bury me at makeout creek.
fezco/lexi howard
summary: in the days and weeks following her play, lexi does her best not to feel fezco's sudden absence.
word count: 4.4k
a/n: um holy shit i truly didn't know if i would ever be able to write again with the unbreakable writers block i've had, but apparently, it just took the right motivation (i.e. fexi). my first time writing this pairing, and my first time writing character x character in a very hot minute, so be gentle with me. but other than that, i hope you enjoy!
feedback is greatly appreciated ♥
She wished she wasn’t so bitter when she heard.
After messages had gone unresponded, and then undelivered, Lexi was filled with sour emotion. Her heart sank with disappointment and ached with abandonment.
Add Fezco to the list, she mentally chided, adding the red head under her father’s name on the list of men who had left her life without notice.
Lexi wished she could be her usual, level headed self. She wanted to be understanding. But Fez’s unexpected flight from her life had thrown off her reasonable equilibrium.
While she had told him explicitly not to share any of what he did for business with her, she was sure that his professional life (if you could call it that) was hectic, and took time and attention. He could be busy? Lexi would often hear a strain in his voice, a hitch in his breath and undeniable exhaustion in his tone, and she knew something with work was weighing on him. She appreciated that he never dragged her into his dealings, no matter how much he may have wanted an impartial ear to unload on. She appreciated that Fez respected her boundaries and wishes to stay out of that part of his life. His thoughtfulness made her heart even more tender for him.
But for the first time since they began their phone call relationship, she resented that she ever put the rule into place.
Maybe if she hadn’t, she would know where he was? Maybe he got sick of not being able to talk with her about his job? Maybe he was tired of her straight laced attitude? Maybe he realized that, like all the other fleeting male suitors she had in the past, that she wasn’t worth the trouble?
Lexi knew that her insecurities had their own vindictive way of twisting events into something they weren’t. They were likely twisting Fezco’s departure into something more than it was. Maybe his phone had broken? Maybe something with his grandmother came up? Maybe he was just busy and had yet to return her calls.
Fuck, her life was so full of maybes lately, she hated it.
Maybe her sister would hate her forever, maybe she would get over it.
Maybe Rue was her friend again, or maybe she would drop her like a hot rock at any moment.
Maybe Fezco loved her too, or maybe he just had a passing fascination with the nerdy, smart girl.
Her gut churned with possibility, sour bile filling her chest and burning her fragile heart at the thought of inadvertently driving Fezco away. Burning at the idea that he would disappear into thin air without so much as a text to let her know what was going on. After five months of constant communication, she thought she deserved as much.
Lexi tried her hardest to not feel Fez’s sudden absence in the days following her play. But she couldn’t stop the flutter in her heart each time her phone rang, the immediate thought of him whenever something notable happened in her day, or the urge to text him when she saw something she knew would make him laugh. She couldn’t bear to remove his suggestions from her playlists or somehow not notice the freckle on her neck he had pointed out one day on his couch.
“Right there,” he had said with a sideways grin, his finger gesturing to the area of skin in front of her ear and below her jaw, “it looks like a half moon, or some shit.”
She had run her hand over the section he pointed at, doing her best to tilt her head in a way for her eyes to see the freckle he was talking about.
“No way! I know where all of my freckles are, I don't have that many. I know for a fact I don’t have one there.”
“Man, who knows all their freckles?”
“I do!” she giggled, still trying to pivot in a way her body wouldn’t allow to see this made up freckle.
“Well,” he began in his slow cadence, his eyelids heaving as he zeroed in on her neck, “I’m not makin’ this shit up.”
Lexi felt his touch before she saw him reach for her. The gentle caress of his fingertip brushed over her skin, and he lingered just for a moment. Just long enough for her to notice, just long enough to feel the heat of his skin, and know that she would never be able to get enough of it.
It wasn’t that she was keeping her relationship with Fezco a secret. She wasn’t ashamed of who he was or what he did. Even with what she knew her peers thought of him, especially after the savage beating he gave Nate Jacobs on New Years, she had no problem being friends with him out in the open. The thing was, she really didn’t have anyone to tell.
Cassie was clearly out of the question. Even if she hadn’t been sleeping with the enemy, Lexi wasn’t sure she would have mentioned it to her big sister. She was always the more experienced one, the sexy one, the one men were drawn to. What was Lexi’s little flirtation compared to the stories of the men who had fallen at her sister’s feet? What would Cassie think of her little sister’s slow courtship with a man she was sure to stick up her nose at?
