Chapter Text
‘cause the wolves are at my neck
i can’t talk about that yet
they’ve got shit inside those hearts
one day, they’ll have to repent
on judgement day
they’ll be glued right to the bed
and you’ll look and tell me
“baby, you remember what i said?”
“At the Beach, In Every Life” — Gigi Perez
When Lucy gets home from work, she throws the front door open so dramatically that Kate very nearly throws her bamboo spoon across the apartment. She manages to catch it, but only after juggling it and splattering vodka tomato sauce across both the counter and her shirt. She stares blankly at the red stain on her cream blouse and hopes that Lucy remembered to pick up the stain remover she put on their grocery list last week.
It’s only when Lucy doesn’t immediately pop up in the kitchen to wrap her arms around Kate in greeting and steal a piece of garlic bread while Kate is distracted that she realizes something is off. She glances over at the front door to find Lucy slumped against it, her head tipped back and her gym bag squished between her thigh and the door in a way that can’t be comfortable.
“Luce,” she calls, repeating herself twice more when Lucy doesn’t respond.
On the third call of her name, Lucy startles and quickly straightens, her eyes wide as if she hadn’t realized Kate was there. Kate frowns and takes a step towards Lucy, worry stirring in her stomach at Lucy’s odd behaviour. The pasta water chooses that moment to start boiling over, fizzling angrily as it splatters across the stovetop.
“Shit,” Kate hisses, leaping forward to frantically blow on the bubbles until water stops trying to escape the pot. By the time she is certain that she won’t burn down the apartment complex and turns to greet Lucy, her girlfriend is gone. Her shoes are carelessly kicked off beside Kate’s, so she’s obviously still in the apartment, but Kate hadn’t even heard her walk by. Past the grating noise of the stove vent, she can hear the faint sound of their shower running, and she relaxes a little.
Lucy never bypasses greeting Kate when she gets home from work and it causes the worry to bloom in Kate’s stomach. She can only assume Lucy had a really terrible day at work, and is just exhausted and desperate to shower the day off. Kate can handle that. She knows how to help Lucy decompress, and she knows that nine times out of ten Lucy just needs a shower to improve her mood exponentially.
Kate sighs and turns back to her pasta and vodka sauce, hoping that she can finish cooking and dishing up two plates in the time that Lucy takes to shower. Everything is basically done at this point anyways, so she drains the pasta when once it reaches al dente and mixes it into the sauce with a bit of the pasta water, dishing up two plates with pasta, garlic bread, and caesar salad and dropping them off at the table. She takes a quick detour to the laundry room to strip off her stained shirt, nabbing the new bottle of stain remover that Lucy did thankfully pick up and quickly spraying the stain before leaving it to soak into the fabric. She grabs one of her folded hoodies off the top of the dryer and pulls it on—honestly, it’s her own fault for cooking a tomato-based sauce in a white blouse.
When she leaves the laundry room, she finds Lucy standing in the middle of the apartment, her wet hair leaving dark water marks on her hoodie, staring blankly at the floor with that furrow above her right eyebrow that Kate loves to kiss away. “Hey,” Kate says hesitantly, unsure exactly what has caused Lucy’s near fugue state but approaching it carefully regardless, “everything okay?”
Lucy nods absently, walking over to the table and sitting down as if she’s in a dream.
Kate crosses the apartment and slides into her own chair, slowly reaching out and resting her hand on Lucy’s, letting out a silent sigh of relief when Lucy doesn’t shake her off. “Tough case?” she guesses hesitantly.
Lucy blinks and seems to shake off her stupor as she looks up. “What? Oh, no, it was a paperwork day.”
“So,” Kate draws out, looking at Lucy meaningfully. Lucy stares blankly back at her and Kate’s stomach flips over unpleasantly. Whatever’s going on with Lucy obviously isn’t work related, and she is certain that Lucy would tell her if something bad happened to their friends, so she truly has absolutely no clue what could possibly be behind her weird behaviour. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I’m totally fine,” Lucy says, her voice just on the wrong side of shrill.
