She moves from table to table, taking orders, delivering food. They're always busy on Saturdays mornings. Her hands are steady as the coffee drizzles from the spout, the liquid rising steadily, stark against the pale porcelain that contains it. Her mind is absorbed in who ordered what at table three, how long till the next shift takes over, small talk with the patrons. All easy things to think about. These days, she tries not to think so hard.
If she were to be honest with herself, she would admit that it's because she's not sure, anymore, which thoughts truly belong to her.
The bell above the door jingles merrily and she doesn't look up. It's happened a million times before and at some point, she's learned to tune it out. Customers find their own seats around these parts, and she's got her arms heaped up with plates full of greasy specials and the biggest pancakes in the county. Another minute and she'll tend to the newcomer(s). They can wait that long, whoever they are.
She ignores the feeling dancing up her spine; like someone is watching her, and slaps down a plate with a familiar thunk. French toast and bacon, extra butter. The rest of the plates are delivered in much the same manner; impeccable and swift, talent stemming from years of practice. She's an old pro; been in the restaurant business long enough to be able to tell, just from looking, who will tip well and who would skip out on the bill if they thought they could get away with it.
Duties completed, she tells them to let her know if they need anything and turns away, scanning the room for the new arrival(s). She spots him, nestled into a corner table, and the coffee pot clatters to the floor, dark liquid seeping into her shoes and sprawling across the worn pine below. It's hot, and she jumps, hissing and catches herself before she can swear in front of the patrons, but it's a near thing.
He stands and hurries over, stooping down just as she has and his hands meet hers atop the towel she's pulled out of her back pocket to mop up the mess. She jerks away from his touch as if her hands have been burned instead of her feet.
"You shouldn't be here," she mutters, and refuses to meet his gaze. Her hands are trembling. She wants to run before he can speak, before he can work his spell. Too bad he's already worked it long ago, stole her heart and held it hostage. It doesn't listen to the righteous fear her brain tries to teach it.
"Just…" He falters there when she cringes. She can't help it. The last time she heard that voice it was commanding her to do things she didn't want to do. It was forcing thoughts into her mind that didn't belong there. There was power in that voice; fear. She won't meet his gaze, not even when he extends gentle fingers and tilts her chin up.
"Please," he tries again, and her resolve weakens, dissolves completely; sugar, maybe salt, in a glass of water. Her eyes flicker upward, catching briefly a glimmer of something - regret, apology, shame. She doesn't know really. It's enough to make the alarm bells go off in her head, but they're thin and shrill beneath the hammering percussion in her chest. "Just let me explain?"
The moment drags out long and thin between them, an old tired horse in an eternal looping race. The second hand hits the bottom of the clock and begins the steady climb back up to the top, sprinting to see if it can outstrip the silence. "Please?" he begs again, four seconds from the finish line.
It's a bad idea, she tries to tell herself. It's a trap. He will lure her away and he will wrap his web around her and she will be caught again. Tangled and helpless; and the last time that happened she was standing on the top of a damn, wind and certain death wafting up at her in stiff, damp gusts. But he's asking.
Asking.
There is no one in her life that deserves the benefit of the doubt more.
She sighs, more self-resignation than anything else, and nods once, so slight and brief that anyone else would have missed it. He sees. He knows.
Her hand brushes against his as she takes the cloth, sopping and dripping and she stands, one hand cupping the bottom of the rag to contain the dribble. She offers him a terse smile when he rises with her, coffee pot held awkwardly from fingers that are barely visible beneath the miles of sleeves he dons. He holds it out, a shy smile touching at the corners of his mouth and she takes it from him, noticing it's been dented.
"I get off at three." She says simply, and doesn't wait to hear the response, just turns away and hurries back to her duties. It's stupid, she knows, but she can't take it back now. All she can do is bury her head in her work and try not to watch the clock as three draws ever nearer.
She lingers at the sink, washing a dish that's been cleaned five times over now. Eventually, she finds the inevitable can't be delayed any longer. Fifteen minutes was almost asking too much. But it seems like the clock works against her.
It's all the time in the world and no time at all before her apron is shed and tossed into the bucket of dirty linens, the bell singing cheerfully, betraying her mood as she steps through the door. He's leaning up against the dirty brick of the building, a cigarette burning between his fingers. She doesn't remember him smoking before, but it does explain the singe marks on the fringes of his too-long coat sleeves.
