Boys With Girlfriends -- Chapter Four
Title: Boys With Girlfriends
Author: audreyii_fic
Fandom: Twilight (Team Jacob)
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Jacob, Bella, Edward (genderswap)
Genre: Romance/Humor/Angst
Warnings: Bad language and explicit sexuality.
banner courtesy of FatedFeathers
Summary: A boy gets dumped by a vampire and a wolfgirl tries to cheer him up. A genderswap rewrite of New Moon and Eclipse.
New Moon Scene Four:
make those eyes at me / i lose my grip, i lose my focus
Tegan and Sara, "On Directing"
The bloodsucking bitch is fast, but Ruth is faster. Cars have absolutely nothing on this -- the trees flying by so fast that everything blurs and runs together but you don't crash into anything because there's all this instinct and shit that drives you and she's gotta be clocking over a hundred miles an hour, she's gotta be, just using her own paws, and the bloodsucker's looking back like she can't believe Ruth is there but fuck yeah she's there and she's--
They hit the edge of the cliff, and the bloodsucker dives out into open space. Ruth barely manages to skid to a stop before she goes flying too.
Aw, shit.
The others can see through her eyes that she lost the leech, which is a weird sensation because she can feel it bouncing back into her own vision -- that part's still super-funky -- and their disappointment is her disappointment too. Ruth edges back a few steps and prepares to jump. She hasn't tried swimming as a wolf yet but, hey, dogs do it, why can't she?
Sam's order comes through loud and clear before she can, though. Drop the pursuit. Come back. Regroup. Ugh.
Ruth could kill the bloodsucker if she caught it. She knows she could. And she's definitely gonna catch it, she got real close and next time she'll--
She catches the movement out of the corner of her eye, and turns her head just in time to see Lucas take a running leap off the cliff.
***
The most immediate issue with becoming a werewolf had been the Clothing Situation. The Clothing Situation was a very concrete problem to focus on in a world that had suddenly gotten blown halfway to hell, so Ruth devoted herself to it utterly.
Apparently the guys had just been leaving their shorts at the forest's edge -- y'know, when they actually phased on purpose instead of just exploding all over the damn place, Paul -- and then wandered around naked like they were in a locker room instead of a forest. Ruth wasn't so much into that, thanks. Just 'cause she'd played "Show Me Yours And I'll Show You Mine" with Embry when they were five didn't mean she wanted him or anyone else to see the end result, post-puberty, and for that matter she didn't exactly want to see them either, even if they clearly thought they were all hot shit now thanks to the wolf physique.
The wolf physique was also a part of the Clothing Situation. After a few days, once she'd actually been able to phase at will and hadn't been freaking the fuck out every two minutes, Ruth finally got a chance to take a bath and look at herself in the mirror. She barely recognized what she saw. She had toned muscles and a thinner face and needed to shave her legs like whoa and grew at least one cup size which meant she could really only run when she was on paws because otherwise it hurt. And her hair was all chopped off.
She didn't know what to do with herself.
In a bizarre way, it was kind of like the time she'd first gone on the rag and had burst into Billy's room screaming that she'd caught ebola and the CDC was going to come and burn up the whole town; apparently everyone forgot to check whether Mom had let her in on the period thing before she died. Though Ruth was pretty sure that Mom wouldn't have known what to tell her about growing three inches in ten days.
Nothing fit anymore. Her boots got shredded in the first phase. Her cargo pants and sweatshirts were too short. Her only bra was destroyed too, but fuck it, it wasn't like she had time to mess around with hooks and shit when she was supposed to be chasing vampires at the drop of a hat. In the end she'd just raided her sisters' clothes and cut up their old yoga pants, then dug out a few tank tops and supplemented with a dollar-fifty package of wifebeaters from the general store. After that she'd found some twine and figured out a system for everyone to wolf out with their shorts tied to their ankles; the scoffing stopped when Sam issued an Alpha-order to use the new system, and then thankfully there was less gratuitous nudity all the fuckin' time.
And that solved the Clothing Situation.
Which meant Ruth had to start thinking about all the other shit again.
***
Ruth phases as she dives, and she finds him quick, but it takes too long to wrestle him back to shore because there's only so fast she can swim and he's dead weight in the water and if Lucas is actually dead she doesn't know what she's gonna do.
