A/N: Thank you so much to Ravenclaw992, CeliaSingsSongs, Just-Me-and-My-Brain, Just Look in the Mirror, KorroksApostle, Jessie, Graciepkg, Songs That Serenade7, Guest, Ellarose181, AnimeManga Lover 65, and Guest for your lovely reviews. I'm so sorry this update took so long to publish, but I hope you enjoy it! :)

Scythe

Chapter Fourteen

/

"Here," Lydia said. "What about a star?"

I looked at it and then took it from her, but as I stared at it, it seemed like a tricky shape to manoeuvre. I shrugged. "I dunno," I said. "To me that says too much like my pussy's the star, y'know?"

Lydia took the stencil from me and hung it back up where she found it. "I think that's kinda the point, but whatever..." she looked, and then she picked out another one and showed it to me. "Maybe a lightning bolt?"

I knew that was a common shape, but I could never figure out why. I shook my head. "There's nothing sexy about that."

She replaced it, and pointed at another one without bothering to pick it up. "Lucky clover?"

"What," I said with a laugh, and then I elbowed her playfully. "As in look at me, I'm getting lucky?"

Lydia rolled her eyes. "God, Hanna, will you just pick one so we can get out of here already?"

The philosophy major had somewhat begrudgingly agreed to come with me to our local sex-shop on her lunch after I'd told her about my idea to surprise Dean by shaving my pubic hair into a fun shape. The selection was surprisingly good, but it also made it kind of difficult to choose, and I could see that Lydia was feeling uncomfortable because some of the shop's creepier patrons were looking at us curiously from where they stood amongst the video shelves.

I shrugged. "I want it to make an impression."

"Y'know Dean's only gonna see it for maybe a minute and then he's not gonna care," she said.

"He's just been under so much stress lately," I said, thinking about how the pregnancy scare had really taken a toll on him; he came home everyday after class looking completely wiped out, yet he still managed to smile, and he still managed to engulf me in his arms. I wanted to do something for him that showed him how grateful I was to have him, especially due to our recent problems. "He's just been kind of depressed, so I wanna do something nice for him."

Lydia shrugged. "Shaving your pubes into a shape might not be what he's looking for."

"Yeah," and looked at her with a smile. "But he won't be expecting it either."

She curled her nose. "Let's hope not."

I spotted a heart stencil and pulled it off the hanger to examine it. I smiled; I don't know why I didn't think of it in the first place. "Here, a heart," I said, showing Lydia the stencil. "Something that says I love you, but I really love when you go down on me."

She frowned at me. "How often does he do that?"

I shrugged as I turned to go towards the cashier so I could pay for the stencil. "Fairly often, y'know how it is..." I said, looking at her over my shoulder. "He likes it, what can I say?"

Lydia rolled her eyes, but she waited, appropriately, until the stencil was bought and paid for and we were halfway out the door when she said it. "I'm going to have to drop his class next semester. I know way more about him than I should."

I tucked the stencil and the receipt into my purse, swung it over my shoulder, and grinned at her as we began our walk back to campus. "You never know, it might someday work to your advantage."

"Oh, yeah right, blackmail," she said as we slowed to a lazy walk, side by side on the sidewalk. "Dr. Roberts, I really think you should reconsider this B minus you gave me, y'see...I know you eat Hanna out on a regular basis and the dean of students wouldn't be impressed."

I laughed, even though her tone was way less than enthused. "Whatever, like he'd ever give you a B minus," and I watched her smile because I knew it was true; he was one of her favourite professors and he thought she was brilliant, always gave her great marks. I checked my watch and frowned. "I know we were gonna get coffee, but we should head back to school, I've got session with Crane today and I don't wanna be late."

Lydia made a delighted sound in her throat. "Mmm, speaking of being eaten out..."

I grimaced painfully and smacked her. "Thanks a lot, that's all I'm gonna be able to think about while we're talking."

She had a look on her face that told me she was daydreaming the scenario right at that moment. "The man's got the most perfect mouth for it, y'know what I mean? You know what I mean, those plush lips...and imagine those big blue eyes staring up at you the whole time..."

"Gawd, stop it, you're gonna make me sick," I laughed, and she bit down on her tongue and grinned at me. "I'm starting to think you could benefit from a little bit of therapy."

"Ohhh yeah," she said. "Dr. Crane Tongue Therapy."

I shook my head, though I couldn't help the giggles. It seemed like a long time since we'd talked like this, like girlfriends, just like usual, and it felt like forever since I'd laughed in such a way. It felt awesome, it felt like things were starting to return to normal...or at least as normal as things could be after everything that had happened. I linked my arm in hers as the campus came into view at the end of the street. "I'll lend you the stencil when I'm done with it."

/

It wasn't hard to see where Lydia was coming from, to be brutally honest. I sat in The Chair and watched Dr. Crane across the room, rummaging through papers on his desk. I remembered our first few sessions, when I was so taken aback by his beauty that I had a hard time maintaining eye contact with him without my face going beet red. If he ever noticed, he didn't show it, though it occurred to me that it was something he encountered a lot in his work: students too attracted to him to give their therapy the concentration it needed. Maybe that was why he was so exasperated all the time.

