the place where I lose my mind about: mostly Wayhaven Chronicles. Occasionally other COGs/HGs, and interactive fiction. sideblog, follows come from @pixelsandkink. twenties, black and bi. adult content sometimes. header by @tuagonia, pfp by @silverletters.
I typically stay out of fandom discourse for myriad reasons. Frequently, because people have stated my opinion much better than I could, and I have no desire to be noise in a cacophony.
But some of the reactions to Nai’s apology have been so abhorrently disgusting, that my stomach is turning.
Many people have already stated the importance of representing M (and over the course of time, all of the characters of color) correctly. Whitewashing is not acceptable.
But in case it wasn’t evident to you--when you say these things don’t matter: this is the attitude that kills fandoms.
IF is very special, to me, because it is frequently a space to create characters that look like me and the people in my life. It has been a special delight to see such diversity in skin color, race, gender, gender expression, sexuality, ability, and on in the detectives on my dash.
And every time you say “it doesn’t matter,” you make the fandom an unsafe and unkind space for creators and consumers who are marginalized. To be honest, this is part of the reason I am here less and less often.
Who would draw/design/write about a character of color, or a character who is trans, or a character who is Deaf, and put them out in the world to have their identity invalidated? An identity which may or may not be shared by their creator?
Why would anyone pour love into something that tells them they don’t matter? I work hard on very nearly every bit of writing I do, as I know many other creatives do, whether they write or draw or contribute in another sort of way, even if that way is as the consumer/supporter. But why would I, or anyone else, continue to put their work, their time and talent, into an environment that tells them they don’t matter?
It’s disgusting. You are actively making fandom, and more broadly, our world a worse place. You do not deserve the work of the wonderful creators in this fandom. If you disagree, block me. I’m being dead serious. Thanks.
Today is the Commanding Agent of our heart’s birthday. Let’s hope their party was planned with efficiency and executed exactly as stated on the check list 😂😂😂
hi i’m not sure if your blog is still active but i just read your 90s au and i literally had to send a message. i owe you a life debt for you gracing the world with this. i can never read another piece of writing because this ruined it all. it was truly wonderful. i’m just struggling to put into words how much. i am going to be thinking about it for a really long time. i started reading it about an hour ago and it took so long because i had to pause every so often to savour what i just read. okay, i think that’s enough. but please keep writing :)
this...........is so incredibly kind of you. I logged into make one stupid joke about poly!au and came home to this!! I am SO glad you liked it!!! in the end it went so long and became such a weird thing I thought I was mostly writing it for me, but I am actually so thrilled that you and others enjoyed it! I appreciate this nice nice nice nice nice TOO NICE message. <3
every time someone makes a joke about A being a senior citizen i have to laugh a little bit because yeah, yeah, absolutely. but A isn’t the one who types on a keyboard with one finger while grumbling about technology and clutches their pearls whenever someone says something “inappropriate” and doesn’t know what a cellphone update is and doesn’t WANT to know what a cellphone update is like..... N is absolutely the senior citizen between the two of them
Rating: Explicit. 18+. Minors, please do no interact
Word Count: ~1.5k
Note: Wayhaven AU featuring Nate as a bookshop owner and Surina as a poet. For the @hotwayhavensummer 8/20 prompt worship + 8/21 prompt aftercare.
Find here on ao3 for poetry credits in the end note (they are beautiful and not mine. Neither are these characters)
____________
She should have gone home, to her desk at the window which overlooked the lake, but he dripped his words - like a lazy heartbeat, mimicking the pentameter in which she writes - onto the back of her hand, trickling to her wrist like warm honey. And when his eyes lifted from her pulse point, presenting with them an arched brow inquiry, she returned a heavy, lust-laden gaze. With the locking of the door behind them, every single obligation was set aside for the remainder of the afternoon.
And he’d left her a mess in his loft above his bookshop.
NOW. MA’AM who let you do all this????? I have truly been wanting to read this SINCE AUGUST and I’m so glad I get to now. It is sexy, and I mean that, but there’s certain Mar turns of phrase that always just DEVASTATE ME:
“complementing the strokes of color with shallow blooms of mauve.“ - SICK AND TWISTED that I read that with my own eyes and had to clench my fists.
PLEASE AND PATIENCE???? HELLO??? AJ can’t come to the phone right now!
Its delightfully dreamy and sexy and just SO PITCH PERFECT and I’m glad you wrote it and that I exist in the same timeline. It’s such a perfectly captured moment. Like, you’ve really and truly put passion on the page!!!
Summary: mason thinks about mia at the town’s florist.
rating: T
warning: i think there's like...one swear word.
word count: ~1.7k
note: lol ok since i flopped at getting mason x mia done for the hotwayhaven event....
i have been waiting to write this for a while and the amazing event organisers at @wayhavensummer finally gave me the excuse I was waiting for to fully indulge in this. thanks for hosting and putting in all the great work!!
This is for Aug. 18 - Flowers.
--
They remind him of her.
Large and dangling free from her ears; brightly painted papier-mâché “monstrosities”.
That’s the word he’d used to describe them, making no effort to mask his distaste.
Instead, Mia smiled widely in response, reaching up to touch one at its faux-stalks. It stopped that distracting swing, back and forth with every slight movement of her head. Chuckling, and pride lifting her cheery tone, she told Mason she made them herself.
Lemony-yellow, mossy-green, the burnt-chestnut centre.
All crammed together outside of the tiny flower shop. Dozens upon dozens of them staring back at him; yellower under the blaze of the mid-August sun.
I am always sick of you, but today I am especially sick of you. Like, from moment one, I just got this shaky feeling in my chest like, OH MY GOD, this idiot is in love and he does not know! She is his little sunshine and HE DOES NOT KNOW.
but I think where I got really REALLY messed up was when I got here:
They remind him of the sunshiney smiles. The ones she so easily tosses his way, like they’re never any work, like they could never go to waste.
like they’re never any work!!!!!!!!! Perhaps I am more Mason than Mia, but I love that for him. to encounter someone for whom it comes easy and who puts light into the world.
and then: “Like they might be in on some big secret, and Mason will be the last in this entire godforsaken town to know.”
Yeah, stupid!!! Hehehehe.
I guess my words are failing me because what I like most is like...how well you’ve captured him having a realization in real time. We’re seeing this and feeling this along side him. We are absolutely experiencing his seismic shift. It’s just....great. And still manages to be funny and make me do a little eyebrow bobbing. (Harmless teeth with their dull edges!!!!??? Mason! I am not going to say it, but you know I am thinking it.)
Wow. I know you’re talented and yet I allow myself to get walloped over the head every time :))))
Pairing: Nat Sewell x f!Detective
Rating: E
Word Count: 10.7k
Notes: The 90s!Nate au that no one asked for and whose origins are murky to me now. Something about Mulder from the X-Files being on my dash...and something about Nate wearing his glasses...and somehow that became NATE in the 90s and now here we are?? It is long, and it's about two people finding their way with each other, I believe. For @brightpinkpeppercorn and @tuagonia, without whom this wouldn’t exist. Also posting during Hot In Wayhaven, Day #1: Foreplay. Shouts to the mods for a summer full of gorgeous content! (Pop over and read this on AO3, for self-indulgent endotes.)
____________________
I. October: oh when you walk by every night, talking sweet and looking fine
She saw him there on Fridays.