He doesn't react when his back hits the beach. His eyes are closed and his skin's turned gray. He looks like a bloodsucker. "C'mon," she mutters fiercely, feeling his neck for a pulse. "C'mon, honey, don't do this--"
It's there. The heartbeat is weak, but it's there. Ruth grabs his shoulders and holds him in a sitting position and starts to hit his back the way she was taught, because if you live next to the ocean you learn what to do if someone's gone under for too long but still has a pulse.
He has to open his eyes. He has to because Ruth is going to beat the shit out of him, and it's not fair to beat up a boy in a coma especially when you can bench press cars now.
Hit. Hit. Hit.
Sam's calling to her from the tree line. Ruth ignores him. "Wake up wake up wake up!"
Hit. Hit. Hit.
He can't die. She won't let him.
"Breathe, dammit!"
Then oh thank fucking God there's a noise, a gurgle like when you shove an empty milk jug underwater, and Lucas opens his brown eyes and pukes up about a gallon of lung sludge. Ruth's this close to bursting into tears. "Keep horking," she says as he coughs raggedly. "Get it out or you'll grow barnacles in your chest."
Lucas gives her a look. "Barnacles?" he says, or rather mouths, because all that comes out is a rough whisper.
"That's what my dad says, anyhow." She whacks him again, and this time it's harder but not quite hard enough to break his ribs. "What the hell were you thinking?" she demands, having to swallow past the lump in her throat. "I know Charlie's not the fuzziest guy but you'd've fucking broken his heart and I... and I--"
He cuts her off by waving a weak hand. "No," he rasps. "Cliff-diving."
"Cliff-diving?"
"Uh-huh."
Ruth stares at him. "From that height. Alone. In this weather."
"Yeah."
She takes a few shaky breaths, then launches herself into his arms and almost knocks him back over and doesn't care that he coughs more lung sludge onto her shoulder or that she's naked 'cause he's only half-conscious anyway. "Shit, Lucas, I would've taken you cliff-diving," she says, almost exploding from happiness and relief because he was just being stupid like with the bikes. He hadn't tried to do that.
Sam calls to her again, and she finally gets up, pulls on her shirt and shorts in a hurry, and starts the complicated task of getting Lucas home before he freezes to death.
***
Who the fuck would date a leech? she'd said. He can't have known. Not a chance.
Ruth made the argument over and over and over again with Sam and the Pack, but nothin' doin'. They pointed out that Lucas and The Girlfriend had been together for, like, six months, and that's a long time not to notice that you're getting frostburn on your dick. Swan might as well be one of them, Sam had said. We know where his loyalties like, and you can't be friends with him anymore. And that's it.
Ruth nearly bit his head off. Literally.
They didn't know Lucas. They didn't know how great he was, and how his smile made her feel -- even though they were starting to get an inkling thanks to that stupid Pack-mind bullshit -- and they didn't know how dark his moods got without her. They didn't know that he liked her liked her but for some reason just hadn't come around to dealing with it yet, and that if she stopped seeing him he might talk himself into thinking that he didn't like her and then she'd have to start all over again. And they didn't know that there was No. Way. he could have dated a dead thing if he'd known what it was.
But Sam ordered her to break it off, which was like being wrapped in a straitjacket. When Lucas came to see her she'd had to sent him away. He looked like she'd slapped him when it was her job to make him smile.
So Ruth had figured out a way around the order so she could go see him, and then Paul, doing something useful with his temper for once, phased at a very bad moment and took care of the whole problem. Hah! Lucas knew everything and it wasn't even her fault.
But it turned out he had known The Girlfriend was a bloodsucker. Ruth literally stopped in her tracks when he told her, which was something she'd always thought was just an expression but apparently not. He'd known. It was gross and scary and made Ruth look at him in a different and not-so-good light.
They're not as bad as you think, he'd said.
You have to be kidding. After what it did to you?
She, not it. And that... I mean... It was a sad day, and on sad days Lucas never hated The Girlfriend as much as he ought to. It's hard to explain.
Ruth had just snorted. Bet she was awesome in the sack.