Kate feels her eyebrows steadily climb her forehead. “Right,” she says slowly.
Lucy lets out a laugh that is a little too loud and a little to brittle, slipping her hand out from under Kate’s and reaching for her knife and fork. “There’s nothing to talk about,” she says, obviously a blatant lie considering everything about her behaviour screams that there is something deeply wrong. She shoves a huge forkful of pasta into her mouth. “‘is i’th ‘eally goo’,” she mumbles around her mouthful of pasta, clearly trying to end of that line of questioning conversation.
Kate swallows back the hurt and nods, staring down at her plate and realizing that she’s suddenly not hungry anymore. She chances a glance up at Lucy, who is eating as if nothing is wrong, though she is staring resolutely down at her plate, her eyes are carefully avoiding Kate’s gaze.
“Thanks,” Kate says, aiming for unaffected but obviously failing because Lucy’s eyes dart immediately to hers. They soften for a moment, before guiltily dropping back down to her plate as she shoves another huge forkful of pasta into her mouth. Kate focuses on steadying her breathing for a moment and then picks up her fork. Lucy is obviously not ready to talk yet, and Kate wills herself to respect that. To give Lucy the space she clearly wants even if it goes against ever instinct Kate has.
It’s a strange reversal of roles, usually Kate is the one who needs space to process things while Lucy hates being left alone with her thoughts. Kate truly can’t imagine what could possibly cause Lucy to push her away when her usual reaction to stress and hurt is to cling to Kate.
They eat in silence, Kate struggling to swallow past the lump in her throat and the worry churning in her stomach. Everything tastes a little bit like ash, which is unfortunate considering she spent over an hour on supper and this particular pasta dish is one of her favourite meals. The sound of the ocean drifting in through the open balcony doors is deceptively peaceful and does nothing to soothe Kate like it usually does, leaving her to stew in her own anxiety.
When she finishes eating, she leaves Lucy sitting quietly at the table. She needs to do something or she fears she will go stir crazy with worry. So she starts cleaning up, letting the familiar motions of wiping down cupboards and tidying up spices distract her. She packs up the leftovers into a couple of containers for her and Lucy’s lunches over the next few days and loads up the dishwasher, and then fills up the sink with hot soapy water to wash the pots and pans and salad bowl.
She is so focused on scrubbing the saucepan that she doesn’t even hear Lucy come up behind her until she is hopping up on the counter to settle herself beside the sink. Kate glances up in surprise and Lucy offers her a slightly self-deprecating smile, her eyes shining with an apology that makes some of the worry that has been knotted in Kate’s stomach untangle.
Kate gives her a smile in return, and Lucy visibly relaxes a little. But she still doesn’t say anything, so Kate returns to the dishes, content to wait until Lucy is ready to share.
“I got a wedding invitation today,” Lucy says so suddenly that Kate jumps a little. It causes some warmth to leak back into Lucy’s eyes, her lips twitching up in a faint smile.
Relief floods Kate so quickly it leaves her limbs feeling light and airy. She had started to assume the absolute worst—a bad habit she’s had since a kid that she is still working on—but a wedding invitation? She can handle a wedding invitation.
“Whose wedding?” Kate asks, going back to washing the dishes. Some lettuce from the salad bowl sticks to her hands and she wrinkles her nose, everything inside her recoiling at the sensory nightmare wet lettuce is.
“My brother’s,” Lucy says evenly, “I didn’t even know he was engaged.”
The world screeches to a halt around them, and Kate freezes mid-scrub, slowly turning her head to look at Lucy. She’s still perched on the counter beside the sink, staring across the apartment, her expression blank and her eyes vacant. The only real sign of distress is the death-grip she has on the edge of the counter, her knuckles shining bone-white. Kate abandons the half-washed dishes, quickly drying her hands off on the towel she had tossed over her shoulder while cleaning up. She moves closer to Lucy, hesitating for a moment when she gets close enough to touch her, waiting for Lucy to make the first move. Usually, Kate would have no qualms about offering physical comfort, but Lucy’s avoidant behaviour all evening has given her pause.
