Xander Russo (moonsdarkside) wrote in transition_rpg, @ 2012-11-02 12:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | #flashback, chrissy, chrissy and xander, xander |
Let me go, you don't need me baby
Who: Xander and Chrissy
What: Plans to leave it all behind
When: Several weeks ago
Where: Forks, Washington
Warnings: A smidge of language
Xander felt like he was a drug addict withdrawing from something hard like crack or heroine only there was never any relief. It had been weeks since he'd gotten to see Chrissy in anything more than meetings here and there or passing. She'd been grounded - which he knew was his fault - and practically heavily guarded as a result of said grounding. He knew well and good that he couldn't keep doing this shit so there was only one choice. He had to leave. He had to separate himself from Chrissy and from the pack. She might accept him, curse and all, but they never would. Not fully.
It was those thoughts that had made him pack up all of his things. Shoving them into boxes and bags and tossing them in the back of his truck. He packed Chrissy's things into a separate bag figuring he'd just give them back to her. The note he'd left in their secret spot was sure to at least get her to sneak out to meet him and that would give him enough time to tell her goodbye and give her the things that she'd left in his car or at his crappy little house. It wasn't fair to her to put her through this sort of thing, to separate her from her family. He was bad news. Uncontrollable, unable to be reigned in, but most of all he was cursed. She deserved better.
He smelled her and heard her long before he saw her. He was smoking a cigarette, sitting on the edge of his open tailgate when she walked up. Flicking the ashes, he flashed her a little smile. "Hey you," he said, letting out a breath, the coolness of the air reacting to the warmth of his breath and creating a puff of smoke. "We need to talk."
Chrissy was almost climbing the walls by the time her dad lifted the grounding. It wasn’t just because of Xander, though yeah that was a large part of it. She was a goddamn wolf. Being cooped up in her room all day had been a new kind of torture. The first thing she’d done when her dad had told her he wasn’t grounding her anymore was change into a pair of tatty old jean shorts and a loose t-shirt she didn’t mind wrecking when she shifted. And then changed her mind. She didn’t know if Xander would be around, but just in case, she changed into skinny jeans, layering a grey tee with the neck ripped out over a black tank top. Shoving her beloved and battered Doc Martens on, she grabbed her bag and jacket and took the stairs two at a time, running out the front door without even saying a word to her father..
She stopped by the old telephone pole they used to hide messages in, almost out of reflex. But, sure enough, there was a note there. Grinning, she dug it out, biting her lip as she read it. She glanced at her watch, relieved to see that she had plenty of time to meet him. She hadn’t seen Xander in what felt like an eternity, outside of pack meetings. And those weren’t nearly enough. She’d risk anything to get to see him again. If her dad tried to ground her, she’d just sneak out.
Still musing, she picked her way through the trees to the clearing where Xan normally parked his car, able to smell his cigarette smoke before she even spotted him through the trees. Dropping her bag to the ground, she ran at him full-pelt, jumping up to fling her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. “I missed you,” she breathed, burying her nose between his collar and his neck, breathing him in.
God it felt good to have her close, to feel her skin against his own, to smell her. He'd almost felt as though he'd forgotten what she smelled like but the moment she was close, the memories all washed in again. He'd never forget. Chrissy meant too damn much to him for him to even be able to imagine his life without her and yet here he was about to break the words to her that he didn't even want to admit to himself. "I missed you too," he murmured, his own arms winding around her, holding her close.
He never understood why it was called goodbye when there wasn't a damn thing good about it. He didn't know how he was going to break it to her, how he was even going to be able to bring it up but he knew that he didn't have a choice. He had to tell her, had to say goodbye. "I'm gonna have to get out of here," he told her. "I gotta leave the pack." Not that he was ever a part of it to begin with. Reluctantly he pulled back to look at her, pulling her into his lap and letting out a sigh as his fingers slid along her hip to her thigh. "I don't fit in here," he explained.
Chrissy settled happily in his lap, still clinging tightly to him. She pulled back enough to look into his eyes, burning his face into her mind’s eye. Not that she’d forgotten what he looked like, but she wanted to see him again, wanted to watch the way his lashes fanned across his cheeks when he closed his eyes, the way his lips pursed around his cigarette.
