Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The thump of the bass reverberated through my body as I approached the bar, a steady rhythm that shook loose some of the tension that had been building throughout the week. I didn’t enjoy the press of bodies crowding in, especially in the bump and grind fashion that was so popular on the dancefloor behind me, but I could appreciate the blanket of noise over my swirling thoughts, and the thrum of music vibrating through my chest on a good day like today.

I’d barely hesitated a second when Lester rapped on my office door to let me know he and the guys were heading to the club tonight if I wanted to join them. The club wasn’t generally my natural environment like it seemed to be for some of the others, but a night out with friends sounded appealing.

I was almost back to the table with  the next round of drinks for everyone when the light brush of a hand on my arm made my fist clench and  dragged my attention down - down, down, down, why was everyone so short? - to a scantily clad blonde with smudged eye makeup and what looked like tear tracks running down her cheeks, a rum and coke in one hand.

“Can I help you?” I adjusted my hold on the tray of drinks in case I needed to take action, subtly shrugging off their hand in the same movement.

She smiled and I didn’t know what to think of the juxtaposition of the expression against her dishevelled appearance. “I sure hope so, Big Guy.” Her voice was almost too quiet to be heard over the music, a slight rasp to it that made me think of Lindsay Lohan. “You look strong enough to pound a person brainless.” She still had a smile curving her lips as her tongue slid out to wrap around her straw, but I was suddenly on high alert, glancing around the crowded room, searching for threats.

“Are you in danger?”

She released the straw, leaning in close and my whole body tensed. Her hand curled around as much of my bicep as it could again, squeezing insistently. I cut my gaze from the crowd back to her face. Her eyes were shining in the flashing lights, lips parted as a strained noise escaped her throat. “Choke me.”

My own eyes widened. “Choked you?” I questioned, setting the drinks down on the nearest surface. “Who choked you? Where are they now? Have you notified security?”

Before she could answer, though, another woman was there, wrapping her arms around the blonde and gently extracting the drink from her hand. “Okay, Jen,” she said, her tone soothing and patient. “I think it’s time to get you home.”

The blonde - Jen - tried ineffectively to brush the other woman off. “Nooo,” she protested. “Big Guy’s gonna help me!”

“Ma’am, I believe your friend has been assaulted,” I said urgently. “Have you noticed anyone this evening who-”

“Dude,” Lester’s amused voice cut me off, alerting me to his presence by my side. He took a moment to reassure the woman assisting Jen and send them on their way before turning to face me, fighting a smile. “She was flirting .” He let out a short huff of laughter but managed to regain an almost neutral expression a moment later. “She wasn’t telling you someone choked her, she was asking you to choke her.”

My eyes widened as I replayed the interaction in my head, belatedly recognising the hallmarks of a woman attempting to attract a man. Heat flamed my cheeks that I hoped was mostly hidden by my dark complexion and I bit out a curse, glancing after the women’s retreating backs and shaking my head. I turned on my heel, took one look at the amused expressions on the guys gathered around our table and fought the urge to just leave. 

I was usually better at recognising when someone was flirting and redirecting their attention away from me. It just figures that I’d fail most spectacularly in front of my friends. At least the last time they’d witnessed me missing the signs it had been an invitation and I’d simply declined. This was a bit more embarrassing. How did I miss the tongue thing?

I let out a controlled breath, cast a final glance over my shoulder to where the woman was leading Jen toward the exit and let my shoulders drop. Might as well get the roasting over with now rather than waiting until we were all back at work on Monday.

“I can’t believe you weren’t all over that!” Vince exclaimed as I set the tray of drinks down in front of him. “A hot chick like her asking me to choke her? I’m getting hard just thinking about it.” The other guys seemed to agree with Vince’s sentiments as their vocal appreciations for the female form overlapped with each other. It all started to blend into the cacophony of the club as it seemed to press in a little more insistently than before, an uncomfortable pressure in my gut and eardrums.

Sucking in another deep breath, I settled on the stool beside Vince and surveyed the crowd around me once more. The club was filled with scantily clad women, just like the one who’d approached me; all long, shapely legs, bulging breasts and conventionally attractive faces. But I felt nothing for them. Nothing like what the other guys were describing. The show of flesh and the swinging of hips did nothing to excite me.

I would have wondered if I was gay if it weren’t for the fact that I felt the same lack of excitement when I viewed the male form. I felt certain that if I was going to be turned on by a male body, it would have happened by now with how often the guys walked around in nothing but basketball shorts in the gym and the fourth floor. 

But the lack of response to women was something that had troubled me for a while. Even when I was dating Lula and having sex with her multiple times a week, I didn’t feel like I was attracted to her. I was just scratching an itch. Until the cat dander started scratching her sinuses, that is. In a way it was a relief to be free of the relationship, but I’d spent far too many hours in the years since agonising over the implications for how I felt and didn’t feel.

Recently, though, I’ve started to understand myself better. I found the right words to describe my experience hidden away in a blog post and everything has been dropping into place piece by piece the more I read about it. Like a jigsaw that’s been scattered across the room finally being brought together on one table. 

It did make moments like these, where I absolutely understood why I’d failed to see the flirting that was literally right under my nose in plain view of my friends, all the more uncomfortable, though. Because they didn’t know. They just thought I was hilariously oblivious.

I took a swig of my beer and set it down, but my fist remained clamped firmly around it, like a lifeline as I stared out at the sea of writhing bodies. Slowly, the guys trickled away from the table, their attention caught on their own prizes, and I was left with just Bobby, his assessing gaze watching me carefully over the rim off his glass.

“You okay?” he asked in that quasi casual tone he’d perfected over the years.

“Fine.” Another swig. “Just more tired than I thought, I guess.”

He nodded, shifting on his stool to lean an elbow on the table, his gaze drifting to the corner of the dancefloor where Lester was playing tonsil hockey with a voluptuous redhead. “For what it’s worth, I can see how the situation could be misconstrued. It’s rare for a person to be so bold and ask a stranger to choke her. And with the noise level in here-” He twirled his hand through the air to encompass the club in its entirety, letting the rest of his sentence die away. 

His lips thinned, tension pulling his muscles tight and I followed the direction he was staring to find Lester’s hand not so subtly inching up the redhead’s thigh, disappearing under her skirt. Guess I wasn’t the only one grappling with feelings in one form or another.

I drained the last of my drink and released the bottle to the table, standing and stretching out a kink in my neck. “Thanks Bobby.” I tapped the table a couple of times. “I think I’m gonna head home. I’ll see you tomorrow for the gallery job.”

He spared the briefest second to meet my gaze, sending me on my way with a slight lift of the chin before he was laser focused on Lester once more. I’d be surprised if Lester didn’t turn up to the briefing tomorrow with two bald patches on the back of his head. At least my own feelings and revelations only really affected me.

Chapter Text

“Eyes on the prize, Tank,” Lester’s voice came through my earpiece. “We’re supposed to be watching the people, not the art.”

“We’re supposed to be ensuring the safety of the people and the art,” I murmured in reply, averting my gaze from the vibrant painting on the wall directly opposite the spot I’d chosen to pause in to survey the room. 

Something about the colours in the painting, the way they swirled together chaotically called to me. Nothing but splashes of green, yellow, blue, purple. No discernable rhyme or reason. Until I took a metaphorical step back to take in the painting as a whole and a kitten emerged. Several kittens, in fact. I blinked and there were three kittens play-fighting in the paint splattered canvas, the paths of their attacks evident in the motion of the swirls that led to their little paws. 

Lester’s chuckle forced me to drag my gaze away once more. “I’m sure that painting is feeling very secure.”

I thought about rolling my eyes, as I focused on scanning the crowd of well-dressed men and women milling around the gallery. Bobby’s pointed reply to Lester over the comms had me suppressing a smile instead though. “Just as secure as that woman’s ass, I’m sure.” He appeared no less agitated by the attention Lester paid the female population now than he had last night at the club. How could Lester possibly have missed the attention his best friend had devoted to him over the years, and the reaction every time Bobby had to witness him flirt or makeout with a woman for a job, let alone in his personal time. 

The pair traded a few more barbs over the comms while I took the time to catalogue the patrons in my vicinity, trying to make note of the circles people were drawn to, who was watching whom, and- I bit out a curse as I accidentally met the gaze of a voluptuous woman. 

Her hair was a chestnut colour, blown out to be as voluminous as her body as she sashayed toward me with purpose, intent in the swing of her hips and the curve of her crimson lips as she passed her champagne glass off to a waiter. She’d been trying to catch my eye all evening, and I’d dedicated more effort than should be necessary into avoiding her. If I’d been disinclined to flirt while out and the club in my own free time, I was even less so here while I was working. But this woman didn’t seem to care.

“Ruh-roh, Tank. Flirt Alert.” I signalled to Lester that I was aware and attempted to fade out of the room. Perhaps I’d go check in with Hector in the security office, or Hank at the front entrance. Before I could reach the large open doorway, though, Lester’s voice was once again in my ear. “Damn, Tank.”

I didn’t have time to get more details before the woman was practically upon me. I had my standard refusal lined up on my tongue when a hand on my bicep drew my attention to the left. My right hand instinctively came up to remove the newcomer’s hand, but as our eyes locked, recognition washed over me in a wave of calm, mingled with a hint of surprise.

“ There you are, Pierre. I’ve been looking everywhere. You said you were just going to grab us both a drink.” As she spoke, her other hand wrapped around my arm, pulling me closer so that she was hugging my bicep. And for once, I didn’t feel the need to rip my own arm off to escape the touch.

“Blake, I-” I had no idea what I was going to say to her, how to keep up the ruse she’d started. And thankfully there was no need as she cut me off with a good natured eye roll.

“You got distracted by the kitties,” she deadpanned, nodding toward the paintings surrounding us. “What a surprise.” And then the bright grin he remembered from college appeared on her face, wiping away any lingering ill-feelings I’d had about the other woman’s pursuit. “We promised we’d look at everything else before the cat exhibit because we knew we’d both be sucked in. And now we’ll never be able to drag ourselves away from- okay she’s gone.”

 Blakes demeanour changed abruptly as she stepped back, briefly patting some imaginary wrinkles out of the sleeve of my suit jacket, leaving behind an unfamiliar warmth where her touch had just been. “Sorry about that. I could see from across the room that you really didn’t want that woman’s attention, so I did the only thing I could think of.”

After a brief swallow and an internal shake, I managed to utter a gruff, “Appreciate it.”

“Just playing my part,” she quipped, a twinkle of amusement in her eye that sparked memories from a lifetime ago. They cascaded through my mind like a deck of cards, so fast I could barely make them out. Just a wash of nostalgia, a loosening of something tight in my chest that I hadn’t noticed was there. “Anyway,” she gestured toward an official looking man standing beside one of the other paintings in the room - another, less abstract, cat, I realised. “I better get back to it. It’s good to see you.”

“You too,” I muttered to her retreating back, as she melded back into the throng of people.

 I watched her go. She had always appeared so at home in her own body, so sure of who she was, and tonight appeared no different as she slipped through the crowd, a splash of bright chaos in the sea of muted formal attire. It was easy to track the bright yellow sunflower jacket she wore over top of her sky-blue jumpsuit, but as she started up a conversation with the severe looking man, I forced myself to turn away.

I had a job to do, and staring at an old college friend across the room wasn’t it. 

Later, I found myself standing next to the kitten painting I’d admired earlier, turned to make it appear as though I was admiring it while I kept an eye on a couple who were engaged in a heated discussion a couple of paintings down. If they escalated any more I’d need to escort them out to maintain the peace. Thankfully, itt wasn’t needed as the man ran a hand through his hair, a small smile on his face as he said something and the woman softened, laughed, and tucked herself under his arm as they returned to observing the art.

I, too, averted my attention, catching sight of the little plaque beside the play-fighting kittens that provided details of the art and artist. And there, right under the title, was Blake’s name. I couldn’t stop the smile that spread across my face. Good on her .

*o*

The night wore on as routine as any function security job could be. Toward the end of the night, we started escorting out patrons that had indulged a little too much in the free-flowing champagne, but that was the worst of it. No theft attempts, no protests, no vandalism. Just a pleasant night celebrating the art and the artists.

By the time we met up in the foyer to debrief there were only a handful of gallery staff and a couple of the featured artists milling around. Hal, Cal and Zip were in the middle of reporting the surprising lack of activity in the restricted areas they’d been patrolling all night when a glimpse of yellow caught my attention over Hal’s left shoulder. My gaze had been drawn back to Blake time and time again over the course of the evening, especially once I’d figured out that every single one of the paintings in the cat exhibit, as she’d called it , was her work. 

She’d always been a brilliant artist as far as I was concerned, but the fact that she’d stuck with it and built a successful career out of it was impressive. Everyone else I knew who had any kind of creative talent back in the day had succumbed in one way or another to the monotonous, soul sucking life of a corporate adult life. But Blake still had that infectious energy I could feel from across the room. Her spirit was as bright as her clothes. Even just the short interaction I’d had with her earlier made me acutely aware of the darkness that had crept into my life in the years since I’d last seen her.

I tracked her progress across the foyer to the entrance to the hall that led to her exhibit, collecting one of the gallery staff along the way and talking animatedly. I wanted to talk to her again, to find out what her journey had been like, but I had a job to complete. A fact I was reminded of when Blake disappeared from view and I focused back in on the conversation around me and realised I’d missed most of Hank’s report and had no recollection of anything that had happened in the time I’d been haplessly staring at an old friend.

My distraction this evening was making me dysfunctional. Bordering on dangerous. We were all just lucky the night had gone off without a hitch or my ass could be in a sling by this time tomorrow.

Lester dragged my attention back to the group once more with an elbow nudge to my flank and nodded his head toward where Blake was once again in conversation with the severe looking man I'd seen her interacting with throughout the night. “Tank, why don't you go check in with the director?” Les suggested, a pointed look in his eye when I turned my face to him. “Let him know we're finishing up and check if there's anything else he needs from us before we go.”

“Right.” I nodded and excused myself from the group, thankful for the reprieve and wary of Lester's obvious recognition of my distraction. The last thing I needed was his nose in my business, especially when it came to interpersonal relationships. He had been insufferable when I was dating Lula. Every interaction we had had some kind of suggestive comment, and the more I tried to deflect, the harder he came back. It was pressure I had very much not needed. I had been grappling enough with confusion over the situation and his input had only magnified my feelings of otherness, of not being quite right, not fitting the norm. 

It was a feeling I'd had on and off over the years, and had tried to shove aside only for it all to creep back up on me with a vengeance at the worst time. I felt better about it now, having done the research and made the necessary realisations and reconciliations about myself, but it didn't make Lester's propensity for lewd comments and pushing the sexual agenda any more comfortable to endure.

I took a deep breath just before I reached Blake and the man I now understood to be the gallery director that Lester had liaised with in organising this job, and stopped a couple feet away, a respectable distance for interrupting.

“Excuse me, sir.” Turning briefly to encompass Blake, I added, “Ma'am”

He cast me a glance with a single raised eyebrow, that, if I wasn't mistaken, dragged the corner of his lip up with it. I wondered briefly if Lester had received the same reaction or if this treatment was especially for me. It didn't matter though, he'd get my update whether he liked it or not. I ran through the information as efficiently as possible and informed him that if he had any further questions he could speak to his account liaison on Monday morning or call the hotline in the meantime. 

He nodded and thanked Rangeman for our work and I was on my way back to the group when a hand touched my arm and I once again found myself gazing down at Blake.

“Hey,” she said, smiling that beam of sunshine right at me. 

“Hey. Thanks again for the assist earlier.”

“Of course! You're here to do a job and that woman was making an ass of herself. Besides, I remember how much flirting used to make you uncomfortable, and I wanted to save you from having to endure it while you're working.”

I nodded, unsure of what else to say. It was true that flirting had pretty much always made me uncomfortable, but I hadn’t been aware that others knew. And the fact that Blake recalled such a fact after so many years made me feel seen in a way that was simultaneously reaffirming and mildly concerning that she had recognised something in me that I had been unable to see for myself until recently.

“Thanks,” I managed to say and a pause followed the single syllable. I was usually okay with silences, not feeling the need to fill them allowed me to keep the distance I preferred from most people, but as Blake carded a hand through her hair, flipping the bulk of the dark, wavy locks to reveal the shaved side of her head and the little charms that hung from the arm of her glasses behind her ear, I was compelled to speak, to engage her in conversation. 

I wanted to know what she’d been up to all these years, where she’d been, how she’d gotten to the point where she was a featured artist in the Trenton Gallery’s summer season opening. The questions filling my mind felt too big for a chance meeting in the foyer while gallery staff bustled about with closing duties, though, and I settled for, “Congratulations on the exhibit.”

Her hand slipped to the back of her neck and the smile that graced her lips this time was one of self-confidence with a touch of disbelief. “Thanks! It’s a pretty big leap in my career, so I’m still reeling a bit.”

The gallery director cleared his throat some feet away and indicated that everyone needed to clear out so they could lock up, and Blake gave him a reassuring nod before turning away and rolling her eyes hard enough to give Steph a run for her money. “If you’re not doing anything tomorrow, maybe we could meet up for coffee and catch up?”

I let a smile tug the corner of my lips up. “Sounds great.”

In the next second she’d pulled an event program from an inner pocket of her sunflower jacket and was scribbling something on it in what looked and smelled suspiciously like a paint marker. “There’s a cute cafe I’ve been meaning to try on North Montgomery Street,” she enthused, her eyes twinkling with excitement. “Can you do ten?” She held out the program, now adorned with a phone number and the name of a cafe - Whispering Beans - and beamed up at me.

“Ten it is,” I confirmed.

Chapter Text

I couldn't help but shake my head, a smile spreading across my lips as I parked in front of the cafe Blake gave me the address for. A cat cafe. My cats were going to hate me when I got home, but that was no different to half the times I returned home after helping Steph with her skips. The day we’d had to wrangle goats back into a yard had been an interesting reception when I walked through the door. Half of them didn't want a bar of me, the other half couldn't stop sniffing me as I tried to walk down the hall to the bedroom.

Of course. If there was one thing that we'd always had in common, it was cats. Organising our catch up in a cat cafe was harkening straight back to the first day we met. 

It was junior year of college and I was about two hours into my regular Saturday morning study session at this little cafe I’d found just off campus. Cat cafes weren’t a thing back then, but this little privately owned cafe-slash-bookstore let their cat Cleo roam free through the shop, and every now and then, she would choose to come and settle by me while I was slogging through a particularly dense reading, or smashing frantically at the keys. 

I hadn’t known I was a cat person until the first day Cleo introduced herself. I was staring at the page, barely comprehending what I was reading, and Cleo flopped down beside me on the bench seat, one of her paws stretching up to tap my leg gently, a courteous request for attention. And attention, she got.

I stared down at her for a full minute, taking in her dense grey fur and round, unblinking, green eyes, and it was like the stress that had been winding me tight was slowly draining away. She chirruped quietly, lifting her head and reaching for my arm where it was held awkwardly aloft above her, and dragged it down with both paws so that my hand was on top of her face. And then she did the most adorable thing and started rubbing her face into my palm.

I let out a laugh, and the rest of the tension in my body disappeared as I responded to her blatant request in kind, petting and stroking her as she purred contentedly. After a few minutes, she pushed my hand away and settled in a ball against the side of my leg, and I went back to my readings, amazed to find that they were easier to understand now.

On the day Blake swirled into my life for the first time, I was eating a muffin and scratching Cleo - who was perched on my thigh - behind the neck while I stared at the blank page open on my laptop that was supposed to be my communications assignment. The cafe was fairly full with only one or two tables free, and I’d contemplated moving on a couple times, but I really did need to get my assignment done, and my housemate had been insufferable lately. It seemed every time I tried to study, he decided it was a good time to have loud, enthusiastic sex with his girlfriend. How either of them were passing their classes with the amount of time they spent horizontal, I had no idea. 

I couldn’t go back to the apartment, and I loathed the oppressive silence of the library. The cafe had just the right amount of ambient sound and activity to allow me to concentrate properly. Not only that, I didn’t want to disturb Cleo by making her get off my lap,

My eyes drifted up from the laptop, drawn by a flurry of movement and bright colours, to find a woman with two messy, dark braids tossed over her shoulder, dressed in a bright green shirt and a pair of denim cut-off overalls that looked like they’d been splashed with every colour of paint imaginable, apologising profusely to a mother and her young son. 

The mother waved her off, and I returned my attention to… well, to Cleo, if I’m honest, because while I was distracted, my hand had stopped the scratching motion she’d been revelling in, and she’d turned to stretch her paws up onto my shoulder, digging her claws in just a little to remind me she was still there. I obliged, and took another bite of my muffin, and as I reluctantly slid my gaze back to my laptop, I froze.

The girl in the painted overalls was standing on the other side of my table, peering down at me while she sucked the straw of her iced whatever drink she’d just ordered. “Do you mind if I sit here?” she asked, nodding to the second chair. “All the other tables are full.”

I glanced around, and sure enough, there wasn’t a single table left unoccupied. I opened my mouth to reply, but she was talking again before I got a single syllable out. 

“I’d say I promise not to disturb your work, but I just stood in line for, like ten minutes, and you didn’t touch your laptop once. Just the muffin and the cat. It’s an adorable kitty, by the way. Yours? What’s their name? Do you mind if I sketch them?” She hefted her satchel up a little, like the gesture explained her question and I blinked slowly at her while my mind caught up.

“Her name is Cleo, and she belongs to the cafe’s owner, Greg,” I said. “I don’t think I have the authority to say if you can sketch her.”

She scrunched up her nose, and glanced over her shoulder to where Greg was cleaning up a spill at the far end of the cafe. “I’m sure Greg won’t mind. So can I sit here?”

I nodded dumbly, and she bustled into the chair, pulling out her sketchbook and a pencil. 

“I’m Blake, by the way,” she added once she was settled, and extended a hand to me over top of the laptop.

Trying to hide the fact that I was slightly perturbed by the moisture on her palm from her drink when I shook her hand, I responded, “Pierre.”

We lapsed into silence then as she sipped her drink, and lifted her sketchbook so I couldn’t see it as she started scribbling on the page. I once again turned my eyes to the blank page in front of me, dragging the laptop closer and just started getting thoughts onto the screen. Something was better than nothing. After about ten minutes of basically ignoring my impromptu table buddy, I looked up to find her scrutinising me.

“What?”

“I don’t think I got your nose right,” she said, turning the sketchbook around so I could see the likeness of myself she’d drawn.

“I thought you were drawing Cleo,” I pointed out.

“I did!” she agreed, pointing to where Cleo’s face peered over the edge of the table in the sketch. “And then I started fleshing out the scene, which happens to include you.” She shrugged. “It’s a bad habit. My professor hates it. He called my last portfolio derivative and lacking passion.”

Well, the jokes on her professors, because the pieces I saw on display last night at the gallery were anything but lacking in passion. They were as vibrant and unexpected as seeing the woman herself after so long. The last student exhibit  of hers I’d been to in college, she’d put together a collection of paintings that detailed the decomposition of a sandwich. 

She’d noticed the sandwich on the street on one of her art walks, and took a photo of it with her camera. A couple days later she happened to pass by the same spot and noticed the sandwich was still there, and so it became a daily habit to check on the sandwich and take a photo to document it festering. And those photos inspired the increasingly abstract paintings that she turned in for her final portfolio assessment.

They were creative. Wacky. Amusing. But they were nothing compared to the paintings I’d seen last night. I had planned to look up the gallery’s website when I got home from the job last night, but by the time I’d showered and tidied the bits of mess I’d left on my way out of the house in the morning, I was exhausted and Snowball was yelling at me that it was bedtime, so I’d crawled into bed instead.

Exhaustion had been creeping in more and more lately. Some days it was all I could to collapse on the couch after work, even the thought of making it all the way upstairs to bed draining to unimaginable degrees. But nothing had changed in my life to warrant such exhaustion. I was doing the exact same routine I always did, working the same amount of hours, spending the same amount of time in the gym, or with friends. But when it came to my days off, I struggled to find the energy for anything that wasn’t strictly necessary.

Which was why going to the club with the guys the other night had been such an unexpected urge when Lester suggested it. Of course, even leaving as early as I had, I’d paid the price the next day. Stumbling bleary eyed through my morning routine.

Having not had the chance to really recover from the night out, I expected to be doubly tired when I woke up this morning, but for some reason, as I slipped out from behind the wheel of the SUV and crossed the street to Whispering Beans cafe, there was an extra bit of pep in my step that had been missing for longer than I cared to recognise. 

“Pierre!” Blake called the second I was through the door, drawing my attention across the space to where she stood halfway up from her chair, and I inwardly winced even as I eagerly began weaving my way through the tables towards her.

No one outside of my hometown called me Pierre these days. The sound of it meeting my ears out in the wilds of Trenton felt odd, and immediately raised my hackles, because the only reason one of the guys at work would use it was to get under my skin. But at the same time, I couldn’t imagine Blake calling me Tank. Just the thought of it grated weirdly at the tattered remains of my soul that Uncle Sam returned to me with my discharge papers when I left the army and the world of private government contracts behind.

“Blake,” I greeted with a smile, as I reached the table, submitting to a brief hug before we both sat down. I took a moment to take in her appearance, not surprised in the least by the bright rainbow plaid of her pants, nor the long yellow shirt, flowing to her knees like a spring overcoat over a black tank top. 

My brain seemed to have deleted my entire vocabulary in the time it had taken to walk across the cafe, and I sat there dumbly, struggling to find something to say. Thanking her for inviting me seemed too formal, but I couldn’t think of anything better. I was pretty sure I should say something, though.

She grinned at me for a few seconds, then seemed to snap out of whatever daze she was in, if the sudden jolting body movement was anything to go by, and she slapped her hands over the sketchbook page in front of her. “Thanks for meeting me,” she enthused. “It was so crazy to run into you at the gallery last night! I was standing there like, ‘Is that Pierre?’ And then I saw that woman approaching and saw the look of holy hell get me out of here on your face and I was like ‘That’s Pierre!’ So obviously I had to step in and rescue you.”

“Thank you again for that,” I murmured.

She smirked and it was just like being back in college with her teasing me. “Are you gonna thank me every time we see each other?”

“Only until I can think of something better to say,” I admitted honestly. My MO had been the overbearing silent one for so long that when opportunities for casual conversation came around, I found my skills lacking and my mind blank.

Blake snorted like I’d said something funny, though, and I let the corner of my mouth tip up in a small smile. “Why don't you start by telling me how you've been?” she suggested. “You're in security now? How'd you get into that?”

“When we left the army-” I started dutifully, but had to stop when Blake gasped and slapped her sketchbook again, something between surprise and horror crossing her features.

“You were in the army?!”

It was such a fundamental part of who I was now that I’d completely forgotten that I had joined after our paths separated after college. Last time we saw each other I had been working a temp job in an office while figuring out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and she was on her way to Europe for a year long backpacking adventure to explore the great artists. We’d lost touch with almost alarming swiftness, and I’d ended up joining the army not long after.

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “I was in the army for six years, and reserves for another two. I’ve also done some private contracting for the government.”

Her eyebrows arched high above the frames of her glasses as she stared at me, her mouth agape. “Like a mercenary?”

I gave a short nod. “More or less.”

She countered with a slow shake of her head. “I would never have pictured you as a mercenary. That’s so wild. My gentle giant out in the world killing people.”

“It was more about keeping people safe than outright killing people,” I explained, shifting in my seat as her simplistic view on the matter made me suddenly uncomfortable. I was proud of the work I’d done to keep my country and my family safe, and it had been a while since I’d had to explain it to someone who didn’t already have a fairly good knowledge of what it was to serve. 

“Still,” she said. “Not what I envisioned for your future back in college.”

Curiosity piqued, I tilted my head ever so slightly. “What did you envision for my future, then?” 

Her expression finally softened into that little smirk as she sat back in her chair, crossing one multi-coloured plaid encased leg over the other as she considered me for a moment. “Professional cat sitter? Or maybe a cat groomer? Oh, I know! Pet hotel owner.”

A snort of laughter escaped me and I pulled out my phone, swiping through to my photo gallery. “You’re not far off the mark,” I assured her. “I have three cats.” I held out the phone to show her the most recent photos I’d taken of my fur babies, detailing their names and personalities.

Blake was delighted, dragging the phone (and my hand along with it) closer to her face and pinch-zooming to get a better look at the cats. “They’re adorable!” she exclaimed, swiping to the next photo with a happy little wiggle that made me smile. “Oh! So cute! And I love the composition of this photo; how the sunlight from the window frames the pile of kitties. Good eye.” 

She lifted her gaze to mine, and a jolt of yearning pulsed through me as our eyes met. It wasn’t attraction, at least not in the way the other guys talked about it. It was more a need, no, desire. Ugh every word I could come up with was drenched with sexual connotations, but this wasn’t sexual. It was almost never sexual with me. 

But with Blake?

I couldn’t believe how much I’d missed her without even realising. There was a rightness within me sitting here in this cafe with my old friend that I didn’t think I’d experienced since the last time we were together like this. She understood me in a way no one else seemed to get.

“Tell me about your artist residency,” I requested, as much to get the focus off me as to see that passion in her eyes when she spoke about art. “How’d that come about?”

Blake released my hand and waved my comment off. “Oh, I applied, they let me in. There’s really not much to it.”

“Last night you said it was a pretty big leap in your career,” I pointed out as I tucked my phone away again, not letting her off the hook. She was an amazing artist, and the gallery directors obviously thought so, too, or she wouldn’t be here right now. I wasn’t going to let her downplay her success.

She narrowed her eyes at me, but there was still a little curve to her lips extinguishing any heat she may have been attempting to put behind the glare. “I did say that, didn’t I?” I nodded, and she sighed. “Yeah, okay, I applied on a whim. Didn’t really think they’d even consider me.”

“Why wouldn’t they consider you?”

Her shoulders came up to meet her ears as she spread her hands and her gaze fell away from mine. It was pretty apparent that this was not something she wanted to delve into right now, so I cast my gaze around for inspiration for a topic change. It caught on the window that looked into the cat room and I ran with it.

“So, should we play with the cats first, or have coffee?” I asked.

“Coffee!” she enthused. The dark cloud that had been circling just a moment before evaporated in a burst of sunshine. 

Relieved, I flagged down the passing cafe assistant and he stopped at the edge of the table expectantly. “Can I get a regular americano?” I requested, and he nodded, dutifully scribbling it down on his notepad.

“And for the lady?” he asked, turning his attention to Blake who made a face like she’d just stepped in cat vomit in bare feet.

“Iced caramel latte,” she said, her tone flat.

Again, he nodded, and scribbled it down, then let us know it shouldn’t be too long before heading back to the counter.

“What was that face?” I asked once he was out of earshot, confused by the reaction.

“I’m not a lady,” she said, and her tone made it sound like she was stating the obvious, which did not help my confusion in the least.

I looked between her and the cafe assistant who looked to be in his early fifties. “I guess he was just being polite?” I suggested. “He probably says it to every woman.”

Her head reared back, a flash of anger in her expression that had me tensing for a tirade but it cleared just as quickly as it appeared, replaced with a dawning realisation that I hoped she was about to reveal to me, because I had no idea what I’d done to piss her off, let alone the poor cafe assistant. “Shit,” she muttered, running a restless hand through her hair and flipping to the other side. “Of course you wouldn’t know.”

“Know what?” I frowned.

“Pierre, my pronouns are they/them.”

Chapter Text

“Your pronouns are -,” I parrotted before I managed to clamp down on the throat of my thoughts, cutting off the words. Pronouns. I knew about pronouns. I’d read about them by accident while I was on my quest for figuring out my sexuality. And I’d picked up a skip who’d thrown a shopping bag at me when I’d called him sir because he apparently identified as female. I was pretty sure he was just trying to be sent to a women’s prison at the time, though. 

Blake’s pronouns were they/them which was gender-neutral. Which means she, I mean they , probably don’t identify as either man or woman. And I’d just called her- them!- a woman. “Sorry,” I uttered, my thoughts still reeling. Aside from the haircut and glasses, and the fact that she was - they were obviously older, they didn’t seem any different to when I’d known them in college. “I didn’t mean to-”

They shook their head, running a hand through their hair again and scrubbing their fingers over the scalp a bit more roughly this time as they gnawed on their lip. “It’s fine, Pierre, you didn’t know. I’m sorry for almost ripping your head off when there was no way you could have known because I hadn’t told you.” They sighed, dropping their hand to their lap. “It feels so familiar to be spending time with you that I forgot we haven’t seen each other in, what, ten years?”

“Fourteen,” I corrected solemnly. “We were twenty-one when we finished college.”

“Fuuuck,” she whispered in awe. Shit, I mean they whispered. “Pierre, we’re so oooooooold. Is that why you shaved your head? So no one can tell you have grey hair?”

Thankful for the fact that they weren’t holding my faux pas against me, I laughed and ran a hand over my smooth dome contemplatively. “I haven’t let my hair grow enough to be able to notice if I’m turning grey since my last undercover mission,” I explained.

“That’s smart,” they said, nodding thoughtfully. “That way you can live in denial as long as you want.”

“You don’t appear to be going grey,” I pointed out.

As if to double check the validity of my statement they pulled the front of their hair down in front of their face, going cross-eyed to peer at it critically and I suppressed a snort of laughter. “True,” they agreed slowly, sweeping it back out of the way again. “But the second I spot a grey hair, I’m shaving my head. You’ve got the right idea, Pierre.”

I did laugh again then. And we lapsed into a brief silence which allowed the swirling thoughts I’d managed to ignore while Blake was distracting me with our aging decrepit bodies to swim to the forefront of my mind. Questions forming a queue behind my lips. “So, your pronouns are they/them,” I started slowly as if to make sure they were listening, even though their attention hadn’t wavered from my face for a second. “Does that mean you identify as non-binary? Or are you genderfluid? Or…?”

“Non-binary,” they confirmed with a nod. “I was never a girly-girl growing up, and things like being called a lady kinda felt like nails on a chalkboard. But at the same time, I really didn’t feel like I should be a guy . It was something that I just kinda lived with because I didn’t know what to do with the opposing views of myself until I was at this creatives soiree and I met this young musician who introduced themself and stated their pronouns were they/them and it was like a puzzle piece fell into place, you know? It was the key to figuring myself out.”

I nodded my understanding, because I really did understand. That was exactly how I’d felt when I discovered the term asexual. Suddenly I could make sense of who I was in the world. I’d always felt disconnected from the way people talked about attraction, like there was some missing puzzle piece I was supposed to have. 

I’d gone through the motions time and time again - with Lula and with a handful of women before her throughout the years - thinking maybe I’d eventually understand; that something would fall into place. But it wasn’t until I stumbled upon that blog post about asexuality and learned that some people just don’t experience that kind of attraction, that the world started to make sense. I was still figuring parts of it out, but just knowing that I wasn’t somehow broken had helped to accept myself more.

I thought about telling Blake, but the words stuck in my throat. I’d never said them outloud before, and despite how open minded they were, I worried that revealing that part of myself to them now, with our renewed acquaintance so fresh, would sour the experience. I worried that they wouldn’t understand, and would instead try to brush it off as a choice to be commended, like I’d read in so many online comments.

While I was still grappling with my thoughts, Blake had apparently moved on. “My turn,” she announced, slapping the sketchbook in front of them and I returned my full attention to their face to see if I could figure out what they meant before their next words broke free. “What’s with your face every time I say your name?” 

“My name?”

“Yes, Pierre, your name.” They jabbed a finger in my face, mere inches from my left eye. “There it is again! You wince every time I say Pierre. I know. I’ve tested my theory by saying it multiple times throughout our conversation.”

“No one really calls me Pierre anymore,” I explained with a shrug, gently pushing their hand away from my face. They retracted it only enough to make a little waving gesture that, in combination with the expression on their face, seemed to be asking for further information. “I mostly go by Tank these days.”

“Tank?”

I nodded. “On account of the size, mostly.”

“Yeah, I get it,” they said, giving me a once over as they nodded slowly, but a little line appeared on their forehead. “But why?”

“It’s a nickname I picked up in the army.” There wasn’t a whole lot more to it than that. People started calling me Tank, it caught on and stuck.

Blake narrowed their eyes, studying me. “No, I mean why do you wince when I call you Pierre?”

I hesitated, my fingers curling slightly against the table. Their gaze on me was heavy with expectation, waiting for an explanation I wasn’t sure I wanted to give. 

I thought about how to answer, but ultimately decided that admitting that my friends and colleagues liked to make fun of my name to the point that I’d come to dread hearing it outside of certain controlled environments wasn’t exactly the impression I wanted Blake to take away from our first meeting since college. So instead, I settled on, “Psychological conditioning,” which wasn’t incorrect, it just didn’t paint the whole picture, as it were.

We both sat back, and Blake shifted her- I mean their - notebook out of the way as the cafe assistant returned and set our drinks on the table. The pause in our conversation continued as the assistant walked away and Blake took a sip of their iced latte. Their eyes slid closed as they savoured it, holding the mouthful for an extra second or two before they swallowed. “

“Mmm,” they murmured appreciatively, their eyes fluttering open again as they set the glass down next to their sketchbook. “That’s really good.” They pushed it toward me. “Want a taste?”

I obliged automatically, lifting the glass, taking my own tentative sip, and wincing when the overly sweet liquid hit my tongue. Blake laughed and plucked the drink back out of my hand. “You like that about as much as you like your name,” they observed. “Which, far be it from me to question the army’s methods, but conditioning you to hate your own name seems a little messed up.”

“It wasn’t the army,” I assured them.

“Well, that’s delightfully vague,” they announced enthusiastically. “So should I call you Tank, then?”

“Pierre is fine.”

“Is it, though? Because if you wince every time…?” They let the rest of their statement, or question, whatever it was supposed to be, trail off.

“I think you calling me Tank will be weird,” I admitted.

Blake nodded. “I agree, but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable by continuing to call you Pierre if you have trauma attached to the name.”

I lifted an eyebrow at them, but they just crossed their arms over their chest and returned the favour, one eyebrow arching above the rim of their glasses in challenge. “Do you deny that you have trauma attached to your name?”

I shook my head. “I guess,” I sighed. “But I still prefer you call me Pierre. I’m getting used to it.”

We chatted more as we drank our coffees and then spent half an hour in the cat room, coaxing the kitties to play with the toys the cafe provided until my calendar reminder chimed on my phone. Thanks to the evening job last night, I had a late start and a half day at work today, which meant I  was able to meet with Blake without making any extra arrangements, but now I needed to leave if I was going to make it to Rangeman and change into my uniform in time for my shift.

“I gotta get to work,” I said apologetically when Blake lifted their face from the long hair on the back of the neck of the cat they were cuddling, peering at me curiously. A single, pale cat hair clung to the arm of their glasses, which I thought was overwhelmingly cute, and I wanted more than anything to stay here in this moment forever.

“Do you wanna do this again next weekend?” they asked. “Doesn’t have to be the cat cafe, but we could grab coffee if you’re free.”

I grimaced involuntarily. I would have loved to join Blake anywhere, any day of the week, but next weekend I had a Mom-mandated trip home and would be gone from Thursday to Monday. I told Blake as much while they lowered the cat to the sofa cushion between us, allowing it to scurry away and join its fellow felines in play.

“All good,” Blake assured me. “You have my number, so we can text and figure something out later on. If you wanna keep in touch, that is.”

“I'd like that.”

Chapter Text

“You’re late,” Lester announced when I stepped off the elevator onto the command floor and headed towards the restrooms to change into the uniform I’d packed in my gym bag before meeting Blake at the cafe. I was glad I’d decided to wear my civvies for the meet up, because I was absolutely covered in cat hair.

“I’m right on time,” I countered, glancing over to where Lester was leaning against the edge of Steph’s desk, a knowing smile on his face. “And you’re not my boss, so why does it matter to you?”

He shoved off the desk and stepped forward, closing the distance between us as he scrutinised me from head to toe. “Becaaaauuuuse,” he said, drawing out the second syllable as he returned his gaze to my face, “You’re covered in cat hair. Where’ve you been?”

Steph rolled her chair back into the doorway of her cubicle, a frown creasing her brow. “He has cats, Les,” she pointed out. “Cat hair is a byproduct of cat ownership.”

“True,” Lester agreed, amicably, looking from me to Steph and back, before addressing his next statement of observation to Steph. “But Tank meticulously lint-rollers himself before leaving the house. Which means, he’s been somewhere other than home that also has cats.”

The problem with Santos was that he didn’t give up if he thought he knew something. And given the looks he gave me last night when he sent me to talk to the gallery director knowing that Blake was there too, I could guess pretty well what he thought he knew. But I would also wager that he was reading way more into it than he probably should. Because ladies’ man Lester Santos had a one-track mind. If Lester was in my position meeting an old college friend again who happened to have female anatomy, I could almost guarantee he would have slept with her already. 

And hell, sometimes I wondered if they even needed to have female anatomy. I’d watched him pretend to bat for the other team on a job to get information once, and in my unbiased opinion, he played it a little too convincingly to be a complete act. Of course, to my knowledge, he’d never taken a man to bed, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened, just that it was something he hadn’t openly admitted to. Which, given the kinds of things he had openly admitted to doing over the years, I found it hard to believe he would see the need to keep sex with a man a secret. 

In saying that, though, I could also understand not talking about it if it was something he hadn’t fully figured out.

Knowing that I wasn’t going to get out of this conversation without either divulging where I had been, or being subjected to a barrage of suggestive ribbing, I decided to give him the information he was digging for. “I went to the Whispering Bean. It’s a cat cafe.” Okay, so I’d give him some of the information he was looking for.

“And tell me, Tank. Did you, perchance, meet a cute and bubbly little artist friend there?”

Steph’s eyes bugged right out of her head at the suggestion. She was off the chair and across the space in a burst of speed I’d only ever seen her put on for donuts and birthday cake. “Tank, did you go on a date? With who? What’s she like!?”

Sucking in a sharp breath, I stepped back so that she wasn’t invading my personal space, and tried to gather my wits about me. Facing Lester was one thing, but Steph was like a dog with a bone when she wanted information at the best of times. Make the topic someone’s dating life, and she had a way of squeezing every single non-intimate or private detail out of a person. It was like her super power. And I knew from the interrogation she’d put me through during a stakeout shift we’d shared about three months after Lula and I broke up, that I was not immune to this power.

I’d shared way more with Steph than I had meant to about my feelings towards her friend and why it didn't work out in the end. Thankfully, Steph agreed with me that Lula could be extremely over the top, and the supposed proposal was a dirty trick designed to trap me in a relationship I wasn’t ready for.

“It wasn’t a date,” I stated, taking a moment to meet both Steph and Lester’s gazes so they could see the truth behind the statement. And remembering Blake’s face when the cafe attendant had called them a lady, I added, “And they are an old friend from college.”

“Oh, so it was, like a group thing? Like a mini reunion?” Steph asked innocently, a wrinkle of confusion forming on her nose, but at the same time Lester did his usual thing and dove headfirst into the gutter.

“Damn, Tank, I know there’s a lot of you to go around, but I never figured you’d be into threesomes.”

My fists clenched at my sides and I had to remind myself of all the consequences that would fall on my head if I decked Santos on company time. Working out frustrations in the gym was one thing, but outright knocking his block off in the middle of the office was another entirely, and I didn’t think Ranger or HR would be too pleased with me if I did the latter. Pity.

To keep my job - and my friends - I bit out a short, “I’m going to change,” and turned on my heel to go do just that. I didn’t owe Les or anyone else an explanation of Blake’s gender identity. They didn’t know her…them. They didn’t know them . There was no need for anyone here to meet Blake. And especially if they were just going to use the knowledge to get under my skin. The time I’d spent with Blake this morning had felt better than I’d felt in a long time, and I wasn’t going to give Lester license to shit all over it with his suggestive comments, or any other reactions he might have to the facts as they stand.

At least, not anymore than I’d already allowed.

Dressed in my black on black cargos and polo, I stuffed the cat hair covered clothes into the gym bag, careful to get as little hair on my uniform as possible. I had a travel lint roller in the bottom drawer of my desk, but I still had the walk back across the office and the possibility that Lester and Steph were there, waiting for me to come back so they could continue needling me for more information. And if I emerged from the bathroom with cat hair on my uniform it would only fuel them. Fuel Lester specifically. Steph could show restraint when she saw that someone was uncomfortable. She’d definitely been sympathetic when I’d explained my issues with dating Lula.

Thankfully, though, I didn’t have to deal with any of that, because Lester had disappeared by the time I exited the bathroom, and Steph was deep in discussions with Hal over a file that was open between them on her desk. She glanced my way, a hint of concern in her eyes, but didn’t excuse herself from her task to come talk to me again. So I had that to look forward to later, I guess.

I made it to my office blissfully uninterrupted, and shut the door behind me. Some people may have an open door policy, but I was not one of those people. I liked to avoid people talking to me as much as possible, because if they were talking to me, they were usually revealing problems that it was my job to fix, and I was sick and tired of fixing other people’s problems.

Where Ranger was the CEO, dealing with the high level decisions, and upkeep of all four locations, I was the branch manager for Rangeman Trenton, so anything to do with the day to day running of the Trenton office came to me. And boy did I regret accepting the position when Ranger proposed it. I wasn’t built for sitting in a chair and doing the kind of ass-numbing paperwork that came across my desk. I was built for throwing people out of windows and knocking people’s heads together. 

Which was the other part of the reason I was called Tank that I hadn’t explained to Blake. I’d gained a reputation for my strength and determination, and a particular ability to bulldoze my way through a battlefield. There were less opportunities for that in the private and commercial security business, but they came around occasionally. Just a pity that I’d missed out on the last several because I was stuck in my office dealing with shit. Thank god Steph had agreed to take on some of the admin side of things in addition to the background search support she was providing, because if it wasn’t for her, my ass would never leave that chair. 

My phone pinged with a text message as I was logging into my computer and I glanced down at where I’d set it on the desk.

BLAKE:  [sent an image]

I pressed my thumb to the fingerprint scanner to unlock the screen and my mood instantly lightened. She’d sent me a photo of a page in her - fuck. Their. They had sent me a photo of a page in their sketchbook, and the sketch was clearly inspired by our meeting this morning, because they’d drawn a tank styled as a cat. 

Aside from the addition of ears and face details to the turret, they’d obviously taken some artistic license with the design that would make it fairly useless, like putting the main gun on the back of the main body of the tank in a fixed position to represent the cat’s tail. But it was amusing nonetheless, and the little guy emerging from the hatch with a cat on his shoulder looked suspiciously like me. They were both wearing helmets.

I held my finger down on the message and selected the laughing emoji reaction, then tapped out a short message.

TANK: If this is a design submission for a new armored combat vehicle I have some notes.

Instead of immediately setting the phone down again like I probably would have with a message from anyone else, I found myself waiting a few seconds, hoping for a reply, and when the little bubbles appeared at the bottom of the window, it felt impossible to look away. 

BLAKE: What are you talking about? My design is purrrrfect :P 

I laughed out loud and shook my head at the ridiculousness.

TANK: You’ve clearly never tried to do a U-Turn in a tank on questionable terrain. Your kit-tank would lose valuable seconds - possibly minutes -  turning to aim the main gun because it’s not attached to the turret.

BLAKE: It’s a good thing the Kitty Cruiser has fur-middable armor, then.

BLAKE:  Besides, it would look weird with the tail coming out of the back of the head.

TANK: Ideally, it would come out of the front of the head…

The bubbles came and went a few times while I watched them, this time, but ultimately died away and after a couple of minutes of staring at the text chain willing the bubbles to reappear, I remembered that I was supposed to be working and set the phone aside. 

I finished signing into my computer and dragged the stack of files in my inbox over in front of me to start sorting through while it was starting up, bracing myself for what fresh hell had been unleashed while I wasn’t in the office. I had my ‘urgent’ pile between me and the keyboard while I gave my email inbox the same treatment, but before I could attend to either a physical or digital request, my phone pinged three times in succession.

BLAKE: Like a pinocchio cat?

BLAKE [sent an image]

BLAKE: Is this better?

