Warnings: Sexual content, substance use, language, potential allusions to sexual abuse, violence. Honestly, I'm just covering my bases. I don't know what to expect, either.

This is set in the Heartbreak Grows in the Garden universe, and if you haven't read that, not to worry, you won't really have to if you want to read this one.

If you do care, though, and you want to check out those other stories first, it goes Tasting Obsession, Heartbreak Grows in the Garden, and Stars in the Sky. There is a one-shot on my other profile, RavenStyx, called The Devil Doesn't Know his Name. It's in the same universe, too. They're all relatively short.

Someone stop me.

Okay.


Good Bad Things


I'm cool and I'm calm and dangerous


The shower tile was hard under Ultear's knees but she didn't notice. The water was hot on her back, but she didn't know. The noise around her was loud but she didn't hear it. The girl in front of her had tattoos on her legs; they were bows.

Black, they were dyed black and contrasted with her fiery hair. She liked it when Ultear pulled it; her back would arch and her hips would rock back and she'd slide further down on Ultear's fingers. There was a man behind Ultear, so she had nowhere to go. He voiced a grunt Ultear would be disgusted with if she was sober. He pushed inside of her and she wondered, faintly, if there was a condom. There must have been. No one was irresponsible like that anymore.

He fucked her lovelessly. She couldn't tell if his cock was big or not, she had almost no feeling down there, except for now and again, when he'd push in so deep, he'd bottom out. Then it was a dull pain. And with it came a distant revulsion. This was not who she wanted, but it was who she was having. And for what? She couldn't say why she stopped on the sidewalk when he rolled up and asked her if she wanted to party. She couldn't say why she got into the truck, other than there was a beautiful girl in there with beautiful hair. She couldn't say why she took his alcohol or why she walked into this shitty motel with him, either. Honestly, she was smarter than this.

The man behind her grunted again and came into a condom he peeled off almost immediately afterwards. Ultear was relieved to see that piece of latex for a brief moment before he flushed it away in the toilet. It was gone and so was her shame. She could focus on something else. Taking her hand out of the girl. Pushing herself up off the bottom of the bathtub. She was drunk, really, really drunk. The walls were warbling, catching her when she thought she'd fall.

"Here. Come out here." The man grabbed her wrist and tugged her out onto a bathmat. That, at least, was clean. He wrapped a towel around her and gave one to the other girl. Ultear clutched it like a lifeline. It was the only thing that felt real.

The man went out into the main room and it took a moment, she had to pee, but afterwards, she drifted out, too, dazed and hazy.

"You need to get your stuff together." He seemed so sober.

"Yeah." Ultear found her jeans and her shirt. Not her underwear, though. Did she take that off separately? And when she put her hand into her pocket, she couldn't find her eyeliner. She'd spent twenty-five dollars on that eyeliner. It was good stuff. She pulled out the bed and the nightstand, checked behind the fridge and on the floor.

"I'll give you money for a new one," the man said.

"I just want the one I had," Ultear responded. "It's here." It had to be.

"It's not. Here." He took out his wallet and counted out money. Too much money. Even Drunk Ultear knew it was too much money. She tried to hand it back.

"This is too much."

"No. You take it. Take it." He shoved it at her and made sure her hands closed around it. He gave the same to the redhead, who lounged mostly naked against the doorframe. He looked back over his shoulder and asked Ultear, "Get her dressed?"

Ultear didn't want to but someone had to. Their benefactor didn't look like he was going to be the one. She found a long dress that wasn't really winter-worthy and pulled it on for her. The material was nice. Ritzy nice. There was no bra, no underwear, and there had never been. There was a coat, though, a long one made of deerskin with fake fur around the collar. Ultear put that on her, too, and then took up her own scarlet pea coat. She had trouble with the arms. No one helped her.

The man opened the door and they filed out one-by-one, Ultear bringing up the rear. She closed the door behind herself and climbed back into the back of the shiny SUV. As they drove, she was asked, "Where do you want me to drop you off?"

