#me whenever ocean is paired with moon instead of earth i lose my Mind

[raayllum]

TDP official really chose to feed Me today huh

[passivenovember]

West.

(For my darling @cuepickle , ILYSM!)

--

Washed in fire-cracker light from a pit in Steve Harrington’s backyard, Billy swallows an entire topaz ocean from a can and stops wishing for California.

Because he’s piss-drunk, crinkling aluminum in his fist to keep from reaching out, into the flame, to prove that it’s all a dream. A feeling that will pass. And Steve’s smoking through Billy’s pack of Marlboro reds, one right after the other, the little train that could.

It doesn’t make Billy angry. It used to. Because he wanted to be the lighter in Steve’s hand and the smoke in Steve’s lungs and the blood rushing, confident, through his veins, and he never knew it.

That’s the thing about Billy. If it’s not coming from a textbook, he’s slow on the uptake and eager to swing out of misplaced anger. But once he figured out what this was, catching butterflies in his hands, he settled for friendship and he’s happy about it. Thrilled and content to share his cigarettes until the stars stop spinning like they’re caught in a washing machine, and he hopes against hope, that. Steve’ll stay put.

That they’ll sit close enough to touch all night long.

That even though people keep trying to drag Harrington back into the house, where they’ve got a game of beer-pong going and the stereo thumping so loud Billy thinks the Earth might crack open–he hopes that Steve will stop searching for tomorrow’s bright spring rays, too.

So, Billy stops dreaming of California.

“This is nice,” Steve says. The wind tousles his hair, kicking up notes of leather, coffee grounds, and vanilla ice cream. Billy wants to bottle it and make a fortune.

“Yeah,” He determines, instead. There’ll be time for masterplans and grand crimes later when Harrington’s the first to fall asleep.

Steve leans to scratch his leg, staring out at his empty swimming pool. “You’re having a nice time?” He asks, and Billy thinks all the color is gone from his face. But maybe it’s just the shadow of the new year closing in. Maybe it’s the moon.

Billy wants to make him smile. “Yeah.”

“That all you can say, Hargrove?” Steve glances over, cheeks red from the cold.

And he's gorgeous.

Billy's never seen anything like him in all the world, so he keeps a textbook full of moments exactly like this one. He never loses track of them, leafing through their worn and well-loved pages whenever he's lost in seas of brown.

A smile plays at the corners of Steve's lips, "Me too," he says, soft and secret and so like an eclipsing planet even though beyond a scraggly line of ferns and balding oak trees, tripping all the way along a path of bronze sandstone, all of Hawkins is getting trashed on the sloppy seconds from the Harrington’s Christmas party.

Steve doesn’t mind it. He’s got the world in his hand, a wristwatch that’s stopped working, and all of Billy’s attention focused as a searchlight, on his pretty, pretty face.

The whole cheerleading team is probably wondering where they are.

Billy can’t get his legs to work, they’ve turned to vanilla pudding. “What’d you get for Christmas, richie-rich?”

Steve shrugs and turns back to the pool. “Pair of Nike’s, that new Queen record, a pack of cool-ranch sunflower seeds, some kettle corn-–”

“Wow, Momsie and Papa couldn’t roll the savings account for you? Aren’t you an only child?”

“I got a Playboy desk calendar, too,” Steve passes his-their-Billy’s cigarette without a second thought. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

Suddenly the backdoor opens, and a pinpoint of yellow flashes in a sea of dark, dark winter.

Billy uses his free hand to shield his eyes.

Steve clicks his teeth, annoyed when he shouts, “I’m busy,” to the short, pissed-off figure that calls his name into the night.

“It’s fine,” Billy tells him, swinging his legs over the side of the pool chair so he can get his feet under him, “They’re probably lost in there without you.”

“No,” Steve snaps. The thick gold band he stole from Billy’s gym bag after training camp this summer taps a frantic tune on the metal chair beneath him.

And Billy gets the sense that this isn’t a casual conversation.

That Steve’s got speeches and roadmaps snaking like candy-land fields in his mind, a clear goal trapping them in this moment on the last Friday of winter break, two hours past midnight on the first day of a brand new year.

Steve looks at him. Studies him.

Says, after a long, weightless moment, “There’s something I want to talk to you about,” and Billy’s mind goes a hundred and one places. None of them good, all of them baring teeth and claws and spikey bones from years of rotting decay.

"Feeling brave, Harrington,"

Steve grins in spite of himself, "Maybe,"

And somewhere behind them, the pinpoint of light goes out.

Steve takes a deep, uneasy breath. “I’ve been thinking about graduation.” He starts, and the world tilts sideways.

Frosted blades of grass crunch underfoot of someone drawing closer and closer to whatever grenade Steve’s about to throw on their perfect, carefree night. A stranger, or friend, or–-

Neil, for all Billy knows, is set to get a front-row seat to Steve’s admission.

I know what you are, Billy imagines him saying, kind eyes finally slicing Billy open after so many months of liquid care, I know how you feel about me and what happens in your gym shorts when you see my ass in the showers. I’ve seen how you fuck yourself open on your fingers imagining that I’m pressing myself inside you because we’re in love with each other–-

Steve gulps down the rest of his beer and turns, so their knees knock.

It hurts, and it doesn’t. He swallows panic, anyway.

Billy gets like that at the first sign of trouble. Sensitive as an overripe peach. All those times they put their hands on each other and Billy doubts Harrington knows that he bruises easily. That he carried Steve’s fingerprints on his skin for weeks after--

“It’s just,” Steve says, eyes cast to the ground. To the crust of the Earth, knocking politely on the lid of Billy’s sneakers, “When I think about my future, it gets fuzzy.”

“Yeah, that’s normal, I think.” Billy turns, eyes straining through the darkness to find the owner of those clandestine footsteps. The yard is empty. He passes the unlit cigarette back to Steve and wonders, through a cloud of haze and terrifying anxiety, if he imagined the whole thing.

Maybe they’re alone, after all. Maybe Steve will go easy on him. Maybe—

Steve lets the cigarette fall to the ground.

“Wasteful,” Billy says, trying to cast light on the mood.

“I don’t care, I’ll buy more."

On the tip of Billy’s tongue, he feels red-hot jealousy inflate like blown glass. Typical, he wants to say, you rich bitches don’t give two shits about the resources you deplete or the mouths you take them from, and still–-

Call it a habit.

Billy’s trying to file his own edges down. Doesn’t want to be that guy to Steve anymore, the one who says those things and means it, because–-

Billy bites down until he tastes blood to stop from saying something stupid. But the thought comes an hour and four beers too late.

Steve won’t look at him and Billy’s trying to find the hole in their lifeboat before their friendship sinks. There’ve been a lot of parties this break. A lot of weed smoke, a lot of tequila shots, and stolen six packs exchanged for frozen pizza, and Billy thinks for an endless moment that maybe he said something, once.

Got shitfaced and lost in the pink feeling when Steve carried him home and put Billy to bed and crawled under the sheets with him, so close but not touching, until they both fell to dreams.

Maybe Billy got too comfortable in their safe, easy friendship, and ruined everything.

Maybe Steve knows.