I tapped on the image to find that they’d altered their drawing so that the main gun was now in the place of the cat’s nose, and they’d added thought bubbles for all three of the ‘characters’ on the page. The tank-cat was thinking, “ I’m a real cat! ” The person that looked suspiciously like me had the words, “I’m a real tank! ” and the cat simply said, “Meow. ”

TANK: I see, based on the lack of overgrown nose, that I am in fact a real tank.

BLAKE: I can change that.

TANK: I like it the way it is.

BLAKE: Spoil sport.

I smiled and set the phone down, letting the pleasant interaction carry me through the first few emails I had to respond to but as I clicked through to a document attached to the next, an idea popped into my mind. Snatching up a pen and the pad of sticky notes I kept floating around the desk, I scribbled out a wonky looking tank with the main gun pointing kinda upwards, and above it, what I hoped looked like a cat ready to pounce with its butt in the air. It was crude, but I think it made the point I was making about the similarity of the shapes, so I snapped a quick photo of the note on my phone and sent it off to Blake with an explanation just in case.

TANK: [Sent an image]

TANK: What if it was like a cat ready to pounce.

I put the phone down immediately this time, but my mind was only half taking in what I was reading on the screen in front of me as my fingers tapped on the desk. Thankfully, Blake replied while I was on my third attempt at comprehending the second paragraph of the report, and I snatched up the phone to see what they’d said.

BLAKE: That won’t work.

TANK: Why not?

BLAKE: Because you’d be driving the cat around butt first! 

TANK: At least it’d be quick to aim, though!

BLAKE: Pinno-cat-o was quick to aim!

A knock on the door interrupted my attempt to come up with a witty comeback, and I looked up to see Steph peering tentatively in through a crack in the door. “Are you busy?” she asked, opening the door a little wider when our gazes met. She had that little worry wrinkle between her brows which I couldn’t abide, so I shook my head and waved her in with one hand while I set the phone back down with the other. And let’s be honest, I’d barely spared my actual work a couple minute’s thought since I arrived, so she was only interrupting me slacking off.

Her high-heeled footsteps were silent on the hard flooring as she crossed the space and settled into one of the visitors’ chairs across from me, and I had to admit that I was impressed with the progress she’d made with the stealth training she’d been undergoing. Normally I would have been notified of her approach by the steady tap of her footsteps down the hall.

“I’m sorry if Les and I made you uncomfortable,” she said once she was settled.

“It’s fine,” I assured her automatically, because what else was I going to say?  I didn’t feel like I could properly explain why their comments and assumptions made me uncomfortable without revealing that I was asexual, but I didn’t know if I had the right words for that. Words weren’t my strong suit to begin with, and this was a big thing to try to communicate. All the testimonials I’d read online had said that people often misunderstand when they try to explain their experience. At this point it just felt easier to brush it off as a non-issue.

Steph watched me for a second in a move not unlike that of her husband. “Is it actually fine?” she pressed. “Because-”

“Santos was just being his usual self,” I pointed out. “I’m used to it.”

“But I’ve never seen you get that angry so quickly,” she protested. “You’re usually so calm and collected.” She paused then and I could see the cogs whirring in her brain as she tried to fit her puzzle pieces into the bigger picture. “Is it because of the artist woman Lester mentioned?”

Was it? Steph was right about my fuse usually taking a while to actually reach the store of explosives deep within me. I could usually endure a lot before I lashed out, but a couple suggestive comments involving Blake from Lester had me almost choosing violence against him in the middle of the command floor. 

I mean, obviously it wasn’t okay for him to say that kind of thing about her- them - when they weren’t around to defend themself. But a simple ‘Shut it, Santos ,’ probably would have gotten the point across. And even now, I itched to ram my fist into his smug face.

“Blake isn’t a woman,” I corrected Steph rather than address the concerns she’d brought to my attention. I watched thoughts chase themselves across the front of her mind, as her eyes widened, lips popping open in surprise and I cringed at the connections she was probably making. I ran a nervous hand over my scalp.“Sh- They identify as non-binary,” I clarified before she could go ahead and assume I was gay.

“Oh, that’s -”

My phone pinged with a message on the desk again and Blake’s name appeared on the screen, immediately grabbing my attention. My fingers itched to grab it and see what else they might have to say on the topic of cat tanks, but I restrained myself, even as another message pinged through immediately after the first. And another after that.

“That sounds urgent,” Steph said slowly, drawing my gaze back to her as she stood to leave. Her eyes flicked from the screen where Blake’s name was still displayed, to me a couple times, an odd look on her face. “I’ll let you get back to it.” I didn’t want to acknowledge the telltale twinkle in her eyes, or the tiny lift to the corner of her mouth. She was making assumptions that aligned with Lester’s I was sure. On her way out, she paused at the door and looked back at me, “If you ever wanna talk, just schedule us on another stakeout,” she offered.

The door clicked closed behind her and I dragged my hands down my face. My thoughts were all over the place and I didn’t know what to do with them. All I knew was that I’d had a good time with Blake this morning and I was thrilled that they were evidently serious about keeping in touch. I allowed myself to wallow in existential dread for a few moments before dropping my hands and reaching for the phone.

BLAKE: Counter offer!

BLAKE: [Sent an image]

BLAKE: It’s a whisker!

I laughed at the new scribbly drawing they’d sent that showed the kit-tank front on with the main gun jutting out to the side. 

TANK: If it’s a whisker it needs a few more. And I don’t think there’s room inside the tank to accommodate the ammo and personnel necessary to operate that level of artillery.

I loved that reconnecting with Blake had been so easy. It was almost like no time at all had passed since we last saw each other. We’d had these kinds of text chains about her sandwich decomposition project. It felt easy. Familiar.

Chapter Text

With effusive goodbyes still emitting through the speaker of my phone, I hit the red ‘x’ to hang up and tossed the device to the far end of the couch where it was out of reach. It landed with a soft whump, and I glared at it for good measure, daring it to start ringing again. Four phone calls in the span of two hours was enough. Hell, four phone calls in a single day was more than enough when the callers were my mother and sister tag-teaming like calling me was a wrestling match. 

And to be honest, I would have preferred the wrestling match. At least I knew that eighty percent of the time I could knock my opponent unconscious fairly quickly. I didn’t have an equivalent conversational attack. And the defence of hanging up the phone only brought down an ire the likes of which I have long since decided I never wanted to invoke again.

I collapsed back into the armchair I favoured, shifting a little to adjust the cushions behind my back, before tipping my head back and letting out a long, low groan.

“Just a simple trip home to support my sister, they said,” I told the ceiling, sarcasm dripping from every word. “It’ll be fun, they said.” 

A pair of paws touched my knee, claws briefly piercing the sturdy fabric of my cargos before quickly retracting again, and in the next moment, Applepuff was in my lap. Her back feet were on my thigh, while her front feet walked up the steep incline of my chest in a languid stretch until she could nuzzle my chin. I obliged the request for affection and brought a hand up to stroke her sleek, tawny fur as I let my head list to the side to peer at her.

“If I get one more phone call tonight, I’m going to scream,” I told her solemnly. But it was clear by the way she peeped one nonplussed eye open while I scratched the good spot under her chin that she didn’t believe me. I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t a screamer and we both knew it. We tended to delegate all household screaming tasks to Snowball.

As Applepuff started to lean more heavily into my palm, becoming listless in her bliss, and seeping away some of my frustration at the same time, I took a deep breath. My intention had been to let it out slowly, maybe focus on relaxing the tension in my shoulders as well. Instead, the air was torn from my lungs on a growl as the phone mocked me by starting up its obnoxious ringing again.

The cat cast me a look through slitted eyes, like it was my fault, before she jumped off my lap, sauntered across the room and hissed at the noisy device. Applepuff continued out of the room, tail twitching, and a moment later I heard Snowball let out a prolonged yowl from down the hall as if to enact the scream I had threatened. 

A groan left me as I hauled myself up from the armchair once more, cursing my decision to throw the phone across the room as I snatched it up and hit the green button to accept the call without looking at the name on the screen.

“What?”

“Hello to you, too,” came a voice that instantly smoothed down the frazzled edges of my patience and made me want to retract my less than welcome greeting. After all, they didn’t deserve to receive the full brunt of a frustration they hadn’t had a hand in instigating.

“Blake,” I breathed, collapsing onto the couch. I dragged a hand roughly down my face as I managed to suppress yet another groan. “Sorry, I thought you were my mother.”

Their chuckle drifted down the line, light, and airy, and carefree. Everything I wasn’t at that exact moment. “I aspire to many things, Pierre, but your mother is not one of them.” There was a short pause, during which I barely had the chance to acknowledge that I wanted to know what aspirations Blake had in life before they asked, “Do you wanna talk about why your mom warrants such a hostile phone greeting?”

“Between her and my sister, I’ve been on the phone all evening,” I explained, the words spilling from my lips without hesitation. “And every time they call it complicates my life even further.”

“How so?”

Without thought, I tipped my head back, staring at the ceiling once more as more words evacuated my mouth. I’d never really been a talker, but something about Blake just put me at ease. Now, and back in college. They’d never done or said anything to give me pause when baring my soul, so at their simple request to know more, I was compelled to share my tale of woe.

“I told you I’m going home this weekend,” I started.

Blake let out a little humming sound followed by two words in a deep voice that I assumed was an attempt to mimic my own pitch. “Mom Mandated.”

I let the corner of my lips tip up at that. “Right. Well, I’ve been told to arrive by dinner time Thursday night, which is fine, it’s not that much of a drive. But now Mom and Nikki have me stopping off at almost every town between here and there to pick up last minute supplies, like I’m some free courier. So now, what would have been an afternoon drive has become a torturous all day event.”

“That sucks,” Blake commiserated. 

“Yeah.” It was all I could say. They weren't exactly going to get any arguments from me about their assessment of the situation. The situation sucked. But there was nothing I could do about it.

“Did you try to tell them no?” they asked just before the silence on the phone line grew to awkward proportions.

I huffed out a breath. I hadn’t tried. “They already know I have the whole day off,” I explained. “No point in lying to them and telling them I’m not available to be their errand boy.”

Another one of those humming sounds filled my ear, followed by a statement that sounded like it was straight out of a therapist’s mouth. “Not busy and Available aren’t the same thing, Pierre,” they pointed out. “I assume there’s a reason you had the whole day booked off work even though you weren’t planning on leaving until the afternoon.”

“Not a good reason,” I scoffed, thinking of the slow morning I’d had planned. I was dropping the cats off at the Pet Motel Wednesday night, which meant I wouldn’t have three demons waking me at the crack of dawn on my day off demanding to be fed. I could actually attempt a sleep in, something that I didn’t think I’d managed successfully in six years. “Anyway, it’s done now. I’ve already agreed to do it, and if I take it back I’m pretty sure Nikki will go into a stress spiral. It’s easier this way.”

The hum that buzzed through this time sounded like Blake was about to argue, so I changed the topic asking them about how their day went. When we’d texted briefly this morning, they’d mentioned they were spending the day in the studio working on a new art piece, but they’d refused to give any details about it, citing that if the muse had to explain it too much, she’d snatch the mojo and vision away like a moody preschooler, unwilling to share their toys in the sandbox. I didn’t understand the way their creativity worked any more than I had back in the day, so I just sent an encouraging message in return, followed by a GIF of a never ending tower of paperwork to indicate what I would be doing for at least the morning. Blake had replied with a tombstone emoji just before Binkie had burst through my office door with the first crisis of the day.

“This conversation isn’t over, Pierre,” Blake assured me, her - their , I reminded myself- tone a mix of stern with a hint of amusement. “What’s so important that Nikki has to have these supplies anyway?”

I groaned. It was such a foreign sound to erupt from my throat in my own home that I was immediately surrounded by three cats, eyeing me warily from a safe distance away. Shaking my head, I leaned forward, bracing my elbows on my knees with the phone still pressed to my ear and the other hand beckoning Pretzel closer so I could pet her. Her golden eyes seemed to narrow and she stayed put, crouched a couple feet away under the coffee table, so I let my hand drop.

“Nikki finished her masters in event management last year,” I explained. “She’s been part of the team organising the Arts festival for ages, but the team leader stepped down at the beginning of the year, which allowed Nikki to step up. The directors haven’t necessarily been entirely behind her with some of the changes she’s implemented, so she’s determined to make this the best Arts Fest anyone’s ever seen.” 

I smiled as Pretzel nudged her face into my palm, clearly having decided that whatever perceived threat my groan had indicated was now past. Affection was now needed. Scrubbing my hand over her orange fluff, I continued, “A couple of the custom decorations Nikki ordered from small businesses ran late in production, which means if they shipped them to her like they’d agreed, they would never make it in time. They will, however, be ready to pick up in person. Which is where I come in.” Pretzel flopped onto my foot, so I scooped her up and deposited her in the crease between the couch cushions the way she liked, and allowed her to drag my hand down to her face again. “The last thing I want is to see my sister fail, so if extending my drive to play courier is what it takes, then so be it.”

“Still sucks that you have to change your plans,” Blake pointed out.

A sigh that was more resigned than frustrated fell from my lips this time, and I shrugged, despite the fact that they couldn’t see me. “It’s what family does.”

There was something about the tone of Blake’s voice when they uttered a quiet, “Yeah, of course,” that caused my chest to tighten, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. Nevertheless, the slight worry coursed through my veins, drawing my eyebrows down in a frown as I stared at Pretzel unseeingly. 

Blake didn’t allow me a chance to question the shift in emotion, though. And the next moment I was treated to rustling and clunking noises, like they were shifting around and grabbing things, then the clack of computer keys typing. “What did you say the name of the festival was?” they asked.

“Art and Soul,” I provided easily, even though I was pretty sure I hadn’t mentioned it earlier. What were they up to?

Seconds turned to minutes as I listened to the tap of keys, the click of a mouse and wordless mumblings, before I finally decided to try to find out what was going on here. “Blake?”

“Do you want some company on your trip?” they asked abruptly.

I shook my head again, this time because those were the last words I’d been expecting out of their mouth. “Don’t you have obligations with your residency?” 

“I have a workshop to run Wednesday night, but then I don’t have any specific scheduled events until next Tuesday when I’m giving a seminar at the local art college,” Blake explained nonchalantly. Like giving a seminar was something they did every day. Like it was no big deal. “All I have in between is self study and studio time. But ,” they stressed the word, to let me know they were about to drive home their reasoning for asking if I wanted company. “Part of the whole deal is I’m supposed to network and engage with the community. From what I’m seeing on the Art and Soul website, I can totally justify a road trip to the festival to the gallery director.” 

“Are you sure?”

“Piece of cake,” they assured me, and started listing off justifications. I could almost picture them ticking them off on their fingers as they went. “Learning how other communities support the arts, there are artists I can network with, some of them are doing workshops I can-”

“I mean, are you sure you want to go with me?” I interrupted before their list could get too long.

“Of course!” Blake exclaimed on a laugh, and once again they were listing justifications, this time of a more personal kind. “I get to spend time with you, I can finally meet your mom and Nikki, I get to go on a road trip . Who doesn’t love a good road trip? Think of the snacks, Pierre! The car karaoke! The -”

A renewed groan sent the cats scattering, their paws scrabbling for purchase on the hardwood floors. But it also earned me another laugh from Blake.

“I’m kidding,” they assured me. “No car karaoke. But I meant the rest.” They paused. “Unless you can think of a reason for me not to go?”

Chapter Text

My phone rang just as I pulled into the parking lot behind Blake’s apartment building to pick them up on Thursday morning and, noting the number on the readout, I knew I couldn’t ignore it. I’d intended to meet Blake at her apartment in case they needed help carrying anything down to the car, but they ended up meeting me in the parking lot just as I was finishing up the call. 

“Everything okay?” they asked, hoisting their duffle bag into the trunk and turning to face me with a concerned wrinkle peeking out from the hair that had fallen over their brow. They were clearly dressed for comfort today in dark green bike shorts and a t-shirt that was so oversized that the only reason I knew they were wearing bike shorts at all was because the duffle bag had caught on the edge of the shirt as they’d exited the building, exposing the green fabric underneath. I let my gaze dip down to the yellow converse sneakers that matched the colour of the tee almost perfectly and couldn’t help but think they looked like sunshine in human form. My own worn dark wash jeans and grey tee seemed like a black hole in comparison.

“Pierre?” Blake prompted, drawing my gaze back to their face and the worry still etched there, reminding me that they’d asked a question.

“Fine,” I assured them. “We need to make a stop before we leave Trenton.”

Blake shrugged, adjusting their t-shirt when it started to slip, exposing one shoulder. “Sure,” they said, moving toward the passenger door. “Another errand for Nikki?”

I let my lips quirk up into a smile. “Not quite.” We both climbed into the SUV and caught sight of the curiosity on their face as I buckled up. “Pet motel called,” I explained. “Seems Applepuff has disappeared overnight.”

“Oh no!” 

The concern was immediately back on Blake’s face at the news, so I shook my head and quickly assured them, “This happens every time. ‘Puff doesn’t like the pet hotel, nor does she like abiding by the rules, so she sneaks out of her enclosure while the staff are distracted. She’ll be in one of three places, which is what I told the attendant who called just now. The visit is more for their sake than mine.”

Sure enough, when I walked into the pet motel reception, the woman at the front desk - Jenny -  was immediately gushing at me, trying to assure me that everything was okay, they’d found her, and she was so sorry they’d disturbed my holiday, and would I like a discount for their stay to make up for it? It took several long moments and a few attempts before I could cut her off and let her know that it was really no trouble to stop by, at which point she’d finally led Blake and me back to the motel room that my three fur babies would be sharing for the next few nights. 

She let us in, and within seconds Applepuff was winding around my legs and purring. I picked up the little troublemaker just as Snowball let out a hello meow and Pretzel… I let out a sigh as my dear, little idiot stretched out from her twisted sleeping position, the one that had decided her name, and promptly rolled off the top perch of the cat tree. She stood at the bottom, looking slightly dazed for a moment, before glancing around, almost as if she was checking to see if anyone had witnessed her fall, then she plopped down and licked her paw like nothing had happened.

I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t keep the smile off my face at the sound of Blake’s startled laughter. “Oh my goodness,” they cooed, approaching Pretzel slowly and bending down to offer a hand to sniff, introducing themself. “Oh you poor baby. Are you okay?” I would have loved to just watch them befriend the orange furball,  but Applepuff had other ideas, stretching up from her position against my chest and nipping at my earlobe to gain my attention.

“Just because you don’t like it here doesn’t mean you can terrorise the staff,” I told Applepuff firmly, dragging my hand down her back and then scratching under her chin, and marvelling at the fact that talking to the cat in such a human way in front of Blake didn’t make me feel weird like it did when anyone else was in the same vicinity as me and my cats. “I already told you that you have to stay here for five nights. That’s four more, ‘Puff. Four.” I held up four fingers in front of her nose despite the fact that I knew she couldn’t count, and she leaned forward with her mouth open to try to bite me. “No. No biting. Not me. And definitely not the staff. Be a good girl and I’ll let you get high when I get home, okay?”

Blake’s snort drew my gaze over to where they now sat cross-legged on the floor with Pretzel slumped contentedly in their lap, already asleep and purring again, and Snowball rubbing her face against their hand. The sight made my chest clench, noting how comfortable they all seemed, how quickly the cats had accepted Blake. “You’re bribing your cats with drugs?” they asked.

“Don’t be silly,” I responded easily. “They’re not gonna remember by the time I pick them up on Monday.”

They sent me a mildly scandalised look. “So you’re lying to your fur babies? The very cats who love and adore you? I should call the SPCA!”

Unfortunately, Jenny walked past just as the words came out of Blakes mouth, and the immediate fear on her face might have been funny, if not for the fact that apologies started spilling from her lips faster than I could have tried to react. “Mr. Sherman, I’m so sorry! I don’t know how it happened. She was there when we did our checks late last night, and then this morning when I went in to feed them, she was-”

“Jenny, it’s fine.” I kept a firm hold on Applepuff when she started to try and wriggle out of my grasp. I wasn’t done with her. “Blake isn’t calling the SPCA. Sh-uh, They were teasing me for lying to the cats about rewards.” I cringed at the almost slip in referring to Blake as a she. I was doing pretty well remembering mentally, but my tongue wasn’t quite up to speed, apparently. “It’s a joke,” I added to Jenny.  “Everything is fine.”

“But Applepuff-”

I shook my head. “‘Puff is an escape artist. She does this every time. She’ll accept her fate by tonight, and you shouldn’t have any more problems. But if she tries it again, you know where to find her now, right?”

Jenny nodded tearfully. “I added a note to her file on the computer.”

“Probably a good idea to add it to the ‘about us’ sign on the door, too,” Blake pointed out, nodding to the A4 print out that had a picture of each of the cats, a bit about their personalities, and their feeding schedule. 

Jenny nodded, wringing her hands together as she looked from Blake, to me, to the sign on the door. It took another couple minutes to reassure her that no authorities would be called, no reports would be made, and to calm her down enough that she no longer looked like she was on the verge of tears as she returned to her duties. 

I set ‘Puff on top of the cat tree Pretzel had so unceremoniously abandoned upon our arrival, and held her face between both my hands so she couldn’t look away from me. “No more Houdinis,” I told her firmly. “Be a good girl.” Her jaw hinged open on a wide yawn and I rubbed my thumbs over her brow before I released her. “If I get another panicked call from the staff here, there’ll be no catnip.” Applepuff huffed and settled into a loaf position on the tree, eyeing me imperiously. 

Leaning down, I put my face close to hers, pleased when the cat deigned to give me a kiss but booping her nose to my cheek. I then called Pretzel over, instructing her to jump up onto the next level down on the cat tree, leaning close and receiving another booping kiss. And finally, I crossed to where Snowball had set herself up in the hammock attached to the window so she could watch the wildlife outside and leaned in for a third and final kiss goodbye. 

We said nothing on the way out of the motel, aside from thanking the staff as we passed through reception, but Blake had a grin on their face that was so wide I worried that it would split the top half of their head straight off.  

Having experienced similar behaviour from Lester, and learned to regret asking what he was so happy about, because it inevitably led to his special brand of tease-joking, I elected to ignore Blake’s grin as we got back into the SUV. I made sure the places Nikki needed me to stop and pick things up were still preloaded into my maps app on my phone so I could get to the directions easily, made sure Blake was buckled in and ready, and backed out of the parking space.

I thought it might become one of those situations where they were waiting for me to ask. Where they would stare at the side of my face while I drove until I finally relented and asked what they were grinning about. But, thankfully, I was reminded of how not-Lester Blake was when they broke the silence as we paused at the first intersection. And I had to stop myself from breathing an audible sigh of relief. 

“Where to first?” they asked, reaching up to sift their hand through their hair, then smoothly transitioning into tying it up in a knot on the top of their head with the hair elastic I hadn't previously noticed on their wrist. 

In answer, I pointed to the glove compartment. “Itinerary is in there.”

“You made up an itinerary?” Blake asked incredulously. They didn’t hesitate to retrieve the email attachment from Nikki that I’d printed out just in case, and then a sound of understanding was filling the car. “Ah. I see Nikki still hasn’t learned to chill.”

“I did mention she just finished her Masters in Event Management, right?” I pointed out, glancing at them as they read through the meticulously detailed document. She'd planned the day down to the minute, including when and where to stop for lunch and bathroom breaks. If she went into any more detail, I think there'd be a second-to-second account of when to breathe. “I don’t think my sister has been chill a single day in her life. And this festival is a really big deal for her. She’s trying to idiot proof it.”

“And you're the supposed idiot she’s trying to proof?” Blake questioned, flipping the page to find still more instructions.

I shook my head as I navigated onto the highway. “I don't take it personally. She would have done the same for anyone she tasked with picking up her stuff for her.”

“Still, it's a lot.”

I didn't disagree, because they weren't wrong. Nikki was an overachiever. Always had been. And at least in part, it was a learned behaviour from our Mom. But growing up with their particular brand of stress-induced need for scheduling had prepared me well for a life in the military, and pandering to their impossibly high standards had served me well in preparation for working for Ranger.

We lapsed into an easy, companionable silence. Nothing between us but the quiet jazz - my usual driving playlist - just audible through the car speakers, and the sounds of the road and cars around us. It was peaceful in a way that sharing space with anyone else wasn't.

Chapter Text

“According to Nikki’s super helpful itinerary, we’re supposed to stop for lunch at the next town,” Blake pointed out, retrieving the document my sister had made from a pocket in her - I mean their -  bike shorts and unfolding it while I played Tetris with the accumulation of boxes we’d picked up so far in the back of the SUV. From what Nikki had said, we still had a couple of big ticket items to pick up along the way, so I was trying to guesstimate enough space for them to fit without having seen them in person so I wouldn’t have to rearrange the boxes again. 

After a final eyeball, I pulled the cargo net across to secure everything in place and turned to find a frown on Blake’s face.

“What?” I asked

“Lunch,” they repeated, pointing to the line on the itinerary. “Next town, see?”

I wasn’t sure what they were getting at, so I just replied, “I do.”

“Mmm,” they murmured, pushing their glasses up their nose and glancing down the street distractedly. “Supposed to take another hour to get there.”

Following their gaze down the street, I saw the cheerful, umbrella-covered tables of the small cafe we’d walked past earlier while we were looking for the print shop, and understanding hit me. I’d been around Steph enough to recognise hunger, and while Blake didn’t have the obvious stomach growling, it was clear by the way they’d brought up lunch and their line of sight what was going on.

“An hour seems a bit far to wait,” I said, closing the back of the SUV. “Are you okay if we get something here instead?”

Their eyes shot back to me, brows raised in surprise but just as quickly, their expression softened into something knowing, yet appreciative. “I’m that obvious, aren’t I?”

“I made a living on noticing, interpreting and planning based on people’s behaviour,” I said with a shrug. “I like to think I’m pretty good at it.” Provided they aren’t trying to flirt with me , I added silently to myself. But Blake didn't need to know about that particular failure of mine. They’d already proven they understood it on some level by rescuing me from that determined woman at the Gallery opening. I’d always felt like a fish out of water on the dating scene, but I hadn’t realised it was so recognisable until Blake pointed it out.

They huffed out a sigh, shaking their head with a slight smile. “Fine. You caught me.” They folded up the itinerary and tucked it back away. “I’m getting hungry. And waiting an hour may become… unpleasant.”

“Unpleasant?”

“You won’t like me when I’m hangry, Pierre.”

I let the corners of my lips turn up at the Hulk reference. I’d been likened to the monstrous green giant a time or two myself, thanks to my formidable size and mass. “I have a lot of experience dealing with hangry women, so I’m sure I could handle it,” I said. Then thinking of the time I’d gotten caught in standstill, bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway with a hungry and menstruating Steph, and not a single snack to be found anywhere in the SUV - not even a smushed candy bar in the bottom of her purse - I added, “But just in case, let’s go see what the cafe up the street has before we get back on the road.”

I started walking without waiting for Blake’s agreement and was rewarded when they bounded into a little skipping step to catch up to me, bumping my shoulder (or at least as close to my shoulder as they could reach, which was more like mid-bicep) when they drew level. “Smart man,” they praised.

A light snort escaped me. “I did say I had a lot of experience with hangry women.”

Their laugh tinkled through the air, mingling harmoniously with the handmade windchimes on the shop front across the road. And as I delighted in the sound, reflected on the moment and the catalyst to better preserve it in my memory, my eyes snapped wide. Heat flamed my face as I repeated the words I’d said. I have a lot of experience with hangry women… Hangry women. WOMEN! And I’d done it not just once, but twice. 

“Shit! Sorry!” The words burst from my lips before I could stop them, the force of it gluing my sneakers to the pavement as tension wound every muscle in my body tighter than a spring. “I didn’t mean… I mean… You’re not… And I know you’re not. It just-”

“Woah,” Blake said, spinning to face me with an expression of pure shock on their face. Their hands came up between us, palms out like they were placating a spooked horse. “Take a breath and tell me what just happened?”

Following their instructions, I sucked air into my seizing lungs, staring directly into their calm, if slightly confused, eyes. It was that serene energy that gave me the courage to explain, “I called you a woman. I’m sorry. I know you’re-”

I watched as their expression darkened further in confusion. Waiting for them to replay our interaction and get belatedly offended. But instead, Blake said, “No you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did,” I insisted. “I said -”

“I know what you said, Pierre.” Their tone was soft, but with an air of confidence and authority. I tensed further when they laid a hand on my arm, stepping closer and peering up into my eyes, like they were daring me to continue arguing with them. Warning me that I wasn’t going to win no matter what I thought. “But you didn’t call me a woman.”

“Blake, I-”

“You said,” they cut me off agin, lifting the hand from my arm and flourishing a finger out away from themself. “And. I. Quote.” The stern side eye they gave me once again told me to keep my mouth shut, so I just clenched my jaw and waited for them to finish. They pitched their voice low to imitate what they thought my voice sounded like, “ I have a lot of experience dealing with hangry women, so I think I can handle it.”

I continued waiting, because I already knew exactly what I’d said. Exactly what I’d implied. What I didn’t know was how they thought I hadn’t called them a woman.

Blake crossed their arms over their chest, never once breaking eye contact, but there was a tiny smirk edging onto their face as they once again pushed their glasses up their nose. “What you did was cite experience relevant to the current situation, and suggest that the skills are transferable.” They were extremely satisfied with themself, but I still wasn’t convinced.

“That wasn’t my intention, though,” I pointed out. “I… was implying you were a woman. I forgot for a second that you’re non-binary.”

“That’s the thing about communication, Pierre,” they said gently. “It takes two parties. And just because you said it means one thing, doesn’t mean I interpreted it the same way. You don’t get to decide what is going to offend me.” They shrugged. “And besides, you only learned my gender and pronouns a few days ago after over a decade of thinking of me in a different form. It’s gonna take time to adjust. I understand. You’re not a robot, you can’t just flip a switch and fix the programming. It’s gonna take time.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. Because they had a point. Several points, in fact. And despite how I still felt about my perceived blunder, the fact that they were so understanding loosened the tight grip the worry had on my body, allowing me to relax somewhat. “Thank you,” I murmured.

“You’re welcome,” they replied in that same quiet voice, before their whole demeanour snapped back to the bubbly friend who, half an hour ago, had been recanting the tale of one of their adventures overseas with such enthusiasm that they’d nearly smacked me in the face while I was driving, causing us both to let out startled laughs. Now, though, they grabbed my hand at the same moment they spun back around and started tugging me up the hill to the cafe once more. “Come on. I need food or I’ll hulk out and go on a rampage.”

It would have been very easy to resist their pull. Physically, at least. With the difference in size, All I would have had to do was brace myself and they wouldn’t have been able to move me. Like an ant trying to move a mountain. There was the pull of something else entirely, though. Something foreign and intangible, but oh so insistent, that I couldn’t resist. It made me pliant. It unglued my feet from the pavement. It released the pent-up tension in a whoosh of breath.

The cafe was bustling, with patrons filling up more than half of the colourful arrangement of tables both inside and out. Couples that were clearly on a date, older retirement-age ladies sharing gossip over tea and knitting, a few family groups with their kids bouncing up and down in their seats. 

Blake pointed to a blue table on the far side of the outdoor dining area, the one with the yellow umbrella positioned perfectly to actually shade the chairs instead of just the area directly beside the table. “Grab that table,” they instructed, lifting our joined hands to point to it, then releasing me to do their bidding. “I’ll go get us menus and water.”

Nodding, I skirted around the outside of the group of tables and slid down onto one of the chairs, scanning the area while keeping one eye on the entrance to the cafe, waiting for Blake’s reappearance. 

I couldn’t believe how easy hanging out with Blake was. It was like we’d only been apart over semester break at college, almost no time having passed. Their presence beside me in the SUV felt right. Their quiet confidence and bubbly nature was just enough to bring light and life to the small space without overpowering it and becoming too much. And I found I was glad that they’d offered to come on this trip with me. The long hours on the road would have been dull and boring without Blake pointing out all the pretty and cool things they spotted in the scenery that passed. 

It certainly beat ruminating over the inevitable questions I would be asked at dinner tonight. Hopefully, with Blake in tow I could avoid them for a change. At least publicly.

I did another scan of the area, searching for Blake, but coming up empty when suddenly a hand wrapped around my eyes. I was halfway to an instinctive takedown before the cheery, “ Guess who !?” registered in my brain and I released Blake’s wrist like it was hot before I could follow through by slamming them into the table and twisting their arm up behind their back.

“Whoops!” they said, eyes wide in surprise as they stepped out from behind me. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” They slowly set two bottles of water and a single menu on the table in front of me while I fisted my hands on top of my thighs, dragging in a deep breath to calm down. How the hell did they even manage to sneak up behind me? I thought I was watching the cafe doors the entire time. “Do you need a minute?”

I flicked my eyes to Blake’s face as they lowered themself into the adjacent seat. There was a touch of worry there, but they appeared fine otherwise. A fact that I double checked by cutting my eyes to their wrists where they’d laid their hands in full view on the table. Whether they sensed my concern and what I was looking for, I didn’t know, but as I stared, sucking in more air, they slowly - oh, so slowly - turned their hands over, splaying their fingers wide, but more importantly, exposing the inside of their wrists for my inspection. 

There didn’t appear to be any damage, but bruises could take a while to appear. And if I’d hurt them…

“Pierre?” Blake questioned softly. “What do you need?”

“Talk to me,” I requested, thinking back to a similar situation that had happened in the early days of shadowing Steph, and how her benign babble had helped to break me out of an impending PTSD episode. “Ask me questions. Something mundane. Just talk.”

“Okay,” they agreed, voice a little stronger now, and I sensed more than saw their nod. “How long has it been since you went home?”

 Home. When was I last home? “Almost a year,” I said, still unable to look away from their wrists, waiting for discolouration to appear. For the evidence of my reaction to shame me. “It was Maddie's birthday, she turned ten, so Mom wanted the whole family there to celebrate.”

“Maddie's your niece?” Blake asked.

“Yeah. Eldest. She's exactly like Nikki was at that age.”

Blake turned their hands to fiddle with one of their rings, but I reached Out and gently turned them back out, gliding my hands over theirs until I had a clear view of the delicate flesh on the inside of their wrists once more. They seemed to get the hint, holding their hands out, palms up for me to see, and when I glanced up at their face, they were staring at me. Through me. I didn't understand the expression in their eyes. It was cautious and worried; those, I had expected. But there was something more that I couldn't pinpoint 

“A year is a pretty long time to be away, especially when kids are involved,” Blake said. “Are you looking forward to seeing everyone?”

And just like that I was thinking of the inquisition I would no doubt receive from Mom and Nikk againi. They might not do it at the dinner table with Blake there as a guest, but I was certain that by the end of the weekend, even with Nikki’s festival duties, they would pull me aside to question my personal life.

“Pierre?” Blake called again, and I cut my gaze back to them. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I said gruffly. Mentally shaking off the apprehension of what was to come, I reached for one of the bottles of water.

“What was the groan, then?”

I missed the bottle, knocking over instead and fumbling to save it from falling off the table, before I slowly turned to face Blake. “I groaned?”

Blake nodded, still, I noticed, keeping their wrists on display as they peered at me, cataloguing my reaction. “I asked if you were looking forward to going home and you groaned and looked like you were in pain.”

Of course I did, I thought. And before I had the chance to offer up an explanation, there was a cheeky light behind their eyes as a slow grin appeared on their lips. “Are you not looking forward to seeing your family, Pierre?” Blake asked. 

Their expression didn’t change, but their posture did. The careful stillness they’d maintained since I released their wrist and they sat down disappeared and they turned slightly in their seat, draping one leg over the opposite knee, and propping their elbow on the table, leaning in to cradle their head in their hand and peer up at me. In this position I could still see the wrist I’d seized when they’d surprised me, which I thought might have been a deliberate move on their part, but one I was grateful for nonetheless. Each moment that passed without a bruise appearing eased more of the anxiety that I’d hurt them, but it was their nonchalant conversation that really put me at ease.

And of course, the distraction of a different, impending pain always worked wonders. 

“Not exactly thrilled at the prospects of undergoing the well-meaning interrogation,” I explained, seeing no reason to hide why I felt this way since they weren’t going to let me deny my feelings.

Blake’s head tipped to the side, a lock of hair falling across their forehead. “Well-meaning interrogation?”

I shook my head. “Mom and Nikki just want to see me happy.”

They flicked their hair away and pulled a face, foot still bobbing the whole time. “You’re not happy?” 

I shrugged, averting my attention to removing the cap of the water bottle still in my hands. “I’m not not happy,” I conceded. Exhausted, is what I mostly was. Happiness was too energetic for my current state of being. As was unhappiness. I existed in a permanently neutral state, floating in between. On the periphery of a satisfied life. My cats were the one bright spot in my otherwise dull, grey existence.

Realising that Blake was waiting for me to say more, I let out a sigh and confessed, “They’re gonna ask me about my dating life.”

“And that makes you uncomfortable.” It was a statement, not a question. “I mean, fair. Dating makes you uncomfortable, right?”

“I’m not good at it.”

Blake’s perpetual motion paused momentarily, an odd look crossing their face before the foot bobbing started again. “So they wanna see you in a relationship because they think that’ll make you happy?” they asked.

I nodded and took a sip of water.

“And you want to make them happy, because you care about them,” Blake continued to reason, swapping legs and leaning both elbows on the table now, fiddling with their rings. “It’s a terrible cliche, but if you wanted, I could pretend to be your partner for the weekend?”

If possible, the shock of that offer was worse than that of realising I could have hurt Blake when they snuck up on me, but unbidden flashes of scenes filled my head. Of Blake and me in the amorous situations couples get into. The intimate details of dating. The parts that were hard for me. The parts that were different for me. And I shook my head firmly.

“I don’t want them to get their hopes up,” I told them. “Besides, I don’t think I could pull it off.”

Mild surprise crossed their features as they lowered their hands to the table. “Wow, okay.”

Something about the tone had me pushing aside my usual less-is-more, only say as much as you have to conversational status as words started piling up behind my teeth, fighting each other to get out. “Not that there’s anything wrong with the idea of being in a relationship with you,” I clarified. “I just don’t have those kinds of feelings for you,” - or anyone, I added in my head - “and I don’t want to make my family believe I do. They’d see right through it anyway. They know what I’m like.”

Remarkably, the easy smile was back on Blake’s face by halfway through my ramble, allowing relief to course through me. “Fair,” they agreed. “So, you don’t have a significant other at the moment?”

I raised an eyebrow at them. “Do you think you’d be coming with me if I did?”

“Yes.” They said it nonchalantly, punctuating it with a sip of water, but I was left almost sputtering.

“Yes?”

“Well,” Blake said, carefully setting down the bottle and focusing their attention on screwing the lid back on as they started their explanation. “If you had a significant other, I assume you’re assuming that they would be joining you for the trip home this weekend.” They sat back, both feet flat on the floor now and both hands folded together on the edge of the table. “Which may very well be the case, but-” They flourished a finger at me. “- you and I are friends, and this art festival really is a great professional development opportunity for me. Derek, the director of the gallery, was thrilled when I made the suggestions to him. He even gave me a bunch of flyers to hand out. And given how big your heart is, I find it hard to believe that you would say no if I’d asked to carpool.”

They had a point. If they’d wanted or needed a lift to the festival, I wouldn’t have hesitated to agree. But… “What if my partner didn’t want you to carpool with us?”

Now it was Blake’s turn to raise an eyebrow at me, arching it up over the rim of their glasses in a dubious expression. “You’d really date someone who said no to helping out a friend?”

Given that dating at all was such a foreign concept to me, and Blake knew it, all I could do was shake my head. Because the best I could do was think about it in terms of how I would react if one of my friends rejected Blake joining us for a road trip, and unless there was a mighty good reason to exclude them, I’d be asking a lot of questions about what the problem was.

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe that was one of the underlying problems with Lula. Even if I had somehow been attracted to her, the way she flaked on Steph really irked me. We'd definitely locked horns on the matter a couple of times.

“Exactly,” Blake said. “So you’re stuck with me in both realities.” Before I could respond to that, they scooted their chair closer to the table and opened up the menu they’d returned with, laying out at an angle that we could both see. “Now let’s order so we can eat. We have a schedule to keep even if we’re going off script with lunch a town early.”

Chapter Text

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, frowning unconsciously at the dull ache that had started developing in my lower back over the course of the last leg of our journey to my family home. The drive from the final town where we’d picked up the largest of the boxes Nikki had sent me all around the countryside to my hometown should have been fairly quick and painless. Except for the traffic jam that had appeared just a mile or two before our exit. 

We’d been creeping forward for the last fifteen minutes, and I could finally see the sign that denoted our imminent freedom from this nightmare, but it still wasn’t within reach.

“Are you alright?” Blake asked, breaking the silence that had fallen between us as we both stared out at the cars surrounding us.

“I’m ready to be out of this car,” I explained, shifting again and cursing my decision to remove the lumbar support pillow I usually kept on hand for long drives when I’d been preparing for the trip. The little voice in the back of my mind said it would make me look old and weak, but now that I’d spent all day behind the wheel, I wasn’t so concerned with how Blake viewed me. I wanted the discomfort radiating up my spine to piss right off. I don’t even know what I’d been worried about; Blake had already made the joke that we were getting old when we caught up at the cat cafe last weekend.

“Anything I can do?”

I rolled my neck, gripping the steering wheel harder than was probably necessary. “Move the cars out of the way so we can get off this damn highway?”

Blake laughed. “I know you think highly of me, Pierre, but that’s a little outside my skill set,” they said. “I meant, do you need painkillers or something? Water?”

I sighed and tried to settle back into the seat. They were just trying to help, I reminded myself, they didn’t deserve my ire. “Water, please,” I requested, tweaking the volume on the jazz that had continued playing throughout the whole trip. Not once had Blake asked or attempted to change the music, which was a fucking miracle compared to almost everyone else who’d ever sat in that passenger seat. The only people who hadn’t tried to mess with it were Ranger and Bobby, and that was because they both recognised it for what it was: a grounding technique and a coping mechanism.

My playlist was carefully curated to soothe my nerves and calm my mind. Having it constantly there in the background on a low volume gave me a sense of balance that allowed me to go about my normal day to day life with minimal worry. But sometimes I needed it to be more present. To penetrate my brain. To smother the prickly feelings that set me on edge.

We inched forward a few feet and then Blake passed me an opened bottle of water, watching me carefully as I drank half of it and passed it back. “I’m fine,” I assured them when they continued to stare, not having made any move to put the top back on the water. “Just done with this drive.”

“It’s been a long day,” Blake agreed. They finally looked away, returned the lid to the water bottle and set it down in the cup holder built into the door. 

We lapsed into silence again, and I focused on the way the jazz filled my head, the way the trumpet’s notes buzzed in my sinuses. Eventually, the traffic inched forward enough that I could scooch the SUV down the shoulder, past the last few cars and onto the off-ramp. From there is almost no time at all before I was turning into the familiar driveway tucked between two large oak trees, both of which had been the cause of broken bones when I was growing up.

“Finally,” I sighed, as I threw the SUV in park and released my seatbelt.

Blake smirked. “Are you gonna kiss the grass when you get out?”

I rolled my eyes and let out three humourless Ha's to let them know how much I appreciated their joke. Not only was I not prone to such displays of emotion, the thought of getting back up from the ground with how my back was feeling was enough to nix any plans I might have had to follow through on the suggestion.

“I'm going to picture you doing it anyway,” they informed me as they opened the door to get out. “Maybe I'll even sketch it later.” 

As soon as my Feet hit the ground, I started stretching my hips and back, trying to relieve the aches and pains that had crept in during the drive. I'd just lowered myself Into a wide squat, suppressing A moan at how good it felt, how much it helped, when a familiar voice yelled from the direction of the house, “Mom! Uncle P's here!”

I whipped my head up to see where Sonny was hiding that I hadn't noticed him, and in so doing, tipped forward. I managed to save myself by planting a knee and a hand on the ground, a position I was still in when Blake rounded the front of the SUV with their duffle bag slung over one shoulder and mine hanging from their other hand. “I thought you said you weren't going to kiss the ground,” they teased, setting my bag down and eyeing me critically before they set theirs down as well. “Do you need a hand up?”

“I'm fine,” I assured Blake, lumbering to my feet just as the front door of the house burst open, releasing my manic sister from its depths. 

“Finally!” Nikki exclaimed, practically leaping down the porch steps, her dense curls bouncing. “You're late. Get back in the car,” she instructed, pointing with a stiff arm. “We need to get the stuff over to the festival grounds so they can-”

The front door slammed against the house again, drawing my gaze. “Monique Sherman, let your brother catch his breath,” Mom admonished, wiping her hands on a tea towel. My nephew Sonny was leaning over the railing a couple feet away, grinning. “Dinner is just about ready. You can take the packages over to the festival grounds after everyone’s eaten. You were heading over then anyway.”

A wave of relief washed through me. The last thing I wanted to do was get back into that SUV right now.

“But we need-”

“Food, and family, Nikki,” Mom said sternly. Her tone was no-nonsense, one we’d both quickly learned not to defy growing up. But not defying Mom didn’t mean not needling each other.

“Yeah, Nikki,” I teased quietly when she huffed out a frustrated breath. “Food and family.”

Nikki shot me a death glare I’d long since grown an immunity to. “And to think I thought I'd missed you,” she said.

“But you did miss Uncle P, Mom,” Sonny pointed out, bounding down the steps towards us as I scooped up my duffle bag and slung it over my shoulder. “You said you couldn’t wait for him to visit because he does a better job of cleaning out the gutters than you.”

“Is that so?” I asked Sonny, holding out my hand face out when he stopped in front of me. He laid his small hand against my much larger palm and we each wrapped our thumbs around in our usual hand hug.

“Mmhmm,” Sonny confirmed. “Gamma told Mom she needed to do it, and Mom said she was hoping you’d do it while you were here.”

I cut my eyes to Nikki, seeing the story in between her son’s innocent words. Nikki didn’t want to clean the gutters and had deliberately put it off knowing I’d insist on making myself useful while I was here. To her credit, she didn’t try to deny or defend, just shrugged and smiled. “You do do it better than me.”

I also assumed there was a list of other chores around the house that would need my attention, but I just shook my head and gestured to Blake, who had been standing next to the SUV, watching the whole exchange with undisguised amusement. Their bright eyes flicked between my sister, my nephew, and my mother, soaking in the energy of it all like they’d just stepped into the middle of a lively stage performance.

“Everyone, this is Blake.”

Without a skerrick of hesitation, Blake strode forward, a grin on their face as their presence slipped into the space like they’d always belonged there, sending a shockwave through my chest. “It’s so great to finally meet the famous Sherman family,” they said, their voice warm and genuine. “Thanks for letting me stay with you on such short notice.”

Mom was down the stairs in an instant, apologies gliding off her tongue, “Excuse the chaos,” she said, casting Nikki and me a sidelong glare. “We don’t always behave like this.” Her tone, though, revealed the truth behind her bald-faced lie.

Blake just laughed. “Oh, trust me,I wouldn’t have expected anything less.”

They accepted Mom’s hug easily, like they’d known her for years, then turned to Nikki who looked them up and down like she was trying to extract secrets from them through sheer force of will. After a second, though, Nikki’s expression cleared into a welcoming smile. “We’re glad to have you here.”

While Blake declared their enthusiasm for the festival over the weekend, I caught the raised eyebrows and questioning expressions from my female relatives and decided now was a good time to avert my attention to Sonny instead.

“Where’s your sister?”

“It’s Thursday,” Sonny shrugged, still standing so close to me that he had to crane his neck all the way back for us to make eye contact. “She has piano lessons on Thursday.”

“She and Gabe should be back any minute,” Nikki inserted, coming back over and resting her hands on her son’s shoulders, turning him around and giving him a little push toward the house to follow in Mom and Blake’s wake as they made their way over the stepping stone path. “Go wash up for dinner.”

To his credit, he didn’t argue, although that could have been because of the novelty of a new person in the house, because as I watched him come level with Blake and Mom, he held out his hand and peered up at Blake with a hopeful expression. “Hi, I’m Mason, but everyone calls me Sonny”

“Nice to meet you, Sonny,” Blake replied, taking his hand without missing a beat and giving it a firm shake. And then they were holding hands as he dragged her into the house after him, announcing to Mom that he’d give them the tour and show them which room was mine.