He spots her and pushes away from the wall, straightening almost unconsciously, but doesn't move otherwise. He's waiting for her to come to him, as if she is a wild animal, hurt and afraid and unpredictable. She takes the bait, lets herself be soothed by the fact that he's letting her call the shots. It's a good sign. Really, it is.
Seven feet away, she stops. She thinks about moving closer, but doesn't quite dare to. Not yet. Instead she crosses her arms over her chest and meets his gaze head on.
"You wanna sit down?" he ventures when her stony silence invites him to be the first to break the ice. There's a vacant park bench across the street and her gaze follows his finger when he points to it. She nods and they make their way across the street, disconnected; two wary animals forging a strenuous peace as they sit side by side. She thinks of the story about the lion and the lamb and wonders why such a ferocious creature would choose to be so gentle.
"Tracy, look," he says, grabbing her hand. She flinches, but he doesn't let it stop him this time. His fingers are covered in burn marks, and if she could see his arms, she knows they would be too. Branded by lighters and cigarettes. She's not a stoner by trade, but she has a few burn marks of her own. Shakily, she stares down at his hands and realizes that he was present when she obtained most of them; and vice versa.
"I'm sorry, Tracy." His grip tightens and he flicks his nearly forgotten cigarette - burned down to the filter now - away so he can touch tentative fingers to her chin and she lets her head be drawn up and she meets his gaze, startled by the sincerity there. But really, she shouldn't be surprised; secretly, she's not.
"Andy," her throat feels tight, chest even tighter. There are some things people should never have to say. Tracy is fairly certain this is about to be one of them. "I don't know how to stop being afraid of you."
He looks like he might shatter, might simply climb to his feet and run away. He bites his lip but the look on his face says clearly that he believes he deserves this. If possible, that frightens her more. Because if he feels guilty, that means there is a legitimate reason for her to be afraid.
"I never used them on you before, I swear. I never wanted you to know." He sounds desperate and Tracy can't help but think that the tone does not suit him.
"I would never do what Webber did."
The words feel reassuring, even if she can't even fathom a world in which Andy would.
"So this...thing," She picks her words carefully. "You can really make people do what you want?"
Just saying it aloud makes it sound ridiculous, but there's no other way to describe what she had felt, standing there with a makeshift club in her hand. There was terror running though her veins, but she couldn't seem to stop herself from raising and it bringing it down across that Sam kid's back. She remembers crying and the jolt of betrayal and fear when Andy exerted the same control over her.
But she recalls the desperation in his plea, the way his voice shook when he told her to stop it, hijacked her mind and shoved thoughts she couldn't disobey in his brain. It had been an urgent need, life and death.
She looks at his face, brows furrows just barely, eyes wide and begging, lips parted, a bare trace of a frown playing at the corners. It is a face of a desperate, terrified person. Someone aching and regretful and truly sorry.
And damn her, because she believes him. Wants so badly to just forgive and forget and let the fear slip away and pull him back into her world. He has finally come back to her, dropped back onto the radar and it would be her fault if he were to disappear again. She remembers how lonely the past year has been, how she wished he'd come back, move back into his efficiency three blocks over and start calling her again.
It turns out the park bench is actually a bus stop and other people begin to arrive as the time when it will pull up draw closer. Someone coughs and a mother soothes a crying baby in a stroller.
"How about we go someone more private," she says, returning the gaze of a middle-aged man in a sweater that should be the eighth sin pointedly. Previously, he'd been staring, and he turns away hastily, crude enough to swear but polite enough to be properly ashamed when he's caught in the act.
"My van's parked around the corner."
She nods and they stand, leaving the smattering of people behind. She walks closer to him this time, bumping shoulders with him occasionally and she doesn't even flinch.
She's not sure, yet, if that's a good or bad thing.
"Never again," he promises, when they're shut away like dirty secrets in the tiny space that Andy calls his home. It should feel suffocating, like being closed in. It doesn't. It feels cozy, like familiarity and home. It smells like Nag Champa and the lingering better-sweet scent of marijuana clinging to the blankets spread out across the back.
It evokes memories of better times. Of when he was playful and she was enchanted. When they would smoke pot until they grew sleepy stupid and then they would tangle themselves together, naked and stoned and laughing the entire time.
"I swear, Tracy. That was an emergency, I would never do that to you. You know I would never...never ...do that, right? Never in a million years, Tracy please just give me another chance, I swear."
