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Taron stares up at the sky, his chest heaving where he's fallen into a patch of snow at the edge of the ice.
The broken ice.
He doesn't think he's shivering, but that probably isn't a good sign. Bobbie isn't there; Taron wonders if she'd run back down the hill, back towards their grandmother's house, to get help. She hadn't been on the ice when Taron had fallen in, instead off to the side, fiddling with her skates because a rock was digging into her heel.
Taron's desperately, desperately glad Bobbie hadn't been on the ice.
It just—it just cracked, and one step later, it'd broken. Taron's gone into cold water before: last year, he and his friends had a bet about wading into the river mid-winter and seeing who could last the longest before climbing back out. But there'd been dry clothes and warm blankets and hot cocoa to warm them all up after they got out, and they hadn’t been in deep.
There hadn't been ice over their heads, blocking the way back out.
Taron fell through the ice, and the current had dragged him under. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move, and it was so cold, and he couldn't breathe, except—except he's out of the lake now, dragged out by somebody, and the longer he draws in gulps of air, the more he remembers. Somebody had dived into the water and grabbed him, had—oh God, they'd kissed him. Or, they'd pushed air into his lungs by pressing their mouth to his, and actually, Taron's pretty sure it had been a boy.
He remembers the face, dragging him out of the water, hair and skin dripping wet, and really, really bright fucking blue eyes, wide and scared. But he can’t see him, the boy who’d saved him—who must have jumped into the water and pulled Taron out. Taron can’t see him anywhere in the snow, and he should be, or else—the gaping hole in the ice is still there, dark and threatening, just a few feet out from where Taron’s legs are sprawled. The cracks are splintering out across the surface of the lake, too sharp.
He hears his father, and his uncle—they're crashing through snow and tree branches, and he hears his mom's voice, yelling his name. He wants to yell back, but it's like his voice isn't working. It’s all he can do to just keep breathing, everything around him is still so, so fucking cold.
His dad reaches him first, and he's falling to his knees and pulling Taron up into his arms, swearing, before he's ripping off his jacket and wrapping it around Taron's shoulders. His uncle pulls off his coat and does the same, trying to warm him up. He can feel himself shivering again, his teeth chattering so loudly he can't even hear it as his mother starts crying in a garbled mix of English and French, wrapping her arms around him. It's mostly just his name, over and over again.
Bobbie’s voice is weak where she’s standing, a few feet behind everyone else, "Jesus, Taron, how'd you get out, I couldn't see you! I couldn't see him!" She sounds as terrified as Taron still feels.
"There was a guy… he pulled me out. I don't know where he went." He’s shaking so bad, his teeth chattering and his voice cracking, that he’s not sure his dad and uncle can even understand him.
But his uncle asks, "Someone pulled you out?" He’s looking around now, like there's another guy lying in the snow, soaking wet and freezing and scared half-to-death because he—because he'd almost died. Taron had almost died. He closes his eyes.
His dad isn't the strongest guy in the world, but he and Taron's uncle pull Taron's skates off and carry him down the hill, back into his grandmother's living room, where he's tucked up onto the couch and covered with every blanket in the house within seconds. He thinks his grandmother just opened the hallway closet and dragged everything out in one big heap, in too much of a hurry to care about the nice Christmas comforters versus the ones they actually use more often.
His mom won't stop touching him, clutching at him even though he's getting her all wet, and she pushes him up so that she can sit there, with his head in her lap. They haven't sat like this in years, but Taron can't find it in him to protest; she's his mom, and she's warm, and he—
he'd been really scared, for a minute there.
He knows she was too, can imagine his family's faces when Bobbie burst in through the back door and must have said something like, "Taron fell through the ice!" His dad isn't all that much farther away, slumped in the armchair with his head between his knees, looking exhausted. Everybody else is just kind of hovering. He lets his grandmother curl her hand around his for a minute, before he burrows into the comforters more.
His uncle's in the background, talking in a hushed tone—Taron thinks he hears him ask, "How in the hell did the ice break?" but he tunes it out, suddenly just as exhausted as his dad looks. He doesn't know how the ice broke; doesn't really care. The lights from the Christmas tree are shining, making the room seem warmer. It's nice.
It takes a minute for Taron to open his eyes again. Or maybe it had been longer, because it's just his mom in the room, now, like everyone else has migrated somewhere else. He wasn't sleeping, he doesn't think, but he hadn't heard everyone leave.
His mom brushes her fingers through his hair, her nails gently scraping against his skin in a way that feels really, really comforting.
"Where do you think he went?" Taron asks, quietly.
"I don't know," she says, softly and in French. She doesn't need him to explain who he meant, but Taron isn't surprised. He thinks it's all his family's been talking about, probably will be all they talk about all night, all week, even. He's never seen his dad run so fast. "Maybe it was an angel," she continues, still soft, like she's imagining it, "saving my baby. But he's gone now."
Taron manages not to roll his eyes, but only because he doesn't know what else it could have been. Not an angel, obviously, but he couldn't have gotten out of there on his own. He couldn't have. He just—he remembers his hands slipping against the bottom side of the ice, no purchase whatsoever, and he remembers running out of air and trying to grab for something, anything, even though there was nothing to grab.
He remembers almost giving up – drowning, he’d been drowning – when somebody was suddenly there, pressing his mouth to Taron's, and Taron could breathe again; was being pulled out of the water and roughly dragged across the surface of the ice.
And he remembers the eyes.
They were so blue.
Maybe, he thinks, maybe it was an angel.
Taron's climbing out of the shower, toweling off his wet hair and thinking about how pathetically grateful he is for hot water, when there's a knock on the front door. Taron doesn't hear the knock; just sees his grandmother getting up and walking out to open the front door from his spot at the top of the stairs, as he walks to his and Bobbie's bedroom. It's weird, because way out here, it's something like eight or ten miles before you come across another house, assuming you don't get lost or like, eaten by a bear.
Taron tugs on a pair of sweats and a long-sleeved Habs shirt before padding down the creaky wooden stairs to see who it is.