“Gabe?” I asked, once the others had disappeared inside, sending my sister a side eye.

“My boyfriend.” Nikki shrugged easily, like it wasn’t a big deal, then returned my expression. “Blake?”

“A friend.” 

“Just a friend?”

I nodded firmly. “Just a friend.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “You’ve never brought just a friend home before,” Nikki pointed out just as a silver sedan turned into the driveway.

She wasn’t wrong. And I hated that she wasn’t wrong. 

“I’ve never brought anyone home,” I corrected, keeping my voice steady. The exception, of course, was Ranger - that had been a necessity, not a choice. The house needed repairs after the storm, and Ranger had offered to help. But Nikki wasn’t counting practicalities. She was counting relationships, implied or otherwise.

“Exactly,” Nikki said, like I’d just agreed with her. “So what makes Blake different?”

“You must be Gabe,” I said abruptly, shutting a metaphorical door in Nikki’s face as I turned to face the man in jeans and a checkered button-down, with sandy hair that had just exited the car parked behind my SUV. He looked respectable enough, which was a relief as much as a concern. Micah, Maddie and Sonny’s father, had seemed respectable too. Right up until I found out he’d been abusing my sister. “Nice to meet you.”

“Pierre,” Gabe replied warmly, shaking my proffered hand. His grip was firm despite his weedy appearance and his next words made me wonder if he’d made a conscious effort to put more strength behind the connection. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Don’t believe what Nikki says about me,” I joked. “Every word of it is a lie.”

“What about what I say, Uncle P?” Maddie asked, coming to stand beside Gabe and holding her hand out towards me. 

I eyed my niece critically for a moment, noting how much she’d grown and matured in the year since I’d last seen her before leaning down and accepting the hand-hug she’d offered. “I suppose you can be trusted,” I finally conceded. “You haven’t betrayed me yet.”

“And I have?!” Nikki exclaimed incredulously.

“Easter, the year we turned ten,” I cited without missing a beat. The memory was ingrained. “You said you’d look after my eggs while I went to the bathroom, and when I came back half my eggs were gone and your basket was twice as full.”

Nikki rolled her eyes. “Oh boo hoo, we both knew Mom and Dad were going to collect all the eggs from all three of us and divide them evenly anyway, what’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that you took eggs that weren’t yours,” I said.

Maddie lifted a hand to hide her mouth as she turned her head slightly toward Gabe, but didn’t lower her voice at all when she explained to him, “They argue about this every time Uncle P comes home. I think it’s how they say they missed each other.”

Chapter Text

I surfaced from sleep slowly, awareness coming in waves as my consciousness drifted closer to the surface. The room was just a little too bright, a little too warm, but as I let out a yawn and tried to stretch only to be impeded by the usual weight on my chest, I couldn’t help but acknowledge I felt more refreshed than I had in months. Smiling softly, I reached up to pet the cat who had won the fight to be closest to me overnight, stroking slowly while I took several deep breaths. One and a half breaths in, though, I realised that what I was stroking felt nothing like Applepuff, Snowball or Pretzel.

It felt exactly like a human head.

I bolted upright, heart slamming against my ribs, the abrupt movement sending a sharp ache down my back. As I twisted away from the bed, rising slowly so as not to cause myself a full-blown injury, my hand instinctively rose to my chest, fingers pressing lightly against the spot where Blake’s head had rested. The warmth was still there. The sensation of weight lingering, as if my body hadn’t quite processed its absence yet.

Behind me, the sheets rustled softly. “Pierre?” Blake asked, their voice husky from sleep. 

I let out a slow breath and forced my hand down as I turned to find them peering at me blearily.

“Sorry,” I said, willing my heartrate to settle the fuck down and hoping my training was ingrained enough that I at least looked and sounded calm even if I didn’t feel it right at that moment. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

I’d agreed to sharing the bed with Blake last night because I wasn’t keen on sleeping on the couch with the way my back was already threatening a revolt if I wasn’t careful, and I liked the thought of Blake sleeping on the couch even less. Nikki had offered to have Maddie sleep in her bed with her, or for Nikki to share with Mom while we were here so that Blake could take one of their beds, but it wasn’t fair to displace my family because I’d decided to bring an extra guest with me at the last minute.

There had been an awkward moment while Nikki and Mom both stared at me, questions and comments flashing behind their eyes like the billboards in Time Square. Questions and comments that I did not want to address. Not at all, and especially not in front of Blake. I’d already confessed to them that I wasn’t looking forward to the inquisition of my dating life, but I’m not sure Blake realised the hole they were digging for me by pointing out that the bed in my room was big enough to fit two people if I was okay with sharing. 

I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, staring into a tomb that was my own creation. I’d already shot down the other options, so I’d had no choice but to agree to sharing the bed. And I’d forced myself to be okay with it as we climbed in on opposite sides, even as I resigned myself to what I predicted was probably going to be the worst night sleep I’d had since ending my government contract. Sharing a bed, leaving myself vulnerable to another person, it reeked of lying awake all night staring at the ceiling, unable to relax.

Except that’s not what had happened. Not only that, I’d woken up with Blake’s head on my chest. Literally sleeping on top of me. And I hadn’t so much as stirred during the night; I’d slept soundly.

Now, Blake frowned, rubbed a hand over their face and then squinted at me again for a second before shaking their head. They rolled to the side slightly, the hand furthest away from me reaching for the other side of the bed and their frown deepened as they turned their head to look over their shoulder, then to the side of the bed I’d just leaped out of - the one they were much closer to, as opposed to where they’d started out the night. Their gaze returned to where I stood frozen like a statue between the bed and the door. “Are you okay?” they asked on a yawn so wide their eyes squinched closed.

“Terrible mattress,” I lied, making a show of stretching my back which thankfully didn’t scream at me the way it had a few moments ago.

They made a humming sound in the back of their throat, one that was simultaneously just a sleepy sound of agreement, and edging toward the kind of hum Mom made when she knew I was lying to her. I didn’t want to address the meaning I was reading into their tone, though, and instead chose to evade.

“It’s still early,” I said, noting the time on the old alarm clock on the bedside table. “You can probably get another hour or two of sleep.”

They squinted at me for a moment longer, during which time I realised that they had probably been reaching for their glasses when they’d rolled and reached across the bed earlier, then nodded, and shifted further down on the bed, drawing the covers up over their shoulder and nestling into the pillow. “Don’t let me miss breakfast,” they instructed on another yawn as their eyes drifted closed once more.

Relieved, I uttered a quick assurance that I’d wake them, retrieved my running shorts and a fresh t-shirt, and made my way into the bathroom to change. I then grabbed my sneakers and moved silently through the house to the front porch where I sat on the top step, breathing in the crisp morning air and the familiar scents of summer at home as I laced them up. 

With the performance my back had given yesterday afternoon and just now upon awakening, I knew running wasn't going to make me or it a happy camper, so after paying careful attention to my body’s signals while I stretched and warmed up, I set off on a brisk walk. My usual route when I was visiting home was so habitual I didn’t have to spare a thought as to where I was going as I set off down the drive, winding my way through the streets of the neighbourhood until I reached the centre of town. 

Past the darkened bookstore Nikki had been banned from our junior year of high school when the owner caught her making out with the store clerk in the backroom. Past the supermarket where I’d gotten my first job stocking shelves. Past the towns only bakery-slash-cafe, already awake and trading as Mrs. James, the ancient and cranky school administrator pointed almost aggressively at the exact loaf of bread she wanted from the array behind the counter.

Every building, every corner, every tree I passed held a memory from one time in my life or another. Like the alley beside the general store where I’d taken my first drag of a cigarette when I was thirteen - coincidentally also my last drag of a cigarette since the whooping I’d received when Dad spotted me was enough that my ass hurt any time I smelled tobacco. Not to mention Dad’s lung cancer.

When I made it back home, I slowed my pace, using a lap of the property as a cool down while I noted all the things that needed attending: gutters overflowing, a hole in the shed roof, the door to the garage not quite lining up right. By the time I returned to the front lawn, stretching out my muscles, I had a mental list of chores I wanted to get to at some point before I left on Monday. 

I kicked off my shoes by the front door before entering, rather than face the wrath of Mom and Nikki for tracking dirt and grass through the house, and padded into the kitchen to find them both already up and bustling around in what was clearly a well practiced routine. Mom was at the stove flipping pancakes while Nikki was at the island bench, cutting fruit and sandwiches and arranging them meticulously in the lunch boxes in front of her.

“Did you have a good run, honey?” Mom asked, glancing up from her task as I entered.

I didn’t bother to correct the pace she’d assumed I set for myself since it would just raise her concern. “Yeah,” I confirmed. “I see they finally fixed the pothole on Oak street. I thought that was going to be a permanent fixture with the way things were tracking.”

“That’s what happens when the high school boys paint dicks on the road pointing to the pothole that broke an axle on one of their mom’s cars,” Nikki explained, her tone deadpan.

I raised my eyebrows. “Seriously?”

Nikki nodded. “They apparently saw it online. You can’t just paint over the dicks because over time the road traffic would wear it away and reveal them again, so they were forced to resurface the road instead.”

“Crude, but effective.” I had to admire their creativity. 

“Can you go make sure the kids are moving?” Mom requested, pouring more pancake batter into the pan. “Breakfast is almost ready and Sonny still needs to do his reading before Gabriel arrives to take them to school.”

“Gabriel is taking the kids to school?” I asked my sister. Like mine, her dark complexion didn’t betray a blush, but the way she avoided eye contact as she zipped up the lunch boxes told me all I needed to know. Picking Maddie up from piano lessons, staying for dinner last night, taking the kids to school, it was all very cozy, if you asked me.

 “He’s the history teacher at the high school,” she explained, keeping her eyes averted. “It’s on his way. And I have a lot to get done for the festival today. Gabe’s just helping out.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, suppressing a slight smile at finally being able to turn the tables. It might come back to bite me on the ass later, but I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. “You really like him, don’t you?” I said. She said nothing, just pressed her lips together, her eyes flashing toward me before she abruptly turned away to start putting items back in the fridge. “Smitten.” I nodded smugly to myself. “I haven’t seen you like this since you first started dating Micah.”

“He’s a good man,” Mom defended against the comparison. Micah had been a dropkick, and yet he’d managed to play the part of boyfriend, and then husband and father well enough to pull the wool over our eyes until he’d gotten fed up with it and laid a hand on Nikki. I’d been overseas on deployment at the time, but upon receiving Mom’s email update, I’d been tempted to go AWOL and teach the fucker a lesson. From the moment I’d met him, I’d felt the urge to put a fist through his face, but could never justify it until that moment. 

Gabriel, on the other hand, gave off none of those knuckle-itching vibes. And from what I’d seen so far, I could tell he genuinely cared for not just Nikki, but Maddie, Sonny and Mom too. 

“I can see that,” I agreed with Mom. “But he’ll have to change his name.”

“What?” Nikki demanded, spinning around to face me. 

I just shrugged. “Monique, Madeline, Mason… Gabriel. Doesn’t quite fit, does it? I know you went to a lot of effort to curate the M names when you were naming the kids. For the aesthetic.” Grinning, I ducked out of the way of the plastic container Nikki threw at my head, and slipped out into the hallway. “I’ll go check on the kids,” I confirmed over my shoulder.

It took no time at all to make sure the kids were up and moving, because as I turned into the hall, Maddie appeared from the bathroom at the other end and took the responsibility of banging a fist on Sonny’s door before I could even decide how I was going to go about my task. 

“Breakfast is almost ready,” I informed her, and almost snorted a laugh when she repeated the words much louder at her brother’s door. It was like watching a scene from my own childhood. How many times had Nikki yelled at me and Leon to get our butts out of bed?

Slipping into my own bedroom, I watched Blake stretch languidly, reminding me of Pretzel with the way their torso twisted away from the bottom half of their body. The way they were taking up the majority of the bed, though, was more akin to Snowball’s style of taking up as much space as possible. “Rise and shine, sleepy head,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning back against the wall next to the door.

“Mmmmmmorning,” they purred, untwisting enough that they could see me. They seemed to take in their position in the bed with a frown. “I didn’t kick you out of the bed, did I?” they asked, concern leaking into their tone, and I wondered if they had been awake enough to recall our interaction an hour ago.

“No,” I assured them. It was technically correct. I had kicked myself out of the bed upon realising they were sleeping on my chest. A scene I’d had plenty of time to replay and analyse while on my walk. The most confusing part was how I’d managed to sleep through the contact when usually, even the cats movements in the nights woke me.

Blake must have read something in my expression, because they grimaced, rubbing both their hands over their face. “Sorry, I’m a sprawler.” That certainly wasn’t what they’d been doing when I woke up, but sure. “If I do it again tonight, just push me off the bed.”

“Not gonna happen,” I said, rather than acknowledge the elephant sitting in my half of the room. And then, to make sure it knew I was ignoring it, I added a topic change. “Breakfast is almost ready.”

“I’m up!” Blake exclaimed.

Chapter Text

Breakfast was hectic . Between Mom and Nikki practically shovelling food down the kids’ throats, and the kids wanting to ask Blake and me what seemed like every question under the sun, it was a mad scramble to get them both out the door on time when Gabe arrived to take them to school. Nikki was close on their heels, her satchel slung over her shoulder as she kissed first Maddie and Sonny, then Gabe on the cheek before hurrying to her own car and backing out of the driveway at an almost unsafe speed to go finish the final set up for the arts festival that was set to begin tomorrow.

Blake and I stayed glued to our seats at the breakfast table the whole time as the chaos whirled around us, not wanting to get in the way of the routine. It wasn’t until we’d heard both Nikki’s and Gabe’s cars drive away that I pushed back and started collecting the dishes that were strewn across the table. Blake followed my lead and we met at the sink just as Mom returned from getting dressed.

“I have my shift down at the animal shelter this morning, and I have some errands I need to run after that,” she explained, fiddling with the clasp on her watch. “Are you kids okay to entertain yourselves for the day?”

“I’m sure we’ll manage,” I assured her. Leaning down to allow her to set a kiss on my cheek, then holding out a hand, palm up, waiting. 

“What’s this?” Mom asked, staring at the hand.

“I’m waiting for the list of chores you want done around the house before I head home,” I explained patiently. She always had one. Even when I was coming home from college on break and Grandpa had been here looking after most of the maintenance, she always had a list for me to take care of; things she didn’t want Grandpa doing in case he lost his balance. Things like climbing the ladder to clean the gutters, or fix the shed roof. 

“You have a guest, Pierre,” Mom admonished quietly. “I’m not going to expect you to spend your day working on the house while Blake sits around bored.”

“I’m happy to give Pierre a hand with whatever needs doing,” Blake inserted from where they were keeping an eye on the sink filling while they scraped excess food off the plates and into the bin. 

“No,” Mom and I both said in unison. 

Mom even went so far as to hurry across the kitchen and remove the plate, and the spoon Blake had been using to scrape it, from their hands. “You’re a guest,” she insisted. “You shouldn’t be doing chores. Pierre,” - she turned to face me, arms crossed over her chest.

“Yes, Mom?”

“Blake isn’t allowed to do chores.”

I nodded. “Of course.” 

“You should take them out to see the town,” Mom insisted.

“I will.”

Mom stared at me for a minute, probably doubting my truthfulness, but the silent judgement was broken when an alarm trilled on her phone, and she jolted into action again. “I’ve got to go,” she said, bustling over to where her purse sat on the edge of the command station that displayed everyone’s schedules along with important notices. “Have a good day!” And with that, she was out the door leaving Blake and me alone in the kitchen.

Blake shut the water off and turned to face me, leaning back against the counter with a sly smile curling up the left side of their mouth. “We have the house to ourselves. Wanna go crazy and fix a leaking tap? Maybe pressure-wash the driveway after?”

I shook my head. “If I let you so much as touch a tool, my ass will be in a sling when Mom gets home tonight,” I pointed out with a shake of my head. Crossing to the sink, I took hold of their shoulders and gently urged them to the side before I started loading the scraped plates into the soapy water they’d prepared. “ I’m going to do the dishes. And then we’re going into town to show you the sights.”

Blake pouted. “I don’t wanna sit here and watch you do the dishes!” they whined. “I wanna do the dishes, too.” They tried to hip check me out of the way, which was a laughable attempt, and when that didn’t work, they laid both hands against my arm and put all their weight behind trying to shove me out of the way instead. “Move, Pierre!”

“I’m not letting you do the dishes, Blake,” I stated calmly. “Go get dressed and when I’m done I’ll take you to see my favourite spot in town.”

That had them intrigued, I could tell. They stopped shoving at me, and adjusted their glasses, peering up at me with a curious expression, but then a lightbulb seemed to flick on over their head. “Counter offer,” they announced, crossing their arms over their chest and lowering their chin so they were looking at me over the top of their glasses, meaning their eyes were also narrowed as they tried to bring me back into focus. “I will go get dressed while you wash the dishes, and if you’re still going when I get back, you will allow me to dry up. Then , I will spend some time sketching while you complete the chores that I can see flashing in your brain like a neon to-do list. And after that, you can take me on a tour of your hometown. Including the best spot to get lunch, and your favourite spot.”

I set the first plate into the dishrack and narrowed my eyes at Blake over my shoulder. “You’re not going to try to help me complete the chores to get them done faster?” I checked.

“Scouts honour,” they vowed, holding up a hand, even though I knew they’d never been a scout. “I’m not going to be the reason you get in trouble with your mom. Besides, I do have some concept sketches I want to work on for a new painting I have in mind.”

“Okay, fine,” I agreed. “Go get dressed.”

Blake grinned triumphantly and skipped from the room, and I doubled down on the dishes, determined to get them done before they returned. Drying up was better than letting them do the actual cleaning of the dishes, but I still didn’t want to think about the consequences I’d face if Mom found out.

*o*

By the time I’d cleaned the gutters, it was already after midday, and while I still wanted to fix the shed roof and the garage door before I left, I was also conscious of the fact that Blake was waiting for me to be done so we could go explore and eat. So, leaving the other tasks for later, I returned to the deck where I’d last spotted Blake hunched over their sketchbook with a glass of Mama’s signature iced-tea sitting forgotten by their elbow, condensation pooling on the glass. 

They’d seemed almost frenzied as I’d passed through the yard with the ladder earlier, their brow furrowed, pencil flying across the page. Now, though, they were laid out on the sun lounger, one foot hanging off the edge. My aviator sunglasses covered their eyes so I couldn’t tell if they were awake or not.

I paused by the railing, leaning my hip there as I sipped my own glass of iced tea. The movement of their chest, rising and falling with each breath, was steady and they appeared relaxed, no tension in their body at all.

“Take a picture. It’ll last longer.”

An icy sensation on my chest accompanied my jolt of surprise as I accidentally tipped my drink down my front. I hadn’t seen Blake’s lips move.

“I thought you were asleep,” I accused, narrowing my eyes at them as I brushed futilely at the wet patch on my shirt.

Blake lifted the sunglasses only enough to peer at me from under them. “And that makes it okay to stare?” The hint of amusement in their tone assured me they weren’t actually mad, nor even annoyed; just teasing for the sake of it.

“Welfare check.” I shrugged and crossed to the other lounger beside them, lowering myself onto it with a stifled groan. Unlike my assessment of Blake’s appearance, my body was riddled with tension. Between the long drive yesterday, the stress of how my family would react to Blake when I introduced them, jarring my back as I got out of bed this morning, and the physical exertion, every muscle in my body felt wound tight.

They smirked. “Did I pass inspection?”

I eyed them critically, taking in the slight pinkening of their exposed flesh, the still half-full glass on the small table between us. “That depends.”

“On?”

“Have you been reapplying sunblock?”

Blake rolled their eyes and reached under the table for the tube, waving it at me. “Yes.”

“And are you staying hydrated?”

In reply, they tossed the sunblock back where it came from and downed the other half of the iced-tea.

“What number are you on?” I challenged. The last thing I wanted was for them to get dehydrated and have to miss the fun of the festival they’d come with me to enjoy.

They shook their head, their hair flopping this way and that across their forehead. “It’s non-alcoholic. I’m about as far from intoxicated as you can get, Pierre.”

I couldn’t help but smile as I matched their exasperated tone. “I know, Blake. I’m trying to gauge your hydration status.”

They sat up suddenly, snapping a mock salute. “Sir, I’ve also drunk a bottle of water, sir.”

“Smart ass,” I quipped before swallowing the rest of my own glass and shifting to lie down. Blake obviously wasn’t in a hurry to move, and I was hoping some horizontal time would sort out what the massage setting in the shower and the stretching I’d done before coming to find them had failed at: loosening my muscles.

I wasn’t able to suppress my groan this time as my whole back seized halfway down, and my obvious discomfort was not lost on Blake.

“What’s wrong?” they asked, concern wiping away the amused tilt to their lips they’d sported since the second they’d revealed they were awake.

I felt like an old man, halted in a semi-reclined position, all of the weight of my upper body resting on one arm as I held myself stiffly, waiting for the spasm to subside. “It’s nothing,” I assured them. “Just my back.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing. It looks like you’re in pain.”

With no way to deny it, I simply nodded. Slowly. “Yep.”

“Does this happen often?”

The pain was easing some and I managed a single-shoulder shrug. “Every once in a while. Ever since my last mission. I injured it by falling off an ATV.” Falling off was putting it lightly. I’d been shot in the arm and the distraction had made me run into a fence. I was thrown over it, like a rider from a stubborn horse. I endured the excruciating pain for the next day and a half until we were extracted and flown to a hospital where I was told I was lucky I hadn’t done any permanent damage.  With time and physical therapy I’d managed to get almost back to my previous condition, but still dealt with painful flares from time to time.

They kept watching carefully as I finally managed to stretch out on the lounger. I didn’t like the worry lines creasing their forehead, but I was too busy letting out a controlled breath while I tried to decide if I’d made the right decision in lying down or not. Last year my back had seized so badly overnight after a rough couple of days that I was stuck in bed until Bobby turned up to assist. It was fucking embarrassing, and the absolute last thing I wanted to happen now. It was bad enough Blake was witnessing my current weakness, I could only imagine my mother and sister’s reactions if they found out I was stuck on this damn sun lounger.

Blake bit their lip, swapping out the sunglasses for their usual spectacles where they’d been resting atop their sketch book on the table.

“What can I do to help?” they asked.

An involuntary sigh escaped me. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Pierre.” Their warning tone had me reconsidering my answer.

“I could use some ibuprofen,” I admitted, mentally kicking myself for not grabbing some after my shower. I was too focussed on finding Blake and completely neglected my own needs. “And a refill on my drink.”

They stood, looking down at me. “Is that all?”

I nodded, closing my eyes. “Mmhmm.”

One of their little displeased huffs reached my ears, but I didn’t dare open my eyes, preferring to take a leaf out of Steph’s book and live in denial. 

“Is that all you usually do?” they insisted. “Does that usually fix the problem? How long till you’re back to normal?”

Another sigh. I wasn’t used to people mother-henning me. Bobby could be a nag when it came to health. And Steph could pester like it was an olympic sport if she thought I had information I wasn’t sharing with her. But I hadn’t had anyone acting this concerned for me since I moved to Trenton. There was only so much Mama could do long distance.

I was surprised by Blakes insistence. Anyone else would have dropped it the second I assured them that was all. Most people liked to mind their own business, and when the person they were questioning was as large as I was, the unspoken threat of bodily harm that I gave off naturally gave them more of an incentive than usual to let sleeping dogs lie.

Not Blake, though. Blake seemed determined to do whatever they could to ease my discomfort.

“If I can still move, I usually go to my chiropractor,” I explained, popping open one eye to peer at them.

They nodded their understanding, eyeing me critically. “Can you still move?”

I screwed up my nose. “The nearest decent chiropractor or physiotherapist is an hour out of town.”

Their expression darkened for only a moment at this news before I watched the idea lightbulb switch on over their head again, causing a jolt of apprehension through my stomach. It was the same expression they’d had right before they convinced me to climb up on the six foot tall brick courtyard wall to hold the massive suncatcher they’d created at just the right height and angle so they could get the perfect shot for their photography assignment. I was fit back then, but nowhere near as nimble as I was at the height of my military career. One misplaced foot and I’d come tumbling down off the wall, miraculously unscathed but for a couple bumps and bruises. 

It wasn’t that I was afraid I’d end up injured from whatever idea had lit up their eyes, though. It was that I was afraid I’d once again find myself unable to say no against my better judgement.

“So let me give you a massage, then.”

Just as I suspected, my immediate reactions were at war with each other. Part of me wanted to say no, to find another way to ease the pain and discomfort. But at the same time, the hope in their eyes was tipping me towards letting them do it. What’s the worst that could happen? More pain? I’d endure it for them.

Although… the thought of their guilt if they knew they’d only worsened my condition wasn’t appealing in the least.

“Blake,” I sighed.

They crossed their arms over their chest, defiant. “I took a short course in massage therapy a few years ago,” they pointed out. “Surely it’ll help.”

And that’s how I found myself sprawled on my stomach on the lounger with Blake perched by my hip, their hands pressing into my back with just the right amount of pressure to release the tension that had been building over the last two days. The moans that forced themselves out of my lungs, unable to be contained, probably rivalled the sounds Steph made when she was really enjoying her food, but I didn’t care. It felt amazing and by the time they eased up, having worked out all the knots they could find, I was fairly boneless. 

Blake rubbed their hands up and down my back a couple of times, the touch feeling more pensive than purposeful now, and I finally managed to reconnect my tongue to my brain to thank them.

I shifted a bit, dragging an elbow under me to start to get up, but they applied more pressure to halt my movements. “Just relax a bit longer,” Blake instructed, and then an almost tentative question reached my ears. “Can I paint you?”

I don’t know why they thought they needed to ask. Back in college they’d sketched me all the time, whenever we were bored, or they thought I’d made a fun expression, or was sitting or standing in an interesting position. There were class notes that had my face scribbled in the margins, and whole pages of their sketchbook devoted to a game of frisbee I’d played with some friends in the quad. They didn’t need to ask my permission, and I thought they knew that.

“Of course.”

Blake was off the lounger in the next instant, back to the vibrant energy I loved them for. “Don’t move,” they commanded over their shoulder as they skipped across the deck to the kitchen door. “I’ll be right back.”

I liked that simply agreeing to their request had made them so happy. Couldn’t help the smile that pressed into the arm supporting my head. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t do for Blake, I realised. They were a good friend and seemed to understand me in a way no one else did. I couldn’t have asked for a better companion for the weekend trip home.

I closed my eyes, content to just lie there for however long Blake needed me to, soaking up the sun.

They returned a few minutes later with a flurry of energy and the clatter of supplies and plopped down by my hip on the lounger again. I would have thought they’d need more distance and space to set up to paint, but I wasn’t going to complain. Blake was one of the only people I could tolerate in such close proximity, touching me, and the warmth of their presence was comforting, helping me to relax further.

Without warning, something soft, cold and wet stroked my upper back and I jerked away, attempted to roll over to see what it was, but Blake once again laid a firm hand on my shoulder to keep me there.

“You’ve gotta keep still or it’ll look like shit,” they admonished through a laugh.

I turned my head, craning my neck to peer over my shoulder at them, confused. “What are you doing?”

“Painting you,” they held up the paint brush as evidence. “You said I could.”

“What was that on my back, then?” I clarified, trying to crane my neck further to see what was there.

Blake sent me their own confused expression and held up the paint brush higher, making sure I could see it. “Paint.” The word was carefully enunciated, making me feel like I was missing something.

Twisting my upper torso so I could see their face more clearly, I raised an eyebrow. “Why did you put paint on my back?” Maybe it was one of those intrusive thoughts and they’d let it win.

Blakes confusion only deepend, their brows furrowing, nose screwing up and lips parting silently for several seconds. “What did you think was gonna happen?”

I shrugged. “A canvas? A sketchbook? I don’t know…”

Understanding bloomed on their face like a flower opening its petals to the sun, and the metaphor only became more true as a smile crested on their lips, amusement twinkling in their eyes. “I can see we’ve had a miscommunication,” Blake explained patiently, sitting back and folding their hands on their knees, the paintbrush sticking out from between their interlocking fingers. “When I asked if I could paint you, It was because your back was so wide and smooth. When I was massaging it, I could see an image forming in my head of swirling colours across your skin and I wanted to create it. So when I asked if I could paint you, I meant "can I paint on you?”

“Oh.” I let my elbow slide, lowering myself back down.

“Yeah,” Blake said, and lifted the palette from where it rested beside me. “These are your mom’s face paints. She was showing me her craft room last night and said I could help myself while I was here. I didn’t pack any paints for the trip.”

“Mom has face paints?” The words blurted out of my mouth before I could stop them and I shook my head.

“For the grandkids,” Blake explained, which made sense.

I settled myself back into my previous position with my arms crossed under my head, but facing toward Blake this time instead of away. “You’re welcome to use me as a canvas. I just wasn’t expecting it.” Closing my eyes I took a deep breath and let it out slowly to get back to that relaxed state. “I want a photo of it when you’re done, though.”

Chapter Text

“So tell me,” Blake said as we walked down the tree-lined road towards town an hour later. They had been balancing on the curb, their yellow converse dipping into the gutter with every other step, arms thrown wide for dramatic flair as much as to prevent falling, but as they broke the comfortable silence that had settled between us in the last couple of minutes, they hopped back up onto the sidewalk with me, tucking their hands into the back pockets of their denim shorts. “How did my gentle giant wind up in the military of all places?”

I glanced down at them, but was unable to see half their face because of the yellow baseball cap they’d donned before we left the house. I’d tried, again, to ask for details about how their career had led them to the artist residency at the Trenton Art Gallery, earlier while they were painting on my back, but they’d deflected and changed the topic exactly the same as when I’d asked about it at the Whispering Bean a week ago. I couldn’t see their face from my position stretched out on my stomach, but the tone of their voice had been enough to let me know they didn’t want to talk about it, so I hadn’t bothered to pursue it.

And yet, here they were asking the equivalent question of me. And while I was proud of my time in the service, the events that led to me joining the army weren't exactly what I would call warm and fuzzy. I didn’t want to bring the mood down, but I also didn’t not want to tell them. Quite the contrary. I wanted them to know. I wanted Blake to know every part of me they were interested in, just as I had a growing hunger to know more about them, what they had been doing, and how they’d found their way in the world. 

It was a hunger that left me feeling slightly off-kilter. A confusing desire that I didn’t think I’d experienced before. Not even back when we were in college. Blake was my friend, of that I had no doubt, they’d already assured me I was stuck with them, but friend felt like an inadequate term when I compared Blake to Ranger and the guys. I certainly didn’t care about Lester’s backstory enough to be concerned if he brushed off a question about it. And while I’d noticed the pining looks Bobby sent in Lester’s direction when the jokester wasn’t looking, I wasn’t about to start a conversation about it. Because it wasn’t really my business. 

But Blake?

Was Blake my business? Did I want Blake to be my business?

I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “When I was thirteen, my Dad collapsed coming in from the garage after a long day at work,” I started, resolving to share my story regardless. Perhaps it would persuade Blake to trust me with theirs. “Mom was at the stove stirring spaghetti sauce while quizzing Nikki and me for our science test the next day, and Leon was putting together a tray of garlic bread to go in the oven.”

“Leon?” Blake asked, looking up so I could see the question in their eyes.

“My older brother,” I explained. “He was nineteen at the time.”

They shook their head, dropping their hands out of their pockets to hang by their side. “I wasn’t aware you have a brother.”

I screwed up my nose. “Had.”

“Oh.” The sound was quiet, and understanding, and I felt the urge to explain my one word correction then and there, but I also knew that to do that, I had to explain the thing with Dad first. “You don’t have to tell me this story if it’s too painful,” they said before I could continue, which made me think that painful memories were the reason they’d brushed off my question earlier.

“It’s okay,” I assured them, reaching out to run my hand over the leaves of the hedge along the front of the Henderson’s property, letting the tickling sensation on my palm ground me. I took a deep breath. “So we were all there, going about our everyday after school routine, when Dad arrived home from work, and didn’t even make it all the way into the kitchen before he collapsed. He’d been feeling more tired than usual lately, but had chalked it up to stress and age. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, so the extra hours he was putting in at the shop was taking more of a toll on him.” I paused, replaying the scene in my head, the picture as clear as if it had happened yesterday, and my heart rate rose slightly in agreement.

“Mom was freaking out. Hell, we were all freaking out. Our Dad just collapsed in a dead faint right in front of us. But it was Leon that called the ambulance. They rushed Dad away to the hospital in the next town over and Mom went with them, leaving Nikki and me with Leon. The spaghetti sauce almost bubbled over before we remembered it and turned it off, but none of us was hungry. I was sick to my stomach with worry. 

“Mom and Dad didn’t come home that night, and I don’t think any of us slept, not even after Mom called the house phone and let us know that they had Dad stable and were keeping him in while they did some tests. Leon made the executive decision to keep Nikki and me home from school the next day, and even in the midst of everything else going on I remember Nikki being so worried about missing the science test and thinking how ridiculous she was.”

I took another deep breath, leading Blake around a bend and changing the trajectory of our walk ever so slightly. “Mom called late that morning asking Leon to bring us up to the hospital, and from how pale his face was as he drove, I could tell he was just as worried as I was, possibly more so. He’d seemed okay before he spoke to mom, but he was almost ashen when he hung up the phone and herded us out to his car. 

“When we got there, Mom was waiting outside Dad’s hospital room, and it was clear she’d been crying. She hugged us each in turn, whispering that she loved us, and I was ready to scream with how much worry and anxiety was coursing through my body. I was scared. I thought for sure Mom was going to tell us that Dad was already dead. But she didn’t. She led us all into the room where Dad was lying in the bed, hooked up to a bunch of machines, with tear tracks on his face too, and looking positively tiny compared to how he’d looked mowing the lawn just three days ago.” 

I paused. “He was probably about my size,” I acknowledged, not having put much thought into it before. Mom always said I reminded her of Dad, but I tried to avoid thinking about it too much. “Not a small guy by any stretch of the imagination. And I remember looking at him and thinking the doctors must have done something to shrink him down overnight. It wasn’t just his physical size, there was something missing from his spirit.”

Blake slipped their hand into mine as we continued walking and I didn’t try to pull away, even though I was pretty sure if anyone else had done it, I would have. Instead, I squeezed their fingers gratefully, silently acknowledging the support they were offering me.

“Lung cancer,” I announced unceremoniously. “Too advanced and aggressive to be treatable. They said breathing in the fumes at the auto shop would have contributed, that it explained the cough he hadn’t quite been able to shake for months now. But the worst of it was that they predicted he probably only had a couple weeks left to live. My dad, who had just the day before been teasing me about my homework over breakfast. He was the strongest man in the world, and now he was dying? It didn’t make sense.” I paused, swallowing back the emotion stuck in my throat at the memories I was dredging up, at the days, weeks and months that followed. 

“We barely got seven days with him before he passed,” I said, my voice little more than a whisper. “Mom and Leon took turns staying up at the hospital with Dad, and Nikki and I were excused from school, but I almost wished we hadn’t been because of how much extra time I had to sit and worry about him. They didn’t want us spending all our time up there, filling our heads with images of his quickly deteriorating condition. They took us up once a day to visit, which was enough to fill my head anyway. And then, just as quickly as he’d gotten sick, he was gone. Passed away in the night while Leon sat in the armchair beside his bed, holding his hand.”

Blake’s wet sniff drew my gaze back down to find them wiping their eyes on the collar of their shirt. “I’m so sorry, Pierre,” they said in a husky voice, and I squeezed their hand again, offering them a return on the comfort they’d given me. “I had no idea.”

I nodded. Of course they didn’t. I hadn’t spoken about it in years by the time we met in college, having dealt with as much of the grief as I could and suppressed the rest. “It gets worse,” I warned, and to my surprise, they let out a derisive laugh. 

“Of course it does,” they exclaimed.

“We were all devastated by the loss, crying wrecks for at least another week before the funeral and Nikki and I were sent back to school. But Leon was never the same. He and Dad were extremely close. Leon had always been a step behind Dad growing up and even went to work at the auto shop as soon as he was old enough to get a part time job. But with Dad gone, he couldn’t face it. He quit his job, he was quiet and moody all the time, disappearing without letting anyone know where he was going, just acting odd. Mom was going spare, trying to get him to help with the house, and with taking care of Nikki and me, but the harder she tried to reach him, the further away he drifted. And then, six months almost to the day after Dad died, there was a knock on the door while Mom was yelling at me to get my shoes on so we could go to school.”

“No,” Blake breathed.

I just nodded. “The police officer on the porch requested Mom come to the morgue to identify Leon’s body. He’d somehow gotten caught up in a drug deal that turned fatal when he was met with the business end of a knife.”

“Oh, Pierre!” they exclaimed as I used my hold on their hand to tug them down a narrow dirt path between a couple of trees. “That’s horrible. No wonder spending time with your family and doing everything you can to help them is so important to you. You’ve already lost so much!”

I nodded again, leading them through the dense foliage until we reached a small clearing a few yards in, still close enough to the road that the muffled noise carried, but enclosed enough to feel like we were in our own little world. Dappled sunlight shone through the branches overhead revealing patches of yellow-green grass amid the darker lush tones, and I reached my free hand out to watch the light play across my skin as we crossed to the far side of the clearing and the fallen log there. Releasing Blake’s hand, I sat down on the log, immediately plucking at some of the longer pieces of grass as they joined me.

“So, you lost your Dad and your brother in the course of six months when you were thirteen,” Blake summarised succinctly. “How did that lead to you deciding to join the army when you were, what, twenty-one?”

I’d almost forgotten the question I’d been responding to that had brought all the tragedy up. “After college, I took a job as the night desk clerk at a hotel. It wasn’t the most reputable place, but it was work, and it paid well enough, so I can’t complain. I had plenty of time to work on personal projects while I sat around minding the desk, and I got to know a few of the regulars pretty well. 

“One guy, a long-term resident a few years older than me, would always stop by the desk for a chat at, like, two in the morning, tell me about his latest big-brain ideas. They weren’t exactly logical, but he was harmless, and listening to him talk helped while away the time. 

“One day, I was leaving work, through the employee exit at the back of the building, and I saw him hurrying into the alleyway, quickly followed by a couple of nasty looking guys. It didn’t take a genius to realise he was in trouble, so I followed, and by the time I caught up they were already beating on him. 

“They must have gotten in a few good hits early on, because he was barely conscious by the time I threw myself into the fray. They got a few good hits on me, too, but I managed to grab a steel pipe that one of them dropped and swing wildly enough to knock the knife out of the bigger guy’s hand and scare them away. It wasn’t until after I called the ambulance, had been checked out at the hospital and given my statement to the police that I started connecting some dots. Remembering things I’d forgotten about how Leon had acted after Dad died. How the guy’s behaviour was kinda similar in its erraticness.

“That was the first time I realised Leon was an addict. That his presence in the alley the night the drug deal went bad wasn’t just a coincidence.”

“And so you decided to join the army?” Blake questioned.

I hesitated, exhaling slowly as I tossed my latest handful of grass away and ran a hand over my bald head. “Not right away,” I admitted quietly, measuring my words more now that I was past the real emotional part of the story. “At first I just tried to shake it off. I spent weeks trying to convince myself it was just a bad night and it had nothing to do with me. But it stuck. The way the guy was just lying there, bleeding onto the grimy asphalt over something so fucking pointless. The way the police weren’t even surprised when I detailed the events I’d witnessed.”

Leaning forward, I braced my elbows on my knees and stared at one particular patch of sunlight across the clearing where it danced on the trunk of a tree. “I kept thinking of Leon. About how the work just moves on after something like that. And I realised I couldn’t do that anymore. I didn’t want to sit behind a desk and pour coffee and watch another life slip through the cracks. I needed to do something. Something that mattered. I needed to make sure that next time I’d be able to do more . To… I don’t know, stop it from happening, I guess.”

A beat of silence passed between us. I could feel Blake seated a few inches away, waiting, practically holding their breath. And I let out a bitter half-laugh as I tore another wad of grass from the ground. “So yeah, I joined the army.”

I finally turned to look at them then, my lowered posture allowing me to see the emotion deepening the shadows cast on their face by the cap, a stark contrast to its sunny colour. The torment in their eyes caused something in my chest to tighten, and with another deep breath, I reached over and patted their knee reassuringly. “I did a lot of good in the army,” I explained. And when I got out, I joined my best friend’s security company where I continue to do good in a more localised way.”

They laid their hand on top of mine, drawing my attention to the contrast between our skin tones, their light tan standing out against my darker complexion, the softness and warmth of their fingers caressing gently. “Thank you for telling me,” they said, their voice barely more than a whisper, sending me a wobbly attempt at a smile.

“Of course,” I agreed. And then, the light rumble of their stomach gave me just the excuse I needed to break the tension and put the unpleasant topic behind us. Giving Blakes knee another tap, I surged to my feet and held out a hand to help them up. “We should go find lunch,” I suggested. “ I’m not keen on finding out what happens when you’re hangry.”

Chapter Text

I awoke Saturday morning to find myself in exactly the same position as the previous day. The room was brighter than my bedroom back home in Trenton and the temperature slightly warmer, though that could have had something to do with Blake’s body curled around my arm, their head resting on my shoulder. I didn’t freak out and jump from the bed this time. Instead, I just lay there for an extra few minutes, breathing slowly and marvelling at how comfortable I was with Blake. How comfortable I’d always been around Blake.

It wasn’t just that they were friendly and took the time to make sure they understood what I was talking about. It was the physical aspect. Most of the time, when I made physical contact with others it felt like bugs crawling under my skin. It was uncomfortable and I hated it, so I’d learned to keep my distance and those close to me had learned to keep their distance too, sticking to more reserved physical interactions than they displayed with others. Like the hand-hugs I’d established with the kids so they could still feel the affection I had for them, but without sending me into a spiral every time I saw them.

I’d never been a hugger, and a gentle caress on my arm or anywhere else on my body made me want to claw and my skin to banish the lingering, tingling itch. And certain traumatic experiences during my time in the army had certainly worsened some of my reactions.

But Blake’s touch was different. It didn’t give me the urge to set fire to my epidermis. It was just a warm presence, firm enough to bypass the itchy, crawling, subdermal insects feeling. In fact, I couldn’t think of a single time their touch had given me the ick. But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what that meant. 

It wasn’t like I was attracted to Blake. I had no desire to be physically intimate with them. But I couldn’t ignore the growing feeling that they were a missing puzzle piece in my life. Like I would be incomplete if they left. And I guess my body recognised that on a cellular level by not hitting the same panic button it did when anyone else touched my arm, or slipped a hand into mine. They just felt right beside me. But I couldn’t articulate why, or how.

My thoughts were reeling the longer I lay there, so I gently extracted myself from Blake’s hold and slipped out of the room, surprised to see a faint glow already emanating from the kitchen. Padding down the hall, I pushed through the door to find a ball of stress that vaguely resembled my sister seated at the table with a full mug of coffee sitting forgotten in front of her. I thought it was highly likely that the phone in her hands was the main source of the frown lines creasing her forehead.

“You’re up early,” I said by way of greeting, moving to the coffee pot to pour myself a mug.

“There’s still so much to do before the gates open at ten,” Nikki growned, barely glancing up as I sat down opposite her. “I couldn’t sleep.”

I watched as her thumbs jabbed violently at the screen, typing at a speed I envied, since my own fat fingers would have hit thirteen incorrect characters for every five correct keys at that rate. “I’m sure you have it all under control,” I assured her. “What time are you headed out?” 

“As soon as I finish sending this email to the committee so that they have no excuse for not knowing what to do this morning,” she muttered distractedly, her thumbs continuing to peck efficiently at the screen. 

She’d mentioned last night that she was planning on heading off to the festival grounds early today, but at this point the sun was barely up, and by the looks of her, the same could be said for Nikki. She looked like she’d just rolled out of bed with her rumpled pyjamas and the silk bonnet still securing her hair. And the way she was abusing her phone was almost manic. 

Making a decision, I reached across the table and effortlessly plucked the phone from her hands, locked the screen and stood to hold it far out of her reach when she attempted to dive across the table to snatch it back, spilling both our coffees in the process.

“What the hell, Pierre!” she exclaimed, clambering around the chairs to grab at my arm, trying to drag it down. “Give me back my phone!”

“Shhh!” I admonished quietly. “Everyone’s still sleeping.”

“Give. Me. Back. My. Phone!” she hissed, much quieter but no less angry. 

In fact, as per usual, my calm opposition had her rage skyrocketing. I wasn’t about to give in, though. “I’ll give you your phone back once you’ve eaten breakfast and gotten dressed,” I explained. “You can’t run a festival on an empty stomach, and I’m pretty sure your committee will question your sanity if you turn up looking like that.”

Nikki’s nose screwed up and she dropped her hands from where they were gripping my bicep. “Who died and made you Mom?” she sneered.

I didn’t lower my arm, but I did lower my gaze, avoiding her eye. “I told Blake about Leon yesterday, and it made me realise-”

“That you’re a sentimental softie with more heart than brains?” Nikki retorted, cutting me off, but I could tell from her pitch alone, that she understood what I was getting at. We may only have been thirteen at the time, but we both carried guilt for not having realised something was wrong with our older brother before he turned up dead in an alley. She was deflecting. “Newsflash, P, everyone already knows that.”

I didn’t doubt her, but that wasn’t the point I was trying to make, and she knew it. “I’m just saying,” I sighed, crossing my arms over my chest, but ensuring that her phone was wedged under one of them. “I can see you’re stressed, and I don’t want you to-”

Her face softened then, realisation washing away her annoyance. “I promise I’m okay, Pierre. Yes, I’m stressed, but give me, like, thirty-six hours for this festival to be over and I’ll be back to normal. I’m not gonna pull a Leon and go off the deep end.”

“You’ve been off the deep end for years,” I teased, grateful nonetheless for her assurances. Talking about Leon with Blake yesterday made me realise that even if I didn’t often allow myself to think about that time in my life, what had happened to my brother, and how no one had even realised anything was really wrong until it was too late, it still factored into the decisions I made every day. When I chose to go the extra mile to help an addict that others might have labelled a lost cause. When I noticed a small change in a friend or colleague’s behaviour and made sure someone - even if it wasn’t me - checked in with them to make sure they were all right. When I agreed to come home to support my sister’s festival despite not having the slightest interest in what it was about. 

There was nothing I wouldn’t do for my family because we’d already endured losses far too heavy to carry alone. I made myself available when they called because I didn’t want to miss signs that they might be struggling. I didn’t want them to become so lost that I couldn’t find them, couldn’t bring them back.

“I have to be to put up with you all these years,” Nikki teased back, but her usual biting wit was subdued by the reminder of Leon and Dad. And then, like she’d flipped a switch, the sadness was gone and she was trying to dig a hand into the crease between my chest and my bicep for her phone.

“What do you want for breakfast?” I asked, barely needing to put any effort into keeping the device away from its owner.

Nikki froze, her hands disappeared from my armpit as her head lifted to peer up at me, excitement and anticipation lighting her eyes. “You’re cooking?”

“Only if you promise not to touch your phone, laptop or anything else you can possibly think of to, send an email or message from until you’ve finished eating.”

“You’ll cook anything I want?” she checked slowly.

I nodded in agreement. “So long as you have the ingredients.”

“French toast.” The decision was as instantaneous as it was unsurprising. She’d long ago declared my French toast to be the best in the world. It was the one and only thing I could ever recall her giving me a genuine compliment on. And I hardly ever made it. At least not when I was home. 

“French toast it is,” I confirmed, then slipped the phone out from under my arm and reached up to deposit it on top of the upper cabinets, far, far out of her reach, sending Nikki a meaningful look.

