Title: O U T S I D E [4 of 10]
Pairing: Ex-Con!Curtis x Southern!Reader
Summary: Your older brother is out of jail and back home, but old habits die hard, and you find yourself caught between what you need, and who can give it to you when Curtis Everett starts hanging around again.
Warnings: Obsessive Behavior, Possessive Behavior, Mild Stalking, Recreational Drug Use, Intimidation, Crime, Gang Activity, Physical Abuse, References to Past Physical and Emotional Abuse, Murder, more tags to be added
The heavy rain feels like the city’s collective sigh of relief after the unbearable heat and humidity of the last few days, and so when you wake to the steady drum of water against your outdated air conditioner you don’t mind it. You lay there for a few minutes after you open your eyes, just listening. The house is surprisingly quiet for a Saturday morning—generally it’s the sound of your mother getting ready for her shift that wakes you, but today it’s just the quiet.
It feels wrong, somehow, like a shoe on the opposite foot.
Getting up feels like a chore, one you do at some expense. With a sigh, you shuffle toward the bedroom door and down to the bathroom. You look tired in the mirror despite your rest, and you wonder if you shouldn’t just go back to bed and stay there until August. The thought is tempting. You drag yourself through a shower before heading down to the kitchen to grab a bowl of cereal for breakfast.
Your mother is seated at the table when you walk in, her hands clasped tightly atop a multicolored pile of folded papers you recognize from last night. Lead forms in your belly at the sight of her—you know someone prepared for a fight when you see one.
“Morning Momma.” She doesn’t answer you, only looks at you with an emotion you can’t name, her eyes narrowed and lips pressed thin. “I saw those on the step last night and brought ‘em in.”
“You opened them.” Her voice is accusatory. “Is your fucking name on them?” She asks, slamming her palms down on the table. Her breath smells like cheap gas station liquor. You glance at the microwave—10:45am. “These were pinned on the fridge. You got something to say to me?” For a moment, a ghost of the all consuming rage you’d felt last night bubbles back up in your belly, hot and wild.
“I wanna know where the money I’ve been giving you is going, since it isn’t to these bills,” you say before you can stop yourself. The air shifts in the room, and you regret the words immediately, wishing you could unspeak them. Your mother’s face contorts, fury
“What the fuck did you just say to me?” Your mother is standing now, a finger pointed accusatorially in your direction. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“Momma I’m sorry, I just meant—” You’re scrambling to de-escalate things now, your hands held palms out. “Things aren’t good, okay, and we need to—”
“No, you shut your fucking mouth. Ungrateful, disrespectful—” You’re half afraid she’s going to come across the table at you. You’ve seen your mother angry—but not like this. Her lips are curled into an angry snarl, eyes cold with hate. Your chest aches sharply—that’s what it is. It’s hate. Your mother hates you. “Do you ever get fucking tired of being a problem? Of causing problems?” She snarls at you, and you flinch.
“Momma, the neighbors are gonna hear you, just—”
“Good! You think I give a damn? You think this house runs on whatever pennies you throw me every few weeks? How do you think your brother’s court fees, his fines, how do you they all get paid?” Your knees go weak at her admission. You want to scream. But when you open your mouth to try, no sound comes out.
“You-you’re paying his—are you insane?” You ask, your voice getting louder. “Ma, do you hear yourself?”
“He’ll go back in if they don’t get paid!” She snaps.
“So fucking let him!” You can’t hold the curses back anymore.
“He’s my son!” You flinch.
“And I’m not your fucking daughter?” Your voice breaks. “I’m yours too, Momma, and I’ve been right here with you while D’s been running the fucking streets and locked up and—” You shake your head, an exasperated, defeated laugh escaping your parted lips. Your mother rounds on you circling the table and grabbing your shoulder hard. The pain makes you hiss, and you push her away.
“God it’s like you’re blind on purpose!” You card your fingers through your still damp curls.
“You sound just like your fucking father!” She spits the word out like it’s poison, like the comparison is an insult.
“Good! The only thing he had the good fucking sense to do was get away from you—”
The palm of your mother’s hand cracks hard across your face, silencing you.