"By Macy's," she said. It was central enough, and maybe she'd see someone she knew in amongst the crowd.

The SUV pulled up out front of the green-lit doors and the man asked, "You ladies got a number? In case I'm in town again?"

"No," Ultear said. The redhead tried giving him a number starting with nine. Ultear elbowed her and repeated, "No." She threw open the door then and spilled out into the parking lot. The redhead was behind her, cackling like she'd stolen something and gotten away with it. The SUV drove off and they were alone with the Alice Francis' Shoot Him Down! spilling out of the strip club.

Ultear put her hand in her pocket and felt the roll of cash. "I think we just got paid like we were hookers." She said it quietly; it was a dirty little secret, even when she was drunk.

The redhead stopped laughing. "What's your name?"

"Ultear. You?"

She put her arms around Ultear's shoulders and kissed the edge of her ear. When her lips weren't pressed to Ultear's cheek, she whispered, "Flare."

Ultear shivered. She couldn't pinpoint why, though. The hot breath? Flare's name? Her intense and casual closeness? Whatever it was, when Flare asked her for her number, Ultear gave it to her. She drifted away afterwards, drunk and listless, a ship bobbing in the night. Ultear watched her go. Everything felt surreal. Happening quickly. Segmented. Real and not real.

The door to Macy's opened and a familiar head of dark hair emerged. Ultear shoved away her disquiet and smiled at Gray, not nicely, but sharply, like he was a mouse and she was a hungry cat. That's how he preferred her to look at him.

There was a girl trailing behind him. That changed. Juvia pulled out of his grasp even before she saw Ultear, and stormed away in a huff.

"Juvia!" Gray half-turned to go after her then seemed to think better of it, halting and stuffing his hands deep into the pockets of his well-worn jeans.

"When's the last time?" Ultear asked his back.

She heard him breathe all of his air out through his nose. "Shut up, Ultear."

"No, seriously. This is what, the seventh time you've been on the outs? When are you two going to finally say it doesn't fucking work?"

He started walking; Ultear followed. Her steps were still clunky, though, and she twisted her ankle. Gray slowed and took her elbow to stabilize her. He didn't let go once he realized just how drunk she was.

To distract him, Ultear asked, "Why now?"

"What?"

"Why'd she storm off now? Did you try to have another threesome?" Gray's annoyance was palpable. Ultear was practically choking on it but she couldn't seem to dull the edge of her knife. "Or did she tell you who you shouldn't be fucking? A good Christian girl like her, your choices must really get under her skin."

"Just leave it."

"I'm worried about you," she said falsely. "She wants you to be vanilla and I know all the filthy things that turn you on."

The back of a car bumped Ultear's behind. Gray stood in front of her, furiousness just pouring off of him. "We weren't here on the same bill. She was trying to pick up in there."

Ultear lay back against the trunk of a blue '76 Malibu to laugh. The flecking paint bit into her coat and she'd likely take some away with her when she stood up again. "That must really burn you up."

"It's not funny. She's really fucked up about this."

Ultear sobered. "That's not my problem."

"'Course not." Gray's phone was ringing, Ultear could hear the warbling tune from his pocket. He picked it out and looked at the screen. "It's your mom."

"Then answer it."

His look turned dry. "We were supposed to be at Nan's half an hour ago. If I answer it, I'll have to tell her where we are and why we're not there."

Dinner. Right. The thought of eating dinner with her family when she felt like this was insane. She couldn't say no, though, her mom would promptly find another place for her to live if so and she couldn't afford to be out on her own. She sat up and fluffed her hair. "How do I look?"

"Like a fucking mess."

She felt it, too.

"Get in."

"This isn't your truck."

"It's my new car."

"It's old."

"It's new to me. Get in."

"Where's your truck?"

"Sitting in my driveway."

"Since when could you afford two vehicles?" Ultear asked suspiciously.

"Mind your own business and get in," Gray said with an authority he very rarely pulled out, at least not for her. She smiled like she was besotted instead of prickly about the whole thing and rolled off the back and and got into the passenger's seat.

