“Dude, it’s like, almost a week away. I don’t worry about shit until the day of.”
Jace is actually kind of floored that Ash seems to be putting so much effort into this, suffering any bit of anxiety over something so stupid. It’s not like him. They should be marathoning Animal Planet right now without a care in the world.
“Artemis was ready six months ago.”
“So? I’m not Artemis.”
“But you don’t even have your suit yet.”
“Ash.” Jace physically gets up, unable to maintain a relaxing position on the couch any longer. “Will you chill? I’ll go Thursday. After school.”
Ash’s face kind of screws up a little bit, and he’s unable to meet Jace’s eyes in a way they both know means something’s niggling at him. He’s been kinda weird for a few weeks now, actually. Like...a weird kind of weird.
“What is it, Ash.”
He just wants things to be normal again? Like pitching a tent in Ash’s backyard and camping out there for no good reason, arguing over whether Dick or Tim were the best Robin, cuddling after drinking Joyce’s sangria level normal.
Jace even asked Serenity if she could divine some meaning from Ash’s behavior, but she had to remind him that her clairvoyance is far sighted. So she can see that they’re going to fight about something in five years or so, and that’s it. (And refusing to tell Jace what the fight was about only poured salt in the wound, if you ask him.)
“I just. Thought we should go together. Make sure our suits match.”
Jace’s heart is suddenly very obvious in his chest. Ash is finally looking at him again, flushed and worrying at that fucking mouth that has eclipsed many a sangria induced dream.
“Did you really just ask me to prom...a week before prom?” It’s all he can say.
Ash goes on the defensive, back to his old self when he lightning fast tackles Jace back on the couch with a soft headlock. Jace relaxes into it, sighing happily.
“You were the one who just said you wouldn’t worry about it till the day of. Freaking hypocrite.”
But his nose nuzzling Jace’s neck soften the accusation. Jace is so fucking over the moon right now, holy shit--
Ciaran is very rarely cold. If ever, his teeth will chatter on the bitterest of winter nights--only because Aaron forgets to turn the heat up sometimes. Minor discomforts.
He’s not shivering now, but he’s cold down to his bones, his very core. It’s like drowning at the bottom of an icy lake. Reese swaddled him in as many blankets as they could find, even charged up a heating pad with their very special brand of magic before having to leave him alone until Aaron returned.
Nothing works. Being dead wasn’t half as unpleasant as this...in between bullshit, almost literally a reanimated corpse.
Aaron falls into the room, catching the doorjamb to steady himself, chest heaving and forehead dotted with sweat. The two of them make eye contact--Ciaran deliberately silent for several moments, the other’s throat moving like he wants to speak but physically can’t.
“What did you do.”
“Ciaran.” Aaron moves toward the bed (or more accurately, nest), wary like he’s never been before. “Ciaran, I had to--”
His fingertips just barely brush Ciaran’s cheek before he recoils from the cold. Ciaran bares his teeth and snarls like an animal, barely resisting the urge to lunge and mar that porcelain skin.
He can honestly, sincerely say that he hates the witch in this moment. The betrayal of what he did--that he didn’t know Ciaran would rather be in limbo forever than owe his mother anything for being alive--is tempting him to break oaths he made lives and lives ago, oaths he’s never swayed from.
Aaron, at least, seems humbled by the reaction.
“You can hate me. You can hate me, but I couldn’t live if you were dead.”
He wants to laugh at that, wants to ask Aaron how he thinks Ciaran managed every single fucking time the witch went and died on him--but he knows, somewhere in there, that it’s different.
Still, that’s no excuse for what he did. Ciaran wishes he had more dignity here, wishes he had any energy to forsake his life in this house and leave to recover elsewhere--provided he can recover. There’s no energy now even to move from this bed.
He wants to cry for the first time in years. He wants to burn this place to the ground. He wants to be alive, really alive, again. He wants to be dead again. He wants to feel warmth and sleep next to Aaron like nothing’s changed. He wants, he wants, he wants. Pathetic.
“Leave,” it sounds more like begging than anything, as he closes his eyes and feels himself surrender to some approximation of sleep, “Just leave.”
He’s sixteen on this most inane of holidays. It’s not a solstice, not significant in any pagan way that Aaron’s aware of. Which means that Ciaran most definitely doesn’t give a shit about it. But Ciaran is a fickle creature, and Aaron feels that if he lets the holiday go unacknowledged, he will pay in some way later. Why on Earth has he chosen, again and again and again, this impossible boy? Aaron stares, face pained, at the wall of commercial bullshit. There’s a small part of him that is tempted by the box of candy meant for children, adorned by cats and hearts. I think you’re purrfect. Just genius. A harrowing hour passes before Aaron gives up on this stupid store, storms out. Tomorrow he needs to have some thoughtful token of affection to give Ciaran. Stupid.
At the end of it, he stands awkwardly in front of Ciaran, feeling smaller than the other somehow. Ciaran always seems the size of a room. “Here.” Aaron thrusts the mismatched, frankly ugly bouquet of flowers in the boy’s direction. They’re not roses or tulips or anything so pretty. Just a collection of flowers and herbs, the kind whose properties Ciaran has always seemed so fond of. Rosemary for warding off the less friendly spirits. Larkspur, an offering to the fae of his familiar’s homeland. Mandrake, harvested by the moonlight to amplify its benefits in Ciaran’s next spell. There’s no shortage of odd, too-fragrant plants wrapped with packing paper and twine.
For at least something that looks nice, there are a few useless flowers Aaron has sprinkled in. A couple unnoteworthy roses, a handful of peonies. Ciaran takes the flowers wordlessly, examines them with a curious expression. Aaron watches, somewhere between amusement and annoyance, as Ciaran unerringly plucks the useless flowers from the bunch, tosses them right on the floor with a disdainful expression.
Aaron really should have known better. But when the dirty work is done, Ciaran actually does give him a smile, and that kind of makes Aaron’s stomach flip and tighten. Maybe he hasn’t done so terribly. Ciaran reaches up to place a hand on the back of his neck and draw him down. A single press of his lips to Aaron’s draws the witch up short, and he can’t be bothered to control the goofy expression that passes his face.
