Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

April had really taken to bounty hunting.

Bowser, Blair, and Sterling all found it rather hard to deal with.

~~~

It started like this:

“Hey Sterling, do you think you could call that scary girlfriend of yours? We aren’t making any leeway.”

The three of them had spent the last three hours in the office of Yogurtopia trying to track down their latest skip, and hadn’t found a single useful bit of info they could use. When Bowser had called the girls in to go after a guy who had been arrested for running a corrupt pyramid scheme (well, more corrupt than usual), Sterling and Blair thought it would be your usual track and hunt down without much of a fight. However, phone number, credit card, and address had turned up nothing.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Sterling said at the same time Blair whined “please do not I’m already suffering enough.”

Bowser shot them both a look that screamed I am tired of you two because we have been here for hours with your constant chatter and we are no further ahead than we were when we started.

“We have been in this room for hours, we are no further ahead than when we started, and I know way more personal details about two sixteen year olds than I ever wanted to know. If we don’t have something before we lock up, I am cutting you guys off for a week so I don’t have to hear your little voices. I want to know where this skip is, and by god that kid can find anything.”

Blair loudly complained as Sterling stood up. She heckled Sterling over using any excuse to talk to the other girl as she walked out of the room. Even standing by the front door searching through her contacts Sterling could hear Blair comment on how bounty hunting was a sacred twin thing, how it was bad enough April knew, and how Sterling was about to betray their bond. It sounded like Bowser hit Blair with a file at the last one. Sterling put the phone to her ear and listened to the ringing.

“Sterling?” April said in absence of a greeting. She sounded confused. It wasn’t as if Sterling had called April all that often since the lock-in, and that had been months ago. As much as Sterling longed to hear the other girls voice sometimes, their relationship was still fragile. She wasn’t going to push her luck.

“Hey,” Sterling said, breathing a sigh of relief that April had picked up the phone. “Are you doing anything right now?”

“Yes, I am doing the functions homework because I am not a slacker,” April replied, which reminded Sterling they had homework for functions that she will have to complete before the start of school the next morning. “Your prolonged silence indicates you haven’t done the homework.”

“I’ve been at work since school ended,” Sterling explained. “Speaking of, do you mind coming over? Bowser asked if you could come help us with some research.”

April pauses. “You...you want me to come help with bounty hunting?”

“I guess?” Sterling says. She’s rather confused by this request herself, mainly because the feelings it unearthed were so mysterifying. She simultaneously craved April in this space, while not knowing what to do with herself should it happen. “Bowser asked since we have been working on it for ages and have nothing. He said you could find anything.”

April was silent again for a few moments. Sterling waited patiently. She knew when to press April and when to let her sit. Sterling knew April was debating it in her head. She just hoped she won out.

“Give me fifteen minutes.”

***

It started like this:

April, with the help of Bowser, Yolanda, and Terrance, worked tirelessly to find enough dirt on her father for him to stop being an issue. He deserved to be back in jail, and if the initial charges were dropped, April was determined to find some other unlawful activity. Criminals of his type never commit just one crime. There had to be others.

It took weeks and months of sneaking around, digging, and compiling dossier after dossier. April didn’t know why these adults helped, other than her own terrifyingly unhinged determination. That and her ability to be so demanding three fully grown adults could never refuse her.

Throughout it all, April never mentioned what she was doing to Sterling and Blair. She swore the others to secrecy as well.

It was only the school day after his second arrest that the twins found out. Bowser did not last long under interrogation. April hadn’t set foot in the yogurt shop since.

***

“Have I accidentally walked into an American Eagle store?” Yolanda asks after walking into Yogurtopia to find April, Blair, and Sterling set up around a table, a mix of homework, laptops, and telephone records strewn across them.

April snorted in disgust. “Like I would ever step foot in there.”

Blair pointed her pen menacingly at April. “Okay Miss exclusively wears Lacoste outside of the school uniform, we get it you think you’re so much better than us.”

April looked at the polo she was wearing then back to Blair with a wicked smile. “You said it, not me.”

Yolanda still looked flummoxed. “That doesn’t explain the Sunday School daycare that has appeared up in here.”

Bowser emerged from his office, summoned by the bickering. That, and his Yolanda radar had dinged. “Why do you think I was hiding in the back?”

“You are the one that has three teenaged girls sitting in your shop,” Yolanda argued. The two drifted closer.

“The twins won’t ever leave, you know this,” Bowser said. He gestured at the three of them without taking his eyes off Yolanda.

“And now you’ve adopted a third,” Yolanda said, ignoring both twins’ cries of protest that they could leave whenever they wanted.

“Well, you know,” Bowser quipped. “As terrifying as the girl may be, she is the best researcher I have seen in all my years in this business.”

April felt her chest puff up in pride. She sent a snide look Blair’s way, who sneered at her in response. After rubbing the comment into Blair’s face via cocky facial expressions, April turned away and caught Sterling’s eye. The look on Sterling’s face stopped whatever lauding she was doing over the twins. Sterling had a peculiar expression, and a glaze in her eye that took April’s breath away. She almost looked...proud. April was not accustomed to someone being proud of her, especially not Sterling, who for so many years had a look of discontent whenever she beat her at school. How April enjoyed getting a better grade than Sterling, or making debate team captain, just to see the fury on Sterling’s face. It used to light a fire inside April. But this, this caused something else entirely to erupt inside April’s chest. It was so intense April felt her cheeks heat up and she had to avert her eyes.

After antagonism for so long, despite that ending more or less months ago when Sterling first kissed her in Ellen’s office, April did not know how to deal with this kind of attention.

Maybe agreeing to come onto this team of bounty hunters wasn’t such a good idea.

***

This is how it continues:

April agrees to help out with the bounty hunting, albeit only on weekends, as long as she got a 20% cut, and nobody mentioned it outside of the Yogurtopia building. She was not a fool, and if her college prospects were ruined via illegal employment there would be hell to pay.

Blair complains and is mad at Sterling and Bowser for a full week.

April finds her agreement worth it, just for Blair’s annoyance.

(If she has stopped tormenting one Wesley twin, why not start tormenting the other).

