Stay ; Tradley

F O U R T E E N ; tris

omg not me updating two years later !!!

i honestly don't mind if anyone reads this, I've just always regretted not carrying on with this story bc i loved it so much and fancied picking it back up again now i have more time! :)

but if you are reading this, thank you so much <3 the capitalisation in this is awfulll but i honestly don't have it in me to change it 

-

The drive home is somewhat of a blur. I'd like to say that even after everything that has happened I finally feel at peace, like everything going to be okay, but yet somehow i still can't sit there and act like it is. Not so much with Brad, because I know it's him. And i know now, that for him, it's also me. But I still have some shit to do. To work on.

I can go home with Brad tonight and pretend that this is the end, but i'd be fucking us all over. There's still Luke, and the mess that we've made. And there's still all those problems of mine, kicking at my heels, and begging me to trip over.

I turn to Brad just before we pull into his close; his hair is still running small rivulets down a goosepimpled neck, his nose sniffing its way into a suspected cold. I can't stop looking at him.

"Look." i say as he turns to me briefly, his eyes giving nothing away. I wonder if he's been getting good at that recently. Hiding himself away from the world. What a pity for a boy who has never learned, before now, to do such a thing. "I just want you to know that this isn't going to be easy."

His eyes fall a little, like maybe he thinks i'm regretting my decision. I slide my hand onto his which sits on the gear stick and give it a squeeze.

"I don't mean us, or even really the gay thing. I mean me." I swallow. "I've still got shit to deal with, Brad. you know? I've got to get my head straight, and that's gonna be messy. And don't get me wrong, when i close my eyes, it's you there. Its you who holds me in the late sweaty nights and the sleep deprived mornings... but i just need you to know that you don't need to feel pressured- into sticking around, i mean.''

When he hikes up his handbrake he looks at me softly, satisfied. Like it's okay. And like he understands.

"Tristan Evans, you know I would follow you into the depths of hell. Into the dark." he leans over and kisses me on the lips. I can't help but smile- will kissing him ever start to feel like the world isn't being reborn? "Drugs, Alcohol. Whatever it is, okay? I'm here."
I nod, suddenly so relieved that he didn't tell me that he'll get me fixed up, that we are gonna sort me out. A delicious suggestion that i'm not this horrific person i think i am. That for once, someone doesn't want to change me, revert me to this person i should have been if the world had treated me different to how it really did.

I lean into him. I breathe. For a moment I can see this life where it's going to work out.

We walk slowly to his front door, just after I stand there for a moment or two while he gathers himself in the car. When we walk through the front door Nat, on her laptop, looks up at the pair of us and smiles weakly. She strides over and pulls us into a big hug. Both of us. She doesn't say anything. It's enough.

We walk upstairs, the house crackling with warm silence as the fluffy carpet greets our cold, tired feet.

"Shower?" Bear smiles, all pearly whites as we walk into his room. The smell of his room, my god. I click the door shut behind us and kiss him quickly, passionately, his toes tipping up to meet me suddenly. We stand there again, asking the world to wait for us. Begging for it to spare a time frame every couple of seconds just for us to kiss. Because we can.

"Yes shower."

Despite ourselves, despite Nat downstairs, we wander into the bathroom. My heart pounds and my stomach knots. We lay our towels down on the toilet and slowly, delicately undress. Rain pours onto the skylight and through the slightly cracked window where it pools on the windowsill. I watch as his hairy, muscly, elegant legs appear, and his eyes wander all over me while i take my shirt off.

God, I need a shower. I know my body is not what he wants to see; I am more than aware of the marks over my arms and back and stomach and chest. Some from our sex. Some from moments before, some from the morning after. Luke has never done well on a comedown.

I was just foolish enough to stick around.

Brads hands touch my waist, they stroke my hip bones.

He looks at me like a cinema.

And though we've seen each other naked a million times, when we bundle into his shower, the water pouring over the fine hairs on our chests, washing away a million sins, we both know that this is indisputably different. Suddenly his body isn't just a body, but a work of art that I want to touch every part of. Not even sexually. Just touch, and hold; he twists my body away from him, and he traces my spine, running finger to finger across my bruises.

In another life it would have been different.

Brad leans against me then, his face warm on my cool back; i feel all of him against me, and it's comforting. Every bristle, every muscle, overwhelmingly human and perfectly him.

"I'm sorry you had to go back there," he breathes. "That i made that happen."

He's not wrong. I went there because of him. Because of this thing called nowhere else to go. But I don't want him to feel bad. No matter what Brad does to me, I have never wanted him to feel sorry over it. Somehow that would hurt me more.

"It's okay."

"And I want you to know that I'll never hurt you like that." he whispers. I nod. A tear that he can't see rolls off my nose. I hope so, I want to say. I really, really hope so.

He lathers the soap between his hands and runs them over my body. Softly. He massages my shoulder blades as I close my eyes and tune out to the white noise of a shower pouring; of his breath beside me.

I turn to him after a few minutes, the hot water easing the hard edges of life into a soft blur. I want to have sex with him here, in this shower. Both incredibly naked and lusciously vulnerable. Not the kind of sex that Luke and I have; not the post argument sex, not the angry sex, not the violent kind. Not the sex where i know he doesn't love me.

The kind of sex i want to have with Brad is soft and intricate, sharply intimate. The kind where I look at Brad and he's looking at me like i'm the best god given gift he could receive.

And while my hips ache for him, in this moment, I know now maybe it isn't the time. It would be too soon.

Brad's hands trace downwards on me, gently teasing, and I can feel the both of us standing there. Wanting and waiting. But we go no further; something in me, i think, would feel i'd corrupted my poor best friend if I had sex with him right now. Like it's too soon to go to the place of no returns.

I hold him for a while before we get out and dry ourselves off before getting into bed. Sweet, cuddly Brad leaves his hair instead of drying it for a change, and i know it means it'll be so bushy in the morning, but in earnest: i like him the most when his hair is messy. I like him the most when he's just woken up or when he's just going to bed. That version of himself that normally only I get to see.

I think of Luke and my heart aches. I don't love him, not anymore at least- in fact, I haven't for a long time. But there is this space between loving and hating someone that most people don't seem to understand, this intersection where the human heart sits.

My heart, here, is for Bradley. But having a history with someone is so complicated. Only being used to the masochistic rollercoaster of an abusive narcissist is complicated; when you're only used to hatred, or, at best, half hearted love, you struggle when someone so pure wants to be so kind.

Sometimes, even, you get bored. You miss the chase.

But as I look at my sweet man one more time before I close my eyes, just a small nap before dinner, I know this will be different. Because every route I've run, path I've crossed and bridge I've built, they've all circled back to him. He smiles down at me, and I know I could never be bored of him.