The knowledge plagued Lexi’s heart that she would never have the bond with her sister that she craved, even if she was often dismissed and treated poorly by the older Howard. As much as she would have liked it to be the reality, there would be no late night slumber parties for her to lament over her feelings for Fez with her sister.
She could have told her mother, but talking about boys with Susan had always been awkward, and Lexi felt weird broaching the topic with her. Although, she had offhandly mentioned a boy she was talking to her mother over dinner one evening. One when Cassie had long left for the night, leaving the two Howard women to a quiet meal without her. Her mother had grinned wide and made a conspiratorial noise that had left Lexi blushing.
“It’s about damn time some guy took notice of you! Was startin’ to think all those boys at your school were brain dead. Or just after whores.”
Lexi scolded her mother with a low whine of her name.
“What? It’s true.”
Rue and Lexi had barely spoken since the beginning of the school year. After they had reconciled following her play, Lexi had been doing her best to keep Rue at a comfortable distance. She wanted to believe the best in her friend and her sobriety, but a part of her was still hesitant. They were close enough to wave in the hallways, sit next to each other in class and share the occasional lunch, but not close enough for Lexi to spout out all her boy drama on Rue. The disclosure of a crush felt like sacred friendship knowledge, and they just weren’t there yet.
And disclosure of falling in love felt like something she shouldn’t tell anyone until she could tell the man who had spurred her feelings. Which she had yet to find the moment to do. Or now with his recent desertion, maybe she never would.
Besides Cassie, her mother, Rue and Fez, Lexi really didn’t have anyone else. None of which were appropriate options to talk about what was going on with her more-than-friend-less-than-boyfriend.
She had contemplated off-handedly asking Rue if she had heard from Fezco, but no matter how desperate for news she was, she always thought otherwise. Her friend was newly sober, and reluctantly at that. She didn’t need any excuse to search out her old drug dealer.
So, Lexi lived in stewing silence with thoughts and dreams of her life's leading man cluttering her brain. Some days her stream of consciousness about the masculine redhead skewed more negative than others, but the constant emotion that lodged itself in her as a knot in her chest was longing. She missed Fezco like nothing else. She had never experienced the Jane Austen feeling of pure and unadulterated yearning in her life. Lexi was ready to pile her hair on her head and dawn a regency gown and write letters to her slippery paramour of her anger at his for his hasty exit. That, and she gravely missed him and was anxiously awaiting his return home.
Or, something like that.
Her life would be so much easier if she were in an Austen novel. If not easier, at least a lot more palatable, because at least then, Lexi knew she’d get her happy ending.
The news on Fezco’s radio silence all came to a head four weeks from the day of her play.
Lexi was sat cross legged under the school’s west wing staircase. A hard plastic tray lay across her splayed thighs as she nibbled on a cafeteria salad and pushed around mashed potatoes and questionable gravy. She balanced her phone on the side of the tray, lazily scrolling through miscellaneous apps to waste time until the period was over.
Sometime between when she finished her salad and was still hungry enough to entertain eating the mashed potatoes, footsteps and voices sounded above her head. This wasn’t untypical for her favorite lunch spot, it was part of the reason she liked it so much. She liked hearing what other people had to say when they thought no one was listening. So as the voices grew closer, she strained her ears.
“... is gonna suck. No one holding, this town is fucking wiped out, I swear,” the first voice said.
“We can’t be out of options, man!” the second voice replied.
“I told you man, we are.”
“What about that guy? You ask that one guy?” second voice said.
“Which guy?”
“Y’know! Y’know, that guy. Runs that convenience store, slow talker, scar right here,” after recognizing the other signifiers the second voice had dropped, Lexi could only guess he was making a line with his finger across his skull.
“Oh wait, you mean Fez?” Lexi felt her stomach seize at his name.
“Yeah! Fez. Where’s he been, you know he’s always holding.”
“Nah, he got busted. My guy always goes to Fez first and he told me his place was raided bad. Fuckin’ thousands of cop cars outside or some shit.”
“Really? Damn, that sucks.”
