kaz brekker | grishaverse. (nomourners) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2019-04-14 00:39:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, * jamie, * kit, c: cash wolfe, c: evan meadows |
WHO: Cash Wolfe & Evan Meadows
WHEN: March 27, 2019; Late Night
WHERE: Savannah, GA
SUMMARY: Cash and Evan have their first kiss, and it’s almost perfect, except that Kaz Brekker is why we can’t have nice things.
WARNINGS: Kaz’s PTSD, and mentions of bodies. :|
Though Evan didn't often think too highly of herself, she had to admit that this trip had been a very good idea. Normally her spring breaks were spent back in Dunhaven, usually sleeping in at her mothers' home in her childhood bedroom, then spending the days hanging out with her friends and doing absolutely nothing school-related. This trip had been much of the same, though they had traded in the cooler spring weather of Virginia to the much warmer weather of Georgia. She had slept in, gorged herself on breakfast food, and then hung out with some of the people that she cared about most. It was a very good vacation. Of course, it wasn't just any vacation and she could feel that in her heart. Of her friends, it was Cash that she had gone on the most road trips with, both planned and impromptu. Those trips of the past had always been between two friends, though. This time, their relationship had been elevated. That would have been obvious on its own as Evan had sunk into the now familiarity of thinking of Cash as her boyfriend, rather than simply her best friend, but it felt even more clear as she watched each of their friends pair off in a natural way for couples to do. No matter how long they might have had latent or realized feelings for one another, her relationship with Cash was still new in the grand scheme of things. It was also different from the others, though, for reasons they were both keenly aware of. While she hadn't necessarily been tired, Evan had excused herself as the others started to drift in the direction of their respective bedrooms. Not wanting to monopolize the bathroom, she had been quick in brushing her teeth and washing her face before retiring into the bedroom that she was sharing with Cash. Assuming that he wouldn't be too far behind her, she quickly changed into a pair of comfortable pajama shorts and a tank top for bed before situating herself in front of the mirror that hung on one of the walls. Gazing idly at her reflection, she got to work on her hair, slowly braiding it into the loose plait that she normally put her wavy hair (made all the more wild after an afternoon spent on the shore, thanks to the wind off the ocean) into for the night. Her hair would mostly escape the braid by morning, but Evan was a creature of habit and routine. As her fingers worked, Evan let her mind wander to Cash, as it so often did. It had been a month since they had decided to stop fighting their feelings toward one another and the relief that she had felt from the decision had been immediate. Though he had always been her best friend, the awkward limbo that they had existed in for the weeks preceding had been painful for her. After fourteen years of friendship, she had hated every second of indecision and second guessing when it came to what she said or how she acted in his presence. It had almost been overwhelming for that wall to have come crashing down after one conversation, but only in the best sort of way. Their relationship might not have been conventional to most thanks to Kaz Brekker's hold on Cash's mind, but Evan didn't care about conventional. Their relationship was theirs and that was all that would ever matter to her. Still, she thought, a smile coming to her lips, their being away from Dunhaven and able to just focus on each other when not distracted by their friends had been nice. Cash had always been liberal in his dolling of compliments to her, but Evan knew that they were different now. Having him use words like gorgeous in relation to her was definitely appreciated when they couldn't necessarily indulge in actions to remind each other that there was an attraction between them beyond friendship. So appreciated, in fact, that she felt a faint warmth at her cheeks at the memory. As soon as she realized it, Evan rolled her eyes at herself. It didn't erase that bashful smile from her lips, though, as she tied off the end of her braid. This vacation was driving Cash absolutely crazy. Or, at the very least, moreso than he already felt back home with the dreams and memories. It was a great trip, as he’d known it would be when Evan started planning it, but it was a big trip, too. It was the first one where they were all couple up, and the first one when Evan was his girlfriend and not just his best friend. It was the first trip where he could let himself truly appreciate all of the things that attracted him to her, and not pretend like he was more interested in other girls than he was her. And he was very, very interested in her. That was the part that was driving him crazy, the part where they were away from Dunhaven for almost a full week, on their own, sharing a room, finally able to fully embrace