He stops short, because that's—
That's him. He's standing in the doorway, dripping on Taron’s grandmother's patterned welcome rug, and peering around like he wants to see more than just the entrance way. He's completely naked, and has snow clinging to him all over, like he'd been rolling around in it. His knees are shaking like crazy, and he's leaning up against the wall, hands clutching at it like he can barely stand. All Taron can do is stare, because that's him, that's the guy—the kid who'd pulled him out of the lake.
Even ten feet away, Taron is struck by how fucking bright his eyes are.
His grandmother is talking quickly, soothingly even, and gesturing like she's trying to get him to come further into the house. Then Taron's parents are coming in, and it's a flurry of movement all over again, except this time it's the naked kid they don't know who's being shoved into the family room and thrown under blankets atop the couch. Taron follows, blankly, because the kid lets them pull him through the hall, but he's twisting and looking back at Taron the whole time, feet dragging and with this—this expression on his face that Taron doesn't know what to do with.
Taron finally tunes into what his parents are saying; hurried, startled questions about who this kid is, where his clothes are, why he isn't talking, even though they've asked him his name in both French and English, in case he's a tourist who got lost or something and doesn’t actually know French.
The three blankets his mom had pushed around the guy’s torso fall off when he leans up, trying to see Taron over the back of the couch, like he doesn't want to take his eyes off of him. Taron takes a step forward, and it's—his face lights up, and he's smiling, this huge, wide smile, all cheekbones and dimples and perfect teeth. Taron swallows and finally says, "You're—you pulled me out of the lake."
His mom makes a startled noise, and his grandmother eases her way into the armchair.
His hair, Taron thinks, is beyond messy, all tangled and matted curls, and dripping wet where the strands aren't frozen. It's been an hour, or two maybe, since the ice broke, and Taron had fallen through—where's this kid been? Not outside, not naked. That's—he'd have frozen to death, but he doesn't even seem to be cold, or care about the blankets.
He's just looking at Taron, like Taron's what's important here.
It's alarming, a little, and Taron's not sure what to do with the way his heart is beating hard in his chest, too fast and painful and making it hard to breathe all over again. He doesn't like it, feels like he needs—like he needs a glass of water, or hot cocoa maybe, because he still feels cold, even though he just took the longest, warmest shower in the world. He detours quickly into the kitchen, ducking out of sight, even though he can hear his mom yell, "No! You'll fall!" and thinks the kid was probably straining to keep Taron in his sight.
He hears a loud thump, like something falling over.
Bobbie looks up at him when she comes into the kitchen, her eyes wide.
"He was naked," Bobbie says, hurriedly, and kind of quiet, like she doesn't want people to overhear. "Where'd his clothes go? It's snowing like crazy. Where'd he even come from?"
Taron can't answer; he has no fucking clue. He opens the fridge, but just sort of blinks and doesn't grab anything before closing it again. It's barely a second later that everybody pushes through the kitchen entrance, following the kid as he practically falls in. Actually, he does fall—or rather, he trips on the blanket that Taron thinks his mother must have wrapped around him, and he goes sprawling across the kitchen tile.
Taron jumps and leans down, grabbing the guy's shoulder to try and make sure he's okay. He jerks his hand back though; his skin is freezing cold, like he'd—like he'd been naked in the snow for an hour, Taron thinks. "Jesus," he mutters, "do you not know how to talk?"
"Taron!" his mother chastises quickly, and Taron knows he sounds grouchy and annoyed but this whole situation is weird, and none of it makes any sense. His dad is muttering, but nobody moves to do anything. Probably, they don’t know what to do.
But then the guy is pushing himself up on his elbows, and moving his legs around so that he's sort of sitting up, but with the blankets still covering him, somehow, and he repeats Taron's name, "Taron," all—all breathy and thick-sounding, like he's never said a word before in his life. If it wasn't his name, Taron doesn't think he'd have even recognized it.
"That's my name," Taron says, slowly, still kneeling on the floor.
"What's yours?" Bobbie asks, before Taron or one of the adults can.
The kid glances at Bobbie for a second, but then he's right back to staring at Taron. Taron jerks back when he reaches out with his hands, fingers splayed like he's going to press them up against Taron's cheek. Taron's uncle interrupts the whole thing when he runs in a minute later, and says, "Bath water's running, let's get him upstairs, eh?"
The kid is struggling to stand up again, and the blanket gets pushed to the side like he doesn't have any modesty at all. It's the most awkward thing in the world, probably, but Taron has to help get the kid up the stairs because he can't seem to climb them on his own, and clings to the railings like a lifeline, letting out little distressed noises whenever he slips. His mom helps though, and holds the blanket up so that at least he's not all—naked, and out there, while climbing the stairs.
He's hesitant about getting in the water when they get to the end of the hall, but it's not very hot at all—Taron learned that the hard way not an hour ago. You have to warm it up slowly. As soon as the kid is in the water though, Taron backs off, slumping back down the stairs and leaving his mom to deal with everything else.
He goes back to the kitchen and fumbles for something to do. His hands grasp the half-empty container of cocoa, and he pulls down a mug from the cupboard, and after a second, pulls down a second mug, and adds cocoa to it too. Bobbie, still sitting at the table, gets up and grabs one for himself, and they work around each other to get the kettle to heat. He only peeks up the stairs once, because he can't help it. He doesn't see anything though, and goes back to making sure the water for the cocoa is heating up to the right temperature.
When his mom and the kid do come back downstairs, they're practically tumbling down. Taron almost has to catch him when he trips on the second to last stair, and then realizes he's wearing Taron's sweater—an old, comfortable one that he likes because of how soft it is. But he has his arm in the neck hole, and he's struggling with it, so Taron says, "Stop moving," and tries to fix it.
"Sure," his mom says, coming down the steps, "he lets you help."
She has a hairdryer and a brush in her hands, and looking at the kid's dripping, mottled curls, Taron completely understands why he'd been trying to get away.
Taron leads him back to the kitchen table, and then pushes a mug of hot cocoa in front of him, essentially hoping he'll sit and stay put. Taron watches him as he grabs the mug, and then rips his hand back, face contorting into something like unhappy surprise.
"Too hot?" Taron asks, even though he doesn't really get a response.
