Chapter Text
The settlement they get is more money than Natalie’s ever seen in her whole life, more money than anyone in her family has ever seen, more money than Travis has ever seen. Surprisingly, not more than his mother has seen. Turns out she used to work at some big bank before her marriage, before Travis and Javi, before she moved to their dead end town. She sits them both down immediately, stressing the importance of them not taking this absurd amount of money and blowing it.
So, Natalie leaves Travis’s house with something she wasn’t sure she’d ever have, a savings account, with more than a hundred dollars in it. His mom advises—makes them really—split their settlements into thirds. One third in a savings account, one third in a checking account and the last third for spending, though it’s clear she hopes they don’t spend the whole third.
She’s always been frugal, had to be, and even though the desire is there to blow through all her money to buy anything she’s ever wanted, she can’t do it. She can’t swallow the lump of guilt in her throat each time she makes a purchase that would’ve left her and her family without utilities for months. So, she buys a cheap but reliable car, and Travis buys an engagement ring, not that she knows that until way later, she just thinks he bought a TV for his room.
She watches a lot of TV with him, she moves in with him, mostly because his mom hates having an empty house and Natalie feels like she’s going to be sick if Travis isn’t within eyesight at all times. Luckily, he feels the same, so she doesn’t need to be embarrassed, not that she could ever be embarrassed in front of him. He’s Travis, her best friend, the only one who knows her, who understands her, who loves her despite the fucked up mess she is.
She’s not fucked up, she’s traumatized, or at least that’s what her therapist says, but she’s working with a drop in the ocean of information. Though Natalie will admit it feels good to talk to someone, even if it’s just about how much not having access to a shower sucked.
Travis pulls her closer, the light of the TV flickering across his face. He’s holding her so tight as if afraid she’ll disappear, or someone will come and take her from him, it feels nice, safe, being loved, actually loved is nice. Nicer than alcohol or drugs or skipping class to go hangout in back alleys just doing nothing.
She shifts trying to get more comfortable, breathing in the scent of him, laundry detergent and pine. It’s comforting, Travis is comforting, ever since he placed her hand over his heart dedicated it to her, he’s been her comfort, she only hopes she’s the same for him.
“You good?” He asks, his voice low and raspy from disuse.
“Yeah, yeah, just thinking.” She says, settling her head on his chest.
“You wanna talk about it?” He asks carefully. He’s been seeing his own therapist, and it seems like they talk more about his dad than the crash, but she doesn’t judge. She’s just grateful he’s willing to let her in, especially when she finds it so hard to return the favor.
“I just…like you, a lot.” She confesses, feeling her cheeks burn at the kindergarten level confession. Travis knows she loves him; she’s said it a few times in the wilderness and a few times here, but it feels different to say it here. Here where she’s tucked up against him in clothes that aren’t someone else’s and smell of smoke, here where they’re not worried about winter coming, or someone else dying. Here back among the rest of the world where everything is the same, but they’re so different and nobody but them understands.
“Oh, shit really?” He asks, humor lacing his tone.
“Shut up.” She rolls her eyes and pushes herself up, but he pulls her back down, their noses almost touching, his warm brown eyes drinking her in, some shitty sitcom playing in the background.
“Nah, you like me.” He drags the words out, making her laugh.
“Yeah, I’m sure you knew that already, I did rock your world a couple of times out there.” She says, trying to keep her words light, all the while being distracted by the way he smiles, how it brightens his whole face and makes her heart do a stupid childish flip in her chest.
“And in here.” He adds with wriggling brows.
“Shut up, you’re such a dork.” She laughs, refusing to meet his gaze, looking at his nose instead, eyes drifting down to his lips.
“Yeah, but you’re into it.” He counters with an annoying amount of confidence.
“Maybe.” She shrugs, ghosting her lips over his own.
“Definitely.” He says, hand snaking around to the back of her head, closing the distance between them.
His lips are soft, and warm, he tastes like the minty toothpaste his mom always buys, and he whispers her name against her lips with such gentleness it almost makes her cry.
“I love you.” She says, keeping her eyes closed, caressing the curves of his cheeks with her thumbs.
“I love you too.” He tells her, his other hand on her mid-back never straying lower unless she gives him the go ahead.
“Ooo, you like me.” She teases, eyes snapping open, watching as his face reddens.
“Nat, you literally just—”
She cuts him off with another kiss, smiling when she feels his fingers flexing on her back, restraining himself. She can practically taste his longing, or maybe it’s her own, sometimes she can’t tell the difference, can’t tell where she ends, and he begins.
“Just keep kissing me, that’s what I wanted to say.” He says smiling cheekily, a little breathless, his pupils blown wide, inky blackness consuming the warm brown until there’s nothing left but a thin ring.
“Is your mom home?” She asks, already sitting up and shedding her shirt.
He glances at his alarm clock, following her lead. “No, and she won’t be home for a few more hours.”
She smiles at him, mischievous and happy, yeah, she thinks this is her feeling happy, or at least the closest she’s going to get for a while.
He sits up, and smoothes his hands down her arms, sliding her bra straps down as he does. “You’re so beautiful.”
“So are you.” She takes his hand and places it over her heart, hoping he can’t feel how fast it’s beating, how much she means it when she says she loves him.