“Sap,” Ciaran chastises fondly.
A man now, Aaron repeats the gesture annually, usually accompanied by a bottle of wine so old it’s a wonder he’s found it. The flowers are more varied, more rare as the years go by. Sometimes given in planters so they may keep giving for years to come.
Ciar’s smiles are almost innocent sometimes, but his teeth are too sharp to make it work. How children and animals always seem to trust him, intrinsically, is just fucking beyond him--aren’t they supposed to be more sensitive to that kind of shit? Whatever.
He looks cute in his beanie, though. It was like forty dollars because some underfed hippie made it by hand.
“I wanted to see the kids,” Ciar attempts, propping booted feet up on the dash because he’s a lawless little shit, “and the bunnies.”
“You came to laugh at me,” Aaron isn’t an idiot, he might have fallen for it in his youth but he’s smarter now, “now keep your feet to yourself or you won’t be able to walk tomorrow.”
Aaron realizes his mistake immediately. Shit, why did he think that would deter him? Shit.
“Is that a promise?”
“Fine. Keep your feet to yourself or you will be able to walk tomorrow.”
Ciar removes his feet, tucks them Indian style against him for the rest of the ride. It’s like fifteen minutes farther than Ash and Jace’s old, old place because they decided to get a few acres in bumfuck nowhere for their brood, at like the furthest edge of town. Is it even town anymore? Who knows. But it’s sad that he’s been here enough now that he knows the way without peering at any street signs.
His phone buzzes in his lap and Ciar immediately swipes it to read the brief message aloud. Come around back.
“I hope they know it’s going to be twenty degrees in a month and they can’t maintain a hutch again until, like, April. Remember the litter that froze when we were kids?”
“Yeah. You cried.”
Aaron splutters as he pulls in front of the old farmhouse, feeling suddenly betrayed and outraged. The fucking audacity.
“Out of frustration.”
“Oh, sure.”
They’re barely even out of the car and through the gate before they’re accosted by a small child and a very large, very fluffy dog. She watches cautiously, hovers protectively while the little girl does laps around them in apparent excitement. Aaron fights a grimace. How long has it been? Just thirty seconds, maybe?
A hearty laugh draws his attention, to where the parents of this exuberant child approach with another, much less exuberant child. The child displaying no exuberance whatsoever just eyes them like he’s extremely unimpressed with everything they’ve ever done. Aaron has always liked that one better.
“Thank you so much for coming out,” Jace says like Aaron had a fucking say in the matter, “Willow is so excited.”
Jace is wearing a fucking North Face fleece, and jeans that look entirely intact and even sewn properly. Ten years ago it would have been a patched up leather jacket and some approximation of fabric on his legs, held together by safety pins and duct tape, probably. He hates to admit how all this--fatherhood and domesticity--suits him.
Not that the old shit didn’t suit him, too, in a way, but--never mind, not going there.
“Willow,” Ash is using that voice Aaron doesn’t like, “why don’t you actually say hello to Uncle Aaron?”
Ciar senses his groan before he’s stupid enough to let it out, pinches his side in warning. There is no lost love between him and Ash, and there never will be anything more than a simmering if manageable dislike--so the little ‘uncle’ stunt he’s been pulling for years is really just a ruse on his part to piss Aaron off.
Why is he even involved enough with these people? He hates his life.
“Hi, Uncle Aaron! Hi, Care!” Oh, how come he gets to just be ‘Care’?
It’s divine intervention, honestly, that she doesn’t stop in her relentless looping to try and hug him, or worse. Hopefully she’ll really tire herself out and need a nap.
“Hi, Willow,” Ciar says, very politely, and with a well placed pinch Aaron follows suit. A bit robotic a bit forced, but she won’t notice or care.
“Alright, let’s walk back to the hutch,” thank you, Ash, “I’m kind of worried about the location? I don’t know if it’s--”
“I’m more concerned with whether you have a place for them in the house,” Aaron interrupts, heated for no reason at all, “they won’t survive the winter in that thing.”
“Yeah, there’s a space for a cage in the pet room.”
Aaron mouths the pet room silently, amazed.
“What about your dog? She won’t attack them? God forbid they get loose.”
“No, she’s trained pretty well. Doesn’t have much of a prey instinct anymore.”
“Daddy said you have bunnies!” she’s grabbing his hand, she’s grabbing his hand, “What are their names? Can I see them?”
“Uh....I don’t have names for the babies yet.”
“Babies? What happened to the other ones?”
Jace coughs inelegantly. Ash fails to suppress a snort.
“They went to...a farm. To help the farmer.” Please stop. Just stop.
“Really? With what?”
“Growing things.”
“Is it a girl farmer or a boy farmer?”
“Neither?”
“Neither? That’s so cool! Like Lugia!”
“You better chill with the questions, little girl,” Jace sweeps her up and swings her around, to a scream of joy, “save some for later, okay?”
Aaron could kiss him right now. Fuck him for essentially making him do this, it’s all his fault to begin with blah blah blah, but really.
Ciar pulls close from behind, slips his hand in to curl around Aaron’s in his coat pocket. So warm. And it all seems easier, now, trivial. He’d put up with a century of nagging, overly affectionate children for this.
“Okay, can you give me a rundown of what you’ve been feeding them?”
He has an incoming call from Jace, which means he stares at his phone for a few solid seconds, dreading it.
He can’t exactly not answer--even if it’s something completely stupid, like the cheerfully domestic nuisance asking him to hex the mold from his shower, he can’t ignore him and run the risk of it actually being important or something. Gods.
Scowling, he ducks away from the table and the people surrounding it. Ciar doesn’t seem to notice, thoroughly entranced by a heavy crimson pendant that they are definitely not getting, don’t even think about it--
“What.”
“Hey, bud!” he’s on speakerphone, a dog woofing excitedly nearby, “Are you free today? I have a thing.”
“Are you dying? I’m busy.”
“Busy?” Jace scoffs like it’s impossible, already annoying him, “Where are you? It sounds loud.”
