#but....thousands of years of existence and u never looked at anyone else other than mc?

[gifti3]

another thing I enjoy about asmos character is that we get hints about some of his past romantic relationships

Im sure the other brothers have engaged with others in the past but actually getting to read about it is interesting to me

[dirtyblupjeans]

Charity Auction - Kinktober #9

After forty five years of traveling with these people, Lup hadn’t thought there were any surprises left. They’d seen the best and worst of each other time and time again.

And other than her brother, no one had been more observed by Lup than Barry Bluejeans.

Except this year he kept sneaking off. He still put in long hours in the lab - he was usually there before her lately- but in the evening he was nowhere to be found.

Asking him about it got her nowhere. He’d blush and stammer but never actually tell her what he was up to.

Lup had never before been the type to get jealous. But between him regularly missing dinner and being secretive? She was beginning to experience that emotion in spades.

It just wasn’t like him, she told herself. It wasn’t that she’d started thinking they had something special. It wasn’t that over the last half dozen years every time he had snuck off it had been with her.

She was just worried about him. That was all.

She’d just find out what was taking up his time, make sure he was safe, and then come back to the ship. That was all. Where was the harm in that?

That was her plan, anyway. It was just down to finding the right time to sneak off after him unnoticed. Then she overheard him mentioning something to Magnus about helping with something the fighter was working on, that he’d be around more soon.

It was enough of a relief that she almost ditched her plan.

But she still wanted to know what he’d been up to.

The next night she left before him then waited near the ship so she could see him come out. Feeling vaguely guilty, she followed him through the streets, leaving enough distance between them to just keep him in sight. Then, in a district full of bars, restaurants, and theaters, he turned down a back alley.

Lup hesitated. There wasn’t much cover to hide in. She slipped into the shadows at the end of the alley and watched. A few buildings down, he stopped, knocked on a door, and when someone opened it, was let in.

Fuck, she thought. If there was someone at the door then that was a dead end for her. Lup waited, hoping he’d come back out. Instead she saw others go in. Mostly the new arrivals were women but a few men showed up.

Lup left the alley and went around to the side of the street with the buildings that backed up to the alley. She was beginning to feel like she was crossing a line.

There it was - a theater. Why on earth would he be going in the back door of a theater? That voice telling her she was going too far wasn’t quite as loud as her interest in the possibility of seeing Barry Bluejeans on a stage.

It was another hour of milling about on the street waiting for the doors to open to the public but finally, people began gathering at the ticketbooth outside. When she got to the front, there was a small, beautifully handmade sign indicating that the show tonight was a “Library Fundraiser.” Lup paid and went inside, grateful that her outfit allowed her to blend in adequately. She was a bit more dressed down than most of the audience but not particularly noticeably.

Inside, people were mingling in the foyer area. Most of them seemed to be in large groups. Staying on the periphery of them, she tried to catch what they were talking about. None of it seemed relevant though. Apparently this was just another fundraiser on the calendar, albeit a newer addition, it seemed.

At last the doors to the auditorium opened. The seats weren’t assigned by tickets so people filled in as they pleased. Lup was surprised to see the stage wasn’t a traditional set up. There was a U protruding out, curving towards the audience and looping back around to the other end of the stage. It reminded her of a fashion show.

Once the seats had been mostly filled, someone came around passing out little numbered signs on handles. Lup accepted one, feeling mystified. Why had Barry kept his participation in some sort of charity auction secret? The whole crew would have happily come and helped, even if there wasn’t room on the ship for anyone’s donated furniture or antiques. Why had he felt the need to be so sneaky about it?

The question was answered as soon as the host took the stage and thanked everyone for attending the first library fundraiser date auction. He assured everyone that they had an excellent selection of companions and exciting packages for the dates they’d be bidding on.

Lup’s heart was pounding in her chest. Was Barry one of their dates up for auction? A thing like this was all in fun, right?

Others took the stage and had their date packages described. There was a gorgeous brunette with a picnic in the park. An older blonde woman would escort her lucky bidder to a private show at a planetarium. Lup watched them come and go but didn’t really see them. Every time someone took the stage, her breath caught until she realized it wasn’t Barry.

And then it was Barry.

Lup slunk down in her seat, trying to remain unseen. Barry wasn’t wearing his usual outfit of jeans and a button up. No red IPRE robe was in sight. Instead he wore an outfit similar to the tuxedos on their homeplanet. This had a shorter jacket with an angled hem, higher in the back. When he turned, her eyes were drawn right to his ass. She’d certainly noticed Barry’s ass before but never… so… much.

He pulled off the jacket, fumbling slightly.

Holy fuck, he’s so adorable, she thought as he nearly dropped the coat before slinging it over his shoulder. She watched the shirt pull across his shoulders as he moved. Had she ever noticed how strong his shoulders looked? How the material clung to the muscles when he…

“Can I get a bid of a hundred?” the MC asked, sounding unsure. Barry’s stride hesitated.

Oh hell no, Lup thought. She might not have been paying close attention but she felt pretty certain no one else’s bids had opened so low.

Come on, she thought at the crowd around her. Can’t you people see how amazing he is?

Still no one bid.

She couldn’t take it. Jumping up, she waved her paddle. “Five hundred!” she called.

Everything seemed to slide into slow motion. Barry turned towards her voice, clearly recognizing her. She didn’t care, she couldn’t let these people sleep on the amazing man he was. She’d show them and they’d wonder.

Someone a few rows up from her glanced back then called, “Six hundred.”

Lup should have sat down. She could have slipped back into the crowd, disappeared before Barry could be certain it was her, be back on the ship before he had a chance to find her.

But as bad as it had been sitting while no one was bidding, seeing someone else offer money to spend time with him was worse.

“Seven hundred!” Lup called.

From the other side of the theater someone else bid eight hundred. Lup topped them.

The woman who had bid six hundred offered a thousand.

“Fifteen hundred!” Lup yelled.

On the stage, Barry had begun to turn red.

“Two thousand,” the woman countered.

The arm Lup held the paddle with dropped, reality filtering in. She didn’t have that much on her. She wasn’t sure she had that much on the ship. She could ask Taako and come up with it but she knew Barry would never want that.

Lup dropped heavily back into her seat. Her head was spinning. Barry was going to be going on a date with someone.

Someone who wasn’t her.

The rest of the auction passed in a haze. Finally, the evening ended and people began to stand. Lup wanted to run out. If she could have phased herself out of existence and into her bed, she’d have done it. She wanted to be in her room on the ship, in her bed, covers over her head. She wished she’d never followed Barry. Not knowing would have been so much better.

As she stood, someone approached her, tapped her shoulder. She turned and there in front of her was the woman who’d won the bid.

“Is he a friend of yours?” the woman asked.

Numbly, Lup nodded. “Congratulations,” she mumbled, sounding as far from congratulatory as imaginable. “I hope you have fun.”

She hoped no such thing.

The woman smiled at her. “Sweetie, you’ve got it bad, don’t you?”

Lup toyed with the end of her braid. Of course she did. She’d been in love with him for thirty years. But if she’d never actually told him as much then what right did she have to expect him not to -

Nope, can’t even think the word ‘date’ there.