It's snowing so badly outside, and they're so far out from town, that calling the police or something is pretty impossible, at least for right now. Taron kind of doesn't want to call them, anyway, and he feels awkward when he thinks about it. It's just—whoever is supposed to be taking care of him, of this kid who’s probably only a year or two younger than Taron, and he's seventeen, but whoever is supposed to be responsible for him is doing a pretty shit job, and Taron honestly thinks he could do better.
Not that they could just keep him, like a stray cat or something, but still. Who lets their kid outside in the middle of a snowstorm? Without any clothes? And Taron is still so sure this was the kid that pulled him out of the lake, even though that's—Taron doesn't know how he could have, really.
Except that he did.
He blows on the cocoa for a minute, and then passes it back, pushing it across the table. He adds a couple marshmallows too, because Bobbie brought the whole bag to the table, and if Taron doesn't grab some while he can, she’ll eat all of them.
For once, the kid stops staring at Taron, and instead watches in avid fascination as the marshmallows slowly melt in his mug. Then he dips a finger in, like he's trying to catch them, and Taron has to blink and take a drink from his own mug when he brings the finger to his mouth, tasting it.
He has an uncomfortable flashback to being kissed under the water, just a few hours ago.
Even though the kid's wearing Taron's sweatpants and sweater, his mom bundles him up with a blanket, and then with a quick glance at Taron, does the same to him, even though he's fine, really.
"Keep saying that when you have frostbite in the morning, kid!" his dad yells, obviously having heard Taron's protests from the next room over.
"Maybe you should just cut it all off," Bobbie says dubiously when their mom holds up the brush and plugs in the blow dryer, looking at the kid's hair. There isn't any ice in it anymore, but it's still tangled and matted up, and Taron doesn't envy him. His mom starts off easy, but the kid yelps soon enough, and tries to turn his head around and lean away from her and the brush. Adding the blow dryer doesn't help—he keeps trying to get up and grab it, and his mom has to say, "No, it's hot, sweetie, sit down."
Taron's not even sure he understands English, let alone French, because the words don't make a dent in his efforts to escape. She huffs, finally, and makes Taron hold the blow dryer while she goes to hunt for an old bottle of kids' detangler spray Taron's grandmother insists she has lying around somewhere. She comes back and starts again, brushing while Taron is put in charge of the blow dryer for good, and the kid’s eyes just get so wide, but he stops moving, except to drink some of the cocoa every few minutes, licking his lips after every sip, which is—distracting, kind of.
The kid has a big scar on his upper torso, like something had clawed at him. It's healed, but Taron wonders where it's from.
His hair is clean and a bit fluffy by the end of it, sticking up everywhere, but there are no more knots or mangled curls, and he reaches up to run his hands through it, again and again, like he's amazed by the way it feels. It's stupid, but it makes Taron lean over and run a hand through his hair, tucking a stray curl behind his ear. He pulls his hand back, embarrassed, a minute later, but the kid doesn't seem to mind. He just closes his eyes and sighs, and then sort of looks like he's going to fall over.
"Are you tired?" Taron asks, and it takes a minute, but he gets a slow nod, and then the kid reaches out and grabs hold of his arm, like he's afraid Taron's going to leave or something. "I wish I knew your name," Taron mutters, and then reels back when the kid says, actually out loud, "Taron."
"That's—my name," Taron says, again. All he gets is a nod, and a serious sort of look on the kid’s face.
"Taron," he says again.
"Yeah, but what's your name?"
"James?" his uncle suggests from the doorway, and his mom says, "Stephen," while his grandmother suggests, "Louis," but all they get are funny looks and scrunched up noses at each suggestion. At least they're clear nos though, so they're going somewhere with it, at least. Taron's the one who eventually says, "Adrian?" mindlessly thinking of every name he can.
He gets a head tilt and a grin, and then a lot of exuberant nodding, and Bobbie checks, "Adrian? Your name is Adrian?"
The kid shakes his head, but then opens his mouth, and says, “Adri,” with a—well, it must be an accent of some kind, but not one Taron has ever heard before. It’s like he whispers the ‘a’ and rolls the ‘d’ and the ‘r’ at the same time until they’re one letter instead of two.
“Adri?” Taron’s mother repeats, and Adri nods, and that’s that—his name is Adri.
Okay then.
Adri, then, Taron thinks, later, as he's settling into bed for the night. They'd put Adri on the couch, making sure he had plenty of pillows and blankets, because they've already taken all of his grandmother's guest rooms. He can't stop his thoughts from turning though, replaying everything that’s happened in the last... four or five hours, jesus.
It's just; he remembers the split-second fear that ripped its way through him when he fell through the ice, and Adri—Adri is the one who pulled him out. He'd jumped in the water, and breathed air into Taron's lungs, and dragged him out. He'd saved him.
It feels like it takes hours to fall asleep.
He wakes up abruptly, blinking into the darkness. He can see Bobbie's outline in the other bed, shifting in her sleep, and thinks for a minute that that must've been what woke him up, before he hears a faint thump just outside the room. Taron pushes the blankets back, shivering a little when his feet touch the cold wood flooring. He quietly pads across the room, and then cautiously pokes his head out into the hallway.
His grandmother always leaves the hallway lights on, because she has this eternal fear of going the wrong way and tumbling down the stairs when she gets up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and Taron's never really understood the point, because he can see in the dark just fine, once his eyes get used to it. But the light, at least, makes it easy to see what had made the thumping noise and woken him up.
Adri.
He's three quarters of the way up the stairs, breathing hard and slumped over with his whole body lying on the steps, limbs sprawled out like he's exhausted and taking a break or something. He looks up when Taron comes out though, and he gets this determined looking expression on his face, and starts hauling himself up—using his knees more than his feet, and attempting to grab hold of the railing. It kind of reminds Taron of how his little cousin climbs the stairs, except that she's only two.
But then, he's never seen somebody with shittier balance than Adri, and even in Taron's too-big sweats, he can see how badly Adri's legs are shaking.
"Come on," Taron says quietly, jumping down the few steps it takes to get to Adri, and wrapping an arm around his waist to help him finish the climb, kind of like how they had earlier. Adri smiles at him, but he's focusing so hard on climbing the steps that Taron almost doesn't notice.