And yet his mood seemed considerably brighter. He'd managed half a smile when he let me in and asked if I wanted tea, since he already had the kettle boiling. The air in the office seemed to be far more relaxed, for whatever reason; as I nestled back into the comfort of The Chair, I thought about our breakthrough last session and just how big of an impact it seemed to have made.

"Hanna," Dr. Crane said, breaking my train of thought as he held out the little Chinese teacup for me to take. I took it in both hands and gave him a smile, taking a careful sip as he rounded the coffee table and sat down across from me, sipping his own tea before setting the teacup down in front of him.

"So," he said, cradling his hands in his lap. "How have things been?"

I immediately thought of telling him about the pubic hair stencil stashed in my purse and asking his opinion about what shape men considered the sexiest; I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before, to ask a man's opinion. But I swallowed it down, along with a second sip of tea, and I shrugged. "Well, something kinda happened after last session..."

He tilted his head slightly but said nothing, waiting for me to continue.

I cleared my throat; I was suddenly very interested to hear his thoughts on this one. "Dean accidentally found the box that the pregnancy test came in."

He made an interested sound in his throat, halfway between a laugh and a groan. "And how did he react?"

I shook my head. I didn't even like to think about it, though I knew it was important to bring up. "He freaked, he totally reamed me out. He was shouting and pacing around the kitchen-"

"Really?" Dr. Crane asked, frowning slightly.

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "And when I got him calmed down and told him I wasn't pregnant, he told me that he reacted that way because he...doesn't want kids. At all."

Dr. Crane had a contemplative look on his face, as though he was having a hard time picturing the argument, but he didn't say anything. He was waiting for me to follow up with my own thoughts. So I shrugged. "He told me that he loves me, that he loves us," and it made me smile a little. "But he doesn't want kids, ever."

"Is that not something he made clear in the first stages of your relationship?" Dr. Crane asked, cradling the side of his face with his fingers.

I thought about it but then shook my head. "I don't think it ever came up...I didn't really expect it to, since I didn't expect this to turn into anything more than...y'know," I was suddenly embarrassed to say it in front of him, even though it'd been the root of my therapy since our second session. "Sexual."

"Hmm," he nodded, and then he looked away for a moment as though he trying to figure out what was to be asked next. "How do you feel about this?"

I took in a breath and set the Chinese teacup on the table in front of me, sat back and crossed my arms. "I don't really know, to be honest with you...I was upset at first. He treated the possibility of being pregnant like it was some sort of terminal disease. And when I told him I wasn't, he was so relieved..."

This obviously piqued his interest. "What do you think would have happened if you were pregnant?"

I looked at him seriously, because I think he knew the answer to that, but when I looked into his eyes, I knew why he asked it; he knew I'd been asking myself the same question, that it'd been rolling around inside of my head, unasked and unanswered. Now was a chance to get it out and address it. And yet I didn't have a definitive answer. "I don't know. I don't know if he would have left me or stayed...given his reaction, I don't know if I would've kept it. Scares the hell outta me, just thinking about it."

It had kept me up that night, much as I hated to admit it. We had insane sex following the whole thing; it was difficult to keep the libido at bay after hearing that the professor loved me. But after Dean had fallen asleep and I'd wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water, the whole scene played out in my head, and I wondered what he would have done if I actually had been pregnant.

"What about your own reaction?" Dr. Crane asked. "Taking Dr. Roberts out of the picture, what would you have done?"

I shook my head; that was even harder because I really didn't know what I would have done in that case. "I have no idea. If he hadn't found the box, I think I might've kept it from him for as long as I could."

He narrowed his eyes to me suddenly, as though he'd just heard something he thought was very interesting. He shifted in his seat, leaning forward just a little. "Where did he find the box?"

"In the garbage," I said, and then I rolled my eyes. "It was such a stupid mistake on my part. I buried it under a ton of crap, but I should have taken it...I dunno, down the street and thrown it out in the nearest garbage can. Taken it to school, even, thrown it out there, where he never would have found it."

"Hanna," he said. "Have you considered the possibility that you wanted him to find it?"

I stared at him, dumbfounded, but the question caught me off guard. Of course I hadn't wanted him to find it, I knew he would've reacted badly if he did - just like he did - and that's why I hid it under as much garbage as I did, though obviously it wasn't enough...

But then again when he did find it, I'd known immediately that I shouldn't have left it in the house at all, that I should have thrown it out at a completely disclosed location. Why hadn't I done that? The relief I'd felt with the negative test didn't warrant that kind of laziness and lack of foresight.

Perhaps I had wanted him to find it, on a subconscious level. I wanted to know where he stood on the matter, once and for all, and now I did.

"Wow..." I said, and rubbed my face with my hand. "That kind of explains everything..."