“It’s fine,” she said, managing a slightly friendlier tone. It’s not like he’d be around here in a few months, anyway. They’d be regenning together on some other plane and this woman would never see them again, never see Barry again.

“Hey,” the woman said gently. “I just wanted to donate to the library. I don’t want to screw up a relationship.”

The woman was being nothing but nice to her so she reigned her jealousy in. “Yeah, well,” Lup said, “I didn’t exactly bring my savings tonight,” she admitted. “I wasn’t expecting to be here.”

The woman nodded, looking thoughtful.

“Look, really, it’s okay,” Lup said, sounding much more charitable than she felt. That sick feeling was still twisting her stomach into a nasty, miserable little knot, but it wasn’t this woman’s fault. She put her hand on the woman’s arm and smiled. “I do actually hope you have fun. He’s a really good guy.”

“That’s a lovely bracelet,” the woman said.

Confused, Lup looked down at her wrist. It was a chain of plastic hearts in various shades of pink. “Um… thanks,” she said. She’d gotten it out of a gumball machine a few days ago.

“Would you consider trading it? For the date?”

Lup blinked at the woman. “I mean… you can have it?” She slid it off her wrist and offered it. “But I can’t really pay for the…”

“No, dear,” the woman said, explaining, “I meant I’d pay for the date and then trade.”

“Oh!” Lup said, surprised. “Really? Why would you do that?”

Her smile widening, the woman shrugged. “It’s a very lovely bracelet,” she said.

Lup leaned forward and kissed the woman’s cheek. “You’re amazing,” she said.

She pulled Lup into a hug. “Go get your man,” she instructed.

~

Lup waited nervously for Barry. She kept folding and refolding the certificate the woman had handed her. She didn’t even know what kind of date it was for. When the details had been described before bidding, she’d been too focused on Barry. And now she was too anxious to read the paper while waiting for him to show up and running over explanations and apologies for showing up, for bidding, for how she was now the winner even though she hadn’t been the high bidder.

Finally he appeared, still wearing the fancy suit from before, once again with the jacket on.

He paused, facing her.

“Hey,” she said, feeling her face heat.

“Hey, Lup,” he said, not meeting her eyes. A blush stained his cheeks as well. “I, uh, I thought I heard you.”

“Yeah, so, uh, listen. Sorry about that. I, um…”

“It’s okay,” he answered, running his hand through his hair nervously. The movement muddled the carefully arranged style someone had put it in. Instantly she liked it better. It was more Barry this way, mussed and rumpled, falling awkwardly across his forehead. “At least you didn’t win. That… uh, that would have been kinda weird, right?”

“Would it?” she asked. She’d never considered that as a possibility. Explaining to him? Yes. The actual date? Never.

His eyes jumped up to meet hers then darted away again. “I mean, I didn’t think anyone would actually bid,” he mumbled. “But they needed enough people to go with the date packages that were donated. I, uh, got drafted.”

“Well,” she said, plunging forward, “Sorry to tell you but, as it turns out…” She waggled the certificate in the air to illustrate her point. “I own you, buddy.” She smiled, hoping to lighten the mood. There was no reason he had to know how jealous she’d been, how bitterly disappointed when she’d lost.

Barry’s blush disappeared as he went pale. “You… But you…”

Lup’s smile faded. “It’s a long story. Well, it’s not, but it doesn’t matter.” She tucked the certificate in her pocket. “All gone, no problem, we don’t have to -”

“No! I don’t…” He ran his hand through his hair again and opened and closed his mouth a few times before finding the words. “We should go. Er, uh, if you want. Or not. Either...uh, either way.”

Lup studied his face for a moment. Each second the silence continued, Barry looked more anxious.

Good anxious or bad anxious? That was the answer she couldn’t guess.

She made a decision. It had been forty five years. Maybe it was cards on the table time.

“Barry, I really enjoy spending time with you.” She took the certificate back out of her pocket and tucked it into the breast pocket of his coat, smoothing the material with her hand. Letting her hand linger, she met his gaze. “So, it’s up to you.”

Once again, he could only open and close his mouth a few times. Lup waited for him to find the words.

This time, she had an idea of which kind of anxious this was. Or, not anxious at all, actually. Surprised, maybe?

Is this really news to him? she thought.

Deciding to dump a few more cards out on the table, Lup leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “No rush, babe. Take your time.” When she stepped back, he stared at her. Smiling once more, Lup nodded, then turned to go.

“Lup!” he called instantly. “Would you… uh,” he moved to her side and waited until they faced one another to continue, “Would you like to go to, um,” he pulled the certificate out of his pocket. Fumbling it open, it took him a moment to locate the details. “Bowl-a-rama,” he read, clearly disappointed. “Wow, they had no faith in me getting bids, either,” he apologized. “We don’t have to do that. We can go -”

Lup pulled the paper out of his hands and wound her fingers with his. “Sounds great, Barold.” She glanced at the page. “Includes nachos and shoe rental!” she enthused, grinning at him.

A smile spread across his face slowly. “Well, that does sound pretty exciting,” he said, voice deadpan. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay, uh, lemme go change. They, uh, they got the tux rentals donated so…”

“Shame,” she answered, running her hand down the lapel. “Looks good on you. I bet it’d really pair nicely with some bowling shoes.” Guiltily, she took her hand back, tucked both in her pockets.

Barry laughed and the sound made her feel better. This was going to be okay.

“Maybe so,” he said, still smiling. “Should I…?”

“Go change,” she told him, running her hand appreciatively down his chest again. “I’ll wait here.”

“Okay,” he said, not moving.

His reluctance to move was making her feel better and better but this new certainty required more than standing in this theater grinning at each other for the rest of the night. In fact, she was starting to have some ideas that absolutely required more privacy than a crowded theater.

“Barry?”

“Yeah?”

“Hurry up so we can get out of here. Unless you want me to help…”

“Help?” he asked, looking confused. Then his eyes went wide. “Oh! Uh, yeah, uh…” he swallowed.

“They might not appreciate that,” she suggested.

“Yeah, uh, probably not.” His adam’s apple worked, moving as he tried to respond and breathe at the same time. “I’ll just, uh, yeah. Do that.”

“Barry?” she asked, feeling brazen. “Are you very attached to the idea of bowling?”

“No?”

“Would you be averse to, say, going to dinner instead?”

“Yeah, that, um, that would be good, too! Do you have a place in mind?”

“What about…”

Barry waited for her to finish but her nerves had caught up to her before she could finish her suggestion. The thought of him getting out of that tux had put ideas in her head, ideas she wasn’t sure she should share.

Fuck it, she thought. Cards on the table, time, right? Let’s dump the whole deck.

“How about room service at that hotel on the corner?”

Barry was a smart man. She’d seen him make connections in the lab at lightning speeds, witnessed him recalling data he hadn’t studied in decades. But watching him grasp her meaning just then was an entirely unique experience.

“I…” He ran his hand over his face. She noticed the way the lines at the corner of his eyes pulled when he scrunched his eyebrows and the way his thumb scrubbed over the shadow of stubble on his cheek. Her hand ached to smooth his brow and caress his cheek.

Soon, she thought, and curled her hand closed at her side.