~~~

If Sterling was being held at gunpoint and forced to tell the truth, she would admit that as soon as she heard John Stevens was once again incarcerated, she thought that her and April would get back together. She had envisioned running up to April in the cafeteria and kissing her in front of everyone, of holding her hand as they traveled the halls, of fellowship meetings sat side by side, her hand occasionally resting on April’s thigh.

Sterling knew it was all a fantasy, because even though April’s father was gone again that didn’t mean they didn’t live where they lived. Still, the two had been together in a loose sense when he was in jail the first time. April broke up with her out of fear when her dad returned. Sterling didn’t think it was a leap to assume that now that he was gone, they could go back to what they were.

However, days and weeks past after the news broke and their relationship stayed in the same weird place it had been in for months. They were no longer enemies, much to Ellen’s obvious delight, and they were no longer making out like horny teens at every opportunity. It was some odd place of limbo, where they no longer hated each other and they both knew they actively liked each other, but nothing happened.

(Not that they ever talked about it. The one time Sterling had braved a mention of their entanglement April froze and avoided her for two full days. She learned not to broach the subject).

It was one of the hardest things she had ever done, but Sterling did not push April. Pushing April the first time is what caused the rift between them. She would not make the same mistake twice, no matter how much she craved pushing April into the janitor’s closet most days.

Blair would complain endlessly about their, quote, ceaseless eye fucking. She would whisper please get a room and bang it out already, I cannot stand this sexual tension when nobody was in earshot. In the sanctity of her bedroom, Sterling would admit to Blair what April was like before, in reparation for keeping her a secret. Her tone would gain a wistful quality, and Blair would gag and call her disgusting, like Sterling hadn’t sat through and encouraged every one of Blair’s relationships. Sterling never needed to know the intimate details of Blair’s sex life with Miles, but she never made this much of a fuss. Sterling yearned, but she dealt with it.

And then April started bounty hunting.

If Sterling thought it was rough but doable before, when she only saw April at school, she really was lost when April would walk into the yogurt shop in casual clothes and a bag slung over her shoulder. Sterling felt super self conscious of the Yogurtopia apron and visor she had to wear whenever April was around. Because April wasn’t an employee, she always hung around in her normal clothes, looking delectable. Sterling never thought much of jeans on Luke, but April in skinny jeans with her white belt was enough to drive her up the wall.

April joined the team of teenage bounty hunters, and Sterling lost years of her life.

At school, only Blair knew about their secret torrid love affair. At school, Sterling had classes and the student population to distract her from April’s high ponytail and her button down tucked into her pants.

At work, everyone knew that April and Sterling were a thing, of a sorts. Blair brought it up constantly, Yolanda just watched them confused when they would make prolonged eye contact before one of them broke, or when April would forget herself and rest her hand on Sterling’s before snatching it away like it was burned. Sterling had a silent agreement with Bowser where she wouldn’t mention his pining over Yolanda if he never mentioned her pining over April, but even then she would hear him mutter under his breath when he walked past the two of them on particularly tense days.

At work, Sterling would watch April thrive through her research. She knew that April could find dirt on anyone due to the infamous debate dossiers, but seeing her find info on their skips from next to nothing was a sight to behold. The air of confidence April would get when she presented what she had learned to Bowser, the cockiness she displayed to Blair, was hard enough for Sterling to actually focus on her job these days. The amount of times Bowser had to snap her out of her drooling to finish cleaning was over a dozen. She was getting close to a concussion from the amount of times Blair would hit her with a towel whenever Sterling didn’t notice a customer came in.

Having April in her life was a blessing, and Sterling would never exchange this time together with all of her favourite people, but was she suffering, being around April but not being with her.

Then the car thief skip happened.

***

This is how it continues:

April’s dad goes back to prison, and April finds she can breathe a little bit easier. The weight that had settled over her chest had eased up a little bit, but the pressure never fully left.

April wonders if it ever will.

Without her dad’s shadow looming over her, April finds herself glancing over at Sterling more often. She isn’t terrified to be seen interacting with Sterling anymore, but she still fears someone at school or in church will notice. Notice the lovesick expression in her eyes when she sees Sterling from across the room, notice how her body craves the touch of the other girl, how her thoughts center around the one and only Sterling Wesley.

April had one more year before college. She had been in the closet for nine years of her life, she could last one more.