The car smelled like Little Trees and old seat fabric. She use the fold down mirror to fix her runny eye makeup and to apply a fresh coat of lip gloss. Her hair was still damp and without a straightener, it was starting to crimp and curl. There was a headband in her purse. She tried to cover up some of her disarray with it.

Gray got into the car and leaned over the seat. Ultear stilled as he fixed it for her, fluffing out the bow and smoothing back a loop in her hair. He took his hand back just as soon as he was done like he was uncomfortable and started the car.

Ultear leaned her head against the window and put her finger in the hole in the seat as they drove, feeling the foam material beneath and the bits of grime Gray hadn't been able to get out. He would have loved this car. He loved a lot of broken things that couldn't be fixed.


Ultear's grandmother lived in a part of Magnolia crawling with seniors. They all drove respectable cars, nothing too fancy, except for the odd Audi, and nothing too dirt-stack, except for the odd abused Cavalier.

Gardens were mended and porches had chairs on them and when garage doors were lifted, people could actually get into the garage and not just stare at it, wondering how to get around the mess.

Ultear got out of the passenger's seat and was reminded again how very drunk she was. It hadn't gotten much better. If she didn't know better, she'd say she was given something. Something she didn't agree to take.

"Whoa." Gray grabbed her hip to keep her from stumbling off the step. She swayed back against him and promptly shoved off to get upright again.

"Thanks." The door opened before Ultear could grab the knob and the smell of turkey poured out of the quaint neighbourhood home. It smelled good but she didn't know if she was hungry. She couldn't tell.

"Where have you been?" Ur had dressed in her Sunday best, a pencil skirt and a cowl-necked purple shirt that Ultear hated. It was her fake dress, what she put on when she wanted to impress people or make them think that everything was all right.

"Out."

Ur dropped her voice. "You stink of booze."

"Yeah, mom."

Ur stood straight and examined her and for an instant, Ultear thought (prayed) she was going to tell her to forget it, to just go on home. But Ur disappeared. She came back with a stick of gum that she gave to Ultear. Ultear put it in her mouth because she could hear her grandmother talking.

Ur smoothed her shirt and stepped back, inviting them in. Ultear kicked off her boots. The snow had turned to rain and she left muddy boot prints on the floor. Her stockinged feet slid over the plush carpet that came after the foyer. She didn't know if she liked the way carpet, stocking and skin felt all mashed together.

She swayed into a wall. Gray was there to help her stand back upright again. "Jesus. Are you okay?" His voice was so, so quiet.

"Fine." Fine. She just needed to sober up.

"There's my favourite girl." Her Nan came around the corner, arms out, and hugged Ultear around the waist. Ultear rested her cheek on her bony shoulder.

"Hey, Nanny."

"And Gray." Her grandmother let Ultear go and took on Gray. As she hugged him, she asked all kinds of questions Ultear knew he didn't want to answer. How is your girlfriend? (Crazy and furious), How's school going? (He dropped out of Police Foundations just as soon as Silver kicked him out) and, are you helping your sister with her studies?

Ultear swayed out of the living room and into the kitchen. Silver was there and he was alone. He stood by the counter, not dressed in his cop's uniform but very much fitting the part with one hand slung in his back pocket and his shoulders forward in the casually aggressive way all police officers seemed to have. "Your friend's doing well at the academy, I hear."

"Elfman?" Ultear asked.

"Sure. The big one."

"He's not my friend."

"Your…" he searched for the word.

"We stopped fucking months ago. He's nothing now."

Silver smiled; brashness never bothered him much. "I guess you don't care for updates, then."

"Nope." He was just trying to make her talk, anyway, to see if she was wasted, and now he knew.

"Were you at Macy's again?" he asked.

"So what if I was? It's not illegal and I'm of age."

"Weird people hang out around Macy's."

"I'm the weird people, Silver, the faster you learn that the better." She took a glass of wine from behind him. She didn't need it.