Aaron scrubs a hand down his face in partial defeat. The Navarros only register half of what you say and bulldoze over that half, uncaring and oblivious. He’s already forfeited this conversation, not that he had much of a choice.
“Street fair in Fall River. Not my idea.”
Jace makes that uncanny sound with his mouth that's like cracking a whip. He’s been doing it for years, presumably mocking some influence he thinks Ciar has over any decisions Aaron makes, which is---completely unfounded, okay. Fuck off.
“Can you be here in like two hours? Willow got two baby bunnies for her birthday.”
He never fucking elaborates on any of the shit he says, just waits for the other person to reply confusedly and then explain it shittily like it’s an obvious afterthought. That’s exactly what happens.
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Duhhhh, you’re the rabbit expert! You gotta show us what to do! Ash is shit with herbivores.”
“Then why is he married to one? I’m sure someone at PetSmart can help you.”
“Aaron,” he was about to hang up, but Jace’s voice is suddenly dark and close, “life debt, remember?”
Of course. His eyes find Ciar, crouched low to the street to pet a dingy, stray cat that looks in absolute bliss. He’s whole, still dark from the summer and eyes bright--but Aaron will never unsee him being cold and still, colorless and empty. Almost a decade ago, now, yet the memory is ripe. The air feels twenty degrees chiller.
“I’ll be there. Do not feed them carrots, that’s the first thing--”
Casey--Casey trusts him, completely. Body. Mind. Soul. The spitting, easily spooked little runt who hates all but maybe three people and his own chewed up pets is looking at him with sleep bruised eyes like he put the fucking stars in the sky.
It’s a lot of responsibility, especially when he can only guess what happened to him through Casey’s little hesitations--the way he froze up at a gooey endearment he’ll never use again, the very telling protectiveness he has for children, even the way he prefers to sleep. It’s a learning process, and he’s not a very careful person but he’s being careful with it.
Casey shudders, that rattle low in his chest, wraps a skeletal hand around the one roaming down his chest, tagging a nipple with his fingernail and dipping between ribs. There’s no excess skin to bite or pinch. They’re working on that, too.
“How’d you get all these fucking moles?” everywhere, just fucking everywhere, and he’s going to count them, “Ugly ass motherfucker.”
“Fuck off,” Casey says, tenderly as he turns to kiss the thumb resting by his pout, “they’re genetic, like your unibrow.”
Fair enough, but it earns Casey a hard poke in the belly button where he’s violently ticklish. It makes the kid recoil with a snorting peal of laughter, only to be dragged back in and kissed raw how they both like. Still tastes like nicotine gum.
“Will you eat a bagel if I make one?” just for a minute, he pulls away, “With cream cheese?”
Casey just has to make an awful face before he replies, because he’s a little bitch.
“Toast it,” he relents, “and cut it in four pieces or no deal.”
It’s a Friday, which means roughly thirty people filter in and out of the house throughout the night to drink cheap beer and steal portions of Jace’s famous eggplant lasagna. Everyone’s too old now to do fun things on the weekend. .
It’s mostly the usual crowd, but Pedro just had to show up and see his grandchildren (it only took him about two years to call them that, but whatever) apparently, so now Jace is on edge waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Can you chill?” Ash pokes at his tensed bicep, hard, “He hasn’t done anythi--WILL, PUT THAT DOWN.”
Willow drops the candle lighter, suspended terrifyingly over a lego fixture, like it’s hot coal. Jace thanks god everyday she never took to magic very well, because the house probably would have come down right around the time she lost her lisp. Kids.
“I know, babe. I’m just...waiting for it, though.”
“Waiting for what?”
Leo swings her chair to the floor next to his, reclines and props her feet up on the one recently vacated by Megha. She’s drinking wine from a sippy cup, but you can’t really expect anything more from someone who wears a push-up bra and fuck me heels to every family event ever. At least it’s only wine.
“Jace’s dad to say something terrible.”
“Ah.”
Thankfully, Pedro seems to be locked in an amiable conversation with Geoff. Another awkward thing about tonight: Jace has taken to calling Geoff ‘Dad’, and has had to curb that the last few hours lest it cause painful confusion.
Still wouldn’t be as weird as the last time Geoff and freaking Brynmor were in the same room together, though. Yikes.
See, this is what their life is like now. It’s weird and unorthodox and sometimes scary--the only two people in this room now who are truly human and mostly normal are the fathers-in-law talking about storm drains or whatever the hell, and one of them has taken more kindly to all that crap than the other has. And the thing is? Jace loves his life a lot of the time and he’s not super tolerant of people shitting on it.
At some point, Lark shows up from wherever he and Lyndon were holing up to crawl into Aunt Leo’s lap and close his eyes in some semblance of a nap--a rare show of affection that prompts Ash to sneak his phone out and steal a picture.
Jace relaxes for a bit. They talk quietly about the renovations to Leo’s place, the stray cat that’s been in a standoff with Rose’s garden for the past week, the cashier who looked at them funny for kissing in the checkout lane. Normal shit.
“Jacinto, it’s getting late. I should go, I think.”
Jace stands to walk his father out, reluctantly letting go of Ash’s hand so Pedro doesn’t gripe later about him being disrespectful. He rubs his knuckles gently across Lark’s smooth head to rouse him, then nudges Willow under the table with his foot.
“Okay, papa. Kids, can you say goodnight to belo?”
Willow scrambles out to hug Pedro around the knees, which seems to satisfy him, but Lark just mumbles ‘goodnight’ from his resting place and Jace just knows that isn’t good enough.
“No love from you, huh? Why not?”
A terrible, terrible silence.
“Actually?” Jace cuts in, voice only shaking a little, “we’re trying to teach them body autonomy, so it’s okay if he doesn’t want to.”
Another terrible silence. The incident is already boring to Lark, who yawns and sits up to rub his eyes like nothing bothers him ever, but Ash gets up to help walk Pedro out and Geoff stares with interest at the carpet. Everyone is clearly waiting for something to go down.
Nothing does.
“Ah, forget it,” Pedro decides, waving a dismissive hand, “I know how he is. They should go to bed soon, too, even weird kids need their sleep.”