Lucas blushed insta-red, and Ruth had felt guilty for hitting him with that one --- until she realized that his blush wasn't just 'cause she'd cut at him with bad memories. It was way more than that, way weirder than that, and maybe The Girlfriend had been his girlfriend but she was a leech and what could they have really done...
And in that moment a bunch of things about Lucas suddenly made a lot more sense.
He had changed the subject real quick, and asked questions about the bloodsucker they were chasing. Ruth told him all about it, mostly talking about how awesome it was to be able to run that fast and see in the dark and how that almost made up for the other stuff, but once she described the vampire they'd killed and the vampire they were after now Lucas had groaned and said he'd met them both before.
Wow, Ruth had said as Lucas finished explaining. You've got shit luck, you know that?
Yeah. I know.
***
He's shaking like a leaf by the time they get to her house. Billy's gone to the hospital to check on Harry -- which, by the way, oh shit -- so Ruth pulls a couple of his old sweats out of the closet. "Here. Change before you freeze to death."
Lucas starts peeling off his wet clothes, his teeth chattering the whole time; it's really tempting to stay in the room to "make sure he's okay" but he's obviously too out of it for that, so she goes to find some blankets instead... though she waits until she's sure he can get his jeans off. 'Cause his fingers are probably numb. He might need her help.
He doesn't, but she confirms that he's got a great ass.
When Lucas comes out of the bedroom he looks drier but still gray and bleary. As soon as he hits the couch he crashes, and Ruth knows she's in love because she even likes the way he snores.
She's not quite sure she believes him about the cliff-diving thing. She's gotta stick with him more. He'd been doing so good, then she had to ditch him for patrolling all the time, and now look where he's ended up: jumping a hundred feet into the ocean. She'll just have to make her case to Sam again, run all the night shifts or something so she can spend her days with Lucas until he perks back up.
It's so sappy, the way she feels about him. These days it's like she's walked out of some Hallmark card, one of the ones with lacy edges and pictures of rainbows and puppies. If it were someone else Ruth would be laughing herself to pieces over the whole thing. But it's not someone else, it's her, and she knows she's running a big risk falling for a boy who's got Issues with a capital I but it's way too late now.
She falls asleep next to the couch.
***
When they were able to spend time together, Ruth saw him looking at her. She knew he'd been looking before, too, but it didn't happen as often then, or maybe she just hadn't been noticing it. Now, though, after the wolf-thing... her Sex Radar had gone from, like, AA battery-operated to plugged into a nuclear power station. She felt it when Lucas looked. She liked it when he looked. And she kept thinking about how good it would feel to just shove him to the ground and fuck his brains out.
She'd been thinking that stuff already, of course, but now her fantasies were triple X and in Technicolor; thank you, Pack-mind, for filling her on all the little details of sex in an awkward yet incredibly educational way. It wasn't like Ruth hadn't known plenty of shit before, but Jared and that Kim girl were just fuckin' deviant. It seemed like the guys thought about their dicks practically every five minutes -- well, except for Sam, but he was the only one getting any on a regular basis so many not being hard up made a difference -- and Ruth came to the conclusion that when Lucas was looking, his thoughts were probably at least in the same ballpark.
So she started keeping track of what made him look the most. Stretching, check. Bending down, check. Being wet, way check. She made a point of needing to grab something from outside whenever it was raining, just to watch Lucas turn red and shift in his seat.
Something up?
No! No, everything's fine, nothing's up! Just gonna go get a soda! And Lucas would sprint out the door toward the house, leaving Ruth to towel her hair off smugly.
One of these days she wasn't going to let him run away when he blushed. Before he got to his feet she'd push him right back down into the lawnchair, straddle his waist, and see how much it would take before she broke through all the fuck-up-edness The Girlfriend left behind and got him to realize that it wouldn't be like that with the two of them, because she, Ruth, was a hundred and eight degrees, and he liked warmth.
Ruth could make Lucas smile, and she bet she could make him shout, too.
On the other hand, if she pushed or teased too much he might go all weird on her. She settled for making it clear that she there in a very female sort of way, and waited for him to make a move. It was sort of a hard line to walk, and sometimes it was tough to be patient... but everything would turn out okay. He'd catch up eventually.
As long as he liked her most and thought she was sort of beautiful, Ruth didn't mind waiting. She had loads of time.