Then the car thief skip happened.

~~~

After April had been working with them for three weeks, Sterling got fed up with Blair and tackled her onto Blair’s bed. Her advantage only lasted a glorious ten seconds until Blair had her with her hands behind her back, but the message was clear.

“What was that for!” Blair yelled as she pulled Sterling’s hands behind her back harder.

“I don’t like having emotional conversations without distractions!” Sterling yelled back as she tried to dislodge herself from her sister’s grip. You’d think all the hours she has put in with Bowser would’ve made her better at grappling, but no.

“If you find out you’re dying one day, first of all don’t because I cannot live without you, but please just sit me down at the table and don’t tackle me like a maniac,” Blair said. She eventually released her grip on Sterling’s hands, allowing her to break free and sit up. Sterling settled against the headboard, with Blair soon joining her. “What’s up, then?”

Sterling took a breath. “Why do you hate April so much?”

Sterling found herself on the floor. She looked up to see Blair’s somewhat apologetic face appear from over the side of the bed. “Dude, what the heck!”

Blair shrugged. “Sorry, impulse to Stevens I guess.”

Sterling dusted herself off, determined to get some answers out of her sister. “See this is what I mean! You guys never liked each other before, which I get was understandable back when we had our little school rivalry thing going on, but that’s over now. We’ve changed. And ever since she has been hanging around working with us, it’s like I have to actively keep the two of you apart. What’s the deal?”

“She broke your heart. Sister’s rights, you know. I have to defend your honour.”

“We worked through that,” Sterling explained. “Yeah I was upset at the time, but it wasn’t her fault. I have forgiven her. And honestly Blair, I thought you would understand why she did what she did. I mean, you did have that big rant about how conversion camps were ungodly last Thanksgiving that really sent the table reeling.”

“She still hurt you,” Blair said. “Just because you are too into her to stay mad, doesn’t mean that I can forget whenever someone hurts you.”

“You forgave Mom and Dad,” Sterling pointed out. It was a low blow, but Sterling really needed to understand the dynamics at play if her two favourite people in the world right now were ever going to get along.

The look Blair gave Sterling indicated she knew what a shitty comment it was to make. Sterling was determined though.

“It’s stupid,” Blair said, averting her eyes from Sterling.

Sterling grabbed her sister’s hands and forced her to look at her. “It won’t be, because whatever you feel isn’t stupid to me. And normally I wouldn’t push, it’s just that I love you, and I might love April at some point, so the two of you not ripping each other's throats out means a lot to me.”

Blair groaned, covered her face with her hands, and mumbled something.

“What was that?” Sterling asked, thankful it didn’t take more to get Blair to open up.

“I said I’m mad that she’s part of our team!” Blair shouted. “Bounty hunting was supposed to be our secret, our thing! But then you went and told her, without asking me, which was bad enough. Some stuck up crazy girl knew this big secret, and then she joined? She can just be a part of the gang, hunting skips with us, Bowser loves her, Yolanda loves her, hell, Terrance met her once and he thought she was the bee’s knees. The worst part is she’s good at it too, it’s insufferable.”

“So you’re mad that bounty hunting isn’t just our thing?” Sterling asked. “Because, like, we do tons of stuff without her. We are together literally all of the time. I get that it was wrong I told her without consulting you, but she was directly involved in the business. And Bowser was the one that recruited her, not me!”

“God, it’s not that we aren’t spending our time together, it’s that it is your little girlfriend, who won’t even date you, knows, when I had to break my fucking heart with Miles because I had to lie to him about where I was all the time! That doesn’t happen with you. If you had plans, April is probably catching skips with us too!”

“You know,” Sterling said slowly. Blair’s fight or flight was nearing and she didn’t want to scare her off now. “You could tell Miles. I wouldn’t be mad. I get it’s been a while, but I know you still miss him. I’m sure if you were to explain it all to him, he’d understand. Like you said, it’s kinda unfair April knows while Miles doesn’t.”

Blair shook her head. “No no, it’s too late. But anyway, you were right. If Miles knew, he still probably wouldn’t have stayed. A senator mother and a bounty hunting girlfriend probably don’t mix. He walks away from trouble. And I am trouble.”

Blair looked so impossibly sad that Sterling just pulled her into her arms and let Blair cry. She let the subject go for the night, but her brain would be mulling this situation over for a while.

***

It culminated like this:

Daniel ‘Charger’ Jepson was a car thief who, primarily, stole Dodge Chargers.

(“They aren’t even nice cars,” April said when she heard. “Extremely tacky,” Blair said in response, for once agreeing with April. “I drove a Charger,” Yolanda protested. “Cool, this car is purple!” Sterling added).

He was arrested while driving a stolen car, and escaped bail in, you guessed it, a different stolen car. April, Blair, and Bowser had been tracking stolen cars for two days, first Dodge Chargers, then all Dodge vehicles, then widening their search to Fords and Hondas when nothing came up.

(“If you are going to steal a car, wouldn’t you steal a nice one?” Sterling asked, which got no response. She had thought it was a valid question).

After three days of missing cars databases and searching plates on traffic lights and misusing Terrance’s police contacts, they finally got a hit for where in Atlanta Daniel was hiding out. When April cried out in success the entire team raced to Bowser’s vehicle to get the skip.

Now, normally April did not go out in the field. She really wasn’t a fan of guns, despite being around them all her life and owning one, so Sterling remained the best shot in the group. And she couldn’t run as fast as Blair could, or tackle people with the same gusto. April knew her strengths lie with research and blackmail dirt, so she tended to stay where she excelled: safe within the yogurt shop. But in the rush of the hunt, April found herself in the backseat alongside Sterling traveling to parts of Atlanta she’d never dared go before.

The catching of this particular skip skip was all a bit of a mess, because as the four of them discovered, car thieves tended to be quite adept at driving cars.

The warehouse where the guy was hiding out had a long, winding entrance that Bowser had parked his car in front of as a way to block it out a bit. Bowser and Blair went into the building to catch the guy while April and Sterling stayed outside in case the guy got the jump on the other two and made it out.

(One of the first things April did after joining was firmly instituting capture plans. When she heard of how many times Bowser had lost a skip after having to chase them around, and how all three of them used to go and corner skips without backups in case they got away, April could not believe how their bounty hunting team had been so successful. She drilled basic cornering and capturing techniques into the trio. The amount of running on the job Bowser had to do decreased 65%).

“So, what did you think of the Spanish quiz today?” Sterling asked as she leaned against the car, one hand on her shotgun while she kept her eyes firmly on the building. April was glad Sterling was paying attention to the task at hand, partly because they were on the job and needed to be professional, and partly because it allowed April to look at Sterling without the other girl knowing.

“I think she needs to stop basing every single question on a different season of her favourite telenovela,” April replied. “I mean, it’s astounding how many plot points I know from a half dozen shows I’ve never watched.”

Sterling laughed. “And the plots are just too much, especially for a high school class.”

“I know!” April said. “Every single quiz there is a different person coming back from the dead. It’s exhausting trying to keep track of it all.”

“If I hear about one more secret twin plot twist, I am going to lose my mind,” Sterling huffed out, causing April to glance at her with concern again. Her parentage was a subject April, for better or for worse, seldom brings up. She always responds when Sterling mentions it, but she hardly does. April doesn’t know why, since Sterling always asked her about her father, but maybe it was because Sterling had a personal stake in that and April still felt a hint of anger that she never brings up the other girl's trauma. And for the most part, Sterling appeared to be dealing with it. At school at least, but she knew it was more Blair’s place to intervene.

April was torn from her internal battle on comforting Sterling when a commotion from inside became apparent. Shouting, followed by an engine revving, and then a car burst through the doors and came speeding in their direction.

