I'll Be Holding on to You

don't talk to me about reincarnation

That night we had Camwatch and though he wouldn't let me sleep with him, Erika and I camped out on his floor. 

"I kind of hate you guys," he grumbled as he stepped around us in the middle of the night to pee. I knew he went to pee because I gave him one minute alone so he didn't dawdle. Neither Cam nor I particularly wanted me to see his junk, but I would do what I had to. No more fucking bathtub horrors.

"We're kind of okay with that," I assured him, not being a douche though.

When I woke up in the morning Freak was asleep on her side, which in itself was rare, and facing me. She was also holding one of my hands in both of hers. I melted and didn't dare move for the twenty minutes it took her to wake up.

When she did she noticed and smirked, letting go. "Aw, how romantic," she said, rolling the other way. "Rub me? This fucking floor."

"No one asked you to sleep there," Cam chimed in from his bed.

"Shut it, Cameron," she told him as I massaged her lower back under her shirt. She was hot from sleeping. I just wanted to push the shirt up the rest of the way, over her head, onto the floor . . . "You any better?"

He pulled the covers over himself in response.

"Guess not." She sighed and tried to relax her muscles.

"That floor's better than a fire escape, anyway," came his muffled voice, proof he was at least a bit better.

When things were bad he'd often crept out onto the fire escape of their eighth floor apartment to sleep. When it came to his father, sometimes it was out of sight, out of mind.

"Better than a dark basement," she said emphatically.

"Better than a closet," they said together, and he pulled the cover down to allow us a glimpse of the faint smile on his face.

"Seriously, you two are gonna make me cry, knock that shit off," I said, only half joking.

I rubbed her for half an hour and then Evie appeared and beckoned us out. "I'll stay. You guys are off duty." She didn't even have any makeup on yet. She went and climbed into bed with Cameron and he let her because she was Evie. He curled into her and she wrapped him in her arms and waved us off.

By five it was raining again. Erika stretched on the couch, where she'd been texting Gage for like two hours. "Is it worth it to go out in this fuckin' weather," she mused.

We were watching Stargate Atlantis as we'd finished SG-1. Mara was helping set up some new exhibit at the Children's Museum, which they did after hours. "I could get out of this house for awhile," I said.

She froze. "Totally," she said, but weirdly. "I mean . . . " And I got it.

Stupid, stupid me.

"But you meant just you guys, which is totally fine, and I'm super tired, and fuck that rain," I said, forcing what I hoped was a real looking smile. Please Jesus let this be the performance of my life because otherwise she was going to see my heart and things would never be the same for us. 

I stood up and went to sit at my computer, opening something random to look at so she couldn't see my eyes because they were not fakeable. I could feel Freddy's and Mohammed's gazes on me too and wished I could just disappear.

"Dory," she said, coming to stand behind me, her voice too nice. "You can totally come. It's not like you're not welcome, dude. You fucking know that. I don't even know what we're doing."