*o*

The festival grounds were awash in lights, sounds and colours everywhere I looked later that day as we moved through the crowds taking everything in. Having never attended the annual Art and Soul festival before, I didn’t have anything to compare it to aside from the pictures Nikki had shown me from previous years’ social media posts, and I might have been a little biased, since my sister was in charge this year, but what I was looking at now looked and felt a thousand times better than those pictures. Everywhere I turned there were smiling people, both the artist vendors, and the general public. And best of all was watching the excitement on my family’s and Blakes faces as they moved from stall to stall.

With Nikki occupied with coordinating all the behind the scenes action to make the art and craft wonderland a hit, Mom had declared today to be a family day. Once Gabe arrived at the house at nine-thirty, we’d all piled into two cars and so far spent the whole morning wandering through Art and Soul’s offerings. Until, that is, Mom spotted a visible mending workshop that was calling out for any last-minute participants just as we reached one of the large pavilions. She’d hesitated, probably because she’d been the one to insist we were all sticking together and now she was the first to break ranks. But Gabe, Blake and I assured her we had the kids under control, and in the next instant she was slipping into a seat in the back, her expression rapt as she was handed a little tray with everything she’d need to follow along with the sewing tutorial that was about to start.

A few minutes later, Sonny had broken off with Gabe in tow to turn wooden cubes into Minecraft characters, leaving me to trail behind Blake and Maddie as they ambled onward between the rows of tents, laughing and chatting like old friends. I smiled when Blake glanced over their shoulder at me, swinging Maddie’s hand in theirs. 

“Keep up, Uncle P,” Maddie called, following Blake’s attention with a grin.

“Right behind you,” I assured my niece, but instead of continuing to move forward, she and Blake stopped, waiting for me to catch up, holding out her hand with a silent question in her eyes. My eyes swept the crowd briefly as I took a steadying breath, checking in with my nervous system before making a decision and folding her hand into mine.

“Did you know that Blake’s job is to make art all day ?” Maddie asked, swinging my hand a little as we started forward again. “They get to just draw or paint all day and no one can tell them to stop, because that’s their job. Doesn’t that sound amazing?”

I hummed out a quiet agreement, even as a small part of my brain still marvelled at how easily the kids had accepted and acclimated to Blake’s preferred pronouns. I hadn’t heard either of them stumble over it, it was like it was as natural to them as he/him and she/her pronouns. But then, when I mentioned it to Nikki this morning she pointed out that in this day and age, Maddie already had at least three kids in her class that identified as non-binary. It wasn’t as big a deal for the kids as it was for the adults. It was just what they knew.

“I want to do that when I grow up,” Maddie announced, with so much conviction that I had no choice but to believe she would make it come true. After all, it was the exact same tone her mother had had when she announced that she was going to get her Masters a few years ago. If I knew anything about the women in this family, it was that their determination knew no bounds. I did find it odd that Maddie suddenly wanted to be an artist though. Sure she loved to draw and paint as much as the next pre-teen, but I hadn’t witnessed an extra spark of interest that would have indicated something more before this very second. “Except I want to just read my books and write stories all day. Do you think there’s a job where I can do that?”

Ah, there it was. “I’m sure you’ll find one,” I said, meaning every word.

“It’s not all drawing and painting, you know,” Blake informed Maddie. “And I do have to answer to people.” While we walked between the stalls, Blake explained more about their artist residency and the responsibilities involved. 

Maddie was hanging on their every word, and while I was definitely interested in whatever Blake had to say, I was also starting to get that uncomfortable skin crawling feeling creeping up my arm, and radiating across my upper back. I slipped my hand out of my niece’s and  tucked it into my pocket instead, which helped, and thankfully Maddie didn’t bat an eye, she was so focused on Blake. But the press of the crowd in this section was worse than anywhere else, and I was struggling to relax my protective instincts.

Whether I’d given some outward sign of my discomfort, or the timing was purely coincidental, I was beyond grateful when Blake pointed to a gap between two stalls and suggested we take a shortcut to the next aisle over. “It’s not like we can see much with so many people standing in the way,” they pointed out as they pulled a willing Maddie along behind them. “We can come back later when they’ve all moved on.”

The crowd was thinner in this section of the festival, thank God, and as I worked on evening out my heartbeat, Blake and Maddie once again led the way along the stalls, pausing every now and then to admire some handmade piece or another. Halfway down the row, Maddie and Blake let out simultaneous gasps, their eyes lighting up as they spotted whatever it was I couldn’t see at the next stall. They exchanged a glance, then looked at me with such perfect synchronisation, that I knew whatever they‘d spotted they wanted me to see too. 

“Uncle P, it’s Snowball!” Maddie exclaimed, pointing at a shelf inside the tent. “Look!”

And sure enough, as I drew level with the pair and followed Maddie’s finger towards the shelf, I found a felted doll of a cat that was the spitting image of Snowball: all black, with a single, round, white patch on her side. 

“I wonder if they have Pretzel and Applepuff, too,” Blake said, grinning at Maddie who immediately bounced forward to inspect the collection of felt dolls more closely, looking for replicas of my other cats. And as soon as she was distracted, Blake turned their entire body to stand directly in front of me, staring up into my face with a searching expression. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I said automatically, but they just pursed their lips. I shook my head, “This aisle is better,” I assured them. “Thank you.”

And I meant it. I didn't need to say anything to them. The only outward sign I’d given that anything was wrong was to let go of Maddie’s hand. I was sure most people could tolerate holding their nieces hand for longer than a couple of minutes.

“If you need a break-“

“I have it under control.”

They held my gaze for a long moment, seeming to measure the truth of my statement until Maddie’s exclamation broke their attention. “I found Pretzel!” 

“If she finds Applepuff, I’m buying all three,” I told Blake.

They shook their head. “If she finds Applepuff I’m buying all three.” At my incredulous look, they added, “You already have the real thing, why do you need the plushies as well.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Why do you need plushies of my cats.”

Before they could reply, Maddie let out a squeal. “I found Applepuff!”

Blake spun around to face the vendor, the loose, unbuttoned shirt they wore over the yellow singlet flying out like a cape behind them as it caught the wind. “Hello!” they greeted the artist enthusiastically. “I would like to purchase the three kittens this young lady is holding.”

The artist smiled and made polite small talk about the techniques she used to create the creatures while they retrieved a small device and started tapping something into their phone. She quoted the cost to Blake and my eyes nearly fell out of my head in shock. “That’s so expensive,” I said without thinking.

“It’s handmade,” Blake pointed out with a shrug, nonchalantly tapping their card to the device the artist held out. “You’re not paying for something that’s mass produced in a factory in China with cheap materials that are gonna break the second you look at them weird, Pierre. You’re paying for the time that went into not only making these specific items, but the time it took to hone the skills and techniques to make them. I’m sure if we tried to make them ourselves they wouldn’t turn out nearly as good as these. Have you ever tried needle felting, Pierre?”

I held up my hands in surrender as Maddie came over, cradling the three small cats to her chest like they were actual live kittens in need of her comfort and protection. “There’s a class in an hour,” Maddie said, nodding to the schedule on the wall. “We could come back and learn.”

Realising that I was out numbered two to one, I just nodded. “If that's what you want to do.”

Chapter Text

It took another hour before I managed to settle into the atmosphere of the festival and toggle down the overactive instincts urging me to the edge of hypervigilance, but by the time we regrouped for lunch, I’d managed to relax into the day. It helped that we’d continued avoiding the overly crowded areas, and I’d become the unofficial pack horse for the group, giving me something to do with my hands. By the end of the day, I ended up carrying not just my own backpack with water, emergency snacks, sunscreen and a small first aid kit, but the bags containing the minecraft figures Sonny and Gabe made, a few instructional books mom had bought after her sewing class, the kittens Maddie and Blake had purchased, along with our somewhat wonky attempts at a much more simplified version from the class we’d attended - really just blobs with ears and faces.

I had to say, there was something about the needle felting that really helped to slow my mind and allow me to find my centre again. Perhaps it was the focus required for the task. Perhaps it was the act of stabbing something what seemed like a billion times, soothing the nerves that were crying out that my sidearm was too far away locked in the safe under the front seat of my SUV out in the parking lot. 

Blake and Maddie had both laughed when I commented on it out loud, but the artist leading the class had looked aghast.

The rest of the day had gone off without a hitch, and when Blake and I returned on Sunday without the rest of the Sherman clan pulling us in four different directions at once, the setting was familiar and recent enough that it took no time at all to find the flow of it again. No deep breathing or mild panic attacks necessary. 

We’d spend the morning meandering through stalls we hadn’t had a chance to spend much time on the previous day, taking in as much of the festival as possible, but now Blake was on a mission.

“I wanna find that landscape artist with vines hanging off the front of his stall and pick his brain on a couple things I noticed in his paintings yesterday,” Blake said, looking between the list they’d made on their phone and the tents we were passing. “And there’s a mixed media class at two that I’d like to sit in on.” 

They looked up from their phone again and I couldn’t help but smile at the excitement infusing every inch of their body. From the way their pale eyes sparkled, to the bounce in their step, it was plain to see that Blake was in their element. Watching them interact with the other artists yesterday had been an absolute pleasure, and listening to them point out little details or explain bigger concepts to Sonny and Maddie had warmed some deep forgotten part of my heart.

“Is there anything you want to circle back to?” they asked over their shoulder, peering up from under their yellow cap. 

I shook my head. “Happy to just tag along.”

Blake sent me an odd look, and I thought they were about to turn back to their search without saying anything else, but then they tucked their hands into the pockets of the short denim overalls they wore. The ones that reminded me of the first day we met with the paint splatters all over them. Their head tipped to the side, letting the chain they’d attached the arms of the glasses for today’s outing caress their cheek as they eyed me with what appeared to be deep thought. 

I was aware of the fact that we were stopped in the middle of a main thoroughfare with people passing around us on all sides, but my focus was purely on Blake and the anticipation of the words I could sense on the tip of their tongue.

“Are you interested in art, Pierre?” they finally asked.

“What do you mean?”

They pursed their lips. “I mean, you haven’t done a single thing for yourself at this festival all weekend. You’ve just tagged along with whatever everyone else wanted to do. I know you said this trip home was Mom Mandated, and that you were doing it to support Nikki, but why would you attend two full days of an arts festival if you’re not interested in the arts on show?”

Because of the impeccable company , I wanted to say, but the words stuck in my throat as a wave of confusion rose up in my chest. I wasn’t ready to address the feelings that were growing inside me. Mostly because I didn’t understand them. So I shoved them away and focused on the question at hand.

Because Blake was right. I’d agreed to come home for the weekend, and I’d wanted to support my sister’s endeavours, but I wasn’t an artist, as the fuzzy, wonky blob sitting in the centre console of my car, and the unrecognisable self portrait lined up on the fridge alongside those of the rest of the family will attest to. Surely, my act of service in collecting and delivering the items that hadn’t shipped in time, and cleaning out the gutters that Nikki had been avoiding were the actual supportive offerings I’d made this weekend. 

And I definitely hadn’t originally been intending to attend both days of the festival. I would have gone one day to spend time with Mom and the kids, but today they’d stayed home. And I’d come with Blake. To spend time with Blake. To watch Blake in their element.

“I like looking at art,” I said, rather than confess to all of the thoughts whirling in my head. 

“Hmm,” they hummed, and I got the impression they knew I wasn’t giving them the whole story. Thankfully, though, they didn’t question me further. Partly, because as my gaze flicked past their shoulder, I spotted the array of hanging vines we’d been looking for, which made for the perfect distractions. “Aha!” Blake exclaimed, following my pointing finger to the stall at the far end of the row, and they were off, weaving through the crowd effortlessly. Leaving me to battle through more slowly.

By the time I reached the stall, Blake and the artist were already pouring over one of the paintings hanging on the wall of the tent. Each of the works he had on display had the same subject: natural landscapes. They were stunning, capturing in brush strokes the spirit of the lands in a way that photographs could never achieve. Each leaf, each blade of grass was infused with a touch of soul. I could understand why Blake had been so determined to return and talk to the older gentleman manning the stall. I didn’t need to be an artist to recognise the beauty of it, the something special that shone from each canvas.

What I didn’t understand, though, was half the conversation the pair exchanged while gesturing to different parts of the artwork they were examining. And that was before the man ducked behind the tent flap to retrieve a pallet, sketchbook and a set of brushes, setting them down on the small table in the corner of the space and demonstrating some of the techniques, allowing Blake to have a go as well. They were connecting on a much higher level than I’d seen all weekend and with each passing moment, I could see the hunger to know more growing in Blakes eyes.

This.

This was why I’d come back a second day. 

Because there was something about how art flowed through Blake’s veins, sustaining them, feeding their soul, that was fascinating. I didn’t think I’d ever get sick of the sight.

After a while, both Blake and the older man were grinning from ear to ear, as the man grabbed a pen and scribbled something in the corner of the page they’d been working on and tore it from the book, handing it to Blake. 

“Got what you needed?” I asked, glancing from the delight on their face to the page in their hands as they bounded over to my side again.

“More than I could have asked for,” they confirmed, sending me another grin. “You weren’t too bored waiting for me?”

I shook my head. “I like looking at the art, remember?” I said, batting away an errant thought about liking watching a certain artist work as well. “Where to now?” 

They pulled up the list on their phone again, and squinted around at the stalls. “There’s something called a Hidden Gems, Forgotten Treasures gallery around here somewhere,” they explained. “Nikki was telling me that the exhibit was curated from random art found at yard sales and second hand shops and the like. She seemed to think I might like it.”

“More art to look at?” I said, making a little joke at my own expense. “Lead on.”

It was getting late by the time we finally located the gallery hidden away between a series of fiber arts vendors, making it feel like the hidden gem it touted itself to be as we stepped into the narrow corridor entrance to the gallery, and emerged into an unexpectedly large pavilion filled with paintings of all kinds. 

And just as luck would have it, the second we were inside, my phone rang, the display showing Ranger’s number. Blake cut a curious glance my way as I let out a groan, but I just shook my head. “It’s my boss,” I explained. “He wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important.”

They nodded for me to take it, and I paced away into an empty corner before hitting the green button to accept the call as they started slowly towards the nearest artwork.

“Yo,” I said by way of greeting.

“I’m being called in,” Ranger said without preamble. He’d never been one to waste words.

I let out a quiet curse. “Aren’t you supposed to be done with your contract?” I pointed out. “Didn’t you just spend a year and a half busting your ass to get them to keep you stateside, negotiating for a consultancy position so you could finally allow yourself to settle down with Steph?”

“El Intermediario Espectral.” Ranger’s tone was dark, but the three words said all I needed to know. El Intermediario Espectral, [the Spectral Middleman] or the Ghost Broker as he was known in English, was the one piece of unfinished business that Ranger could never fully banish from his mind. He’d been connected to more than one seriously fucked up mission Ranger had been deployed on over the years. Hacking systems and rewriting data, he was the best techno mercenary any of us had ever encountered. One minute he was in the system, wreaking havoc, and the next it was like he’d never existed at all. No digital footprint, no trail of breadcrumbs, just poof, and he’s gone.

“So you’re taking Hector with you,” I said. This had always been his plan if he ever caught wind of the Ghost Broker’s activity again. Hector was the best hacker we knew. The only one that came close to matching the Ghost Broker’s skill. “Do you need me to come back early?”

“You’re back on Tuesday, right?” he checked, and I gave an affirmative reply. “No need,” he assured me. “Between Steph, Lester and Bobby, Trenton will be fine for one day.”

“Sure about that?” I said. “Steph and Lester?” 

My joke did the trick, cutting through the tension radiating off my best friend even down the phone connection. “ And Bobby ,” he repeated with emphasis, clear amusement in his voice. “He’ll keep them in check. Just make sure you’re back at the office Tuesday.”

I confirmed I would be, reminded him to watch his back, and hung up turning to seek out where Blake had gotten to as I tucked my phone back away in my pocket. It took a minute but I finally spotted them at the far end of the tent, but as I took in their posture, the blood in my veins turned to ice. 

Something was wrong. They were pale and shaking, their eyes staring straight ahead at the painting on the end of the central row, but not appearing to focus on anything within their line of sight as their mouth hung slightly agape.

My pulse kicked up as I scanned the area instinctively, eyes flicking from the paintings to the people milling nearby. No obvious threats. No one watching them too closely. Nothing out of place. Whatever had rattled them wasn’t a physical threat I could fight off.

“Blake?” I called. I moved quickly, closing the distance between us. “Are you alright? Blake?”

They blinked once, twice, turning their gaze to me as I approached. And then their face crumpled in pain. “I…” they croaked, swallowed, tried again. “I think I’m ready to go home now,” they said quietly. “I’m suddenly not feeling well.”

I frowned. My conversation with Ranger couldn’t have taken more than five minutes, and Blake was perfectly fine before I’d taken the phone call. What could have happened in such a short amount of time to cause such a drastic change in their demeanour? “Are you sick?” I asked, reaching out a hand to steady them as they swayed slightly on the spot. With the other hand, I reached back to the side pocket of my backpack and retrieved a bottle of water, pressing it into their hand as they made a noncommittal noise in the back of their throat. 

Once I was sure they had a decent grip on the bottle, I unscrewed the cap for them, not daring to remove the hand supporting their upright position. “Drink,” I instructed, nudging their hands upward. They did so mechanically, passing me back the bottle after a few tentative sips, and staring pleadingly up at me. 

Glancing past them to the painting they’d frozen in front of, I nodded and adjusted my hold so that my arm was around them, bracing them firmly to my side as I guided them out of the Hidden Gems, Forgotten Treasures gallery and into the golden late-afternoon light of the festival grounds. 

They said nothing as I guided them slowly through the thinning crowds, back to the front gate and across the field to where the SUV was parked, but I kept up a steady string of reassurances, rubbing my hand up and down their arm. I helped them into the passenger seat, and ensured they were buckled in securely before handing them the bottle of water again and hurrying around to the driver side door, by which time they’d dragged their feet up onto the edge of the seat and were leaning against the window. The cheery yellow cap askew on their head was at odds with their ashen complexion and the shimmer of moisture on their lower lashes as I put the SUV in gear and pointed it home.

Chapter Text

“I’m going to grab a shower,” Blake announced as I parked and they immediately straightened from their curled position, unbuckled their seatbelt, and climbed woodenly from the SUV. 

I just nodded and followed. My attempts to get them to tell me what was wrong on the short drive had proven unsuccessful, so I figured the least I could do was respect the fact that they were telling me what they needed. Space, and perhaps time. Hopefully, the shower would help them feel better and I could try to get them to talk to me after.

I winced as Maddie and Sonny jumped up from the sofa as we entered, making a beeline for Blake with questions already falling from their lips about what cool things they’d seen at the festival today. Blake just gave them a wan smile, a mere shadow of their usually jubilant expression, and said they’d talk about it soon. They squeezed each of the kids shoulders and then continued on towards the bedroom.

“Is Blake okay?” Sonny asked, peering up at me with concern. 

“They’re just tired, Bud,” I explained. “It’s been a big weekend and they need some time to recharge.” I hoped. I didn’t like the knot of worry forming in my stomach, and I didn’t like seeing this ghost of a person Blake had turned into drifting through the motions.

“They’re not sick are they?” Mom asked, drawing my attention to where she stood in the doorway to the kitchen, a wooden spoon clasped in one hand as they looked from me to the closed door down the hall. 

“I don’t know,” I admitted. My shoulders hitched up then dropped abruptly as I forced myself to release them and shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

Maddie and Sonny were frozen in front of me, frowns turning from me, to Mom and then down the hall. “They just need some space,” I told the kids, hoping I was right. “I’m sure they’ll feel better later.”  At a loss for what else to do, I scrubbed a hand over my head and blew out a breath. “I need some help fixing the door to the garage,” I announced, peering down at my niece and nephew. “Something tells me someone’s been hanging off the handle again.”

Sonny’s eyes widened and shot over to Mom before darting away again. Guilty . “I can help, Uncle P.”

I nodded. “Shoes on, then,” I instructed, then turned to his sister. “Maddie?” When she hesitated, I added. “We need a supervisor.”

“I’ll get my clipboard!” She hurried after Sonny, and I let a slight smile pull at the corners of my lips. She was exactly like her mother.

Mom tilted her head, stepping back into the kitchen, and I obeyed her unspoken instructions to follow. While she returned to stirring the pot on the stove, I went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water, buying time by taking a long, slow sip. When I lowered it again, Mom was leaning against the counter, watching me closely. Waiting.

“Something at the festival in one of the galleries upset Blake,” I explained quietly. “I don’t know what, why or how, but they just shut down.”

“Has this happened before?” Mom asked.

I shrugged. How was I supposed to know? “Before last week I hadn’t seen Blake since college.”

“What?” The shock on my mother’s face might have been comical if my brain wasn’t currently overrun with worry for Blake. “Don’t lie to me, Pierre,” she warned after a moment, waving the spoon at me.

“I’m not,” I promised and quickly explained about our chance meeting at the gallery event. “We met up for coffee the next day, and texted throughout the week, and when I mentioned Art and Soul, they expressed interest in coming along, so I-”

“I don’t understand,” Mom cut me off, shaking her head as she stared at me. “Nikki told me you said you were just friends, but I could have sworn -”

Before she could finish, the kitchen door crashed open as Sonny face-planted his way inside, landing with a light oof then quickly scrambling to his feet. “Uncle P, can you tie my shoes?” he asked, kicking out a leg to draw my attention to the trailing laces that I assumed had been his downfall.

As I hoisted him up onto one of the stools at the kitchen island and propped his foot up on my thigh to tie his laces, I could feel my mother’s gaze burning into the back of my skull. But I didn’t want to engage or acknowledge whatever she’d been about to say before Sonny interrupted. “Where’s you sister?” I asked when I was done and he’d hopped down, adjusting the tool belt and safety vest he’d also put on when he’d disappeared to his room.

Sonny just shrugged. “She was writing something on her clipboard.”

As if she’d been summoned, Maddie emerged through the kitchen door with much more grace than her younger brother had displayed and I had to give both kids credit for dressing the part, because not only had Maddie retrieved her trusty clipboard, complete with paper and pen, but she’d donned the hard hat that went with Sonny’s tool belt.

“Ready to go?” I asked, noting, curiously, that there was nothing written on her clipboard. They both confirmed they were ready and I led the way into the garage. “Okay, first step is to assess what’s wrong with the door,” I informed them, bracing my hands on my hips as we all lined up in front of it.

“It’s wonky,” Maddie observed, and I nodded.

“Write that down.”

The door would have been a five minute job to fix if I was working on my own, but I padded out the process to take more time, as much as a distraction for myself as to keep the kids occupied. We took every conceivable measurement, making sure to write it all down, and then drew up a plan before I finally got to showing them how to remove the pins from the hinges, prop the door up until it was level and bend the hinges back into line so the door would hang straight again.

Just as we were finishing up, Mom poked her head into the garage to announce it was time for dinner. She quickly shuffled the kids off to remove their safety gear and wash their hands, but as I tried to follow to do the same, Mom held up a hand in front of my chest - careful not to make contact - to stop me.

“I just checked on Blake,” she said quietly. “They’re taking a nap. I think it’s probably best to let them sleep for a bit. Let their mind settle and process whatever happened. I’ll make a plate and set it aside in case they wake up and want something to eat later.”

I nodded and thanked her, but when I moved to continue through to the kitchen, Mom didn’t budge. “Blake means a lot to you.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. Like it was a fact she’d known her whole life. And it was fucking scary.

It was one thing to acknowledge to myself, internally, that there was something special about Blake. But to have Mom say the words out loud before I’d managed to figure out how, or why, or in what way they were special made panic seize my chest. The invisible weight of expectations crushed my rib cage, making it difficult to draw a full, deep breath. But I still tried.

“We’re just friends, Mom,” I reminded her, relieved when my voice came out even.

Silence while Mom’s gaze bored into mine, and then, “I know.” She turned on her heel and walked away, humming to herself and I let out the breath I hadn’t realised I was holding. Why was that simple acceptance more terrifying than enduring the usual dating inquisition?

*o*

Blake didn’t emerge from my room looking for food that night, nor did they stir when I slid into bed beside them. But the next morning, when I opened my eyes to the warmer, brighter room, Blake’s head was once again resting on my shoulder as they slept. I took this as a good sign, even as I noted the dark circles under their eyes and wondered if they’d truly been sleeping all afternoon and evening like Mom said.

I deftly swapped out my shoulder for an extra pillow, and slipped from the bed, dressing quickly and heading outside to stretch. As I breathed deeply of the crisp morning air, I took note of the tension in my body. The soreness in my back had dissipated over the last couple of days, but my shoulders were wound tight from worrying about Blake all night.

A brisk walk wasn’t going to cut it this morning, so after a brief warm up jog, I pushed myself to max speed, and let the air sawing through my lungs and the sound of my feet pounding the pavement muffle the thoughts circling faster and faster through my head. Thoughts about Blake and what they meant to me. What Mom thought they meant to me. What had happened in the gallery tent while I was on the phone yesterday. If they would be okay. If Ranger would be okay on his mission. What kind of circus I’d be walking into when I returned to work tomorrow with Steph and Lester left in charge. On and on they went until I jogged back through the gate half an hour later, sweat pouring off me, to find Blake sitting on the porch steps.

I slowed to a walk and slammed a mental lid on my thoughts so I could focus on examining my friend in the early morning light.

Their hair was dishevelled, curling in snarls like they hadn’t touched it since rolling out of bed, the crumpled oversized t-shirt they wore only adding to the impression. The dark circles under their eyes stood out starkly against the paler skin behind their glasses, and there were deep lines furrowing between their brows as they concentrated on the sketchbook propped on their knee. As I watched, their shoulders hitched up, the pencil gripped tightly in their hand hovered over the page, tracing shapes in the air, but never connecting with the paper. 

A drop of sweat rolled into my eyes and I let out a huff. Reefing, the hem of my t-shirt up, I used the damp fabric to wipe the majority of the moisture from my face. And when I lowered it once more, focusing back on Blake, I found that they were staring back at me.

“Morning,” I greeted, trying for nonchalant even though I felt anything but.

“Hey,” they responded. “Have a good run?” 

My shrug transitioned swiftly into a stretch as I started the process of cooling down my muscles. “It was fine.” If it had been a good run, I would have managed to blank my mind and focus on the sensations in my body, rather than enduring a constant battle between body and mind. “Are you feeling better?”

Blake nodded, hugging the sketchbook to their chest and leaning forward so they were practically doubled over, neck craning to look up at me. “I want to apologise for yesterday,” they said quietly, blowing a lock of hair out of their face. “I- I had an unexpected reaction to some of the art in that exhibit and I-” They blinked and swallowed, averting their gaze to the stepping stone in front of the one I’d stopped on. Clearly struggling.

I kicked my foot up behind me, gripping it to stretch out the front of my thigh. “You don’t have to explain,” I said. “Not if you don’t want to.” God knows I had enough events in my own past that I didn’t want to talk about, and especially when they caused a very public breakdown.

Their gaze jumped back up to meet mine, holding for a moment or two as they appeared to struggle some more with finding the words for what they wanted to say, then breathed a quiet, “Thank you.”

I nodded. And moved forward, dropping down on the step beside them and bracing my elbows on my knees. “Can I ask you a question though?”

Still hugging the sketchbook, they inclined their head slightly in consent. 

Mom’s question from last night about whether or not it’s happened before ran through my head, but that wasn’t what I needed to know. “What usually helps you feel okay after something like that?” 

Blake’s eyebrows rose, their mouth popped open like they were going to say something but nothing came out.

“Is there anything I could have done? Or did you just need space?” I clarified. They’d recognised the moment I’d struggled to calm myself when we stopped for lunch on the way here on Thursday, and they’d asked what I needed. And again when my back spasmed out on the deck. In both cases they’d offered help, and after feeling so helpless all last night, I wanted to know how to return the favour if it happened again. I wanted to give them the support they needed.

“I don’t know,” they admitted. “But…” They looked away, out at the front yard and the birds hopping around under the trees. “If there’s something I’ll try to let you know.”

I nodded again, unsure where to go with the conversation from there, and they relaxed their hold on the sketch book, straightening up but closing the cover and tucking the book behind them before I could catch a glimpse of what they’d been working on. A sliver of disappointment slid through me, but I pushed it aside. One of the talks we’d attended over the weekend had emphasised how personal the art process was, and how the world was a greedy place that would always be grabbing for more. The trick, they’d said, was remembering to keep some magic for yourself. Holding your art inside you. Not every piece needed to be made to be sold, or displayed. Sometimes you have to make art purely for the joy of making art. 

I doubted, with the frown marring their features when I’d first returned from my run, that what they’d been working on was a joy, but I still wanted to respect that whatever it was may not be for others to see.

We sat in silence that felt easy and companionable for a long while until Blake took a deep breath in through their nose just as a light breeze wafted through and they let out a huffing laugh waving their hands between us in front of their face. “Wow, you stink , Pierre. I hope you’re planning to shower before you enclose us both in a car for hours to drive home.”

This caused a startled laugh to escape me as I turned to face them. “Did I ask you to smell me?” I defended.

They shook their head, still laughing. “Did you give me an option?”

“I would normally have gone straight inside to shower, but you distracted me.” I pointed out. “So your current olfactory experience is partially your fault.” Regardless, though, I stood and ascended the rest of the stairs, heading inside to shower off what really was an offensive amount of body odour.

Chapter Text

Nothing felt right when I opened my eyes Tuesday morning. The room was too dark, too cool, too… Snowball yawned from her position on my chest and stretched out a paw to pat at my face, a clear request for pets which I automatically complied with as I frowned at the ceiling.

I’d refined the environment of my home, and my bedroom in particular, to optimise comfort and reduce friction on my senses. I kept the air conditioning to a steady temperature all year to maintain consistency for my sleep, installed heavy blinds to block out light from the street lamps that had filtered between the curtain gaps, selected sheets of the highest quality so they were smooth against my skin. The perfect environment for a good night sleep, every time.

None of it - aside from the bedsheets that I’d bought for my bed at Mom’s house - had been available to me for the last several nights, and yet I’d slept more soundly than ever. A fact that had me confused as I rubbed my spare hand over my face, feeling haggard.  

Snowball let out a little trill, pressing her face under my chin, and I sighed. “I missed you too, Snow,” I assured her, my voice gravelly and tired sounding even to my own ears. Something told me today was going to be a long day, and I hadn’t even made it out of bed yet.

As if they sense my thoughts, Applepuff and Pretzel nosed their way through the door that I’d left ajar for the cats to easily come and go during the night and leaped onto the bed, wasting no time in climbing on top of me, effectively pinning me down.

Yep. Really long day. Because, although I would have loved nothing more than to stay in bed with my cats and recover from a full weekend of social interactions, I knew I had to get up. Ranger was in the wind, and he’d left the company in the hands of the most chaotic duo we knew. And Bobby. But depending on what the injured roster was like at the moment, he may or may not have been around to temper the mayhem.

Scratching Applepuff under the chin as Pretzel twisted herself into the space between my torso and bicep, I glanced over at the time on my alarm clock and let out the second sigh of the morning. That, in itself, was indicative of the state of my being and what was to come for the day, but just to be sure, I made eye contact with each of my fur babies and instructed, “Meow if you think I’m walking into a shitshow today.”

Their opinion was unanimous, their meows almost harmonious in their synchronicity, but I didn’t particularly relish their lack of optimism.

“Gee, thanks.” I muttered.

None of them had the good grace to appear at all apologetic, not that I would have expected my little assholes to. So, I huffed out a breath that I was telling myself was definitely not a third sigh, and brushed Puff and Snowball off my chest so I could get up.

As always, the cats waited patiently on the bed, licking their buttholes or lightly dozing while I padded into the ensuite to relieve myself, then jumped down to the floor to trail after me through the house to the kitchen. I replaced the water in their bowls, gave them a nutritious breakfast of what was apparently chicken and gravy, and set the coffee to brewing. Then I made my way to the spare bedroom where  I slipped on the old sneakers I kept there and started up the treadmill for my morning run. 

I didn’t usually run outdoors when I was home, due to the sheer amount of life-threatening traffic, mostly, but confining myself to the treadmill after traversing the quiet, sleepy streets of my hometown was a disappointment I dealt with after every trip home. It was one of the only things I missed when I returned to my regular life.

Except, once I’d showered and was back in the kitchen eating breakfast, it definitely felt like I was missing something more.

I checked my phone as I strapped on my utility belt and thought about sending Blake a text, but it was still early by most people’s standards and I didnt’ want to wake them if they were still asleep. I’d certainly learned my lesson from having to wake Steph up early a few times when we’d had emergencies, that people could be mean when you deprive them of their requisite amount of sleep.

Later , I told myself, and took a second to set a reminder. Then it was time for final pats, a quick once-over with the lint roller in the garage, and back to the grind.

Lester was talking at me the second I stepped foot on the fifth floor, flipping a pen through his fingers as he walked along behind me, giving a verbal recount of apparently every little thing that had happened since I left my office Wednesday evening. I hadn’t even fully switched my brain into work mode yet before he opened his mouth, so I knew I’d missed some details at the very beginning. And by the time we reached my desk, I was ready to slap a strip of duct tape over his mouth for some peace and quiet. 

“All this is in your report, I assume?” I asked pointedly when he paused to take a breath for the first time.

“Most of it.” He scratched the back of his head, a sheepish smile crossing his features that had my fists clenching.

I eyed him, my fingers absently tapping against the edge of my desk. “Are the bits you left out important?”

Lester pulled a face and backed away. “I’ll, uh, go amend my notes and let you get settled,” he said on his way to the door. He paused there, casting his gaze over me with a slow smirk. “Have a nice vacation?”

My jaw ticked, a flicker of irritation sparking hot in my chest. “Out, Santos,” I snarled. I wasn’t about to delve into my personal life with the one man who had proven time and again that he would definitely give me shit for something like taking Blake home with me.

“Guess not, then,” he muttered as he slipped out of my office, wisely closing the door behind him.

Counting to ten, I made a mental note to delegate a scream to Snowball later, then sat down, adjusting the lumbar support until it was just right. I dragged the stack of folders out of my intray to sort while the computer booted up. Nothing out of the ordinary there aside from the slightly taller pile thanks to my days off. 

I’d just finished triaging my emails and was working through the most urgent of the lot when my reminder alarm sounded, signalling it was just after eight, and therefore a more appropriate time to reach out to Blake. 

Relieved, I pushed away the keyboard and picked up my phone where it lay beside the computer mouse and tapped out a quick message.

TANK: Good luck with the seminar today.

Their reply came immediately, like they’d already had it ready to go before I’d reached out.

BLAKE:  Since I know you like looking at art…

BLAKE: [sent an image]

I barked out a laugh as I tapped on the photo Blake had sent of a page in their sketchbook only to discover they hadn’t been lying about drawing me kissing the ground when we arrived at Mom’s house. There on the page was a likeness of me, down on all fours with my head bowed to the grass. 

TANK: I thought you were joking about that.

BLAKE: Turns out I wasn’t 😛

But it wasn’t just a quick scribble like the Kit-tank had been the other day, or some of the other ideas I’d seen them doodling over the weekend. No, this was a multicoloured masterpiece that must have taken hours of work and consideration to complete. I zoomed in to see as much detail as possible, like the way the pencil strokes of different colours overlapped creating dimension. I was in awe.

TANK: This is amazing. 

BLAKE: I have a whole series planned!

BLAKE: Pierre kissing the ground

BLAKE: Pierre meticulously stabbing a ball of felting wool

BLAKE: Pierre contorted in pain on a sun lounger

BLAKE: I’m excited for that one. The way the light hit your face cast an almost whimsical glow .

Rolling my eyes I grabbed my pad of sticky notes, drew my best rendition of a hand with the middle finger raised, took a photo of it, and sent it off.

TANK: [sent and image]

BLAKE: 😂[laughing face emoji]

BLAKE: Pierre scribbling naughty pictures at his work desk. Add it to the series!

BLAKE: … I’m gonna need a photo of your work desk at your earliest convenience.

TANK: No.

BLAKE: *sad puppy face* Please?

TANK: Really, you think a dog will persuade me?

BLAKE: You’re right. Silly me.

BLAKE: *sad kitty face* Pretty please, Pierre?

TANK: No

BLAKE: Fine, I’ll just make it up. But just so you know, I’m already envisioning a Hello Kitty theme.

Smirking, I glanced over my desk at the smattering of black, Hello Kitty themed desk accessories that had appeared in my office over the last six months: pens, notepad, mousepad, pen cup. I was ninety-eight percent certain Lester was the culprit, trying to get a rise out of me, but didn’t have confirmation. Mostly because I’d given no reaction to the items. I’m sure if I’d shown some kind of outward annoyance, Lester would have taken pride in declaring that he was responsible for the ‘genius’ prank. But I hadn’t batted an eye when my mouse pad was swapped out for a black, cat head shaped one with a pink bow,, nore months later when my pens were replaced, nor later again when I came into work to find my pens had a new matching Hello Kitty themed home. At this point I was curious to see how far he was going to take it.

But Blake didn’t need that information as encouragement, so I just sent them a shrug emoji in reply to show I was unbothered by the supposed threat.

BLAKE: Game on!

Their enthusiasm, apparent even through text, had me smiling again just as a soft knock sounded on my office door and Steph poked her head inside.

My eyebrows shot up. Seeing Steph in the office before nine was a rare occurrence, but if anything she was more surprised by my appearance than I was of hers.

I gestured for her to come in and set my phone aside just as it buzzed with another text. “Everything okay?” I asked as she closed the door and crossed to sit in one of the visitor’s chairs.

Her brow furrowed. “Lester said you were in a bad mood after your trip home,” she explained. “I was coming to check everything was okay with you .”

“I’m good,” I assured her, flipping the phone over face down when it buzzed again and Blake’s name appeared on the screen.

Steph’s gaze travelled from the phone to my face, a soft smile washing away the curious expression she’d held since entering. “You’re good ?” she questioned, emphasising my choice of descriptor, and I just nodded. I could tell she wanted to know more about what made me ‘good’ when a trip home often left me in a less than stellar mood, but I wasn’t about to reveal anything to her without a direct question. Not only would it be like giving information to the metaphorical enemy, I wasn’t even sure where to start explaining how I felt about my weekend. Because I was afraid it had a lot to do with Blake’s presence, which opened up a can of confusion whenever I tried to examine it too closely.

Instead, I steered the conversation back to relatively safe waters. “Anything to report from my absence?”

A yawn stole over her, and she settled lower into her chair, tilting her head to lean it on one of her propped hands. “Carlos is in the wind, but I’m sure you already know that. He would have left notes on anything you needed to be aware of. And anything of significance that occurred yesterday is in my daily report, which I put on the drive and emailed you the link.”

I nodded, noting the stark difference in communication styles between Lester and Steph. Neither one of them liked sitting behind a desk for long hours any more than I did, but whereas Steph had managed to follow procedure to the letter, Lester’s raging ADHD meant that he lost focus quickly during admin tasks, and decided to make up for it with the rambling verbal assault this morning.

“And what about personally?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest and leaning back in my chair, taking in her appearance with a sweep. “How are you coping with Ranger gone?”

Steph sighed and turned her head to rub her eye with the hand she’d been leaning on. “I didn’t sleep well,” she admitted reluctantly, which I’d already surmised based on the fact that she was up and about so early, and the fact that she never slept well when Ranger was on a mission. Even before they got together.

“You weren’t supposed to have to deal with him being in the wind anymore,” I pointed out.

Steph just nodded against her hand, blinking away the tears that attempted to glaze her eyes. “If anything happens to him, Tank-”

“Nothing will happen to him,” I declared regardless of the fact that I had no guarantees. This mission may be low risk for physical altercations, but low risk wasn’t no risk.

“But if it does-”

“We riot,” I said simply.

Steph huffed out a small laugh that I took as a big win and decided to lean into it more. 

“You think I’m joking? Ram and Cal already have the gear on standby, and Lester’s been devising a plan to systematically breakdown the specific government departments involved in the missions we’ve run for years. Trust me, Little Girl, all you have to do is say the word, and we’ll march on the Pentagon.”

“Thank you,” she said. The soft smile returned to her face, but it wasn’t able to chase away the sadness in her eyes. My chest tightened uncomfortably. The juxtaposition reminded me of Blakes expressions throughout the drive back to Trenton yesterday. 

They’d tried so hard to hide their melancholy from me, to maintain their normal sunshine energy. But not even trained professionals were able to keep a mask up one hundred percent of the time, and Blakes’ facade was far from infallible. Something about the artwork in that Hidden Gems gallery had affected them in untold ways, and I wanted to know why. 

As if my own mask had slipped, letting some of my worry for Blake show through, Steph stood and straightened her Rangeman uniform shirt. Or rather, Ranger’s uniform shirt, I realised as I took in the way it hung loosely from her shoulders before being tucked into her cargoes. “I’ll let you get back to work,” she said, adding before she turned away, “I’m up for a surveillance shift whenever you need it.”

Chapter Text

The days since returning from the festival had passed in a blur of work, emails, and catching up on everything I’d missed. Ranger was still in the wind, Steph was trying - and failing - to sleep properly and keep up an outward appearance that she was okay, and Lester had been relentless with his nosy questions.

And through all of it, Blake stayed at the edge of my thoughts. 

We texted multiple times a day, trading quips and short nothing-updates about our days, and last night they’d video-called me while I was trapped in my armchair with all three cats pinning me down, like tiny, purring jailers. “Add it to the Pierre Series!” they’d declared when I lifted my phone enough for them to see the furballs in my lap.

But it was the memory of their expression when I found them in the Hidden Gems gallery - the way the usual brightness in their eyes had been dimmed on the drive home the next day - that lingered in my mind. I hated that they were hurting and I wasn’t able to do a damn thing about it. Because even the smiles they sent Pretzel when she’d head butted the phone camera had been a shadow of their usual self.

So when their text had come through just as I was wrapping up a zoom meeting with the Miami Rangeman manager - BLAKE: Come by the studio tonight? I want to show you something - I hadn’t hesitated.

Now, balancing a tray of drinks in one hand, I knocked on the door.

No answer.

Frowning, I checked the time. Maybe they hadn’t heard me? I tried the handle. Unlocked

The first thing that hit me when I entered the studio was the music. Loud enough to remind me of the flashing lights and pressing bodies of a night club, but without the thumping base and steady rock drum beat clanging in my head. The room must have state of the art soundproofing, because the hallway outside had been so silent I thought for sure I was in the wrong place. That I’d taken a wrong turn and ended up in some abandoned part of the building, especially when I knocked and no one answered. It all made sense now, though.

As music settled in my bones, the unique scents of art in progress rose up, filling my nose. The sharp, almost metallic tang of turpentine cutting through something rich and earthy and damp. A hint of coffee and the plasticky afternote of new supply packaging.

I gently closed the door behind me and travelled my gaze around the space. Everywhere I looked was colour. Spilled paint on the floor, splatters on the walls, photos, sketches and magazine clippings made into what looked like a mood or inspiration board where they were taped on the wall between two large windows that looked out onto a wild and overgrown courtyard. A handful of easels were dotted through the room, each covered by a paint splattered drop sheet, hiding the paintings they held from prying eyes. 

But none of this held my interest once I spotted Blake at the back of the room.

Their back was to me, facing a large canvas with splashes of yellow and blue across it. Their paint-splattered, overall-clad form bopped along to the music, hips swinging left and right as the brush in their hand swept large swatches of green onto the lower half of the canvas.

I watched them dip the brush and dive back in. Tip their head to the side as they took half a step backwards. Reached forward and scrubbed the brush on an area that already had paint, spreading it around a bit. Paused to consider. Leaned in again. It was clear they hadn’t noticed my presence yet. 

Part of me wanted to perch on the nearby stool and watch, fascinated by their fluid movements, and the way the brush seemed to be an extension of their hand rather than a tool they’d picked up. But a little voice in the back of my mind - a voice that sounded uncannily like Steph the day she found out about Ranger’s midnight visits to her apartment - said that was creepy. 

So instead, in the quiet between one song and the next, I reopened the door and let it close again, louder this time.

It did the trick, snapping Blake out of their concentration. They spun to face me, a grin already plastered on their face that faded quickly when I let out a curse.

“Are you not happy to see me?” they asked, brandishing the paint-loaded brush with a flourish of feigned indignation. “You came to me, I would have thought-“

“No,” I said, then shook my head. “No, I’m happy to see you, it’s just -“ I pointed to the artwork they’d been working on where there was now a wide green streak bisecting the canvas from left to right where the brush had made contact as they turned. “Sorry.”

Blake laughed when they saw what they’d done and dropped the brush into a jar of murky water on the table beside them. “No big deal,” they assured me, taking up a new, clean brush and dabbing away at the streak, reshaping parts and removing paint from others, wiping the brush on a rag that might have been white at one stage. 

While they worked, I closed the distance between us, peering around curiously at covered canvases until I stood a couple of feet behind and a little to the side, watching over their shoulder. 

“It happens more often than you’d think,” they explained. They took a half step back again, tilting their head just like before, then dropped the second brush into the greyish-brown water as well. “It’ll be fine. I can work with it. I was just playing around anyway,”

They waved their hand dismissively, then turned back to face me, that grin back in place. Surging forward, they plucked the drink with their name on it from the cup tray in my hand and fairly melted on the spot when they took their first sip. 

“Perfect,” they sighed contentedly, lowering it enough to hug against their chest. A teasing glint met my gaze when Blake opened their eyes a moment later and held the cup out towards me. “Do you want a taste?”

I raised an eyebrow. “I saw how much syrup the barista pumped into that concoction,” I said. “No, thank you.”

Blake shrugged, obviously having already known that the chances of me saying yes were slim. “Suit yourself,” they commented, then grabbed my free hand, tucking it under their arm as they dragged me away from the painting. “Come sit.”

The sofa they led me to in the corner was littered with scrunched up pieces of paper that they swept to the floor before poking at a splotch of paint on one of the cushions. “It’s dry,” they said, possibly to themself, but turned the cushion over anyway. Then, boots and all, they stepped up onto the cushion and settled into a cross legged position, facing sideways. They patted the other cushion in invitation and I sat, or more accurately sank into the sofa beside them.

The music was still playing, and this close to the hard concrete wall, the reverberation caused me to wince as I turned my head and the sound seemed to bounce off the hard surface just as the song hit a crescendo and pierced straight through my ear drum

Blake reacted quickly. Their phone appeared in their hand and a second later the music ceased along with my pain. The silence rang in the space for a moment before Blake slumped sideways, hugging the drink to their chest again. “Sorry,” they said. “I was vibing.”

“It’s your studio.” I shrugged and lifted my tea from the cup tray I still held and deposited the tray on the upturned crate beside me. My gaze caught on one of the balled up pages that had come unfurled, and I reached down to grab it, flattening it out against my thigh. The rough sketch felt familiar, like I’d seen it somewhere before. The longer I stared at it the more it niggled at the back of my brain, until I realised Blake had gone stiff beside me.

A glance over revealed that their gaze was zeroed in on the page with as much intensity as Bobby usually got when Lester was flirting with a woman. They were barely breathing, a muscle twitched in their jaw, and the tension that radiated off them in waves was enough for me to turn the page over and slide it towards them.

“Sorry,” I said quietly. “I didn’t mean to snoop.”

Blake blinked and the expression was gone as they folded the paper and tucked it into the chest pocket of their overalls. “It’s fine,” they said, which was what they’d said about the painting as well, but I got the feeling whatever idea the page represented was decidedly less fine than the extra splash of green on the canvas had been.

“It’s not, though,” I pointed out, unable to ignore the elephant in the room. I’d already seen endless evidence of how private they were with their works in progress these days. Turning the sketch book so no one could see, covering it with their hand or arm when they paused to engage in conversation. Hell, even the fact that all of the paintings in the studio were currently hidden from view. 

They never used to be like this. Blake was the kind of person who would sprawl in the grass with their sketchbook in front of them, open to viewing by anyone who happened to walk past. They would share drafts no matter how dodgy looking they thought they were. And I’d spent whole afternoons in their college art studio classroom reading my textbook while they worked on a painting for their assignment, the canvas in full view the entire time.

Blake may still have the same exuberant, sunshine bright personality as I recalled from our college days, but they’d closed off a door when it came to their art. The frivolous little projects we’d undertaken at Art and Soul over the weekend had been the exception, but I’d wager that was because the art workshops were for fun and learning, and not something they were pouring their heart into.

