie from Jared.

"You're going to be so cute. You two are going to be the cutest couple there oh my god."

Evan laughed. "You're exaggerating and in any case you and Alana will be the cutest couple."

"You haven't seen what he's wearing Ev. You wanna do the face masks now?" Zoe Murphy was a literal angel.

"S-sure," he replied.

"Dude you have the nicest skin."

"Thanks," he mumbled. The face mask was green and smelled like mint and pine. When he closed his eyes he could pretend he was a leaf, which was comforting.

"Hey I wanted to say thanks." He opened his eyes.

"For what?" The mask was starting to crack on Zoe's forehead. Her hair was up in a magnificently floofy bun. The Murphy siblings were definitely cut from the same cloth.

"For being so good to him and with him and for being patient and all. I know you'll say it's not work because you care about him but I do too and I know his bad days are hard and you've got stuff of your own to deal with so just thank you. Thank you for being here with me."

"You're welcome Zoe. Um...h-hey, we're friends r-right?" It was a stupid thing to ask. People who were confident and social and put together didn't need to ask the people they considered friends if they were really friends. They just knew.

"Of course Evan! Of course we're friends. Here, hug me, just watch your face."

Zoe Murphy hugged like he thought an angel would.

She was right, about Connor at least. He was going to be the prettiest person at his own prom. He showed up at Evan's front door in a velvet suit jacket that looked like it cost more than Evan's entire wardrobe. His nails were freshly painted and for once he didn't have a slew of rubber bands on his wrists.

"How do I look?" He asked cheekily and Evan found that the ability to form coherent sentences had escaped him.

"G-good. You l-look really g-good honey."

Connor grinned. "Honey?"

"S-sorry it just slipped out."

"I brought you a corsage." He held out the cluster of blue flowers: blue bells, mourning glories, hyacinth. It was beautiful.

"I can't believe you're doing this all for me," he whispered.

"Well you better believe it Hansen because we're gonna be late for prom."

He offered his arm and Evan linked his arm in Connor's. They stared at each other for a moment before Jared came out on the patio. "You two are such gay dorks," he groaned.

"You look nice," Evan said, because he did. Frankly, Evan couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Jared in anything but a tee shirt and khakis or pajamas. He cleaned up nicely.

"Thanks," Jared muttered.

"Is Asher coming?" Connor's eyebrow quirked up.

"He said he'd meet me there but he might just ditch me."

Connor frowned. "Why would he do that Kleinman?"

"I'm not some weird emo hunk like you Murphy," Jared grumbled.

"Kleinman if he said yes then clearly he likes you."

"That's what I said," Evan grinned.

"Now let's go and have fun at Evan's prom," Connor said.

"You know he's been calling it Connor prom?" Jared said. Evan swatted him.

The coffee shop looked fantastic. There were lights and streamers hung from the ceiling, a band in one corner, punch and pastries, and the tables were pushed aside so there was room for dancing. The music school kids and some of Alana and Jared's friends were already there. Zoe waved when they came in. She and Alana were dancing energetically.

"Jared!" A tall guy with a mess of dark curly hair and a braces laden smile came up to them and handed Jared a corsage. "You look great. I brought you this. Is it too much?"

Evan and Connor looked at Jared in unison. He was bright red.

"No it isn't," Connor answered for him. "You must be Asher. I'm Connor, the roommate's boyfriend. It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you," he replied. He was very clearly just as much a nerd as Jared was. "So you're Evan! It's a pleasure." He shook Evan's hand and Evan saw he was wearing a calculator watch.

"Nice to meet you too Asher," he said, nudging Jared who was still frozen.

"You wanna get some punch?" Jared blurted and Asher nodded.

"I never thought I'd meet someone nerdier than Kleinman. The dork has braces."

"Shut up, I had braces," Evan muttered. "He seems nice."

"Let's dance," Connor said. "Now that your such a good dancer." He winked at him.

Dancing with Connor Murphy was all feeling too. The lights caught in his long lashes and Evan was thankful for their height difference because it made it easier to lean his head on his chest when he got tired. There were lots of slow songs and even during the upbeat numbers they stayed close together, feet moving in rhythm and smiles equally luminous.

"Happy prom Ev. I'm glad we got to go."

He looked up at him and thought about the first time he'd given him hot chocolate and smiled and told him he was the best customer of the day.

"I love you."

"What?" Connor's eyes widened. "What was that Ev?"

"I l-love you Connor," he repeated. Why did he repeat it? Connor was looking at him like he had two heads.

"Do you wanna go outside for a sec?" Connor's voice cracked and he fingered his wrist as Evan nodded and they made for the door.

"Sorry," Evan said when they were outside. "I didn't mean to freak you out I just felt it so I said it. You don't need to say anything."

"Don't be sorry Hansen." He ran a hand through his hair. "I love you too you just surprised me and I thought maybe everything tonight would be too much for you and I was worried you were uncomfortable and I don't want this to be weird or anything but I love you a lot Ev and I'm so happy but if you're..."

"Hey, hey, slow down." Connor was rubbing at his wrists again so Evan reached out and took his hands. "Take a breath Con."

Connor nodded, eyes averted. "You love me?" Evan tried carefully.

Connor met his eyes. "Yeah, I think I said that a couple of times in there."

"Thanks for prom Connor."

"You're welcome Ev."

"Everything's going to be okay you know? Well maybe not everything but the things that aren't we'll get through together."

"I love you Evan Hansen."

"I love you too Connor Murphy."

Evan didn't care for hot chocolate all that much. He didn't have much of a sweet tooth. When he came into the shop the first time he wanted to order tea but at the counter he got nervous and read the first thing off the menu. Then it became a habit. When Connor Murphy came into the picture he couldn't imagine ordering anything else. Now he couldn't imagine loving anyone else like he loved him. It was stupid how much he loved him. He loved him on good days and bad days, with scars and tears and too much caffeine. He loved his hair and his eyes and his smile and the way he made him feel safe and whole and capable. And Evan never felt capable. If this was real prom maybe things would be different. If they met somewhere else over a different drink maybe it wouldn't have worked out. But here, in the dim light from the shop, holding Connor's sweaty hands in his, it felt like they could be happy here. It felt like they could go on like this forever

#treebros #dear evan hansen #connor murphy #evan hansen #evan hansen/connor murphy #alana beck #zoe murphy #jared kleinman #galaxy gals #deh #deh fic #treebros fic #awi's fic #musicals

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