Lexi didn’t hear second voice’s retort or the boys exiting the staircase to continue on to wherever they were headed. In fact, Lexi couldn’t hear a thing over the blood rushing in her ears and the sudden pounding in her temples.
She felt like the concrete had crumbled beneath her, sending her two stories down onto scuffed linoleum with no safety net.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be Fez, no way they were talking about her Fez, right?
No matter how many times she bargained with her new knowledge, there was nothing she could do to fight off the truth.
Fez hadn’t ditched her, but the reality of what had happened was so much worse.
For the first time in her life, Lexi Howard ditched school and walked home with snot catching on her cupid's bow and tears dripping down her chin.
Like all times when Lexi Howard was at a loss at what to do, and felt helpless in her own skin, she started researching.
Her google searches stemmed from statute of limitations, child abandonment as a use of defense, possession of an illegal substance with the intent to sell and any news article she could find about the raid that had happened close to a month before.
In her criminal research, she came up with quite a bit of information, even if the results were depressing. What she gathered was that with California’s possession of an illegal substance with the intent to sell laws, Fez could be looking at fifty years, depending on if they combined charges, plus any other charges the state may rain upon him.
It all felt so bleak, and she couldn’t even imagine how dejected Fez must feel at this moment.
The articles she was hoping would give her more insight on what happened to Fez the night of her play, gave her very little to work with. A drug bust in LA county meant little to new outlets, so she wasn’t swimming in options. The one article that mentioned the raid specifically was the East Highland New Tribune.
Four dead in South Highland Drug Raid.
LOS ANGELES, Ca. Four people died on Friday night in a South Highland in a home drug raid. According to police, the home had been a place of interest for years, but only recently was the LAPD able to gather enough evidence to obtain warrants and make arrests. LA County SWAT teams dispatched around 4PM last weekend to aid police in apprehending the suspects. Two individuals were arrested from the home, while one was found dead on the scene. One suspect was killed in a fire fight between the suspect and police. The casualties reported in the raid are one suspect and three SWAT members, another two in critical condition. An ambulance was called to the scene to transport one suspect to Mission Community Hospital.
Two suspects dead.
If not Fez, then who else? The junkie girl who was staying with him? A friend? Ash?
A calmly chill rolled through her body at the thought of Ash being killed by police in the midst of a drug bust. He was cold, violent and oftentimes frightened her with only a glance, but he was a child. One even more innocent than Fezco, he had never been given the chance to live by anything except the illegal trade he was born into.
He was a child. A child, who very well may be dead. Which left Fez all alone in the world. All alone and in prison.
Lexi could barely keep her mind away from wandering to darker places. Memories of being a child with her father next to her on the couch, watching Oz with him through her fingers and recoiling in horror.
Those couldn’t be the things Fezco was going through, right? That show was a drama, highly fictionalized for America’s violent fascination. Right?
She went to search for prison documentaries with inmate interviews, but thought better of it. With all the stress, terror and guilt simmering inside her, Lexi knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep for a week. No use in making it worse.
If anyone saw a change in Lexi’s behavior, they didn’t mention it. But, like her short list of potential confidants to spill secrets too, she didn’t have any people who would have noticed.
Cassie was MIA; Rue had always been her introverted, quiet companion; and her mother was too wrapped up in anger and worry over her eldest daughter to notice the depression that had undertaken her youngest.
Lexi couldn’t help but think of how Fez would have been the one to notice that something was wrong. He was far more intelligent and perceptive than anyone gave him credit for.
Lexi spent a week in sweatpants and leggings, hiding under hoodies and resting her forehead against to plastic desktops to bide her time until she could return home to her bed.
She nibbled on saltine crackers and gummy bears, and only watched reruns of The Nanny. She lived in a cocoon of blankets and her hips ached from laying down for so long. She hadn’t washed her face since she showered on Sunday, and her teeth were feeling fuzzy with plaque. She stayed in her room until the second she had to leave for school, and didn’t have any regard for the world outside her twin bed.
Becoming sullen and depressed over a boy wasn’t her style, or even something that she would think her personality would allow. Lexi had been sad over boys and friends, sure. But she never let any emotion impede this much into her day to day functions. This was more Cassie’s speed. Lexi couldn’t count the amount of times her sister had declared a hunger strike or used up all the tissues in the house as she wailed over some guy. Lexi had always pitied her, but now, she was no better.