You lift trembling fingers to your stinging cheek, holding it as you stare at her. Your mother looks angry, not sorry, as she glares at you. She hit me. You can’t do anything but blink at her, stunned. She actually hit me. She almost looks like she wants to do it again, her hand still held high and trembling. You stare at each other for a few heartbeats, the pain rising in your cheek as you clutch your face, dumbfounded.
“Get out.” The words she breathes are almost too low for you to hear. You stare at her, hot angry tears welling up behind your eyes. This isn’t happening.
“W-what?”
“Get out. I want you out!” She shoves you. “Get your fucking shit and get out!”
“Momma I-I’m sorry.” you choke the words out through the tears you’re trying desperately to hold back. “Momma please, please don’t do this, I’m sorry—”
She only looks at you with something like apathy and relief. “I never wanted another baby.” She says it like she’s wanted to for a long time, and only now given herself permission to share. It shouldn’t hurt to hear the it, because it isn’t like you don’t already know. Like she hasn’t shown you every day of your life. But it hurts anyway, a dull ache that settles behind your ribs.
“You don’t mean that, Momma,” You sob, grabbing for her hand. She shakes you off, sneering. “You don’t!”
“I mean it when I say I want you out of here.” Her glassy eyes are hard.
“I don’t—I don’t have anywhere to go,” you say, chest tight.
“You’re grown aren’t you?” She sneers. “You’ll figure it out.”
—
Your mother stands in the doorway of your room as you shove your clothes and other personal items into a duffel bag and a suitcase, and when you run out of room, garbage bags. Your heart is pounding against your ribs the whole time, praying that she’ll reconsider, that she won’t throw you out onto the street.
The hope that your mother is just angry, that this, too will blow over curdles quickly in your chest as she kicks a pair of shoes in your direction.
“Don’t forget these.”
You’re crying, you’re dimly aware that you are, salty tears dripping down your chin as you ferry things down from your bedroom to the porch outside. A thin drizzle is still falling, leaving everything coated in a fine layer of misty dew. You cover your books as best you can with the garbage bags as your head spins.
What do I do? You don’t have anywhere to go—you don’t feel comfortable asking any of the girls from work to take you in, you don’t even have half of their phone numbers to ask. Where do I even go? How?
Curtis.
Curtis would give you a ride, you know he would. At least you can figure things out from there, can’t you? You dig out your phone and face away from the front door, hoping your mother doesn’t ask for it back, too. You type out a message with shaking fingers.
I’m sorry but I need you to come get me Curtis.
You’ve barely lifted your finger from the send button before his response comes.
Curtis: I’ll be there in 30.
Curtis: You at home? Did something happen?
I’m home. Can we just talk when you get here?
It only takes him twenty minutes, you recognize the Jag as it comes speeding down the road. He jumps out, his expression hard as he takes in the sight. The contents of your life all thrown into garbage bags on the porch as you stare up at him tearfully. Curtis takes the stairs two at a time, pulling you against his chest as he sighs.
“She’s putting you out, Ladybug?” he asks, though you know by his tone he already knows the answer. “Drunk bitch is off her rocker.” You almost want to laugh—but your chest won’t expand. “I’m gonna start getting this stuff into the car. We’ll fit as much as we can, I’ll have my guys come back and get the rest, okay?”
You nod slowly. “Okay.”
You work with Curtis to pack the trunk and back seat as full as you can of your things.
“Can we leave the—“
“No.” You place a protective hand over your amp and the bass guitar you don’t know how to play. “It comes now.” You can’t bear the thought of your mother doing something to the instrument, hurting it more than it already had been by time and her own negligence. Though this time you’re less worried about accidents and more concerned about her vitriol. Curtis grabs your chin as you’re shoving a bag of your clothes into the trunk, trying to fit it into the tiny space left beside your amp. He turns your face with a sharp frown.
“She hit you.” You don’t answer as he runs his thumb over the sore, swollen spot on your cheek. You wonder if it’s bruised. For a moment, Curtis looks like he wants to march inside but he just clenches his fists over and over, staring at the house.
In the end, only a few bags of your clothes and things are left sitting soggy and miserable on the porch as you climb into the passenger seat.