“Yes, papa.”
“Do you have those leftovers for Joyce? She was sad she couldn’t make it.”
So Jace’s lease is up in a week, and this time he’s not renewing it. It should feel like a really big, really nerve-wracking step to move in together, but? Jace hasn’t actually slept at or even really lived in his own place for months and it’s just smarter, financially.
The really big, really nerve-wracking part? Going through all his shit.
“You fridge is an eco-system,” Ash declares, slamming it shut with a wrinkled nose, “come on, dude. You’re gonna need black magic shit for that.”
“I’m sure Aaron will be happy to help.”
Jace is crouched by his ‘coffee table’, collecting little bits and pieces of things that have gathered under there over the past few years. So far he’s found 4.73 in small change, a receipt for someplace called Condom Kingdom that he doesn’t even remember going to, and quite a few withered cigarette butts.
He’s the first to admit this place is lowkey disgusting. He’s had more animal corpses in here than he’s willing to think about, he hasn’t dusted in approximately a year and a half, and the only decent source of natural lighting is in the freaking bathroom.
It’s weird because he actually likes cleaning when he’s got music on and/or it’s for another person. He hardly ever lets Ash do his own dishes anymore, for example--it’s like all of Jace’s filth just convenes here instead.
But they’ve already tossed like seven trash bags worth of shit and vowed to drive like seven more to Goodwill tomorrow, so that’s good progress. The biggest difficulty is going to be in deciding what salvageable furniture gets mingled into their now officially shared space.
There was already a slight quibble over whether or not to bring his twin bed--Jace suggested it might come in handy when they’re fighting and someone is banishes from the bedroom, to which Ash argued that the couch works just as well and there’s not really room for it, anyway. It reached an impasse to be decided on a later date.
Hm. That futon is slightly too nice to just throw out, but not really nice enough to donate. Here’s to hoping someone sees it out on the curb and thinks it’s a steal. That’s how he found it himself, if he’s remembering correctly. And it’s only been puked on once.
“Can we talk about something, though?”
Jace blinks, rolling back on his haunches to look at Ash. A million different nightmare scenarios are going through his head, you can’t just lead with that. Are you dumping him because of his squalor or not?
“Yeah?”
Ash gets down on his level and scoots toward him, hands going to his shoulders and face firm. Oh, god.
“Can we keep the zombie thing down to like...once a week? I know you were using this place as your zombie cave, but--”
Right, a very expensive zombie cave. Fourteen hundred a month, just about, most of which he’s going to start seeing again. Because he’s not being dumped.
So he’s outside of Ciaran’s...house, against literally everyone’s wishes, reclined against his car and smoking distractedly. He spends about eighty percent of his time doing that, but it’s not usually in enemy territory.
Well, potential enemy territory. He’s trying to be fair because being an asshole isn’t doing him any favors. Who knew?
Anyway, he has no idea how to even get near the door. The whole place is like a freaking fortress--the house itself must be like half a mile beyond the very tall, very heavy, very locked gate, hostile looking plants poking out and threatening him every which way. It’s midnight, too, only making the spooky scene worse.
Forget looking out for his best friend or whatever--he’s ten seconds away from booking it outta here and never bothering with it again.
“Why didn’t you just hit the buzzer?”
He jumps about a foot in the air, startled, inhales a few lungfuls of smoke and nearly chokes. Somehow, Ciaran didn’t make a single noise slipping through the gate, suddenly three steps away from him like a ghost or something. Christ.
Jace takes a minute to collect himself, knowing that most if not all of his dignity has just taken a nose dive. He clears his throat a few times while Ciaran watches with the slightest of baffled expressions.
“I didn’t know there was one?”
Ciaran points silently behind him to where there is very clearly a buzzer installed in the gate. Somehow, it was entirely overlooked. Jace is suddenly incredibly grateful that his sheepish face probably isn’t super obvious in the dark.
They size each other up for a bit, both knowing why. Ciaran’s face is difficult to read now, cool and aloof but not as bored or irritated as he’s seen it before, albeit from a distance. He can’t help but notice that he’s also wearing some very flattering silk pajamas, displaying his graceful collarbone and shoulders especially.
Alright, alright, enough.
“Put that out,” Ciaran says, and Jace crushes his cigarette instantly. That’s not a voice you say no to. “I’m not trying to steal your friend, Jace.”
Jace stares. Is he really that transparent? Did Aaron say something?
“He’s also not in any danger with me or elsewhere.”
“Alright, that I find hard to--”
He doesn’t see how it happens, but he’s suddenly on the ground with the wind knocked out of him and a hand firmly around his throat. Ciaran straddles his legs, making sharp eye contact the entire time.
Jace isn’t hurt at all--just somehow wrestled into submission like he weighs nothing, like he’s never fought in his life. How in the hell--?
“Don’t ever make assumptions about me based on how I look,” now he’s offered a hand to his feet, pressure gone, “and let that be your last mistake.”
Jace stares some more. Ciaran is wearing fuzzy pink slippers. He did that in fuzzy pink slippers.
“Okay,” he manages, weak, “sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Ciaran moves briskly away again, swinging his gate back open smoothly and silently, “I’ll tell Aaron you said goodnight?”
It’s been weird and different since Ciaran came into the picture, which is obviously just fine and dandy for fuckin’ Aaron but has Jace feeling anxious and sour. And he’s usually the fun one, too.
They’re not even smoking because Ciar can’t stand even the days old smell of it, just sitting tight in Jace’s car, overlooking the beach. He hasn’t bothered to clean it in over a week, all littered with crumpled soda cans and empty chip bags, cigarette butts and ticket stumps.
“Can’t believe you haven’t ditched him by now.”
Jace tries to play it off hand, but the crack in his voice is obvious and Aaron has been waiting for this conversation. There’s a very loud, long silence between them.
“I don’t understand your problem with him,” Aaron says, finally, “he’s got none with you--”
“He’s a fucking queer, alright?”
Aaron’s laugh is forced and ugly. Jace burns to the tips of his ears and stares ahead at the black horizon. He knows how he sounds, knows nobody could make sense of it but him in his own bitter little mind. Whatever.