Barry reached out and put his hands on her upper arms, wrapping his fingers over her skin firmly. “Lup, I’ve… I think I’m dreaming. Or having a stroke. Or, I don’t know. Hallucinating? Maybe some kind of chemical leak in the lab. I don’t know. But, and this is very important, okay? Please, I need you to not wake me up. Okay? Promise me you’ll let me just have this hallucination. Promise me?”

Lup’s smile had gotten bigger and wider the longer he’d spoken.

Stepping forward, Lup leaned close to him. Delicately, she kissed him, just at the side of his mouth. “Deal,” she said. “As long as you don’t wake me either.”

Barry stood frozen, staring at her. Then he leaned forward and kissed her back, lips crushing against hers desperately.

When he straightened, he ran his hand through his hair and just stared at her for another moment. “Okay,” he said, voice shaky. “I… don’t move. Please, please, please don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

Wordlessly, Lup just nodded. Everything in her was trembling.

He stepped backwards, unwilling to take his eyes off her. He bumped his way through the crowd in reverse until she could barely see his shoulder, a glimpse of his hair, then he was gone.

~

He was back so quickly the crowd hadn’t thinned much at all. Still, it had been long enough for her to wonder at the boundaries they were crossing. It had been long enough for the icy fears that had kept them apart for years to grip her again.

Except.

Her mouth still seemed to tingle from his kiss.

And then, when he caught sight of her, his anxious brown eyes fastened on her and she could feel the fears melting.

“You’re still here,” he told her, wonderingly. “I’m still dreaming.”

Lup nodded again. “Me too.”

“Do you still want to … go?”

“Barry?”

His eyebrows went up, the corner of his eyes crinkling in worry. “Yeah?”

“I really, really do.”

The anxiety faded from his expression as the smile took over. He reached for her and she took his hand. They wound their way through the crowd and out into the lobby, through the doors, and into the street. Every step they caught each other’s eyes again, checking that even with their linked hands, the other was still there.

On the street, he was glancing back and forth, eyes squinting in the darkness. “Which way?”

She laughed, overwhelmed with fondness and a joy so bright it felt blinding. “Come on,” she answered, tugging him down the sidewalk. “This way.”

They threaded through the busy street until she pulled him into a doorway, pushing through the entryway with her back while she faced him. She was still half dazed this was happening. A dream neither wanted to wake up from.

Like guilty adolescents, they requested and paid for a room. Then, laughing and still linked together by their clutched hands, they made their way to the stairs, up, and to their room.

At the doorway, Lup passed him the key. As soon as he unlocked it, he pushed the door open, then turned and swung her up into his arms. He carried her into the room, kicking the door closed behind him, and she felt a weight build inside of her.

This wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a lark. This was Barry, real and serious, and what happened between them would change things.

Change things forever.

All the years that this feeling had been growing inside her, that thought had scared her into silence. Now it bouyed her like the feeling of being held by him with her arms wrapped around his neck.

He stopped, looked at her, and grinned. “Hi.”

The smile that took over her face felt like the match to his own. “Hi there,” she answered.

Taking a few steps into the room, he lowered her gently to the bed. He stood there watching her, a loose smile still on his lips. “Are you, uh, hungry?” he asked.

“Not for room service,” she answered, reaching to grasp a handful of his shirt. She’d seen this shirt a hundred times. It was so familiar to her she thought she could have picked it out of a stack of a dozen similar ones. There was the loose thread at the shoulder that she had always considered offering to trim but hadn’t, afraid to admit she was paying such close attention to him. She knew the button that had been sewn on with the wrong thread. She knew the exact shade of white.

But the texture of it, the feeling of it clenched in her fist. That was new.

This whole situation was new and delicious and she wanted to bite into it like a ripe peach.

She drew him down towards her, pulling him onto the bed with her. His hand found her hip and settled there as their lips met again.

Minutes passed with roving hands and shifting kisses until Lup was holding his face and staring at his mouth, her lips feeling kiss roughened. Again, that thought of biting into a ripe peach.

“Whatcha thinking?” he asked, his voice a soft rumble, so close that she shivered.

“That I don’t remember a moment that felt so… delicious,” she told him honestly. Her thumb traced along his jaw, her eyes watching that little spot of connection as it traveled.

“I, uh, think I know what you mean,” he told her before dipping his head back to hers to taste her lips again.

More time melted away and then she became aware of her hands tugging his shirt free of his pants and fumbling his buttons loose.

Barry caught her hand, pulled it up to his mouth, and kissed her knuckles. “Are we really doing this? Is… Lup, is this what you want?”

Lup’s other hand reached up and curled into his hair, studying his face. She slid her fingers down his neck, over his shoulder, along his bicep, until her arm backed down far enough to touch the bed, her hand resting loosely on his elbow. She skated her fingers over the fabric of his shirt. “Yeah,” she said softly.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she repeated.

This time, when he kissed her, he pushed her back, pressing her into the mattress. His hand was on her side, two of his fingers touching her skin where her sweater had pushed up. She ran her palm over the back of his arm, encouraging him to close the distance between them even more.

She bent her knee, angling her leg to hook it behind his. Their kisses were rough and insistent, leaving them breathless in no time.

“Hey,” Lup told him the next time they managed to pause long enough to speak. “You need to be about 100% less dressed than you are.”

“So bossy,” he teased, running his fingers along the hem of her sweater.

“Well, I do own you.”

His head jerked up to study her face. “Hmm?”

“I won you. You’re mine now.”

“Oh,” he answered, grinning. “So that’s how it is? Well, my mistress, what do you require?”

A surge of lust shot through her, sharp and shocking. She tilted her chin up and caught his bottom lip between her teeth, nibbling at it before sucking it into her mouth where she traced over it with her tongue.

His hips pushed into hers and his fingers slid under the edge of her sweater to trail softly up her ribs. Shifting, she pulled her arm back so she could grab his wrist. Taking control of his motions, she slid his hand up further until her sweater was pushed up and his palm cupped her breast.

“I require a lot more touching and a lot less clothes,” she told him.

“Well then,” he answered, aiming lust darkened eyes at her. “Your wish is my command.”

Barry raised up on his knees and pulled his shirt off in an impatient rush. At least one button was sacrificed and she found herself laughing, delighted, and impossibly turned on.

She reached for his belt but his hands were on her sweater hem, still hitched up on one side and exposing half of her bra and a tantalizing expanse off skin. She let him pull it up, over her head, and toss it to land with his own shirt.

Then his belt was momentarily forgotten as he pressed forward again to kiss her. This time when their hands traveled over one another it was along a trail of bare skin, shivering at the contact.

She pushed him away, panting for breath, and demanded simply, “Pants.”

Obediently he stood and she sat up, reluctant to allow space between them despite it being her own request.

He watched her as his hands opened his belt but then she was too impatient. Pushing his fingers away, she unfastened his pants and unzipped the fly, pushing the jeans and boxers down roughly.

Humming appreciatively, she reached for him. “I purchased some choice goods,” she teased, stroking her hand over his cock. He was already hard but her attention, touch, and words were a strong alchemy, sending more blood rushing to fill him even more.

She tugged at him, not quite gently and he stumbled forward with a rough moan, feet tangling in his clothes for a moment. Releasing him, she exchanged her hold on his cock for his forearm and pulled him onto the bed while he scrambled to kick off his boots.

