What did you get her for Christmas?
Who: Mateo and Xander What: Catching up When: 12.17.12 - Monday Evening Where: The Cabin Warnings: Language
It had been a loooong day. He’d kept Ana entertained all morning while Jason, Justice, and the rest of the family went to visit Justice’s mom. It had gone well, he was pretty sure. No one had missing limbs, at least. And Gracie certainly seemed pleased - Justice had spent most of the evening braiding beads into her hair. Mateo was still wide awake, even though everyone was heading to bed - his head was buzzing with everything Jason had told him, taught him, when they’d gone out with the girls, hunting. He’d never been hunting before, and it had been impressive - and a little scary - to see the Richards girls at work, taking down prey like they were born to it. Instincts were funny things, though, and he’d found it easy enough to catch prey of his own.
He was trying to work out how long he could sit out here by the firepit, whether it was worth the hassle to get up and move inside. He was kind of enjoying the peace and quiet - Chloe and Charlie getting ready for bed, Gracie and Ana already there, and Justice and Jason had moved inside a while back. Which just left him and Xander. Hadn’t been just the two of them for way too long. Xander didn’t even know about his tattoo yet. But now seemed a pretty good time to tell him...“So what did you get Charlie for Christmas?” He asked, rolling his head sideways to look at Xander, rather than actually lifting it off the back of the chair. He had his feet out in front of him, soles of his boots practically on the edge of the firepit. The warmth felt good.
Xander's own head was spinning a little too. He hadn't been hunting before, quite obviously. It was still strange to be shifted. To be something he wasn't. To be an animal and a man all at the same time. He wasn't used to it, to say the least. It was confusing. Different. But it was still awesome to feel more like part of the pride than just an outsider looking in. Going hunting with the girls, Jason and Mateo had actually been a lot of fun. He'd been nervous, but it had gone pretty well and he wouldn't mind doing it again. Even if he was nowhere near close to as skilled as the ladies were at hunting. But that was the way lions worked. Men watched and protected, the women did the hunting.
Now he was just relaxing, liking the warmth of the fire along with the coolness of the air around them. Mateo was right, they hadn't had any time together in a long time and it was nice to sit with his friend, even in silence. Then Mateo turned his head and asked that question so Xander did the same lazy movement. He hadn't actually gone out and bought anything for Charlie. "I'm giving her a scent locket," he told him. "It was my mother's." Which he thought made it even more special and was the whole reason that he was giving it to Charlie to begin with, so she'd know just how important she was to him. "What'd you get for Chloe?"
“Two things,” Mateo answered, sitting upright. “I got her a necklace with a crown on it, because I always call her ‘Queenie’,” he blushed a little. It sounded kind of lame when he told someone else. But he was pretty sure Chloe would like it. “And um,” he looked over his shoulder at the cabin, making sure no one was in the living room, able to see them. “Okay you have to promise to keep this a secret until Christmas...” he warned Xander, reaching for the hem of his sweater. Tugging it and his tshirt up, he exposed his chest, the nearly-healed tattoo above his heart.
Xander didn't think it was that embarrassing really. It didn't matter much to him what Mateo called Chloe. He had his own nicknames for Charlie so he could at least understand that much of it. And 'Dimples' was probably just as bad as 'Queenie'. "Cute," he commented about the necklace. Then he nodded a little at the warning and watched as Mateo lifted his shirt up to reveal the tattoo. Damn. The boy had it bad. "She's going to cry. And scream," he told him, flicking his eyes to the cabin and back again. "But that's pretty awesome. Did they do it with like silver needles so it'd stay?" he asked.
Mateo tugged down his shirt again, shivering a little. “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Silver needles and special ink.” And a really nervous tattooist. The girl had been cute, in a hyper, bouncy way, but she hadn’t helped his nerves by telling him that he was her first were tattoo. But he had to admit, he was impressed. It looked fucking good. “Seriously could have used a smoke before going in there, though,” he muttered, smiling wryly. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d gotten stoned - probably with Xander, before he’d quit cold turkey for Charlie. Well, more for her family than anything else, he didn’t see Charlie caring if Xander toked up once in a while.