I gestured to the ghosts of paintings filling the room, the pages surrounding my feet, the closed sketchbook on the second upturned crate at their end of the sofa. “I’m guessing hiding your art away isn’t standard day to day practice when you’re in here alone?”

Blake’s nose scrunched up and they stabbed a hand into their hair, gripping the locks as they tightened their fist. A pained expression crossed their features, followed by an eyebrows-drawn contemplative look as they stared at me. I could sense their internal struggle, the question of whether they should tell me something, so I just waited, quietly sipping my tea and giving them the time they needed.

“This isn’t why I invited you over to the studio,” they said, shifting the sketchbook to the side a little so they could set their cup down beside it.

“I figured you needed a life drawing model,” I stated, keeping my expression as flat as my tone. Thankfully, the quip had the desired outcome, their eyebrows jumping up in surprise as their laughter filled the space, echoing off the walls.

“Pierre!” they admonished, slapping my arm. “I’m trying to be serious here!”

“I know,” I replied. “And it’s freaking me out.”

“Are you saying I can’t be serious?”

“I’m saying you’re not prone to it, but this, coupled with whatever happened at the festival on Sunday has me concerned. I’m used to fighting anyone who opposes the peace of those I care about, but I can’t do that if I don’t know who the enemy is.” I sighed and ran my free hand over my head, noting the slight prickly growth of new hair. “I know I said you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, and I meant it, but it doesn't stop me from worrying that there's something wrong. That I should be doing something to help.”

Despite my statement tipping us back into serious territory, Blake snorted. “And that something is offering to strip naked and pose for me to draw?” They shook their head. “I can’t imagine you being comfortable with that.”

They were right, of course. Public nudity was close to the top of the list of things I would like to avoid at all costs. Unlike Santos, I preferred to limit the number of people who saw my privates.

Patting my arm as they shook their head again, Blake said, “You don’t need to throw your comfort under the bus for me, Pierre.”

In the slightly awkward silence that followed, I couldn’t help but give myself a mental head slap for derailing whatever Blake had been about to reveal. And with such a Lester-esque comment, too. Knowing my luck, they were currently burying whatever vulnerability they’d worked themself up to and were vowing to never, ever speak of it. Especially to me. 

Just the thought of a barrier like that between us had my gut clenching with emotions I couldn’t quite name, and was afraid to examine. The asexual label I’d only recently come to terms with hung over my head like a cloud of confusion, because I wasn’t sexually attracted to Blake, but there was… something that pulled me towards them. Something undeniable. Something that sounded like Snowball’s screams of protest in the back of my mind whenever I thought about losing them.

Which felt ridiculous given how long they’d been back in my life.

The closest thing I could think of to compare to how I felt about Blake was the instant connection I’d experienced with each of my cats the first time I held their tiny kitten forms at the shelter. A sense of rightness that only grew with time.

I was… attached.

Beside me, Blake slumped down, still in their sideways position, so that their crossed-legs pressed gently at the side of my thigh. Inexplicably, my hand itched to reach out and squeeze their knee, to initiate a kind of contact I usually avoided like the plague. I felt certain Blake would accept the reassuring touch - they were a hands-on person, after all -  but with my thoughts as jumbled as they were, I didn’t want to complicate them further by breaking form. Or worse, if I allowed myself to follow through on the urge only to be subjected to the usual unsavoury reaction my body conjured up to physical touch.

“I’m a fraud,” Blake breathed. The words were barely audible, but they instantly held my full attention, like the snap of a twig in the woods. All thoughts on pause until Blake explained their statement. Because this wasn’t my confident, exuberant friend. This was the voice of self doubt. Of fear. Of something hidden away inside that had clearly been eating away at them.

“What do you mean?” They were the most authentic person I knew.

“This residency, my art,” they said vaguely, not shedding any more light on the issue. A sigh fell from their lips, accompanied by another stab of their hand through their hair, shuffling it to the other side to reveal the little sunflower charm that hung behind their ear. “None of it seems real.”

I wasn’t following the logic. “That doesn’t mean you’re a fraud, though.”

Something between a groan and a growl erupted from Blake’s throat and they rubbed their hands up over their face, dislodging their glasses and distorting their features. “I’m not the wildly successful artist you think I am, Pierre,” they said, keeping their fingertips pressed into their eyes as they tipped their head back. Simultaneously, they drew their knees up, removing the warm point of contact against my thigh. 

My hand twitched to drag it back down, but I clenched my fist in my lap instead, waiting for the explanation to start making sense.

“Up until a month ago, I was selling insurance. Before that, I was a veterinary receptionist. And before that I was a data entry clerk, a personal assistant, and a dog walker. I quit my job for this residency. I had to. They wouldn’t hold the position for me, and I don’t blame them. I was terrible at insurance sales. But I did it. Because I have to eat. I have to pay bills. And art doesn’t do that. It doesn’t pay. It doesn’t keep you safe. It just-”

They cut off their words abruptly, sitting up straight and dropping their hands so they were looking directly at me, anguish brimming in their eyes. “After college, I spent two years studying painting in Europe. I had the time of my life. Learned more than I could have imagined, met amazing artists. Then I came home and-” Their swallow was audible and it took them a minute before they continued. “I had a harsh reality check… Art wasn’t a sustainable future.”

A long silence stretched between us as their eyes drifted to the far wall and yet another paint-stained sheet that shrouded what I assumed was yet another canvas. Tears shimmered in their eyes, but then they blinked and the moisture was gone, attention back on me.

“I hadn’t touched a paintbrush in years before I started the painting of the play-fighting kittens a year ago,” Blake whispered, holding my gaze almost ruthlessly. Willing me to understand without them having to say the words caught in their throat. “I don’t… I’m not…” That same frustrated groan escaped them and their gaze shifted to the painting on the wall again.

“I don’t know what I’m doing. I have to paint, or I’ll go insane, but sometimes it feels like painting is sending me insane. I feel like I lose a part of myself every time I let someone see what I’m creating. I lose a piece of myself everytime I step back and the painting isn’t what I imagined in my head. It’s too much pressure, and I’m scared… I’m scared that…” Reefing their glasses off their face, they swiped away the tears that had started to overflow. “I’m just scared, Pierre.”

Just as at the Hidden Gems gallery, my body reacted to their distress without conscious thought and the next thing I knew, my arm was wrapped around them, hugging them to my side as my hand rubbed up and down their arm, trying to provide the comfort they so desperately needed. 

It didn’t escape my notice that they were presenting me with yet another invisible foe that I couldn’t vanquish for them. I couldn’t beat up their fears for them and make them go away. All I could do was be there for them. To listen, to reassure. It felt wholly inadequate, but I would do anything for Blake.

My heart did a little stutter step in my chest at the realisation and I had to force myself to take a slow, deep breath to stop from panicking as confusion rose up anew. Did I have… feelings for Blake? Or was this just the depth of our rekindled friendship?

I tried to think of my other friendships for comparison, but the realisation that I would only do almost anything for Ranger, my best friend, did nothing to calm my mind. And even where my family was concerned there were limits to what I was willing to do. Hell, even just on a day to day basis, I couldn’t bring myself to commit to the physical contact my family favoured. But with Blake…

Another deep breath and I was forcing the thoughts down and away. One existential crisis at a time. Right now, Blake took priority. I could examine my feelings later.

Squeezing Blake’s arm slightly, I cast around for something to say, only to be met with the drop sheets filling the room. It pained me to see them hiding their art, their passion even from themself when once they had been so open to sharing and baring their soul. The world could be a cruel place to those with stars in their eyes and a dream in their hearts, I knew, but this stifled, unsure shadow version of Blake, hidden away in their studio, was unacceptable to me. I had to find a way to unlock the chains holding them down.

Letting out one last breath, I turned my head to peer down at Blake. “Can I ask a question?” 

Their eyes were slow to move from that shrouded painting on the wall to my face. “Anything,” they confirmed quietly.

“If sharing your unfinished art makes you scared you’ll lose yourself, why did you invite me here?” I nodded to the painting they had been working on when I arrived.

Silence stretched between us while their gaze drifted over my face, searching, and then flicking to the shrouded paintings around the room, like they could see through the fabric hiding it from view to what haunted them beneath then settled on the only uncovered easel with its green slash across the middle. “Because I’m sick of being watched by the ghosts of paintings present,” they said wryly. “And because things feel different when you’re around. I don’t feel the need to hide from you.”

I stopped myself from pointing out that they’d repeatedly shielded their sketchbook from my view. Now wasn’t the time to be contradictory. 

“Inviting you here was an experiment,” they admitted. “I wanted to see if you seeing a work in progress gave me the same soul-sucking sensation as when the director came to check in.”

“And?”

“Pretty sure you’re not a dementor.”

I smiled at the reference to the creatures from Harry Potter. “I’m relieved.”

Chapter Text

I was staring unseeingly at the break room wall the next day while I waited for my coffee to brew, allowing memories of the night before, the time I’d spent with Blake in their studio, to pass through my mind. 

To further the experiment they’d started by inviting me over, Blake had unveiled one of the other paintings, this one already brimming with rich greens of indiscernible shapes, and set to work, adding a smudges of greenish-yellow to the canvas while I watched from the sofa, sipping my tea. 

We kept up a steady stream of conversation while they painted. Everything from major plot points from the fantasy book they were reading, to details of the takedown I’d been involved in that morning, to the conversation Blake had overheard at the deli down the road while in line for lunch. 

It was easy. Casual. Zero- pressure. And the longer they worked, the more the tension from their shoulders released. Not quite the tackle-the-enemy-to-the-ground-and-make-sure-they-couldn’t-do-anymore-damage kind of service I was used to giving, but I was glad that I could do something to help. 

They seemed happier when they eventually stepped back from the canvas and wiped their hands on their overalls, leaving smears of paint on the fabric. Nodding to themself, they had gone about cleaning their brushes and packing up for the night with a contented smile on their face while refusing any and all assistance I offered. But I didn’t miss the way their eyes drifted to the wall one last time, dimming the spark in their eyes just a second before they switched off the light and locked up.

And now, all I could see in my head was the look on Blake’s face as they’d stared at that particular covered painting. The way they’d stared at it was eerily similar to the way they’d stared at the painting in the Hidden Gems gallery. Like the canvas had reached out and punched them in the gut and now they were struggling to breathe while it taunted them. 

That’s when the penny dropped.

The scrunched up sketch I’d picked off the floor. I knew why it looked familiar.

I pulled my phone from my pocket in a jerky motion, and quickly dialed Nikki’s number, pressing it to my ear. Impressively, she picked up on the second ring, but a moment later, I cringed when her tone reminded me of why that probably was: we had an unspoken rule to only call each other during work hours if there was an emergency.

“What’s wrong?” Nikki demanded. “What’s happened? Why are you calling me at work?”

Mentally berating myself, I explained quickly, “Because it’s work related.”

Suspicion leaked down the line as my sister replied before I could explain further. “You don’t have another enemy from your past vowing to kill everyone you love again, do you?” she asked. 

I suppressed a sigh. As far as threats from former marks go, I was lucky to have only had the one situation where I feared for my family and myself, but it had certainly left an imprint on Nikki, which was part of the reason we had the no calls at work rule. It had been years since that incident. “Your work, not mine,” I assured her evenly. “I need the contact details for the curator of the Hidden Gems, Forgotten Treasures gallery at the festival.”

“Why?”

I narrowed my eyes at the wall. “Because I’m interested in one of the paintings.” Not a lie. Just not the whole truth. Then again, I’d already told Nikki about Blake’s troubling reaction when she got home from packing down the festival that night, so I’m sure she could read between the lines.

“Since when are you so invested in art, Pierre?” Nikki asked, the implications of her words clear even as I heard her computer mouse clicking away in the background as she looked up the information I’d requested. 

I shook my head, reverting to my usual silent tactics when I didn’t like the line of questioning my sister was taking. Instead, I just waited, listening to the clicking and clacking and the resigned sigh on the other end of the line. 

“Have you got a pen ready?” she asked after a few moments. 

“Just send me the contact card.”

Another sigh. “Fine.” More clicking and tapping. “But you owe me. Next time you call me, you better have details to share.”

A delicate, pale hand appeared in my periphery just, waved to get my attention and pointed to the Keurig. I stepped to the side, taking my now full coffee mug with me. I was already dealing with the attitude from Nikki, I didn’t want to add a decaffeinated Steph to my day.

Apparently, I had no qualms poking the bear that was too far away to maim me, though. “What details?” I asked innocently.

“You know the details I want,” Nikki assured me, but clearly understanding that she wasn’t going to receive them today, she added, “Contact card is sent. I’ll talk to you later.” And hung up.

“Love you, too,” I muttered sarcastically under my breath as I pulled the phone away from my ear and immediately swiped to my email inbox to check for the contact details. 

Steph snorted beside me. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say that probably wasn’t a work-related call,” she said, pressing a button on the coffee machine to set it going. She turned to face me, her hip propped against the counter, arms crossed over her chest. She was back to wearing her own Rangeman shirt today, and she looked fresher than she had all week. “Mom?”

I shook my head, glancing up from the email that had just come through. “Sister.”

It was at that moment, as Steph’s eyebrows disappeared into her curls, that I realised I had never shared enough details of my personal life with Steph for her to be aware that I had a sister. “You have a sister?”

I just nodded.

“Older or younger?” she asked, still staring at me like she didn’t have a clue who I was.

“Technically younger,” I said, and braced myself for the follow-up question I knew would come with that kind of vaguely hinting answer.

“What do you mean ‘technically’ younger? Did one of you time travel and so you’ve technically lived through more days than the other?”

I let a smile curl the edges of my lips at how her mind immediately jumped to the most ridiculous explanation. “Twins, Steph,” I pointed out. “She’s my twin sister. I was born first. And Nikki being Nikki, waited until midnight ticked over so we didn’t have to share an actual birthday.”

Steph’s jaw dropped. “How did I not know you had a twin?”

I shrugged and pointed out, “I don’t talk about my family at work.” But she was already spun around to address the only other person in the room.

“Bobby, did you know Tank has a twin sister?”

Bobby paused with his teeth pressed to the apple he was eating. His brow furrowed for a second while he caught up, eyes flicked to me as though to check I was cool facts being revealed, then lowered the apple. “You mean Nikki?”

Steph spun back to me. “Bobby knows Nikki?”

“Bobby’s met Nikki.”

“Bobby received a punch to the dick from Nikki,” Lester added, strolling into the room with a grin a mile wide.

“I didn’t mean to touch her boob!” the medic exclaimed, throwing up his hands the way he always did when someone brought up the time Bobby had saved my sister from being run over by a motorcycle and Nikki had very much not appreciated his hands on approach. “It was an accident!”

Letting the smile tugging at my lips bloom a little further, I just shook my head. “I need to go make a phone call,” I said, then let Lester and Bobby know with a single look as I walked out the door that they could answer any questions about Nikki that Steph had.

I waited until I was safely ensconced in my office once more before I dialed, then spent the extraordinarily long time it took for the curator - a woman by the name of Margaret who sounded like she was in her sixties and had at least one grandchild that she doted on - to answer. I continued to pace my office as I explained the reason for my call, including a brief description of the visceral reaction Blake had had to the painting.

“I’d like to take another look at it,” I informed the woman. I needed to figure out why and how it had upset Blake so much, and since they obviously weren’t in a place to talk about it yet, I’d have to do my own investigations. “Are the artworks from the festival on display anywhere that I could come to view?”

“Unfortunately they’re all still in storage dear. I’m between spaces at the moment,” Margaret said. She sounded genuinely regretful that she couldn't carry out my request, not that it softened the blow. I slumped down on to the edge of the desk, feeling for all the world like I’d received a punch to the gut. “But my son is helping me put together a website to share these wonderful unknown artists with the whole world. I have pictures of all the paintings I’ve collected. I could send them to you to look through and see if you recognise the one your friend reacted to.”

My head snapped up, heart pumping faster, a sizzle of something dangerously close to hope sliding through me. “That would be helpful, thank you,” I murmured and carefully spelled out my email address.

“I’ll get my son to send through the pictures from the Art and Soul exhibit,” Margaret confirmed. “I hope your friend is okay.”

I thanked the woman again, and assured her I was doing everything within my power to make sure Blake was okay. Just as I was hanging up the phone and dropping it onto my desk next to my coffee, the office door swung open without so much as a knock.

Lester.

Of course it was Lester, come to ruin my day.

“You’re gonna love this,” he announced, striding in like he owned the place. “Or hate it.” He glanced down at the file in his hands, lips twitching. “Actually, odds are high you’ll hate it. But it’s happening either way.”

I exhaled sharply, pinching the bridge of my nose as I gripped the edge of the desk I was still propped against, holding myself back. “Santos, I swear to-”

“No threats until you hear me out,” Lester interrupted. He dropped the folder on the desk beside me with entirely too much enthusiasm before stepping back out of punching range. “We got a request.”

I eyed him warily. “For what?”

That stupid grin widened. “Asset retrieval.”

That got my attention. I picked up the folder preparing to get myself up to speed. “What kind of asset?”

“A lost dog.” The fact that he took a tiny step backwards, further out of my reach, was not lost on me.

“A dog?”

He nodded. “Very important dog.” There was a pause like he was waiting for me to ask the inevitable question, but I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know. When he eventually gave in, he leaned forward, whispering conspiratorially, “It’s the mayor’s dog.”

I dragged a hand down my face. “Juniak’s dog is missing?”

Lester nodded, clearly enjoying my suffering. “And since he doesn’t want this turning into a PR nightmare, he called Steph, and Steph-”

“Promised we’d find the dog for him,” I sighed, glancing longingly at my coffee, getting colder by the minute. Joe Juniak wasn’t just the Mayor, he was Steph’s godfather. He’d always done whatever he could to ensure Steph’s mishaps were handled gracefully and discreetly. I had no doubt that Steph would want to repay the favour by locating the mutt. But… “You want me to dedicate company resources to finding a politician's runaway pet?”

Lester sent me a look. “You say it like this isn’t exactly the kind of weird-ass job we end up with every few months,” he pointed out.

I set the folder back down on the desk with a practiced precision, every movement controlled so that I didn’t snap. “I’m a cat person, Santos.”

He grinned. “Oh, trust me. We know. Which is why the plan is for Steph to take the lead on it, not you. We just need approval.”

“We?” 

“Steph,” he corrected. “She’ll work with Hank on the case.”

I stared at him for a long moment, weighing the situation. With Ranger in the wind Steph did need something to redirect her attention to. And Hank was a good fit to work with her on the case. He was one of the few men who hadn’t contributed to a disaster when partnered with her in the past. I passed the file back to Lester. “Let Steph know she and Hank have the go ahead.” 

Chapter Text

It was days before the promised email from Margaret’s son reached my inbox, and each passing second grated on my nerves. To the point where most of the men in the office had taken to avoiding me, even when issues arose that I would normally be looped in to deal with. At first I thought it was just an abnormally quiet week, until Bobby had darkened my doorway, assessing me with a critical eye.

“What?” I demanded, slamming a file folder into my out tray so violently that it scooted back a couple of inches, hanging off the edge of the desk. I cringed inwardly, reefing it back into position and reasserting my attention on the medic.

Bobby crossed his arms over his chest and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. “You have two options,” he informed me without preamble. “You can talk about it, or you can meet me on the mats.”

I glared. “I don’t wanna talk about it. 

I didn’t even know where I would begin talking about it. Because it wasn’t just the lack of email, or the knock-on effect of not having any more information about the painting that had caused Blake to shut down. It was the fact that the only thing - the only person - that had eased my fraying nerves, was Blake.

Their texts throughout the day, usually just sharing an amusing thought, or a pointless doodle they’d sketched, reminded me that despite the mystery of the painting, and the shadow it had caused to lurk behind their eyes, they were still there. And the fact that every time I joined them in their studio another of the drop sheets was removed to unveil the painting-in-progress underneath.

“Right, so meet me in the gym in ten minutes,” Bobby commanded. The no-nonsense tone let me know that it wasn’t a suggestion, but a medical order. He’d assessed my condition and was prescribing a friendly ass whooping to remedy it.

And it helped. A bit. Relieved some of the tension building in my body. Distracted me from checking my inbox for a whole hour. And when we stepped off the mats and he tossed a bottle of water my way while massaging the spot on his jaw where my fist might have connected a little too forcefully, I was submitted to another assessing gaze.

“Better?” Bobby checked, unscrewing the cap on his own water.

I nodded. “It’s a personal matter,” I informed him, by way of explanation, not that it meant anything since Bobby didn’t discriminate. An issue was an issue whether it was work-related or not, and in our profession anything that took away our concentration was a threat.

He seemed to weigh his options for a moment, deciding if I looked like I was going to open up more and if a question would help or hinder. “Your artist friend?”

I just stared, my expression devoid of emotion. But I couldn’t fool the medic.

“Is she, uh, I mean… Are they okay?” 

Shock hoisted my eyebrows high, but Bobby launched into an explanation before I could interrogate him. 

“I overheard Lester and Steph talking, when you returned from your weekend away,” he said. “Steph mentioned some texts and your positive reaction to them. Lester theorised that you were… Well, Lester made Lester-like comments. And Steph informed him of Blake’s pronoun preference.” He paused, watching me carefully. “Is the pronoun thing what’s causing your current mood?” It didn’t take a genius to hear what he wasn’t saying, the question he was really asking: Are you questioning your sexuality because of your attraction to a non-binary person?

“No,” I stated succinctly, because it was easier than opening up that can of worms with him right now. Did I have feelings for Blake? Yes. Was I questioning my sexuality because of it? A bit, but I also didn’t think what I felt for Blake was sexual attraction, which also sort of affirmed my sexuality. Was Blake’s non-binary identity a source of my questioning or confusion? Absolutely not. They were still the Blake I’d befriended in college. If anything they were more Blake now than they had been, and I supported that wholeheartedly. “I’m just waiting on some information about a situation that arose while I was home. You know how impatient I am.”

Bobby nodded his agreement, but the look in his eye let me know he hadn’t dismissed the idea that this had to do with my artist friend as he’d called them. He also understood that we’d reached the end of what I was willing to tell him about the situation at the moment. 

And luckily, right at that moment, Lester swung through the doors to the gym, bare chested and sporting his ever present grin as he made his way over to the bench press station. Bobby’s attention was instantly diverted, his bottom lip disappearing between his teeth as his grip tightened on the plastic bottle in his hands. 

The crinkle was loud in the mid-afternoon quiet of the gym, and Lester glanced our way as he tossed his gym towel over the bench and checked the weight on the barbell. “Got time to spot me, Bobby?” he called, swinging a leg over and lowering himself onto the bench.

Bobby’s fist tightened on the water bottle further and a hint of red appeared on his cheeks, barely visible with his dark complexion unless you knew what you were looking for. He nodded. “Just a sec,” he confirmed, turning back to me.

“I’m clocking out,” I told the medic, giving him something to focus on other than his obvious attraction to his shirtless best friend, and ensuring my voice carried across the room to Lester as well so I didn’t have to say it twice. “Don’t call unless something’s actually on fire.” And with those only half-joking words, I tossed my empty water bottle into the recycling receptacle and made my way to the showers.

*o*

The cats were waiting at the door when I arrived home, meowing in greeting and also, probably protesting at the change in routine. I’d spent more time away from home in the evenings than was usual since returning from my trip home. The pull of that something with Blake urging me to hang out with them at the studio most nights, even if it was only for an hour. 

And my absence had not gone unnoticed by my furry roommates. Yesterday, I’d come home after leaving the studio to the contents of the cutlery drawer scattered across the kitchen floor. They’d somehow managed to get it open and toss everything out. And they hadn’t even been ashamed of their actions. 

Applepuff had greeted me at the door, trilled out a command that usually meant I should follow her, then flounced off to the kitchen where she jumped up onto the counter above the drawer. She looked me dead in the eye as if daring me to punish her for it.

I’d just sighed and gathered up the utensils and dumped them into the dishwasher, then gathered up Applepuff and murmured halfhearted admonishments into the fur at the back of her neck as I carried her upstairs to the bedroom where we were joined by the others.

“No surprises for me today?” I asked the trio weaving happily around my legs as I bent down to pat them all. “Everyone behaved?” They just continued purring, so I led the way upstairs to get changed while they arranged themselves in their favourite spots on the bed. I joined them a few moments later, sprawling out on top of the covers in basketball shorts and an old, comfortable army t-shirt.

Pretzel was twisting herself under my arm in an instant, while Snowball stretched languidly and stepped up onto my chest and Applepuff curled next to my head. We just lay like that for the longest time as I let the vibration of their purring sooth some of the spiky nerves that had arisen with Bobby’s questions after our sparring session. 

“You guys liked Blake, right?” I asked, scratching behind Snowball’s ear. “They’re the one that visited the pet motel with me, and you’ve seen them on my phone when we video call.” As if in reply, Pretzel pressed her head more firmly into the side of my chest. “Yeah, you like to headbutt them,” I acknowledged. “It’s a good thing you’re not a goat.” Puff made a sound of protest at that, whether she recognised the word goat from the time I’d come home smelling of them - something she had not been at all happy with - or because she was just being a grump, I wasn’t sure. Either one was possible.

As though they knew I’d been talking about them, my phone chimed the special tone I’d set for when Blake sent a message, but as I turned my head to peer at the device where I’d dropped it on the the bedside table on my way through the room earlier, I realised I had a dilemma: Shift to reach for the phone and disturb the furbabies, or leave the text unread. Neither one was particularly appealing to me at that moment. But I had to acknowledge that the cats had been somewhat deprived of cuddle time during my waking hours this week, so I just released a breath and relaxed once more, letting my head loll against Applepuff’s side. 

“I should really teach one of you how to fetch,” I mused when the tone sounded again a minute later.

Applepuff apparently did not like that idea, because with a feline huff, she got to her feet, stretched and turned to show me her butthole for what felt like a deliberately extended second before she leapt from the bed and sauntered from the room. 

Snowball let out a yowl that I can only assume was delegated to her to express Puff’s ire, and a second later, she was gone, too.

I looked down at Pretzel who blinked sleepily, and shook my head just as the chime came again. “Mind if I get that?” I asked her, leaning up on one elbow to reach across the bed. Pretzel, my sweet orange baby, just twisted herself more to try to follow my movement, and ended up falling off the edge of the bed when she rolled too far. As she had when she fell off the cat tree at the pet hotel, she paused and looked around, then plopped down to clean her paws. “You good?” I asked, and received only the slight nodding of her head that came with the licking motion.

Taking that as confirmation that she hadn’t lost any more brain cells in the fall, I scooped up the phone and swung my feet over so I was seated on the edge of the bed when I swiped through to the texts Blake had sent.

BLAKE: Thank god that’s over.

BLAKE: Remind me not to put ‘high school art teacher’ on my list of potential career moves once this residency is up. 

BLAKE: I need a break. How do you feel about tacos tonight? I know a place.

My lips quirked at the confirmation that the teens workshop they’d been scheduled to lead today had apparently gone exactly as chaotically as they’d predicted, and tapped out a quick reply.

TANK: I think Puff will attempt to chew my face off in my sleep if I leave the house tonight. I’ve been presented with the butthole of disapproval already this afternoon.

I hesitated, my thumbs hovering over the keyboard on the screen. I wanted to see Blake. But I also had an obligation to my furbabies. Inviting Blake over felt like a Step . A big one, that implied things I wasn’t sure I felt. But at the same time, they’d already spent the weekend at my mother’s house. In my bed. 

Before I could puzzle my way through the conundrum, another text came through.

BLAKE: They do take away. I could come over and show Puff I’m not a homewrecker?

Another hesitation. And another text before I could formulate a response.

BLAKE: Or not, if you need time alone. I’m easy either way.

TANK: Tacos sound good.

I sent them my address and two hours later we were seated side by side on the couch, the empty takeout containers littering the coffee table, and the cats littering the cushions between us as reruns of a 90s sitcom played on the TV. Pretzel, I noticed, had fairly claimed Blake as her own, having wrapped herself around their wrist and fallen asleep while Blake was explaining the antics the teens had gotten up to at the workshop today. Snowball was sprawled diagonally across the cushion to take up maximum space. But Applepuff sat directly at my side, stiff backed and alert like a sentry as she glared at Blake. 

“Someone’s a little possessive,” Blake observed, lips twitching as they locked eyes with my feline protector, reaching across the cushion to try to bridge the gap, but only receiving a disdainful huff.

“Applepuff’s been with me through some tough times,” I explained quietly, running a hand over her back and noting the way her muscles bunched in the wake. “She’s just wary of new people.”

“Well, Pretzel likes me, at least.” They wisely retracted their hand from Applepuff’s airspace, but used the other - still trapped in Pretzel’s embrace - to scratch the orange doofus under the chin. 

I hugged a quiet laugh, and stretched my legs out in front of me. The warmth of the food, the steady familiar chatter from the TV and the occasional flick of Applepuff’s tale against my arm made for a comfortable evening. And Blake’s easy presence only added to the rightness of it.

They sat back, shaking their head with a lazy grin. “Did I tell you about the one absolute menace in the workshop today that decided to turn their painting into a performance art piece?” Blake asked, adjusting their glasses.

I shook my head, and they launched instantly into the tale of the red-headed Finn with a flair for the dramatic and a need for attention. Apparently he’d decided that regular painting wasn’t expressive enough and had started turning his brush strokes into an interpretive dance. Blake’s un-imprisoned hand gestured to mimic the way Finn had apparently flung paint onto the canvas, and they laughingly quoted parts of the kid’s monologue on the ‘agony of creations’. I let their voice settle over me. Half listening. Half lost in the rhythm of their voice - until my phone buzzed from where I’d left it on the coffee table.

I grabbed it up without a second thought and noted the email notification I’d been waiting for finally on the screen. Margaret Holland - Gallery Photos.

I glanced at Blake to show I was still listening as I tapped into the email, but as I reached the attachments and started scrolling, my focus narrowed, scanning the images one after another until I found it and froze with my thumb hovering over the screen, my mind locking onto the details of it.

A simple vase of flowers. Sunflowers, I noted absently. Or maybe daisies. The kind of flower was unimportant, because as I pinch-zoomed in on the reflective surface of the vase the delicate brush strokes and carefully selected colours revealed something unexpected: a face. 

A face that looked eerily familiar.

My breath caught in my throat as I brought the screen closer, to be sure.

“Pierre.”

I barely heard Blake at first. Barely registered Applepuff’s paw on my thigh.

“Pierre?” 

I glanced up, realising they were watching me now, brows furrowed. “Hmm?”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” they said, leaning closer even with Pretzel still draped over their wrist. “What are you-” But their words cut off when I lowered the phone and just as their gaze locked onto it. All the colour drained from their face and I heard their breath stutter. “Pierre what…?”

“I was worried,” I explained. They already knew I was worried. I’d told them as much. I’d told them I wanted to understand, and that I wanted to fight whatever made them react the way they had at the festival. “I only got a glimpse of the painting before you asked to go home. I wanted to know why it upset you so much, so I reached out to the curator.”

My heart was pounding in my chest, like I was facing off against a maniac with a machete, not my friend with that haunted look in their eyes as they backed away to their end of the couch, dislodging the cat that had been happily sleeping on them as they drew their knees up, hugging them to their chest. Protectively. 

I wanted to draw them closer, to wrap my arms around Blake in an extra layer of protection against whatever this painting represented. Whatever reason their face was reflected so meticulously in the painted glass of the vase. But it was clear they needed their space. I set the phone down on the cushion between a bewildered looking Pretzel and a mildly put-out Snowball, but I didn’t lock the screen. The photo of the painting remained. A reminder. Because now I needed to know.

“Blake, this painting…” I couldn’t find the right words to ask the questions piling up behind my teeth. Their emotional state required a gentle finesse that I wasn’t sure I was capable of on the best of days, let alone when the hairs on the back of my neck were prickling the way they were now.

Blake’s voice was barely audible as they stared down at the image still displayed on the phone between us. “It’s my mom’s.” 

Chapter Text

I didn’t dare move. Didn’t dare speak. Waiting for Blake to explain further. Because running away from a painting their Mom had done, having such a gut-wrenching reaction to seeing it in the Hidden Gems gallery, didn’t make sense. I was aware, of course, that Blake’s mom was an artist as well. But they’d always spoken fondly of her in college. Of the special connection they had. The bond.

It felt like all the air had been sucked from the room while we sat there. The phone with its bright, happy image on display created a gaping chasm between us. A distance I couldn’t cross without Blake’s help, but as seconds turned to minutes and the shimmering pools of moisture building on their lower lashes grew deeper and deeper, I started to doubt if they were going to throw me a rope, or if I’d have to somehow figure out how to traverse the uncertain terrain around it until I found them again.

“This is your mom’s painting?” I finally found the courage to ask as Applepuff stepped into my lap, her paws digging into the tense muscles of my thigh.

The incline of Blake’s head was miniscule, almost imperceptible, but it was there. They were still there. But I was no closer to understanding.

“Did something happen between you and-“

Their breath hitched, eyes squinched tight. A shaking hand came up to brush away the tears that fell. They sniffed, and removed their glasses, pressing the back of their hand to their lips as they visibly tried to hold themself together. To keep all the crumbling parts in place. And once again, my chest tightened, longing to be the glue, or the putty, or the duct tape, or whatever it was they needed.

My hand reached across the distance between us of its own accord, brushing back the hair that had fallen forward over their forehead, then cupping the side of their face. I used my thumb to swipe away some of the tears there, my heart breaking for Blake with each new one that fell. And when the first aching sob rattled through their chest, I didn’t hesitate. I shifted closer, scattering the cats, until I could wrap my arm around Blake’s shoulders and draw them into a hug.

I didn’t speak. Didn’t try to reassure them with promises that everything would be all right. Because I didn’t have enough evidence for that. All I had was a deceptively joyful painting, a wet patch forming on my shirt, and the ache of foreboding in my gut that warned that something terrible had happened.

I don’t know how long I sat there, just holding Blake as they let go of everything they’d been holding in for the last week while the cats looked warily on from their huddle under the coffee table. Eventually, Blake’s tears slowed, their breathing calmed, but they remained curled against my chest, face hidden from my view.

“Mom was working on that piece when I left for Europe,” they said, their voice quiet and strained. Hoarse with emotion. “I remember the exact moment the inspiration hit her. We’d just come home from the farmer’s market and I was putting the flowers I’d bought in water. Yellow flowers were our thing. Sunflowers, daisies, marigolds, daffodils. The type didn’t matter. Just yellow. They were Mom’s favourite and they’d become mine, too, because she was always happier with a vase of yellow flowers. They gave me hope.”

Blake paused and I felt them swallow. “That’s why I bought them,” they continued. “Because I was going away, and I was worried about what that would do to her mental health. She’d had such deep lows during the time I wasback and forth to college, her depression worsening beyond anything I’d ever seen before. 

“I spent the last couple weeks before I was scheduled to fly out at my parent’s house, watching, assessing. She wasn’t doing well. I could tell. Dad could tell. But she brushed it off, telling me she’d be fine, but I was so close to cancelling my trip.” 

Blake shifted a little, settling more against me, and I tightened my hold with a gentle squeeze, letting them know I was there, I wasn’t going anywhere, I was listening, I was ready to hear whatever they wanted to share. Even as cold dread crept up my spine. 

“That day at the market, we’d laughed as we requested the florist put together a bouquet with all the yellow flowers in it. Nothing else, just yellow. And when we got home, I grabbed down the vase and bent low over the kitchen counter, arranging them just right so you could see each unique petal when mom let out a little breath.

“I knew that breath. The excitement of an idea, a vision forming in her mind’s eye, and I looked over to where she was, leaning against the sink with a glass of water, staring at me. ‘Just hold a second, sweetie,’ she’d said, and I obliged. I remember the pull of a smile as I returned to tweaking the flowers while Mom pulled out her cell phone and snapped a photo.”

And that photo had clearly been the inspiration for the painting still showing on my phone beside me, I realised. Blake’s face reflecting in the vase. A happy memory. A moment of togetherness before they left on an adventure. But the knowledge only added to the uneasy curl of apprehension in my stomach. Because Blake certainly hadn’t seemed happy to see it at the arts festival, and the reminder this evening had fairly broken them.

“I was away for two years, but every time I saw yellow flowers, I took a photo and sent it to her, to remind her we were still together in spirit even if we were apart. I talked to her almost every week, racked up horrendous long distance charges on my phone bill. But it was important. She always sounded more at ease at the end of our conversations. But then…”

Blake paused, every muscle in their body tightening against me, and their breathing got shallow and quick. I just waited, rubbing my hand up and down their arm reassuringly until they sucked in a deeper breath again. 

“I called home one day and she didn’t seem right. She sounded tired, and sluggish like she sometimes did when she was struggling. And she wasn’t making sense. And she kept saying how proud she was, how much she loved me. And it was like ice filled my veins, and I knew.

“I called Dad as soon as Mom said goodbye and we hung up. I told him to keep an eye on her. To make sure she was okay. She was slipping under. Worse than before. And I was too far away to do anything about it. I was too far away to make a difference. I called a taxi and caught the first flight home, but I was too late.” Their voice was thick with pain and renewed tears as they pressed their face into my chest, arms tightening against my waist. “She was gone before the plane touched down.”

“Blake, I’m so sorry.” My own voice felt raw, emotion sticking in my throat at the knowledge of all Blake had been through, the pain they felt to this day. Pain I couldn’t bear for them. Anguish I couldn’t protect them from.

In the quiet stillness, Applepuff crept forward, stretched a paw up to tap cautiously at my knee, a brief warning that she was about to launch, and then she was in my lap, slumped against my abdomen and rubbing her face against Blake’s arm where it wrapped around my torso. An olive branch extended. Blake huffed out a shaky breath, lifting their hand to pet my protective feline companion. Puff inched closer, curling into the crevice formed where my and Blake’s bodies met. And in the next instant, my lap was full as Snowball and Pretzel joined the cuddle pile.

“Thank you,” Blake murmured, whether to me or the cats, I wasn’t sure, so I just reinforced the hug, content to continue sitting like that for as long as they needed.

Blake’s story wasn’t finished, though, I found out a moment later, when they sucked in another breath and started talking again, their hand never ceasing the slow movement over Puff’s sleek, tawny fur. “I was devastated,” they explained unnecessarily. I could already see the evidence of how much their mother’s suicide had impacted them. If it had the power to break them this completely over a decade down the track, I could only imagine how it had been when they first arrived home from Europe.

“But Dad…” Their whole body tensed, a different kind of emotion rolling off them now and I sat stock still, waiting. Listening. “He convinced me, in the wake of it all, that art was what caused Mom’s depression. That it had become an obsession. That constantly reaching within herself to pour herself onto the canvas was the reason she’d taken her own life. He convinced me that the more she painted, the less there was of her left. And that when she’d run out of life to siphon into her art, she’d been left with nothing to do but…” Blake didn’t finish their sentence, skipping ahead to avoid the words filling their mouth.

“He pleaded with me to make a different choice. A steady choice. A logical choice. A safe choice. And the pain in his eyes when he watched me trying to deal with my grief the only way I knew how - through art - was enough that I started to believe him. I stopped painting. I got a job as a file clerk in some politician’s office. And I told myself it was for the best. Because I didn’t want to lose myself the way Mom had.”

They pushed up from my chest, then, dislodging my arm, but remaining close enough that Applepuff was relatively undisturbed. There was a fire in their eyes, an anger, and I found myself bracing for what was to come as they carded a hand through their hair. 

“I don’t even remember what I was looking for when I went over to Dad’s place that day,” Blake informed me with a shake of the head. “None of it was important once I found the letter.”

I felt slightly lost at the abrupt change of pace, and it must have shown on my face, because they shook their head and back tracked a little, providing context. “It was just over a year ago,” they explained. “I went to Dad’s because I needed something I’d left there when I moved out. A document or something, I don’t know, like I said, it didn’t matter anymore once I found the letter.”

They seemed to have skipped a couple steps again. “The letter?”

Blake nodded. “I was in the attic, searching through boxes when I noticed a canvas hidden behind an old record player. When I pulled it out, I immediately recognised it as Mom’s work, even though it was unfinished, unsigned. I knew her style as well as I knew my own. As well as I know the feel of oxygen filling my lungs when I breathe. I was shocked, because Dad had gotten rid of all Mom’s paintings like a year after she died. I came home for dinner one day to find them all gone. Every last trace of Mom’s passion erased from the house. He said he’d sold them to an art collector or something, I don’t know. I was too shocked to listen properly, too overwhelmed to comprehend his words.

“But here, ten years later, was a piece of Mom I’d never seen before. A scary piece, because it mirrored this painting.” They lifted my phone from the cushion, gazing at it reverently. “Except where this one captured her joy and love, the one in the attic revealed the despair she felt in the weeks before her death. The same vase, the same kitchen table. But the flowers were dead. The reflection captured in the glass her own tortured eyes as she seemed to search for something.”

They set the phone aside again, taking a slow, steady breath. “The painting scared me. It reinforced everything Dad had said about art draining Mom of her very essence, but it was the only painting of hers I had left, so I decided I was taking it home with me. As a reminder of what I couldn’t let myself become. Of why I was slogging through the dull drum of corporate America. But when I got it downstairs, paused in the entryway to let Dad know I was heading out again, something fell out of the back of the painting. An envelope. It had been wedged between the canvas and the frame. And on the front was my name written in Mom’s handwriting.”

The letter, I realised.

“He’d deliberately hidden it from me,” Blake said, sifting their hand through their hair again, gripping it into a ponytail before releasing it again. “The last words I had from my mother and he’d kept them from me, hidden away in the attic. A secret. And that letter?” They met my gaze fully, for the first time since they’d caught sight of the image on my phone, holding with a ferocity that seared my soul. “It changed my fucking life, Pierre,” they declared, not an ounce of doubt in their voice, their posture, their eyes. “It changed my perspective. It made me realise that hiding from art, denying my passion, was only going to lead me to a similar end to Mom. Because the way she spoke about art in that letter was like an old friend that was always there to sooth her when she was hurt.”

They removed their hands from Applepuff’s fur, lifting them to their chest, their fingers clawed as they pressed there. “It broke something open that I’d locked away,” they rasped. “It made me realise that my life wasn’t complete without art, just as Mom’s never had been. So, I started painting again, and this pressure I hadn’t noticed building inside me eased, like every brush stroke was a release valve. I painted, and I attended workshops, and I spent my days off trawling through exhibition after exhibition, learning, observing, searching.”

My breath caught, because now I understood. Blake’s Dad had said he’d sold their Mom’s paintings to an art collector, but Blake had never seen her artwork in a gallery until the Hidden Gems, Forgotten Treasures exhibit at Art and Soul. A gallery made up of artworks Margaret had collected from garage sales and thrift shops. And seeing it there, knowing their dad had sown even more lies than they’d already realised, had devastated them all over again.

“The artist residency was like fate,” Blake explained. “It was the anniversary of Mom’s death. I’d just bought a bouquet of every yellow flower I could find at the grocery store. I was waiting for my coffee order to be made before I headed out to visit her. Standing there, scrolling on my phone like everyone else, and an ad popped up. Apply now. I figured it was a sign from Mom to go for it. All in. So that night when I got home, I took photos of the paintings I’d completed in the six months since I found her letter. All four of them. I wrote up my artist statement, and before I could doubt myself, I hit send.”

A pretty big career leap. That’s how Blake had described the artist residency that first day at the Whispering Bean. Applied for it on a whim . I’d had no way of knowing just how deep those statements were. How meaningful. Their art career had gone from zero to a hundred in just over a year. But with this much trauma weighing them down, it was no wonder they hadn’t wanted to talk about it when I asked how it came about.

“I’m really glad you found your Mom’s letter,” I said, lifting a hand to touch their elbow. “The world needs your art.”

Blake let out a slow breath, their fingers delving back into Applepuff’s fur, tracing absent patterns on her tawny side. Their expression flickered somewhere between contemplation and something lighter - something just enough to soften the weight of the last half hour. “The whole world, huh?” they murmured, lifting one brow. Our eyes locked for a long moment before Blake’s drifted back down to the cats sprawled across both our laps. “Seems to me it just needs the right person to truly see it.”

Chapter Text

I was loitering by the monitor’s station. Ostensibly, I was just keeping an eye on things. Partly because if someone with authority didn’t stand imposingly in the space every once in a while, the men started to get silly and devolve into prank wars and the likes. But really, I was just hoping a call would come in that I could justify responding to myself. I felt like I’d been locked in my office for weeks with no yard time. I was chomping at the bit for some action, but when Ranger was in the wind, I took myself off the patrol roster so that I’d be readily available in case of emergency anywhere in the company.

A fucking stupid decision, if I’m being honest. And one that I thought was behind me.

I didn’t know who was handling Ranger’s absence worse: Steph, with the dark circles under her eyes and the quiet worrying air that lingered in her expression. Or me. At least Steph had Juniak’s dog to keep her occupied and give her an excuse to leave the building.

“Sit down, Tank, you’re making the place look untidy,” Lester said, tossing me an apple as he strode from the breakroom to his cubicle, biting into his own piece of fruit and spraying juice and saliva as he spoke again before bothering to chew and swallow. “Don’t you have some paperwork to sign, or a report to read?”

“Not until you submit your overdue reports from last week,” I responded with a challenging brow raise.

Lester just shrugged and flopped down into his desk chair, making it spin a full three hundred and sixty degrees before he planted his feet and eyed me critically. “You look less stressed than yesterday,” he observed. “You finally talk your artist friend out of her pants?”

“ Their pants,” I corrected with a clenched jaw as my fist threatened to crush the apple. 

Steph had already explained Blake’s pronouns to Lester, and by extension Bobby, but while the others had at least made an effort to use they and them when asking me about Blake or mentioning ‘my artist friend’ as Blake had been so creatively dubbed throughout the office as word spread, Lester didn’t seem to be trying at all. No matter how many times I corrected him.

I’d gotten so frustrated by Lester brushing off every correction like it didn’t matter that I’d blurted it out to Blake while they were painting the other night. They’d paused mid-stroke, the paint brush hovering near the canvas for a second before looking over their shoulder to give me a knowing look and a shake of the head.

I’d tried to rally the same frustration from Blake that I was feeling on their behalf, but they hadn’t taken the bait. Just a sigh, a rolled their shoulders and a return to dabbing paint onto the canvas with steady precision. 

“ If I ever meet him, I’ll make sure he understands .” Their voice had been calm, certain, like it was a simple fact rather than a battle. “ People like that think ignoring the problem makes it disappear, but it doesn’t.”

Their quiet confidence had done nothing to settle the irritation still simmering in my gut.

Now, facing Lester, I transferred the apple to my non-dominant hand so I’d be less tempted to use it as a weapon. “And not that it’s any of your business,” I added flatly. “But we’re just friends.”

He screwed up his nose in a way that said he didn’t believe me, and I fought the urge to throw my apple at his head. Despite his irritating nature, Lester was actually a friend, and a decent one at that. He’d stepped up to take on more of the client meetings in Ranger’s absence so that they didn’t automatically fall to me. He’d been keeping Steph occupied enough that she wasn’t constantly dwelling on what Ranger was doing and if he was okay. And I found out that he’d also been running interference over the last few days, acting as the first port of call for any issues that arose, thereby preventing me from biting the men’s heads off while I was impatiently waiting on the email from Margaret.

And perhaps the fact that I was once again waiting to hear from the curator had prompted my sudden restlessness this afternoon. Though at least this time I didn’t have the worry for Blake further souring my mood. They’d seemed infinitely lighter after explaining everything that had happened around their mom’s death, and at the end of the night I’d watched them skip down my front steps with a smile on my face after acknowledging the light that had returned to their eyes.

“I dunno, Tank,” Lester said, propping an elbow on his desk and peering at me like he’d sensed the direction of my thoughts. “I’ve never seen you smile at your phone as much as you have the last couple weeks.”

A decent friend with a knack for taking every opportunity to get under my skin.