Love has always been difficult, painful, unless it was with her friends—her team she's undecided on—but with him, it’s…still painful, the venom in his voice when he declared her a mistake. The look on his face when she returned but Javi didn’t, the sharp cut she felt when he voted against her during Coach’s trial, but it doesn’t stay that way. Not like it did with her dad, her sister, her mom, those losers she had flings with. No because for every wound he inflicts he soothes them tenfold.
His eyes widen, but he says nothing, just let's there be a silent recognition of what she’s offering, though he’s had it all along whether he knew it or not.
She leaves his hand there and places her own on his bicep, ignoring the thrill that runs through her when she realizes there’s more muscle there than before. He’s gotten stronger slowly, she knew that. He’s been getting enough to eat, enough to drink, and the fact that Akilah’s brother Andre has been coming around and dragging him to the gym as some sort of male bonding, punch out your feelings type things probably doesn’t hurt. She didn’t even know they were friends before the crash, but she’s glad he has someone normal to talk to. She has Kevyn sort of, but she hasn’t been able to force herself to really interact with him, but she knows he understands, he knows her, and he won’t take offense.
Travis slides his hand around her back, undoing her bra, looking at her like she’s some goddess. It’s intoxicating and frightening, she bites the inside of her cheek, letting him slip her bra off and toss it aside.
“Damn, I thought you’d like that one, guess that was a waste of fifty bucks.” She says, trying to joke, to be Nat he remembers, tough and snarky and confident.
You don’t have to talk like that. He’d said it so quickly back then, clocked her so quickly even through his nerves, and it’d hurt like a bitch. She’d just wanted it to be good for him, just did what she normally did, said what the others before him wanted to hear, but she’d fucked up.
Was she fucking up now?
His hands are on her ribs now, fingers splayed, his eyes warm, always so warm even in his anger, meeting her own, a smile toying at his lips. “You paid fifty bucks for that?”
Okay, she’s okay, she didn’t fuck up.
“Bras are expensive.” She shrugs, the freshly cut ends of her hair tickling her skin. Travis’ mom took her to some salon last week, where the ladies fussed over her and her hair, getting it to a far better blonde than she’d ever been able to achieve with box dye in the bathroom at home.
He wraps a lock of her hair around his finger, watching how it catches the light, before releasing it. “I like it.”
Her free hand is on his shoulder, stabilizing herself, and he’s still looking at her like that, like she’s perfect. Then he moves, pulls her closer, crashing his lips to hers, and she melts into him, letting him fumble with her shorts, then his own until they’re both bare, the AC making goosebumps appear on her skin. He always touches her like he’s afraid she’ll disappear, and she probably does the same. It’s all endlessly moving hands, endless pulls closer, tight grips and skin sticking together because they can’t bear to be apart.
He pants into her mouth, moans her name, and she digs her nails into his shoulders, his back, bites his lip and his neck. He bites back, his hands grip his hips, her waist, her breasts, her thighs, anywhere they can reach as she rides him. Her thighs are strong, her knees, she has strong legs always has and trekking through the wilderness for over a year hadn’t changed that, especially now that she gets three square meals a day. She kisses him hungrily, gets high on the sounds of his whimpers and whines, the way his hips buck up into hers.
He’s strong too, and when his hands return to her hips, he sets the pace, and it’s her turn to gasp and cling to him, his name falling over and over again from her lips until he kisses her again and swallows the sound. Their tongues and teeth clash, she can taste blood, she must’ve bitten his lip too hard, or maybe he bit hers too hard, it doesn’t really matter either way to her.
It's all a rush, a haze, sounds, and sights and her blood rushing beneath his skin, her brain shutting out anything that isn’t directly related to him. He feels good, he makes her feel good, he makes her feel alive and wanted. She buries her face in the crook of his neck, wrapping her arms around him, both deliriously happy and unexplainably frightened.
“N-Nat, fuck Nat, hol—hold on, let me see you.” He stutters out, his voice strained, concern and need warring in his tone.
She raises her head, biting her lip, shifting her hips the way he likes to try and derail his train of thought. It works for a second, his head falling back as he groans low in his chest, the sound, the look making her toes curl, and her head go fuzzy.
But then he’s back, fighting through the rush to cup her cheeks and force her to look at him, thumb brushing against her bottom lip, pulling it free from her teeth. “There we go, there’s my girl.” It’s said with such a husk, a raspy velvet tone that conveys such warmth and care, that she can’t help but shiver.
His girl, his partner, his fellow hunter, his best friend, she’s so many things to him and he to her, she loves him, he’s hers, hers, when nothing and no one else was.
“Here I am, your girl.” She agrees, trying to memorize the details of his face, the softness of his expression.
He takes her hand and places it on his chest, over his heart. “And here I am, still here, still yours.”
“Still mine.” She echoes, holding onto him tighter. The light from the TV is orange, like firelight, like the light she carried to Coach Ben, the light she held when Travis told her he’d keep watch, when he showed he was still on her side.
“Still yours, Nat, always.” He promises, pressing her hand firmer against his chest.
She nods, banishing the memory, focusing on the feel of him, the realness of them here together in his room. When she finishes, stars flashing behind her eyelids, her chest heaving, her sweat, and his mingling as she collapses on the bed next to him, she brings his hand back to her heart. “Yours Travis, always.”