“And what are we?”
Jace kicks his foot up by the steering wheel with a scowl, hears something jostle that probably isn’t good, probably something that’s gonna bite him in the ass at the shop tomorrow. Again, whatever.
“We don’t flaunt it, okay? We don’t walk around like it’s not a damn crime--it’s gonna get your ass killed, hanging around with him.”
He needs a smoke so badly right now he’s about to shake out of his seat. It might seem like he enjoys confrontation sometimes because he’s so good at it, so primed for it whenever and wherever because of how he was born, but he wishes he didn’t have to be like this. Especially when it’s his boy.
“You’re jealous, asshole.”
Aaron’s wearing that smug little smirk he gets, like he has Jace figured out so easily, just like that. Trying to hide it behind a curled fist, but Jace fucking sees it and it’s not appreciated.
“I am not--jesus. I don’t even like your ugly mug.”
“Oh, sure.” And that’s the sound of Aaron pushing his door open, making Jace’s blood curdle. “You know what? I could use some exercise.”
It’s two miles to the house, and it’s pitch freaking dark out. Is that really how it is, huh? Jace kicks his own door and stumbles out after him. It’s gonna be all on him if Aaron gets hit by another car, or abducted by aliens, or--
“Get your ass back in the car!! Please!”
He’s cheerfully ignored. Fuck. It’s not like he can wrestle him back in, the fucking gigantor. So now he has to follow him at snail speed and waste gas? Exactly like a lovelorn idiot, exactly like what he’s being accused of.
“Fuck you,” Jace mutters violently, kicking the wall of his tire before he scrambles back in to turn the ignition, “stupid, ugly, righteous--ugh.”
Rose is still here, because things are still shit everywhere and it’s probably making Ash feel better, anyway. He seems pretty frazzled these days. And she knows from personal experience now that it’s hard enough wrangling one Navarro, let alone two, so she’ll leave him and Boy Rose alone for the time being.
What’s really weird is that Leo isn’t used to being stressed over other people. She’s been stressed about herself and the world in general her entire life, but this is only the second time she’s been acutely stressed about another person and it’s the same fucking person, how wild is that. This is why cougars aren’t social.
It’s nine am and they’re both up, for some reason. Leo is terrible at being awake before noon, so she’s not risking it with anything more complicated than cereal and toast.
“When was the last time you brushed your hair?”
Rose seems to have an unlimited supply of thin, faded t-shirts and colorful boy shorts to wear to bed--it’s really not fair to Leo at all, what the hell? Leo, who usually just throws on a pair of boxers and a wife beater to make breakfast in. Sexy.
“Huh? Oh--Monday, probably. Why?”
It’s now Thursday. She knows, in theory, that her hair is way too long and thick not to brush, but? That doesn’t stop her from brushing it like twice a week and hoping for the best.
Rose is that kind of warm that you feel before you actually feel, a soft, gentle static off her skin and hair. Leo goes very still when hands come to rest on her stomach, a chin tucked over her shoulder. Must be on her tippy toes.
This happens sometimes. Leo has to be very careful how she responds to it, because despite the fact that it happens sometimes, Rose seems very much like she’s not trying to tangle herself up in something. Like she had a bad experience and she’s playing it safe, which Leo can’t blame her for. In retrospect, what they did before might have been a bad experience for her--it certainly was for Leo, even if the bad stuff came after the fact.
Leo doesn’t want to build on what happened before. It has to be totally new, if it happens.
She turns around, though, testing her luck here. Rose doesn’t pull away yet, her hands now at the small of Leo’s back. The toast is gonna burn.
Leo frames her chin with thumb and forefinger and kisses her balmy mouth, gently. Rose is still for a few seconds before she opens up, angling her head to let her in deeper. She badly wants to run her hands under Rose’s shirt, skim her ribcage, but that might be a little much.
It’s painfully soon when Rose pulls and turns away, biting her lip. Oh god, was that a mistake? Should they regret it? Leo freezes like an idiot, eyes wide.
“Can I brush your hair later?”
Oh. Okay?
“Yeah, sure,” face burning, she turns away again to shovel burnt toast onto a plate, “you want grape or strawberry jelly?”
Nobody’s paying attention to whatever movie is playing--it’s a week past graduation and spirits are high but attention span is low, inebriated laughter drowning out anything else.
Jace passes the cigarette to Aaron after taking a healthy drag, throws his head back and blows smoke above him. It’s a lazy kind of night, one they’ve shared a thousand times. Talk shit and smoke at the drive-in, go back to the castle, fool around and go to bed. The youth of tomorrow.
“Hey, don’t get greedy,” he complains when Aaron has had it too long, snaps forward to steal it from him again.
It’s a good thing he did, because it was about to fall out of his open mouth and set fire to the whole damn place. Aaron is completely zoned, staring blankly at the concession stand like it’s suddenly interesting.
It’s a little dame, skin tight pedal pushers and some guy’s varsity jacket, barely a silhouette until she turns into the light with a milkshake in her hand--and then it’s not a dame, it’s a boy dressed like he wants the shit beat out of him.
Is that his belly button? Jesus. Damn pretty boy, though, even if he is trouble.
“He doesn’t look like your type,” Jace whispers close to Aaron’s ear, curling an arm around his waist, “does he?
Aaron doesn’t answer, just pushes away like he’s in a trance and leaves him with nothing but a dying cigarette. Jace scowls and watches him swagger off with that affected walk he uses when he’s trying to be cool, all expensive leather and tailored denim. He’s really going for it.
So Jace just watches the proceedings with slightly baffled interest, takes note of their body language and saves it for later. The boy is shameless, eyes up at Aaron and brown belly bared like it’s not practically a fucking crime to walk around like that. Look, he doesn’t have a problem with it--it’s just nuts, alright, to see someone so obviously like them just flaunting it around a watering hole of vicious kids.
He knows what Aaron’s dick tastes like. The difference is how careful they are not to show that
It’s only a few minutes, his boy looking significantly less cool with each passing second. The other boy is intimidatingly perfect and unaffected the entire time, mouth barely moving. It’s almost funny. .