“Santos is just jealous because no one reacts to his texts that way,” Cal said, leaning over the top of the divider that separated his cubicle from Lester’s.

“Yeah, if they’re smiling at a text from Santos it’s probably because they’re amused by how tiny his dick is,” Zip called from across the aisle. 

“I’ve never received any complaints about my size,” Lester defended, launching his half-eaten apple at Zip who caught it with a shit-eating grin, took a bite, and tossed it back. “And besides, it’s not the size of the boat that matters. It’s the motion of the ocean.” He rolled his hips to demonstrate, and I rolled my eyes.

Cal snorted. “Sure, but it takes a damn long time to get to China in a row-boat.”

I’d never been more grateful for a dick-measuriing contest breaking out on the command floor than I was right at that moment. Shaking my head, I started to turn away to the tune of Zip pointing out that no one sleeps around as much as Lester does unless he’s trying to prove something, for which the obvious assumption was a small penis. I’d barely taken a step, turning the apple over in my hand when an alert tone sounded from the monitor station at my back.

I spun on my heel, barking out an order to report on autopilot. It was a habit. Routine. And I really wanted the alert to be something I could respond to by getting out of the office for an hour or two.

Binkie was clicking through screens on his laptop, locating the problem and assessing the situation. “An alarm is going off at the jewellery store on Benson,” he explained. And then the phone on the desk was ringing. He answered and listened for a minute, then cut his eyes to me as he responded to whatever the person on the other end said. “I’ll send someone over to take a look at the system and see if we can figure out what’s going on,” he assured the client, then gestured at the screen where the details for the jewellery store were still up and I connected the dots.

“Zip, you’re with me,” I commanded, even though part of me wanted to leave Lester to the ribbing he was receiving as penance for all the shit he’d given me over the last couple weeks. 

Zip was on his feet and following me to the stairwell without a second of hesitation. All business where a moment before he’d been gearing up to dethrone the office jokester. We slipped easily into our roles, knowing instinctively who would drive and who would take shotgun. And by the time I’d pulled out of the garage, he was reading out details of the incident from the message Binkie had obviously sent through.

As it turned out, the alarm was tripped by a power surge that messed with the system’s calibration, but we did full perimeter checks and a test of the entire system just to be sure. A task that provided neither the thrill nor the adrenaline of a takedown, but nonetheless provided a sense of satisfaction when the store manager thanked us for our speedy and thorough response. 

Plus it filled the time necessary to get me to the end of the day without me sitting at my computer refreshing my email inbox every three and a half seconds.

When we returned to the building, Zip gave me a half nod in parting and headed across the garage to where his blue Honda was parked, heading home, and I took the stairs back up to the fifth floor intending to write the report (and check my email) before I followed suit. When I emerged on the command floor, though, it was to find Steph and Hank stepping off the elevator, big grins on their faces and a definite bounce to Steph’s step.

“Good news?” I asked, pausing when she spotted me and the grin kicked wider despite the obvious dirt stains I could see on her uniform. It looked like she’d been playing baseball and had gone all in diving for homebase.

“Ginger is back home safe and sound,” she informed me, tucking the curl that never seemed to want to be contained in her ponytail back behind her ear. Ginger, I knew from the update reports I’d received from both her and Hank, was the name of Mayor Juniak’s dog. “Uncle Joe is very happy with our dedication and service and has promised to recommend us for that city security tender Ranger’s been preparing a proposal for. Aaaand I’m going to Shorty’s to celebrate, you coming?”

I let my gaze drift down to the dirt covering her front, and raised an eyebrow to question the suggestion of going out to eat in her current state,

Her predictable eye roll was accompanied by a huff and a shake of the head as she shoved her fists onto her hips. “I’m gonna shower first,” she explained exasperatedly. “But I wanted to see if you, Lester and Bobby were free for dinner first in case you had stuff you needed to finish up before we go.”

I nodded. “I’ll be in my office. Let me know when you’re ready to go.”

*o*

Twenty minutes later, I was packing up for the night when Blake's text alert tone pinged on my phone for the first time in hours. And the second.

BLAKE: Boooooooooored. 

BLAKE: What are you up to tonight?

I smiled and dropped the file I was holding into the open desk drawer beside me before I tapped out a quick reply, leaning my hip against the desk

TANK: About to leave work. A few of us are heading to Shorty’s for dinner. Steph closed the case of the Mayor’s missing dog and wants to celebrate.

BLAKE: Oh nice! Have fun!

Their reply was immediate, but their ready acceptance of the fact that I wouldn’t be spending time with them tonight left a hollow feeling in my chest. It wasn’t that I was disappointed they didn’t want to hang out tonight. I thought their question of what I was up to implied that they did want to, but there was something about the way they just rolled with it. Perhaps it was the thought that Blake has assumed a dichotomy and separation of the people in my life. On the one hand: my Rangeman family. And on the other, Blake.

It didn’t sit well in my gut.

TANK: Do you wanna join us?

The little bubbles appeared at the bottom of the screen, indicating they were typing. I waited. All previous actions I’d had lined up to finish tidying my desk for the day were on hold as I stared at those three dancing dots. 

And then they disappeared.

I frowned at the phone.

It wasn’t like Blake to hesitate or take the time to make a considered response when we were texting. Usually, I was treated to the raw, unfiltered thoughts, just the same as when we were alone together. But this pause, this suspense, felt heaving with… something. And I immediately wanted to lift the weight.

If Blake wasn’t going to continue typing, I’d bridge the gap.

TANK: Shorty’s does the best food.

TANK: … even if they DO allow people to order pineapple on pizza…

A laughing emoji appeared on the second message, and then the dancing dots were there again, but only for a moment.

BLAKE: Nothing wrong with pineapple on pizza.

A relieved smile stole away the tension that had been building in my body.

TANK: I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just say that.

Another laughing emoji appeared and the sound of footsteps approaching down the hall reminded me that I was meant to be preparing to leave. Straightening, I slid the desk drawer closed, locked it, and returned the files I hadn’t gotten to to my intray just as Steph poked her head inside the door, checking I wasn’t busy before entering fully.

She was dressed in a denim skirt that stopped above the knee and a flouncy looking navy top, paired with sandals. Her hair was piled on top of her head in such a way that it was unclear what was securing it and how, but I’d long ago stopped questioning the mysteries of hair. Having none of my own sort of disqualified me from having an opinion on it.

“Bobby’s just slapping a bandaid on Hal and then we’re ready to go,” she announced, pausing a few steps into the office.

I raised an eyebrow. “What kind of bandaid?” I asked, knowing the statement was a shorthand to refer to almost any kind of medical attention Bobby gave to one of the men. More than likely, it was a way for her to distance herself from thoughts about what was actually involved, knowing that she abhorred doctors and hospitals. Even getting her comfortable enough to allow Bobby to examine and treat some of her wounds had been a trial. “We can’t afford any more men out of the field.”

We already had Ranger and Hector in the wind, Woody on desk duties with a broken leg and Zero off visiting a sick family member. If numbers dwindled any more, I’d have to start relooking at the roster.

Steph just laughed. “Relax, Big Guy,” she said. “It’s literally just a bandaid. He tripped over a curb and grazed his knee.”

“One would argue he’d be able to slap his own bandaid on it,” I pointed out, crossing my arms over my chest, but she just shrugged.

“You know Bobby.”

And I did. The medic would have wanted to examine him to make sure it was cleaned out properly, and that there was nothing more serious going on under the surface. Partly because he took his job way too seriously. And partly because he didn’t trust half the men in the building to self-report an injury until they’d already made it worse by trying to play it off as no big deal.

At that moment, another text from Blake came through and I automatically glanced down to find they’d shared a meme of an anthropomorphised pineapple climbing on top of a startled looking pizza, holding a finger to it’s “lips” and saying, ‘Shhh, no one needs to know.’

I couldn’t help a quiet laugh, even though pineapple on pizza was clearly the work of the devil.

“Is that Blake?” Steph asked, snapping my attention back to the room as I was reminded I wasn’t alone. God only knows what my face was doing, because I definitely wasn’t holding up my usual blank mask. But Steph was peering at me with one of her soft smiles on her face. The kind she got when she was happy for someone she cared about. “You should see if they want to join us.”

I just stared. Blake and Steph in the same space? They were both observant, both persistent, and both entirely too good at reading people. And as much as I’d already suggested it to Blake, I suddenly wasn’t sure I was ready for such a development.

Although…

Steph shifted, eyes flickering over my expression like she was rethinking her assessment of the situation. “... or not? You don’t have to, I just thought -” She sighed and shook her head. “Nevermind. I understand.”

“I’ll see if they’re available.” I caught a glimpse of Steph’s surprise as I lowered my attention to the phone once more and tapped out a message.

TANK: Steph wants you to come.

BLAKE: Does she actually? Or is it strategic manipulation?

It wasn’t strategic manipulation, but now that they’d reminded me that it was an option, I thought back to Blake’s steady assurance from the other night. Conscious that I was still being watched, I kept my head down and my expression blank as I typed out the one fact I thought might convince Blake to join us.

TANK: Lester will be there.

BLAKE: *cracks knuckles* Say less.

I squashed down the smile that threatened to break free as I sent through an address and ETA, then tucked my phone away before looking up at Steph once more. “They’ll meet us there.”

Chapter Text

My nerves were shot to hell sitting in the booth at the back of Shorty's with my friends and waiting for Blake to arrive. I thought Steph would probably be fine. She, at least, knew how to chill and not completely embarrass me by dropping every thinly veiled suggestion she could. Bobby, too, could be counted on to be mindful with his words. But Lester? 

I was extremely grateful for Steph's convenient omission of the fact that Blake would be joining us when we'd all met up in the garage at Rangeman, otherwise I was sure Lester would already be sprouting every euphemism he could, just to try to get a reaction out of me.

Currently, all that energy was being channelled directly into our regular waitress, Vicky, as he flirted outrageously with her. I was pretty sure she’d stopped by the table to take our orders, but now she was caught in whatever sexual innuendo net Lester had cast while I was keeping an eye on the door for Blake’s arrival. 

And she was giving it all back in kind. A flirty smile, a flip of her blonde ponytail, the tip of her pen trailing absently down the open collar of her top, lingering just at the top of her cleavage. It was encouragement Lester didn’t need, but he lapped it up like a dog who hadn’t seen water in days.

And poor Bobby was caught in between them, looking as tense as I felt, possibly worse. Because while my muscles were drawn tight in anticipation of whatever was going to happen when two previously very separate parts of my life collide, Bobby was already suffering a unique torture. Because he wasn’t just caught between Lester and Vicky, he had Lester leaning over him, practically on top of him using his bedroom eyes and bedroom voice in close proximity.

I recognise that tension, just not in the same way. If that was me in Bobby’s position with almost anyone leaning that close to me, their arm brushing mine, my body would be locked. But whereas I assumed Bobby was trying to control his reactions due to the attraction he so obviously felt - the way his cheeks grew darker with a blush, his breath hitching slightly, the longing gaze he ran along Lester’s profile were reminiscent of scenes from romantic movies I’d been forced to endure growing up - my first instinct was to break contact as fast as possible. 

Bobby’s battle, though, was in keeping his desires in check. He was physically holding himself back.

Beside me, Steph let out a sigh as she shook her head. She cast Bobby a sympathetic look as he refocused on the wall over her shoulder, his jaw clenching tightly. The more I watched, the more I was grateful that sexual attraction was not something I had to deal with. It seemed an unstoppable force, pulling them into increasingly awkward situations. I couldn’t fathom functioning day to day if my brain was just going to short-circuit because someone leaned too close.

I understood wanting attention. I understood liking people. But this charged, fraught mess of emotions swirling between them? It had clearly done something unhinged to their brains. One was making a fool of himself, while the other was barely keeping it together, appearing to want to dissolve into the scarred pleather of the booth cushions.

The door at the far end of the restaurant opened, catching my attention as Blake entered the space. They’d bunched their hair up in a bun, exposing the shaved back and sides of their head and the glint of the sunflower charm hanging off the arm of their glasses as they scanned the room. 

“Is that Blake?” Steph asked quietly, craning her neck to see around Lester and Bobby to where my gaze was caught. 

I raised my hand, and Blake’s eyes latched on in an instant, their entire face lighting up with a smile when they saw me and started weaving through the crowd to our booth.

“Blake?” Lester said, his attention snapping to Steph as she slipped out of the booth, the waitress instantly forgotten. His keen, green eyes cut from Steph to me and then to the patrons filling the space beyond our table. It took barely a second for him to spot them, and then he was pulling his legs up from under the table, like he was preparing to climb over Bobby, or over the back of the booth to get out and intercept my friend. “You didn’t tell me you invited your artist friend.”

“Sit down, Les,” Bobby instructed. His voice was rough, still clearly affected by Lester’s proximity a moment before, but his frown was one of exasperation as he shoved a hand at Lester’s chest, causing him to fall back onto the bench seat. “Just chill the fuck out, for once, would you?”

Grateful for Bobby’s restraining efforts, I slipped from the booth just as Blake squeezed behind a man with his chair pushed back a ridiculous distance from the table he was supposedly seated at. 

“Hey,” Blake said, lifting their smile to me, like a sunflower turning to face the sun.

“Hey,” I replied, allowing my lips to tip up a little. I wanted to give them more - more than a restrained smile, more than a quiet greeting, but the weight of watching eyes kept me in check. I was happy Blake was here. I was happy whenever I got to spend time with them, and tonight was no exception. There were just complications that came in the form of three people who knew me better than I wanted to admit and would be reading far too much into every little move I made tonight if the laser beams searing into my skin were anything to go by.

How the hell was Lester still so oblivious to Bobby’s feelings? If the medic’s stare was even a fraction of the weight I felt on me as my gaze roved over Blake’s face, checking for a hint of the sadness that had plagued them for the last week and finding none, then he really was an idiot. 

My eyes locked on Blake’s jaw. “You’ve got some blue on your face,” I said, lifting my hand to rub over the small spot with my thumb. I didn’t think I could have stopped the gesture if I tried. It was instinctual, happening before I was even aware of my hand moving. 

“Oh!” Surprise widened Blakes expression. Their hand came up as mine fell away, a slight brush of contact as they passed in midair, then they were rubbing at their jaw more vigorously than I had. “I thought I got it all.” A short laugh escaped them. “I’ve been walking around with blue on my face all day and no one told me.”

In the next instant, Steph was at my side, offering what looked and smelled like a wet wipe. “Here,” she said. “This should help.”

Blake took the wipe gratefully and used it to banish the blue splotch on their face. They tilted their head to the side the way they did when they were stepping back to assess the progress of a painting they were working on. “You must be Steph,” they said, lifting a hand and giving it a habitual once-over to ensure it wasn’t covered in paint before holding out to Steph to shake. “I’m Blake. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Steph took the offered hand, but it was Lester who replied from the table behind us. “Funny. Because we’ve heard almost nothing about you.”

I cut my eyes to him, lighting a fire behind my glare to let him know that his comment was unwelcome, but every ounce of his attention was focused on Blake. Lester’s grin widened, but there was something too sharp in it. Like he was sizing Blake up rather than welcoming them.

I didn’t like it

Blake was standing tall, unfazed, but I could still feel the shift in the air. A quiet current of assessment and challenge, something unspoken waiting to snap into place.

The instinct to grab Blake’s hand and just walk away was strong, but between Blake’s hand casually resting on my forearm, Steph’s rolled eyes, and the sheer energy coming off Blake in waves, I forced myself to hold still.

Steph let out a soft scoff, shaking her head as she, too, cut Lester a glance. “Maybe if you didn’t treat everything like a joke, people would give you something worth holding on to,” Steph pointed out. Her tone was quiet, calm, almost pitying and the way her eyes flickered to Bobby wasn’t lost on me. “Surely you don’t want to spend your entire life bed-hopping?”

Lester’s lips parted like he wanted to challenge her, but for once, he hesitated. His eyes darted toward Bobby, who hadn’t moved a muscle, hadn’t reacted. His entire posture was rigid, and the look he speared Steph with was somewhere between a plea and a warning.

I exhaled, at once grateful that the attention had shifted away from Blake and me, while simultaneously wary of the spike in tension Steph’s words had caused. I slid into my usual spot in the booth, scooting across to the wall, and Blake followed without hesitation. Without any consideration for the unspoken rule that had existed around the group dining dynamic in this booth for as long as I could remember, the silent knowledge that dictated seating arrangements. Because unlike every other time we came to Shorty’s, the space beside me wasn’t empty.

Blake’s warmth caressed my side from barely an inch away. Close. Welcome. Completely comfortable in a way that no one else’s presence ever was.

I barely had time to process the thought before the entire table reacted.

Steph, still standing at the end of the table, stared open mouthed. Her gaze swept over Blake, then me, assessing. She didn’t say anything, which was a bit of a miracle, but the way both her brows lifted in my direction made it clear she was holding back as a courtesy.

Bobby’s eyes held a spark of curiosity as they lingered briefly, but he too, kept his thoughts to himself.

And then there was Lester.

He looked between me and Blake, that too-sharp grin returning to his face. “Huh.”

I didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to encourage whatever was about to come out of his mouth, but there was no way I could ignore it. “Huh, what?” I asked flatly, knowing damn well I wasn’t going to like the answer.

He propped his elbows on the table, leaning in to whisper, like it was a secret, “You don’t let anyone sit next to you like that.”

The reaction from my friends wasn’t that Blake was next to me. It was that I wasn’t pulling away. I wasn’t reestablishing the space they all assumed I needed.

Blake glanced between me and Lester. Lester’s statement  wasn’t news to them. They’d seen the automatic distance my family kept while we shared space. The way they’d left the armchair open for me even though I was the last to arrive in the living room after washing up the dinner dishes. The reserved physical touch.

It didn’t take a genius to realise I would have preferred an empty space to most anyone sitting beside me. But Blake had been quietly unravelling that space for over a week now.

“Guess that makes me special.” They tipped their head to the side, eyeing the man across the table. A challenge. “You jealous?” 

Steph snorted. Bobby sighed. Lester’s grin widened like he was about to make this his new favourite topic. 

Good thing Blake had come prepared for battle.

Before any further verbal jabs could be thrown, Steph’s stomach growled and she slid into the booth on Blake’s other side, dragging a menu closer even though I was pretty sure she’d had it memorised over a year ago. “What are we feeling?” she asked, flipping it open. 

*o*

There was a beat of silence once we’d ordered and Vicky walked away, Lester following the progression of her ass through the tables until she was out of sight, and then his attention was on Blake once more and my gut tightened.

I knew they could handle themself, and I was looking forward to whatever they had up their sleeve to decimate him with, but it was nearly impossible to contain my urge to wrap a hand around Lester’s throat and cut off his air before he could say anything that would make Blake uncomfortable.

Thankfully, though, it was Steph who jumped in with the first question off the bat. “So, the guys tell me you’re an artist?” she prompted. “You have paintings on display in Trenton Gallery at the moment?”

It was a safe topic overall, but I worried how Blake would take it with the reminder of their mom and everything that had happened since then so close to the surface. Blake being Blake, though, sensed my tension and knocked their knee against mine under the table, like a small reassurance.

They launched into an explanation of their residency and everything that was involved in it beyond just making art and I found myself enthralled the way I always was when they spoke about their art. The way their eyes lit up, the hands moved almost poetically to enhance the descriptions they gave. Every little detail they wove in just made my heart swell for them. Because every little thing they had achieved - from the tiniest speck of paint on a canvas, to the success of all the cat paintings filling that exhibit, and beyond - was in spite of the loss and manipulation they had suffered.

I could identify with their grief. The pain in every tiny movement, every softly spoken word last night as they’d told me about their mom. Even now, more than twenty years on, I still felt the pain of my father and brother’s deaths. The needlessness of it all. And their absence in my life. I sometimes wondered if I would have turned out different if my two main male role models hadn’t died just when I needed them most. But there are too many factors to consider, and it ultimately didn’t matter. What’s done is done, and I am who I am.

But Blake’s pain, with their father’s betrayal revealed just over a year ago, was still so recent. I marvelled anew at how they could radiate so much sunshine with that dark shadow swirling inside them.

“So, it’s more than just making art all day?” Bobby asked when Blake paused for a sip of water. 

They nodded as they swallowed. “Oh yeah. The whole point is to provide artists with a focused environment to grow - time, space, resources away from the usual pressures and routines. I get to spend a lot of time just working on my art, with the goal of presenting a new exhibit at the end of the residency, but I’m also attending and leading workshops and seminars. Learning from others and sharing what I know. It’s pretty awe inspiring to be a part of this community of sharing creativity.”

I relaxed into the cushioned back on the booth more, content to watch Blake interact with my friends now that the initial tension of their arrival had dissipated. That is, the next part of their explanation left their lips and I saw the immediate reactions on Lester, Bobby and Steph’s faces. The way their eyes cut to me.

“And it’s not all formal training, I did enough of that in college and throughout my time in Europe just after. I also get to play around with other techniques and just network. Like at the Art and Soul festival the other weekend. I tried out a bunch of things I’ve never done before, and sure maybe things like needle felting are never gonna make it into my paintings, but it helps me appreciate the skills required to produce the fine arts they put forth, and it’s interesting to see how they mix and layer the fibres to create different colours and effects. Stuff like that sits in the back of the brain and marinades. It all becomes fertilizer to nourish future ideas.”

Steph’s eyebrows were hitched higher on her forehead than usual as she peered past Blake to me. Bobby stilled for half a second in the middle of Blake’s explanation, barely noticeable, but there nonetheless. But the way Lester leaned forward, his eyes trained solely on me, made it clear that he’d connected the dots and was ready to solve the puzzle, or at least make me uncomfortable.

“Art and Soul?” he questioned, peering from me to Blake and back, an amused grin growing on his punchable face. “Isn’t that the festival Nikki organises every year?” He paused, his gaze growing pointed. “Tank, did you take her home with you?”

My jaw flexed, which was more than enough to confirm his conclusion was correct.

On Blake’s other side Steph inhaled slowly, biting back whatever she wanted to say. Whether it was to jump on the interrogation bandwagon, or something else, I couldn’t say, because all my energy was focused on keeping myself in check.

“Take them home.” Bobby didn’t look at Blake when he corrected Lester. He looked at him. At Lester. And there was more behind the words than a simple defense of a third party - something unspoken and knotted tight. Something I recognised more than I cared to admit.

But the words barely seemed to register.

“Huh,” he mused. “Didn’t think you were the type to bring girls home, Tank. I bet she was a big hit with your mom and Nikki.” He smirked at me, then turned back to Blake, ready to hear more of what they had to say, as if his comments weren’t worth pausing over.

Except Blake did pause. The energy shifted.

Below the table, their knee pressed against mine again. Staying there, steady and reassuring. A reminder that they could handle themself. That they’d come here to handle Lester’s apparent lack of care for their pronouns themself. 

Above the table, Blake folded their hands neatly, all their attention zeroed in on Lester. Not aggressive. Not annoyed. Calculated. Ready. 

“You mean you didn’t think Pierre was the type to bring a person home,” they corrected lightly, showing much more restraint than I would have. “You bet they were a big hit.”

Lester rolled his eyes. “Does it really make a difference?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Blake replied smoothly. 

The steady calm they exuded was a stark difference to the tension winding me tight, but I didn’t interrupt. Didn’t try to take over and defend Blake. This was their fight. They’d trained for the coming conversation in a way I never had. Never needed to.

“How would you feel if I was talking about you and said something like, ‘Oh, you know Lester, she’s a bit of a jokester, but we put up with her because we know she’s harmless. She doesn’t mean to be so ignorant. You can’t blame her for it, she’s just a girl.”

Lester frowned. “I’m not a girl, though.”

Blake gave him a slow smile. He’d fallen right into their trap. Leaning forward, they lowered their voice, but the words rang clear. “Neither am I.”

I pressed my lips together, holding back the smug expression that threatened to break out on my face. Lester was about to be absolutely owned.

His brow furrowed, as his gaze dipped from Blake’s face to the hint of cleavage peeking out of the neckline of their tank top. “Yeah, but biologically-”

“My assigned sex is not the same as my gender identity.” The glint in Blake’s eye was further proof that the poor guy was playing right into their hand, and I found myself returning the pressure of Blake’s knee against mine as a subtle show of support and encouragement for whatever would come next. 

Lester blinked in confusion, and I noted that where Bobby and Steph had been watching with mild amusement a moment earlier, they were now following the back and forth with something more akin to curiosity, a desire to understand. Like they, too, could sense the education Blake was about to hit Lester over the head with. But Bobby’s curiosity was threaded with something tighter, almost bracing. Like he was willing Lester to finally get it, but knowing that the more likely outcome was a punchline that wouldn’t land. 

Thankfully, Blake’s statement had flown straight overtop of Lester’s understanding, thereby nullifying his ability to make a joke out of it. “Your what?”

I could see the visions of trainwrecks reflected in Bobby’s eyes. An expression he’d held for Lester more times than I could count. Like he couldn’t quite believe he’d fallen for the idiot beside him.

Blake exhaled and broke eye contact for the first time since Lester’s disrespect to reach into their bag and pull out their sketch book and a handful of paint pens. “All right,” they said, flipping the book open to a blank page and picking up one of the pens. “Let’s talk about art.”

Chapter Text

Everyone stared, me included, as Blake used the grey marker to draw three squares on the page. They lifted their eyes to Lester, the student they needed to get to understand the concept most. 

“Let’s say each of these squares is a canvas,” they began. “The canvases represent three people with different gender identities. One is male, one is female, and the third is non-binary.” Beside each square, they wrote a different label. M. F. NB. “But how can we tell them apart?”

Lester’s lips quirked up. “You look in their pants?”

Bobby groaned and Steph face-palmed. It was a typical Lester comment. Honestly, any one of us should have predicted it. Problem was, we were all stuck in that constant state of hoping he’d do better, and being disappointed every single time.

“Yes, and no,” Blake said, tipping their head from side to side in a show of considering Lester’s answer. “It’s true that when babies are born, doctors assign sex by looking at the genitals. Penis equals male, vagina equals female, right?” 

His nod was wary, finally catching on that he was ill-equipped for this confrontation. “Riiight.”

Blake smiled and gestured to the coloured markers on the table. “Let’s use these colours to represent the sex of each canvas,” they suggested. “Which one should we use for the male?”

“It’s like watching one of those kids tv shows,” Steph murmured to Bobby.

“Blake should have brought crayons instead of markers, though.” Bobby’s reply garnered a smirk from both Steph and Blake. “They’re more his level.”

Lester just rolled his eyes and pointed to a marker. “Blue?”

Nodding, Blake picked up the blue marker and drew a frame around the first square. “What about the female?” 

Lester pointed at the pink marker and watched with narrowed eyes as Blake drew a pink frame around the second square canvas. “Good job,” they praised, condescension dripping from their voice. “And the non-binary canvas? What colour frame should they get? Pink or blue?”

His eyes narrowed. “That depends on what’s in the canvas’s pants.”

Blake’s eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. “Can’t you tell by looking at the canvas itself?”

“They all look the same,” Lester drawled.

Blake nodded again, the corners of their lips pulling up into a knowing smile as they pressed their glasses up their nose. “You’re right. Babies do all look the same.”

“I feel like I should go see if Shorty has any jelly beans to reward him when he gets something right,” Steph whispered, watching the scene with avid attention.

Bobby agreed with a nod. “Positive reinforcement, good thinking.”

I snorted despite myself. Glad I wasn’t the only one that had gotten fed up with Lester’s constant disregard for Blake’s pronouns. The fact that Bobby and Steph had tried to do what they could to make him understand even before they’d ever had a single interaction with Blake was heartwarming. They were good friends.

Blake lifted the pink pen again and drew a frame around the final square on the page. “Let’s say the non-binary canvas was assigned female at birth. So we have a male and two females, fresh from the womb and ready to forge their identities. It’s all up to them, right?” 

The silence that met the question sent a spark of hope that Lester was actually picking up what Blake was putting down. That he was making an effort to understand. Perhaps he sensed that his instinctual answer might be the wrong one.

“Unfortunately, not,” Blake continued after letting the moment draw out for a bit. “Because society has expectations and ingrained ideals.” They shifted their voice higher as they picked up the blue marker. “ Oh, what a rambunctious little boy you have! Look at him playing in the dirt with his little shorts and t-shirt! We should give him some trucks to encourage his boyish interests.” They drew a little truck in the corner of the canvas. “ Look at that strong jaw. You look so handsome.” Blake added some bold lines with thick strokes . “You’re so strong, you’ll be a great quarter back when you grow up.” They added a flexed bicep to the mix.

Pausing, Blake set down the blue marker with the same amount of care and precision as you would a loaded gun, and picked up their next weapon. The pink marker. Before they could launch into a series of similar statements for the female canvases, though, Steph pitched in, speaking directly from her own experiences as her voice mimicked her mother’s a little too well.

“ Oh look at that precious girl playing in the dirt. She’s going to get her dress all dirty. Better give her a tea-set in the living room instead so she learns to be demure.”

Blake sent Steph a knowing grin and quickly sketched a tea cup and pot along with a dress into both the pink-framed canvases, nodding for Steph to continue.

“Isn’t she such a little beauty? Just look at those eyelashes?” Steph paused only briefly as Blake started adding flowing, curving lines to the pink canvases. “ No, sweetie, boys don’t like girls who are too loud.”  Blake’s touch with the marker became softer, the markings more delicate and refined.

“So here we can clearly see that we have a male, a female and a non-binary person, right?” Blake asked, sitting back to examine their work, and then Lester, spearing him with a raised eyebrow. “This is accurate?”

Lester narrowed his eye, but said nothing.

Blake shook their head, and tried another tactic. “Lester, what are your pronouns?”

Another guarded look from the man across the table. “I’m male.”

“So you’re comfortable with he/ him pronouns?” Blake checked. “Do you feel comfortable with the portrayal of the male here? You’re happy with the blue frame? The truck? The bold lines? This all feels right to you? You’d wear these generalisations?”

He nodded, and then sagged slightly in relief when Blake cut their attention to Steph beside them. “How about you, Steph?”

“I’m fine with the pink frame,” Steph said slowly. “And I do like dresses and to feel pretty, but I’m not sure about just how many delicate little lines there are. And I wouldn’t mind a truck, or a motorbike instead of the tea set.”

“Great,” Blake said, picking up both the pink and blue pens and holding them towards Steph. “We can make some of the pink lines bolder. And when you say a motorbike, what colour do you think? Are we getting a manly motorbike? Or a Barbie bike?”

Steph’s eyes lit up. “Can I have a manly one?”

Blake inclined their head. “You can have whatever kind of bike you want,” they said. “This is your gender expression.” They waved the blue marker in a questioning way and Steph nodded in agreement.

“Wait,” Lester spoke up, his eyebrows drawn. “That’s the girl canvas, you can’t put blue in there.”

A supreme sense of satisfaction and pride washed over me as Blake speared Lester with a single raised eyebrow look and uttered a challenging, “Watch me.” They flicked the lid off the blue marker with their thumb and held his gaze for an extra second before lowering the top of the marker to the page and sketching in a motorcycle over top of the tea set they’d previously drawn.

“But-“

The urge to roll my eyes was strong and evidently, Bobby was right there with me. “You’ve known Steph for years, Les,” the medic pointed out. “Is she what you would call a girly girl?”

Steph smirked. “Given the number of arguments I’ve had with my mother about my less than lady-like behaviour through the years, I’m pretty confident that I exhibit qualities that aren’t in line with the typical girly girl.”

“But she’s still a girl ,” Lester pointed out, sounding almost exasperated.

“And you’d still be a boy even if you liked ponies,” Blake countered. “Know how I know?” They waited a second to see if he’d respond before answering their own question. “Because you’ve stated you’re male. I know Steph is female because she’s confirmed it. Neither of you have a problem with the frame colour you were assigned at birth. And the way you decorate your canvases, the way you show the world who you are, for the most part, falls in line with societal standards. But as Steph has pointed out, the parts that don’t fit the norm are a cause for contention between her and her mom.”

There was a beat of silence while Blake let that sink in, holding Lester’s gaze. Then, with the blue marker still in hand, they returned their attention to the sketchbook and started doodling in various shapes and drawings to the third square. The one that represented the non-binary person.

They added bold blue lines, and a pair of chunky blue boots, a head with short hair. Switching to pink again, they gave some of the delicate lines more weight.

We all watched quietly, and I smiled as they put the pink pen down and picked up the yellow, sketching out a daisy over top of some of the pink and blue lines. Then in green they added a paintbrush and palette.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Lester protested. “What are you doing?”

Blake paused, lifted just their eyes from the page briefly, then returned to their drawings. “I’m decorating my canvas to express my gender. The same way I make decisions about what to wear and how to cut and style my hair to express my gender.”

Lester shook his head. “Don’t you have to stick to pink and blue?”

They didn’t look up this time, just kept adding details. “Nope.” The pop on the ‘p’ added to the nonchalance that I could see was grating on Lester. “I’m not male, and I’m not female. I don’t identify fully with either of the binary genders. I take elements of both to express myself. But I also don’t limit myself to just those two options.”

“Okay, but it’s confusing,” Lester pointed out. “How am I supposed to know if you’re a guy or a girl if I can’t tell by looking?”

I watched Blake’s lips curl up in a smile just before they lifted their head to give Lester their full attention once more. “Exactly.”

“What?”

Bobby sighed. “You can’t, Les.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back, watching Lester’s expression closely. Willing him to finally get it . A glance across at Bobby and Steph revealed similar expressions of exasperated patience.

Blake sighed and closed the sketchbook, folding their hands on top of it, and drove their point home. “If you’re unsure, you should ask,” they said solemnly. “And if you’re told someone’s pronouns, you should respect them, no matter what you may think to the contrary. If someone tells you they prefer they/them pronouns, use they/them pronouns.”

It was a simple message in the end. One that I thought would have been common sense. But as he’d proven far too many times, common sense wasn’t that common.

Lester shook his head. “You could have just said that without the kindergarten lesson,” he pointed out, eliciting a groan from every other person at the table. Because he had been told. Repeatedly.

*o*

“All I’m saying,” Steph’s voice rose above Bobby’s as he tried to offer a logical explanation to the plight Steph had been explaining: the events that had led up to the moment her latest skip had been caught stealing. Her half-eaten slice of pizza was held aloft and all but forgotten in one hand as she used the other to gesture. “All I’m saying,” she repeated, quieter now since Bobby had stopped talking mid sentence. “-is that maybe if period products weren’t so costly, Caroline wouldn’t have felt the need to stuff them and a whole case of chocolate into her purse and walk out of the story with them.”

“I can think of a lot better things to steal,” Lester commented, but Blake - their mouth full of a fresh bite - waved a hand at him dismissively. 

“No vagina, no opinion,” they said after taking a moment to swallow. Things had gotten lighter after Lester conceded that he’d been thoughtless where Blake’s pronouns were concerned and vowed to do better. The joking had resumed and Blake had fallen into the easy rhythm of our group. But it was clear from a few comments they’d made throughout the evening that they weren’t about to let Lester get away with his tomfoolery the way most others would.

“I like that.” Steph grinned her approval at Blake. Then, turning back to Lester, she added. “You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never experienced menstruation. It’s uncomfortable .”

Blake shook their head, caught once again with their mouth full at the moment they had a desire to speak. “Don dow pa yuh uh-puhrunch,” they uttered around the pizza filling their mouth and hindering tongue movement and articulation.

“Huh?”

Lester, Bobby and Steph stared at Blake in confusion while they attempted to expedite the swallowing process without taking the time to chew properly and just ended up choking instead.

“They said ‘don’t downplay your experience,“ I said, rubbing their back firmly as they coughed and sputtered. Reaching for their glass only to find it empty, I shifted my own half full water glass into their hand, watching carefully in case more needed to be done.

When Blake finally managed a full breath without coughing again, I lifted my eyes to the others only to find them staring again, only this time I was the centre of their attention. One of my least favourite places to be.

“What?”

Bobby and Lester shared a raised-eyebrow look, and Steph had one of those this-is-very-interesting-and-I-need-more-details looks on her face, but whatever it was that had shocked them was cast aside when Blake swallowed another gulp of my water, and launched into an explanation of their statement. pointing out that menstruation was often far more than just uncomfortable for those having to go through it every month, but that women and other uterus owners constantly downplay it because hearing about it makes men uncomfortable.

“You shouldn't have to hide when you're in pain because you're cramping, or feel guilty when you have to duck to the bathroom more often during the work day to change your tampon or pad or whatever because you have a heavy flow. Men wouldn't make a secret of it, and they’d demand accommodations. I mean, we’ve all met someone who suffered from man flu.”

As Blake spoke, they patted my thigh, letting me know they were all right and I could remove my hand from their back without drawing anyone else's attention back to our connection. I retracted my hand slowly, my palm tingling with loss at the lack of connection where usually there would have been relief, but I pushed the thought and sensation aside to focus back on the conversation. 

Bobby tried to protest, but Lester placed a hand on his chest, shaking his head solemnly, and causing Bobby to freeze at the contact. 

“Don’t bother, Bobby,” Lester said. “Blake’s got a point. You get the worst man flu.”

While the pair launched into an argument over the severity of illnesses Lester had seen the medic deal with, and Steph added points to both sides, Blake turned a soft smile towards me. 

“Thank you,” they said, more lip syncing than actual sound so as not to draw the attention of our dinner companions. 

I dipped my head in a barely there nod and pressed my knee against theirs again. “Of course,” I whispered. “I’m not gonna let you choke to death in Shorty’s. There are better ways to die.”

“Like old age?”

Warmth washed through my chest at the idea of growing old with Blake. Sharing a life with them. Being there for all the big moments in their life, but also the tiny, seemling insignificant ones. I pictured them curled at the end of the sofa sipping tea and reading, leaning against the counter and telling me about their day while I cooked, sprawled on a picnic rug in a garden of yellow flowers, sketching. And through all of the scenes, I was beside them. The images didn’t cease filling my head, but the warmth they brought diminished as a rattling sort of panic stirred in the pit of my stomach.

Could I have that? With Blake? It’s not something I’ve ever wanted before, but…

“Pierre?”

I blinked and refocused on Blake at their quiet call, sending them a reassuring smile when I caught the questioning look in their eyes. “‘M fine.” At least I was until I realised the table had gone silent and my friends were staring at me again.

Chapter Text

“Who are you, and what have you done with Tank?” Steph demanded the second Blake had driven out of the parking lot an hour later. While I’d walked Blake to their car in the back corner of the lot, Steph, Lester and Bobby had headed towards the two SUVs we’d come in, chatting in a little triangle behind them. I thought it was odd that they decided to hang about and talk here, since they were all going back to the Rangeman building together and could continue whatever conversation they were having on the way and once they got there, but Steph’s immediate switch to interrogation, cutting Lester off mid-sentence, made me realise they were waiting for me.

“Well, clearly he’s Pierre, ” Bobby pointed out, letting me know that the fact that Blake had been using my given name the few times they’d referred to or addressed me directly had not gone unnoticed. Not that I expected much to go unnoticed, but I’d still held onto a tiny nugget of hope that they wouldn’t make a big deal about it. 

I should have known better.

“I thought you hated being called Pierre,” Bobby added. His stance was relaxed despite his crossed arms and the calculating look in his eye.

“I didn’t even know your name was Pierre for, like, the first two years I knew you,” Steph reminded me, referring to the time I’d been injured and had the misfortune of her being in the emergency waiting room when the doctor called out my name.

I sighed. There was little I could do for the interrogation. Even if I put it off now, it would come back around later, and the longer I left it, the more ammo they’d have. And I’d already been avoiding their questions for a couple of weeks. It was in my best interests to get this over with now. “I don’t hate being called Pierre,” I explained, tucking my hands into my pockets. “I hate that most people turn it into a joke when they find out. Blake’s known me since before the army. It’d be weird for them to call me Tank.”

They all made sounds of understanding, but I knew this wasn’t the only point they had to make about the evening spent with Blake and all they’d observed, so I just waited. 

It didn’t take long.

“You let h- them sit right next to you,” Lester reminded us. 

“And it didn’t appear to affect you the way anyone else in close proximity usually does,” Bobby added. Probably, he’d been keeping an eye out for signs of an impending PTSD episode all night.

“Your thighs were even touching a few times,” Steph put in, drawing my immediate attention. 

I hadn’t thought anyone would notice the silent communication Blake and I had shared under the table. Certainly not Lester and Bobby from the other side of the booth, and I figured Steph wasn’t aware enough of her surroundings to make such an observation. 

I was wrong.

“And not only did you understand what Blake said when sh-they were talking around a mouthful of food, but you shared your water when they started choking.”

I reinforced my blank face out of habit, unused to having my every action examined under a microscope. This was the kind of interrogation I’d expected from Mom and Nikki when I was home. The interrogation that had thankfully never come. I’d driven away from that weekend with nothing more than a couple of knowing looks and that one comment from Mom that Blake was important to me.

It seemed my friends were making up for it tenfold.

“And?” I questioned. I knew what they were hinting at. It was as Mom said: Blake’s important to me. But I didn’t know how to admit it, or if I even wanted to admit it to these people when I hadn’t done as much to Blake. Hell, I’d barely acknowledged it myself. And certainly not out loud.

“You kept drinking from the glass afterwards,”Lester pointed out.

At the same time, Bobby said, “There wasn’t a single consonant in their sentence, Tank.”

“So?” I shrugged, choosing to address Bobby’s comment over Lester’s. “Steph always understands what Ranger means when he just says Babe .”

My justification was met with silence and stares. The kind that went on uncomfortably long as they bored into me, trying to force me to understand something without using words. Problem was, I was pretty sure the technique was working, because as I replayed my words in my head and acknowledged that the reason Steph understood Ranger’s one-word-fits-all communication method, was because they had a connection that rose above the typical confines of friendship. Their bond and familiarity allowed insight to fill the spaces when words were sparse.

Heat flooded my face and I was grateful that between my dark complexion and the inadequate lighting of the parking lot, the three people standing before me wouldn’t be able to detect the blush. 

I looked between each of their faces. “What?” I asked, rather than jump to conclusions and reveal more than they might have determined themselves.

It was Steph who spoke, her tone soft, empathetic, but still urging me to make a connection she clearly didn’t think I’d already jumped to. “You get how that sounds, right?”

Fortunately, before I could either confirm or deny, Lester jumped in. Unfortunately, he took away the vagueness of the discussion. “Tank, are you in love?” he asked, clasping his hands together at his chest. The expression he sent my way practically had hearts in his eyes, then he gave a dramatic sniff and wiped an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye. “Our little Tankie is growing up.”

He stumbled backwards a couple of steps when I shoved his shoulder, but that damn shit-eating grin broke forth on his face. My actions revealed more than I wanted them to, and they all knew it. Because while I still wasn’t attracted to Blake in the I-want-to-sleep-with-them way most of the guys described their feelings towards their preferred partners, I was starting to think I might actually be in love with them.

And it was scaring the shit out of me. 

Love was vulnerable. Love put Blake in the crosshairs of any demons from my past that might rear their ugly heads. And worst of all, I didn’t think Blake felt the same way. We were just friends, right? That’s all this was.

“Totally in love,” Lester said, rocking back on his heels. “The pair of them.”

“What?” The question came out more startled this time, more fuel for the fire, but it had burst past my lips unbidden. I couldn’t have swallowed it back if I’d tried.

Lester’s expression, while still excited, narrowed as he canted his head, peering at me. “Surely you noticed that Blake is in love with you?” he said. 

Hope and denial surged inside me; twin tidal waves threatening to ruin the careful calm demeanor I’d curated. And coasting along with them was an undercurrent of anger. Anger at myself that I apparently had to be told by a third party whenever someone showed interest in me. And anger at Lester for the stupid smirk on his face. “How would you know?” I retorted, clenching my fists. “You can’t even see that-” 

I cut myself off with a glance at Bobby, abandoning the sweeping gesture that had been aimed his way as I caught sight of his wide eyes and the hint of a blush appearing on his ears. Yes, I wanted the attention off me right now, and yes, I thought it was super fucking ironic that Lester - who could smell attraction from a mile away the same way sharks could taste blood in the water - couldn’t recognise that his best friend had been in love with him for years. But it wasn’t fair to Bobby to out him like that. 

I bit the inside of my cheek and forced myself to take a deep breath to calm down, not wanting to do anything rash. 

Lester’s head was swivelling between me and Bobby, his brow furrowed. And was that a hint of pink on his cheeks?

Steph, too, was looking between us all, assessing as quickly as she did any social dynamic. And probably having also already been aware of Bobby’s very obvious feelings for Lester. The tension in the air was thick. My own regret at almost blabbing, Bobby’s sheer terror and embarrassment at the attention I’d drawn his way, Lester’s confusion. 

“What Tank is trying to say,” Steph said, shaking her head, and forcing a mocking smile onto her lips. “Is you wouldn’t know love if it bit you on the dick, Les.”

It was just the diversion we needed, because in the next second Lester was grinning again, his hands tucked nonchalantly into his pockets as he laughed, “Maybe not, but I’d still enjoy it.”

Typical Lester response. And with the topic shifted from myself and Blake for the moment, I took the opportunity for a quick exit, citing that my cats would start to worry if I wasn’t home on time. I waved goodbye over my shoulder as I strode in between the SUVs and opened the driver side door to get in. The trio didn’t even have the decency to wait until I was safely ensconced inside the vehicle and out of ear shot before they turned to each other and continued gossiping.

“Head over heels,” Steph declared.

“Fallen for them irrevocably,” Bobby agreed just before I pulled the door closed, though from what I could see of the three of them in the rear view mirror, I wondered whether he was perhaps referring to himself. Shaking the thoughts from my head, I turned over the engine and backed out of the space, sending them one last wave before I drove away. 

Maybe Applepuff would have some insights. 

*o*

The next afternoon, purely by chance, I found myself filling in for a shift surveilling one of the skips on Rangeman’s books when Manny called in sick with a stomach flu. And it was just my luck that Steph was down to be Manny’s partner for the shift. 

Her eyes were bright when she met me at the elevator to leave.

I shook my head. “I didn’t plan this,” I assured her as the doors opened and we stepped inside, pressing the button for the garage. She’d been prompting me to open up with the subtle suggestion of a shared surveillance shift for weeks. I knew exactly how this looked

“You mean to tell me that Manny is conveniently sick for the one and only surveillance shift I’ve had on my roster in weeks, you just happen to be the replacement, and it also just happens  to be the day after I met the person you have feelings for?” The look she sent me made it clear that she was joking, but it didn’t stop her from adding the punchline anyway as the doors opened again and we started across the parking garage. “If Bobby finds out you’re making the guys sick just so you can justify roster changes, you’ll be in for one hell of a lecture.”

I huffed out a laugh and unlocked the SUV, sliding in behind the wheel. “Good thing he’s not going to find out,” I said vaguely, rather than denying it like I probably should have. The ambiguous statement would become fodder for future teasing comments, but I didn’t mind. I would happily concede that the circumstances could be read as suspicious.

Steph showed immense restraint by waiting until we were out of the garage and on the road before she shifted in her seat to face me more. “So, Blake…” There was a quiet expectation in her voice, an unspoken question that I wasn’t sure how to answer.

I spared her a glance as I approached the next intersection. “What about them?” 

“Ugh,” Steph grunted, sitting back in her seat once more. Disgusted. “You’re gonna make me say it?” 

I just lifted an eyebrow.

“You like them, Tank,” she insisted. “It’s plain to see. I’ve never seen you relaxed the way you were next to Blake last night. Even with Lester being an insensitive moron, there was a calm about you that I know doesn’t come naturally to you.”

Her words were nothing more than observation. Statements of my outward appearance that reflected my inner attitudes. And they were accurate, but I couldn’t help but note the negative connotations at the end. Of course I knew calm didn’t come naturally to me, but to hear her say it framed in a compliment struck me as funny. “Thank you?”

I didn’t need to look to know she was rolling her eyes. Her exasperation shimmered in the air between us, so to soften the blow, I added, “I know what you mean.”

“Are you admitting you have feelings?” she asked.

“I’m a human being, Steph,” I pointed out. “Of course I have feelings.”

