A/N: WARNING: this chapter has M CONTENT

Also a large time skip.

Fucking Gravity

Chapter 24

The cold in Forks is so deep, sometimes, that it reaches deep into your bones and leaves you as a semi-mobile ice sculpture. Today should be one of those days, but I don't feel it quite like normal. I feel warm- happy- as I walk down the deserted street hand in hand with Leah after exchanging Christmas gifts.

We have no destination in mind, and it's getting dark, but I don't entirely care. I feel good. I can breathe without pain, I can twist without a wince, and Leah's arm keeps brushing up against mine every swayed step.

"I got my acceptance letter," Leah says, breath gusting in a visible cloud past her lips. I don't try to hide my stare. There's no point in it.

"That's great!" I grin. I got my own acceptance into Berkley almost two weeks ago, and I have been slightly nervous that Leah hadn't gotten hers yet. "Did you text Jason?"

"Not yet. Wanted to tell you first," she bumps up against me more deliberately this time, and then catches me as I almost slip on the ice. It's pretty much an unsaid agreement that we're both going to go to Berkley next year. I ignore the fact that I hadn't yet sent in my acceptance on the chance that Leah didn't get in.

Things have been better between us. It feels… normal. Easy again. Maybe time was all that was needed to relearn this feeling drumming in my chest.

The future feels so close I can hardly stand it.

We draw to a stop as we reach the end of the street- forest stretching out beyond. We might go further if there wasn't a foot of snow on the ground and already losing the last pink strip of daylight.

I don't want to go home just yet, but I know it's getting close to the time my dad demanded I be home by. We are supposed to have Christmas Eve dinner together, and it's been almost a month since the last time I drew his explosive ire.

Leah pulls my attention as she points up, eyes sparkling.

"Look, mistletoe."

I follow her finger to a small sprig in the shadow of branches. I've grown accustomed to the sight of mistletoe, though, (and dodging it) because the pack thinks it's funny toting it around and putting it up in the most random of places.

"You need your eyes checked, Wolf-Girl," I snort, lowering my gaze from the tree. "That's holly-"

Warm lips collide with mine, and I eagerly fall into it, eyes sliding shut without fight. I've been aching for this again. This feeling. My heart is in my throat and it's an entirely good and welcome sensation as I cling to Leah's shoulders, press myself closer, lose myself in her.

She's so warm warmwarm, that the cold and snow is the furthest thing from my mind. Especially with her unnaturally hot mouth on my neck and those furnace-like hands sliding under my jacket.

My alarm goes off, jolting me out of the haze Leah's kisses have put me in, and I reluctantly draw away to pull out my phone. It's the alarm telling me I need to head home if I want to be on time for dinner.

I bite my already kiss swollen lip before glancing over at my maybe-kinda-never-really stopped-being girlfriend. I'm starting to think it's no use labeling us.

She offers a little, lopsided, smile of understanding.

"Come on," she says. "I'll walk you home."

I can't resist yanking her down by her collar for one last lingering kiss. "Okay," I breathe. "Let's go."

I'll have to update Kim on this tomorrow.

Spending Christmas with Jared is odd. Different. It's always just been me and dad, and Kim and her mom. It's tradition. I suppose I should get used to traditions changing. Change is good- I know this. Still, it's a bit weird that Jared is joining us.

Instead of escaping up to Kim's room like we normally do, we all sit around the kitchen as Ms. Connweller cooks, and the adults get to know the boyfriend.

It's just before dinner is ready when my dad gets a call. He frowns deeply at his phone before answering it with I sigh. I watch him wearily.

"Hello…? You do know it's Christmas- we're closed… Really..? Alright then, what's the address?" He hangs up after that, looking apologetic and a bit irritated. "Well, I'm sorry to say, but that was someone on the side of the road looking for a tow. I'm going to have to go."

"Oh, no, are you sure?" Ms. Connweller asks, looking devastated.

"Sorry, Denise, no one else would come out."

"I can go," I say slowly, wondering if this would ease the man's irritation or make it worse. A wrinkle in his brow smooths, and I relax.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, why not?" I say more confidently. "I'll go pick up the guy, fix his car, and be back before dinner's over." I need a break anyway.

"Alright." He hands over his keys without any more fight. "I'll text you the address."

I find the guy ten minutes off the rez, halfway into town. He was on his way home from a business trip (his flight kept getting delayed) when his car broke down. Since he almost made it anyway, I go ahead and drive him home before telling the father of three to just pick his car up tomorrow.

The shop is dark and lonely when I pull up to it- the headlights of dad's truck throwing the metal doors into sharp light and deeper shadows. They rattle and groan as they open, letting in all of the winter cold in the few short seconds it takes me to pull in and hit the button to close them again.

It's not likely I'll get back before the end of dinner, but I'm not hungry anyway. I've been feeling a million miles away all night anyway. My mind is stuck on the night before, with Leah, and finally kissing her again. It finally feels like we're back on track- we're back where we're supposed to be.

