Haven: Façade
Facade (noun) - An artificial or deceptive front
AUDREY
Audrey Parker lies between the two men she loves like any other night (except it isn't). Only a few precious hours span between now and the unknown. Ten hours or less (but now, now, she's stopped counting).
She draws comfort between them in her final hours, ignoring the urge to fight back (the urge to give into irrepressible sobs).
Going into the Barn no longer remains a lingering question. It's now a definitive answer. No bargains. No other way.
Her heart skips one (two) beats when she thinks about leaving her boys behind. Sheets rustle as Nathan's hand brushes against her abdomen, sending a pleasurable chill through her body.
As his fingers skim along her stomach, all of her thoughts rush back to her (their) son. Their James. She knows the memories of James will soon fade away and new memories will inhabit her. She wonders if Sarah felt like this in the final moments before she went into the Barn.
No, she mentally corrects. Sarah did not have two men who loved her unconditionally and the lingering memory of the Nathan she knew remained a flickering memory in her subconscious.
The pleasurable moment had existed for Sarah, but sometimes Audrey wonders how much of it felt real or was it more like a dream?
Duke shifts position just then, expelling warm breath against the sensitive part of her neck. His goatee scratches against her skin, but Audrey finds she doesn't mind. On the contrary, she finds it quite comforting.
She doesn't mind the bourbon that lingers on his breath either.
His large, calloused hand moves, resting closer to Nathan's against Audrey's abdomen. Almost (barely) touching. Fingertips to fingertips.
Completing the circuitry. Completing what linked all of them together.
Audrey's thoughts drift back to Colorado. Of kissing Duke with beer-saturated breath, want and longing.
When his long, nimble fingers began to peel away her jacket, her brain jolted in thought. Feverish kisses that caressed her neck became irresistible and Audrey moaned in pleasure before pulling away.
Instantly, she knew he misread her action. She didn't only want that moment. She craved that moment with both of them.
She revealed that much when her and Duke returned from Colorado, forcing the two men to put aside their own issues. To learn each other's bodies as they were starting to learn hers.
(Time dissipates into the vast expanse of the unknown. The precipice that lingers between time and space, between time and memory grows shorter.)
Now, here they are.
No longer wearing a façade, she has exactly what she wants in the here and now.
Her pirate with a heart of gold (who makes the best damn coffee she's ever tasted) and her monosyllabic detective (who makes pancakes that taste like heaven).
Both slumber beside her, protecting her from the encroaching imminence of the inevitable.
"Nathan," she whispers. "Duke."
She has to tell them now.
"Mmm…" they both murmur, two pairs of eyes – one a dark, intriguing brown, the other a stormy blue – gaze up sleepily.
"I need you both to listen to me," she says, her voice low. She tries to keep it calm, not betraying any sense of desperation or anger or fear.
Her boys will see through that.
"What is it, Audrey?" Duke asks. He shifts to switch on the lap next to the bed the three of them occupy.
Gently, carefully, she cups one hand against Nathan's cheek, the other against Duke's.
"You're not following me into the Barn," she declares firmly. "Either of you."
Both stare at her as if she's just turned into a ghost or something far more disconcerting than the Troubles they've seen.
Nathan looks as though he's about to object, but where his words fail him, his fingers suddenly clench, nearly clawing at her abdomen.
"Sweetheart," Duke breathes. "Where is this coming from?"
"I need to do this on my own," Audrey states adamantly. "You both need to stay here and look after Haven until I return."
"Parker," Nathan finally speaks up. "That's-…"
"My only option," Audrey tells him. "I can't risk losing you both in that thing, even if you are protecting me."
Duke's eyes search Audrey's face, lamplight reflecting her determined features.
"Audrey, I-…" he starts to say, but she silences him with a passionate kiss.
When they break apart for oxygen, she quickly turns and kisses Nathan with equal passion and ardent fervor.
She will not lose them.
(Time barrels into her existence like a plague.)
She can still cling to them for a few precious hours as the clock ticks away (but only if she lets herself).
She can't lose them.
(Risks can be deceiving, but she follows her intuition.)
Hours pass and they stand beside her as meteors start to pelt the town, leaving irrevocable streaks of black in its wake. Kisses them one final time.
"I love you," she tells them. "Both of you."
(She goes in alone.)
NATHAN/DUKE
The six months that pass between the time Audrey steps into the Barn and the time she gets spit back out seem interminable.
Neither of them know when she will return (until the day that she finally does).
They do as she had asked. They take care of the town of Haven, a town still plagued by countless Troubles despite Audrey's disappearance.
(They take care of each other.)
But is that really enough?
It should be.
(It isn't.)
Some nights, Nathan saunters into Duke's bar after a long day. Duke places a beer in front of him without question.
Sweaty hand clenched around the beer, Nathan nods in Duke's direction before taking a long swig. He sits slouched against the bar tabletop, balanced precariously on the bar stool.
He's still far too many sips away from being drunk.
But when Duke joins him minutes later, bottles clicking together in desperate solidarity, in longing for the beautiful woman they both love to return to them, Nathan starts to feel better.
(By the end of the night, they're too far gone in drunken oblivion to care.)
Some nights, he wishes he could feel the heated friction between him and Duke as their bodies slide into each other, against each other.
Equal parts rage and pleasure course through him as Duke's lips move against his own, kissing him deep with reckless abandon.
