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Chapter Text

DAY ONE - FRIDAY

Having spent a good twelve years of his life in the Lafayette Indiana school district, Axl Rose, teenager-in-supreme, could reliably say that he hated algebra. And it wasn’t like the kind of marginal hate you reserve for tuna casserole or bad music or an itchy t-shirt, it was the deep, profound hatred of unnatural things, like the unending loathing of mankind for itself and its endless divisions into colors black and white and religions theistic and atheistic. It was the kind of low-down despising that had made him scowl so hard at the test paper it nearly burst into flame by some miracle of telepathy. And it wasn’t that he wasn’t smart. He was smart, just not with this. Not with college algebra, with all its matrices and quadratics, and if he saw another goddamned square root symbol he swore he would flip the damn teacher’s desk—he really would. Well, he would have, anyway, if this test didn’t mean a lot to him. It was one of the last ones of the school year, one of the last chances to get his math grade up to a place where his mom wouldn’t look at him with disappointment when she saw his report card, as had become a semi-annual tradition that nobody liked. Normally, Axl made pretty okay grades—even great ones—but this year had just been hard, for a multitude of reasons.

He scratched at a scab on his wrist while the teacher droned on in a kind of fuzzy middle-aged way. Axl hoped that when he got to be forty—if he ever did, anyway—that he wouldn’t be like that, all boring and balding and just brimming with stupid jokes about everything. The guy couldn’t comprehend the fact that his students didn’t care. Axl sighed and bounced his knee a few times, and then stopped when the girl sitting in front of him turned around to glare at him.

“Do you mind?” She whispered.

Her name was Sally, Sal for short, and she could be a real pill, but she was kind of cute, too. Axl liked her hair. A lot of the time she wore it in long blonde pigtails, and the temptation to pull them was often quite strong. He never did, because that would just be stupid, to get into trouble at the age of seventeen for yanking a girl’s pigtails—but he thought about it a lot. Today she wasn’t wearing pigtails. Her hair was curled instead, and smelled like she’d used a gallon of hairspray on it. Axl thought it kind of looked like Rotelle pasta.

“Do you mind?” Sal repeated, more harshly this time.

“Sorry,” he whispered back, in a voice that made her wrinkle her nose and give a little “hmph!” as if he had been some special kind of jerk to her for accidentally nudging her chair. Big whoop. Axl could not possibly have cared less as he stared at the front of the classroom, then at the big black-rimmed clock on the wall, then out the window, where two blue jays were yelling at each other in the bush just outside. One fluttered up to the same branch the second bird rested on, giving a squawk as if to say, Give me my food back, thief! The second bird just flapped off to nowhere with a determined screech, beak full of breadcrumbs. The scene brought a smile to his face.

“William,” the teacher said, in front of him all of a sudden, thick glasses making his eyes look enormous. Axl snapped his attention back to the classroom and realized the reason his teacher was standing over him so ominously was because he was handing their tests back.

“Oh. Thanks.” He took the piece of paper, which had been handed to him, face down, and felt his heart skitter a little in his chest as he turned it over. There was no need to have such anticipatory feelings, though, no need for nervousness or excitement, because the huge F glaring back at him from the top of the page in bright red ink said enough. He didn’t bother to see yet what he’d gotten wrong this time, and just flipped it back to the blank side, grinding his teeth down and cursing himself out inside his own head. A twelve out of fifty. A twelve out of fifty! Who the hell gets a twelve out of fifty? He turned the paper over again, searching, trying to see what he had done wrong, but there were no explanations, only red slashes through the parts he had apparently messed up. Except, going back over it in his head, he couldn’t figure out what exactly it was that he had messed up at all. He just couldn’t see it. It all looked right to him. Well, sure, okay, he could have missed a couple of points here and there for forgetting a negative or accidentally multiplying instead of adding, but god damn it, he knew how matrices worked, or how they were supposed to work—so why didn’t they? He stared at the paper, desperately trying to make sense of it, before giving up and flipping it back down so that no one else would see the score emblazoned across the top.

“As usual, the highest score was a 50,” the teacher sighed, coming back to his position at the front of the room. “And good for you, Paul, for achieving your fifth in a row. We’re all proud. But the rest of you…” And so the droning continued.

Axl snuck a glance at Paul, who was, neatly put, a nerd. He wore these ridiculous button-up knit shirts, even in the hotter months, and always had these stupid dress pants on, like he was late for a business meeting or something. And get this—he wore pens, too. Like, in his shirt pocket. It always made Axl snicker, the fact that Paul did that, how he wore them there like other guys wore pocket squares or handkerchiefs or whatever the hell else. They were the cruddiest pens, too, and would sometimes leak ink, so it looked like he was bleeding blue from his left nipple. Axl had to stifle a laugh at the thought, but didn’t focus on it for too long, because one of the boys had called out,

“Aw, c’mon, tell us!”

The teacher sighed. “You all have a different understanding of the material, as evidenced by the wide variation in test scores for this chapter. I imagine some of you will be doing a little bit of remedial work to pass the semester, and I’ll be happy to accommodate as such—”

“Who had the lowest score? Tell us! Tell us!” The boy yelling at the top of his lungs was Thurne Pavitt, who, if Axl were being his most bitingly sarcastic self, could describe as a gentleman who played a lot of golf and danced with a ton of girls at the country club where he worked as a dedicated busboy. But in reality, Axl knew very well—as did the rest of the class—that Thurne Pavitt was a rude idiot and a daddy’s boy and a free-riding no-good manwhore. Well, perhaps the rest of the class didn’t think of him in so many words. But Axl did, and knew every single one was true, too. He glared at the blond boy across the way, the somehow-enviable blond-haired blue-eyed all-American super-fuckin’-stupid Trouble Child Numero Uno. Thurne was undisturbed by the weight of Axl’s stare, though, and kept egging on the older man at the front of the room.

“Tell us! Tell us!” It became a chant among Thurne and his buddies. Axl wondered how it could be that there could be geniuses like Albert Einstein and Elton John and neanderthals like the Pavitts all on the same earth in the same century. What a miracle, he thought to himself, wiggling his knee some more, careful not to nudge Sal’s desk again.

The teacher sighed. “You’ll have to find that out for yourselves, boys, I don’t divulge scores, unlike certain… unprofessional… teachers.” Oh, they all knew who he was talking about; but it was the only way Mrs. Dodge could get anyone to respect her—Axl knew she was all about public humiliation in the classroom, and almost enjoyed being ragged on by her, just ‘cause he knew she could take it as well as she could dish it. But this was different. “Since you want to know so desperately, though, twelve was the lowest score. And I am mightily disappointed in you…”

Shit. Axl thought, first afraid, then angry for being afraid, then angry at the teacher. His knee began to bounce rapidly, now, and didn’t stop, even when Sal cleared her throat pointedly a few times. The harsh voice of his inner monologue cut through the chatter in his brain with a mantra of its own. Why don’tcha just sell me out, old man? Why don’tcha just sell me out? Why don’tcha just…

There was no more time for self-deprecating thoughts as the bell rang and people started getting their stuff together. Thankfully, math was the last class of the day—at least for Axl, it was. He crammed his test paper in his backpack and stood up, waiting for Sal to hurry up and get out of the way so he could avoid Thurne and the other boys comparing scores to see who had gotten a twelve. They’d already combed their way through half of the classroom, checking papers like some kind of border agency. Axl rolled his eyes at the thought, but was still uneasy with their constant approach. Sal finally got her shit together and started moving, and Axl was practically hopping up and down behind her, whispering Come on, woman, get a MOVE on! as she ambled toward the door side-by-side with Sarah, a plain dark-haired girl who loved to talk at the same time as she walked as slow as humanly possible.

“Hey Bill!” Dammit. Too late. Axl bit his tongue, wrinkled his nose, and then pretended not to notice.

“Hey BILL! What’dya get?” One of Thurne’s buddies—Maxwell, Axl thought, but he had gotten names wrong before—leapt across a desk to block Axl’s path, where Sal had been standing not two seconds ago. Shit, shit, shit. Axl tried to come up with a clever response, something, anything, to get this stupid motherfucker away from him. But it’s kind of hard to do that when you’re brain’s ringing alarm bells and, at the same time, telling you that you’re the stupid motherfucker in the situation, not them; since, after all, you’re the one with a big bright red 12/50 on your paper.

“None of your fucking business is what I got,” Axl said, face turning a brilliant shade of red in a display of biological betrayal. The group of boys—kind of like a cluster of blue jays, actually, but a hell of a lot meaner—closed in.

“Ohoho,” Thurne gleamed. “Bet you’re the twelve. Makes sense. See, I always thought, living on that side of town, and all—”

“Shut your mouth,” Axl simmered, feeling his face grow impossibly hotter, and remembered something, vaguely, that his mother said—something about consequences, if he ever dared get into another fight at school. Well, actually, he couldn’t remember the exact consequences, but even if they were bad, they weren’t going to feel nearly as horrible as Thurne would if Axl got a hold of him. His fists tightened and his nails cut ragged marks into the heels of his palms.

There was a moment of tension before they snapped into movement. One of Thurne’s boys tore open the zipper on Axl’s backpack and ripped the paper out. Axl leapt for it like a rabid dog fighting for a bone, but the paper passed hands so quickly it was useless, and all of a sudden the crowd of boys had turned into this large, gloating mass, this huge thing that made Axl blind with anger.

“Hahaha,” Thurne cackled. He waved the paper just out of Axl’s reach; the big blond idiot, the fuckin’ quarterback with an extra foot of dumbass added to him, the—Axl couldn’t think anymore, not in straight lines; he was strung out on a very, very thin wire of controlled anger, a thing one might dare to call patience. A fleeting thought of spontaneous combustion occurred to him, and he wished it weren’t so fleeting as Thurne continued, in one piece—for the moment. “Stupid’s hereditary and environmental, isn’t it? Fuckin’ twelve… you’re a genius, man, you really are. No, don’t look at me like that—you are! You’ll get into community college just fine, in a few decades.” Thurne’s teeth gleamed as he smiled and chided the boiling redhead in front of him. “I guess it takes a toll on ya, living in a dusty lead-paint shack with a cow for a mother—”

The wire snapped. Axl didn’t know who he hit first, or whose teeth he’d knocked out, but that didn’t matter in the fray of things. Everything inside him exploded at once like a red-purple volcano of pure hatred as he swung and hit and swung and hit and took down at least three of the stupid motherfuckers, one of which he hoped was Thurne Pavitt, and he only calmed down enough to see out of his own eyes again when two younger teachers had grabbed him and hauled him away from a group of shell-shocked gawking teenagers and bloodied boys. He fought the grips around his upper arms, snarling, kicking, until he realized one of the guys laying on the ground was Thurne, and that he was spurting blood from his nose and crying like a little bitch. Then, and only then, Axl allowed himself to drop into the grasp of the sixth grade and ninth grade teachers, who were both yelling for him to quiet down and to knock it off. He looked up at them, squinting against fluorescent lights, as they dragged him into the principal's office. They were two young men who had to be no older than thirty, who wore button-down shirts and ties and who were just getting a taste of how bad teaching in the suburbs could be. They threw him into the little room with no regard for any comforts he might have wanted, no regard for how hard they had gripped his arms, and no regard for what was going to happen to him now. And one of them—the dark haired man, the ninth grade teacher, whom Axl had dealt with as a freshman and had not really cared for—slammed the door behind him rather rudely. Axl rubbed his arms where he’d been yanked around. It took a moment but he did find reason enough to sit down—his favorite chair was in there, after all, a nice coffee-ground brown with a vermillion cushion. Bad as it seemed, he was definitely in the office often enough to be able to pick favorites. So it was in this favorite chair he sat, next to the window, all the while staring bullet holes into the wall as he reviewed the events that had occurred and what the principal would say to him and what they would say to his mother when they called home and what his mother and step father would do about it.

I guess it takes a toll on ya, living in a dust lead-paint shack with a cow for a mother. Thurne’s words started ringing through his head again, making him angry enough to twist his hands and crack his knuckles and get up as if he were going to go back and finish the job. But the principal stepped into the office, then, and he sat back down in the chair, resuming his seething just barely under the radiator cap, waiting to blow a fuse, waiting to become a volcano again. He wouldn’t hurt the principal, though. They had this sort of agreement, that if it came to that, and if he did hit her, he would be expelled and charged for assault, too. But that would never happen, not even by accident, because Axl actually kind of liked the principal—her name was Mrs. Jenkins, which he liked because it was such a corny name to have; and because she didn’t take any shit.

“What was that all about?” Mrs. Jenkins snapped so hard it made her black bobbed haircut quiver a little. Axl was a bit insulted by the vehemence, but figured that, like him, she must have been having a stressful day. He could relate to that anytime, but didn’t much appreciate her tone.

“Am I not supposed to do anything when some moron insults my mother?” He asked, and it came out sounding meaner than he meant it, but really, he did feel mean. He felt mean enough to walk back into that classroom and beat the everloving shit out of Thurne Pavitt, that’s how he felt, and he was two seconds from doing just that. The only thing that stopped him was Mrs. Jenkins, and that was because she was standing in the way, all five-foot-one-inch of her, in a deep teal pantsuit with her dark arms crossed and foot tapping quietly on the carpeted floor. He sucked in a breath and subdued the violence, just for a second, shutting his brain up so he could listen to her. It looked like she had something to say. Mrs. Jenkins always had something to say when he was in her office, and more often than not, it was a decent piece of wisdom. Axl could’ve used some wisdom this day. Anything to make the writhing anger leave him. He would’ve even liked some wisdom on college algebra. What was it he had done wrong with those matrices? The thought made him frustrated all over again, and his fists, still smeared with drying blood from Thurne’s nose, curled in on themselves once more.

Mrs. Jenkins just sighed, painfully, closing her eyes to the world around her, like she was going to have to explain something over again that she’d already explained about a hundred times. “William, we’ve had this conversation before. Those boys are just trying to rile you up. They are. Do you think it’s good when they see you like that? Do you think it’s good when you attack them, and get revenge? No. They’re looking for a show, Will, and they’re getting it from you.”

“They’re also going to get broken noses from me, and that’ll probably help cool them off,” Axl retorted with his mind in a flurry of embers, an absolute blizzard of anger. Some of it was for math and some of it was for daddy’s-boys and some of it was for girls who couldn’t walk fast enough out of a goddamn classroom and some of it was for people who just didn’t understand. Everything flew around him, flew past him; invisible, and yet he felt it all. He dug his nails into the palms of his hands even harder, and his knuckles began to ache from being tucked into a fist so tightly.

“No it won’t. You know they’ll just use that as an excuse to say… well, say everything they already do say about you.”

Before he could stop himself, Axl jumped out of his chair, as if she herself had smacked one of the still-healing bruises on his back. “Yeah, right. Yeah, RIGHT. Like they need an excuse to say shit. They don’t, do they? Everyone in this fucking building seems to think I’m an idiot. Why do they need an excuse to say anything? Why do they need you to protect them with your excuses? Huh?” If Axl had been a cat, the hair on his back would have been raised to the nines, and he was starting to feel his shoulders hitch up in a similar fashion, trying to make himself taller than the woman looking at him with sad brown eyes. She had no business being sad. Why the fuck was she sad? He swore some more and still, she did nothing but look at him like he was a dying puppy, or something. She crossed her arms inside their dark teal jacket sleeves, and waited for Mount William Bailey to go dormant again. But this time, he wouldn’t. He fucking wouldn’t. He wouldn’t sit there and listen to another lecture about how to let the other boys talk shit, and how to fit in, and how to ignore pain, and how to let school staff deal with the issue. Normally, he would have been fine doing that—he’d let it slide freshman year, because he wanted to see what they would do—but nobody did anything. As far as he could tell, the only time Thurne Pavitt’s father had gotten called into the office to talk about his son’s behavior, the administrators had left a pretty penny richer. Not Mrs. Jenkins, because she didn’t take anything from anybody, no matter how bad she wanted it. But if she thought Axl didn’t know about the rest, well, she was wrong. He knew. He knew Thurne Pavitt could afford to have his nose broken, and that he could afford to have his car keyed, and he could afford to lose his best golf putter, and he could afford to lose a goddamned eye if he kept talking about Axl’s mother. And he knew that it was up to him to make sure Thurne Pavitt got exactly what he could afford, because the school administrators were about as good at doling out punishments for rich kids as they were at teaching college algebra.

“I’m not a fucking idiot!” He yelled, and stormed out of the office, much to the chagrin of the secretarial folk who watched him go, wondering if somebody was going to tackle him or if they would just have to call Mrs. Bailey and tell her that her son had assaulted three other students, promptly cursed out the principal, and then run out.

“Let him go,” sighed Mrs. Jenkins. Right now, she wanted nothing more than a cigarette—and a glass of wine, and a bottle of aspirin for the headache she had developed while dealing with her latest train-wreck case. But the rest of the day still had to be run. Some boys in a certain math class in hall B had to be tended to and lectured about poking the bear. God. It was going to be a long afternoon. She sighed again, and rubbed her temples vigorously, as if that might help the aching.

The staff in the office watched the door slowly come to a swinging close behind him, and then went about their business. Someone picked up the phone and dialed.

-

“Stupid fucking…” The anger was beyond words, and though Axl knew the fight was over and done with and he’d probably have to deal with the consequences now, because logically, that was what came next; he just couldn’t settle into it. Everything made him upset, it seemed. He kicked the tin can on the sidewalk so hard it flew into a picket fence with a dull ‘thud’. And then he hopped the fence and went stomping through people’s backyards, tearing up whatever he could. He came across a clothesline full of white bedsheets and pulled them all down, throwing the pins as far as they would go. And he stomped on to the next yard, where there laid a perfectly innocent soccer ball, which he kicked a good fifty feet away into a small stand of trees. And then he crossed into a yard where a dog laid in its miniature house, chained to a post. It got up on all fours and started to bark at him menacingly, defending its territory, but one look of pure hatred sent it yipping and skittering back inside the doghouse. Axl crossed green lawn after green lawn in the direction of home, hoping the walk would cool him off, but knowing from the writhing emotion in his chest that it wouldn’t, that nothing would, and that he wasn’t done blowing up completely yet. The thought just barely managed to cross his mindspace as he looked to his left, to his mother’s flower garden just behind their house, and instantly, it was like he was on fire. Axl could never be sure what made him do that; what made him go absolutely insane with anger, but he did know that pretty much everyone in his natural life hated it. He spent most of his days tamping it down and learning how to put up with things so it wouldn’t show so much; like a bad rash, a disease. But on occasion, there were days where he just didn’t have the energy to put up a front. There were some days where Axl simply exploded.

Zinnias and star asters and daisies stared up at him, gleaming and happy, from the ground outside his house. They were so perfect, like a snowfall before someone takes the first steps out into it—a perfect bed of flowers, so closely planted that they were quite like a bed indeed; a quilt of white and yellow and delightful spring green. They stretched their heads up to the afternoon sun in glorious abandon, and screamed not a word as Axl, frustrated by the peace and perfectness with which they lived, tore them out fistful by fistful until only broken stalks remained. He might have hollered something while he was doing it—might have, he didn’t know—and he might have cried a little, too; but again, he couldn’t say. All he knew was that he was seeing white and yellow and green and perfectness and didn’t want to be seeing it. He wanted every last goddamn bloom in that stupid garden to be as reckless and as broken as he felt, to be as idiotic-looking under the near-summer sun as he was to Thurne and to Mrs. Jenkins and to everybody in that entire school. He wanted the flowers to die, because if he had to live without perfection, then why should anything else be allowed to live with it?

And it was somewhere in this strained, screaming madness that he finally eclipsed, finally got past the resentment—at least, for the moment. The last flower stalk had been crippled. His hands were covered in sap and starchy green stains and his nails were edged with dirt, from the voracity with which he pulled the poor plants from the ground. He was breathing like a wild horse, staring wildly into the scattered dirt remains of the garden, waiting for something to happen, waiting for the flowers to mock him, somehow. But they laid still, and waited, as he slowly came back to the garden around him. The…garden. The garden that, strangely, had not included any of his mother’s tomato plants, or zucchini flowers, or…

Oh shit. Axl thought, looking up at the house in front of him, suddenly feeling weak and numb as he made eye contact with the neighbor girl, who was staring out at him, wide-eyed, because she’d just seen a madman tear through her flower bed.

Axl looked to the right, a backyard’s length away, where his mother’s garden lay perfectly untouched. Twin zinnias and star asters glimmered in the sunshine, almost gloating at him, and tomatoes ripened quietly on the vine and zucchini flowers stared at him, yellow pollen dusting the leaves of everything around them. Axl looked back at the window, where (Y/N)(L/N) was still standing, hand over her heart, as if it had stopped beating. And he couldn’t think of anything better to do than run.

-

Mrs. Bailey was on the phone when her oldest son barrelled into the house through the back door, tripped as he swung around the banister, and fell before clambering up the stairs like he was being chased by the devil himself. She put her hand to her chest for a moment and felt an echoic wave of air come whooshing towards her; with the oddly natural scent of… greens. Like lawn clippings, almost. She frowned and listened to the administrator on the phone finish up her account of the events that had transpired that afternoon, and gave a deep internal sigh that mothers often do on account of their troublemaking children.

“Yes, thank you. I’m so sorry again. Please tell Thurne I’m sorry, too. If he’s still there. And yes, of course, I’ll be talking to—what? Oh, yes. Mhm. Yes, I will be sure to… oh—okay. Alright. Goodbye then.” And with that, she tucked the phone back into its cradle, collected herself for a moment, and turned in the direction of the stairs to let out one of those earth-shattering motherly howls when a knock on the door startled her out of her frustration.

“And who in the world…?” She muttered to herself, striding over to the door and putting a hand on her hip as she opened it just slightly, to peek out at whoever had decided to choose this untimely moment to barge in on their family life.

The young woman outside the door was none other than their neighbor, whom—despite having met her when she first moved in—Mrs. Bailey could not honestly say she remembered much about. Other than the fact that her name was (Y/N) (L/N), of course, and that she was a youngish girl just out of school, with no husband to speak of, and with nothing but a small house and an older car in her possession. As shy as she seemed to be, Miss (L/N) had never been the most hospitable neighbor, but for Mrs. Bailey this was no problem: she was too busy with her three children to be bothered at all by the lack of Sunday tea parties or afternoon book clubs. Miss (L/N) was nice enough to wave hello whenever they happened to be outside at the same time, though, and to help Mrs. Bailey with the bags upon bags of groceries that fed her children. And Miss (L/N) had a similar knack for gardening, which was pleasant enough to discuss on any day in the sparse shade of the cottonwood where they both knelt happily amongst their flowers. On opposite sides of the two yards, they frequently shouted back and forth and made wonderful conversation about events in the neighborhood during the planting seasons. Yes, Mrs. Bailey was absolutely certain that Miss (L/N) was a kind young lady, an honest girl; and even though she was shy, that she was nothing but a good influence.

Which was why it upset her so much to know what happened to Miss (L/N)’s garden.

“Um, I don’t mean to be accusing at all, but I—well, I just saw your oldest son… ah… how do I say this?” The poor girl stood, wringing her hands, looking for the right words, and eventually just pointed in the direction of her garden, which now lay in heaps of discarded dirt and shredded ruin. “He… um… must have been upset about something. It’s just—I did pay a lot for those zinnias, and… well, more than anything, I thought you should know.” Her face burned red as Mrs. Bailey swung the door open to get a good squinting look at her neighbor’s garden, and gasped at the sight. “I just—he seems so upset lately. Is he alright?”

Mrs. Bailey ignored the question and spun to face the stairs of the house, where she knew her son was hiding like a little mole in his bedroom. She let out a shriek. “WILLIAM BRUCE BAILEY, YOU GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!”

‘Right this instant’, as it turned out, was fairly subjective. Miss (L/N) had already apologized ten times before Axl came slinking down the stairs, his gaze avoiding them both, looking like a dog that was about to be beaten. Mrs. Bailey held up her hand and stopped the neighbor girl in the middle of an eleventh “I’m so sorry, I don’t mean to…” and gave her a somewhat pained look.

“Please,” Mrs. Bailey said, green eyes flashing with motherly hurt. “Please forgive him.”

“Oh, I do. I do, absolutely. I just—”

Mrs. Bailey, with one strong, sun-tanned hand, grabbed Axl by the ear as soon as he got close enough and dragged him the rest of the way to the door.

“MA!” He yelled, and Miss (L/N) winced at the sound, trying desperately to convince her neighbor that none of this was really necessary, and would she please let go of him, God, she forgave him, honestly, she forgave him, now would she just let go—?

Mrs. Bailey did let go, only to raise her arm and land a backhanded smack on Axl’s cheek. He wrinkled his nose into a snarl but held it back, looking as sullen as ever, knowing Ma was a lot stronger than she looked, and if she wanted to, she could take him out. He settled for standing, leaning, really, in the doorway, grimacing and rubbing the cheek where her bright red hand print now resided. The neighbor he had seen in the window—Miss (L/N)—stared, as if she were witnessing something. He hated that look. That wide-eyed look, that he got from people all the time, everywhere, who whispered about him acting one way or another or how their family acted one way or another and how apparently, every part and piece of his conduct on this earthly plane was wrong, even if he—

“Tell Miss (L/N) that you’re sorry right now,” Ma commanded.

Miss (L/N) looked positively mortified. “Oh, no, please, that’s really not—”

“It is. Tell her you’re sorry for tearing up her entire garden.”

“‘M sorry,” Axl mumbled lowly, eyes glued to the floor, where Miss (L/N)’s black kitten heels seemed to contrast so sharply with the worn out wooden boards of their front porch. He hoped she didn’t mind getting dust all over them, because nobody ever swept the front walk. It was supposed to be done once a month as a chore for one of the younger two, but nobody ever actually did it, and so the dusty porch remained. He thought about it, how he might actually like it if she bothered to get some dirt on her every once in a while. She always seemed to be dressed well, all pristine skirts and slacks and colorful silk blouses, and with her hair gently brushed back to a silky sheen. Axl often thought that he’d give anything to see her messed up, really messed up, like one of the drunken girls who stalked the block at 2 A.M.; with her hair frizzy and makeup smeared and miniskirt hiked halfway up. It would be entertaining. Axl thought about it for as long as he could, until his mom clamped her hand on his shoulder, and he winced.

“Say you’re sorry,” Ma Bailey ground out from between her set teeth, “Like you mean it.”

Axl dragged his line of sight up to meet (Y/N)’s eyes, which were, as usual, their prettiest shade of (e/c). He blushed with deep embarrassment as he looked at her and said, in a cracking voice,

“I’m really, really sorry for wrecking your entire garden, ‘cause I didn’t know it was yours, and I thought it was ours, and if I’d known it was yours I wouldn’t have touched it, honest; I wouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” (Y/N) said, truthfully, but hastily, not wanting to see Mrs. Bailey haranguing her son anymore. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You seemed upset, and—”

“Oh, upset. You know who’s upset? I am. Why?” Mrs. Bailey interrupted, regarding her son with a heated look, at which he shrank back, despite being nearly half a foot taller than her. “Because my son thinks it’s acceptable to get into a fist fight every day of his life. Because I cannot go a single day without a phone call from the office at school detailing who he attacked and how and why and what the circumstances were, and whether or not he broke anybody else’s bones today.” She glared at Axl, and he just stared at the floor. Mrs. Bailey snapped her gaze back to Miss (L/N), who was slowly but surely beginning to look as if she wished she had just kept her lips sealed about the garden and pretended it was a wild rabbit or something.

“You know what, William? I’m done trying to punish you. You can spend your weekend putting Miss (L/N)’s garden back together and helping her with her chores.”

Axl and Miss (L/N) both looked at Mrs. Bailey incredulously.

“Oh, no no no, that won’t be necessary,” Miss (L/N) started again, and Axl cut in,

“Seriously?”

Ma Bailey’s stare hardened. “Don’t take that tone with me. And make it three days. You’ll help her after school on Monday too.”

“Mom!”

“Four days.”

“Mom, you can’t—”

“A week.” Her glare practically sizzled through the air, it was so heated with anger. “And don’t you say anything more about it, young man, because I’ve had enough of you. I have half a mind to tell your father—”

“He’s not my fucking father!” Axl hissed, and Ma Bailey raised her hand to him one more time, to which he backed off.

“Watch your language.” She snapped ruthlessly, and lowered her wiry arm, keeping it glued to her side in a way that suggested he was safe, but he had better watch out.

Miss (L/N), who was in the middle of witnessing a display of familial upset she was not unfamiliar with, but was wholly uncomfortable with—and who was also wishing she could skitter off the front porch and just have the whole situation disappear—coughed awkwardly. “Mrs. Bailey, honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do with him for that long. It can’t possibly take a week to redo that garden, I—”

“I don’t care what you do with William, just get him out of this house and keep him out of trouble. Maybe he’ll actually listen to you.” She turned, with her look of hurt, to Axl, whose expression only read of utter betrayal. “And don’t you dare think about coming home until you’ve finished whatever chores she gives you. I don’t want a peep out of you for the rest of the night, either. Now get.”

“Mom,” Axl tried again.

“Please, Mrs. Bailey,” Miss (L/N) begged.

Mrs. Bailey would hear none of it. “What’s done is done. William has made his bed and he’s going to lie in it. I’m sorry, dear, I really am, but he’s got to learn to behave somehow.” She said with finality before she closed the door and shooed Axl up to his room, where he would stay for the rest of the night without dinner.

Miss (L/N) stood outside the door for a moment, wondering what in God’s green earth she had gotten herself into, and then turned unsteadily, clicking her heels back down the porch steps and crunching across the gravel path between their houses up to her own front door. She cast the occasional worried glance back at the Bailey household, but didn’t do much more than that, and disappeared back into her house like a cat down an alleyway. Axl watched from his bedroom window on the second floor until he could see her no more. Once the front door closed behind her soft skirt-and-blouse figure, he threw down the shade, rolled over on his bed, and stared at the ceiling, wondering. Wondering what the rest of the night would be like. Wondering when his step father would get home. And then, slowly, quietly—

—wondering what tomorrow would be like.

Chapter Text

DAY TWO - SATURDAY

The next morning was Saturday, and it dawned bright and beautiful, like all Saturday mornings do. Somebody far off on the other side of town was mowing the lawn, and the echoing whine of the motor made its way over to their block of the neighborhood. Somebody else nearby was frying eggs and bacon and making coffee with the windows open to let the heavenly scent of breakfast pour out. Yet another somebody had done the laundry bright and early, and was letting their lilac-perfumed linens hang on the clothesline in the delicate breeze that signified June’s coming dawn; a summertime procession like the flower girl at a wedding. It truly was a glorious morning to behold. But inside Axl’s shuttered room, where the shades had been violently pulled shut and furniture had been slammed against walls and picture frames had shattered and homework assignments had been torn to shreds and voices had screamed back and forth for hours, Axl himself laid face-first on his bed, opening his eyes and knowing from the first breath he took that today was going to be a really fucking difficult day.

He stretched—or tried to, anyway, without remembering the violent battery of the night before—and did his best to wipe his face of dried sweat and tears. For once, there wasn’t blood, which he could certainly be thankful for. Axl wasn’t a pansy by any six meanings of the word, but he didn’t want to look like Thurne Pavitt with a broken nose, either, and remained grateful that of all the things his step father could have chosen to pound on, it was usually his back. Although this presented some unique challenges for getting a shirt on. Axl chose the softest one he had, and quietly stole down the hall to the bathroom to assess the damage in the mirror.

He stared for a good long while, surrounded by aqua blue tiles that almost matched his eyes—they would have, too, if they were a little more green—and grit his teeth as he put one arm, then the other, and then his head through the t-shirt; and then grunted in near-whispers as he wiggled and pulled and writhed and pinched and tried to get the shirt on without touching any of the welts that laid upon his skin like angry hatchmarks. At one point, the grey fabric grazed a particularly bad spot on his right shoulder, and Axl sucked in a breath so quick it sounded like a snake hissing. But he told himself to get used to it—he’d probably be in pain the entire day. And it wouldn’t put him in any better of a mood, either.

It took him a while to get himself together, but eventually he did, and he opened the bathroom door slowly, pulling slightly downward on the hinges so it wouldn’t creak. It had to be eight in the morning by now, or something like it; so the Bastard (as Axl so lovingly referred to his step father) was probably at work; and his mother was most likely sleeping in on her only day off from the general disarray of society and life. Axl edged towards the stairs and took them one by one, not wanting to wake anyone up. The morning wore on, slowly, in the chirping of birds outside the window, and somebody’s wind chimes outside singing a charming little melody. Sunlight reached into the near-silent kitchen with its pale yellow essence and a certain determination that Axl couldn’t help but admire. Without a sound, he stole a green apple from the fruit bowl on the counter, and a glass from the cupboard, and went out the back door.

Out there, the morning seemed gentler. The air was crisp enough on his skin to make him shiver a little. Dewdrops sparkled on the grass as far as the eye could see, birds fluttered and chittered overhead, and somewhere, a crow cawed. Axl stood, barefoot, on the back steps, crunching into the apple with all the thoughtfulness of a daydreaming child, and proceeded to step down into the dirt valleys of the garden next to the zucchini patch to fill the glass with water straight from the hose. This particular method was quieter than turning on the tap in the kitchen, and oftentimes, Axl preferred the metallic taste of the water out here, though he was almost sure it would get him into trouble eventually—only God and scientists knew what kinds of bacteria and mud-crud were in there, and he wasn’t about to find out. Nor did he really want to. All he wanted to do was sit on the stone steps, ignore the stinging pain, chug his metallic-tasting water and eat the last of his apple while taking in the early morning scenery.

The sky was whitish-gold at the seams, where clouds lay in full view of the sun, and above him, the endless blue expanse seemed deep enough to fall into, if one were to get a ladder and climb all the way up. Sometimes, if Axl thought about it hard enough, he could get dizzy staring at the sky, imagining gravity losing its hold on him, allowing him to float up, up and away from the sunbaked crust of the earth. Today, however, a flock of geese caught his attention before he could capture that feeling, and instead he watched as they flew somewhat clumsily overhead, probably en route to a lake or something. Mean birds. He smiled. Geese, like the blue jays around here, were mean and spiteful and bit you if you so much as looked at them funny. And they were really entertaining. He liked to feed them sometimes, with little bits of popcorn and seeds and stuff. The geese liked him because of it. So did the blue jays. If anything, Axl was closer to animals than he was anyone or anything else on the face of the earth—and he was okay with that. Animals were alright. Maybe they didn’t have human souls, but somehow, that made them seem better to him. They couldn’t be bad, or good. They just were. Axl found himself wishing quite a lot that he could just be.

Another movement caught his eye and distracted him from the thoughts of both the sky and the animals. It was, as it turned out, the movement of a rather large gardening hat, like the kind his own mother wore, and below it was a familiar face framed with silky (h/c) hair tied back like she meant business. He took the final bite of his apple, chewed, tossed the core backward into the Baileys’ garden with a single thought of ‘easy compost’, and swiped the back of his hand across his mouth to clean up a little. Not that he was thinking too hard about appearing clean in front of her, but, well, you know, impressions were everything, and he didn’t want her thinking he was just some stupid boy who let his mother drag him around by the ears all the time. Axl watched curiously as her sunhat swung around, and she moved a wheelbarrow out from the side of the garage to right next to where he’d torn up the most flowers. Today, it seemed, he would get his wish on her—at least a little bit. She was no longer dressed like a pristine nine-to-fiver, and instead looked like the kind of girl who was indeed comfortable getting a bit of dirt under her nails; who could tear weeds out of the flower bed for hours and wouldn’t get squeamish at the sight of a worm. Instead of her usual silk blouse and pencil skirt, she wore a ragged tee shirt and a pair of blue jeans so worn out they were almost white at the knees, and where she normally wore sleek black kitten heels, a pair of beat up used-to-be-(f/c) Chuck Taylors rested just under the dirt-caked hems of her pant legs. It was almost as if she were a whole other person. Axl thought for a second about how nice she looked, as though by dressing down, she had moved closer to the earth, closer to his reality. She looked motherly—that was the word. Or maybe not motherly. Not quite. She looked… oh, hell, he didn’t know. Womanly? Something feminine. Something close to Mother Nature. There was a word for it, somewhere. The itch for precision irritated his brain and he tried to flick the thought away.

Though it was early, Miss (L/N) had been out surveying and neatening-up the garden patch—which now looked more like a graveyard—for a little while. Axl realized he didn’t know how to feel about the situation, exactly. He knew it was a dick move of his to wreck everything like that, but at the same time, he didn’t feel like he should have to rebuild it, either. It did bother him, after all, how perfect everything was in her garden. It seemed tamed, somehow. Like it had been getting along fine, and then she went and put everything in rows and trimmed and pruned until it was perfect, to her making. Axl wondered if it hurt flowers to be cut like that—even when they were still growing. Or if they didn’t mind, and just did what they were supposed to.

He went back to the Baileys’ hose for more water a few times, but eventually, Miss (L/N) noticed him and waved him over. Warily, he edged towards her, not wanting to come close enough for her to analyze him, because he hated when people did that. People were awfully judgmental, and he didn’t want to have to see that judgment resting on her face. Not like she didn’t get the chance yesterday, his brain reminded him unhelpfully, and he scowled and tried to throw that thought away, too.

She smiled instead. “Hey, Will! Are you up early to help out?”

Axl drew a line in the dirt with his toe, and then smudged it out with the frayed hem of his jeans. They hung lower than he would have liked, so that he was pretty much always tripping over them. He thought about this while she waited for him to answer. And it took him a while to do so, but still, she waited, patiently. Eventually, he gave a great heave of a sigh and muttered,

“I guess.”

“Great!” She was as chipper as ever. Axl felt a twinge in his chest, thinking that maybe she’d gotten a good night’s sleep, and for a painful moment, he was jealous of her wellbeing. But then he remembered the garden, and felt a little guilty about it again. A girl like her probably lost sleep over her garden if anything bad happened to it. With this thought in mind, he followed her over to the side door of her garage, and waited while she ducked inside and found some things for him.

“Here ya go.” Gardening gloves, a trowel, and… great. How pleasant. Axl made a face at the pastel pink watering can, but she held it out to him, so begrudgingly, he took hold of it. “It might take a while to get through everything, but I’m sure we can do it in one day. Since everything’s pretty much been uprooted, I figured I’d take this opportunity to plant some quick summer crops that I’ve been wanting to try. You wanna plant, or you wanna clear the way?” She pointed, and Axl realized that she’d already cleared a small area of dirt of its plant corpses and made room for more spaced-out fruit and vegetable rows. Each row was already marked with a neat little stick and flag, and all they had to do was go through and clean up some more. She’d also gotten a wheelbarrow to put the plant scraps in—who knew where those were going to end up. Axl looked around for a good minute or so, and then muttered again.

“I’ll clear, you plant.”

“Sounds good. Thank you.” She reached out to him for a second, about to give him a pat on the shoulder, but Axl quickly walked over to the garden plot and set to work, not even giving her the chance. He knew she probably only meant well; but the way his thoughts were spinning right now, the way his back hurt—it wasn’t going to be a good day, and he didn’t want to risk having another freak-out in front of her.

They worked, quickly and quietly, until the sun was noon-high in the sky. By that time, Axl had cleared the entire garden plot, and had worked up enough sweat with the humidity and heat of the day to feel like a drowned rat. For the past four hours, he’d been collecting plant debris, getting up, putting it in the wheelbarrow, kneeling again, digging with the trowel to provide a safe home for the new seeds, moving a few inches in another direction, and doing it all again. It was almost ritualistic at this point, the way the gloves scraped against his palms, the way the breeze drifted down from the treetops to soothe his aching head, but never completely cool it. The jeans that hung too low on his legs made for a tripping hazard even as he was crawling along on the rich, damp earth, and eventually he had had to take a moment to sit and roll them up. It was all at the risk of looking like a dork. But you couldn’t get much worse than having to fix your poor neighbor’s garden, right? Yeah. That was the only break he had taken, to roll his jeans up. He didn’t drink, he didn’t eat, he barely even breathed—he worked. While it was difficult, and slow, it was also gratifying—he realized this as he stood up and swiped his damp hair back from his soaked brow, and watched as (Y/N) knelt and shook the last of the seeds into the Green Beans row, the final row in the garden. She, too, stood; and took the pink watering can he had left behind and brought it to the hose on her side of the house to fill it. Soon, the fruits and vegetables would be drinking divine, warmed by the sun in freshly tilled earth, waiting to become the delicacies of summer.

Axl gave a sigh of relief. It was done. It was finally done. Everything was okay now. He took a deep breath and sighed again, and looked up at the sun, and then suddenly felt very faint.

“Will? …Will?” Her voice came to him through a veil of white noise from some source he couldn’t pinpoint. The only thing he could see was the sun. The sun, surrounded by bright, dizzying blue. He put a hand to his forehead, and felt hot all of a sudden, and then cold, and then hot again.

“Oh, God.” Her voice again. He blinked and the world around him suddenly spun into motion as she put her hand around his shoulders and herded him into the dim and cool of the house. Her house. The kitchen was dark. Why was it so dark? Axl could barely see as she guided him further, dragged him to the kitchen sink and turned the water on. It was shockingly cold on his wrists, and the feeling made him snap back to the present—the thought flittered past his mind that he had no shoes on and his mom would kill him if he tracked dirt into anybody’s house—but Miss (L/N) didn’t care, she was busy holding his arms under the faucet, her own hair sticking to her face, flattened by sweat and by the sunhat she’d taken off and thrown on the seat of a dining room chair. Her eyebrows were furrowed in concentration and worry and she dared not even blink as she stuck her own hands in the tap stream and patted cold water on his face, even as Axl reared away from her. It was just exhaustion, after all. It was just exhaustion, she didn’t need to touch him. But he held still anyway as she quit patting him, took a glass from the countertop, stuck it under the water and then held it out to him for him to drink, which he did, gratefully. And then back under the faucet his wrists went.

His mind got clearer the colder the water got, and he realized, at some point, that she had stopped moving—she was frozen in place at the kitchen sink, grasping his left wrist and looking at the scabs there. Neat, orderly lines. Seven of them, because Axl believed in bleeding from odd numbers. She stared at them, and he felt as if she had stuck her fingers into a gaping wound.

He snatched his arm away from her and raised his voice. “The fuck are you looking at?”

Miss (L/N) turned to him, indignant, almost, except for the fact that her eyes were tinged with apprehension and confusion. She opened her mouth, seemed to think better of it, and then tried again. “Nothing, Will, I wasn’t looking at anything. Are you alright?”

Axl clutched his still-dripping left arm to his chest, soaking his shirt with the cold water, and slammed his fist down on the countertop. She jumped, but she didn’t shake loose, didn’t let go of him with that stare.

“That’s another thing!” He shouted. “My name is AXL. My name is W. Axl Rose. Not William, not Will, not Bill, and not fucking Bailey. It’s Axl Rose or nothing!” He was fuming now, almost as mad as he had been the other day, but less because she had insulted him and more because—because—to hell with it, he just didn’t want to be seen like this. Like whatever this was. He quivered, half from the shock of the cold water, the other half from the heat, and a little bit from something he hated to regard as emotion, but which certainly was.

All Miss (L/N) did was take the glass she had given him, fill it up with water again, and hand it back. Her eyes were lowered, almost respectfully, and as soon as he took the glass from her hand she turned away and got another from the cupboard, filling it from the tap and retreating to her corner of the kitchen to have a quiet drink of water away from him. If Axl hadn’t been so sure he didn’t have a heart to break anymore, he would have said it was heartbreaking. Because it was, in a way. Here she was, trying to do a good deed for her crazy next-door neighbor, getting yelled at in her own kitchen—and by a boy just slightly younger than her, too. It was no way to be. Instantly, Axl was sorry for having driven her away, although he really didn’t want to be sorry; didn’t feel like he had the energy for that kind of thing. After a guilty sip of water, and an even more guilty second sip, he bit his lip and said,

“I’m sorry, Miss (L/N).”

He couldn’t see the look on her face from where she was standing, with her back to him, one arm crossed over her stomach as she tapped her fingertips on her glass and took another drink from it. The most he could see were her long eyelashes, batting once, twice, blinking thoughtfully, perhaps regretfully. He began to feel nervous, not knowing how to read her expression from across the kitchen, not knowing what to think or do or say when she wouldn’t look at him. His heart began to pound again, and he hated the nuisance of having to guess with any amount of accuracy which people in his life were out to hurt him. But she turned just slightly, enough so he could see the relaxed look on her face, and that in turn made him feel calm again.

“It’s alright, Axl.” She said gently. “You can call me (Y/N), if you want.”

The name had a flavor to it. Better than Miss (L/N), he thought to himself, as he set his glass down on the countertop and flexed his hands and thought about where to hold them so he wouldn’t look stupid. Eventually he gave up and just shoved them in the pockets of his jeans, making sure to keep his wrists pressed inward against his body, all secrets kept for the moment. “Okay, (Y/N).”

“Okay.” She spoke again, and rested a hand on her hip, casting a glance out the far window at the edge of the dining room toward the newly planted garden. “I think that’s good for today, don’t you? No more heat exhaustion.”

Axl, who had decided it was just better if he kept his mouth shut around her so he wouldn’t fuck up, nodded, and took a few steps toward her to gaze out at the same patch of dirt. It didn’t look like much to either of them, but he supposed that was alright, all things considered. (Y/N) turned back to him and asked,

“You okay?”

He nodded again. He was a little bit dizzy, and his head still hurt, but he was fine. And he’d definitely been through worse.

“You hungry after all that work? It’s lunchtime, after all.”

Surprise, surprise—he found that he was. An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but it’s never as good as a full breakfast—a thing which Axl had given up on long ago, since he always waited until the Bastard was out of the house to eat, and most days didn’t make it to the breakfast table before the school bus was already outside. School lunches were even worse. Axl swore it was like the government wanted public school kids to feel like they were in prison; what with all the off-brand chips and dips and the weird pseudo-meat that they claimed was a “hamburger” or a “taco” or whatever else. There were some things the lunch ladies made from scratch, and those were the best—Mrs. Dubowski had an old recipe for fudge brownies that could convince even Axl and Izzy to put up with school until noontime—but most days, he and his friends ended up wandering over to a corner store on break and grabbing a soda and some Cracker Jack or beef jerky.

This, though, was different. (Y/N) brought out a big old pan, filled it with water at the sink, slapped it on the stove, and turned the knob so that the lighter clik-clik-cliked and burst forth into blue flame. For a moment, they watched it, resting there on the stove; not knowing what to expect and yet expecting only the usual—that it would boil. The fire captivated Axl more than he would care to admit. It was one of those childhood things he hadn’t quite given up yet; liking how fire could be different colors, depending on what was being burnt. That was always a nice lab to do in chemistry class. From what he could remember, strontium made yellow, and lithium made pink. (Y/N) dug around in one of the kitchen drawers for a pair of oven mitts and a big wooden spoon, and Axl watched the fire, trying to remember which element burned green.

“Have you ever had baked macaroni and cheese?” (Y/N) asked, tossing some salt in the water, which was already starting to wobble with heat.

Axl nodded and leaned against the countertop, a little awkwardly in trying to conceal both wrists, but finding himself more comfortable in her presence. Moreso than he had been a few minutes ago, anyway. “Yeah. When I was really little, we used to go out to, like, Sunday picnics, and stuff. There would always be some of it there. It was one of my favorites, but I always liked the barbecue stuff they had much better.” As funny of a sensation as it was, he found he rather liked the feel of an old memory crossing his mind. He remembered being young, and laughing, and having the best time on the swing set at the park after lunch, where a hundred other boys and girls—or, at least, it seemed like a hundred, they all ran so fast—played alongside him, with food and grass stains on their clothes, and the world’s happiest smiles on their faces. The adults were there, too, crowding around aluminum tins full of cornbread and greens and honeyed carrots and sweet potatoes with the coveted marshmallow creme sauce; and copper roasting pans full of every juicy, barbecued meat you could think of. Copper pans. Copper. Axl straightened up—that was what made green fire. Copper. In the wink of the memory passing through his head, adults chattering on, he saw his mother there, younger, standing close by the playground to make sure Stuart wouldn’t break a leg or anything, holding a plate and munching on a dinner roll. She looked over to the swing set and smiled.

“The baked macaroni was pretty good when Teresa’s mom made it, I think.” He dismissed the memory from his head and tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear, glancing back to his neighbor again, who was looking at him like she was beginning to see him for the very first time. It was an odd expression. Not mean, necessarily, and not quite nice, but just… odd. Axl wasn’t sure he liked it, so he looked back down at his feet. Bare feet, a boy’s feet, smudged with dirt like they always were on the playground. He cringed and looked at the countertop next to him instead.

“Aw, that’s sweet.” (Y/N) said, almost reverently, pressing a hand to her chest. She then added, “I hate to disappoint, but I’m not making that, it takes too long and I’m impatient.”

At this, Axl actually found himself laughing. Nothing much, just a little, but it—well, it was still a laugh, and it meant something, didn’t it? Of course it did. He let it dissolve into a smile. “I hear you. The boxed stuff only takes like 15 minutes tops.”

“Well, yeah, but I’m not just gonna feed you Kraft, either, I’m not that bad of a hostess.” She turned to him and gave him a cheerful wink and grin. Everything about her seemed to smile with her—the blue of her jeans, the fade of her t-shirt, the point of her elbow as she rested a hand on her hip. The proud puff of her chest, too; like a robin in the spring, delighted that she could provide for someone her size. Axl found himself looking away, almost shyly; completely unlike himself at the way (Y/N) just… accepted him. There was something strange about it that he just couldn’t figure out, and it was scratching at his brain like a maniac, scrabbling to be let in. “I’ll still make it home-style. What kind of cheese d’ya like? Take some, pick some out of the refrigerator. It’s in the second drawer. Should be, anyway.” (Y/N) waved her hand in the direction of the fridge and stood aside to let him pass by, staring at the water, trying to gauge whether it was boiling or not. She nudged the stovetop knob a little higher, and the blue flame billowed out a little more.

Axl didn’t know what kind of cheese he liked, and barely knew which kinds tasted like what, but he did recognize a block of cheddar similar to the one in Ma’s fridge, so he grabbed that and set it on the countertop next to her. She looked at it.

“That’s it?”

“It’s cheese, isn’t it?” He asked defensively. She just laughed.

“Yeah, it is, honey. It is. I’ll just add more to my own bowl.” Her smile was kind of lopsided, halfways, like she didn’t know if he wanted her to smile or not. Axl found himself wanting her to anyway, because even if she was kind of laughing at him, it didn’t hurt in the way laughs like that usually did. It was an easygoing laugh, not a finger pointing laugh. Axl didn’t know how he knew that, as he opened the fridge again and dug around for more cheese that looked interesting—hm. Pepperjack? Monterey? Those looked good—but even if he didn't know that, he could tell from the sound of her laugh that she was okay. She wasn’t trying to hurt him, not at all. Packages of pepperjack and Monterey and another type of cheddar—a white one, with a big VERMONT across the top of its paper wrap—made their way into his arms as he hunted through the fridge drawer.

“Alright, it’s boiling. Finally. In with the noodles! You like bowtie pasta?” (Y/N) asked, and Axl popped his head around the open fridge door.

“Oh! Do you have—” he blushed at how loud his voice was, coughed a little, and said in a quieter tone, “Do you have wagon wheels? I love wagon wheels.”

She put her hand on her hip again, tilting her head to the side like what she’d just heard was so interesting she couldn’t help but to look that curious. And then she shook her head, smiling all the while. “You’re a man after my own heart, Axl, you really are.”

“What?” He nearly dropped the three blocks of cheese he was holding. Whether it was a gesture of shock, or a genuine loss of balance, neither of them would know—but he did catch everything and manage to keep it in his grasp. “I'm what?”
“A man after my own heart. You know, somebody just like me.” She giggled. “Wagon wheels are the best, I mean.”

“Well, they are!” Axl said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “They should make pasta in more fun shapes. You know, like cookie cutters. They should have those for pasta. Can you imagine? Snowflake pasta, and flower pasta, and gingerbread man pasta?”

“Only if the last one comes without the flavor.” (Y/N) made a face and stuck out her tongue, and Axl laughed.

“Okay, you’re right about that one. But seriously, I’m tired of macaroni this and spaghetti that. Why are those the chosen ones? Why don’t people want to have a little fun every once in a while?” Along the line of questioning, Axl had realized, in the back of his mind, why it was that it felt so strange when she was looking at him. It was because she was really looking at him. Like a person. Making eye contact and all. Axl was used to the way girls like Sal and Sarah would stare and then shy away and giggle. So that was why (Y/N)’s gaze fixed him there; why it seemed odd, somehow. She was really seeing him, for the first time in both of their lives.

“I know what you mean about the macaroni and spaghetti and stuff. Personally, I always loved those really huge penne noodles, the, uh…” (Y/N) grinned and snapped her fingers, remembering suddenly. “Ah, yeah, the manicotti. Those are fun.” She stirred the pasta in the pot, and Axl nodded, glad to be free of the gaze that suddenly made him feel more bare to the world than anything. (Y/N) continued on, still stirring, gently, rhythmically. “People are just okay without, I guess.” And then she looked at him again, eyes glittering, like they were best friends about to share a secret. Fighting the urge to hide from her recognition, her discovery of him; Axl stepped towards her, setting three more blocks of cheese on the counter. And when he put them down, he didn’t back away. Instead, he stood beside her, watching the wagon wheel noodles boil, admiring the way she swung her wrist in slow circles, guiding the pasta with a big wooden spoon and a soft-lipped smile that seemed to stretch for the love of everything and everyone, including him. Axl breathed in the scent of bubbling hot water and sighed. She wasn’t going to do anything but look at him, and if she wanted to look at him like he was her best friend—then—well, so be it. He wasn’t going to be the one to ruin it for her. At least, not on purpose. He inhaled and sighed even more deeply and felt a little bit better, noticing another scent along with the boiling water and the sweat of the day. A natural air of hers—something flowery. A violet? Maybe that was it. A sweetness, anyway—one that had him relaxing his hands, lowering his shoulders. Something nice.