“Sorry I keep getting your car wet.” You say softly. “I’ll pay to get it cleaned.” Curtis shakes his head, but doesn’t respond. His hands grip the steering wheel tightly, shoulders high and tense. His brows are creased together in a way that speaks of more than just irritation, and you curl in on yourself, wondering if you’re the cause. You watch the house disappear in the rearview.
“I don’t want your money, Ladybug.” Curtis says, his eyes still locked on the road. “Don’t be sorry, either. I’m glad you called me.”
“I don’t know where to go,” you admit. “I… I know there are shelters…” You trail off as Curtis snorts.
“You think I’m lettin’ you stay in a shelter?” He actually looks at you, incredulity there in the raise of his brows. “You’re staying with me.” Curtis’ grip tightens again on the steering wheel and he lets out a long measured breath. “She hit you. Why?”
You look down.
“I—we got into it bad, Curtis.” You thread your fingers together. “Really bad. We both said some shitty things, and then…” You trail off, gesturing at your aching cheek. “You know the rest.”
“Ain’t nothing you could’ve said worth putting you out over.” He says through gritted teeth. “And nothing—and I mean nothing, Ladybug, is a good reason for her to hit you.”
“I said—”
“I couldn’t give a fuck less what you said.” He cuts you off sharply. “Nobody puts hands on you. You understandin’ me? Nobody.” Curtis fixes you with another hard look, one you’ve seen on the faces of the patrons watching their favorite girls dance, the possessive, righteous anger summed up in a single word.
Mine.
“O-okay.”
Curtis scrubs a hand down his face. “I’m sorry, Ladybug. I’m not—I’m not angry with you. Never with you. None of this is your fault.”
“I don’t know,” you say with a self-deprecating laugh. “I could have just kept my damn mouth shut.” You know you should have, should have simply stuck it out until August.
“I’m happy you called me, Sweetheart.” Curtis reaches over to squeeze your hand. “You shouldn’t have to live like that.”
You lean back against the seat. “Why do I want to defend her right now?” You say, shaking your head as you stare at the upholstery. “Maybe that’s just how good she’s trained me.”
“Maybe.” He agrees. “But it doesn’t have to stay that way.” The neighborhood outside changes drastically as Curtis navigates from city to highway to city again.
“You live in Midtown?” You ask, changing the subject. For a perilous moment you wonder if he’ll let you. Then he nods.
“Yeah. Got a place out here when I got out.” You make an impressed noise in the back of your throat, and he rolls his eyes.
“Expensive.”
“I make it work.” Your stomach goes cold. Oh yeah. You’d almost forgotten who he is—what he is. It had felt good to slip back into that old routine, natural even. But you aren’t sixteen anymore, and the last thing you should feel around Curtis Everett is comfortable. This is temporary, you think pointedly as Curtis turns into a parking garage, pulling a permit from the glove box. You shiver as his fingers graze your thigh.
This is just temporary.
“Let’s get you upstairs,” he says as he parks. “Just grab a few things for now, Ladybug. I’ll get the rest.”
“I can’t let you—”
“You can. You called me for help. So let me help.” Curtis grabs a few garbage bags in each hand, and you do the same before following him to the elevator on the other side of the garage.
“Let me show you up.” He presses the button for the thirty fifth floor—the top. “I’ll get you a key tomorrow, okay Ladybug?”
“You don’t have to do that. I’ll try not to be here too long, just till I get myself together.”
”You ain’t even gotten upstairs yet and you’re half out the door,” he laughs. “At least put your things down. Get your bearings, maybe we’ll order some dinner.”
“I just don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage,” you reply, cheeks warm. “That’s all.” The elevator opens onto a short hallway with only one door.
“I wouldn’t care even if you were.” Your stomach twists in the beat of silence that follows as Curtis unlocks the wide metal door. “Go ahead in, I have a call to make.” He pulls out his phone, taps the screen and begins to dial, making a shooing motion with his hand. “I’ll be right there.”