But, no. You know what? That wasn’t true.
Cassie cried over boys who told her they loved her just to fuck her and leave. She cried over boys who took too long to text back or didn’t like her Instagram posts in a timely manner. But Lexi? Lexi was crying over the first man to ever make her feel seen, feel loved. The first man who ever genuinely made her smile and let her know that her ideas were meaningful. The first man who made her fingertips tingle with affection and the first man who ever told her she was truly beautiful. This wasn’t some run of the mill hook up or a high school fling.
This was Fez. Her Fez.
And he was gone and all alone.
And Lexi couldn’t cope.
She wasn’t sure how much longer she could have sustained her dip into despondence, but thankfully, she didn’t have too.
Because five weeks and three days since the night of her play, Lexi Howard received a phone call at 4:15PM from Central Regional Detention Center.
After the quick moment of comprehension and shock that crossed her, Lexi answered the call in a flash.
“Hello?” her desperation rang out and bounced up to her ear.
“There is an inmate from a correctional facility who needs you to accept a collect call and the associated charges. Do you accept this call and those associated charges?” an automated voice replied.
“Yes.”
“Please hold while I connect your call.”
Before long, Lexi was greeted by her favorite sound in the world.
“Hello?” his unhurried tone rang out, and Lexi choked a sob.
“Fezco, is that you?” she clutched the collar of her dirty shirt tightly in her fist as she waited for his reply.
He let a beat pass, and then she heard him sigh, “yeah, yeah. It’s me, it's me, Lex.”
At his confirmation, she couldn’t hold her tears back any longer. Her chest deflated with a breath she hadn’t known had been lodged in her throat, and she wept.
“Oh, no. C’mon, now, no. None of that, c’mon, Lex,” Fez chided, but she could hear the worry in his voice.
Worry over her. When he was the one in jail. Christ, this man.
“I can’t help it, I’m sorry,” she hiccupped, “I was just so worried. I was so worried about you and so scared. I didn’t know what had happened until I overheard it in the halls. I had no idea, Fez. I had no idea. I’m so sorry. I am so, so sorry.”
Another sigh came through the receiver, and Fez let her cry a little longer as he consoled her with gentle noises until she was calm enough to speak.
“Sorry you had to find out that way, and not from me. I’m sorry about that.”
“No,” Lexi shook her head rapidly even though he couldn’t see her, “you have nothing to apologize for. Not one thing. You’re the victim here, you’re the one going through hell. Please, don’t apologize.”
“Not even for missin’ your play?”
She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and replied with full honesty, “not even for that.”
She heard him blow a laugh through his nose.
“Lexi Howard,” he gave another pleased noise, “I ain’t never gonna know what you’ll say next. Never. Somehow though? Somehow it’s always amazing.”
Lexi felt her shoulders relax and her heart flutter. Three words she had been aching to confess to him lit a fire on her tongue, so she took a drink of water to dull it. That same tingling in her fingertips was back and the beginning of a smile was coming back to her face.
“How do you always know the right thing to say?”
“Yknow?” He chuckled, “you probably the first person to ever say that to me.”
Lexi gave a wet laugh. While she wasn’t surprised by that, it still made her a sad. How awful was it that no one had taken the time to know this spectacular man enough to let his love and care wash over them? She felt sorry for them, but she had no problem selfishly soaking it all in.
“Well it’s true. You always know what to say to me, no matter what. You are just… Fez you’re amazing. You really truly are.”
“Aw, shit. Nah.”
“Yes! Yes, you are. You are amazing, and sweet and kind and empathetic and thoughtful and funny and handsome and -“
“You think I’m handsome, Lexi Howard?” she could hear the smile in his voice.
Lexi flushed bright red.
“I was talking, you know?” She hoped he could hear the smile in hers.
“Yeah, yeah you were. Saying that I’m all nice and shit. You can keep goin’ if you want.”
Lexi's chest burst with a giggle, “well I’m going to stop. I will after I say this,” she took a deep breath, “you are one of the best people I have ever met, and without a doubt, my favorite person I have ever met.”
The line went still and Lexi felt a brief spike of apprehension. Was she too much? Was that confession too much? Especially right now, in the circumstances of how they were talking?
“I know without a doubt too, Lexi. I know that you’re my favorite person I have ever met, too.”