***
Harry Clearwater dies, which is awful. There's arrangements to make so Ruth and Lucas clear out while Billy makes the calls.
She has to drive the truck to Forks, 'cause his hands are still too stiff and cold to hold the wheel properly. It makes Ruth think that maybe she should've taken him to a hospital instead of just letting him nap in dry clothes; he would've complained like all hell but doctors exist for a reason and one of them is to keep important parts from freezing off. The way he's shivering looks miserable and kind of adorably pathetic, so she says, "Y'know I'm a furnace, right?"
Lucas scoots closer. She takes one of his hands and places it flat against her belly. He stiffens -- well at least one way, Ruth's watching the road so she's not sure about the other -- but then he relaxes and slides his other hand between the seat and the small of her back without prompting.
Ruth smiles. "Better, yeah?"
"Yeah," he says. "Better."
The rest of the drive back to Forks is silent. Ruth's not sure why Lucas isn't talking, but she's staying quiet because if she opens her mouth she's pretty sure she'll say something like I love you take me now and that would be bad. He rests his cheek against her temple and she has to chew on her lip so she doesn't start reciting poetry or something equally embarrassing.
When she pulls into the driveway and parks the truck, he doesn't move his hands. And there ain't no way in fuckin' hell she's opening the door if he's still touching her like that. So she just waits and keeps very calm, which she thinks is a seriously epic accomplishment all things considered.
"Thanks, Ruth," he finally says.
"No prob." She isn't quite sure what he's thanking her for, but whatever it is she'd do it as many times as he wanted.
Lucas doesn't say anything else, but he doesn't get out of the cab either. Ruth stays extremely still 'cause if she makes any sudden movements she might spook him.
His thumb starts to move in a tiny circle against her spine.
Ruth holds her breath.
She feels him swallow, and then he says, his voice still all messed up from the ocean, "Ruth... I, uh..."
"Mm-hmm?" Come on. Come on. Come on.
He turns his face against her hair -- and then he straightens. He lets go of her waist. Ruth looks up in surprise and sees Lucas staring out the back window.
"Wait," he says, "I know that car."
***
Next: The First Breakup
Author: audreyii_fic
Fandom: Twilight (Team Jacob)
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Jacob, Bella, Edward (genderswap)
Genre: Romance/Humor/Angst
Warnings: Bad language and explicit sexuality.
banner courtesy of FatedFeathers
Summary: A boy gets dumped by a vampire and a wolfgirl tries to cheer him up. A genderswap rewrite of New Moon and Eclipse.
New Moon Scene Four:
make those eyes at me / i lose my grip, i lose my focus
Tegan and Sara, "On Directing"
The bloodsucking bitch is fast, but Ruth is faster. Cars have absolutely nothing on this -- the trees flying by so fast that everything blurs and runs together but you don't crash into anything because there's all this instinct and shit that drives you and she's gotta be clocking over a hundred miles an hour, she's gotta be, just using her own paws, and the bloodsucker's looking back like she can't believe Ruth is there but fuck yeah she's there and she's--
They hit the edge of the cliff, and the bloodsucker dives out into open space. Ruth barely manages to skid to a stop before she goes flying too.
Aw, shit.
The others can see through her eyes that she lost the leech, which is a weird sensation because she can feel it bouncing back into her own vision -- that part's still super-funky -- and their disappointment is her disappointment too. Ruth edges back a few steps and prepares to jump. She hasn't tried swimming as a wolf yet but, hey, dogs do it, why can't she?
Sam's order comes through loud and clear before she can, though. Drop the pursuit. Come back. Regroup. Ugh.
Ruth could kill the bloodsucker if she caught it. She knows she could. And she's definitely gonna catch it, she got real close and next time she'll--
She catches the movement out of the corner of her eye, and turns her head just in time to see Lucas take a running leap off the cliff.
***
The most immediate issue with becoming a werewolf had been the Clothing Situation. The Clothing Situation was a very concrete problem to focus on in a world that had suddenly gotten blown halfway to hell, so Ruth devoted herself to it utterly.
