#why am I still watching Bram keeps torturing me

[lucidpantone]

Wtfock had the talented actors, the talented crew, the fandom even Julie and NKR by their side and they fuck them all up honestly, they clearly couldn't get up after Kato season because this season is a whole mess also funny how the "best part" yet was Bente hahaha like wtFOCK is this remake?!

This ask is like 2 years old (am cleaning my ask box) and the thing that is cracking me up is everything still applies. Replace Bente with Caroline and it's the same old thing. Honestly for me it's just the writing and I feel like we been here for several seasons. I would love a more diverse writing team that isn't so heavy handed. Like Bram is always overdoing it and it's getting a bit exhausting. S3 with the hate crime, s4 with all the racism, s5 with everyone turning on Yasmina even tho she took shit from everyone for years and finally reacted. Ada season literally being a complete snooze fest and like if your gonna do a spin on OG s1 do something interesting. Ada wasn't interesting because the consequences were so meh. So she breaks up with her high school bf...... okay. This season isn't terrible but my god it's dragging we could have had some many other scenes to develop Anais that didn't involve bobbie but we just keep going in circles and am tired. I still think this season hits top 3 for me. Its no zoenne or sobbe but its solid its just doesn't go anywhere like lets move on already......also why the fuck did we randomly throw in an SA plot?!?!? Like am getting tried of Bram's shit.

[nickrbockr]

Simon Vs Fan Fic: Chapter 2 - Drive

Ao3

Warning - Explicit Scene

“Nora, I don’t want to go to this as much as you don’t want me to go to this, but we have to go to this. Go.”

Dad was protesting with Nora as he was honest when he said he didn’t want to go. Nora is now in high school and I guess they have this new required evening orientation to meet all staff. I think it may have been a way for the administration to try to get ahead of what happened to me in high school as they try to find out a bit too much. Oops. Well, no, oops to Martin. Martin’s Oops.

Mom, the rule follower, kept telling them it was required and discussion was off the table. She also may be over correcting to be sure her youngest doesn’t have a similar experience as her middle child. It seems Alice had an average experience with high school, so Mom is going for the three bears experience for high school and ensure it’s a positive one. Nora is going to hate it.

“Si, I’m sure you’ll be okay here by yourself.” Nora said, emphasizing self portion of the word. Maybe before I told Mom and Dad about proposing, that would have got under my skin. I know the old me would have let it. But I’m not the old me. I’m Simon 2.0 with a Bram-processor. Ugh, I cheesed myself out there. Am I Dad now?

Mom looking wanting at me, begging for me to tell Nora with the slightest hint of brow furrowing and lip turning. She should have been an actress because she has subtly down to a craft. Meryl Streep herself would gracefully nod in defeat. I smile and use it an opportunity to tease Mom for torturing Nora and Dad.

“Actually, Nora,” I begin, using my stage education to not indicate, but inform. I shifted my weight on both of my legs and stuck my hands in my pocket. “there is something I want to tell you.”

Mom beamed and Dad rolled his eyes, picking up quickly what I was laying down, but not stopping me because he knew he would get to watch. Dad was not one to ruin a potentially fun joke at Mom’s expense, because much like good thoughts after tequila, they’re rare.

“O…kay?” Nora replied suspiciously, crossing her arms. Mom set down her purse to pull out her phone.

“Wow…uhm…okay…” I covered my mouth as if I was becoming emotional. I saw Dad in my peripheral stifling a full on belly laugh. “Nora…as I’ve gotten older and…” Fake blinking a tear out of my eye. “What I’m trying to say is, Mom and Dad don’t care if Bram is coming over anymore.”

Mom’s hopeful face turned into one of ‘listen here you little shit’ flat mouth expression. With a sigh, she threw her phone back in her purse.

“Bram is still in town?” Nora beamed. She was such an interesting person because Nora has known Nick and Leah for years, but she still dismisses them like they’re annoying apparitions who just won’t leave our house. Bram on the other hand. Bram just gets Nora and they have vibed ever since. Is it weird I’m kinda jealous? I had to work to get on Nora’s good side and Bram…just Bramed his way into our lives and made more than just me happy.

“He leaves tomorrow morning for a long semester. He’s telling me had to take six extra credit hours this first semester to get done on time so we may have fewer opportunities to see each other this year.”

“That’s okay, you guys are good. It’ll work.” Nora uttered quickly. I think I figured out why Nora and Bram get along. Both are introverts and both appear to be quiet until you get them around the right people.

“All of you are headed out already?”

That voice. That voice! Alice stood with a small bag on her shoulder.

“H-H-Hey! Allie!” Dad shouted. He then whispered something into her ear and she shook her head.

“Sorry Dad, mom texted me first, you have to go to this.”

“What are you doing home? Thought you weren’t going to get here till after I left?”

“I made it work, Si. This is the last year for sure we will all be able to be in the house at the same time for sure.” Alice was always traveling for her job. I was never sure what she did and she made sure to keep it that way. I think she liked the air of mystery around her person. All I know is that it had to do with IT.

With Alice and Nora here, I guess I could tell both of them now about Bram and me. Mom would certainly enjoy it and may cause her to forget to be angry at me, Dad, and Nora later.

“Well, since you are both here now. I wanna tell you both something.”

“You’re finally giving Miley Cyrus a shot,” guessed Nora.

“You’re taking my advice and wearing normal cut jeans,” assaulted Alice.

“Okay, this wasn’t a guessing game. But seriously. I just told Mom and Dad a few days ago…but…”

Why am I nervous again? Good, bubbly, positive nervous. Bram and me touching nervous.

“I’m going to ask Bram to marry me.”

Nora covered her hands with her palms and I’ve never seen her do that. Alice placed her chin on fists and smiled how Alice smiled. Mom had somehow snuck her phone out of her purse and filmed again, much to my eye roll and Dad was hoping this could get them out of going to the conference.

“No, Jack, Nora, get in the car.” Mom said through choked back tears.

“Are you staying?” I asked Alice, simultaneously hoping she wasn’t for Bram’s sake and also because I hadn’t seen her in awhile and also would love to catch up.

“No sir, I texted Bram to be sure you weren’t going to be nice and see if I wanted to stay. It’s your last night with him, I’ll go busy myself until late tonight.”

I both hate and love how close my siblings are to Bram. But damn do they all know what they’re doing.

“We’ll talk all about your proposal tomorrow morning. Besides, the less I know the less damaging I can be. Wish the same could be said about Mom.”

“You have no idea.”

Buzz.

 I’m outside :)

                                                              Come on in, door’s open

Dancing ellipsis only fluttered my heart when it came from Bram.

 Come out, I have a surprise.

The heart flutter evolved into a full warm dance in my chest. I opened the door and there was Bram, on the curb, leaning on his dad’s convertible with aviators that perfectly shaped his face.

“Dad let me borrow it for a few hours, let’s go for a drive, stud.”

College was so good to Bram. He started regular gym schedules Freshman year of college and hasn’t stopped. His shoulders broadened and filled with tone muscle that dripped to his firm pectorals and ended settling on his toned abs. He had the upside down triangle upper body shape and I can’t say the sentence without becoming aroused.

“Sounds good, let me tell Alice. Alice! I’m going on a drive with Bram!”

“Great cause I have to poop and I didn’t want to have to do that out okay thanks love you bye!”

Jesus, Alice. Bram must have heard because I saw his smile.

Driving down the Georgia dusk with Bram was indescribable. It was still light enough for both Bram and I to validate wearing sunglasses so we could look cool while in the car. Bram doesn’t have to try to look cool, though. He just radiates it without trying, and it’s what makes me love him even more.

The only thing that would make this drive better would be some music. I look at Bram and he immediately knows what I’m going to ask.

“Yes, pick a song.”

Is he that deep in my head already? I love you, I love you, I love you. Did you hear that? Maybe he did because he just looked at me and his lips curled slightly. Okay, Bram, I will pick a song, but something you’ve recently purchased. I go through his phone and see a band I never heard of. Okay, sounds promising. A song called Nervous Dancing? Sounds like he was thinking of me when he purchased it. I hit play.

“Oh, Nick recommended these guys to me. I kinda like em, especially the song you’re playing.”

 But your eyes are dumbing me down and I can't take mine off of you

The lyrics rolled out of the speakers as the wind tussled my hair. Nick was Bram's roommate since Freshman year.

Bram came to a red light and grabbed my hand and intertwined our fingers. I let out slow happy exhale. This is what I want. Forever. I don’t want things like this to ever end. Light touching from Bram is willing mind control, like I can feel him ghost into my body and he moves me and I sit back and let him. I lay my head on his shoulder.

“We’ve done this three times already and this will be the last time, but it’s always so difficult to do after being here all summer with you.” Bram pined, words pouring softly into my ear.

I smile because I was thinking the same thing.

“It’s what we get for finding the person we love in high school.” I reply, sounding like the more emotionally stable one.

 My view of you’s cutting through the bitter storms of the sea

“There’s not a day that goes by that don't regret that I had my stupid crush on you freshman year. I don’t care that it made me feel weird, that I didn’t know what do to with it. Simon, you’re so worth it. You were worth every ounce of my stress and figuring myself out. I don’t know if I ever told you that.”

The wind licking my face could have been the reason my eyes began to water, but come on, that’s not true. I rub my head deeper into his shoulder.

Let’s just drive I wanna see what the wind does to your hair

“You never needed to tell me that, Bram. I always felt it.” I kiss his neck and it makes him shiver and exhale in palpitations.

We drive for another ten minutes. The houses and sky are becoming darker and the sun leaves a orange-yellow lip on the horizon. Bram removes his glasses and his brown eyes find mine. Smiles grow on our faces.

“Let’s get back to your house.” He recommends.

I know I shouldn’t be, but I continue to kiss the soft skin of his neck as Bram’s musk found its way into my nose.

“Si…be careful,” He replied airly, motioning down at his jeans. I could see the outline of himself press greater and greater at his jeans, begging to be let free.

Even after all this time, it feels like a new discovery of passion each time Bram and I are able to spend time with one another. We made a system of visiting one another during the school years, but nothing is better than the summers when we’re together almost every day. Some days we do nothing, some days we do everything. I love both of those days. I love Bram Greenfeld. Soccer calves and all.

The drive home seems to take much longer. Were there this many lights? Were the roads this long and winding? I swallow saliva and anticipation. Bram licks his lips, a tell-tale sign he's feeling the same way as I do. Hunger looks the same on all faces.

We walk into the house as we kick off our shoes (Mom’s orders). I saw the deep brown eyes I fell for time and time again and it awakened a warm sensation below my stomach. He bewitched me and I was under his spell. I fell into his lips and pressed sensually against his body. My lips were able to split his and our tongues met.

That was always the first thing that got me going. I will never get sick of Bram’s kiss. I stop him before we go further (and believe me it would have) and I drag him behind me like he’s my Fay Wray and I’m climbing the Empire State building.

My room hasn’t changed much from high school. The only difference is that now I have to hide condoms and lube from Mom who, as she claims, ‘just likes to clean my room while I’m away’ as a reason to snoop. I know it’s in a loving mother sort of snoopy way, but not when you’re trying to hide your gay sex necessities from your heterosexual mother.

I shut the door and lock it, having since my sophomore year in college convinced my dad to install lockable doors. Bram couldn’t seem to wait as he already had his shirt off. The sun had set now, but light from the street creeped in through my blinds and cast light against his gorgeous frame. I couldn’t help myself when I pushed him onto my bed, but I wasn’t in control of my body, Bram was.

I straddled his lap and I could feel him pressed against my thigh, a warm, hard part of his body pleading to escape their denim prison. Bram’s pupils dilated as I kissed the skin next to his belly button and he let out a small, innocent moan. It made his penis pulsate and I saw it move slightly in his jeans. Enough is enough, it would be inhumane not to assist him in this troubled time.