He pursed his lips. "It's not a joke. It wasn't that long ago that Strauss girl went missing."

"She met that guy online, they hooked up, he killed her. He's in jail. End of story." Ultear started back into the living room. Silver grabbed her arm and brought her back around so they were far too close for her liking.

"Sure. I'm just trying to remind you that stuff lives in your backyard. You should remember that." He looked her over head-to-toe as he spoke, reminding Ultear that she didn't like Silver. She didn't like the way he dipped out on her mom once every few months without so much as a goodbye, she didn't like the stream of female callers he had (a cop didn't need to give out his personal information so much,) and she didn't like the way he studied her. It wasn't anything extra overt, he was just a man used to getting what he wanted, and he sized up everything he even remotely fantasized about the exact same way.

She thought the right circumstances, a little bit of pressure, he could cast aside his morals and bend. Every man could.

Gray came into the kitchen and grabbed a shrimp from the shrimp ring. "What's going on?"

"I was just telling your sister she needs to be a little more careful."

Ultear grabbed a shrimp herself and tuned him out. She kept it up all throughout dinner, too. She had to sit on the opposite side of the table, next to Gray, but she kept her head up and her eyes pointed defiantly away from where Silver had his arm slung around her mother's shoulder, like he didn't just come crawling back out of the woodwork after a four-month stint of being absent from their doorstep.

Nanny poured gravy on her turkey and asked, "Ultear, how's your schooling going?"

It was Ur that answered because Ultear's thoughts were as thick as that gravy. "Great, everything's just great."

Her nanny acted like her mother hadn't spoken. "Do you find the tests hard?"

"Um..."

"All of her classes are easy for her," Ur responded in such a way that Ultear knew she was ashamed. The shame made her angry and vengeful, so when her Nan asked,

"All of them?"

Ultear responded with, "They're pretty easy when you don't go."

"Ultear." Her mother's voice was like a car crash, short, abrupt and startling. Ultear kept on her course when her nan asked,

"What do you mean? You don't go?"

"I dropped out."

Ur scrambled to save face. "She took a break."

"Forever."

"Not forever. She was stressed out. Next year—"

"I won't apply again, mom. I don't like it." It was her grandmother's money that paid for it all, but here she was, throwing it away. She felt gross. And put on the spot.

"What are you going to do then?"

"I don't know."

"You're twenty. You need to have a plan."

"Twenty's not that old," Ultear said. "Lots of people don't know what they're doing at twenty."

"When I was your age I already had your mother and a career working in the hospital—"

"That was like, a hundred years ago, Nan. Things are different," Ultear exaggerated in her very best snotty tone.

"Don't speak to your Nan that way," Silver said, and Ultear was suddenly furious. She strangled the life out of her napkin but couldn't stop the fountain of words.

"Who are you even, Silver? You don't get to have a say in how I speak to anyone. You're just some douche my mom brings home sometimes, even after you fuck around on her."

There was a shocked silence that went around the table. Ultear stood before anyone else could figure out what to say and excused herself, retreating not out the door, as she should have, but to the bathroom, because she was so livid, she couldn't think straight.

She leaned her palms on the counter and stared into the bottom of the sink, just like Beverly did in IT, right before the voices floated up and told her, come play with us, Beverly. Ultear didn't believe in ghosts or dimensional demons that came from the Waste Lands, but she thought if she heard a voice asking her that just then, she'd do it. She'd climb on down there to the sewer so she didn't have to walk out past everyone and out the front door.

Someone rapped on the door. Ultear rolled her eyes into the back of her head and sighed quietly. Maybe she could ignore it?

The door slid open and Gray invited himself in. Ultear turned on him and hissed, "I'm in the fucking bathroom."

"Staring into the sink." Gray closed the door behind himself and leaned against it.

"I'm still in the bathroom."

He was unfazed. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be fine?"

"Because you never yell around your nan, you're drunk and I don't know where you've been all day."

"You don't need to know where I've been all day."

"No. But wherever you were, you're messed up and you look rattled about it."