their new relationship and...he was stuck with Kaz Brekker’s goddamn brain. A brain that didn’t know how to touch another human being without seizing up. Cash had been working on it with his therapist for weeks now, but he’d been too afraid to check his progress, too afraid of finding out that he was still broken. With a sigh, he opened the door to slip into his and Evan’s shared room, the one with the twin beds that were close enough to taunt them, but far enough apart that he wouldn’t accidentally freak out in the middle of the night. And there she was, in all of her unassuming beauty, and Cash wanted nothing more than to wrap his fingers around those nimble fingers that braided her hair so carefully, to envelope her in his arms while they slept. Seeing her and knowing they belonged to each other was enough, though, to bring a smile to Cash’s face as he closed the door behind him took a seat on the edge of his bed. “I mentioned maybe doing one of the ghost tours tomorrow night to the others,” he said, going to work pulling his socks off as he got ready for bed. “If you’re game for that, I mean.” As Evan finished her braid, her eyes followed Cash's reflection in the mirror. She felt the now familiar flutter in her stomach that she had felt for ages in his presence, though had dismissed as meaning nothing for so long. It was freeing to embrace it now, to know that he not only could inspire butterflies of all things, but that it was okay for him to do so, because he was hers as much as she was his. Evan turned at his words, letting her braid swing over her shoulder and down her back as she gave Cash her full attention. "I'm game," she agreed. "Are you actually supposed to see ghosts? Not sure how prepped I should be for spookiness." As she spoke, she leaned against the wall next to the mirror she had been using, watching him with perhaps greater interest than was necessary as he readied himself for bed. It wasn't as though she had never shared a room with before this vacation, but it was the first time they had shared a room as a couple. There was something about that which made her appreciate the simple domesticity of witnessing him get ready for bed in a way she wouldn't have thought to appreciate before. What Cash wanted to reply with was some quip about being there to hold her if she got too scared--as if he believed Evan even would get scared--but he quickly bit back the retort because, well, it had no real bite. He sighed, again, though only he was privy to his own thoughts. “I think you should prepare for maximum spookiness. Anything less, and I might have to demand our money back,” he joked, instead. He pulled his shirt off over his head and tossed it over toward the pile of clothes spilling out of the suitcase he hadn’t unpacked and stood up to start pulling the covers back down on his bed. “So, has this vacation been everything you dreamed it would be so far?” The joke that Evan had been prepared to throw back at Cash about whether or not her idea of maximum spookiness could compare to his was quickly forgotten as he simply took off his shirt. Again, it was nothing that she hadn't seen before, and yet it had her appreciating her best friend turned boyfriend in a completely different way than she had been before. Realizing that she was dangerously close to blushing, Evan pushed herself off of the wall and advanced toward her own bed. She was careful not to touch Cash as she stepped around him, something that she'd become all too conscious of in the last months that it had almost become second nature to her. There were moments where she caught herself reaching for him or stopping herself just before she stepped in too close, but her desire to make sure he was comfortable around her at all times always seemed to beat out the fourteen years of instincts she'd had that normally sought him out. "Mmhm," Evan agreed as she pulled down the blankets of her own bed. "I know it's not been all that long since we went to Virginia Beach, but I think I was due for a little break from Dunhaven again. And, you know, I'll always take an excuse to hang out with our friends -- and you, obviously." Finished with the task at hand, Cash moved back to sit at the foot of his bed. He agreed with her on each of those points, but he knew there were a few things he would have liked to have changed. His obvious disdain for Kaz’s hold on him right now was one of them, but there was also the matter of his leg that kept him from being able to fully enjoy how much this pedestrian city had to offer. It had been a bummer having to sit out on some of the walking tours his friends had taken, or pretending he’d rather do anything other than walk down by the river all night. Still, though, he was loving the trip, even with his physical and mental obstacles. The beautiful girl sharing this room with him made it impossible to not love it. “You don’t need an excuse to hang out with me ever, you know,” he pointed out. "I know," Evan replied without hesitation, fluffing her pillow once before deciding that was good. Turning, she moved to mirror Cash, sitting at the foot of her bed to face him. "But having an excuse makes me feel