“My future,” Steve tries again, eyebrows pinched in a way that’ll give him wrinkles before he turns thirty-five, “It only makes sense if I imagine–-”

“Jesus Christ, It's fucking freezing out here."

Billy cranes his neck and Robin appears, windswept and higher than a kite, balancing along the abandoned edge of the pool. Her cheeks are red from the cold despite the insulated overalls that still hold last month's mustard stains, and the leather jacket she stole from Billy’s room and never gave back is slung around her shoulders.

They stare at her for a long, breathless moment.

“Y’all scared me,” She says, rubbing her hands together, "Am I interrupting something?"

Billy turns back around, "Not really," He says, at the same time, Harrington snaps, "Kinda," All teeth and none of that sappy best-friends-who-can-read-each other's-minds bullshit that he keeps on tap.

“You knew we were out here,” Steve clarifies. He flicks a cluster of ash from his sun lounger. “You were standing at the door, calling my name.”

“I was calling both your names.”

“Bullshit,” Billy tells her, chuckling.

“Not shit,” Robin says, plopping down on the pool lounger next to him, “I called both your names and when I heard Steve’s voice I thought maybe you went into the woods together.”

“How much dope have you had tonight?” When Robin waggles her eyebrows, Steve frowns, “We wouldn't go into the woods. Don’t go into the woods, Bucks.”

“Too late, I already did,” Robin snatches their cigarette off the ground and takes the lighter that’s offered, pinching the filter between her front teeth, “It’s fucking freezing out here–-”

Billy grins. "You already said that."

“We were talking,” Steve bristles. His eyes are narrowed, pools of honey covered in bees and wasps and he doesn’t say what Billy so clearly sees between the lines. We were talking–-

And you interrupted us.

Robin frowns. “What could you possibly be doing out here that couldn’t happen inside?”

“You mean the very same inside that’s caught under the mind-numbing cadence of Wham! and the watchful eye of half the school?” Billy shrugs, “Wasn’t my bag.” Billy takes robins-his-Steve’s cigarette and tells the truth. “Harrington’s waxing poetic about the future.”

“My future,” Steve says.

“His future,” Billy clarifies.

“Jesus Christ. It’s the last Friday of winter break, can we please not do the college thing?”

“Quick, check her head for bumps,” Billy deadpans, stealing his cigarette back. It’s comical, coming from Mrs. SAT herself.

Robin knocks her shoulder into Billy. Hard. “I’m serious. You guys put too much pressure on yourselves.”

“I got into UC Berkeley and it was my first choice,” Billy teases, “Don’t worry about little Hargrove, he’ll be shouldering summer road trips and bags of dope in four years' time.”

“Four and a half years, let’s not jump the gun,” Steve says, He fiddles with the sanded edge of his beer can, a thousand and one thoughts racing by like taxi cabs behind the curtain of hair on his forehead. “I can do that, now,” He says like it means something.

“Steve,” Robin begins softly, “What’s wrong?”

“God, nothing,”

And Billy’s smart enough to know when a bomb’s set to explode. Harrington’s got fire in him, it burns on a simmer like the focused light from an oil lamp, high in a tower overlooking the sea. He’s good at steering conversations and batting his spindly shutters to get what he wants.

It’s what makes him the King.

And Billy has to physically swallow his own tongue to stop from saying that Robin’s efforts are pointless.

Steve’ll talk when he’s ready if he ever gets there at all, and to be honest, Billy hopes the train doesn’t arrive tonight.

Billy’s feeling selfish.

Wants so desperately to skip the big, emotional conversations and for the light to return to the sky. For the last Friday before the spring semester to lose twenty pounds so it can fit, cookie-cutter and all, into the mold of Billy’s senior year. He doesn’t want to think about the future, there’s plenty of time for that.

Mostly, he wants to go inside and get drunk.

“C’mon,” Robin tries, kicking the toe of her boot and Steve’s sneaker together until he grinds his molars, “You can talk to us,”

Billy groans.

“Just because Hargrove and I are going to the same school-–”

“Buckley, leave the kid alone.”

Steve is silent for so long that Billy grows a headful of gray.

"I don't care about Berkely, I just care about California," He says. He looks at Billy, peers right through him and Steve’s eyes are glittering like a million wayward stars. Like he might cry. “I wanted to-–”

Billy springs to his feet.

“Jesus, can we just go inside?” Billy’s fingers itch for the comforting cylinder of aluminum. He wants to dance, and he’d take Cher or Madonna. George Michael–-

He pats the seat of his pants, instead, so it looks like he’s searching for something to smoke.

He doesn’t miss the hurt that flashes, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, across Steve’s face.

“Alright,” Harrington crumples his beer can and tosses it, sharply, into the dark hollow of his swimming pool.

“C’mon, Steve, Bills is just being an asshole,” Robin’s nose wrinkles. She’s trying really hard to look serious and interested and sober. “What were you going to say?”

“It wasn’t important.”

“It was important enough for you to hold Billy hostage for the last hour and a half,” She takes the last puff from her cigarette, losing steam in this conversation, “You know Heather Duke was playing twenty questions, trying to figure out where Billy ran off to?”

“I don’t care about Heather Duke,” Steve says bluntly, “What makes you think I would ever give a shit about–-”

Robin is unphased, “Seems kinda like you give a shit about Heather Duke.”

And all at once, Steve snaps.

It’s like watching a tree fall in the woods. Silent, and then all hell breaks loose and the world ends.

“You didn’t have to come out here,” Steve says, about as even and gentle as the aftershocks of a hurricane, “You could’ve stayed inside with everyone else.”

“God, you’re such an asshole when you drink brown beer, it makes you delusional-–”

Billy sits back down.

“--Shoot me for wanting to make sure my best friends are okay,” Robin tells him, dry as an old desert bone.

“We were fine,” Steve snaps.

“You drank a bunch of beer and then fucking vanished.”

“If you think I’d ever let anything happen to him–-”

“--Harrington-–”

“--You’re out of your mind, Buckley.”

“Fuck you,” Robin throws her cigarette at Steve’s face. “Come find me when you’re done acting like you’re the only one who’s got feelings,” She says, and then she’s off. Stomping across the frosted lawn until the french doors slam shut behind her, harsh and final.

Steve kicks his sun lounger.

“Hey, easy, pretty boy.”

“We were having a private conversation,” Steve snaps. When he looks at Billy his eyes are glossed over, wet, huge, and afraid. “We were talking, and then–-”

“What the fuck has gotten into you?”

Steve frowns, spine going taught like the string of a bow, poised to kill.

Billy shrugs, confused to the very core of him. “In all the months I’ve known you and crashed on your couch and gotten piss-drunk in your shitty fucking car I’ve never seen you act like this. Robs mentions Heather Duke and-–”

“What, you care about Heather Duke, all of a sudden?” Steve scoffs like Billy’s the most irrational, irritating, piece-of-shit guy on the planet. “You know her dad bought her a nose job, like, two weeks before you moved here?”

“Oh my god, who gives a shit? I’m here with you. Right? I’m right here,” Billy shouts, uncaring for how his voice echoes against the bark of a million barren, dying trees, “Can we try and have a good night? It’s the–-”

“If you say it’s the last Friday of break one more fucking time–-”

Billy wonders what crashed Steve’s yacht into the rocks. What’s got his panties bunched up, and why Steve feels like he’s got any authority to stop Billy from getting a few good orgasms in before sunrise.