She was rattled. The closer to sober she got, the more fucked up everything seemed, to the point where she didn't recognize her earlier actions and couldn't place the entire day together.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"You can tell me, Ultear."

To what end? She'd have to admit she got into someone's car, that she took his alcohol and got drugged, and then was paid. Paid. She felt gross about that, too.

"Just had kind of a shitty day." From what she could remember of it, anyway.

"What happened?"

She sighed and draped herself on his shoulder. It'd confuse him, but she didn't care. She wanted to mislead him and this was the best way she knew how. "I saw Angel by the dam on my way home from work and she was running her big fucking mouth."

Gray draped his hands around her hips. Ultear looked at them in the mirror. She liked the black of her hair against the black of his. They were pretty together. "Why's she got it out for you?"

"Don't know. She's secretly in love with me?" Ultear half-joked. Gray didn't laugh.

"Why were you drinking in the park?"

"I wasn't," she said. "That came after."

"I didn't see you at Macy's." It was one of the only places in Magnolia to drink.

She cleared her throat. "I wasn't there."

"So where were you?"

"Does that matter?"

"I don't know—"

"The answer's no. I don't owe you any explanation. That's it."

Gray knew her well; if he kept pushing, she'd close down on him, so he let it go. "Do you want a ride home?"

"Is your dad going to be pissed if you leave?"

"He's always pissed at me," Gray said. "The only reason I'm here is because of your mom."

True enough; their relationship was strained. At the very least. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah. Take me home."

Gray opened the door but Ultear walked out first. There was no one waiting to bombard her, she could hear her mother and her grandmother speaking softly in the dining room. Ur only let her voice get to that pitch when she was talking about Ultear.

Ultear held her head high and walked briskly—but not too brisk, so it seemed like she was running—through the house to the front door. Gray was lagging behind her. She didn't stop to see why, throwing open the door and coming out into the cigarette-smelling night.

Ultear put the bottom of the steps in her sights but Silver pulled out his Cop Voice and stopped her dead in her tracks just by uttering her name. She turned back around and found him under the porch lamp. Pale light made the white in his hair glitter.

"You hurt your mom's feelings. You should apologize to her."

"If I did that, Silver, it'd kind of be like apologizing for you, and the thought of doing that makes me sick."

He was collected as he delivered, "You don't know what your mom and me have going on."

"Whatever it is, it's a fucking joke." She spun on her heel and got down the rest of the steps just as the door behind her opened and Gray followed her out. He didn't say a word to his father; Ultear expected no less but she still felt vindicated, leaving Silver there with almost no satisfaction.

Gray drove her home in silence, and when they pulled into the driveway, Ultear maintained the status quo. She was halfway up the driveway, in the wash of his headlights when he turned off the car and followed her in.

Ultear showered firstly, leaving Gray to loiter in the house that he once lived in for a short time. When she was clean, she wrapped herself in her favourite purple towel and came back out. The house was still dark; Gray hadn't bothered with any lights; neither did Ultear.

He sat on her bed, illuminated by the odd peach-orange shade of a streetlight coming through her window. It was bright enough that Ultear could see the way he looked at her. She wanted it to be with less concern and with more heat. She took the edge of her towel and started tugging on it. His eyes were glued to her but his mouth was somewhere else, telling her,

"Sorry he's such a fuckup with your mom. And that he's always butting into your business."

"Sh." She didn't want to talk about Silver. Ultear held her towel, now open but tight to her chest, and leaned in. Gray kissed her the way he always kissed her. Haltingly. That was ninety percent of the fun, no lie. The first time she did this was five years ago. They were fifteen and coming home from a bush party, and cicadas were humming and the grass was warm beneath her bare toes. She'd been thinking about it all night but waited until they were under a footbridge to do it.

He kissed her back but didn't talk to her for a week afterwards. She loved passing him in the hallways at school especially because he squirmed in front of his friends, but also at home. He'd look her over quickly but always get stuck on her lips and she knew without a doubt he was thinking about what she did.