Was this peace?

Perhaps.

Axl’s focus broke as she leaned in and said in a sly whisper, “Have you ever heard of strozzapreti pasta?”

“No,” he answered, a mite curiously, waiting for her to explain.

(Y/N) tilted her head back in a little silent laugh and then straightened up and said, “It means—literally— ‘priest-strangler pasta’.”

“Alright, now we’re talking!” Axl clapped his hands together and gave them a sizzling little rub. “My new favorite! You know, one of these days, we should ask Father Raymond out for a pasta dinner…”

She laughed out loud for real and slapped her thigh. “Oh, you’re too much, Axl, you’re just too much. Here, get the colander out of that cupboard, these bad boys’ll be done soon.”

Axl wondered at the use of his name, the way it rolled off her tongue more easily than anything else she said, and took secret delight in how it sounded. It was right. He was right—he’d chosen the right name, after all. On an ordinary day it might’ve been something he’d pass over with all the emotional sensitivity of a rock, but, like he had when Izzy had shrugged and said “sure, whatever you wanna be called,” he felt as if it deserved a little celebration. A smile, at least. After all, it wasn’t every day that he did something right.

He caught sight of the battered old steel colander in the dungeon of a wooden cupboard she had right next to the base of the stove, and eventually dragged it out; but not without a fight from the other cookware. Clangs and clacks and bangs and loud laughs of hers filled the air as he wrestled the colander out into the open kitchen.

“Alright,” he said, panting a little, clutching the thing after a pizza pan had nearly fallen on him and taken him out. “I got it.”

She just smiled at his antics and nodded, like he’d done a job well done; and commended him as he staggered back to his feet and threw the playing-hard-to-get colander on the countertop next to the sink. “Perfect! I think the pasta’s about ready. You want to try it?” (Y/N) held out the wooden spoon with a few steaming noodles on it, surrounded by still-frothing, white-hot water.

Axl looked at her, for a moment, as if she were crazy. “Woman, if you think I’m eating off a boiling spoon…”

(Y/N) laughed again, and he likened the sound to the happy ha-ha of a crow when it knows it’s found a treasure. “Oh, just run it under cold water, ya goof, that’ll take the heat away from it.”

So he did, and took the wet, still-incredibly-warm wagon-wheel noodles as if they were kettle corn, popping them into his mouth one by one. “Mm. Mmmhm. Yeah, I’d say they’re about done.”

“Perfect.” She repeated, a little quieter, as if to herself. She then took the spoon back gently, set it on the countertop, and took hold of the pot by both handles, each of which now sported a thick cloth potholder so the heat wouldn’t get to her. (Y/N) looked at him, then. “And run along to the bathroom and wash your hands. I only just remembered you’ve been working like a dog in the dirt. Those gloves didn’t help much.” Her gaze rested on his fingertips, which were clean enough, but he knew that like any other woman, she’d get her knickers in a twist about any amount of crud under the nails. It was a girly thing to worry about, he thought—but that didn’t stop him from humoring her, and every other girl who’d told him he ought to get a nail brush or some castile soap or some other such thing.

“What, you only remembered just now? The heat been getting to your head?” He grinned as he trotted past her, and she rolled her eyes, but smiled all the same. There was a momentary whoosh as she poured the steaming noodles into the pan, and other miscellaneous sounds from the kitchen as Axl wandered, still barefoot, down the hall and past a few rooms that looked rather curious. One held a grand piano, and a large sofa, and had a window almost as long as the window was wide; and another held nothing but a few scraps of electrical wire not put into the walls yet, a ceiling fan, and a solitary guest bed that looked like it hadn’t been touched since the nineteenth century. At the end of the hall on the right lay the bathroom, painted a calming green with familiar jewel-tone tiles on the backsplash. And straight ahead at the end of the hall, just beyond a slim coat closet, lay a room where the door was ajar. Carefully, curiously, and looking over his shoulder the whole time, he slowly pushed the door open to get a peek inside.

It was a bedroom. Her bedroom. All around, there lay evidence of womanly habits that were as familiar to Axl as his own mother—some sewing, kept in an open wicker basket; a big old mahogany desk, a typewriter, with pages and pages of thick white paper beside it, some printed on, some not. There was a bed with the headboard against the far wall, decorated with an enormous comforter that looked as if it could swallow her up. Miss (L/N) was not by any stretch of the imagination a small girl, but in a bed this size, she could probably disappear. Axl found himself hanging onto the doorframe, lingering, leaning as far as he possibly could into the room to catch a glimpse of the pieces of her life that allowed her to be this way; comforting, and open, and free.

“Axl!” She called. “Macaroni’s on the table!”

“Be there in a minute!” He said, and ran to the bathroom, quickly scrubbing the dirt out from under his nails and thinking about the pillows on her bed, and how soft they looked, and how he kind of wished he had a bed like that, because his was practically a cot with a sack of flour on it in comparison. But no matter—it didn’t stop him from enjoying lunch with her; nothing could. Not with the way she talked to him, like he really was her best friend. It kind of made him feel jumpy, under the skin—not jumpy, though, that wasn’t the right word. He wracked his brain for the term as she ladled a healthy amount of wagon wheel noodles into his bowl; enough for any growing young man, and told him to enjoy; because that was the kind of person she was—the kind who wished others enjoy! out loud. No, jumpy wasn’t the right word for how she made him feel. Giddy, maybe. Exuberant—possibly. Some other word he’d learned in English class. He chewed and thought about it some more. Ah, yes, there it was, in the little dictionary at the back of his mind—exhilarated. He smiled to himself at the recognition of it, this lovely thing he hadn’t felt in a good long while. He felt exhilarated to be around her. She was exhilarating. Even as she sat across from him in near complete silence, enjoying her own pasta; and even as plain as she could possibly be in blue jeans and a ratty t-shirt, she was exhilarating, and Axl loved it.

The macaroni and cheese was good—really good. It had this kind of spice underneath the creaminess that Axl assumed was from the pepperjack cheese, and the way she smiled meant it was written all over his face, how much he really did enjoy it.

“You want more?” (Y/N) asked, and he gladly held out his bowl for seconds—something he’d been doing less and less of at home.

When they’d finally finished their meal, and she’d pressed some Hershey’s kisses into his palm (“For now, or for later, whichever you like,” she said), Axl began to wonder if he was really still indebted to spend the rest of the week with her. He sure hoped so—in a way that wasn’t, you know, clingy. Because he wasn’t clingy. He just liked being with (Y/N); she was real in a way that a lot of people weren’t. And she was kind in the way that most of his family wasn’t. So the thought of spending the rest of the week here, in her space, where he would be left alone and left in peace and could make friendly conversation whenever he felt like it—well, obviously, it was preferable. Quickly, he asked as she got up to clear the dishes,

“What else are we doing today?”

(Y/N) turned to look at him with confusion splashed across her face. “I… weren’t you just supposed to help with the garden? Since you cranked all that out today, I think you’re scot free, right? You’re okay to go. It was just the garden your mom was worried about.”

No, no! He was losing her! You idiot, Axl’s brain berated him. There’s nothing here for you. You’ve had your fucking fun, and now you have to leave. You’re done. It’s finished. The end. He swallowed thickly, unaware of the pain such a thought could bring. His own head was turning against him like it usually did, but, when it usually did, he was ready for it, all his defenses were up. Now all he could do was sit there and think about the way she had looked at him and how comfortable he felt here; all he could do was hate himself and feel hollow, feel so close to losing the moment of peace that he never wanted to give up. Axl wished desperately on the passing breeze that the day could last forever. Please, let it last forever. Please, just let it last, so that I don’t have to go back.

(Y/N) watched some kind of change flicker over his face, then, as she gathered the dishes for the sink. She didn’t know what for, or what about, but if she had to guess at anything it would be that he had just had all of his hopes and dreams dashed in one fell swoop. She hurried to backtrack.

“I mean—well, actually, let me think. Your mom did say you’d been in trouble at school. Fighting, or some such thing.” (Y/N) gave him a cautious glance, and knew now that she held his attention, the poor boy, he was completely enraptured, emerald eyes staring up at her, blinking from beneath a wiry ginger fringe of hair. “Right?”

“Yeah,” he sighed, sounding like the world was coming down on his shoulders again.

“So, what if I, you know, just keep you for an extra day?” She asked, and added, “One for each kid you’ve knocked out this year. How’s that?”

“Six days, then.” He mused for a moment, and then nodded. “Yeah, that’s okay, that’s great, actually. Every day?”

“Every day—wait, six?” (Y/N)’s shock came as no surprise to him, but still, he felt a twinge of guilt in the bottom of his stomach.

“Six,” he said softly, and nodded, not feeling much at all like a fighter in her presence, and yet, still alive with the memories of the various people he had taken swings at for the ultimate crime of being a dickhead to a guy who was already going through enough. She blinked, not quite sure what to think. Axl appreciated how visible she was with all her emotions. There wasn’t much to hide in the first place, but whatever there was to hide, she didn’t bother concealing a bit. You could see almost anything in her eyes—worry, delight, pain, reassurance, anything. Axl could read her like an open book, and the thought made him hungry for it; the ability to see what others were feeling, all right across their faces.

“Okay. …Okay. Well. I can do that, sure.” (Y/N) said, and continued to the sink with an armload of dishes and a deeply concerned look on her face. As she turned the faucet on, and he got up to help wash and dry the dishes before he left for home, she looked at him and asked again,

“Six?”

“Six.” He confirmed, again, and she just whistled.

“Boy, I’d hate to see what they looked like,” (Y/N) murmured, and though it wasn’t funny—though it really wasn’t funny—it still made Axl smile.

Chapter Text

DAY THREE - SUNDAY

The next day, of course, was Sunday. Church day. Singing day. Although Axl liked that part of it—the singing part, not really anything else—it was even more of a pain than usual to be stuck inside of a stuffy old church in a grey wool suit, feeling sweat roll down his back as the smell of burning incense wafted up to the boys in the choir loft as they sang chorus after chorus. He hadn’t slept well the night before and was feeling rather irritable, to the point where it was more tempting than usual to break out into a random song in one of his many practiced “unrecognizable” voices. Everyone in the choir loft would know who it was immediately, of course—but a few minutes of hearing Kiss’s “Sure Know Something” sung aloud in the middle of church with a voice that could only be likened to Gonzo the Muppet was about a hundred times more entertaining than whatever point the priest was trying to make with the homily. Even Stuart was wriggling around impatiently in his front row choir loft seat, having tired of watching over the balcony for Momma Bailey, Ames, and the Bastard.

Well—not that Stuart ever called him the Bastard. Axl was sure his brother wouldn’t do that, Stu was a nice kid. But it was the only title the man was deserving of, dragging them to this stupid church as often as he did. It wasn’t the worst thing he did, by far; but it was still pretty damn bad—what group of kids wants to spend the better half of their Sundays in church? None that Axl knew of. But they were expected to be there, practically night and day; the only exceptions being made for school and chores. By now, Axl and Stuart had both learned how to sing in choir and to play the piano and the church organ, and Stuart had been taking religion classes at the behest of their step father, who seemed to think that extra time spent at the church would turn Stu into a man he could be proud of. Ha. As if old Bailey were ever proud of anything in his life that wasn’t a cold beer or a hot meal or a trembling wife. When Axl looked past all the stupid God-spoken rants and the hatred and the bodily harm and the violent anger that seemed to be the very essence of that man, the Bastard, the looming figure that stood next to his mother—when he could look past it all, all Axl saw was a hypocrite who attended his faith to please a God who by all logic would hate him for what he had done.

At least Ames wasn’t sitting next to him. That, Axl could breathe a sigh of relief over. His kid sister Amy was perched on the other side of their mother, blinking, kicking her pretty white shoes in the air, back and forth and back and forth like little kids do when they’re not paying attention to anything around them. Occasionally, she held up one of her feet, resting it on the hymnal rack and staring with the intensity of her boredom at the little white Mary-Janes she wore. Axl knew she was admiring the little rhinestones on the straps, and loved her for it. If there was anything he could enjoy truly and honestly in this church, it was her. Amy was one of the funniest little kids around, in such a way that she kind of reminded him of Phoebe, from The Catcher In The Rye. She was a good little kid with wiry reddish blond hair and freckles that looked like little vanilla cake crumbs, and often, she was the only one in the household who could stand to be outwardly nice to Axl. Stuart was fine and all—but he wasn’t as enthusiastic about things as Amy was. Axl smiled at the thought of her, of just last Sunday, when she’d brought her paper cutout dolls to church and made them sing along with the hymns. She was a riot—even the priest had given a chuckle at her adorable playacting. She loved those dolls so much that Axl sometimes went scrapping for old magazines in the art room at school, looking for more pictures she could cut out and use to add to the little world inside her head. He knew what it was like, creating like that. And he’d help her in any way he could. One day, Amy would be better than him. That was what he always thought—and it wasn’t in a sad way either. He just knew it like how some people know when the rain’s coming in, or when spring is about to be sprung. They just know. He just knew that someday, Amy would have a wonderful world inside her head, and she would have a grand old time sharing it with anybody and everybody who dared to listen. More than anything, he wanted that for her, and it was that kind of wanting that made him so protective over her. The old Bastard could destroy as many of Axl’s dreams as he wanted; but if he ever dared to break a single one of Amy’s, there would be hell to pay.

Axl thought through this all as the priest droned on with the conclusion of the world’s most boring homily and began the eucharistic rites. Three boys in the choir stood for their trio during communion, and Axl couldn’t be bothered to pay attention. All he could think about was how hot it was. Good Lord, did it get hot up in that choir loft. It was borderline tropical. He shifted in his seat, feeling another bead of warm sweat creep down his spine, and the shirt which felt like wilted paper against his skin crinkled and sagged as he tried to get more comfortable. Try as he might, there was no comfort to be had—not during this mass, anyway. Axl wondered if (Y/N) was out there somewhere, in the throngs of people, somewhere he couldn’t see. He’d searched over and over in the sections of the church that were visible from the balcony for a big floppy sun hat, or a head of (h/c) hair with some plain styling common to the other girls on the block—and yet he hadn’t seen her. He wondered if she went to church at all. What if she didn’t? Boy, what a life, if she didn’t—Axl imagined what he’d do with an entire Sunday, all to himself. First, he’d probably have to do some chores around the house, which, you know, would be boring, but fine—and then, oh boy, and then. And then what? He didn’t even know, and that was the majesty of it—the utter freedom to be had, in choosing what one does with the entire day. Between school and chores and church, Axl never had the kind of free time that the weekend usually brought to other kids his age, and imagining it all now brought him a kind of wistful irritation at being held captive in religious services where the only thing he liked to do was sing. The Lord said Sunday was a day of rest. So why the hell did they make that the church-going day? That couldn’t possibly count as resting—not in these clothes. Axl grumbled internally, fanning himself with the paper booklet of choir hymns they’d been given, and wiggling around impatiently in his seat as the priest wandered back to the altar, having just now given communion to the rest of the church. A prayer was mumbled somewhere in there. He wasn’t paying attention—too busy admiring a bright yellow hat in a row just barely in the line of sight from the choir balcony. Though sometimes he thought women’s felt hats were a little stupid, what with all those little flowers and pins and great-aunt-ish ribbons, he found he liked some of them—especially today, when a lady in the row behind his mother had decided to wear a neon pink one, to which the priest gave the evil eye. Axl had laughed to himself about that for a while. But this yellow one he was admiring now was nice. It reminded him a little of Easter.

Suddenly, the choir boys were standing all around him—Axl had just barely missed the cue for the final hymn, and he jumped to his feet, singing along in that voice he was supposed to reserve for the “holy day” (but that which he would sometimes use to sing the songs he got to hear at other people’s houses—in particular, some Elton John ones, which always got the old man bitching at him). The congregation rose to its feet beneath the balcony full of well-dressed choir boys, and he searched again for the familiar form he had spent all Saturday with; the one who stood like a sentinel and carried herself like royalty, but was as down to earth as any real girl.

No (Y/N) to be seen. Not yet. There was still time, Axl thought, as the people sang heartily, closing their hymn books as they repeated the chorus and exited the pews one by one by one, marching off to their cars or sidling up to friends and other family, and just generally enjoying each other’s company. Once the old pianist had crashed into her third and solo repetition of the last song, Axl and the other choir boys shut their mouths, collected their things, and raced for the stairs of the loft to get down and out of the stuffy old building. Stuart hopped alongside Axl, still humming, because the song was one of his favorites.

“Where’d you go all of yesterday?” Stuart asked as they thumped down the stairs with the rest of the boys. Axl was hardly paying attention, still trying to keep an eye out for that smile, to keep an ear out for her voice.

“Huh?” He said, kind of absentmindedly, and Stuart frowned.

“Where’d you go yesterday? Dad was upset ‘cause you never did your chores.”

Axl looked at his brother sarcastically. “He’s always upset. Don’t call him dad, either. He’s not dad.”

“Yeah he is.” Stuart stuck his lip out, uncharacteristically boyish for someone his age. Axl would have thought he’d quit with the stupid little-kid expressions by now, but, well, hey, what can you do. Stu continued in a half-indignant, yet half-unsure voice, as if he were really just speaking to convince himself of his own words. At least, that’s the way Axl heard it. “He’s my dad as much as he’s yours and I don’t get why you don’t call him that. He’s mean, but that doesn’t mean he’s not dad.”

“You just don’t get it, do you?” Axl was too tired to get properly angry, and too busy looking for a tallish woman in a silk blouse and pencil skirt and kitten heels to really pay much mind. But here, he did turn to look at Stuart. “He doesn’t deserve to be called that.”

Stuart just frowned some more, and started talking about something the priest had said during the homily, which made Axl groan.

“Look, Stu,” he said, eyes still darting around the throng of people; the ever-moving congregation full of old ladies with flowered hats and old men who coughed too loud during the eucharistic prayer. “Look, fine, fine, it’s—whatever. Call him Big Daddy Bailey, for all I care. I don’t give a fuck what you do. But you know what? I don’t care that he’s mad at me for not doing my chores. I—”

“Don’t say the f-word!” Stuart whispered loudly, and really indignantly this time, as if his brother had just slapped someone upside the head for no reason. “Especially not in church! You know what Dad says—”

“I don’t care what he says,” Axl said, a little too loudly, and some people nearby looked at them. Immediately, he quieted his voice, and they looked away, chatting with the people around them once more. “And I don’t care what he’s going to do to me. You got that? I don’t care. I don’t care if he thinks I should have mowed the lawn or raked up the dead grass or cleaned the drains or washed the goddamn driveway yesterday. I was busy working at (Y/N)’s and I’d rather do that anyhow. And why d’you have to be so nosy, huh? Does it cost too much to mind your own?” God, the heat was really making this unbearable. Axl didn’t really mean half the words that were coming out of his mouth, but Stuart didn’t know that, and the hurt on his face was quite evident.

“Fine.” Stuart said, ironing his little jaw into a straight line. “Don’t bother coming back today, then. He’ll be twice as mad if you do it again, and you know how that works out.”

Axl, having given up on looking for (Y/N) in the crowd, sighed and felt guilty about how quickly he’d gotten riled up. It was easy to do when you lived in a headspace like this, he thought. So easy to get angry, so easy to get sad—too easy. And too difficult to repair the damage that had been done.

He sighed again, and then spoke in a gentler voice. “Look, I’ll still come back. I will. I couldn’t leave you guys alone, now, could I?”

Axl watched Stuart ignore him and stare over at their mother and step father, who were chatting with the priest. Ames was clopping around like a little pony on the linoleum floor, her hair swinging with each little leap she made, hopping in circles and holding tightly onto her mother’s hand.

“Guess not,” Stuart murmured, and seemed about to say something else when a hand dropped down on Axl’s shoulder and made him jump and spin around so quickly he nearly hit whoever was behind him.

(Y/N) stepped back a little, shocked at first, and then seeming apologetic. “Sorry, Axl, I didn’t mean to scare you. Where have you been? I was scanning aisles looking for you.” Her smile was as good natured as ever, and boy, had she dressed up for church—Lord’s day indeed, he thought as he looked her over, admiring the butter-yellow dress she had on, and the matching felt hat—hey, the hat; the Easter hat from the balcony, so he had seen her!—with beaded pastel pins in it. Beneath it, her hair was neatly curled and pinned in place, so that she looked like one of those dolls in the shop window that Amy always whined about wanting. And she stood a little taller than usual, too—where she normally wore kitten pumps, she had on a real set of ivory cream heels. She looked just like the sun, and was so happy to see him that he couldn’t help but be just as happy to see her. Axl was just about to answer her, too, when (Y/N) seemed to realize there was another person standing next to him.

“Why, hello there!” She exclaimed delightfully as she noticed Stuart, who had been looking at her just now as if he kind of wanted to talk to her, but she was too much of a stranger for him to do so. Then she turned back to Axl. “Who’s this young man?”

“That’s my brother Stuart. Beef Stu.” He added the nickname in with a grin, watching the way Stuart’s face lit up red like a fire engine. “Stu, this is Miss (L/N).”

“Hi,” Stuart mumbled, and stuck out his hand for her to shake, staring down at the floor with even the tips of his ears burning.

(Y/N) took his hand gracefully and shook it. “It’s nice to meet you, Stuart. I’m the neighbor on the left side of your house—you know, the one with the…”

“The 1969 Buick LeSabre,” Stuart nodded, and blushed some more, though it seemed impossible to do so with how bright his face was. “I know. I’ve just never really seen you up close before. Sorry ‘bout that. I do like your car, it’s awfully nice.”

“Wait, hold on. You two know each other?” Axl looked back and forth between them, feeling like he was missing something.

“No, not exactly.” (Y/N) seemed amused. “But I did get a really nice letter in my mailbox one morning from a boy across the way who said he admired my vehicle of choice.” She practically glowed at the seams, and Axl wondered secretly how it was that she could remain so calm and composed in a building so incredibly humid. He swung the sides of his jacket out and back as if he were pretending to be a bird, rocked back and forth on his heels, and watched with what he would never admit was a tinge of jealousy as she inclined her head toward Stuart with a darling smile and added, “I still have that letter, by the way. It’s in my filing cabinet, in a folder of things that I take out whenever I need a good smile. You have such nice handwriting.”

Stuart smiled shyly and looked at his shoes, after which Axl asked, “Alright, can we go outside now?” Not that he couldn’t stand the way his brother and his neighbor were interacting, but God, he couldn’t stand how his brother and neighbor were interacting. And Lord, if the owners of the church had only known about this wonderful thing called an air conditioner…

“Sure, we can head outside.” (Y/N) laughed. “It’s not going to be much cooler out there, though. Summer’s going to rear its ugly head in about a week; maybe less. Better get used to it now.”

“Never,” Axl said, and they shared a laugh as they headed for the door. Stuart hung back a little, looking between Axl walking with Miss (L/N) and his parents and little sister, who were still engrossed in conversation with some of the other members of the congregation; wondering if he should stick with them or if it would be okay to tag along with Axl and his new friend. In the end, he chose to follow his brother and the neighbor at a slight distance, admiring how nicely (Y/N) walked in heels, all upright and proud like she was leading someone along to the path of righteousness. That was what the homily had been about, today—about leaders and followers, and who was destined to be who on the Great Path to Righteousness. Or the Great Path to Heaven, in simpler words. Stuart thought that if anybody were to lead someone down that path, it would be Miss (L/N), because she looked like a regular church-going lady with her dainty little hands and felt hat with beaded pins and nicely-pulled-back hair and charming yellow Sunday dress. He followed them all the way out to the parking lot, where the air was a lot clearer and the sky was a beautiful, cloudless blue, and the sun beat down and made the people in wool suits and wool dresses sweat profusely and mop their brows. Stuart hung back a little, watching Miss (L/N) open the door to her olive gold LeSabre and gently toss in her pocket book, which she’d carried all throughout mass. Then she just stood and leaned on the door and talked to Axl, who looked giddy, almost; certainly the happiest Stuart had ever seen him since—well, forever.

He didn’t really know how to enter the conversation, and so waffled back and forth between just standing and watching from afar, or going over to his parents’ station wagon, which wasn’t parked too far away. He swung around and looked for Momma and Dad and Ames, but they weren’t out of the church yet, at least, not that he could see. So, he sidled up next to the family station wagon, and just watched Axl and the neighbor girl talk for a little bit.

(Y/N) laughed at something Axl had said and slapped her leg like she did when she found something exuberantly funny. “You are too much, you know that?”

“I do, you told me twice yesterday,” Axl said, and she just laughed harder.

“I guess I must have. It’s a habit, saying that, just something my own momma taught me.” Her smile reserved itself back into a pleasant one, one just perfect for a sunshiney day such as this. “And hey, Axl—will your family let you help me with my groceries? I gotta go a little ways out of town for the good ones, since a lot of the stores around here will be closed for a little while longer, or they’ll close early this afternoon. Whatcha think?” She winked. “I could use a little help carrying all those groceries into the house.”

Axl was about to say something to the effect of “hell yes, let’s get out of here” when he heard his mother calling his name, and looked over to where she stood by the station wagon. Though it would have seemed to anyone else that her expression was just squinted, and straining against the brightness of the sun, Axl saw the tiredness in her stance, the pain in her eyes, and the way she seemed so weak, like she could crumple at any minute. He fought the urge to look away and nodded as she waved at him. The dark shadow of his step father loomed over her like a beast from some forbidden forest, leaving nothing to be desired but common decency. Even in a blue wool suit the man looked no better than an animal, scowling at the lot of them, disapproving of whatever it was they were doing. He disapproved of the way Amy swung her shoes around. He disapproved of the way Stuart was so shy, and wouldn’t make conversation with anyone from their parish other than his own family. He not only disapproved of but hated the way Axl did the exact opposite; how he made fun of the church and everything in it and avoided his family after each service like the plague. Nothing any of them did was enough to satisfy the old Bastard, and Axl knew it as he parted from (Y/N), walked towards them, and took in the sneer on the man’s face.

“William, come on, we’ve got to get home. You’ll see Miss (L/N) at her house this afternoon.” Ma Bailey said, tiredly, like she’d done all the fighting on the subject she could. Clearly, something was bothering her, and Axl looked straight to Stephen Bailey and stared daggers into his dark-browed face.

“Actually, she wants to know if I can go grocery shopping with her and help her take everything home.” He said, not even bothering to glance at his mother, who simply brought a hand up to her temple and rubbed it like it hurt something awful.

“Dear?” She asked, weakly, and Stephen cast a glare at her before she shut up, like a mouse hiding in quiet under the stairway. Axl hated him more with every breath the man drew.

“You’ve done enough for that woman.” Oh, Axl hated him even more with the way he said it, the way he said that woman as if she were undeserving of a name, as if she had none to begin with.

“No, I really haven’t. Me and her, we have this little agreement, because I kept getting into trouble at school, and I—”

The Bastard cut him off with a snarl, and it stopped Axl in his tracks, as much as he despised having to admit it. “I don’t care about any agreement you have. You’re going to be home this Sunday, doing the chores you couldn’t be bothered to finish yesterday.”

“Mom’s the one who got me into it, so don’t act like it was all my idea.” Axl had to bite his tongue to keep from cursing at the devil in front of him, one word from whom could make Stuart stand stock still and make Amy stop swinging her legs and be silent. “I’m supposed to be helping her with her stuff since I wrecked her garden.”

“It’s true,” whispered Ma Bailey.

“And when was I going to hear about this?” Stephen wheeled on her, then, and she closed her eyes to him, as if willing him away, like the Good Lord would protect her if she just prayed hard enough. “I tried to tell you last night, dear, but—but… dinner had to come first, and by the time I got the younger two into bed, I…” She shrugged, helplessly, watching the coals of anger burn in her husband’s eyes and wondering desperately what she had gotten herself into. Nothing good, that was for sure.

All five of them, then, turned and looked to where (Y/N) (L/N) was standing, in her yellow dress that suddenly seemed a smidge too short for church and heels that seemed made more for a streetwalker than a respectable woman; with a keen smile on her face. She raised a hand and waved, and Axl waved back, giving a thumbs up.

“I’m going,” he said with finality, and marched off, pretending not to care about the smoldering gaze on his spine.

“That is not a God-fearing woman,” Stephen L. Bailey spoke quietly, but carried a large stick; as the saying went. Ma Bailey objected privately, but knew better than to question her husband on such religious affairs. He did what he did, believed what he believed; and if you challenged him on anything—well. Too bad for you, then.

“She does seem a little too rowdy for church, doesn’t she?” She asked emptily, watching as Stephen unlocked the doors of the Polara wagon.

“Sharon, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with your boy, but if you don’t get him under control, I will, not her.” He said, sharply and coldly, pointing a finger in (Y/N)’s direction. He then barked at the younger two: “Stuart! Amy! In the car now!” And it was all Ma Bailey could do to walk stiffly around to the passenger side of the wagon for a short ride to a house that had never been a home; not even when she first moved into it.
God, what did I do to deserve this? She prayed as she buckled her seatbelt and watched her children in the rearview mirror, both of whom were uncharacteristically silent, avoiding eye contact as their father muttered about whorish women who wore yellow dresses and stole sons out from under their mothers’ noses.
What did I do to deserve this?

-

“What did I do to deserve this?” It was an honest question, one Axl frequently asked himself, but never out loud, and never so genuinely as he was asking now.

They were at the end of their shopping trip, having collected almost every item of purchase (Y/N) could possibly want as a single woman living without so much as a plant to take care of—well, aside from her garden, that is. Paper towels, toothpaste, 409 cleaner, canned goods, bread, bananas, apples, whole-grain pasta, tomatoes, greens, fresh corn, oranges, and a particularly delicious-looking chocolate cake were all stacked high in the basket of the shopping cart, and Axl was happy to be with her as she floated down the aisles in her springtime yellow dress, plucking things off the shelves and looking carefully at the brands before checking them off neatly from a list she kept pinned to her pocket book. He was perfectly happy to be there. Just happy to chat, happy to walk around, happy to be out of the church, and out of harm’s way. But now she was holding out a few dollars to him, telling him to get something, anything, he liked.

Three dollars. It may have seemed like a small amount to anyone else, but Axl Rose had learned that money—especially in small-town Indiana, where people were just grasping for it—often had strings attached. Really, he should have had no problem taking three bucks from her; because there was no way she could possibly use it to his detriment. But then again, why would he be offered money from the girl whose garden he ruined? Something here didn’t add up. He stared at George Washington’s three likenesses looking up at him from the palm of (Y/N)’s hand, and then glanced up at her and asked. “What did I do to deserve this?”

She laughed a little, but his voice was so genuine and his eyes looked so deeply concerned it meant he wasn’t really trying to be funny. “Axl, come on, now. It’s just a little treat, on me. You don’t have to deserve it.”

“No, that’s okay.” He stepped back from her outstretched hand, feeling a little bit disjointed as the voices in his head picked up their chatter and resumed the endless game of Angel versus Devil. She’ll wonder about you if you don’t just take it, said one. She’ll wonder what’s wrong with you why aren’t you a normal greedy teenage boy why don’t you take it why don’t you get something you know you’ll be punished either way. But the other voice, shrill and warning, screamed, don’t do it don’t take handouts don’t do it you don’t need charity she feels bad for you and you don’t need sympathy you don’t need anything or anyone at all DON’T TAKE THAT. The thoughts spun around and around, louder than usual, making Axl feel as if he were being scrambled from the inside out. His palms began to sweat a little, and he curled his hands into fists and stuffed them in the pockets of his grey wool pants, looking away from (Y/N) to end the conversation, and hopefully, to end the chattering of his mind arguing with itself.

“Axl? You okay?” (Y/N) asked, leaning in to try and catch his eye again.

The red-blond boy still wouldn’t look at her. All he did was scowl and say,

“Put your damn money away, I don’t need charity.”

“Well.” It was all she could say, really. (Y/N) felt a little hurt by how quickly the atmosphere had changed—it really seemed like he was enjoying himself a minute ago, cracking jokes, even. But wherever that happy young man had gone, there now stood an identical grumpy twin in his place, looking as if he hated everything and would rather be out smoldering in the sun in his grey wool suit than be in here with her. She reminded herself that it wasn’t really her fault; that she couldn’t control when people’s moods swung like a pendulum, but all the same, she felt a little bit bad about it. If you could have just kept your purse shut… (Y/N) thought to herself. If only there were some way to elicit that better angelic joy from Axl… if only. But silent he remained, brooding as they walked into the neighboring aisle that held the refrigerated items close to the checkout lanes.

Axl trudged his way through the aisle two steps behind her at all times, fists still shoved in his pockets as he battled guilt and want inside his head. (Y/N) didn’t seem to notice. She had gone all but quiet after offering him the three dollars for his own items, and was now humming lightly to herself, striding past door after refrigerator door until she reached the one she wanted, and opened it to peruse the selection. Axl peered through the glass next to her at the frozen ice creams within. The fluorescent lighting made them all look sharp in their cartons, boxed ice creams with picture-perfect farm labels that had white cows and brown cows and occasionally a pink cow on them to indicate the flavor of the ice cream. All the cows grazed delicately in neon green pastures underneath pretty blue skies on their packaging. Without meaning to, Axl remembered with a sick feeling how Thurne Pavitt had called his mother a cow, and turned his back on the bright fluorescent-lighted treats, resolving to hate them for the rest of time—or until he felt like eating ice cream again; whichever came first. (Y/N) finally picked whatever she’d opened the door for, and held it out to Axl, so he could put it in the cart, as he had been doing the entire time.

“What’d’ya think? Might go nicely with the cake, right?” (Y/N) asked.

Axl said nothing. If he said anything, it wouldn’t have been nice, and he really didn’t want to have more guilt on his conscience that afternoon. But even the silence hurt him as he watched her expression fall a little and she gave a little sigh to herself and tossed the chocolate fudge ice cream into the cart with little regard for where it landed. Immediately, he wanted to tell her he was sorry. He wanted to say something to her, anything; but was already upset with her, was already upset with himself, was—was just upset in general, and he always fucked things up when he tried to apologize, it was always bad; so he just didn’t. Axl mashed his lips into a thin line and tried to get his conscience to shut the fuck up already as he followed her to the checkout lanes and wanted to tell her he didn’t mean anything by it. But that was just it—he did mean something. He meant that he didn’t need her sympathy; but if he tried to tell her that it would come out sounding hateful and wrong and he’d lose her for good, that much he knew. He chewed on the inside of his cheek and looked at the linoleum floor as she started taking things from the cart and placing them on the conveyor belt with a plain kind of air that suggested she was ready to get out of there and drive him home. She didn’t look at him. Axl felt a surge of anger at the way she wouldn’t look at him, and then, for some reason, felt like he wanted to cry.

He didn’t, though. Instead, Axl fixed his gaze on the tabloid rack by the conveyor belt, where there lay an assortment of magazines, one of which caught his eye almost immediately. It was a copy of the Rolling Stone, with a tastefully-photographed brunette on the cover. She was nude, definitely, but the shot was more about her face than it was anything else, and besides, she was laying in bed with the sheets pulled up just enough. Boy, was she ever good-looking, though. With that background of all-white wrinkled bed sheets, she looked like she was resting somewhere holy, and her short dark hair curled around her face like one of those pin-up girls from the forties. Her name—Nastassia—was in a bold red font on the cover page, and the photographer’s name was just below that. Lucky guy, Axl thought to himself. And, seeing as the cover girl had distracted him from the ferocious argument inside his head, he thought some more. He was almost positive that his step father would actually kill him if he brought this home. Not only was there a “devilish whore” on the cover page, the rest of the magazine was filled with stories of rockstars and big-name celebrities, articles upon articles about music and men and women and parties and crimes and who was doing what in the big, wide open world—so if it didn’t give the old Bastard an aneurysm, it would definitely make him bash Axl’s head in for bringing such garbage into the Bailey household.

Of course Axl wanted a copy. He kept staring, hard, like if he just looked long enough, the magazine would eventually appear in his grasp.

(Y/N) looked over, and for a second, Axl had the fleeting intuition that she was going to scold him for admiring such things as suggestive cover girls, but then knew that it just wasn’t like her to do that. And it definitely wasn’t.

“Ooo, she’s cute,” she said instead, leaning closer to get a better look at Nastassia Kinski, whose bedroom eyes suddenly seemed a little bit too much for Axl. He fought back a blush and looked away again, down at the linoleum where he probably should have kept his gaze in the first place. Then she spoke again, amusedly. “Are you a fan of Rolling Stone, Axl?”

Axl spent a good minute or so scuffing his shoe against the floor, wondering if he should respond; when finally the urge to just talk to her again overcame him and he blurted out, “Um, sort of. I don’t have any copies at home, but some of the guys in my class let me come over and read theirs.”

“Oh, that’s nice. They all got cute girls on the covers?” She grinned wider and kind of nudged him with her elbow, to which Axl blushed a deep red.

“No,” he said, slowly, doing his best to keep his voice steady, scuffing his shoe along the floor some more, pretending to be interested in the little black marks it left behind. “But the better ones do.”

At this she laughed profusely, tipping her head back like she was smiling to the sun. “Yeah, that sounds about right, doesn’t it.”

Axl looked at her, then, and realized that she could have been a model for Rolling Stone, if she wanted to. (Y/N) had taken off her felt hat and left it in the car so her (h/c) hair could bounce freely about her shoulders, framing her face just the way Nastassia’s hair did. And the way her lips curved was about as sensual as the cover girl’s half-smile, but more wholesome, somehow. Even though she was standing in line at the supermarket and waiting for the middle-aged cashier to hurry up with the couple in front of them, she was glowing with a contented kind of happiness, and the strength in her upright posture and broad shoulders reminded him of how solid she was, how tethered to the earth. And her butter-yellow Sunday dress hugged all the right places on her in a way that other dresses on other women wouldn’t—the obsession now was with models whose clothes were too small, or practically fell off of them, so you could see bits and pieces of the hard-lined, raw-sex body beneath. But her clothes, and her body, were perfect, in such a way that anyone could imagine the pleasure of being the one to take that dress off of her; anyone could imagine how beautiful she must have looked, wrapped up in bed sheets like Nastassia Kinski. She wouldn’t just have a little half-smile, though—she’d have the biggest smile in the world.

The thing that snapped him out of his reverie was the sound of paper being slapped on the counter in front of the cashier, and there she was, counting out dollars, gently mouthing to herself as she plucked a five and four ones out for the magazine. The cashier didn’t even bother to look at the cover, just took her money and gave her the change and tossed the magazine back to her like it was just another tabloid.

“What’d you do that for?” Axl asked, back to his irate self.

She turned to him, took his hand, and smacked the magazine right into his palm. “Happy birthday.”

At first, he was shocked, enough to silence his thoughts completely. And then everything exploded into motion. “I can’t—it’s not—I don’t—why?” Was she trying to buy him out, or something? The thought raced indignantly across his head and made him more angry and confused than he already was. He thought they’d had an agreement. No charity. No goddamned charity. And now she was just acting normal, loading their things into the cart. He was about to haul off and go on a tangent when a rough voice sounded from behind the conveyor belt where the cashier was sitting.

“Hey, buddy, I don’t have all day.”

“You know what, fuck you,” Axl snapped, crumpled the magazine in his grasp, and stormed out the door to the LeSabre in the parking lot.

Both the cashier and (Y/N) watched him go, and she turned to him with an apology at the ready, but the cashier was already busy helping the next few people, so she just hurried out to the car with the shopping cart full of groceries and wondered what she could possibly say to Axl that wouldn’t send him into more of a fury than he already was in. Even in the bright noon sun, the way he walked made him seem like a shadow, a crumpled figure full of hate and derision and some semblance of sadness. He kicked a rock as hard as he could, and then stalked to the rear of the car, where he stood with his arms crossed and the magazine scrunched up in an angry chokehold. She walked after him at a brisk clip, pushing the cart rather forcefully to get it across the asphalt, which proved to be rather difficult and made an ungodly amount of noise as the metal clanged and the wheels rattled—but she did not run, she did not chase him. Somewhere, deep down, Axl didn’t know whether to feel glad for that fact, or to wish that she knew what was wrong, to wish that she would come tearing after him and either pull him into a hug or smack him a new one. For now, he calmed himself down enough to stand by the trunk, waiting for her to open it so he could throw the groceries in and they could be in the car and she could bring him home, where he’d change out of this stupid suit and put on some regular clothes and do some regular chores before the day was up. And then he’d go to his bedroom in the highest corner of the second floor and look between the window shades at her house, wondering if she was there. In his head, he always condemned himself to this fate; like Rapunzel in the tower, always watching, but never actually living. It felt like he would never live again. Not after this. There was no way she’d let him be with her now, not if he was going to throw a fit over every little goddamn thing. But then he thought about it again—eight dollars and fifty cents, he owed her; and he didn’t have a penny of it that he wasn’t already planning to spend on something else, something useful like a ticket out of town—he didn’t have a penny of it to give her, and he was angry about it. He hated charity. He hated sympathy. And yet…

No matter how he seethed internally, he stayed by her car and watched (Y/N) open the trunk with the little hatch key she kept on a string. And then she pulled the shopping cart closer, and started loading things in, with not even so much as a glare in his direction. What did it mean? Axl was frustrated at having to figure out her every goddamn move, because she didn’t act like everyone else in his life. What could that possibly mean? She had to be upset with him for acting like that, she had to be upset with something. So why did she look so normal? Why was she just putting away her groceries? Axl tightened his jaw and, with the magazine still in his grasp, lifted bag after bag into the trunk of the car, rearranging the items when needed, to be sure everything fit perfectly. And it did. (Y/N) moved away so he could close the trunk hatch and then she took hold of the shopping cart again, wrestling it back to the store’s cart-return rails on the front walk. He watched her go, waiting, analyzing, wanting to see if she would come back at all, if she would just leave him there, sweating in the sun; or if she would pull out a cigarette and lean against the wall and cross her leg and kind of jimmy it like Izzy did when he was mad about something. Axl wanted to know if she would put her head in her hands and cry like his mother did. Or if she would start praying, like Stuart. Or if… no. There was no way she would lay her hands on him in a way that wasn’t kind, and there wasn’t anything about her posture that made him wonder about it, either. But as he stood there, getting antsier by the second, watching her come back from the cart return with her shoulders a little lower than their usual upbeat, confident pose; he did wonder what she would say to him. If she ever spoke to him again.

She walked back to her side of the trunk, a bright figure on a blue-sky, green-grass flat horizon, where in the background cars passed every now and again, and a bird swooped out of the sky to catch some poor, unsuspecting French fry on the parking lot pavement. (Y/N) put an elbow on the closed trunk and leaned on it, regarding him coolly. Axl stood, stiff all over, clenching his fist around the magazine and occasionally reaching up to swipe at his forehead, where his reddish blond bangs were damp with sweat. She looked at him, not meanly or suspiciously, but curiously.

“Are you okay, Axl?”

No. No, he was not okay, and had never been, never ever, for as long as he could remember. The magazine shook as he squeezed it, tightly, and looked at the bright olive greenish-gold finish on the car, wishing he could stop hating himself for taking her money, wishing he could stop fucking thinking about the ways in which she could hurt him. For being at church the entire morning, the whole stupid purification-through-prayer bullshit sure hadn’t gone well for him; because the thoughts inside his head plagued him now more than they ever had, in the presence of her and her yellow dress and God, he wished that he could just make it all stop. Axl hugged the magazine closer to his side and wondered if it was all him, if he himself was just made wrong. It had to be that, because otherwise there was no way he’d be doing everything wrong and feeling horrible all of the time. Why couldn’t he just be normal? Other guys would be glad to have a cute neighbor girl. Other guys would purposefully rip up her garden to have a chance at hanging out with her, to have a chance at making things better. Other guys would love it if she bought them a magazine with a hot chick on the cover. Other guys would take a single look at (Y/N) and immediately start undressing her with their eyes. Why was it so painful for him? Why did he want to protect her from his own goddamned feelings? Why did he want to protect her from himself? And why was he feeling everything in the first place? God. She had been nothing but kind to him and here he was, fucking it up all over again. Spending her money and acting like a rude little bastard and picturing her on the cover of a magazine with only a bed sheet as a shred of decency. God. Axl almost prayed. Almost.

(Y/N) leaned closer, still resting on the trunk of the car, trying to see what he was staring at, or maybe what he was thinking. Those glassy green eyes of his sure could hold a lot, she mused as she waited for him to say something—anything. This was the second time he had gone eerily quiet around her, and she could only lift her thoughts to the sky and hope to whoever was out there that it wouldn’t end with him screaming again. He lashed out so much for a boy his age. (Y/N) couldn’t help but wonder why, couldn’t help but wonder where all that vehemence was coming from. And why he always shrunk back from her, like he was in pain all of the time. She realized with a sad notion that this was probably true—the way his mother had dragged him to the door by his ear was no indicator of a particularly loving household, and she could only imagine what else he had to endure. Her own parents hadn’t been kind, but they hadn’t done that much, that was for sure. But then again, she had never been a particularly difficult child. She sighed, thinking about it—even if Axl was a rowdy teenage boy who got into trouble most days, she wouldn’t do that. (Y/N) could never bring herself to lay a hand on anyone, as bad as they might be. Pain never solved pain. And she knew that whatever pain he felt now couldn’t be helped by much else but kindness. So, she waited.

It took a while, but he did look at her, eventually, out of the corner of his eye.

“Hi,” (Y/N) said, gently. “Still here?”

He nodded, ginger hair fluttering slightly in the breeze that kicked up.

“Okay. Good. You want to tell me anything?” She asked, sort of hopefully, but Axl shook his head no and remained quiet.
“Well, alright then. Let’s go home, okay? Here. You drive.” She unhooked the car keys from the loop on her pocketbook and handed them out to him as a sort of peace offering, and all of a sudden, that was when he exploded.

“No! Just no!” (Y/N) took half a step back as he shouted at her, anger emblazoned across his sharp features as if he meant to stare daggers until she collapsed backward. Still, though, she remained strong, unwavering, taking the heat of anger about as well as she had yesterday in the kitchen. He raged on. “What the hell, (Y/N)? No! You took me here and I helped you out and you gave me your goddamned money and now this? I am not driving you home! I won’t! You can’t let me do that!” It was alarming, really, how easily he could go from silent to screaming. But she wasn’t so much afraid as she was just bewildered. (Y/N) raised first one, and then both eyebrows in surprise as he continued, waving his hands in the direction of the LeSabre, looking more and more upset by the minute. “You can’t let me do that! You just can’t! It’s your goddamned car, (Y/N), you don’t just let anybody drive it!”

“Axl. Axl, for God’s sake, Axl, listen to me.” She tried to comfort him, taking hold of the hand that was still in a death grip around the crumpled edges of the Rolling Stone issue. He just jerked away from her and fumed, but shut his mouth, looking at her with an expression that she really couldn’t understand, until she realized he was confused, too. On some level, anyway.

“What are you trying to say to me?” She asked, and he opened his mouth almost immediately, but she held up a finger.

“Think about it first. Please. What is it you’re really trying to say to me?”

Axl pressed his lips together and did as she told him, and then slowly, edgily, said, “You—can’t—let—me—drive—your—car.”

“Okay. Alright. Now tell me why not.” (Y/N) watched as he sucked a breath in and started to get mad all over again, but she held her hands up in the form of surrender and pleaded. “Please, Axl, please just tell me why not.”

His voice grated out of his throat thickly, like he was fighting with himself over something. “I might do something wrong.”

“Like what?” He was starting to calm down, that much she could see. Well, he wasn’t done being outwardly upset, but he was starting to become more sullen, and less verbally violent. (Y/N) considered this a mild improvement, but felt her heart twinge a little as he looked at his shoes and seemed so lonely there, standing in the supermarket parking lot, with no one beside him but the green-gold car.

“I don’t know. I might crash the car or something. I might total it.” He shrugged and put his hands out like he really didn’t know, but was searching for answers. “I can’t do that. It’s your car, I can’t risk that after you got me away, and bought me this, and—”

“Oh, honey,” (Y/N) said, gently reaching forward for the magazine, which he laid delicately and yet awkwardly in her palm. It had been crumpled pretty bad, but she was still able to smooth it out as she talked to him. He only blinked down at the ground, not knowing how to feel, just knowing he wasn’t as angry anymore. “Is that what’s bothering you? It’s just a magazine. I thought you’d like it, the way you were staring at it.”

“But it’s your money.” He snapped his gaze back up at her, and she thought perhaps he was trying to glare, but all that he really expressed was this sad little frown. “It’s your—I don’t want to be taking charity, you know, I don’t need the damn mag—I don’t—”

“Yes you do.” She said, sternly enough to get him to shut his mouth, and then she softened. “Axl, honey, it’s not charity, it’s a gift. I wanted to do this for you. You bring a smile to my face, and I want you to have a smile on yours, especially when you’re looking at that cutie Nastassia.” She handed the magazine back to him with the cover facing up, Nastassia’s lightly-wrinkled visage still there for the world to see. “Is that okay? I just want you to have nice things, and it’s really no big deal to me, money or not. It’s not like I’ll be homeless next week because I bought a magazine.”

The ginger haired boy seemed to take a moment to think about this, though (Y/N) wondered if, really, that was all that was on his mind. If it was, or if it wasn’t, she wouldn’t know. He spoke again, quiet and unsure.
“You really want me to have nice things?” You really think I deserve it? his mind echoed, but he bit his lip before it could escape. She didn’t need to know how deep his insecurities ran. And neither did he, he thought as he buried the notion in his mind.

“Yes, Axl.” She sighed with relief. “That’s all. I just want you to have nice things.”

It slipped out before he could stop it. “Well, you’re a pretty nice thing.” And then, for the hundredth fuckin’ time that day, he blushed, deep and bright red. However it could have been taken or mistaken, she seemed to welcome it as a compliment more than a flirtation, which he was so, so glad for. He kicked more pebbles on the asphalt and sent them skittering across the lot as he walked back to the passenger side of the car, listening to her kind laugh glitter through the air like wind chimes on a breezy day.

“Thank you,” she called, and he dared to poke his head over the roof of the car to look where she was standing, her (e/c) eyes gleaming with pride, (h/c) hair billowing around her face like those circles they have behind angels in all the pictures of the saints, sunshine beaming down on her from the sky. “You’re a pretty nice thing too.”

At that, his heart couldn’t really help but to do a flip inside of his chest. He told it to calm down, but it wouldn’t, not when she was standing right there, not when she had just told him he was a nice thing who deserved to have nice things. Axl always imagined that when he grew up and got a girlfriend and married her, she would be around to tell him things like how handsome he was, and how good he looked in this and that and the other thing, and how in-love she felt when she was with him, and how romantic he was, all of the time. But in this moment those imaginings seemed false as he stood in a supermarket parking lot with the neighbor who was slowly becoming the girl of his dreams and felt her love echo through him in the simple thought that he was a nice being. He was nice to her. He was nice. And somehow, he actually believed it. Just a little bit.

(Y/N) circled around to the driver’s side, then. “We oughta get that ice cream home before it melts everywhere, huh?”

“Yeah. Yeah, probably.” He smiled, and opened the passenger seat door, ready to hop in; when he noticed a slight change of expression flicker across her face.

“What is it?”

She looked at him. “You’re sure about not driving the car?”

“Um…” Axl said, thinking about the times he’d gotten pulled over and held in the county jail for a few nights for driving without a license, exhibition driving, and a multitude of other reckless driving charges. “I mean… well. I don’t want to—I don’t exactly have my license, is what I’m trying to say.”

“But you have a permit?” She asked, and he nodded. Technically, said permit was at home in his sock drawer after the last time he’d been out driving and an officer had threatened to revoke it, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Probably.

“You can drive us back home, then.” She said, and held up the keys so that they dangled from her middle finger, ready to drop into his palm. Axl was unsure for a second, but the next, told himself “what the hell” and decided to give it a shot. If anything, he could just say he was practicing with an adult in the car, which was what you were supposed to do with your permit anyway. And which he never did, unless his mom needed a ride to the doctor’s, or something. Before he could make any disclaimers about whether or not he would incur any traffic violations under her license plate number, she said with a twinkle in her eye, “I’ll be right here, Axl, you can’t be that bad a driver.”

“Well, for a seventeen-year-old, you’d be surprised,” Axl muttered, and then stopped to think as she dropped the keys into his palm and clicked her pretty white heels around to the passenger side of the car. “Wait a second. How old are you?”

“Twenty, why?” She questioned right back, popping open the car door. He was astounded to know how close they were in age. Twenty! That was only three years. Well, three years was still a pretty long time, but people had gotten together with a lot less and a lot more between them, and—Axl shook his head to clear it of the thoughts that suddenly raided his consciousness, and just said,

“I don’t know, I guess I thought you were older. Why do you live alone if you’re so young?”

“What, you think I’m supposed to have a pack of girlfriends, or something?” She asked goodnaturedly, and then realized what he was hinting at. “Oh. No, you know, I never thought…well. I graduated early and moved out soon enough, so my family—they’ve got their own house. And my mom got married when she was about your age, but I just didn’t think that was the right kind of thing for me to do, you know? I didn’t want to go from living in my family’s house to living in my husband’s house. I wanted my own place.” With that, she swung herself into the passenger side of the car, with a kind of look on her face that had Axl wondering mutely if he had struck a nerve. The thought made his heart pang a little harder than he would have liked. Nervously, he edged into the driver’s seat, careful not to brush against anything without the lightest of feather touches. He shut the door behind him, listening as she continued to speak.

“It’s really nice, actually, to have my own place. I’m sure I’ll get married if I find the right one, but for now, there’s no one, and that’s fine. That means there’s no one breathing down my neck all the time. And I can just go to work if I need someone to do that.” She smiled at him, and he gave her a tiny laugh, which they were both grateful for. Then, Axl put the keys in the ignition and turned them. The LeSabre growled to life and gave a wild shudder before it settled into its regular rhythm.