Apparently the guys had just been leaving their shorts at the forest's edge -- y'know, when they actually phased on purpose instead of just exploding all over the damn place, Paul -- and then wandered around naked like they were in a locker room instead of a forest. Ruth wasn't so much into that, thanks. Just 'cause she'd played "Show Me Yours And I'll Show You Mine" with Embry when they were five didn't mean she wanted him or anyone else to see the end result, post-puberty, and for that matter she didn't exactly want to see them either, even if they clearly thought they were all hot shit now thanks to the wolf physique.
The wolf physique was also a part of the Clothing Situation. After a few days, once she'd actually been able to phase at will and hadn't been freaking the fuck out every two minutes, Ruth finally got a chance to take a bath and look at herself in the mirror. She barely recognized what she saw. She had toned muscles and a thinner face and needed to shave her legs like whoa and grew at least one cup size which meant she could really only run when she was on paws because otherwise it hurt. And her hair was all chopped off.
She didn't know what to do with herself.
In a bizarre way, it was kind of like the time she'd first gone on the rag and had burst into Billy's room screaming that she'd caught ebola and the CDC was going to come and burn up the whole town; apparently everyone forgot to check whether Mom had let her in on the period thing before she died. Though Ruth was pretty sure that Mom wouldn't have known what to tell her about growing three inches in ten days.
Nothing fit anymore. Her boots got shredded in the first phase. Her cargo pants and sweatshirts were too short. Her only bra was destroyed too, but fuck it, it wasn't like she had time to mess around with hooks and shit when she was supposed to be chasing vampires at the drop of a hat. In the end she'd just raided her sisters' clothes and cut up their old yoga pants, then dug out a few tank tops and supplemented with a dollar-fifty package of wifebeaters from the general store. After that she'd found some twine and figured out a system for everyone to wolf out with their shorts tied to their ankles; the scoffing stopped when Sam issued an Alpha-order to use the new system, and then thankfully there was less gratuitous nudity all the fuckin' time.
And that solved the Clothing Situation.
Which meant Ruth had to start thinking about all the other shit again.
***
Ruth phases as she dives, and she finds him quick, but it takes too long to wrestle him back to shore because there's only so fast she can swim and he's dead weight in the water and if Lucas is actually dead she doesn't know what she's gonna do.
He doesn't react when his back hits the beach. His eyes are closed and his skin's turned gray. He looks like a bloodsucker. "C'mon," she mutters fiercely, feeling his neck for a pulse. "C'mon, honey, don't do this--"
It's there. The heartbeat is weak, but it's there. Ruth grabs his shoulders and holds him in a sitting position and starts to hit his back the way she was taught, because if you live next to the ocean you learn what to do if someone's gone under for too long but still has a pulse.
He has to open his eyes. He has to because Ruth is going to beat the shit out of him, and it's not fair to beat up a boy in a coma especially when you can bench press cars now.
Hit. Hit. Hit.
Sam's calling to her from the tree line. Ruth ignores him. "Wake up wake up wake up!"
Hit. Hit. Hit.
He can't die. She won't let him.
"Breathe, dammit!"
Then oh thank fucking God there's a noise, a gurgle like when you shove an empty milk jug underwater, and Lucas opens his brown eyes and pukes up about a gallon of lung sludge. Ruth's this close to bursting into tears. "Keep horking," she says as he coughs raggedly. "Get it out or you'll grow barnacles in your chest."
Lucas gives her a look. "Barnacles?" he says, or rather mouths, because all that comes out is a rough whisper.
"That's what my dad says, anyhow." She whacks him again, and this time it's harder but not quite hard enough to break his ribs. "What the hell were you thinking?" she demands, having to swallow past the lump in her throat. "I know Charlie's not the fuzziest guy but you'd've fucking broken his heart and I... and I--"
He cuts her off by waving a weak hand. "No," he rasps. "Cliff-diving."
"Cliff-diving?"
"Uh-huh."
Ruth stares at him. "From that height. Alone. In this weather."
"Yeah."
She takes a few shaky breaths, then launches herself into his arms and almost knocks him back over and doesn't care that he coughs more lung sludge onto her shoulder or that she's naked 'cause he's only half-conscious anyway. "Shit, Lucas, I would've taken you cliff-diving," she says, almost exploding from happiness and relief because he was just being stupid like with the bikes. He hadn't tried to do that.