They shifted, finding a new way to fit together in the space. Lup sat up on her knees and ran her palm along his bare leg.

“Are you going to…?” he asked, glancing down at her still mostly clothed body. “We’re a little uneven here.”

“It’s cold! A girl’s gotta have layers.” Grinning, she flopped over on her back and shimmied out of her skirt and leggings. When her legs were free she kicked the clothes to the floor and sat up again. “You gonna keep me warm, babe?”

“Anything you want,” he answered seriously.

“That is exactly the right answer,” she informed him. “I knew I made the right purchase.” Still in her bra and panties, she climbed on top of him and settled herself across his hips. Only the thin material of her underwear separated them and she shifted her hips to remind him of that fact.

His hands settled on the sides of her thighs as he tried to prop himself up on his elbows. “You didn’t exactly ‘purchase’ me, you know.” Any point he was making was lost on her as his fingers gently stroked the backs of her thighs.

Flexing her hips, she ground herself against him again. “You saying I’m only renting?” she asked, sounding distracted.

“I hope not,” he told her.

Reaching behind her back, she unhooked her bra and slid the straps down her arms, holding the cups in place. “No?”

“I’m hoping this isn’t short term.” His fingers were still stroking idly on her legs but the worried tone in his voice still caught her attention.

Dropping the bra and tossing it into the floor, she leaned down. “It’s not,” she said, then kissed his chin. “I told you, I bought you. I don’t actually have a receipt so I couldn’t take you back even if I wanted to.”

“I’m serious,” he said, looking at her so intently that her breath caught.

“So am I.”

He chewed his lip.

“Hey,” she said, her eyebrows pulling tight as she studied his face. “I’m serious,” she repeated firmly.

“Are you? If this is just…” he looked away.

“It’s not. I want you. Now. Later. Always.”

“Yeah?”

She leaned back down and kissed his jaw then his mouth then back to his jaw then trailed down his neck to his chest. “I want all of this,” she said, her voice a low breathy murmur. “It’s mine. I’m claiming every part of you.” She kissed his chest, running her hands down from his shoulders to settle on his belly.

He took a shaky breath, the movement making his body rumble under her. She tightened her legs around him.

“Anything, Lup, anything you want.”

“I want it all,” she reiterated. Her hand traced over his arm. “This is mine.” Fingers sliding up to his shoulder she repeated, “Mine.”

Each place her touch paused, she claimed. “Mine,” on his jaw, “Mine,” as she traced his mouth, “Mine,” and “Mine,” and “Mine,” again and again, laying claim to all of him.

Then she shifted and trailed her mouth along a similar path, kissing each part of her new empire. Each movement rocked her hips against him, grinding her panties against his cock. She wanted to claim that as well but was far too reluctant to stand up to remove the last piece of clothing.

“Lup,” he said, her name a whisper of sound as he pulled in rough breaths.

“Mine,” she reminded him, moving to his mouth to kiss him again, claiming his mouth and tongue and the very breath in his lungs. She wrapped her hands around his face as she kissed him, feeling the hard shape of his jaw under his skin. It seemed unbelievable that he could be built of such conventional stuff as bone and skin and blood. How could any of that unremarkable stuff contain everything he was? His determination and compassion and brilliance and devotion? And then he looked at her and the love and lust in his eyes was dizzying.

She rocked against him harder, impatient after waiting so long. Years it had taken, decades, to get to this point and now she couldn’t spare ten seconds to take off her underwear, couldn’t stop riding him, feeling him against her.

His fingers clutched at her just as feverishly, wrapped at her waist as if she might float away if he didn’t keep hold of her.

“I need you,” she said. “Now. Right now.” She squeezed her legs around his thighs again.

“Anything,” he told her again, “Anything you want.”

“Fuck me. Fuck me right now.”

And just like he’d promised again and again, he obeyed her demand. He rolled her over, pressing down on her for a perfect, intense moment. Then he moved back, quick and deliberate. He grabbed her panties and hauled them down her legs. Then he climbed back up with her, pushing her knees up and apart.

“Fuck, yes,” she encouraged. She felt drunk on everything that was happening, on lust and on Barry both obedient to her desire and forceful as he spread her legs apart and moved between her thighs.

He muttered a spell and then his hand was moving over her, spreading both her own slickness and his magically produced stuff through her. Her hips bucked against him and he pushed them down again.

Spurring him on with enthusiastic noises, she writhed under him, anxious for his cock inside her. He kept spreading lube and finally she demanded again, “Now, Barry. I need you now.”

And again he obeyed. Removing his hand he began filling her with his cock instead, pushing forward, finally mixing their slick heat. When he was all the way in he slid out again then pushed forward slowly.

Unsatisfied with his pace, she ordered, “Turn over.” He pulled out and dropped to his side, then rolled on his back. Lup climbed on top of him again and reseated herself, holding him in place as she dropped down onto his cock. Then she began riding him in earnest, rocking on him, lifting up, dropping back again, pushing his cock deep, deep inside her.

Leaning back, she angled herself to push further, to take the full length of him inside her again and again.

She could feel her orgasm building and she rode the edge between it, thighs shaking. “Not yet,” she demanded. “Not yet, I want more.” His muscles were tensing underneath her but again, he obeyed, grunting with effort to hold back.

She came, clenching around him, and still he waited, face strained, until she said. “Now, babe, come for me now.”  His hips pumped against her, dick drilling into her, and then she felt his release.

Lup flopped forward, sweaty and spent, reveling in the feeling of his cock twitching inside her. Sighing contentedly she collapsed on his chest, feeling the harsh rise and fall of his breath.

“That was perfect,” he said, still breathing heavily. “You’re perfect.” Smiling, he pushed her hair back.

“You were pretty fucking perfect yourself, babe,” she teased, squeezing herself around him and grinning, delighted, at the noise he made at the sensation. “Real fucking glad I followed you tonight,” she added with a laugh.

“Mmmhmmm,” he answered, trailing his fingers over her shoulder. “Best thing that’s ever happened.”

“Wish I’d jumped your bones years ago.” She bit her bottom lip, sucking on it thoughtfully. “But now I own you.”

Barry smiled. “You always did.”

The only suitable response she could find was to kiss him and she did, passionately. Then she laid back down on his chest, shifting so she could settle her ear against his sternum. Listening to his heartbeat, she repeated again, “Mine.”

[clansayeed]

Bound by Circumstance ― Chapter 1: The Middle of the Beginning

PAIRING: Nik Ryder x trans*M!MC (Taylor Hunter) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Circumstance ⥽

Taylor Hunter (MC) has made it good for himself in New Orleans; turns out moving to a new city fresh out of college to reinvent yourself isn’t as hard as people make it out to be. Things only start to get confusing when he finds himself the target of a malevolent wraith. Good thing someone’s looking out for him though — because without Nighthunter Nik Ryder as his bodyguard he definitely won’t survive long in the twisting darkness of the supernatural underworld he's tripped into.

Bound by Circumstance and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the book Nightbound and the rest of the Bloodbound series. Find out more [HERE].

Note: Circumstance only loosely follows the events and plotline of Nightbound, and features a separate antagonist, different character motivations, and further worldbuilding.