I unbuttoned his jeans and carefully pulled them down as to not bend it in a hurtful way. It bobbed back and was allowed more room in his boxer briefs. I can never get over how…how do I put this in  the best way possible…how god-damn big Bram is. He kicks of his jeans and I go to kiss his inner thigh just below the fabric of his underwear. While I’m doing this, I’m unbuttoning my own jeans and pull off my underwear with it as well.

“Si, get up here right now.”

Yes, sir. I shoot up and Bram sees I’m now naked except for my shirt, my own penis pointing out from under it. Bram licks his lips and commands me towards him with his eyes. I sit on the bed next to him and he pulls off my shirt.

So you know how I said Bram made a gym regimen, I didn’t want to fall behind either. I’m not the most fit, but I’m no longer the lankey teen I was in high school. My definition isn’t near what Bram’s is, but I’m happy with it and Bram loves it. He kisses my chest as I play with his penis still inside his boxer briefs. Sighs and moans escape between his lips as he moves down to my chest.

“Bram, take them off.”

He complies and they fly off the bed and now both of us are staring at one another, naked, erect. I crawl to him across the bed with my butt high in the air and stop just before my lips touch the tip.  I breathe on it a few times and I can hear Bram’s moans aching for me to put my lips around it. I comply and I am able to go about half way down on it.

“Oha,” Bram whispers out as I’m moving back and forth with my head. Giving Bram a blow job always gets me hard to the point of it hurting. I love being the person doing this to him.  I love that I’m the only one who ever has, and I love that I hope to be the only one who gets to. I can feel his pleasure as his body aches from it, his soft skin and muscle felt under my hands.

After a minute, I am able to get down to the base of his penis. It took me about a year to perfect, but I love doing it because every time I do, Bram makes a noise that makes me hot and sweaty and harder than ever. I come up for some air and he pushes me back onto my bed, my head on my pillows and he returns the favor. His lips and mouth are so warm and soft around my penis and I swear I could come right now if I needed to. But I would never take sex with Bram away from me. Or Bram. Or the universe.

Bram moves up to my head and caresses his tongue into my mouth and I can feel my body relax into his pleasure, his heaven he’s bringing me to. I move my hand to where I hide the lube and move it onto the bed, never, EVER stopping kissing him. When I go for the condom, Bram’s strong arm stops me.

“No. not tonight.”

No sex!? Wait, what?!

“What?”

“No condom, not tonight.”

I’ve never had unprotected sex with Bram, but…I didn’t fight his request. We’ve only been with each other and I will be asking him to marry me and I don’t want to have him wear a condom either. I want to feel Bram. I want to feel every inch of Bram inside me with no interference. Thinking about it begets pre-come and I see it glisten as it drips down onto my stomach.

“Yes. Absolutely. Bram.”

Bram bites his lip and his eyes flutter. “Say it again.”

I add more heat to it, “Bram.”

His penis jumped from arousal and I knew it had to happen. Now.

I apply lube to his hot, hard penis as he uses some to massage it around my butt hole. Bram is always good at making sure the lube is little warm in his hand before applying it, and I can feel his finger prepare it for what’s about to come. His lips returned to mine and we sat on our knees on my bed, exchanging kisses and moans between what I only know is the highest of pleasures. I would have never thought I’d feel this with a person, and Bram discovered it. We discovered it together.

“I need you. Right now. Si. I need it.” Bram stumbled out of his mouth between kisses.

I have never been harder in my life. I’m about to have bareback sex with the love of my life who I will be asking to marry me. I need it more.

“Right now. Bram, I need….Bram.”

Bram lays me down on my back and I could feel his head slowly push into me until I was encompassing half of it. He was about to pull slowly back and I grabbed his back.

“N..no, all of it.”

Bram made a worried, but aroused, but horny, but surprised, but loving face as he plunged deeper into me and the feeling was absolutely incredible. I felt his pubic hair against my butt and Bram’s eyes were beginning to roll around his head, floating in pleasure.

None of it hurt. The only thing I felt was the most connected to him I’ve ever felt. It was not longer Si and Bram. We were one. No condom, just love. Just us.

He began to thrust and the feeling of his hard penis unencumbered by latex stroke my insides. It was a feeling that was even better than all of the best sex we’ve had in the past. Our faces were one of confused pleasure as our mouths hung open and our eyebrows danced attempting to figure out how to showcase what we were both feeling.

Bram’s sweat and our mixed as he moved me close to him and increased the speed of this thrusts. His arms were behind my back and mine were wrapped around his broad shoulders. Our chests touched and created more heat and sweat and pleasure and love.

I pushed him back onto his knees, him still inside me and I began to ride him. It felt. So. Good. His faces, his lip bites, his hungry eyes and tongue. All of it made this first time without protection something spiritual.

“Si…It’s..I’m already,” Bram moaned out.

I wrapped my legs around him and tilted him back on top of me as his speed increased even more.

“Do it.” I moaned.

I couldn’t help myself after Bram nodded his head at me like it was an order.

I came. He came.

I felt him pulsate inside of me.

I felt a part of him was now a part of me.

I felt a part of me was now a part of him.

I felt we were floating. Time stopped and we shared something divine.

Maybe I’m looking into this. Maybe it was the best because our bodies knew something our hearts didn’t. Maybe it was divine because he was going to be mine forever.

Our choral panting brought us down from the divine dimension and we returned to being Bram and Simon. He went to the bathroom first and I followed with my phone, looking up how to properly ensure how to be the most sanitary now that we’re…we’re no longer needing protection. We don’t need it anymore. It served its purpose.

I flushed the toilet and Bram was half awake on the bed.

“Si. I love you. I love you so much it hurts, like I want to become a bigger person to store more love.”

I amble to him and crawl into bed. I lay my head on his chest.

“Bram, I’m so in love with you that it drives me crazy. It drives me to be a better me. I want this forever.” I tip my toe into the water of his thoughts.

“I want this forever too. You and me and…lube and no condoms.”

We both laugh as I slap him lightly on the chest. Soon after, we both fall asleep.

[gaysparklepires]

10. Theory

Read on AO3

“Can I ask just one more?” he entreated instead of answering my demand.

I was on edge, anxious for the worst. And yet, how tempting it was to prolong this moment. To have Beau with me, willingly, for just a few seconds longer. I sighed at the dilemma, and then said, “One.”

“Well…,” he hesitated for a moment, as if deciding which question to voice. “You said you knew I hadn’t gone into the bookstore, and that I had gone south. I was just wondering how you knew that.”

I glared out the windshield. Here was another question that revealed nothing on his part, and too much on mine.

“Really? I thought we were past all the evasiveness,” he said, his tone critical and disappointed.

How ironic. He was relentlessly evasive, without even trying.

Well, he wanted me to be direct. And this conversation wasn’t going anywhere good, regardless.

“Fine, then,” I said. “I followed your scent.”

I wanted to watch his face, but I was afraid of what I would see. Instead, I listened to his breath accelerate and then stabilize. He spoke again after a moment, and his voice was steadier than I would have expected.

“And then you didn’t answer one of my first questions…” he said.

I looked down at him, frowning. He was stalling, too.

“Which one?”

“How does it work—the mind-reading thing?” he asked, reiterating his question from the restaurant. “Can you read anybody’s mind, anywhere? How do you do it? Can the rest of your family do the same thing?” His seemed more confident with his questions now.

“That’s more than one question,” I said.

He just looked at me, waiting for his answers.

And why not tell him? He’d already guessed most of this, and it was an easier subject that the one that loomed.

“No, it’s just me. And I can’t hear anyone, anywhere. They have to be fairly close. The more familiar someone’s… ‘voice’ is, the farther away I can hear them. But still, no more than a few miles.” I tried to think of a way to describe it so that he would understand. An analogy that he could relate to. “It’s a little like being in a huge hall filled with people, everyone talking at once. It’s just a hum—a buzzing of voices in the background. Until I focus on one voice, and then what they’re thinking is clear. Most of the time, I tune it all out—it can be very distracting. And then it’s easier to seem normal”—I grimaced—”when I’m not accidentally answering someone’s thought rather than their words.”

“Why do you think you can’t hear me?” he wondered.

Ah. The question of the century. I examined his face, searching for the answer in his beautiful eyes and coming up short yet again. I decided to give him another truth and another analogy.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “The only guess I have is that maybe your mind doesn’t work the same way the rest of theirs do. Like your thoughts are on the AM frequency and I’m only getting FM.”

I realized that he would not like this analogy. The anticipation of his reaction had me smiling. He didn’t disappoint.

“Did you just suggest my mind doesn’t work right?” he asked, his voice rising with chagrin. “Like I’m a freak?”

Ah, the irony again.

“I hear voices in my mind and you’re worried that you’re the freak,” I laughed. He understood all the small things, and yet the big ones he got backwards. Always the wrong instincts…

Beau was gnawing on his lip, and the crease between his eyes was etched deep.

“Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “It’s just a theory…” And there was a more important theory to be discussed. I was anxious to get it over with. Each passing second was beginning to feel more and more like borrowed time.

“Which brings us back to you.”

He sighed, still chewing his lip—I worried that he would hurt himself. He stared into my eyes, his face troubled.

“Aren’t we past all evasions now?” I asked quietly.

He looked down, struggling with some internal dilemma. Suddenly, he stiffened and his eyes flew wide open. Fear flashed across his face for the first time.

“Holy crow!” he gasped.

I panicked. What had he seen? How had I frightened him?

Then he shouted, “Slow down!”

“What’s wrong?” I didn’t understand where his terror was coming from.

“You’re pushing a hundred and ten miles an hour!” he yelled at me. He flashed a look out the window, and recoiled from the dark trees racing past us.

This little thing, just a bit of speed, had him shouting in fear?

I rolled my eyes. “Relax, Beau.”

“Are you trying to kill us?” he demanded, his voice high and tight.

“We’re not going to crash,” I promised him.

He sucked in a sharp breath, and then spoke in a slightly more level tone. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

“I always drive like this.”

I met his gaze, amused by his shocked expression.

“Keep your eyes on the road, Edward!” He shouted.

“I’ve never had an accident, Beau—I’ve never even gotten a ticket.” I grinned at him and touched my forehead. It made it even more comical—the absurdity of being able to joke with him about something so secret and strange. “Built-in radar detector.”

“Very funny,” he said sarcastically, his voice more frightened than angry. “Charlie’s a cop, remember? I was raised to abide by traffic laws. Besides, if you turn us into a Volvo pretzel around a tree trunk, you can probably just walk away.”

“Probably,” I repeated, and then laughed without humor. Yes, we would fare quite differently in a car accident. He was right to be afraid, despite my driving abilities… “But you can’t.”

With a sigh, I let the car drift to a crawl. “Happy?”

He eyed the speedometer, and smirked. “Good boy.”

I felt a thrill of excitement rush through my body at his words. I couldn’t understand what I was feeling. I narrowed my eyes and stared at him, but I couldn’t fight the smile that wanted to break across my face

Despite the thrill of his words, the torture of crawling along the highway was nearly unbearable. “I hate driving slow.” I muttered, but let the needle slide another notch down.

“This is slow?” he asked.

“Enough commentary on my driving,” I said impatiently. He stifled a laugh at my tone, but I was frustrated now. How many times had he dodged my question? Three times? Four? Were his speculations that horrific? I had to know—immediately. “I’m still waiting for your latest theory.”

He bit his lip again, and his expression became upset, almost pained.

I reined in my impatience and softened my voice. I didn’t want him to be distressed.

“I won’t laugh,” I promised, wishing that it was only embarrassment that made him unwilling to talk.

“I’m not worried about that.” His voice was soft.

“Then what?” I pressed.

“I’m worried that you’ll be… upset,” he whispered.

I considered his words. I didn’t want him to be worried about that. I never wanted him to be afraid of me being upset with him. It made me feel more like a monster than I already was. I watched him from the corners of my eyes. He was fretting. Rubbing his hands, nervously. I decided to take a chance. I held my hand out towards him—just a few centimeters.

His eyes darted up to mine, confusion apparent in their silvery depths.

“Don’t worry about me,” I assured him. “I can handle it.”