He doesn’t get the chance to ask.

Steve rubs the wet from his cheeks. “Forget it,” He says, “Let’s just. Let’s go back to the party, alright?”

“Steve-–”

But he’s gone.

Before Billy even has a chance to say that everything will be alright, Steve’s gone.

It’s another hour before Billy has the courage to chase after him.

—

In a room full of piss-drunk kids and aluminum barrels and honey-comb ashtrays that look like they’ve spit up all over Mrs. Harrington’s nice coffee table, Billy drinks the edge away.

Steve said he was going back to the party but he’s nowhere in sight. Robin’s missing, too, and Billy has no doubt they’ve hugged and made up. They’ve got a Care Bear cut to them, you know, can never go to bed angry.

Billy imagines that they’re in the mast bathroom right now. Swimming in Ma Harrington’s jet tub, or painting their toenails in the guest bedroom that overlooks the west-facing tree line. He wonders if they’re drunk enough to talk, hushed and trepid, about their fears.

Billy wonders if he’ll ever fully fit in with them. If he could ever belong anywhere else.

Eventually, the house starts to empty. Tommy H. says some dumb shit about being hung out to dry, all, if Harrington wanted to fuck the weird girl in a quiet house all he had to do was say something, but everyone else is too drunk to fake a laugh.

Billy tells him he should move the party to his. “Your parents are in Aspen, right?” Billy wonders, swallowing the last sip of his last beer for the ‘85 season.

“Yeah,” Tommy H. slurs, so he uses Billy’s head as a push lever to stand on the coffee table and knocks Mr. Harrington’s ashtray onto the carpet. Says, “Hey guys, afterparty at my house,”

No one in their right mind wants to go home plastered.

So the house clears.

Billy sinks into silence about as easily as a rock in the ocean. It swallows him, the distant drone of the heater is his only companion as he vacuums drifts of cigarette and marijuana ash from the carpet.

He runs the loud machine about the whole room to tidy up, imagining that with this invention Billy is cleaning up the last, terrible dregs of a very long year.

It’s freeing.

Billy’s weightless, so on cloud nine that when someone thumps on the floor upstairs he wonders who could be so high above him. Higher than his crown of mussy curls, taller than God himself.

Billy takes the stairs leisurely, focusing every free inch of brainpower on putting one foot in front of the other.

And the thing about Steve’s house is that there are a million long, winding corridors that Billy can’t navigate even when he’s operating at peak performance, you know. Drinking lots of water and eating root vegetables and laying off the cigarettes and following the thread of gold that trails after Steve like toilet paper stuck to his shoe.

Billy’s shitfaced and out of breath by the time he’s run out of guest rooms to investigate.

There’s no one here, Billy thinks.

No one but me, and the pipes–-

“Billy?”

Steve’s in his pajamas. He looks a little bit like Winnie the Pooh, in red flannel, rubbing at his eyes like maybe something woke him from a deep, dreamless sleep but Steve isn’t angry about it. Because he sat up all night waiting.

“Thought you left,” Steve mumbles, eyes squinted as if every bulb in the house is burning at once.

“Why would I leave?”

“I thought maybe I pissed you off and you went home with someone else,” Steve pads forward, voice soft and warm with curling tendrils of exhaustion.

Billy wants to touch him. Billy aches to run his fingers through Steve’s hair and pull and tug until the guilt is smoothed from his face.

Most of all, Billy wants to kiss him.

And he’s so used to that feeling sitting like a hot coal in the very center of him, heating words and emotions to boiling until they bubble up and spill over in ways Billy could never stifle, even with a lid to the flame.

Billy’s so used to it that he shrugs, instead. “I’m wasted,” He admits, because it takes the sting away from the thought that Harrington’s suspicious of him. That once the alcohol burned everything away, Billy whored himself out. Chose someone else. Abandoned ship even though–-

“I know,” Steve smiles softly, “Me too.”

“Where’s Robin?”

“Asleep,” Steve confesses. They stare at each other for a moment and Steve’s expression melts. His smile is washed away, happiness swallowed by grief. “Listen, Billy–-”

Billy pads toward the bedroom. “We can talk about it tomorrow.”

“But I–-”

Billy takes his shirt off, slipping out of his boots and trousers on autopilot. There have been so many nights exactly like this one, so many beer-filled memories of slipping under the covers and feeling Steve, warm and soft, curl up behind him.

But it’s almost like a switch has flipped and after their friendly spat by the pool, they’ve been sucked into an alternate dimension where the awkwardness that stuck like wet paint to their friendship and never really dried.

Steve stands next to the bed, now, teeth rattling from the cold.

Everything’s quiet.

“I was an asshole,” Steve tells him.

Billy’s exhausted. “Stevie, get in bed.”

“Things are changing so fast and I just-–”

Billy’s already half asleep. “I don’t give a shit about that, Steve, it’s alright,” Billy settles in with Robin. She snuffles, rolling over until she’s settled enough to begin drooling slick over Billy’s left nipple.

He lets his eyes slip closed, breath calm even as the mattress feels like it’s lost at sea.

Billy cracks open one eye, glaring up at Steve where he’s watching Robin and Billy with a small, sweet curl to his lips. “Come cuddle, you shithead,” Billy mutters, knowing he’ll be embarrassed about that tomorrow.

Steve looks afraid. Young and frightened and so uncertain.

It’s a strange, unusual look to see on Steve’s face.

Billy’s heart pinches, shuddering painfully in his chest. “C’mon, Harrington, I’m cold,” Billy tries again. He knows he won’t be able to fall asleep without Steve. It’s a dorky, pathetic development as ancient as the stars.

Even when he’s home, lounging in his own bed on Cherry lane; even when the days are decent with no fights and swinging fists because Billy did his chores and minded his tongue, when there’s nothing to cry about and nothing be up early for, Billy doesn’t dream as easy as he does here.

With Steve.

So Billy shuffles toward the edge of the bed, smirking when Robin flips over onto her stomach. “If you get in here with me you can tell me all about it, alright?”

“And you’ll listen?”

“And I’ll listen,” Billy swears.

Steve bites his lip. He shuffles for another few seconds and then gives in, laying on the other side of Billy.

And Billy is too drunk to notice the way their bodies naturally curl around each other. Like clinging vines and stone houses, soft greenery seeking warmth. Billy puts his face in the crook of Steve’s neck, pushing into the calloused fingertips that trace the curve of his spine.

He’s warm.

He’s already asleep, dreams lapping like warm ocean water against his toes.

“I was thinking,” Steve says, “About the future?”

Billy makes a noise, floating on Steve’s mattress.

“I just. I want you–” Someone’s snoring. “Goddammit, Robin.”

Billy curls away from the sound, slinging one leg over the waist of that soft, murmuring voice to stop it from disappearing. It blends in with the texture of the night. It slips away but that doesn’t matter.

“Billy?”

Billy dreams of the boy it’s attached to, and he falls asleep, succumbing to the mystery of the future.

–-

“This is your fault,” Robin says. She dips a green bean in tarter sauce and licks all of it off before chewing, “Well. Mostly it’s your fault.”