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Circumstance/series tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

Four years after graduation Taylor catches up with his old college roommate, Kristin, and her work friend Vera for Mardi Gras. But a lot changes over time and Taylor isn't the same person he was back then.

[READ IT ON AO3]

The speckled pinks and oranges of rapidly-approaching sunset mirror the tourist’s neon shirts; plastered to their backs with patches of damp sweat.

He can’t imagine what it must be like to lead the pungent masses day in and day out. To mark them as prey with bright triangle flags flying high; leading them along like children with tethers of long camera straps and beaded trinkets from this shop and that stall.

It was hard enough to be an outsider when he first arrived. For his coworkers to see his born-and-bred habits like the traditions of a long dead civilization. To always be the other and to always be othered in a way he wasn’t used to.

Oh he’s used to being the other. Just for things that aren’t where he’s from and why he can’t handle the spice-coated flavors others were just born with.

It’s taken a year and some weeks but he’s finally close enough to being one of the rest that he’d never do something to damage his carefully cultivated reputation with something as tarnishing as a cemetery ghost tour.

So long as he keeps his distance he’s just another onlooker maybe digging for scraps of a heritage long-forgotten. No way is he one of them.

“All right-y y’all, let’s head on back to the carriages. They’ll take ya back to the Square and from there y’all’re free to enjoy the col-a-ful Quarter nightlife on ya own terms!”

The tour guide’s accent is thick and rich with generations of Cajun history. Taylor’s seen her run this route a dozen times in one day — she may not have a theatre to call home but he’d definitely consider her to be as much of a performer as he is.

No one could be that excited to spout out the same facts and deal with the constant barrage of insensitive Civil War-obsessed family dads every day. Not without being a little dizzy in the head.

Lo’ and behold one raises his sunburned arm. “Can we stay if we want?”

The guide almost slips — almost rolls her eyes.

“Ya paid for a ride back but that’s your dollar. You just gotta high-tail it with everyone else when the gates are closin’.”

“Why,” comes the petulant response, “don’t tell me they lock this place up because of the ghosts.”

Taylor watches the perpetrator; a young man wearing the Hartfield University logo like he’s getting a thousand bucks for each separate instance, wiggle his fingers at a woman beside him. She playfully shrieks, swats him away with a “ohmygod stop it Jake!” and no matter the answer the guide is going to give they could care less.

And the guide’s noticed it, too. Squares her chest and brushes her braid over her shoulder with a nonchalant frown.

“Not so much them as the muggers and drunks who take advantage of scrawny lil’ white boys like you who hang around like dumb shit. But by all means — stay if you think you can handle it.”

‘Jake’ must decide he can’t handle it because no one but the guide is left behind when the masses start back to the carriages. Taylor can’t help himself when he laughs.

“You need a ride too, straggler?”

She’s looking right at him. There’s a coy smile on her lips and something about her that seems a bit hazy — Taylor chocks it up to the humidity playing tricks on his tired eyes.

“Yeah, you,” she says without being prompted; throws a look back to her charges before crossing the cobblestone path to the crypt Taylor’s been using as good vantage point. “Don’t think I ain’t seen you creepin’ on my path. Next time you pay; got it?”

“Oh, I wasn’t —”

“Yeah yeah, I’ve heard it all before so save it.”

He didn’t ask for a ride back — would appreciate it but he’s fully capable of using his two feet and turning them in the direction of the Quarter. So he tries not to bristle at her defensive tone; tries to think back to all the things he was pushed into learning growing up.

Being defensive is sometimes the only way to get through the day.

“You got kin in here, cher?”

She has to snap to bring him back to reality.

“Huh?”

But at least she’s smiling now. Even if her smile changes in the shadows that grow and stretch over the evening. He tries not to linger on it too much.

“Just I’s seen you around here a couple times, is all.”

“Oh, no,” —then when he realizes he’s just given the implication that he likes hanging around crypts— “It’s a nice place to think. Away from the crowds.”

As if the world exists to prove him wrong there’s a whoop of laughter behind them. Taylor and the woman look to see a pair of children trying to climb on a stone ledge while their parents argue several feet away.

The guide groans. “Will you think less’a me if I’m too tired to deal with that right now?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Then get that cute butt up in that there carriage. Now I just plain owe ya.”

Taylor shakes his head. “No, you don’t —”

“Hush. Book it.”

He’s flustered and she knows it. Flustered in the heat and with the visible light slowly dimming — that’s what’s tricking his eyes. What’s making her ears look a little too pointy and her eyes a little too bright and wide.

After all — what’s he gonna say? ‘You’re looking a bit Lord of the Rings today, miss?’ Probably not.

“Anyway the gates is closin’ soon — so this ride’s on me.”

They probably exchange words (or in Taylor’s case flustered nods and smiles) but hell if he can remember them. Not when he finds himself in the same carriage as Jake and his friend with the friendly guide — “call me Tilly” — beside him.

He must be awfully flustered the whole ride back to the city.

One thing to know about New Orleans is Mardi Gras isn’t just a party or a festival that comes around once a year. It’s a way of life.

Adopted by the tourists who travel from all across the country in search of a place to forget all but the celebration for the short time they’re here but first birthed by deep blood running in red rivers and streams through the Bayou and down into the sewers on Bourbon Street.

Ask anyone who calls the Big Easy home and they’ll tell you; it’s in the earth and the sea and the sky. It clings to the hull of every boat on the Mississippi and catches on the breeze that carries fallen leaves through the streets. More than just the open booze and cheap plastic beads — it’s the collective time to share the heady atmosphere of do everything but more and bridge the divides that settle in the city’s oldest bricks.

For Taylor it’s an excuse to undo the top button on his shirt and lose himself in the sweet swell of jazz down every block.

For Taylor’s old college roommate Kristin it’s an excuse to take a week off work and invite herself onto his tiny (tiny) couch for a full week nowhere near sober.

Tilly was — is — cute but if Taylor’s being honest with himself he’ll probably forget the ripped brochure panel with her number on it. Only to remember it come laundry day with the regret of the single-but-okay-with-it crowd.

As he shuffles off with elbows pulled in tight to maneuver his way through the crowds he’s given a stark reminder of why he went to the cemetery to clear his head in the first place.

Ping.

[TEXT]: I C U!!!

Taylor’s well within his rights to be terrified of a text like that, especially when the ping that follows it is met with a blurry picture wherein the flash practically whites out his hair.

But this is Kristin and Kristin has absolutely zero boundaries. Even going so far as to send at least three more photos of him looking down at his phone before he can even try to pinpoint the rooftop she’s hanging off of.

Luckily he catches sight of her (hard not to with her bright and glittery costume and long arms flailing like willows in the wind) before he stalls the entire street. Awkwardly shuffles into the bar and gestures at the back staircase to the hostess who literally couldn’t care less.

The rooftop seating isn’t as crowded as the floor below — for that he’s grateful. Less so for the sudden onslaught of glittery, liquor-tinted kisses pressed to every visible inch of his face, though.

“You ma~ade it, you ma~ade it!” Kristin sing-songs; almost spills her half-drunk hurricane but is apparently still sober enough to keep from spilling such a valuable item.