“Ciaran.” Aaron almost falls into him, grips his shoulder for balance. Jace glares reproachfully.
“Huh?”
“His name is Ciaran,” his voice is not like any voice he’s used before, “that’s all I got.”
Pretty Jimmy turns his head to blow smoke behind him, away from her. It’s the bare minimum of courtesy considering he’s still smoking in front of her, but it’s more than she gets from most boys so she’ll take what she can get.
He’s sprawled across the hood of the burnt orange car, older than he is and looking like it just rolled out of the showroom. Fixed her up himself, he says, working in his dad’s auto shop, learning the meaning of hard work or something. His white shirt is rolled up to his armpits, just a sliver of tan skin between it and a pair of faded jeans stained with oil. She’s charmed.
He’s not a good boy. Not the boy who calls at the same time every night just to hear your voice, not the boy who says hello to your parents before he takes you to the movies. He’s the boy with the engine purring at the end of the driveway, the boy who keeps rubbers in his wallet and his backseat clean just in case.
“Sounds kind of ominous,” she says, honestly, “I really thought ‘Pretty Jimmy’ was the name on your birth certificate.”
He laughs, eyes crinkled, teeth flashing. She falls in love with him pretty quickly after that.
Pretty Jimmy falls into the family business, lucrative but dangerous. The wedding is more opulent than either of them would have liked, because his parents insisted--on the black suits shadowing the doors, too, and the three hundred guests with a public record.
Then two boys, one after another. Pretty Jimmy is strange with them, not relaxed and affectionate like he used to be. He holds them carefully, but like they’re objects and not children. He spends time with them, but in the tailored suits he wears for ‘family’. The first boy doesn’t seem interested in being fussed over, the second boy craves it. They grow up the same way.
Pretty Jimmy becomes Giacamo. He trades in his flashy muscle cars for sleek tinted ones, his jeans and t-shirts for those tailored suits. He makes her an accomplice to all the things her mother warned her about. He makes her almost regret her sons, Adalberto who is like Giacamo and Caseareo who is like Pretty Jimmy.
part 1/?. jesus fuck this is long and nothing happens. except ash has a crush.
@youthsblood
It’s barely ten in the morning, and Ash is more than ready to go home. He’d gotten to the Kinnaman’s house at five in the morning with his crew to try and get the yard underway before the blazing heat got out of control again, but fucking Nancy always has fifteen impossible things she wants to add to the landscape. Like, okay, this is literally what Ash does for a living. He’s supposed to tell PTA Nancy that putting a waterfall in the most uneven part of her lawn is totally doable. Ash should be fucking psyched about it, because at least he’s got work. But the thing about Nancy is that she doesn’t seem to understand that the more complex her lawn plan gets, the more expensive it is. And the more time it’s going to take.
In short, this lady doesn’t understand why it’s taking more than two weeks.
And also that plan to get out before it got blistering hot? Fucking failed. And, like, the really cute jogger didn’t even have the decency to run by today? It’s a bad day. And Ash’s bad mood is nearing legendary levels when he has to slam on his brakes as the three cars in front of him come to sudden, screeching halts. He cringes at the sound of equipment, kind of old but still expensive, slamming around the bed of his truck at the graceless stop.
“Oh, what the fuck?” Ash demands, clenching his teeth as he cranes his neck to get a look at what’s going on as the cars in front of him speed off again.
And, because it’s just one of those days, it turns out that two dogs are trying to cross the fucking highway. Well, at least hanging out with dogs might help the bad mood. Ash pulls off the road, kind of annoyed at the cars speeding by him. Come on, assholes, these dogs are obviously lost. Whatever. More one on one time with dogs for Ash.
As soon as Ash is off the road and out of the car, one of the dogs bounds right up. It’s kind of flattering, actually. For a second, Ash squats so he can give the dog some face to face scratches while he checks out the collar situation. One eye is kept on the other dog as it slowly inches away from the stranger. Probably smarter than the other dog. Exasperated, Ash swears under his breath.
“Buddy? Come on, doggy.” Bad attempt, honestly, and the dog kind of side eyes Ash. For the next five or so minutes, they go on like that; Ash slowly inching closer to the skittish dog while his fingers are curled around the collar of the other. All he wants to do is take a shower, a really cold one, sit in front of his air conditioning for an hour, and then go to sleep. Is that too much to ask? It’s not that he doesn’t want to help the dog, it’s just that he really, really wants to sleep.
And now he has to decide between following the stubborn dog while dragging the other one, trying to coax the other into the bed of his truck before trying to chase after the other one, or sticking with the one he’s got. He’s leaning towards the first option, but he’s kind of nervous about leaving his car right there on the side of the road. It’s got a lot of equipment in it, okay? Like, thousands of dollars worth. If someone decides they need a new lawnmower, his business is fucked. He’s just barely out of the red as it is.
But, okay, the dogs are more important. He’s going to have to leave the truck and hope for the best.
“You need some help?”
Ash doesn’t recognize the voice at first. They’ve only exchanged a few words here and there. Mostly ‘good morning’ or some comment about the weather. But, regardless of who it is, Ash is fucking grateful. He looks over his shoulder to thank the newcomer and then breaks into a grin.
“Jace, right?” Ash asks. He’s very sure he got the name right, but he doesn’t want to seem too eager in front of the beautiful boy and his very short shorts. “Ash,” adds, unnecessary. “Yeah, could definitely use some help. Kinda worried they’re gonna get hit by a car.”
“They yours?” Jace asks, dropping to his haunches (like, really nice haunches) to scratch behind the friendly dog’s ears. It’s some sort of pit bull mix, and it immediately goes for Jace’s face. For a split second, Ash thinks it’s trying to bite. But no, it’s just very, very intent on licking Jace from jaw to forehead. Hashtag relatable.