Sam calls to her again, and she finally gets up, pulls on her shirt and shorts in a hurry, and starts the complicated task of getting Lucas home before he freezes to death.
***
Who the fuck would date a leech? she'd said. He can't have known. Not a chance.
Ruth made the argument over and over and over again with Sam and the Pack, but nothin' doin'. They pointed out that Lucas and The Girlfriend had been together for, like, six months, and that's a long time not to notice that you're getting frostburn on your dick. Swan might as well be one of them, Sam had said. We know where his loyalties like, and you can't be friends with him anymore. And that's it.
Ruth nearly bit his head off. Literally.
They didn't know Lucas. They didn't know how great he was, and how his smile made her feel -- even though they were starting to get an inkling thanks to that stupid Pack-mind bullshit -- and they didn't know how dark his moods got without her. They didn't know that he liked her liked her but for some reason just hadn't come around to dealing with it yet, and that if she stopped seeing him he might talk himself into thinking that he didn't like her and then she'd have to start all over again. And they didn't know that there was No. Way. he could have dated a dead thing if he'd known what it was.
But Sam ordered her to break it off, which was like being wrapped in a straitjacket. When Lucas came to see her she'd had to sent him away. He looked like she'd slapped him when it was her job to make him smile.
So Ruth had figured out a way around the order so she could go see him, and then Paul, doing something useful with his temper for once, phased at a very bad moment and took care of the whole problem. Hah! Lucas knew everything and it wasn't even her fault.
But it turned out he had known The Girlfriend was a bloodsucker. Ruth literally stopped in her tracks when he told her, which was something she'd always thought was just an expression but apparently not. He'd known. It was gross and scary and made Ruth look at him in a different and not-so-good light.
They're not as bad as you think, he'd said.
You have to be kidding. After what it did to you?
She, not it. And that... I mean... It was a sad day, and on sad days Lucas never hated The Girlfriend as much as he ought to. It's hard to explain.
Ruth had just snorted. Bet she was awesome in the sack.
Lucas blushed insta-red, and Ruth had felt guilty for hitting him with that one --- until she realized that his blush wasn't just 'cause she'd cut at him with bad memories. It was way more than that, way weirder than that, and maybe The Girlfriend had been his girlfriend but she was a leech and what could they have really done...
And in that moment a bunch of things about Lucas suddenly made a lot more sense.
He had changed the subject real quick, and asked questions about the bloodsucker they were chasing. Ruth told him all about it, mostly talking about how awesome it was to be able to run that fast and see in the dark and how that almost made up for the other stuff, but once she described the vampire they'd killed and the vampire they were after now Lucas had groaned and said he'd met them both before.
Wow, Ruth had said as Lucas finished explaining. You've got shit luck, you know that?
Yeah. I know.
***
He's shaking like a leaf by the time they get to her house. Billy's gone to the hospital to check on Harry -- which, by the way, oh shit -- so Ruth pulls a couple of his old sweats out of the closet. "Here. Change before you freeze to death."
Lucas starts peeling off his wet clothes, his teeth chattering the whole time; it's really tempting to stay in the room to "make sure he's okay" but he's obviously too out of it for that, so she goes to find some blankets instead... though she waits until she's sure he can get his jeans off. 'Cause his fingers are probably numb. He might need her help.
He doesn't, but she confirms that he's got a great ass.
When Lucas comes out of the bedroom he looks drier but still gray and bleary. As soon as he hits the couch he crashes, and Ruth knows she's in love because she even likes the way he snores.
She's not quite sure she believes him about the cliff-diving thing. She's gotta stick with him more. He'd been doing so good, then she had to ditch him for patrolling all the time, and now look where he's ended up: jumping a hundred feet into the ocean. She'll just have to make her case to Sam again, run all the night shifts or something so she can spend her days with Lucas until he perks back up.
It's so sappy, the way she feels about him. These days it's like she's walked out of some Hallmark card, one of the ones with lacy edges and pictures of rainbows and puppies. If it were someone else Ruth would be laughing herself to pieces over the whole thing. But it's not someone else, it's her, and she knows she's running a big risk falling for a boy who's got Issues with a capital I but it's way too late now.
She falls asleep next to the couch.