Lucy clearly has no qualms though, because she reaches for Kate as soon as she is within arms-length, tugging Kate between her legs and sighing in relief when Kate’s hands land on her thighs. She immediately reaches up to fiddle with Kate’s loose hair, something she always absently does whenever Kate is close and Lucy needs something to fidget with. The last of Kate’s anxiety melts out of her stomach when Lucy tips forward to rest her forehead against Kate’s collarbone, her lips brushing across Kate’s sternum in an apologetic kiss. The worry still remains, a slight twist of her heart at the thought of Lucy hurting, but it’s much more bearable now that she knows what is going on and can stop rotating through worst case scenario after worst case scenario.
“It’s okay,” Kate murmurs, pressing a kiss to Lucy’s temple, letting her lips linger there when Lucy’s arms wind around her and twist in the back of her hoodie, “take your time.”
Lucy takes a few deep breaths before sitting up, keeping Kate close with her knees tight against Kate’s sides and her hands anchored on Kate’s ribs. “I’m sorry for being so weird. I just— My feelings are a bit of a mess right now.”
“That’s understandable,” Kate says easily, ducking forward to brush a tender kiss across the corner of Lucy’s mouth, “I was just worried about you.”
Lucy twists her head to catch Kate’s lips with hers and Kate sighs into the kiss. “Still, I’m sure I probably freaked you out,” Lucy mumbles against Kate’s mouth, “So I’m sorry for that.”
Kate raises her eyebrows and draws back a bit. “What do you always say to me about not apologizing for feeling things?”
Lucy rolls her eyes and chuckles. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not so great at taking my own advice.”
“What?” Kate gasps, fighting her grin, “That’s crazy!”
“Do as I say, not as I do.” Lucy holds Kate’s gaze seriously for a moment before she cracks, her nose scrunching up as she grins. Kate laughs and runs her hands up and down the outside of Lucy’s thighs, smiling when Lucy lets out a content hum and slouches back against the cupboards. “Seriously, though,” Lucy says, her smile softening a little, “Thank you for being patient while I sorted everything in my head out. If I was in your shoes I’m sure I would be losing my mind.”
Kate snorts and runs her thumbs across Lucy’s thighs, slipping them just under the hem of her shorts. “To be fair, you aren’t exactly the most patient person to begin with,” she teases.
Lucy gasps, affronted, gently smacking the back of her hand against Kate’s shoulder. “Take that back!”
Kate laughs and rolls her eyes, absently letting her thumbs continue their gentle sweep of Lucy’s skin, softening a little when Lucy’s smile slowly fades. “Do you want to talk about it?” Kate asks carefully.
Lucy shrugs a little. “What’s there to talk about?” she asks rhetorically, “My brother’s getting married in a month and a half. That about covers it.”
Kate doesn’t say anything, electing to instead just raise her eyebrows and stare at Lucy.
Lucy groans and drops her head back against the cupboard with a muted thud. “Yeah, yeah,” she grumbles, “There’s lots to talk about. But I don’t even know where to start.” She pauses, her eyes slipping closed and her voice dropping to a whisper. “Let alone how I feel about any of it.”
Kate hums, her hands coming to a stop so she can reach up to brush Lucy’s hair off her shoulder. Lucy’s eyes open as Kate lets her fingers linger against Lucy’s neck. “Let’s start easy then,” she says, “which brother?”
“Michael,” Lucy answers, her eyes drifting past Kate’s shoulder to stare across the apartment, a far-away look clouding her pretty hazel eyes.
Kate frowns a little, quickly flipping through the very limited things that Lucy has shared with her about her family in the past nearly six years. It’s never much, and it’s usually things she says off-handedly, but Kate has carefully catalogued each and every piece of knowledge that Lucy has let slip, squirrelling it away into the box marked Lucy in her brain like a dragon hoarding treasure.