April was frozen, because it was utterly ridiculous that a car was speeding at her, she should have been in her bedroom studying, especially since when this whole thing started she thought she could get away with it only being on weekends but here she is, on a Wednesday evening, a car racing towards her.

Sterling, having been in these situations far longer than April and thus retaining some semblance of common sense, grabbed April and pulled her towards the other side of the car, away from the oncoming skip. It didn’t matter much where they were, since the skip pulled some kind of Grand Theft Auto shit to avoid their car and get away, but April hardly noticed.

Instead, all of April’s focus was on how Sterling had accidentally pulled April against her. April’s back was against the door, Sterling flush against her, breathing hard. The two stared at each other and April was acutely aware of every place her body touched Sterling and how her heart hadn’t beat and her lungs hadn’t moved the entire time they had been in contact.

“Sterling!” Blair shouted, and April was torn away from whatever that was by the situation she was in.

“Sterling, shoot the tires!” Bowser yelled at them. They were running towards them from the warehouse, and April looked from them, to the car speeding away, to Sterling. Sterling had a determined look on her face as she stepped away from April, raised her shotgun, and took aim.

April had never seen Sterling shoot a gun. She doesn’t go out in the field often, and when she had there had never been a serious altercation.

Therefore, as April watched Sterling shoot out multiple tires on the receding car, halting the skip’s escape, April could honestly say she had never been more turned on in her life.

Sterling had made a gleeful noise in celebration of her successful shooting and ran off with Bowser to arrest the skip. April was left standing by the car, dumbfounded, confused, and utterly captivated by Sterling Wesley.

“Pick your jaw up off the floor mate, it’s unbecoming,” Blair said. April hadn’t even noticed her coming up to her. It was the most embarrassed April had ever been in her life, Blair knowing April had the hots for her sister.

April was able to collect herself by the time Bowser and Sterling returned with the skip in handcuffs.

Then commenced the most awkward and uncomfortable car trip of April’s life.

Blair shot April a look and called shotgun, leaving April stuck in the backseat with Sterling, their skip between them. The trip across town was only twenty minutes, but April managed to squirm the entire time. The proximity to Sterling, the gross man in between them, the image of Sterling shooting her shotgun, the feeling of her body pressed against her. April felt herself losing her sanity, and to make the entire situation worse, Blair would catch her eye in the mirror and laugh at her.

By the time they got back to the yogurt shop, April was ready to dig a nice hole out back and bury herself in it. Not waiting to see what the plans for the skip was, April exited the vehicle and made a beeline for the back of the building. She couldn’t stand to be around the others, not Blair and her knowing looks, or Bowser and Sterling’s obliviousness, and certainly not a criminal.

April paced between the back door and the dumpster, trying to calm down whatever the fuck she was feeling right now. She needed to get herself together. She ran through Spanish verb conjugations, then American Republican presidents in alphabetical order, then she counted down from 100 in French, but nothing worked.

April had never had her compartmentalization fail her like this before.

“Oh, there you are,” Sterling said, opening the door and stepping outside into the disgusting alley April was occupying. “I was wondering where you had run off to.”

April stopped her frantic pacing. The capital cities of Eastern European countries dropped from her mind.

April did the only thing she could do.

She pushed Sterling against the door and kissed her.

Chapter Text

This is how it culminates:

With April’s fingers in her hair.

Sterling felt an entirely new emotion as April Stevens pulled at her hair and kissed her so very fiercely. The door against her back was cool from the night air but every place April touched her felt like fire. She needed April closer.

Sterling’s hands moved without thought, pulling April closer by her hips. April was driving her insane with every tug if her hair or scrap of her fingernails against her head. The height difference leant to April pulling her downwards, and Sterling was wondering why the hell they didn’t do this more often.

It suddenly hit Sterling why they hadn’t been doing this.

She blamed how long it took her to get her brain back working on how distracting it was, April kissing her with this kind of desperation. It took a lot of strength to gather herself and when April moved to trail kisses across her jaw and down her neck, Sterling made her move.

“This is fantastic,” Sterling starts, struggling to find words as April keeps doing that thing with her tongue on her pulse point that drives her mad. “I am not complaining, not at all. In fact, this is everything I’ve thought about and dreamed for for months, but what brought this on? Are we, you know, doing this? I-ugh don’t stop that-I’ve been, you know, wondering, but you’ve kept your distance, which I respect now, this is totally your choice-fuck me-I guess I just wanna know where we stand?”

April’s hands slid down to her shoulder when she lifted her head to look at Sterling. April’s face had a confusing expression Sterling couldn’t read, but she also couldn’t really form a coherent thought beyond rambling and her body screaming April April April.

“I just-“ April said, looking away from Sterling. Her hands played with the edge of her shirt. “I couldn’t stop myself from doing that. Sorry.”

“It’s no problem. In fact it was a privilege. A joy even. I’ve been hoping you’d kiss me again for months. Feel free whenever you are comfortable.”

April took a step back from Sterling, but Sterling grabbed her hands to keep the other girl close. She hadn’t meant the scare April off, but almost anything could spook her in these moments.

“I shouldn’t have-I shouldn’t have gone, I should’ve stayed here like I always do,” April said, all without meeting Sterling’s eye and fidgeting slightly. Sterling had been in this situation enough times to know that April was scared and getting a bit jumpy so she did something rash that could backfire.

Sterling pulled April in and hugged her.

Sterling has hugged a lot of people in her life, April included. But it had never been like this. The way April just collapsed against her, the way her body fit neatly against her own, the way April’s forehead fit comfortably in the crook of her neck.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Sterling whispered. Her words were slightly muffled by April’s hair, but she kept her close. April had started to shake lightly, but she wasn’t pulling away. “I just want to know where we stand. Because I really want to keep kissing you, but the last thing I want is for our signals to get crossed again.

“See, that’s the thing Sterl,” April said. Her face was still pressed against Sterling’s neck and she could feel her lips move as she spoke. Sterling had to stop her body’s reminder of what her lips had been doing moments ago. They were having a conversation. “I don’t know where I stand. I cannot promise you anything, because I don’t know whether tomorrow it’ll be the same, or whether the next day I won’t try to run again. Things were just so much easier before he came back, and even though he’s gone I’m still so scared all the time. And tonight… I am so tired of pretending. Pretending I don’t want you, hiding this part of me. But every time I act on it, every time I kiss you it gets harder to go back and pretend. I’m not sure how much longer I can last.”

A sudden brainwave hit Sterling as the heartbreak over their entire situation passed over her. “I have a proposition for you.”

April looked up at Sterling with an unimpressed expression. “It’s a good one, I swear! What if here, we didn’t have to pretend? Everyone, Blair, Bowser, and Yolanda, they all already know and they don’t hate or judge you. So, within the four walls of the yogurt shop, we can hold hands and kiss like a normal couple, while everywhere else things continue as they were. Does that sound doable?”

April looked pensive for a moment. “I suppose that sounds… doable.” A ginormous smile broke out over Sterling’s face.

“Great!” Emotional conversation through Sterling let her mind travel back to what they had been doing before she necessarily had to open her mouth, and she relished in the close proximity to April she had managed to maintain. She could work with this. “Now, even though we are currently outside the building, I still would like to go back to kissing you, if you are still interested?”

Sterling slid her hands into the back pockets of April’s jeans as the other girl’s cocky half smirk grew. “I think that could be arranged.”