“And you started the party without me, I see.”

She giggles and brushes her hair away from her shoulders with a flourish. Wiggles her half dozen plastic beaded necklaces in his face with triumph. “Indeed I did!”

“Just be glad I managed to get her down to something she needs to sip out of a straw.”

Taylor looks up at the unfamiliar voice — finds himself dragged towards it by Kristin’s eager hand.

When she mentioned a ‘friend from work’ would be coming with her on vacation Taylor hadn’t known what to think or say. After four years their lives had gone in completely different directions — as was expected to happen when a theatre major and an accounting major ended up sharing an apartment on pure chance.

Frankly, though he’d taken the pushover high road and not said a word about it, when he thought Kristin had invited both herself and her coworker to stay with him he hadn’t been pleased in the fucking slightest.

But Vera — “amazing Vera,” “perfect Vera,” “I don’t know what I’d do without her Vera” — hadn’t wanted to impose on a stranger and gotten a hotel room for the week.

How is it that Kristin always attracts the kind of people who take care of her?

The humid breeze rustles Vera’s curls; not out of place but just enough to make her seem like even the wind is staged to highlight her best features. She looks like she came to the roof straight from the airport in a lax business suit with sleeves rolled up and collar button undone.

Not that the sleeves make much of a difference — Taylor chocked up Kristin’s insistence that Vera “always wears long silk gloves — like always” to her penchant for hyperbole but nope, there they were. And judging by the humidity and the way she holds her sweating cocktail glass by the tips of her fingers they aren’t very comfortable.

“Keep sippin’ sugar,” coaxes Vera, her smile fond as she directs Kristin’s neon-green crazy straw back between her lips, “don’t want you to crash and burn just yet.”

She hums in compliance, smacks her lips when she’s done and only then realizes she needs to make introductions.

“Whoops! Tay — this is Vera! Vera — Tay —”

“The infamous Taylor, oh I know.” She extends a gloved hand that he shakes — tries to hide his confusion but apparently not very well.

“I’ve seen enough pictures of you to feel like we went to college together.” Knowing Kristin as well as he does that’s a perfectly valid answer.

“I just wish I could say the same.” He admits almost sheepishly.

But Vera waves it off like it’s nothing. “Nah, you’re good. Baby girl knows how much I value my privacy.”

Before he can answer Kristin’s calling out to one of the waitresses making her rounds and snatching a drink off her tray to head directly for Taylor. With mortification he takes it and hands it back to the now irritated waitress — hands her a solid twenty for her troubles, too.

When Kristin and drinks are involved he knows to always come prepared to placate wait staff.

“Does your friend need to be cut off?” the woman asks with a leer. It’s the second time he’s flustered that evening because there’s no way her eyes go from hazel to yellow. Obviously.

“No no, she’s good. We’ll take good care of her.”

“Oh really?”

“I’m the, uh, D-D.” Thank god his smile works because the last thing he needs is her to get him banned from every bar on Rue Bourbon in a single week.

There’s a reason they don’t go back to their college homecoming week.

“I’ll get you a pop then.”

“Thanks.”

When he turns around Vera already has their girl back in her seat gabbing; a few steps closer and he catches the end of what was undoubtedly a riot of a story about something that happened on her flight over.

Vera flashes him a sympathetic look and a nod. Oh yeah, he likes her already. They’re gonna get along swimmingly.

“Do you have to be so loud?!”

“You’re the one screaming.”

“No ‘m not…”

“Yes you are~”

“Am not!”

“Are too~”

Taylor’s never had the best reflexes; doesn’t have enough of a sixth sense for oncoming violence to duck before his sofa pillow smacks him in the head.

“Your aim’s gotten better.” He drawls. Rounds the kitchen island and throws the pillow right back at the hungover mess squished on the cushions.

Kristin looks at him through a ratty ginger mess. He can feel the hatred from the distance.

“I was aiming for your butt.”

“Oh, then I take it back.”

“Dunno how I missed such a wide load!”

Despite her general anger at the world Taylor continues making her the barest excuse of a hangover breakfast; fried rice and scrambled eggs slathered in the ketchup that might as well run in her veins.

He leaves breakfast in a little display at the island — plated with a side of orange juice and coffee brewing in the pot.

“I gotta head to rehearsal — please get up if only to turn off the coffee maker?”

He scratches her hair like a pet — smiles fondly at the memories it brings back. Memories of them in this exact position four years younger. He missed the company.

Now that her dramatic episode is over Kristin yawns and gives him a pitiful frown. “I don’t need coffee,” she whines, “I need vodka.”

“Well you’re fresh outta luck there.” She knows any space he calls home is a dry one.

She watches him grab his keys and head out. Calls out “love you!” just like they used to.

“Love you back!”

The door closes behind him.

New Orleans wasn’t exactly the place for young, fresh-out-of-college performing hopefuls to go searching for roles. Not unless they were returning to their roots. Truthfully if anyone bothered asking him why he’d chosen the Big Easy he wouldn’t be able to give an immediate answer; he certainly struggled finding a company to latch onto when he first came down. Struggled (and continues to struggle) between temp jobs and deciding whether to pay rent or treat himself to something other than grilled chicken — again.

Most of his struggles he could blame on the glamorous life of an actor; big struggles early in life surely meant big rewards in the future.

Yes; he’s well aware he’d have at least a few less struggles had he picked up his entire life and moved, say, to Los Angeles.

But Taylor’s never been a fan of the easy way out. New Orleans called (probably a wrong number, but who was he to fight fate) and he answered.

There’s a laugh off to his left while he scrubs the sweat from his face. The bottom cotton of his tee itches like hell — but it’s better than not being able to see.

“Trying your hand at stripping, Hunter?”

The thud of a body sitting beside him on the edge of the stage. He drops the thoroughly soaked hem — still has to rub his thumbs into his eyes — before catching a glance at the lead he’s under-studying.

“I mean I thought about it,” admits Taylor—only half-joking, “but I like beignets too much.”

Antoni rolls his eyes and leans back with all the casual freedom of a man who has played five starring roles of the seven productions the company’s put on. Once you have your spot secured like that you can pretty much get away with anything. Especially making fun of the newbie.

The only thing Antoni and Taylor have in common are the lines and blocking they’re leaning. Where Antoni is brunette, Taylor is blond. Where Antoni is lithe and wiry — perfect for dancing though the company refuses to put on any musicals until their tenth year — Taylor is a little broader in the shoulders, a little curvy on the hips in comparison to the almost ethereal way Antoni’s body shoots downward.

Sure, like anyone with a pulse, Taylor had walked into his audition with a slight crush on Antoni’s heartbreaking smile and bright eyes. Then the star opened his mouth and Taylor couldn’t remember one thing he found attractive about the New Orleans-born performer. He didn’t know whether being a pompous jackass was in the man’s contract but he sure carried himself like it was.

Antoni looks Taylor up and down; his lips pursed in an all-too-familiar judgy frown.

“Sure, that’s why you couldn’t pull it off.”

The words send violent little stings all over his body. Make Taylor turn away from the way his coworker suddenly zones in on his chest. Everyone in the scene was sweating their asses off but two layers of spandex compressed on his chest didn’t make it any easier on Taylor. Still, no complaints as he endures the exercise in stifling Louisiana heat.