“Where do you work?” He asked, mostly out of curiosity, and a little bit because he was starting to think too hard about her and her relationship status, and wanted to turn his brain onto something else before it made him say something stupid and get himself in trouble. But the thoughts still remained, quiet, in the back of his mind. Own place. No one. The right one. A picture of himself in a nice suit with a white blossom pinned to his lapel walking down the aisle of a Pentecostal church in the middle of nowhere assaulted his senses and he told his brain, alright, that’s it, knock it the fuck off.

“Well, partly, I’m a freelance novelist. I know, I know,” she said as he shot her a look, and she seemed almost embarrassed. “Yeah, I know, save it. Writers never really make good money, but I’m not a novelist just yet, I’m still working on that bit. Mostly, I do textbook work for the publishing office on Main Street—you know, the big old building that has that weird-looking plaque out front, but nothing else on it? Yeah, that’s the one. I work for Harpey, but there’s a lot of different publishers who contract through that office.”

“Harpey?” Axl vaguely remembered seeing the name on a textbook of his own, probably in science class, though he couldn’t be sure. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and waited for a little red Volkswagen to go past before he attempted anything as daring as pulling out of the parking space. “How’s that working for you?”

She shrugged. “It’s okay. It’s just me and about thirty other guys and girls, all slaving away at the typewriter, getting the dirty stuff out of the way—you know, introductions, tables of contents, appendices, glossaries, and margin notes. Stuff that researchers could do, but never really have the time to. It’s tough work, but I like it—although… here, put your foot on the brake, and then shift gears. There.” She looked out the window and kept talking as Axl slowly edged the car out of the parking lot, feeling subtle twangs of panic whenever a noise sounded from the engine that didn’t seem quite normal. The car was forgiving, though, and obeyed him as he swung out to the exit of the lot and pulled onto the side road that would lead them to the highway.

“I just kept thinking, ‘wouldn’t it be nice to write something people actually want to read?’ And I guess I thought I could just become a novelist. It was pretty easy to think of a book to write, I’m not going to lie. But the work that goes into it!” She blew air through her teeth with a hiss of half-amazement, half-dread. “Jeez. It’s like having a baby.”

Axl very nearly careened into the next lane the second he heard the words leave her lips, and focused very, very hard on keeping the car straight, tightening his grip on the steering wheel, and definitely not looking at her as he asked,

“It’s like what?”

“Having a baby,” she repeated simply. “I mean, like a woman having a baby. Because you have to get the idea, the embryo, and then you have to feed it good thoughts and other good ideas, and you have to nourish it with characters and plots and subplots and morals, and then when it’s all done growing you have to give it one last big shove and edit it down, pare it into the story it is supposed to be. And when you finally send it off to the publisher for review it seems like you’ve done something big, like you’ve just given birth; only it’s from your mind.” She paused. “Does that sound weird? I’m sorry, that sounds really weird.” Axl wouldn’t have known it, staring down the road as he was, but she did blush just then, out of embarrassment. “There’s probably a better way to say that, but I always thought it made sense.”

“No, you’re right. You’re right.” He fought a hundred thoughts coming back from the recesses of his mind. “It makes perfect sense. Maybe not for a writer who’s a guy, but it works.”

She giggled at that. “Yeah, I guess it’s only a good comparison for female authors. But oh well.” (Y/N) stared out the window some more, counting the trees they passed, then losing count, and starting all over again. It occurred to her that it had been a very long time since she had last been able to sit in the passenger seat of a car, and it almost made her feel like a little girl again. She held her hands in her lap, smoothing down the butter-yellow fabric of her dress. “Anyways, I sent in my book for review a month ago, and haven’t heard back yet. So I’m still stuck writing textbooks. If you ever wonder why textbooks cost so much, Axl, that’s why. It’s because they’ve got a novelist writing them, and she uses too many descriptive words.” She looked over at him, and for a split second, he looked at her, and they shared a little laugh.

Some moments of silence passed. Axl wondered aloud whether he should keep in the right lane for the exit coming up, or whether hers was the next one.

“Oh, I forget what the number is, but it’s by this enormous cottonwood tree, and you can’t possibly miss it. Ah—there it is. See?”

Axl nodded, because he did see, and gingerly pulled the car to the right, slowing down before the intersection up ahead. “Now which way?”

“Right,” she said simply, still watching out her window for the landmarks close to her home in Lafayette County. Her favorites were always the trees, and the telephone poles in between. Lafayette was a county surrounded by tall things in evenly spaced lines, and had oak trees and maple trees and sycamores lining every lane like nature’s guardians. She sighed softly as she watched it all go by, yard after yard of jewel-green grass, row after row of tall bark and branches holding millions of leaves in offerance up to the sky. A full springtime garden blinked by, a single image of a middle-aged woman watering her flowers. Then, it was (Y/N)’s turn to ask him something.

“Axl, why are you called Axl Rose? Isn’t your mother’s name Bailey?”

The way she saw his hands tighten on the steering wheel made her wish she had asked anything else. Before she could add a “but you don’t have to tell me,” he seemed to deflate a little, and said,

“My dad’s name is William Bruce Rose,” He said softly, and (Y/N) thought of the tall, dark man who had sat next to Ma Bailey that morning. She had always kind of assumed that the two of them were married, but even if they were, she supposed it wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary that they should choose to keep their last names separate. Although she did wonder, as she watched Axl, what kind of effects that sort of marriage would have on the unity of a household like theirs. He stayed silent for a minute or two, drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel as they cruised along at a speed which was, for him, quite slow. And then he added quietly, “He married my mom when she was sixteen, and they had me right away, and… well. You know the rest, I guess.” Another tap-tap-tap on the steering wheel. “The whole town always thought he was trouble and I guess he never really got out of it, not even with her. Maybe that’s why I’m such a pain in the ass.” He laughed, but it sounded forced, like he didn’t really believe that anything about this was funny. And (Y/N) agreed. It wasn’t funny.

“No, that’s not it.” She said, so readily and with such confidence that Axl really did laugh.

“Oh, but you know the real reason, I’m sure.” He grinned. “Do tell. Why am I such a pain in the ass?”

“You aren’t,” she said, trying to be serious, but unable to resist smiling back at him, especially when he looked over at her and she could see the question beyond his mirth, his green eyes asking more of her than she knew to say. But all the same, (Y/N) took a deep breath, and tried. “You aren’t a trouble child, no more than any other kid, anyway. Trouble isn’t hereditary. I mean, technically, one could theorize that there are genes that correlate to whether or not a person finds getting into trouble more tempting…”

Axl feigned a yawn as they continued down the long roadway, pretending to almost fall asleep at the wheel. “Bo-ring. Hey, you know what? If you don’t ever get your novels published, I know what you should do. You should be a science hall lecturer at school.”

“Oh, shut it,” (Y/N) said, but she was already giggling. “Seriously. What I mean to say is that for as much of a troublemaker you can be by nature, you’re also a troublemaker by nurture. It’s not just you. It’s everyone around you. You don’t just snap and punch people because they were, like, blowing their nose too loudly, or something.”

“I might if it was Thurne Pavitt,” He said, honestly, and thought she would laugh, but she didn’t. In fact, she kind of gawked at him.

“Wait, Thurne Pavitt? As in Ronnie Pavitt’s little brother?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

She turned to face him with her whole body, and Axl glanced at her for a split second before locking his gaze back onto the road. Her eyes were dark and serious, and he noticed for the first time that some of her hair had come unpinned, and was now resting on her shoulder. She looked kind of undone that way, as if they were sharing secrets at a sleepover while she brushed out her hair before bed, or something. Axl dismissed the thought and tried to listen to what she was saying at the same time as he took the correct turns down the correct roads.

“Did you get into a fight with Thurne Pavitt?”

Her stare was beginning to unnerve him a little, and he wondered what she could possibly want the answer to be. Carefully, Axl said,

“If the answer was yes, would you want me to stop the car and get out and walk?”

“No, I’d want you to do it again.” She said, her tone of voice turning bitter, something Axl was surprised to hear from her.

“Why the hell’d you say that?” He asked, really looking at her this time—at least until a blue Stingray behind them honked as he sort of drifted out of their traffic lane.

She seemed alight with fire now, almost as upset as he had been in the parking lot. “Ronnie was a year above me at school, and—well, excuse my French, but—all the live-long fuckin’ day, all I would hear from him was the nastiest shit he could possibly say about every girl in a five-mile radius. And unfortunately, that included me.” She snapped out of her funk for a second and went back to her concerned ways, saying, “Now, I don’t condone fighting, and I don’t think you should just go around beating the shit out of people, and don’t fight Thurne again if it’ll get you in trouble—”

“Relax, (Y/N). I know.” Axl said, daring to reach out and pat her shoulder. She shut her mouth so quick he couldn’t believe it, and he immediately retracted his hand and grabbed the steering wheel again, like he’d narrowly avoided crashing or something, when in fact he was just relishing in the electric spark he got from the feel of her soft shoulder below his fingertips. Well, that, and the fear that maybe he’d weirded her out, that maybe he really shouldn’t have offered a shoulder pat. A few moments passed between them, and then he spoke again.

“Thurne called my mom a cow. He always talks shit about me and how we supposedly live on the bad side of town, but that was the first time he dragged Ma into it.”

“Oh.” Her voice was quiet and sorrowful. “That’s mean. That’s horrible. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, well, he is too, now that I fixed his nose for him.” Axl looked over at her and grinned. She grinned back, and it seemed to him like the happier she was, the more the colors around her jumped out, like light from the sun. Then he asked, “What’d Ronnie say to you?”

“That I had the nicest ass he’d ever seen and if he could, he’d pull me into the boys’ locker room, rip my dress off and fuck me over the bench.” The way she said it was so matter of fact that Axl felt his heart stop for a second and then come back in double-time, bringing a healthy flush of angry blood to his face.

“What the actual fuck?”

“I know.”

“He just said that? Out of nowhere?”

“Well, he was in front of a group of his friends, so it was probably some alpha-male bullshit, or something. But yeah. He said it.” She shrugged, as if it meant nothing to her now.

“And you didn’t kill him?” He asked, unbelievingly.

“And I didn’t kill him,” (Y/N) said, easily, like she was reminiscing on the events of last Tuesday morning and simply wishing she had a cigarette. “Sometimes, I wish I would have, but he’s gone, and I don’t have to deal with him anymore. Not on the daily, at least.”

“I guess that’s okay.” He turned to look at her again, though she was staring out the windshield, keeping an eye out for the next street they would turn down. “All the same, if he ever comes around and says anything like that to you again, you hold, and I’ll punch.”

(Y/N) began to laugh, slow and soft snickers at first, and then she threw her head back and laughed, long and loud. Even though he didn’t try to at all, Axl found himself smiling along with her as he looked back at the road. She hooted about it for a good five minutes, almost crying for laughing so hard, and he just kept this stupid grin, this wonderful grin, and drove on. She was so beautiful when she laughed. Another pin fell out of her hair, somewhere, and more of it fell to frame her face, which was red from being so giddy.

She coughed a little, and laughed, and sighed. “Oh, I love that. Yeah, I’ll punch, alright.” (Y/N) was silent for a moment longer before she asked him one last question. “And what about Axl?”

“Huh?” He asked, slowing down before the turn onto their avenue.

“Axl. What about that name? I can’t possibly believe it comes from ‘William’.”

“Oh.” He urged the LeSabre forward and the car grumbled into a left turn, slowly crawling up the residential street at a more calm pace. Axl had to keep an eye out for kids here, because they were always in the road, usually playing baseball or street hockey or soccer or something. “Well, you know, my dad kind of fucked things up for my mom, so I don’t want his whole name. I still like Rose, because it’s different, but William Rose just has a bad rap attached to it. If anything, it’s a name the county police can’t forget.” He rolled his eyes at the same time as he stopped to let a kid and his older sister cross the road. She waved to him in a motion of thanks, and then shoved her brother across, running a little so they wouldn’t take too long. Axl put up a hand and kind of smiled at her. The girl reminded him of Ames. Amy was friendly that way, she liked to wave to people. Then he continued. “And, well, my name’s gotta be something I like, too. And the only thing I like right now more than anything is that band AXL.” He glanced at her, and then added, “But I like you just as much.”

She smiled. “I appreciate that. It wouldn’t suit you well at all to be (Y/N) Rose, though. Axl’s good. I like it.”

Yeah, but (Y/N) Rose would suit you, he thought, and then focused very hard on making a decent right turn onto her driveway. She bounced a little in her seat as he pulled too hard and went over the curb, but she didn’t care, all she did was laugh.

“Sorry.” Axl said, wincing.

“Oh, it’s fine, I remember doing that all the time when I was learning to drive. And besides, you did everything else just great.” (Y/N) looked at him with that happiness of hers, brighter than the sun, and said, “But we oughta get those groceries in, huh?”

So they hopped out together, slamming car doors in a one-two sequence before she pushed the key into the hood and popped it open. The ice cream was, in fact, melted, but she told him to run and go put it in the freezer right away so they could have it after lunch.

“We’re having lunch again?” He asked, incredulously. For some reason, Axl had been under the assumption that yesterday, she’d just been trying to take care of him, to make sure he wasn’t half-dead after being in the garden all morning. But now it was more of a why-don’t-you-keep-me-company thing. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, really. Wasn’t sure this was even a punishment anymore, seeing as how much he liked helping her with everything. “You want me to wash the dishes? And dry them? Or should I cook this time?”

“Relax,” she said with a little laugh, heaving a pair of paper bags out of the trunk. “You don’t need to do anything but make conversation. I like you, Axl. You aren’t just the butler.”

“Oh. Okay.” They stood there for a moment, together, before he rushed for the grocery bags in her grasp. “Hey, that’s my job!”

She just laughed and laughed and let him carry them all in. One by one, bags of cans, milk jugs, fruits and vegetables frozen and unfrozen were hauled into the entryway of her house, and after a brief reintroduction to her kitchen, Axl began to put everything where it belonged. There were plenty of times where she tried to jump in and help, but Axl wouldn’t let her, since she’d already saved him from church (a day at home, really, but he didn’t mention that), since she’d gotten him the magazine and let him drive, too, and since she’d been such a good friend without even knowing it.

“Go do whatever it is girls do before lunch,” he said, half-scolding her, and (Y/N) smiled on her way out of the room.

“Okay, your highness,” She said, and twirled around, her butter-yellow skirt flying out like a little flower-bloom. Axl reached up to put a box of Cheerios in one of the higher cupboards, sneaking a look at her as she stepped out of the kitchen and down the hall, disappearing into one of the rooms in the back of the house. Alone in the kitchen, Axl could finally catch some peace for the day, charged with the menial task of putting away groceries. Though there were a few things he didn’t know where to put, for the most part, it was an easy job to do. He looked out the window, occasionally, at the house across the way, and wondered at how strange it was to be seeing his own home from the outside. It looked kind of normal from here. It was big, had a stucco front and brown clapboard planks on the other three sides, the storm door out front was dark green with a little brass handle, and the roof—well, the roof needed reshingling anyway; but it was a worn-out navy blue and looked like a lot of other roofs on their block. The windows were square. The garden bloomed. The blue Polara wagon rested, still and silent, in the driveway. Axl wondered what they were all doing in there, if it was wordless and so quiet you could hear a crumb drop, or if it was full of noises. He turned to look at the clock on the wall and realized it was almost one in the afternoon; and wondered if the old Bastard was drunk yet. And he wondered if his mom was doing dishes on the far side of the house, thinking to herself; wondering where her oldest son was and what he was doing. Mostly, Axl wondered about Ames, and if she was up in her room playing with those little old dolls. The thought of her doing just that made him smile to himself.

As he grabbed a sack of flour from one of the larger bags on the floor, one of the last bags he had yet to put away properly, a sound cut across the house to him, softer than the flight of a butterfly. They were notes he had yet to put a name to, but didn’t struggle with it for long—an image came to him from the memories of yesterday and he realized she was playing the piano in that room he’d seen; in what was probably the living room. The song sounded familiar, somehow, a deep classical melody, probably Haydn or Beethoven or Mozart or somebody. Axl listened with a perked ear as he finished putting the groceries away. For someone who was so involved with the church—for someone who had to be, according to his step father—Axl had never much liked listening to the piano. It seemed that no matter who played it, there were two ways to do it: you either played it like you were thunking a nail into a piece of wood, plaintively, with little ado about anything, or you played it like a snob with your nose stuck up in the air as the keys laid themselves out before you. Axl had gotten the hang of playing long before any teacher had told him how to hold his hands and how to read sheet music, and so had invented his own way to play: the rockstar way. You couldn’t exactly play like that in church, because, well, the clergy didn’t like it; but that didn’t stop him from practicing like that all the time—at least, until the pianist ordered him off the bench and asked Stuart to play instead.

The way she played was something of her own invention, too. Axl followed the sound as if in a dream, feeling vaguely nostalgic for something he didn’t know as he wandered down the hall and found her yellow-dressed form sitting on the piano bench, one leg neatly tucked under it, the other gently depressing the sustain pedal every few measures. It seemed as if she were pressing the keys with fingertips lighter than air, and though these were the very same fingertips that had scored themselves working hard in the garden the day before, Axl had a hard time believing it as he stood there, watching her. He shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned in the doorway, not wanting to bother her, just wanting to listen. The way she moved with the music was something else, too—her body rose up at the same time as the notes did, her back straightened so she could play mightily and delicately and clearly, and then when they became slower and more dreamy and muddled, she leaned down towards the piano almost as if she were about to kiss it. Suddenly, the name of the song came to him, as clearly as if it were his own. The Swan. Though he recognized its title, he still couldn’t remember who wrote it—but that was okay. The way she played it, it needed no composer. He listened, patiently, and looked around the room as he listened, taking in the cheerful wall colors and the occasional framed picture. Outside the window, if he stared hard enough, he could get lost in the silent twirl of the leaves in the breeze, blinking green at him in the sunlight. The image of a quiet lake eclipsed him for a moment, and listening to the music drift up from the depths of the instrument, he closed his eyes and saw what she meant him to see: the swan, gliding slowly across the water, ripples echoing out behind it, a thing of beauty, even if—generally speaking—swans were as mean of a bird as geese. When he opened his eyes again, she had stopped playing, and was gazing down at the black and white keys, lost in her own thoughts.

“That was nice.” He said, and she jumped a little, putting a hand to her chest.

“Axl!” She said, and then let out a little sigh of relief. “Oh, you scared me. I’m sorry. Where were we? Lunch. That’s right.” (Y/N) leapt into businesswoman mode again, dusting off her hands and standing up. “What shall we have today, o-rose-of-mine?”

“I don’t know.” He said, and then asked, “That was The Swan, right? From the Carnival of Animals?”

(Y/N) stopped to look at him on her way out of the living room door. “You know that one?”

“Yeah. My piano teacher played it for me once, I think. Or something. I don’t really remember, I was kind of little. But I liked it a lot.” Axl thought aloud, following her to the kitchen, leaving the living room behind them like it was a dreamscape of colors blue and purple, evening tones that no longer matched the true light of midday. “You play really well.”

“Well, thank you.” She said, looking at him as if she kind of wanted to say something more. But she didn’t. All they did was look at each other for a moment. Axl knew he liked what he saw, but wondered if it was the same for her. And then he realized he didn’t have to wonder, as a sunny smile broke across her face, and she repeated herself, more reverently, now. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Axl said, with the strange sensation that it meant more to her than he could know.

“How about peanut butter and banana sandwiches for lunch?”

“Sounds great!” He agreed, and she began to take two plates down from the cupboard.

Chapter Text

DAY FOUR - MONDAY

On Monday, Axl was back in school, doing detention double-time for the sake of Thurne Pavitt’s nose, which, honestly, looked great. The part that didn’t have white gauze taped over it was red and purple and blue and even blackish in some places, and Axl couldn’t help but stare him down with a smug little grin. Thurne glared back, stupidly, challenging the dog. But Axl wouldn’t be fighting at all—not today. He had too much to look forward to after school. Well, after school and detention, that is.

“I’m telling you, man, she’s awesome.” he whispered to Izzy during their third class of the day, which just so happened to be English. Axl could comfortably do nothing this hour, since he’d already written and turned in his essay on the three things in life that meant the most to him; half of which he’d manufactured as a part of the genuine bullshittery process—learning to lie meant a lot in this day and age, and could get you places if you knew how to do it right. For instance, it could get you an A in English, though that was usually pretty easy to get anyway. Axl didn’t think he had any real talent for the facets of the language, but did have a pretty fun time coming up with things to write and write about, so he was okay with it after all. Izzy, on the other hand, was horrible about it. If he ever did write, it was only in scraps of poems that made almost no sense, and he could almost never do anything structured. Axl loved him for it—some of the poems were really deep, he thought—but the teacher did not like this at all, and so Izzy was flunking English with a grade that should definitely have been lower than an F, but couldn’t possibly go any further. Izzy was now trying to write the aforementioned essay with a deep furrow in his brow, half-focusing on the paper and half listening to Axl whispering to him, and getting absolutely nothing done.

“She’s so cool. She has this big old LeSabre that’s like this greenish-gold color, and she let me drive it yesterday, all the way home…”

“Uh-huh,” the black-haired boy mumbled, and pressed the tip of the pencil to the paper, then took it away again and scowled as Axl kept talking.

“And her house is just so nice. She’s got this piano that she keeps in there—I think it’s a Steinway—and every room has a different color, like she’s living in a rainbow. She bought me a copy of Rolling Stone when we were out yesterday and then we had sandwiches and chocolate cake and ice cream and—are you even listening to me?” Axl whispered harshly, and Izzy turned to shoot a real glare at him.

“Tell me why I care again?” He asked, getting straight to the point like it sometimes seemed Axl never could.

The reddish-blond boy was taken a little aback. “What do you mean, ‘tell me why I care’?”

“I mean exactly that. Why do I care about you going on some picnic with a girl three years older than you? And she sounds even older. Can’t you just get a girl who drinks a little, or something?” Once set off, Izzy kept going. He never did beat around the bush about things that irritated him and his best friend was not about to be exempt from that. “Why do you always have to pick the normal ones? She doesn’t sound like fun at all.”

“She is,” Axl defended, and Izzy shot back,

“Can you take her to the rails and smoke with her?”

“No, God, no.” Axl said, thinking she’d probably haul off and tell his mom he was smoking reefer.

“Can you go barhopping with her?”

“Probably not, I don’t think she—”

“Can you listen to music with her?”

“Classical stuff,” Axl said, meekly.

Izzy scoffed. “Does she wear makeup? Does she get all dressy? Is she like those dancers on Maynard street who know how to have a good time?”

“Just ‘cause she isn’t one of your dumb gypsy girls doesn’t mean she isn’t cool, Jeff,” Axl whispered angrily, feeling his face heat up. Izzy tightened his mouth in a thin line at the use of his real name.

“I’m just saying she doesn’t sound like fun, is all. I don’t get it. She sounds like she locks herself in a room all day, doing sewing or reading or whatever old women do.” He went back to his paper, and pressed the pencil down for the millionth time, before Axl threw in his last words.

“She’s a writer, for your information. A novelist. And a textbook author.”

“Ooh,” Izzy said sarcastically, raising his voice a little bit above the whispering level. “No, that’s a total game-changer, right there. You know, you had me thinking she was boring up until ‘textbook author’—”

“Boys!” A stern voice from the front of the room sounded, and both Axl and Izzy, who were glowering at each other, turned to look at Ms. Harpmann, who was staring at them rather harshly over the top of her book. “Close your mouths and get to writing. It’s work time, not free time.”

“Yeah,” mouthed Izzy at Axl, before turning to really work on his blank sheet of paper, and hopefully come up with something more convincing than another bunch of scrap-poems laced together.

Axl flipped him off under the desk, but he wasn’t looking.

-

“I just don’t get it.” Axl said as he pulled the bed sheet up and over the mattress, tucking it into the corners as neatly as he possibly could. He got two of them on, and went around the bed to grab the third when the first corner popped back off. So he went back to fix it, and then the second corner popped off. He sighed with irritation. “I don’t get it. Izzy normally understands everything.”

Today, (Y/N) had told him she was really running out of things for him to do, and suggested he tidy up whatever he thought was necessary while she went out with a friend for the afternoon. She was sitting at the dressing table while he slaved away over her bed—a bed which was small enough to be considered make-able, but still big enough to have him racing around to the other side to tuck the corners in, only to have the opposite corners pop up, so he would have to run back around to fix those. And then another corner would pop up. Back and forth he went. It was a little like playing Whack-A-Mole, he thought, as (Y/N) capped her mascara brush and walked over to hold one side while he really wrangled the other down onto the mattress.

“Yeah, I know, it really sucks. I was the same way with a few of my girlfriends in college.” She said with a little sigh of her own, as if she were sooo much older than him. It almost made him laugh, the thought of it; but really, this goddamn bedsheet was getting on his nerves. Finally, Axl managed to get it to stay on. “They’re the best people in the world, and you know each other so well, until you don’t, for whatever reason. But from what I’ve heard just now, you and Izzy are pretty close. I think you’ll be fine.”

“You don’t care that he called you boring?” He asked, looking up at her, panting from the exertion of tussling with the stupid bedspread. She looked back, (e/c) eyes blinking slowly.

“Well, why should I care? To him, I probably am.” She shrugged, and her dress fell a little around the shoulders. She hiked it back up and frowned. “I really should get this thing tailored… oh well. But seriously, Axl, the opinion of a seventeen year old boy on my relative status in society is not exactly one of the things that keeps me awake at night. You, on the other hand,” She started, watching him shake out one of the top sheets and throw it over the bed without much of a care for how it fell. “You might just be the one keeping me awake, if that’s how you make a bed.”

“Come on,” He groused, folding his arms over his chest and tossing his hair out of his face to look at her. “I hate tucking these things in. The bottom one makes sense, ‘cause you want a cover for the mattress, at least; but all you’re gonna do with this one is rip it back out. Why tuck it in at all?”

“‘Cause that’s part of the new-bed experience.” (Y/N) said, shooing him away and pulling the top sheet taut over the bottom one, whose hope of remaining unwrinkled lay in the shattered remnants of the past, as Axl had wrestled with it like he was in a blue-ribbon competition. She tucked the edges underneath the mattress, gently, and then looked at her wristwatch, and gave a sigh. “Well, late as usual. I’m sure she won’t mind. You think you can handle being alone for an hour or so?”

“I’ll be fine.” Axl muttered, half to himself, still feeling bothered about Izzy. They hadn’t left that classroom on good terms. They hadn’t even left school together that day. Although Axl was in detention and Izzy wasn’t, it was wholly uncommon for Izzy not to wait out in the parking lot for his best friend. Usually he was passing the time with someone, or something—smoking, maybe, or talking to a girl and getting her all flustered, or writing some of those poems, or maybe trying to figure out how to pick a lock on a car door. Whatever he was doing, he was always there. But today he wasn’t, and Axl couldn’t help but feel a little bit lost as he walked home; like his other half was missing. They were supposed to be yin and yang, fire and ice, day and night. But now there was just yin and fire and day and Axl didn’t like it one bit. And all over a stupid girl! Well, no, (Y/N) wasn’t a stupid girl, that much was for sure; but the problem itself was stupid. It was stupid to have problems with your best friend over a girl. Axl didn’t know what to make of it, and it frustrated him to high hell and back, so much so that he barely registered (Y/N) saying “goodbye” and walking out the front door and starting up the LeSabre to go to a cafe with one of her writer friends from college. He was in his head again; so deep that he almost didn’t recognize the sunshine coming through the windows—it felt foreign to him, as if he was looking through a pair of dark sunglasses.

Axl made a series of disgruntled noises and grumbles and shook his head, occasionally muttering to himself as if he were talking to Izzy while he pulled the fleece blanket and the large comforter over (Y/N)’s bed, trying this time to make sure they were as wrinkle-free and as evenly laid as possible.

“Why?” He mumbled. “Why…? Doesn’t matter if I…don’t care if you… she’s cool, what are you mad about? What are you fucking mad about…?”

The ginger-haired boy threw the pillows back onto the bed without a care, and then thought better of it, making sure that they were instead stacked neatly against the headboard. After finishing his handiwork, he stood back, put his hands on his hips, and lapsed into complete silence, wondering what he should do next. What should he do next?

An intrusive thought wiggled its way into the back of his mind, and at first, he ignored it, but then it became too strong to resist.

Do it. The thought chided.

“No.” Axl said aloud, almost jumping at how loud his voice was compared to the silence of the house. Without her there to make noise in the kitchen or in the living room, the house was completely dormant. Not even the sun shining through the windows made a sound as it nestled itself into the shag carpet strands of her bedroom floor.

Do it. The thought giggled.

Axl didn’t say anything this time, just eyed the bed, like he was really considering it. He hadn’t done that type of thing since he was little. Really little. And he almost always got in trouble for it. One time his step dad had found him on his parents’ bed and had spanked him so hard he thought his ass would fall off. But he missed it. He missed how light-hearted it made him feel.

Do it, his brain chanted.

Her house was a place of joy, he thought. Wasn’t it? It was. So why shouldn’t he…?

Do it.

Without another hesitation, Axl took three steps back, and ran full-force towards the bed, leaping on top of it in one swift bound and jumping like a maniac. Again and again he bounced and flew and bounced and flew, squeezing his eyes shut and holding his hands close to his body, and then realizing that nobody was home and nobody would catch him and nobody was going to do anything. So he let out a tiny shout. And then a louder holler. Finally, he was jumping like a monkey on the bed, yipping and whooping in glee, laughing and twirling mid-air and leaping so high he touched the ceiling a few times. His heart felt so big in his chest and skipped so many beats he thought it might explode, but for once, the thought didn’t bother him. He was just happy. Just plain sunshine-jump-rope-candy-bar-holiday-happy-birthday happy. Finally, he got tired, and bounced two or three slower times before dropping down on the bed, tossing his head back onto her pillows and brushing the hair out of his face and gulping, deeply, the air that kept the scent she always had about her. Something flowery. Something deep. Like violets, maybe. And that smell in the woods after it rains. Axl breathed and watched his chest go up and down, up and down, up and down until it finally slowed into a normal pattern again. He felt like he was made of gold, like he had sunlight going through his veins, making him warm and fuzzy from the inside out, like he just couldn’t stop smiling. And he felt a little bit bad about jumping on her bed after making it, but then, he could always straighten out the blankets again, couldn’t he? He could. And for a few more moments, he laid there, smiling stupidly in a star-fish spread across the top of her bed, feeling better than he had all week.

Eventually he sat up, and when he did, he spoke to thin air: “That’s why I like her.” Because he was absolutely sure that if she had walked in on him, just then; like his step dad had so long ago—if she had walked in, she wouldn’t have done anything but say “move over!” and get on the bed and jump with him.

Axl got up and straightened out the bed again, pulling the sheets just so, and once he was done with that, he checked the time on her nightstand. Half an hour. So she’d be back soon-ish. He scratched his head a little and wondered what else she might want him to tidy up. Maybe she had dishes in the sink—he could do those. Axl wandered to the kitchen, but there were no dishes in sight—and the countertops were practically sparkling, so there was no point in washing them. The table was clear, too. And the windows didn’t look like they needed to be wiped, but he was looking for something to do, so he went and got the Windex and wiped them down anyway. That took five minutes, though, so he wiped down all the windows in the house, even the big one in the living room. And that took ten minutes. Axl looked at the clock and groaned with boredom, but put the Windex back and went trotting around the house, looking for things to do. Bathroom: clean. Living room: nothing. Bedroom: perfectly fine. Axl realized she wasn’t kidding when she said she was running out of things for him to do. The thought crossed his mind of organizing things in her cupboards alphabetical style, but he waved that idea away because it was too time consuming and she probably wouldn’t even want them organized that way, either. So he stood, in the middle of her room, itching for something to do, but not having the slightest clue what. Even jumping on the bed seemed to lose a little of its childish luster in the advent of boredom.

When young men are left alone to do as they please in a young woman’s room, it often doesn’t turn out particularly well for the woman’s privacy, and this case was no different. The ginger-haired boy was intent on finding something to do, even if that something was rifling through the drawers of her desk and her dressing table, looking for something entertaining, which he did indeed find. In the first drawer of her desk, under a hand-held stapler and some loose pens and pencils, there was a stack of manuscripts. Axl flipped through the first few pages of each and decided that Izzy could be right in this one respect—textbook authors were pretty boring. She had about a million different pages on the different religious rituals of the Olmec and Toltec, and seemed to be in the middle of transcribing an interview of sorts with somebody who knew enough to compare the two to the Aztec, which was semi-interesting, but not enough to risk getting caught snooping for. So instead he went through the bottom drawers, and found more manuscripts; dozens more, each with a rather intriguing title, and some with curious plotlines. He sat in her chair for a little while, reading through the cream-colored typewriter pages, trying to see things as she saw them. There was one story he liked in particular, called When Magpies Sing For Cherries, where there were these snippet-type short chapters involving a little boy growing up on a farm with his mom, but in between, there were short stories about a magpie watching the boy through a birds-eye view. He read along, mouthing the words to himself, liking how she had written it. Her spoken word and her writing style were two very different creatures, and though he appreciated her commentary as much as anyone else, secretly, he found that the latter of the two was extraordinarily beautiful. Occasionally, though, his reading was interrupted by a dash of red ink across the page, where she’d written a note to herself in her scrawling hand. Axl couldn’t decide whether he liked the annotations or not. Some of them made sense, and others didn’t. Some were scribbled in too messily to be read at all. He flipped through the rest of the pages, humming to himself, and then stuck the whole stack back in the bottom of her desk drawer where he had found it, making sure everything was prim and neat before moving on to her dressing table.

The drawers on this particular piece of furniture were tiny and shallow and mostly full of makeup products, half of which looked unused or even unopened. They all had this kind of metallicky smell to them, too, which made him wrinkle his nose—they reminded him of Izzy’s great aunt, whom he’d met once when he was ten, and never, ever wanted to see again. That lady was a cheek-pincher, and Axl had never been more embarrassed to get kissed on the forehead by an old lady he didn’t even know who looked, quite frankly, like she had just walked out of an open grave and was using powders and creams to preserve herself. Axl shuddered at the memory and shut the drawers, glad that (Y/N) didn’t wear stuff like that all the time. Maybe she was just saving it for when she got old and decrepit, like Izzy’s great aunt. One could hope.

There were a few assorted things laid out on the top of the dressing table, too, things Axl knew she used more often. A tin of mascara, for example; and a brush to put it on with. He picked them up and sat down, staring into the mirror, wondering if he should try it. Axl had always thought it must be so fun to put makeup on. Sal and her friends were always doing it half the day anyway, to the point where the teachers had to sigh and say, “Girls, this isn’t a beauty salon”—but they sure thought it was. Axl held the tiny brush in his hand and stared deep into the mirror, contemplating deeply. If he thought hard enough, he could see himself as a teenage girl. What would she be like? He wondered. Probably something closer to Ames. Amy was sweet, though, and was more of a kind soul than Axl ever thought he could be; so no, never mind, he probably wouldn’t be like her at all. He’d probably just be him, but in a different body; ready to fix anybody’s nose who catcalled him. Somebody like Ronnie Pavitt. He looked down at himself, and then up at the ceiling, and thanked God silently that though he had a hard life, he didn’t have to grow up and be a woman. And then he set the mascara down and noticed a lipstick tube.

It was at this time that a branch somewhere outside the house made a creaking noise. Axl jumped and banged both knees on the underside of the dressing table, freezing in place, looking wildly around the room and settling his gaze on the clock beside the bed. It had been an hour. An hour and fifteen minutes. And she still wasn’t home. Was she on her way? Axl didn’t know. But he waited another few minutes in silence, listening to the wind blow, making the cottonwood outside creak slightly, and then he turned slowly back to the mirror and opened the black-as-night lipstick tube that lay there on the dressing table.

The wax inside was a red color so bright it seemed to make the rest of the room dull in comparison. Axl’s eyes widened as he twisted it, first backwards and then forwards, to get it upright and out of the little black shell it lay in. There wasn’t much of it left—it must have been (Y/N)’s favorite, then—but it was beautiful. It called out to him in the midst of a room of things that belonged to her. Though this thing was hers, too, he felt it closer to his heart than anything else, felt that this was the very color of his soul. Before he knew it he was looking in the mirror, curious green eyes staring back at him as he parted his lips and watched the beautiful bright red glide over them.

Sal and her friends were absolutely right to be doing this all day, every day. He could have gone on forever. He would have painted stars and letters on his arms in that wonderful red wax, would have used it as rouge and eyeshadow and would have put it on the tip of his nose and would have looked like a clown, and he wouldn’t have cared one bit because it felt like him. This color was everything. It had the pink bite of a cherry and it was as orange as the fire that raged inside him and it was as red as the kind of red people wore on the Fourth of July, the red they put into fireworks, the red that made rhubarb pie so good. It made him feel like he was yelling out to the world, HERE I AM! LOOK AT ME! and that everyone, everywhere, was looking at him in awe. It was a feeling so overwhelming, so completely encompassing, that it nearly overtook him, and in the minutes before he heard her car growling up the street, he was nearly brought to tears by how wonderful it felt to be known, even if the knowledge came from a tube of lady’s lipstick.

The LeSabre’s engine whined as it drew nearer. He sprinted to the bathroom and threw his head under the faucet, turning the water on and scrubbing madly, madly with tissues, throwing away hunk after hunk of soaked, reddened Kleenex into the trash bin beside the sink. Axl glanced in the mirror and thought he looked fine, and then hastily took some more tissues and crumpled them up, using them to hide the red-stained wet clumps in the garbage, arranging everything just so. His heart thumped around in his chest like a rabbit running in circles as he heard the front door open and (Y/N) call out, “Hey, Axl, I’m home!” and without a better thought of what to do, he ran to the piano room, crashed onto the bench, and began to play a roaring version of the Maple Leaf Rag so she wouldn’t know a thing about what had just happened.

(Y/N) set down a paper bag on the counter, which was stuffed with the thick envelope of a manuscript her friend wanted her to read for the next time they got together, a letter of recommendation to a batch of publishers she had been trying for weeks to get in with, and a little box of chocolate truffles which (F/N) had been so kind to prepare for her as a coming-of-the-summer treat. The noise of the piano bellowed through the house, and she smiled as she realized her plan had played out perfectly. Axl, as good and occasionally as ruthless of a young man as he was, was a bit shy; she had noticed, and so she had this thought in her mind that if she could convince him to come out of his shell a little bit, they would be even better friends, with more to talk about than just dancing around the unspoken things hanging between them. (Y/N) also now knew that Axl was a musical boy and that he couldn’t possibly resist the notion of playing the piano once he got it into his head. So, late into the night after he had left, she worked to make sure everything in the house was spotless, so he wouldn’t have anything to clean the next day, and so she—hopefully—would come home to a young man who had gotten just bored enough to play the piano. And then, they’d have more to talk about. She could ask him what song he was playing, and he could answer, and maybe she’d know it, so they could sit together on the bench and play it side by side. She sighed happily just thinking about it, and stepped down the hall, bouncing merrily to the tune of Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag and stopping in the doorway of the piano room, where she leaned in, pulled up the shoulders of her dress for the millionth time and smiled at the young strawberry-blond man playing her piano.

When he had finished the song, and a little bit of an encore to go with it, she clapped gently, and he whirled around, green eyes wide and chest heaving a little bit. The way he looked was almost enough to make her ask “are you okay?”, but she thought better of it.

“You must have been playing pretty excitedly to be so out of breath,” she said with a grin, and watched a flicker of some unidentifiable emotion cross Axl’s pointed face before he smiled back at her, somewhat uneasily.

“Yeah, I guess so. I was playing Alla Turca before that and got carried away.” He said, at first turning to the keyboard, and then looking over his shoulder shyly at her. “You want to hear some more?”

“Only if you want to play some more.” She said, and then, as he nodded and broke into a softer rendition of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, she went across the room and sat on the couch, swinging her legs up onto the cushions and laying down in all the ways her mother said a lady shouldn’t. She tipped her head back, though, and simply listened to the sweet, dulcet and melancholy notes pouring from the mouth of the piano, so softly that they could have been sung by one of the littlest choir boys from the church. (Y/N) closed her eyes and fell deep into the song. Notes swung around her like fairies in the treetops, their wings glittering in the sunlight; trails of sparkles following them wherever they decided to flit and flicker. Though the afternoon outside was still bright, because the May sun refused to retire so early on a day such as this, the sonata made (Y/N) think of the beauty of the night, and how deeply the moon shone down on the coniferous forests of the north. Snow began to fall in her mind, fairies dodging the bright flakes, falling; falling, and swooping back up toward the ever-heavenly night sky.

A sour note played and the piano jolted to a halt, before the measure started over again.
She opened one eye, just a little bit, to sneak a look at Axl, who was still breathing a little harder than usual, as if he’d just run a marathon all throughout the neighborhood and barely made it back to the house in time. And she wondered about him. Not necessarily about what he’d been doing while she was gone—though she had to admit, that was most of it. His hair looked oddly messy, as if he’d been thrashing around or something; and his lips were… well, she didn’t want to think too hard about it, but she could have sworn his lips were redder than usual. Maybe it was the heat that made them flush so. But… oh well. It would do no good to think about it. (Y/N) laid there and closed her eyes and instead thought of how pleasant it was to have him here, to have him sharing her talents with her, no longer avoiding her as if she were a peasant and he were the plague. For once, they were in the same room, and nothing was being transferred between them but the sweet, soft sounds of Beethoven’s first love; music. There was no anger, there was no guilt, there was no wondering what had happened to him to make him think in such strange ways. There was just him, and her, and the piano. Although eventually he hit a sour note again; the same one he had the first time, and he cussed lightly, which made her open her eyes and get off the couch to come sit next to him.

“I don’t remember how that part goes,” Axl said, scooting over until he was practically hanging halfway off the piano bench. She nearly laughed at that, but he looked much too serious, and so she stifled it.

“Oh, come now, there’s enough room for us both.” (Y/N) said, and gently put her arm around him, guiding him back to where he’d been sitting. “And it goes like this.”

Axl tried to pay attention to how her hands were moving, and where they were going, and where they had come from, and which keys they were pressing, but he couldn’t think because she was right next to him and their legs were pressed together, and even through the rough fabric of his jeans he could feel her warmth and the round firmness of her hip. His heart flip-flopped back and forth inside his chest, and then he heard her voice calling out to him.

“Okay, now you try.”

“...Um…” He said, and put his hands on the keys, in exactly the wrong place.

She laughed, quietly, and reached around him again to direct his hands into the right place. For a moment he was surrounded by her scent, that lovely nature-y scent, and the softness of her chest pressing into his shoulder just slightly as she put her arm around him and guided his left hand into the right notes in the bass clef. Axl wanted so desperately to fall into her arms, and just let her have him, just let her hold him, as closely as she would dare to. He wanted her to run her hands through his hair and feel her lips on his, her soft, roseleaf lips; spread with that beautiful red lipstick the color of his soul; he wanted her to envelop him, completely, and give him back all the pieces of himself he had ever felt were missing. And he played while he thought all this, played meaningfully without any other feeling but yearning to it, and pressed the keys as lovingly as he would have pressed her against him. The song that resulted was marvelous. It was haunting. It was melancholy. (Y/N) withdrew her arms from him and watched, listened, as he played, solemn and sad green gaze focused on the keys in front of him and playing the exact right note at the exact right time. He didn’t miss a single one. And the song now had some mystical wanting behind it. She heard it; echoed in the glaze of piano notes as he held down the sustain pedal and played the final bass notes at the end of the song. It sounded like the church bells of someone’s funeral. But it was tinged with this utter longing that neither of them—especially not her—could ever describe in words.

When he had finished playing, and slumped back on the bench in his usual teenagery posture, she pressed a hand to her chest just above her heart, like she always did when she heard something or saw something or felt something that moved her.

“Axl,” she whispered in a voice no louder than the one she used at church services. “That was beautiful.”

He couldn’t look her in the eye, but he did turn to her, just slightly, and brushed the reddish-blond fringe out of his face a little. “You think so?”

“My god,” she breathed. “I don’t know why they don’t have you playing for mass. That would be marvelous. It would just—oh. You’re wonderful at it. Whatever you do in life, I hope you never, ever stop playing piano. You’re too good to just let that slip.”

(Y/N) kind of wanted to hug him, as she would have any of her other friends, but she knew that with his posture turned inward as such, he wasn’t feeling particularly receptive to the notion. So she let it go. And as he got up and started talking about how late in the afternoon it was and how he should be getting home for dinner, she squinted at his lips, wondering if her eyes were playing tricks on her. Up close, it seemed even more certain. It was the same color, all right. But she didn’t want to embarrass him, so, just before he left the doorway of the piano room with a mumbled “thanks” for letting him come over again, she stood and said,

“Axl?”

“Huh?” He looked at her from the doorway, expectantly.

She fretted for a moment about how to put it into words, and then asked, “Have—have you been eating cherries?”

His face, confused at first, then went paler than a ghost. “What?”

She straightened a little more. “It’s okay if you did, I don’t mind. But you might want to rinse your face a little more. Cherry juice stains.”

He stood there in the doorway, looking frightened, like a rabbit caught in a trap. (Y/N) felt terrible for having mentioned it at all, but then added,

“I find that a little dab of olive oil always gets rid of it.”

“Oh,” he said, shakily. “Okay. Thank you.”

“There’s some in the cupboard above the stove.” She held a gentle smile on her face, but the second he left the room, she dropped it and sat on the couch, staring out the window, wondering. A few moments passed before she heard the cupboard door bang, heard him holler, “BYE, (Y/N!)” and heard her front door creak open and slam shut. And only once she had seen him trudge across the way into his family’s home could she get up from the couch and approach her own bedroom with the singular thought in her mind of exactly how bored he had gotten.

There, on her dressing table, lay the red lipstick her mother had given her for her seventeenth birthday, uncapped and looking just slightly more used than she’d left it.

Normally the thought would have given her pause about letting him into her house again. But the thought of him trying it on, the thought of him liking it enough to do so, the thought of him enjoying himself for once—it all made her smile a little. Who knew a boy and a girl could bond over just about anything! She laughed to herself. And as the sun tilted toward the evening horizon, she was still smiling, goodnaturedly; daydreaming, waiting for the next time she would be able to see him.

Chapter Text

DAY FIVE - TUESDAY

Tuesday was much the same as Monday, a happy day at (Y/N)’s house, filled with music and joy and a chore here and there. It was when Axl came home to his family already eating dinner that he felt the rolling stone of dread begin to pick up speed in his gut.

Really, there was no reason he should have been nervous. The same dinner had happened a hundred times before, if not a thousand. There was his mother, eating daintily and silently, the lines on her face drawn in deep furrows like the rows during planting season; there was Stuart, looking at his plate and not eating a thing on it, and there was Amy, sitting next to Ma Bailey and looking around inquisitively, shoveling mashed potatoes into her mouth with the fervor of a child who was ready to fuel up and get back to playing with Barbie and her paper friends. And the old Bastard sat at the head of the table, dark, pale, disheveled; angry. It was quiet except for the ambient sounds of chewing and forks clinking against dishware, and Axl should have been fine with it. But he was uneasy. He could tell the old man had a bug up his ass about something and that tonight would be yet another night he’d spend in his step father’s face, taking the heat, distracting him from the others, so there would hopefully be at least two Bailey children who grew up without lingering physical scars. Which was okay—if it had to be done, well, he would do it. He grabbed a plate from the cupboard and went over to the stove where the food laid, cooling, and picked up a slice of meatloaf, a spoonful of peas and a good-sized dollop of mashed potatoes. And he turned and was going to sit down at the table when his heart stopped dead at the sight of Nastassia Kinski laying right next to the old man’s plate.

He stopped moving, for a second, watching warily, but his step father kept eating, and put a forkful of mashed potato in his mouth, chewing somewhat thoughtfully as he stared down at Nastassia’s seductive eyes. Axl sat down in his chair and began to eat, arms feeling numb and trembling as he brought a bite of lukewarm meatloaf to his lips.

By the time he was halfway through his meal, everyone had finished eating theirs, and were either staring at him or making a point not to stare at him. His mother crossed her arms protectively over herself, rubbing her shoulders as if she were cold. Stuart stared at him, wide-eyed, trying to convey some message that Axl just wasn’t getting, or didn’t want to get. Amy knew something was up, but all she did was look up at Axl, and then look at Bailey, and then look at Axl again, expecting something; kicking her legs under the table and occasionally hitting Axl’s chair. Axl swallowed hard and tried not to think at all.

Finally, his step father spoke. “I don’t suppose you know anything about this.”

He turned the magazine just so Nastassia was facing Axl. Axl swallowed again and nearly choked, but held back.

“No.” He said shortly, and stuck another piece of meatloaf in his mouth.

It was the wrong thing to say.

-

At midnight Axl could breathe again, but only very shallowly, and not without a great deal of pain. His nose was fucked up somehow. He couldn’t think how exactly, but, well, somehow. It wasn’t broken, but it was definitely bloody, and he could feel his heartbeat in his face. And his back. Mostly just those two things. The black room surrounding him was silent, echoing with the screams that had been thrown around it hours before. Axl sucked in a heavy breath, gathered the blood and thick saliva in his mouth, and spat it onto the floor, a dark stain that would be brown come morning. Though he wanted to do nothing more than sleep, he couldn’t, his mind and his pain wouldn’t let him. He kept hearing everything replay itself, as if he were stuck in a time loop, as if his own brain really just couldn’t leave him be.

“Don’t lie to me! What do you think God has to say about this?”

The bastard’s voice. Axl sucked in another raspy breath, felt the red skin on his back sting like he was being ripped open, and heaved it back out in a low groan.

“I don’t give a fuck what God thinks. What does he know? More than you, probably. What would God say? What would God say? The fuck do you think God would say? He’d say Nastassia Kinski’s smoking hot and that Michael Jackson’s the king of pop, that’s what he’d say, you old bastard.”

“I WILL NOT HAVE A BLASPHEMER IN THIS HOUSEHOLD!”

“Then you’ll just have to kill me, won’t you? Huh? You’ll just have to kill me!”

“DEVIL!”

“DEVIL!”

“DEVIL!”

All he could do was lay, eyes half closed and bleary with dried tears, on his bed; stomach-down. If he turned his head, he could see a little bit through the blinds on his window, the very ones he’d opened slightly that morning to let the sunlight in. Just that morning, when everything was going well. Just that day, when he went to school and made peace with Izzy and then hung out with (Y/N) and had the best time of his life. Now all he could see through the window was the night sky, a kind of special dark purple reserved only for the late hour, and just below that, the soft orange square of (Y/N)’s bedroom window. And if he turned his head the other way, he would see the shredded scraps of what used to be Nastassia Kinski’s face on the floor. If he saw that, though, he’d start bawling all over again.

Axl gazed, eyes exhausted and half lidded, at the orange square of light that poured onto the lawn below. He wondered what the rest of her day had been like. Though he technically spent more time at school than he ever did at her house, he always felt like time with her was a day and a half, in its own reality. Time was different around her. Life was different around her. After a hard day working to get grades his momma would be proud of, he could come over to hers and just hang out for a little while, and she would put him to work, but never anything more exhausting than washing dishes or dusting bookshelves or something. Today they talked about music while he scrubbed the kitchen countertops and rinsed and polished some silverware. And he’d told her about all the music his mother had ever played for him, all the Billie Holidays and Ella Fitzgeralds and Frank Sinatras and Ray Charleses he’d heard in his early life, and about how sometimes, he’d call up a buddy in one of his classes and pretend to be on the phone with them for an hour or so while they played their favorite records. She had loved the secrecy of it all, the idea that music was this forbidden object for him, the kind of underground nature it had, and Axl had almost begged her not to think of it that way, because he loved music and having to live without it was a kind of pain he did not ever wish upon anybody. And for the most part, (Y/N) understood. She really did. She even went and got a radio from her closet, a shoddy little transistor radio, put it on the kitchen counter he had just cleaned and twisted the knob until it was playing something good. He could still feel the featherweight of her hand as she took his own and guided him into a dance he would never forget—mostly because she was, for a girl, pretty bad at dancing. So bad, in fact, that he ended up taking her by the waist and trying desperately to guide her in the right direction, to which she laughed and laughed and eventually, he just had to give up and smile and dance terribly with her. They practiced as much as possible to the good songs that played on the radio, and talked during the ones in between. He found out she adored some of the best musicians out there—like the Rolling Stones, and Aerosmith, and even Deep Purple. And she liked a few other people, too, like Joni Mitchell and John Denver. She listened with rapture as he sang a few of the songs on the radio to her, some in his clear-as-riverwater voice, and others in the voice he had been carefully constructing for himself, the one he would use the moment he made it out of this place—the voice he liked to think of as Axl’s voice. He lost himself in Def Leppard’s Bringin’ On The Heartbreak with the wildcat tones he’d spent hours and hours fine-tuning out in cornfield country, where no one but the crows would hear him—only this time he was spinning around a girl in her own kitchen, howling at the top of his lungs.

“YOU’RE BRINGING ON THE HEARTBREAK!” He sang, voice reaching new, scratchy highs, squeezing all the emotion he possibly could out of that one song. “You got the best of me… oh, can’t you see?… You’re bringing on the heartbreak!”

When the sounds of guitars and cymbals crashing had finally lapsed out from behind him, he opened his eyes to (Y/N) in his arms, staring at him, her beautiful (e/c) eyes wide open like she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. And he’d almost shied away from her again, almost taken a step back, but he liked the way she clutched onto him too much for that to ever happen; he adored the way she held his arms and pressed herself closer.

“You never told me you could do that,” She said, breathless, like he had been keeping some huge secret from her, like he had known her forever and she was shocked to know he could sound so good. The way she gaped at him kind of had him feeling amazed himself, like even he didn’t know he could sing well.