His long arms stacked with five or six movies while he contemplated another, squinting down at the backs of the cases as though he wasn’t wearing glasses at all. She liked to watch him stoop (because he had so far to go), to search the shelves. Sometimes, he would lean and a swoop of hair would flop forward over his forehead. A combination of rakish and charming that made her heart beat fast.
He saw her there on Fridays, too.
Not every Friday. The job didn’t necessarily allow her to keep a regular schedule. But she liked a trip to Friedman Video as much as anyone else. (She would kill for the chain from the city to come in, but things not happen quickly in this town.) Maybe she liked the video store more than anyone else. There was something about the allure of the choices, thousands of different stories waiting to be plucked up. Boxes of Reese’s Pieces, and Junior Mints and Jujubes that threatened to pull her teeth out with each mouthful. The faintly chemically smell of the carpet, with its bright, graphic triangles and squares running underneath her feet. All the happy families, so unlike her own.
At least when she was alone, she didn’t have to argue with anyone about what movies to pick.
Then. She’d taken to calling him Mr. Tall Glasses, and three weeks ago, when he’d caught her staring and given her a smile, she’d started calling him Mr. Tall Glasses Good Smile, which was a long title but, oh, fitting.
Mr. TGGS stood a few feet away, at the edge of the N's. There weren't so many O's, so he’d join her sooner rather than later. She was tingling. When was the last time she’d flirted? Well, intentionally, anyway.
There was something there, a really crass joke about O's that one of them could make when Mr. TGGS turned toward her and then his gaze strayed over her shoulder and he lifted his hand in a tiny wave.
“Hello, Jeremy,” he said in a kind, middle-of-the-road sort of way.
Trying not to be obvious, Leigh turned to look and saw a kid, fifteen or sixteen, ambling their direction.
“Hey, Mr. Sewell,” Jeremy said, “I wanted to ask you something.”
They fell into a conversation about some kind of program, and a recommendation letter, and she was trying to eavesdrop but there were only so many times she could pretend to read the back of Natural Born Killers. (It looked fine, she was going to get it, she liked Juliette Lewis.)
When Jeremy finally walked away, and she could stop pretending, she glanced over at Mr. Sewell.
“So you’re a teacher?” she ventured.
His lips curved into a gentle smile. “Yes. At the high school. Ah—obviously. Sciences. Bio and zoology, mostly. And you. You’re a police officer?”
She furrowed her brow. “How’d you know?”
His gaze slid down to her hips, where her badge rested on her belt. He tipped his chin toward it. “Dead giveaway, I’m afraid.”
“Fair enough. Detective Leigh Williams.” She stuck out a hand. He had to gather his stack of movies to his chest, but his hand made hers look tiny when they shook.
“Nate Sewell,” he said and gave her hand a tiny squeeze in the second before they parted.
The moment went quiet and she faked like she was interested in The Nightmare Before Christmas. (She’d seen it already. Twice.) “So, you really like movies? You’re here basically every Friday, right?”
He gave her a one-shouldered shrug. “They make good company while I’m grading papers.” He cleared his throat. “And you. You’re a bit of an Action Movie Girl.”
Like a proper noun, like the way she called him Mr. TGGS. (And really, that sounded about right: Leigh Williams: Action Movie Girl. Good with a Glock, unable to cry, fully of quippy one-liners with inexplicably excellent tits. Some assembly required. Spare, barely lived-in apartment sold separately.)
Leigh nodded. He wasn’t wrong. She glanced down at the stack in his hands. That looked right too: some kind of nature documentary sat on top. “Those for business or pleasure?”
“I find birds pretty fascinating.” He was so earnest. It was adorable. If you could call a man who cleared six feet and then some while stretching out the shoulders of his Gap button down adorable.
“I see.”
He opened his mouth once, twice, and then finally: “Would you want to learn about birds, sometime? Or, not birds. With me, I mean.”
The longer he talked, the more his face scrunched and she rolled her lips into her mouth to keep from laughing. Not at him. Not really. “Are you offering to let me audit your class or asking me out?”
His face scrunched even more, one eye squinting closed. “Wasn’t very...suave, was it?”
“Maybe you’ll get it next time, Mr. Sewell.” She gave him a mock salute with two fingers and started toward the register.
Kelly, the girl behind the counter, tossed on her usual bag of Twizzlers and checked her out with minimal googly eyes, probably because Leigh was staring daggers.
Just before she left, she turned to find him. He was still standing among the O's, that smile on his face.
She managed to get out of her work clothes before she made her way to Friedman’s the following Friday. She tried not to be too obvious, but the jeans she’d chosen made her ass look great without looking like she’d dressed up for anyone. Or him. Specifically.
She also tried not to look obviously disappointed when he wasn’t among the shelves of the store. There was no missing him, after all. She wasted a lot of time reading the description for Basic Instinct (raunchy with Michael Douglas who did very little for her, but Sharon Stone, who did a lot) and The Silence of the Lambs (which was more her speed, generally, but she’d seen it twice before).
When thirty minutes had come and gone she knew it was time to give up. She carried her haul (yes, Basic Instinct, but also Legends of the Fall and The Addams Family) up to the counter where Kelly slapped her Twizzlers on top. And another pack of Twizzlers. And a Snickers. And a box of popcorn. Jujubes. And a tight bouquet of delicate orchids.
Leigh didn’t get any words out before Kelly spoke, “You,” she said teasingly, “are all taken care of.” Leigh made to ask again, but Kelly held up a finger. She slid a tiny envelope across the counter.
Her name—spelled correctly, too—across the front.
“Pretty sure his number is in there,” Kelly said. “So, are you gonna call him?”
“He—I—” She fumbled so completely that Kelly grinned knowingly.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” The cashier pointed at another employee, who was fixing a display. “Ha! Told you they’d go out before November.”
Greg, a stocky redhead, pulled off a long strip of Hubba Bubba and stuffed it in his cheek. “They haven’t actually gone out yet,” he said.
Kelly wheeled on her. “You’re going to go out with him, right?”
In return, Leigh’s cheeks flushed hot. “I don’t know. Maybe. I—can I get a bag for this stuff?”
Both Kelly and Greg sniggered and Leigh hugged the bag all the way out to the car. The radio blared Shaggy’s “Boombastic,” when she started the engine. She couldn’t wait to tear the note open. She slid one finger under the sticker (a gold star with a smiling face above a banner that said “Great Work!”) to break the seal and slid the note out. It was written on an index card, baby blue and unlined.
Leigh,
Though I’d hoped that I would be able to see you this evening, something has come up. I hope that the candy will make up for it.
Second, I have a notion of which I need to dissuade you, and I believe this will start us down the correct path. Let me be clear:
I would like to take you out on a date.
If you would like that, as well, give me a call. Whenever you read this. Whenever you like.
xx Nate
Out of stubbornness or pride, or the love of the game, she tried to wait, but she made it seventeen minutes into Basic Instinct before she paused the movie, hauled her phone into her lap and dialed the number scrawled at the bottom of the note.
He answered on the second ring, with a nearly terse matter-of-factness: “This is Nate.”
“Nate, um, hi. It’s Leigh.”
“Leigh.” A tone like melted caramel: warm and thick and sweet. Sliding over her. Clinging in all the right places. Unfairly, it made her slide down in her seat, body curled into itself. The same way it had when Andre Washington had asked her out in the ninth grade.