It’s fish-fry day. Reminds Billy, like a spot of paint on a big bright canvas, just the tiniest bit of home. He’s in a good mood, taking his time with his mashed potatoes, hasn’t even cracked open his Pepsi, and it’s like the afternoon catches on a low-hanging branch and pops open. Ripped at the seams.

Billy’s slow on the draw, mouth smeared with lazy ease. “What now?”

“Steve,” She says. Like duh. Like, “It’s your fault.”

Billy stabs his last fish stick. Imagines blood and guts, little water-logged voices screaming in pain, “You’re full of shit.”

“I’m full of astute observations,” Robin tells him, looking around and leaning forward like anyone in first lunch gives a damn about Steve or either of them, for that matter.

Billy’s cool died, right along with his heart, the first time Steve smiled at him.

“You really need to pay more attention to the people around you.” Robin continues loudly, “Just because we don’t have 20-pack abs-–”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Buckley?”

“You were there. You saw how Steve blew a fuse.”

“Wasn’t like he was running in tip-top shape anyhow,” Billy spots Heather Duke across the room, batting her lashes so hard it looks like she’s got something in her eye. "Are we really talking about this?"

She waves.

Billy doesn’t wave back.

“Stop making fuck-me eyes at your girlfriend,”

“Buckley,” Billy warns, eyes snapping, poised to kill, on Robin’s face, “You’re on thin ice.”

“I’m always on thin ice,”

“More than usual,” Billy clarifies. He leans forward, close enough that he hopes his tarter-sauce breath kills Robin on the spot. “I’m not taking the blame for the Princess’ shitty New Years' mood.”

Robin doesn’t plug her nose. “Well, you should.”

“Why, because I’m a reformed asshole and that makes me a scapegoat for everyone else’s neurosis?”

“No,” Robin says dryly, “You’re probably the only person on the entire planet who can let him know everything’s going to be okay.”

Billy flops back in his seat, scrubbing at his face and tugging at his hair like maybe if he buffs hard enough, he can be a new person. Shiny and clean. The type that does shit like this, who can open like a spring flower and not care about the bees.

Eventually, Billy inflates again. “Steve hasn’t said anything to me about anything.”

“He’s probably embarrassed.”

“--The guy who brags about being best friends with a Middle Schooler–-”

“Okay, then he’s worried you’ll reject him,” Robin says.

And.

The first boy who ever had a crush on Billy pulled his chair out from under him. Billy cracked his head on the desk and had to get four stitches. Billy’s mom drove him to Urgent Care and said boys only do that when they’re in love with you.

Because they can’t find the words, she’d told him.

In retrospect, it makes sense to Billy that his mother would say that. All she ever knew was love the color of fresh bruises.

But the thing about Steve is, he’s full of words.

He drips honeyed dad jokes and terrible made-up song lyrics about the cowlick that floats in Billy’s hair when he’s had too much to drink. Steve spins stories about the future and says things like when we’re at college together and when we’re roommates and I get to trap you forever by my side–-

He’s stuffed to bursting with sunlight and easy promises.

And the thing about Billy is, his whole life has been about death. Rebirth, too. Over and over and over again. He’s had to rework what love looks like from all sides, proving to himself time after time that nice boys don’t leave bruises when they hold you in their arms. They don’t crack skulls and split lips with anything but their teeth.

And when blood spills, it’s all by accident.

They clean it up with their mouth. They spit it out again, and it's golden healing.

Billy’s pretty sure he falls through the chair.

Or maybe, the legs break out from under him. And the Earth crawls away, nursing split crust and shattered plates. And the cosmos burns up, like. In one fell swoop.

That first crush times a million and Steve isn’t even here.

“What,” Billy rasps. He clears his throat. Chokes and tries again, climbing up a mountain of truth. “What does that mean?”

Robin won’t look at him.

Billy leans forward. “He’s worried that I’ll stop hanging out if he’s vulnerable with me?”

Robin’s cheeks are red. So pink Billy would chew a roll of HubbaBubba to color match with the fuzzy damp of her skin.

“Did Steve say Friday was my fault?”

She picks at her food.

“Robin,” Billy says.

Robin shakes her head. She won’t look at him.

Billy grinds his teeth, “Robin.”

“No, Billy.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“I’m not getting involved–-"

“You’re getting a head full of mashed potato if you don’t tell me what you’re talking about,” Billy scoops what’s left off his tray, gripping the handle of his spoon so hard he’s sure his palm starts bleeding.

“Billy,” Robin starts.

Billy raises his eyebrows in a venomous threat, leveraging the spoonful of mashed potatoes he’s got locked and loaded.

He’ll do it. He’ll fire the first shot and every blow that comes after and Robin knows he will.

She shifts in her chair, “I wasn’t supposed to say anything.”

“It’s a little late for that.”

Robin shakes her head. “I was supposed to keep quiet.”

“Dammit Robin, why the fuck are you speaking in riddles? Why are you acting like you can point fingers and pin blame all from the comfort of your fucking high horse and not get your shit rocked for it?”

“I’m not on my high horse–-”

“Bullshit,” Billy slams his spoon on the table. “You can’t tell me that everything is my fault and not speak the fuck up.”

Billy won’t stand for it.

Robin frowns. “Maybe ‘everything,’ was a bit dramatic.”

“Ugh, Robin.”

“Maybe I should’ve chosen my words a little more carefully,” She dodges the mound of potatoes that goes flying, cheeks red as the sun. “I would’ve. If I could do it over again, I would.”

“Spare me.”

“You know I can’t control my mouth once it gets going, I get, like. Verbal diarrhea.”

Billy jerks into motion and starts gathering his lunch scraps.

Because he’s got a thing about blame, at the root of him. Being saddled with the weight of everything. Everyone’s shit mood and shit decisions and shit consequences, all smeared down the front of his heart just because he’s strong enough to hold it.

Robin stares at him as he slings his backpack over one shoulder. The calculus textbook he’s read twice cover to cover, sits like a familiar childhood blanket against his shoulder blades. His heart rate slows, everything grinds to a halt, and that’s when he realizes that Robin’s about three seconds away from crying.

At lunch.

In the lunchroom.

“Steve’s been such a good friend to me,” Robins says quietly. “He’s never aired my shit, you know? Or put himself in the middle of something that didn’t concern him.”

“Steve’s a good person, he wouldn’t do that.”

“But he could’ve,” Robin scrubs at her face just to make sure it stays dry. “I guess I'm still a little pissed off about Friday.”

Billy slides out of his backpack. “I don’t really blame you. Something’s bothering him, I’ve never seen him flip his lid like that.”

“I’m really worried about him, Bills.”

“And you think I’m not?”

“No, I know you are, it’s just,” Robin bites her lip again, so hard Billy worries that blood will trickle onto the Formica table top. “Have you talked to him about his acceptance letters?”

“His college acceptance letters?”

“Yes,”

Billy blinks, more confused than he’s ever been in his life.

He’s embarrassed to admit that it’s been the farthest thing from his mind. After Billy got into Berkeley and Robin followed close behind, like a toppling domino hellbent on majoring in Forestry, Billy just sort of assumed, that–

“Steve didn’t get in.”

Robin studies her picked-over lunch tray and the table beneath that, like maybe the wood grain will hold the key to the universe if she stares hard enough.