He tentatively took my hand, and I curled my fingers around his as gently as I could for just a brief moment. Absorbing the sensation of his warm hand—like silk over glass. Glass I could shatter with the slightest wrong move. I unwillingly untangled my hand from his and placed it on the gearshift.

He slowly placed his hand over the top of mine again. Did he really want his hand on mine? Was he truly not repulsed by my hand? He ran his thumb along the outside of my hand, tracing from my wrist to the tip of my little finger. The sensation was exhilarating, and yet I could not revel in it as deeply as I wished. He had to be repulsed by the cold hardness of my skin…

“The suspense is killing me, Beau,” the words came out a shaky breath as I watched his hand. His touch was stirring me in ways I couldn’t understand.

His voice was small. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning…” I remembered his words before dinner. “You said you didn’t come up with this on your own?”

“No,” he agreed, and then he was silent again.

I thought about what might have inspired him. “What got you started—a book? A film?”

I should have looked through his collections when he was out of the house. I had no idea if Bram Stoker or Anne Rice was there in his stack of worn paperbacks…

“No,” he said again. “It was Saturday, at the beach.”

I hadn’t expected that. The local gossip about us had never strayed into anything too bizarre—or too precise. Was there a new rumor I’d missed? Beau peeked up at me and saw the surprise on my face.

“I ran into an old family friend—Jacob Black,” he went on. “His dad and Charlie have been friends since I was a baby.”

Jacob Black—the name was no familiar, and yet it reminded me of something… some time, long ago… I stared out of the windshield, flipping through memories to find the connection.

“His dad is one of the Quileute elders,” he said.

Jacob Black. Ephraim Black. A descendant, no doubt.

It was as bad as it could get.

He knew the truth.

My mind was flying through the ramifications as the car flew around the dark curves in the road, my body rigid with anguish—motionless except for the small, automatic actions it took to steer the car.

He knew the truth.

But… if he’d learned the truth Saturday… then he’d known it all evening long… and yet…

“We went for a walk on the beach together,” he went on.

Despite my growing panic, I still felt a twinge of jealousy over the way he described the walk. Laughable. Like that mattered anymore now that he knew the truth.

He continued, “And he was telling me about some old legends—trying to scare me, I guess. He told me one…”

He stopped short, but there was no need for his qualms now; I knew what he was going to say. The only mystery left was why he was here with me now.

“Go on,” I said.

“About vampires,” he breathed, the words less than a whisper.

Somehow, it was even worse than knowing that he knew, hearing him speak the word aloud. I flinched at the sound of it. Yet, his thumb continued to trace the lines of my hand. Somehow, the gesture comforted me and I controlled myself again.

“And… you immediately thought of me?” I asked.

“No. He mentioned your family.”

How ironic that it would be Ephraim’s own progeny that would violate the treaty he’d vowed to uphold. A grandson, or great-grandson perhaps. How many years had it been? Seventy?

I should have realized that it was not the old men who believed in the legends that would be the danger. Of course, the younger generation—those who would have been warned, but would have thought the ancient superstitions laughable—of course that was where the danger of exposure would lie.

I suppose this meant I was now free to slaughter the small, defenseless tribe on the coastline, were I so inclined. Ephraim and his pack of protectors were long dead…

“He just thought it was a silly folk-tale,” Beau said suddenly, his voice edged with a new anxiety. “He didn’t expect me to think anything of it.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his free hand tense uneasily.

“It was my fault,” he said after a brief pause, and then he hung his head as if he were ashamed. “I convinced him to tell me.”

“Why?” It wasn’t so hard to keep my voice level now. The worst was already done. As long as we spoke of the details of the revelation, we didn’t have to move on to the consequences of it.

“Logan said something about you—he was trying to provoke me.” He made a little face at the memory. I was slightly distracted, wondering how Beau would be provoked by someone talking about me… “And an older boy from the tribe said your family didn’t come to the reservation, only it sounded like he meant something different. So, when Jacob and I went off alone I asked him.”

His head dropped slightly lower as he admitted this.

Surely, there was more to the story. The Black boy must have had some idea that the tribe legends were secrets. Surely he wouldn’t have just given away the information.

“You must have said something to convince him to tell you.”

Beau looked confused by this, “No… I just… asked him?”

Suddenly, I could just imagine—considering the attraction he seemed to have for everyone, totally unconscious on his part—how overwhelming his charm could be, when he wasn’t even trying. Alone, walking on the beach with this boy and his stunning silver eyes, I was suddenly full of pity for the unsuspecting boy he’d questioned and I couldn’t stop myself from laughing.

“You obviously don’t understand your own charm,” I said, and then I laughed again with black humor. I wished I could have heard the Black boy’s reaction, witnessed the devastation for myself. “And you accused me of dazzling people—poor Jacob Black.”

I wasn’t as angry with the source of my exposure as I would have expected to feel. He didn’t know any better. And how could I except anyone to deny Beau what he wanted? No, I only felt sympathy for the damage Beau would have done to the Black boy’s peace of mind.

I felt his blush heat the air between us. I glanced at him, and he was glaring at me, scarlet faced. “Are you jealous?” he said quickly.

I probably was, if I was honest. How much I would prefer it were me walking along the beach with Beau while he unleashed the full power of his charm on me. Ah, perchance to dream.

“What did you do then?” I prompted. Time to get back to the horror story.

“I did some research on the internet.”

Ever practical. “And did that convince you?”

“No,” he said. “Nothing fit. Most of it was kind of silly. And then…” He trailed off. He seemed thoughtful for a moment. “I decided… It didn’t matter,” he whispered the words.

Shock froze my thoughts for a half-second, and then it all fit together. Why he’d sent his friends away tonight rather than escape with them. Why he had gotten into my car with me again instead of running, screaming for the police…

His reactions were always wrong—always completely wrong. He pulled danger toward himself. He invited it.

“It didn’t matter?” I said through my teeth, anger filling me. I pulled my hand out from under his. How was I supposed to protect someone so… so… so determined to be unprotected?

“No,” he said in a low voice that was inexplicably tender. “It doesn’t matter to me what you are.”

He was impossible.

“You don’t care if I’m a monster? If I’m not human?”

“No.”

I started to wonder if he was entirely stable.

I supposed that I could arrange for him to receive the best care available… Carlisle would have the connections to find him the most skilled doctors, the most talented therapists. Perhaps something could be done to fix whatever it was that was wrong with him, what ever it was that made him content to sit beside a vampire with his heart beating calmly and steadily. I would watch over the facility, naturally, and visit as often as I was allowed…

“You’re upset,” he sighed. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

As if him hiding these disturbing tendencies would help either of us.

“No. I’d rather know what you’re thinking—even if what you’re thinking is insane.”

I had rested my hand back on the gearshift, and his hand returned to stroking the back of mine with his thumb. Despite everything, it was soothing.

“What are you thinking about now?” I needed to know, I needed some explanation to the workings of his mind.

“I’m just curious about a few things.” His voice was composed.

It was like it didn’t matter what I was. He didn’t care. He knew I was inhuman, a monster, and this didn’t really matter to him.

Aside from my worries about his sanity, I began to feel a swelling of hope. I tried to quash it.

“What are you curious about?” I asked him. There were no secrets left, only minor details.

“How old are you?” he asked.

My answer was automatic and ingrained. “Seventeen.”

“And how long have you been seventeen?”

I tried not to smile at the patronizing tone. “A while,” I admitted.

“Okay,” he said, abruptly enthusiastic. He smiled up at me. When I stared back, anxious again about his mental health, he smiled wider. I grimaced.

“Don’t laugh,” he warned. “But how can you come out during the daytime?”

I laughed despite his request. His research had not netted him anything unusual, it seemed. “Myth,” I told him.

“Burned by the sun?”

“Myth.”

“Sleeping in coffins?”

“Myth.”

Sleep had not been a part of my life for so long—not until these last few nights, as I’d watched Beau dreaming…

“I can’t sleep,” I murmured, answering his question more fully.

He was silent for a moment.

“At all?”

“Never,” I breathed.

I stared into his eyes, wide under the thick fringe of lashes, and yearned for sleep. Not for oblivion, as I had before, not to escape boredom, but because I wanted to dream. Maybe I could be unconscious, if I could dream, I could live for a few hours in a world where he and I could be together. He dreamed of me. I wanted to dream of him.

He stared back at me, his expression full of wonder. I had to look away.

I could not dream of him. He should not dream of me.

“You haven’t asked the most important question yet,” I said, my silent chest colder and harder than before. He had to be forced to understand. At some point, he would have to realize what he was doing now. He must be made to see that this all did matter—more than any other consideration. Considerations like the fact that I loved him.

“Which one is that?” he asked, surprised and unaware.

This only made my voice harder. “You aren’t concerned about my diet?”

“Oh. That.” He spoke in a quiet tone that I couldn’t interpret.

“Yes, that. Don’t you want to know if I drink blood?”

He cringed away from my question. Finally. He was understanding.

“Well, Jacob said something about that,” he said.

“What did Jacob say?”

“He said you didn’t… hunt people. He said your family wasn’t supposed to be dangerous because you only hunted animals.”

“He said we weren’t dangerous?” I repeated cynically.

“Not exactly,” he clarified. “He said you weren’t supposed to be dangerous. But the Quileutes still didn’t want you on their land, just in case.”

I stared at the road, my thoughts in a hopeless snarl, my throat aching with the familiar fiery thirst.

“So, was he right?” he asked, as calmly as if he were confirming aweather report. “About not hunting people?”

“The Quileutes have a long memory.”

He nodded to himself, thinking hard.

“Don’t let that make you complacent, though,” I said quickly. “They’re right to keep their distance from us. We are still dangerous.”

“I don’t understand.”

No he didn’t. How to make him see?

“We try,” I told him. “We’re usually very good at what we do. Sometimes we make mistakes. Me, for example. Allowing myself to be alone with you.”

His scent was still a force in the car. I was growing used to it, I could almost ignore it, but there was no denying that my body still yearned toward him for the wrong reason. My mouth was swimming with venom.

“This is a mistake?” he asked, and there was heartbreak in his voice. The sound of it disarmed me. He wanted to be with me—despite everything, he wanted to be with me.

Hope swelled again, and I beat it back.

“A very dangerous one,” I told him truthfully, wishing the truth could really somehow cease to matter.

He didn’t respond for a moment. I heard his breathing change—it hitched in strange ways that did not sound like fear.

“Tell me more,” he said suddenly, his voice distorted by anguish.

I examined him carefully.

He was in pain. How had I allowed this?

“What more do you want to know?” I asked, trying to think of a way to keep him from hurting. He should not hurt. I couldn’t let him be hurt.

“Tell me why you hunt animals instead of people,” he said, still anguished.

Wasn’t it obvious? Or maybe this didn’t matter to him either.

“I don’t want to be a monster,” I muttered.

“But animals aren’t enough?”

I searched for another comparison, a way that he could understand. “I can’t be sure, of course, but I’d compare it to living on tofu and soy milk; we call ourselves vegetarians, our little inside joke. It doesn’t completely satiate the hunger—or rather the thirst. But it keeps us strong enough to resist. Most of the time.” My voice got lower; I was ashamed of the danger I had allowed him to be in. Danger I continued to allow... “Sometimes it’s more difficult than others.”

“Is it very difficult for you now?”

I sighed. Of course he would ask the question I didn’t want to answer. “Yes,” I admitted.

I expected his physical response correctly this time; his breathing held steady, his heart kept an even pattern. I expected it, but I did not understand it. How could he not be afraid?

“But you’re not hungry now,” he declared, perfectly sure of himself.

“Why do you think that?”

“Your eyes,” he said, his tone offhand. “I told you I had a theory. I’ve noticed that people are crabbier when they’re hungry.”

I chuckled at his description: crabby. That was an understatement. But he was dead right, as usual. “You’re observant, aren’t you?”

He smirked, but a crease ran between his eyes as if he were concentrating on something.