Fucking Antoni.

The rest of the scene’s performers join them on the edge of the stage. Water bottles are passed around and Taylor takes one gratefully from the girl beside him. Antoni declines his offer like plastic bottles are for peasants and snaps at one of the non-speaking roles to grab his metal water jug from the greenroom. He’s Antoni so… the kid scrambles to do his bidding.

When everyone is gathered the director smacks his palm against his clipboard — every single time, without fail, it makes Taylor feel like he’s back in a class being wrangled by a teacher — until everyone’s focus it on him.

“Alrighty, y’all, that was a real good run! I just have a few things I wanna go over…”

He pays attention like a good little soldier, but even though the director is a seasoned pro and his feedback is good, some people can be way too chatty. Makes Taylor zone out and think about how badly he’d now like to shove his face full of fluffy hot donut to simultaneously prove Antoni right and give him the middle finger. It’s not like he’s going up on stage anyway.

Being the understudy is fun. Being the understudy to a guy with enough ego to fill the bayou and a spotless attendance is less fun. Just means he knows he’ll only ever play the lead if Antoni gets eaten by gators… and even then it’s a little up in the air.

Tangential threads of thought have him thinking of the last time he bought a bottle of Gatorade when there’s motion around him and everyone is getting up and saying their goodbyes for the evening. “Hey, Antoni, stay back a sec,” says the director — Taylor tries not to roll his eyes as he heads to the back to change.

The reason he’d picked this company out of the dozens of amateur theatre gigs in New Orleans was simple — if not a little shameful. He should have wanted to go where the talent was, where the stories were, where the audience was. But Comerlan & Company was the only group that boasted (like, boasted) their inclusivity. Like, made-sure-to-include-their-nonbinary-green-room boasting.

He’d been slightly confused upon entering to find a faulty light switch and storage supplies — but at least it wasn’t being used for the wrong reasons. A couple of the crew members even welcomed him with a personalized sign:

TAYLOR’S GREEN ROOM LEAVE YOUR SHOES & BINARY THOUGHTS AT THE DOOR!!

Antoni may be a stuck-up prick but Taylor has his own green room. If anyone was keeping score that was at least ten, maybe even eleven points in his favor.

He’s bag-slung-over-shoulder and nearly out the back door when one of the crew rounds the tight corner with a stack of boxes obscuring his sight. If Taylor hadn’t been scrolling through Kristin’s five literal million texts about plans for the evening that he has no say in he might’ve stopped just in time to avoid a crash.

Yeah, he doesn’t.

They both go tumbling down with boxes between them. It takes Taylor longer than normal to blink the daze out of his system — judging by the costumes spilling out of the boxes they shouldn’t have been that heavy yet he can’t shake the distinct feeling of running into a brick wall. Or a mountain.

“Oh jeez — not again —” comes a gruff voice off to his side; followed by a hand outstretched in offering.

“— are you okay kid?” —the hand switches to a set of three fingers— “How many fingers am I holding up? Have you ever had a concussion before? You know what — stay there. I’ll call an ambulance.”

The man towers so high over him — really towers even at Taylor’s ground-level view — that a chunk of the overhead lights is obscured by his frantic head. You’d think a man so high in the sky wouldn’t take a fall so seriously but he’s acting like he just tried to stab Taylor on accident or something.

“H-Hey — hey, HEY!”

He shakes off the cartoon canaries flying overhead and rubs the back of his head; sore but there’s no blood on the linoleum; not that he suspected there might be.

Then the lights shine in Taylor’s eyes as the large crewman crouches down; reveals a worried face cut in serious angles. Like a-jawline-made-out-of-stone angles.

And there’s no way a guy that hot should be looking so worried, so… almost innocent.

“Hold still — and if you feel the need to vomit —”

“I’m fine, man, fine,” the more he says it the more he starts to mean it, too, “I’ve taken worse falls than this.”

“Are you sure? I’m… a bit hard to run into.”

“Like a mountain.”

“Er — sure.” A strange look comes over the man’s face before he offers up his hand again. Taylor uses it to pull himself up, hold steady. Could swear the man’s face shifts and grows darker (literally several shades darker) out of the corner of his eye but this time, flustered or not, he’s pinning it down on the unexpected head trauma.

Before he can look around for it the man seems to conjure Taylor’s phone out of thin air — he checks the intact screen with relief.

“Thanks.”

The crewman is already bent down, though; putting costumes back in boxes haphazardly. “It’s my fault. I should have been watching where I was going.”

“Dunno how you could have,” Taylor chuckles as he begins to help, “those things were stacked taller than you are. And that’s pretty impressive, no offense.”

The man’s face goes a slight pink — Taylor’s glad for once he’s not the embarrassed one.

“None taken.”

When everything is cleaned up and the boxes are re-stacked (which, doesn’t that just ask for trouble, but Taylor doesn’t say it) he turns to leave without a word. Only stops when the other clears his throat at Taylor’s back.

“I’m Krum, by the way. I’ve seen you around… you’re the King Oberon understudy aren’t you?”

The understudy. Yeah… that’s all he’s known for — all he’ll ever be known for. But still he tries to take it as the compliment it is; forces on a smile and turns back on his heel.

God, he wishes he hadn’t. Because maybe he hit his head harder than he thought. Maybe he did need an ambulance. Judging by the sudden garish, almost monstrous appearance of Krum the Crewman’s face.

He compared the man to a mountain before but not like this. Not with his jaw suddenly cut from what looks like granite and the veins in his literally rocky muscles now black and glittering with sediment.

With the air whisked from his lungs Taylor squeezes his eyes shut. Grits his teeth so hard his jaw begins to ache and the fading headache from his fall comes back full-force.

It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s. not. real.

“Hey… you okay?”

The way ‘Krum’ asks isn’t like before. It’s startled — unsure. But why wouldn’t he be? It’s all in Taylor’s head — he’s just flustered again.

He snaps his eyes open; steals back what little oxygen is left in the suddenly too-crowded empty hallway, and nods.

“Yeah. Gotta go. Bye.”

Not that the jarring switch from air-conditioning to the muggy humidity of the New Orleans sunset does him any good. But he’ll take anything over hallucinating again. Anything.

Kristin accepts that Taylor won’t join her in her pregame, but she’s not a fan of him trying to delay the start of her very-good night.

“Tay, hon, I’ve accepted that you’re not gonna pregame with me but I don’t see why that means I have to start late because you wanna talk.”

And at first he’s okay with it — knows she can be a little self-centered at times but when it counts she’s always there for him — until she’s too busy texting Vera about the secret club she’s been raving about ever since he got back from rehearsal to notice that this would be those times where it counts.

“If you’d stop trying to relive your college glory days for one fucking second, Kristin, I could use a friend and not a human vodka bottle.”

It’s gets her attention because it’s not Taylor — not the passive, takes-everything-silently Taylor she knew.

But he needs her right now. Not just because he doesn’t really have anyone else.

Only when they’re sitting on the couch together with newly-brewed mugs of tea in hand, though, does the silence break.

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

Kristin sips her tea for something to do. “I shouldn’t have been, uh…”

“College-Kristin?”