Billy slips into his backpack.

Robin jerks up at him, frowning, “Where are you–”

“Steve’s got free period next, right?”

“Yeah–”

“I’ll be back in time for Calc.” Billy kisses Robin’s cheek, immediately wiping the taste of nosey lesbian from his lips.

Chapter Management

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Chapter 2

: as long as you followChapter Text

Whatever Steve’s supposed to do with his life is a distant cloud on the horizon until it’s not.

And as his father would say, hardly glancing from the dotted line splayed on the desk in front of him, that Steve’s wrapped in a Molotov of distraction.

He’s never had to work a day in his life, really work, because Steve’s mother wanted him to have a bright and easy childhood. And because of the angelic grace given to him as the result of a long line of lovers who wanted better for their love, Steve won’t make anything of his life.

He digs his heels into that truth, ever his father’s son, making sure to take chunks out of it.

He wants to gather that harshness into a pile and create something else. Build a home or a treehouse or a getaway car.

So he drinks and smokes and fucks his way down the river. Past roiling clouds of semester finals and homecoming games , never really clocking that behemoth milestone in the distance.

Until Billy, who makes Steve so crazy he feels radioactive.

Billy talks about the future all the time. With a curl to his lips and a beer in his hand, ribs and knuckles bruised. When I’m finally out of here and I’m back home, standing in the summer waves—

He makes grand statements. He could sell Steve a plot of land at the edge of the world, his bare feet dangling in the cosmos because anywhere is a step up from here.

And at first, college is a welcome ticket out of Hawkins and away from Billy and all the confusing, fucked up things he makes Steve feel. But then, just as quickly, it becomes about doing everything in his power to stop the wedge of the future from coming between them.

It becomes about giving Billy something to hold onto. It becomes about all those gnarled things his father told him about failure and family names.

Steve’s future starts to look less and less like what he’d never fully imagined. It  doesn’t belong to himself, or to his father, but to Billy.

Just like everything else, it.

It becomes about mortaring a foundation and building a thatched roof to come home to when the stars grow cold.

But love doesn’t change his transcript.

And all the money Steve would rather die than take from his father to make every problem swallow itself doesn’t chip away at reality. For Billy, doors, and windows have opened into bright, golden pastures flanked by possibility as deep as the Pacific ocean, and Steve.

Steve will only hold him back.

–-

He chews on that for a while.

It grows thick and gummy from unsheathed worries and unshed tears and Steve wishes, into the empty well of his endless swimming pool on New Year's Eve, that things were different. That all the money he’s sitting on like a lucky dragon with a pocketful of coins could change the fork in the road.

Steve tries to ignore it.

Billy’s leaving in four months and he’s taking Robin with him and Steve wants that. Wind in Billy’s hair, you know.

Life.

It’s killing him. Robin knows, but only because Steve was wasting away.

She thinks he’s being a dumbass. “Just talk to him,” She says, “You never know what he might say, right? He could–”

What? Steve doesn’t tell her. Billy could give up his dream and stay here in Hawkins and rot and rot and hate me forever.

Billy asks him, “What the fuck has gotten into you,” That night and so many times before. Astute and scholarly and beautiful like an open flame when Steve can’t fake any more smiles.

Billy’s got to fly away. And Steve, regardless of whether he’s earned his wings, wants to jump after him.

–-

He’s parked at the quarry and the sun’s playing peek-a-boo.

On the hood of his car, Steve digs at his jean pockets and tires to imagine that the future could be like this. That maybe, without Robin’s big mouth and Billy’s fierce protection, Steve could find spots of sunlight to bask in so he won’t freeze to death.

But, really, every day is overcast.

He’s tired of pretending otherwise.

So it’s fitting that right as Steve considers walking ten extra feet to the lip of the rocky ground, Billy’s car pulls to a thundering halt and almost skids past the rope barrier, careening off the cliff and into the raging waters below. Steve imagines jumping after him. He would. He–

“You didn’t get into Berk,”

There are countless clouds on the horizon. “Nope,” Steve says, and he pop’s the P because it feels right. New Year New Steve–

Billy shoves him off the car hood. “You’re an asshole.”

Steve can’t fight anymore, “I know,”

“Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?”

There’s so much he could’ve said then. And now. And always.

I love you, he tries, staring out at a distant line of trees, I want to give you the world.

Steve shrugs his shoulders. “Nothing will change it.”

“Your parents have money, Steve,” Billy tries, and that’s just like him. Steve’s biggest cheerleader.

But Steve lost, alright? The game. The guy.

“It’s not any kind of money I want.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Billy shoves him again. His eyes get caught on Steve’s collarbone, tracing the line of his sweater. “Why aren’t you wearing a jacket?”

“‘M not cold,”

“Your lips are almost blue.”

“So I’ll freeze to death,” Steve admits, like. Big whoop.

But then Billy’s shrugging out of his jacket, “Here,” He says. Pissed and venomous like it’s going against his personal code of ethics to keep Steve alive when all he’s ever been is a dumbass with a hazard sign taped to his ass.

When Steve doesn’t take the warmth that’s offered to him, Billy steps close–

So close Steve gets wind of the ylang-ylang oil Max got him for Christmas

–and drapes the jacket over Steve’s shoulders.

It’s sweet.

It’s exactly the kind of thing Steve would’ve done for Nancy, back when he thought he knew what love was supposed to taste like. It chokes him up, gets those huge, impossible words lodged in the back of his throat so when Billy lights a cigarette and hands it over, Steve nearly chokes to death.

He lives.

Billy sits on the hood of the Beemer. “What are you gonna do now?” He asks.

Steve puffs on the Marlboro, “Maybe I’ll work at my dad’s office.”

“You’re not doing that, Steve.”

“Okay, then I’ll go missing,” He passes the cigarette back over, trying to brush Billy’s skin with his fingertips one last time, “Maybe I’ll die if I’m–”

“What happened to Marine Biology?” Billy shifts on the hood of the car so his knees press, sharp as knives, into Steve’s hip bone.

He looks so open. Earnest and dead-set on solving all of Steve’s problems for him, making a way, and forging a path in fire when the road won’t yield its secrets. It’s so Billy, so exactly the reason Steve loves him, that. He can’t hold onto it anymore.

“That was a lie,” Steve admits, “I don’t know shit about biology or the ocean beyond what I’ve seen on the History channel, I just. Wanted to be with you.”

The truth lands like cold water on Billy’s lap.

Steve flicks ash from the end of the last cigarette he’ll ever share with Billy, and. Thinks this is what love tastes like. Truth and smoke and clear, bright wintery air.

“My whole life, nothing and no one ever really made sense. For so long I was avoiding every turn that brought the future because I didn’t know what it was supposed to look like, but then–”

“But then?” Billy asks, so quiet Steve almost misses it.

He takes a deep breath. “I met you,” He admits.

And it feels good.

It’s almost as good as flying, so Steve takes a deep breath and says, “I met you and everything made sense. You talk about the ocean so much that I really did want to learn more. I thought, if he loves it then I could, too. Because I love him and I would do anything, be anyone, if it would make him smile. I wanted to study its ways and become fluent in its language so when you spoke, I could talk back. I wanted to be good enough to make you love me, good enough to take you away from here, But I’m not.”