“Yeah, well. You know. Practice.” Axl had shrugged it off, but she shook her head.

“No, Axl, that’s something special. Boy, is it something special.” It seemed to be the only thing she could say. “That’s special, alright. What are you going to do with that voice?”

“Do I have to do something with it?” He had asked, a bit sourly, but she nodded like he was being serious. And all of a sudden, he found that he was taking it seriously, too. Not that he wanted to. It was kind of uncomfortable, having her look at him like that. The only thing that made it okay was the sparkle in her eye, the happy glow of admiration.

“Oh, you have to. You know how many people would kill to hear that voice? And so… so… wild. You sing wildly. The music world needs you, I’m sure of it.” (Y/N) leaned in, ever closer to him, like she just couldn’t resist. Axl found that even though he thought he should, he didn’t want to back away. She drew closer, her lips parted gently to speak sweet words to him. “You know, I thought I could listen to Paul Stanley or Steven Tyler all day, and it turns out, I was completely wrong. The only voice I could stand to hear all day is yours.” And then, all of a sudden, she let go of him, like she couldn’t believe what she had just said and didn’t mean for it to slip out. Axl watched as her cheeks grew pink with embarrassment, and she put her hand over her mouth, looking away.

“I just…” She started, and her voice died, but she tried again soon enough after clearing her throat. “I just mean—well, I just want you to know you have a beautiful voice, is all.”

For a minute, they stood in the kitchen like two awkward kids just trying to figure each other out. Axl had almost kissed her, then. He’d almost taken that girl and kissed her right on the mouth, where she was wearing that beautiful red lipstick, because of course she was, the cheeky little dame, and she’d almost put her arms around him and he almost felt her fingertips run through his hair and he almost, almost lifted her up onto the counter where she could perch like the happiest bluebird as he kissed her again, and again, and again. But all the emphasis was on the word almost. So Axl really did none of it. And as the next song started, he took her into his arms again, and settled for the wash of joy he felt when she looked at him again and offered him a shy smile.

Axl found the same smile resting on his own face, impossibly, returning to the dead of the night as he lay stomach-down and tried very hard not to move and felt the still air around him cooling the belt-driven welts on his back. She had probably spent the rest of the night doing as (Y/N) did. Writing on her little blue typewriter, editing pages with red slashes and notes here and there, opening her mail excitedly, waiting for the acceptance note, rereading her textbook drafts and sighing, making dinner for one, playing the piano, laying her beautiful self down on the bed and thinking, dreaming of him. At the very least, that was what Axl hoped she was doing. The square orange light remained in his vision for a long time, so she couldn’t have fallen asleep yet, and he found himself reaching out to her and the memories they had made that day. His hand brushed the window sill and he tilted it so that it was palm-up, asking, waiting, patient. He coughed and breathed shallowly and began to cry softly again at the thought of her, wanting desperately without logic for her to come find him, for her to gasp and fall to her knees and wipe the blood and sweat from him, to cover him with her love.

“Please,” he sobbed into his pillow, biting down on his lip, shaking with fury and despair. His brow furrowed itself into a knot so hard it made his head throb and his nose sting with bruised pain all over again. “Please. Please. Please.”

Like a broken record, he repeated it into the night, hoping to reach across the boundaries between them, hoping to crack the walls of her house and mind, hoping she would come rescue him.

“Please… please…”

The orange light in her bedroom went out.

Chapter Text

DAY SIX - WEDNESDAY

The next day, Axl didn’t go to school. He laid very still, and very silent, listening to the murmurs of the household, hearing the Polara wagon pull out of the driveway, hearing Stuart and Amy picking over their breakfasts and heading out to where the school bus would come get them. The house was eventually quiet enough to the point where he felt like he could get up again. And he tried. It took him a good fifteen minutes of hissing and feeling his eyes prick with unwelcome tears as he swore and lifted himself out of bed. And the next thing he did, to further his own torment, was shower. Now that hurt like a motherfucker. If he weren’t at least twenty percent sure his mother was downstairs, puttering quietly around the kitchen, he would have screamed the longest and loudest string of cuss words known to man. By God did it hurt. Soap only made things worse and Axl gritted his teeth as he scrubbed the welts clean, the stinging pain only serving to make him more angry.

By the time he got out of the shower, his entire back was throbbing and he was madder than a motherfucker. Low curses filled the humid bathroom air as he scrubbed himself dry with a towel and yanked his clothes back on—except for the shirt; he couldn’t bother with that, he would really scream. Instead, he ran a hand through his hair, peered in the mirror, scoffed, made a face, and then grit his teeth at how his bruised nose hurt before barreling out of the bathroom and down the stairs.

Axl was right. Ma Bailey was in the kitchen, washing the dishes from breakfast. And she gave him a look, a kind of side-eye that suggested she was annoyed with him for taking out more dishes while she was trying to wash all the ones on the counter; but let it slip given the circumstances. She lowered her eyes and said nothing as Axl threw open a cupboard with a bang against the wall and swore under his breath at the noticeable absence of honey Cheerios. Instead, he tore down a box of plain corn flakes with a vehemence reserved only for the boys at school who wronged him. In another light it would have been funny, she thought, watching her boy shake the cereal box like it owed him money and scowl as he poured himself a subpar bowl of flakes and went to the fridge to get some milk. Any other day, she would have smiled. But it wasn’t funny. It wasn’t childish, anymore, the way he got so upset. She bowed her head again and focused on the dish in her hands, the small one, a plate with orange roses which had held Amy’s toast that morning. Ma Bailey knew very well why her oldest always acted so wild, but never, ever mentioned it. It was better that way, she had convinced herself. Some part of her felt deeply that William was still her baby, and that he deserved so much more than what he got—but the sentiment had gotten so buried in the mound of every-day terror that she hardly saw it anymore. He was so angry all of the time, she thought. So spiteful. And he fought like hell against anything and everything. Some days she wondered whether her hold on him would falter, whether Ma Bailey would eventually have a husband and a son who screamed at her every time she tried to contradict them. It was honestly better if she just didn’t make a sound. God had handed her a role in life as a hardworking wife and mother, and by his will she was going to play the role to its fullest, even if it killed her.

Some days, she thought, looking miserably at the slowly popping dish soap bubbles in the sink; it certainly felt like it was going to.

But Ma Bailey was never one to rub salt in a wound. She just kept on keeping on. And come hell or high water, she would stay with this family and try to make it work. Eventually, it had to. This was her faith, after all.

Axl crunched loudly on his cereal, still glaring bullet holes into the wall across from his chair. Ma cleared her throat.

“You going over to Miss (L/N)’s today?”

Axl made a noise that was somewhere between a bear grunt and a leopard growl. “Maybe.”

Silence. She set the orange rose dish in the drainer at the side of the sink, dipped a ceramic bowl into the sudsy water, and tried again.

“She’s a nice girl, isn’t she? What’d she have you do yesterday?”

“What you’re doing now.” He said flatly. He put his bowl up to his lips to drink the milk that remained, and then stood, closed up the cereal box, and shoved it back in the cupboard as violently as he had taken it down. The cupboard door closed with a bang, and Ma Bailey couldn’t help but wince.

“William, please don’t do that,” She said, as gently as she could, and he whirled around so fast his still-damp hair swung out around him. Ma Bailey froze in place, the only alarm bell blaring through her mind being the thought that he looked furious. And he was, clearly. He was seething and clenching his fists and he looked like a man straight from the jungle, wild, ready to fight. She didn’t recognize her own boy. My God, she didn’t recognize him. Ma Bailey put a soapy, dishwater-soaked hand to her lips and let out a muffled cry as her eyes filled with frightened tears; and that was when he returned.

“Ma,” William said softly, looking at her with sad green eyes, the kind that spoke of regret. His face softened further into mellow despair as she squeezed her eyes shut and cried silently at the thought of losing her oldest son. “Ma, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I am. Please, Mom, I’m sorry.”

“Go to your room,” she said, loud enough to hear her own voice crack, loud enough to feel as if she still had some authority in this place where she was using her wiry wrists to wipe her eyes and she was shaking and quivering like a battered woman in front of her son, who was only angry on her behalf, who was only tired of being in a hurtful world. “Go to your room. I don’t want to see you until Stuart and Amy are home. As far as I’m concerned, you’re at school.”

“Mom—”

“Go,” she said, avoiding his sorrowful gaze, turning away so she could cry in peace without his hurt face just staring at her. She pointed blindly in the direction she hoped was the stairs, and heard him shuffle out of the kitchen, climbing back up to his room one step at a time. Alone in the kitchen, the willowy bronze-haired woman stood facing the far kitchen wall for the longest time, her shoulders shaking underneath her stiff cotton work dress and worn out apron, praying to whoever was listening that she would be able to hold on. And it must have worked, because after a good long time, Ma Bailey wiped her pretty green eyes and went right back to washing dishes like it was nothing.

It does no good to rub salt in the wound, she mourned to herself.

-

Axl was halfway out the window when he realized that, among such things as botching your own ear piercing and breaking your foot, trying to squeeze out of an attic window with a bad back onto a roof with a bunch of nails sticking out at odd angles was quite possibly one of the most painful things in the world. He hissed and yowled under his breath, keeping the volume low to avoid drawing attention as he got first one leg out, then the other; grabbing his bag from his bedside table and pulling it onto the roof before he tried to wiggle his top half out backwards.

“Shit!” He yelped a little too loudly as the window sash scraped against his spine. Too small too small too small. This window was too goddamn small and he tore himself out the rest of the way, biting down hard on his lip and hoping it wouldn’t hurt too bad after that. At least he had a shirt on now—two, actually, so if any cuts opened and he happened to bleed through one layer, he’d still have the other—and it wasn’t his bare back getting scraped. If it had been, Axl might have just sat on the roof and cried for a bit. But he didn’t. Instead, he turned, stood upright on wobbly newborn-deer legs, and leaned over on the steep section of roofing to grab his bookbag.

Well, it was a stupid decision, but he wouldn’t know it until he fell.

A scream tore itself from his lips as gravity took him a little too seriously and pulled him forward, off the roof. Axl clutched onto the book bag for dear life as he tumbled head over heels and scrabbled for a hold midair, pinwheeling about like a maniac. There was nothing but air, and he thought for a solid second or two that he was going to fall on his head and die, and for some reason, the thought actually scared him. But the strap of the bookbag caught on one of the exposed nails, nearly yanked his shoulder out of its socket as he held onto it, and held him in the air, wheezing like a dog and swinging back and forth slightly.

He stopped to catch his breath, feeling his arm strain and ache and a new blooming pain enter his shoulder. Axl normally would have cussed louder than the day was bright, but was silent now, too scared his mother had heard his shriek and too white in the face from the pure terror of falling from the second story. And now he was stuck in an even worse position; with his grip slowly failing on the bookbag, and the drop below him seeming terrifyingly long. Sometimes, just sometimes, he admitted to himself, swallowing as he thought how the impact might make his legs shatter to pieces—sometimes he didn’t think things through before he did them.

“What in the hell…?” came a familiar yet totally bewildered voice from the barren garden patch behind him.

“Hey! Hey, (Y/N)!” He tried to wiggle so he could see her, but the bag’s strap made a snapping noise, and he froze, gasping for what little air he could get into his lungs without the threat of total collapse. Axl shut his eyes and caught his breath and tried not to think about how bad a broken leg would hurt.

“Good fucking Lord…” he heard her mutter, but also heard footsteps racing toward him, a sure sign of her goodwill. Then they stopped, right underneath him, and he felt her fingertips grasping, just barely, at his ankles. “Okay, let go. I’ll catch you.”

“How the fuck are you gonna catch me? Go get a ladder or something.” He almost shouted it, but felt the bookbag strap twang again as another stitch broke on the dull metal of the nail. Fighting for his life against his own stupidity, he tightened his grasp on the bookbag, holding onto it like it was his lifeline. And then he dared to open an eye, to peek at her.

The hold she had on his ankles was firm and guiding, and even though she kind of looked unsure herself, her face below him was open and kind, and determined. “Axl, shut up and let go.”

“No!” He was about to argue more, but the bookbag finished the discussion for him with a resounding SNAP! and with a scream that sounded more like a girl than he cared to admit, he flailed around and plummeted and fell right on top of her.

“Oof!” The noise escaped both of their lungs simultaneously.

Well, one thing was for sure. She wasn’t lying about catching him, because that, she did. However, unfortunately for (Y/N), this meant that she also caught a frantic kick to the face, an elbow to the temple, and finally, Axl’s entire body weight on her with one swift thump into the grass. It was enough to make her groan in pain as she laid there, her head knocked back, hair strewn around her like fallen leaves.

“(Y/N)? You okay? (Y/N), are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay, (Y/N). Please.” Axl’s heart hammered in his chest as he straddled her and shook her shoulders as gently and as politely as he could for somebody who had just had the bejeezus scared out of them and was now hoping fervently that they hadn’t killed the girl of their dreams by some freak accident involving a roof escape hatch. But she was fine. Fine enough to still be holding onto him, at least. Though her left arm was splayed across the lawn like she was pretending to be a body for a Civil War reenactment, her right was still firmly looped around his waist, where she’d caught him as he was falling and thrashing around like an idiot. Still gently, but more insistently, he shook her again.

She groaned again and opened her eyes, blinking against the harsh light and scowling at him. “Oh, be quiet, I’m fine. I said I’m fine. What I want to know is what you were doing on the damned roof. What were you doing?”

“Going to see you.” Axl answered shortly, standing up and stepping away from her, watching her right arm drop to her side and feeling kind of stupid and still really shaky. He hadn’t meant to fall, hadn’t meant to meet her like this, but—but he did like her arm around his waist, that was nice. And being pressed to her, tightly, for just that moment—shut UP, he warned his brain, and it obeyed for the moment. “Ma sent me to my room, so.” He shrugged, trying to make it seem nonchalant.

“So you climb out of your window and almost kill yourself coming down.” (Y/N) deadpanned, and then slowly rolled over on the grass, still making pained noises. “God damn, Axl, you just about shattered my spine.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and offered her a hand to help her up. She took it and with a hissed breath, dragged herself back upright. Grass clippings and green stains littered her back, which, if it was broken, was still pretty damn straight. “I am sorry, you know. I just—I just wanted to see you.”

She laughed at that, wincing a little, and the idea grew in the back of his mind that though he hated seeing her in pain—and knew he’d hate himself for this forever—he almost, almost took a little liking to the fact that they were alike, now. Both of them would have aching backs for the rest of the day.

“Wanted to see me for what? You know there’s no chores to be done around here anymore.” Her smile was only halfways, and kind of smug, like she knew he just really liked hanging out and he was welcome to it.

“I dunno. I’ve got stuff to do. My chores.” He held up the bookbag, which was still in his grasp. “School stuff, ‘n’ all. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. I just didn’t want to be in there.” He jerked his head towards the open window, and (Y/N) looked up at it with her hands on her hips, regarding it with a squint as she would have otherwise regarded the bright blue sky. Then she looked at him, (e/c) eyes betraying that cheerful wonder she kept hidden under a sarcastic look.

“Next time, spare me and use the door,” she said, and Axl nodded until his head hurt. And then she tilted her head, and her expression changed to something funny that he couldn’t quite recognize.

“What happened to your nose?” (Y/N) reached out as if to gently touch it, and he swayed away instinctively. He didn’t know what the fuck was with people and always wanting to touch other people’s bruises, but it wasn’t just something restricted to her; even Sal and her friends would make big eyes at the cuts he had and reach out as if to caress his arms. What good would it do? None. Can’t heal if somebody’s always messing with your wounds. But, at the same time, he thought it might be nice of her to hold his face anyway. Not touching his probably-broken nose, but, you know. Just… stroking his cheek, or something nice like that.

He backed away even further, as if to distance himself from the thought. “You know how sometimes you’re cold in the middle of the night, and you don’t want to move to pull the blankets up?”

“Uh-huh?” She nodded slowly, raising an eyebrow in concern.

This time, he feigned a blush and looked up and away, like he was really embarrassed. “I may have been trying to pull a blanket up with my knee. And may have accidentally kicked myself in the nose. Possibly.”

“Good Lord.” She sighed, and pinched the bridge of her own nose, but Axl could still see her smiling. She wouldn’t have to know, he thought, and though it tore through his chest like an arrow, wanting only for her to come save him; he knew it was better this way. She wouldn’t have to know, and wouldn’t have to pity him, and wouldn’t have to give him charity. And he could still be okay with coming to her place. She let it be; and he convinced himself he was grateful for that.

“Just be more careful, Axl, Jesus. Maybe get a ladder, so you don’t have to go roof-jumping every time you want to sneak out.” (Y/N) shook her head, still smiling, but she did look at him, then. “Promise me that, Axl, that you’ll be more careful?”

“Yeah, I will. I will.”

“Attaboy,” (Y/N) nodded with finality, and then turned to walk across the yard to her own front door.

“So what are you up to?” He asked, following her with the broken bookbag in hand, with nothing better to do, and all the time in the world—well, at least, all the time in her world. Of which there was a lot.

“Well, I had just finished watering my garden when I saw a young man fall from the sky.” She mused aloud to herself as she pulled open the door and stepped into the household, holding it open for Axl to come in, too. He stepped inside, but only after having rolled his eyes to the high blue sky.

“Very funny.”

She grinned. He followed her into the little coat-hanger hall, and then into the kitchen, and then into the dining room. “What are you up to now?”

“I’m just going to read over my manuscript. For the hundredth time. It’s editing day—I do this every Wednesday, and every Wednesday, it still fails to come together.” She sighed and rubbed her temple with one hand, walking over to the dining room table, where a pile of papers lay with corners sticking out amongst the mess, looking as though they had been turned about a hundred times. “I can’t figure out why they don’t like the dang thing. You’d think the people at the publisher’s office would be kind enough to tell you why they’re not accepting their work, but that’s not the case at all. Unfortunately.” (Y/N) dropped into her chair and sighed again, like the weight of the world was on her shoulders. Axl sidled up to her to look over her shoulder and noticed that the thing she had apparently been reading over all morning was the very piece of writing he had found in the bottom of her desk drawer the other day. The one about the boy. And the bird. And the cherries. He leaned over her shoulder and read some of it through the red hash marks and scribbles that laid across the page, like welts of their own.

(Y/N) looked at him rather thoughtfully, tapping her fingertips against her lips, which were once again painted that saintly red hue. Oh, he’d noticed—how could he not?—and it only made Axl love her even more.

“What’d you bring over, then?”

Axl held up his bookbag, grimacing at the broken strap, and figuring he’d probably have to fix it with duct tape or something. “Math stuff. I’ve got to redo a test before the end of the semester because I flunked it the first time.” He flicked his bangs out of his face and fixed his gaze on the tabletop as he said, “The teacher thinks I’m kinda dumb, so he lets me do that if I get a bad test grade. I’m the only one who gets to redo it.”

“Wish I had a teacher like that,” (Y/N) murmured, and then asked, “Well, what do you think? Want to have a mini study hall?”

“Sure.” He had hoped she would say that. Kind of. Well, no, he had hoped that by some miraculous twist of fate, she would decide enough work was enough and pull out the radio again, and they could dance some more, and he’d really have a shot with her this time—but when she got down to business, that was what she did; and there was no changing that about her. Axl kind of respected that, to a certain degree. The woman knew what needed doing, and did it.

So he plunked himself down in the chair across from her and watched her slip on a pair of reading glasses and frown to herself as she went over the script, following line after familiar line with the tip of a red ballpoint pen, forever threatening to scratch something out here or to change something there. Axl watched her for a few minutes, and then slid his math papers and notebook out from his bag with a great sigh.

Matrices. Not that they were a particularly difficult subject, per se. But Axl felt a little bit like he was being cheated out of a better grade with this test, partially because the thing was worth 50 points but only had twenty questions, and also because he’d answered the multiple choice ones correctly, but somehow lost everything on the short and long answer problems, which were usually right up his alley. Something wasn’t adding up. He read the first red-circled problem on the lightly crumpled page at least five times, and thought about what he would do, and then organized the numbers as one would have in a normal equation, and then put them into their stupid little box, and somehow that was the answer he had gotten before and it was wrong.

So he moved onto the next problem. And he thought he’d gotten that one right the second time he did it—he definitely got a different answer, and could see what he’d been doing wrong the whole time; adding the x of the equation instead of subtracting it; because it had been originally written with a minus sign—but then he consulted the key he’d gotten from the teacher as a way to check his new answers, and it was so wildly different from what had been written that he didn’t even know what to think.

Onto the third problem.

Meanwhile, (Y/N) had resorted to tapping her red ballpoint pen against her lip, impatient with the page she was on, clearly. She was knocking her foot against the table, too, to the point where the whole surface kept wiggling, just enough to irritate the fuck out of Axl while he tried to focus on the problems that seemed so simple and yet so complex at the same time. He breathed in and out and tried to steel himself to any outward interference, but eventually, the noise of the pen and the twitch of the table got to be too much.

“(Y/N).” He said, looking at her.

Zoned out as she had been, staring at a spot on the wood just beside her paper, she snapped back in and said, “What? Oh, sorry.” She sighed and put the pen down. “I’m just so tired of reading this stupid thing. I almost hate it, you know? I mean, it’s the love of my life; this story, and yet… it’s infuriating.” (Y/N) sighed again, more dramatically, and ran her hands through her hair.

Axl thought for a moment, and then had an idea. “What if I read it?”

She snorted. “Be my guest. Can’t hurt, anyway. I just hope you don’t find it boring, like publishers apparently do.”

I won’t, Axl thought to himself, and then slid his math papers across to her. “What do you know about college algebra?”

This, her eyes lit up at. “Ooh! I didn’t know you were doing that! Now that is a class I was fond of. I—what? Don’t make that face at me,” (Y/N) complained, but Axl pretended he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Anyway, the professor was just nice, is all. And I loved the girl who sat next to me. We didn’t recognize each other anywhere else, but in that room, we were best friends. And she was a computing genius.”

Axl must have given her another look or something, because (Y/N) hurried to shove the manuscript over to him and take his own scratched-out scribbled-up paper out from under his hands. “Anyways,” she murmured, and began to dive into the paper, reading along with the problems that Axl felt sure were worded specifically so that he would get them wrong. And then he pretended to read the story that really, he was already so familiar with, he could tell her what was missing just from remembering what he’d envisioned the past Monday.

Both remained engrossed in their separate tasks for a little while; before the clock chimed high noon and Axl realized he’d gotten pulled away in the storyline again. He set the typed pages down again and looked at (Y/N), who was bent over the paper, (h/c) eyebrows in a delicate furrow as she coaxed the answers out from the matrix word problems—or at least, tried to.

“Okay, so I have a few notes,” she said, after spending a particularly long time staring hard at the last problem he’d gotten wrong; the one that had finalized his flunking score.

“Like what?” He asked, curious, just dying to know if she’d figured them out.

“Well, whoever wrote this test either an asshole or an incompetent teacher who was using three different books at once. And who couldn’t even get his own problems right. Because half of this key is dead wrong.”

“Really?” The red-blond boy scrambled around to her side of the table, nearly tripping over himself to see what she was talking about; if his redemption could really be so close at hand as the teacher making a mistake. “Really? Where? How?”

“Geez, Axl, keep your shirt on, I’ll show you,” she said, laughing a little, before she pointed out the answers on the key she had marked. All of a sudden, her bright red ink on the page seemed less like a ruthless cutting edge and more like a righteous stroke of genius.

“So most of these, the way you did them—which, I’m assuming, is by the method they taught you—are correct. They’re perfectly fine. I’m not sure what this teacher was smoking when he made the test, but—”

“What about the other ones?” Axl demanded. “What there? What did I do?”

“Oh, you divided one out when you technically can’t do that with matrices; and here, you just missed a seven at the end, so I’m not too concerned with your relative mathematical ability,” She said, nudging her reading glasses up her nose, just slightly. “You should really ask about that key, though. I bet half of the kids failing in your class are just due to that.”

I could kiss you right now. The thought echoed so loudly in Axl’s head he almost did it, almost grabbed ahold of her pretty round face and just laid into her, put his lips on hers and loved her the way he loved finding out he was right all along, goddamnit! His heart hammered in his chest and his hands twitched at his sides and she looked back at the paper, making a few final marks here and there.

“Really, you would’ve gotten an A. Smart cookie.” She smiled and turned back to him. “And what have you got for me? I don’t suppose you could tell me what I’ve been doing wrong with that horrible thing.” (Y/N) flicked her hand in the direction of the manuscript, almost disgusted with it. At this, Axl snapped out of his little reverie, and found that he actually had something useful to say—a fact which his step father would have guffawed at. He shook the mean thought out of his head and picked up the pages, handing them back to her and pointing things out just as she had.

“So, here, see, you’re writing about the kid seeing the bird for the first time, and it’s meant to be this tiny little thing because it’s just a kid seeing a bird, but you keep using all these gigantic words that kids don’t know, but that the readers do. And it just doesn’t feel right, that way. A kid doesn’t see a bird and think, “God, well, that’s an omen of coming famine, if I ever saw one”. And secondly…” He flipped through a couple of pages, reread some of it, and then said decisively, “Yeah. So, this part, about the bird on the clothesline, is really nice. I dig it. But it makes a good ending piece, you know? And then you went and wrote another epilogue for the mom about life after her kid dies. But you don’t need that. All you need is the bird. ‘Cause it starts with the bird, and it should end with the bird, too. Make it come full circle, or whatever.” With a deliberate nod, he stepped back and put his hands on his hips, wondering what she’d have to say to all that; wondering if he’d said enough, or too much, or if she was listening at all.

She stared at the pages in front of her for a little while, and said,

“You know what? It’s funny—no matter how many times I hear it, criticism—even the good stuff—always hurts a little.”

Axl shuffled his weight from foot to foot, awkward, almost regretful. “Sorry. I just…”

“Oh, don’t be.” She looked at him, (e/c) eyes full of blazing wonder behind the lenses of her reading glasses. “Don’t be. That was perfect. Thank you. You’re so smart, Axl.”

Axl flushed a deep red. “Nah. No, I’m… I just know how books work. It’s okay, really.”

She had been scribbling down notes on one of the pages, but turned to him, her face perplexed. “No, Axl, I really mean it. You’re smart.”

“Eh,” he said, waving his hand in a so-so motion. “It’s just… I read a lot.”

She gave him a stern look and he knew what was coming to him, but that didn’t stop it from plowing into him like a train at full speed. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you you’re smart?”

Axl thought about this for a moment. Maybe his mother once had, when he was young and impressionable and she was still learning to love the son that had been brought to her by a terrible life. Maybe. But he couldn’t remember for sure, and certainly hadn’t heard any compliment like it ever since. Being smart was an expectation of the household, and no one would hear a compliment for something that was just expected of you, and definitely not when Axl constantly fell below that expectation—in his step father’s eyes, at least. Maybe his mother still believed without saying it that he really was an intelligent boy, but it kind of hurt to think about. It didn’t even make him upset, really—he just distracted himself from it, staring at the floor by the dining room table, observing a few crumbs here and there, and wondering if at some point (Y/N) would have him sweep the house. But she kept staring at him.

“You are smart,” The (h/c) haired woman spoke quietly, as if to a shy mourning dove in hiding. “Wonderfully so. You’re good at math, and great at playing the piano, and you sing just beautifully. And you have that kind of knack for seeing through the bullshit and being able to cut down to the essentials. You would make a great magazine editor. Or a great singer. Or a great mathematician. The point is, you’re going somewhere, whether you choose to believe it or not. I do hope you believe in it, though.” She reached out and tilted his chin up, ever so gently, so he could meet her gaze. It was the sweetest touch he had ever felt in all of his seventeen years on earth, and it gave him the sensation that he was drowning in heartache at the same time as he was floating above the world. Axl’s eyes filled with tears and he pulled away from her and resumed his staring at the floor, the place where her legs were crossed at the ankle under her chair, where the hem of her jeans gave way to her stockinged foot. He would look no further than her knee as (Y/N) reached out to him, gently patting his arm.

“I hope you can believe in yourself.” She added, voice soft and kind.

A teardrop plinked onto the floor before Axl could stop it and hurriedly, he scrubbed at his face, accidentally rubbing his nose and cringing at the blunt pain that shot through it. Goddammit. What was with him today? Probably everything that was usually with him, he thought as he sniffed a little too loudly and put his hands to his face, as if she wouldn’t be able to see him there, as if it would save him from the mortification. It was all he had ever wanted, to be known; so why couldn’t he just be happy? Why couldn’t he take the damn compliment? Why did he have to go and be over-emotional, like some sort of—

“Axl?” Her voice was even softer. “Do you want a hug?”

He pressed his hands even harder against his face, ignoring the bruising pain, trying to focus on keeping the water in his eyes where it was and on breathing normally and not having that stupid knot in his throat. Yes. His mind, usually so divided, was one in this instant, all the voices settling down in the calm she brought to him just by being there, by recognizing him and his apparent worth. Yes. He did want a hug. A hug would be very nice. The problem was, he also didn’t want to let her see his face, or break down crying in front of her, because that would just about be the dumbest thing he’d done yet; and he’d done a lot of dumb things in front of her.

He shook his head no.

“Okay. How about a friendly shoulder pat?”

That, he could probably handle. To this, Axl nodded.

Even through the two layers of t-shirts he had on, he swore he could feel the softness of her hand as she tapped his shoulder once, twice, and then laid her palm there, squeezing gently and reassuringly. (Y/N)’s touch catapulted him into another round of intense emotion; all the melancholies and reliefs and wistfulnesses and sorrows he had ever felt came rushing forward at her fingertips’ beck and call. Sometimes people said that removing one sense heightens the rest, and, well, Axl certainly felt that way, given that all he could see was the black behind his closed eyelids, and all he could think about was how gentle her touch was on his injured shoulder. Without another thought, he took his hands away from his face and dove into her arms, pressing his bruised nose to the crux of her neck so she wouldn’t have to see how dramatic he was being, or how his bloodshot eyes made the green in his irises stand out in a violent sort of way. Axl wrapped his arms around her waist and felt so thankful, so thankful, so thankful that she was there, that she could comfort him, that she could be a source of love, and if not love; happiness, and if not happiness; peace. He laid his head there for a little while, in the space just below the curve of her jaw, and like he had when he’d worn her lipstick, began to feel a piece of himself come back into a place it had not fit for the longest time. A tear traced its way down his cheek and fell onto her collar.

(Y/N) didn’t know what to do, really. Should she hug him back? Well, he’d said no, he didn’t want a hug, and then completely contradicted himself, so did that mean she could break the same rule? No, not necessarily. Although she wanted to. She really wanted to. But she could see that Axl was very much like a cat—you had to let cats come to you; they never come when they’re called. So, in her own dining room, she stood next to the chair she’d been editing at for hours and held both her hands in the air in surrender as her neighbor hugged her as tightly as he could. After some time, he raised his head, looked at both of her arms, grabbed them and put them around himself, guiding her into an embrace.

“You need some help, I guess,” Axl mumbled, a twitch of a smile at the corners of his lips. He had been crying after all—his eyes were still red rimmed as he avoided her stare and gazed down at the floor between them, in her arms, yet separate somehow—but (Y/N) pressed her mouth tight and would not say anything about it.

“Well, but you—oh, alright,” she said, always too easy to give in, and gave him a real hug, good and tight and like there was nowhere safer in the world to be. Axl felt sure of that—at least, for the first few seconds, anyway. Then the pain started to seep in from his back, and it only grew over time. It felt equal parts wonderful as it did horrible; the softness of her figure pressing against him like the perfect puzzle piece to his ragged edges, the pain of her arms pressing in on the clothed welts.

“Okay,” he eventually had to say, wincing as she let go of him and his back began to throb somewhat intensely. “Alright. I’m good. I’m fine. …Thank you.”

“Anytime.” Oh, her smile. It was as sunny as always, and though Axl could tell she was worried about him (now his brain was divided again: did he want her to worry, or did he loathe her sympathy?), she was also accepting, ready to gather her things and move on to the next task, as she usually was, and which came as a great relief to a young man who didn’t exactly want to dwell on crying after receiving a genuine compliment for the first time in a while.

(Y/N) looked at the clock, then, and put a hand on her hip. “Well, it’s about lunchtime…”

“I’ve got an idea,” Axl said, blinking his still-wet lashes together, feeling the blood course through his bruised nose and feeling for the first time like maybe, someone in the world actually cared.

-

Quintessential American food, that was what they had. Axl made them fried bologna sandwiches, a loving courtesy of his childhood, and she dumped a can of baked beans into a pot on the stove to heat, and then they enjoyed their little hobo lunch together, each occasionally commenting on something mundane. It was all trivial stuff, but Axl loved it anyway. There were many observations of her that could be characterized as pieces of deeper emotions—the way she smiled to herself when the crows outside cawed loud enough for them to hear, for example—but mostly, all she did was talk about the kinder, simpler things in life.

“I used to love to blow bubbles.” She said before taking another bite of baked beans. “And I wonder why I ever stopped. You know? Why would you stop something like that?”

“You grow up, I guess.” Axl said, having taken it upon himself to collect their dishes and wash them in the sink. She was perched in the chair she’d moved closer to the counter, one leg crossed over the other, hunched over the plate in her lap as she finished her meal. Her eyelashes fluttered as she looked up at him.

“But I mean, why do we grow up?” She asked. “Why do we ever abandon those things? Wouldn’t you like to blow bubbles sometime? I mean, wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe. I guess. I’d be worried somebody would think I was crazy. Or stupid.” He half smiled at her, but she was in a serious pondering mode now, staring down at her plate. Then she looked back at him, seeming to come out of that cobweb of thought.

“Yeah, I guess so.” She sighed. “I wouldn’t mind being crazy and stupid if I felt happy, though.”

It was things like that—little remembrances, little wishes—that kept the conversation alive all throughout the afternoon, and well into the evening, whereupon they had gone to the den and she’d played piano for a little bit, lilting tunes that had no way to them and nowhere to go, so they could talk back and forth as she pressed the keys. Axl leaned up against the Steinway and watched her fingers flicker over the ivory keys as she played and talked about anything and everything under the sun. The price of paper for the typewriter, the other neighbor across the street whose dog occasionally got loose and terrorized the neighborhood’s trash cans, the way plants sometimes grow better if you play them a little music. Axl laughed and listened with intrigue as she talked, and always offered up what he could in return, because what she was giving was better than any conversation he could have ever had. Here was peace, in front of him, in the shape of a woman, and it didn’t matter how mundane or regular or boring she could be. To him, regularity was salvation. It was the key to the lock on his wildest dreams, of finding somebody he could really get along with, of finding a house that didn’t quiver at the seams. These dreams lasted into the dusk, and it was only when the sun was really starting to near the horizon that he began to worry about whether or not he was going to walk in on another silent dinner.

“(Y/N), I’d better go,” He said, interrupting her on some note about a book she had read that really, he kind of wanted to read now, too. It was a banned book—or, had been banned recently, or something like that. He wasn’t sure, actually, because just outside of her living room window he could see the front door of his house swinging open, and who should come marching out but the Old Bastard, utterly fuming. The sight made him inhale sharply, but he covered it with a quick smile and pretended to be alright.

“Oh, Lord, you’re right, I’m sorry. It’s late, isn’t it?” (Y/N) stood and shut the lid of the piano, then dashed to the door of the den, where Axl was already leaving from. “Hey, Axl, tell your mother I’m sorry, alright? I didn’t mean to keep you for so long.”

Axl didn’t seem to hear her as he half-walked, half-ran to the front door. He was locked in that defensive posture again, (Y/N) noticed, and she frowned and decided to follow him out, to be sure he was okay. The screen door clattered behind them both as first Axl, then (Y/N), dashed down the steps to meet the sudden visage of a very angry man standing in the dirt driveway, glowering at them both. Ah, yes. Axl’s father.

Oh, if looks could kill, (Y/N) thought, and then told herself to shut up. If looks really could kill, both of them would be six feet under with a bouquet of daisies on top. Mr. Rose, as she knew him, was a very imposing man, who hardly smiled unless he was chatting with friends of the family at church. And even though she had tried to reserve her judgment and make a logical call based on his true personality, (Y/N) found that even before she knew any of the other Baileys personally, he had always kind of weirded her out. The way he smiled wasn’t real at all—it never quite managed to reach his eyes. Whether that was because he was always tired, she didn’t know, but she had always considered it a real possibility. Anyways, right now, anybody could see that he was upset that his son had been missing for, well, pretty much the entire day. The sun inched ever closer to the horizon line as the three of them stood there, each paralyzed by the others’ gaze. Well, sort of. Mr. Rose was staring daggers at her and she was warily looking back at him, but Axl was avoiding any kind of confrontation, just watching the dust on the driveway, the reddish-tan finery that covered the soles of their shoes, the crushed rock he wished he could disappear into.

She spoke first, trying to put on a mediating tone, a neutral one, that suggested everything was alright, really. “Mr. Rose, I am so sorry to have kept your son so long, we were talking for quite a while and time just—”

It was evidently the wrong thing to say, because his nostrils flared and his gaze looked less like one of death and one that was meant to light her on fire. His frame seized with anger, too, and he seemed almost to grow a half inch taller, like he was raising his hackles for a fight. Mr. Rose’s voice, gravely and packed tight with rage, ground out,

“What—did—you—just—call—me?”

“I—” She looked at Axl, wondering what she had gotten wrong. What had she gotten wrong? Oh, God. The poor boy was as white as a sheet. “I’m sorry, did I misspeak?”

Another wrong thing to say. Apparently anger issues were common in the household across the lawn. (Y/N) watched with fright as Mr. Rose—or whatever his name was, but she could have sworn, really, she could have sworn Axl had said his dad’s name was Rose—grabbed Axl by the collar of his t-shirt and jerked him closer.

“What have you been telling her?” He snarled. “What in God’s name have you—have you been making up names again?” The snarl escalated into a yell and (Y/N) had the sudden urge to get in between them. The first day, when she’d seen Ma Bailey haul Axl over to the door by his ear; that was painful to watch, but she knew some mothers could be like that. This was just plain terrifying. Axl was caught in his father’s grasp, fear flickering across his face, but holding onto an expression that merely spoke of irritation and boredom, one she had seen a hundred times. A protective expression. A defiant one.

“Please, Mr.—sir. Please, sir, don’t do that, just let him go, he hasn’t been making up anything. Please. It was an honest mistake on my part.”

“No, no it wasn’t,” sneered the man, who had a sort of weatherbeaten look to him; dark eyes set in his head, a jaw that hadn’t seen a razor for a while, dark hair that glittered with grease like scarecrow fringe. “It wasn’t a mistake, and I know that much, because this little creep has been making up names for himself the second I married his mother. Anything but his God-given name. One after another after another. Michael, Steven, Danny, even Red Ryder, for God’s sakes. Never anything original, and never anything worthwhile. I’ve told him again and again, ‘you take your God-given name, William, and you take it well’.” The man wrinkled his nose, sucked in mightily, and spat on the red-dirt ground, right at Axl’s feet. “He won’t, though. For some godforsaken reason. Needs to reinvent himself every damn Tuesday, but he’s the same lousy little…”

Now, (Y/N) was normally a very gentle person, as evidenced by the past few days Axl had spent at her house; but all of a sudden she knew where Axl’s anger was coming from, where his outbursts had originated, and why it was that he couldn’t take a compliment. And while she managed to keep a lid on most of her anger—unlike these two—she did fly off the handle, just a little bit.

“Now wait just a second!” She snapped, lancing her hands on her hips and stepping toward them. “In what possible godly manner can you stand to talk to your son like that? Do you really wonder why he does the things he does? Why he makes up names for himself? Well, gee,” she said bitterly, fixing the older man with a biting stare. “I can’t imagine why. You know, I think I’d have some pretty strong words for my father if he were anything like you.”

The words seemed to hang still in the heavy air for a minute. Axl looked at her like she was crazy, like she was absolutely insane for having brought the wrath of Old Bastard Bailey to her front door. And then the dangerous side came out. Every so often, something would make Bailey so mad that he became completely and totally calm, and he never, ever took his eyes off of the thing he was mad at. Axl tried desperately to get his attention, but despite the tight grip on his step son’s collar, Bailey was staring at (Y/N) as if he wished she would spontaneously combust, and Axl was going to be no distraction to that, no matter how hard he tried.

“William,” Bailey said, low and quiet, the dangerous tone that made every single hair on the back of Axl’s neck stand up. “Get inside. Now.”

With a shove, Axl was released from his step father’s grip, only to be torn between two new decisions. Bailey looked ready to kill someone. Axl couldn’t have that happen. He had to get in the way, had to interfere before Bailey attacked, before the man cut into (Y/N). Axl wasn’t following logic—there were voices telling him that he should just go, just run, just hide in his room and count down the minutes, that he should at least go grab an apple and stash it for later when he would surely be unable to walk to get to the kitchen—but instead, he leaped in front of her and gave Bailey an unexpected shove.

The older man almost toppled, but took a step back and regained his balance, enough to grab Axl by both shoulders and toss him so hard in the direction of the Bailey household that Axl’s feet actually left the ground. While he did still land on two legs, perfectly okay; he could see how pale (Y/N)’s face had turned, how suddenly aware she was of the way he was treated at home, and how well she knew that she wouldn’t stand a chance if this man, here, in front of her, were to really let loose and try to kill her. If he did try, he would succeed. That was for sure. Axl longed for a day where he would be bigger and stronger than that stupid fucking bastard, and then, and then, Old Bailey would be put in his place. Then, justice would be served. But until then, Axl had to settle for looking over his shoulder, dragging his feet in the direction of the house where one day, he would be beaten to death if he didn’t get out. (Y/N), in her bravery, or maybe stupidity, or maybe fear, never took her eyes off of his step father. Not once. It was when Axl reached the door that he realized he had started crying again—but all he could do was go inside, just like the Old Bastard had told him to. God. Axl wasn’t a praying man, but for her sake, just as he let the door fall out of his grasp behind him, he did.

“I want you to know,” Axl’s father growled at the woman in front of him the second he heard the Baileys’ screen door clatter shut. “That my name is Stephen Bailey, and you will address me as Mr. Bailey. And you will not, under any circumstances, tell me how to parent any of my children. Are you married?”

“No.” (Y/N) hated how her voice quivered, but he didn’t care. The coalfire in his eyes was still smoldering there like his main intention was to kill her, and to somehow make it look like an accident. He wasn’t thinking about anything but the pain he could cause her; the pain he could cause his son, and that made her feel sick to her stomach.

“Yeah. I thought not.” He looked her up and down with disgust. “Do you have children?”

She bit her tongue, then answered. “No.”

“Then that excuses you from ever having to tell me what I should and should not say to my step son.” His voice was calm, and yet the pure, unadulterated viciousness under it sent chills down her spine. “And if I hear another word out of you about how you’d talk to me if I were your father…” He shook his head, long and slow, and the greased strands of dark hair that rested just above his rage-creased forehead swished this way and that as he moved. “If I hear another word about that, you’re going to wish you’d’ve never moved next door. Understood?”

“Understood.” She had to work to keep calm. She swallowed heavily as she watched him turn and march back to the house, a hateful man with pain at the ready, to be inflicted on the residents within. For a while after the door shut behind him, she stood in the driveway, shivering with the chill that sunset brought, feeling her knees turn to jelly at the thought of being in a house with that wicked man, wondering if she should call somebody. Eventually she went inside her own house, and tried to make herself a light dinner, but was too upset to really eat anything. Yells and noises echoed from the closed windows across the way, as they had many a night for some weeks since she had moved here, but she’d never given a second thought to it until now. They were sounds of pain. She was sure of it. (Y/N) tried to focus on writing, tried to focus on her textbooks and novel manuscripts, tried, even, to focus on the piano, but every now and again a shout would break the barrier and she would clutch her chest and wince if it was her who was being hurt; as if it were her bones being battered. Each time she heard the noises, she shook a little more, shivered though she was not cold, and by the time she was to get ready to sleep, she was shaking like a leaf on a tree in the middle of windy autumn. (Y/N) undressed and got ready for bed, quaking at every sound as she pulled on her pajamas; curling a bathrobe around herself so she could pace through the rooms of the house restlessly, biting her nails, passing the phone on its hook about a million and one times. Every time she walked past it, hanging on the wall, the potential to call the sheriff or somebody and tell them what Bailey was doing to his poor step son was dangled in front of her like a carrot on a stick. And yet she wondered if they would even believe her. If she knew anything about Axl, it was that he had a rap sheet a mile long—Mrs. Bailey had complained about it, on one or two occasions. Would that color their vision of him? Would they be willing to look past it and call it harsh discipline? Would they laugh at her, say he deserved it, for being such a teenage delinquent? Would they tell her that she was only imagining things? She ran her hands through her hair and sobbed to herself, eyes empty of tears for the sheer fright of what could possibly be happening to her beloved friend. Oh, Axl, she thought, miserably, helplessly. Oh, sweet Axl. It went on for hours. Hours. More than once, she tried to lay down and sleep, but found that she felt so sick that she just had to keep moving. Her head hurt, her eyes stung, and she understood—at least a little bit—what it was like to be him. She feared to imagine or know much more.

The noises from across the lawn finally ceased near one in the morning, and when they did, (Y/N) collapsed into her chair at the dining room table. On the polished oak lay pieces of paper, long forgotten over the course of lunch and a lazy afternoon, dormant, sleeping, now ominous in the orange light of her household. There was her scrawling hand in red on his note sheet, about the matrices, about his having truly earned an A. There was his writing on the next page, some notes on material for the semester final. She waited a moment or two for the silence to finally set in, scared to look out the window in the corner of her vision at the house across the way, for fear that any movement would send it into another faint screaming match. But it sat there, dark and silent under the deep shroud of black sky, completely devoid of any life whatsoever. There was no sound but a clock, ticking, somewhere.

She laid her hand over Axl’s scratchy handwriting and began to weep.

Chapter Text

DAY SEVEN - THURSDAY

(Y/N) woke up in bed.

How that happened, she wasn’t quite sure. The only thing she remembered of the night before was wandering around the house in brief intervals, stopping at the table, and seeing Axl’s handwriting. For the first few minutes of the day, she remained in her bed, lying with her eyes open and hurting from the bleak white light that infiltrated the room. It was a cloudy day outside, punctured occasionally by a weak ray of sun that lightened the room by a photon or two. But otherwise, her room remained as it was, neither warm nor cold, neither welcoming nor threatening, neither dark nor light. The air that surrounded her was heavy with silence, and she licked her lips, wishing she’d had the presence of mind to take a glass of water to bed. She would have to get out and go grab one from the kitchen. But she didn’t want to move at all. To get out of bed now would be to accept the life that she had been living for the past few days. The life that had turned her upside down and shook her on her head until she couldn’t see straight. (Y/N) closed her eyes and felt still more tears bubbling up. As tired of crying as she was, there was always more. There was always more, wasn’t there? Always more than what first meets the eye. She felt sick to her stomach as she thought about it; how carefully she’d watched Axl, wondering about him and what made him so upset. How could she not notice it before? And why, for the love of God, why hadn’t she asked him to clarify who his dad really was? Why hadn’t she asked to be sure? Why hadn’t she looked William Rose up in public records, or at least asked a writer friend or one of the Sunday church ladies about him? Why hadn’t she begged to know? If she had, then at least she could have avoided putting Axl in more pain than he was already. Water stung her eyelids and she reached up to swipe the tears away, crying for him, but also crying because her eyes hurt so damn bad. She’d been sobbing half the night already, and it looked like this morning wasn’t going to be any better. Quietly, she tried to gather herself, one hand over her face and the other smoothing the knots out of her gnarled hair, which, after quite a lot of tossing and turning, had slowly turned into one big rat’s nest.

The thought that occupied (Y/N)’s head the most wasn’t even of Axl, as guilty as that made her feel. Though she was worried about how much trouble she’d gotten him into, and though she feared for him, there was instead a memory playing in her head—a call back to the time she spent at her parents’ house; a call back to a day she had been trying to forget since she learned how to forget. It was a depressingly embarrassing thing, the memory; from a time before she had been able to come to terms with the subpar existence of being a girl whose only opinions were those planted on her by her parents. But in this particular memory, she was desperate and sad—about as desperate and sad as she was now. (Y/N) supposed that was what made her think of it.

She was younger, then, sixteen, maybe seventeen; and she’d been sitting in her room, crying about something. If she thought too hard, she would remember it was about Ronnie Pavitt, and the numerous things he had said to her in the course of her high school years—things that made her blister under her clothes, that made her want to wear a shapeless cardboard box to school, that made her want to beat him until he couldn’t breathe, that made her want to tear her own hair out. And while she was buried in her despairing grasp, rocking and heaving; her mother had walked in. It was a surprise, really, for (Y/N)’s mother to be there at all, but there she was: Mrs. (L/N) sat down on the bed, smoothed down the pink ruffled edge of the bedspread, and began to talk to her daughter in soothing tones.

“Oh, dear. What’s the matter? Is it about a boy?”

“Yes,” (Y/N) answered in a thick, miserable voice, not wanting to lie, but not exactly wanting to be truthful. It was about a boy. It was very much about a boy. But in such a way that her mother wouldn’t understand. Her mother never did understand, especially not when her daughter was unhappy despite her job as an editor’s apprentice and positively astounding grades in school. The thing about Mrs. (L/N) was that she was easy to satisfy—and never wondered why or how or whether her daughter could possibly want or need anything more than a good purpose in life. (Y/N) could never want anything, it seemed. Could never, should never.

“Oh, you’ll get over it, darling. I know I’ve had to do that more than once. Your father could be difficult when he was younger—Lord, don’t I know that.” She laughed like the deep chime of a church bell. (Y/N) had always loved her mother’s laugh. But now… “We always worked it out in the end, though, didn't we? After all, we had you.” Mrs. (L/N)’s smile was kind, and she caressed her daughter’s hair as if she had found the magic words to fix everything. “Now, then…”

“Mama, I want to die.” It burst out from between (Y/N)’s lips so suddenly, it was as if someone had just stabbed a birthday balloon with a needle. She began to cry even harder.

“Oh, now, dear, don’t be so dramatic.”

The words stung, cold, even worse than anything Ronnie could ever say to her. She was sick down to her very core. The desire to melt—to bleed—to cease—overwhelmed her, and still, she could not move a muscle but to quiver and cry and put her hands over her face. Mrs. (L/N) rubbed her shoulder sympathetically. “You don’t really want that, dear. Don’t. Don’t.”

“But I do,” (Y/N) sobbed openly. “I want to die. I never want to have to see his face again. If I have to, I’ll… I’ll…”

“Hush, now.” Her mother pulled her into a hug, wondering why the poor girl hung so limp, like a ragdoll. “I know. Everybody feels that way sometimes.”

Everybody feels that way sometimes. The sentence ricocheted in the cavern of her mind. (Y/N) quieted and stilled herself, blinking calmly in her mother’s embrace. She would do it, she thought. The next day she would walk up to Ronnie and let him do whatever he wanted with her. And then she would go and end it. Because if everybody felt that way sometimes, there was nothing to stop her from feeling that way all the time. She would feel it for months. For years. For ever.

The pain of the memory long repressed in her mind settled over her like a constricting veil, and (Y/N), still in her half-awake sorrowful state, whimpered through the pain of unopened grieving wounds. The desire to hate herself for not helping Axl was so strong. The words were there, at the ready, they tried to force themselves in through the barricade of her thoughts, and made her bury her head in her hands, as if she could stop it all.

“I understand you,” (Y/N) whispered to him, knowing he’d never hear it, that he’d probably never hear anything from her again. “I understand you. I understand you.” And again, she wept, for the pain of returning to memories she thought she’d forgotten; for the pain of guilt; for the pain of mixed empathy and sympathy and the one true desire to befriend her neighbor that seemed to tear her apart at the very foundation, to reveal the thing she was at the lowest level—a girl with a bleeding heart.

Eventually, she had to do something. So (Y/N) got up, and shuffled to the kitchen, and put a glass under the tap. And then she walked to the living room and sat on the piano bench, watching the Bailey house for any signs of movement. The car was gone. What time was it? she wondered to herself, and looked at the clock on the little stand by the couch, in the corner of the room most frequently forgotten. Nine A.M. Hm. Well, that made sense, she supposed; and wondered vaguely if she should go into the publishing office today. It would be good to get her mind off of things. Her heart renewed its pain like a blistering sun in her chest, a wound; torn open. Get her mind off of things? Was Axl just something to get her mind off of? Really? She berated herself endlessly, but knew it was probably the best choice. He wasn’t coming over again today. Perhaps not ever. And, in the grand scheme of things, it was better to grieve your losses while you were still feeling them, instead of having to deal with the after-effects years later. It was better to forget while you still could. Never mind that you could still remember in the meanwhile—eventually, it would all slip away from you, it would all turn black, and you would be left to peace. (Y/N) longed for peace. But she decided that companionship, in this moment, was the slightly better option—if not for herself, then to make sure the yellow daisies and fruits and vegetables still had someone around to garden them. She at least owed them that.

Still, the (h/c)-haired woman found herself weak-willed and misty-eyed as she went through her closet and picked out a work outfit; a blouse in a bland (f/c) color and some black slacks and heels. All of a sudden, it didn’t matter to her. Nothing mattered to her. Not the textbooks, not the money, not the clack of the typewriter, not the feeling of getting dressed up to do work that needed to be done. She didn’t need the work, she didn’t need to write, she didn’t need the money, she didn’t need to dress up; she needed her favorite person, her Axl, sweet Axl. She wanted desperately to see his bright face and mischievous smile and by God, that red, red hair. She wanted him there, to look at her as if she were something worth looking at; to admire her when he thought she wasn’t looking. She wanted him there to talk to, and to feel, for once, like she wasn’t alone in the great big world. The thought of his presence soothed her just slightly, and allowed deep breaths to pass through her lungs as she closed her eyes and remembered kinder, more recent memories.