Bobbie doesn't hear them tumble into the room, even when the bed creaks under their combined weight. Adri's hands and feet are warmer than before, but they're still so cold that Taron jumps when Adri reaches forward and presses his fingers against Taron's cheek in the dark. Adri huffs, and then does it again, and Taron lets him this time, sitting ridiculously still on the edge of the bed.
Adri's fingers trail over his cheek, and even across his bottom lip, before he pulls back and pushes Taron back into the bed.
Taron feels like he shouldn't be letting this kid he doesn't even know climb into bed with him, but he can't help it; can't figure out a way to say no. He pulls up the blankets instead, so that they're covering the both of them, and lets Adri tangle his legs up with his own, even though his feet are freezing.
It's still dark in the room, but Taron can see Adri's eyes, wide and open and staring at his face from just a few inches away, and somehow—somehow he doesn't even flinch when Adri darts in, pressing his mouth firmly against Taron's, all soft and dry. At least, then, Adri's not going to deny dragging Taron out of the ice, he thinks, kind of dazed, as Adri closes his eyes and curls in close, reveling in the warmth of two bodies under all those blankets, maybe.
"Goodnight," he says, swallowing, after a minute, low enough to not disturb Bobbie.
Adri blinks sleepily and looks back up at him, before they both fall asleep.
Taron guesses he shouldn't be surprised that when he wakes up in the morning, it's to Adri tumbling off the bed and landing on the hardwood floor with an oof.
"Are you okay?" Taron says quickly, leaning over to peer down at him.
Adri hesitates, obviously, and then, surprisingly, says, "Yes?" back, a questioning tone in his voice, still thick with sleep or maybe just from never talking even though he apparently does know how.
"You're not sure?" Bobbie mumbles from her own bed, before yawning and getting up, shuffling out of the room without even commenting on Adri being up here with them instead of downstairs on the couch, or waiting for an answer to her question.
Adri is staring up at him again, and Taron feels the back of his neck heat up when his dick twitches between his stomach and the mattress, already hard the way it is pretty much every morning, if he doesn't jack off in the middle of the night. Fuck, he thinks, and then remembers Adri kissing him again last night, all sweet and sleepily. His dick twitches again.
"You're okay?" Taron asks again, desperate and lacking the brain power to come up with anything else just yet.
Adri lets his head fall back against the wood, and then winces, but he says, "I'm—okay," haltingly, like he's testing the words out.
"Okay," Taron says, and then rolls off the other side of the bed and says, "Um, bathroom. I'll… help you down the stairs in a minute and we can have breakfast, I guess."
He has to wait for Bobbie to shuffle back out of the bathroom and head downstairs before he can push his way in, and then only feels mildly guilty about jacking off in the shower, because it only takes a minute for him to come, and it's normal anyway. It's not like it was because of Adri or anything.
The real problem comes when they're downstairs ten minutes later, and Taron's leg presses up against Adri's under the table when his mom is giving them plates loaded up with scrambled eggs and sausage and toast, and Adri jumps in his chair. Or not jumps exactly, but—makes a surprised jerk, and then looks down, and Taron can't not follow the direction of the look, and, oh.
They mostly get through breakfast because the universal jerking off sign is, well, universal, and even Adri, wherever he's from, seems to connect the dots when Taron pushes him back into the bedroom afterward and then closes the door, looks at the ceiling of the hallway and tries to figure out why him.
And where the hell is Adri even from?
He ends up sitting in front of the door, ignoring the way he's half-hard, just, uh, knowing what Adri's doing in his bedroom, fuck, probably on the bed they'd slept in together last night—
Okay, so mostly ignoring it.
But his thoughts stray back to when Adri had kissed him, the first time, pulling him out of the lake and dragging him across the ice. Taron had been coughing up water, and struggling to get purchase on the ice, and then Adri had stopped and just, stared down at him, that way he always does, only he'd looked so scared and worried and, desperate, maybe.
And then he'd disappeared.
But apparently he'd just been walking around naked for two hours?
Had he been naked when he saved Taron? Stripped off before jumping in after him, maybe? Taron doesn't remember looking at what he was wearing, he was too focused on breathing, and then just—how bright his eyes were, looking down at him. Could Adri be some kind of forest-kid who lives in the woods and survives off of berries? Taron hits his head back against the wood door. Maybe Adri was a... dude of the lake, like the Lady of the Lake, in King Arthur, only... a boy, obviously.
Or maybe he's just some dumb kid with a hero complex who has wobbly legs and can't really talk and finds everything—Taron—fascinating, wanting to touch all of it. Just last night, he'd run his hands all over everything in the family room, clinging to the wall and Taron in turns as he'd looked at everything he could see, the fireplace and the pictures on the mantel and the little moose and bear figurines, before they'd finally gotten him to sit down and stay put on the couch.
But then he'd been even more excited about the hockey puck Taron and Bobbie had left on the coffee table, had picked it up and cradled it in his hands, smiling so excitedly, and gesturing like he wanted them to understand how important it was. Taron's uncle had said, "At least the kid likes hockey," and everyone had laughed, but it felt different than that, like Adri was touching a puck for the first time.
Taron's just not sure what to do with that.
He knocks on the door when his dad walks by, a knowing look in his eyes, and maybe something like disapproval, and Taron's entire face burns up. Adri has to be done by now, right? He hears a noise, and he pushes open the door, slipping in the room and shutting the door behind him. Adri is lying on Taron's bed, stomach down, rocking his hips forward slowly, like he's rubbing off against the mattress instead of just using his hand, like he's never figured out the fine art of jacking off as quickly as possible.
Taron's dick practically leaps, and he curses under his breath and turns around, facing the wall.
"Taron," he hears Adri say, quietly, and he has to resist the urge to, whatever, go over there and... help. This whole situation is so bad. "Taron!" he hears again, and he breathes, deeply, and then turns around, because Adri is struggling to sit up, calling for him, looking a little wild and wide-eyed.
Taron can see the outline of his dick in the sweats he's wearing when he gets closer, and there's even this little damp patch, and he has to rip his eyes up to look at Adri's eyes instead of his dick, and he's sure his entire face is burning with embarrassment and arousal. Desperately, he thinks, this is so stupid, and wants to press the heel of his palm up against his dick, for some relief, but he can't do that in front of Adri.