This, of course, did nothing to lessen her frustration. And I knew it wouldn’t. Because she wanted details, and I was afraid of speaking the truth out loud in case it evaporated into thin air. 

Blake was important to me. I knew that much. And I felt differently about them than I did everyone else in my life, that much was obvious. I didn’t crave the presence of others the way I longed to spend time with Blake. No one but Blake felt like the sun was shining on my soul every time they smiled at me, like a reward I didn’t know I’d been striving so hard for.

And Blake clearly enjoyed spending time with me, otherwise they wouldn’t have invited me to spend time with them almost every evening since we returned from the festival. But that didn’t mean they were in love with me like Lester had proclaimed last night.

I knew I was pretty terrible at recognising when people were flirting with me, but I’d laid awake for hours last night reexamining every tiny interaction I’d had with Blake since the gallery opening and there wasn’t a single instance that I thought could be construed as an attempt to flirt. 

Blake was a naturally friendly person, always had been. Full of charm and charisma. Anyone would be forgiven falling in love with them when showered in their undivided attention as I had been so often recently. They had a way of making everyone they interacted with feel special (or in Lester’s case, especially stupid). 

Even Applepuff had been charmed by Blake, letting out soft approving chirrups when I’d aired my thoughts to the cats last night when I got home. And Applepuff was usually immune to such things.

I was so caught up in my own head that I didn’t notice the silence that had filled the car as I drove and eventually parked behind the black Rangeman SUV belonging to the previous shift. Zip gave a wave in the rearview mirror and I inched forward, filling the space he left behind and settling in for the shift. 

It was habit. If I was paired with any of the men for this surveillance, we wouldn’t have needed to talk. Hell, they would have understood my preference for silence. But this was Steph, and after barely a minute of staring at the house, she removed her seatbelt, and turned to sit sideways on the passenger seat, one knee bent in front of her, the other still in the footwell. 

“You said something after Lula that I didn’t understand at the time,” she said slowly, her gaze boring into the side of my head. “But I think I get it now.”

My heart rate picked up just a little. I’d said a lot of things during the surveillance shift interrogation I’d endured after I ended things with Lula. A lot of them confused, but all of them honest. More honest than I’d ever had the intention of being with my best friend’s girlfriend. 

I hadn’t known I was asexual back then. Not consciously. Not in so little words. But I knew I was different. I knew I didn’t feel attraction the same way I’d heard others describe it. And I was pretty sure I might have alluded to such things when I spoke to Steph. 

“You said you wanted the closeness just… not the way she did,” Steph continued, not waiting for me to say anything to prompt her. Her voice was so low, tone so contemplative that I thought my presence in this conversation was probably secondary to the puzzle pieces she was apparently trying to fit together. “You said you kept thinking you’d maybe warm up to it. But it felt borrowed. Like it belonged to someone else. Like it always felt borrowed and other. That the feelings weren’t… true.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. She was so close to the heart of my issues that I didn’t dare react.

“You were always awkward with Lula,” Steph went on, reasoning things out for herself. “And I know part of that is the touch aversion PTSD thing, but that’s not all of it. You…”

“I wasn’t interested in Lula,” I breathed, keeping my eyes trained forward. “Wasn’t attracted to her. It was just sex, but Lula wanted more. Something I’m not capable of.”

Steph shook her head. “A relationship?” she scoffed. “Tank, you’re capable of a relationship. Don’t make me draw you a diagram like I did with Carlos.”

“The thing I lack makes a relationship impossible,” I said carefully.

“What?” 

In a moment of weakness, I cut my eyes to Steph, then away again once I saw the concern and confusion in her eyes, the redness colouring her cheeks as she drew her own conclusions. 

“Are you… not able to…um…?” 

“I’m not impotent,” I said through gritted teeth. God, how did I allow the conversation to get to this point? I should have steered it off course much sooner. Directed it to safer waters.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Steph tuck a curl behind her ear. “I didn’t think so,” she said. “Lula wouldn’t have stayed as long as she did without top tier sex.” If anything her cheeks flamed a darker red as her hands fidgeted in her lap. “But I don’t understand what you could possibly lack that would make a relationship impossible, unless…” The fidgeting stopped, and I braced myself at her tonal shift. “Tank, I swear to god, I’d you’re holding yourself back from relationships for the same stupid reasons Ranger kept me at arms’ length, I will make you amend your statement of not being impotent by introducing your crotch to my knee.”

For some reason, Steph’s immediate assumption that I’d sworn off relationship to keep those I loved safe even after seeing how useless the effort had been for Ranger struck me as funny - as did the suggestion that I’d let her get anywhere near my crotch with that lethal weapon of hers - and I let out a startled bark of laughter.

It broke the tension enough that, with a sigh, I scrubbed my hand over my head and decided the only way to get Steph to understand the situation was to come right out and say it. Out loud. To someone other than my cats, who weren’t articulate enough to provide discourse on the topic. Unlike Steph.

I refocused my attention on the house we were supposed to be watching, sucked in a lungful of air, then let it out slowly. This was it. Just say it. Like ripping off a bandaid.

“I’m asexual.”

Chapter Text

I felt more than saw Steph’s surprise. The way her body jolted, the curious tilt to her head as she examined me more closely, looking for some difference she hadn’t seen before. Her attention was almost like a physical touch, itching over my skin uncomfortably. 

“Asexual?” she asked, like she hadn’t quite heard me and was making sure her brain had filled in the gaps correctly. 

I nodded, my breath trapped in my lungs. Fear of judgement jailing it cruelly.

“Like…” she paused, doubting herself. “Like a starfish?”

I couldn’t tell if she was trying to make a joke to cut the sudden tension, or if she was genuinely that confused. “Starfish?” I questioned, peering at her. 

“Don’t they reproduce asexually? Like, if you cut off its limb, another whole starfish grows from it?” As soon as the words left her mouth she looked like she wanted to pluck them straight back out of the air and bury them in the backyard. She shrunk back in her seat, covering her face with her hands and shaking her head. “Sorry! God, I’m so stupid,” she moaned. “I swear it sounded smarter in my head. I clearly wasn’t thinking about the fact that you’re human. Of course you wouldn’t clone yourself if I chopped off your arm.”

Seeing that she was now just as uncomfortable as I was, I reached for the humour I thought she’d been trying to lead with, and commented, “Well, we don’t know that for sure. I’ve never actually lost a limb.” I paused, watching the second jolt of surprise claim her as her hands sprang away from her face, staring at me with open mouthed shock. “That’s not an invitation to test the theory, though.”

“Tank!” she exclaimed, straightening once more as she continued to process my words. “I don’t… Are you serious right now?”

I shrugged. “About which part?” I ran my hand over my head again, sparing the house down the street another glance. “The limb chopping? Deathly serious. I’d like to keep them attached, please.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “What do you mean when you say you’re asexual?”

“I’m not a starfish,” I assured her. 

Her gesture and tone were exasperated. “Then?”

This was harder than I thought it would be. Which was saying something, because I hadn’t thought it would be easy. For one thing, I was just as terrible at talking about my thoughts and feelings as Ranger was. And for another, the posts I’d read online didn’t give me hope. Asexuality wasn’t something everyone just grew up learning about. It wasn’t common knowledge, and so attempts at authenticity with others doubled as an educational effort, teaching them what it was. And the fact that it was still rather new to me didn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence. 

“Asexuality is a sexual orientation,” I started hesitantly, measuring each word to make sure it fit before lining it up in the sentence. “It means I experience little to no sexual attraction.”

Steph shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

That’s what I was afraid of. Narrowing my eyes at the house, I tried again. “You know what bisexual is, right?” She nodded and I continued, “It’s pretty much the opposite of that.” It was a terrible comparison, I realised. Especially now that I was realising that bisexual implied the existence of only two genders, which would seem to exclude people like Blake. I wondered if there was a sexual orientation that encompassed that, sexual attraction to everybody regardless of gender. But without googling, it wasn’t a particularly helpful thought at the moment. 

“I’m not sexually attracted to men or women,” I clarified. “Or anyone.”

Proving her thoughts had gone in a similar direction to mine, she asked, “What about Blake?”

I shook my head. “None of the above.”

“But with Lula you… I mean, sorry, but Lula overshare about her sex life and as much as I try to tune it out it still filters through. And from what I recall, she was, you both were… the sex… happened… so, how can you be…” 

Remarkably, as the blush once again doubled down on Steph’s cheeks, I realised that I probably wasn’t the most uncomfortable person in the conversation anymore. And that was a freeing notion.

“Arousal and sexual attraction aren’t the same,” I pointed out. “They might be linked, sexual attraction might come with a certain amount of arousal as a byproduct, but you don’t need to be sexually attracted to someone to be aroused. Just as you don’t have to be sexually attracted to someone to desire sex.”

“I’m not gonna lie,” Steph said. “The more you explain, the less I understand.”

I wasn’t surprised. It’s not like I was doing a good job of explaining it. “Yeah, I get that,” I said, on a sigh, rubbing my hand over my face. “Sorry, this whole thing is new to me, too. I only figured it out recently. You’re the first human I’ve told.”

Her eyebrows shot up at that. “I’m the -“ A pause, a swallow. “Thank you for trusting me.”

I nodded with a light sniff, unsure of what else to say. 

“So you just don’t feel attracted to anyone? No one at all?” Steph asked. “Ever?”

“Not in a ‘ I wanna have sex with them’ manner,” I confirmed. 

“Not even with Blake?”

“Not even with Blake.”

I’m sure she would have had more to say on the topic, but at that moment, our surveillance shift got interesting as a car pulled into the driveway of the house we were monitoring and the skip jumped out of the passenger seat, jogging to the front door. We both sprang into action without the need to communicate, and an hour later we’d dropped the scumbag off at the police station and I was escorting Steph to make sure she saw Bobby about the knock to the head she received during the scuffle.

He met us at the door to the infirmary, and I left them without another word, returning to my office to type up the report and finish up the paperwork I’d set aside in favour of the surveillance shift. A process that took longer than it should have as my thoughts swirled through the conversation with Steph, adding it to the confusing mess of thoughts and emotions piled in the corner of my mind like laundry that hadn’t been forgotten as much as it was being strategically ignored. 

Problem was, just like ignoring actual laundry piles, the fact that I was aware it was there only added to my mental overload.

By seven I had been staring blankly at the computer screen long enough while I ruminated on the conversation I’d had with Steph and the insights the guys had thrown out so casually last night after Blake left. Since I hadn’t managed to complete a single task I decided it was probably time to call it quits. I shut down the computer and picked up my phone where it had been sitting on the corner of the desk since I returned. Silent.

Contemplating it for a moment, I screwed my courage to the sticking place and opened up the messaging app.

TANK: Are you at the studio? I wanna talk to you about something.

Their reply took a couple minutes to come through, and disappointment washed over me

BLAKE: Teaching.

BLAKE: Everything okay?

I tipped my head back, staring at the fluorescent light as I weighed my options. I didn’t want to send the things I wanted to tell them over text. It felt too important for that. It needed to be in person, face to face, so I could see their reactions.  At the same time I didn’t want to worry them unnecessarily. If I made it sound important, they’d get distracted thinking about what it could be the same way I’d already disrupted my own work by giving it the power to take over my brain.

My thumbs moved quickly over the on-screen keyboard as I typed out a message, deleted it, tried again, deleted it again. Three more times, I repeated the pattern until another message appeared from Blake.

BLAKE: Coffee tomorrow?

I let out a breath: part relief at the redirection, part disappointment in myself for not manning up. 

TANK: Coffee works.

It was a simple reply. Understated and entirely lacking in hints of the existential crisis I’d been battling with all day. Did I feel like going out in public with the way my thoughts were winding my skin and intestines uncomfortably tight, like I was being stretched beyond my limits and squeezed into a suit too small for my frame all at once? Not particularly. But I needed to see Blake.

Now that I’d come out to Steph, there was something tight in my chest. This piece of myself I’d laid bare, felt raw and exposed in Steph’s hands. Vulnerable. She was kind and intuitive, of that there was no doubt. Steph was a trusted friend, and I believed her a hundred percent when she assured me she wouldn’t mention my asexuality to anyone else. But Blake…

Blake was different. 

This truth I’d shared felt like something living. Small. Still blinking in the light. And I’d handed it off to Steph first, when it should have been Blake. They were the one I trusted to hold it properly. Not just to understand it, but to cradle it carefully. Keep it safe. Like you would a kitten placed in your palms. Something trembling and entirely itself, asking only to be seen. To be nurtured. 

The faint, routine sounds of the office at night hummed around me as I dropped back down into my chair, head in hand. The soft buzz from a screw loose somewhere in the air conditioning duct. The distant bark of laughter from somewhere down the corridor. It sounded like Ram, or maybe Ghost. Whoever it was didn’t matter though. The noise did nothing to ease the small ache behind my ribs.

Not regret, exactly. Not fear. Telling Steph had loosened the words from the bedrock they’d been embedded in. They were accessible now. And maybe the extra time Blake’s schedule necessitated was a good thing. I could line the words up better, prepare for the inevitable questions, maybe avoid nervous biology metaphors. 

Waiting til tomorrow gave me a chance to make room for the other part - the part I hadn’t been willing to admit out loud to Steph. The bigger truth. The one that mattered more than any clinical admissions of my sexual orientation: my feelings for Blake. The important ones I was afraid to name that had been forming slowly. Quietly. Without ever asking permission. 

This truth wasn’t a tiny kitten anymore. It had outgrown its infancy and was clamouring around inside my chest, clawing the drapes and knocking things over for attention. If I didn’t let it out soon, it would ruin me.

The phone in my hand chimed with another message.

BLAKE: Do you mind if we hang at my apartment? I think if I have to deal with more people this week I might scream.

I wasn’t surprised they’d reached their limit. Between the workshop and class heavy schedule this week, and the emotional upheaval of pulling back the bandage of their still healing trauma from their mother’s death and the painting they’d discovered in the Hidden Gems gallery, I was surprised they’d agreed to dinner at Shorty’s last night. Then again, Blake’s tolerance for social settings had always been greater than my own.

TANK: Staying in is no burden. But if you’re done with people we can rain check for when you’ve recharged. 

I frowned at the message I’d sent without thought. Willing to put off the talk and draw out my own disquiet to allow them time to rest and recover if that’s what they needed. But my expression cleared again when Blake’s reply came through quickly. 

BLAKE: You don’t count as people, Pierre.

TANK: Not a dementor. Not people. What am I then?

It felt like a loaded question. One I wasn’t sure I was ready for them to answer with everything else cluttering my thoughts. But thankfully, their last messages were teasing.

BLAKE: I thought we already established you’re a real tank?

BLAKE: I’ll text you in the morning when I’m up.

Chapter Text

My palms were sweating and there was a heavy uncomfortable feeling weighing down my limbs as I ascended the stairs to Blake’s third floor apartment the next morning. They’d texted to say they were up half an hour ago, and judging by the number of typos in the short missive, they’d either only just woken up, or they weren’t wearing their glasses. Possibly both.

I’d prompted them for a coffee order, and let them know I was on my way once I’d received their reply. The barista had recognised me from my increasingly frequent visits in the last couple weeks and had my usual drink order keyed into the register and scribbled on a cup in a matter of moments without me needing to say a word other than to confirm that I wanted the usual. Then he was staring at me expectantly, poised with a large, clear cup already labelled with Blake’s name, because while I always got the same thing, Blake liked to mix things up. 

I added an breakfast sandwich to the order, and a couple of the cookies I spotted in the cabinet, and tried not to overthink my feelings while I waited.

As I approached Blake’s door, a steady thrum of music drifted down the hall. Jazz, I realised, pausing to let it flow over me. Instrumental, and laid-back. Unhurried, and calming, and not at all the music Blake usually chose for themself. It soothed the anxious bubbles keeping me on edge, sliding over the discomfort like the peppermint tea mom used to give me when I had a stomach bug or was worried about a situation at school. It was an automatic reaction.

I used jazz in the car to maintain an equilibrium. Just as I'd used jazz in college when I was cramming for an exam. Blake was more into weird indie pop, and movie soundtracks. It had made for an interesting mix when we would fight over the aux cord during a study session. But even back then, they would never mess with the playlist if I was on a tight deadline.

Was their music choice a reflection of their continued ability to read me like an open book even though I thought I had everything under lock and key?

Taking a deep breath, I paused outside Blake’s door and wiped each of my hands on my jeans one after the other as I juggled the cup tray and paper bag. I knocked, and the volume of the music immediately cut by about 50%. I listened for approaching footsteps, or other signs that they were coming to let me in, but there didn’t appear to be any movement within the apartment, so I knocked again. It only took a millisecond before the sound of hurried footsteps sounded and in the next moment I was face to face with Blake’s sunshine expression as they braced their hands on either side of the doorframe.

“Morning,” I greeted, a smile on my face, because how could I not? I was happy to see them, and they were clearly just as happy in return. 

“Coffeeeeeeee,” they breathed, plucking their iced mocha, with a swirl of white chocolate sauce, topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings, from the cup tray, and taking a  long, appreciative sip. Their eyelids lowered and a low hum escaped them even as they stepped to the side and waved me in.

“I’m not sure that drink still counts as coffee,” I said, crossing the threshold and receiving a light flick to the bicep for my comment.

The door clicked shut and I looked over my shoulder to find Blake taking another sip, their eyes on me, defiant. “It contains coffee, therefore it is still coffee,” they proclaimed. “Just because I like to add fun and whimsy to my order doesn’t mean I’m not caffeinating.”

I held up my free hand in surrender. They weren’t starting an argument, and neither was I, but I still didn’t want to push the topic further. “I brought you breakfast,” I said, holding the bag up to serve as a treaty. “Figured you hadn’t eaten yet.”

Blake tossed their damp hair out of their face, and reached for the bag greedily. “You are a god among men, Pierre,” they declared, inhaling deeply as they opened the bag and peered inside. “I take back every mean thing I was about to say if you insisted that my drink wasn’t coffee.” Gripping the drink and the paper bag in one hand, they grabbed my free one in their other and dragged me down the short hall, past the kitchen, and into the living room where they stepped up onto the couch to sit cross legged, sideways on the cushion and tugged me down into my usual spot on the cushion in front of them.

Once I was sitting, and had cast the empty cup tray onto the old steamer trunk that served as a coffee table, Blake passed me their drink to hold, adjusted the cushions behind their back, tucked their feet under the side of my thigh, and delved a hand into the paper bag to retrieve the breakfast sandwich. They took a massive, unceremonious bite and tipped their head back as they chewed, and I took the opportunity to peer around the room.

Every wall was full to bursting with artwork. Sweeping landscapes, blurry impressionists, bright pop art, and everything in between. I didn't pretend to understand the subject of each of them, but they each sang subtly with Blake’s energy. I couldn't tell if it was because they'd somehow painted each varied example or if they were just reflections of the many facets of their soul. But it was how I imagined them living. Surrounded by what made them happy.

And then I spotted the sketchbook open on the steamer trunk about half a foot from the empty cup tray. A light snort escaped me as I recognised the subject of the work-in-progress half obscured by a scattering of coloured pencils.

Once again, I had underestimated Blake when they’d declared their intentions to create a whole Pierre Series of artworks. Because there on the page was a half coloured sketch of me, half propped up on my elbow on the sun lounger at Mom's house. My face, which was the most complete part of the sketch, appeared to be glowing in the sunlight, even as it contorted in obvious pain. I should have known they were serious. How they kept such vivid imagery in their head long enough to siphon it out onto the paper like this was beyond me, but it was a thing of wonder to behold.

“That's the third one I've done,” Blake said, their words slightly garbled by another overzealous mouthful. “You can flip back and look if you want.”

I set both our drinks down on the edge of the trunk and turned to find Blake watching me just as closely as I'd watched them at Shorty's. “You don't mind?” I checked. Recalling their apprehensions with others viewing their works in progress.

“Wouldn't have offered if I did,” they pointed out. Their eyes were locked on me as they took yet another overly large bite of the breakfast sandwich, looking owlish behind their glasses as their cheeks puffed out to accommodate the food. I took this as a sign that they wanted me to look at them, rather than an offer of expected pleasantries. 

Brushing aside the coloured pencils, I lifted the sketchbook and settled back onto the sofa. This seemed to satisfy Blake, as their eyes returned to normal, non-owl size even as they remained locked on me. I carefully flipped back a page and snorted at the image there. 

Once again the blending colours depicted me - as I’d already known they would - seated in a too small chair, hunched over a small, misshapen ball as I jabbed at it with the felting needle. My brow was furrowed in concentration as a jagged line of shadows - most likely from the pendant flags that had lined the front of the space. 

But this time, I wasn’t the only one in the scene. Beside me, Maddie leaned over, the pendant shadows falling so that two triangles fell across her cheeks, while a sliver of sunlight highlighted the deep brown of her eyes and a larger swatch of light drew attention to the amused expression on her face as she held her own felted ball close to mine for comparison. I remembered the moment captured on the page, the way Maddie had questioned if I was purposely doing it bad to make hers look better. She didn’t seem to believe that I was actually that terrible at arts and crafts. 

I reached for the corner of the page to flip back, cutting my eyes to Blake to make sure it was all right before completing the action and found the original Pierre Series image of me kissing the ground. It was even more magnificent in person than it had been via text and I found my gaze roving over all the tiny details of it. 

I flipped the page back again, and was greeted by another completed colour pencil artwork of which I was the subject. In this one, I stood in what was obviously my room back at Mama’s house. It was early morning, judging by the slices of golden light stretching across the corner of the bed visible in the foreground of the sketch, across the floor and up the length of my body. 

My breath caught as I took in my stance in the image, the way I was only half turned toward the bed, the way my eyebrows floated almost comically high over my bugged-out eyes, the way the fingers of one hand pressed to the centre of my chest while the other curled into a fist at my side.

I frowned at the page. It was clearly from the first morning back home. The moment I bolted out of bed when I realised Blake was sleeping with their head resting on my chest and I hadn’t so much as stirred in the night, but… “I thought you were still too asleep to remember this?” I said, turning the sketchbook so they could see what I was referring to.

Blake watched me closely as they finished chewing and swallowed their latest bite. “I got the impression you didn’t want me to remember it, so I pretended it hadn’t happened,” they said quietly, their tone measured. “But I couldn’t get the scene from my head, so I had to sketch it. And then I had to continue refining it until…” the gestured toward the page with one hand. “Well, I guess I finished it.

“You were awake and saw how I reacted?”

They just nodded, keeping their eyes on me, like they expected me to explode or shatter at any moment. 

“I-”

I didn’t know what I was going to say. There were too many thoughts swirling in my head. From fear of having been perceived in such a vulnerable moment, to the realisation that even then, only a couple of days after reuniting with Blake for the first time since college, my body had recognised them in a way it had taken the rest of me a couple of weeks to catch up to. Because the reason I hadn’t stirred when they’d shuffled closer in the night, nor when their head had found my chest for a pillow, was because I trusted them. They were a safe person. And more than that, they were my person. 

It was a fact that was becoming more starkly apparent the longer I let it take up space in my mind. All roads lead to Blake as far as my nervous system was concerned, and my heart was now in agreeance.

“Sorry,” Blake said when I failed to utter another word. “I forgot it was in there. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head and returning my gaze to the image on the page. “No. It’s all right. I just wasn’t expecting it.” I took a deep breath. Was now the right time to bring up my feelings? My asexuality? I lowered the sketchbook to my lap, lining up words on my tongue that felt far too weighty for the cozy setting of Blake’s living room. But as I lifted my gaze I caught sight of a painting leant against the wall in the hall, framed in the light cast from the room we were in. “Is that-?”

Blake didn’t even look. They knew from where my attention was trained what I was looking at. “Yeah.”

“It’s haunting,” I observed, unable to come up with anything else to say about it. Because, as Blake had explained three nights ago, it was a twin to the painting that had sent them on a spiral at the festival, but where that painting had captured the quietly hopeful smile, and joy-filled eyes of Blake in the carefully detailed reflection on the blooming vase, everything about this unfinished painting was the opposite. Decaying flowers dropped petals onto the counter, and the woman’s face in the vase - Blake’s mom’s face - was full of nothing but anguish. “I’m surprised you keep it out where you’ll see it every day.”

They shook their head, crumpling up the empty paper that had contained their sandwich. “I usually keep it at the studio,” they said. They removed their feet from under my thigh and swung them over the edge of the sofa so that they sat with their right arm barely skimming my left. “It’s the only painting of Mom’s I have. Having it hung in the area I work on my art keeps her close.” Blake reached for their sugar-laden coffee drink and cradled it to their chest as they took a slow sip. “And it reminds me to take breaks and look after my mental health. I don’t want to be so all consumed by my art that I lose sight of what’s important, you know?”

I thought of my brother and the depression we’d all missed the signs of until it was far too late, and of the numerous comrades who had succumbed to their dark thoughts in the wake of the harrowing missions we’d been forced to play out in the army, and I nodded. We all had ghosts that haunted us and drove our decisions. And while Blake had never seen combat, they had lived with the weight of not having been able to save their mom from her own deep depression. 

“Have you ever…?” My voice was a mere rasp of a whisper as I struggled to get the important question past the lump in my throat. I needed to know what I should be prepared for if I was going to stick around long term. I needed to know what demons lurked in Blake’s periphery so I could learn how to help fight them off.

They sniffed and shook their head, shifting closer on the sofa cushions until their arm was pressed against mine. I lifted it and they tucked themself into my chest so I could wrap my arm around them. “I got pretty low after Mom died, and I wasn’t exactly at my mentally healthiest while I was forcing myself to ignore the art itch that lives under my skin. But I’ve never thought about ending it, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

Relief tinged with worry coursed through my veins, searing a path all the way from where Blake’s head rested on my shoulder, all the way to my heart. I squeezed them a little tighter, but said nothing. I wanted to make them promise they’d tell me if they ever felt low like that, if they were ever struggling with their mental health again. But I didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on them. I was no stranger to the locks a person’s own mind could put on their mouth. The best thing I could do was be there for them, watch for behavioural changes, and make sure they knew I wasn’t going to leave them. Just as I had after their retreat from the Hidden Gems gallery.

“Pretty sure that’s not why you wanted to talk to me, though,” Blake said brusquely, tipping their head back to peer at me.

The reminder of the reason I’d originally reached out last night caused my chest to tighten in a way that I feared was entirely too perceivable to Blake in their current position, but rather than address the elephant in the room, I prayed my expression remained neutral enough for nonchalance and replied, “How can you know that for sure? Are you a mind reader?”

Blake’s eyes narrowed as they took another sip of their ‘coffee’. “No, but I am a Pierre reader,” they pointed out, and I didn’t need them to provide evidence for the statement, because they’d already proven it more times than I could count in the last few weeks. They always seemed to know when I was feeling off, and had never tried to hide their observations, instead going out of their way to offer what assistance they could to get me back to my baseline. 

“What’s on your mind, Pierre?” they prompted, tapping the straw that stuck out of the top of their plastic cup to the tip of my nose when I remained quiet a little too long.

Gently, I pushed the cup away from my face and shifted, leaning forward and retracting my arm from around them. I needed some distance for this conversation in case they reacted badly. The last thing I wanted was for our bodies to be entangled when mine was screaming at me to flee. They seemed to understand, and shuffled back to the other end of the sofa again, crossing their legs and leaning against the arm to wait for me to speak.

I set the sketchbook that had been resting in my lap on the trunk and picked up my tea, just for something to do, glanced at Blake, and chickened out. Instead, I took a detour. “I’ve been thinking about the canvas metaphor you used to explain gender to Lester,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. It had been playing on my mind. And it was even relevant to the topic I actually wanted to bring up.

Blake made a humming sound in the back of their throat as one eyebrow peeked over the top of their glasses.

“If the frame is the assigned sex,” I said, bracing my elbows on my knees and staring at the shocked rendering of myself on the page in front of me. “And the gender expression is what’s on the canvas, then…” Hesitation caught the words in my throat for the barest moment before I forced the question past my lips. “How would you factor in sexuality?”

Blake didn’t answer right away. A silence building between us instead, and I chanced a glance toward them. This was a fairly safe topic, afterall. We weren’t talking about my sexuality or lack thereof. Just sexuality in general. And more importantly, the artistic representation of it within the metaphor Blake had created. 

Their cheeks puffed up as air slowly leaked out from between pursed lips, and their other eyebrow rose up to join the first. The way their eyes focused on some invisible barrier that lay between us seemed to scream, ‘damn, that’s heavy ’ but after just a moment, the spell was broken and they were running a hand through their hair. “I don’t know,” they confessed. “I’ve never really thought about including sexuality in the metaphor.” Their gaze caught mine before I could retreat, and they asked the one question I wasn’t ready for. “Why?”

Chapter Text

I thought that asking Blake about the metaphor and how to weave sexuality into it would buy me some time, and maybe even clue me in about their own orientation. But it appeared that the fact that they’d only been up a short while meant their brain still wasn’t switched on enough to reason it out on the spot, which left me mentally flailing in shallow water. I knew why I’d asked and where I wanted the conversation to lead, but like a child panicking because they couldn’t touch the ground even though it was right there , I couldn’t seem to get my feet under me.

And what a strange sensation it was to be both the drowning child and exasperated adult in this mental metaphor. Because I knew the water wasn’t as deep as it seemed. I knew what I needed to do to save myself. I just couldn’t.

“Just curious,” I said. But there was no way Blake would believe that answer. I wouldn’t have prefaced the conversation with I wanna talk to you about something , if I was just curious. I would have just asked the question. 

I didn’t dare look over my shoulder again at Blake and what thoughts I would find on their face. Too much pressure. Too much unknown. Too many moving parts. I took a deep breath and then a sip of my tea, and as I lowered the cardboard cup, Blake let out a humming sound that usually meant they were thinking.

“We can try and figure it out, if you want,” they offered. “Together?”

“That’s okay. It doesn’t matter.” Except it really did. Why was I like this? “It’s probably a bit too cerebral when you haven’t even finished your coffee. I was just curious if you already had it figured out.” I chanced turning my head toward Blake and sent them a reassuring smile as I leaned back into the sofa cushions again, patting their knee with my free hand. “What was the class you were teaching last night? How’d it go?”

Blake didn’t look at all convinced by my deflection, but allowed the conversation to be directed away from the metaphor anyway. They told me about the class they’d taught last night, and the progress they’d made on the paintings I’d seen them working on throughout the week, and the white cat they’d befriended during a walk through town.

In return, I gave them the cliff notes version of how work had been the last few days, detailed some of the antics Applepuff, Snowball and Pretzel had gotten into, including the baffling tale of how Pretzel had ended up caught in the handle of a plastic shopping bag and refused to let me help her get out of it. 

Jazz played in the background the whole time, but it did little to ease the tension that had been with me all morning. Because the reason for its presence was still trapped inside me. The’s two little words that I’d managed to blurt out to Steph yesterday, but couldn’t seem to bring myself to tell Blake, even though every cell in my body was screaming at me to do so. Yelling that if anyone was going to understand, it would be Blake. 

By late afternoon, with the realisation that we’d managed to skip lunch, we were in the kitchen, scrounging through the fridge and pantry to come up with a meal to share when I decided that it was now or never.

Blake stood on the far side of the island bench, surveying the array of vegetables, meat and other pantry staples they’d pulled out. “I think I can make a decent pasta bake out of this,” they declared, unwrapping the block of cheese and grabbing a knife from the drawer. “A normal pasta dish would probably be quicker, but I’m feeling cheesy. How ‘bout you?” They cut a slice of cheese off the block and popped it into their mouth with a satisfied moan. “Oh yeah. Definitely needs to be cheesy.” They cut another slice, then passed me the block and a cheesegrater. “Grate that for me?”

I took it wordlessly, grabbed down a plate to catch the grated cheese and got to work while they set about boiling water for the pasta, and putting together the sauce. 

We worked in relative silence for a while until Blake had all their elements going for the pasta bake and was rummaging through the jars in the door of the fridge for the crushed garlic they swore they had. “It’s not pasta bake without garlic bread!” they declared, holding up the jar triumphantly as they spun around. Whatever expression was on my face as I brushed the excess cheese off the grater and onto the plate gave them pause though, and they reached for the breadrolls slowly. “Everything okay?”

Now or never, I reminded myself, sucking in a breath and letting it out carefully as I set the grater aside. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve never felt like this before.”

Blake froze and although I kept my gaze trained on the plate of grated cheese, I could feel their eyes roving over every inch of my body, looking for something wrong. “Like what?”

I shook my head and glanced up at them, screwing my courage to the sticking place. If I could tell Steph, I could tell Blake. Blake got me in a way no one else did. Blake was safe. Blake would understand. “I have feelings for you,” I admitted to the counter top. Probably, my eyes were as bugged out now as they were in the sketch Blake had done of that morning at Mama’s when I’d leapt out of bed. That wasn’t what I’d meant to say. I was going to work up to it. One truth at a time. 

I sensed more than I saw Blake’s nod, they hadn’t moved a muscle in a whole minute aside from that slow head movement and the tension in my chest was screaming that it was a bad sign. Blake was like a perpetual motion machine. Stillness was usually a sign that something wasn’t right with them. “Okay,” they uttered.

Bracing myself, I raised my eyes just enough to catch sight of their carefully neutral expression. It was a mistake. I couldn’t make the words line up properly on my tongue. “But I don’t think…” I tried. “They’re not… normal feelings?”

“Is that a question?” Blake asked.

I scrubbed a hand over my head, dragging it down to cover my face. “I’m not sure.”

“Not sure if it’s a question? Or not sure about your feelings?”

Peeking out at them from between my fingers, I answered the only way I could. “...Yes”

They cocked their head to the side, peering at me critically. The same way they examined their canvas at the beginning of a painting session, as though they were communing with it to understand where the next hours would lead them both. To have such attention turned on me in a moment of pure anxiety was as unnerving as it was compelling. I felt like I could have laid out every sin I’d ever committed and Blake would have found the beauty of it to brush across the canvas.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” they prompted.

I lowered my hands, stuffing them into my pockets to hide the way they trembled. “I don’t know where to start.”

Grabbing a breadroll from the bag, Blake plopped it onto the cutting board in front of them and began slicing into it. “Why don’t you start by describing the feelings you’re having?”

I was immensely grateful for the fact that they didn’t say ‘the feelings you’re having about me ’ and even more so when they turned away to grab a bowl from the cupboard, taking the pressure off me by continuing with dinner prep. The outward appearance that they were partially distracted, even though I knew they were listening to me one hundred percent was enough to steady my hands.

“I’m comfortable around you,” I admitted. “More comfortable than with pretty much anyone else. Ever.”

They smiled up at me. That sunshine expression I was growing addicted to. “That’s really nice to hear, Pierre. Thank you.”

I shook my head and held the stump of cheese I hadn’t been able to grate in front of their mouth. “This is hard for me,” I explained as they parted their lips to accept the offering. “Could you maybe let me finish before you comment?”

With a twinkle in their eye, and a chipmunk-link puff to their cheeks, they dropped the knife they’d been using to mix the garlic and butter together and mimed zipping their lips.

“Sorry, it’s just awkward.”

They waved their hand in the air in a circular motion for me to continue, and after a moment of silence, they lowered their gaze to their task, taking the pressure off me once more. That’s when the words finally lined up properly and spilled from my lips.

“I’m asexual.”

Their hands never paused what they were doing, methodically spreading garlic butter onto the rolls, but their eyes flicked to mine with a small, unsurprised nod.

I stared for a long second, unsure what to make of their reaction. A part of me had braced for questions, confusion, even discomfort, the way Steph had stumbled through acknowledging my confession, but Blake just… nodded. Like I’d said I preferred oat milk over dairy in my coffee. Like it was just another harmless fact, filed away without fanfare. 

My mind was reeling. Trying to understand their reaction. Their lack of reaction. “Did you… Did you already know?” I asked, my voice tighter than I would have liked. I had to know. 

They didn’t flinch. Just finished preparing the roll and set it on the oven tray beside them before glancing up at me. “Not officially,” Blake murmured, leaning their hip against the counter. “But I suspected things weren’t quite straightforward for you.” They paused. “I don’t need a label to understand you, though, if that’s what has that worried look on your face. I know you love me.”

“I… you… what?”

The patience in Blake’s posture, their expression, was overwhelming. “I know you love me,” they repeated, still just as calm and matter-of-fact as before.

I blinked. “You know?”

Blake reached for the wooden spoon they’d been using to stir the sauce on the stove, but didn’t turn away. “You know how sometimes you walk into a room you’ve been in a million times before but everything feels different? Like you’re seeing it the way it truly is for the first time? Like something shifted and you suddenly understand?”

They didn’t look up. Kept their gaze trained on the spoon as they twirled it between their fingers. The way Blake was avoiding my gaze all of a sudden didn’t make sense. It was almost like they were the one laying their heart on the line, instead of the other way round. 

“That’s what it’s like with you,” they said, finally lifting their eyes to mine.

I sucked in a breath that left the taste of garlic in the back of my throat as realisation washed over me. Because my feelings for Blake weren’t as one-sided as I had feared.

“I always knew you were a good friend,” they explained quietly, still spinning the wooden spoon. “You were my best friend in college. But I didn’t realise until I saw you at the gallery opening that what I actually felt for you was so much deeper than that.”

All I could do was stare, my hands shaking once more as I tried to connect dots I couldn’t see yet.

“I didn’t just swoop in to save you from that woman’s tactless flirting,” Blake whispered. The spoon stilled in their hands, knuckles turning white as they gripped it tightly. “I did it because when I saw you something in my chest reached out and made grabby hands, declaring you were mine, and the thought of someone making you uncomfortable was completely abhorrent.”

My jaw fell open and I had to give myself a mental shake before I managed to push words past my shock. “Did you just hijack my confession?” I asked.

Blake’s shoulders relaxed and a smirk appeared on their lips. “Twice, I believe.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “So what happens now?”

They glanced over their shoulder to the pots on the stove, then down at the garlic bread and cheese between us. “We finish dinner.”

A startled laugh escaped me, dispelling the tension that had been winding me tight for longer than I cared to acknowledge. “That’s it?”

Scooping up a small handful of cheese, they shrugged. “You told me you’re asexual. I told you I have grabby ghost-hands in my chest. It’s progress.” They dropped the cheese into their mouth and turned to grab the casserole dish off the other counter. “Let’s not ruin it with overthinking.”

Chapter Text

“Pierre?”

The soft sing-song call drifted to my ears, accompanied by a comforting warmth seeping into my chest. A smile tugged at my lips. Content.

“Pierre?” 

The call came again, more insistent this time, and punctuated by a firm poke to the ribs. I started awake with a less than graceful snort and blinked around at the low lighting illuminating my unfamiliar surroundings. It took a few seconds, and the realisation that Blake was tucked under my arm where I was sprawled on the couch, for the memories of the day spent lounging in their apartment to filter back in and inform my location. The momentary panic that came with uncertainty calmed as I allowed more of Blake’s warmth to wash over me.

“Are you awake now?” Blake enquired, tipping their head back to peer at my face with an amused smile when I shifted to catch sight of theirs.

“Sorry,” I said automatically, scrubbing the hand that wasn’t locked around Blake over my face. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.” A yawn interrupted my apology and I worked to loosen my hold on them. “Didn’t realise I was so tired.”

Blake pulled back only enough that they weren’t straining their neck to maintain eye contact and shook their head. “I think I fell asleep on you first.” 

They might be right. As my brain continued to come back online I had vague recollections of Blake’s weight slumping more and more against me as we watched a movie, their body relaxing as sleep dragged them down. I must have followed them to the land of nod soon after.

My gaze travelled to the TV where Netflix had reverted to the menu page, then to my phone on the arm of the sofa. I tapped the screen twice to wake it up and saw that it was already approaching midnight. How long had I been asleep?

“It’s pretty late,” Blake yawned, sitting up a little more and removing their warmth from the side of my chest. I was immediately bereft of their presence as they reached for the remote on the coffee table. “Do you need to go home and feed the cats?”

“I released kibble from their automatic feeders before we started the movie,” I explained easily, squashing the urge to pull them back down. “They’re covered so long as I stop by home at some point tomorrow.”

Blake’s left eyebrow inched up over the rim of their glasses and their lips quirked with amusement again. “Oh? And where do you plan on being in the meantime?”

I let my head tip back against the wall behind the couch and closed my eyes, unwilling to allow the doubt that was lurking on the periphery of my consciousness to creep in any further. “Right here, if that’s okay. If I wake myself up enough to drive home, I won’t get back to sleep for hours.”

A long moment passed. Then, “No.”

My eyes shot open at the finality of Blake’s statement, but the serious expression that now blanketed their face did nothing to sooth the rapid drumming of my heart against my ribcage. Panic renewed. “No?”

They gave a little nod. “No.”

I shook my head. “No, what?”

“No you can’t stay there.” They crossed their arms over their chest and tilted their head to the side, eyeing me critically for a moment. But as soon as I opened my mouth to ask why - or to apologise and make a hasty exit - they spoke again, clearing away the panic they had induced. “If you sleep there on the couch, you’ll be stiff and grumpy in the morning. Or worse, your back will seize up again. I’m fine if you don’t want to go home, but you'll be sleeping in the bed with me.”

My breath left me in a relieved gust. I should have known better than to think they’d kick me out of their apartment. “I’m not awake enough for jokes, Blake,” I admonished lightly, pulling them back down to my chest and resting my chin on top of their head. “Jesus, I thought you were serious.”

“I am serious,” they countered with a laugh, poking me in the ribs again. “You’re not sleeping on the couch. That’s rule number one for you staying at Casa Blake.”

“Noted.”

It took us a few more minutes before we both summoned the energy to make the long trek from the couch to the bed in the next room, a few more minutes to take turns in the bathroom, and then Blake was scooching in beside me. They paused, well and truly on their side of the bed, propped up on one elbow as they seemed to contemplate a thought, their bottom lip disappearing between their teeth.

I lifted my arm and my brow. “You may as well,” I yawned. “You’ll find your way over during the night anyway.”

And with permission granted, they sidled the rest of the way across the bed and tuck themself into my side, head on my shoulder. The same position we’d woken up in every day while we were at Mama’s house. My arm moved of it’s own volition to wrap around Blake, keeping them there; the puzzle piece that had been missing from my sleep routine the last couple weeks.

The next morning, I sat at the kitchen counter, sipping the worst coffee I’d ever tasted with a smile wider than the day was long on my face. Beside me, Blake had a slice of toast in one hand and no less than six coloured pencils wedged between the fingers of their other as they hunched over their sketchbook. I took a bite of my own toast and watched in fascination as they expertly juggled the pencils so that the one they needed was in their grip to continue.

“You’re staring,” they muttered into their toast before allowing it into their mouth for another bite.

“I’m observing,” I countered. “How do you not drop the pencils?”

“How do you keep your face so blank around your friends?”

I shrugged. “Practice and determination.”

Blake lifted their gaze from the page, holding firm eye contact as they switched from the brown they’d been using to a light orange. “Practice and determination,” they parroted pointedly.

I inclined my head to let them know I understood the point they were making and steeled myself for another sip of bitter coffee. I’d never been a milk in coffee kind of guy, but I was seriously contemplating it right now. “I can read on my phone if you’d prefer?”

Their lips tipped up at the corner, setting the toast down on the plate between us and reaching for my coffee cup instead. Slowly, they pulled it to their lips, maintaining eye contact the entire way, like they were waiting for me to tell them to stop. But I didn’t. I just watched as they took a sip, swallowed and winced.

In the next instant, Blake was off their stool and around the other side of the counter, pencil claw held aloft as they tipped the remainder off my coffee and then the remainder of the pot down the sink, sputtering the entire time. “How were you drinking that?!” they demanded when they spun back around. “And with a straight face! God, Pierre, that’s the worst coffee I’ve ever tasted. I’m so sorry.”

Raising my eyebrow at them, I just repeated our earlier statement. “Practice and determination.”

They dumped the pencils on top of the tray that held the rest of the set, shaking their head. “Come on,” they said. I allowed them to grab my arm and pull me off the stool. “We’re going out to get real coffee.”

When I resisted, Blake let out a grunt and got behind me, placing their palms flat on my bare back and pushing with all their might.

“Pierre!” Frustration filled every molecule of my name on their lips.

“Blake,” I returned calmly.

“Let’s go!”

I crossed my arms over my chest, belligerent. “Blake.”

Blake doubled down on their efforts to get me out the door, leaning a shoulder in for good measure. “Move, Pierre! I have crimes against caffeine to atone for!”

“Blake.” This time, their name came out in a slight laugh as I turned to face them, catching them by the upper arms when they fell forward without my counterweight keeping them up.

They huffed out a breath. “What?”

I glanced down pointedly to my boxers, the only scrap of clothing I had on, then their orange oversized t-shirt, and finally back up to Blake, raising my brow at them once again. “Maybe we could get dressed first?”

Despite my hold keeping them up, Blake collapsed forward, knocking their head against my sternum several times before letting it rest there. “Yeah, that might be an idea,” they muttered into my chest as I wrapped my arms around their shoulders for a brief squeeze. 

My phone rang as we were on our way down the stairs to the car five minutes later and despite my best efforts, I couldn’t keep the smile from my face when they identified who they were and why they were calling. I cut my eyes to Blake as we reached my SUV to watch their reaction as I rattled off an address and a name to contact when he got there.

“That’s the address for my studio,” Blake pointed out, staring with narrowed eyes across the hood of the car as I tucked my phone into my pocket. “And Erin is the building’s caretaker.” They paused, the intensity of their stare increasing. “What are you up to?”

I shook my head and pulled the driver-side door open. “You promised me real coffee,” I said. “Let’s go.”

“Pierre!” They sounded like a petulant child, but it only served to make a smile itch at the corners of my mouth. “Tell me what you’re up to!”

My grin split wide as I slid behind the wheel. “Soon.”

One thing about Blake is that they are insatiably curious. Much like Steph and Lester in that sense. But whereas Steph would have spent the entire trip to the coffee shop and over to the studio nagging and trying to guess what was happening, Blake asked very few questions. Instead, they chose to stare at me pointedly. From mere inches away. 

As far as interrogation techniques went, it was harder to ignore than the barrage of words. I’d grown accustomed to tuning Steph and Lester out over the years. But despite the decades we’d spent apart, our paths having only crossed again mere weeks ago, Blake knew me better than almost everyone. Which means they knew that being physically in my space was more of an attention grabber than a steady spill of words. 

They almost managed to crack through my defenses while we were waiting for our coffee order. Standing toe to toe in the corner. Their head tipped all the way back to stare at me while I scanned our surroundings. Their hand inched up to my chin at a snail’s pace, reminding me of the sloth in that animal city movie Sonny and Maddie made me watch. Blake’s fingertips waited until the last second before making contact with my chin, applying the barest pressure, more of a request for me to tilt my head down than an attempt to pull it down themself. 

I complied with a smile despite my best efforts to keep my expression under lock. “Yes?”

“Pierre, can you pretty please tell me what you’re up to?”

The pleading in their sad kitty expression had me wavering more than I would have thought possible, which is why I slid my gaze away from those big round eyes to where the strap of their paint splattered overalls had fallen off their shoulder. I lifted it back up with careful precision, shaking my head. “You’ll know in twenty five minutes,” I explained patiently. Determinedly. “I promise you’ll like the surprise.”

Blake’s eyes sparked. “Twenty five minutes you say?” And in the next second their phone was in their hands, open to the clock app where they set a countdown timer. “Just to keep you honest,” they explained, showing me the screen with the sweet, conniving smile I’d grown to appreciate. 

It was another two minutes before we received our drinks, eleven minutes to drive to my house and check on the cats (where Blake attempted to use the trio of felines to convince me to crack), and eight more to drive to the studio building. Which is when Murphy’s Law intervened, and my phone started ringing again as we were walking to the front entrance. I pulled the device from my pocket and groaned at the name on the screen.

Ranger. 

Of all the times to crawl back out of the hole he’d been hiding in. Right when I was in the middle of a grand, fucking gesture.

“Three minutes and a half, Pierre,” Blake said, holding up their phone screen again to show me the ticking timer. 