She says nothing and bites her lip. She wants so very badly to swallow his words and melt against him. She wants to tell him that she's missed him, because she has, and that she's not going to lie, she's still freaked out, but she doesn't want to let it stop them. She doesn't want to run away, she wants to tell him. She wants to understand.
She's always wanted to understand. For a while, she had thought she did.
And then things had gotten, weird. He'd gotten weird; more so than normal. And then he'd stopped showing up at work and he'd taken to sleeping in his van instead of his one room apartment and then he'd just stopped coming around entirely. She'd thought it was her; that she'd done something terrible, wrong and she didn't even know.
And it had hurt; felt like isolation and rejection but she'd squared her shoulders and went on with life, because what else could you do? Andy was a free spirit and she couldn't expect to tame him when she couldn't even keep him in her sight.
She'd done the only thing she'd known how to do. She had let him slip away and take with him a part of her heart that she never expected to get back.
Then he'd shown up, shaking and upset but still so utterly, wonderfully Andy that there was no other way to describe it. And any resentment she'd felt had faded away like the last dying tendrils of the night when the sun climbed over the edge of the horizon. There had been hope and promise and it was so easy to remember those things when she didn't think about that night.
He had killed his own twin to protect her, and though it made her stomach clench to think of what had happened that night in such blatant, gruesome terms, it was somehow thrilling to find that even after all this time, he would be willing to go so far for her. She can see, now, how much he cares.
"Andy," she says, and lets her fingers rest on his knee, a promise and a question. She's sitting, pressed tight against his side. There's not enough space for two people who aren't willing to be cozy in here, and she drops her head onto his shoulder, sighing out her worry and her fear and pressing it deep down, replacing it with trust. Because if you can't trust someone who's willing to kill for you, who can you trust, right? For saving her life, she owes him this redemption. "Can we just forget it happened?"
"You know, I never stopped missing you." His fingers are like moth's wings, fluttering soft against the back of her neck. His forehead is warm when he tilts it, pressing it against hers.
She doesn't know who, exactly, moves first, but when her lips brush warm and dry against his and she lets her tongue run cautiously against the seal of his lips, begging entrance, and he allows it, she knows it's too late for anything else. She's lost among a year's worth of pent up frustrations and this is her reward. If you love something, they say, let it go. What they don't tell you, is that it hurts like nothing else ever will. But it's come back, oh he's come back and she deserves this. She's missed this so badly.
He is familiar in all the right ways and no matter how long it's been, she still fits into his arms like she's been there all along. She remembers all of this, the way his hair smells, the feel of his fingers brushing against her stomach, the way he bites her ear playfully, just the way she likes, and laughs when she shivers.
Clothes are too cumbersome to bear. They fall away like leaves in autumn, winter pale skin emerging like spring.
This is familiar too, the gentle, slow build towards something more significant than either of them really realize. There is apology and forgiveness in every touch shared between them, words lingering on their tongues, along with the assurance that there's no real need to voice them. She lies beneath him and sprawls, vulnerable. She opens herself to him, offers up her loyalty and trusts him not to betray it.
He drinks her in like she is the cure. He presses lips to skin and drags his tongue down her stomach, follows it with fingers. They feel brittle around her hips, spindly digits parting her thighs and her breath escalates, fingers tangling in the blankets when he licks her.
His mouth moves like sin, tongue brushing against parts of her that make her whimper and tremble. Pleasure curls up around her stomach, slithering like an electric eel along her spine. He licks her until she is wet and moaning, legs thrown wide in invitation and then he's stretching himself out on top of her, pressing kisses to her collarbone.
She's almost forgotten, what it's like to have him inside of her. There's a burn and a shift and then they slide together like pieces of a puzzle. He's pressed flush against her, hands massaging her breasts, toying with her nipples until they're aching and hard, sending frantic messages downstairs. His teeth have turned feral, dragging up the smooth expanse of her neck and lingering at the corner of her jaw, nipping just hard enough to leave behind pale bruises.
"Missed you so much," he murmurs, humping into her, not frantic or hurried. He moves soft and slow, like it's something to savor and the pleasure builds like slow pressure, rising like a tide around her until she spreads her arms and surrenders herself to its mercy.
"I think I love you, Tracy," he says, breathing hot into her ear. Words meant only for her, so reverent and vulnerable. He pulls out and slides back into her in an awkward, stuttering jerk, grunting. There is sweat standing out across his upper lip; it catches the filtered light streaming in beneath the shade pinned up over the back window when he smiles. "Is that crazy?"