Steve scrubs a hand across his face.

“You don’t need me to take you away from here, though. I think I always knew that. You’re strong enough to do that yourself. I’m sorry I’m not good enough, Bill.”

The sun disappears behind a bank of thick, gray clouds, and Steve imagines freezing solid.

It’s fitting. A neon sign that proves Steve was right.

Billy takes the cigarette when it’s offered to him. He doesn’t say anything for so long that Steve starts the grieving process, truly dawning a black veil for the death of what was and what never will be.

Steve slides off the hood of the car.

“Do you want to see the West with me?”

He looks over his shoulder. The wind kicks Billy’s curls into his face, hiding his eyes so he looks like a mysterious figure, an ancient God, offering the world on a silver tray.

“I,” Steve mutters, “I don’t understand–”

“You can’t stay here.”

Steve stands his ground. “I can. I have to.”

“I’m not letting you go,” Billy determines. Because he’s beautiful and stubborn and when the wind flows into the east, his eyes bore holes into the cosmos.

Billy slips off the hood of the Beemer, heels cracking so even though they’re standing on even ground all of a sudden, Steve imagines toppling through the crater left behind and voyaging to the center of the Earth.

Billy must pick up on Steve’s master plan.

He sets his jaw in a cut line that has always and will always mean business. “You can’t offer me the world and then take it away because you’re scared,” Billy tells him. He steps close, fingers toying with the hair at the base of Steve’s skull. “I want to get out of this fucking town, Harrington,”

“You should,” Steve blubbers. He’s crying, when did he start– “You should run away and never look back, you know?”

“I plan to,” Billy says bluntly, “And you’re coming with me.”

“Billy–”

“Here’s the plan,” Billy wipes at Steve’s tears, his own eyes dry and resolute. “Over spring break, we’ll take that trip to California just like we said we would. We’ll smoke a lot of dope and I’ll teach you to surf and Robin and I will look around campus–”

“--That sounds great-–”

“--And we’ll find an apartment,” Billy insists, somehow eclipsing the sun and the entire vast, endless spread of the Earth behind him. “We’ll find an apartment, and you’ll go to community college and even if you decide to write terrible poetry and do nothing else for the rest of your fucking life, it won’t matter. Because we’re gonna grow old together, okay?”

He grips the ends of Steve’s hair and tugs, yanking until Steve finally cracks a smile.

“Okay,” Steve says.

When Billy kisses him, it’s like falling apart and fusing together, over and over again until Steve is made new.

Somewhere between the past and the future, the sun escapes the bank of clouds

They hardly notice.

[tsukishumai]

pairing: miya atsumu x f!reader

tags: fluff, strangers to lovers

word count: 2.2k

Summary: You think of all the different versions you get of Atsumu throughout the day

Nights with Atsumu were unpredictable. Your heart always skipped a beat whenever you received one of his “are you free tonight?” texts, excitement never failing to course through your veins.

Miya Atsumu was an adventure.

He had been that way from the very first night you met him, crashing into him at a music festival your friends had dragged you to.

You had been lost for the past hour - separated from your group when you had mistakenly taken the wrong turn while trying to look for the restrooms. You’ve tried calling them time and time again, but the sheer amount of people at the event must have been doing something to the phone lines. None of your calls or texts were going through.

You mumbled a hurried apology, and you could practically feel the way he raked his gaze over your appearance. Though, there was nothing presentable about your current state; your hair (previously curled and styled carefully) was pulled up into a messy bun, dirt from the festival grounds stained your shoes and pants, and the expression on your face was nothing short of stressed.

“You lost, hun?” He had asked. While you would usually cringe at the pet name coming from a strangers mouth, the slight drawl of his accent made it sound sweet, and you couldn’t help but nod.

“It’s my first time coming to this festival - I have no idea where anything is.”

He nodded in understanding. “It can get pretty confusing if ya don’t know what you’re looking for,” he sighed out, reaching a hand out for you to take, “Come on, I’ll help you find em.”

Even then, having known the man for merely two minutes, you were never hesitant in taking his hand.

He quickly told his own group of the current situation, setting up a meet up spot for the end of the night in case Atsumu wasn’t able to find his way back to them in time.

(That was smart. You guys should have done that.)

You wondered why the blonde boy bothered to take the time out of his night to help you. Hadn’t he spent his own money to be here with his friends?

When you had asked him this question, he simply shrugged. “It wouldn’t be right of me to leave a beautiful girl all alone and lost in this huge festival now, would it?”

You didn’t find your friends for the rest of the night. You had instead spent it with Atsumu, jumping from stage to stage, claiming “maybe we’ll find them there?” but really, his favorite artist was up and he didn’t really want to miss it.

It shocked you how natural it felt to be with him; easy conversation flowed naturally, and the initial mission of his company was quickly forgotten, replaced instead with the dizzying thrill of his fingers wrapped around your wrist to make sure he didn’t lose you in the crowd.

“This is my favorite band,” he yelled into your ear, twirling you in circles as you danced along to the beat pummeling out of the speakers.

“I can see why!” You smiled at him, and the freedom you were feeling in that moment, dancing with a stranger that was quickly becoming a friend, was a better high than any drug.

Atsumu couldn’t dance at all - this was something you had pointed out during the second set you had watched together - but there was something in the way he just stuck his tongue out at you and continued to flail his limbs in some semblance of a rhythm with such confidence that you couldn’t help but find charming.

“Y/N!”

The frantic crying of your name made you whip your head around, and you see your best friend running over to you.

“We’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

You let your best friend scold you for going missing for four hours, pushing down the feeling of embarrassment as Atsumu snickered at you.

“Thanks for keeping me company,” you said, turning to him one last time before finally joining your original pack.

“Anytime,” he smiled, then pulled his phone out of his pocket before handing it to you, “Mind returning the favor some day?”

The grin on your face was brighter than any of the lights surrounding the stage, quickly entering your number and saving it.

It wasn’t even two days after the festival before you received your first invitation out from Atsumu.

There were nights when he took you out to his favorite bar on a Thursday night because shots were 2-for-1 on Thursdays. The two of you would always run into more than one for Atsumu’s friends, and you were more than happy to allow them to indulge you in one or two embarrassing stories of Atsumu. The smile on your face grew wider each time his blush would deepen, and you didn’t know you could find him more endearing than you already do.

There were nights when he would whisk you away to a secret spot in a part of the city you had never been to. “It’s a little bit of a hike,” he’d warn you. You’d have half a mind to reprimand him for letting you wear your new shoes knowing the path would be dirty, but you were shut up by the views. Atsumu came prepared with a blanket to lay down on, taking out snacks and drinks from the backpack he was carrying. Your heart clenched at his thoughtfulness, laying down to stare at the stars peppering the sky. “The moon looks really full,” you said. “Yeah, just like my heart is for you,” he cooed. You would share a laugh, shoving him slightly, but hoping with everything that he meant it.

