Chapter Text
“What the fuck did I just watch?” demands Alex, nearly choking on her last gulp of cabernet sauvignon.
It’s just after midnight in Haven Springs, the middle of June. Alex and Ryan are nestled together on the sofa in her apartment, her head cradled against his chest. The only lights on are the neon Mine Haunt display and the dim blue glow of the television. Onscreen, a girl wearing a blue dress retreats down a street, surrounded by the whimsical patter of steel drums. Then the screen cuts to black. The credits to Blue Is the Warmest Color roll.
“Bienvenue dans le cinéma français,” Ryan says in an atrocious accent, sweeping his arm grandly as if gesturing at the majesty of nature.
“I didn’t know you spoke French.”
“That was the extent of it. Oh, and omelet du fromage.”
The two of them burst into hysterical laughter as Alex sets down her empty wine glass and clicks the remote. With a switch, they’re plunged into semi-darkness.
“I’m sorry,” gasps Alex between laughs, “...but who at Netflix thought it was a good idea to put that into the Pride collection?”
“It did win Cannes.”
“Cans?” Alex asks in mock confusion, squeezing her breasts.
“No, Cannes, like the film festival. But cans were definitely involved.”
“And bald eagles. So many bald eagles.”
“...Eagles?”
“Y’know—vaginas. Shaven.”
“Oh.”
Disappointed, Ryan stops laughing. His ears redden.
Leave it to Ryan to be more excited about a bird than the female anatomy.
“But man,” she says, feeling mischievous, “that six-minute sex scene was terrible. Like, I’ve been with only a couple women, and even I know that’s not how it works.”
“Oh, do tell, sex guru Chen.”
Alex gives him a playful shove. “Yeah, I bet you’d get a rise outta that.”
“No, no, no,” Ryan chuckles, raising his hands in defense. Despite his joking tone, there’s a touch of panic in his eyes.
“Jealous?”
She’s about to give him another playful shove when purple light flares across her field of vision.
“Hey, I’m kidding,” she says apologetically and places a hand on Ryan’s chest. It’s both to reassure him and to get a grip on his sudden fear.
But just as quickly as it arises, it fades away. A wall goes up. She can’t get a read.
Ryan shakes his head and laughs uneasily.
“It’s nothing.”
Alex prickles with mild irritation. This has been happening a lot over the past couple weeks. With Jed awaiting arraignment and Ryan calling him almost every night, she knows he’s had a lot on his mind. She didn’t want to pressure him into talking about it—especially since it was her father's murderer and her would-be murderer he was dealing with. Still, she doesn’t like feeling so emotionally amputated.
One of the things she loves most about Ryan is how he allows himself to be vulnerable. To express the full range and depth of human emotion, from powerful to powerless. He’s unlike nearly all of the other guys she’s ever known, trying so hard to be hard, suffering from chronic emotional constipation for which the sole laxative is booze.
In fact, if she had to pinpoint the exact moment she started to fall in love with him, it would have to be the afternoon after Gabe’s wake. At the ravine. Ryan crumbling into her arms like an avalanche, holding onto her as if she was the only thing stopping him from falling in after Gabe.
And then, after a sob deep enough to cleanse both their souls, there was joy. Radiant, golden joy, the first she had ever seen. As they basked together under goose-shaped clouds, she never felt so connected to someone in her life. She wanted to share everything with him.
She still does.
So it’s at moments like these, when he clams up out of some preemptive consideration for her feelings, that she feels alone.
She shakes her head.
“No, it’s not nothing,” she coaxes, caressing his shoulder.
His eyes flick to meet hers, and then back away. He sighs. Purple tendrils begin to seep back out of him, but Alex can’t make out any distinct thoughts, just the gnawing of his gut.
“Ryan, please…let me in? I know you’re always putting my needs first, sometimes before I even know what they are.”
She recalls the day they met in the record store. His interception of Steph’s fury. A discreet offer to take over the booth for her so she could leave the space.
“You’re so freaking thoughtful. Like, all the time. And I love that about you.”
He glances at her again. This time, he maintains eye contact, albeit warily.
“But have you ever considered,” Alex continues, “that what I want—no, what I need —is to know what you need, too?”
At great length, Ryan sighs, hanging his head but still looking up at Alex. He opens his mouth once and closes it before proceeding.
“There’s something I should tell you. Something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
He takes her right hand into his left, lacing their fingers together. His palm is clammy.
“But let me say it, okay? I need to explain it. Out loud.”
Alex nods.
He carefully flips his left hand so it’s on top of hers. On his middle finger gleams the thick black band he always wears. Alex has never thought its purpose was anything beyond decorative, but the gravity of the moment is forcing her to reconsider.
“You wouldn’t happen to recognize this,” he says, more a statement than a question. “Would you?”
Alex shakes her head.
“Neither did I, until January of this year.”
He locks eyes with her, purple aura now roiling. It takes nearly all of her concentration to keep from lapsing into the frenzied stream of consciousness all around her.
“Steph helped me pick it out,” Ryan continues, “after making a dismal attempt at writing me a Smolder profile.”