***
When they were able to spend time together, Ruth saw him looking at her. She knew he'd been looking before, too, but it didn't happen as often then, or maybe she just hadn't been noticing it. Now, though, after the wolf-thing... her Sex Radar had gone from, like, AA battery-operated to plugged into a nuclear power station. She felt it when Lucas looked. She liked it when he looked. And she kept thinking about how good it would feel to just shove him to the ground and fuck his brains out.
She'd been thinking that stuff already, of course, but now her fantasies were triple X and in Technicolor; thank you, Pack-mind, for filling her on all the little details of sex in an awkward yet incredibly educational way. It wasn't like Ruth hadn't known plenty of shit before, but Jared and that Kim girl were just fuckin' deviant. It seemed like the guys thought about their dicks practically every five minutes -- well, except for Sam, but he was the only one getting any on a regular basis so many not being hard up made a difference -- and Ruth came to the conclusion that when Lucas was looking, his thoughts were probably at least in the same ballpark.
So she started keeping track of what made him look the most. Stretching, check. Bending down, check. Being wet, way check. She made a point of needing to grab something from outside whenever it was raining, just to watch Lucas turn red and shift in his seat.
Something up?
No! No, everything's fine, nothing's up! Just gonna go get a soda! And Lucas would sprint out the door toward the house, leaving Ruth to towel her hair off smugly.
One of these days she wasn't going to let him run away when he blushed. Before he got to his feet she'd push him right back down into the lawnchair, straddle his waist, and see how much it would take before she broke through all the fuck-up-edness The Girlfriend left behind and got him to realize that it wouldn't be like that with the two of them, because she, Ruth, was a hundred and eight degrees, and he liked warmth.
Ruth could make Lucas smile, and she bet she could make him shout, too.
On the other hand, if she pushed or teased too much he might go all weird on her. She settled for making it clear that she there in a very female sort of way, and waited for him to make a move. It was sort of a hard line to walk, and sometimes it was tough to be patient... but everything would turn out okay. He'd catch up eventually.
As long as he liked her most and thought she was sort of beautiful, Ruth didn't mind waiting. She had loads of time.
***
Harry Clearwater dies, which is awful. There's arrangements to make so Ruth and Lucas clear out while Billy makes the calls.
She has to drive the truck to Forks, 'cause his hands are still too stiff and cold to hold the wheel properly. It makes Ruth think that maybe she should've taken him to a hospital instead of just letting him nap in dry clothes; he would've complained like all hell but doctors exist for a reason and one of them is to keep important parts from freezing off. The way he's shivering looks miserable and kind of adorably pathetic, so she says, "Y'know I'm a furnace, right?"
Lucas scoots closer. She takes one of his hands and places it flat against her belly. He stiffens -- well at least one way, Ruth's watching the road so she's not sure about the other -- but then he relaxes and slides his other hand between the seat and the small of her back without prompting.
Ruth smiles. "Better, yeah?"
"Yeah," he says. "Better."
The rest of the drive back to Forks is silent. Ruth's not sure why Lucas isn't talking, but she's staying quiet because if she opens her mouth she's pretty sure she'll say something like I love you take me now and that would be bad. He rests his cheek against her temple and she has to chew on her lip so she doesn't start reciting poetry or something equally embarrassing.
When she pulls into the driveway and parks the truck, he doesn't move his hands. And there ain't no way in fuckin' hell she's opening the door if he's still touching her like that. So she just waits and keeps very calm, which she thinks is a seriously epic accomplishment all things considered.
"Thanks, Ruth," he finally says.
"No prob." She isn't quite sure what he's thanking her for, but whatever it is she'd do it as many times as he wanted.
Lucas doesn't say anything else, but he doesn't get out of the cab either. Ruth stays extremely still 'cause if she makes any sudden movements she might spook him.
His thumb starts to move in a tiny circle against her spine.
Ruth holds her breath.
She feels him swallow, and then he says, his voice still all messed up from the ocean, "Ruth... I, uh..."
"Mm-hmm?" Come on. Come on. Come on.
He turns his face against her hair -- and then he straightens. He lets go of her waist. Ruth looks up in surprise and sees Lucas staring out the back window.
"Wait," he says, "I know that car."
***
Next: The First Breakup