“It’s my boss,” I sighed apologetically, turning my own phone for them to see. They sighed in agreement as I hit the green button to accept the call just before it rang out. “Yo.”

“We caught the ghost,” Ranger announced without preamble. One of his more redeeming qualities. “I’m on my way back now. How’s she been?”

“She’s been keeping busy,” I replied, giving him enough information to know that his absence affected Steph and that she’s been trying not to dwell on it without so many words. “Santos or Brown can give you a more thorough briefing. They’re both on shift today.”

I could feel Ranger’s curiosity ratchet a notch higher at that statement, even over the phone. I’d never passed him off to Lester or Bobby before. I either answered and gave him the full run down, or I didn’t answer at all because I was in the middle of dragging a lowlife scumbag back into the system. “Why not you?” he asked simply.

“I’m on a personal day,” I explained succinctly as Blake held up their phone again, showing the ever dwindling time. There was no telling what they’d do if the time ran out while I was still on the phone, so I grabbed their hand and started towards the entrance again.

“Are you sick?” Ranger demanded. “You’re sick aren’t you? What’s wrong? You never take a personal day, least of all while I’m in the wind.”

“Not sick,” I confirmed. “Just maintaining a healthy work-life balance for a change.”

“You just had time off for Nikki’s arts festival,” Ranger pointed out.

“Would you consider visiting your family a relaxing time?” I questioned

Ranger let out the barest puff of air, but didn’t argue. “Point made. Enjoy your day.” 

The call ended unceremoniously.

“Close your eyes.” I instructed Blake as I removed the phone from my ear and tucked it back in my pocket.

They blinked up at me in shock. “Me?”

I lifted a brow. “Who else would I be talking to?”

Their brow arched over the top of their glasses in reply. “Well, I just thought you were still talking to Ranger, since you didn’t say goodbye or anything.”

“Ranger doesn’t do goodbyes. Now close your eyes.”

Blake did as they were told this time and closed their eyes, even going to the lengths of covering them with one hand while the other reached out to grip my forearm for balance. I checked to make sure they weren’t peeking, then opened the door to their studio, guiding them a few steps inside and closing the door behind us before I took stock of the scene laid out in space. 

I made eye contact with the man and woman standing a few feet to the left of the entrance and they nodded silently to let me know everything was set up.

“Pierre,” Blake protested when I tugged them forward a few more steps until they were in the perfect position.

“Blake,” I replied.

“What is going on?” they demanded.

“Open your eyes and find out.”

Chapter Text

I was glad I’d remained directly beside Blake instead of giving them some space as they opened their eyes and sucked in a gasp. Their hands flew up to cover their mouth and they stumbled back a step, tears welling in their eyes as I caught them before they could fall.

“Pierre, you-“ 

I shushed them gently, moving to support them from behind, one arm wrapped around their stomach while Blake gripped the other tightly, like a lifeline. I would be their rock for as long as they needed.

“You bought mom’s -?” they started turning to face me, but froze, another gasp escaping them as their eyes landed on the next easel. And then their head was swivelling this way and that, taking them all in, unable to focus on any one in particular for too long before their hungry gaze sought out the next. Devouring every newly uncovered treasure. Pieces of a beloved departed soul left behind to serve as memory.

Blake’s knees gave out, but I didn't let them fall. Just adjusted my hold to keep them upright as the dam broke and the first tear slid down their cheek. Followed swiftly by a second. And a third. And then a great heaving sob as they turned in my arms and buried their head in my chest, letting my shirt absorb their grief and gratitude all at once. 

Time is irrelevant in moments like these. Pain has no need for the ticking of a clock, nor does healing. But as I stood there, holding my best friend, I knew that both had Blake in their grips. And ironically, only time would help them to accept the duo. I knew, from the loss of my own father and brother.

“Thank you,” Blake murmured after who knew how long. They tipped their head back, peering at me through puffy eyes, off-kilter glasses and a mess of hair falling in their face, a small smile fighting its way through the jungle.

Wordlessly, I released one hand and combed their hair back, adjusted their glasses, and swiped away a tear with my thumb, holding their gaze all the while. “Don’t thank me,” I said, squeezing Blake’s waist in what I hoped was a comforting gesture.

Their eyebrows popped up over the rim of their glasses like twin meerkats assessing the area for hidden danger. “Don’t thank you?!” Blake sputtered. “You found and bought every single one of my mother’s paintings and had them sent here to surprise me and I’m not supposed to thank you?”

“I didn’t find them,” I explained patiently. “And I haven’t bought them yet,” I glanced over to the woman still standing in the corner, tears in her own eyes as she’d watched the scene play out. “Though we’re still in negotiations for that,” I added. 

The woman huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, sending me a stern look. So far, she’d refused every offer I’d given, but not because my bids were too low. No, she believed that returning the paintings to the artist’s family was all the payment she needed. Which, for obvious reasons, was a terrible business model, hence my insistence to compensate her.

Blake followed my gaze curiously, turning so they wouldn’t strain their neck, though remaining inside the circle of my arms the entire time.

“This is Margaret and her son Levi,” I explained. “The Hidden Gems, Forgotten Treasures gallery is Margaret’s brainchild, and Levi helps with the business and tech side of things.”  They each waved, and Margaret stepped forward, weathered hands wringing together in front of her floral dress. “When I contacted Margaret, identifying the painting from the festival, and explained why you’d had such a strong reaction to it, she told me that she had a whole collection of paintings by the same artist - by your mom - in the gallery. I offered to buy them, but Margaret-“

“They belong to you, dear,” Margaret cut in, moving closer still until she could lift her hands to cup Blake’s face. “Your mother was an amazing artist. And I can see that she passed her talents on to you.” She nodded toward the canvases in various stages of completion beyond the mini gallery she and Levi had set up by the door. “I’ve brought your mother home. Knowing that, and seeing how much it means to you is payment enough.”

“You could accept the money, too, Ma,” Levi grumbled from the corner. “The gallery doesn't run itself for free.”

“I’m happy to pay,” I reiterated. The last thing I wanted was for the unique gallery that reunited Blake with their mother's lost artworks to go out of business just because the owner was soft hearted.

Margaret hushed us both with a stern look before focusing back on Blake. “The paintings are yours, love. As they always should have been.”

Tears welled in Blake's eyes once more and they surged forward to wrap Margaret in a tight hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Margaret murmured soothing words that I couldn't hear into Blake's ear, and seeing that they were in good hands for the time being, I took the opportunity to strike a deal.with Levi while his mother was preoccupied. I sidled over to where he stood, keeping an eye on the embracing pair all the while.

“It's a good thing you've done here,” he mentioned, inclining his head towards the makeshift gallery and the two people conversing quietly. “You must really love them.”

A verbal confirmation stuck in my throat, not because I wasn't sure if I loved Blake, but because I strongly felt that Blake should be the first person I admitted it to. Instead, I gave a brief, stiff nod. “You'll send me the details of how I can make a donation to the gallery?” I whispered.

Relief flooded the man's features. “And an approximate value of the collection,” Levi confirmed.

“Pleasure doing business with you.”

Levi offered his hand and I shook it just as Blake and Margaret broke apart. Fearful of the kind of wrath this kindly woman was capable of unleashing, I quickly snatched my hand back before she could see. The hasty movement didn't go unnoticed by Blake, though and they smiled knowingly as they directed Margaret's attention to one of the paintings at the far end of the line, talking animatedly about the family vacation that had inspired it.

Margaret and Levi stayed another fifteen minutes before Levi tapped his watch and reminded his mother that they needed to get going. Blake thanked them both with tight embraces and I walked the pair out allowing Blake a few minutes alone with her mom’s paintings. I wasn’t sure if they wanted or needed it, but if it was me, I’d need some time to work through my emotions, so I decided it couldn’t hurt.

When I returned, the speaker in the corner was blaring indie pop while Blake sat cross legged on the floor just inside the door, their gaze flicking from one painting to the next, an expression on their face that I couldn’t quite place. 

I let the door close a little harder than necessary, allowing it to make a noise loud enough to be heard over the music, just to be sure Blake knew I was back, since they appeared entirely absorbed in their observations. It worked a little too well when they flinched and then spun on their ass to face me. I would have apologised, but they were speaking before I could form the words on my lips.

“Pass me my sketch book?” they requested, pointing to where they’d dropped their messenger bag by the door. I took a step towards it, and they added, “And my pencil case.”

I retrieved the items, passing them wordlessly down to Blake, and they wasted no time in flipping to a fresh page and fervently laying pencil to paper.

Ah. This was the expression. They’d been struck by inspiration and were mulling over the details. I watched from directly above them for a few seconds, but when it became apparent that they were fully absorbed in their task, I crossed to a stool by the door and sat down to watch from afar. 

They would scribble for a bit, then pause, tilt their head, glance up at one of their mom’s paintings, then return to scribbling. Every now and then, they would scrunch up their nose and jerkily flip to a fresh page, and the process would start again.

After a while, I pulled out my phone to check emails and read the news, all the while keeping half an eye on Blake as they worked. Hours later, I’d just switched to a cat-themed puzzle game when a new movement drew my attention.

Blake laid their sketchbook on the ground beside them and twisted to stretch out their back, then shook out their hands. They followed it up with a neck roll that ended with them peering directly at me, a sheepish expression on their face.

“Hungry?” I asked, rather than allow them to apologise for disappearing down an art rabbit hole.

“Starving,” they confirmed, hopping up from the floor with more grace and agility than was fair for one human to possess. They were standing in front of me in the next moment, their messenger bag slung over their body, book and pencil case tucked securely inside. “Let’s go grab some lunch and I’ll tell you about the idea I just had for my final exhibit.”

“Final exhibit?” I questioned, allowing them to feel like they’d pulled me up from the stool.

“For my residency,” Blake explained. “The gallery does one exhibit at the beginning of the residency that shows off your existing work. And then at the end of the residency they do a final exhibit of the works you created during the residency.” They paused in the hallway while I secured the studio door. “It’s a bit like the final art project back in college.”

“Don’t tell me,” I said, returning to their side and starting back down the hall towards the exit. “You spotted another decomposing sandwich on your daily walks.”

Blake’s laugh filled my chest and left a tingle shimmering down my spine. ”I think the gallery director would slaughter me if I tried to sell him on that concept,” Blake admitted.

“Your professor definitely tried,” I reminded them.

They nodded, bumping their shoulder against my arm. “True.” Their hands wrapped around the strap of their bag, a softly satisfied smile crossing their features. “No, this is much better than that. It’s a collection to honour mom’s legacy.”

“Sounds perfect.”

Blake snorted. “I haven’t even told you the details, Pierre!”

I was pretty sure the details didn’t matter. I’d seen first hand the passion that Blake put into their art when it was just a random idea that they’d had. Adding in the additional weight of honouring their mom would only enhance that. There was no doubt in my mind that whatever Blake had planned would not only be spectacular to look at, but it would have a meaningful story that would inspire future generations of artists. 

I know I’m biased, but whatever Blake created would be nothing less than perfect in my eyes.

*o*

The next morning I arrived at work and went straight to Ranger’s office. There was no question as to whether he would be there. He’d been gone for a few weeks, and needed to get caught back up on all the current happenings within the company. If I knew Ranger - and I did - he would have gotten a brief update from Lester, Bobby, and/or Steph and would have spent the rest of the day reuniting with his wife in their apartment on the seventh floor. That reunion would have lasted into the early hours of the morning. Which meant Steph would be completely zonked until at least lunch time today. 

Which meant Ranger had several hours to fill before he could ravish her again. 

“Enjoy your personal day?” Ranger asked with a raised eyebrow as I plonked down in the chair opposite his desk.

I squashed the urge to roll my eyes. “I take it Steph filled you in about Blake?”

“Santos, actually.” He closed the lid of his laptop to give me his full attention. “He was quite eager to relay the news when I outlined why it was his job to give me the SitRep.”

I did roll my eyes then. “I’ll bet he was.”

Ranger leaned back in his chair, assessing me with a critical eye. “Bobby said they’re proximity didn’t trigger you at Shorty’s.” 

Now it was my turn to lift an eyebrow, because the way he stated it definitely felt like a question, but he hadn’t actually asked one. I decided to grant him a response just this once, but only because I could see the dark circles under his eyes from stress and lack of sleep over the last few weeks. “They feel more like an extension of me than a separate entity,” I explained, frowning as I attempted to put the feeling into words for the first time. “Like a lost limb that’s been reattached.”

He nodded like he understood, and I wondered if that was how he felt about Steph. It would certainly explain the way he went feral whenever Steph’s life was threatened. I certainly wouldn’t let any harm come to Blake if I could help it. When you view someone as an extension of yourself, any threat to them is a threat to you. 

“I’m glad you’ve found someone who makes you happy,” Ranger said, rather than push the interrogation any further. My response had clearly satisfied him that this was not another Lula situation. “Now,” his demeanour shifted only slightly. He’d been serious while discussing my relationship with Blake, but now there was an intensity simmering just under the surface that warned me that he was about to ask about Steph. “Steph was present when I received the SitRep yesterday, so details of her state were scarce. She assured me she’s been fine, but we all know her definition of fine doesn’t exactly hold water. How has she been?”

I detailed as much of Steph’s emotional journey over the last few weeks as I could, but also declared that Lester was probably the best person to talk to on the topic since he’d been taking point on that and a few other fronts. Picking up the slack I’d been letting slip from my grasp, and really showing the leadership qualities we hadn’t seen him exhibit since leaving the military.

“Has he realised Bobby-” Ranger started to ask, but cut himself off when I shook my head. At this rate, I doubted Lester would realise Bobby was in love with him if we painted it on the wall outside his apartment and accentuated the words with neon lights.

Chapter Text

Another growl of frustration cut through the cinematic soundtrack, tugging my attention away from the book. Blake hunched on the stool in the centre of the studio, glaring at the sheet of acrylic before them like it had betrayed them. Again. Their movements were sharp, agitated, yet deliberate as they swiped at whatever blight the paint had dared to cause. Their singular determination in this new project was unrivalled, but it also carried with it a weight of expectation that had been slowly chipping away at them for the last couple of days as they struggled to master the new medium enough to make it do what they wanted it to do.

In the last hour alone, my attention had been caught by their growls more times than I cared to count. And given the concerns Blake had already voiced previously about losing themself to their art the same way their mother had, I was growing concerned.

I gave them my full attention for a minute, watching their eyes dart over the painting through the unconventional transparent canvas. Their mutters carried over the music just enough to be noticeable, but not enough for me to discern the words. They tossed the rag aside with more force than was strictly necessary, judging by the fact that it hit the jar of paint water and caused it to wobble just enough for me to brace myself in preparation of rushing to aid in spillage clean up.

Glancing at my watch, a plan formulated in the back of my mind, and in the next moment, I’d crossed the studio and held out a cold bottle of water, letting it hover between us until Blake’s eyes met mine. No words. Just a pause long enough to remind them they weren’t alone in this fight. Not until they’d gripped the bottle, did I speak.

“Break time,” I informed them.

And predictably, they shook their head. “I can’t take a break. I need to get this right, I need to figure out how to make this work the way it looks in my head.”

I nodded, plucked the paintbrush from their hand, and gripped their knees to spin them away from the painting, the source of their anxiety, the object of their obsession.

“I know this is important,” I assured them solemnly. “I know you’re chasing perfection. But you’ve been at this for hours and you’ve barely glanced away from the painting in that time. Maybe if you take a break you can return to it with fresh eyes tomorrow and some of the issues you’re dealing with will just make sense.”

A long, heavy sigh sailed past Blake’s lips as their shoulders sagged, head tipping forward until it rested against my stomach, their arms coming up to wrap around my waist. “I don’t wanna lose myself,” they murmured, so quietly I thought it was possible the reminder was meant only for their ears. But I replied anyway as I secured my arms around their back.

“I know.”

“You’re right, I need a break.”

I nodded even though they couldn’t see me. “I have an idea of how to distract you.”

They lifted their head, eyebrows peaking over the rim of their glasses as they rested their chin on my stomach instead, and I marvelled anew at how natural it felt being this close to Blake. Their touch soothing where anyone else would have had my skin crawling. There was a reason I was never selected to be one half in an undercover couple.

“Some of the guys are at the club tonight,” I explained. “Dancing.”

Instantly, a spark of joy and interest lit up their face, but it was followed quickly by another frown. “That’s not your scene,” Blake pointed out.

“Not often,” I confirmed.

“But you want to tonight?”

I nodded slowly. “I want to help you keep hold of yourself.”

Their arms squeezed. “Are you sure?”

“Am I sure I want you to be supported and mentally well?” I rephrased their question to make my point and they laughed. 

“Okay.” And then a grin burst forth on their face as they spun away from me, collecting the items they needed to clean up and pack away before we could leave. “I haven’t been dancing in ages.”

We made quick work of resetting the space so it would be ready for them when they returned in the morning, and after a quick stop at my house to change, I was leaning against the kitchen counter in Blake’s apartment while they got ready.

“Almost there! I just need to grab my shoes from the entryway.” Blake’s voice drifted down the hall ahead of them over the sound of their soft padding footsteps. 

I nodded my understanding, but froze when they appeared. I had been sipping a glass of water while I waited, but now my mouth was completely dry as I took in the outfit Blake had donned for an evening of dancing with my work colleagues. The high waisted, deep brown trousers were nothing new, they'd worn them the day they attended a presentation at the local university. But their top - burnt orange straps, framed by sheer white fabric, confidence stitched into every line. My brain stuttered, unsure whether to compliment, cover, or simply marvel.

“Are you coming, Pierre?” Blake called from the entryway.

Coughing into my hand, I gave myself a mental shake, and forced my limbs to transport me to Blake’s side. “Ready?” I asked, affording myself only a millisecond to scan their body and ensure they had shoes on, not stopping anywhere on the way down, and not lingering on the way back up to their face. I didn't want to make them uncomfortable.

Blake carded a hand through their hair, flipping the bulk of it to the other side and revealing a sparkling chain dangling from the arm of their glasses. “Ready,” they confirmed.

The drive over was quiet. Nothing but the ever present jazz soothing the feathers Blake’s outfit had ruffled, and Blake’s voice detailing an underground rave they’d attended while they were in Europe. And my spiralling thoughts as I replayed my reaction to Blake’s appearance over and over again. 

I didn’t expect it to hit me like that. Not attraction, I didn’t think. Not desire. Just impact. Like they’d stepped out of a painting and I was seeing colour for the first time. Nothing and nobody had ever affected me as totally as Blake’s outfit this evening. I wasn’t sure if it was the exposed skin, or the confidence with which they bore it, but it felt intentional. Framed. Like they’d chosen a hidden facet of themself to share with the world tonight. 

And I froze. Not because I was uncomfortable, but because I didn’t know the rules. If it had been Lula, emerging in a new outfit while we were together, a handful of standard, rehearsed compliments would have fallen from my lips without thought. An obligatory response to an obligatory relationship. 

But with Blake?

Everything felt different.

What was the protocol when the person you care most about turns up looking like a revelation? Compliment? Ignore? Offer a jacket?

I was still struggling with it when I parked and we both climbed out of the SUV. Once again, I was met with the piece of art that was Blake in their outfit, and once again I didn’t know what to do with it. It was like their choice of clothes and styling had short circuited something in my brain.

Thankfully, Blake still appeared to have all their faculties. When I failed to take action, they looped their arm through mine and urged me toward the bouncer at the front door, a skip in their step, and excitement lighting their eyes the whole way.

The wall of sound that slammed into me when we entered caught me off guard and I tensed against the sudden onslaught. Fighting my nervous system to stay calm and keep it together. I knew from past experience that it would be fine once I settled into the space, but how long that would take varied depending on the day.

My reaction was not lost on Blake. They halted our progress, glancing up at me with concern dragging their eyebrows low behind their glasses. I tried to smile and give them the nod to keep going, but I didn’t think I was successful. In the next moment, though, Blake’s expression morphed from worry to realisation and their hand was digging in their pocket as they dragged me forward.

“Come on,” they instructed. 

They paused by an empty stool at the bar and climbed up on it until they were kneeling on the seat, putting them at approximately the same height as me for the first time since college when we would routinely carry out conversations while they stood halfway up the steps of the humanities building. 

“What are you-?” I started to ask, but their hands found my face before I could finish and my brain short circuited again.

For a breathless second I thought they were going to kiss me. Not because I wanted it. But because it was expected. I’d seen it before. I'd experienced it before. Lula had pulled the grab-my-face-and-take-what-she-wants move a time or two. I’d let her, not sure how to say no without it coming out as a rejection.

But with Blake…

Did I want them to kiss me? I wasn’t sure. But I didn’t want to pull away. I had that same feeling in my gut as the first time I’d stood at the open aircraft door, knowing I’d have to jump out any second. Anticipation. Curiosity for the unknown. Like a bruise I just wanted to press, to feel it more intensely.

And then my thoughts blanked again, wiped clean like an etch-a-sketch as they deftly turned my head to the side. “Blake, what are-” I tried again to ask for an explanation, but cut myself off as something touched my ear. I reacted on instinct, flinching away and grabbing their wrist to prevent them from proceeding, frowning at them from the corner of my eye.

Slowly, I turned back to face them, taking in their slightly wide eyes and the way they remained stock still in my grasp while I assessed the situation. Pinched between their thumb and forefinger was a small orange object I didn’t recognise until Blake slowly opened their other hand to reveal the second ear plug in the middle of their palm. 

“The loud music bothers you,” they pointed out, like I’d somehow forgotten my own body’s rebellion. “I thought these might help.”

Of course. Taking a deep breath, I nodded slowly and released Blake’s wrist one finger at a time, returning my head to present them my ear once more and allow them to carry out their plan. “Warning next time, please,” I murmured, not worried at all that the words wouldn’t reach Blake. They would be paying close attention after my reaction. Hell, they’d been playing close attention before my reaction.

“Sorry,” they replied when they’d inserted one plug and I’d turned to give them the other ear. With the second plug in place, the music of the club was now muffled, taking away the sensation of being stabbed in the ear, but leaving me with the steady thump of the bass vibrating up through my legs to my abdomen.

“Better?”

I just nodded, taking my time to get used to the new soundscape, and the fact that I was once again face to face with Blake, their gaze boring into mine like they were weighing my response and deciding if I was being truthful.

A long moment passed. Stillness and quiet in a world that was anything but if I cared to expand my awareness beyond the amazing human being directly in front of me. 

A stray lock of hair had slipped out of place. My fingers moved before I could think, smoothing it back, lingering a moment as the world shifted back into place. Blake’s presence had always done that. Made the world quieter.

They must have seen the confusion stirring in my eyes, because before I knew what was happening, they’d tapped the tip of my nose the way I did the cats when they were being cute, and sound around to grab the bartender’s attention as they plopped down on their ass. 

Blake ordered for both of us, effortlessly, and dragged my hand to rest on their thigh, their thumb brushing back and forth against it in a rhythm that contrasted the fast beat of the music pressing in from all sides. I focused solely on that rhythm, letting it slow my heartrate while we waited. 

Drinks in hand and finally grounded in the space, we turned from the bar. My gaze swept the room, instinctively searching for Lester and the others who’d organized tonight’s meet-up. I spotted Lester first—his eyes already locked on Blake, scanning them like a prize. I wanted to turn around and leave. What had I been thinking?

Blake moved ahead, weaving through the crowd with a rhythm that didn’t wait for the dancefloor. They were already dancing. Already radiant. Blake was why I was here.

I followed, close enough to anchor them if needed, but not close enough to interfere. My instinct to shut Lester down clawed at me, but I held it back. Blake didn’t need shielding. If anything, they deserved the satisfaction of putting him in his place themself. And I wouldn’t rob them of that.

Chapter Text

Blake was still smiling when we arrived at the table, whether because they hadn’t tracked Lester’s gaze, or because they either didn’t care or were planning to roast him again, I wasn’t sure. But at least they were happy, unlike an hour ago when they’d been battling an art monster.

Cal vacated the stool he’d been occupying and Blake didn’t hesitate to take him up on the offer, climbing up and turning their head slightly to peer back at me as I settled just behind them. 

“I have to say,” Lester said, leaning an elbow on the table and inching forward with the kind of interest that made my fist twitch at my side. “This is not what I pictured you’d turn up in when Tank texted that you’d be joining us.”

I couldn’t see their face from my position at their back, but I’d been around the block enough times to know they’d probably raised at least one eyebrow at Lester’s comment. Maybe two. “I have the right to dress however I want,” Blake pointed out. They were cool, calm and collected, but there was an edge to their tone that dared Lester to pursue the topic. I got the feeling they’d enjoy it.

Lester’s expression faltered just slightly, the grin slipped a millimetre before he managed to hoist it back up. “Yeah, but-“

Blake set their glass on the table with deliberate care and a fleeting vision of them skipping the verbal assault and going straight for a jab at the nose actually had me thinking about smiling. They kept their hands to themself, though. In all honesty, I didn’t know what kind of skills Blake would bring to a fight, but given Lester’s elite training, I was glad they’d chosen to stick to words. 

“I don’t have any crayons or markers to give you a visual lesson on why I don’t owe you androgyny,” they said sweetly, making it sound like a reply to an actual request Lester had made. “But I can probably sweet-talk the bartender out of a biro if you’re gonna push it.”

The rest of the table erupted the way the men always do when one of their ranks has been firmly put in their place, erupting into cheers, hisses and “oh snaps”. Good. If their first impression of Blake was of the strength they brought to protecting their right to express themself however they pleased, then maybe they’d learn from Lester’s mistakes and keep their opinions to themselves.

“I’m not trying to antagonise,” Lester said, a surprising note of apology in his tone.  And then he ruined it with his next move. “I just didn’t expect -“ And he gestured vaguely to Blake’s chest area, drawing everyone’s attention there, four sets of eyes staring holes through the thin fabric that exposed almost as much as it concealed. 

Make that five sets of eyes as Blake slowly dipped their head to examine their chest, then lifted it just as slowly to meet Lester’s gaze. Their tone was deadpan when they asked, “Boobs?”

Lester seemed on the cusp of being uncomfortable, which wasn’t a state he veered toward often. “Yeah.” He had the decency to keep his eyes on Blake’s face now, but it was more than I could say for the other men surrounding the small table.

“Can we not make Blake’s chest the main event?” I requested, my voice low, annoyed, on edge even as it echoed in my head thanks to the ear plugs. 

The eyes scattered, searching for something, anything to look at but Blake’s chest. If it had been Steph’s chest they were staring at, Ranger would have called every single one of them to the mats tomorrow morning. And I had to say, it was tempting, but at the same time, taking that kind of action on Blake’s behalf without their permission didn’t sit well with me. They could handle themself, but I would be on standby just in case.

“I like my boobs,” Blake stated matter of factly. The statement elicited groans from more than one man at the table, myself included, because I’d thought we were moving on from the topic of Blake’s chest. “Why wouldn’t I frame them like a nice painting from time to time?”

“They’re nice boobs,“ Vince offered, and I was ready to pick him up by the shirt collar and toss him across the room until Hank’s comment cut through my thoughts like a record scratch,

“Sort of a waste on Tank, though, right?”

Blake stiffened, back ramrod straight as they speared Hank with what I could only imagine was a scathing look. “How do you mean?” A layer of frost instantly chilled the air around us, and I found myself bracing to hold Blake back rather than attack the guys on their behalf.

“Uh oh,” Lester muttered, eyes darting from Blake to me and back. “I would not mess with that tone.”

Hank barreled ahead regardless, digging himself a grave I was more than willing to assist with lowering him into. “I just mean, you dress like that,” he gestured in much the same way Lester had, encompassing their sheer top and exposed flesh. “- And Tank is the guy you bring?” His eyes flicked to me like an afterthought. “No offense man, but you’re not exactly known for your experience.

“There was Lula…” Vince contributed, supposedly trying to be helpful.

Hank made a face. “Yeah, but Lula definitely owned him.”

Between the bass still vibrating up my spine, and the ear plugs muffling the conversation, there was a buzzing noise filling my head that I’d only experienced during fits of extreme rage, and not at all in the last five years. My fists and jaw were clenched so tight trying to contain my instincts that it hurt. The ache and tension only easing slightly when Blake wordlessly laid a hand on my forearm, thumb stroking with gentle pressure. Just firm enough to take note, without being too light and causing my skin to crawl.

“Blake’s got main character energy, too,” Vince pointed out thoughtfully. “Tank’s more… background noise.”

“His experience doesn’t matter to me,” Blake declared, their thumb never stopping it’s motion on my arm.

“That’s generous!” Hank snorted.

“That’s enough,” I cut in. I was trying for calm, but anyone who knew me would be able to tell I was anything but. Words were piling up on the tip of my tongue that I didn’t want to let loose in an environment like this. Now wasn’t the time or place to reveal deep truths and expect respectful replies. As it was, I could tell by their behaviour alone that Vince and Hank had hit the drinks hard upon arrival.

No, the club wasn’t the venue for me to come out to my friends and colleagues. Not knowing the questions and confusion that would likely follow. But the longer I stood there, facing their supposedly joking comments about my inexperience, the more the words pressed at the inner seal of my lips.

Instead, I swallowed the words back and allowed a different two word phrase to shuffle past as I turned to Blake. “Wanna dance?” 

Their hand was in mine almost before I’d offered it, a soft, tentative smile that almost masked the concern in their expression spreading across their face. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Wordlessly, I lead Blake out onto the dance floor, delving further into the crowd of writhing bodies than I wouldn’t normally be comfortable with, but I needed to be out of view of my friends. I needed to not be able to see their expressions while they inevitably discussed what had just happened.

Blake moved like the music flowed through them. Hips swaying, arms snaking. I wasn’t the best dancer, but I had enough skill to match their energy to the fast beat of the song. And when the music switched and slowed, I didn’t hesitate to reach out and pull them to my chest so we could move together. 

“Better?” they asked, tipping their head back to peer up at me in this close proximity.

“It’s always better with you.”

My simple words softened their scrunched brow, and I felt them relax more against me. “Do you wanna leave?”

I shook my head, holding them tighter. “No. I promised you dancing.” No way was I going to back out of giving Blake what they needed to break out of their headspace just because my idiot friends couldn’t keep their eyes and tongues under control. When I’d mentioned the club, Blake’s eyes had lit up like a kid on Christmas.

In this close proximity, and with the ear plugs muffling everything around me, Blake’s chuckle was more vibration against my chest than sound as they shook their head. “Are we not dancing right now?” they asked pointedly. “We came, we saw, we danced. Most of all, those guys disrespected you. If you wanted to make a getaway, I would understand.”

“This is fine,” I assured them, punctuating the statement by spinning them away from me. 

I returned to the table only briefly later in the night while Blake took a bathroom break, and I’ll admit I was relieved to find neither Hank nor Vince. Just Lester and his lonely drink. It was unusual for him to be table-sitting rather than grinding against some blonde in a tight skirt. 

He must have heard my thoughts, because he pointed to his zero-alcohol beer. “I’m designated driver.”

“And that means you can’t go play grab ass like you usually do?” I questioned.

He shrugged. “Not really feeling like it tonight.”

“Lester Santos not taking every opportunity to get up close and personal with a woman?” I asked in mock horror. “Are you sick? Should I call Bobby?”

His laugh sounded forced, and there was something hidden just behind his expression that I couldn’t make out, but he shook his hand. “Nah, man. I just have a lot on my mind.”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure him out. “Everything okay?”

He waved me off and changed blatantly the topic. “It’s good to see you cutting loose with Blake,” he said. “They’re a good match for you.” His comment caught me off guard, and my face must have shown it, because he let out a laugh. “Don’t act so surprised, Tank. I may be a player, but I can recognise a good match when I see one. Ranger and Steph. Zero and his supermodel wife. You and Blake. Like two puzzle pieces that don’t look like they’re gonna fit, but do.”

I couldn’t fault him on the Zero and his wife, bit. Those two were like chalk and cheese looks-wise, but when you see them existing in the same space, it just makes sense. Chemistry, I guess you’d call it. But at the same time- “We don’t look like we fit?”

Lester rolled his eyes. “Come on, Tank, you’re like nine feet tall and built like a literal tank, you don’t look like you fit anywhere or with anyone. But Blake-“

“We talking about me again?” Blake asked, appearing at my side, still bopping along to the music. There was a grin plastered on their face, but I could see a hint of suspicion hidden there when they glanced at Lester. “Good things, I hope.”

“Always,” I murmured at the same time Lester very candidly stated, “Just saying how well you two fit together.”

A flash of something I didn’t quite catch crossed his face. A dark shadow of some very un-Lester-like emotion, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared. I thought about asking if he was okay again, but the way he tucked the unsavoury feeling away faster than I could recognise it made it clear he didn’t want to talk about it right now.

“We’re about to head out,” I said instead.

“Enjoy the rest of your night,” Blake added merrily.

“Yeah, you too,” Lester replied with a nod.

I’d already driven out of the club’s parking lot by the time I realised the reason things felt off in the car was because I still had the ear plugs in. I plucked the first out of one ear and dropped it into Blake’s waiting hand when it appeared in my periphery. “Thanks for these,” I said, digging the other plug out and passing it off as well.

“They help?” Blake asked on a wide yawn as they dropped the plugs into a little plastic container and tucked it into the glove box for safe keeping.

I nodded. “I don’t think I would have lasted that long without them,” I admitted. “But I’m not a fan of how it felt like my head was in a bubble whenever I spoke.”

“Pick the lesser evil, I guess?” they said, and I hummed my agreement while they yawned again. I definitely preferred the noise cancelling effect over being able to hear myself clearly as a trade off. 

Blake shifted in their seat, turning to the side and curling their knees up under their chin. When I glanced over at a stop sign, their glasses were a little askew and their hair had flopped over their face, obscuring my view of their eyes, but from what I could tell it didn’t matter all that much, since I was pretty sure they were closed. If our drive was long enough, I’d bet they’d fall asleep before we arrived at our destination.

And speaking of destinations…

“Do you wanna stay at mine tonight?” I asked, the words bypassing the normal filters that would have me debating the offer and ultimately rejecting it’s application to advance past my lips. It was a selfish offer based entirely on the fact that I’d proven to myself by sleeping at Blake’s last week that I slept better with them beside me regardless of where I was, and the fact that I still had work in the morning.

My eyes were back on the road, but I felt their gaze on me for what felt like an eternity, but was likely only a second or two before they replied, “Are you sure Applepuff would approve?”

I let a small smile lift the corner of my mouth. “Believe it or not, ‘Puff is not my keeper. I don’t need her permission to invite someone over.”

Blake snorted. “Have you told ‘Puff that? Because something tells me she has a different opinion,”

They weren’t wrong. Applepuff certainly was possessive, and she didn’t particularly approve of visitors, especially out of the blue. But she and Blake had bonded enough the couple times Blake had come over that I was fairly confident it wouldn’t be too much of an issue. 

“If she ever wants to get high again, she’ll get over it.”

“There you go again,” Blake laughed. “Using drugs to persuade your cats. I’m starting to question your morals.”

“Oh, like you’ve never heard a mother in the supermarket promising their kid a toy if they stop crying?”

“I question parental morals every damn day,” they declared, the firmness of their words reminding me of the challenges they’d faced with their own parents.

As it turns out, Applepuff was not particularly happy to learn that Blake would be sharing the bed with us, and Snowball was miffed that Blake rested their head in her favourite spot to settle on my chest. But Pretzel was in heaven, having curled up directly on top of where Blake’s hip leaned against mine, claiming us both as her sleep mountain.

Puff and Snowball, however, were tucked up against my opposite leg, facing towards Blake so they could glare daggers at them over the contours of my body.

“You like Blake,” I reminded them both, reaching down to give Puff scritches.

Blake’s sleepy chuckle hummed against my chest. “Is that a reminder or an order?”

“Reminder,” I assured them, pressing a light, experimental kiss to the top of their head. It felt right. “Puff is just sulking because it’s different.”

“Speaking of which,” Blake said, suddenly sounding much more awake than they had a moment ago as they pressed up from my chest to peer at me. “My outfit made you uncomfortable tonight.”

It wasn’t a question, just a statement of fact. Facts that weren’t entirely wrong,  but weren’t entirely correct, either. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly,” I countered. Every instinct I had was urging me to slam down my blank face and put an end to the conversation right then and there, but this was Blake, and I wanted - no, needed - to be honest with them. “It was different, and that caught me off guard. In a good way.”

“In a good way?”

I scrunched up my nose, trying to find the words to articulate how I’d felt when they first stepped out of their bedroom with their bra on display, but the more I tried to pull them into a semblance of a sentence, the more fleeting they became, dancing out of reach as my brain dumped an overabundance of questions into the forefront of my mind about what sexual attraction was and whether what I’d felt tonight qualified. 

In the end, it was all too confusing to sort through at this hour of the early morning, so I changed tactics and just nodded with an affirmative hum. “You looked good. What made me uncomfortable was the guy’s reactions.”

Something knowing flashed behind Blake’s eyes. “Their reaction to my outfit, or their comments about you?” they clarified.

I sighed, which drew Puff’s full attention from where she had started to doze. The cat stood and stretched and padded up my side until she was close enough to butt her head against my cheek. “Both,” I told Blake, renewing head scritches on my furbaby. “But their comments aren’t anything new. They’ve joked about my inexperience and flirt-blindness for years.”

“Flirt-blindness,” Blake repeated, a small smile on their lips. “I like that term. But it still doesn’t make their comments okay.”

I shrugged as best I could, weighed down as I was by Blake and Puff. “It never used to bother me.”

Blake yawned and laid their head back down on my chest, but angled so they could still peer up at me. “But it does now? What changed?”

“I realised I’m ace, and it explained every little thing they usually tease me about,” I said, tucking a lock of hair behind Blake’s ear just as Applepuff decided to settled down on the other half of my chest, mirroring Blake’s position.

“Knowing that it’s an inherent part of who you are, and not just your lack of experience makes it more personal,” Blake articulated, and I nodded. “That sucks.”

“They don’t know I’m asexual,” I said, by way of excuse.

“Doesn’t change the fact that it grates on your -“ another wide yawn stole the last word of Blake’s sentence away and they briefly turned to press their face into my chest, rocking it side to side for a moment before coming back up for air. It reminded me of the way Pretzel would stretch sometimes, crossing her paws over her face and curling in on herself. “Grates on your psyche,” Blake repeated when they’d finally recovered a moment later.

Puff let out a low, short mreow, and I glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was almost oh-one-hundred when we left the club, and with the drive home and the time it  had taken us to get ready for bed,it was now approaching oh-two. I dragged a hand over my face as I calculated the dismal hours of sleep I could squeeze in before I had to be up to go to work.

“We should sleep,” I instructed, wrapping my arm a little tighter around Blake’s back and watching as they slowly nodded, closing their eyes. But as tired as I was, sleep did not come as easily as I’d predicted Blake’s presence would afford, because my mind was chasing questions about unidentified feelings and what they could mean.

Chapter Text

If I thought that sliding out of bed without disturbing my slumbering cats was hard, it was nothing compared to the combined pressure of not waking the cats or Blake. When my alarm blared at oh-five-hundred, I was quick to shut it off, but slow to rise as I first took stock of my predicament, and second revelled in the rightness of it. Three cats and one Blake sleeping practically on top of me. It filled me with the kind of warm fuzzies I usually denied being prone to, and I would have loved to just lie there and soak it all in, but duty called. As did my bathroom. 

The first step was to dislodge the cats from their sleeping positions as was our daily routine. Except instead of relocating to the foot of the bed out of the way like they usually did, they snuggled in around Blake. Which made step two - shifting Blake’s head from my chest and their arm from my stomach - all the more difficult.

Eventually I managed to slip out of bed with all four of my companions still sleeping, but when I emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, Blake was slumped on the side of the bed, their toes barely touching the floor. A yawn spread their jaw wide as they rubbed their eyes with one hand, and scratched Snowball’s head with the other. Their hair was a bird’s nest upturned on their head, and the t-shirt they’d borrowed from my drawer hung off one shoulder. 

“It’s early. You don’t need to be up yet.” I pointed out, diligently ignoring the warmth that filled my stomach as Pretzel rolled closer to Blake and mashed her face into their hip. 

Their eyes popped open and squinted in my general direction. A hand combed through their hair until it caught on a snarl, and they ended up tucking the whole mess behind an ear. “Tell that to my bladder.”

Blake slid off the bed. Their heels landed with a soft thud, and they took a few stumbling steps away from the bed before they paused, found their balance, and squinted at the far side of the bed where their glasses sat folded on the end table. A shake of their head answered whatever contemplation they’d entertained, before they continued my way. 

I stepped to the side, clearing the path, but they swerved, colliding with my chest in a hug so brief I’d barely raised my arms to reciprocate and they were gone again. A groaned “Mmm-ning,”  drifted out of the bathroom behind them as the door closed. 

Figuring if they were smart, Blake would go back to bed when they were done, since there was no reason for them to be up for another few hours, I let my yawn carry me out of the bedroom and into my usual morning routine. I fed the cats, started the coffee brewing and spent my entire run on the treadmill thinking about my reaction to Blake’s appearance last night. 

The thin straps of the burnt orange bra on display, obscured only slightly by the loose, sheer button down they’d left open. The expanse of skin unexpectedly on show. The way my gaze was drawn to it in an equally unexpected way. Because it was Blake. And they’d looked good. Different. More feminine than usual. But good.

And my desire to drink in their appearance was screaming confusion through everything I knew about myself. Steph regularly wore far less for the distraction jobs she worked for Rangeman, and I’d never once felt the need to stare. My gaze certainly wasn’t continuously drawn to her flesh.

But Blake was different. Every cell, every fibre of my being was attuned to them. Like a compass, except instead of pointing north, it pointed to Blake. Was this what sexual attraction felt like? I wasn’t sure. But the more I focused on the issue, the deeper my confusion grew. 

As the preset programme continued, my usual zen running zone was miles out of reach, which didn’t bode well for the rest of the day. Probably, it was a good day to avoid people. To hide in my office with the door locked, or smash some heads together on stark street. 

Stepping off the treadmill, I snatched up a clean towel from the basket by the washing machine and dragged it over my head as I walked blindly back upstairs. Applepuff was winding around my feet the second I opened the door, meowing insistently as we made our way back into the kitchen.

“I already fed you,” I pointed out. “You’re not getting second-breakfast, you’re not a hobbit.” She continued to meow, headbutting my shins and generally being a nuisance, so I scooped her up. “You’re a menace, you know that, right?”

“I do,” Blake’s voice replied from beyond the doorway to the kitchen. “I like to think it’s one of my more redeeming qualities.”

My head snapped up to find Blake leaning against the kitchen counter, coffee mug in hand. I couldn’t help but notice that they’d gotten dressed in the clothes they’d worn last night. Logical, since they were the only clothes they had here and my shirt they’d borrowed to sleep in swallowed them whole. Unlike last night, though, they’d opted to do up the buttons of the sheer blouse, covering up the bra and flesh that had caused the existential crisis I was still spiralling through. It still lingered in my mind’s eye.

“I was talking to Applepuff,” I pointed out.

Their lips quirked up in a smile. “I figured.”

“I didn’t expect you to be up. You could have just crawled back into bed. There’s a spare key in the hall cabinet. You could have slept as long as you needed and then locked up on your way out.” 

My fingers curled tightly into Puff’s fur, because as much as I loved spending time with Blake, I had hoped that they’d go back to sleep so I could try to sort out my feelings before interacting with them again. It was easy enough last night because the guys had made absolute dicks of themselves and I could focus on that. But it was much harder to deflect my feelings when there was nothing to distract from them.

“That’s a great concept,” Blake said slowly. “And ordinarily, I would have taken you up on the offer, but I don’t have my car, so I kinda need you to drop me back at my apartment on your way to work, if that’s okay.”

I nodded. Trying to loosen my grip on Puff, but she just leaned her body more heavily into my hold, slumping against my chest like a ragdoll. “I’m gonna grab a shower,” I said. “Help yourself to whatever.”

Spinning on my heel, I quick-marched back down the hallway and up the stairs to my bedroom, but not before I caught the look of concern on Blake’s face. Yet another thing to haunt me as I scrubbed the sweat from my body. I couldn’t not talk to them about my issue, but I was hoping to at least delay it until I’d managed to sort through my feelings a bit more. And had had a full night’s sleep instead of the meagre hours I’d managed after returning home from the club. 

Puff was waiting by the ensuite door when I emerged, clean and dressed, and stayed directly at my side as I followed a delicious smell to the kitchen. Pausing in the doorway, with Puff practically sitting on my foot, I watched Blake at the stove, my apron wrapped twice around their waist as they cracked eggs into a pan. They didn’t turn, or acknowledge my presence in any physical way, but I knew they knew I was there the same way I could probably use the awareness of their presence to seek them out in a crowd.

And, of course, the fact that they started speaking. “I’m making sweet potato breakfast hash,” they informed me. “Should be ready in a couple of minutes. Could you grab me a chair?”

I automatically moved to the small kitchen table and gripped the back of one of the chairs to lift it before I paused, blinking in confusion. “What do you need a chair for?”

“There’s just something I need that I can’t reach,” they shrugged, glancing at me over their shoulder.

I shook my head. “What is it? I‘ll grab it down for you.”

“That’s okay,” Blake assured me. “Just bring me the chair, I can do it myself.”

“Blake,” I sighed.

“Pierre,” they countered, turning fully this time and crossing their arms over their chest. “Just bring me the chair. And while you’re at it, you can tell me why you’re acting weird.”

“I’m not acting weird,” I defended, even though I was definitely acting weird. Mostly because I didn’t know how to act. There were too many questions in my mind. 

I caught sight of Blake’s side eye and sighed again. “Okay, fine, I’m being weird,” I admitted. “And you were right last night, your outfit made me uncomfortable but only because I don’t understand how it made me feel.” I lifted the chair and carried it over near the stove where Blake was waiting. “I really liked the way you wore it last night. Like, a lot. And I didn’t know if it was sexual attraction. But if it was, what does that mean for my asexuality? I just found a description that fit after decades of feeling inadequate. But if I experience sexual attraction then that means I’m not- what are you doing?” I cut myself off as Blake climbed up on the chair in front of me, but not to reach into a cupboard like I’d expected them to. Instead they bent at the waist until their face was level with mine and laid a hand on each of my cheeks.

“You are still ace, if that’s the term that best fits your experience,” Blake said firmly, holding my gaze.

“But-”

They squeezed, cutting me off. “Asexuality is defined as experiencing little to no sexual attraction.” They paused, letting that sink in for a second, then repeated for emphasis. “Little to no sexual attraction. That means that some people who identify as asexual will still experience sexual attraction from time to time. So it doesn’t matter if what you felt last night was sexual attraction or not. If you still feel ace, then you’re ace. Do you understand?”

I nodded, and in the process caught sight of their cleavage down the gaping neckline of their blouse. I let myself stare this time. Noticing the way the straps crossed and intertwined over the swell of their breasts, but that the feelings that had caught me off guard last night were missing.

Blake dipped their head to peer down their own shirt, obstructing my view, then lifted their eyes to me again. “Well?” they asked, moving the hands to my shoulders as they straightened, putting my face in line with the very boobs I’d just been ogling. “Any stirrings of attraction?”

“I don’t think so.”

They smirked, and hopped off the chair, quickly turning their attention to the stove as they turned off the burners and started scooping the hash onto the two plates they’d prepared. “You know, coming from anyone else, I might have found cause to be offended - not that I want random people looking at me in that way - but I like how honest we can be with each other, and that you don’t feel pressured to say things you don’t feel.” They nudged the edge of the chair with their knee. “You can take that back to the table now. And grab yourself a drink, I’ll bring these over.”

I froze with my hands on the chair, narrowing my gaze on Blake. “Wait, what was it that you needed to reach?” 

The moment stretched as they turned to face me, a plate in each hand, and held eye contact for a few seconds before answering. “You.” And without any more ceremony on their reply, they bustled past me to the table and sat in the remaining chair to start eating. I stood there for another minute, marvelling at how reassuring it was to not just be seen, but to be understood. And just like that, I knew what I had to do to settle the tension that the guys’ comments had caused once and for all.