“I mean, when you think about it, all the Bible is is a storybook. And so is the Torah. And the Vedas. And… well, whatever else. They’re all just stories, meant to make humans think and act better. Do they work? Yeah, sometimes. But we also fight wars over them.” Axl sat there, picking at his food for a minute or two, and then looked at her and sighed, irritably, as if they were just talking about first world problems, like a sink that wouldn’t drain properly, or a car that wouldn’t start. “I don’t know. I just think life is this violent creation. We have all these stories to beautify it, and we share life itself with a lot of beautiful things. I for one wouldn’t want to live in a world without blue jays. Those guys are hilarious.” He smiled and she had felt it in her soul. God, did he have a beautiful smile. “But at the end of the day, it’s violent. We’re born through pain, live with pain, and die with pain. Why should anybody’s storybook make it different?”

Silk skirt fabric slid over her legs. Her fingers found the button easily, and nudged the hem of her shirt into the waistline of the skirt, so she’d look professional, like they all wanted her to. It didn’t feel like her hands were her own anymore. (Y/N) wasn’t paying attention. Somewhere, in her mind, among the things she strove to remember, it was sunny.

Little green seedlings of vegetables and fruits sprouted forth from the earth, the colors of nature surrounding them—gold of the sun, orange of the oriole, white of the clouds, and the perilously high, deep blue above. Axl hadn’t dared touch the flowers, and only watched her dig into the ground, placing them there with all the care in the world, like a mother laying her children down to sleep. He watched over her shoulder, just close enough to make her wonder, to make her imagine. She could feel him there, daring to rest his chin on her shoulder for no more than thirty seconds at a time, but still daring anyways.

“So this is love to you?”

The question threw her for a loop, admittedly, but when she turned to look at him, he seemed concerned, almost; brow furrowed, as if really trying to understand. He wasn’t mocking her—of course not. Why would he? So she answered, as genuinely as she could.

“Yes. Yeah. I guess you could say that.” It made her blush, just a little bit, but she quieted the thoughts of love running wild in her head by continuing on. “They grow, and I take pride and joy in feeding them and watering them and picking off their hurting and dead leaves.”

He seemed even more perplexed. “Wait, you don’t prune the live ones? You don’t cut them off?”

“Well, no, Axl, that would hurt the plant,” she’d said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. He looked at the flowers sitting there, yellow daisies, the prettiest, simplest flowers in anybody’s garden.

“But what if it doesn’t look right? Don’t you cut things so they look right? So they grow nicely?” It seemed to go against the moral grain of his being, somehow, this little conversation about flowers. He frowned at the daisy in front of him, as if it were the one correcting him on its care and keeping.

“No. I don’t care how my daisies look if they’re blooming. It’s only my job to feed and water them and make sure they’re not sick and don’t have bugs. As long as they’re like this—” she pointed to the bed, then, the tiny spring-summer garden with its little sprouts and border of yellow blooms— “—as long as they’re happy, I don’t care.”

“Huh,” was all he said in reply.

Typical of a teenage boy, (Y/N) thought, smiling only for a fraction of a second and drying her eyes for the final time, daring to crack open the tin of mascara and put some fresh stuff on, even though her eyes were still watering, just slightly. She opened another drawer in the dressing table’s side, took out a little tube of lotion, and gently dotted some on her cheeks before rubbing it in, hoping it would at least make her look a little bit more lively, and less… well, whatever it was she saw in the mirror now. Though the (h/c)-haired woman knew logically that she was physically present, and that she was safe, and that she was her own person with her own house and her own car and her own job—but even so, a part of her still saw the creature in the pane of glass as a mere echo in the void of her person: a small thing, a timid one, a forgotten painting on some old house’s wall. Just like the girl she had been in high school.

She wondered what they would have been like then. What if she’d been three years late instead of three years early? What if she’d met Axl the normal way classmates often do, a bump in the hall, a chat during lunch, a teacher’s seating chart? Would he still talk to her? Would he still be kind? She couldn’t be sure. And yet, though (Y/N) didn’t understand everything about Axl, she liked to think she saw a bit of herself in him, a secret piece of her that to this day she still felt existed—someone who had the courage and sheer audacity to speak up and out. Oh, she loved him. She loved him. It might not have been a match made in heaven, but it was a match made on earth among the green grass and the zinnias and asters and roses; and that was what made it so beautiful.

(Y/N) stared at herself in the mirror, a girl pretending to be a woman, the portrayed image of confidence surrounding her like a silver nautilus shell on the beach; alone and hollow. Silently, she got up and gathered her things for work, walking out the door without so much as a thought to who may or may not have been watching through their bedroom blinds. She was too blindsided by the thought of him, of never seeing him again, of having her heart match beats with another for a precious few days and then having to return to the cold earth reality that he was a troublesome and troubled boy and she was an isolated writer-gardener who was better off just sticking to her own. He had wrecked the flower bed, and he had fixed it, and that should have been the end of it. There shouldn’t have been piano playing. There shouldn’t have been laughter. There shouldn’t have been dancing. She heard her own screen door clatter behind her and cursed herself for putting on mascara so soon as her heart bled inside her chest, forcing her face to crumple as she climbed into the olive green LeSabre and sat, breathing, looking up at the grey clouds, as if that would better her mood.

It was too cruel to say there shouldn’t have been anything. But it was too cruel to pretend like there was. Axl couldn’t love her, not really; she thought, and it only tore her chest open wider. But still, she continued, logically, emotionally, reasoning out why she should just move on, why she should leave him here, as a memory of something that could have been. Axl couldn’t love her if he thought she was just an escape. The way he looked at her meant nothing if he was just getting away from his parents. From that house. She wiped her eyes and didn’t care about the mascara anymore, didn’t care how badly her shirt sleeve would be smudged, didn’t care about anything but this pain in her chest as she tried and tried to stem the tears. He didn’t love her if he just wanted comfort. He didn’t love her if he just wanted a good meal. He didn’t love her, and that was the truth that she was going to have to face, like a real woman, instead of a quivering teenage girl.

After a moment of putting her palms to her eyes, breathing deeply and losing herself in the smell of rain on the way, (Y/N) sighed long and deep and put the keys in the ignition. The LeSabre’s growl to life filled the neighborhood, and she backed out of the driveway, off to the publishing house, where hopefully, she would work long enough to forget.

-

That was all wishful thinking, as it turned out. It didn’t make her cry any more, but it did frustrate her. Normally (Y/N) would have been able to sit in her office and tack out a good portion of the South American religions and cultures glossary in the hours she had been there; but now it was three-thirty in the afternoon, and she’d gotten almost nothing done. Well—not nothing. She’d struggled through the glossary, and managed to finish an appendix, and even tried her hand at creating a few graphics, as one of the higher ups—Daniel, she thought it was—had suggested. But the words weren’t coming to her like they usually did. All she seemed to be able to think about was red-blond hair, and that smile, and those flashing green eyes. About anger. About vice. About hurt. About pain. It tired her out mentally, and she got up to walk around her office more often than she sat down to work, as a sort of self-distraction. She must have passed by the amaryllis on her windowsill about a hundred times. Nothing she did helped—not opening the window, not shutting the window, not taking off her painfully-pinchy heels, not putting her head down for a moment, not reviewing her notes or rerouting her focus or taking a coffee break. Nothing. At some point, she just gave up, resting her elbows on the desk in front of her and staring through the typewriter like she wasn’t even seeing it. In truth, she wasn’t. She was replaying everything from the night before inside her head again, wondering how she could be so stupid.

And then, with glorious timing as always, her friend and esteemed colleague (F/N)—or so (F/N) liked to introduce herself; she was a fan of the phrase “esteemed colleague”, said it made her sound more professional than a high-school educated woman with a typist’s job and two rowdy kids—knocked on the door, and popped her head in.

“Hey (Y/N), you—whoa.” (F/N) wasted no time in entering the room, crossing the shabby colored carpet and perching herself on the crate of writing supplies near (Y/N)’s chair, ready to listen, eyes as wide as the moon. “You look terrible. My God. What happened? Did somebody die?”

“No,” (Y/N) said miserably, not bothering to turn her head, just sinking deeper into her already-crumpled posture.

(F/N) gasped. “Did you get fired? Oh my God. I knew they were starting to pull that crap with the Harpey authors, but I really thought it was just Tennert—”

“Wait, what?” (Y/N) looked up, distracted for a moment by the notion of her job at stake. “They fired Ten? They can’t get rid of him, he’s the best damn writer they have. Here, at least. Well, okay. Maybe they have someone better at headquarters. It’s possible. But… damn.” She shook her head and looked disbelievingly at her friend. “They really fired Ten?”

“No.” (F/N) said a little sheepishly, and then bounced back to her usual attitude. “But hey, that got you to pay attention, didn’t it?”

(Y/N) scowled at her. “I was paying attention, you know.”

“To some extent.” (F/N) said, waving her hand in a so-so motion. Then she slapped her thighs. “Anyways, I’m hungry, I haven’t taken my lunch break yet, and neither have you. Want to grab something while you tell me whatever horrific backstory it is that has you looking like that?”

There was a momentary pause where (Y/N) neither moved nor spoke, and only stared blankly ahead of her again, before (F/N) spoke, softer this time. “You’re sure no one died?”

“No one died, (F/N). I swear.” (Y/N) said, almost irritably, but was secretly glad to have someone here. Feeling alone wasn’t something she wanted right now, especially not with her typewriter in the same room, which was beginning to look quite frustrated by the lack of progress. I know, she thought apologetically towards it, and wished for her writer’s block to dissolve the second she came back from lunch. It probably wouldn’t, but, well, they’d just have to see, wouldn’t they?

(F/N) had her out of the office and down to the foyer within a minute, and the next, they were out in the fresh air; outside of the ancient building that smelled a little of old velvet and mothballs, as if the people working there in the time before had exclusively worn wool suits and thick dresses and did nothing but sit there and fester all day. (Y/N)’s heels clicked quietly on the sidewalk, falling into the same pattern as (F/N)’s tapping footsteps. The two held onto each other’s arms as if they were girls heading down to the dance hall, whispering, conspiring with one another about who they would meet that night. But where dancing girls would be light in both heart and step, her heart still felt melodramatic and heavy in her chest, and she had to put all her energy into keeping up with (F/N)’s pace. The poor woman must really have been hungry to walk so fast, (Y/N) though with raised eyebrows, following her friend into the gloom of the nearby cafe, where the host saw them coming a mile away and had already spared them the small table just by the entrance. Within moments of sitting down, a plainclothes waiter strode over with a platterful of ice-cold glasses of water.

“Thank you,” (Y/N) said, lifting one out of its place on the silver tray.

“Oh, no, no. I’ll have a chocolate milk.” said (F/N), and the waiter looked up and down, seeming to wonder, aren’t you a little old for that? But then he shrugged, and nodded, like he was thinking, well, alright.

“That’ll be fifty cents, then.”

(F/N) waved her hand at him, not even looking, still focused on her friend, who looked as pale and haggard as if she’d just been diagnosed with a fatal disease, or something. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry, I can afford it. Chocolate milk, please. Thank you.”

“I can’t believe you do that every single time we’re here,” (Y/N) said, daring to crack a smile as the waiter balanced the tray of iced waters and walked back to fetch some chocolate milk from the kitchen.

“Have you ever had chocolate milk? The real cold stuff? It’s great. I don’t see why kids should get to have all of it.” (F/N) said, completely seriously, folding her hands on top of the table as if they were discussing world powers. “As a mom of two terror whirlwinds, I should get to have some of the good stuff every now and again. Don’t you think?”

“Sure,” (Y/N) said, and laughed at the look on (F/N)’s face as the waiter came back with a kid-sized glass of chocolate milk.
“Here you are,” he said, and put it down in front of her. It had to be something like half the size of (Y/N)’s. Even the rim was thinner.

“What the hell is that.” (F/N) deadpanned. The waiter, once confused, was now just irritated.

“You said you wanted chocolate milk.”

“In that glass,” she pointed to (Y/N)’s tall glass of water. “Not whatever type of shot glass you call this thing.”

The waiter sighed, picked up the chocolate milk, and strode back to the kitchen, leaving the doors swinging behind him. (Y/N) burst out into a fit of giggles that she just couldn’t hold back.

“Oh, God,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with her napkin once she’d finished laughing. “They hate you. They hate you so much right now. That entire kitchen. Everybody.”

“They’ll hate me more when they see what I’m ordering.” (F/N) said, looking briefly at the menu, but then back up at (Y/N), grinning. “But I see I’ve gotten you to crack. Now that you’re in a better mood—whatever is the matter?”

At this, (Y/N)’s lips pressed themselves into a thin line. “(F/N), I really don’t…”

“Come on. Please. If I don’t get it in three guesses, you don’t have to tell me, okay?”

(Y/N) paused at this, and the waiter came back to their table, mumbling to himself all the while. He set down a glass full of chocolate milk, the same size as (Y/N)’s glass, a little harder than necessary, and stood back and folded his arms. “That better?”

“Oh, yes. Thank you.” (F/N) said most graciously, and he ‘humph’ed and said,

“Well, if you’re ready to order…”

“We’ll need a bit more time, thanks.” (F/N) shot him a dazzling smile, and he rolled his eyes before going back to the kitchen, probably to serve a few other tables in his area. Or to talk trash about her to the chefs. Whichever it was, (Y/N) found herself wishing she could have followed him into the kitchen, because that would almost definitely be better than whatever talk she was about to have with (F/N). A thing about (F/N) was that she never took three guesses to do anything—she didn’t need to. She was good. She already knew. But all the same, (Y/N) acquiesced.

“Guess one.” (F/N) mused for a minute, stroking her chin as if she thought herself to be Abraham Lincoln, or somebody. “Well, you’re not dying, and nobody else is dying, so it’s not that. And you’re not getting fired, so it’s not that. Hm. Time of the month?”

“Nope, already over with that.” (Y/N) picked up the menu laying in front of her on the table, hoping to guard her expression at least somewhat with it.

“Huh. Guess two, then.” (F/N) wiggled down in her seat and leaned forward across the table, as if she were a spy revealing incriminating information. Sometimes (Y/N) couldn’t believe the antics this woman got into, and yet, knowing her two kids and the trouble they caused, she wasn’t the least bit surprised by how similar they were. For as much as her kids learned from (F/N), (F/N) also learned from her kids.

“I bet it’s… your family, then. Bastards have found a way to talk down to you from the wire, because someone else’s kid they know graduated early and went into med school.” (F/N) sat back like she’d cracked the code, and (Y/N) had to hide a sigh of relief. Maybe this would be the first time she didn’t get it after all.

“No, I wouldn’t care so much about that.” (Y/N) said. And it was mostly true—it would hurt, but her parents wouldn’t even call her up about that sort of thing. It would just be mentioned, in passing, the next time she came to visit. Like the weather, or something, they would mention it briefly, let it hang in the air for her to think about, for her to consider while she felt like a failure, and then move on, like they were done shaming her with passive-aggression—which, usually, they weren’t.

(F/N) squinted at her friend for a moment. “Then it’s a guy. There’s a man in your life. And you don’t know what you are to him. It’s stressing you out.”

Dammit, (Y/N) thought, biting her lip, wondering what she could possibly say that wouldn’t give it away. How does she do that?

(F/N) smiled regretfully. “Your silence is all telling, babe. So spill the beans. Momma (F/N)’s here to listen.”

Just then, though, the waiter showed up, asking if they needed more time. (F/N) was about to say something a bit too cheeky when (Y/N) cut in as pleasantly as she could, and ordered her favorite kind of sandwich, along with a dish of fruit and one of those little brownies they had for dessert. (F/N) rolled her eyes but handed over the menus when the waiter turned to her, and, in as straight a voice as she could manage, said,

“I’d like some chicken nuggets with a side of baked macaroni and cheese. And don’t you forget the ketchup, either. A brownie would also be nice.”

The waiter stood there for a moment longer, locking eyes with (F/N) until she smiled and blinked prettily. “That okay with you?”

“Good grief,” they both heard the waiter mutter, and they stifled their giggles together until he was back in the kitchen, out of earshot of their schoolgirlishness.

(F/N) cackled. “Ahh, that never gets old. You know the chicken nuggets here are really good, actually. You should try them sometime.”

“I think I’ll pass,” (Y/N) said jokingly, and then sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. You always are. It’s a guy. But it’s a lot more complicated than you think.”

“Oh? Do tell.” (F/N) sipped on her chocolate milk like it was a cocktail, and (Y/N) half-smiled at that, lips twitching between mirth and misery, two M’s she was caught between in the moment. How would she explain this? How would she explain any of it?

(F/N) saw her getting caught in the wheels of her own mind and tried, gently, to pull her out of them. “What does he look like?”

“Oh, he’s got red hair. Reddish blond. And really pale skin. I think he might be Irish, or something. I’m not sure, really.” (Y/N) really did feel like a schoolgirl, now, as if they were sitting in the cafeteria at the high school she’d left little more than three years ago. God, it seemed so short of a time, and yet she felt as if it were forever. What was time, anyway? What business did it have, moving so fast? She went on. “He has a beautiful face. Just beautiful. And he has a cat’s eyes. Green, bright green, like a tomcat.”

“My, aren’t we poetic today.” (F/N) quipped, smiling as she took another drink from her glass. She smacked her lips with a whispered “aaahh” and then continued with her little questionnaire. “And what’s the problem?”

“Well… see… there’s a lot of those. He’s seventeen.”

“Ah, so you’re a cradle robber,” (F/N) said, and laughed as (Y/N) turned bright red.

“I am not! He’s three years younger than me. Three. And you know I’m not that old, anyway. I feel like I haven’t aged since I was thirteen.” She watched as the waiter brought over her lunch first, and informed (F/N) that her chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese were still being prepared. Politely, (Y/N) pushed her plate out in front of her, leaning her elbows on the table, willing not to eat until her friend got her food. Besides, lunch would take forever anyway, if she was really going to tell about everything that had happened with Axl. So instead, (Y/N) gave (F/N) the short and skinny version, how they’d met, how he’d been hanging out with her, how she’d maybe-sort-of-almost fallen in love with him, and then a sharp detailing of his home life; in so many terms.

When it was over and done with, and (Y/N) had gotten so hungry she just couldn’t ignore the sandwich in front of her anymore, she began to eat, and slid her fruit bowl over to (F/N). “Here, you can have this, if you want.”

“Thanks. Give me a minute, I’m still trying to process this.” (F/N) said, frowning, lost in thought. Then she snapped her head back up. “Hang on a minute. Hang on. Red hair, terrible attitude, and gets yelled at by everybody who comes near him, especially the cops? Oh, honey, please tell me you are not talking about William Bailey.”

“So what if I am?” (Y/N) immediately jumped to his defense, without even thinking about it. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, oh, absolutely nothing. From the way you talk about him, he sounds like a completely different kid.” (F/N) munched on a piece of cantaloupe, made a face, and spit it into a napkin. “Ugh. Can’t they ever tell when those things are ripe? Tastes like a damn cucumber. …Anyways.” She looked at (Y/N) hard, then, not meanly, just very pointedly. And (Y/N) knew that whatever was about to come out of her friend’s mouth next, she had better listen to.

“If you love him so much, if he’s so much trouble; you’d better fight for him. Kid’s clearly fucked up and he could use someone staying on his side right now.” (F/N) said.

“But I—his step father will kill him if I do anything.” (Y/N) sputtered. “I just—I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know anything. I’m just guessing at this point. Everything points to one conclusion but I don’t really have any evidence, I can’t just call the cops and say I heard a dad screaming at his step son, because they’re not going to care, not when that step son has a rap sheet a mile long—”

“(Y/N).” (F/N) put her hands across the table and took hold of (Y/N)’s wrists, so she’d stop waving her arms around like a windmill and calm down. “I’m not saying you should go to the cops. I’m saying you should stand up for him.”

“How am I going to do that?” She asked miserably.

(F/N) shrugged. “You’re a smart girl, you’ll find a way. Walk over to the house. Say you’re sorry for dissing Bailey. Get him out of there for a few hours. If you love him, you’ll do it, (Y/N).” She looked across the table at the wilted girl with a high school crush times one-hundred.

“Of course I love him,” (Y/N) said, and then put her head in her hands. “I do love him. Oh my God, I love him.”

“There, there,” (F/N) said, reaching across the table to pat (Y/N)’s shoulder while popping a grape from the fruit bowl into her mouth. Just as she bit down, the waiter came over once again, an insolent look on his face as he set down a steaming platter of chicken nuggets, the finest baked macaroni and cheese, and the tastiest square-pan brownies in town, freshly prepared for hers truly.

“Will that be everything?” He asked, eyeing the half-empty chocolate milk glass, hoping she wouldn’t ask for a refill.

(F/N) looked at him and frowned in disappointment. “You forgot the ketchup.”

-

By the time (Y/N) packed up her things and drove home with a new plan in mind, she was in an entirely better mood, thanks to (F/N) and her friendly-yet-chaotic ways. While she was sure the waiter at that cafe in particular now had them on a blacklist of some sort for the sheer amount of comments (F/N) made regarding their meal, the mother of two had tipped him an exorbitant amount of money, so much so that (Y/N) would have been surprised if they weren’t welcomed back with open arms. It made her laugh in hindsight, how funny and delightful and yet how nerve-wrackingly irritating (F/N) could be. That was just her way, she supposed. And what a wonderful way to be. Well, wonderful, unless you were the one waiting on them.

The car ride back home was nerve-wracking as well, but for a completely different reason. While at lunch, (Y/N) had thought of a way to do just as (F/N) said; to get Axl out of the house without risking something happening later. At the very least, without risking loss of sleep on either of their ends. She was going to apologize to Mr. Bailey, as profusely and with as flowery an internal script as she could manage, because she needed to be on his side for this; just for a second. She needed to make him think that she was, at the very least, respectful of him and his terms, and that she wouldn’t dare threaten his command of his step son ever again. Which really made her sick to think about. But she hadn’t come up with a better way of doing things, and wasn’t likely to. So she stuck with it, and worked her way through an apology, managing to rehearse it with a straight face. Over and over and over again she mumbled it to herself, even as she pulled the car into the driveway at 5:30 P.M., even as she took her typewriter and crate of writing supplies out of the car and brought it back inside, even as she walked back down the drive and worked up the courage to actually walk up to the Baileys’ door. This had to work. It had to. If it didn’t, well—she knew which bedroom window was his, she supposed. And she had a ladder. But she shook that thought out of her head, and started again with the apology. Plan A first. Mr. Bailey… she would begin. (Y/N) felt her legs quiver just slightly with nerves as she stepped up to the porch and knocked on the door, loud enough to be heard, but soft enough to not seem demanding. The words and phrases in her head made her cringe with insincerity, but she so desperately wanted to see Axl and make sure he was alright that she was going to try her best. She could act—this would be fine. It would go well, and she would see him again, beautiful, spiteful redhead that he was. Who knew, anyway; maybe Mr. Bailey would be in a better mood this evening.

Stuart was the one who opened the door, big-eyed and blinking.

“Hi, Stu,” (Y/N) smiled, but he looked at her fearfully, like she was a bad omen.

“Hi,” he whispered, clutching onto the door, closing it halfway, almost hiding behind it. “What do you want?”

“I—um.” She cleared her throat and tried to compose herself. “I’d like to speak with Mr. Bailey, please.”

Stuart looked behind him, and though she couldn’t see much from outside the door, (Y/N) could hear the sounds of a radio—or perhaps a television—serious tones of men talking amongst each other about some unknown subject; and, in the far background, the sounds of a little girl playing. Stuart looked back at her, chewing his lip.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” (Y/N) wasn’t sure what exactly was being said about her in this household, but it couldn’t be anything good, because no matter how demure and docile she tried her best to appear, Stuart could hardly look her in the eye and still regarded her as if she were a witch or a demon or some such thing.

“Your funeral,” he muttered, so quiet she almost didn’t hear it, and then stepped away from the door, tip-toeing towards the Baileys’ living room. There were a few mumblings here and there. (Y/N) shifted from one foot to the other, staring at her shoes, wondering, waiting to rehearse her speech, hoping to get Axl back for at least an hour or two. What would she do then? Well, she’d have to talk to him. She’d have to do something. She couldn’t just let him… (Y/N)’s perked up at the conversation in the den, which had slowly grown louder.

“Well, what does she want?”

“I don’t know!” Stuart’s voice, exasperated, nervous. “I asked, but she just said she wanted to see you!”

There then came a string of rather unholy words that made (Y/N) think, well, at least I know how he feels about me, before Bailey himself came to the front door and pulled it all the way open to glare at her.

“What?” He growled. (Y/N) had to take a moment, again, to compose herself, and calm her heart rate down from its skyrocketing pace. All of a sudden, in his presence, she felt like a child walking up to her parents’ bedroom to tell them she’d done something terribly wrong; like break a valuable dish, or let the bathtub overflow. Mr. Bailey looked impatient. He leaned against the doorway, waiting for her to speak, fixing her with that dark mean gaze and tapping his fingertips on the silver flask in his hand, which she could only guess at the contents of.

“Mr. Bailey,” She began, and hurried through her apology so that he wouldn’t get the chance to interrupt her and so she wouldn’t have a chance to stammer. “I realize I have been less than kind towards you, and wanted to apologize for my outburst last night. I don’t know what got into me, but it was wholly inappropriate for me to try to correct your parenting. William is a lovely boy, but I’m sure he gets into his fair share of trouble, and I’m sure you know how to handle that.” She had to stick with it until the end. She had to. She was so close. (Y/N) bit her tongue a little, and then continued. “And I’m deeply sorry for mistaking your name. William mentioned something once about his father being named… well, I didn’t realize he had a different father, is all, and I’m sorry for not making the connection sooner. I did want to ask you, though, if he might continue his time doing chores for me. It would only be for today and tomorrow—and really, he’s quite helpful. So…” It was here that she trailed off, not having thought this far, unable to read the expression on Mr. Bailey’s face, unable to determine what he was thinking.

Mr. Bailey blinked slowly, like a predatory snake, and shifted just slightly in the doorway, putting his hand on his hip and thumbing a belt loop in a way that was almost casual. Too casual. “I appreciate the apology, Miss (L/N). I do. There’s just one problem. An incorrect observation, on your behalf.”

“I…okay?” (Y/N) was confused. Did that mean she wasn’t going to be able to see Axl after all? Lord above, what then? She had another fleeting thought of climbing up on the Baileys’ roof to knock on his window, but dismissed it quickly. “And what would that be?”

Mr. Bailey took a long sip from the flask in his hand, staring at her all the while. Never once had he broken that stare, and it was starting to really creep (Y/N) out. She shifted anxiously as he spoke.

“William’s not a ‘lovely boy’. He’s not helpful.” She opened her mouth to counter him, but he held up his hand and pointed at her, and quick as she opened up, she shut back down. “That boy is nothing but pure trouble. Pure sin. I’ve done God’s work trying to get the devil out of him, but there are days where I wonder whether the devil is really so inseparable.” A thin smile. His voice was so cold, so toneless. (Y/N) shuddered. “I can assure you that William is just as much of a teenage delinquent as the next boy, and the next boy, and the next boy. The fact that he’s made you think he’s more than that is just part of the trouble he causes.”

“But—”

Bailey’s eyes darkened even further, glinting blood-black in the low evening light, posture slack against the doorway with blue button down wide open and exposing that whitish cotton underbelly of his, like a man beat down by his nine-to-five, and yet still a man with power. “He’s worthless to me.”

A beat passed where she fought the urge to snap, and then he dug it in further, with a slow, drawling question. “Do—you—understand?”

At this, (Y/N) felt her chest and jaw tighten simultaneously. She wanted desperately to snap at him again, but she knew that was what he was waiting for. It was a test. It was all a test. Could she call herself a confident woman if she acquiesced to him? That was the question, wasn’t it? And it would go unanswered as she stood in front of him, silently, waiting for him to say something, anything else. She wanted to hit him. To strike him and throw him around and to beat that thinly-veiling smile off of his face. But she held perfectly still as she hated him from the inside out; and he stared at her, smiling smugly, sipping from his flask and watching as she struggled not to explode.

Finally, she mustered up the calmest, tiniest voice she could possibly use, and said as meekly as she could, “I understand.”

“Good. Then you can have him.” With this, Bailey turned and hollered into the house. “WILL! GET DOWNSTAIRS!”

Oh, she itched to punch him while his back was turned. Just something. A kick to the shin, maybe. Or straight between the legs. So he could never have kids of his own. She strangled the urges inside her chest with the hope of seeing Axl come thumping down the stairs like a regular teenage boy would, but when she saw him, it was all she could do to keep from bursting into tears again. Axl looked half-dead. His nose was still bruised, and he had horrible deep purple bags under his eyes, and with every slow step he took down the stairs, he looked like he was going to collapse. She couldn’t see anything wrong with him externally, but one didn’t have to be a genius to guess that you could hide a lot under a layer or two of clothing. Still, she had never seen him in such agony. Finally, he caught sight of her at the door, and for a moment she saw a flash of panic in his eyes, like she was back to kill him all over again by calling his step father Mr. Rose.

It took a while, longer than it should have, but when the red-blond boy finally got close enough to the door, Bailey put a hand square in the middle of his back, where it hurt the most, and gave a hard shove. Axl toppled through the doorway and would have fallen flat on his face on the dust porch had (Y/N) not been there. She quickly grabbed him and hauled him back upright as Bailey said,

“Keep him for however long you want. I don’t care.”

And with that, the door to the Baileys’ place slammed shut, leaving (Y/N) in the silence of the neighborhood around them, with a worse-for-wear teenage boy in her arms.

“What a dick,” she spat angrily, and then looked down at Axl, who hadn’t dared to move in her hold. For a frightening second, she wondered if he had passed out. Normally he’d be outraged to be treated like that, he’d be hopping mad, he’d be up and swinging and wouldn’t let anybody touch him. Or he’d be yelling or ranting about whatever it was that had made him angry. At the very least, she thought frantically, looking at him, trying to see where he was hurt, and what made him walk so slowly—at the very least, he should have been cussing her out for how she had gotten him into trouble yesterday. She almost cried right there on his porch, holding him, the silent boy who had just yesterday been so full of life.

“Axl?” She whispered, feeling her eyes brim up with tears as she held him close. “Axl, please say something, anything, please. Axl? Axl?”

“I’m alive,” he murmured into her collarbone, in that kind of irritated voice he reserved for protecting himself. “Now shut up, I need a minute.”

“Okay,” (Y/N) said, and then really did shut up. For a moment longer, they stood there together, with Axl leaning into her and learning how to breathe again; without fear. She was as comforting as always, he thought while closing his eyes, pressing his nose closer and inhaling that garden smell she always had about her; and the crispness of paper, and the warmth of her skin. The collar of her blouse tickled his face just slightly as he tried to collect himself in her grasp, and after a while, he asked,

“So what are we doing today?”

“Oh. I thought—” She cleared her throat, and it kind of sounded like she’d been crying. Her voice sounded funny. Axl pulled back to look at her, and though no tears had fallen, she wasn’t too far from it. Her (e/c) eyes glittered sadly in the sun’s setting light, and they almost seemed like the eyes of an angel, kind enough to save him for a little while. Her lip wobbled, too, as she looked at him, and for a moment, Axl felt years older than her. It was something about when girls cried that made them look young. He wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, but the same thing happened to his mother all the time. Whenever he saw her crying, it was never his mother the middle-aged woman crying, but a former version of herself, a distraught sixteen year old with a baby she wasn’t sure she wanted. (Y/N) looked younger now, too, like a school girl crying over her stupid boyfriend who went and got himself in a fight again. It was a nice thought. He almost smiled at it. In another time, they would have made quite the pair, the sweet girl, the troubled boy. Somewhere there had to be a timeline like that. Where he wasn’t just the maniac who ruined her garden, or freaked out on her for no reason; but he could be the boy of her dreams as much as she was the girl of his.

“I’m so sorry,” she was saying. “I didn’t know, I thought…”

“It’s not your fault,” Axl said, and was surprised at how easily it came to him. But it was true. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know his family that well. If no one had told her the story, then, well, how was she supposed to figure it out? If anything, Bailey’s rage probably seemed like something Axl had inherited. It was anybody’s guess as to who was who in that house.

“But I—”

He cut her off with a look that he hoped was some form of rough-but-kind. “(Y/N), seriously, it’s not your fault. C’mon. It’s okay. I’m fine, I’m alive, I’ll live.” The same sort of thing had become his mantra the night before— “I’m alive, I’m alive”—and it had carried him through that ordeal alright. Well, mostly alright. Axl smiled at her and tried to make it convincing, though he didn’t feel much like smiling at the moment. “Really, I’m okay. What are we doing today?”

Even as he pulled away from her slightly, her arms were still looped around him, as if she couldn’t stand to give him up. Axl kind of liked that, secretly, but then dropped the thought as she put her arms back down to her own sides and said in a weak voice,

“Well, I don’t know how good you are at cooking, but… I could use some help with dinner. If that’s alright.”

Axl didn’t even dare look back at the house behind him. He just started moving forward, stepping fast, in what he thought was a perfectly jaunty stride. If he got to be with her, he would be happy, come hell or high water or probably whatever new creative way to sling a belt his step father could invent in the time they were gone. Whatever happened, Axl was determined to enjoy his time with her, and only looked over his shoulder to make sure she was following him. She was, (e/c) eyes yearning in the colors of the sunset, which had finally broken through the grey cast of clouds; lighting the sky up red and orange and pink, like the death of a phoenix on the horizon. She followed him faithfully, not even watching her step to make sure her heels wouldn’t catch on the ground, just hurrying to be by him, hurrying to spend time at his side. It was admirable, almost. Axl wondered where it had come from; the need to chase him down like that; and hoped it wasn’t from a desire of hers to protect him. Sad eyes would do nothing, if all she did was look. But she didn’t—that wasn’t her style, it never was.

“What are you thinkin’ of making?” He asked when she’d finally caught up to his side, and they were taking long strides together. It took a lot of effort for him to not wince at the stinging pain on the backs of his legs, but he gave it his all anyway, so that she wouldn’t notice. And she didn’t. What she did do was take his hand instead, for the short few paces up to her porch before the storm door. He smiled at the simple sign of her solidarity, and the softness of her palm. Ah, comfort. He was home once again.

(Y/N), who was amazed at how quickly he had sprung into motion, and who was still wrapped up in the feeling of his callused palm colliding with hers, didn’t really have a good answer. “I’m not sure. Is there anything you know how to make, dinner-wise? Any favorites?”

“Oooh, well. That’s a fun question.” He gave a short laugh as she opened the door for them, and let him inside first. “Depends what you got in the fridge. I make a mean microwaved hotdog. Or—I could make hotdogaroni!”

At this, she stopped in the entryway and looked at him.

He tried to explain. “You know, a little hot dog, a little macaroni, a little… no…? Alright, I get it, kind of a low-budget meal. Not a fan, I guess.”

“I… I’m not even going to ask.” She said, but Axl caught a glimpse of a smile on her face before she let go of his hand and ducked into the fridge to see what supplies they had. Carefully, he rested his elbows on the top of the fridge door and gave his aching back a rest, looking down at her as she knelt and began shuffling around in the drawers and on the shelves, tapping her chin at some points, humming to herself. Finally, she said, “Well, I do have all the ingredients for chili, but that takes a while to make. If you don’t mind waiting for it to simmer, I guess that’d be fine.”

“Sounds great. As long as it comes with cornbread.” Axl added it as a kind of afterthought, but she looked up at him, smiling like he’d just read her mind.

“I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again,” she spoke softly, standing up so that they were face-to-face, with only the fridge door between them. They were so close he could practically feel her lips on his. Well, maybe not that far, because she was still a few inches away. But still. He closed his eyes half-way, dreamlike, listening to the smoothness of her voice take over his soul again. “You’re a man after my own heart.”

He waited a moment, eyes fully closed, relishing in the feeling of her being close to him, so close it was almost like she had a handhold on his heart, making it skip a beat here, another there. He felt lightheaded, almost like he had the first day he spent with her; but this time it was wonderful. She was so close he could feel the gentle sweep of her breath on his cheek as she leaned in and whispered,

“Hey, Axl?”

“Mhm?” Oh, he was on Cloud Nine, baby, that’s how it felt; having her so close, the chill of the refrigerator reaching up to him and making him shiver. It was worth it, to him. It was worth it to be back. Even if Old Bailey was going to thrash him again and again for hanging out with the Devil Woman across the way, Axl didn’t care. He would gladly take anything for her to be this close. She let out a little laugh in his ear and it rang like a bell.

“Will you open that cupboard and grab a pot, please?”

He opened his eyes and felt a draft of wind as she swooped away from him, smiling deviously and ducking back into the fridge to grab some tomatoes from the vegetable drawer. “Tease,” he muttered, then; but did what she asked, and opened yet another cupboard in the kitchen where she kept the larger pots and pans, digging out one that looked suitable enough for a batch of chili—without having anything fall on top of him, which was a miracle in a kitchen like that. Not that it was disorganized, or anything. (Y/N) just had a special knack for placing things in the exact right order so that if one were to, say, take something off of the bottom of the shelf without moving anything above it, everything else could conceivably come crashing out onto the floor. It was just a funny little superpower she had. Sometimes Axl wondered if she was the one they hired to make all those little mounds of produce at the grocery store; the perfect pyramids of apples and oranges.

“What’d you say?” She closed the fridge and pulled out the cutting board, setting down a few cloves of garlic, half an onion, and three of the largest tomatoes Axl had ever seen in his life.

“Nothin’.” He replied, and gave her a teasing grin of his own as she watched him, suspiciously.

“Uh-huh. Hand me that knife there.”

He did, and she got to cutting immediately, while he took cans and boxes down from the cupboard; of chiles and kidney beans and the other funny-looking almost-pink beans that he hadn’t known could be in chili, but, oh well, here they were. And of course, the most delicious cornmeal mix in the county. As he went about the motions of using the can opener—a real handheld one, not an electric one, so he struggled to get it on the damn can in the first place, and may or may not have accidentally punctured the side of the can instead of the top and sprayed bean juice over multiple parts of the counter and perhaps the floor—while he was doing all this (with (Y/N) at the cutting board, yet unaware of the presence of a spillage), he reminisced on how funny it was that (Y/N)’s house was so different from his own. The feeling solidified every time he came here—the feeling that time was different, that life was different, that he was living in a stratified zone between the good and the bad, and the more time he spent at the good, the more time he would inevitably have to spend at the bad. But the good was great. Even if the bad could be awful, he thought it was perfectly worthwhile, putting up with it so that he could come here.

Axl got a paper towel and cleaned up the counter and the floor some, and then started in on another can. Once he got all of them open—the necessary ones, at least—he turned to the box of cornmeal and went back to the cupboard for a mixing bowl while (Y/N) leaned over the counter and pulled the cord for the kitchen exhaust fan. A slow rumbling hum emanated from it; reminding Axl of the many times his own mother had left the same fan in their house on while she made dinner; back when he was little and would still play in the driveway and catch crickets and run around with some other neighborhood kids, throwing dirt at each other and scrambling to be the first to hide in the good spot during hide-and-go-seek; back when he would sit down at the table and swing his legs back and forth because you can’t do much else when your feet don’t reach the floor. It filled him with a kind of wistfulness that he thought had long been forgotten, and he let himself wade through the memory as he poured cornmeal, flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda into the bowl and stirred it for a good long while.

Back then, in his mom’s kitchen, he’d felt safe. Maybe she hadn’t always been the most kind, or the most protective of him, but it had been the place to run to when he’d scraped his knee in the driveway or when he wanted a cold glass of milk or when he wanted to know when they were going to have dinner. And it was the place where he’d celebrated birthdays, helping her mix chocolate cakes while sitting on the counter, happily singing along to the radio with her while she put the batter in the oven and smiled at him like she never seemed to anymore. The thought made him tear up a little, but then again, (Y/N) had just put the onions in the pot with a bit of butter and the garlic and was now sauteeing them, so he figured it was just the onion juice making his eyes burn so. He went to the fridge and hunted around for some butter, buttermilk, and two eggs to throw in with the cornbread mix, before he got too entrenched in memories. What was he doing, being sad on her watch? Axl reminded himself that he had to be happy; for her, just because—well, because she had looked so sad and frightened when she saw him at the door. Her face said it all, as usual, and though she wasn’t the kind of woman to cower, she was undoubtedly scared by the things he endured to be with her. So he would protect her from it as he protected his siblings from it, and protected his mother from it; the reality that they were all living in. He would protect her as he protected himself, even; guarding her feelings until she felt safe enough to live under the impression that really, he was fine, even when he wasn’t.

One egg cracked, then the other. Bright yellow yolks poured into the batter and as he beat them in, the whole bowl turned that lovely shade of cornbread yellow that all cooks delight in. Though she was busy with the sizzling meat and vegetables on the stove, even (Y/N) looked over and smiled.

“Nice. There’s a pan in the cupboard behind you.” She jerked her head towards it, continuing to stir and chop up the ground beef in the bottom of the pot. Axl nodded and went on yet another hunt for the exact pan she meant, wondering how it could be that a woman living alone had three separate cupboards for all her tinware, and yet, had absolutely nobody to bake for. But that line of questioning didn’t last long, as Axl became engrossed in spooning the cornbread batter into a square tin, then opening the oven door and feeling that bit of heat blast out. The cornbread tin slid in just fine and he closed the oven back up, standing and daring to slip an arm around (Y/N)’s waist as she checked the browning vegetables and meat in the pot one more time and then set a timer for the cornbread.

“Need something?” She asked, and Axl knew the red on her cheeks could easily have been due to the heat in the kitchen, but still, he hoped. Even if he couldn’t have the original goodness back, the sweet happiness that came with licking chocolate cake batter out of the bowl while his mother sang along to a Frank Sinatra song and twirled around the kitchen like a happy ballerina; he could still have this goodness here with her, playing house in a home where he honestly felt like he meant something more to the world. She felt so right to him. Their hips pressed together in exactly the right way as she leaned into his touch and smiled, glowing like a ripe cherry in the setting sunlight that came through the windows at the front of the house.

“I just…” all the sounds died in his throat, and he couldn’t find words that would make her understand exactly what he was feeling. The way she looked at him, expectantly, made him lose his nerve a little and take his arm away. What had he been thinking? That she was all his? That he could just do that? As tiring as they were, the voices in his head never truly ceased to argue with each other on matters as important as this—nor did they do so now. He fiddled with his hands a little, wanting to explain to her that he just liked her touch, that he felt kind of protective of her, and now that she had seen how Bailey could be, he didn’t mind having one more person to protect, even if it might really kill him someday—that any goodness, here with her, was as close to heaven as he was going to get, and he wanted it all. He tried, haltingly, to explain it, but was cut short of his thoughts entirely when (Y/N) leaned in and pressed the world’s softest kiss to his cheek.

“There,” she said, as if she had just put a bandaid on him. Her cheeks might have been red before, but boy, were they flaming now. She stirred the contents of the pot on the stove and paid special attention to fiddling with the burner. Axl stared at her.

“Hey, (Y/N)?” He asked.

“Hmm?” She turned to him, and he didn’t waste another second. Instantly, his lips were on hers, so hungry he almost smothered her. He brought his hands to her beautifully curved jaw and heard her drop the spoon into the pot of chili before her arms were around his shoulders and she was leaning in and by God, it was better than anything he could have ever known. Daydreams did no justice as he kissed her here, in the house of joy, feeling her press herself to him like he had only ever wished for, feeling her heartbeat thumping in her chest like a crazed rabbit. As young people sometimes do, they forgot to breathe, and Axl pulled away from her gasping for air like a drowning man, wide-eyed and full of stars at the way she stared back at him, lips parted, surprised and yet looking at him like she wished he would do it again. And again. And again. But for now he waited to see her reaction.

“Axl,” she breathed, looking slightly dazed. “Axl, you shouldn’t do that, your step father already thinks I’m a—”

Axl scoffed. “Fuck him.”

The clarity returned to her eyes and she grabbed his shoulders, not hard, but enough to feel her there. (Y/N) stared deep into his eyes and said in her most serious of voices,

“Never.”

The kitchen was quiet for a moment before they both began to laugh, softly at first, and then louder and louder until they were nearly crying with hysteria and neither one of them was paying attention to the chili on the stove or the cornbread in the oven or the summer breeze swishing past the curtains in the dining room. All Axl cared about, really, was putting his hands on her waist and feeling the sturdiness of her being as he kissed her, as many times as she wanted. She let out a giddy giggle between each one, like she wasn’t sure she was living real life anymore, like she wasn’t sure this wasn’t a dream after all. But still, she put her lovely warm hands on either side of his face and blessed him with her roseleaf lips, one sweet, saccharine kiss after another.

“Cornbread’s burning,” she mumbled against his lips as the timer on the counter went off for the fourth time in a row.

“I don’t care.” He said, and kissed her again before he grabbed the oven mitts.

-

“Chili’s good.” Axl had abandoned all propriety and was now completely comfortable with talking with his mouth full. Not that (Y/N) really cared, because she didn’t. All she did was think it was funny and giggle into her next spoonful.

“I know, right? It’s an old recipe from a magazine. I’m not really sure where I got it from, I can’t remember; but I always remember the taste.” She smiled as he scraped the bowl clean. “The cornbread’s good too, you oughta be proud.”

“Oh, I am. It’s delicious.” Axl felt like a normal teenage boy, at last. Everything was going right. He was in a great mood, had finally kissed a girl he liked, was eating some damn good food, and was on the way to a very good night’s sleep, presuming he managed to sneak upstairs at home quietly enough. It was blissful. Even though his legs and back still hurt, he was getting used to the pain, so it was really only a dull throb here and there. He didn’t even recognize it as he looked across the table at her, watching her enjoy the meal they’d cooked together. Axl’s emotions had been flying all over the place since he could last remember, but these were good emotions, at long last, the good emotions, and they were stunning and real and brought him to the natural highs he thought people only talked about. But here he was, experiencing it in real time. It was beautiful. And so was she.

“Pretty fun playing house, isn’t it?” She asked, winking, and putting both elbows on the table to rest her chin in her hands and look at him as if he were a work of art.

“I could do it forever.” He smiled back at her, and there wasn’t a moment between them that he regretted, then. He felt her knee nudge his under the table and he looked down, blushing a little, but laughing it off.

“Forever, huh?” She laughed right back. “I don’t know about forever, Axl, you’ve got things to do, people to see. And a singing voice to tend to. God, you should be in a band,” she said, her voice wistful, like he was a treasure unknown to the rest of humanity. Boy, I could get used to hearing that, he thought to himself. And for once, Axl didn’t tell his brain to shut up.

“Well, I kind of am. A little.” He took a bite of cornbread and had to take a moment of silence to appreciate it, because it was the best damn cornbread he’d ever managed to make, and that was no small feat for someone who regularly made macaroni and hotdogs in the microwave and called it a meal. But he spoke again soon enough, eager to talk to her about something he truly enjoyed with his whole being. He gulped, and started in. “You remember Izzy?”

“Ah yes, the gypsy-loving boy you were complaining about not too long ago?” (Y/N)’s eyes glittered as he nodded and waved his hand in a so-so motion.

“Yeah, well, okay, we’re on better terms. And he does love a good gypsy girl, but the ones he hangs out with on Maynard Street—those aren’t real gypsies. I keep trying to tell him, but he’s Izzy, he doesn’t listen to anything he doesn’t think he should be hearing. Whatever. What can I do?” Axl shrugged. “But the point is, me and him, we have this little thing going where we take his dad’s old truck out to the corn fields—you know, by the old Sutter farm?”

“Oh, yeah. Yeaaah, I do, actually,” Her voice stretched with realization, a kind of “a-ha!” moment. “That’s quite a ways out, isn’t it?”

“It is. But that’s why we go. He’s got a guitar, and I have a really fuckin’—I’m sorry. A really loud voice.” He corrected himself as if Amy and Stuart were sitting at the table with them, but (Y/N) just snorted in amusement.

“Come on, Axl, you can cuss around me. What am I, the neighbor?” The grin on her face was irresistible, and he found himself laughing without even trying to hide it.

“Okay, okay. I have a really fuckin’ loud voice. There.” He shook his head, still smiling, and took another bite of cornbread, watching a crumb or two fall into his empty bowl. “So we hang out and make up songs and sing them for as long as we can get away with, and, well—we sound pretty good. He thinks we should go to L.A., and I gotta say, I’m with him on it. We’re just trying to figure out…” Here, a pause, for the last bite of succulent, delicious, perfectly-baked cornbread. “...Mmm. We’re just tryin’ to figure out how to get there, y’know? And where to go, exactly. And what to do. Don’t want to end up on skid row, or anything. But it’d be nice. You could visit someday.” Axl said to her, adoring the glow in her expression as she listened to him talk about the things he loved. “I’m going to get a nice house down by the beach somewhere. Or maybe it’ll just be a shack. But it’ll be a house, by the beach, and any time you like, you can road-trip your way over and spend some time with me. Look for seashells, go for walks, watch sunsets, all that girly crap. And then you can come to one of our shows.” He smiled, thinking of it now; the neon strip, the girls in their fishnets and leopard skins and lace, the red lipstick, the blue eyeshadow, the dancing crowds, the howling guitars, his best friend Izzy perched on an amp and smoking his fifth cigarette in a row… and her, there, in the center of the throng, beaming up at him with all the love in the world on her face as he sang for her. What would she look like, in lace and leather? What would she look like, made up for a concert like that? Would she be sitting at the back at a table with a girlfriend, or would she be up and dancing, throwing herself around and screaming with joy like the other people in the joint? Axl dreamed of it as easily as he dreamt about anything else; and decided it was an image he’d keep with him, keep safe inside his mind’s eye, for when he and Izzy really did jump the train and go to California.

There was a silence long enough to bring him back down to earth, and he realized with a kind of uneasiness—not a total uneasiness, but a minute one, one that rests in the back of the mind like when you’ve gotten a paper cut but haven’t realized it yet—that she was staring, absent-mindedly, at his left wrist. And when she noticed that he’d stopped speaking, she looked at him.

“What about your family?” She asked, almost nonchalantly. The suspicion began to grow in the back of his mind, though he tried to bat it away, tried to enjoy the sweetness of what he still had with her, while he still had it. (Y/N) made it sound like a normal question, but somehow, it didn’t quite sound right to him. He tried to answer as nonchalantly as she had asked.

“What about them?”

“Well, what do they think about you going to Los Angeles?” She said, and got a little bit of a spark back to her. “I bet your mom’s excited for you, at least. And Stu. And the little one—have you told me her name?”

“Amy.” It came out of his mouth harsher than he meant it to, and he bit his lip. “Her name’s Amy. And no, none of them know about it. Which means you can’t tell them, either.” He added it as a bitter afterthought, which (Y/N) clearly thought it was. Goddammit. Her face fell like an angel cake in the oven whenever he got like this. So why couldn’t he stop fucking being like this? Oh, here we go again, his brain continued its monologue unhelpfully. Here we fucking go again, ruining it for everybody. This time Axl did tell it to shut up.

“I won’t, Axl. I wish you would trust me.” She put her hands in her lap and stared at them instead. Suddenly, the atmosphere at the table became unbearable, and Axl felt his stomach turn over uncomfortably at the silence. Dishes lay between them, stringing them farther and farther apart, and he couldn’t feel her knee against his anymore, couldn’t feel her comforting presence. She wouldn’t look at him.

“Alright, well, no, I’m sorry.” She continued, softly. “It’s not that I wish you would trust me. You already do, in some ways, and that’s enough. But I wish…” The sentence remained unfinished. This time, instead of looking at him, she looked out the window, to where dusk had fallen and made the sky a dim bluish indigo color. Axl begged her silently to look at him; just look at him already, if she was going to speak so quietly, if she was going to talk to him, just look at him, please, God, make her look. Somewhere up there was a being who answered prayers, evidently, because she did. Her (e/c) eyes sparkled with tension and an emotion he almost didn’t recognize in the soft orange glow of her house lights, unapparent until she asked in a small, fearful voice,

“What happened to you last night?”

In an instant all the alarm bells in his head went off at once. Half of him was thrown into vicious remembrance and the other half was tasked with defending himself, his consciousness, his peace in this house that was not his in front of a girl who had too quickly stolen his heart and was in the process of breaking into his mind.

“Nothing.” Axl said, quickly, much too quickly. Walls were falling down on top of him. The house of joy was collapsing and soon he would not be safe at all. If she knew what went on inside that house—his house—she’d never speak to him again. (Y/N) could deal with his outbursts now because she thought they were all just bits and pieces of him, she liked the challenge, she liked the attention, liked to figure him out and liked to put him back together. But if she knew how deep it went, she’d abandon the puzzle. If she knew how bad it was, she wouldn’t want to touch him ever again. If she did, it would be the way Sal touched him, by accident and with a grimace, or it’d be the way his mom touched him, like he was a fragile doll and needed help sitting up in bed, or with a smack because he kept fucking up, kept fucking up, kept fucking up. He couldn’t let that happen. But how would he defend himself?

“It wasn’t nothing,” She said, in a near whisper, holding her shoulders neat and square and sitting rigidly as if her back stung just as much as his. “Axl, please, don’t just tell me it was nothing.” She sucked in a breath, and let it back out, laying her hands palm-up on the table, trying to lay herself out to him so he’d understand that she was no threat.

“Axl, honey, you know you can tell me anything. I promise. You’re safe here.”