Inside, you kick off your shoes in the entryway out of habit, and then, carrying two of your bags, you make your way into the house. The living room is wide open, one floor to ceiling window taking up an entire wall, spanning from the open kitchen to the far end of the living room. The city is spread out like a map before you, the cars and people like tiny toys as they move through the streets.
You don’t feel comfortable going much further without Curtis, regardless of his instruction, so you use the time to explore his kitchen instead. It’s nice, clean, in a sterile sort of way. You don’t imagine Curtis does much cooking and the kitchen seems to reflect that; clean counters and an empty sink. On the other side of the room is a hallway lined with doors, ones you assume lead to bedrooms, bathrooms, the places you’re too nervous to go on your own.
“You’re not exploring.” Curtis says from behind you, and you jump. You hadn’t heard him come in.
“I didn’t… I didn’t want to invade,” you reply. I don’t want to see something I shouldn’t. Curtis frowns at you.
“Ladybug, I’m not Damien. The apartment’s your home till you say it’s not, okay?”
“O-okay.”
“Let me show you were to put your things.”
Curtis leads you down the hallway you’d been right about. “Bathroom’s here. And this is you.” He pushes open one of the dark wood doors to reveal a bedroom. It’s empty aside from a bed and an armchair, but it’s big—bigger than your room in your mother’s house by at least half. The ceiling doesn’t slope down or leak, and the door closes easy, no shoving required. You stand there awkwardly as Curtis sets down a few of the garbage bags.
“I have something I have to take care of, but I’ll be back tonight. You go ahead and get comfortable, Ladybug, I’ll leave you some money for dinner.” He’s not asking you anything, simply telling you how things will go. You nod.
“Thank you, Curtis.”
“I’m glad you called me. Wish I could say I’m surprised,” he says, and there’s pity on his face. You hate the sight of it. “She’s not a good person, Ladybug. You didn’t do anything to deserve a Momma so rotten.” You laugh tonelessly. “I mean it.” He reaches for you again, turning your face so he can look at the bruise that’s bloomed on your cheek like an angry flower.
“Got half a mind to go talk to her myself.”
“No!” You say quickly, your whole body going tense at the thought. “No. Please. It’ll just make everything worse.”
“I can’t have people puttin’ their hands on you, Ladybug.” He says after a moment. “I ain’t gonna allow it.”
You are struck with the sudden realization that you’ve made a mistake. That you’ve changed something fundamental in your relationship with Curtis by calling him for help—and what’s worse, you don’t know how you could have avoided it. Maybe calling one of the girls from work would have been better, surfing from couch to couch instead of staying here, if any of them would even let you. How can you make the right choice when the wrong one is your only option?
“You don’t have to worry about it.” You say, looking at the empty space beside his head so you don’t have to meet his eyes. “It’s my problem.”
“Ladybug you got a bruise the size of Texas on your face and you’re telling me not to worry about it?”
“What would it do?” You ask. “You gonna tell her she’s a drunk? She knows that, Curtis. Just… just let her stew. She’ll get over it eventually.” Curtis looks about as sure of that as you are, but you pretend, for both of you.
“Will you?” You don’t have an answer, but he waits a moment more to give time to think of one. “I didn’t think so.” He looks at your cheek again, and you watch his eyes go hard again. “Some things you don’t forgive.” You think about Neesh and Damien. “Some things you can’t.”
You wonder if he’s talking about you, or about himself.
—
By the time you head in to bed, you’re exhausted. Your day hasn’t been particularly physically taxing, but it still feels like you’ve run the gauntlet as you drag yourself up off of Curtis’ comfortable sectional and shuffle down the hallway. The apartment feels even bigger now that you’re alone in it, and the silence makes you nervous. You aren’t used to the quiet, not when the block is so goddamn noisy, cars, people—not to mention Damien.
But Curtis’ place is peaceful by comparison, and the unfamiliarity of it makes you feel out of place. You climb into bed, and the sheets are soft on your skin. You can’t sleep, though, staring at the ceiling above you with wet eyes.
I never wanted another baby.
God, it shouldn’t feel like broken glass in your chest to think about that, but it does. Angry, hurt tears press at the backs of your eyes and before you know it you’re pushing the heels of your palms against your closed eyelids to stop them from falling. It doesn’t work, and they leak out of the corners of your eyes and track down your cheeks. Your breath hitches until you’re sobbing, loud and uncontrolled.