~~~

“Pants better be on butts when I walk around this corner,” Blair yelled a couple minutes later. Sterling was able to tear herself away just in time to avoid her sister seeing something she wouldn’t be able to live down for a week.

***

April had her reservations, but the arrangement turned out to work fairly well. She should have figured, given how good she was at repressing and compartmentalizing her feelings. Still, the first time Sterling had leaned over and kissed her cheek before getting up to go to the bathroom one afternoon April had nearly panicked before calming herself down. Bowser hadn’t looked up from what he was reading at the sight, and all Blair did was mime throwing up. Something she did frequently enough around the pair.

The biggest shock of the past few months had been Blair. When this entire situation with Sterling began, April was convinced Blair would out them in a heartbeat. Blair hated April, and she thought that once Sterling had told Blair, it would make its way through the Willingham gossip circuit and April would be ruined.

However, while Blair maintained her seeming hate of April, she was surprisingly gentle with the lesbian part. From what Sterling had mentioned, it wasn’t like Blair and April had talked face to face about it. All of April’s interactions with Blair about her relationship with Sterling maintained their antagonistic approach, but Blair never attacked her attraction to girls, just the fact that it was with her sister.

Blair has surprised her, and April would never admit it, but she was relieved that Blair was so cool with it. Partly because that meant she wasn’t hurting Sterling, and partly because it was freeing, in a way, not having one of your greatest fears come to fruition.

April wouldn’t stop bugging Blair though, and it seemed unlikely Blair would stop anytime soon as well. Verbally destroying Wesley’s was one of her favourite past times.

***

If April thought about it, a lot of key moments in her teenaged life revolved around locked doors. There was the locking of Ellen’s office after Sterling first kissed her, then there was the entire lock-in situation. Her father kept a lot of his dirty secrets locked away in his office. There was that time April had to go undercover in a gym to sniff out a skip and Sterling at one point had thrown her into a changing room and locked the door behind her to kiss her senseless until Blair literally came knocking.

And now here April was, once again foolishly locked in Ellen’s office with Sterling.

April didn’t know what set it off. She was in Fellowship like normal, and afterwards Ellen had asked her to lock up her office because she had to run to some appointment as soon as school had ended. The students tettered out slowly as April packed up her bag while talking to Ezekeil and Hannah B. After saying goodbye to her friends as it was the end of the day and nobody wanted to be at school longer than necessary, April collected Ellen’s things and brought them back into her office to lock up. She didn’t even notice Sterling following her until she turned around to leave and saw Sterling standing in the doorway with a hungry look in her eyes.

How they got from there to April sitting on Ellen’s desk, Sterling standing between her legs was a blur.