It took her a while to be alright with Lucy’s habit of shutting down anything to do with her family, and it no longer makes her stomach twist uncomfortably like it used to. She knows it’s not about a lack of trust or intimacy like she once thought, but rather an indication of exactly how deep the scars Lucy’s family have left on her heart are. Lucy doesn’t talk about her family with Kate not because she doesn’t trust Kate with that knowledge, but simply because it’s too hard to talk about.
Kate understands, probably more than most people, just how difficult it is to open up about the damage your family has done to you. Telling people makes it real—it means having to face it head-on, and Lucy obviously still isn’t fully ready to rip off the bandage she had placed over the hurt all those years ago.
But maybe she’s finally ready for Kate to catch a glimpse of the wound.
“Michael is closest in age to you,” Kate remembers, “The one who took over your parents’ company, right?”
Lucy’s eyes dart back to Kate’s, surprised and fond. “Yeah. Like I said, I didn’t even know he was engaged,” she says, reaching up to curl Kate’s hair around one finger again, “Or, uh, that he got divorced.”
“His second marriage, then,” Kate guesses.
Lucy grimaces a little. “Third.”
Kate lets out a hum that she hopes doesn’t sound too critical. She can’t pretend to know anything about Michael’s life or what his previous marriages were like, but there is a small judgemental voice in the back of her head that sounds suspiciously like her mom’s that is turning its nose up at Michael being on his third marriage. She always tries to keep an open mind, but she grew up in a small town in the midwest—there are certain biases that she is still trying to unlearn, even in her thirties.
“Michael can be,” Lucy hesitates, twisting Kate’s hair between her fingers a bit faster, “Well, he was the one most suited to taking over the family business that’s for sure.” A shadow falls across Lucy’s face that makes Kate’s heart ache. “My parents are so proud of him,” she says lightly, doing a poor job of masking the bitterness in her voice.
Kate slides her hand from Lucy’s shoulder, running her fingers down her arm and to her hip, anchoring her palm there and slipping her thumb under Lucy’s hoodie to rub soothing circles across her skin. “What about your other siblings?” she asks carefully, “Are they married?”
“Sofia’s husband Ryan is a NHL player for the Dallas Stars, and Nate’s husband Mateo is some big-shot lawyer,” Lucy answers, only looking a little uncomfortable about sharing information about her siblings.
Kate couldn’t keep the surprise off her face if she tried. “Your brother’s gay?”
Lucy hums and rolls her eyes a little. “Yeah, and believe me, my parents were not happy about it,” she says darkly. “But they managed to turn it into some big PR piece for their company. I think they thought publicly supporting Nate would make them more popular with democrats. Make them turn a blind eye to their environmental destruction and lobbying and unsafe labour practices. Not really any other reason to tout their gay son around, especially in Texas.”
“Oh, I thought that—” Kate struggles to wrangle all her disparate thoughts, “I mean, when you said that your parents weren’t going to give you a wedding dress when we were undercover at the Kahua Koa, I just assumed—”
Lucy chuckles humourlessly. “For all of the Tara’s faults, being publicly homophobic isn’t actually one of them. Privately is a bit of a different story.” She pauses and sighs, her eyes dropping from Kate’s, bitterness and anger and something else Kate can’t quite name flickering through them. “It’s complicated. Having a gay son was unpleasant but tolerable for the Taras—likely more to do with him being a neurosurgeon and marrying a corporate lawyer than any real acceptance of Nate being gay. Having a lesbian daughter though? Especially one who became a federal agent? Well, that’s a whole other story.”
“What do you—” Kate starts before she can think better of it, biting down on her tongue when Lucy immediately stiffens and drops her hand from Kate’s hair. She shakes her head and quickly changes topics, not wanting Lucy to completely shut down. “Are you going to go, then? To the wedding, I mean.”