“That’s cheating, you know.”
A pause. “What’s cheating?”
“You can’t be suave from a distance.”
His voice made warmth curl in her belly: “I can be suave up close if you like.”
Thank God he couldn’t see her biting her lip. “Okay, okay, Mr. Sewell. You take this one. You win the point.”
“Yes, thank you. But can I take you out?”
“So you do know how to be direct?”
“I know that and a lot more.”
“You’re terrible!” she said and giggled. Giggled? (Ugh, God.) “I think I’ve been conned. I think you’re the pool shark of flirting.”
He laughed. She really liked the sound of it. More than she probably should have. “No. You surprised me. I didn’t expect—I didn’t think you’d talk to me. I certainly didn’t think you’d talk to me first. And—last week, I saw you in the bakery and I was going to say hello, but there was a guy there, really laying it on thick and you told him to fu—”
“Wait, no, he wasn’t hitting on me,” Leigh cut in. “He’s not—that’s Bobby. I know Bobby. I mean, he was hitting on me, but that’s how he is at all times.” She grimaced, even though he couldn’t see her.
“So you are, generally, open to being hit on?” A bit of amusement was still in his voice.
“By you? Yes.”
“Are you busy next Friday? You’ll go out with me? Say yes or this is going to get very embarrassing.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, a friend has shown up unexpectedly. He’s listening now. If you shoot me down I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Well, when you put it like that, I guess I have to say yes. To protect your reputation.”
She stood outside, bundled underneath the bulk of her oversized denim jacket, when she saw Nate jogging toward her, unfairly handsome in a jade green button down, half tucked into a pair of jeans.
“Sorry, sorry!” he said, raking a hand through his hair. “I know I’m running late.”
Leigh glanced down at the slender watch on her wrist. “No, you’re still five minutes early.”
He was as handsome as she remembered. It wasn’t trickery of a happy Friday night. It wasn’t memory made sweet by her girlish crush. He was plainly, undeniably handsome. Brown-skinned and white-teethed. His brow, made for stroking a finger over. The tempting length of him, unfairly elegant. He slowed to a stop before he was close enough to loom. Like that was practiced too.
And the moment between them was slow too. Heavy and lingering already. Anticipation in the air between them.
“Hi,” he said quietly.
“Hi,” she replied and her cheeks hurt, she was smiling so big.
When the movie was over, they met at the diner on the square. It was after eleven and Nate said “most of his students had curfew” so he figured he was in the clear. She’d never had easier conversation in her life. “No, no, I want to hear it,” he urged, when she cut off her Holly Hunter impression before it even started.
It was a bad impression, but they both seemed to think it was funny enough, trading impressions that only got worse and worse, over dwindling plates of cheeseburgers and fries.
“So,” he said, “you’re a detective. What’s that like?”
(Normally she hates when people ask about work, because how lame is that, she’s so much more than what she does, it’s so run of the mill, but not when he asks because he asks everything else, everything interesting too, and oh no, there is a blooming thing somewhere inside her, asking her to leave the curtains open for some sun.)
Leigh shrugged. “In a town like this? Quiet. What about you? How did you get into teaching?”
She watched, fascinated, as his smile tightened before it went lax again. “I’m not an educator by training. Years and years ago—I used to be a marine biologist.”
Her eyes widened. “No. Really?”
Nate nodded jerkily. “Yes. I loved it. The water. The animals. The people.” The only word for his voice was wistful. Leigh propped her elbow on the greasy formica tabletop and her chin in her hand.
“Why did you make the switch?”
A quick, harsh breath. “The decision was made for me.” He plucked his glass a couple of times. Lightly. Fingernail a gentle tap. “I was in Australia. Working with a group studying at the Great Barrier Reef. There was some extra funding—there’s rarely extra funding,” he said with a wry smile.
“Anyway,” he went on, “We wanted to do an unplanned excursion.” He made a weird sound. Kind of like a pant. “We—we went too far out. Storm came in.” Leigh’s stomach was starting to hurt.
“Nate, I—”
“It was bad. I don’t remember much. The therapist I saw after has suggested that I don’t want to remember much.” He huffed. “Mostly rain. Salt. Blood. I got off easy, all things considered. One of the guys...he never made it home. We were all pretty beat up. Some stuff that’ll hurt for life, probably. Shoulder. My knee. On my left side.”
“Oh my God, Nate. I’m so sorry.”
He nodded. “It’s fine. Well. Mostly. It hurts, sometimes when the weather’s bad. But I still do everything I want to do. It may get worse as I get older, but that’s the human body, right?” There must have been something in her face that she hadn’t managed to lock down tight because he added:
“Sorry, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the—the physical part of it. I was—I spent a long time in recovery. A week in Australia before my parents flew me out to London to be with them for a while. Then, finally, back here. I was doing some volunteering at an aquarium in California.” The smile on his face was disarmingly, suddenly real. “Mostly working with field trip groups. And it clicked. I loved teaching them, working with them.”
While he spoke, she fiddled with her straw wrapper. Folding and unfolding it, then tearing it to bits. “And the rest was history?”
A soft sigh. “Something like that.”
Somehow surprising them both, the waitress appeared with their check. “No rush,” she said, gesturing around the restaurant. Leigh had been so caught up in Nate’s story, that she hadn’t noticed the diner emptying around them. Glancing out the window, she also realized there had also been rain at some point. The square outside was slick with it, pooling between the cobblestones. The droplets clinging to the window glittered with a reflection of the streetlights.
“I didn’t mean to bring up...hard stuff,” Leigh said. “I’m sorry.”
Nate inclined his head. “It’s okay. It’s not typical first date conversation, but I don’t mind sharing it.” A pause. “You seem like the kind of person I can share that with.”
They argued over the check. She insisted on paying, since he’d bought the movie tickets. He’d made a slightly irritated face but agreed. Outside, they stepped nimbly between puddles, on their way to their cars.
At the door to her car she turned to him. “I...had a great time.”
His lips lift. A blend of something a little hopeful and self-satisfied. “Yes, so did I. If I’m honest...this is probably one of the best nights of my life.” (That hit her with the weight of a boulder and feather, somehow.) “May I...give you a kiss?”
A spear of warmth shot through her as she looked up—and up—to his face. The striking darkness of his eyes. The lovely line of his nose. An eager mouth. Leigh closed the gap. Or, more correctly, she leaned up first and Nate leaned down to meet her. Gentle, at first. Sweet. Exploratory. Certain.
Then, he cupped her cheek with his hand and she slid her own around his waist. And it changed. Needier. Hungry. Nipping. Biting. His hand edging toward ungentlemanly, resting just above the curve of her ass. Making out like teenagers in the quiet cool breeze-night of a sleeping town.
Breathlessly, she pulled away to ask, “Do you want to go back to my apartment?”
His was closer though. His small, two bedroom ranch-style house. With its tidy yard and literal white picket fence. She wanted to tease him about it, but he didn’t give her the chance.
They stumbled through his side door, into his kitchen, banging around in the dark, knocking against the table and banging into the refrigerator.
“Shit, shit, sorry, sorry,” Nate said before lapping at her bottom lip. Like he could lick her right up.
Sex—sex felt easy. It made more sense than looking at his haunted eyes as he shared his pain with her. The way he’d let it well up like blood from a wound. Was it her turn to lick him, then? Clean him? Comfort?