The thoughts at the back of her mind reminded April that school property was not the place to be doing this, and with the amount of time she spent in Ellen’s office in the first place, being reminded of the feeling of Sterling’s hands ghosting across her back would not help her concentration at all. April also couldn’t help thinking about how only acting on her feelings for Sterling in the sanctuary of Yogurtopia had quickly gone out the window.

The crux of the matter was, no matter how many rules and guidelines April gave herself, she always broke them when it came to Sterling Wesley.

Sterling’s hands had moved from her back to the desk behind her, so she was leaning forward into April. The desk had helped with the height difference but the change also resulted in Sterling’s forehead bumping into April’s awkwardly when she came up for air. Sterling laughed anyway and April couldn’t help but smile herself.

“Have I ever told you that public speaking seems to do it for me?” Sterling said, brushing their foreheads together again. “I don’t even remember what your Fellowship speech was about.”

To be honest, April didn’t remember either at this moment. All she could think about was Sterling, so she wrapped her legs around Sterling’s waist and used her heels to press Sterling closer to her.

They were interrupted by a banging on the door. “You have ten seconds before I’m coming in!” Blair yelled from the other side of the door. There seemed to be no escaping the other twin, no matter where they were.

Sterling stepped away immediately and April found herself missing the contact. She allowed herself two seconds to revel in that feeling, then another five to compose herself. The remaining three were left to walk over to the door and wrench it open to allow Blair Wesley inside.

“Do you know how annoying it is keeping your two horny asses out of trouble?” Blair said as she stormed in. April shut the door behind Blair and glanced at Sterling, who had a blush creeping across her cheeks and down her neck. She looked absolutely disheveled and April had to tamper that feeling down deep. “Between dodging Bowser’s questions whenever you to sneak off at work, Yolanda outright asking if y’all are fucking on the job, to shooing anyone and everyone away from an entire wing of this building during school! You guys should be paying me, seriously. I had to keep Luke from coming in here looking for Sterling since she never left the meeting. Luke! Do you want Luke walking in on you guys with you tongues down each other's throats?”

April normally would have something to say to Blair, but she was too shocked to come up with anything remotely biting. “You… kept people away from here?”

Blair rounded on April, pointing her finger directly in her face. “Somebody had to, since you both were too busy thinking gay thoughts to have any critical decision making skills. Take a cold mental shower or something, Bowser called and he needs us there now.”

***

A couple weeks later April was on a stakeout with Blair. They were watching a shawarma place that their current skip liked to frequent, with Bowser and Sterling watching the back exit in case the skip caught onto them and tried to make a run for it.

(Bowser and Blair had vetoed April and Sterling being paired off on any missions after the gym skip. April argued that she is capable of being professional, but even she had to admit that being alone with Sterling for a stakeout would probably have been too much).

It had been two hours of alternating heavy metal music and the slurping of Blair’s frankly enormous drink when April’s laptop finally ran low on battery. She had been writing her English essay since there was never any excitement that happened over stakeouts and she was not allowing this bounty hunting business to affect her academics.

April lasted five minutes without her laptop to distract her from Blair’s incessant tapping before she decided to suck it up and face she will have to make conversation with Blair.

“Is there a reason you are this loud?” April asked.

“I need to drown out your dirty thoughts about my sister,” Blair replied. She took another loud swig from her drink. How Blair had managed to be constantly drinking from that thing but not yet finish it blew April’s mind.

“Yeah, because writing 1000 words on King Lear’s relationship with his daughters really turns me on,” April said. She had been so focused on completing the paper she hadn’t even thought about Sterling. Which is the way April liked to work. She would not let anything distract herself from being the best, certainly not a girl. The same principle had not carried over very well to being in the field with bounty hunting, since it was not an area she excelled. Sterling could hardly drag April away when she was in a researching zone, but April seldom knew what to do with herself outside of that realm, and that was when thoughts of Sterling breached her mind.

“Is that seriously how long that paper needs to be?” Blair asked incredulously.

April scoffed. “If you listened maybe you would know. It’s AP English Blair, did you really expect it to just be three pages?”

“Of course I wasn’t listening, Shakespeare is boring. I’ll be on SparkNotes anyway, why even waste the energy trying to read it.”

April looked back to the building, her conversation quota filled. Someone went in, but not their guy. Within a minute, Blair was back tapping against the steering wheel.

“Seriously, why are you so anxious?” April asked, fed up. “It’s boring yeah, but it’s just a car.”

“I’m fine,” Blair responded. She and Sterling had the same nervous ticks, so April knew she was lying.

“Yeah, right you are. Can we just get this over with so we can go back to silence?”

Blair groaned and shoved a handful of Sour Patch Kids in her mouth. “Have I ever told you I find your commanding attitude annoying?”

“Have I ever told you I think your manners are despicable?” April retorted. Blair had talked with her mouth full of candy and it disgusted her. She needed to see neither the inside of Blair’s mouth nor half chewed candy.

“If it will only get you to stop talking to me, then fine,” Blair said. “The last time I was on a stakeout was the day Miles broke up with me. I’m not having a good time with this right now.”

Oh right, Miles. Sterling had mentioned to April how Blair was originally annoyed with her knowing about bounty hunting since Miles couldn’t, but this was the first time the subject had come up between the two of them. April almost felt bad about it.

“If you mention this to anyone I will haunt you to your dying day,” April started. “But if after all this time you still wanted to get back with Miles you could… use us, if you want. You could say that Sterling was supposed to cover for you at work, but she was with me and you didn’t want to out her so you didn’t say why you were running in between.”

Okay, maybe April did feel pretty guilty about it, but only because she thought if Blair was back with Miles maybe half of the crude sex jokes directed her way would stop. That and, well Blair has actually been decent about covering for her and Sterling and she really didn’t want to be indebted to Blair Wesley, hell no.