Duke usually leads and, although Nathan doesn't mind, he finds himself awake in the twilight hours on the Cape Rouge wishing for her. Wishing she was there to complete their broken circuitry.
Some nights, the dark-haired smuggler moans against the detective's mouth when he comes. Then breaks off the kiss, panting heavily.
"Shit, Nate."
"What?" Nathan asks, but Duke knows better than to answer. Nathan's body answers for him, though he can't feel any of it.
Sighing, Duke buries his face in the crook of Nathan's neck and inhales the scent of him. He falls asleep entangled in the monosyllabic detective's embrace, praying to Buddha (or whatever higher power exists out there) for Audrey's safe return.
Nathan's snoring temporarily jolts Duke out of his sleepy reverie and he stifles a laugh when he realizes Nathan has probably done the same.
(Their dreams are always the same. A woman with beautiful blonde hair – face partially hidden – outstretches her hands on either side of her. Reaches for them. Both of them.)
They wake up the next morning (and many mornings after that) still entangled in each other.
LEXIE
For a bartender, Lexie DeWitt is a smart woman. After she finished high school with her GED, she took her beat up car for an impromptu tour around the country.
Traveling gave her street smarts. It gave her know how. It made her savvy.
She spent the majority of her time in Oakland, California, just trying to get by. She took a job as a bartender in a dingy part of the town, one that was rife with violence. She told herself she'd learn martial arts, self-defense. Something.
(She never did.)
She adapted well to the alternative lifestyle of Northern California, dying her pretty brown hair with a few blonde streaks, silver rings adorning her fingers and getting her nose re-pierced (the hole from her original piercing had closed by the end of her senior year in high school). Leather jackets became an everyday kind of comfortable and she then ended up with black lacquered fingernails. Hard drugs, particularly peyote, became especially appealing.
A part of her wished she could have gone to college. It was tempting to be surrounded by so many wonderful universities and not have the proper means or confidence to attend.
San Francisco State, Berkeley and Stanford were some of the many viable options she could've chosen.
But she chose a different life. A bartender's life. A bartender's life that led to moments of spontaneity and quick thinking.
(Audrey never doubts that for a second.)
Still, when she comes through the supernatural, multidimensional door of the crumbling Bar(n), she chooses to be Lexie.
To build up the intricacies of this young woman's backstory.
Puts up a façade.
(Isn't that what she's always done? To some extent? Who is she, really?)
It's too risky for Nathan and Duke to get hurt. It's too risky for the sake of the Guard, for the whole town.
She can't risk losing everyone (them). She can't bear to watch the suffering in those two sets of gorgeous eyes that stare back at her.
When she comes to in Haven, she's lying on grass kissed by the rays of sunlight and she can feel the bated breaths of both men, anxious in eager anticipation.
A calloused hand against her forehead, brushing her hair away. A solid, warm hand against her cheek, thumb stroking an indiscernible pattern across her skin.
Her boys.
These are her boys.
(She loves them more than anything.)
Nathan and Duke both help her sit up and before she realizes it, Nathan places a gun in her hand. He begs her to kill him.
Her eyes shift to Duke's and she notices his expression is serious yet unreadable.
"Nathan," he whispers, anger rising within him.
"Not now, Duke," he nearly growls, not looking at him.
His eyes never stray from the dazed woman sitting in front of him. He leans forward just then, kissing her passionately.
(One last time.)
Or so he thinks.
"Please. Please, Audrey."
Lexie (Audrey) looks deep into the stormy blue eyes she's always trusted.
"I'm not killing anyone," she declares. "And who's Audrey?"
She cocks her head in confusion.
"My name is Lexie."
Two pairs of eyes from the two men she loves go wide in horror.
(They've really lost her. She's gone.)
However, Duke breaks through her façade.
"I think that you knew that my curse would kick in and save me," he tells her just as she tries to brush past him outside the Grey Gull a few days later.
"Really. I don't know the first thing about it," Lexie admits as she starts to step away.
With his back to her, Duke replies calmly, "Audrey Parker would."
Lexie (Audrey) stops. Her eyes glaze over in contemplation. Thinking.
"Isn't that right… Audrey?"
It takes her another moment to let down her façade.
"Damn it, Duke," Audrey intones.
She turns around, studying him for a moment before moving in his direction.
Throwing her arms around him, she pulls him close and inhales the intoxicating aromas of bourbon and aftershave.
Both uniquely him.
"Yeah," she whispers, pulling him even closer. "It's me."
(He doesn't let her go.)
"Audrey," he whispers against the shell of her ear.
"It's me," she repeats again for confirmation. "I'm here."
(Does he really have to let her go?)
When he finally does, he holds her in a firm embrace as he studies the way the black eyeliner outlines her eyes, the way her hair falls against her shoulders.
"When are you going to tell Nathan?" he asks and he searches her eyes for an answer.
Her heart breaks for Nathan. For Duke.
She wants to tell Nathan the truth. She loves him (loves them).
It takes everything in her not to distract Duke with a passionate kiss and it's his embrace that keeps her grounded.
Keeps her in the here and now.
What will she tell him? When will she tell him?
How much longer can she keep up this façade?
(She has no answer.)
Fin.
Author's Note: Inspired by the AWESOME ending in Ep 4.05 "The New Girl," I wanted to do my own OT3 take on the whole thing. I did my best and obviously made up A LOT of Lexie's backstory. Reviews are always welcome and appreciated!