Xander, if he was being completely honest, missed smoking. A lot. It wasn't like he could do it without someone finding out though. Which kept him from doing so for as long as he had. He groaned, low in his throat and leaned back against the chair. "Don't talk about smoking," he sighed, putting his cigarette to his lips and taking a long drag. Thank god he could still fucking smoke cigarettes or he might have died. "Probably the only bad thing about being in a house full of people that can smell you if you even think about it," he teased.
Mateo snorted. “Tell me about it.” Not that his dad had ever said anything. “But hey, not that I’m trying to lead down the road of delinquency, but if you wanna come stay at mine for the night, we can totally smoke. Long as you shower and put on clean clothes, should be fine.” He wasn’t pressuring Xander of course, but Xander wasn’t the only one who missed getting stoned. Mateo only did it occasionally, to relax more than anything else, but still.
God that sounded like a wonderful fucking idea. Even thinking about how amazing it sounded made him a little paranoid and he flicked his eyes to the cabin to make sure no one else was listening in on this conversation. "Really?" he asked, trying not to sound like he wanted to do it as badly as he did. He knew he couldn't exactly toke up once he started applying for colleges or going to the academy, whichever happened first. A couple of nights here and there being bad wouldn't be awful... would they?
Mateo shrugged. “Sure,” he murmured, careful to keep his voice low. “If you can tear yourself away from Charlie for the night.” He grinned. Yeah, they were both as bad as each other. But Xander got to see Charlie every single night, whereas he had to try and see Chloe around both their work schedules, babysitting Ana, and studying. It sucked, sometimes. And it was only gonna get worse as the year went on. He was trying not to think about college, about how stressful the next few years were gonna be.
"I think I can handle it. For a night." Maybe. Leaving Charlie at all had become pretty difficult. Especially since he lived with her. He saw her every day. Not seeing her was hard as hell. She was pretty much the most important thing in his whole life. His world as of that moment revolved around Charlie as though she were the sun. To him she was. "I think Chloe'll love it," he said of the tattoo, motioning to Mateo's chest to indicate it. "Did it hurt?"
Mateo nodded. “Not as bad as I thought? But yeah. Silver needles....aren’t exactly comfortable for a were.” His chest had been swollen and sore for the first couple of days, it was only just starting to calm down now. Worse than a normal tattoo, because most humans weren’t painfully allergic to whatever metal the needles were made of. But it was the only way that the tattoo would stick, so he was happy to go through it. “I just hope she doesn’t think it’s like...creepy or weird.” Yeah, he was a little worried about that. But he was head over heels for her, and he knew that wasn’t going to change.
"I doubt she'll think it's weird," Xander said, shrugging a little. "Chloe is in love with you. She wants to have your babies and a big fairytale wedding with like a billion guests and all that frilly girly stuff that you know she likes. She'll love it. She'll be like 'damn, he really is serious about me'. Which'll probably get you laid. Repeatedly. Lucky bastard." Yeah, one of the negatives about dating Charlie was her age. She was fifteen. Fifteen was young. At least too young to be trying anything that involved nudity. Especially given that he was an adult and her dad was a cop.
Mateo made a bit of a face at the wedding comment. Because yeah, Chloe was totally that kind of girl. Him? He’d be happy marrying her in his parent’s backyard. Just as long as she was by his side, he’d be happy. He had a feeling that wouldn’t be what Chloe had in mind, though. He snorted at the rest of what Xander said, arching an eyebrow. “Hey, no one twisted your arm and made you date a girl two years younger than you,” he pointed out, sitting back in his chair, looking up at the sky. “Besides, I’m pretty sure Charlie won’t make you wait that long. If the way she smells when you come out the shower is any indication.”
"Three years," he reminded him. "Eighteen and fifteen. Yeah. No one twisted my arm. I love her. That's not the problem." He wasn't upset that he was with Charlie. He wasn't upset about not getting laid. Not really. It was just fucking difficult to be horny all the damn time, still being a virgin and having no way of changing that. At least not at the moment. "One reason I'm glad I'm not a were," he admitted. "At least I don't have to smell how much we want each other too."
“She’ll be sixteen soon though, right?” He asked, quirking an eyebrow. It wasn’t the full three years, not really. And girls matured faster than guys, so that narrowed the gap a little, too. Not so much of a problem for him and Chloe - and he wasn’t sure he would have been able to hold off, if Chloe had been the same age as Charlie. Not considering the way his beast reacted to her. How hard he found it to hold back. “And yeah, trust me, neither of you would last,” he murmured, smirking a little. “You think Jason and Justice are bad? It’s got nothing on teenage weres. Trust me.” If he and Chloe were living under the same roof...yeah, it wouldn’t be a good thing.