Blair looked at her like she’d grown an extra head.

“Are you high?” Blair asked.

“Like I would ever use recreational drugs,” April scoffed.

“Seriously, are you a pod person or something? The real April Stevens would never show compassion like that.”

April felt herself blush slightly and she regretted trying to be nice to Blair. She knew this was a dumb idea. “You know what? Forget I even talked to you, go back to tapping like a maniac.”

“No no, no take backs,” Blair said. “I just can’t believe there’s a kind bone in your body.”

“I swear Blair I will find some dirt on you and ruin your senior year if you don’t let up,” April warned. This was why she was a bitch to everyone, teasing made her feel like she would catch fire.

“Like Sterling would ever let you pull the trigger,” Blair responded. “But seriously, and I will likewise kill you if this leaves this car, but it almost makes me like you, you offering that. I recognize how big of a deal it is to you. But I won’t. I’ve made my peace with Miles, even though I miss him and seeing you be absolutely disgusting with my sister makes me want to hurl.”

April nodded. That went as well as she could have hoped.

“Oh shit, is that the guy! Finally, being in this car with you another minute would have driven me mad.”

~~~

Church is normally family time for Sterling. Just her and her parents and Blair and God. Plus the rest of the congregation, but they weren’t really the focus for her. Sterling would put on her nice church clothes, sit on uncomfortable pews while listening to that week's sermon, and she would pray. Afterwards they would mingle, and then the Wesley’s would have a quiet afternoon followed by a big family meal. Sterling enjoyed her peaceful Sunday’s.

This was not a normal Sunday.

The first indication something was off was when Mrs. Stevens walked into church and settled on her pew alone. Sans April. April never missed church unless she physically could not walk, and even that one time she had appendicitis she made it through the service before having to go to the hospital. She was nine.

Besides, Sterling had seen April the previous day. She knew she wasn’t on her deathbed, unless she had something that progressed this drastically in twelve hours. So Sterling knew something was up, and snuck in a concerned text just before church started. Her parents had a strict no phones during church policy, so she had to wait until at least communion before she could sneak a look to see what was wrong.

When communion finally came and her parents were sufficiently distracted by everyone shuffling forward, Sterling was able to sneak her phone out of her back pocket and check to see whether April had responded.

What she was greeted with was five missed calls from Bowser, and fourteen texts, the latest reading:

I am outside you goddamn church and if y’all are not out here in fifteen I will make a goddamn scene.

That was sent five minutes ago.

“Shit,” Sterling whispered.

“Sorry god,” she then rectified. Cursing in church was not a sin she wanted against her.

“Dude, what is wrong?” Blair whispered back. Their parents looked back at them in discontempt.

“Check your phone,” Sterling hissed. She was trying to plan an escape, but there was no way to sneak out of church. That was the entire point of church.

“Oh no,” Blair whispered and she subtlety checked her phone. “We are so screwed.”

“I have no clue how we can ditch!” Sterling said. They were getting closer to the front.

“I say we get the body of Christ and just run,” Blair said. “This will be the only opportunity we get. I can text mom and say you were blowing chunks or something.”

“Hey, why can’t you be the one throwing up?”

Blair ignored the look from the family in front of them for their talking. “I was the one that ate that faulty egg salad sandwich last time, remember? It’s your turn.”

Sterling resigned herself to having to skip out on dinner tonight due to a fake stomach bug and checked her watch. They had another five minutes to meet Bowser outside.

They made it with a minute to spare, only to find Bowser looking annoyed in the driver seat and April’s smug face in the passenger seat. Blair and Sterling climbed into the back.

“About time!” Bowser said, immediately starting the car and getting out of there. “We only have a small period of time to catch this skip, and I wasted half of it waiting for you two to get out of church!”

“Sorry we don’t skip like some other members of this group,” Blair said, glaring at April.

“When I saw what time the plane was leaving, I knew it’d be easier getting out of going to church than trying to sneak out during.” April turned around to grin at them. “How was it?”

“Shut up you hag,” Blair said.

“I foresee us getting grounded, and I’m gonna have to miss dinner tonight since Blair has decided I am the one sick to my stomach,” Sterling explained. She then thought of a way she could turn this around. “Guess you owe me dinner, since you didn’t warn us.”

Blair hit her head against the window at the same time Bowser said “please do not flirt we have a skip to catch.”

***

It was a normal enough Friday evening manning the yogurt shop while Bowser, Blair, and Sterling went out after a skip. A couple kids had come in (April had somehow been suckered into actually serving yogurt since she usually was the one hanging around while the other went off and Miss Cathy wasn’t on shift. It was awful) but other than that it had been slow and April had managed to finish her chemistry homework and had started studying for the pre-Civil War test in AP History.

Everything changed when the gang got back, Blair toting the beginnings of a black eye and Sterling’s left shoulder at an unnatural angle.

April blacked out in a combination of anger, fear, and rage but later Bowser would tell her she stood there frozen for thirty seconds before calmly walking into the bathroom, getting the first aid kit, and steadily ignoring Sterling.

She got a frozen bag of chocolate chips out for Blair’s eye, gave Bowser some bandaids and alcohol wipes for his various cuts and scrapes, and pointedly did not look at Sterling who had been sat down on the counter.

Once Blair and Bowser were sorted April was confronted with the fact she would have to acknowledge Sterling’s presence. Bracing herself, April walked over to Sterling who had tears in her eyes and seemed shrunk in on herself.

Sterling was staring at the ground. She looked so sad. April reached out her hand and placed it against Sterling’s cheek, guiding her eyes towards her own.

“Dislocated shoulder?” April asked. Sterling nodded her head ever so slightly. “Why didn’t you go to the hospital?”

This time Sterling shook her head. Her head leaned into April’s hand.

“They demanded no hospitals,” Bowser explained. He had bandaids all over his arms and two on his face. “Yolanda has some first aid training, she knows how to pop a shoulder back in. We called her on our way back, she’s on her way over.”

“Don’t want the parents asking questions, we are on their health insurance,” Blair said, half her face covered by the bag of chocolate chips.

“At least y’all have health insurance, rich white people,” Bowser muttered.

When Yolanda finally arrived April didn’t know what to do with herself. Normally April always knew what to do; she was a natural born leader. But Blair held Sterling’s hand as Yolanda put her shoulder back in place, and April had nothing to say when Bowser explained to Yolanda just what exactly went so wrong in the seemingly normal retrieval of a skip. April just hovered anxiously until that became too wearisome. Nobody noticed when she slipped out into the cool night air.

April paced around outside, trying to figure out why this had unnerved her so much. Her normal sense of control had completely melted away. It took far too long to recognize the heavy feeling in her chest. She mentally scolded herself for being so foolish.

“Jesus Christ kid, you trying to freeze yourself out here?” Bowser asked. April hadn’t noticed that he’d joined her outside. She looked down at her bare arms. Maybe it wasn’t t-shirt weather.

“I just needed some air,” April said in response. She looked past Bowser back into the building. Blair and Yolanda were helping Sterling maneuver her arm into a makeshift sling.

“Are you okay kid? You seem a bit spooked. Still scary, but spooked.”

April glared at Bowser. “I’m fine.”

Bowser gave April a look back in response. “Believe it or not girl, but I know what your fine is and this is not it. Now, it’s not your gay repression panic, and it’s definitley not the whole father drama. Honestly, those are the only two things I’ve seen you stressed about. But my point is, when you are fine you are annoying, bossy as hell, and a bit of a dick. You are also very sweet on Sterling when you want to be, and just now you left her while she’s in pain. So you are not fine.”

April wondered how a man she had known for a handful of months could read her so well when 95% of the people she had gone to school with her entire life barely knew a thing about her. Bowser had proven himself to be a trustworthy friend though.

“I guess I just got scared,” April whispered. “None of you guys have gotten hurt before, certainly never this bad, and I guess it scared me and I couldn’t take it.”

“That is completely normal,” Bowser said softly. “It is normal and fine to be scared when the people you love get hurt.”

April’s head whipped around to stare at Bowser so fast she was certain she gave herself whiplash.

“Oh, Jesus, you know what, I didn’t say anything,” Bowser said. “Come to your own damn conclusions in your own time. Now, I’m pretty sure Yolanda was gonna give Sterling some pain meds, and I bet Sterling is gonna be annoying as shit while high.”