Leigh couldn’t be sure she was good at comfort. She was good at shrugging out of her shirts and kicking off her shoes and unbuttoning her pants. She was good at hurrying him along, begging him to do the same. It was hard to do around all the kissing, but it felt good to have him bare-chested and pressing her against his counter. He grunted when he swooped down for another kiss. The hair of his chest rubbed against her skin, making her nipples hard and her skin rush hot and alive with goosebumps.
She wanted him to fuck her. That’s what she knew and what she liked and how she wanted it. She turned in his hands, and for a moment he chased her with his mouth, until he realized what she’d done. How easily he could bend her over. Nate went still. She felt his breath at the back of her neck. He was motionless for so long she thought, maybe, had she done something wrong?
“Please,” she said after a moment, “I want you to—do you have a condom?”
The question was lost in the way he kissed her neck. Trailed his teeth down the length of it. Her moan was surprising to herself—loud and obscene. Louder still when he yanked her panties down around her knees, and stroked her pussy with what she guessed were his knuckles.
“Condom,” he murmured. “You’re not even wet enough yet.”
His hand was gentle but adamant, pressed her down, down, down until she was bent over. Her forehead pillowed on her folded arms, arms along the countertop.
She should have known. Maybe she would have controlled herself better. But the sounds that came out of her when Nate put his mouth to her cunt were unholy. A testing, wet pass of his tongue. Gentle. At first. And then more insistent. And then more. When she moaned and jerked he held her fast around the thighs, rubbing soothing circles with his thumbs.
She was getting the fucking she’d asked him for—but with his tongue and his lips and his nose and the very teasing edge of his teeth. He wasn’t quiet. Usually, she would have hated this. Been anxious about him eating her out, especially from behind. Been miserable because she had no control and couldn’t be sure if he was getting impatient. If it was taking her too long to come. Or if getting her off was tied up in his ego.
But all of Nate’s sighs—warm gusts that made her shiver—seemed born out of pure pleasure. The noises that came out of him. Hungry, boarding on snarls. Tasting her. Wrapping a firm, unyielding hand around her calf when he found a place that made her kick back because it was too much and so good.
She could hear it when he slid his fingers into her. Coaxed more wetness from her.
Then licking up where it spread. Up the insides of her thighs, as if just to taste her. Leigh whimpered when he sank his fingers back in.
“Lovely,” he murmured, and pressed a kiss to the back of one thigh. “Good, good.”
It was the kind of pleasure that danced on the edge of torture. Every part of her was drawn up tight. When he pulled his hand away and went back to her with his mouth, she realized he’d been holding back. That had been a warm up. Because he licked her clit, sucked it with the exact right amount of pressure. Held her fast as she bucked toward him and said, “yes, please, right there, right there, right there,” and kept his mouth right there.
She came with an uncharacteristic, high-pitched grunt (bordering on a whine), that she tried to muffle against her hand. The pleasure was entirely out of control. Out of her control. An orchestration entirely of his doing and maybe that’s why everything about it had been so shocking.
Leigh turned back to him on shaky legs. “I think—I think I’m wet enough now.”
He was supposed to laugh. It was a good joke. (It wasn’t, but he was supposed to laugh.) She was ready, more than ready. Her body was ready for him. But his expression was serious. He leaned down and kissed her slowly. Too slow. Too tender. It hurt somehow. He had no right to be tender with her.
Their lips brushed when he pulled back and said, “I want to watch your face the next time you come.”
He lifted her onto the counter in a move that made her squeal with surprise and grasp at his shoulders.
"Nate, you shouldn't be— not if you—"
He shushed her, but it was mild, pressed against her lips again. His voice was a rumbling sandpaper whisper at her mouth. She felt the timbre of it move through her, making her toes curl.
"Injury or not, I'll move you how I'll move you. Have you how I'll have you."
She swallowed as he slid her underwear all the way down, removing them until they hung gracelessly off one ankle. Almost unconsciously her thighs parted and he pressed the advantage, his hands sliding up to her waist, his hips nestled in the spread of her legs. Not quite the right angle to press inside her, but a distracting swipe of wetness from the head of his cock smeared against her skin and she instinctively moved toward it, toward him. He chuckled, a little. Not to be mean.
"And, If you doubt me again," he said, "I'll have to keep proving it, won't I?"
His fingers found their way and sank inside her without warning. She made a kind of shocked giggle-groan.
"Hey, Nate," she said, stuttering as his hand began to move, "I really doubt you. I doubt you so much. I don't think that—oh my God."
His hum was nothing less than smarmy. “Feels good?”
So good, she was going to leave his counter slick. He watched her face as she writhed on his fingers. So intense, so focused that she almost laughed again, but it was nervous that time. Embarrassment that she was genuinely going to come again and so soon and he was just going to watch?
"You don't—you don't—look away," she said, still anxious.
Nate licked his lips. She couldn't help watching the path of his tongue. She leaned in to kiss him, (because that mouth and because—)
He pulled back, shaking his head slowly, her attempt at distraction foiled. "No. Let me see. I want to watch. You never told me how it feels."
Leigh closed her eyes and focused. "Good. Full. How are your fingers so damn b—ah."
Nate pressed his thumb to the underside of her clit, and her eyes flew open. "And this?"
She gripped at his shoulders. He was still staring at her. "You're going to— you're going to make me come. Again."
"Yes," he said fierce-faced. "I know."
He was right, his mouth in a wry smirk, but his eyes were somber as she shook and shuddered and came.
She was limp-limbed when he said: "Can you come again?"
He was going to pull her apart.
“No. Maybe. You’d probably have to fuck me really hard though.”
He hummed and then she got her kiss in. She kissed him while he fumbled in his pocket for his wallet. He still tasted of her and faintly, strawberry milkshake. She pulled away to see him grip the condom between two fingers and then she heard the heavy smack of the wallet hitting the floor.
It only took him a moment with the condom and then he tilted her hips to make it easier, so he could get inside her. It was slower than she’d expected. She was relaxed and wet, but swollen and he wasn’t small. As if he couldn’t help himself, he looked down to where he was working inside her. Slow. Slow. In. Fuck, was he in. Out again. Still slow. In.
That first real thrust stole her breath. She swore, her head knocking back against the cabinet, which made her swear again.
His gaze lifted quickly to her face. "Are you okay—"
"Don't stop."
She jerked him closer with a leg around his hip. His face dropped to the crook of her neck with a groan. Both of his palms slapped down on the countertop beside her, loud evidence of his desperation. How long he’d held off.
It was uncomfortable, the way both of them had to bend and arch and twist their bodies to fit in this cocoon of their own making. He had to hunch because he was so tall. Her head hurt from bumping against the cabinet above her. She could hear his legs and knees rocking into the cabinets below, rattling the doors on their hinges.
But it didn't matter. She was going to dissolve into nothing but sensation. Because she was full of him. His laughter and his cock and the look in his eyes when he said best night. Whatever pain was worth it.
She found his hand, wrapped her fingers around it. Thumbed the stark lines of the veins running up its back. In a second’s time he'd flipped them, swallowing her hand in his own. Holding her and holding her in place.
"Tell me what you need," he said, teeth at her neck.