less selfish when I take up all your time." She was joking -- well, mostly joking. Letting her legs cross in front of her, Evan's hands came to meet almost primly in her lap, at least until she started absentmindedly picking at her chipped nail polish. She kept her gaze on Cash, though, and asked, "What about you? Everything you dreamed it could be?" Part of her asked out of genuine curiosity, while another just wanted to make sure that all of them, but especially Cash, were having fun on this trip she'd come up with. She didn't want to have dragged them all down, only to have a poor time. Cash turned to face Evan as she sat down and shrugged once. “Almost,” he replied, smiling. “But it’s pretty damn close, I have to admit.” "Almost," Evan repeated, raising a concerned eyebrow. "What can I do to close that gap? I'm taking personal responsibility of everyone's enjoyment of this trip, you see." She smiled at that, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. He’d known he was going to have to extrapolate on his answer, but Cash had answered that way, anyway. The last thing he wanted was to make Evan feel like she, in any way, was at fault for his almost because that was the furthest thing from the truth. He had promised her honesty, though, so he decided an honest answer would be for the best. “It’s not really what you can do,” Cash replied, albeit hesitantly. “It’s more about what I wish I could do to close that gap. Kissing you, for starters. That would make this trip pretty damn near perfect.” "Oh." It was an automatic response, the single syllable seeming to be pulled from Evan as she exhaled, nearly a sigh. There was no doubt in her mind that being able to touch him would have certainly been the cherry on the top of an otherwise wonderful trip. It had crossed her mind more times than she could count as they walked together and she couldn't reach for his hand or lounged in the sand and she couldn't roll over and rest her head on his chest. If she were honest with herself, Evan had been entertaining similar thoughts before they had come down the coast, though the parts of their relationship that they couldn't explore were made all the more obvious without different dorms or responsibilities acting as distraction. Evan's hands stilled in her lap, her fingers just pressed to her legs as her gaze dropped from Cash's for a few long moments. "That would make it nice," she admitted slowly, while her eyes immediately popped back up to look at him. "I mean, it's okay. Obviously. I don't -- I understand, of course. But, just because I understand doesn't mean I don't think about it sometimes." She paused, scrunching up her nose before she barrelled on into the honesty that sometimes came too easily with him. "Okay, maybe more than sometimes." Cash smirked. “I mean, I think about it almost all the goddamn time, so I’m not going to judge you for how often you think about it, too.” Even now he was thinking about it, though that was probably to be expected considering their topic of conversation. But it was more than that. In his head, he could imagine his fingertips memorizing the slopes of her shoulders, and the curves of her hips. He could imagine getting so lost in her that he couldn’t even begin to find himself again. The problem wasn’t thinking about it. The problem was actually acting on the places his mind went when he was alone with her. His attraction to her ran far deeper than anything he could hope to capture in a photo of her. It was built upon years of working to become the person who knew her better than anyone else, and years of falling gradually and steadily in love with every single beautiful, or frustrating part of her. He loved everything about her, both the good and the bad, and he was so full of want and all he could do was tell her this. He wanted to show her, too. It had been a near constant topic of discussion in his therapy sessions. He glanced down at his hand where his fingers were toying with a small thread sticking up from the quilt. After a moment, he said, “What if we tried it? I might fail miserably and it would suck, but…” he looked back up at her, his eyes meeting hers, “but maybe I won’t fail.” It took a few solid seconds for Cash's words to sink in. It wasn't that Evan thought that they would always exist in this state; in fact, even before they had decided to just be together after weeks of an awkwardness existing between them that she never wanted to experience again, she had known that she would wait for him. She would wait however long she had to, because she knew that Cash was the person that she wanted. She loved him in a way she had never felt before and in a way that she never wanted to feel again with someone else. Evan's hands smoothed over her shorts, as though they were wrinkled and needed to be straightened. "We can try," she agreed slowly, keeping her gaze on Cash's. "If it's too much, we can stop. We can always try again later. I'm not going anywhere, so." Her lips curved into a smile, though faded before she added, "But only if you're sure, Cash. I don't want you to feel rushed into something you're not ready for." He was sure. Afraid, yes, but