His breath caught in his throat as all the happy flight-of-the-bird emotions that had been tumbling about his chest suddenly reversed on him and pulled him back down to the dark earth of reality. A normal reaction would have been nice, but Axl had no time to think of what a normal reaction would be, because he wasn’t a normal person. And yet, he didn’t want to snap at her, because he didn’t have to. He wasn’t angry. There was just this terrible tightness winding up in his chest, a sense of doom, like she didn’t even have to ask, she knew already what was happening to him in that house; and if she peeled back the clothing and looked, she would only feel disgust, that she would look at him like she had looked at his self-damaged left wrist just now and she wouldn’t understand at all; she would see him as this crippled, flightless, angry thing and be so scared of him that she’d run away forever. The fear overwhelmed him and his stomach twisted and turned as he took a sharp breath, standing up so quickly he knocked the table with his hip and made the dishes rattle. She stared at him, wide-eyed.

“I think I’m gonna throw up,” he said, and then turned and bolted down the hall to the bathroom.

Before (Y/N) could even say anything, he slammed and locked the door behind him, feeling his heart hammer around like a ball in a pinball machine at the arcade. The room spun around him as he tried to catch his breath and figure out what the fuck was going on. Why was this freakout getting so bad? Was he having a heart attack? Maybe. No. No chest pain. Did he actually have to throw up? Maybe. He stood over the sink for a good thirty minutes, heaving a little, shaking, sweating, feeling his legs turn into jelly below him. There was a soothing, worried voice on the other side of the door, but Axl couldn’t be bothered to listen to it at all. His body just wouldn’t listen to him. He wasn’t in danger, he knew it; but he couldn’t help but feel as if he was. It was terrifying. The feeling of everything closing in became stronger and stronger until all he could do was sit in the corner of the room by the bathtub and bury his face in his knees and try to will away the stabbing pains in his back and legs, the pain of welts and cuts being stretched too far too soon, the pain of her asking hard questions in her soft voice and expecting him to be able to answer like this was some kind of stupid teen drama. He hated her. No, not her, he didn’t hate her—he hated it. The situation. He hated that they just couldn’t have fun without something getting in the way. There was never any fun. Not completely. He was always sore or bitchy or she was always worried or concerned and if he had been a normal guy, none of this would be the case. If he had just been normal, he wouldn’t have had to deal with any of this—the soaring highs, the crushing lows. And the lows always outdid the highs anyway. All he ever felt was low, low, low, with the ever-fleeting eclipse of happiness above him like this thing he just could not ever capture. Like the geese flying away into the deep, deep blue.

Axl spent a long time hidden in the space between the bathtub and the radiator underneath the window, rocking back and forth lightly, sobbing openly into his knees. His head hurt an awful lot, but that was because he was tearing at his hair. He was frustrated. Goddamnit, he was frustrated. The only reason they ever had nights like this was because he didn’t know how to answer questions nonchalantly, he thought. If he could just do it, if he could just think without thinking too much, if he could lie convincingly, if he could… if he could… but he couldn’t, and it hurt, and he hurt, and he hated himself for everything. Axl threw his fist into the side of his leg, crying at the pain of it, but feeling like he deserved it all the more. Thump. He swung again and again and again, and it was never enough. Thump. Thump. Thump. Then he rocked back and forth some more, and just cried, loud and long, like in that story about the ghostly lady, the one who wept all the time. It was when he got the itch to cut his wrist again that he opened his eyes and blearily looked around and was stricken by a moment of truth.

It was quiet. The soothing voice had left long ago, but imprints of her still remained, all over the place. In the faint background noise of the house, he heard water running, heard dishes piling into the sink, and heard the sound of her singing an old Sinatra tune, something that made his eyes sting even more. But it calmed him down, a little, just knowing that life had gone on as usual around him. She wasn’t going to throw a fit, wasn’t going to sit down and cry like his mother, wasn’t going to bitch him out like his step father, wasn’t going to sit beside him silent and brooding like Izzy sometimes did. She was going to do what (Y/N) always did after dinner: she was going to wash the dishes and sing to herself, and it didn’t matter what he was doing or feeling. If he wanted to join her, he could. A breath of relief flooded through him and he sighed as he realized it—realized that for now, she wasn’t going anywhere. The bathroom around him, though blurry through streams of water, was still the soft shade of green that matched him and his wounded soul, and reminded him that this was still her house, that the walls had not collapsed. Not yet, anyway. He took a few breaths, thinking about that, looking at his arms, and then putting them back down by his sides.

He would be okay. He would. He was with her, after all. Conflicted thoughts could go to hell—she’d stayed with him through all this, hadn’t she? She’d come over to his house. She’d rescued him for a night. She’d let him put his arm around her and kissed him back when he put his wanting lips on hers. She’d stayed with him through all that, and she was okay enough to get up and do the dishes. Axl supposed that meant he’d better be okay, too.

For a while, though, he still sat in the corner, breathing heavily, squeezing out the last tears of a meltdown he hadn’t even known was coming. Still more emotions flooded him, though he was tired, and didn’t want to feel anything anymore. He was tired of feeling guilty and tired of feeling stupid and tired of feeling hurt and tired of being happy for less than two seconds at a time, only to lapse back into negativity. And yet, negative was how he felt. She was just trying to help him. She was just trying to help him. And now he was here, in her bathroom, trying to come back down after freaking the fuck out. He breathed a sigh through his parted lips and tried to sniff a little, to clear his nose. There was a cabinet under the sink, which he crawled over to and opened, to find an assortment of towels within. There were three different sizes of stacked cloth, in three of her favorite colors; the choices of which Axl had noticed throughout her house. He took a smaller (f/c) towel and pressed it to his face, inhaling, exhaling, trying to be calm. It kind of worked. A little. It didn’t smell like her so much as it smelled like her laundry detergent, which was close enough to the real thing to be pleasant, but he still missed her touch, the warm air around her. Axl thought for the hundredth time about how he’d kissed her, and wanted to cry all over again. She’d never let him, now. No matter how okay she seemed, she was probably thinking of ways to back off, to convince him she wasn’t the right one for him; that he wasn’t the right one for her. She’d never let him do it again. Never. She’d make up something, say she was too old for him anyway. Or that they weren’t enough alike. Or she’d just be honest and say he was crazy. She’d do something like that, because (Y/N) was a smart woman and knew better than to get into situations like this, he thought miserably. Because situations like this only ended up with people getting hurt.
Would he spare her the trouble, and just walk away now? Would he spare himself the trouble? Axl ran the corner of the (f/c) towel under the cool water from the bathroom sink faucet, a pretty silver-looking thing with little crystal handles. He pressed the towel to his face to try to bring down the swelling of his eyes and nose, as he was sure he looked horrible, all bruised and puffy-eyed from crying. Would he spare her? Would he walk away? Could he? …Yes. Axl peered at his reflection in the mirror and disregarded its ugliness, the depressing color of the red around his eyes, the purple bags, the still-healing nose, the furrowed eyebrows, the tears still coming, in twos and threes instead of dozens at a time. He leaned over the sink to splash cool water directly on his skin without another thought. Axl was done hurting for the moment. He’d done everything he could and he would do no more. He wouldn’t stay around to think he had a chance with her—he couldn’t. He just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t.

Axl laid the towel, damp on one side, in a little neat fold on the countertop. He left quickly, with every intention of getting out of the house without so much as a “thank you” or a “good night” or anything else. He couldn’t impose on her anymore, couldn’t bear to resuscitate the dreams he had with her, and couldn’t bear to say goodbye. It had to end with a severing blow. It had to end now, while he was still in control; and later, much later, when he was busy hating himself for the crime of being alive, then he could cry about losing her like he seemed to lose everything else good and natural. But right now, he couldn’t think about it. Or else he’d want to stay. He’d want to stay, and he’d want to think the best of her, as he usually thought the best of people, until they proved him dead wrong.

He had almost walked all the way to the door, too, past the place where she stood at the kitchen sink, singing softly with a worried crease in her brow and drenching dishes in bubbled masses. And he would have been able to leave, had she not fallen silent and then let out that quiet, melancholy sound.

“Axl…”

Axl made the mistake of looking at her. (Y/N)’s frame, usually so confident and tall and straight-backed, was bent like a willow over the kitchen sink, and she was looking at him as if peering out from beyond some veil, as if begging him to see her. Her heart was breaking on her face. He stopped to look at her, almost amazed that someone would be so distraught over him; and it was almost as if she really did care. It almost took back everything he had been feeling, almost absolved him completely. But still, his own heart hurt, and he knew the way she looked at him now couldn’t be the way a lover looks at their other half, but only as a savior looks at their charge. All this time, he had been pleading with God to let her rescue him. Where was his wish now? All of this was embarrassing. It was embarrassing to have blown up at the dinner table, to have hid in her bathroom, to have made her feel so lovely and loved and to have torn it away the way he did; and make her feel as if she was the least trusted girl on the planet. Axl knew he had acted irrationally, but acting irrationally around her was all Axl really did, and did she want that? No, she couldn’t possibly.

But her eyes, his brain whispered despairingly. Look at her eyes. She loves you. She loves what you’ve given her.

There was silence. The sound of a clock ticking. Bubbles popping in the sink.

Finally, Axl spoke. “What’re we doing tomorrow?”

Though his voice was creaky and hollow, and he wished he would have cleared his throat or gotten a drink of water or better yet, not spoken at all; the relief that spread across her face upon hearing him speak was enough to make him feel a tiny bit better.

“I was thinking,” she said in a fragile voice, “That maybe you’d read to me. From a book you like. Any book. I don’t mind.”

“Okay,” Axl said, then thought about it, and said it again. “Okay. I’ll be over early, then. To read to you.”

“Thank you,” She whispered, looking so sad, so alone; but all that went out the window as he crossed the kitchen and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth. He didn’t know whether to hate himself for it, or to love the spark that flew between them. He fought the urge to run away and put his hands on her shoulders, caressing her, feeling her arms reach up to him and hold him at the waist. She didn’t bring him in for a hug, but just looked at him, pleading for something he wasn’t sure he knew how to give her. But the answer occurred to him after a second or two.

“I’ll be there,” he said again, and then added gently, “I promise.”

And then he was gone. Back out the door, swinging his long, still-hurting legs across the dark lawn under the nighttime sky, avoiding the silvery gaze of the stars above as he wrestled with his feelings for her; the shoulds and shouldn’ts and coulds and couldn’ts. He left her there, in the kitchen, feeling just as conflicted as he.

For a while after creeping back into his own house; Axl listened to the noises from downstairs, the snoring, the rhythmic sighs, the shuffle of blankets from somewhere in the household. As exhausted as he was, sleep just wouldn’t come. He tried to close his eyes, but the image of her standing there at the sink was emblazoned across the backs of his eyelids, her figure; the woman in pain; like someone had just stabbed her in the heart, like she knew what he was doing to her and knew what he was doing to himself and was helpless to it. Axl clutched his face with his hands and rubbed, hard, as if he might be able to just scrub the picture out of his head; but there it stayed. So instead he looked out the window. Between the slats of the shade he could see the orange light pouring out of her square bedroom window, at the back of the house; and where her shadow occasionally slid across the windowsill as she moved about. One by one, the lights flickered out, until all that was left was that single orange square. It was on for some time, late into the night. Axl got so tired he started yawning and rubbing his eyes, but still, the sleep would not come. At one point, he started walking around his room, stretching slightly, wondering if he would have to sleep on his stomach again; if that was the only way he knew how to sleep now. And then he tossed himself back on the bed, and turned this way and that. He laid on his left side, facing the wall, and then flipped to his right, and stared at the dark, empty maw of his room, observing its few decorations: a pile of dirty clothes on the floor, a backpack with looseleaf papers in it, a pencil here and there, scraps of magazines and little bits of paper unallowed in the household—and then he remembered he was supposed to bring something to read to her tomorrow.

Axl rolled out of bed and dropped to the floor, sliding under his bed slightly, feeling around for the old crate of books he kept. It wasn’t anything special, by any means. It was just a box of old library toss-outs that he wanted to keep, even though he knew he didn’t often sit down somewhere and read. But, like collecting magazines to cut out paper dolls for Amy, it was just something he did, because it seemed the right thing to do. Axl dug through the pile for a suitable book, squinting at them by the light from the stars outside, in the semi-darkness, forcing his eyes to adjust. Where was it? Which one?

Ah, yes. His eyes focused on it. The Catcher In The Rye. Though the book was pale cream and orange in the daytime, now it was reduced to shades of light and dark grey, and Axl held onto it carefully and closely as he slid the crate of books back under the bed and threw himself back into the blanket nest he’d created. He didn’t even bother to try to read it by the starlight, though that might have soothed him enough to sleep—simply because it was much too dim. But he thought about it anyway; thought about Holden Caulfield and his kid sister and old Jane Gallagher as he stared from his bedroom window at the orange square that spoke of a love all his own.

All his own, at least, until he broke her. He felt sure he would, eventually. But the way she had looked at him…

He pressed the book close to his chest and closed his eyes, falling asleep moments before the light across the way flicked off, leaving the yard entrenched in darkness except for the faint glitter of the grass in the starlight. Within minutes, he was sleeping soundly. The stringed welts on his back and legs still hurt, and his eyes ached from all the whining and crying he’d done that day, but he felt better, felt good enough to sleep soundly through the night. In his dreams he danced among the stars. (Y/N) was with him, too; he was pulling her long, taking her somewhere, first on a train ride to L.A., then to the grocery store in the LeSabre. She wore red lipstick and lace and danced with him beautifully as he sang songs to her, songs of the cornfield where Izzy had come up with his own chord progressions Axl had sung long and loud and they had proclaimed themselves “the next big rock duo, if they ever got out of this town.” He took her with him everywhere, and promised even in dreams that he would keep that smile on her face, even if it did hurt them both in the end.

Though it was just a dream, Axl couldn’t help but feel loved by her smile, her warmth, her violet smell, her hugs; the color gold surrounding them, the perfect skylit blue as they flew like geese into the clouds at sunset. Izzy’s guitar twanged. The boxcars rumbled on. Church bells rang out the coming daybreak, and a blue jay chattered, fighting for its breadcrumbs while he laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

She even kissed him, a few times.

Chapter Text

DAY EIGHT - FRIDAY

Sleep did not solve the muddled feelings Axl had for his neighbor, but it did put him in a much better mood, which was a godsend after an absolutely hellish week. It took him no longer to stuff the book in his jacket, walk out the door, and pretend to catch the school bus than it did any other day he was set on playing hooky—but instead of walking downtown to meet up with Izzy, he circled around the block and came up to (Y/N)’s house from the back, like he had last Friday.

As his shoes scuffed along the grass just outside her back door, Axl wondered what it would be like today; whether she would look at him like he was a piece of work, or regard him as a fragile child, or treat him like her young-and-dumb boyfriend. He hoped, not secretively in the slightest, that it would be the last option. But it probably wouldn’t happen. No matter how much of him (Y/N) thought she could stand, there was always going to be more—she must have known that. Axl sat outside on the back steps for a moment to think about it; curling his knees up to his chest and wondering what he could say to make himself seem sane after last night. Could you laugh that kind of thing off? No. Not with how much she knew. And she wouldn’t be the one to try to laugh it off, anyway. He rested his cheek on the tops of his bent knees and sighed, watching an orange butterfly in the lawn tumble upwards in the glinting June sunlight. Yet another thing with the ability to free itself of the bonds of earth. How envying. Axl thought about how heavy his tennis shoes felt on his feet, and sighed even louder.

In some ways, it was heartbreaking. But Axl didn’t want to think about that. This was the last designated day he had to spend with her, and after all that had been said and done, he knew it would most likely be his last day ever—after thinking about it for hours with little else to do with his time but ponder, Axl figured it would be easier for them both to let go now, to quiet themselves and their emotions, to pretend nothing had ever happened. He was too damaged. He cringed to think it, but it was entirely true. He was too damaged to do much else in her presence than be hurt by her graciousness and the way she gave him everything his heart had ever wanted, but felt he didn’t deserve. And she was too good to crawl in the dirt for him like that. Though this was merely metaphorical—she was a gardener, after all—he really didn’t want to have to introduce her to the kind of life he lived, because it wasn’t much of a life at all. It was only an origin story, an extremely humble and painful beginning, the forging of an iron star that would hopefully never break but only rust in the glorious air of the crowded venue, of the screaming people, of the electric wire guitar twang. She might have loved him enough to take care of him, to let him do what he wanted. She might have loved him enough to kiss him back. But (Y/N) was an independent woman, here, in Lafayette, with a job as a writer and dreams of her own and a whole house and—and despite wanting desperately to take her with him, to marry her to his soul like the dreams that had floated before his closed eyes the night before, Axl knew that she would stay rooted here, like the sequoias in California. He would always be welcome, but she would always stay. And it would always hurt. So he convinced himself it was better to just say goodbye now, while it was less painful.

But then, in the very, very back of his mind, there was this nagging hope that she would surprise him yet again—that she would be the one to beg him to stay in her life; that she would put on her metallicky makeup and a minidress and hop the rails with him at midnight to leave everything behind and ride to the wild side of the world. It was an enticing image—he had no doubt it was in her, somewhere, the seed of rebellion, the need to break free. It was there sometimes when she talked to him about the things she loved: how she’d thought about moving somewhere else so she could have more writing inspiration, for instance. Or how she had wanted for a little while to live out of her car and just bum around like a hippie with a taste for the greats of rock n’ roll—and especially when she told him how she’d evaded her mother’s attempts at marrying her off and gotten a bachelor’s degree instead, which, the way she told it, was hilarious. But on the whole, Axl very much doubted anything would happen. While (Y/N) was very outgoing, and very artistic, and definitely followed her own dreams, she didn’t have a spontaneous bone in her body, and he supposed that was why Izzy found her so boring, and why he found her so pleasantly and beautifully predictable. She wouldn’t leave in the middle of the night with him, not even if he was convinced he loved her, not even if he said he’d get her a house and a publishing office and marry her and play piano and sing for her all she wanted. She wouldn’t. Was he okay with that? …No. Not at all.

Axl sat upright and put his chin in his hands, following the flight of the butterfly in the lawn with vague interest as he thought about what his heart wanted and what his head knew. His heart wanted her, that much he could feel. But his head knew it was all conjecture—a lovely fairytale. The butterfly bobbed up and down through the garden, resting for a moment on the sprout of a carrot, before fluttering onto the head of a yellow daisy. There it sat, quite still, relaxing its wings so that Axl could see it was a monarch. A large one, at that. He blinked at it as it flapped once, twice, and then swooped off into the distance of the west, until he could not see it anymore.

Maybe it would end up in California before him. He sighed a third time, and then came to terms with the morning light. This day—though off to a dreadful mental start—would hopefully get better over time. It had to. He prayed for it as he turned and knocked loudly at the door.

There was silence from within the house.

He frowned. Maybe it was too early? The bus had left a little while ago, so it couldn’t be much past seven thirty, maybe eight. Maybe she had slept in. Or maybe she had left, and was never to come back. His heart, against his better judgment, skipped a beat and then thudded twice.

Don’t be an idiot, he chided himself irately. You just saw her car in the driveway.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t leave on foot. Or by the city bus. Or had he seen her car after all? Axl was about to clamber off the old wooden steps and check another time when she finally opened the door.

“Oh,” (Y/N) said, surprised, looking sort of disheveled, like she had in fact just woken up, which made him feel a bit better. “You’re early.”

“Is that a problem?” Did that sound rude? Axl wondered, and then wondered when the hell he had started asking himself if things sounded rude. “I mean, I, uhm… I did say I would be over early yesterday.”

“Oh. Maybe you did. I don’t remember. I’m sorry.” She brought her hand to her mouth as she yawned quietly. Axl felt a twinge of affection at the sight that he tried to ignore. She paused for a moment, as if she were going to yawn again, and then spoke softly. “It’s alright, though. It’s not a problem.” The curve of her arm was noticeably bare as she held onto the door, and she was only just slightly leaning out from behind it, her hair unpinned and messy, falling over her shoulders. The light mascara she usually wore to work was smudged, as if she’d stayed up all night like him, rubbing her eyes and tossing and turning but never quite falling asleep. She looked tired, dead tired, but there was less unease and more of an unsureness in her figure. Whatever it was, it wasn’t about him. (Y/N) just appeared to be thinking incredibly hard about something, a decision. Probably the decision as to whether or not she should let him inside the house. Still, she hid behind the door—all he could see of her was her face and her neck and the arm she had curled around the oak, fingertips neatly grasping it as she looked out into the open yard, and then looked at him, and then looked to either side of the yard, as if somebody might be watching them. Axl started to wonder if maybe she was naked, or something. The way she just refused to step out… never mind that, he told himself with a stern internal voice.

“I’m glad you’re here. I just—well, I hope you don’t mind, but I’m a little underdressed at the moment. I was going to get out of bed earlier, but…” She shrugged, and Axl thought about how lovely her skin was in the clear morning light. Aha! One shoulder did have a strap on it, so she couldn’t have been that underdressed for the occasion. Though… would he have minded? Stop it, Axl warned himself. Stop it now. His brain relented, but decided it would think about that later, when he was in less danger of making himself look like a blushing idiot.

“It happens.” He said, and shrugged back at her, appearing as nonchalant as he could. Then, he pulled the book out of his jacket. “I brought this. I can read to you whenever you like—whenever you’re ready, I mean.”

Her eyes lit up at the sight of it and she smiled instantly. “Oh, that’s a good one! I haven’t read that in forever! Come right in, come on.” She swung the door open, but moved with it, so that she stayed out of sight as he stepped into the house he just couldn’t seem to stay away from. While in a room he hadn’t seen before—a tiny mudroom, it seemed—he realized it was still quite dim on the inside, so she really must have been sleeping in. He almost felt bad for disturbing her sleep, but then heard the door shut, and turned to her to say something when her full visage caught him by the throat.

She wasn’t naked. Which was probably a good thing. But the sight of her in only a summer chemise—only a summer chemise, with her hair rumpled and eyes still half-lidded with sleep—it suddenly made him very aware of every sensation on his body. Forget Nastassia Kinski. Axl had never paid so much attention to the fabric touching another person’s body in his entire life, and tried desperately to keep his mind off of deeper subjects than that; as he gazed at her stretching and yawning form, decorated only by a pale (f/c) garment as thin as a wisp of smoke.

Her yawn curled in on itself like a cat’s, and she snapped her mouth shut before rubbing her eyes with both fists. Somehow, it shook Axl out of his mini-stupor, and he laughed a little.

“You know, you can go back to bed if you want, I don’t mind.”

“That would be so rude,” She murmured with her eyes closed, but everything in her posture said, yes, please, let’s. So Axl took the lead, and opened the door of the mudroom into what turned out to be the side door in the hallway that he had at first thought was a closet.

“Huh. Well, that’s neat.” He said, looking carefully at the door frame, scrutinizing it, and paying only minimal attention to her figure next to him. He shot a glance at her now and again, trying to keep his cool and not blush as he put a tentative hand on the small of her back and guided her to the bedroom, which was slowly but surely filling with dim sunlight with the way it filtered through her curtains. God. Axl felt his heart rate pick up a little as he felt the curve of her spine rest below his hand, swaying gently as she moved with him, then disappearing out from under his touch as she crawled into bed again like a sleep-starved child. In the moments between her sleek bare legs being visible and them slipping under the comforter he had placed so neatly on top of her bed days before, Axl clutched his old and battered copy of The Catcher In The Rye, and seriously thought about climbing into bed with her before he shook the thought out of his head and just pulled up the dressing table’s chair to sit beside her and read. Strange as it was, Axl felt as if he was back in his dream. There was no way to tell the fine lines of anything anymore—was this reality? Was this all in his head? Was she pretending? Was he? Was she a neighbor, or his girlfriend, or something further yet undefined? Even the thought of reading to her, here, was confusing. It was almost as if he were her sentinel, watching over her like this, making sure she took care of herself when usually she had been the one to do that for him. It was a place he had never been in before, blurred lines, blurred roles, blurred feelings—all for her.

(Y/N) laid still with her eyes closed, and listened to the silence of him, the unfocused stumble of his fingers across the beginning pages of the book. Soon, it grew too much to bear.

“Axl, are you afraid of me?”

“No, why?” For a moment, the question genuinely confused him. But he kept looking at her as she spoke, still with her eyes closed, the blankets a wreath of comfort around her.

“I know you don’t have the best relationship with tactile things, but even so… I don’t know. You seemed almost afraid to touch me, just then.” Her expression of calm wavered a bit, but she retained it, relaxing into the blankets and pillows that gave her such a serene nature that Axl wished, once again, that he had a bed like that. Even if it was kind of girly to have so many decorative pillows and fluffy blankets, it looked comfortable. He longed to sink into the sheets, and to sink into her embrace. She continued. “A few other times, too, now that I think of it.”

“I’m not afraid to touch you. I just…” He thought about what he had planned to say just then. Was it really because he was inexperienced with girls? No. Couldn’t be. There had been at least five girls who liked him well enough to pretend he wasn’t crazy; and at least long enough so he could meet them underneath the bleachers and have a little rough play, a little fun—but those were one-offs, and the touches they gave him weren’t so nice in the afterthought. Hair pulling, mostly. In certain contexts, it was sweet and sexy, and always sounded nice with a girl’s scream to go with it as her legs jumped over his shoulders—but that was besides the point. Was he afraid to touch her? No, of course not. But how would she know? He always acted as if he was. Save for kissing her like a wild man last night, of course. Axl didn’t even dare blush at the thought, it would give him away for certain.

“You just…?” She repeated softly, lifting her eyelids, blinking at him sleepily. Her hand reached out and patted his knee, a light tap-tap that would have made him jump out of his chair if he hadn’t seen it coming a mile away. Her hand rested there as she tried to keep her eyes open and really look at him. “You just what? Tell me.”

“How late did you stay up last night?” Axl joked, but she retracted her hand and began to sit up. “Oh, alright, alright. I’ll say it. Calm down, I’ll tell you.”

“Good. Then tell me already.” She laid down again, seeming a little more awake than she had before, with enough energy to crease her brow in worry. Axl searched for the right words to express what he meant, and he definitely didn’t think about how her top slid a little lower than intended when she propped herself up on her elbow.

“I just think you should take care of the things—the people—you love, you know?” He said, as fast as he could, spitting out the words as he came to them. “I’ve only ever really messed around with girls. And I didn’t care so much about them. I mean, they were nice, don’t get me wrong,” he backpedaled, at the look of mild intrigue and skepticism on her face. “They were all real cute and springy girls. All super sweet. But I feel like… this is the real deal. Like when you go to the museums in Rome and they’ll shoot you if you put your hands on the sculptures. You know?” He gulped audibly, hoping she wouldn’t think anything less of him, and half-hoping her chemise would slip lower. If he couldn’t convince himself it was okay to touch, well, at least it was okay to look. “I kind of lost it a little bit last night. I mean—with, with kissing, and all. You drive me crazy. But—I don’t know. Like I said, I care about you. I don’t want to hurt you.” He dug the toe of his shoe into the carpet of her bedroom floor and wondered which was the worse offense: bare feet, or shoes that had walked practically everywhere.

“You’re kidding,” (Y/N)’s voice was almost uncharacteristically flat. His gaze shot up to her and the way she looked was somewhere between indignant and melancholy and a little bit of something else.

“I’m not, actually,” he said, about to be irate with her, but then she sat upright, took the book out of his hands and tossed it onto the bed behind her, and then pulled him to her, holding tight with both hands. Axl let himself be pulled out of the chair and fell into the bed with her, kicking a little dramatically.

“Don’t,” he said, as if it were the most of her worries, “I have my shoes on, I’ll get dirt everywhere, don’t—”

“Axl, I don’t care.” She said, plain as day. “Touch me. Right now. Touch me. This whole time, I have been afraid of hurting you, and now you go and tell me you’re afraid of hurting me? No, nuh-uh. I don’t think so.”

Wherever the shy girl had gone, Axl didn’t know, but was beginning to like this turn of events; a fact which he hated himself for. Every ounce of bravery and coquettishness that had ever been in him when he picked up those other girls in years past left him hanging here on the cliff that was the edge of her bed, where he knelt, close to her, terrified to even breathe in her space as she ordered him to do the thing that would make him lose himself again. A sudden revelation hit him upside the head—the thing that had him in a stranglehold; it was always either anger or sex. Both made him lose his mind, and it was only a matter of time before they struck again, whether it was bashing Thurne’s nose in or trying to get on Sal’s good side so he could meet her somewhere. Always anger, always sex. The thought made him pull his hands away.

“Axl,” she said, and the way she said it, so warning and yet so wanting, made his heart knock around in his chest as he reached out to her with trembling hands and rested them on either side of her waist, notched perfectly in her being, as if they belonged there and would belong there for the rest of time. He sat there and forgot how to breathe all over again as he felt her below him, relaxing in his grasp, just enjoying herself; looking at him with those eyes that were equal parts fiery and saddened. Although the fire was slowly building its embers in her as she took his hands ever so lightly, and guided them so that they smoothed out the fabric of her chemise, caressing her abdomen in such an intimate way that he even had the nerve to feel slightly embarrassed. But she held him there, and looked him in the eye, and said,

“I’m not going to hurt you. Okay?”

“Mhm.” If he said much more, something was going to come out of his mouth that neither of them wanted to hear; so he focused on petting her gently, as if she were just a very large cat who happened to also be a very beautiful woman with very little clothing on. Goddammit. Well, that wasn’t helping. She took his hands again and settled them lower, on her hips, then sliding them down to the sides of her thighs.

“I’m all here. I’m all for you.” She whispered to him.

“Am I dreaming?” He murmured back, and though she laughed, it was a real question; and he repeated it insistently. “No, seriously, am I dreaming? What’s gotten into you?”

“Oh, what’s gotten into me. You sound like an old schoolteacher. What’s gotten into me? You. For God’s sake, you. Axl, I swear, if there’s anyone I’ve loved in the entire universe, it’s you.” She looked at him with those jeweled (e/c) eyes; haunting, and yet still beautiful. He couldn’t resist squeezing his fingertips, just a little, so that either of them would barely notice. “You’re so unappreciated, you know that? You’re beautiful. You’re talented. And smart. And you think you’re less than that, somehow…”

At this, he laughed, albeit dryly. “I’m fucking crazy, is what I am.”

She inhaled sharply. “Even if you are, I don’t care. Do you know how many days I spent repressing my emotions in my own house? Strangling—drowning—under thoughts that said I was alone, that I was damaged or defective, somehow; that I was nothing, that there was nobody who would dare love me because all I knew how to be was the perfect daughter? Why do you think I moved out on my own? I couldn’t stand it anymore, having to pretend I didn’t care about anything at all, having to pretend I knew who I was. Do you know how wonderful it is just to see you, and not only that, but to see you be happy? Do you?” Her eyes searched his for some deeper emotion, brow furrowed in worry, concentration; her lips gently parted. “I hope you do know. Even if you think you’re crazy, I hope you realize that I love it. I love the way you’re able to say the things I never could. I love the way you know yourself and what you like. I love the way you express everything, so simply, so beautifully. Axl, I…” She closed her eyes then, and swallowed hard, tilting her head up to the ceiling like she was trying not to let the emotion overcome her.

“What?” After a longish pause on her end, Axl finally had to ask. His heart was pounding with something that—finally!—wasn’t fear. It was amazement. Astonishment. His fingertips trembled slightly as he stroked the outside of her legs, fiddling with the hem of the chemise. “You what?”

She opened her eyes, and suddenly, her shy voice was back again, the quietness that whispered to him how sweet he could be, how smart he was, how beautifully he sang. “I love you.”

I love you, too, Axl thought back, or maybe he said it—he couldn’t tell. At that moment, his breath was caught in his throat again, making him lightheaded as he melted into the warm softness of her lips, kissing her like he had always imagined he would, like he had pictured since day one. She put her arms around him and leaned back and he pressed her into the mattress, unafraid of the way she arched up into his grasp, both of them feeling all right, feeling just fine, feeling on top of the world and then some. He broke away and breathed, and looked at her, all pink and starry-eyed, and dove right back in for more.

“You’re so goddamn beautiful,” he mumbled against her lips, abandoning all propriety and swinging a leg over hers, moving his hands to take hold of her cheeks and kissing her again, and again, and again. The soft noises filled the room as she threaded her hands through his red-blond hair and didn’t pull, but merely carded, combed through his longish locks, until she wanted to bring him closer to her. He obliged, and kissed her deeper, before breaking away to say it again. “You’re so goddamn beautiful.”

“Language,” (Y/N) giggled between kisses, and wrapped her arms around him in the world’s greatest, softest hug.

-

While on other days he went through with it, such as those dusty, long afternoons spent under the bleachers with the blondes or brunettes who were crazy enough to want him; and while Axl found that there was nothing stopping him from stripping her of her chemise and devouring her like the sweetest thing on earth; he simply didn’t. Whether it was because he actually wanted to read the book for her, or because he was much too comfortable in both her embrace and the blankets surrounding them to do much else; all they did was make out—he would read a chapter, and she’d kiss him again—and he would put the book down and really lay into her until she was blushing and laughing and her lips were nice and natural red. Then he would grin like a maniac, settle down, and read another chapter. They must have kissed a thousand times. It certainly felt like it, and even then, Axl didn’t think it was enough. It could never be enough, with her. The feeling only grew as the day climbed by in increments too short for words. He read to her while she got dressed and he sat at the edge of her bed, eyes flicking between the words and her nearly-bare form until she pulled on her jeans and a t-shirt—and he read to her while she combed her hair, and got some breakfast, and brushed her teeth. He read to her while she finished addressing manuscripts and their envelopes for the publishing office. He read to her in the garden while she took measured care of the daisies and fruits and veggies. And then they both took a break for lunch, enjoying some conversation that had nothing to do with J. D. Salinger—but once Axl was on the ball, boy, was he on it. So it was that the comfort of the afternoon time rolled around: first three, then four, then five o’clock; and he read to her until it was deep past nightfall—past her home cooking, past bites of homemade chocolate truffles—throughout the dinner hour and afterward.

“If you want to know the truth, I don’t know what I think about it,” Axl read aloud, voice now quiet and raw. He hadn’t talked so much in one day in his entire life, he was sure. But it was a measure of dedication for him to do this. Somehow, he felt this would show (Y/N) how much he loved her, how much he was willing to do for her. How much he would share with her. “I’m sorry I told so many people about it. About all I know is, I sort of miss everybody I told about. Even old Stradlater and Ackley, for instance. I think I even miss that goddam Maurice. It’s funny. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” And with that, he closed the book, and fell silent.

The sun had long since come and gone, and after dinner, they had migrated to the living room, where (Y/N) sat on the couch, curled up in the corner with her sewing basket, working on a needlepoint that looked as if it might soon be a garden scene with a big green bench in the middle of it. Without looking up from her gentle stitching, she said in her reverent voice,

“Oh, I do love that book. It’s so depressing. And yet…” Now she looked up, across the room, and then sighed. “He’s right about everything—well, not everything, but most things. Sometimes, I have to admit, I do tend to see the world through Holden’s eyes.” She turned to him and smiled. “And you must like it too, since you brought it over. What do you think?”

Axl looked down at the worn book in his hands, the bare binding, the half-torn creme-and-orange cover, with the rearing carousel horse on it. What did he think? “I dunno,” he said, and then added, “I mean, I guess I… every time I read it, I think Holden and I would have been friends. And then I think, ‘god, what an annoying bastard’. But you have a point. He’s right about a lot of things. And wrong about others.” Axl leaned on her shoulder as she pulled the needle through the backing to finish the row, and she set her work aside before putting an arm around him and pulling him into an awkward sort of side-embrace from where they were on the couch. Even as such, Axl found himself content and happy to cozy up alongside her. Though he knew he had to get home soon—as in, like, five minutes ago—there was nowhere he’d rather be than here, with her.

“Yeah,” she said, softly. “Like the last line. ‘Don’t tell anybody anything.’ Don’t take that one to heart, Axl. Tell somebody.” She looked at him, then, and the emotion in her eyes was so hard for him to just be okay with that he had to stare down into his lap instead. “You don’t have to tell everybody. But… I just want you to know that I’m here for you. I’m not just the girl next door.” She gave a little laugh at this, and Axl found his own lips twitching upwards too, despite the great feeling of loss inside himself, the premonition that this was it and that he would never have a good enough excuse to come see her again.

“Axl?”

“Hm?” He looked at her.

(Y/N)’s eyes were soft in the lamplight, and she looked so young, so beautiful; like a flower fresh out of the garden. Her lips formed the words that he had begged to hear since he’d met her; the words he could listen to for forever and a day. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” It was over before he even knew it. Just a minute ago he had been watching a butterfly in the yard, conflicted, wondering, imagining. Now he was feeling it. Now his voice and heart were raw. Now he was at the door of the living room, watching her rest her chin on the palm of her hand and look at him longingly.

“Anytime, Axl. You can come over anytime.” She said, and then asked, “Okay?”

“Okay,” he repeated, feeling hollow. She smiled.

“Attaboy. Goodnight, sweet Axl. I’ll see you soon.” Her smile sent a flutter of dovewings through his heart and mind, and he closed his eyes on the walk to the front door, knowing enough not to trip over anything; even in the dark of the house. He crossed the dark blue sea of grass under the moonlight as he usually did, and undid the latch on the front door of the Baileys’ house with the utmost precision, which didn’t matter, because the Old Bastard was up waiting for him anyway.

Goodbye, I love you, he smiled at her windowsill across the way, the orange lamplight flooding his water-blurred view. His step father was saying something, had some stern, barking words, his mother was there, trying to pacify him. It was all blurry, as the rest of the day had been, as blurry as the lines between what was real and what was false and what was love and what was not.

Goodbye, I love you.
Goodbye.
I love you.

Chapter Text

WEEKS LATER

Today was a storm day in Indiana, the kind everybody prepares for. It’s hard not to know it when it dawns. You can always tell by the smell of the heat in the air, the sweetness of the ozone, the crisp crackle of far-off thunder. Even as the sun rises hesitant and small in the yellow eastern sky, the clouds are already there at a distance, plowing along, grumbling to themselves until they are on top of you and bellowing, shrieking for you to listen. Lightning strikes fear into dogs and children, even the thunder makes Mom quake; and Dad just stands at the window, watching for the ominous green and for stray tornado clouds. It’s dangerous to drive. It’s dangerous to climb a tree. It’s dangerous to even be outside. Today was a storm day, and Axl was out in the middle of nowhere, waiting for Mother Nature to kill him.

Thunder crackled across the sky in the distance, just over the town about 12 miles behind him, not nearly enough to mean harm—but dark clouds still hung overhead, and Axl wasn’t protected by any means from the rain. It had been pouring down for the last few hours, ever since he left and let the storm door slam shut behind him. He had no idea where he was going. He only knew he wanted to be away from everyone and everything, because all of June had been a special kind of excruciating hell. And if it were the usual sort of hell-on-Earth, Axl would have been able to put up with it. But this—ohoho, this was a special conglomeration of horrors put together by the universe. It reminded him of the extinction events they learned about in science class, the Triassic periods, or whatever. Axl didn’t really recall much about that subject besides the tri-ass-ic jokes he and Izzy had made for days afterward; but now the thought of complete and total extinction seemed a lot more real to him. Everything did, in some way. The lines of reality that had blurred so harshly before had only worsened with time, and half the day, Axl couldn’t tell if he was having a nightmare or if he was really awake. His existence wasn’t long for this world. But that hurt to think about—and that was why he was out here, trying to gain some solace from the countryside. This wasn’t working as well as it should have—though the only things surrounding him were the sounds of wet leaves crashing in the windy treetops and the bodies of dark wood; he felt more alone than anything, so much so that Mother Nature could not soothe him. And boy, the rain was starting to get real fuckin’ annoying. Tiny rivulets of the sky kept on pouring down, running into his eyes, onto his lips, down his back, anywhere they could reach. If he could have, he would have loved it. Maybe. It just seemed to him like there was nothing worth happiness anymore. There was only bleak existence, a lucky break, and pain until death. How did everyone else do it? He kicked a chunk of dirt out of his way, as hard as he could, and very nearly landed on his ass from how slick the ground was—but he regained his balance. Just enough to catch his breath and hate himself more for nearly slipping in the mud.
As futile as it all seemed, there was one thought that hurt him deeper than most; and that was the thought of missing her. Axl wasn’t supposed to go over to (Y/N)’s anymore. He’d been strictly ordered not to, since his “punishment” was up; and since she was a godless whore; according to the sacrosanct maniac of the household who dared to call himself Father. Things were getting tougher all the time with that bastard. The summer heat made them both fight like dogs, breathless and tired and bitter. There was no television allowed anymore. No books that weren’t the Bible. The only piece of The Catcher In The Rye he held onto now was the sixth page, crumpled, which he managed to salvage from the scrap heap on his bedroom floor, beside the stack of shredded books and Nastassia’s poor, torn-up visage—remains which he still hadn’t bothered to clean up. He fought back, of course, but he was really no match for someone at least one-and-a-half times the size of him, and besides, he had no backup, no one standing behind him. Book after book after book was murdered, and even the crate was broken into two, then into four, and then into however many pieces his goddamn step father felt like breaking it into. He had screamed. Of all the things that had even happened to him, it wasn’t the worst; it wasn’t the worst for anybody else. Stuart and Amy understood that books were treasures, but gave theirs up willingly. Perhaps they knew they could get their solace from the library, or that a teacher might let them read after class. But books held spirits, in Axl’s eyes. They were his goddamned bibles, and they had been destroyed. No Scotch tape could ever, ever hope to patch those poor bastards up, and everyone knew it, especially his mother. God, his mother. Even she kept telling him during the entire thing and his whole fit after the fact to just calm down, to not make things into a bigger mess than they needed to be.

“Straighten up,” her voice was hard and angry, even though her face was soft with tears and pain. Axl tore away from her, but she just grabbed his shoulder again and made him look at her, turning his jaw against his will. If it weren’t his mother, he would have clawed, he would have bitten, like a wild man, like an animal—but this was mother, this was Mom, this was Ma, and he quit it just for a minute, breathing hard, angry tears racing down his face.

“What right does he have?” He howled. She opened her mouth and he asked again. “What RIGHT does he fucking HAVE?”

Ma Bailey just looked at him, broken heart in her pretty green eyes. Axl seethed and wrenched himself away from her grasp, throwing his fists at the bedframe, willing it to break, beating it into submission. She shouted and grabbed his shoulders and hauled him back.

“Do NOT make things into a bigger mess than they need to be. Do NOT. Calm down, William. Calm DOWN.”

Her voice echoed so hard in his head he found himself grasping fistfuls of rain-soaked ginger hair as he ran through the woods, now, feet pounding on the wet ground, sometimes slipping, mostly staying. Axl’s heart broke for his mother, it really did; but sometimes, he hated her. He didn’t want to. He never wanted to. It made him cry sometimes, because he did want to love her—who else could he love, if neither parent?—but it was so hard to do when all she did was stick up for the man who had married her with hatred.

The rain blew into his back and he stumbled forward again, slowing down, struggling through the slough of wet leaves and grass on the ground of the countryside grove. While it had started off relatively soothing and cool on his skin, the water pouring down from the sky was really starting to piss him off, because now it was just plain cold, and he could feel it seeping down into his bones. Axl sniffed and wiped his face, and then tucked his arms close to his sides, shivering to try to keep warm as he advanced.

Speaking of things that used to be easy but now were hard: how about talking to Izzy? If Axl didn’t know any better, he’d say he didn’t know Iz, the way he acted like he had a pole up his ass. Izzy wasn’t normally one to bitch about a dead horse, but something really upset him about (Y/N), and Axl couldn’t figure out what the hell it was. Or if it was even that at all. He had a feeling that was the case, though, because Izzy would barely listen to him when he was talking anymore, and always had this rude blond chick stuck to his hip. And the thing was, Axl knew the girl wasn’t Izzy’s type. Axl knew Izzy—or thought he did, at least—and this bitch was really nothing special. She was whiny, and pouted a lot, and was nice in the face until she opened her mouth or tried to smile. She wasn’t smart, and she wasn’t stupid. She was just vacant. And irritating. And oddly shallow. She wasn’t a gypsy from Maynard Street, which was just fine—although to be honest, if Axl was going to lose his best friend to anybody, he would have wanted it to be one of those girls, because at least they were sort of interesting—instead, this vapid empty-flowerpot of a girl was just something Izzy had picked up so he could ignore Axl. And sure, maybe Axl felt a little bad about the week he’d spent at (Y/N)’s, when he spent every breathing moment that he possibly could at her place instead of out on the town with Izzy, or driving to the corn field, or singing while his best friend played guitar—but he had apologized for that already. Honest, he did.

“Look, okay, I don’t know what you have a stick up your ass about, but if it’s (Y/N), I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t spend all my time with you, and that you can’t wander around on your lonesome without getting sore about it. I’m sorry I like spending time with a whole ‘nother person.”

Izzy just narrowed his eyes and shook his head, real slow, glaring like he couldn’t believe it.

Okay, so maybe he could have been nicer about it. And he would have, too, if he hadn’t been kept awake all night by the sounds of his sister crying. The anger he’d felt had been like no other, and it had seeped over into the next day, and the next, and the next; until he couldn’t be pleasant to anybody, no matter how hard he tried. People learned to avoid him. Izzy learned to back the fuck off, and entertain himself with a pretty doll with long blonde hair who smiled without any real meaning behind it. Axl wanted him back so badly, but if he was just going to be a jerk about it, well, so be it. Izzy wasn’t the kind to get in a fight about things. He really wasn’t. Axl almost wanted him to, so he could actually beat the shit out of someone, instead of continually getting his ass handed to him—but Izzy wasn’t that kind of guy. The way Izzy fought was by editing you out of his god damned life, and pretending you didn’t exist until you came crawling back, apologizing for real this time. Tears slipped down Axl’s face, marks of frustration mixed with otherwise-pure rainwater, and he slashed at them with his hand, face crumpling in misery. You are not supposed to cry about that, he berated himself—but it was no use. He’d been crying for God only knew how long now—for however long it had been raining. Mother Nature was crying with him. There was some kind of raw kindness in that. Somewhere.

Not only were things rocky with Izzy—ohoho, no, not by a long shot, because that would have been too fucking convenient, wouldn’t it?—no. Things were rocky all over. He wasn’t going to be allowed to move onto his senior year of high school. Not until he took a summer math class, anyway. He’d gotten everything ready to show the teacher after class that day—even asked (Y/N) for his notebook back, and everything, had gotten everything in order, read through everything twice to make sure there were no mistakes, and that he really was founded in accusing the teacher of having an incorrect key—and brought his evidence to the courtroom, so to speak. The teacher had listened calmly to him explain everything, which was nice in and of itself; Axl could always do with a little bit of listening. But then he went to show the teacher exactly what he meant—and his notebook was missing from his bag.

“I had it here this morning,” he said, worrying, digging deeper and deeper, as if it might have shrunken spontaneously and disappeared into the black crevices of the book bag. “I swear I did.”

“Well, that’s okay. Can you just replicate your work for me here?” The teacher asked, and gave him the key for the test he had taken, and a pencil. Axl didn’t want to stop looking for the notebook, though. He knew he’d had it earlier. He knew he did.

“William, it’s okay. It’s fine. Just show me how you did each problem.”

Axl made himself stop, and then looked at the answer key. It had been almost three weeks since he’d taken that test. What did he remember? Not much. But perhaps enough…? Writing on the side of the key, he quickly realized that in his own work, he had been making several mistakes. Or had he? Were you supposed to take the absolute value there…? Or could you leave it with a negative symbol? Axl erased, and tried again, wishing the teacher would stop looking at him. This time he got a completely unrecognizable answer, erased it, and tried another problem. On and on this went, until the key was covered in rubber-scrub marks, and Axl was frustrated and worried beyond belief, and kept chattering about the notebook, he had to find the notebook, the notebook had everything, he knew it did, and he just wasn’t doing well because he hadn’t gotten any sleep, and hadn’t had breakfast that morning, and hadn’t—

“William,” the teacher said, calmly, in a voice that infuriated him, “I think it’s time you go home and tell your mother you’ll be signing up for the summer program.”

Axl could do nothing but remain silent, bite the inside of his cheek, throw down the pencil and stomp away. In the hall, he encountered Maxwell and a couple of younger boys from the tenth grade, who sauntered out of the bathroom all at the same time and were snickering and elbowing each other, guffawing, cracking jokes, when suddenly all three of them saw Axl and suddenly shut their yaps all at once. They eyed him warily, and brushed past, still silent. There was something in their gaze Axl couldn’t ignore, but he also couldn’t just lash out at them for no good reason; even if they were conniving little bastards who kissed up to Thurne and the rest of his gang. It was wrong, though, how they were silent up until they passed into the next hall, after which there was a quick explosion of whispered laughs and hisses.

The bathroom door creaked shut behind them on its ancient springs, drawing Axl’s attention once more. They’d been up to something. Nothing good ever happened in a boy’s bathroom at this school, that was for sure—only this time, it seemed oddly personal. The way they’d just suddenly shut up when they saw him…

Against his better judgment, Axl entered the bathroom, and immediately knew where his notebook had gone. It was everywhere. Graphite was smeared, and blue and black and red dye drenched the pages. The metal spine of the notebook lay on the ground with the cardboard backing still attached, but that was all that was left of it, really. Everything else was in a sodden clump on the bathroom floor. Ink was running everywhere. Numbers were sliding off the page into an oblivion that Axl would never be able to reach again. Wet paper was stuck in shreds to the walls, to the mirrors, stuffed down sink drains, crumpled up in the urinals, and all over the floor, and all he could do was stand in the doorway and feel his bones trembling with murderous rage. He was so angry that it eclipsed into a sense of total calm and control. Somehow, he was able to walk away from it all, and leave the mess to the janitors. It didn’t change the fact that everything in his line of sight was horribly blurred and red-tinged at the edges. And it didn’t change the fact that he didn’t feel like himself. He was hyperventilating, he thought; and felt like he was either going to throw up or pass out or kill somebody, and he had to walk away very, very fast before any of those things could happen.

So he did walk. He left school, and he walked, and walked, and walked, until he reached the outskirts of town and it began to rain in earnest. And then he walked some more, up the county road until it went from asphalt to dirt at a certain section, and then he turned off to try to get to Sutter’s farm, where he knew there were a few hideouts nearby. With any luck, Izzy wouldn’t have brought his stupid girlfriend to any of them; and Axl would be able to have a moment alone. But soon it had become too wet to really stop and breath and sit down to rest, and his head just kept swimming in awful, awful thoughts; like it had for the past month or so. His legs and lungs burned. His chest and back and stomach were all sore. His skull throbbed. His bones hurt. Everything was horrible, and everything was cold; and it seemed like the goddamn rain would never stop.

Life was hell; it really was. The cherry on top was (Y/N)’s absence. While she had been perfectly clear about his being able to come over and visit any time he wanted; Axl had condemned himself to the fate of never seeing her again, because, though he enjoyed their time together—God, did he enjoy it—he didn’t know how she could possibly stand him. Well, that, and he didn’t feel like confronting the Old Bastard about breaking the rules of socialization anytime soon. There were so many days where he wanted to go see her, but he knew he was on the verge of collapse, and he just couldn’t put that kind of pressure on her. Axl was tired of being so needy. He just wanted to be happy, for once. Why couldn’t he just be happy? No matter how hard he tried, he always ended up in trouble, and happiness wouldn’t come to his rescue—Lord only knew if it ever would. Eventually, after days and days of waiting for a good enough excuse, a perfect enough moment, he gave up. The day he read The Catcher In The Rye was the last time he would ever see her, get to hear her voice out loud, to feel the comfort of her body and the love of her soul—and it had to be for the best. They had made such great memories, after all. Now there would be nothing painful to remember.

Well, not for her, at least. There would be—and was—plenty of pain for him to remember, in painful flashes of memory that crossed membranes in his brain like poison dissolves into a drink. Memories like how he’d actually asked Sally to the junior prom that year, because he knew Izzy was going with his stupid girlfriend, which was so insane because Izzy never did stuff like that—and he just wanted to prove something, you know? Axl just had to prove something. But Sally, dumb old pill that she was, had tossed her Rotelle pigtails in his face and told him—shouted at him, really, in a voice that was unnecessarily loud—that he was crazy if he thought she liked him and that she’d rather shoot herself than go anywhere with him. He didn’t know which was worse—the shouting, or her screaming when he reeled back and smacked her, or the solemn look of sympathy offered to him by her friend Sarah as they both got pulled down to the office to have a talk about proper behavior. The only good part of that meeting was that, as usual, Mrs. Jenkins didn’t take any shit, and knew Sally was as much at fault as Axl was, but still, it hadn’t been pretty. And in the end, Axl felt like shit anyway, for having betrayed (Y/N) somehow. It didn’t really make sense, because she had already been to prom—twice—and because he didn’t really like Sally, so it didn’t count—but suddenly the thought of having another girl beside him other than (Y/N) was repulsive. He didn’t really know why he did it; other than to get back at Izzy, who, during the entire debacle, looked the other way and focused on chatting with Paul. Paul. The guy who wore pens in his shirt pocket, yes, Paul, that Paul. It would have made Axl even angrier, but by the time he got around to thinking about it, he was just too tired from everything else to give a damn.

And that was about what he was experiencing right now. The extreme wear. The tiredness. The lack of a will to go on. He shivered, not because of the rain or the cold, but because he just couldn’t stop. If he didn’t shiver, he’d go all numb, and what good would that do? None. At this point, shivering was about the only thing he could do; having resigned himself to silence in the pain of realizing that nothing worked anymore. Nothing quite soothed the volcano inside him. Not hurting himself, not hurting other kids who messed with him, not yelling, not screaming, not tearing up garden beds, not trying to be nice, not being around his family, not singing at church, not crying, not begging, not praying, not anything. And maybe (Y/N) would have helped, if she could have—but she was gone, too, lost to the constrictor boa of a step father that laughed and laughed and strangled him so that the only breaths he could let out were from between bruised ribs. The thunder booming above him in clouds that turned the sky a roiling black couldn’t even scare him an inch from the path he was on. He was in a trance. A stupor. He was dragging himself towards the end of all things horrible, even if it was the end of all things good, too.