Harder, and he lifted her with his free hand, changed the angle again. Her moans dipped in pitch, dark with the new depth of her pleasure. He moved her hips up then down his length. She was getting fucked, she was spinning out. Both of them panting and sweating and she—
All she managed to say was his name. Begging. Pleading.
"You're close," he said, "you're close. You’re pretty when you come. I want to hear it, please, you’re close aren’t you?"
No, that would be impossible. She’d only ever had that many orgasms that quickly with her vibrator and that was pushing it. She didn't know if he was asking her or if he was telling her or maybe he was begging too.
He squeezed her hand, another desperate signal. When he pulled her close the last time, she surprised herself by coming with a yell that filled the kitchen.
The second time was sweeter. Longer. In his bed, with slate blue bachelor sheets. Filled with apologies for all the sore places they'd created together. She couldn’t come again yet, but there was joy in watching him fall apart above her, his sweating and the twist of his lips and the groaning.
After she'd come back from the bathroom and he’d returned from retrieving water for them both, he crawled into her arms. It was charming. Such a big man asking, unequivocally, to be held.
She stroked her fingers through his hair letting the locks lift and fall over again, getting down to the scalp until he snuggled closer, pressed his face to the junction of her neck and shoulder. She found his ear and stroked it too.
“Hey, your ears are pierced.”
Nate nodded. His hair tickled her chin. His feet were probably hanging off the end of the bed. “Yeah, I got them pierced in my...punk phase.”
That startled a loud laugh out of her. “You’re shitting me.”
“No. I mean, I caught the end of it, it’s not as though I was running in and out of CBGB’s or anything. It was more about the rebellion.” Every now and then, he paused, kissing at her collarbone. “Not really my thing anymore. All that’s left is the jewelry.”
He rolled onto his back and lifted the hand that wasn’t trapped underneath her. He waggled his fingers in the mostly dark room, and his rings were barely visible as entities separate from his fingers.
“Why keep them?” Leigh asked.
A long moment passed and his voice was fond when he spoke. “They remind me of people I used to know. A person I used to be.” Sad. “Plus,” and just like that, he was devilish, “they keep me young. Makes all the kids think I’m cool.”
“Please. Your face makes you cool.”
“My face?” he echoed.
Leigh rolled her eyes as he tilted his head to look at her. “Stop it. You’re fine as hell. You know you’re hot.” He knew. He at least had an inkling. He was smirking at her in the dark. She could feel it. She palmed him, his nose pressing into the center of her hand.
He hummed as she rolled them over, so she could be on top. She leaned in close so she could see his eyelids droop, slivers of darkness staring back at her. Darker still when she pressed his wrists into the pillows beside his head.
The flex of the muscle under her was a tacit reminder. But he didn't fight her grasp. "I'll have you how I'll have you," she whispered.
"You have me."
II. November: I want to be your lady, maybe
The following weekend was the same.
And the one after that. Except when she tried to curl up in a tight ball to sleep he stretched their bodies out into one long line and said, “I’d like to hold you if you’ll let me.”
And the one after that. Except when he took a phone call from his father (crisp British accent, which surprised her) that left him annoyed and apologetic for being annoyed, she said, “Don’t apologize. I’ll like you anyway.”
And so on.
On Thanksgiving, he said he had already made plans with a friend, and she had already accepted a very generous invitation from Verda. The next day they ate shared leftover plates foisted on them by well-meaning friends.
And the weekend after that, he brought her breakfast to the station at seven am on a Sunday morning, looking rumpled and sleepy and happy when he said, “Here, love.” She wouldn’t read too much into it.
And the weekend after that, when they argued (briefly) over what movie to rent while bent over the new releases at the video store, she said, “You choose, baby, it’s not worth arguing about.” He shouldn’t read too much into it. Probably.
III. December: how like you, to you make your love my hideaway
She spent whatever break she got that December, and the entirety of his, at his place. Naked in his bed, eating grilled cheese sandwiches, practically fried in salty French butter. On his couch, trading crossword puzzles back and forth because he kicked ass at all the science and classic lit sort of questions, but she was better at pop culture and weirdly, sports. They made their way through rentals of Humphrey Bogart movies and all of the bad action films he could stomach. When they checked out together at Friedman’s, there was some more exchanging of money between Kelly and George. She didn’t know what the bet was. She didn't care.
He didn’t even say anything when she played CrazySexyCool and her “This Is How We Do It” single like she was trying to put holes in the CDs. On Christmas Day, he roasted a duck, of all things, with potatoes both perfectly crisp and fluffy, and bittersweet brussel sprouts. Then he spread her out on his bed and ate her pussy until his sheets were wet with her. By the time he crawled up and slid inside her, she was trembling and sore-thighed and he hissed because she was damn tight—hell, Leigh, all in one sighing, incredulous breath.
They didn’t have to talk about how neither one of them had a family to go to, how they both opened pretty, bland Christmas presents shipped from other parts of the world.
When she had the Wednesday between Christmas and New Year's off, he asked her Tuesday night, while cradling a spiked cup of tea in hand, if she would like to go to the aquarium. She spread her hands across the expanse of his chest and pulled his ancient t-shirt (an ugly one from a band he’d heard when he was nineteen and that she already thought of as hers) down over her knees.
“Of course I would.”
It was a long drive that Nate turned into an adventure. Paper cups of coffee and giant muffins from Haley’s Bakery. Like usual, he handed over complete control of the radio and the CD player. His tastes were all over the map—mostly classical albums, stuff where she knew one song out of a dozen, and brand new stuff she’d never heard of. Old school jazz and 60s motown she knew from rifling through her mother’s collection, learned from singing along as the only voice room.
He didn’t do much singing but couldn’t seem to avoid it when they got to Al Green and was coaxed into revealing that he knew a lot of Queen. They were both in slap-happy tears as she told him about her one and only significant injury. In the leg. A long thin scar he’d discovered already, traced with his fingers and tongue. Over a fence she’d gone and the fence had bitten back. It wouldn’t have been funny, he told her, but for the cheeseburgers in your pocket.
She could smell the water, when they were still standing in the short line, buying tickets. That tang of salt. It had been a very long time since she’d been to an aquarium, and never when it was so quiet. There were a few families, a few couples, like them. But no field trips, no trilling school teachers. In the first area, there were a million bells and whistles explaining each exhibit in dulcet tones, or with jarring, bright videos.
Nate, was, of course, a better tour guide. She could read about an octopus’ three hearts, but only he could tell her stories about how smart they were, how they would outmaneuver scientists. He didn’t make her feel silly, when the lampreys made her shiver. There was a massive lazy alligator, much longer than Nate was tall, who went by the name of Otto. The showstopper exhibit was a shark tank, one a person could wander around, above, through, and watch, from the amphitheater. It housed several species, and more besides the sharks. They were meant to be carefully calibrated, only holding creatures from the same part of the ocean. That might actually find each other in the wild. Keeping one another alive in the careful balance that had existed for millennia.
The amphitheater was dark, rows and rows of benches to sit on. The kind of quiet that made someone feel swallowed. There and then not.
Gallons and gallons of water to watch. The tank was big-screen wide, so vast there was almost no taking it all in at once. On and on and in. She couldn’t make out a stopping point. She couldn’t make out an end.
They had their choice of seats, and she let him decide. She had no preference. She was happy and full from a lunch of juicy, snapping sausages and kettle chips. Plus, her feet wouldn’t mind the rest.
“Do you mind if we stay here for a while?”