only afraid that this wouldn’t work because he desperately needed it to. For a moment, Cash sat there, working at the inside of his cheek before he stood up and nodded. “I’m sure. There’s got to be a first attempt sometime and what’s the point of even going to therapy if I’m not going to try and put my progress into practice, right?” And, then, realizing that that had been the least romantic way of saying that his desire for her easily overwhelmed his anxiety over his situation, he gave her a lopsided smile and said, “Come here, Evan.” Evan was not at all unconvinced that she could just melt under that smile. She mentally added it to the growing list of things that she may have been on the receiving end before, but felt entirely different now. Returning his smile with one of her own, though perhaps a bit more sheepishly than his, Evan uncrossed her legs and slid from the bed to stand before Cash. Her head tipped back, their height difference as impossible to ignore as ever; she'd always loved it, even if she may have grumbled about how she had never been granted that final growth spurt she had always been promised with puberty, and this moment was no different. Though her ever constant desire that existed under the surface told her to step in and just touch him already, Evan waited. She'd meant what she had said before, that she wasn't going to rush him. Until they knew where they stood, she would wait for him. Maybe Cash was more nervous than he’d thought. As he waited for Evan, his heart was pounding out of his chest. And then she was standing in front of him looking every bit as gorgeous as she always did and all he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and kiss her properly. He knew that wasn’t going to work for them, though. He needed to be slow, deliberate, and the exact opposite of everything he wanted to be just then. His eyes lingered over her for a few moments as he took in the sight of her and tried to commit how she made him feel to his thoughts so that when he kissed her, she would be the thing on his mind, not Jordie, or Kaz, or Ketterdam. With a shaky breath, Cash leaned down, slowly closing the gap between them, and then finally, finally pressed his lips to hers. Almost immediately, his brain took him back to the barge, the mental image of swollen lips and faces filling his thoughts. He went rigid, his breaths coming faster against her mouth. It wasn’t going to work, this wasn’t okay, he needed to get as far away from this as he could. And yet… and yet he didn’t move. He forced himself to think of his breathing first and when his heart felt like it might stay put, he focused on her. He could smell the scent of her shampoo and the subtle hints of springtime in Georgia. He heard the sounds of her breathing, and opened his eyes to take in her striking, dark features. He thought about how much he loved her, and the effect she had on him always. And before he even realized he was doing it, he was relaxing and, though his hands weren’t touching her yet, he was kissing her and it was glorious and much more than everything he’d ever imagined. There was an anticipation unlike anything she had experienced before, as Evan stood before Cash and waited. The feel of his gaze on her had her almost blushing again, the only thing stopping her from doing so being his leaning down and kissing her. Because that's what they were doing, she almost had to remind herself. Kissing. As easy and tempting as it could have been to just ease into the kiss like Evan so desperately wanted to, she didn't. She was hyper aware of everything Cash did on a normal day, but this was so very new. She could tell the moment the struggle started, even without actually touching him with her hands or body, but the moment that she was just about to push away, to put a stop to this and the war that she thought had to have been waging in his mind, Evan felt him relax. Somehow, the knowledge that he was able to do such a thing almost meant more to her than the fact that they were kissing at all. Because that's what they were doing. The thought settled in Evan's mind, though it wasn't possible for her to have forgotten at all. While she didn't reach out or pull herself in closer, she felt herself relax in turn. After fourteen years of friendship, too many of them spent in some shade of denial regarding just how utterly in love with him she was, and then over a month of an official relationship, she was kissing Cash. It seemed impossible, but it wasn't. It was far from, actually. And it was perfect. Though the last thing she wanted to do was end any of this, her need to take care of Cash rose above all else. Evan let her eyes flutter open and met his, her heart skipping a beat. A moment passed before she pulled away, just enough to murmur against his lips to check, "You 'kay?" Cash was vehemently not letting himself overthink this because he knew the moment he let his mind take over again, he would be lost to it and its aggressive waves of memory. The moment he’d let himself get lost in her, though, everything except for the two of them faded to non-existence. He was almost terrified to break away from this, afraid