Bones & All SMUT

Part 2: Peaches

The next morning was an early one, we wanted to be up and out before the sun was too high and passerbyers might notice us. "One day-" Lee started "-we can build a cabin way out somewhere, like way out. In Montana or Wyoming. When we're done seeing the country." I smiled at the thought of us, warm every night by some sort of fireplace, a real bed every night. Making love somewhere way softer than a truck bed. I shared that last thought with him. "That would get boring, probably" he stated matter of factly and I laughed. "Hey look!" He pointed toward a field in the near distance. Peach trees. We were on a backroad in Georgia at the moment, finding our way back West after spendfling a week or so on the Florida beaches. He pulled into the field, eyes darting around to make sure no one was there to tell us to leave. The sun was just finding it's way through the clouds, no one was around. We parked and Lee grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the nearest tree. The trees were all loaded with massive amounts of plump, juicy fruit. He gingerly pulled one of the lower limbs down and pulled a peach loose. "These were always my favorite in the summertime, back home" Lee said, pulling another one off for me before tearing into the dripping fruit. I bit into mine slightly, the fuzzy outer tickling my lips before letting the sweet juices saturate my tongue as I bit in. "Mmmm" I sighed with pleasure, I had never had a peach this good, anywhere I had lived. "This is probably peak season for these suckers" Lee noted as he looked out at all of the full trees, thousands of them laid before us across the hills and valleys of the farm. He looked out and I Iooked at him. Peach juice trickling down his face and neck to finally meet his bare chest. His unbuttoned shirt gave no barriar against the stickiness. "You're a mess" I pointed at his chest and giggled. He looked down, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "You don't have to fucking point it out" he laughed with me and then threw his peach to the ground and grabbed me up in a hug that lifted my feet off the ground. "Now you're a mess, too!" We laughed so hard, I snorted and we both laughed harder. He pressed his mouth against my laugher and I tasted the sweet peach and the leftover breath of the cigarette he'd been smoking in the truck. "We better get out of here" he pulled away "Before some peach farmer gets pissed we're eating his merchandise." He grabbed a few more peaches off of the same limb as I slid into the driver's side of the truck.

Behind the wheel, I felt free. I felt like I could go anywhere and be anybody. Even if that wasn't true, it felt true when I was driving. I glanced over to Lee. He leaned against he half rolled down window, leaning out slightly. Letting the wind breeze his face and hair. He looked toward me as if he could smell my eyes on him, "Hey, eyes on the road" he said grinning at me. "It's hard to focus with you... sitting over there" I said turning my gaze back to the road and smiling a little sheepishly. He turned up the radio. He rested his elbow on the window and let his hand flow up and down out the window to the beat of the song. We crossed over the state line into Tenessee. "I like Tenessee" I said, mostly to myself. "I like the mountains". "I could take it or leave it" Lee said, sounding only a little bored. We had been driving a few hours, the peaches being the only thing we had ate today. It had been probably a week since our last feed and I knew Lee was probably feeling the same empty feeling as me. "You getting hungry?" I asked my right hand drift across the seat to rest on top of his. "Yeah- I can't go as long as I use to. As long as you" I noticed the twinge of guilt in his voice. I knew he felt like he brought out the worst in me- far from the truth as it was. "I am, too" I said squeezing his hand in mine. "We gotta atleast wait for dark" he said "We were too risky last time." He was referring to our last feed in Florida. We had, again, gone too long in between feeds and devoured a drunk partier, just as the sun started to shine on the beach. We barely had time to clean up before beach goers started piling out of their luxurious condos and spreading their towels in the same sand we had tainted with blood and flesh just hours before. "Let's just get to Kentucky, where I know the area better" he decided "I need to go see Kayla, anyway". Another catch in his voice. We hadn't been to Kentucky in awhile. We had taken our time getting to Florida, we had enjoyed those rare moments of peace, the moments of ecstasy, too. "She understands, Lee" I said "She knows you can't hang around there all of the time. You'd go crazy" I attempted to comfort him. "She doesn't really understand though, Maren. She doesn't actually understand at all. She can't get why her brother who's suppose to be there for her and protect her, keeps running off and leaving her with her POS mom" he sighed, pulling his hand from mine. He pulled a cigarette out of the carton and put it to his lips, lighting it and taking a long drag. I didn't know what to say. I knew when he got like this- no words were enough. Nothing could quite soothe that guilt he carried with him, there were distractions, yes- but nothing that would make that guilt smaller. That was something we shared. I carried that same, titanic, sometimes crippling guilt. The sort of guilt that refused to let me smile for days at a time, the guilt that left a pit in my stomach, even in happy moments. It usually came in tiny ripples when we passed a town I had feasted in and in tsunami waves when I thought about the years my dad had to witness my awful acts and try to pick up the pieces. "I don't think she'll ever understand that" his voice broke me from my own thoughts "I just hope one day-" He took a long inhale and let it out "-one day she can forgive me. Forgive me without understanding it all". I looked to him "She loves you so much" I finally said. "I know-" he ashed the cig out the window "-and it breaks my fucking heart" he finished and pursed his lips. We sat in that grief. I made space for it, I didn't try to smooth it over or pretend like this wound could be licked and healed. It was hard for me to not pull over on the side of the road and wrap my arms around his neck, tell him things would get better, that pain was only temporary. We both would know those words were empty. Instead I just said "I'll never know how that feels, I've never had a sibling or, like, a best friend. I can't even imagine how you feel". That was the truth- I knew the pain of loosing a parent, of abandonment and of not being accepted as who I was but, the pain he felt toward his sister was different from that. Saying I knew how he felt would be a lie- I let him have this. He scooted across the bench seat of the truck until out thighs touched and his hand grabbed the inside of mine, he leaned over and kissed my neck. I melted at his touch. "You have a best friend now, right?" He said, resting his head on my shoulder. I clinched the wheel with both hands, thinking I would wreck if I took one hand off or looked at him. "We're best friends?" I said smiling, "More than that, I would think" he said back, leaning up from my shoulder to stare at me. His gaze was intense, reading my face. "What do you think we are, Maren?" He put me on the spot. "I don't know- I don't know how this sort of stuff works... for us" I said, really thinking it over. I didn't know if people who did the sort of things we did had boyfriends or girlfriends. I mean- my mom obviously did, but should she have? Was that the risk people like us could or should take? Falling in love- trying to start a normal life, getting married, having little Eater babies? That didn't feel ethical. "It's not the same as everyone else" I continued "-we can't live a normal life". I looked over to him, still searching my face. "That's not what I mean- I'm not, like, trying to get you to say you want to marry me, have my kids, build a house with a white picket fence. Not at all" my heart dropped a little, despite me knowing that couldn't possibly have been what he meant "- what I mean is- what I mean is- I love you" he blurted out. He'd never really said it before. My entire body warmed at those words. "You do?" I managed to get out, "Yeah, of course I do. When you said it before- when we were hanging out in that field and I told you about..." He trailed off. He had shared with me one of the darkest parts of him that day. "I remember" I said clearing the silence. "I should have said it back that day- I think I just felt too much or something. I should have said it back because I really do love you. So much." I smiled and gripped the wheel tighter. "What? Now you're not going to say it back?" He grinned at me. "Your turn to wait on me to say it back" I laughed. We laughed together.