He wraps his hand around Adri's wrist, helping him up, because that's obviously what Adri is going for, here, only then—then Adri falls into him, a little, leaning up into Taron and pressing his face into Taron's neck, breathing heavy, and he's shaking and clutching at Taron like he's just trying to hang on, and Taron thinks, oh. Adri slumps against him, and mutters his name again, and yeah, Taron's pretty sure that little wet patch he'd seen before is a lot bigger now, because Adri had definitely just come all over his borrowed sweats, while pressed up and leaning against Taron.
He doesn't think he's ever been this hard in his life, or this uncomfortable.
He lets Adri go, and whatever balance Adri does have must be completely shot, because he just slumps back onto the bed like some kind of noodle, chest heaving and arms thrown out. Taron digs through his bag for a different pair of pants Adri can borrow, trying to think of a way he can get those sweats into the washing machine without his grandmother noticing. In the end, he has to stuff them under the corner of the bed, and maybe rope his dad into helping to distract the women later, just long enough to get the sweats through the wash.
His dad's helped with that before, because he'd been a teenager before, so he gets it. That's what he'd said, anyway, when Taron was thirteen and freaking out about his stupid sheets being all messed up. It's still super embarrassing, but not nearly as embarrassing as his mom finding out.
When they're all dressed again, and Taron's debating on if his hard-on might go away on its own, if he stops thinking about it, or if he needs to go jack off real quick, it occurs to him—that's probably the closest he's ever been to having, like, sex, with another person, because Adri had practically come right on top of him, maybe even because of him?
He mutters, "Be right back," and pushes the bathroom door shut behind him, hand already pushing past the waistband of his sweats and wrapping around the solid warmth of his dick. He jacks off as quickly as he can, biting his lip hard and closing his eyes, trying not to be loud even though he can't help the little noises he always makes. It doesn't take long for him to finish, but he washes his hands twice, waiting for the red flush in his face to die down, and turns the fan on before he opens the door and comes out.
Adri is sitting on the floor, in the middle of the hallway, with his legs crossed. He's wiggling his toes, like they're the coolest things he's ever seen. Taron's not even sure why he grins, but he can't help it.
His parents have essentially banned him, Bobbie and Adri from so much as opening the back door, let alone going outside to play in the snow and freeze to death. Taron doesn't think they're going to let him and Bobbie go skating on an actual frozen lake or pond ever again, which is kind of disappointing and yet…
Maybe it's just because the whole near-death experience was only yesterday, but Taron's not sure he'd want to take the chance again so soon anyway. He can skate just as well at the rink; it just means he'll have to take the bus to school, so his gas money can go toward the extra ice time.
That means they're kind of strapped for things to do though. He eventually drags Adri back downstairs, and Bobbie dubiously holds the movie cabinet open, and they step back to let Adri pick one. Him and Bobbie have seen them all anyway.
Adri pauses on the Little Mermaid DVD cover, and makes a face, something like surprise and—offense, maybe? But he's holding it up, and Taron can't say no when he actually asks, "This one?" while glancing at the television.
Bobbie grabs it and says, "This is for kids," but she's moving to put it in the player anyway.
"So, you can talk?" is what Taron goes with, fidgeting.
Adri nods, slowly, and when they sit down on the couch, even though there's plenty of room, he leans over so that he's pressed up all along Taron's side, practically on top of him. Taron's tense for a few minutes, but by the time Ariel and Flounder are getting chased by a shark, he relaxes into it, and Adri presses his mouth to Taron's shoulder, breath warm.
He's not actually paying attention to Taron though, Taron notices—instead his eyes are glued to the people singing on the TV. Taron's parents come in, at some point, and his mom gives Taron a look from over the couch, but he just shrugs. What's he supposed to do?
Besides, it's comfortable. He likes it. He likes Adri.
The realization makes him shift, a little uncomfortable, but that just makes Adri glance at him, and shift a little closer before looking back at the TV. Later, about halfway through the movie, Adri whispers, "What’s Sebastian?"
Taron blinks, because he'd sort of zoned out, but he says, "Uh, he's a crab? Or, no, a lobster."
"Lobster," Adri repeats, and then re-focuses on the movie, and Taron’s struck with the idea that Adri is learning English, maybe, by watching the movie. Only that doesn't make any sense, because nobody can just learn a language like that. That's crazy and impossible, and Adri has to have been understanding them the whole time. Maybe he's just... shy.
Taron thinks back to when Adri came in his pants while clinging to him, and axes that.
He's definitely not shy.
Taron needs to stop thinking about it, except he's seventeen and Adri is warm. Taron's fingers are splayed against his side, so that he can feel the gentle movement of Adri's body as he breathes, in and out, slow and easy. It's really, really hard to stop thinking about it. Taron adjusts his arm position, a little, so that he can run a hand through Adri's curls, and Adri lets out a little groan when he does, and drops his forehead to Taron's shoulder, breath hitching.
Bobbie doesn't notice, absorbed in the movie even though she'd complained about it earlier, and Taron's parents didn't stay to watch it. They're probably in the dining room with his uncle and grandmother, trying to figure out what to do about Adri. He has to have a family that's looking for him, Taron thinks, and clutches on a little tighter.
When the movie ends, and clicks off on its own, Adri sits up, yawning, but he's happy to follow Taron to the kitchen and help make more cocoa. Adri ends up filling his mug with so many marshmallows that it spills, and then he tries to jump away because the cocoa splatters on the floor and splashes his feet, and he ends up falling over again, landing with his ass on the floor.
Taron's mom runs in, having heard Adri's startled yelp, but she just sighs and grabs a towel to help Taron clean up the mess.
Taron knows his parents have tried to call the police already, but the storm that’s coming through and the fact that his Grandmother lives out in the middle of nowhere is making service spotty at best. They spend the days drinking cocoa and watching movies and playing board games, and Adri opens up more and more. Finally, on the third day that Adri has been there, Taron’s parents finally load up in the van in the van and drive to the nearest town to figure out what to do, and Adri’s fidgeting enough that Taron’s grandparents let them dress up in winter clothes and go outside to throw snow around.
