Chapter Disclaimer: Please read and understand this before going on: This story is rated M for a reason. That is all.
.
It was dark by the time I arrived on Seth's doorstep, and though my skin was icy, I was hot and panting. I had half-ridden, half ran to Brooklyn, and I could feel sweat accumulating on my scalp, tickling my skin.
I didn't know what I was doing here. It was crazy, reckless, and irredeemably stupid, but nonetheless, I was at the door.
I unbuttoned my coat and breathed a sigh of relief as the frigid hallway air rushed to my body. I looked down to grab Seth's key and was pulled up short when I caught sight of Seth's key and Ben's necklace, tangled together on my chest.
Well. That's just great. Really stupendous. Thank you, metaphor fairy, for visiting me again.
I pulled them apart and slipped Seth's key over my head, fitting it into the door, my hand shaking just slightly with nerves.
Opening the door, I stepped into the tenement. It was dim, with only a few candles—my cinnamon one included—lighting the dank room. Really, that tiny candle was no match for the smell of this place.
But as I stepped further into the room, my nose sensed a change. No longer was the room overpowered with the scent of human waste, but something else. A smell that was not sweet, or bitter, or anything, really.
But I knew that smell. I had come across it in the ward where I had said goodbye to my mother, a mask over my face.
My pulse quickened and I felt all my organs, muscles, and skin contract in fear as the hair on my arms and neck stood at attention.
I was standing, stiff and still, in the middle of the room when Seth came out from behind the curtain, looking as spooked as I felt.
He didn't look surprised to see me there, but he took in my body language and the expression on my face and nodded once.
I struggled to stay composed. I had not smelled death in the air since my mother had died, and even though I knew the woman in that room was not my mother, I was terrified.
"Is she…?" I said, my voice slightly strangled and dry.
He shook his head. "No, she…" he looked back to the curtain and gestured helplessly, and I knew it would be a matter of moments, possibly minutes, before his mother was dead in that bed.
I wanted to ask if he was okay, but that would have been absurd. Of course he wasn't. I knew that deep down, Seth held onto some hope that one day, his mother wouldn't resent him, that if he tried hard enough, she would show him, in some way, no matter how small, that she cared for him, loved him.
And now it was really too late. And nothing he had done for her since coming back had made any difference. Now was the time to admit that his mother would never, could never, love him.
I started to go to him, but he stalked away to the kitchen before I could reach him, filling a glass, so I stepped forward to stand a few feet away from the curtain. I could just barely hear shallow, rattling breathing that gave me goosebumps.
Seth passed by me with the glass of water, and when he passed through the curtain, I caught a glimpse, in no longer than the time it took to blink, of his mother lying in that bed. Her skin was pale and waxy in the candlelight, and her eyes looked blank and shrunken.
"Come on, Mama, you need to drink," I heard Seth murmur, and immediately, the tears I had come here to avoid welled up in my eyes.
"Leave me alone and let me die in peace, boy," she tried to snap, but it came out sounding choked and exhausted, and I closed my eyes, as though doing so would block out her voice, the senseless cruelty she bestowed upon her only child—and for what? For the father abandoning her? That was her reason for hating him, for neglecting him, for trying to kill him? She was dying, and he was trying to help her, and she still couldn't…
I felt such a rush of fierce protectiveness for Seth that all I wanted to do was march in there and lead him out. My muscles actually tensed in preparation for doing exactly that, but I managed, barely, to hold myself steady and wait.
If I pulled him out of there before he was ready to go, he would never forgive me. He had to let her go of his own accord.
"Please, Mama," he said softly, his voice desperate. I could almost hear his mind, his heart, begging for more time to make things right. But there was no time.
She said nothing more, and we all stood or laid or sat completely still, waiting. I wanted to sit, but was far too petrified to, so I stood there for over an hour, barely moving.
I felt it before I heard it. Some kind of change in the air pressure, and then—there it was: that final, rattling breath of death as the air escaped her lungs.
I stood there for a few minutes longer, hardly daring to breathe, my eyes wide and my ears cocked, listening. There was a rustle as Seth moved, shifted something, and then a muffled creaking as he leaned forward in his chair.
Moments later, he exited, dry-eyed and still avoiding my gaze, and put his coat on.
"Where are you going?" I asked, my voice cracking a little in alarm at being left there with her dead body.