He eased a little smile. "Sometimes we don't know what we want or what we need until the mind reminds us, even if we're unaware of it."

"Apparently."

"So this happened after our session from the other day..." he said, looking over his notes. "So how have things been since then?"

I wanted to tell him that if I wasn't pregnant then, I probably was now, given the amount of sex we'd had between then and now, it seemed totally possible. But I didn't feel like being crude. "Really great. I mean, it pays to know where we stand on these kinds of issues. I don't know why we never talked about it before."

He shrugged his shoulders a little. "In relationships of a purely sexual nature, those kinds of expectations can be purposely overlooked."

"Yeah, but even when we started living together, you'd figure we would have had some kind of conversation about it," I said, thinking back on it.

When I moved in with him, Dean had his few nit-picky house rules: he didn't want students at his place, Lydia being an obvious exception because she was my best friend. I was not to touch his Corn-Pops cereal or the jalapeño cheezies he kept in the pantry, didn't matter if I was starving. He had the place looking the way he wanted, he didn't want any girly shit anywhere, which suited me fine because I loved the place the way it was, it was small but had a real sophisticated look to it, and I had no inclination whatsoever to change anything, nor would I have presumed to change anything. He liked his sleep and he liked his super long showers and he liked to sing while he showered and that was all just fine with me, so long as I was with him, it didn't matter. And although there were a few things that would have irritated me if it had been any other person, they didn't irritate me because it was Dean, and I loved him, and every day I woke up in his bed and wondered what I'd done to ever get so lucky.

But it had never really gone beyond house rules. We never had the no-babies talk because it just wasn't on our minds, just like marriage. We liked things the way they were, they were perfect the way they were. But of course it was inevitable that something would come along and put a test to it, to all of it. It was only a matter of time.

"But you've talked about it now?" Dr. Crane asked.

I nodded. "We have. He says he loves us, and I love us. That's all we need."

Dr. Crane nodded, and though there was a hint of a pleased smile on his lips, there was something glinting in his eyes, something like irritation, like somewhere in the back of his mind, he was quietly spitting fuck!

/

Later that night, I opened the bathroom door to come into the bedroom and stared at Dean as he sat up in bed, shirtless, with his thick-framed reading glasses on, going through what looked like a student paper with a very exhausted look on his face. I tried to smile, but all I could do was stand there awkwardly, holding the folds of my lilac bathrobe together, while my crotch itched like crazy and my face went red.

After awhile he realized I wasn't coming to bed and looked up at me, frowning. "What's wrong?"

I made a face. "I did something kinda stupid."

He set down the paper he'd been reading in his lap and beckoned me over with the wave of his hand. I swallowed and went towards the bed, standing at the side while he looked me up and down, as though looking for something physically wrong. "What is it?"

I took in a deep breath and held it, trying not to smile. "I'll show you, but you have to promise you won't laugh."

He smiled a little then, looking so exhausted it was as if he couldn't laugh, not even if he wanted to. "Okay, I won't."

"Promise!" I said, pointing a finger at him threateningly, and when he put up his hands as if to say Scouts honour, I untied my robe and took it off. His eyes looked me over for a second until they were drawn immediately to the blotch of misshapen pubic hair standing out against my otherwise bare mound. He blinked rapidly, not able to look away, and after a moment he took his glasses off and leaned closer to give it fuller inspection. "It's supposed to be a heart."

I watched him smile a little, and then he reached forward and touched it with his fingertip, tracing a heart around it. "Well, it kinda does look like a heart."

It didn't. I groaned. "I got the idea from Cosmo; they said it was super easy, bur it wasn't."

He looked up at me finally, and he gave me the biggest, happiest smile, the smile that made him so attractive I could barely stand it. He chuckled a little. "What inspired this?"

I laughed, completely unable to help it, and I pressed a hand over my eyes. "I don't know, it looked like fun and I thought you'd like it."

Dean looked up at me after giving it further inspection, and his smile was gone, but I recognized the look in his eyes. He reached forward to wrap his hand around my forearm and gently pulled, and as I climbed up onto the bed, he sat up straight and pulled me into his lap so that I straddled his hips, grinning madly the entire time. He continued to stare at my pubic hair in awe and brushed it once more with his fingertips. "That's the sexiest thing I've ever seen."

I laughed. "Oh, shut up," I said, smacking his shoulder. "I know I botched it, you don't have to make so much fun."

"I'm not," he said quite seriously, looking up at me with his eyes shining. "It's perfect."

"You're such a liar," I said, giggling as I leaned down to kiss him.

He kissed me back, softly at first, and swept his fingers over my shoulder, marvelling at the soft coolness of my freshly-lotioned skin. He broke the kiss and pressed his face against my chest, taking in a deep breath, and as his arms wrapped around me, I started to curl his dark hair in-between my fingers.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

He sighed and closed his eyes. "I'm happy."

I swear in that moment I could have started sobbing. I was happy too.

/