“Were you hunting this weekend, with Emmett?” he asked after my laugh had faded. The casual way he spoke was as fascinating as it was frustrating. Could he really accept so much in stride? I was closer to shock than he seemed to be.

“Yes,” I told him, and then, as I was about to leave it at that, I felt the same urge I’d had in the restaurant: I wanted him to know me. “I didn’t want to leave,” I went on slowly, “but it was necessary. It’s a bit easier to be around you when I’m not thirsty.”

“Why didn’t you want to leave?”

I took a deep breath, and then I turned to meet his gaze. This kind of honesty was difficult in a very different way.

“It makes me… anxious,” I supposed that word would suffice, thought it wasn’t strong enough, “to be away from you. I wasn’t joking when I asked you to try not to fall in the ocean or get run over last Thursday. I was distracted all weekend, worrying about you. And after what happened tonight, I’m surprised that you did make it through a whole weekend unscathed.” Then I remembered the scrapes on his palms. “Well, not totally unscathed,” I amended.

“What?”

“Your hands,” I reminded him.

He sighed and grimaced. “I fell. Once.”

I’d guessed right. “That’s what I thought,” I said, unable to contain my smile. “I suppose it could have been much worse—and that possibility tormented me the entire time I was away. It was a very long three days. I really got on Emmett’s nerves.” Honestly, that didn’t belong in the past tense. I was probably still irritating Emmett, and all the rest of my family, too. Except Alice…

“Three days?” he asked, his voice suddenly sharp. “Didn’t you just get back today?”

I didn’t understand the edge in his voice. “No, we got back Sunday.”

“Then why weren’t any of you in school?” He asked, frustration in his voice. His irritation confused me. He didn’t seem to realize that this question was one that related to mythology again.

“Well, you asked if the sun hurt me, and it doesn’t,” I said. “But I can’t go out in the sunlight—at least, not where anyone can see.”

That distracted him from his mysterious frustration. “Why?” he asked, leaning his head to one side.

I doubted I could come up with the appropriate analogy to explain this one. So I just told him, “I’ll show you sometime.” And then I wondered if this was a promise I would end up breaking. Would I see him again, after tonight? Did I love him enough yet to be able to bear leaving him?

“You could have called me,” he said.

What an odd conclusion. “But I knew you were safe.”

“But I didn’t know where you were. I—“ He came to an abrupt stop, and looked at his hands.

“What?”

“I just… I thought you might not come back. That somehow you knew that I knew and…” he paused, his voice shy, the skin over his cheekbones warming. “I was afraid you would disappear.”

Are you happy now? I demanded of myself. Well, here was my reward for hoping.

I was bewildered, elated, horrified—mostly horrified—to realize that all my wildest imaginings were not so far off the mark. This was why it didn’t matter to him that I was a monster. It was exactly the same reason that the rules no longer mattered to me. Why right and wrong were no longer compelling influences. Why all my priorities had shifted one rung down to make room for this boy at the very top.

Beau cared for me, too.

I knew it could be nothing in comparison to how I loved him. But it was enough for him to risk his life to sit here with me. To do so gladly.

Enough to cause him pain if I did the right thing and left him.

Was there anything I could do now that would not hurt him? Anything at all?

I should have stayed away. I should never have come back to Forks. I would cause him nothing but pain.

Would that stop me from staying now? From making it worse?

The way I felt right now, feeling his warmth against my skin…

No. Nothing would stop me.

“Ah,” I groaned to myself. “This is wrong.”

“What did I say?” he asked, quick to take the blame on himself.

“Don’t you see, Beau? It’s one thing for me to make myself miserable, but a wholly other thing for you to be so involved. I don’t want to hear that you feel that way.” It was the truth, it was a lie. The most selfish part of me was flying with the knowledge that he wanted me as I wanted him. “It’s wrong. It’s not safe. I’m dangerous, Beau—please grasp that.”

“No.” His lips pouted out.

“I’m serious.” I was battling with myself so strongly—half desperate for him to accept, half desperate to keep the warnings from escaping—that the words came through my teeth as a growl.

“So am I,” he insisted. “I told you, it doesn’t matter to me what you are. It’s too late.”

Too late? The world was bleakly black and white for one endless second as I watched the shadows crawl across the sunny lawn toward Beau’s sleeping form in my memory. Inevitable, unstoppable. They stole the color from his skin, and plunged him into darkness.

Too late? Alice’s vision swirled in my head, Beau’s blood red eyes staring back at me impassively. Expressionless—but there was no way that he could not hate me for that future. Hate me for stealing everything from him. Stealing his life and his soul.

It could not be too late.

“Never say that,” I hissed.

He stared out his window, and his teeth bit into his lip again. His hands were balled into tight fists in his lap. His breathing hitched and broke.

“What are you thinking?” I had to know.

He shook his head without looking at me. I saw something glisten, like a crystal, on his cheek.

Agony. “Are you crying?” I’d made him cry. I’d hurt him that much.

He scrubbed the tears away with the back of his hand.

“No,” he lied, his voice breaking.

Some long buried instinct had me reaching out toward him—in that one second I felt more human than I ever had. And then I remembered that I was… not. And I lowered my hand.

And yet, why couldn’t I be human? Why couldn’t I deny the monster I was and at least try? So I reached out and placed my hand on top of his. His eyes shot open to look at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my jaw locked. How could I ever tell him how sorry I was? Sorry for all the stupid mistakes I’d made. Sorry for my never-ending selfishness. Sorry that he was so unfortunate as to have inspired this first, tragic love of mine. Sorry also for the things beyond my control—that I’d been the monster chosen by fate to end his life in the first place.

I took a deep breath—ignoring the wretched reaction to the flavor in the car—and tried to collect myself, concentrating on gently stroking the back of his hand with my thumb.

“Will I see you tomorrow?” He asked, his voice full of emotion.

I grappled with the question. I wanted nothing more than to see him, but I had hurt him—I had made him cry. Would he want to see me?

“Do you want to see me?” I asked, my voice tinged with the sadness and worry that he would say no.

“I do.” Was his simple reply.

Elation beyond words.

As long as I was on my way to hell—I might as well enjoy the journey.

“Then I’ll be there,” I smiled at him, and it felt good to do this. “I’ll save you a seat at lunch.”

His heart fluttered; my dead heart suddenly felt warmer.

I stopped the car in front of his father’s house. He made no move to leave.

“You’ll really be there tomorrow?” He asked.

“I promise.” I gave his hand a gentle squeeze of assurance—exercising as much control as I could—before removing my hand from his.

How could doing the wrong thing give me so much happiness? Surely there was something amiss in that.

He nodded, satisfied, and started to remove my jacket.

“You can keep it,” I assured him quickly. I rather wanted to leave him with something of myself. A token, like the bottle cap that was in my pocket now… “You don’t have a jacket for tomorrow.”

He handed it back to me, smiling ruefully. “I don’t want to have to explain to Charlie,” he told me.

I would imagine not. I smiled at him. “Oh, right.”

He put his hand on the door handle, and then stopped. Unwilling to leave, just as I was unwilling to let him go.

To have him unprotected, even for a few moments…

Peter and Charlotte were well on their way by now, long past Seattle, no doubt. But there were always others. This world was not a safe place for any human, and for him it seemed to be more dangerous than it was for the rest.

“Beau?” I asked, surprised at the pleasure there was in simply speaking his name.

“Yes?”

“Will you promise me something?”

“Sure,” he said hesitantly, his eyes tightened curiously.

“Don’t go into the woods alone,” I warned him, wondering if this request would trigger the objection in his eyes.

He blinked, startled. “Why?”

I glowered into the untrustworthy darkness. The lack of light was no problem for my eyes, but neither would it trouble another hunter. It only blinded humans.

“I’m not always the most dangerous thing out there,” I told him. “Let’s leave it at that.”

He shivered, but recovered quickly and was even smiling when he told me, “Sure, Edward.”

His breath touched my face, so sweet and fragrant.

I could stay here all night like this, but he needed his sleep. The two desires seemed equally strong as they continually warned inside me; wanting him versus wanting him to be safe.

I sighed at the impossibilities. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, knowing that I would see him much sooner than that. He wouldn’t see me until tomorrow, though.

“Tomorrow, then,” he agreed as he slowly opened his door.

Agony again, watching him leave.

I leaned after him, wanting to hold him there. “Beau?”

My hand caught his, he turned, and then froze, surprised to find our faces so close together.

I, too, was overwhelmed by the proximity. The heat rolled off him in waves, caressing my face. I could all but feel the silk of his skin.

“Beau, I…” but I couldn’t finish. So much I wanted to say, but I didn’t know how. My hand held his, as gently as I could. I searched his silver eyes, wishing I could know how he had decided that he cared for a monster such as myself. More than that, I was searching for the will to be strong enough to be as human as possible for him. I felt myself lean even closer to him, and my lips parted ever so slightly. Why? To speak? Or was some deep, long unspoken human instinct fighting to break free?

His heartbeat stuttered, and his lips fell open.

I could not go any further than this, after all, I was only so strong.

“Sleep well,” I whispered, and leaned away, releasing his hand, before the urgency in my body—either the familiar thirst or the very new and strange hunger I suddenly felt—could make me do something that might hurt him.

He sat there motionless for a moment, his eyes wide and stunned. Dazzled, I guessed.

As was I.

He recovered—though his face was still a bit bemused—and half fell out of the car, tripping over his feet and having to catch the frame of the car to right himself.

I chuckled—hopefully it was too quiet for him to hear.

I watched him stumble his pay up to the pool of light that surrounded the front door. Safe for the moment. And I would be back soon to make sure.

I could feel his eyes follow me as I drove down the dark street. Such a different sensation than I was accustomed to. Usually, I could simply watch myself through someone’s following eyes, were I of a mind to. This was strangely exciting—this intangible sensation of watching eyes. I knew it was just because they were his eyes.

A million thoughts chased each other through my head as I drove aimlessly into the night.

For a long time, I circled through the streets, going nowhere, thinking of Beau and the incredible release of having the truth known. No longer did I have to dread that he would find out what I was. He knew. It didn’t matter to him. Even though this was obviously a bad thing for him, it was amazingly liberating for me.

More than that, I thought of Beau and requited love. He couldn’t love me the way I loved him—such an overpowering, all-consuming, crushing love would probably break his fragile body. But he felt strongly enough. Enough to subdue the instinctive fear. Enough to want to be with me. And being with him was the greatest happiness I had ever known.

For a while—as I was all alone and hurting no one else for a change—I allowed myself to feel that happiness without dwelling on the tragedy. Just to be happy that he cared for me. Just to exult in the triumph of winning his affection. Just to imagine day after day of sitting close to him, hearing his voice and earning and earning his smiles.

I replayed that smile in my head, seeing his full lips pull up at the corners, the hint of a dimple that touched his chin, the way his eyes warmed and melted… His fingers had felt so warm and soft on my hand tonight. I imagined how it would feel to touch the delicate skin that stretched over his cheekbones—silky, warm… so fragile. Silk over glass… frighteningly breakable.

I didn’t see where my thoughts were leading until it was too late. As I dwelt on that devastating vulnerability, new images of his face intruded on my fantasies.

Lost in the shadows, pale with fear—yet his jaw tight and determined, his eyes fierce, full of concentration, his lean body braced to strike at the hulking forms that gathered around him, nightmares in the gloom…

“Ah,” I groaned as the simmering hate that I’d all but forgotten in the joy of loving him burst again into an inferno of rage.

I was alone. Beau was, I trusted, safe inside his home; for a moment I was fiercely glad that Charlie Swan—head of the local law enforcement, trained and armed—was his father. That ought to mean something, provide some shelter for him.

He was safe. It would not take me so very long to avenge the insult…

No. Beau deserved better. I could not allow him to care for a murderer.

But… what about the others?

Beau was safe, yes. Angela and Jessica were also, surely, safe in their beds.

Yet a monster was loose in the streets of Port Angeles. A human monster—did that make him the humans’ problem? To commit the murder I ached to commit was wrong. I knew that. But leaving him free to attack again could not be the right thing either.