It took almost two weeks for him to say something to her again and when he did, it was something simple, pass the milk. She never forgot, though, because that marked the moment they could start to do it all over again. Ultear took it a step further each time, a touch, a caress, over the clothes and then under, then without clothes at all, until Gray was such a fucking mess and she had all the power.

"We said last time was the last time."

"You said it was."

"We agreed." Gray spoke but he was touching the bottom of her towel. She wanted him to touch her. She wanted someone other than her last partner to think about.

"You agreed, I told you that it was stupid and that you and Juvia would be broken up again by the end of the week. And I was right."

"She's jealous of you."

"Or she's ashamed." Ultear knew it had been a mistake to lean over and whisper in Juvia's ear what she and Gray had done, but she couldn't stand the three in the morning texts or the dramatic fits of jealousy, Gray's mood swings or all the times he blew her off to hang out with Juvia, leaving her home when his father would come back after Silver had ditched that flavour of the week and wanted her mother back.

What happened with Juvia after Ultear spilled her and Gray's secret was just a misguided attempt at being involved in Gray's life that Ultear did nothing to correct. That was a poor decision that ended with tears halfway through, though it did, actually, end up working out in Gray's favour. Juvia left him.

Gray's palms touched the outsides of Ultear's hips. Ultear started to pull aside the towel. His throat bobbed and his eyes dropped down so he could watch. Finally, he stopped wearing his concern and started wearing his shame.

She let the towel drop. It landed with a poof that stirred the dust beneath her bed. She stepped away from it and closer to Gray. His fingers moved from her hips to her behind. He grabbed her just lightly; it was enough to give her a thrill. She got closer, close enough he couldn't ignore her. His mouth pressed to the place between and below her breasts. She held in her sigh so it could build to something that resembled desire and not relief.

His fingers tightened and his tongue came out. He used his contact points to pull her back on the bed. Ultear adjusted for him, climbing up; she knew he liked it when she would get on top of him, when her thighs were pressing into his cheeks and she was pinning him down with her weight on his chest.

She reached back and grabbed the hem of his shirt; the material was soft and well-worn, loved to the very end, like his Malibu. In turn, Gray pulled her forward. She could say whatever she wanted about him, he was patient with his tongue and patience was the key. Steady, steady, steady had her coming after just minutes. She let go of his shirt so she could grab his hair and pull him closer.

He kept on until she released him and inched back far enough that she could get his shirt up and off his back, and then his pants, too. Regardless of his complaints, vocal or otherwise, he was ready and willing, watching her unclasp his pants and take him out, and groaning when Ultear used just the tip of her nail to scrape over the tip of his cock.

"Do you want me to kiss it?" She liked to hear him say it.

"Yes."

"And lick it?"

"Yes."

"And suck it?"

"Yes." He was sounding more and more desperate. Ultear smiled.

"What if I just fucked it?"

Gray took her hand and pulled her towards him. Ultear allowed for it, like she allowed for him to grab a fistful of hair and push her down. She liked to tease him and kissed around the base and lower, using her tongue and her teeth and her lips, never giving him exactly what he wanted but almost. Pleasure quickly turned to frustration; he throbbed and tried to pull her back up and position at her mouth and she decided that she'd had enough being manhandled.

Ultear straightened and pushed his hands aside. Gray made a noise and reached for her, just needing something. She relished it. She relished pushing him back and climbing back onto the bed and she relished sliding down on top of his cock. She relished the way he came alive for her, pushing his hips up and arching his spine. She relished the way he tried, really, really tried to make her feel good as if he spent so much time thinking about all the little ways he could do that. He touched her too much and each finger fall meant more than it was supposed to. Ultear lived for it. She wanted to leave a mark; she didn't think it was Gray she wanted to carve into, but he sat still for her blade.


Sometime around three-thirty that morning, Ultear's phone hummed. She rolled over in her now-empty bed and picked it up. It was Flare, asking her if she wanted to hang out that weekend. She said yes.