He asked it quietly, as if she would mind. As if she could deny him anything. She turned to him, found his face bathed in an almost Blockbuster blue. He was staring, fixated, into the tank.
They really were majestic. The sharks. Shy, maybe, swooping in close and away again. Fast and sleek-skinned and surprisingly big-eyed. Watching them the way Nate stared into the tank. The ocean, in tiny microcosm, staring back, the waves lapping lapping lapping at the twin porthole windows of his glasses.
"It's a thing of beauty," he said, hands spread helplessly, all explanatory wonder. As if he needed to justify the tears in his eyes.
VI. January: this surely is a dream
On the second Tuesday in January, draped over his lap while he stroked her ass like one might pet a dog, she asked, “What will we do, you think, when the weather warms up?”
Because she’d had...things that were something like what she had with Nate. Before. Never someone who made her feel the way she felt with him. But more than a few not-quite relationships that fell apart naturally at the end of season or the start of a new job or something. Always something.
On screen, Alex Trebeck read out clues. A predictable, comfortable cadence that might have lulled her to sleep. A bright-eyed red-headed man thumbed the buzzer like it was trying to run away.
“Who is Sisyphus?” Nate announced, in time with the Jeopardy contestant. They were both right. “I don’t know,” he went on slowly, and she heard him turn the page in his book. “Who is Midas?” he said. Right again.
Her heart felt like it was going to beat right out of her chest. He stroked her again. She was his giant nervous attack dog, imaginary hackles raised, imaginary feet ready to leap up at any moment.
“Anyway,” he said finally, “we could hike. Do you like to hike? That’s a warm weather activity. It’s early to be thinking about it, but I like the summer concert series in the city. Might still be time to get tickets to a spring play though. In March or April, I think.”
Leigh hugged his legs tighter. The time was about to run out. $2000 word clue. “Who is Menelaus?”
No one else got it. Nate gave her a low five.
V. February: want to see you hazy
Honeymoon phase, it was called. That beautiful bubble when things were still new and special. She’d lived in it before. This was different.
It was different in the way she’d showed up at his house at 10:30, to find him in his pjs, with a happy smile for her and a steaming bowl of spicy chili and her spot on the couch ready with the blanket she liked best. (He’d washed it, it smelled like Tide.)
It was different because he’d put in the tape while she changed into her pjs (also his, technically). Then pulled her feet in his lap while they watched Mulder and Scully view the footage of a sunken fighter plane, and discover mind-wiped people covered in black oil.
It was different as she watched him from the doorway of his guest room-slash-office. Sometimes she could only marvel at what a big man he was, made more evident by the way he stooped at his desk, squinting through his lenses at the disparate parts of his IBM.
Nate was dressed for bed, long legs in pale gray boxers, topped with a loose shirt. His hair fell in his eyes as he stared at a tangle of cords. He raked his hair back with an impatient hand, and it ignored him, falling forward again.
“What’s wrong?” Leigh asked, because watching him fidget and sigh was going to drive her crazy.
“I can’t—Jeremy told me that it would be very easy to set up.”
Leigh winced. Asking him to boot up a computer was too much. She glanced down at the mass of cords in his hand, and then back and forth between him and all the hardware (base, monitor, keyboard, speakers). Definitely too much.
“Hold on,” she said, and shucked her robe—his robe—and crossed the room to him. “Sit,” she said, pointing to the chair. With an amused look on his face, he followed her directions and she crawled underneath the desk. In the end, it really wasn’t so complicated, and as she went to withdraw she felt his hand cup her ass. His fingertips were warm against the exposed skin of the very bottom of the curve of one cheek.
She huffed, but good-naturedly. “You didn’t warn me that I was exposing myself.”
“It was a massive moral dilemma.”
She went to stand again, but he stilled her again. His touch changed. From gentle to teasing. Across her skin to her inner thigh. Higher. Underneath her shorts.
“You’re wet,” he murmured, sounding pleased and quietly surprised. “That was fast.”
It was dark and cramped and there were cobwebs under there, but she still rocked back against his hand with a breathy, “Yeah.”
“I could do this all the time,” he said, a finger sliding inside her. “Feels sometimes like—like if it weren’t for all of life’s obligations, I’d find some way to be inside you. Always.”
He was. He was.
The next time she tried to get out, he let her. She turned to him, still on her knees. He shuddered when she slid her hands up his naked thighs and then inside his boxers to stroke him. Bit his lip when she licked her hand and did it again.
He helped when she pulled at the boxers and his cock sprang out, already hard and straining. Nate muttered under his breath as she dropped her head and took the length of him in her mouth. One smooth stroke that had him pressing into her throat.
Nate swore, and she felt herself clench. She loved it when she could make him forget himself, make him all need and desire. To peel away all his fastidiousness, all his endeavors to be polite and hear him quietly say fuck while she choked on him.
“Are you—are you wet enough?”
She hummed a yes. His gentle finger under chin had her lifting off of him and rising to her feet. Wordlessly, she tugged him into the bedroom, toward the bed, pushed him down and slid onto his lap. She would sometimes forget how strong he was. Then, of course, he would remind her, by doing things like lifting her ass in the air and carefully lowering her onto his cock.
Slow and then full. Breath gone, stomach-aching, leg-quaking full. She wouldn’t be able to remember all the things they said, later. But mostly she said nothing, listening to the sound of their skin meeting, the sound of him dragging out of her.
Leigh stared into the depth of something terrifying, when she looked at him, his glasses slightly askew, his sweating, thoughtful face. And something terrifying stared back because he looked so entirely calm. Assured.
When it was over, she crawled into his bed and that thing inside her unfurled even more, begged and begged for more light and she couldn’t decide if it was thriving or if it was a death knell.
Her mind went liquid, waiting for him. Slipped away from thoughts and into being, feeling, experiencing. The comfort of his sheets, dove-gray and silky soft. The sound of his bare feet, on the slightly knobbled hardwood. The shuffle of his limbs against his clothes as he closed down the house. The creak of him checking to see if he’d locked the screen door too. The shuffle of putting the leftovers away. The particular snap of the hallway light as he finally slid into bed behind her. The hazy, near dark of the room. They were both quiet for a very long time.
“Are you awake?” he whispered. At her nod, he slid his arm around her waist. Pulled her in close to him, with a hand at her bellybutton. The minutes ticked on. He murmured the words in her hair, against the still sweaty curls:
“It is more thicker than forget. More thinner than recall. More seldom that a wave is wet. More frequent than to fail.”
“Who is that?”
“Cummings.” She opened her mouth and whatever it was—maybe he felt the tightening of her middle or could see the tendons in her neck, but he snuggled her closer and said, “We did the rest of the day your way. That’s all I wanted. This is all I want.”
No matter how much she tried to control it, her voice shook when she spoke into the darkness: “I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.” She stopped. “I—I don’t remember what comes next.”
He sighed, maybe. Either way, his chest rose and fell hard enough to press against her shoulder blades and for her to miss the feeling when they retreated.
“Bread does not nourish me,” he whispered, “dawn disrupts me, all day.” Crackling, wet: “I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps. Neruda.”
“Yeah.”
More silence. Many minutes of silence. Many minutes of tense, thoughtful silence. Like an entire congregation bent to urgent prayer.
“Happy Valentine’s day,” she said, and squeezed one of his fingers in her fist. Nate kissed her behind the ear.