The blond hostess from the restaurant. The server I’d never really looked at. Both had irritated me in a trivial way, but that did not mean they deserved to be in danger. This human monster did not discriminate.

Either one of them could be somebody’s Beau.

That realization decided me.

I turned the car north, accelerating now that I had a purpose. Whenever I had a problem that was beyong me—something tangible like this—I knew where I could go for help.

Alice was sitting on the porch, waiting for me. I pulled to a stop in front of the house rather than going around to the garage.

“Carlisle’s in his study,” Alice told me before I could ask.

“Thank you,” I said, tousling her hair as I passed.

Thank you for returning my call, she thought sarcastically.

“Oh.” I paused by the door, pulling out my phone and checking my missed calls. “Sorry. I didn’t even check to see who it was. I was… busy.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry, too. By the time I saw what was going to happen, you were on your way.”

“It was close,” I murmured.

Sorry, she repeated, ashamed of herself.

It was easy to be generous, knowing that Beau was fine. “Don’t be. I know you can’t catch everything. No one expects you to be omniscient, Alice.”

“Thanks.”

“I almost asked you out to dinner tonight—did you catch that before I changed my mind?”

She grinned. “No, I missed that one, too. Wish I’d known. I would have come.”

“What were you concentrating on, that you missed so much?”

Jasper’s thinking about our anniversary. She laughed. He’s trying not to make a decision on my gift, but I think I have a pretty good idea…

“You’re shameless.”

“Yep.”

She pursed her lips, and stared up at me, a hint of accusation in her expression. I paid better attention later. Are you going to tell them that he knows?

I sighed. “Yes. Later.”

I won’t say anything. Do me a favor and tell Royal when I’m not around, okay?

I flinched. “Sure.”

Beau took it pretty well.

“Too well.”

Alice grinned at me. Don’t underestimate Beau.

I tried to block the image I didn’t want to see—Beau and Alice, best of friends.

Impatient now, I sighed heavily. I wanted to be through with the next part of the evening; I wanted it over with. But I was a little worried to leave Forks…

“Alice…” I began. She saw what I was planning to ask.

He’ll be fine tonight. I’m keeping a better watch now. He sort of needs twenty-four hour supervision, doesn’t he?

“At least.”

“Anyway, you’ll be with him soon enough.”

I took a deep breath. The words were beautiful to me.

“Go on—get this done so you can be where you want to be,” she told me.

I nodded, and hurried up to Carlisle’s office.

He was waiting for me, his eyes on the door rather than the thick book on his desk.

“I heard Alice tell you where to find me,” he said, and smiled.

It was a relief to be with him, to see the empathy and deep intelligence in his eyes. Carlisle would know what to do.

“I need help.”

“Anything, Edward,” he promised.

“Did Alice tell you what happened to Beau tonight?”

Almost happened, he amended.

“Yes, almost. I’ve got a dilemma, Carlisle. You see, I want… very much… to kill him.” The words started to flow fast and passionate. “So much. But I know that would be wrong, because it would be vengeance, not justice. All anger, no impartiality. Still it can’t be right to leave a serial rapist and killer wandering Port Angeles! I don’t know the humans there, but I can’t let someone else take Beau’s place as this monster’s victim. Those other young men and women—someone might feel about them the same way I feel about Beau. Might suffer what I would have suffered if he’d been harmed. It’s not right—“

His wide, unexpected smile stopped the rush of my words cold.

He’s very good for you, isn’t he? So much compassion, so much control. I’m impressed.

“I’m not looking for compliments, Carlisle.”

“Of course not. But I can’t help my thoughts, can I?” He smiled again. “I’ll take care of it. You can rest easy. No one else will be harmed in Beau’s place.”

I saw the plan in his head. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, it did not satisfy my craving for brutality, but I could see that it was the right thing.

“I’ll show you where to find him,” I said.

“Let’s go.”

He grabbed his black bag on the way. I would have preferred a more aggressive form of sedation—like a cracked skull—but I would let Carlisle do this his way.

We took my car. Alice was still on the steps. She grinned and waved as we drove way. I saw that she had looked ahead for me; we would have no difficulties.

The trip was very short on the dark, empty road. I left my headlights off to keep from attraction attention. It made me smile to think how Beau would have reacted to this pace. I’d already been driving slower than usual—to prolong my time with him—when he’d objected.

Carlisle was thinking of Beau, too.

I didn’t foresee that he would be so good for Edward. That’s unexpected. Perhaps this was somehow meant to be. Perhaps it serves a higher purpose. Only…

He pictures Beau with snow cold skin and blood red eyes, and then flinched away from the image.

Yes. Only. Indeed. Because how could there be any good in destroying something so pure and lovely.

I glowered into the night, all the joy of the evening destroyed by his thoughts.

Edward deserves happiness. He’s owed it. The fierceness of Carlisle’s thoughts surprised me. There must be a way.

I wished I could believe that—either one. But there was no higher purpose to what was happening to Beau. Just a vicious harpy, an ugly, butter face who could not bear for Beau to have the life he deserved.

I did not linger in Port Angeles. I took Carlisle to the dive bar where the creature named Lonnie was drowning his disappointment with his friends—two of whom had already passed out. Carlisle could see how hard this was for me to be so close—for me to hear t he monsters thoughts and see his memories, memories of Beau mixed in with his less fortunate victims who no one could save now.

My breaching sped. I clenched the steering wheel.

Go, Edward, he told me gently. I’ll make the rest of them safe. You go back to Beau.

It was exactly the right thing to say. His name was the only distraction that could mean anything to me now.

I left him in the car, and ran back to Forks in a straight line though the sleeping forest. It took less time than the first journey in the speeding car. It was just minutes later that I scaled the side of his house and slid his window out of my way.

I sighed silently with relief. Everything was just as it should be. Beau was safe in his bed, dreaming, his wet hair tangled around itself on the pillow.

But, unlike most nights, he was curled into a small ball with the covers stretched taut around his shoulders. Cold, I guessed. Before I could settled into my usual seat, he shivered in his sleep, and his lips trembled.

I thought for a brief moment, and then I eased out into the hallway, exploring another part of his house for the first time.

Charlie’s snores were loud and even. I could almost catch the edge of his dream. Something with the rush of water and patient expectation… fishing, maybe?

There, at the top of the stairs, was a promising looking cupboard. I opened it hopefully, and found what I was looking for. I selected the thickest blanket from the tiny linen closet, and took it back into Beau’s room. I would return it before he awoke, and no one would be the wiser.

Holding my breath, I cautiously spread the blanket over him; he didn’t react to the added weight. I returned to the rocking chair.

While I waited anxiously for him to warm up, I thought of Carlisle, wondering where he was now. I knew his plan would go smoothly—Alice had seen that.

Thinking of my father made me sigh—Carlisle gave me too much credit. I wished I was the person he thought me to be. That person, the one who deserved happiness, might hope to be worthy of this sleeping boy. How different things would be if I could be that Edward.

For a moment, the hag-faced fate I’d imagined, the one who sought Beau’s destruction, was replaced by the most foolish and reckless of angels. A guardian angel—something Carlisle’s version of me might have had. With a heedless smile on her lips, her sky-colored eyes full of mischief, the angel formed Beau in such a fashion that there was no way I could possibly overlook him. A ridiculously potent scent to demand my attention, a silent mind to enflame my curiosity, a quiet beauty to hold my eyes, a selfless soul to earn my awe. Leave out the natural sense of self-preservation—so that Beau could bear to be near me—and, finally, add a wide streak of appallingly bad luck.

With a careless laugh, the irresponsible angel propelled her fragile creation directly into my path, trusting blithely in my flawed morality to keep Beau alive.

In this vision, I was not Beau’s sentence; he was my reward.

I shook my head at the fantasy of the unthinking angel. She was not much better than the harpy. I could not think well of a higher power that would behave in such a dangerous and stupid manner. At least the ugly fate I could fight against.

And I had no angel. They were reserved for the good—for people like Beau. So where was his angel through all this? Who was watching over him?

I laughed silently, startled, as I realized that, just now, I was filling that role.

A vampire angel—there was a stretch.

After about a half hour, Beau relaxed out of the tight ball. His breathing got deeper and he started to murmur. I smiled, satisfied. It was a small thing, but at least he was sleeping more comfortably tonight because I was here.

“Edward,” he sighed, and he smiled, too.

I shoved tragedy aside for the moment, and let myself be happy again.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Can you imagine bram taking Nate on a supply run and buying rope and barbed wire to tie up the puppy from a hardware store. The sixteen y/o behind the counter checking them out asks what project they’re working on

CW: Creepy/intimate whumper, vaguely referenced torture, vaguely referenced noncon

She never looks up.

Nate tries to catch her eye - he’s not sure why, he can’t say anything with Bram’s hand hot against his lower back right through his T-shirt, the whine of some errant mosquito too close to his ear. But he wants to say he tried, did something, even when there’s nothing he can really do.

She scans each of Bram’s items - heavy rope first, wound in a tight circle, and Nate’s throat wants to close at the knowledge of how Danny will be strung up by it until the rope burns and chafes and makes him bleed. Then the thinner, softer cord, the one that goes in the bedroom, lives in endless knots along the headboard, lengths for Danny’s wrists, for his thighs, for his ankles, around his neck. The hammer and nails, and Nate doesn’t know what those are for but he prays they’re for an actual home project, and that he won’t have to watch them driven into Danny’s skin.

That he won’t be the one to do it, with Bram’s eyes locked on his whispering encouragement and love as Danny’s initial attempts to muffle himself turn eventually to cries and then to screams.

She scans the items one by one, and she never looks up.

Duct tape, in three different colors. They had a ‘novelty roll’ printed with dog bones on it and Bram had picked it up with absolute delight. Nate shudders, watching it swipe across the counter now, the little ‘beep’ as the price is added to the total.

In the diner, they greet Bram happily, as a welcome friend. In the post office, the person behind the counter had recognized Nate from the last time he was dragged along on one of these, and Nate’s attempt to return her greeting had been so halting, so heavy with broken consonants and drawn-out vowels, that he’d finally given up and let Bram speak for him.

Oh, that’s all right, The postal worker said with real compassion and empathy. He says you’ve got a bad stutter and you’re real shy about it. That’s all right.

I’m not shy, Nate thought desperately, the words trapped by a mouth that wouldn’t work, behind the feeling of Bram’s hand brushing the hair at the back of his neck, the knowledge that if he fucked this up, Danny would be dead before the cops could find him. I’m fucking scared, please, just notice how scared I am. Have someone follow Bram’s truck when we leave. Do something, notice me.

He smiled on cue as they took the packages from Bram’s most recent orders, the envelopes that came in, and walked back out to the truck in the parking lot. He looked over his shoulder once, and the postal worker gave him a cheery wave.

Wave back, Bram had murmured. Wave back to her, baby.

Nate did as he was told.

Just like he stands silently, now, and prays that the cashier will see the fear in his eyes, the worry, the shadows underneath. That she’ll pick up on the way he flinches when Bram moves too close. 

She doesn’t.

She never even looks at his face.

Barbed wire is scanned, and Nate’s skin prickles as he looks at the twists of sharp metal that will soon dig tightly into Danny’s skin. A new leash, the old one was soaked during the last big rain and smells musty now. A black dog bone made of some incredibly tough plastic, labeled KONG on the side. 

Nate’s mouth thins into an uneasy line.

“For my dog,” Bram says, brightly. “His name is Red.”

The cashier makes a noncommittal sound and doesn’t ask him to elaborate. She scans the packets of seed Danny had asked for, new vegetables to try out in the garden this fall. Some kind of heirloom pumpkin he’s excited about, will store well down in the cellar. Leafy green plants Danny swears will grow right up until it snows.

Finally, a Snickers for Bram and  Milky Way for Nate. 