Ryan on Smolder? Really?
It seemed completely at odds with everything she knew about him.
“She thought I was looking to get laid.”
“And you weren’t? On Smolder?”
“No, definitely not. Or at least, not unless…”
Slowly, the gears in Alex’s head click into motion.
“Alex,” he says, his voice cracking, “I need you to know this is something I’ve been trying to figure out for a while.”
His voice picks up pace: “For the longest time, I thought something was wrong with me. Middle school, high school. It wasn’t until my last year of college that I found a name for it, made peace with it. I finally had an idea of how it worked.”
Alex’s head is spinning now. Whirring. As much as she’s trying to stay in the moment, her mind keeps replaying their conversation from right after the movie ended.
“But when I met you, I wasn’t sure again. I didn’t know if it would happen. And then you kissed me on the roof, and I felt it. For a moment. And over the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling it, here and there. But I wanted to make sure it was real. That it was coming from me, and not just because I thought it’s what you wanted. I’ve made that mistake before. And it’s terrible.”
The thoroughly disgusted face of a naked woman flashes through Alex’s mind. Tears well up in Ryan’s eyes. She’s tempted to wipe them away, to make it all go away, but then a smile cracks across his face. Amid the hurricane of purple flickers a spot of yellow.
“I know now,” he says, sniffling. He rests his right hand against her cheek and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“It’s coming from me. It’s coming from me, even though I’m...”
He trails off, biting the air for words.
“...Asexual,” Alex finishes. She hates that she didn’t realize it sooner, that she made all those off-handed comments.
But then, to her surprise, Ryan laughs, tears of relief streaming down his face.
“Well...gray-asexual, technically.”
Alex tilts her head.
“Meaning, I don’t feel sexual attraction. Sex—it doesn’t appeal to me. At all. Unless…”
He squeezes Alex’s right hand with his left. She had forgotten they were still holding hands.
“Unless?”
“...Unless I’m with someone I connect with in a certain kind of way.”
Lightning rips down Alex’s spine and to the tips of her fingers and toes. She feels electric, like Ryan just plugged her into a socket.
In a way, she realizes, Ryan has.
“A-are you sure?” she hears herself stammer. “Because I don’t want to make you— Just because of me. I’m mean, I’m fine with not—”
She clamps her mouth shut.
No, that last part is a lie.
As much as she’d like to think she could nobly abstain from physical intimacy with Ryan for the rest of her life, she can’t deny the wet dreams she’s been having, or her throbbing curiosity about how far down his body his signature fragrance of pine, cloves, and black pepper goes.
“I’m sure,” Ryan says, gazing at her steadily. “But only if that’s something you want. If you don’t, if we never, that doesn’t change a thing about the way I feel about you. I just want— I just want to connect with you in any way I can.”
And make you feel so fucking good.
The thought is so clear that at first she swears he said it aloud. But he just continues staring at her.
Alex has never been more grateful in life for an intruding thought. She welcomes it in. She takes its coat. She offers it tea.
“Yes, please,” is all she can manage.
He smiles a crinkly smile. As his eyelids lower, his pupils dilate like roses in bloom.
“Full disclosure, though,” he says. The corners of his mouth quirk impishly. “I don’t have a whole lot of experience. So I hope you’ll understand if I’m not as handy with, um, a plough as I am with a spade.”
Heat rushes to Alex’s cheeks. His pun earns a groan from her—but for a different reason than usual.
“Criminal,” whispers Alex, regaining her composure, her face drawing towards Ryan’s. “Y’know, there’s a perfect song for this occasion.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s called Kiss Up and Shut Me.”
Before Ryan can say a word, Alex seals his parted lips with a kiss.
It starts off sweet, tender, like their first kiss on the roof. But with one impatient flick of her tongue, it catches fire.
His taste floods her mouth, smooth and rich as salted caramel. Their tongues press and parry, exploring the shape of each other. It feels like she’s trying to devour a hot fudge sundae before it melts—only the sundae is trying to devour her, too.
Before she realizes what she’s doing, she’s kneeling over Ryan. Her hands snake their way under his flannel and crawl up the deliciously taut muscle of his stomach, his chest, his neck. Ryan gently whimpers, a direwolf pinned to the ground.
That’s when she sees it.
Orange. The primal cry of dawn.
It’s rolling off of Ryan in waves and pulling her into its thrall. When she pauses to examine it, she realizes it’s actually more of a gradient. The slightest tinge of purple radiates into carnal red, fiery orange, and then canary yellow. It’s the most beautiful sunrise she has ever seen.
Even after they break apart, gasping for air, the orange continues to pulse. Ryan looks up at her reverently. The heat of his gaze comforts and arouses Alex in equal measure.
The Sun: A card of joy and vitality, openness and true contentment.
As she reluctantly pulls away, she makes a mental note to ask Steph for that tarot card. She never knew how true it would turn out to be.
But for now, this is enough. Plenty.
She cradles Ryan’s face with both hands. No need to rush. There’s still more they need to discuss, more questions she wants to ask.
However, one thing is certain. As far as Alex Chen is concerned, orange is the warmest color.