"The restaurant down the street. They have a phone," he said, still not looking at me, focusing more intently than necessary on buttoning his coat. His voice sounded as though he had rocks in his throat, and made my chest clench. "The hospital told me to call the Fullerton funeral home. The arrangements are already made."
He walked out, and I stared after him in shock. Had he really, truly, just left me here in this shithole of an apartment with his mother's dead body? I know it's ridiculous to be afraid of a dead body, but I was. The sight of own mother's dead body in that bed, in that casket, lowered into the ground had forever instilled in me a horrible, paralyzing terror of dead people. Fear worked its way through my insides, and I let out a small whimper, feeling embarrassed, yes, but not too embarrassed to dispel my panic.
I moved and sat on the couch, curling into myself, my elbows on my thighs, hands curled at my mouth, staring at the curtain as though expecting it to move were I not vigilant. I suppose there were sounds, sounds of families in the other tenements going about their Christmas evenings (Oh, God, it was still Christmas) , but to me, it was silent, so quiet the complete lack of sound seemed to press in on my ears.
Seth must have waited for the funeral home outside, because it was over forty-five minutes before the door opened. I didn't move as Seth and three similar-looking brown-haired men, all in their thirties—brothers, I assumed—entered with grim faces, carrying a wood and canvas stretcher. They gave me what I guessed were sympathetic nods and disappeared with Seth behind the curtain.
A few minutes and a lot of rustling later, the curtain was pulled open, and two of the men exited the apartment with a sheet-covered lump on the stretcher. I watched it go with wide eyes, barely taking in the third man's instructions: when to finalize the details, the time of the service, the burial.
And then they were gone, and that was that. Seth leaned against the wall, his face turned toward the door where the men, and more importantly, his mother, had left.
My fear was lessening slightly, and I was trying as hard as humanly possible to not be livid that he had left me there for nearly an hour with a dead body, as even I knew that now would not be the best time to yell at him for that.
But he must have glanced over at me, at my wide, staring eyes and the tight coil of my body, my fingernails digging into my top lip as I struggled to relax my body, to breathe, to push down my absolute horror at being there with that body.
"Lydia?" he said finally, and his voice cracked a bit. Suddenly, he was at my side. "Hey, hey," he said, sounding a little frightened, pulling my stiff hands away from my face and moving so that he was in my field of vision. I licked my lip and felt the nail marks in it.
I tried to focus on him, and finally blinked, the world clearing in front of my face. He held my frozen hands in his and searched my face. Suddenly, his expression jolted with comprehension. "Oh, Jesus, Lydia," he murmured, pressing his forehead to mine. "I shouldn't have left you here alone."
I took a deep breath, willing myself to get a fucking grip, because he needed me more than I needed him. This was my moment to be the strong one, to be there for him, and I was letting fear make me fail.
"I'm fine," I said, trying to also convince myself. "It's fine; I'm fine," I said, my voice a tad shaky but not frantic.
He pressed his lips to my forehead for a long moment, and stood, looking around as though lost for a moment, looking for a brief flash like a tiny boy, before heading into his mother's bedroom. I saw him sit at the foot of her bed before he pulled the curtain closed yet again.
The silence that briefly followed was broken an instant later by a sharp, agonized exhale, and I didn't even have to steel myself before I flew to my feet and hurried forward, yanked the curtain open, and saw him there, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands clenched together before him, head bowed. I didn't hesitate as I grabbed hold of his forearms and pulled. He didn't fight me as I stood him up and led him quickly from the room.
One hand on his arm, the other on his back, I walked slightly behind him and steered him toward the couch. He sat, and the arm at his back immediately went about his shoulders as I sat next to him, still holding onto his arm.
I could feel his breath on my arm, hard and fast as he gasped for air. He still had not looked up when his breath sounds changed, and a tiny note of pain escaped his mouth as he started to cry. My stomach jumped and my chest compressed, as it always did when a man I had always viewed as infallible cried—and I was making them cry a lot these days.
In one motion, I pushed him back into the couch by his shoulders and pivoted, swinging a leg over him to straddle him, the only thing I could think of to get as close to him as possible as quickly as I could. His eyes were shut, his face—that striking face—twisted in pain. I sat on him, sliding myself into him, fitting our bodies together, and laid my hand gently on his face. He leaned his cheek into my hand, then turned to press his mouth to my palm, which, if you've never had done, will make your entire body hum, trust me—I actually squirmed a bit. When he turned his mouth away, I leaned forward to put my arms around his neck, cocooning his entire body in mine, stroking his soft, short hair.