One last nasty spike hit her belly for doubting him, before she was drowning once more in the warmth of Fezco’s adoration.
And then the stupid tears hit her again.
“Lex, no, no! We just got you over this,” he said.
“I’m sorry I just,” she blubbered, “you’re so wonderful and I miss you. I miss you so much and I am sorry that I ever thought you would be cruel enough to ghost me out of nowhere.”
Fez swallowed, “that what you thought? You thought I’d just up and forget you? Nah. Never could do that.”
“Really?” she sniffled.
“Nah, Lex. Never. Never you.”
She let out another quiet sob and he clicked his tongue.
“You’re killin’ me, man. Crying and sad and shit, and I can’t even do nothing. Can’t even hold you to make it better.”
The thought of Fez’s arms around her soothed the cracks in her heart enough to let it beat wildly at the idea. Lexi wanted so desperately to feel his embrace, to tuck her head under his chin and smell the pheromones on his skin.
“I really wish you could. Maybe then I could help you, too. God, I'm over here sobbing like a baby when I am the one who is supposed to be comforting you!
“I had a whole speech planned out for the next time I talked to you. About staying strong and being brave, but it all seems so silly now. Especially now. Because you are the strongest and bravest person I know.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“What else? What else would you’a told me in this pep talk?” His voice was quiet, vulnerable.
“That even when things are at their worst, I tell myself that everything is going to be ok, even if I don’t believe it. I tell myself it’s going to be ok because it has to be. It just has to be ok, so it will be.”
He hummed in understanding, “even this? You think even this time things will be ok? Cause, shit Lex, I got a feelin’ that it won’t.”
“Then I’ll believe it will be for the both of us.”
“You will?”
“Of course, I will.”
Neither of them spoke for a long while after that. Nothing needed to be said to fill the silence, just the sound of the other’s gentle breath was enough. Lexi didn’t know you could miss the sound of someone's exhale until she was separated from Fez's. She would spend a lifetime listening to his husky intakes and outtakes if she got the chance. She hoped Fez would give her that chance.
The automated voice from before soon burst their calm bubble.
“You have two minutes remaining.”
Both Lexi and Fez gave a mutual huff of disapproval.
“Well… I guess that’s it for right now, huh?”
“I guess so…” Lexi trailed off.
She wanted to ask him so badly about what had happened that night of her play; about what happened to Ash, if he was alive, and if so where was he? What happened to his grandmother and the girl who was staying on the couch? Was he fairing ok living in a cell and if he ever felt scared? If he had a lawyer and what they had said? But, she knew he wouldn’t be allowed, or able, to tell her much.
With her bottom lip being gnawed and peeled between her teeth, and their time running out, she couldn’t help but blurt out, “what happened that night?”
He exhaled loudly, “that night?”
“Yeah, that night. The night of my play.”
“Damn, Lex. Thought I was gonna get off the hook with you on this.”
She snorted, “Well, you are calling me from jail.”
“True, true.”
Lexi paused, but knew she was running out of time, “So...?”
“Well, honestly? I don’t really wanna talk about it. Yeah, I don't think I want to at all.”
“Oh, ok. Yeah, that’s fine, that’s totally ok.”
Lexi hoped he could grasp just how much she meant that. She didn’t want to fish for details (no matter how much she wanted them) he wasn’t willing to give or pry anything out of him that he wasn’t comfortable saying. All she really wanted was to be there for him. To care for him the way he deserved.
“But y’know? Maybe, shit, I don’t know. You could come visit me? Or somethin’? I wasn’t allowed to have visitors for the first month, or even call anyone, but now I can. So, yeah. Maybe you come and we can talk about your play? Or, I don’t know, talk about anything.” Fez was trying to keep his voice nonchalant, but the hope in it was evident.
“Yeah,” she replied almost too quickly, “I’d like that. I’d really, really like that.”
Lexi’s smile grew so big on her face her cheeks ached, and if only she could see Fezco, so she could see his matching expression.
“Cool, cool,” he said, “then I guess I’ll see you soon.”
“You will,” she replied earnestly.
Then, a dial tone indicated their time was up.
a/n: i really hoped you enjoyed this time bit of fix up i did to fexi's story, lol! we have to do it ourselves because we know s*m is just going to continue to fuck it up. anyway! i hope you enjoyed and if you did, i'd loooooovvvveee to hear it ♥