~~~

This is how it ends:

During the first week of summer holidays, April and Sterling go on a road trip.

They go to a prison.

First they went to the women’s prison to visit Dana. Sterling left April waiting in the car. She didn’t need to explain why, she just had to ask. April nodded expectantly and produced a battered copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe from her bag. Sterling checked the parking lot, saw the coast was clear, and leaned over to kiss April’s cheek before stepping out of the car.

A ridiculous amount of security checks later Sterling was taking calming breaths before entering the meeting room. About a dozen tables filled with other prisoners and their visitors. Sterling spotted the pale blonde hair of the woman who gave birth to her and walked over.

“Dana,” Sterling said in greeting. She sat down on the uncomfortable plastic seat and looked across the table to Dana. She, for lack of a better descriptor, looked like shit.

“Sterling,” she blubbered. “My baby, I’m so happy that you came to see your poor mother. Family, we have to stick together. Now I’m not mad that it took this long, I was overjoyed when I heard you were coming. Together now, now that we are together we can get over this rough patch.”

“Rough patch?” Sterling asked incredulously. “You kidnapped me! That’s, like, a criminal offense. Obviously, since you are in jail now.”

“What’s in the past is in the past. We can work towards becoming a real family now!”

Sterling steeled herself. “The reason I came today Dana, is to tell you the truth.” The woman nodded.

“I have a family, and it doesn’t include you.” Dana yelled in response, causing one of the guards to come over to warn the two about keeping the noise down.

“I am happy with my family the way it is,” Sterling continued, ignoring the other woman’s protests. “I love my sister, and I love my parents. I am happy with school, and my friends, and my job. I have thought long and hard about this, sleepless nights have been spent mulling it over, but I’ve come to the conclusion that Debbie and Anderson are my parents, and Blair is my twin sister, and I love them and I am happy. They are my family, and I honestly don’t think there is a place for you in it. That may change some day, I don’t know. But right now, they are it. And I think, if you love me like you say you do, you’ll respect my decision on the matter.”

After saying her bit, Sterling stood up. Dana was complaining bitterly, so Sterling knew she made the right choice. Maybe after her time here she will have changed, but right now Dana Culpepper was not someone she wanted around.

“Goodbye Dana,” Sterling said before walking away.

~~~

This is how it ends:

Forty five minutes in a parking lot.

Sterling did not have April’s foresight to bring reading material, so she played on her phone, scrolled through Instagram, and tried to see how many M&M’s she could catch in her mouth (not many, most ended up on the floor of her car).

After what seemed like an eternity, Sterling spotted April leaving the facility which housed her father.

“How’d it go?” Sterling asked after April climbed into the passenger seat. April just nodded in response.

Sterling knew stuff with April’s dad wasn’t something she shared with Sterling since the whole we-brought-you’re-dad-in-for-skipping-bail revelation, so Sterling took her cue and started the car. When Sterling put her hand on the gear shift to shift into drive, April’s hand covered her own.

“Let’s get out of here.”