She gives them the total reading off the screen in front of her, then stares blankly as Bram counts out his cash, rolling out money through his fingers. Nate’s eye are caught by it - he never ceases to forget about this being Canada, since they live in the wilderness with nothing and no one, until he sees Canadian money, again.

They take their change and leave, and Nate’s heart falls, piece by piece, left behind them with the last shot he’d had of getting someone to look at him, to see it written along his face, to see that there is a man trapped in the dark who needs help.

They’re loading the bags into the back of the truck and resettling the cover over the truck bed when a man steps up, and Nate turns to look. The man meets his eyes, and for a second, Nate has... hope. Small, and barely a thread, but there.

“Is this your, ah, partner?” The man asks, and Bram’s arm slips around his waist.

Please, please, please see that I’m not his partner, please see that I need help.

“This is him,” Bram says happily. “Told you I’d bring him next time, Jenkins.”

Yet another one of Bram’s supply run friends, the people in this town who love him. He’s friendly and charming, buys rounds of coffee for the old-timers at the counter who talk about the way things used to be and the weather, endlessly, in that order. Everyone loves Bram, here.

He killed a man to steal his home, Nate thinks, staring at the man smiles at him, friendly and welcoming. He keeps us captive. Danny isn’t allowed to be human anymore. Please. 

“There’s still time to change your ways,” Jenkins says, full of weight and meaning. For a second, the world tilts around Nate. Does this man know? Does he know what Bram is doing, in the woods, slowly carving Danny’s mind and body apart? Does he know?

“I told you last time,” Bram says patiently. “I’m not interested in your church, Jenkins. I’m not interested in your counseling.”

Hysterical laughter bubbles up in Nate’s throat. The man wants to help because he thinks Bram is gay.

“Seek and ye shall find, Mr. Denner,” Jenkins says, softly. “Seek and ye shall find. When you’re ready to seek, you give me a call. You too,” He says to Nate, with a firm handshake. Nate allows his hand to be grasped, staring at him, trying to hold back his laughter. “There’s always room for salvation, gentlemen.” Then he nods to Bram, and Bram’s hand gently pushes Nate back towards the truck.

That’s where you’re wrong, he thinks, as he buckles himself in, one more look through the glass doors of the hardware store. The cashier is scanning someone else’s order, and she stares at nothing the same way she did with Nate. I’m already in hell.

How many people does that girl interact with each day?

How many need help?

What would it take for her to notice?

Bram’s hand is on Nate’s thigh by the time he drives them back down the street and towards the edge of town. 

“That went well,” Bram says cheerfully. “Don’t you think?”

“Y-Yeah,” Nate finally answers. “It w-w-went, ah, w-... it went all right.”

Nate stares at the window at the trees, and wonders how far Bram will drive before he’s blindfolded again, so that even if they noticed, it wouldn’t do any good.

Even if they noticed, he couldn’t tell them where to go.

Danny would only die, alone, in the dark.

Nate sits in the truck and feels his leg warm under Bram’s hand, and all he lets himself think about is the light in Danny’s eyes when they come back home to let him out of the cellar.

Maybe Bram will let him sleep in the bed, and Nate can hold him while he remembers the light.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Not Another Moment: Nate Vandrum and Dr. Rosa

(this is a bit for @burtlederp who wanted to see Nate’s first appointment with Dr. Rosa Martinez! Don’t worry, I’m still working on Bad Things Happen Bingo (Grabbed by the Hair is coming up next!) but this was going to be a short drabble and... um.)

Tagging the crew: @spiffythespook, @special-spicy-chicken, @bleeding-demon-teeth

Timeline: Just prior to the beginning of Abraham Denner’s trial​

CW: References to noncon, violence, abuse, and torture (all just conversational references)

“Why don’t we start with you telling me why you wanted to see me today?”

Nate’s fingers tap on the arm of the couch, and he watches the woman the same way she watches him. If he had thought ahead, he could have brought his own notebook and pen - he’s already seen her mark things down and he hasn’t even spoken yet, not really. Nate takes a breath, thinking through the sentence he wants to say, first - the stammer isn’t as bad if he does that, but he doesn’t always remember.

Bram thought his stammer was cute, when it started, sometime before the end of the final year with the both of them. Ashley had hated it, it took too long for him to get out a thought and she hadn’t cared enough to wait for him to voice his thoughts in the first place. It had started to fade, a little, during the months he was free - only to dig its way in worse than ever when he was up in Alberta.

“I don’t know,” Nate answers, honestly enough, and he’s proud when he doesn’t stammer at all. “I didn’t. D-D-Danny wanted me to s-s-see you.”

“It’s not often that people schedule significant time with therapy when they don’t have at least an idea of why they are coming, Mr. Vandrum. I appreciate Daniel’s recommendation, but we won’t be able to accomplish much unless we can identify a good starting point for you.”

He looks at her hands, where she holds the pen. A dusky brown on one side, paler along the inner fingers and palms Wedding ring, probably cost her a pretty penny when she got married. He’d caught a glimpse of some photos on her desk, couple of women with families, one woman alone about the same age as Rosa Martinez. Wife?

That still felt so strange, to think.

Not that he hadn’t had friends who got married, way back when, but it hadn’t been legal, then. Not in their state, it hadn’t, and a few people drove to the other states to make it legal but even then…

“When Bram f-f-found me,” He says softly, his voice distracted and a little distant, but it’s a careful construct, because even just saying his name makes Nate’s throat feel tight and his heart beat faster. Even now, even after everything. “When he f-found me the f-f-first time, I c-c-couldn’t have gotten m, married, legally, where I l-lived before.”

Dr. Rosa Martinez was quiet, but she wrote something down in her notebook and nodded, gesturing for him to continue.

“N-Not that I would have w, wanted to, then. I was too b-b-busy to even d-date, really. Just started to t-t-teach adjunct, you don’t m-m-make shit like that, where would I take anyone? Out for d-d-dinner off the menu at McDonald’s? I lived with m-my friend, my… my friend. They k-k-killed him when they decided they w-w-wanted me.” His voice doesn’t waver, although he finds himself hesitating.

He’s going to have to talk about this, during the trial. The lawyers have said the context is important, even though there isn’t enough evidence to prove they killed his old roommate beyond a shadow of a doubt and they’re pushing the kidnapping/abduction angle above everything else. That and the dead man who had once lived in the cabin, the body that bled out on the floor, the body Danny had to help Bram carry out to the fire even stumbling and crying from the pain in his head, he-

Nate’s fingers stop tapping, and he takes a deep breath in, holds it for five, slowly exhales.

He doesn’t think a fucking thing when he does it.

“Do you think a lot changed between then and now?” She asks him, and he wants to laugh at her, choke her, punch her for the question.

Has a lot changed? The world got better, and then I got out for a while, then he found me and the world went to hell and I didn’t know, no one told us in the woods, no one told us the world went to hell while we were trying to stay alive.

While I was hurting him, while I couldn’t stop, while he made me hurt him and somehow he still forgave me for it, somehow Danny forgives me everything.

“Yes.” It’s all he says, and his voice is more clipped than he means it to be.

Rosa nods, slowly, thinking, tapping her pen against her notebook. Then she sits back, relaxes into her seat. Nate takes a moment to look through the blinds, at the sun outside, at Ryan’s car in the parking lot. Ryan had given him the keys to drive himself, with the carelessness of rich kids who can just buy another car if the current one gets totaled by an asshole who hasn’t driven in seven years, except the once.

Except the night he lit the cabin on fire with Bram unconscious down in that fucking cellar he had used to terrify Danny. Except the night he put Danny in Bram’s truck, took the fucking muzzle off his face, and got him the hell out of there.

“You’re very aware of the time you lost,” Dr. Rosa says out loud, in a voice full of empathy and compassion. Nate wonders if that’s professionally trained into her, like his own teaching voice used to have a kind of lilting rhythm to it that developed during grad school, working with the undergrads and learning how they responded to different lecture styles.

He’d eventually figured out a way of inserting humor and certain jokes, of being authoritative without being suffocating about it, that had worked really well. He’d been in the process of applying to become a full professor, had thought he had a pretty good chance even though getting a full professor job in his area was like threading a needle blindfolded-

Remember when you had to give Danny stitches and Bram made you do it blindfolded with your left hand?

Nate shakes it off, but his bad hand tries to close into a fist and Dr. Rosa notices, he’s sure she notices. She doesn’t say anything, though. She doesn’t push.

So far she hasn’t, and he has to give her credit for that.

“I am,” He admits, finally. “I am v-v-very aware of it, and the t-t-time I’m still losing. The time D-D-Danny lost, will k-keep losing until he-... until he gets b-b-better.”

He will get better. He will. Nate got him out of there and now he’s back with his brother, and Nate has caught Danny watching Ryan wistfully when his younger brother isn’t looking at him. They got him to sit at the kitchen table for dinner last night, perched at the edge of his seat like any minute Bram would come in and dump him out of it.

“Daniel has chosen to take those first steps,” Dr. Rosa says, her words slow and carefully placed. “And so have you. Recovery after prolonged traumatic experience is not about quick healing, but a slow process to rebuild the framework of your life from the ground up. It’s worthwhile, Mr. Vandrum-”

“You can c-c-call me N-Nate, honestly,” Nate mumbles, picking at a loose thread along the seam of the couch cushion. He doesn’t look up to see how she responds.

“Nate, then. Thank you, Nate. My conversations with Daniel have made it clear to me that names - who uses which name and when - were of great importance to you both, during your experience. But you still use your legal name. Does that bother you, that Daniel was given another name and you weren’t?”

“Yeah. It feels l-l-like shit to kn… to know that.” Nate’s voice drops, and he feels the twist of shame, eternal and unending. “That I g-g-got so much that he d-d-didn’t; mercies, kindness… all of it.”

He had never lost his name. He had never been subjected to the level of pure agony that Danny had. He’d never had some other captive there with him, looking him in the eye while they hurt him on Bram’s orders. He’d never had to watch Bram feed someone else at the table while he ate on the floor, sometimes with his arms tied behind his back if he forgot to ask permission first.

He’d never had to wear a collar around his neck while another captive didn’t.

And still, Danny forgives him everything.

“He d-d-deserves better. Better than what h, happened to him, better th-th-than… than all of it. He’s g-g-going to get better, but my b-b-bad days don’t help - sometimes they make him h-h-have bad days - so I thought, when h-he suggested maybe s-s-seeing you…”

“You’re here because you think you attending therapy will help Daniel?”

His eyes flicker up to hers, searching them for the judgement he knows will be there, but there is nothing to Dr. Rosa but the endless goddamn compassion. He doesn’t deserve it. He’s done terrible fucking things, up there in the woods. He would fight, and protest, and deny it, and say no, and then Bram would grab onto him and look him in the eyes and talk to him in his true voice and Nate would pick up the knife.

The knife, the handcuffs, the keys, the chains, the matches, take Danny’s chin in his hands, try to apologize with his eyes when his mouth and his body wouldn’t let him, when they were doing someone else’s bidding, when Nate’s body wasn’t his own any longer.

(your body is mine, everything about you belongs to me)

He’s done terrible things to Danny - he’s responsible for some of the scars on his body and in his head - but Danny only ever looks at him with sweetness, and the psychologist sitting in the armchair looks at him with empathy, and only Ryan ever gives him the hate he deserves, the loathing he’s earned through every flick of the blade with tears in his eyes, every whispered I’m sorry that meant nothing at all when the knife was still moving.

“Nate, let me ask you… do you often think of things in terms of Danny’s recovery, rather than your own?” Dr. Rosa asks, and Nate catches himself flinching at the question.

(baby, baby… you know I hate when you flinch away from me)

“Of c-c-course I do,” He snaps, and he hates the sound of Dr. Rosa’s pen moving. “Of f-f-fucking course I do. He never did anything wrong. All he d-d-did was try to get to, to know m-me, and I should never have told him I was m-m-maybe interested, it’s all my f-f-fault…”

He trails off, catching himself. He never meant to say that out loud to her.