There were nights when he would take you to visit his brother’s onigiri shop. He would always take you either at closing time or after, ensuring that the three of you had the place to yourself. You could feel this to be some sort of test - test of what, you weren’t sure but you knew you wanted to pass it. Osamu would bring out off the menu flavors, using the two of you as his test subjects. You and Atsumu would exaggerate your judgements, commenting as if you were judges on Top Chef. “The consistency of the rice provided a good mouth feel,” you commented, rubbing a hand on your chin. “The flavors meld together perfectly, creating a refined taste suitable for any palate,” Atsumu replies, and the two of you would burst out laughing, Osamu rolling his eyes and asking you to be serious.

It was after one of those nights, belly and heart full from the nonstop eating and laughing. Atsumu walked you all the way up to your door, saying it’s much too late for you to be on your own. With your key in the door, you turned to say your good bye, only to be met by the softness of atsumu’s lips.

Nights were when Miya Atsumu let you into his world.

.・゜゜・　　・゜゜・．

Afternoons were rarely spent with Atsumu.

You would think that sharing an apartment with the blonde setter would afford you more quality time, but he mostly spent his afternoons chasing his dreams.

You’ll never forget the afternoon the two of you had found out he had made onto his first pro-volleyball team; he was officially an MSBY Jackal. Happy tears were shed, on your part, but more so on his. Excitement stamped all over his face as he claimed he still had so much work to do.

You never held it against him when he came home late at night, the only interaction you’d have would be the kiss he placed on your forehead before climbing into his side of the bed. You didn’t mind that even though you were now living together, this was the most time you two would spend apart. It wasn’t like you were just waiting around; you had a job you loved and were dedicated to.

He never let you missed him too much, though.

“Are we almost there?” Atsumu gasped out, and you just threw your head back and laughed.

“What’s wrong? I thought volleyball players were supposed to have monstrous thighs or whatever?”

Atsumu grumbled. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t exhausting to scale a damn mountain!”

“Always so dramatic,” you mused, skipping ahead of him on the trail. Atsumu had a rare day off from practice, and insisted on doing whatever you wanted for the day. He was hoping you were going to say ‘let’s cuddle and stay in!’ Or ‘I want to go to that cafe I saw on Insta!’

But no, you went with “I want to go on a hike!”

It was his own fault, really. Ever since he would take you to look at the stars, you made it your mission to find all the little gems in your city.

“I swear to god, I’m gonna faint,” Atsumu placed the back of his hand on his forehead, “Please tell me we’re almost to the top!”

You grabbed his hand, pulling him up the last few steps of the trail.

“Ta da,” you sang out, out stretching your arms to present the view from the top.

Atsumu took on a deep breath and looked at the view. From the top of the trail, all that surrounded the two of you was the color green. Green leaves from towering trees that covered the face of the mountains that surrounded you. Green shrubs that littered around the forest floor, creating a lush carpet of foliage that stretched as far as you could see. In the space between the mountain ranges, Atsumu could see a hint of the ocean that lies beyond, and he could almost taste the salty air that always made his hair wavy.

The beauty of the earth surrounded him, reminding him of life flourishing all around, and all he could really look at was you.

The color of your eyes that sparkled like uncut gems when caught by the golden rays of the sun that was now nearing its highest peak in the sky could rival the most vibrant green nature could produce. The smile on your face was more blinding than the summer sun. All he could see was the beauty of the love that he knows only you could give him.

Afternoons were rarely spent with Atsumu, but he’s thankful for every chance he gets to be part of your world.

.・゜゜・　　・゜゜・．

Mornings with Miya Atsumu were lazy, and intimate.

The habit of early mornings were hard to break, and regardless of whether you set an alarm or not, the both of you would stir awake at the crack of dawn.

You could feel Atsumu’s heated breath on the back of your neck as he wrapped an arm around your waist. “Good morning,” he would mumble, voice still thick with last nights sleep, dripping into your ears like fresh honey.

“Good morning,” you would reply back, turning around to bury your face into his chest. You loved the way he would always pull you closer, as if there was no wya you could be close enough, trying to fuse you into his own body. You don’t care that you can’t really breathe in this position - there was no where else you would rather be.

Though you were willing to stay that way forever, it was only a matter of time before life interrupts peace and demands to be lived. After a few more soft kisses placed on any bare skin lips could get too, maybe a few fingers brushing through your rats nest of a hair, Atsumu always was the first get up out of bed. You’d try to beg him for a few more minutes, but he’d make you laugh and say “I’d love to doll, but my bladders bout to burst all over our sheets,” and you can’t do anything but laugh and let him go.

Atsumu always showered first since his days started earlier, and you would make your way downstairs to make coffee for the both of you. You usually drank it black, but you made Atsumu’s with a little extra cream. He never asks you to, but you always packed him a lunch and snacks to take to practice, leaving little notes with words of affirmation to get him through the day. The look of pure admiration and love you get when you simply hand him a lunch box, thermos, a peck on the lips, and a prayer for safety; you think this must be true happiness.

You walk back up to the bathroom to start your morning routine, and feel warmth spread all over when you see that he’s set up your toothbrush on the sink with a glob of toothpaste on top and a little cup of mouthwash prepared and ready for you to use.

You loved Miya Atsumu at all hours of the day, but mornings just might be your favorite.

In the morning, Miya Atsumu was just for you.

[kinsbin]

Beach Days

Title: Beach Days Word Count: 2010 Pairing: Alexys/Katriona [si/oc]

Summary: Kat loved the beach, and Alexys loved Kat. Naturally, one has to learn to love the water when they’re dating a Selkie. Still, Alexys could feel doubt creeping in her mind, but Kat knows just how to get rid of it

A/N: Commission for @space-sweetheart of her and one of my fave ocs, Kat! These two are so cute and i’m so happy they have one another ;w;

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Alexys was never quite sure about going to the ocean.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like the ocean, oh no the opposite really! The ocean and the beaches around it were, in themselves, something of true beauty. Something that held her gaze into their fierce horizon lines and made her heart jump with awe at the way the light glimmered off of the reflective surface like the facade of a well cut sapphire. The sunsets, especially, were always so beautiful off the coasts around her. They painted the skies all shades of pinks and oranges before fading into deep, purple blue hues that looked like an oil on canvas rather than the atmosphere lighting up with the rotation of the land. For a long time, she considered the concept that the mythos of monstrous wolves chasing one another around the world, pursuing each other in the name of night and day, might be true. It would explain the deep unreality that was always felt at the start of a beautiful sunset.

It was those things she loved about the ocean.

What Alexys didn’t quite LIKE about the ocean was the heat. The temperatures that clawed on her skin against the windy summer day, biting like mosquitos in her veins. She didn’t like the way the sand meandered its way nosily into the grooves of her toes to the point in which her flip flops couldn’t even protect her. Instead they sunk down into the uneven earth, the gravity more akin to the surface of the moon as the light breeze blew bits of grainy earth that spat unflatteringly on her ankles. It was the discomforts that made the beach so hard to go to constantly. So hard to maintain a stready relationship with its pulling oceans and unknown depths of beauty.

Most of all she disliked wearing swimsuits.

Her body had never been ‘nice’ to her. Indeed it was more of a stubborn acceptance that it was simply the skin she inhabited. The mortal coil of her form that bound her to the physical plains of the earth around her that she was forced to stay in for at least seventy more years if she was lucky. That was what a body was to Alexys. No one ever said she had to like it, so she mostly did not. Everything felt too tall on her. Too lanky or too chubby in places models were not. Even the once piece bathing suit she was wearing, a brilliant shade of blue with freckles of white that looked like stars across her body, did little to sooth the worry of her body’s shape in her mind. The large hoodie she wore over most of the fabric protected her from both the wind and the prying eyes of no one as she looked around the empty space of beach.