The snow crunches under their feet as they walk out through the back door. Taron slides it shut after them, to keep the heat in, and gives his grandma a reassuring smile as she looks on worryingly through the glass from where she’s sitting on the couch, a knitting pattern on her lap. When he turns forward again, Adri is already five feet ahead of him, at the edge of the porch.
“Hey,” Taron calls, and Adri stops, twisting back around. His eyes are wide, and his bottom lip is chapped from how much he’s been gnawing at it ever since he’d woken up this morning. Taron catches up with him and reaches down to take his hand, curling their fingers together, though it’s a bit awkward with their gloves in the way.
They’ve also been fooling around for a while, just kissing and stuff, but it’s been—well, nice, anyway.
Taron can’t explain it. He likes Adri a lot, like… like he’s just drawn to him.
“It’ll be fine,” Taron says, not sure if he’s saying it for Adri’s benefit or his own. “We can look around, and then Grandma said she’ll have hot cocoa ready for us when we come back in.”
"I know, come on," Adri says, tugging Taron with him as he starts to move again.
They walk for a while, but it doesn’t take long for Taron to realize where Adri is headed.
When they get close enough that Taron can see the edge of the lake, Adri lets go of his hand and lurches forward, running. Taron’s hands shake, but he swallows and breathes, the white puff of air circling around in front of him before disappearing. He follows Adri, careful not to get too close to the dark, frozen surface, even though Adri has rushed out and walked over the ice, feet slipping until he falls and lands on his stomach. The lake is frozen solid again, and Taron knows it’s safe in his head – he’s skated on this lake so many times in his life, the one time it was too thin was the outlying incident.
It’s fucking stupid that Taron is –
Ice is his life. He skates on it every day, plays hockey over and over, but this, this dumb fucking lake is enough to make him shake just looking at it, just seeing Adri out on it. He feels like a coward, but he doesn’t take a step closer.
Instead he yells, “My parents said not to go near the lake!” Heart in his throat, he adds, “Seriously, Adri!”
Adri is lying flat on the ice now, and is cupping his hands around his eyes, like he’s trying to see through it, like there’s even anything down there to see, other than cold, dark water, and long, strong weeds that are willing to wrap themselves around your ankles, drag you down and under where it’s impossible to breathe, to move, to think.
Taron stumbles back a step, heart thumping painfully in his chest, and falls down on his ass in the snow.
Adri looks back at him, and says, “Don’t come out on the lake, okay?”
“Not a problem,” Taron bites out.
He wouldn’t be able to even if he’d wanted to, his legs weak and frozen. He can’t bring himself to even move.
Adri pushes up to his knees, taking off his shoes for some reason. Taron’s about to yell at him that he can’t do that, it’s too goddamn cold, but there’s a loud, terrifying sound that comes from under the lake just then, like something huge just collided with it, and anything Taron was going to say is lost. The ice cracks under Adri’s hands and knees, long white spirals, branching and twisting out in every direction, sharp and dangerous.
Taron is yelling before he even registers it, “Adri, get off the ice! It’s breaking!” But Adri is calm. He takes off his gloves and throws them to the side where they land in a pile of snow just to edge of the lake, and then repeats the gesture with his coat. Taron stares, finally noticing the blue tint to Adri’s skin, the way it’s shifting from the smooth, pale expanse of skin to shiny, blue scales. By the time he’s kicking his jeans off and to the side, his legs aren’t so much legs anymore as one solid, heavy weight, a long tail of shimmering blue.
He’s turned into a – a mermaid? Merman? Siren? Fish? Just like that, fuck, fuck.
And then the entire right side of the lake lurches down, and water starts to flood over the ice in waves, sweeping over the ice that Adri’s lying on. Adri is pushed forward a few inches with the water, getting wet all over. It must be freezing, fish tail or not. Taron is shakily standing up, stepping forward two feet before his legs threaten to give out on him again. Christ, this isn’t the time to be fucking scared. Adri’s about to – to go under the lake, to –
“Taron, stop! No! It’s fine! I can swim! Don’t worry about me, stay back.”
A huge chunk of ice snaps off in the middle of the lake and disappears, leaving nothing but a large, gaping hole of pitch black water.
Taron cannot believe this is happening.
“Fuck you,” Taron curses, because no, he’s not taking that chance. This isn’t what they came outside for, and this water – this lake, in particular, is dangerous, is the starring role in every nightmare Taron’s had for two nights, and he can’t watch Adri disappear into it, he can’t, he fucking won’t.
But then, out of the hole, a – is that a girl?
Her hair is dark and tangled, covered in ice and – seaweed? Her skin is pale and frozen and tinted a lighter shade of blue than Adri, almost grey, but she’s real, she’s there, watching them both with dark eyes, and Taron can’t think of anything to say before Adri is diving for her, wrapping her in his arms in an embrace she returns just as tightly, just as hard.
Adri had told him, not too long ago, that he had sisters. But whoever this, she doesn’t seem safe at all. Her fingernails look sharp and her teeth sharper when she bares them in a snarl directed at Taron. Taron realizes, with a sudden, sick lurch in his stomach, that she’s dragging Adri into the water. Adri’s tail kicks madly for a moment against the wet surface of the ice before he’s slipped into the hole, nothing but a splash left visible after he’s gone. Nothing, of course, but the deep, black, and terribly cold water.
Taron is scrambling to the edge of the lake as quickly as possible, trying to stay grounded on something solid while at the same time trying to see Adri in the water. But he’s too far away, and the water is too dark, and he’s panicking. Adri just – he’s just gone, he’s – is this it?
He’s been so weird today, sending Taron sad looks, smiling balefully and insisting they be touching constantly, even when Taron’s family is there, giving them weird looks. What if that was it? He’s just – Adri has decided to leave because he’s apparently a fucking mermaid?
“Adri!” he yells, voice strangled, to the water, but it doesn’t so much as ripple. Heart thumping wildly, he calls again. “Adri, please!”
That girl had dragged him in. She hadn’t given warning, and her snarl, full of sharp teeth, had been terrifying, the opposite of Adri’s dimpled smile. What if he wanted to come back up, but he was getting held down? Taron’s heart is beating rapidly now, so hard it hurts in his chest, like he’s been skating for hours with no rest, like it’s a double overtime and he has no time to sit on the bench. “Adri!” he yells again, and gets close enough, finally, to touch the water with his outstretched fingers.