"In June," he said. "Which is still like six months away." So yeah. A long time. Forever to a teenage boy. Not the full three years. Not really. But close. Damn close. Charlie was mature for her age though, like most girls. So it evened the gap out pretty well. He couldn't help but wonder how it was going to be when they finally did cross that line. "I may not survive the first time," he laughed, shaking his head a little. "I'm just a puny human."
“Witchy human,” Mateo pointed out, grinning. “You might wanna look into stamina spells, though. Just sayin’.” Not that he was complaining - quite the opposite. Still, though, the couple of nights that he’d had Chloe to himself for any decent amount of time, they’d ended up both exhausted by the end of it. It might be different considering Xander wasn’t a were, but Mateo doubted it.
Xander arched a brow. "I think I'll have plenty of stamina considering all the fuckin' buildup," he muttered, shaking his head. It was like months and months of foreplay and it was driving him crazy. He might still look up those spells just in case. Viagra for witches. Jesus. "Stamina? Really? I have feeling I have no clue what I'm getting myself into."
“You really don’t,” Mateo teased, smirking at his friend. “Think how she feels - she can smell every time you get horny. Every. Single. Time. And smelling that - or hell, smelling anyone turned on - makes her feel horny too. It’s like a whole feedback loop thing. Great, if you can go off alone somewhere. But it sucks if you can’t.” The voice of experience. Lots and lots of frustrated experience. Holidaying with her family was proving to be somewhat tortuous, in a lot of ways.
"I know how bad it is just feeling that way," he muttered. Horny all the time. Every time he saw her wearing those cute little shorts she liked to sleep in. Legs that were long and lean, muscled from the sports she played. Those dimples on her face, the way her eyes danced when she laughed. Yeah, it was fucking hard. "Jesus. Yeah, thankful I'm a witchy human," he said, shaking his head a little. "She might rip me to shreds when she finally gets a piece."
Mateo wrinkled his nose. “Obviously...” he murmured, making a face. “Dude, stop thinking about Charlie. I can smell it from here.” Which, he really didn’t want to smell. Ever. Knowing his friend was horny? Not cool. At all. “I’m kinda tempted to make you sleep on the floor,” he teased. “And yeah, she might try to rip you to shreds, at least. If she’s anything like her sister, anyway.” There was a hint of a smug grin on his face. Just a hint. Xander knew that he and Chloe had fucked - had known, in fact, that Mateo had been a virgin. But now he got to be all smug and act older and wiser. It was fun.
Xander rolled his eyes. "Can't help it," he told him. "I feel like I'm going to fucking explode every time I think about her. It's not fair." Fucking age gap. Thankfully he loved her and could wait. A little longer at least. Six months wasn't that long. Right? "I'll take a shower before bed," he muttered. He fully intended of making use of that shower, that was for sure. It was about the only place he could relieve himself without dealing with people bitching about him smelling horny or tormenting Charlie with it. "Now you're just being mean. Asshole."
Mateo snickered softly. “Yeah, well. You can’t smell yourself. Think how the rest of us feel. I deserve a little payback.” And he’d likely be taking a shower of his own, considering he wasn’t gonna get any time alone with Chloe, and he couldn’t strip off in any case, because of the tattoo. So, shower and his right hand it was. He pushed himself slowly to his feet, poking at the logs in the firepit until they collapsed, dying down a little faster. “Think it’s okay to leave this burning?” He asked Xander.
He shrugged a little. "It's almost out," he said. "I'll make sure it dies out before I go in," he assured him. He wasn't quite yet ready to head in. Maybe after another cigarette. "Go on and say goodnight to Chloe and do all the mushy stuff," he teased, nodding towards the cabin. "Tell Charlie I'll be in there in a little bit."
Mateo rolled his eyes at his friend. And then reached across and licked his cheek, messily. “Love you too, man,” he grinned, getting to his feet and dancing out of reach before Xander could retaliate. He jogged inside, taking the stairs two at a time, heading for Chloe’s room with a bounce in his step.