“Thank you.”
That thing in her breast, that trembling, fragile thing wailed.
Alive, then.
VI. March: I wanna hold the hand inside you
She knew it was love when she started making calls. When she found out when the high school’s spring break was. When she practically sold her soul for five days off and then, once Nate confirmed that he could be free (actually what he said was, “you can have all of my time, every second if you want,” and she’d stared until she could breathe again) sold an arm and leg for the two plane tickets and the rental of the teeny beachfront cabin on the Oregon coast.
Whale watching was not a thing she’d even given a thought to before him. She knew it was something that people did, theoretically. She’d seen Free Willy. But the way he talked about the ocean and its creatures made her curious. Like, an itch, left unscratched. And Nate loved whales. He’d called them cute once and then looked so embarrassed she’d clapped her hands to his hot cheeks and kissed him.
Ready to burst with anticipation, she was antsy as Nate did the responsible thing and unloaded their bags and put their groceries away. She did bounce on her toes as he spread sunscreen over her face, long fingers swiping at her chin and cheeks.
“Go,” he said, following her out the cabin’s back door.
She ran out onto the porch and down the rickety wooden stairs and into the sand. Leigh heard him laughing behind her. But she couldn’t stop. She understood him. She understood him so differently. The sun and sand and the waves, the waves, the waves. Shades of blue and gray and white and so loud. It was no documentary. No amphitheatre. Surround sound. Consuming.
Nate barreled into her, tucking his shoulder into her stomach and hefting her up. She screamed and shrieked as he ran them straight into the ice-cold ocean. They went from so much sound and sensation to the flat ringing of nothing under the dark water. A special kind of nothing, walking the line of bleak and peaceful. Then it was over, breaking, as she bobbed up above the water.
“I am going to kill you.”
Nate squirted a jet of water out of his mouth, like a fountain made of flesh. “You loved it,” he said.
The deep orange sun was still bright even on the brink of the day’s end. It made a beautiful man more beautiful. Cut him in half—part shadow, part light. A drop of water trickled off an errant lock of hair and smacked the pout of his lower lip.
There was something she could have said.
It was too cold to play, so she let him tow her out of the water, nearly as quickly as they’d gone in. Their ascent up to the cabin was slower. They shook off on the porch like dogs, and still dripped water onto the hardwood inside the front door. They giggled from pure, stupid happiness as they started stripping right there. Both of their t-shirts hit the floor with a splat.
“So, I’ve been reading all these, like, tourist brochures. This one place has walk-up boat tours, so we can get out on the water and—”
“Oh,” he said, scraping his hair back from his face. “No, thank you.”
Confused, she tilted her head to look at him. “No?”
He tensed, with the sort of energy that made her nervous. “I do hope you’ll enjoy yourself. You can go on the boat tour, if you want. Up to you ”
Leigh frowned as she started wriggling out of her jeans. “Yes, but, I thought—wouldn’t you—”
“They have viewing towers—”
“Yeah, but we’d be closer if—”
“I don’t want to be close!”
It was the first time she’d ever heard him yell. It made her ears hurt. This was stupid. She thought—she was pretty sure they were about to argue and she was standing in her underwear, cold and seawater making her already feel crunchy all over.
“What is wrong with you?” she asked, frowning.
Nate’s mouth twitched. He turned away from her abruptly and moved so quickly into the bedroom, stomping the entire way. He returned in his glasses and a fresh sweatshirt before he announced that he was going for a walk. The door slammed behind him.
Leigh was showered and changed and no longer crying by the time he returned. She peaked out the door’s small square window to see him leaning against the porch railing, staring out into the sea. It was the silver-black of night, rippling like liquid velvet. And laid on top of it, the reflection of the moon. So golden, it looked like someone had scattered sequins on the ocean's surface. Like any moment they'd rude the waves further and further away from each other.
She was swaddled in a massive flannel blanket when she stepped out. “Are your pants still wet?” She sounded more nagging and angry than she meant to. Like she was needling him. He surprised her by immediately stripping them off and kicking them to a heap at his side. Yes. Still wet.
Leigh was steady as she walked up behind him. And though he was so much bigger, so much taller, so much more, she made a cape of the blanket and used it to wrap up as much of him as she could. His back beneath her cheek was flat and solid.
She felt him move. Rubbing his face, she thought. “I don’t do that anymore. I haven’t—I haven’t been on a boat since before. Since the accident.”
Something moved all along his body. An electric current of nerves.
“Baby, why didn’t you tell me?”
She’d tried for subdued and understanding and that only seemed to upset him more: “Because then you’d know!”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
She could hear that his teeth were clenched. “And then you’d be disappointed!” Quieter: “Then I would be a disappointment.”
Leigh frowned. “What about you could possibly be disappointing?” He made a sound that could only be called a scoff, so she squeezed him.
“I think you’ve decided that you have to be perfect. But I wouldn’t care, you know. I love your cooking, but it wouldn’t matter if you couldn’t. I love your body, but it wouldn’t matter if it were different. I love how you are with your students, but it wouldn’t matter if you weren’t a teacher. I—I love the way you smile at me, but even if it were harder for you, if you felt like it was harder some days than others…”
He was shaking. “Leigh.”
“I love you,” she said and it was so much more difficult and so much easier than she thought it would be. “You don’t have to say it back.”
Nate whirled on her and she accidentally dropped the blanket. He didn’t smile. He dipped his head across the inches that were irrelevant and everything and kissed her until she went boneless in his arms. And then again. And again after that.
He said it back. He said between apologies and while she kissed up his tears. He said it as he walked her backwards into the house. As he pulled her into a steaming shower. (I just got out, Nate. I’m cold, love, I’m cold.) He said it as he made her come in that narrow tiled stall, until she pushed him out and onto the bed and stole all his words with her mouth.
He said it again, with more apologies. (I shouldn’t have yelled. I shouldn’t have assumed.)
He said it while they ate Kraft macaroni and cheese from a shared bowl. (It’s delicious. It’s hot.)
He said it as they fell asleep. (Of course I’ll get another blanket. Thanks, baby.)
She’d never had a beach vacation and in many ways, she still hadn’t. Not in the traditional sense. There was no baking in the sun's rays. No building sandcastles. No cold beers under an umbrella.
It was still March, so it was a lot of walking and talking, holding hands. Safeguarding one another from chilly windy off the ocean. Testing to see if the wounds of the night before had actually healed. If those three little words held fast.
Nate got to wax on about the sea. He was a neverending font of knowledge. He looked at her like she was a goddess herself when she admitted her obsession with Poseidon. When she told him stories about that sea-dwelling god.
Neither of them mentioned that there were no whales to see.
Nate was the better cook between them, but they were both tired from the night before and their day on the beach so when she pulled out the menu for the nearby pizza place (with prices only a tourist would pay) he only nodded. When the order was placed, he opened his arms and the blanket for her to join him on the couch.
She fell asleep there and drooled against his chest.
On the next day, they walked and talked and ate huge Dungeness crab cakes and saw no whales and touched each other long and slow in the middle of the afternoon and split a exceptionally crisp bottle of sauvignon blanc on their rental porch before they went inside and played Scrabble and crawled into bed at eleven.