Nothing happens.
Not a whisper, not a sound, not a single ripple in the water, except for his own.
He can’t let Adri disappear like this.
Desperately, he sits up, staring into the dark pool of water, and swallows back the fear. He struggles with his boots, thrusting them off his feet and quickly unbuttoning his jacket with trembling hands. He leaves it on the ice, and, shaking from head to toe, holds his breath as he pushes off into the lake.
Immediately, he can’t breathe.
The dark cold is choking him, his own fear swallowing him whole. He can’t see anything, and when he opens his mouth to yell for Adri again, freezing cold water rushes in, filling his lungs. The current is stronger than it’d looked like from above, and he’s scrambling to stay at the surface of the lake, at the hole, but his limbs are already freezing, refusing to listen to him.
All he can think is, Adri has to be here.
Then something is encircling him by the waist, pushing him up, up – until his head breaks free of the water and he coughs, hacking up what feels like the entire lake as he clutches at Adri’s shoulders, his chest, his neck. By the time he’s paying enough attention to hear again, he registers Adri yelling, “—idiot! I told you to stay off the ice! I said! Why did you come in? You’ll freeze, Taron! I can’t carry you back, my tail won’t dry fast enough, you’re going to freeze!”
He sounds terrified, his yells mixed with sobs.
Taron thinks his skin must be as blue as Adri’s fins, by now, from how cold he is, and he raises a hand to rest against Adri’s cheek.
“You – you got – dragged under,” Taron manages, voice shaking, and he can’t remember if that’s a good sign or a bad one, “couldn’t let you – drown.”
Adri lets out a strangled laugh, but his blue eyes are getting darker with every second. “Taron, I’m a siren. I can’t drown.”
Taron shrugs, or tries to. His body won’t obey him, and Adri must realize it, because he gives a cry and pushes at Taron, trying to shove him up and over the edge of the ice. More bits of it just break off instead, and Taron ends up falling back into the water, Adri’s grip faltering for a moment. “Please, Taron,” Adri says, desperately. “You have to get out of the water. Try to make it back to your grandma’s house.”
Taron shakes his head. There’s no way.
“You’re a – siren,” Taron shakes, “so you might – you might leave – the water, I know you wanted to go back – and I didn’t –”
He’s so fucking cold.
“I –” His voice starts to falters. “I love you, okay?”
And that’s crazy. They barely know each other, really.
But it’s true, and maybe there’s some sort of – of siren magic at play, here, but Taron doesn’t even care.
Adri looks at him, staring, and his eyes are suddenly bright blue again, so sudden Taron knows it’s not his imagination this time; knows that that’s just something Adri’s eyes do – that there’s something about him being a siren that means his eyes can change color in the blink of an eye like that. Adri, sounding stunned, his voice incredibly small, almost wounded, asks, “You love me?”
Taron wants to tease him; wants to say, “Yeah, obviously I’m the prince to your Ariel,” but he can’t, too cold to say anything, too frozen to even grin. Besides, it isn’t a laughing matter, not with the way Adri is looking at him, his eyes big and wide and desperate for Taron to tell the truth.
“Yeah,” he manages, and chokes on water as his head dips underneath again.
Adri must get a surge of energy from somewhere right then. With a giant heave, he manages to push Taron up on the ice, and then he’s climbing out himself, naked all over again, like the day they first met and he’d saved Taron for the first time. He tries to reach out to Adri’s tail, grasping pointlessly in shock as the last scales fade away, leaving nothing but two wet, pale legs behind. “How—“ he croaks, but his body is shaking all over. Adri is already moving to stand up, grabbing Taron under his armpits and dragging him off the lake and onto the snow-covered ground beside it. Taron’s still got most of his clothes on, but they’re cold, wet, and heavy because of it. He doesn’t know how to tell Adri that grabbing his boots and jacket, trying to shove Taron’s clothes back onto his body – it won’t help either of them at this point, though at least Adri’s own pants and coat are, mostly, still dry.
There’s snow in his hair, his and Adri’s both, from Adri dragging Taron through the snow, and Taron trying to walk – trying and mostly failing, his legs still not working properly, tripping up every time he puts too much weight on them.
When the house finally comes back into view as they leave a copse of trees, Adri yells so loudly and close to Taron’s ear that he flinches away. Adri whispers, “I’m sorry, Taron, I’m sorry,” but the backdoor is being thrown open, and Taron’s grandfather is rushing out. He’s not any stronger than Adri, Taron thinks, but somehow between the three of them, they make it into the house. Taron’s grandpa is cursing all the way, French and English mixed – yelling at the both of them, asking what the hell they were thinking, are they suicidal?
Taron’s not sure how to explain the siren thing, so he just doesn’t say anything, and let’s his grandmother fuss over him and Adri both when they get back into the house, reminiscent of one year earlier. Her face is wrecked, though, and Taron apologizes in French, pulling her in for a long embracing hug that she cries through. Adri is curled in with him on the couch, covered with blankets, and he’s not even trying to speak. His face is pressed into Taron’s neck, and his hands are holding onto Taron tightly wherever he’d been able to grab hold under the blankets.
It’s almost too warm where Adri’s skin is pressed up against Taron’s, but Taron wouldn’t push him off if it meant losing the Stanley Cup in the seventh game of the final series, not right now, maybe not ever. It’s not long before there’s a warm shower going, and his grandparents herd him and Adri in. Adri’s shoulders are tense when they get in the water, and he doesn’t say anything until after Adri’s grandmother finally leaves, rushing off to grab them dry towels and clothes and something hot to drink when they get out.
Even then, all he says is, “Taron,” his voice a soft sigh, as he presses his face against Taron’s chest under the spray of water.
Taron swallows, and asks, “Adri, why do you look human?” He runs a hand gently down Adri’s back, sliding it over his ass, until his fingertips are as low as they can reach, just barely brushing the back of Adri’s legs. “What happened?”
