Rain or Shine | Soulmate AU 1.5 |

13

I text Lake to ask him to get lunch with me the next day. He responds pretty quickly in agreement, deciding on a sandwich place a couple blocks away. We meet on the common floor and walk there. It's a sunny day in June which would be suffocatingly hot if not for the consistent breeze.

We order our sandwiches and find a table by the large window that faces the sidewalk. It's a normal lunch for about five minutes until Lake finally sits back and clears his throat a few times.

"So, I already know why we're here, and I get it. I've been, like, really weird since you got back and whatever," he says, voicing exactly what was on my mind without me even having to say it.

"Well...I wasn't gonna come right out and say it like that, but yeah, kid, you have," I agree, putting my own sandwich down, as well, "I think I have a better idea of it now that I've heard all the shit you've been dealing with."

"It hasn't been...easy. But. Taking charge while you were gone wasn't really all it was."

"What happened while I was gone?" I ask.

"Oh. Well, the team—" he begins, but I cut him off with a wave of the hand.

"No. Not the team. I mean with you. I'm not stupid, Lake."

He sighs, shifting uncomfortably in his chair across from me.

"Um. Well. I didn't really sleep much. Or eat. I get like that sometimes normally anyways, even if this was a little worse, I guess. But, you know, Rowan's normally there to like, pull my head out of my ass. We got Bella back that first night, though, and he was busy with her which, y'know, totally reasonable. I'm just kinda needy, or whatever. That's nothing new." He's kind of rambling like he does when he's nervous, which I'm not really surprised by. Neither of us are the kind of person who enjoys talking about their feelings.

"Lake. Don't be ridiculous. You're not fucking 'needy,' that's a buncha nonsense."

He shrugs noncommittally.

"Yeah, well," he says with a sigh. "Row caught on eventually. Caught me on the track at, like, three a.m. Dragged my ass back to bed and stayed with me, made sure I simmered the hell down."

"Well, I'm glad he was there when I couldn't be," I say with a small grin. I don't make it public knowledge, but I was wary of Rowan before he came to stay with the team. The way he met Lake and how their relationship started had me reasonably concerned, but everything turned out okay. Rowan's a really great kid and he looks at Lake like he hung the stars, so he's definitely grown on me. I also delivered a cryptic shovel-talk to the guy, so I'm not really that worried anymore.

"Yeah, I guess he's like, y'know, family now," Lake agrees, eyes flicking to mine and away.

I've known Lake for nearly three years at this point, and it doesn't take any major detective work to know he'll never be able to confess that he sees me as family himself. The only part of his original blood family that he's willing to be connected to is his older brother, Derek. His parents didn't play their parental roles even close to the right way, and the poor kid's concept of family has been fucked since he was a child. People who he was supposed to be able to rely on unconditionally did nothing but let him down which I'm pretty sure is why he can't just hand out trust like it's nothing.

"We're family now, too, Lake. If you want," I say, because he'll never come right out and ask me about it. "I know I'm way too young to physically be your father, but you're kinda like a son to me at this point, kiddo." I hold my breath a bit after the last of my words, unsure of how he'll react to them. I get the one I was silently hoping for, though. A bright blush colors his cheeks as he stutters over near-words, grinning bashfully.

"Okay," he says eventually with a softness in his voice. "We're family now."

We take a break from all the heavy talk to eat and chat about small things. There's a lightness to Lake's shoulders by the time we leave to go back to the tower that wasn't there an hour ago. I consider it a mission accomplished as I head up to my floor to do something I should done yesterday.

I grab the bottle of pills off of the coffee table as I pass it before I can talk myself into changing my mind. The bathroom is a short walk away. I twist the cap off of the bottle and dump all of the remaining purple pills into the palm of my left hand. There aren't that many left over to begin with so there's really no telling what I would have done when they ran out if Nick had never caught me. I only pause a few seconds longer before tilting my hand so the pill hit the water in the toilet with a bunch of tiny splashes.

I flush the toilet, my heart in my throat, and then sit down with my back against the bathroom door, finally letting the tears fall. They're mostly out of grief, but there's enough relief mixed in to pleasantly surprise me.