Well, almost no one. A pair of green eyes that had lingered on her the entire walk from their shared Seattle apartment to the bayside they lived so close to. They shone like emeralds in the wake of the water as they followed at her side, pinky fingers gently entwined together in the loose form of hand holding that they managed as they walked casually across the shoreline. She remembered, then, why she even bothered to do this. Why she even ever considered coming to the beach more than once a year out of some sort of party and social obligation that would drag her from her home:

Because Katriona loved the ocean.

It was her instinct as a Selkie, Alexys supposed, that drew her endlessly to the water. She would be a fool to deny her girlfriend her nature, for it was what she had always fallen in love with. Kat’s excited smile, buck toothed and sharp, excited her whenever she stared on at the ocean as she was now. Her mess of long, curly brown hair covered her face in the perfect set of angles. It framed her like a cloud of copper. An angeled head of brilliant metal cascading down her sun kissed skin as she moved ahead of Alexys out of instinctual obligation. The seal skin she wore tight around her waist, like a sort of flowing skirt, fluttered eagerly behind her as she moved her legs to run towards the water. To touch the very surface that she had been born into all of her life. To become one with nature in a way Alexys could never truly understand.

Kat stopped as she got to the edge of the water, brushing some of her blowing hair back before turning around to face Alexys and, oh god, her heart stopped at the sight.

The sun sparkled so perfectly off of Kat’s body, her entire frame angled with a golden glow that emphasized the dimples in her cheeks as she smiled. Her eyes, burning emeralds amongst her body, shone with a type of love that Alexys could still scarcely believe was meant for her and her alone. Even the sharp, seal like quality of her ragged teeth only served to emphasize the feral beauty that surrounded the ethereal form of her girlfriend as she stood just before the water’s edge, the waves lapping lightly at her bare feet (she never wore shoes unless necessary. Alexys had watched her family try to put them on her only once for a formal event and even then it went poorly) as she shifted slightly to face Alexys fully.

Her hand fell out, fingers extending in a reach for her own as she tilted her head.

“Well, silly fish,” Kat teased in that sweet Scottish lilt that Alexys loved so much, “Are ya’ comin in with me or whut?”

Alexys couldn’t help but smile in return. She couldn’t help but hesitantly reach out to Kat’s hand for a moment, only to pull back and look down at her own body with a frown of thought. Kat looked gorgeous in her swimsuit of greens and greys. Not that it would last for very long, considering Kat would sooner swim naked than dare wear anything in the ocean, but the comparison was still striking. She felt so small in comparison to the presence of the other. So light in a way that half convinced her that maybe she should not have come.

Kat’s hand suddenly touched her cheek, startling Alexys out of her thoughtful reverie.

When she looked up, Kat’s face was close to hers. Her eyebrows were knit together in a gaze of soft care. Of endearment as she searched Alexys’ face for something that she wasn’t sure she would fine. Grey eyes watched green ones and Alexys bit a smile back at the fact that Kat was, literally, on the tips of her toes to reach as close as she was to her. Half of her wanted to stoop down to help the other each her better, but she knew it would just make Kat huffy. So she stayed still as she spoke, thumb rubbing circles on Alexys’ cheek as she sighed through her arched brow and patient smile.

“Oh, I know that look on you, m'eudail.” She hummed as her gaelic slipped lovingly from her tongue, “Now what part of ya do I have to kiss to make it go away~?”

The joke made Alexys snort, her smile spreading on her lips as she tried to breathe through her giggling to no avail. The laughter made Kat’s own echo of amusement chortle from her throat, her smile wide and bright as she giggled in return and pressed her forehead to Alexy’s shoulder, hiding her smiling face into the other’s flesh as they laughed in unison over the roar of the ocean.

It was these silly moments Alexys cherished. These moments that let her laugh and smile as she spent the day with the woman she loved the most. It made her forget about the insecurities that had plagued her not moments before. Katriona pushed those insecurities away like a gust of wind moving clouds. Like the sun’s bright rays burning into the earth and revealing itself to be sunny and beautiful against the once existing fog. That was, in essence, what she was. What she always would be to Alexys in one way or another.

Alexys gasped and shuddered when she felt Kat’s lips on her shoulder, a gentle kiss placed to the bare skin to inspire confidence before the shorter girl pulled away with a quirk of her lips and a blush on her tanned cheeks that made them look so much more full and pinchable that Alexys couldn’t help reach up and squeeze one of them. Kat crooned much like a seal would, surprise filling her tone as she blushed harder and reached out to bat playfully at the hand grabbing her face.

“Ya cheeky-!” Kat laughed as she walked forward, pulling at Alexy’s hand in process, leading her slowly towards the water again.

Alexys, confident now with their interaction, shed her sweater carefully until she was simply in her bathing suit. The water hit her feet, cold and icy in its wake, and goosebumps danced along her bare skin. They plunged deeper and deeper still, the feeling of the waves tickling her ankles and then her knees helping her to register just where they were in the water. Kat smiled as she continued to walk backwards, paying no mind to the water and waves behind her as she focused on her lover. Kat, after all, knew the water better than anyone Alexys had known.

Soon they were waist deep and Kat had let go, her instincts in the water overpowering her beyond the point of remembering to control her urges. With one last bright, toothy smile she dove into the water, submerging herself fully in the salty ocean waves that came crashing around them. Alexys gasped as she waited patiently for her lover to come up, giggling as the spray of the ocean surrounded her and bit into her skin like kisses from nature itself. She was aware how long Kat could hold her breath, much like a true seal was able to. When she had first disappeared for over 15 minutes, Alexys nearly had a panick attack thinking she had drowned. She had come up, though, as she always did.

Sure enough after a few more moments the surface was broken to reveal a blur of seal-skin and messy hair that tackled into her. The force of Kat’s entire being upon her in the water made her lose her footing, and Alexys took one last surprised gulp of air before being pushed into the water with her lover.

Beneath the ocean was surprisingly warm. The initial shock of the water had faded and now it was a clear, crystalline sort of experience. Dots of sunlight filtered through the water’s surface, decorating both girls in its speckled glory. Kat smiled under the water, her cheeks bright and her body easygoing. The way her hair floated around her made her look nearly ethereal. Alexys understood the myths of sirens now, so beautiful that they lured men to their deaths with just their looks and voices alone.

As Kat smiled, she smiled back.

Kat swam forward to take Alexys into her arms, their hands entwining as they held one another as a sort of crutch against the ocean waves. So that they might not float far away from one another. It didn’t matter much how far they were in the water, honestly. Kat would take them back to home as she always seemed to do. For once, Alexys felt no anxiety about being where she was. Being who she was. In that moment it was all she wanted to be.

Especially as Kat leaned forward, her lips finding the others in a careful deep sea kiss. Alexys couldn’t taste much above the salt of the ocean but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the girl in front of her who held her so close and so lovingly that she felt she might explode with care. Might fall apart with love.

In that moment, it was perfect.