He wiped his nose three or four times as he made his way through the brush to the creekbed, and then to where it turned into a river, and then to where the land just above the river grew steep and harbored a little stone bridge. This bridge had been there forever, or since he could remember, at least. He had only a vague clue of where it was just outside of Sutter’s property, since he and Izzy had never really looked up the proper map for the place. Surely, such a map was somewhere in the library, but there was no time for that now. And there never would be again. Fat rain drops hurtled themselves into his cheek like miniature bullets and he winced and brushed them away, bent against the wind, determined to set foot on cobbled stone. He lost the energy to keep the thoughts suppressed and an excited, horrified mantra roared through his head like the flow of blood through his veins. The end, the end, the end, it chanted, over and over and over again, among other things that made his insides hurt even more. The end the end the end. Mother. Father. The end. Izzy. The end. (Y/N). The end. Stuart, Amy. The end the end. The End. He hugged himself fiercely, and then peeled his arms away, disgusted at his t-shirt for being soaked through. It hung on him like a curtain. He wished his ribs would break, just break, just leave him here. Just rupture his heart. Just bleed his lungs of air. He felt like falling apart, like falling down on the stone bridge and just giving up; but there was one more step to this; there had to be, there always was just one more thing. There was nothing left to do here but give up. Give up and go. Give up and jump. Axl knew it, the thunder knew it. The raging river with rocks below knew it. He was so tired of just having to deal with everything. He was so tired of being the battering ram. So tired. So tired. Axl blinked back a heavy sob and thought hard about the last time he’d had a good night’s sleep. When was that? Never. He couldn’t remember, not at all, it had been so long, and his whole body hurt, he was going to have scars everywhere, he would never be looked at as a thing of beauty—he would never live a life as perfect as a flower in her garden. He wouldn’t live a life at all, if it had to be so bleak. He would never live to see the sun without pain again. All he would feel was the calming black, the peace, the absence of sound. Lightning flickered and howling thunder rolled above him as Axl closed his eyes and choked on tears and climbed up to the small stone railing, where it was ridiculously hard to keep his balance with the wind pushing him this way and that. He thought of peace, but the voices echoing in his head screamed and overwhelmed him. If he just did it, he wouldn’t have to hear them again. If he just did it, he wouldn’t have to tell himself to shut up all the time. If he just did it, never again would he make a mistake. Never again would he hurt anybody. Never again would he be hurt.

That was the final temptation. Axl saw a flash of lightning and felt himself relax a little as he counted the seconds before he died. His last hope—quietly, gently—was that (Y/N) was the one who found his body. Because she was the only one who had ever loved it.

1…

His mom always said that if you counted the seconds between the lightning and the thunder, then you could tell how many miles away the storm was.

2…

How far away are you now, Ma?

3.

Axl didn’t jump. He didn’t even step. His knees just buckled, tired of holding him up. Right off the little stone bridge, he fell, twisting midair, calm and yet hearing his heartbeat speed up, hearing frantic voices on the inside, voices that knew they were about to be silenced forever. The water cut around his body with an enormous splash and immediately, he was in pain, everywhere, all at once, a breaking pain rather than the dull ache; a sudden pain, a snap. Waves of water rushed over him, headed downstream with such force that his head cracked against a rock, and a blooming pain crushed inward before the blackness—the beautiful peace—took over.

-

Two hours later, when the current had calmed down and the clouds finally dissipated to reveal the starry night above, Axl opened his eyes and tasted metal.

The very first thing he did was sit up and cry. That was all. He just cried. Because of course he was a fucking moron, and of course he chose the one goddamned bridge that was too short and the one goddamned river that was too shallow, and now he was probably going to get hypothermia and die a slow death, more torture than he had ever bargained for in this stupid fucking existence. Not only that, but his head hurt. Like, really fucking hurt. As in, he put his hand to the place where it hurt, and took it away so fast he nearly broke his wrist. That wasn’t the only thing wrong with him—he felt like he’d been hit by a truck, and the riverbed explained why. There were tons of rocks in it—not necessarily pointy rocks, but just big rocks, the kind that hurt if you, y’know, land on your head on them without dying before you can feel the pain. Axl swore he must have broken his spine, but he could still move just enough to curl into a miserable ball of teenage suffering, so he was probably fine. For the most part, anyway. Despairing howls filled the air as he sobbed out in the middle of nowhere, where no one would hear him but the owls and the rabbits and the trees. In the middle of the cold river, he rocked back and forth, desperately trying to find himself, to soothe; and desperately failing. His hair stuck to his face and his tongue was swollen, for some reason. It hurt. He touched it to the backs of his teeth and cringed, realizing he’d bitten down on it at some point, probably when he fell off the bridge. Goddamn. Everything really did hurt. Everything hurt.

You motherfucker, the voices chanted, all in unison now, angry with him. Axl was plenty angry with himself. No gall, no guts, no balls. You motherfucker. You stupid motherfucker. Can’t you just finish one thing? Just this one goddamned thing…?

He didn’t know what time it was, but the sky was dark now, and full of stars, and he wanted to be done with it all. He wanted to go home. Not to Bailey’s house, but—

“(Y/N),” he cried. “(Y/N), please!” As if politeness would change anything. As if being nice now would make the rain dry up, make the pain clear out, make the gold sun rise, make the dark moon fall. Call after call to the heavens echoed in the quiet forest, as if she would hear him; as if she would know, as if God himself would deliver her. Axl squeezed his eyes shut and called and shivered and rocked and called out some more.

“I want (Y/N),” his voice cracked desperately into the still of the night, with no encore but the resounding chorus of frogs and crickets who knew nothing of human pain. Shouts faltered into whines, and then into whimpers, and then into whispers.

“Please. Please.” Axl buried his head in his hands and shuddered hard from the cold. “I just want (Y/N). That’s all. Just her. Just (Y/N). I just want…”

Perhaps because it was not a real prayer, it went unanswered. Mother Nature offered nothing but a whisper on the wind, the leaves drying themselves in the echoes of rustles above him. Axl dragged himself to the bank of the river, where he sat for a while, shaking, feeling hungry and exhausted and hurting all over. And then he got up, and steeled himself for the walk back, because he had done all he could; and now it was time to go to her. Inside his head, where the voices were still bitching and moaning, he asked her to forgive him. He asked her not to hurt him, not to be hurt by him. Please just let her look at me, Axl begged without a sound, staggering forward, feeling hunger curl in his stomach. Let her look at me and say I’m still hers.

He thought about the soft warmth of the comforter on her bed, and how she would wrap her arms around him, and missed it so much that his heart felt like it was falling out of his chest. And though bleary-eyed and bleeding from somewhere on his face—that metallic taste had to be coming from somewhere—Axl made his way out of the woods and found the county road again, shuffling his way through the mud, following the starlight back to town. Back to that square orange light; her bedroom window. Back to the love within.

-

Earlier in the day, much, much earlier; (Y/N) had been relishing some time off of work. As a sort of free-lancer (well, halfway there, anyway), she was allowed to type up her documents at home; but still needed to attend to the office at least a few times a month—usually. June, however, was when it got indescribably busy. Whether this was because of the amount of researchers going on their first trips of the summer who needed editors and transcribers at every beck and call, or whether it was because of all the poetry and fiction contests the publishers enjoyed hosting; (Y/N) wasn’t sure—but what she was sure of was that for a time well into the summer, she hadn’t been able to really take care of her house, the garden, or Axl. All the live-long day, it was type this, write that, look over these notes, transcribe this interview, go visit this person, call this author, attend this meeting, take notes here, sign down there… At some points it got to be so much that all she could do at the end of the night was collapse into bed—the dishes went undone, the piano went unplayed, and so on and so forth. Today was one of the only days she had had time to herself to work on all the chores that had been waiting all month.
(Y/N) had also been worried about the fact that Axl hadn’t come to visit—like, at all. She wondered whether he knew when she wasn’t home. It had to be pretty obvious when the LeSabre was missing, but sometimes, when the weather was nice, she’d take a little longer to walk the hour’s journey to work and back; and all she could do was leave notes on the door for him if he ever did approach. She had heard nothing from him for weeks, though, and was really starting to miss him, with that tender kind of ache you reserve for the people you love most. Though June was filled with plenty of sunny days, there was never a day so sunny as one where he was beside her.

(Y/N) sighed wistfully. Axl’s boyish smile and the gentle way he held her floated across her mind in between words and phrases of the book in front of her, and she couldn’t help but dream of him while staring out the window at the mud forming in the driveway. There was no one part of him she missed most, though she tried to name it. One second she would be thinking about his voice, and how low and rough it could be, and then she would think about the way he sang high like the blaze of fire, like a shrieking wildcat, a rasping dog. Then she would miss the way they danced in the kitchen. And then she’d laugh and think about how he practically had to drag her around—she’d never been so good at dancing, anyway—and then she’d think about the way he looked at her, eyes open, jeweled green taking her in like he found so much there to wonder about. To revel in.

And what a mind. He was at times nihilistic and cynical, but in the quietest moments, could recognize the gentleness in the world. She fell apart every time he talked in that soft voice about the birds, and the migratory patterns, and how they flew in V formation to get where they wanted to go. There was purpose in that tone, too, the quiet dreaming voice he had that spoke of better days, just beyond the pond, just beyond the cornfield. One day, he would be a star to the world, she thought, and the notion made her smile and shine from the inside out as she cozied up on her couch with a newly-purchased copy of The Catcher In The Rye. Rain clouds outside bloomed in colors grey, dark grey, and darker-still grey as water fell from the heavens to wash the earth below.

Well, hey! At least she didn’t have half as much gardening work to catch up on now—that would practically do itself. The man on the radio who forecast the weather said it was going to be storming pretty heavily all throughout the afternoon and into the night, and if there was anything (Y/N) loved as much as a sunny day to spend outside in the bright air, it was a gloomy day, to spend inside with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book to read.

Well, it was until the doorbell rang.

She sprung from the corner of the couch to answer it, hoping that Axl was finally coming to see her; not bothering to wonder why he of all people would ring the doorbell. He wouldn’t, would he? No, not Axl. But it was a thought that only occurred to her after she pulled the door open, and after she was faced with Ma Bailey and the skinniest black-haired scarecrow of a boy she had ever seen.

“Hi—oh. Um. Hello?” She asked, feeling a little embarrassed, but the embarrassment quickly turned to worry at the nervous look on Ma Bailey’s face. “Mrs. Bailey? Is everything alright?”

“Have you seen William?” The wiry ginger-haired woman asked, her hands clutching one another prayer style as she leaned in under the awning of the house to escape the rain. The black-haired boy just stood behind Mrs. Bailey in the path of the downpour, wrinkling his nose at the way she said William.

“No, I haven’t. I haven’t seen him all month. Why?” (Y/N) furrowed her brow.

Ma Bailey turned to look at the boy, whom (Y/N) noticed was dressed quite… interestingly. He had on a red paisley headscarf and a set of mismatched hoop earrings, but besides those two splashes of color, he dressed like he lived under a bridge. His jeans were dark with rainspots and were so torn they looked like their previous owner had been put through a woodchipper, and his plaid shirt was buttoned wrong in more than one place; and the brown coat he was wearing—leather?—looked about six sizes too big. Lord, was he scrawny. And he looked familiar in some way (Y/N) couldn’t put her finger on. Had she seen him somewhere? She put her finger to her lips, thinking about it, waiting, watching as Ma Bailey silently begged the boy to tell them something worth hearing.

The black-haired boy shrugged, frowning even deeper than he already was, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his woodchipper jeans. “I told you, I haven’t seen him either; that’s why I came looking here.”

“Oh dear God,” Mrs. Bailey whispered, and then spoke louder. “Is there anywhere else? Does he know anyone else?”

“Maybe you should come in,” (Y/N) suggested, worry growing by the minute as she watched her poor neighbor wring her hands and pull at the hem of her apron. “Just for a minute, so you can get out of the rain. It’s pretty nasty out. You, too,” she said, beckoning for the boy to follow. God, (Y/N) swore she knew him from somewhere—he was like a character in a book, or something. He stood out on the steps, aloof for a moment; and then rolled his eyes, flattened his lips into a flat, unforgiving line, and walked into her kitchen like it was no more comforting than a prison cell. (Y/N) watched him walk past with both eyebrows raised. Boy. She might’ve known him from somewhere, alright, but she didn’t know he was such a handful. Hopefully this could be resolved soon, she thought; otherwise he might get that scowl stuck on his face forever.

Ma Bailey made her way to the dining room table and sank into a chair, too distraught to look around her. “I knew it, I knew he was acting odd,” she whispered to herself, frightened. The way she was staring through the kitchen wall without really seeing it had (Y/N) feeling the same kind of fear seep into her, as dark and as ominous as the storm outside. The scarecrow boy stood in the kitchen, looking around with a tightened mouth, like he wanted to say something, but wouldn’t. (Y/N) narrowed her eyes at him.

“What’s this all about?” She asked, gesturing towards Ma Bailey, who had her hands clasped over her mouth and was now whispering the Our Father prayer they heard at mass every Sunday. “Who are you?”

He looked her up and down—not like he liked what he saw, but like he was disgusted with her for even daring to mention the subject of his name, like it was something so holy only he could ever handle that kind of sacred information.

“Izzy,” he said, finally.

Ah, (Y/N) thought. Gypsy boy. Remembering the conversation she had had with Axl nearly a month ago explained just about everything about why the scarecrow—Izzy, she corrected herself—was being a bit pointed with her, but it didn’t make her feel any better about it. Still—he had come looking for his best friend. However rude to her he could be, it didn’t matter, because he was the one looking for Axl, and boy, wouldn’t Axl be happy to hear that? (Y/N) could almost see the smile on his face now. Oh, to know his best friend really did care and wasn’t still mad about a stupid girl getting in the way—wouldn’t that be something? (Y/N) tried to set aside the sarcastic humors creeping up in her subconscious, but she had to admit it—being judged so harshly, especially in her own kitchen, by a kid who looked positively homeless… well, she wasn’t fond of it, let’s say.

Despite his frostiness, Izzy did continue to speak, and tell her what he knew about the situation. “Axl’s gone. I don’t know where he is. He was supposed to be making up test points in Rochner’s room, but he left early, or something. And he’s not in town, I checked damn near everywhere.”

“Our father…” began Mrs. Bailey once more, bowing her head even deeper into prayer.

Izzy looked at Axl’s mother, scrunched up at the dinner table, like a grieving gnarled root of a tree. His expression softened, just slightly, but no worries, it hardened right back up when he returned his gaze to (Y/N). “He’s not home. I figured he’d be with you.”

“Alright, tone down the sass, bucko.” (Y/N) said, biting her tongue almost immediately, and kind of wishing she hadn’t said it; but also really glad she had, because just that one remark slapped the judgemental expression off of Izzy’s face completely and replaced it with one of surprise. She crossed her arms and spoke again. “You’re in my kitchen, and you don’t have to like me, but you could at least try to be civil. What’s with Axl, now? Aren’t you two usually connected at the hip, or some such thing?”

“Usually,” Izzy muttered darkly, crossing his own arms to mirror hers with a vicious scowl. “But not today. I’ve looked everywhere but the Sutter farm, and there’s no way he’d get there on foot easily. I mean, he might’ve, but… I just…” His tone shifted, there, and (Y/N) could sense the hurt peeking out. “I don’t know. I’ve looked everywhere, and I can’t find him, and I don’t know what’s up with him and it’s pissing me off.” He shrugged his shoulders and then looked at Ma Bailey, who was still whispering to herself at the table.

“Okay.” (Y/N) nodded, appreciating the little bit of help he could give, and then stepped towards the dining room table to kneel before Ma. “Hey, Mrs. Bailey?”

Well, she did stop whispering; that must have accounted for something. (Y/N) gently put a hand on Mrs. Bailey’s shoulder to try to reassure her, and watched with mounting dread as the woman flinched away at first, just a millimeter or so, and then let (Y/N)’s hand come down as a mild comfort. God, was his entire family like this? (Y/N) caught herself wondering, and immediately felt guiltier than words could possibly say. Apparently, everyone around her was hurting more than she ever had, with the possible exception of Izzy—though even he was looking more and more by the minute like he’d taken a bite into some extremely bitter black licorice. Mrs. Bailey let out a hollow word, a question.

“Yes?”

“When’s the last time you saw A—uh, William?” Even though it was hard to think of him as such, she figured it was the right thing to do. Ma Bailey’s bright green eyes filled with tears all over again.

“L-last night before bed,” she said, her voice wobbling like a tightrope walker on one limb. “He just—I don’t know, there was something different about him, you know? You know when people seem different, somehow, all of a sudden, and you—” She couldn’t even get the rest of the thought out before she had to put her head in her hands, and gave a few heaving sobs.

“Oh, Mrs. Bailey. I’m sure he’s alright. I’m sure he is. Hasn’t he done anything like this before? Hasn’t he ever run off?” (Y/N) hadn’t known him for more than a week, but even so, it seemed like him to do it. Axl was the very kind of person to enjoy the rain enough to be wandering around in it. Even if it was kind of boneheaded to do that during a thunderstorm, (Y/N) consoled her rising anxiety with the thought of him skipping rocks in roadside puddles, bending to watch the mice swim in the gutter, squeaking; and throwing toothpicks in the gulleys to race them against each other as the current of the rain came strong. Yeah. It was probably something like that. Axl might have been a tight-wound can of explosives, but maybe he was just walking in the rain after school. Maybe he liked the sound of Mother Nature’s tears hitting the fabric of an umbrella. Just maybe.

It took her a moment or two, but Ma Bailey did look up and say, “Yes,” in her quiet, mousy voice. “Yes he has.”

(Y/N) breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, there, okay, so it’s at least not totally out of the blue. What’s so different about this time? Has he been gone longer?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Ma Bailey said, wiping her eyes.

“Did he take anything with him?”

“No, definitely not.”

“Is there anywhere he might go where people might not know to look for him?” For this, she looked at Izzy. He scowled harshly, but gave a grating nod and spoke up again in a low, reluctant voice.

“Yeah, I guess. There’s miles of track outside the county line, on the west side of town. He could’ve picked anywhere to hide there, really.” His nose wrinkled again, the way it did when he was reconciling with a possibility he did not very much like. “Could’ve hopped a train, too.”

Ma Bailey’s hands flew to her mouth.

“Izzy, come on.” (Y/N) gave him a look, and, though not for her sake, he did hurry to backtrack while apologizing to the mother of three bent over in worry at the dinner table.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—he’s probably in the church, Mrs. Bailey, I didn’t look there. He likes singing an awful lot, maybe he just went up to the choir loft to practice.” He said it so fast he almost stumbled over the words, and neither woman felt very confident in this new theory, but (Y/N) decided to chance it.

“Okay, we’ve got an idea, so let’s go look for him. Mrs. Bailey, you should—are Stuart and Amy home?” She broke herself off in the middle of her own thought as the new one hit her, and Mrs. Bailey nodded. “Okay. Alright. Then you ought to stay here, so you can look after them, and so he has someone to come home to, if—when—he turns up. That sound alright?” (Y/N) gave a reassuring rub to Mrs. Bailey’s poor linen-clad shoulder, and the mother nodded, ever so slowly, looking up at them as if she wanted to say something more—but she didn’t. Instead, she stood on wobbly feet, and pulled (Y/N) into a hug.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Bailey whispered into her hair. (Y/N) wrapped her arms around Axl’s mother’s willowy figure, and felt a burst of emotion in her chest—a small one—from such gratitude from a mother figure. Even after three years of pretending not to care, the momentary filling of a maternal void almost brought (Y/N) herself to tears.

“Oh, it’s okay.” She said instead, voice soothing, patting Mrs. Bailey’s back. “We’ll have him back in no time, wherever he’s run off to. You know A—Will, I mean, you know Will—once a trouble maker, always a trouble maker.”

Mrs. Bailey pulled back, emotion dancing perilously close to the surface in her cats-eye green irises. Still, it looked like she had something more to say. But all she could manage was, “Please do. Please find him.”

“We will.” (Y/N) said simply, and beckoned to Izzy, who was beginning to look slightly less bitter and more just at unease with his surroundings. A minor improvement, yes, but an improvement to be sure. She took a moment to grab a coat from its hook in the entryway, and pulled it around her, hoping this wouldn’t take long, and hoping Axl really was just stupid enough to be cavorting out and about in the rain and lightning. The way Mrs. Bailey had kept talking about it, though—well, that made (Y/N) significantly more worried than she had intended to be on a regular old Wednesday afternoon. It just seemed like there was something more that she wasn’t letting on about. But (Y/N) had learned her lesson with prodding the Baileys—where you expected one reaction, you got a whole new blistering new one to sort out. They were complicated, very complicated. The image of the grocery store parking lot snapped across her mind’s eye; the impression of Nastassia whatever-her-name-was—yes, she knew how Axl would react, and his mother most likely would not have been much better. Even the gentle glance of a word off the shell of her ear could send her into a fit of sobs, and though (Y/N) desperately wanted to ask—did something happen? Was it Mr. Bailey? Should I call the police? Would they listen? Are you hurting, too?—she did nothing but stay silent, pick up her car keys, and slip on her shoes. The three of them walked out of the house together, and she and Izzy hugged Mrs. Bailey goodbye before waving her off to her house. Axl’s mother ran through the rain like a child trying not to get wet, ducking her head underneath her arms, splashing across the soaked lawn and looking absolutely miserable in her damp house dress and apron.

There was a moment of silence before they watched the screen door clatter behind her, and the regular rhythm of the rain returned.

“Okay, I’ll comb the rails, you look in the church. And if you don’t see him, start asking questions.” Izzy said, and began to walk off in the direction of the county freight depot. For a moment, (Y/N) was too surprised to speak, but she got her words back quickly enough.

“Now hold on a second. I’m not letting you run off in the rain wearing… that.” (Y/N) made a general gesture up and down, and Izzy, turning back to her for a second, looked down at himself before glaring back at her, squaring his shoulders under the enormous brown jacket and pulling on the hem of his mis-buttoned shirt.

“What’s your problem?”

“My problem is that I don’t let teenage boys get hypothermia when not completely necessary. Into the car with you.” She flicked the keys in her hand and pointed to the passenger side of the LeSabre before bending to unlock the car doors.

“I really don’t get why he likes you,” Izzy muttered.

“Same here.” God, this kid was irritating. Axl, you really better be out there, she thought to herself, and ducked into the driver’s seat before reaching over to pop the passenger door open for Izzy. “Get in.”

“The hell you think I’m doing?” He muttered to himself, but did indeed throw himself into the passenger seat and yank the door shut. (Y/N) sighed through her nose and pulled her own door shut before starting the engine and listening to the grumble for a few seconds to make sure it was really going before she hit reverse and swung the Buick out backwards into the flooded street.

The silence was almost unbearable. Immediately, she put both her headlights and wipers on, and the LeSabre growled down the road at a speed just above a crawl. Izzy sat next to her, sullen and with lips sealed, watching out the window for any sign of his best friend. As they drove on, (Y/N) began to feel a little bad for him. Well, not for him, really, but more about him. She supposed it was rude of her to treat him so coldly, especially when he was only worried about his friend. After all, Axl had said something about having known Izzy since they were little—way little. He probably had more authority in the situation than she did, having been his friend for so long. (Y/N) bit her lip and kept quiet, occasionally sneaking glances at the black-haired boy, who was still blinking rainwater out of his eyes, staring out into the broad darkness of suburbia as if he might see a familiar figure along the horizon line.

Five minutes passed. (Y/N) turned onto the main road and sped up a little there, but still kept slow enough to avoid slipping in the rain—she knew the Buick’s brakes were good, but didn’t want to test them on a day like this. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Eventually, she had to ask before the turnoff,

“You really think he might be in the church?”

It was a moment before Izzy answered, but he did. “If I’m being honest? No. He hates it there. They never let him do what he wants. Maybe if it’s empty he’d sneak in and try to play the piano, but it’s never that empty—someone’s always there to hear him.”

(Y/N) made the turn, and tightened her grip on the steering wheel a little as the Buick rushed forward against the current of the rainwater in the street. She chanced a glance at the dark-haired boy. “So should we check?”

Izzy nodded. “Yeah. Worth a shot, anyway.”

So she swung the car into the parking lot, and they both hurried together to the church doors, squinting against the torrents of rain. He reached the door much quicker than she, and stood there, pulling on the handle desperately and then cupping his hands against the glass so he could peer into the gloom beyond.

“Is it locked?” She asked when she reached him, beginning to wish she’d taken the time to put on some actual shoes instead of the kitten heels that had been by the door. Yikes. Well, there was no going back now. She’d promised Mrs. Bailey they would find Axl, and even if it took all night, she was bound to hold that promise. No going back for proper shoes.

“Yeah. They usually close at nine, though. It can’t be that late. What time is it?” He wouldn’t look at her, was only interested in peering into all the windows in the front, trying to see in.

“It’s six o’ clock, but I guess if they wanted everyone to stay out of the weather—” Thunder boomed overhead so loudly it cut her off, and she winced at the noise.

Izzy turned to her, still frowning, but less mean, and more with that same tinge of worry that Ma Bailey had had way too much of.

“Let’s go to the rails, then. I’ve looked all over town already. He’s not there. He ain’t even at Sal’s joint.” He raised his voice against the wind which had just started to pick up, and ran back to the car so quickly that (Y/N) was hard pressed to follow him in those little kitten heels. She swore and, halfway across the parking lot, kicked both shoes off, picked them up, and ran through the lot barefoot, splashing all the way.

Once back in the car, she revved the engine again and gunned it for the exit, sensing the urgence in Izzy’s stare. It was starting to get to her. Now that she thought about it, maybe there was a reason she hadn’t seen Axl in a month. The thought made her panic, and though she tried to keep an even keel and not race the LeSabre down the road, she did pick up speed going towards the train depot. God, what if he had taken a train out? What if he had gone to California already? What if…

She shook her head and tried desperately to keep her mind in the right place. It was tempting to think Axl had been long gone; for how long she hadn’t seen him, but the latest he could have done anything—gone anywhere—would have been this afternoon, after the last time Izzy saw him. And that sparked a question she hadn’t thought of. It wasn’t much use, of course, but it was to keep them both sane and calm for as long as that might be possible.

“What was Axl wearing today?” She asked and turned on the right fork of the highway, speeding up a little more. It was like a ghost town; there was no one else on the road but a trucker going in the opposite direction of them, who looked like he was having a fine time trying to navigate against the wind. Still, she pressed on. The speedometer edged its way up to 50 miles an hour, and then she caught the turn to the entrance of the freight depot—an entrance normally used by truckers like the one they had passed a moment ago, but for now, would have to do.

Izzy thought for a moment, and then answered. “A white tee shirt, I think. And jeans. I dunno, it’s not—he doesn’t wear anything a normal guy wouldn’t wear, you know?”

“A shame. Some pink spandex would really stand out in this.” She leaned over the steering wheel and squinted at the sign just outside the freight yard entrance, and her eyes widened, just as Izzy gave a short laugh.

“Yeah. Pink would be nice. But it can’t be hard to spot the only person crazy enough to—”

“Hold on, it’s steep.” It was the only warning she could give before the quick drop in the road leading up to the freight depot, and both (Y/N) and Izzy winced as the car’s suspension jolted up and down and the fender just grazed the wire fence on the way in. (Y/N) stepped on the brake, and then eased off to let the car gently roll into the freight yard, which was bare except for a few trailers. Just beyond the windshield and the sheets of rain outside, the blurry figures of train cars rested, dark and mysterious in the shadow of the evening storm.

“Thanks for the heart attack. I’m gonna go look.” Izzy said with a short breath, and flew out of the car once more, slamming the door behind him and jogging off into the cover of the rain.

“Oh, whatever.” She muttered. She wasn’t a bad driver until she got nervous, and despite her best efforts, well, this was nerve wracking. And now what? Well, lights were still on inside the building, and she could see two people talking in front of a window. She should go up to them and ask. And that’s exactly what she did, as she dashed barefoot through a freight yard and prayed to God she wouldn’t step on any glass or nails.

The first question out of the freight workers’ mouths was not, as (Y/N) might have imagined, “how can I help you?” or even “are you okay?”, but was, in fact, a rather surprised
“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Hi,” she said, breathlessly, wondering how crazy she looked with soaking wet hair and bare, slightly muddy feet. “I’m looking for a—well, he’s my friend, and—and there’s no easy way to say this, but I think he might have run away. I—is there any way we could check the trains out there on the rails? I know it probably goes against protocol and a million other things, but—but—” She held her hands out in front of her, feeling utterly helpless to the stares of the two men, one whom looked rather grandfatherly with a short, stout stature and a grey handlebar mustache; and the other who was as tall as the day was long and built like a telephone pole, all wide shoulders and skinny waist underneath blue-jean overalls. He looked kind, though. They both did. (Y/N) prayed that they were.

The two men looked at each other, and then looked back at her.

“We were just about to head out,” the grandfather one started.

“Oh, please, please.” Strangely—though she kept hoping, kept pretending to know the situation wasn’t so serious—she felt tears pooling in her eyes at the thought of being made to go home, to resign to not knowing where Axl was. And maybe he didn’t want to be found. But goddammit, she had to know. She had to see him again and make sure he was alright. Her thoughts were spilling out of her mouth at a million miles an hour, now. “Please, I need your help, we need to find him, he’s—he can’t be alone, I can’t leave him alone out here. I just can’t. It’s storming. It’s dangerous.” She wanted to say more—like how she didn’t trust him with himself; and the way the scars on his left wrist echoed through her mind like a spike of ice to the heart—but couldn’t. All she could do was beg. “His best friend’s out in the yard looking already, his name’s Izzy, he—”

“Someone’s out there?” The telephone pole man gawked at her, and then snapped his jaw shut. “Ah, shit, I gotta tell Gordie.” Without another word, he ran for the door and burst out of the comfort of the yellow-lit room, hurtling into the dark train yard like his life depended on it.

“Gordie?” (Y/N) asked, and the grandfatherly man nodded solemnly.

“Resident security guard. He’s not been known to be the definition of ‘kind’ to prowlers, but Eddie’ll tell him what’s what, and—Izzy, was it?—well, whoever’s with you’ll be just fine.” Gently, he took her by the elbow, and guided her into the next room, a grey-cement one that held rack upon rack of coats, brilliant lime-green vests, white hardhats, and boots. “And how about you wipe your feet so I can set you up with a pair? That yard isn’t the cleanest this time of year and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Gratefully, (Y/N) did her best to scrape the mud off of her feet with the assistance of a nearby roll of paper towels while the grandfatherly man humphed and harrumphed to himself and scratched his head, all the while trying to figure out what sort of men’s work boots would fit a woman’s feet.

“Alright, well, these are my best guess. And they’re the smallest, too.” He handed over a pair which seemed about right, and (Y/N) put them on.

“Oh, they’re wonderful. Thank you. I really can’t say that enough—thank you.” Again with the tears. They bubbled up from some unknown volcano, some vent in the wide open sea of her soul, and she put a hand to her cheek, not wanting to cry in front of a stranger. But still, the man looked kind, and patted her shoulder in a friendly sort of way.

“Go find your friend, ma’am. I’m sure he’s out there somewhere. If not here, then maybe at home.” He smiled below his mustache, and (Y/N) wiped her eyes quickly and thanked him again before running back outside into the haze of rain, where she knew three people—Izzy, Eddie, Gordie—lay beyond; and possibly Axl, too. But she had no idea where to look first.

“Well, anywhere’s a start,” she said to herself, in quiet decision, and marched off with a nervous heart into the middle of the train yard, hoping something—a white tee shirt, maybe—would catch her eye.

-

Izzy had made it through about four train cars when the flashlight beam stopped on him like a searchlight from a copter. Only it wasn’t a copter. But it was most certainly a cop.

“Alright, buddy, fun’s over,” the man holding the flashlight said. Izzy squinted and slid his gaze to the man’s hip. Good, no gun. Just a baton. And he was fat, too. He could outrun this guy no problem.

Well, almost no problem. As it was, Izzy just so happened to be poking around in the fifth car, and was now stuck with the officer in the doorway and a pile of crates behind him that blocked the other sliding door on the opposite side of the car. He began to edge towards the guy, hands out to his sides, fingers twitching like they did before he got caught up in a chase. His rain soaked head scarf felt cold against his forehead as his heart started working double-time before he even got moving. To do this right, he’d have to jump just past the officer’s right side, and start sprinting the second he hit the ground. It wouldn’t be easy. Izzy’s eyes shifted to the large puddle just outside the boxcar, and heard vague words coming out of the officer’s mouth while he tried to figure how chancy it was that he would jump and immediately trip, or whether he’d jump and stay running, even through the slick pool of rain and mud.

“Are you listening, kid?” The officer growled, flicking the flashlight directly into Izzy’s face again. Izzy grimaced and raised a hand to block the offending beam of light. “I said, get out of the car. I’m calling this one in. Ain’t you the rascal who was—?”

“All right,” Izzy said, feigning a sullen you-caught-me attitude, and letting his shoulders go slack as he shuffled toward the opening of the boxcar where the man stood with a little self-satisfied smirk. But once he came just within grabbing distance, Izzy lunged to the man’s right and splashed into the puddle, sending a wave of muddy water in the officer’s direction. Before he could even register a single cuss word from the man behind him, he was sprinting, running like his ass was on fire, squeezing his eyes shut against the rain that seemed like it would never let up and just hoping he wouldn’t run smack into a train car.

He didn’t—but he did run into something.

“Oof!”

Oh, God. Izzy, having smashed into a soft form, reeled back and swiped the rain water out of his eyes. (Y/N) laid sprawled out on the muddy ground in front of him, holding her chest, face contorted in pain.

“Oh God,” he said aloud this time. “(Y/N), I’m sorry, but we gotta—”

“Gordie! Gor—there you are. Jeez, Gordie, what happened—? Oh.” A new, unfamiliar voice echoed across the train yard and for a moment, Izzy snapped his head back to where the beam of the flashlight was. Two men now stood in the dim light. One of them looked fit enough to catch Izzy if he tried.

“Come on, come on, come on. We gotta go.” Izzy bent down, grabbed (Y/N)’s hands, and hauled her back to her feet just as she was starting to get up on her own.

“Augh! Sweet lord…” She hissed and kept her left hand firmly pressed against her chest. “Jesus, Izzy, d’ya have a metal skull or something? I think you split my rib in two.”

“(Y/N), seriously, now is not the time, we—” Izzy felt a hand on his shoulder and, though he would never admit it, he jumped a little and whirled around, locking (Y/N)’s hand into an iron grip, which she swore at.

“Hey.” It was the tall one. Another officer? No, he wasn’t dressed like the first. Izzy gave him a once over, and then did it again for good measure; but there was no way either of them was going to be able to escape this guy if worse came to worst. And worse would certainly come to worst if—

“Sorry if Gordie scared you. I told him what this is all about ‘n’ he’s not exactly happy about it, but y’know. We’ll help you look, if you want. There’s only around thirty-five, maybe thirty-six cars here, and half of ‘em are locked up tight so no one can get in. Out of the eighteen left, well, your buddy could be in any of ‘em. So we’ll see.” The tall man looked up at the sky, and held out a hand, smiling a little. “Is it me, or is the rain gettin’ a little lighter?”

Izzy didn’t bother to answer. He ran to the other end of the line, starting with the train cars he hadn’t looked in yet, combing his way through them like a rat nosing through kitchen scraps; and both (Y/N) and the man—Eddie, if she remembered his name correctly—watched him for a minute, and then turned back to one another.

“I really appreciate your help,” (Y/N) said, voice soft. “I just have one more question. Would there be any chance that he could have hopped aboard a train today? This is the only depot I know of around here, and—well, you see, he had this dream of going to California, and I don’t know whether he’d hitchhike or hop the rails, but…”

“I see,” Eddie said thoughtfully. “I see. No, you don’t have to worry about nothin’ like that. Since the rain came rolling in so early, we had to delay a lot of our usual departures. The only train that left here was goin’ to Oregon, and it left at nine in the morning.” He leaned in, then, toward the trembling girl, who held her muddy-backed coat closer as the rain pattered down around them. “And if I was you, I’d be gettin’ home. Don’t want to catch no cold out here. Call the police if he’s missing, let them take care of it. You got to get home safe, and stay out of the rain.” He nodded toward the gate of the freight yard, and she looked there, where she’d parked her car—but then she looked back at him, (e/c) eyes glittering with emotion.

“Thank you for your concern, Eddie. Thank you. But I… I have to do this. I have to. I—” She stopped there, as if there were a lump in her throat, as if there were a roadblock in her mind. Eddie straightened up, put his hands in his pockets, and tipped his head in a solemn nod.

“I understand, ma’am. Well. If you’re so convinced, I’d suggest you try Line A, the one closest to the buildin’ there.” He pointed, and (Y/N) squinted into the distance, counting the boxcars. Five, maybe six, if that little one on the end really could hold anything. “And I’ll get Line C, since your other friend here is already halfway down Line B.”

They watched as Izzy swung himself up into another silent train car, disappeared into the black maw for a few seconds, and came leaping back out, all angled limbs and springing muscle, like a skinny little rabbit.

“Alright. Thank you. Again.” (Y/N) said, smiling wearily at Eddie, who smiled back before heading to his own side of the freight yard.

“Don’t mention it,” was his reply. Then, the tall man climbed up into the first boxcar on Line C, and (Y/N) was left to her own—Line A.

Gordie must have been inside, now, because there were shadows of two men talking rather animatedly in the light pouring from the freight house—something she couldn’t help but notice as she tromped along the sodden ground in boots that were perhaps just one size too big for her. What an adventure. And yet, what a nightmare. With each car she ducked her head into, she had the image of him in her head, soaked with rain and shivering, ginger hair slicked back like he had just gone for a dip in the lake and was trying to catch some sun on a cloudy day. But car after car left her disappointed and even more worried. Despite knowing he couldn’t have gotten a ride out—Izzy had seen him just after noon, before heading to Rochner’s math class—there was still something about his absence that made it all the more ominous, and all the more frightening. (Y/N) tried to keep her wits about her, and mostly succeeded, but there was still the part of her heart that worried and worried like a sick child. What if he was gone? What if he’d just vanished? What if someone had kidnapped him? Well, okay, that one probably wasn’t true, because Axl would have thrown a mighty goddamned fit if someone really did try that. But still, the question lingered in the back of her mind. Where did you go? She asked him, as if he might suddenly materialize before her, white tee shirt and blue jeans and all, with the answer. Where did you go? Where did you go? She begged to know, and yet, could not.

They searched the train yard, the entire train yard, with the exception of the dumpsters full of metal scrap and the train cars that had been padlocked, and Axl was nowhere to be found.

“What time is it?” Izzy huffed as he ran up to her, panting like a dog, yet still having the energy—somehow—to stay upright.

(Y/N) checked her watch, feeling her brow crease further in worry, and wondering if, after all was said and done, her face would just stay that way. “Just after seven.”

Eddie came jogging up to them, then, and they looked at him hopefully; for some kind of clue, but all the man could do was shake his head and sigh.

“Nothing,” he said. “Not even a scrap of clothing. I’m sorry to you both. He ain’t here, though, for what it’s worth. And he couldn’t have gone anywhere by train.”

“Thanks anyway,” Izzy said rather roughly, and began to walk fast back to the car.

(Y/N) offered her gratitude once more to Eddie, who did nothing but shake his head and tell her she really ought to make sure the kid wasn’t just at home, and to get home herself, and to stay warm and safe. She nodded along with him, just enough for him to let her go, and then turned to go back to the LeSabre, wondering what Izzy’s next move would be. And then she remembered.

“Oh, Eddie!” She called. Eddie, who had been heading back to the freight house to close up shop with Gordie and the grandfatherly man, turned.

“Yeah?”

“The boots! Your friend, in the office there, he gave me…” She pointed at her feet, and then felt silly for doing so, because it was nighttime and still raining and so pitch black outside that he couldn’t have seen her even with a ten-foot flashlight.

Even though she couldn’t see him, she could hear the smile in his voice. “Keep ‘em. We can get another pair. You stay safe now, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” (Y/N) called again, desperately wishing there were some other word, some other phrase to properly express the swelling of gratitude she felt for the three strangers on this night, of all nights. But the second she got back into the driver’s seat of the car and sat beside Izzy, who was trying very hard not to let on how badly he was shivering; it all came to a head inside her and suddenly she was so much more aware of the predicament they were in. Axl was gone, Izzy was chilled to the bone, Ma Bailey was at home worrying away—it all intensified at once for her. But there were still places to check. There had to be. (Y/N) turned the key in the ignition and, hearing Izzy’s teeth chatter and seeing him scrunch his eyes shut and hold so tightly onto himself one would’ve thought he was trying to keep himself from coming apart—she turned the heater up higher. Both of them let out an audible sigh of relief as first warm, then hot air blew out of the vents in the dashboard, and she began to turn the car around so that they could head up the steep incline to the asphalt beyond.

“Where else could he be?” (Y/N) asked as the LeSabre struggled, but finally pulled up and over the hill back to the highway. This time, it was dead, for sure. There was no one else on the road, which was a godsend, and also a bit of a warning. The rain began to splatter even harder against the windshield, and (Y/N) winced, hoping above all that Axl was indoors, wherever he was. Maybe he was still at school. Could that be? No, staff closed that place up around the same time the church usually did. But where else… where else…?

“The only place I can think of is Sutter’s farm.” Izzy said, quietly.

“Oh, God. That’s gotta be two hundred, three hundred acres, easily,” She said, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, feeling her heart begin to ache. “How are we going to find him? Or even catch up with him?”

Izzy didn’t look at her, but he didn’t have to, for his voice to sound just that little bit of condescending. “Maybe you don’t know it yet, but when Axl needs time to cool off, he hides out in the same place almost every time. He doesn’t wander. You don’t need to keep running after him, eventually, you just catch up, you can find him just fine. He’s probably just pissed off at somebody and went to go hide out in the barn for a while.”

(Y/N)’s face grew hot, and before she could bite her tongue, it slipped out. “If he cools off in the same place all the time, why’s it taking you so long to find him?”

The silence between them, which before had been awkward, suddenly turned near fiery. Izzy wasn’t looking at her, but he was burning up the dashboard with that smoldering glare, and almost immediately, she blurted out,

“I’m sorry. That was rude of me. I didn’t mean it.”

“Of course you fucking meant it,” Izzy snarled. “Don’t say that. Don’t say you didn’t mean it. Of COURSE you fucking MEANT IT.”

“Izzy,” she tried, but he was already off.

“You think this is a game for me? You think this is fun? That I’m just playing a game of hide-and-seek with my best goddamn friend? We were supposed to leave together!” Izzy smacked his hand on the median between them, making some of the looser knobs on the dashboard jump. “We were supposed to go to California together, and if that’s where he is right now, if he’s on his way…”

(Y/N) kept her eyes glued to the road and felt tears fill her eyes at the sound of Izzy’s heart breaking. He wasn’t crying, exactly, but his voice was so wounded that it was hard not to feel the same hurt just listening to him.

“If he’s going to California,” Izzy said, hugging himself again, shrinking down inside of that big brown coat, fixing his gaze to the dark interior of the Buick. “I’m going to be so goddamn lonely.”

Keep your eyes on the road, (Y/N) thought to herself. Eyes on the road. Hands on the wheel. Eyes on the road. Hands on the wheel. But it became so hard to see as the tears rolled down her face, and she took a hand off the steering wheel to press it to her mouth. The absence of Axl surrounded them, the questioning, the pain, the sense of wrongness in the atmosphere, and the rain shattered down around them, reflected only in bits and pieces of the low beams of the LeSabre’s headlights.

“I’m sorry,” she managed, throat constricted with sorrow. “Izzy, I’m sorry. I meant it but I’m so fucking sorry. I just don’t want you to hate me. Please don’t hate me.”

“I don’t hate you, idiot,” he mumbled, but sounded slightly less angry than he had before, which reassured her somewhat. “I just like Axl.”

“So do I,” she whispered, hand still stifling her silent tears, until she had to put it back on the wheel to make the turn off onto the drive that would lead them to Sutter’s farm. And though it only lasted for a second before he drew away, Izzy reached out and gave her a single pat on the shoulder—a quiet I understand.

The Sutter farm had once been bright and full of the usual Midwest scenery: cows eating in the pasture, a delightful little berry garden behind the house, a coop full of white and brown hens, a rooster strutting around the premises with the brightest red feathers anybody had ever seen—once, there had been vibrant green grass that turned gold in the autumn and was reborn in the spring; and once, Mrs. Sutter had kept an extraordinarily lovely bed of violets along either side of the sweeping drive, so that people coming up to their house would know that the woman living there had the greenest thumb in the county and liked to show it off. Where there had been bright blue skies and cheeping chicks and linens hanging on the wire, there was now cold, dead wood, and a feeling that some dreams, somewhere, had been left behind in ribboned tatters. Mrs. Sutter had not been out to tend her garden since the year 1919, and was now pushing up her own daisies in Greenbush Cemetery, a few miles north from there. Violets lay long gone under topsoil and root, and instead of a welcoming garden, the only thing that guided their way up to the Sutter farmhouse now were the skeletal trees on either side; leaves rustling and whistling in the sharp wind above.

(Y/N) let out an involuntary shudder as she parked the LeSabre in front of the barn, whose door looked as if it had been beaten in with an ax, or something. The wood was grey and chipped and splintered into so many pieces it was barely recognizable as itself anymore. This didn’t faze Izzy as he hopped out of the car, though, and so (Y/N) followed, albeit a bit reluctantly. Though there was a desperation within her to find Axl at any cost, she really, really wished he and his friends would pick better spots to hang out and deal with life crises—in particular, places that didn’t look as if a murderer might leap out and stab her at any moment. Still, being anywhere indoors was better than being in the rain, which was starting to pool in the bottom of her new too-big boots as she trudged forth and followed Izzy into the dark of the barn.

For a building which had not held cattle in it for almost seventy years, the smell of hay and manure was still quite evident. Not enough for her to be repulsed or anything, but enough to know where she was walking; and enough to guess that the people who tended this farm had at one point had a great many cows. She couldn’t see in the dark, and stumbled over the knobby dirt-covered floor, almost knocking into Izzy a second before she realized he had stopped in front of her.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s fine.” He muttered back. “The hayloft’s collapsed, so there’s no way he’s up there. You check the stalls, I’ll get the house.”

There was no more room for arguing. “Okay,” (Y/N) said. “Meet you back here?”

“By the fence,” he said, already walking toward the back door of the barn, which sagged on its hinges, but didn’t look as bad as the door out front. “It’s a little chicken-wire thing, just outside the back door, you can’t miss it. Then we’ll comb the woods. He’s gotta be here somewhere.” Izzy paused, and (Y/N) wished she could see his expression, but he was just an outline in the dark of the barn, shapeless but for his scarecrow form. “He has to be.”

“Yes.” She agreed, and then watched Izzy’s outline nod.

“Right. I’ll be in the house. See you in a few.” And with that, he left.

Blinking slowly and quietly hoping her eyes would adjust to the dim light, (Y/N) turned and began to feel her way through the cattle stalls. They were on either side of the barn in neat squares, stall doors hanging open, some only hanging on by one hinge. They squealed when she brushed past them, a sound that made her jump more than once.

“Axl?” She called out softly, and stared into the gloom of the first empty stall, and then the next, and the next. She shuffled along, down one aisle first, and then the second aisle, finding nothing, not even a mouse—although she could certainly hear them skittering and squeaking in the rafters, which made her pull her collar closer and pray that one wouldn’t fall on top of her, because then she really would scream. In the third stall on the other side of the barn, she put out her hand in the dark, the faint outlines, and felt cloth beneath her fingertips.

“Axl? Axl!” She whispered urgently, and splayed her fingertips out more. It was cloth, alright. Some sort of heavier fabric. But as she felt it she realized that there was no person below it, only the hard frame of a trough that hadn’t been used in God only knew how long. But it was fabric, alright. A whole piece, too, not torn up like everything else in the place seemed to be. She felt it some more—a tee shirt! God, a tee shirt!

Without thinking, she took hold of it, lifted it up, and pressed it to her face, inhaling deeply. First, hay. Then, dust. Then mildew. Ew. She knew she shouldn’t have been holding onto it, but—but—

It smelled like him. Just a little bit. Enough so that she clutched it to her chest and felt like baying like a bloodhound, a cadaver dog, something. Scrabbling in the dust, she slid her hand around the trough, searching for more, more, something that would tell her, something that would show her why. There was more fabric—jeans, maybe, something heavy—and something in the bottom, two—were those records?—and what felt like a necklace. Something vaguely string-like, anyway.

She left those there, but kept hold of the tee shirt, and scrambled to search the other stalls. There was nothing there, no Axl, no remnants of him, not even the smallest ginger hair off his head—though really, she wouldn’t have been able to find that; not with how dark it was now. Still, she breathed heavily, like a real bloodhound, searching everywhere, every inch without a thought in her head but the pounding urgency of the need to find him, to ask what happened, to know he was okay, if he was okay.

Why she thought of him, she didn’t know; but for a second, an image of old Mr. Bailey flashed through her head, and it made her heart stop in her chest. But why think of him now? What for? What good would it do? She shook her head and continued the search, hoping endlessly, and yet…

The last stall was empty. (Y/N) ran out into the rain again, wondering what time it was, wondering if Izzy was still looking around the house. She found the chicken wire fence easily, and waited there for him, clutching the tee shirt as close to her as possible and, at the same time, trying to keep it dry.

Within minutes, Izzy was out of the house, taking long, frustrated strides across the wet lawn, practically steaming at the ears. She didn’t have to ask him to know—he was alone. The anxious murmuring in the back of her mind started up again, and she tried to ignore it.

“I found this,” she said instead, holding the tee shirt out to him. Now that they were outside and the storm was beginning to darken itself again, the only light by which they could see was the barest of all nature’s light—the quick flash of lightning, stuttering across the sky. In it, she could see that the shirt was blue; but it was still Axl’s—he’d worn it before, she recognized it.

Just when she thought she and Izzy were beginning to get on good terms, a striking flare of anger made him glare at her and rip the shirt right out of her hands.

“Don’t touch that,” he snapped.

“But it’s his, isn’t it?” She pleaded. “Doesn’t that tell you something? Anything?”

“I’m not fucking Nancy Drew. It doesn’t tell me shit, except that you found the place we’d been stocking stuff up for when we leave for California.” His nostrils flared and another quick burst of lightning lit up his face, showing anger, agony, betrayal.

“I’m sorry,” she shouted as the wind began to pick up. “What do we do now?”

“You just follow me,” He yelled back, stuffing the tee shirt inside his jacket, stomping off toward the edge of the woods. (Y/N) could have sworn she heard him swearing at her, but she swallowed her terrified tears and raked her wet, curling hair out of her face before stumbling after him.

For hours, they searched high and low. Izzy seemed to be tracing a pattern in his memory, checking the most random places, and yet the places that most seemed like they’d be the perfect hideout for a kid wandering through a storm. There was an endless assortment of hollowed out trees, of little rock overhangs to hide beneath, even a cave in the hillside with a dirt floor. (Y/N) looked just as hard as Izzy—she even took a few steps in each direction when they stopped at one of these places; scrutinized treetops and checked nearby fallen logs and such—but still, there was no Axl. More and more, Izzy mumbled to himself in an angry tone, and more and more, (Y/N) began to pant with exhaustion and shiver to keep herself warm in the downpour. She felt soaked to the bone even now, with boots and a heavy coat on, and she couldn’t imagine how cold Izzy must have been, with those woodchipper jeans and canvas sneakers. And then, as much as she tried; she just couldn’t bear to think of Axl out here for hours in nothing but a tee shirt and jeans. God. All she could do was hope he wasn’t barefoot. Though she knew he loved to walk through the garden like that; on any ordinarily sunny day, she hoped and prayed that he had enough sense not to invite hypothermia when it came knocking like this.

They searched, and searched, and searched some more. No matter how hopeful they both were at coming upon the next hideaway Izzy frequented with Axl, they were crushed beyond disappointment and frustration to find that he wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere. He was nowhere.

(Y/N) found herself walking further and further into the woods, channeling her inner bloodhound, closing her eyes, praying she could just catch a scent or a sound of him; and let that lead her to him. Off in the distance, water gushed; probably a gulley overflowing with rainwater. Tree leaves smashed against each other in the roaring skies. There was no chance that she’d even catch something as small as a twig snapping to reveal where her love was; there was no chance; no chance at all.

When Izzy caught up to her, she was kneeling at the base of a little cobblestone bridge, knees tucked up to her chest, crying without a sound as the storm flashed on around them. The sight of her like that sent a chill through him and made him flare up in both anger and desperation, and he promised himself that when he found Axl, he would kill him; and then bring him back to life, and kill him again. Even if he had to go all the way to California to do it, he would, he would. Goddammit, Axl, where are you? he thought, and bent to drag (Y/N) upright by the top of her arm.

She fought it a little, but was too weak, shivering too hard. “Let go of me,” she said, sobbing through grit teeth. “Don’t fucking touch me. Where do we look now? Where do we go?”

“Nowhere. This is the end of Sutter’s property. He’s not out here, (Y/N).” Just saying it aloud made it more real for the both of them. She bent at the waist as if someone had just stabbed her in the stomach, and let out a low, loud sob.

“Where is he?” (Y/N) asked, over and over, not even bothering to fight Izzy’s grip anymore as he put his arm around her shoulders and made her walk with him back to the barn with the car out front. It would take them forever and a day to get there, though, if she didn’t pick up her goddamned feet. “Where is he?”

Izzy whirled in front of her, and she stopped in shock.

“Do you think I fucking know?” He yelled at the top of his voice, willing it not to break. “I don’t! I thought we were past this! Do you want me to fucking admit it? Do you want me to say it, out loud, for the whole fucking world to hear? I don’t know where my best friend is! I don’t know! I DON’T KNOW!” Whether it was from rainwater or tears, Izzy’s face was wet, and red with rage. “I’m supposed to be the yin to his goddamn yang and I can’t even fucking find him! So don’t ask me, (Y/N)! Don’t fucking ask me where he is, because I! Don’t! KNOW!”