(this is all your fault, don’t you think? You cheated on me, Nate, with this skinny fucking twig?)

“You assign blame to yourself for the entirety of the experience,” Dr. Rosa says, and it’s not a question, not even a little. “You believe yourself to be at fault for the actions of Abraham Denner.”

“Because I l-l-left him!” Nate’s fingers dig into the arm of the couch and the fabric gives way, and he closes and closes and closes his bad hand, letting the bones grind together until the pain clears his mind, makes him feel cleaner, emptier, of the guilt and the rage that twine together inside him, inseparable. “If I h-h-had just stayed with Bram, if I had only st-st-stayed…”

The tears are back, and he can’t quite hold them in, they run down his face and into the stubble of black hair, speckled with the first bits of gray, down the line of his jaw, to drip dark spots into his shirt.

“If I had st-stayed,” He whispers, “If I had never l-left Bram, he would never have seen D-D-Danny at all, and he’d be okay. He’d b-be okay, he’d be… he’d be…” He leans forward, putting his hands over his face and then raking them back through his hair, and catches a sob trying to work its way out of his throat. “Maybe Danny would have m-met someone and he’d be f-f-fucking married by now. Legally, federally legally goddamn married.”

“If you had stayed, you would still be held against your will.”

“But D-D-Danny would be safe. If I had never left B-Bram, Danny would be s-s-safe, and it would… it would be w-w-worth it.” Nate takes a deep breath, trying to still his shaking voice, to calm himself, to get the red out of his cheeks, half-hidden by his eternal five o’clock shadow.  

“When was the last time you cried about this, Nate?” Dr. Rosa asks softly. She stands, setting her notebook aside, and walks over to him with a small box of tissues. He takes one with a mumbled, stammering thank you (be grateful for every gift you are given) and wipes at the tears that still run, but he can’t stop them now.

“Wh-when I took it off his f-f-face,” Nate says, and he can hear how broken he is in his own voice, he can hear how the low rumble cracks and splits under the weight of his own guilt, of all the punishment he deserves but won’t receive, because he held the knife when he didn’t want to, because he knotted the ropes when he begged Bram not to make him do it, because he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t make it end, couldn’t keep Danny safe.

“It?” Her voice is carefully devoid of anything more than curiosity.

“Th… the thing. I’m s-s-sorry, it’s hard for me to say wh-what it is-”

“No, I understand, Nate, don’t worry. I think I know what you’re referencing.”

“He… he w-w-wore that fucking thing for five months at th, the end, and… when I t-t-took it off his face the l-last time and he didn’t c-c-come back right away, I c-cried because… because I thought it was too late. That was the l-l-last time.”

“December 10th of last year,” Dr. Rosa says firmly, something about the way she speaks calms him, a little, helps him breathe. Something about the way she blends firmness and certainty with the compassion. “The night you set the fire. You made it to the police station the next morning.”

“I thought I was t-t-too late,” Nate says softly. “I thought he wouldn’t ever c-c-come back, that I’d waited t-t-too long, that I couldn’t… I couldn’t… that he’d never come out of his own h-head this time, that I’d… that I’d n-n-n-never see him look at me again.”

“But he did come back,” Dr. Rosa says gently.

“But what if he hadn’t? And it was all m-m-my fault, for not b-b-being stronger?” She puts a hand on his shoulder, and Nate leans over, hands over his face again, and starts to cry.

The sobs come out half-choked and nearly strangled. Bram never wanted to hear him cry, hated the sound of his tears, hurt him when he cried in the house with Ashley, hurt him in the cabin the few times he’d found the emotion still in him, a despair deep enough to pull the tears from where he’d forced them as deep within himself as they could go. 

Nate had hidden tears on the trails, in the woods, where he was far enough away Bram might not know. He’d cried in Danny’s arms, once or twice, wracked the whole time with the slime of his complicity and that he didn’t deserve Danny to hold him, when he was the hand holding the knife sometimes, when the ice in Bram’s eyes buried him under the weight of obedience and a love he didn’t want to feel and hated and couldn’t fight.

He could cry with Danny, now, too, he supposed, but Danny would want to know what he’d done to make Nate cry, how he could fix it, and Nate can’t seem to make Danny understand that he never did anything wrong.

All the sins belong to Nate, and he can never, ever earn absolution.

“Nate,” Dr. Rosa says softly, sitting beside him on the couch. He wonders if psychologists are allowed to do this, or if they’re supposed to keep professional distance, but all she does is sit there, be a warm and living human presence beside him, and he doesn’t ask her to move.

Even if he’s a monster trying, and failing, to make amends to a man he loves for all the wounds he has carved into his body and his heart and his brain.

“Nate, I would like you to listen to what I am about to say. Are you hearing me? Just nod, if you understand that I would like you to listen to me.”

He nods, slowly, without looking up.

“I would like to begin with the goal of addressing your sense that you are responsible for the actions of Abraham Denner. Is that okay?”

He hesitates, then nods again.

“I have counseled many patients, in my career, and some have even been in situations of prolonged captivity, or forms of abuse that deeply resembled captivity. It is common to assign yourself blame. But that doesn’t mean that you are to blame, Nate. And there is one further thing I want to begin working on, right away, starting today.”

Nate freezes, then looks over at her where she sits next to him on the couch. The brown eyes are warm that focus on his, and there’s a hint of a kind smile, a scattering of wrinkles around the corners of her eyes, laugh lines dug deeply around her mouth. “Wh-what?”

“Nate, I want you to acknowledge that you are a survivor, too.”

He blinks at her - she blurs with his tears and clears again when his eyes close and open, and he wipes at his face with a new tissue, sits back to dab at his nose, licks chapped lips in an old nervous habit he’s never lost. “That I’m… that I’m what?”

“You were held by Abraham Denner for seven years,” Dr. Rosa says softly. “With a short break between, but that is a long, long time. You have been subjected to forms of dehumanization and what we call conditioning that are different than Daniel’s, but they are no less real. I will never use the word ‘victim’ in this office unless you ask me to, because I dislike the connotations inherent in that term and have often found them to be detrimental rather than helpful. But you have also been held, traumatized, wounded. All of that happened to you, too.”

“He n-n-never hurt me like he d-d-did Danny,” Nate whispers.

He never made Danny hurt me like he made me hurt him.

“That is not important, except inasmuch as how it affects your understanding of what happened to you. Physical and emotional wounds are of equal importance and weight. Nate, I understand that you struggle because you are wounded in ways that are less obvious on the surface, that you have fewer visible scars. But the scars are still there.”

He’s silent, now. He can’t find the words to say.

“Nate. I want you to say it out loud, just once, and I will call that a good place to begin. ‘I am a survivor, too. I survived.’ Just try for me, please, just once.”

(I love you so much, baby, we’re soulmates, we were always meant to find each other)

(I’ve given you everything you wanted, Nate! what does it take for you to love me?)

(this is your family, now - you and me and the puppy)

D-D-Danny, pl-please, please, come back to m-me, there has to be enough of you l-l-left to save…

Nate takes a deep breath, thinks of Danny’s face, the way he smiled this morning when he wished Nate luck at his first appointment, the way he touched his arm and looked at him like maybe he wanted to kiss him, too.

“I’m a s-s-survivor, too,” Nate says out loud, and something in him cracks apart, something cold and frozen starts to warm. “I s-survived, too.”

“One more time,” Dr. Rosa says quietly. “One more time, please.”

Nate nods, slowly.

Nate, he’s walking traps, we’re alone for like three hours - c’mere, come here, come, come lay down on the mat with me while he’s gone.

Shut up. Call me Danny again. Just while he’s gone.

Leave him alone, Abraham! It’s my fault! It’s my fault, I kissed him and he didn’t want me to, don’t hurt him, hurt me instead! Please, please, Abraham, it’s my fault, I’m so sorry! It’s my fault, punish me!

Nate, if this had never happened, do you think we would have liked the movie?

Let me get the ice pack, he really did a number on you this time, huh?

Do you think you would have liked the person I used to be?

Abraham, please, please, I can take the punishment instead! I can, I can be better for you, I’m better at being hurt, let me be hurt, please!

Will you lay with me for a while? Just, just next to the mat? Just for a little bit?

I don’t blame you, it’s not your fault. You didn’t want to do any of this to me. It’s not your fault, Nate, please listen to me, it’s not your fault. It was never your fault. None of this is your fault. Please… please listen to me, I don’t blame you.

Nate, I think sometimes that I, that I maybe I… I love-

“I’m a survivor, too,” Nate repeats, softly, and he doesn’t stammer. “I survived, too.”

“Good.” Dr. Rosa smiles at him, standing to give him back his space, moving back to her armchair and picking back up her notebook and pen. He takes a deep breath, and she watches him as he counts to five and lets it out again.

And he doesn’t think anything at all while he’s breathing, except for the look on Danny’s face when he’d left this morning. He thinks of the little half-smile that crinkled the scar on his nose, lessened the broken line of his jaw. The look that lit up his eyes, warmed up the vibrant blue. The wavy red hair a riotous mess on top of his head, falling over one eye, that Nate had casually reached up to brush away and back.

He could have kissed him, if he’d wanted. Even with everything he’d done, Danny’s head had tilted down at him slightly in a way Nate could read as well as he’d ever read any of his books. 

He could have written a whole dissertation on what it means to have someone look at you that way, given a lecture stammer-free on what forgiveness means when you haven’t earned it, never could, but it was freely given nonetheless, and by someone you would do anything for.

I tried to kill to save him, and I would do it again.

“Danny n-n-never blames m-me for anything,” Nate says out loud. “Never.”

“Maybe it’s time,” Dr. Rosa says quietly, “that you learn to give yourself the same understanding and empathy that Daniel gives you.”

Nate sits back, looking at her, thinking about the picture of the woman on her desk, the diamonds in her wedding ring. While he’d been trapped, they had changed the laws around marriage, and about a thousand other things, just in seven years. Things had changed, the world had changed, and he had lost so much fucking time. He and Danny both.

“I know why I’m h-h-here.”

“And why is that?” Dr. Rosa’s eyes crinkle at the corners again, as though she’s hiding a smile. He can see why Danny likes her so much.

“B-Because I l-l-lost seven years of my life, and he lost f-f-four of his, and… and I don’t want to miss another single g-goddamn moment if I g-g-get to spend it with h-him.”

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Daniel Michaelson: Embrace

(final prompt for @whumptober2019: Embrace! Since yesterday’s was such a sweet, genuine bit of brotherly loyalty and love and comfort, today is... well, it’s the exact opposite of that. TW: there’s some pretty much outright torture here. Blood, knives, stress positions, dehumanization, it’s all here, folks. Abraham Denner is very, very good at what he does - and what he does is terrible)

“Did you think you were my first?” 

Abraham sits back in the folding chair, looking down at the slim, sharp knife he holds in one hand, chosen expressly for today's purpose. The end of it is still red, and he tilts the knife down, watching a single drop coalesce at the tip, swell and grow fat, shimmer in the dim light, and finally drop to the ground.

There is a tiny spot that briefly darkens where it lands and then is indistinguishable from all the other blood soaked into the earth here - insignificant, like the puppy’s life.

A life he has broken and remade in his own image.

Red is kneeling, in the dim light and cured-meat smell of the smokehouse. Kneeling and bent totally at the waist, folded in half with his arms out in front of him, forced straight until they pull, a little, at his shoulders by the ropes cutting hair into his wrists that tie him to the hooks in the wall near the ground.

Bram reaches down to pull his fingers against one of those ropes, then lets it go, and smiles at the twang and the groan from the back of Red's throat, forced unwillingly from behind the muzzle.

"Oh, right, your shoulder isn't quite healed yet, is it? Silly me. Well, I suppose we should keep talking, hm? Or I should. You can't really hold up your end of the conversation today, can you?"

Red doesn't even try to look up, and Bram smiles at the sheen of sweat on those muscled shoulders, along the line of his arms, the trickles of sweat that run over the clear shadows along his ribcage.

It's hot in here, today.