“Huh? Nah,” Ash says, tugging on the pit bull’s collar to settle him down. “I think there’s a number on the collar. I’m just tryin’ to get the other one before it runs off.” And because this is just the most ridiculous moment of Ash’s life, the dog goes and and bolts as soon as he says it. Before he can even swear again, Jace is bounding after it. Which...okay. Determined not to overthink this weird fucking turn of events, Ash leans down, picks up the mutt currently straining to run after Jace and the other dog. A quick glance at the collar tells him her name is Risa. When Risa is settled comfortably, Ash runs after Jace.
He’s not gonna fuck over the only guy nice enough to help him by making him run alone, at least. Even though Ash is definitely not keeping up. He’s going to blame the extra sixty pounds of dog he’s carrying, but in reality Jace could easily outrun him any day of the week. Hell, if Jace was holding the dog, he’d probably still be faster. It’s embarrassing, but the view from ten yards back isn’t terrible, so Ash is resigned to his fate. Also Ash is gross.
In front of him, Jace gives an exuberant laugh. And, okay, Ash isn’t totally crazy to be charmed by someone who enjoys this sort of thing, is he? Because it’s really charming, and now that he’s got company, Ash is enjoying it too.
Abruptly, the running stops. It’s only reasonable to assume that the dog, too much mutt to identify a single part of its parentage, is similarly charmed by the peal of laughter. Ash skids to a stop, just barely avoiding running straight into Jace, slouching a little as he catches his breath in between fits of wheezy laughter.
“Rascal!” Jace announces as he looks at the collar, and Ash is actually a little ticked that he doesn’t even sound out of breath after running half a mile. Which, okay, he obviously runs a lot. But they’ve been kind of sprinting half a mile. He should be out of breath. Asshole.
Tentatively, Ash puts Risa down for now, throwing a glance back over his shoulder and towards his truck. He sits down when he’s satisfied that there’s no one currently trying to rob him blind, and laughs when Rascal ends up in his lap. Like, is being this dog’s friend dependent on whether you’re willing to run after him? Whatever, Ash’ll take it.
“Hey, buddy,” he says, grinning when Jace plops down in the grass next to him. “You got a phone?” Ash asks, looking at the number etched into the collar.
Jace looks at him incredulously for a few seconds, gestures to his shorts. And, true. There’s no room for phones. A noble sacrifice that Jace has made for the greater good. If the greater good is just Ash in general. “Alright, looks like we’re hiking back to my car, then.”
“That’s where you’re going to serial kill me, I bet,” Jace says, picking Rascal up off of Ash’s lap and waiting for Ash to get up and grab Risa before walking.
“Fuck, how’d you figure it out? Was it the like --- fifty pairs of shears in the back of my car?”
“Oh, come on. If you’re going to be a yard tool themed serial killer, you at least better get creative with a lawn mower.” Ash snorts, laughing way too hard.
It’s an uneventful trip back to Ash’s truck, just a little small talk and the occasional stop to get a better grip on the dogs. And by some miracle, Ash’s phone hasn’t turned into a puddle in the sun, so he uses it to call the owners. Honestly, Ash is annoyed right off the bat with them. If he had two very cute dogs and they were missing, he’d have noticed, first of all. And he’d be rushing out the house to meet whoever the fuck had taken the time to keep them from dying. But whatever. Maybe Ash is a crazy person.
But Jace might be the same kind of crazy, because when Ash relays the information to him, he gives a roll of his eyes so impressive that Ash has to cover the phone’s receiver so they don’t hear him laugh again. Finally, he gets the address out of them and agrees to bring the dogs back.
“Alright, so,” Ash begins, hanging up the phone, “they only live about ten minutes away from here. So I figure I’ll just drive them back. But if you need a ride somewhere, I can take you. Unless you’ve got...more running to do?” Why is Ash sounding like such an idiot? That’s the real question. He sounds like he’s never heard of exercise in his life.
He used to work out, before his job involved working out for hours at a time, essentially. Now he gets to stay in shape and get a decent tan going without having to go out of his way. It’s one of the benefits of what he does. But Jace is fitter and browner regardless. Ash isn’t jealous so much as...into it. Which, Jesus fuck, Ash. Get it together. You can’t have a crush on a guy you see like twice a week as he jogs by.
“Nah, I’ll ride with you. If that’s cool? Might as well get them all the way home.” Cute. And Ash can almost definitely find some sort of excuse to ask for his number during that time. So double win.
“The air conditioning’s broke,” Ash says apologetically. “Keep meaning to get that fixed,” he explains, opening the passenger door for Jace and loading the dogs in after him.
Leo moves a swath of hair away from Rose’s neck, drops a lingering kiss to the curve there, feels her sigh. They’re both a little shiny with sweat but that’s okay--Leo for one has fallen asleep in far worse, far grosser states.
She clasps her hands under the little rise of Rose’s tummy, already three months along which is just crazy. They’re trying to cherish these probably last few weeks of normalcy before hormone hell launches and the fucking werewolf baby really starts wreaking havoc. Their lives are weird.
“Where’d you learn that?”
Leo is sleepy now, so it takes a minute to even process that something was said. “What?”
Rose squirms a little. “That.”
“Oh. Uh...porn?”
Rose laughs a little, the cutest sound in the world. Everything she does, especially post shattering orgasm, is the cutest thing in the world.
Well, actually, Leo thinks she could do without some of it. Like how she still wanders the house sometimes at night, not even awake, in her underwear, at like two freaking am. That was terrifying and unsafe before she was pregnant, and now it’s just the most stressful thing ever. But regardless, Leo has it pretty bad and she’s resigned to it now.
“Really? Not from all those people in high school?”
Oh, that’s mean. Totally unnecessary. Well, whatever, it might be time to set that glaring lie straight, anyway. Why she let it go on this long, she has no clue--but to be fair, she thought her and Rose were way past ever being a thing and when she was proved (pleasantly) wrong, it just seemed like a weird time.
Leo pulls an appropriately sheepish face, ducks her head. Oh, god.
“You know, there really wasn’t anyone else in high school. Maybe, like, two people? I don’t know. Not at the same time.”
Rose makes a curious sound, suddenly turns over to face her, eyes narrowed. God, though, she is so beautiful, really got that pregnancy glow going on, and her skin looks really nice against the white sheet--
“Are you kidding me?”