Thunder cracked just at the right moment to score the silence between them. Suddenly, Izzy was the one shivering, the one with his head in his hands, the one who felt like he’d been stabbed in the stomach and gutted of everything that meant anything to him in life. He didn’t make a sound as he wept, but still, (Y/N)’s arm found its way around his shoulders and she pressed him to her side as they made the long walk back to the car. Izzy couldn’t think; it was so goddamn cold. It felt like hours just getting back there, to the dark road of no hope from whence they came and from whence they would leave.

If only they’d looked a little farther, Izzy thought. And (Y/N) was thinking it too. If only they had looked a little farther. Neither one of them knew how true that really was.

-

“Do you have a cigarette?” Those were the first words out of Izzy’s mouth after they’d gotten in the car and the ignition had turned and they’d sat there for a while, waiting for the heater to crank up, waiting to be renewed by the blasts of warm air.

“I don’t smoke,” (Y/N) said, quietly. But after a minute she reached under her seat and pulled out a battered box of old Marlboro cigarettes. There were two left, coincidentally. He took one, thanked her, and hoped the lighter he’d kept in his inner jacket pocket still worked.

It did. Tendrils of sweet nicotine filled the car as she put the Buick in reverse and executed a pretty cruddy three-point turn to get out of the Sutter’s lot. Slowly, the car rolled down the mud-slogged drive, and onto the wider avenue. She didn’t speed up, though, not even then. They were both exhausted. Neither one really wanted to leave the Sutter place, and neither one really wanted to stay. But they both wanted to find Axl.

“You think he just went home?” (Y/N) asked in her quiet, tired voice.

Izzy sucked hard on the cigarette and closed his eyes to blow a stream of smoke towards the roof of the car. It was a minute, maybe two, before he answered. “Let’s hope.”

When they returned to (Y/N)’s home, both realized with a tentative, faded hope that Ma Bailey’s downstairs lights were still on, beaming yellow into the street from between blind slats and curtains left ajar. She must have been waiting for them, too, because as the LeSabre growled into the driveway and shuddered to a halt, she came hurrying out of the house with an umbrella and some proper boots on. At first, (Y/N) hoped it was good news, but as she and Izzy got out of the car and got a good look at Ma, they realized it wasn’t. The ache in her eyes was still there, the despair, the fear.

“Did you…?” was all she got out before she noticed the empty back seat of the car and (Y/N) pulled her into a deep embrace.

Izzy had never really gotten used to the sounds of women crying. It sounded haunting, really. A little bit like those birds that make the mourning sound. He stayed apart from them, turning his back, letting the rain run down his face as he dropped the used-up cigarette on her driveway and smudged it out with his heel. Where would he go now? What would he do? Hitchhike, he supposed. There was no one here to miss him. Well, aside from his own parents, of course—but he knew how to address an envelope, he knew they’d understand. They had to. They just had to. As much as he had to find Axl—because that was what best friends were for, goddammit, they lived their lives on the edge and they did it together, and you couldn’t have one run off without the other following close behind.

Izzy would have looked up at the stars, but there were none, there was only swirling black, a mess of cloud and thunder and pain. He wasn’t going home tonight, he wasn’t going home ever. He’d stay here and see if Axl showed up of his own accord overnight—but in the morning, he was going to Los Angeles, and that was final. Slowly, with the women still weeping in the background, he got into the backseat of the car, and curled himself so he could see out the window if he looked up the right way. After a moment, he took the balled-up blue tee shirt out of his jacket, smoothed it out, and pressed it to his chest, as if he were giving Axl a hug. Those gypsy girls on Maynard Street believed in that kind of thing; how you could be connected to someone without them being next to you. He supposed he believed in it too, even if it was just to make himself feel better. Izzy buried his nose in the shoulder of the blue fabric, scowling, silently cursing Axl out, wishing he’d hurry up and come back.

Despite his hatred of the unending question, he found it playing in his head, softly, even as he drifted off from the exhaustion of the day.

Where are you, man?
Where are you?

-

At one fifty-two in the morning, (Y/N) was staring at the phone.

Time was a thick haze around her. The rain had stopped. Izzy was still sleeping in the car, despite her shaking him, asking if he wanted to sleep in the guest bedroom instead. He had just murmured “no”, scowled, wriggled to the other end of the car, and held tighter to the blue tee shirt. So she had gone inside, and sat down right next to the hallway phone, to think and think until her head was spinning faster than a washing machine on a high spin cycle.

It can’t be real, she kept telling herself—it can’t be real. It can’t be. But it was. If anything, it was as real as any other delusion is to the person experiencing it. The only thing in her sight, despite the decorated walls of the house around her, was the phone hanging there like a carrot on a stick; the phone she could dial to get the police on the line—the phone she could use to file a report on him, dozens of which already existed in the county system, dozens of which pushed him further and further past the point of missing young man and into the range of gone-for-good and good-riddance juvenile delinquent. All while she’d been searching, she kept tricking herself into seeing him, the white tee shirt disappearing around the limb of a tree, ginger hair fluttering around the bend of a road, that smile; that laugh; her sunshine, always out of reach. But now his absence could be felt in every echoing tick of the clock on the stand in the living room. It could be felt in the dead air; the lack of friendly conversation. Where once his voice had sung and read aloud and danced among beams of light in the air as easily as life itself, the house was still, quiet, and the very existence of it as such made (Y/N)’s heart squeeze in her chest. You never truly know how quiet a house is until someone stays for a while. You never know how quiet it is until they leave.

One fifty-five. She thought about it, staring at her watch, and then, for once in her life, she took a chance and picked up the phone.

As it rang the non emergency line, (Y/N) had yet more time to think to herself. Again, the thought crossed her mind; the image of Mr. Bailey and the terror he imposed. Was it possible that Axl hadn’t ever really left that house in the first place? The thought made her sick to her stomach so she abandoned it immediately. Or, at least, she tried to. But it kept coming back, in different shades and hues. Had Bailey done something? The only other time she’d been this worried about Axl was the last time she was awake in the early hours of the morning, sitting by the phone, listening to her neighbors holler back and forth, wincing at the sounds of breaking glass. Now the Baileys’ house was silent, and she was finally making the call. Funny to think of it that way. Funny to think of it as if it were too late. (Y/N) hated herself for it, for being too late, always being too goddamned cautious and always planning things out so that she had no escape if it went awry. What made her do it? What made her so incapable? She began to cry.

In the end, she was really no different from the girl her mother and father raised. She was resting under the illusion that she was confident and self-sufficient. But what did her house prove, if anything? What could her garden prove? What could a hundred rejection letters from a hundred different fiction novel publishers ever prove, but that she was made to do nothing but take orders, take care of the house and plants, and be the perfect even-mannered girl? God, she hated it. She hated it so much she could barely breathe through the tears, and of course, that was when somebody answered the phone.

“Hello, Lafayette Police Department, non-emergency line, how can I help you.” It was a feminine voice, bored; almost. Maybe tired. (Y/N) hoped she was just tired.

“Hi,” she said, timidly, so quietly it couldn’t be heard through the telephone. She cleared her throat. “Um, hi, I… I’d like to file a missing persons report. F-for a friend of mine.” God, it was hard to speak on the verge of tears. She cleared her throat again and scrubbed at her eyes with her free hand. “Um. I’m sorry. I… just want to file a missing persons report.”

“Mm. And how long have they been gone.” Bored. Goddammit, bored. Not even the least bit worried that there was someone out there, missing, on this night of all nights. (Y/N) sucked in a breath and tried to calm herself.

“Since around two o’clock this afternoon, I think.”

“You think?” An edge of sarcasm. (Y/N) bit her lip so hard she tasted blood.

“Two o’clock this afternoon,” she whispered angrily into the phone. “And—”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we can’t do anything until the person has been missing for 24 hours or more. You’re welcome to call back then.”

(Y/N) had had it. She was seriously about to hurt this woman—well, she couldn’t through the phone, but—she would drive down to the god damn police station and give this stupid, bored woman the thrashing of her life if she dared suggest again that this couldn’t possibly be important until the afternoon the next day. She was about to say something, to really tear into her, when a sound from outside stopped her on her next breath.

“Did you say something?” The woman asked, but (Y/N) was holding her head away from the phone, ears pricked in the direction of the door.

There it was again.

A knock.

“Never mind, he’s back,” she said hurriedly into the phone, and practically threw it into the cradle before racing down the hall and through her kitchen, nearly tripping over the hem of her wool robe, which she had pulled on after changing into her chemise to keep warm after being in the rain. She fiddled with the locks on the door for what seemed like forever but was only a second or two, and yanked it open all the way, letting the cool, soft night air in as she took in with horror the sight before her.

“Hi,” Axl said, clearly exhausted, swaying from side to side like the storm was still going; like the night breeze could push him over at any second. His eyes were still their brilliant bright green, but they were swollen with tears, and red rimmed, too. His hair was a wet mess, in knots all over, laying matted over his shoulders and looking like he’d been attacked by a raccoon, or something. There was a pretty deep gash on his cheek, just under his eye, still dripping blood. And through his clothes—which were muddy and soaked with water—there were dozens of red marks, some that were already darkening into bruises, some that were still fresh under the skin. She put her hands to her mouth and stared at him, wide-eyed.

“Can I come in?” He asked, and leaned rather heavily on the doorframe, wincing. (Y/N) nodded so fast she nearly lost her own sense of balance.

“Yes. God, yes.” She reached out for him and brought him into the warmth of the house, watching him sigh as he stepped into the dim light and leaned on the kitchen countertop nearest him while she shut the door. The next thing on her mind was clothing. And towels. And blankets. Something to keep the hypothermia at bay, if it wasn’t already there.

“You sit right there,” she said, pointing at his usual chair, and achingly, he moved towards it, easing himself down into the seat like a dead man walking. Axl watched her as she disappeared from the kitchen, and put his head down on the table, feeling so dizzy, incredibly dizzy as she opened doors and drawers and made fabric rustle. He had closed his eyes by the time she got back to him, and he felt her palm on his cheek, tapping lightly.

“Axl, no, please don’t, please stay awake, okay?” She said, and the worry in her voice was like the soothing salve to every heart wound opened that day. Oh, to have someone care. He opened his eyes and watched and felt as she draped a towel over his head and rubbed gently to dry his hair. Suddenly, it hurt.

“Ow, ow, OW,” Axl said, smacking her hands away from the lump on the back of his head. “Don’t—just—let me.”

“Okay,” she said, voice a little panicked, and though Axl couldn’t really see from the towel blocking his view, he knew what she would look like, her pretty face contorted in panic.

“Sorry. It’s not you. I hit my head.” Gingerly, Axl tried his best to dry his own hair, feeling a little bit like he had the time he’d fallen in the shower (he’d only been six years old, and the soap they used just slicked the damn floor up so much) and had cried while his mom dried his hair for him. Axl did the best he could now, but tired of holding his arms up pretty quickly, and so decided to just let the towel be for a second. It was kind of nice to just have it over his head, anyway. He might’ve looked like a Gregorian monk with a hood on, but he’d be lying if he said he thought the darkness and softness of the towel wasn’t all that great. It was. He could’ve fallen asleep under the thing, if he tried.

“Axl, where were you?” She asked, then, and he knew from the pain in her voice that the answer was not at all going to appease her. She might really hate him now. Axl was beginning to feel stupid, like he’d made the wrong decision once again, like he should have found another taller bridge; another deeper river.

“You know, I’m not entirely sure. It was somewhere outside Sutter’s farm, I think. But I don’t know. I could be wrong.” He shrugged, and tried to ignore the pounding in his head. Turns out that no matter how kindly you try to dry your own hair, if you crack your head against something, it’s going to hurt.

She was silent for a moment, and then pulled the towel off of his head, so lightly it didn’t even sting. Axl stared up at her, blinking in the kitchen light, feeling lost all of a sudden. Did she want him there at all? Did she love him anymore? All that seemed to be in (Y/N)’s eyes was pain.

“We looked for you there,” her voice broke. “Swear to god, we looked everywhere. We couldn’t find you. Where the hell did you go? What happened to you?”

Axl changed the subject. “You got any dry clothes for me? It was raining cats and dogs out there all day. I’ve been walking around since school ended, too.” At this, his stomach decided it was an opportune moment to let out the most atrocious growl either of them had ever heard, so much so that it almost snapped (Y/N) out of her momentary grief and she raised both eyebrows.

“Well. I guess that calls for a midnight snack, huh?” She asked, and Axl did his best to smile sheepishly.

“That would be awfully nice.”

She waved her hand at him and rolled her eyes. Axl thought she looked like she’d been crying. “Whatever. I put some old pajamas on the chair next to you, go change. And throw your wet clothes in the bathtub, I’ll put them in the dryer tomorrow morning.”

“Okay.” Though his entire body hurt, and he still felt like he was an inch away from passing out, Axl grabbed the bundle of clothing from the chair and poked through it. A pair of soft blue flower-patterned pants with a drawstring, almost threadbare at the knees. A girly camisole that, thank God, was just plain white. And a plain pull-over black hooded sweatshirt. Axl, too tired to think before he spoke, quipped, “What, no underwear?”

(Y/N), who had turned the oven on and was in the middle of putting a kettle of water on to boil, didn’t even turn to look at him. “You are walking a mighty thin line, showing up to my house at two in the morning, refusing to tell me how the hell you ended up like that, and joking about underwear—”

“Okay, jeez, I’m going,” he muttered, but she turned to him before he could leave the room.

“—so unless you want a neon purple G-string to go with your pajamas, I’d shut my mouth if I were you.”

Oh, God, the look on her face—the challenge, the sarcasm, the hint of a smile. This was what he had been missing. He laughed for what felt like the first time in forever and said,

“You sayin’ you actually have a neon purple G-string in your closet?”

“Mind your business,” she said daintily, putting her nose up in the air and turning back to the kettle on the stove. Axl just laughed and laughed as he stumbled down the hall and to the bathroom, where he kicked the door shut behind him and peeled layers of wet clothing off of himself and dropped them with a loud thunk in the bottom of the tub. He hadn’t brought the towel with him—not too bright of him, as hindsight would show—but he got another one out from the cabinet and dried off, aware of the aches and pains and things that would definitely be black bruises tomorrow; but more blissfully aware of that scent, the violetish flowery scent she always carried with her. Standing completely bare in the middle of the bathroom, Axl wrapped the towel around himself as tight as he could get it without it hurting, and buried his nose in the fabric, as if it were her loving embrace. He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, but eventually, he heard the tea kettle whistling from the kitchen, and so—though a bit reluctantly—he started to get dressed.

Her pajamas were so soft. They were a bit small on him—the cuffs of the flower-patterned pants rose about an inch above his ankles, and the camisole was more of a crop top—but all the same, they were delightfully soft and dry and warm. Well, they weren’t exactly warm; it was more like they just weren’t cold. Axl didn’t care, though. He wrestled the sweatshirt over his head, carefully, so he wouldn’t touch too many things that hurt, and pulled his arms through, reveling in the way it felt. It was an old sweatshirt, obviously, but even so, the insides were as fuzzy as they’d been the day it was bought, and it was a perfect fit. Maybe he would ask to keep it. Axl smiled to himself and heard (Y/N)’s voice in the kitchen, and, despite still feeling a little bit dizzy, he opened the door and walked right back to her.

She looked up at him just as he entered the kitchen, and smiled. “Look at you! So resplendent.”

“I try.” He quipped, and returned the smile. “Whatcha got there?”

(Y/N) patted the chair next to the stovetop. “First, sit. It’s nice and warm by the oven. Lucky for you, I keep some dough on hand at all times, so you’re about to have the world’s finest chocolate-chip banana bread.”

Axl’s mouth watered, and he let out a little hum. “And?”

“And cilantro lime rice.” She pointed to a pot on the stove, whose lid was steaming from the edges already. “Chamomile tea, too. And if you want something more, there’s a few peaches in the brown bag on the counter behind you.” She pointed, and took down two mugs from the cupboard, setting one on the countertop beside him and the other on the stove for her.
Axl was silent for a moment, watching her in her (f/c) bathrobe as she put a spoonful of sugar and a chamomile sachet in each cup, and then lifted the stainless steel kettle off the stove and poured the steaming water, before turning to grab two spoons from the silverware drawer. She was quiet, too, and though he didn’t want to think too deeply of it, the way she wasn’t looking at him was making him anxious. She stirred their tea without a sound; first his, then hers.

“(Y/N)?” He asked, almost in a whisper.

She looked at him. “What?”

At this, though, he was lost for words. How does one articulate the exact insecurities they’re having while the girl of their dreams is busy making tea at two in the morning? How does one articulate insecurities at all? How do you tell her you’re sorry? How do you say you almost drowned, but you came back fine? How do you…?

He held out his arms for a hug, and that was all he had to do. (Y/N) set the kettle back on the stovetop and came right to him, pulling him in so gently it almost made the dizziness go away entirely. He closed his eyes and just breathed in and out, nestling up to the crux of her neck, the smooth, sweet skin there. Her hair was damp, too, he realized. And then he remembered something she’d said earlier.

We looked for you there. We looked everywhere.

Axl didn’t really want to move from her soft embrace—especially not now that she was running her hands over his back, and occasionally, moving her hand up to tuck a wet strand of hair behind his ear—but he did want to know.

“You really went looking for me?”

She snorted, though it really wasn’t funny. “What, you thought I just sat on my ass all day, letting my thoughts run wild on you? Yeah, I did. Me and Izzy. You know…” She pulled back to look at him, to say something else, but must have decided it wasn’t worth it, because she just hugged him again. Axl could’ve done without being pulled around like a raggedy Andy doll—his aching head was complaining—but she was so warm, he didn’t even care. If it weren’t for how hungry he was, he would have dragged her to bed already, so they could strip down and she could just press herself to him, with that little heater core of a body she had. What a feeling that would be. Axl closed his eyes and drifted into thoughts of her, the unending warmth surrounding them, the comforter on her bed, the way he’d kiss her, the way he’d kiss her—and all of a sudden, she brought him back to real time by patting his shoulder.

“Hey, your tea’s warm enough to drink, I think.” She said, and gestured to the mug. Axl had the decency to blush a little and let go of her, before sinking into the chair by the oven. She was right—it was like sitting next to a little fireplace. He shivered lightly and took the mug off the countertop to sip from.

The tea was still hot, of course, but it was smooth and tasted faintly sweet, and a little bit like… like honey, or something. Or if marshmallows grew on trees. Yes, that was it. If there was such a thing as a marshmallow tree, its leaves—or maybe its roots—would taste like this. Axl hummed against the lip of the mug and watched her over the rim as she sipped her own tea, and then set it down, and put her hands on her hips.

“We gotta do something about that cut.” She said plainly. “You wait here, I’m getting the first aid kit.”

Cut? Axl wondered in bewilderment, and brought his hand up to his face. Oh, that cut. It stung as he touched it and he bit his tongue before dissolving the pain in another few sips of chamomile. She came back with a little white case, turned the heat down on the pot of rice, stirred it, leaned over to check on the banana bread, and then looked at him.

“You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” he said, and put his mug down on the counter, folding his hands in his lap and hoping the antiseptic wouldn’t hurt so bad.

Well, many a hope was crushed that night. Axl yelped as she stuck a cotton ball full of alcohol in the wound.

“OW! Jesus!”

“Shh,” she said, frustrated. “Axl, for God’s sake, hold still.”

“I can’t! My face hurts!”

“You’re gonna tell me nothing else hurts? Seriously? Pick a bruise, anywhere, and focus on it. I have to get this clean.”

“That’s not how it works—OW!”

But, eventually, it was over, and she was spreading salve over it, before she pressed a thin pad of gauze to his cheek and taped it in place. It felt weird, to say the least, but it didn’t hurt as much anymore—it just had that slow, dull throb in it, like most cuts do when you’re done fixing them up. It didn’t sting anymore, at least. That was nice. Gently, she leaned in and pressed a kiss to the top of his bandage. And then she pressed a kiss just under it, at the corner of his lips. And then… Axl didn’t know who started it—it was this curious thing; this phenomenon that he had, where he lost his memory for the first two seconds of her kissing him, because he was just so enraptured in the experience—but he did know that once it got started, a kiss like that couldn’t easily be stopped. He ran his hands through her hair and pulled her closer to him, adoring in the quiet sounds she let out every now and again. The taste of chamomile on her tongue was even sweeter to him, and he gasped audibly, out of breath already, kissing her again and again with some kind of hunger, some kind of starvation—

“Whoa,” she said as he fell forward, almost out of his chair entirely. She caught him before he could go any further, though, and sat him back in his chair.

“I’m sorry,” he panted. “I’m—can we do that again? I just…”

“Axl, hold on, Jesus. How hard did you hit your head?” Oh, God, now she was worried. Axl tried desperately to hold himself upright but the smell of sweet bread and rice on the stove was driving him crazy, and aside from that, he was positively ravenous for any affection she could ever seek to give him. He wanted a slice of banana bread so badly. And then he wanted to kiss her until she saw stars. And then he wanted a sip of chamomile, and some rice. And then he wanted to make love to her. And then he wanted a perfectly ripe peach. It all blended together in his head, making him sick with dizziness and want; until he put his head in his hands and made himself think of nothing at all.

She breathed a sigh. “Okay, bread’s done. Rice is on its way.”

Axl peeked at her from between his fingers as (Y/N) put a pair of oven mitts on—such a weird combination with her robe, but it seemed normal now, at two-thirty in the morning—and slid the pan of bread off the rack in the oven. Immediately, he was reaching for it, but she smacked his hand away.

“Axl, I swear to God, I do not want to have to treat a third degree burn.”

“Oh, please,” he whined, reaching out for the banana bread, despite her holding him back with one arm while she stirred the rice with the other and nodded to herself in satisfaction at its stickiness. “Please, (Y/N), I’m hungry.”

(Y/N) sighed. “Sit down, I’ll get you a peach, then.”

Axl did sit down, and went back to watching her as she brought a peach out of the paper bag on the counter, rinsed it in the sink, and took a plate down from the cupboard for him before slicing it in two. She took the pit out, and before she’d even set it down in front of him, Axl already had half of the peach in his hand and had taken an enormous bite out of it.

She raised both eyebrows as he leaned his head back, closed his eyes and moaned.

“Seriously?”

“(Y/N), no, oh my God, you don’t understand.” Another bite. He really was ravenous. She watched him devour the peach half in his hand, and then start in on the other half, munching about three times for each bite and wiggling around in delight at the beautiful, summery taste of the juice in his mouth. “Mmm. Mm mm mm. You should have some. It’s so good. It’s sooo good. Where did you get this?”

“Same market I always go to.” Shaking her head in amusement at the way he licked every single finger of the peach’s juice, she reached for the fridge door, took out some cilantro greens and lime juice, and walked to the sink to rinse the cilantro before cutting it. She felt his eyes on her every step of the way, and turned to offer him a handful of cilantro, if he was still hungry.

“Nah, I’m good,” he said. And he wasn’t lying. She could tell. The way he was looking at her, though, had her blushing crimson like a rose.

Instead of indulging the thought, she rinsed the cilantro and tossed it on the cutting board, chopping it loosely and then sprinkling it over the rice. Some salt, pepper, and a healthy dose of lime juice followed, and after a good stir, she spooned a generous helping onto Axl’s plate.

“Wait a goddamn second, Axl, we have silverware, you know,” she said, as he had been just about to lift the plate to his face.

“Okay, but… I mean, America and Europe are basically the only places where people eat stuff with forks, right?” He asked, but still took the fork she offered him, and began to eat like a starved dog. She cut him a slice of banana bread, then—boy, was it heavenly, with the chocolate chips melted, and all that—and he downed it as easily as everything else; finishing off his chamomile tea, too. Everything tasted so beautifully. He smacked his lips after every bite and laughed to himself when she raised her eyebrows at him and asked if he was raised in a barn, to which he grinned and gave a little eyebrow wiggle, and she just murmured “oh, Lord” to herself. But she stood by him, and that was enough. Her reassurance was as simple as that—her, standing by the stove, drinking her chamomile tea and occasionally reaching over to stroke his shoulder.

By the time they were both finished with their midnight dining, it was three o’clock in the morning. Or something close to it. Axl yawned and smiled at her, standing there in her (f/c) robe with her arms crossed to keep herself warm and hair curling down over her shoulders in still-damp ringlets—the best girl he could ever possibly ask for.

“Hey (Y/N)?” He mumbled as he stretched, still seated by the cooling oven. He’d never felt so warm or comfortable in his life; he thought, and it was even truer to him as she answered in that soft voice of hers.

“Yes?”

“You and Izzy really went looking for me?” Axl had thought that once he’d eaten, he’d regain his strength, and then he’d be able to fulfill another wish of his—the wish to pick (Y/N) up and carry her to bed and really show her he loved her. But now that all seemed kind of far away. He was completely and utterly exhausted, and really felt like falling asleep. Maybe she’d carry him to bed instead. Axl laughed internally at the thought.

“Yes.” She said, and pulled a chair from the dining room table to sit next to him, putting her hand in his and squeezing gently. “We did. Izzy looked all over town for you and then he thought you might’ve come here. Well, first he checked with your ma. But then I answered the door, and there they both were, looking for you. I didn’t know what to think. Like, maybe you’d done that before, maybe it wasn’t unordinary for you to run off. I didn’t know. But I promised your ma I’d look for you. So I did. Me and Izzy both.” Her voice was as soft as the down on a dove, and she was stroking his hand now, and Axl really, really had to fight to stay awake. “We looked everywhere. The church, the train yard, every single box car they had open… and we looked for hours over at Sutter’s Farm. We stopped just outside the boundary, right where that little stone bridge is.” Her voice shook, and despite everything telling him not to cry in front of her again, Axl’s eyes filled with tears. She was crying. She was crying over him. Goddammit, what had he done?

“Axl, what happened to you?” She cried softly, holding onto his hand for dear life. He breathed in and out and looked at her.

“I fell. I told you, I just fell.” A short answer. A lie. The tears streaming down her red cheeks seemed to know it, too.

“So why does it feel like I almost lost you?” She whispered, and it seemed so loud in the silence of the kitchen, marked only by the ticking of the oven as it cooled, the breeze outside of night. “Tell me why, Axl. Why does it feel like I almost lost you?”

Well. Axl shifted in his chair, looking to the stovetop, to the wall behind it, up at the cupboards, as if they would give him a sign. They didn’t, but he did decide, as she sniffled beside him; that if she already knew that much—if she already felt like she’d lost him—that was close enough to the truth to warrant a real answer.

“Okay,” he breathed. “Okay. I’ll tell you, but don’t freak out, alright?”

She nodded quickly, still worried, still grasping his hand as if he was her tether to the earth. Axl sucked in another quick breath, suddenly feeling much more awake and aware, and suddenly feeling a lot worse than he had a few minutes ago. “I, uh… I may have… I may have jumped off of… a… bridge. That cobblestone bridge that you… oh, (Y/N) don’t cry,” he begged, as she bent forward and sobbed into her knees. “Please don’t cry. Please. I’m still here—hey. I’m still alive.”

“Oh God,” she said, over and over again, despite his reassurances, despite him putting his arm around her and rubbing her shoulder. “Oh God, oh God, oh God. Axl, no. No. You didn’t…”

“I did, but I’m here now, okay?” He pulled her upright by the shoulders and turned her to look at him. She pressed her hands over her mouth and kept her head bowed, tiny sobs, low moans escaping the cracks between her fingertips as she mourned the boy who was still in front of her. Axl couldn’t decide whether he loved her for caring or hated her for crying. “(Y/N), come on. Seriously. I’m not dead.”

She threw her arms around him and squeezed him in a tight hug, burying her face in his shoulder and bawling like a baby. “I should’ve told you to stay,” she wailed as he wrapped his arms around her waist and held her there, like an anchor in a storm. “I should’ve told you to stay… goddammit, Axl, why don’t you tell anybody…? You know, your mom was worse than me, she was crying so hard, she was such a wreck… and Izzy, God, he wanted to look everywhere for you… Axl, you’re not alone, you know that, right? There are people who love you. Who hurt for you. There are people who’d have to…” She cut herself off with even more sobs and he rocked her back and forth in what he hoped was a comforting way.

“I don’t want to have to bury you,” she coughed out between wracking sobs. “I don’t want to. Oh my God, please, I don’t want to.”

“I think you’re missing the point. I’m a fuckin’ idiot, so I chose the smallest bridge in the world to jump off, and now I’m here. (Y/N), I’m here. You can stop it. I’m right in front of you.” Women were so emotional about these things, Axl thought, even as his own silent tears threatened to fall.

“But for how long?” She asked, her voice cracking. “If I can’t ever be sure, Axl, I’ll hold onto you. I’ll hold on forever. I love you. God fucking damnit, I love you, Axl, I love you.” She sniffed. “I’m selfish, Axl, so please don’t leave me. I couldn’t live without you. I know it sounds stupid but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t want to.”

“Shh,” he whispered into her ear, and surprisingly, it worked. She began to relax in his embrace, and her sobs quieted into soft breaths. “Don’t even think about that. I’ll stay. I’ll stay as long as you want me to.”

“For the rest of my life,” she mumbled into his shoulder.

“Okay.” He said, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “Alright. And for the rest of our lives, I’ll sing to you. I’ll read to you. I’ll bring you flowers. I’ll run away with you. You can come with me to Los Angeles, and we can see all kinds of shows, and walk the neon strip, see the ocean at night…”

It seemed to calm her down, thinking of the future. He rocked her some more, and she mumbled to him again,

“I love you, Axl.”

“I love you too,” he replied, and was surprised by how good it felt. How clean. How pure. He rested his chin on her shoulder and smiled for the beauty of it. “I love you, (Y/N). I love you to the moon and back and a thousand times around the earth.”

“That’s a lot,” she giggled softly. “But I love you more.”

“Love you most.”

“Love you tenfold.”

“Times a hundred.”

“A million.”

He smiled even wider. “Times infinity.”

“Aw, not fair,” she murmured, and then, after a moment, spoke again. “Love you times infinity plus one.”

Axl was going to say something more, but was cut off by a rather large yawn, to which (Y/N) laughed out loud.

“I’m sorry,” she giggled, and pulled back to wipe her eyes on the sleeve of her robe. “I’m so sorry. It’s not funny.” Even though she said it, she kept laughing, and Axl just had to smile with her.

“I know. It’s late.” He kissed her on the tip of her nose and she held in place, blinking, adoring him with all the love of the universe in her gaze. “We should go to bed.”

“We should,” she said, thoughtfully.

-

Axl would have been lying if he said he didn’t fall asleep the second his bruised head hit the pillow. (Y/N) knew it, too. She hadn’t even had the chance to tell him to scoot over before he collapsed in the middle of her bed, snuggling up with the comforter and pillows, out like a light. Within a minute or two, he was snoring. It was all she could do to stifle her laughs. And she was so tired; so tempted to climb into bed with him, but she knew she couldn’t do it without a guilty conscience. So instead, she slipped the too-big work boots back on and went outside to the car, which was still glistening with beads of water in the cool of the night.

She pulled the back door open. “Izzy?”

Izzy lay silent and still, curled up like a bug in the corner of the car furthest from her.

(Y/N) sighed and leaned her head in. “Izzy. Izzy. Wake up.”

“Hmmnh?” The noise emanated from his throat as he stretched out, and one of his joints popped. (Y/N) cringed a little at the noise and said,

“Axl’s back.”

Apparently, that was all he needed. Izzy was up and out of the car like a shot at the county fair footrace, scrambling for the door of (Y/N)’s house. She didn’t have the energy to run after him, she just closed the car door and picked her way back through the driveway’s mud to the front door, closing it behind her and taking the boots back off. She sighed. Tonight, she’d probably end up staying in her own guest bedroom, if Izzy had anything to do with it. And you know what? That was fine by her. She loved Axl dearly, but Izzy had been there long before her, and she’d kept them apart long enough. With a sigh of resignation, she padded down the hall and stepped into the doorway of the guest bedroom, but then noticed Izzy standing there, watching Axl from the hall.

“He’s asleep,” Izzy said.

“Yeah.” (Y/N) replied, her tiredness evident in her voice. “He got back an hour ago. Got some food, and I put a bandage on him, but he’s gonna need a lot more. I think he might have a concussion, too. He’s gotta be careful for the next few days.”

Izzy could have been angry about the fact that Axl had reappeared while he was sleeping—could’ve been mad that she didn’t wake him up immediately—could’ve been mad that Axl got dinner, and he didn’t—could’ve been mad about any number of things. But the way she looked so drained of energy, the way she was already heading to the guest bedroom (and, if he was being honest, the way he knew he would do exactly the same thing if he had been in her position)—well, it all made him think that maybe, just maybe, she was alright.

“Hey (Y/N)?” He said, and she stopped, her hand on the door frame of the guest bedroom.

“Hm?”

“I don’t hate you.” He said, shortly. It was the least he could do. The literal least he could do. And yet the smile that spread across her face looked like he’d just told her he loved her. It kind of made him regret it, but at the same time, he thought that maybe he didn’t mind so much.

“Thanks, Iz.” She said quietly, and disappeared into the guest room.

Izzy stared at Axl from the doorway for a few seconds more before entering the dark room. Along the way, somewhere, he shed his shoes and his jacket, and tore the still-wet head scarf out of his hair, so he could crawl into bed beside Axl and hug him hard until one of them broke a rib.

“God damn, you’re cold,” Axl muttered as he felt a skinny pair of arms wrap around him.

“Where the hell did you go all afternoon?” Izzy whispered back as the ginger-haired boy turned towards his friend and pulled him closer.

“You know, you’d kill me if I told you.”

“I’ll kill you if you don’t.” Izzy put his head on Axl’s chest and marveled at how warm he was. “Swear I will. I prob’ly got hypothermia from looking from your dumb ass. You couldn’t pick a sunny day to run away?”

“Sunny days just don’t do it for me. You need a good thunderstorm if you’re gonna kill yourself. It takes your mind off of i—IZZY! The fuck?!”

“You shut the hell up right now,” Izzy said, pulling his fist back again for another slug to the shoulder. Axl scrambled back, wincing, rubbing his arm.

“So do you want me to talk, or don’t you?” The ginger-headed boy crabbed, and swatted his friend’s fist away as he swung again. “Izzy, knock it off, for fuck’s sake. I’m trying to sleep.”

“You stupid motherfucker,” Izzy grabbed Axl and hugged him again, tight, wanting to strangle the hell out of him, wanting to cry. “You don’t get to do that without me. Okay? If you’re gonna die, it’s gonna be with me. You know that? We’re in this together. If I can’t help, the least I can do is walk you to the gates of hell.”

“Thanks, Iz, I appreciate it,” Axl mumbled, both sincerely and with a trace of irritation. “Now will you shut up and go to sleep? I’m tired.”

“Fine, asshat. I don’t care.” Izzy said, and then waited a few minutes, before he thought Axl might really have fallen asleep. He rested his chin atop Axl’s head and thanked God silently that the universe had seen fit to bring Axl back home, safe. Even if it was (Y/N)’s home. He could deal with that just fine.

“Don’t go anywhere soon. I love you.” Izzy murmured quietly.

Axl laughed against his collarbone. “You’re so gay, man.”

“Oh, fuck you, you little…!” The two boys tossed and turned and wrestled, cussing and smiling, shoving each other down and rolling back and forth until they reached the edge of the bed before rolling in the other direction. At some point, Axl got his legs caught in the blanket, and batted at Izzy, who was laughing about it.

“Shut up,” Axl said, wriggling around, trying to free himself. “God damn… fuckin’... will you help me?”

“Nah,” Izzy said, sitting up at the edge of the bed, swinging out and standing up to stretch. “I’m good.”

“Aw, come on. Where are you going?” Axl whined as Izzy strode to the far end of the room.

Where was he going? Izzy knew, but didn’t know why, so he just shrugged.

“Forgot something,” he said, and smiled as Axl swore and tried to get the blankets to let go of his ankles.

He walked a few steps down the hall, and stopped before the door to the guest bedroom, which lay slightly ajar. Even so, he tapped his knuckles on the door before peeking in. “Hey (Y/N), you still awake?”

“How could I not be?” came a sarcastic voice from the voice beyond. “You two fight louder than a pair of porcupines.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Izzy said, and then before he could change his mind, he added, “You can join us, you know. Just… yeah. If you want.”

There was silence from the darkness beyond, and then there was the rustling of fabric as she got out of bed and came to the door, this time only in her chemise. Izzy almost whistled, but put a stop to that. He didn’t like her that much—but, well, one could say he was just that much closer to understanding why Axl liked her.

They walked as a pair back to the room where Axl had finally gotten free of the bed sheets, and he looked at them standing in the doorway, shifting his gaze from (Y/N) to Izzy and from Izzy to (Y/N).

“Am I dreaming, or is this real?” He asked, a grin spreading across his face.

“Axl, if you so much as breathe a word about a threesome, I swear to God,” (Y/N) said, climbing into bed on his left side, curling up close to him, so he could feel her warmth.

“Mind-reader.” Axl’s grin widened before Izzy smacked his shoulder.

“Who’s gay now?” Izzy laughed as he pulled his still-damp shirt and jeans off, and crawled back into bed on the right side of his best friend, who put an arm around him and tousled Izzy’s hair so hard it almost hurt.

“You are, dumbass, at least I’m dressed,” Axl laughed, and all three of them burst into snickers and giggles, pressing in together in the comfort of the bed, away from the cold of the night, tucked safely under a soft down comforter and nestled in each others’ warmth.

“Goodnight,” murmured (Y/N).

“Goodnight.” Izzy returned. Axl could hear the smile in his voice.

“Goodnight,” Axl said, and then added, “I fuckin’ love you guys.”

And with that, he fell asleep.

Chapter Text

A NEW DAY

The thing that woke Axl was not the first ray of sun that dared peek past the curtains. It wasn’t the sound of a clock ticking. It wasn’t that there were geese honking outside, or that he smelled something faintly resembling banana bread in the kitchen. It was the empty space beside him that he recognized, and that pulled him out of his deep slumber. Well, empty space on one side, that is. (Y/N) was still next to him, one arm curled gently over his shoulder, her breathing soft and slow and even in the coming dawn. It had to be early—maybe five in the morning?—and he was still extremely tired, but Izzy wasn’t there, and now there were some rather suspicious rooting noises coming from the kitchen.

Slowly, he eased himself out of (Y/N)’s lax grip and wandered down the hall and out to the open dining room, shivering a little at the loss of warmth from the bed. Izzy was in the kitchen, munching on a slice of banana bread while searching through the cupboards and occasionally weaseling away a can or box of some sort of food into a makeshift satchel that looked suspiciously like his button-down shirt tied in some intricate way.

“Izzy, what the fuck are you doing?” Axl knew he should be mad about something here—maybe the fact that it looked like he was stealing?—but he was still so tired, and his head still hurt. It wasn’t like two hours of sleep could magically fix one’s headache, but still, he’d had hopes. Now he was just moody.

The dark-haired boy paused. “Packing.” For a while, they both stood there, watching each other, and then Izzy went back to shuffling through the cupboards. He added, “I figured out the dryer, too, so your clothes are all good. They’re in the basement.”

“Wait. No, hold on. Packing?” Axl asked. “What are you packing for? Where are you going?”

“Los Angeles.” This time, Izzy gave him a serious look. “You coming?”

“I…” Axl was at a complete loss for words. If Izzy had asked him any day before this—even a month ago—whether he wanted to go to Los Angeles, he would have said yes in a heartbeat; his only reservations being with Stu and Amy. But now it was different. Now he had a genuine hope of living outside of the Bailey house, without having to cross the country and subject himself to the unknowns of society halfway across his own world. Was it worth it to leave all of a sudden?

Well, yes, if Izzy was going. He wrestled with the thought for a few minutes and didn’t give an answer. “The fuck are you doing stealing food, then?”

“She said it was fine.” Izzy shrugged, and took another bite of banana bread before tossing a box of macaroni pasta into the hand-tied bag. “Why don’t you go ask her? I’ll grab your clothes for you. We’re gonna have to leave in a few minutes, while it’s still early.”

“Izzy—” Axl was cut off by the sound of the basement door opening and shutting as Izzy tramped down the wooden basement stairs to grab his friend’s clothes, which by now would be warm and dry. God. Was Axl really ready for this? Could he really stand so sudden of a goodbye? He didn’t know. And he supposed he’d better figure out what Izzy meant by “she said it was fine”. As far as he knew, (Y/N) was still asleep—she had to be.

But when he walked back down the hall to her bedroom, he saw her sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at her hands in her lap, looking like the shell of a girl. He practically ran to her side, hugging her, pressing a kiss or two to her temple.

“Hey, (Y/N),” he said. “Hey. Why’s Izzy stealing food?”

She turned her head toward him and smiled, despite the sadness in her eyes. “I told him he could. He’ll take you to L.A., if you still want to go.”

“But—” Suddenly, the confirmation that both of them were in on it hit Axl over the head and made him feel faint and sick and like he was somehow dreaming. “But I can’t do that. I—wait. Are you coming?” The prospect shimmered before his eyes, beautifully now; oh, he could see it. They would go to L.A., all three of them, and then he’d have the perfect mix, the perfect little triad, the love of his life and the yin to his yang—

“No.” Her smile fell just a little, but she tried to keep it up.

It broke him. “What do you mean ‘no’?” He couldn’t believe it. “Why? Why would you stay? (Y/N), don’t stay out here, you’ll be lonely. Who’s gonna help you garden? Who’s gonna keep you company? Who’s gonna…” He wanted to ask, who else is going to love you?, but thought it too mean, too cruel. Though his voice had been getting angrier and angrier, he didn’t feel angry like he usually did. There was no red at the corners of his vision, there were no other voices, there were no impulses. It was just pain and anger, pure and simple. As simple as the throbbing in his head that was making it a hundred times harder to understand what was going on. If he wasn’t sure it would just make the pain worse, he would have smacked himself upside the head to try to get rid of the damn throbbing. God, it was awful.

“Axl. I didn’t say I’d never make it to Los Angeles.” She soothed and put her arms around him. All Axl could do was lay there in her grasp and feel as if his world was coming apart. Why did he always have to choose between things? Why couldn’t he have both? Why couldn’t he take both Izzy and (Y/N) to L.A.? Why couldn’t they have a grand old time together? Why…? And he must have been asking some of these questions out loud, because as she spoke sweet words into his ear, she answered some of them.

“Who’s going to tell Ma? Somebody has to. Who’s going to look after Stuart and Amy? Somebody has to do that too. And somebody has to know something more about Izzy just running off. I know his mom. I know she goes to church, and what she prays for; just the same as any of us do. All we hope is that our boys are alright.” She pulled back to look at him, and smoothed his hair to the side, where it had fallen to hide his teary gaze. “Somebody has to give her that. Somebody has to tell her her boy is doing just fine.”

“But I don’t want to leave you,” Axl said, helplessly.

“I know that. I’m happy. I’m so happy you don’t want to leave me.” Her eyes were shining now too. “But, honey, life here is killing you. You can’t tell me you won’t try that again, what you did last night; if you stay here.”

True. The thought of another year spent celebrating menial holidays and avoiding mental breakdowns like trying to avoid the snowflakes in a blizzard didn’t appeal to him at all. In fact, if he could get away from it, he would. He itched to run. He deserved to. He deserved better. But there were so many people he wanted to take with him. He wanted familiarity. He wanted Amy, and Stuart, and Izzy, and Ma, and (Y/N). He wanted them all to come with him and to make Los Angeles a home.

“Don’t stay here,” she whispered. “Go make yourself something. Go be a star. Izzy’s gonna be right there with you, okay? You’re not going to be alone.”

Axl had never cried harder in his life than when he did when she pressed the keys of the LeSabre into his palm and held him tight to her. “You’re gonna be okay, honey,” (Y/N) spoke to him, still in her gentle murmuring tones, as he put his arms around her and buried his face in her collar and sobbed. “You’re gonna be just fine. I’m right behind you all the way. You just look back to the east every once in a while, and you remember I’m here, okay? You watch every sunrise, and you think of me, sitting here in my garden. I’ll teach your brother and sister how to plant zinnias, even. And when they’re grown enough, we’ll all come find you. Alright? We’re gonna waltz on down to the old city of angels…”

Axl gripped the keys to the Buick in his hand so hard they cut into the skin of his palms and his head hurt horribly as he tried to catch a breath. But he couldn’t. It was awful. It was so awful. He never wanted to be this sad in his goddamned life, and yet here he was, crying like a baby into her soft chest as she slowly hushed and just pressed kiss after kiss to the top of his head. As inviting as she was, she stayed, still, on the edge of her bed; and when Izzy came to get him because it was time to leave, she didn’t move to follow them to the door. Axl watched her as he left the room, brushing past the old dressing table where he’d first found a piece of himself in her; and all she did was raise a hand and wave weakly. He hadn’t realized it, but she was crying too, and the sun pouring through the curtains made her aura glow, as if she really were an angel.

“Goodbye, I love you,” she called out, as freely as the birds sang at dawn.

“I love you too.” He tried to sound as carefree as her, but the weight of it all choked him. He let Izzy lead him down the hall and out the door, shaking his head as his friend offered him some banana bread of his own, a glass of water; anything before they left. There was only silence as they climbed into the Buick, as they backed down the drive, as they watched the house and saw curtains flutter as (Y/N) peered at them from the kitchen window. After a minute, she waved, and Axl waved back—but by then they were already moving down the road, the familiar growl of the LeSabre filling their eardrums with a certain soulfulness, the churning of time that keeps on keeping on, keeping on, keeping on.

“I have to do something before we really leave, okay?” Izzy said, and Axl just nodded quietly. The LeSabre made a few turns and pulled up to the curb in front of a white stucco house with a cheap-looking wire fence around it; and Izzy got out, ran up the steps, put an envelope in the mailbox that hung from one rusty nail as surely as the sun hung in the sky, and dashed back to the car without another word.

“To Los Angeles,” he said, just barely out of breath as he clambered into the driver’s seat again, and put the car in drive.

Axl just looked out the window, memorizing the sun, the way it looked streaming over the land; the way he’d recognize it when he thought of her.

-

At eight o’clock in the morning, Mrs. Isbell was rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she readied herself for another harsh day of work, calling out to Jeffery that there were pancakes in the fridge if he wanted them, and that he had better not heat the syrup up in the plastic container again, otherwise he was going to clean up the mess himself. Already in her work clothes, she stepped out the door and realized that along with the usual newspaper on the front stoop, it looked like she’d gotten quite a bit of mail. She sighed and plucked a handful of envelopes out of the mailbox, sorting through them as one pages through a mildly-interesting book at a library. Bill after bill, some electricity, some water, some gas—and then, some sort of donation notice. She rolled her eyes and knew that that one was going straight into the garbage bin—Mrs. Isbell did not donate to politics, she donated to the church, and that was about it. She was about to walk back in the house to put the stack of envelopes on the table for later when she noticed a thin white one, at the very bottom of the stack. It was addressed to “MOM” in big black scratchy letters, and there was nothing else on it, but for a smudge of ink here and there, one in the shape of a thumbprint near the edge of the envelope. Her heart sank. She would know that handwriting anywhere.

Carefully, shakily, almost; she opened it, and began to read. The other envelopes fell from her grasp as her eyes traced the page, widening with every word.

Hey Mom,
Please be patient with me.

The sun broke into the sky like an egg yolk breaking in a big blue frying pan, and the light shone over everything, warming the earth and the interior of the LeSabre as they coasted along golden country, following nothing but the rails as they headed toward California. Axl felt like crying, still, but he was tired, and so rested his eyes against the burning bright light of the sun cresting the dashboard from behind them, swallowing the lump in his throat and trying not to think too hard about her.

Izzy squinted in the sun reflecting through the rearview mirror and then looked over at his friend, who looked, simply put, miserable. Though he wasn’t necessarily a touchy-feely kind of guy, Izzy felt just bad enough to reach over and put an arm around him.

“Hey.” He said, gently, and pulled Axl toward him. “You okay?”

Axl leaned across the middle of the car and pushed his cheek into Izzy’s shoulder, sighing. “You know… I think so.”

“Yeah?” Izzy asked, and then added in a regretful voice, “You know, I’m really sorry. I am. I acted like a jerk because I thought… well… I don’t know what I thought. I thought I was losing my best friend to a girl, I guess. And I didn’t want it to be that way, so. I don’t know. I did stupid shit, and I’m sorry, is all I’m trying to say. I still want you around.”

Axl was silent for a few moments, but eventually, he broke out into giggles. “Man, you suck at apologizing.”

“I know, shut up.” Izzy said, but had to smile anyway, and then had to squint again because the sunlight was just so bright. It didn’t matter much anyway, though, because there was almost no one on the road this early—especially not on the dirt roads. Those were still pretty much reduced to muck after the rain storms last night.

“Izzy, I’m sorry too.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know. Everything.” Axl shrugged. “Are we cool now?”

“Way cool.” Izzy grinned, and the LeSabre seemed to growl a little more happily, all of a sudden. The olive-gold car picked up a little, zooming down the narrow interstate and into the clear blue distance.

I know good kids don’t run away. I also know I’ve never been a particularly good kid. I can’t even write a decent letter for Ms. Harpmann so god knows why I’m trying now. But I thought you should know this isn’t your fault. This isn’t anybody’s fault.

(Y/N) sat in the kitchen for a while, on the chair next to the stove, humming to herself, combing her hair, just thinking about everything. She felt like she’d been born again, somehow. Like now she was in it—like now, she was part of that great rebellious crowd that she never could have been when she was still in school; the part of the greater known that she’d never really ventured into before. And now, here she was, letting two kids run away in her car and thinking of how much she could sell the house for and still have room left over for tickets to Los Angeles. Would Ma Bailey and Stuart and Amy come with her? No, probably not. Not at all. Would she stay here to take care of them until they could? Yes. And who knew how long that would be. (Y/N) had absolutely no idea. What would she tell the Baileys? And what would she tell Izzy’s mom? Lord almighty. Well, she couldn’t speak much for Izzy at all, that was for sure. And she wasn’t sure she could speak much for Axl, either. Whatever Ma Bailey needed to know about his disappearance, she probably already knew. She had known since last night, anyway. She just hadn’t wanted it to be true.

The floor of the house was cool on (Y/N)’s feet as she wandered as if in dreams back to her bedroom, and she began to get dressed for another busy day at the publishing office. If she was to get anywhere without a car, she’d have to start walking now. And if she was to get anywhere with telling Ma Bailey what had happened, well… she should have started even earlier.

“Where did my…?” She searched the top drawer in her dressing table, and then the next one, and the next one. There was the foundation. There was the concealer. There was her prized mascara tin. And yet… “Where’s my lipstick?” She looked, and looked, but couldn’t find it; couldn’t see the little black case anywhere. She looked under the table, under the bed, even shuffled through desk drawers with the thought that she might have misplaced it there. Coat pockets. Nightstand. She even went so far as to check in the bathroom—but it was nowhere to be found. And then the thought hit her; and she couldn’t help but let out a spectacular laugh.

“Oh, Axl,” She giggled. “I love you.”

Sometimes nature isn’t kind. Baby spiders eat their parents sometimes, so be glad I’m not a recluse (har har). But seriously, I mean it. Nature brought me and my best friend together, and nature tried to take him away last night. My only hope—purpose, even—is to go where the wind takes me, and right now, that wind is carrying us both west. I can’t let him go alone. Yin doesn’t abandon yang. Dark doesn’t abandon dawn.

Axl took the little black case out of his pocket, the one he’d snitched from the top of her dressing table as he was leaving earlier. Hey, if Izzy could steal food, he figured it was only right she let him have something to remember her by—other than memories, of course. Axl took off the top of the lipstick tube and grated it upwards, watching the perfect red—the bite of an apple, the burst of a firework, the fourth of July—sparkle in the sun.

Izzy looked over and grinned. “You gonna dress in drag to fit in when we get there?”

Axl stuck out his lower lip, scrutinizing the lipstick, pretending to think about it. Then he looked at Izzy and grinned right back. “Nah, I thought it might go nicely with your blue eyeshadow.”

At that, the dark-haired boy snorted. “I know I slept like shit, but you don’t need to shove it in my face.”

“Oh, right, you slept like shit. I didn’t know somebody could snore so loudly when they’re just ‘dozing’.”

Izzy threw his head back and cackled. “Finally! Some justice! You know how many times your stupid snoring kept me awake in Sutter’s place?”

“Oh, shut up, I do not snore.”

“Do too.”

“Do not!”

“Do too. Why don’t you prove it, and fall asleep right now?”

Axl made a face. “What are you going to do, take a picture? Some proof.”

Izzy stuck out his tongue. “At least it’ll get you to shut up.”

If anyone had been driving behind them, they would’ve thought the two in the front seat were having a raucous argument, slugging each other in the shoulder, the one black-haired boy just barely managing to keep his hands on the wheel—but in reality, their laughs echoed throughout the car, front to back, a sign of good things to come. The engine hummed, the wheels spun, and the Buick flew on to its destination with two happy boys and a shirt full of belongings in tow; the beginning of a new life under the sun.

All my life, I’ve just been trying to get it right, and doing this seems the closest to it. Does that make me a bad kid? Does it make me a good kid?
Truth be told, I don’t think it makes me either. I find peace in that. So even though you might hate me, and god forbid you miss me, know that I’m still here somewhere. I’m of you. Even nature can’t separate that.
I’ll be in L.A. one of these days. Hope you come to visit. And please remember—
—just a little patience. O.K.?
Yours,
Jeffery Dean Isbell

P.S. - Don’t sell my guitar. (Please and thanks.)

For once, Axl couldn’t wait to see what happened next.