I'm so lost in my thoughts that I don't even notice the other person in the garage. Not until I climb out of the truck and practically body check her.

"Fuck!" I curse, heart in my throat for a few seconds while I try to catch myself. "Leah! How did you get in here?! Why are you here?"

Leah laughs, those warm hands I was daydreaming about, not too long ago, steadying me.

"I missed you," she says, grinning. "And the spy tech I put on you phone told me you'd be here."

"Kim texted you."

"Kim texted me."

I repress a smile. "And how did you get in here?"

"Picked the lock- duh."

"You shouldn't be here," I snort, but make no move to pull out of her arms. They feel nice, and warm, and I've been thinking about them all night. "I have to work."

"Do you, though? It's Christmas," she challenges, coaxing me closer until my front is pressed flush to hers and the garage is no longer cold.

"I- um," I stutter, losing my train of thought as she slowly dips her head, gold-flecked eyes locked on my lips. I just manage to turn my face before they meet, but she's undeterred as she kisses the corner of my mouth and flutters kisses over the side of my face presented to her.

"We can't do this in here," I whisper.

"We have time," she murmurs back, dragging her lips along my jaw and back up to my lips. Her hands warm me further, settled low on my hips, thumbs digging into the natural indents there.

"We can't," I whimper just as she finally kisses me fully- and I decide, maybe, just one kiss. Just one kiss won't get us caught, just one kiss will be enough, just one kiss and then I can firm my resolve and get back to work.

Just one kiss turns into two, then three, and then I lose track of counting completely.

Leah lifts me off my feet, and my legs immediately loop around her. My butt lands on the hood of the finished restoration of the 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air I'm not allowed to touch, and I tug her into me by her hair.

This is all I've been dreaming about the past few weeks.

Her tongue pushes past my willing lips and plunders my mouth so thoroughly that all the air in my lungs is dragged away. I heave for breath as she bites sharply along my chin and jaw, pushing the straps of my coveralls from my shoulders.

"Leah," I whimper, "We can't do this here." That one thought flutters, annoyingly, just in the peripheral of my thoughts.

"Then tell me to stop," she growls, a husk to her voice so attractive I can feel it in my core. I grasp at her jaw, yanking her mouth back to mine- shoving the warning away so I can just focus on here, now, in this moment. My other hand hooks in her belt loop, tugging her closer, always closer- having her crawl under my skin wouldn't be close enough.

A guttural moan escapes as she grasps at my thighs and presses me further into the car.

We should stop, I know we should stop, but then I can't think at all past Leah and what she can so easily do to me- can't think past this want. I've never wanted like this before, never felt so- so- exuberantly overwhelmed by anything.

Is this normal? Is this what normal, hormonal, teenagers feel? This heady, insistent, mindlessness?

All that exists is Leah, Leah, Leah- her smell, her hands on me, so hot that sweat condenses on the back of my neck, the taste of her tongue (she had some sort of sweet desert before coming here) as it expertly dominates mine, the agonizing, icky, sticky, feeling in my underwear that only worsens the more she makes those slow grinding circles with her hips.

"Fuck," I whimper against her lips, gasping, gasping, for air that just won't fill my lungs- I think I might be hyperventilating, but I don't want this to end. "What are you doing to me?" Any movement I make does nothing to help the situation, but I can't stop myself from squirming against her, clinging to her belt loops- seeking her hips, and trying to pull them closer.

Closer.

Closer to the precipice of something indescribable.

Close, close, close, "It's okay, baby; you're okay."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, don't stop-"

"-What the fuck." And then a voice. A voice not belonging to Leah.

"Shit-" Leah abruptly rips herself away, and for a moment, I feel like I might cry. Then reality comes crashing down, cold and tremulous like an avalanche, as the deeper, angry, snarl registers through the hazy fog in my brain.

"Dad!" I rasp, feeling like the world is crashing down around me as I scramble down off the hood of his car. He stands suspended in the light of the open door, the snow pouring in from outside, hitting his back and pooling in the floor as it melts.

In a distant, detached, part of my brain, I think that I'll have to be the one to clean it up.

He slams the door, cutting off the sudden snow storm outside from the one about to happen in here. The sound echoes through the empty garage, echoes through my skull and my bones like a prophecy of what's about to come.

"A fucking dyke," he hisses, storming closer in so much anger, I'm surprised sparks don't fly from his skin. "Are you kidding me?"

I back up quick, putting distance between me and Leah like the distance between us, now, can erase the knowledge of what he walked in on. But the evidence is in my throbbing lips, the rapidly cooling sweat on the back of my neck, the wet discomfort between my legs that doesn't magically disappear as I retreat.

But he keeps bearing down, steps taking up twice the distance mine do. "Your mother would be so fucking disappointed in you." I wouldn't know if that's true or not. It doesn't matter what a dead woman would think, though- only what he does, here, right now.