Leo is three inches taller than Rose. She turns into a large, predatory cat on occasion and she can deadlift three times her body weight. But Rose is scary sometimes.
“I was...way more into you than I said I was?” is she burying herself further? “I didn’t know what to do with it? Hey, I love you, it’s all--”
Rose scrunches her face and twists Leo’s nipple brutally, making her yelp and pull back protectively. Jokes on Rose, though, because that’s gonna feel good in like ten seconds. Or fifteen.
“This is why we’re not married.”
Leo wants to protest that, but Rose dips down and takes her breast in her mouth, laves gently where she was just so mean. And Leo is fucking psychic when it comes to sex, again. Sleep and/or a fight can wait. She moans gratefully.
He’s watching her, intently and mysteriously, and she has no idea what to make of that. She has no idea what to make of any of this, this whole bizarre situation she never dreamed she’d get herself into.
She’s a werewolf. Her brother is best friends with two necromancers. Weirdness should not be alien to her, but fairies? Somehow that’s beyond it all.
“Why are you staring at me?”
Rowan only did two semesters of nursing before she switched, so excuse her if her first aid is a little rusty. Plus, this guy is just not human at all, which makes things a tad more difficult. It’s not fun to be scrutinized when you’re trying to fucking concentrate, dude.
She meets his gaze kinda pissily, daring him to look away. His face is clean of dried blood (not his, he’d said), but it’s still kind of drawn and pale from the wound concentrated in his side. While it didn’t look that bad to her, the iron in the weapon was apparently sapping his strength.
“I don’t understand you,” he says, which is such a laugh, “what’s your motivation?”
She pauses in her work, stumped. The hell? Way to be suspicious of the person who might very well have saved your life.
“You were dying. I have a responsibility to help anyone who looks like they’re dying.”
“Why?”
“Because I do. Because I’m alive. You don’t...help people when they need help?”
Now he looks away, and is that an eyeroll? Really? Look, that’s been ingrained in her since before she can remember. Her mother taught her the seriousness of what she was born with, the duty she has to this earth and these woods in particular. Their legacy was monstrous for a long time, but she’s not a monster.
“Not if I don’t get something in return.”
Oh, okay, so he’s a real asshole. Got it. Broken of her reverie, Rowan goes back to gingerly stitching his slowly healing wound, determined to get this over with and boot him back to fairy world or...wherever. He can be as shitty and ungrateful as he wants far, far away from her.
“I promise I don’t want anything from you.”
He sighs raggedly, because of course he must still be in a lot of pain even if he’s mostly hiding it well. She kind of wants to pry and ask who picked a fight with him, this tall, beautiful monster. Probably better not to.
Jace tries really hard to ignore him sometimes. He tries really fucking hard, because Ash sleeps around with people who aren’t him and it’s just. Not. Cool. Like maybe they’re not in an official relationship or anything, but still? Ash deserves all the ignoring, sometimes.
But try is the operative word here. They’ve known each other too long, been best friends and whatever else too long, to play by any real rules. That’s how an innocent beer after a long weekend turned into Ash keening, three lubed fingers in him because it’s been a long weekend.
“Shh, shh,” Jace knows it’s useless to hush him, can’t hurt to try, though, “the girls are next door.”
He punctuates that with a mean twist of his fingers, just barely dragging across his prostate. Ash actually bites into his fist with a moan, legs squirming. He’s a pale pink everywhere, and his dick is so, so wet. Jace would love to know how he gets that wet, it’s fucking filthy. Sucking him off is a goddamn mess.
“Fuck me,” he rocks into where Jace’s own dick is resting on Ash’s thigh, being a brat as usual, “come on.”
Jace...considers it heavily for a minute. On the one hand, Ash has been pissing him off lately so he probably deserves to just be fingered until he cries and then be left hanging. On the other hand, he hates to bring personal dispute into sex, that shit ain’t healthy. Not that he’s thinking with his brain.
He doesn’t say anything in return, wraps Ash’s knees around his hips and rights himself so he can inch into where Ash is warm and slick. Personally, he’s seeing stars almost immediately, the most incredible pressure in the world making him grit his teeth. Then he stops.
Ash’s whine cuts off, and he lifts his head to stare Jace down, eyes narrowed. His expression is murderous.
“What are you doing?”
“Gimme a minute, okay?” Jace is trying so fucking hard not to come, jesus christ, “It’s been a while.”
It really has, but they’re pretending that’s not weird. Ash’s expression relaxes slightly, turns away. Jace wants to kiss the stuffing out of him, and he’s going to in a minute. Another deep breath, and then he pushes in until Ash howls--right, monster cock. Gotta be careful.
The position is kind of sloppy, but it means Jace can slap kisses across his face and neck while he fucks him. He swallows what he can of Ash’s shameless noises, going fast and slow at random intervals to taste the changes in his breath.
“--jacejacejace--”
The bed is shaking under their combined weight, Ash raking his hand in the sheets as he’s pushed farther up, sobbing a wordless litany. His t-shirt is soaked with sweat and slick.
“Is anyone else this good to you, baby?” Jace wraps a hand around his poor, leaking dick and shakes, “Huh?”
Ash opens moist eyes to meet his, suddenly quiet when he comes, thick and painting Jace’s hand and arm. He’s trembling after that, slack and spent until Jace loses it inside him, too.
“I love you,” Jace says without thinking, so warm and sated he can’t pull out, “fuck.”
They collapse together in the filthy sheets, kissing and murmuring nonsense until they’re too sensitive and Jace has to pull out. They both whimper at the delicious pain, immediately clinging again. It’s a few minutes before they’re even cognizant.
“Fuck you,” Jace reaches inside Ash’s shirt to twist a nipple, which he’ll kiss better later.
“Ow. You just did.”
“You know what I mean.”
Ash distracts him with a soft kiss, because he knows Jace is a sucker for Ash being sweet. It works for now, but he’s going to have two sore nipples in a minute.
“We’ll talk about it after a shower,” Ash gets that place behind his ear, the bastard, “I promise.”