You cry until you’re gasping for breath, your chest aching as you hold yourself. You don’t know how long it lasts, but you rush to quiet yourself when you hear the sound of the front door open and shut. You don’t want Curtis seeing you like this, it’s too… personal. Too intimate. And something tells you that intimate is not what you need with Curtis, not right now.
“Ladybug? You up? I thought I heard you.” You’re still wiping at your wet cheeks when he raps his knuckles against the door. Curtis crosses his arms as he leans against the doorframe. His eyes are in shadow but you can still feel him studying you. You wonder if he can see your face in the low light, swollen and puffy from crying. You know you shouldn’t care.
“I’m good.” The words sound off through your tight throat and gritted teeth. You sniffle quietly. “I’m just… You know. Today.” You’re fighting not to cry as you shoot him a watery smile. “I’m good, really.” He cocks his head at you.
“You don’t have to pretend with me.” Curtis comes to sit on the edge of the back and you scoot back to give him space, clutching your knees to your chest. His hand is warm on your shoulder through the t-shirt. “I don’t want you to pretend with me.”
He’s too close. Your heart is a panicked rabbit inside your ribs. He smells good. You shouldn’t say anything shouldn’t let him in any closer than he already is.
“I’m fine.”
“Don’t lie to me.” He frowns. “Please, Ladybug.”
He’s wearing a tank top, the earlier henley gone. You swallow thickly as the thick corded muscles flex beneath his sun-tanned skin. The tattoos you’d seen peeking out of his collar are on full display now, a set of roman numerals on his collarbone. Is that a bruise? It’s still partially hidden by the tank top, yellow and purple with burst blood vessels.
“What happened?” He grimaces.
“I asked you first.”
You snort. “You keeping secrets doesn’t exactly make me want to trust you.” You already don’t want to trust him, because you know what he is—what he does—did. You suppose you have to give him credit where it’s due. Where he says it’s due.
“Some secrets you’re better off not knowing.”
“You hurt someone.” You say, and he frowns, before sighing.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Curtis rubs a hand over his buzzed scalp.
“Sometimes people have to learn a lesson the hard way. And I had a lot of lessons to teach tonight, Ladybug.” Your stomach tightens. Curtis Everett is not a man you want teaching you the kind of lesson you suspect someone is recovering from. He’s not a man you cross.
“Now will you be honest with me?” He asks, and you’re both afraid to lie and, if you could admit it to yourself, relieved to confess the hurt. To have someplace for it to go that isn’t deeper inside of you.
“She didn’t want me.” Your voice trembles. “That’s what she said, Curtis. She never wanted me.” The tears from earlier return with a vengeance, blurring him until he’s just a hazy outline.
“C’mere.” He holds you to his chest as you sob hard, fingers curling in his shirt. God it hurts, it hurts so much, like a hand wrapped around your heart and squeezing. She doesn’t love me.
She never loved me.
Maybe that’s what’s rawest about it all, knowing that it was always going to be this way, was always going to end with her choosing Damien, every time.
No matter the cost.
Curtis rubs your back as you cry yourself sick, hiccoughing and panting. Slow, gentle circles as he tells you to breathe, Ladybug, breathe. You can’t for a little while, sucking in gasping, stuttering breaths as he pets you. But after a while the tears go dry, and you simply sit there, leaning against him as you blink unseeingly at nothing. You rub your swollen eyes with the back of your hand.
“All cried out, Ladybug?” He asks softly, and you nod silently. You’re even more exhausted than when you came in, and now that you’re all done crying, your swollen eyes don’t seem to want to stay open for longer than a few seconds at a time. You’re leaned against Curtis still, his other hand still drawing circles on your lower back.
“You don’t ever have to go back if you don’t want to,” he says, and curls his fingers against your hip where your t-shirt has ridden up. Suddenly you’re more aware of the fact that your shorts are glorified panties than ever before, especially when his hand slides affectionately through the curls at the nape of your neck, and the other tugs you back against his chest.
“Not ever.”