His eyes were pressed into the curve of my neck, his mouth on my upper chest, open and wetting my dress. His arms curled up to clutch at my shoulders from behind, and he pulled me down, ever closer, pressing me even more firmly into him.
We stayed that way for a long time, and his body trembled as he finally, after all the years of abuse at the hands of his mother, allowed himself to let go, to put down, if only for a moment, the wall of grit and swagger he had built up around himself.
He was not loud. It was not the flamboyant crying of small children or hysterical women. His tears flowed freely, but the only sounds he made were the violent exhalation and inhalation or air, and the occasional, tiny whimper as the air rushed past his vocal chords. Each heartbreaking whimper made me hug him more tightly, wishing, somehow, that if I held him tightly enough, it would be alright.
He finally pulled away, his eyes wet and red, his nose running slightly, and I felt all sorts of damp liquid on my dress. I didn't care. I had thought only for the man whose firm body was beneath mine, who looked as though he had been strung up and tortured. He leaned his head against the back of the couch, closing his eyes, his arms sliding down my back and resting gently at the top of my backside.
I kept one arm behind his neck and freed my right hand to press it against his face. I smoothed his brow with my fingers, feeling his silky, sweaty skin under my fingertips. His eyes fluttered open, and he focused on me.
"It's over," he said finally, his voice wobbly.
"Yes," I said softly, soothingly. "It's over now."
He shook his head. "It was too late," he managed, clenching his eyes shut. "It was too fucking late to change anything."
I pursed my lips to keep from crying with him and cupped his cheek with my hand, feeling the warmth from his face melt into my cold skin. "It's not your fault," I said, my voice still hushed, but firm, final, and we both knew I was referring not to her death, but to her life, and the way she had lived it with her son.
"I should've been better," he whispered, and I felt outrage swoop through my stomach. This was unacceptable. In his grief, he was finally, after a lifetime of fighting not to, convincing himself that her treatment of him had been through some flaw of his own, and not hers.
"Seth, no," I breathed, and moved my hand cup the side of his neck and give him a gentle shake. He opened his eyes, and, as always, as from the very start, they stole my breath a little. They were so piercing, so intense, so brilliant.
But he would not be comforted. "I was too late. I'm always too goddamned late." He licked his lips and swallowed heavily, turning his head and staring off to the side. "I was too late for you, too. I waited too long." His voice was rising, gaining speed. "I waited too fucking long and now…" he trailed off, then looked back to me.
"Oh, baby," I whispered, and leaned down to press my lips to his cheek, savoring the slight scratch of his stubble. As I went to pull back, he turned his head, his lips so close to mine I could practically feel them already.
I looked down at those lips, and anticipation rose in my chest; I flicked my eyes back up to his. Something flashed there, and I felt that same light zip through my own, and then we were kissing, and he straightened on the couch.
My hands went to either side of his face, holding it to mine, and his hands tightened on my backside, pulling me into his body, pressing my pelvis into him. I felt a rush begin there and work up my body, and it felt slightly different than what I had felt with Ben.
With Ben, I had wanted him, had felt a curiosity, a need to know what it would be like.
With Seth, I wanted him, but there was no curiosity. There was simply, overwhelmingly, a deep need to find him again, to let him into me once more, to experience, once again, how he had made me feel when we had joined together.
His eyes were still wet, and I was pressing his tears onto my own face as we kissed fiercely, gripping and pulling and pushing at each other.
Then our hands were flying at each other's clothes, our mouths nipping at whatever piece of bare skin we could find. He worked his shoes and socks off with his feet, jostling me back and forth while I removed his shirt and was once again thunderstruck by his strength, by the splendor of his body. He lifted me up briefly to pull my dress over my head, untied my corset and removed it, allowing a gust of sweet oxygen to rush into my lungs. He pulled my chemise down and let it fall to my hips, taking in my bare torso, the skin there. He looked like a starving man as he ran both hands over my breasts and down my ribs, ending at my hip bones and kneading them, which made me cry out.
He flicked his eyes to me for a split second before pulling the chemise down over my body and legs, freeing me completely. I was nearly naked on top of him, only my thigh-high black stockings left, the garter fastenings hanging, as he had somehow managed to separate them from my corset, and my bare skin pressing into the fronts of his trousers was at once rough and strangely pleasurable. It didn't last long as he pressed his feet into the floor and lifted us both to yank them and his underclothes down and off, supporting my entire body with his arms, which rippled with the effort, and then, both suddenly and finally (for hadn't this been coming since the moment he had set foot back in the City?), I was lowering myself onto him.