By the day after, her mood had gone beyond sour. It was downright dark. She’d been trying. To be happy. To make the most of their trip. But they’d come all this way and he wasn’t even going to get to see the whales. All this she’d planned and Nate wouldn’t even get to see the goddamn whales.
She was viciously shredding his newspaper when he wandered into the kitchen after washing up from their—uneventful—day on the beach. He raised his dark eyebrows at her. She was certain he was going to say something kind and helpful and touching because that’s who he was as a person, he strived to make others better.
Instead, he said, “You want to go see Fargo? I understand it’s very good.”
“Yes,” she replied, tearing a long angry stripe through the business section.
Later, after the movie (which was very good, she liked it a lot, more than Nate had) she pulled a thick pair of his socks up her legs and wrestled her way into a sweatshirt. He watched from the bed, hands folded behind his head. He took up so much room, both in length and in wingspan and they watched each other for a long time.
“Tomorrow is our last chance,” she said, with a huff.
She picked a good cabin. They couldn’t see it for the trees, but she could hear the waves crash against rocks. Against each other. It filled the silence between them, maybe the first awkward one they’d ever shared.
“Leigh.” She didn’t ever think she’d heard him sound so exasperated. “Do you think the whales are going to stop migrating? Every year, they go one way,” he whipped his finger in a circle, “and then the other.” He whipped his finger around the other way. “They’re not going to stop doing what they do to survive. There’s always next year. And the year after. And the one after that. The whales will carry on. And we can try again.”
It was a good speech. What she needed to hear. But it only made her more mad and she launched into the bed so hard it banged the wall, and they both bounced a couple of times.
“But you’re not listening! I wanted to do this for you! I wanted—you said—the ocean. It’s there! The whales should be there! You should get to see them.” Her throat was hot.
His eyes glittered something like anger, though knowing him it was probably more like frustration. He mumbled something under his breath, fierce and fast, swearing maybe. “You’re not listening. To wake up and hear the water and be next to you—it’s enough. It’s—” he broke off. Swallowed. “It’s more than I could have hoped for. Somewhere along the line you’ve convinced yourself you’re not enough. It’s more than enough. You’re more than enough. ”
An impossibility. That’s what she wanted to yell at him. That’s what she wanted to say. But he opened his arms to her and she went in them and to be next to him was enough. So maybe.
Maybe.
The hike up to the overlook seemed futile. She felt silly with her binoculars hung around her neck. But Nate got to play teacher some more—telling her a very long story about a seagull. Another about cephalopods, because she asked and because she liked to hear him say cephalopod.
But the big, steaming cups of hazelnut coffee they’d hand on the pier on the way up had improved her mood immensely and by the time they got to the overlook, she was in much better spirits.
“This is a rather nice view, isn’t it?”
He was right. Picturesque. She used to watch a TV show with her mother years and years and years ago. There was always a moment of nature at the end. It was like that. Insanely beautiful because it was sort of stark and cold and scrubby. A grubby patch of try-hard beach. Birds overhead. Sun streaming down toward them in a bid to fight the chill.
She glanced over at him. Big man in his fisherman’s sweater, with his smart face and his sexy, nerdy-boy glasses. (God, the love inside her was so much it was lung-stretching, skin-pulling.)
Leigh leaned against the railing, and without missing a beat, Nate folded in around her, his hands braced near her elbows.
“You all here on vacation?”
A man on a bench, gray beard and dark skin with a kind of harmless old man, frown. Grumpy for the sake of performance.
“Hmm,” she said. “Trying to do some whale watching.”
A grunt. “A little early for it.”
She clenched her jaw. Yes, she knew it was a little early. She’d gotten things wrong, and she had screwed things up a bit, based on nothing but hope, but Nate still loved her, he said. And there would always be next year. He was right. He often was.
Nate gave her a squeeze as if he could hear what she was thinking.
“You two big whale watchers?” The man stood up from the bench. As he approached them she saw the words Oregon Coast Aquarium and under that in all caps: VOLUNTEER.
“First timers,” Nate said. He stopped crowding her to the railing, deferring to their company. But he took her hand. Long warm fingers, wrapped around hers.
They probably looked it too, shiny new binoculars around their necks, compared to the man’s scuffed, and clearly well-loved pair.
“But I mean, only sort of!” Leigh added, bizarrely driven to prove that Nate was intensely knowledgeable. “Nate has seen whales before.”
Nate’s smile was so soft and good-natured. “Yes, but in a purely professional sense. Not for fun. Not like this.”
Leigh wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, but—”
"Huh," the man said, scratching at his thick gray beard. "Looka that."
"What?" Leigh asked. She swiveled quickly, looked out over the railing. Squinted at the shapes coming toward them over the water. She even held her hand above her eyes to block the sun for good measure. All at once, they all lifted their binoculars, and all at once, they realized they wouldn’t be necessary.
"Hard to tell but—no I'm right.” The man paused. “Momma and two babies. Early to have the babies out, though. Not even April yet. Early.” He muttered the last word more to himself than them.
"The calves," Nate murmured quietly behind her. Such a professorial aside.
The man turned to him with a wry smile. "When you've seen as many as I have, it really doesn’t matter. When you grow up helping the horses through it and scooping up chicken eggs. When you watch your wife give birth to five children. Let me tell you, son. They’re all babies in the end.”
“Oh! Oh!” Leigh yelled. As she hopped up and down the only thing keeping her from floating away was Nate’s long fingers in the grip of her hand. “I see! I see them. There are two babies!”
“Yes,” the man agrees. “And they look alright, don’t they? They’re swimming along just fine.”
The sun was bright overhead. Bright enough to see them when they crested. Dappled gray and water sluicing off their skin. Mother, massive beyond comprehension, treating them to a spray of mist. And the babies—the calves—sticking close to her sides, keeping pace, cutting through the water. She realized dimly, in the back of her mind, that it would be over soon. They would keep going and then get further away. So far away she couldn’t see and she would only have her memories. But not yet. And even then the memories would be so sweet that the going away might be worth it in the end. To have seen them like this. Beacons of the season to come. But they’d turn around eventually. They’d come back.
She didn’t realize she was crying until she licked her lips and tasted salt.
She turned. Nate was smiling at her, tranquil in his impossibly cute sweater. His arm was stretched out completely, letting her wander as far as possible without letting go.
“I see,” she said to him. Her face was streaked with tears, sobs that dripped onto her sweatshirt. But she couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to. “I see.”
I tried to explain the concept of IF to someone who had REALLY never heard of it and like...................... the impossibility. you have to start with “did you ever read choose your own adventure books?” but that doesn’t BEGIN to cover IT!
ohohohoho. uh, need a cut for this one. 18+ only, minors dni.
thank you for sending! 😘
send me a nsfw headcanon and I’ll write a ficlet!
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“You’re doing so well, sunshine.”
The sound he makes at her whispered praise - a soft sound, low, from somewhere in the back of his throat - sends another flash of heat racing through her, and oh.
I’m thinking of this AGAIN!!!!! I very much think Dev Patel is a handsome man and talented actor who deserves his due. But there’s a weird thing happening where he’s all of a sudden a man of color that people (and honestly, I mostly mean white women) have suddenly decided is acceptably hot.
Like....if this were the heyday of the b*zzf**d quiz, the question would be “Pick which one you want to go to dinner with!” and it’s Chris Evans, Timothee Chalamet, Chris Pratt, and then Dev Patel for spice. It’s so weird to me!!!