that it would break the spell, that the memories would come flooding back in. “For now,” he nodded in answer, his words breathless against her mouth before he kissed her again, this time growing bolder than he had been before. Shakily taking her hands in his, he slowly, slowly pressed her palms against his chest. It was a dangerous move, and one he wasn’t entirely sure he could sustain. All he knew, though, was that he had no idea when this would end and he wanted as much of it as he could have before Kaz inevitably ruined it. After months of not touching, Evan found herself appreciating the moment on a whole level beyond this simply being their first (and second) kiss. She had missed their casual touches more than she could have ever imagined, sometimes chastising herself for not realizing that she ought to have been cherishing each and every one. Her mind couldn't help but think back to their conversation after their last trip together, filled with confessions and the start of this journey toward new. It was Cash's words that resonated, though -- the first person I want to touch is you. And here they were. His hands were on hers, her hands were pressed to his chest, and they were kissing one another. Sometimes everything could just be so good. Despite that every part of Evan was telling her to step in toward Cash and glide her hands up his chest and around his neck, she did none of that. Though she did give into the temptation to return the kiss just a bit harder and her fingers seemed to actually tingle where they touched his skin, she didn't push beyond the boundaries he'd set. Like him, she didn't know how long this would last and when he might need that distance once more, but she also didn't want to inadvertently rush him that way, even as she felt her heart race away in her chest. All Cash wanted to do was to scoop Evan up in his arms and kiss her like he was making up for a month of not being able to, but...he couldn’t. He’d know from the moment he’d decided to do this that it wouldn’t last forever and it felt like the end of it was coming too soon, too harshly as his vision started to narrow, his skin began to burn, and he suddenly felt like he would never breathe again. Hating having to do it, Cash pushed himself away from Evan and turned toward the opposite wall as he doubled over and braced his hands against his knees. He screwed his eyes shut as he started his rotation of mantras all over again, trying to fight against the memory of saltwater and decay as it fought back against him. His breaths came quicker and shallower and he dug his fingers into his knees until the memories slowly began to fade again. After a few more moments, he slowly stood up again and then turned back to her, his expression pained, regretful. “I’ll do better next time,” he promised. Because this was on him. If there was one thing he’d learned from that experiment, it was that Evan--god, Evan--was perfect. It took every bit of willpower that Evan possessed not to surge forward and try to help him as she watched Cash pull away from her, but she knew that any help she wanted to give him wouldn't actually be help at all. She wasn't unfamiliar with wars that exist only within one's mind, her memories of Inej having given her plenty to battle. She thought of the stretch of days where she'd had to stay in Denver and Bash's guestroom, because the sound of people simply living in the dorms that surrounded her own reminded her too much of being surrounded by rooms in the Menagerie. There were the nights where she woke from nightmares and sat in her bed, legs clutched to her chest as she stared at her locked door and waited until the light of morning soothed her enough into allowing for movement. And then there were the other nights, when the only person she simultaneously trusted and needed to be near her was Cash. The trauma was different, but one that Evan could understand. Inej's experiences didn't have the same steady grip on her mind as Kaz's did on Cash, but she understood. And so, she waited for him to return to himself, to fight past the memories and come back to her. Evan was still standing just where he'd left her, concern lacing her features as she stood with her arms wrapped tightly around her middle. She didn't ask him if he was okay, nor did she tell him that it was fine. It was fine, of course, but the fact that he was dealing with this most assuredly wasn't. The last thing she wanted to do was be flippant, so instead she made her shoulders relax and gave him a slight, but warm, smile. "We'll get there," she said, a promise in return. "And if there's anything that I can do to help, promise you'll tell me?" The fact that Evan knew him better than anyone else did, that she saw his struggles with Kaz, and still loved him for no more or no less than who and what he was still blew Cash away. He looked at her, worrying at his bottom lip, before slowly nodding and letting out a small breath. “I promise,” he said. Because if it was the last thing he did, Cash swore to himself that he would figure out how to kiss her properly. The bastard of the barrel would not take this from him, from them forever. |