“Yeah.”

Their hands meet where the cushions do and they squeeze. Things really have changed.

Only now he has the space to talk and in classic Taylor-fashion he’s unsure of what to say.

“Whenever you’re ready, okay?” While some might not consider Kristin taking her phone and turning it screen-down as a big deal, he knows better. Knows it means she’s living in the moment with him.

It takes him a whole twenty minutes to be ready — and she doesn’t look at her phone once.

“I never told you why I stopped drinking just before senior year.”

“No, you didn’t.” Not for my lack of asking she doesn’t say; doesn’t have to.

“I know it’s a bit late, but…”

“But better now than never.”

Better now than never. The same words Taylor said to her seconds before his first injection. Her hand gripping his shoulder tightly the whole time. It’s the only throwback so far that hasn’t made his stomach queasy.

“Right,” he nods, “better now than never.”

No one meeting them now would believe that it was Taylor with the drinking problem and Kristin worrying one step behind. As it was only a few people in their shared and close-knit social circle of queer outcasts and image-reinventors knew there was a time when sobriety was a fickle joke to him. He made sure it stayed that way, too.

Even back then he’d been good at hiding; hiding his drinking, hiding his therapy, hiding his doubts about who he really was. And maybe no one would have ever known had their group plans to visit Europe for their last summer not fallen through.

Because going back home to stay with his mother — not that he blamed her; he could never blame her — had been the tipping point. All those old familiar faces who kept calling him the wrong name, kept using the wrong words. The whispers behind cupped hands that would stop the moment he walked into a space. The once-friends who were suddenly ‘too busy’ to get to know the man he’d become instead of the woman they thought he was.

Each drink made the whispers and rumors easier to suffer. He could laugh them off and, on really bad days, joke around with them — turn himself into a joke at his own expense. But it was a double-edged sword and he knew it.

“Remember that trip my mom and I took to the city to see Wicked?”

Kristin nods. She’s been silent the whole time — through every admission of guilt, every notable time they had fallen out or he’d been caught up in something stupid that had only happened because of the drink — and Taylor wouldn’t be surprised if she decided to stay with Vera for the rest of her vacation.

Taylor exhales; this isn’t something he’s ever admitted beyond the safety of a private office, beyond a patient confidentiality clause. “She was never much of a drinker, you remember. So she didn’t know what I was ordering was way stronger than hers. And when we were done she went out to call a cab to the theatre and… and I remembered I hadn’t taken my meds that morning.”

“Shit, Tay…”

He shakes his head to stop her. If that’s what’s got her worried she won’t be able to handle the rest of the story. “Yeah, it was dumb. But to be fair I was pretty dumb back then.”

Kristin just shrugs. Brushes her thumb over his knuckles.

“That’s when I, uhm, you know I was a week late moving back to the apartment?”

“Yeah, you said…” No matter what he’d said it wasn’t the truth so she doesn’t finish.

But Taylor remembers. Remembers laying in the hospital bed trying not to panic himself into a heart attack. Remembers his mother crying over his bedside some nights and trying her best not to shout at him during others. Please don’t tell anyone, he begged her with bleary eyes and a fresh IV in his arm, I’ll get help, I’ll get help. Just don’t tell anyone.

“Well what really happened was… it was bad,” even with all his extensive vocabulary it’s the only word he can think of, “it was really bad. The doctors said it was the combo — that I probably took more of my meds than I needed on accident.

“I was looking at people but — but I wasn’t seeing them. They looked strange or inhuman or… or both. I’d hallucinated like that before but never… never that bad.”

Her nose scrunches up — she’s holding her thoughts back but right now that’s okay.

“You’d hallucinated before? And did the same shit knowing what would happen?”

There’s an accusation in her voice that makes him look away in shame. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Too bad — try.”

So he tries — doesn’t know how well he succeeds. Explains in broken sentences and half-started half-finished examples of when the hallucinations first started and how happy he’d been when drinking made them go away. Well… until that last time.

“So lemme get this straight;” Kristin pinches the bridge of her nose, “you were seeing shit, and started drinking to not see shit, but you still kept seeing shit so you kept drinking until you didn’t see shit anymore?”

“Pretty much.”

“Taylor that’s the stupidest fucking logic I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Like, it doesn’t even make sense.”

“It did at the time.”

“Bullshit — but continue.”

Only by that point there isn’t much left to say. He got help — missed the first week of senior year because it overlapped with his rehab. “Explains why you never answered my calls,” she mutters. “Mom passed along every single message, though,” he offers as consolation.

“Rehab was the easiest month of my life. I didn’t want to drink again — especially if it meant seeing… seeing stuff. And I wasn’t even tempted when I went back to school. I had my meds, and I had that terrifying last time to scare me straight.”

He tries not to let Kristin’s silence get to him — tries not to shift under the weight of imagined scrutiny. It’s not like this thing ruined their friendship and only now, four years after the fact, is he coming clean about it. It’s more like he’s… filling in the blanks. Giving the story more context.

So very meta of him.

“So why are you telling me this now?”

Man, he hoped she wouldn’t ask that. But why else would he bring it up if he wasn’t prepared for it?

“Because,” he says on a shaky inhale, “I know you’ll believe me when I say I haven’t had a drink in years. You’ve seen my place, you’ve seen how I am out on the town; I’m not even tempted. My mom… she loves me — and that’s why she’d probably think I’m lying if I told her.”

“‘Told her’ what?”

“That I think… I think I’m starting to see things again. And I’m scared, Krissy, I’m really really scared.”

He falls into her open arms without hesitation. Knows when things are less serious that she’ll get on his case for leaving wet spots in one of her favorite shirts later but she knows when to put the persona aside and just be there for him.

Others may not get the full story between them — and, really, now she knows the full story too — but god is he glad to have someone like her in his life.

Every time the full and unopened bottles clink in the bag between them, Kristin looks over his way. He gets it, really he does, but it’s starting to get annoying.

“No way are we going out tonight.”

“Seriously — it’s okay.”

“Dude you just had a full-on mental breakdown in my lap.”

“And that’s new?”

“I can’t enjoy myself knowing you’re miserable!”

“I’m not miserable, Krissy. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you for legit ever.”

“Ugh, well… you’ve got me there. But we’re gonna change things up a bit, okay?”

So she called Vera while Taylor showered the tears from his conscience. Gathered up all the bottles she bought while he was gone that day into one eco-friendly tote bag and made a second call to a rideshare with the destination set at Vera’s hotel in the Business District.

“I don’t want you guys to change your plans because of me.”

“Shuuuuut up, Tay. My liver will probably thank you in the long run.”

“But what about your friend?”

“Vee — oh she’s fine with it. Apparently she found a club or two we can get to instead!”

Not that there’s much difference between a bar and a club in any other town but here in the Big Easy (and especially during Mardi Gras) near-every bar is a club on certain avenues, but that doesn’t mean every club has a bar.

Kristin beckons him close and cups her hand over her mouth to whisper in his ear. “And if you start to, well, you know, then we’ll leave and go check out the sights. Cool?”

The driver probably gets the wrong impression of them when Taylor kisses her temple lovingly. That’s okay though. He wouldn’t be the first.

“Cool.”