Abraham feels it as a gentle, comforting warmth, but the sweat on Red is a giveaway that he feels the heat very intensely. 

Funny. Bram never feels warm unless he’s in direct sunlight.

Red’s hair is a riot of mess everywhere that it isn't plastered to his forehead and neck with the sweat or the leather isn't pushing it in. Abraham’s are caught, for a moment, by the metallic glint of the little padlock laying against the back of his head.

He smiles at the curve of the grid he can see along Red's cheek and jaw, the way it's red there, too, smeared around from Bram's thumbs. 

But that doesn't hold a candle to his back. 

His back is a beautiful mess. Abraham's been working on it for the better part of two hours now, carving into the skin with a steady hand and a practiced eye for anatomy. Never too deep, never even grazing anything he can’t live without. 

You can't see the design through all the blood, but you will, soon enough - and when it scars Bram will get to feel the twisting patterns he’s made himself, run his fingertips over them and watch Red hold himself so carefully, perfectly, obediently still. 

For now, kneeling and prostrated and bloody, he looks like a flagellant. As though he’s a pilgrim out of time, a penitent being bloodied in purification, bleeding out the weight of his sins before God. 

Bram Denner is not God, of course.

The puppy that used to be Daniel Michaelson prays to him now at night, though, and that's close enough.

“Did you think I was born with this knife in my hand? That I sprang fully formed from my father's forehead like some slightly less muscular and significantly prettier Athena?"

Red doesn't answer - but then he can't, with his voice locked away. The only sound from him is the harsh breathing through his nose and low, ragged sounds coming from the back of his throat as the position he's in stretches his shoulders just a little too much and aggravates the still-aching too-recently dislocated joint.

Bram only left it like that for a few hours, but these things take time to heal, and Bram has never been a fan of letting old wounds heal before creating new. 

The sweat runs into the cuts all over his back and makes them sting, no doubt. Maybe Red can't even feel it any longer, though. 

Doesn't matter.

"No, this is the kind of thing you discover in yourself and then cultivate, puppy. You understand, right? You sure showed me some hidden talents that we got to cultivate together, hm?" 

He kicks out his legs, landing a glancing blow into the puppy's shoulder, and Red coughs behind his teeth, whining a little at the ache and the pain as he inadvertently tries to force his jaw open and fails.

"You paying attention, puppy?" 

Red doesn't even try to look up, nodding with jerky, dazed movements. Honestly, he's probably lost enough blood by now to be feeling pretty out of it - and he has that trick where he leaves his head when the muzzle is on, too. Abraham hates that trick. But the only thing that seems to prevent it is the headphones, and he wants little Red to really hear his voice today, in whatever part of him can still hear.

“Good boy. I know what you’re thinking. Why is this happening? What possible mistake did you make to earn this punishment, what lesson must you learn? What rule did you break?” Bram laughed, the deep, low little rumble of sound that he used to charm the bodies out there in the world, all of them collections of organ and bone waiting to be made better, to be fixed.

 But Bram was only one man, and even his prodigious skills could only be utilized on so many people at once. Besides… he’d hate to be distracted away from the puppy. 

Bram was very devoted to the puppy.

“Let me reassure you, little Red, you’ve done absolutely nothing wrong this time.”

Red made a sound like a sob that came from somewhere deep within his chest, giving a single full-body shake, and fuck, he was so beautiful like this. Bram leaned over and tilted his head, looking carefully for a clean spot of skin. It was hard to find but eventually he located what he was looking for and smiled. 

“This isn’t about punishment, little Red. This is about honing a craft. I had to learn these skills that make good boys like you over… years… You know, we all have something we’re good at, but you have to really practice to turn a basic talent into a real skill. You’ve been so good lately, but I can’t just… waste these talents just because you’re getting so good at keeping me all kinds of happy, you know?” 

Bram leans down, thoughtfully, and slides his hand along the metal muzzle that locks Red's voice up, smiling at the pinpricks (not pain, not really - Bram never feels much pain at all) as his thumb finds the spots he turned into little jagged edges that pop up from the wires to cut and poke and tear. When he lifts Red's chin, he finds empty blue eyes staring up at him from above the muzzle, hair hanging over them that goes unnoticed. 

Bram hums appreciatively at the sight. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he breathes, just taking it in. 

Wide, nearly sightless blue eyes under sweat-soaked red hair. The slight unconscious nearly inaudible whines, vibrations Bram can feel against his fingers when he presses them to Red's throat. The red smears where his skin is retorn every time the muzzle goes on or off.

Nate never appreciates it - he’ll be angry once Bram finally lets the puppy back in the house, he’s usually angry these days anyway. He’s been pulling away from Bram’s kisses, acting differently. It takes longer - and takes more incentive - to make Nate be his black-haired prince, his true love, like he used to be. It’s confusing and troubling to Bram, but he tries not to think about it, too much. It had taken him months to hunt Nate down when he ran - and he can’t run, not here in the middle of the woods with his bad leg. There’s nowhere to go.

He’ll come around, Bram is sure of it - it just might take a while. But as long as Red is here, Nate will never, ever try to leave… that, at least, he’s sure of. 

Nate just doesn’t understand, is all, because he’s not really a Denner yet. Those things take time, but he’ll get there, he has to. He doesn’t grasp how all of this builds, layer on layer, into a perfect portrait of exactly what something like Red was born to be.

The dim light that comes through the cracks in the wood slats makes Red’s blood too vibrant, nearly surreal. It looks like paint, like his puppy is a Renaissance painting with those bright blue eyes and that wavy red hair. He’s pure unadulterated beauty in every line, scar, and bruise. 

Red had cried when they started in here, but he was far past tears now. Now he was blank, and empty, locked inside his head just a little further than Abraham Denner could follow. He would be back, later, and the pain would still be there for him, to shape him.

He didn’t need to be here to learn his lessons.

All Bram needed for those was his body.

“I have made you,” Bram murmured. “I have made you from the dust of your life and you are my creation, little Red, and I call you good.”

Maybe he was a little bit of a god, after all.

He slid his hand over Red’s hair, feeling the damp softness of it in between his fingers, before forcing his head back down until Red’s chin was pushing into his collarbone, baring the back of his neck to Abraham’s eyes.

A bit of clear, unbloodied skin. A blank canvas, ready to be painted. A piece of creation, like the dark and formless sea before it split to make the heavens.

“You belong to me,” He says softly, marveling at it, at the miracle of coincidences it took to bring little Red into his orbit at just the right time, the right place, when he needed something to help him hold onto Nate, when he had gone too long without someone to remake. “All of you, forever, belongs to me. You’re all mine.”

He moves his chair closer, watching Red shift around, trying in vain to find a way to take some of the pressure of the position he was trapped in off his knees and thighs. 

“Poor thing, your feet went numb ages ago, am I right? And your legs must ache. Don’t worry, I’m almost done. Just one more thing, puppy, and then we’ll go inside and get you all washed up and bandaged, okay?”

If Red even hears him now, he doesn’t react, only continues breathing harshly and quietly towards the floor. If he could talk, Bram thinks cheerfully, he would probably tell Bram he was busy being someone else.

It’s a neat little trick, but it never lasts long after the muzzle comes off - and when Red comes back, he feels all that pain he worked so hard to escape. 

Bram moves the knife, with its thin, razor-sharp blade, to the back of his puppy’s neck. The clear skin splits apart like darkness and light - like the land and the sea - opening and welling up with the same brilliant red blood. Bram carves two careful straight lines at diagonal angles that meet at the top, connects them with a shorter line through the center. 

Red groans again, but it’s fainter, now - more distant and hazy. He’s begun to shake helplessly, and Bram frees his hand from Red’s hair to rub soothingly at his shoulder while he lowers the knife to carve again. “Good, you’re doing so very well, my sweet boy. Just a little more.” 

Another straight line, vertical this time. Then a half-circle curved to meet the line at either end. He continues to soothe Red with one hand while cutting him with the other, and feels the man’s shaking grow more and more noticeable under his hand. 

He’s pushed him nearly too far, right up to the line of what his body will take before it simply drops him into unconsciousness in a desperate attempt to escape. That’s all right; Bram knows how to walk the line very carefully. He learned that skill a very, very long time ago.

Finally, below the first two letters, he carves the final one. One straight line up, one diagonal line to the side and down, then another straight line up. The blood is smeared and running down the sides of his neck now. Bram leans down to lick it up, feeling Red shudder but try to hold himself still.

He doesn’t try to pull away, even like this.

“Good. Very good, sweet boy. We’re all done now.”

Bram looks over his handiwork with a satisfied eye, then moves to the ropes that hold Red’s arms out, taking his sharp little knife and slicing right through them until the wrists are freed, wrapped in deep red welts that will bruise, in time.

Red bruises so very, very easily. Something about pale redheads, Bram thinks. Makes him irresistible when you can see all those pretty marks.

Red falls forward without the tension to hold him, collapsing onto the ground with little choked-off cries of pain as he tries to pull his arms back and his shoulders - stretched for hours - protest any attempt to bring them back to his sides. He can’t unfold his legs, and just rolls onto his side to take the pressure off, trying to sob without opening his mouth even as his eyes are still glazed, fogged-over, and empty.

Bram lets the knife drop to the side and kneels down himself, bundling the bloodied redhead into his arms, heedless of the blood he smears, enjoying the little hisses of further pain as he presses his palms against the new cuts along his back. 

Red doesn’t fight him, and that’s perfect - just curls up against him, head under his chin, clutching weakly at Bram’s shirt with shaking fingers, whining and pleading behind his teeth. Bram knows the different sounds so well by now, has beautiful dreams about them. 

“Don’t worry, you’ve been so good,” He soothes. “No more for today. No more. I’ll take you inside and get you all clean. We’ll bandage you right up, you can take a little nap on your mat, then you’ll get some dinner made for Nate and I tonight, hm? You were so good, helping me keep my skills up. So very, very good, little puppy. Do you know you’re my very good boy?”

There’s a movement of the soft sweaty red hair as Red nods against him, fingers finally able to get a good grip in his shirt, twisting into the fabric the way a child might hold onto their mother. Red’s eyes are closed and he breathes, in and out, in stutters and stops.

He's very nearly unconscious, and it makes him weak and pliable in a way that sends sparks of joy through Bram's mind.

Bram smiles, sitting back into the dirt, keeping the other man sitting right in his lap, letting himself be soaked in the blood. He lets his fingers run over the new letters carved on Red’s neck - A, D, N - and licks the blood off them enjoying the sparks of life on his tongue, the taste of pain and misery and I give up that has been forced into Red’s veins. 

"Oh, you sweet thing.” Bram presses a kiss into his hair, feels Red boneless against him, maybe even pushing himself a little more against the cool skin in the baking hot smokehouse, taking the comfort Bram chooses to give with gratitude, because this is better than the pain, and it’s all the choice he gets. 

He takes Red by the muzzle that runs along his jaw and tilts his head back, leaning in to kiss the sweat-soaked forehead, feels the flutter of Red’s eyelashes against his cheek when he nuzzles into the side of his face.

One of Red’s hands moves up to touch Bram’s neck, to curl around it, to pull him back to kiss his forehead again, wordlessly, whining low in his throat, desperate for any sense that the pain is really over, that Bram can be kind if only for a second.

He’s praying for mercy, Bram thinks with a laugh bubbling in his throat. I think you’ll find I can be a merciful god. The joke would be wasted now; he'll have to tell Red later, when he comes back to himself. 

Red won't laugh - but he'll give that tremulous, trembling little smile that never reaches his frightened eyes, and that's even better. 

Bram smiles, and kisses each closed eyelid. Red slowly starts to truly relax, to trust that for this moment, at least, it’s over. 

“You're not my first,” Bram breathes into his ear. “Not by a long shot.”

He tucks a little bit of red hair behind one ear, feels Red's pounding heart start to slow. Those empty blue eyes look right into his, and he wonders what little Red can even see. 

“You’re not my first, and you won’t be my last, little Red, but I think you might be my best."