He reaches out for me, and I flinch hard, bouncing off another vehicle- the one I was supposed to fix before going back.

Leah shouts out a, "Hey!" in protest, but he only snags me by the back of the neck in a steal grip and wheels me around to face her.

"Tell her how much of a whore she is. Tell her she's disgusting," he hisses in my ear, breath hot. It has a very different effect to my body than when it was Leah breathing on my neck.

"What- no!" I yelp, straining away.

"Tell her!" he screams, spit landing on my face. "Tell her she's a whore and I might forgive you for being such a disgrace to my name."

Fear isn't a stranger to me. It's nearly constant in the back of my head, always whispering in my ear. Sometimes I can ignore it. Tune it out. Sometimes the volume raises to a scream, paralyzing me.

Inescapable tears start making tracks down my cheeks as he shakes me. I don't bother trying to see past them- I don't want to see. But then I blink and they fall faster and I can make out Leah's tense form several yards away.

"Y-you're a," my voice breaks off. "No, I can't." Leah would understand if I said it. She knows how I really feel, knows why I would say it, but…

He shakes me again, his hand biting down so hard- fingertips digging into pressure points in my neck- that I have to resist crying out.

Leah doesn't. "Let her go, you asshole!" Her fists tremble at her sides, and they shake so violently, her shoulders shake too. Her entire body is trembling, which is indicative of her ensuing shift.

"Leah, don't. Please," I croak out, a pressure building, building, building behind my eyes, in the back of my throat.

"You disgust me," he snarls, and I don't know who it's directed toward. "Tell her."

Leah's eyes are wild as they look at me, plead with me, to just stand up for myself- or maybe to let her stand up for me. But all I can do is sob out over and over again, to both of them, "I can't- I can't."

He suddenly lets me go, and blind panic consumes me as he moves toward her in a way that I recognize. If I were in my right mind, I would realize that he can't really hurt her- that she wouldn't let him (not like me). But my thoughts are scattered.

That screaming fear has a shadow hand wrapped around my throat.

"Wait- please!" I fall to the ground in a hysterical pile.

He looks back at me with dark eyes, and I know what he wants, so I look back toward my girlfriend and choke out a broken, "You're a wh-whore."

Her eyes burn through me- the golden flakes like miniature suns- as if saying 'it's okay. It's okay; I know you don't mean it.'

"And you never want to see her again," my dad coaches.

"And," a sob wrenches out of me, "And I never want to see you again." Then it's like all my emotions abruptly cut off, leaving tears on my cheeks, but my body is empty.

"Now leave," he snarls at her, pointing toward the door he came storming through.

"No," she says, planting her feet and squaring up, as if she's bracing for a tackle and is ready to stand her ground.

"Excuse me," he asks lowly. It's his warning voice- the one where every utterance is a caution for danger. Even with it not being directed at me (maybe especially because it's not directed at me), every hair on my body stands on end. Leah doesn't heed the threat.

"I said, no."

"Leah, please just go," I say weakly. Despite his promises of forgiveness if I said those awful words, I'm not so illusioned to believe I'd get away without punishment. And it's going to be a big one.

"I'm not leaving you alone with him," she growls, voice rising in pitch, as if she's offended by the mere suggestion coming from me.

"Just go," I plead now. Even without him saying a word, I can feel his patience thinning, his rage mounting. "You'll only make it worse."

"I'm not leaving you," she says again, firmly. Resolute.

"Then you can watch," he hisses, spinning and lashing out with his foot. It happens so fast that I don't get a chance to brace before the tip of his foot catches me in the face.

My head snaps to the side, and I black out.

For a few seconds. I come to with a churning nauseous pit in my stomach and a spinning world decorated in black stars. Half of my face feels a mix between hot and numb, and so much blood tries to crawl down my throat that I have to spit it out, but the metallic taste lingers on my tongue that feels too big for my mouth.

Sound returns to me the slowest, but when it does, it sounds far away and muffled, and I wince, looking up.

Leah is between me and my father, and he's screaming at her as she alternates between staring down the man and glancing back at me.

The scene doesn't entirely make sense, there's something unequivocally wrong with it, but I can't put my finger on it. It's on one of Leah's glances at me that my father snaps and lunges at her, swinging with all his anger.

They grapple, and it looks messy and silly and entirely not right. I somehow find Leah's eyes and she stares at me steadily as her entire body quakes.

"I'm sorry," she says, and I hear it with entire clarity, "but I am in control."

Then she punches him across the face. And I can't even blame her.

He drops like a stone, crumbling into a motionless, unconscious, pile.

Leah turns her back completely on him, clothes rumpled but entirely unharmed as she crouches down beside me.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she murmurs, petting my hair, and everything once again goes black.


A/N:... Sorry?

~Silver~