Adri shakes his head, but doesn’t answer. There’s a hitching sob in his throat, barely audible over the water, and Taron resolves not to ask again – not yet, anyway. He traces his fingers over Adri’s face instead, over the freckles that have started to show up high on his cheeks and nose in the last year, and the way their skin color contrasts – Adri’s not nearly as pale as he was when they first met, not anymore.
He tilts Adri’s face up so that he can kiss him, and Adri melts into it, kissing back softly.
They’re startled apart when Taron’s grandmother comes back in, and yells, “The towels are on the sink! There’s hot cocoa downstairs, and clothes fresh from the dryer in your room, Taron.”
Taron calls out, “Alright, we’re almost done,” in French, and then rubs at Adri’s arms, his back, to make sure that he really is getting warm again under the spray.
Adri doesn’t speak much for the rest of the night, not even when Taron’s grandparents ask what happened, what they were thinking, going out there again. When Taron tries talking to him, he just turns his face away. Taron’s heart sinks, a little, each time, and wonders what’s wrong. Did Taron guilt Adri into coming back out of the water? Adri had been looking forward to – seeing his family, maybe? Or was he not talking because his family had been angry at him? Was it not a good reunion after all? Taron’s not sure he’d have been happy to see Bobbie with teeth and nails like the ones that other siren in the lake had had, but Adri’s already upset enough that Taron’s not about to bring it up.
All the same, when they go to sleep, Adri attaches himself to Taron, breathing deep through the silence, his fingernails digging divets into Taron’s arm. It should be hard to sleep, but as soon as Taron closes his eyes, he seems to be opening them again, sunlight coming in through the curtains.
Adri is standing up, having pulled them open. He looks back when Taron makes a noise, sitting up.
“Adri?”
“You said you love me. Did you mean it?”
Taron feels the heat rise on the back of his neck, and he suddenly feels the need to look away, embarrassment rising up. Jesus, he had said that, hadn’t he? Panicked and scared, he’d been sure that Adri wanted to leave, was going under that water, into that dark, terrifying nothingness, that he’d just… it had just come out.
He clears his throat, and licks his bottom lip, mouth feeling to dry to speak.
“Yeah,” he says, finally, his voice cracking just enough to make his face burn even hotter. There’s nothing else to say. Love is a big thing, a stupid, crazy big thing that he’s not sure he’s ready for, but he can’t lie and say it’s not what he’s feeling, not really. The way Adri makes him feel choked for breath sometimes, just from his laugh, or his smile, and just the way he looks at Taron, like he’s the one who… who’s maybe in love, it’s—
It isn’t something Taron could deny, now that it’s out there.
Adri lets out this long breath, and when he turns completely away from the window, his eyes are wet like he’s about to start crying, but the corner of his mouth is curled into a smile. “Okay,” he says, nodding, “then I—I’m,” he stops short, and Taron’s struck with the idea that Adri might not believe him; like Taron loving him is… unexpected.
Taron gets up and pads across the room, ignoring the cold floor on his bare feet. He pushes into Adri’s space, not quite touching, but—close enough. “Adri, hey. You kind of knew that, didn’t you?”
Adri looks at him, eyes startled.
Taron scratches at the back of his neck, glancing through the window if just to avoid having to talk about this for another minute. Swallowing, he says, “I mean, yeah, I love you. You’re—pretty great, you know?”
Adri breaks into a smile, small at first, then growing as he keeps looking at Taron, who can feel the heat keep rising in his face.
“I love you too,” Adri says, finally, voice still soft despite his ridiculous thousand-watt smile, the way his eyes have changed again, so stupidly bright blue it surprises Taron every time.
“Your, um, your eyes,” Taron says, hesitating. “Is that because of the siren thing?”
Adri is surprised into laughing. “Yeah, it’s, uh. Well, I can’t really control it around you very well, but, you know, it’s part of my… I don’t know if there’s even a word for it. Charm, maybe.”
“Charm?” Taron repeats, dubiously.
“What do you actually know about sirens, Taron?” Adri asks, taking Taron’s hand and dragging him back over to the bed where they can sit down.
“Uh, they… you’re like a mermaid, basically?”
Adri scrunches up his nose. Taron feels himself relax, because—everything is back to normal, or at least, getting there. He’s tempted to lean over and kiss Adri, but Adri seems to be struggling to say something. “Mermaids are the kid version,” is what Adri finally comes up with. He looks troubled, still, the lines on his forehead creasing the harder he stares at the sheets on the bed. “We have a… it’s sort of like a rule, but I don’t know who came up with it, or why, it’s just—it just is. And the rule is that we don’t interact with humans.” Adri looks at Taron, his eyes no less bright, but harder. “We don’t help—if anything, we’re known for the opposite.”
Taron swallows, thinking of what little he remembers from mythology and sea creatures.
“You mean, your people, they, uh, kill people?”
“Technically, we sing to them.” Adri’s voice hitches. “It’s just, they fall asleep. And then they drown.”
Taron feels cold, and he pushes back until his back hits the wall and he can tug the comforter over his feet. He doesn’t know what to say to that—doesn’t even know why it’s important. Adri isn’t—he’s not like that, and he’s not leaving, anyway. “Why’s it matter, Adri?”
“Because I broke the rule. I was watching you skate,” Adri answers, words coming out slowly. “The ice broke, and I should’ve let you drown, but I was already in love with you, so I couldn’t. I saved you, and the rule—“
Adri shakes his head. “It’s not like your rules, just words on paper. I saved you, because I loved you, and I had three turns of the moon to get you to fall in love with me too, or I’d die. That’s why I wanted to back into the lake. I wanted to say goodbye to my sisters. I thought that I was going to die.”
Taron’s frozen.
“But I—you’re not going to die, Adri. That’s a stupid rule, and I—I love you. I love you! I’ll say it however many times you need me to. Should I kiss you? Let me—“
Taron lurches forward, surprising Adri by his sudden movement, but Adri kisses back just as fiercely, hands wrapping around Taron’s neck. They break off, Adri sucking in a breath of air, and then laughing into Taron’s neck, dampening his skin with the heat of his breath. “I think more than just kissing will be needed. I think having a lot of sex is probably the key point—”
Taron snorts, burying his face into the crook of Adri’s neck, and he mutters, “You’re awful.”
“But you love me anyway?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”