I gasped sharply, a spasm jerking my body as a hot flood of pleasure ratcheted up my spine. Oh, God—I remember this. Seth's gasp was low, guttural, and he fixed his eyes on me, his expression dark and intense. My mouth was open slightly, and I looked down at him, my jaw tight.
"Seth…" I managed, and whether it was a plea or a declaration, I couldn't say, and he pulled me down, pushing himself deeper, and kissed me softly, both of us breathing the other in.
He guided my hips as I moved on top of him, and his hands were in every place that drove me insane as I supported myself with my hands at the back of his hot neck.
When we finished together, our bodies stuck together with perspiration as I arched my back and his fingers dug into my hips, arms straining as he pulled me to him.
I collapsed forward, laying my forehead on his shoulder, and he pressed his into mine as we both tried to catch our breath. He kissed my bare, flaming skin, and I sat up slowly, feeling a bit lightheaded. I did not want to move, didn't want to break the joining of our bodies, not after so long without it.
I kissed his eyelids, his temple, cheekbone, and then kissed his lips lingeringly.
He maneuvered me so we were pressed together, on our sides on the couch, lying vertical. He held me to him to keep me from toppling right off onto the floor, and this time, the foreplay was slow, lazy, all gently caresses.
I peeked my eyes open and watched him as he kissed the skin at my collarbone. His mouth was soft, his eyes closed, eyelashes resting on his cheek. He was more beautiful than I'd ever seen him look, content for the first time since he had returned.
He moved so I was on my back, and moved slowly on top of me, stroking in and out of me so slowly it was torturous. It took longer, this time, for either of us to finish, but we weren't hurrying. As me moved together, we both kept our eyes open, drinking each other in.
When he came, his face tightened, and every gorgeous muscle in his impressive body tensed. I ran my fingers up his abdomen quickly, feeling the contours of his muscles, and he bucked, curling his body in before pressing his weight into me and covering my own sighs and moans with his mouth.
Afterward, we finally disentangled ourselves and both dressed, me in some of his clothes, which, while years ago would have fit me perfectly, were now far too large. I rolled the waist of a pair of deep gray trousers and the sleeves of a white undershirt while he pulled on navy flannel pajama pants. And nothing else.
His thick torso was bare, tan, perfect, with just a slight covering of blonde hair.
I was just starting to feel awkward and wondering what in the hell to do next when he took my hand and led me to the couch, where he led me to lie down against the back, and then stretched himself out next to me.
"Please stay with me," he whispered, tracing my face with his fingers, and I nodded without even considering the alternative. Regardless of whether or not we'd wound up having sex, there was no way I would leave him tonight. Not alone; not in this apartment.
And here, I could sleep with his warm body next to me. I wouldn't have to stick him on the couch in my own living room and force us both to sleep all alone. I didn't think it was wrong of me to assume that alone, he would lie awake all night long.
"I love you," he murmured, and kissed me softly, his fingers just grazing my chin.
"I love you, too," I said, automatically, the words exiting my mouth of their own accord, and didn't even wonder whether it was wrong to say, or what it possibly meant for our future.
I knew three things for certain: One, he loved me. He was as flawed as I was, made horrible mistakes just like I did, but he loved me, and on some level, I had always known that—wasn't that the reason, after all, that I had been waiting for him? Two, he needed me. He could not spend tonight alone, not when he seemed to be always on the verge of tears, broken in some terrible way by the death of his mother, the woman he could never reach.
And three, I loved him. It was as yet unclear if I loved only him, but the fact remained that I loved him.
He looked into my eyes, perhaps reading all those thoughts in them, and slid an arm under my neck, using the other arm to yank a quilt from the back of the couch before pulling me to him.
I snuggled into him, my arms tucked against my body, the backs of my hands against his chest, and hooked a leg over both of his.
"Thank you," he whispered, and fell quickly into an exhausted sleep.
I watched him sleep for what felt like hours, watching how, even in sleep, his facial muscles were tight, how his brow furrowed occasionally as he walked through dreams, before I burrowed closer to him, my temple pressing into the hollow of his neck, tucked safely under his chin, and fell asleep myself.