She can't answer in words, because if it's crazy, then she's crazy too and she suspects that it's probably true. He's fucked up, with honest to God super hero powers and she's no saint herself and when he moves with her none of it seems to matter. Instead she just picks up her head and catches his lips with hers, tastes the salt lingering damp, and soaks up the flavor of coffee that clings to his tongue.
Her nostrils flare and her belly burns. Pressure builds behind her eyelids and deep in her gut, steady and relentless until she's shaking, shifting her hips up to meet his strokes, fingers scrabbling at his back, toes digging into the mattress. And above her, he's rocking and biting his lip and never once does he take his eyes off her face, never does he stop the low, unintelligible litany of words that he speaks to himself, voice gone husky and dark the way it does when he's had one to many hits of harsh smoke sucked into his lungs.
Her thoughts are clear for the first time in days. She tells herself that this is what is meant to be, throws her head back, eyes shut tight, and comes with a tremor that shakes every muscle in her body and arches her back impossibly high.
"Fuck, Tracy, I'm so messed up, I wanted you so much for so long," he grunts, and his hips are a bit more frantic now, jutting in and out in a desperate last sprint towards the finish. She rides out the after shocks of her own orgasm, breathing hard, leg muscles still tensed as he moves against her, stimulates over-sensitive nerves. And then he's coming, mid-stroke, twitching and swearing, pressing his face down into the crook of her neck. His fingers tighten on her hips hard enough to bruise and she doesn't mind, really, will keep them as reminders of his confessions.
"Andy," she says, and that's all she can get out before he pulls himself free and slumps, boneless. He maintains just enough sense of mind to drop himself down to one side, shoulder laying on top of hers, legs still intertwined. She lets the tired silence linger between them, allows it to imprint this into her mind and document it as a memory that she'd like to keep, a feeling that is all her own. She's tangled up in him and he's got her just where he wanted her and it's nothing like she expected. She'd thought it would be a terrible thing, but the only feeling she can hold onto is awe.
She stares at the tacky decorations that have collected on the walls, the books kicked to the far corners, and lets them fill her with an overwhelming sense of Andy. He's unique, maybe even a freak of nature and maybe it's a little fucked up of her, to want to stick around. Maybe she's crazy and foolish and making the most terrible mistake of her life.
But somehow, it feels like the most significant decision she's ever made. Like she's never been more sure of anything before.
She feels like it should bother her more, that he's different. But the only thing she can think, now that she considers his strange abilities, is that it explains why he ran away. It was her that had driven him away, just not in the way she had believed.
"This is why you left, isn't it?" she asks, touching a finger to his temple. "Why you stopped coming around?"
She knows it. She wants to hear him say it. She needs to be sure.
He nods and her touch brushes through his hair at the movement. His throat bobs when he swallows. He never takes his eyes off her. "I was afraid to tell you. I thought you'd run away."
So you ran away first.
She chews her bottom lip thoughtfully and feels her heart break for this boy, who was so afraid of rejection, of being left behind, that he would rather push everyone else away on his own than risk being abandoned when he came clean. His van was a ploy. He could have anything he wanted and he chose a beggar's life. No one gets too close to happy-go-lucky stoners; they're fair-weather friends, at best. Girls don't settle down with guys who live in vans. They want husbands who work nine to five and buy their wives fancy houses to live in.
"Why'd you come back?"
He leans in, lips brushing against her neck, her jaw, her ear. He tugs her close, holds her as if she will disappear. "When Doctor Jennings died, I just kept thinking that something could happen, something terrible, and I wouldn't be there to stop it, and I might never get to tell you how I felt."
He smells like cigarettes and weed, skin and sweat, confessions and truth. It's so easy for people to look and see nothing more than a slacker with a carefree smile and an eighth in his pocket. She looks and she sees so much more.
"Andy?" she queries, after a while, and he makes a hmmm? noise into her neck. She pulls back, and this time she's the one tilting his chin up to get him to look at her. She offers him a smile, really the only thing left to give. She gave him her heart so long ago. "I'm glad you did."
Really, truly, she is.
"Me too," he says, and his own smile is so bright, so reminiscent of the brilliant lively person that he is that she falls in love all over again. She can't help but laugh when he holds up the small glass tube and asks, "wanna smoke a bowl?"
She nods and accepts the pipe nonetheless.
"Yeah," she replies, "I do."