The darkness in Lucy’s eyes clears a bit and she lets out a long, tired sigh. “I’ve been to every other wedding,” she says, “I think I have to.”
Kate furrows her brow. “Just because you went to every other one doesn’t mean you have to go to this one.”
Lucy’s lips tip up into a crooked, resigned smile. “It does for the Taras. I already knew I had to go as soon as I saw the envelope. Tara family expectations surpass trivial things like being the estranged lesbian daughter,” she says humourlessly.
Kate nods like she understands even though she absolutely does not. The only expectation her parents ever placed on her growing up was just to graduate high school, which she genuinely thinks is a pretty reasonable expectation. But the glimpses of Lucy’s childhood she occasionally lets slip, of growing up with strict rules and unreasonable expectations and parental homophobia, always makes Kate feel more than a little out of her depth. “Well, let me book your flight for you at least,” she offers, “I have so many reward points built up that I never use anymore and I keep getting emails about them expiring soon. At least you can use that and save a bit of money so I won’t just completely lose them. Which is good because I hate wasting—”
She only stops talking when she notices that Lucy is staring at her with eyes so soft and adoring that it freezes the words on Kate’s lips. Lucy’s teeth are sunk into her bottom lip to bite back her smile and Kate already feels about twelve steps behind even though Lucy hasn’t said anything yet.
“Will your reward points cover two tickets?” Lucy asks, her smile growing when Kate feels her own jaw go slack.
“Two, uh— Wait, what?” Kate asks dumbly.
Lucy laughs a little and reaches up to cup Kate’s face, her palms warm and steady against Kate’s jaw. “Well, I already RSVP’d for two since there was a plus one spot on the invitation,” she says, her smile widening at whatever dumbfounded look is probably on Kate’s face, “It’s about time I stop showing up solo, and, well, Kai is busy so.”
Kate doesn’t even process the joke, her brain going through a fully reboot process like her work computer anytime she needs to do something time sensitive. “Sorry, what?”
Lucy strokes her thumbs across Kate’s cheeks, her smile never wavering. “Come to my brother’s wedding with me,” she says.
Kate blinks for several long moments. “You want me to come with you?” she clarifies.
Lucy’s eyes glow with fond amusement. “Absolutely.”
“To your brother’s wedding?”
“Yep.”
“Where I’ll meet your family?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Kate can’t quite control the hopeful quiver in her voice: “As your girlfriend?”
Lucy’s teasing smirk slips into a warm smile. “Why, you wanna come as my coworker or something?”
That finally snaps Kate out of her daze and a warmth spreads through her body until she feels a bit like she could probably jump off the balcony and fly.
She tries to fight a smile and obviously fails if the way Lucy’s own smile widens is any indication. “Sure,” she says, aiming for casual and likely landing somewhere far beyond it, “Sounds fun.”
“Well, I don’t know about fun, but it will definitely be something,” Lucy laughs. She ducks forward to kiss Kate, who responds mostly out of instinct than anything.
She pulls back after barely a heartbeat. “Wait, you’re serious?”
Lucy softens, her thumbs brushing across Kate’s cheeks. “I am,” she says solemnly, “I want you to meet my family, Kate.” Butterflies explode in Kate’s stomach, a mixture of nervousness and elation. “I know I’ve always avoided the topic like the plague in the past, but meeting your family last summer has made me realize it doesn’t have to be as scary as I’ve always feared it would be. Even if that unfortunately involves having to see my parents again.” She shrugs, a lopsided smile tugging at her lips. “And while it probably won’t be quite as fun or chaotic as the Annual Whistler-Johnston Games, I want you to meet my siblings and my niblings. I want you to see where I grew up.”
Kate smiles as she leans forward to kiss Lucy, a little off-centre due to the curl of both of their smiles. “Yes,” she mumbles, “yes, I want that too.”
“Good,” Lucy grins, somehow managing to tug Kate even closer, “Let’s go to my brother’s wedding.”