She stroked his neck as he began to speak, frowning worriedly. He looked so sad, so serious. “Then we leave,” she said firmly. “Both of us.” Her heart wrenched in her chest at the thought of leaving her father, the pack, but if it was a choice between her family, and Xander, she knew which one she had to go with. She couldn’t bear to watch Xander leave, to try and live without him. If she could, they wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. She would be happily dating some pack-approved loser who would toe her father’s line. “We run away together,” she whispered, tilting her head, leaning in to kiss him.
He knew this wasn't going to be easy and the words that escaped her lips, the look on her face and that pained sound in her voice certainly weren't making it any less difficult. He wanted to turn away from the kiss, to break things off without having more kisses to remind him how much Chrissy meant to him, but he couldn't bring himself to turn away. So he kissed her back, brushed her hair out of her face, behind her ear and reluctantly pulled back quicker than he wanted to.
"I said that I gotta leave the pack," he told her again. "You can't. This is home for you, Chrissy. You have a life here, family, friends. You can do better here than i could ever give you and they're never going to accept me. They're never going to accept us together." Which was the part that sucked the most. Xander knew that he loved Chrissy more than any of those wannabe alphas ever would. So what if he was scrawny for a wolf. So what if he wasn't the biggest or the baddest. He loved her the most. Shouldn't that have counted for something?
In a pack like theirs it didn't. He was lucky they let him hang around, even if it was on the outskirts. He was allowed only in on the fringes, always under the watchful eye of someone else. He wasn't like the rest. He was cursed. They were born. It was like marrying into royalty. You never were quite as important, you never really fit in. It was going to be hard to leave her, but she would fare better without him.
Closing her eyes as he tucked her hair behind her ear, Chrissy whined softly, making a low, hurt noise as he tried to tell her she had to stay behind. She shook her head, looking at him. “I don’t care,” she murmured, gripping his t-shirt in her fists, still sitting firmly in his lap. “I love you, I want to go with you. I’m not staying here without you.” Jaw set, she stared at him stubbornly. There was no way he was going to persuade her to stay in this shitty little town, with her dad setting down stupid rules, being groomed to take over the pack. It wasn’t her, it never had been.
Xander closed his eyes for a long moment, letting out a sigh because he didn't know how to just make this be over. He didn't want to leave her any more than she wanted to be left but he couldn't take her with him. "Your dad would find us," he told her. "You're not eighteen yet. He'll report you missing. I'd be a fugitive and if he found me before the police did...," he shrugged. He didn't even need to explain what her father would do to him. "He might be an asshole, Chrissy, but he's your dad. He loves you. You gotta stay here. You gotta let me go and I gotta get out of here and try to forget about you." Try being the operative word there. A word, an action that he'd never be able to fulfil.
She slid her hands up, cupping his face, shaking her head as she looked at him, tried to get him to meet her eyes. “I’m not. I’m not letting you go. Take me with you,” she whispered, leaning in to kiss him. “I belong with you, Xan, not with them.” Stroking his face gently, she nudged her nose against his. “And we both know that you’re gonna be fucked without me looking out for you,” she teased, trying to get him to smile, to unbend just a little. She wasn’t used to solemn, serious Xander, and it was freaking her out more than anything else. “We can run,” she told him. “Go across country, disappear. I’ll be eighteen in a few months, he can’t do anything then.”
He kissed her back because he just couldn't bring himself to pull away. His eyes fluttered open to catch hers as she nuzzled his nose with her own. She got a little bit of a smile but he couldn't seem to get himself to do much more than that. "I don't wanna leave you," he told her. "Why would I?" She'd done nothing but accept him from the start and he knew no matter how long he looked that finding someone else to do the same would never happen. Not the way it had with Chrissy. "Your dad'll still want me dead, even if you were eighteen," he pointed out. "Do you really think he'll ever stop looking? Do you really think you could leave your family for me? I'm not worth it, sunshine."
“Don’t say that,” she growled, pushing his shoulder gently. “Don’t you dare.” She let her hands slip from his cheeks to his neck, fingers lacing together. “You can act tough all you want,” she whispered. “You don’t wanna do this. I know you.” She kissed him again, whining softly in the back of her throat. “Take me with you,” she breathed. “I won’t take up much space. And you need me. You know you do.” He could pretend like he’d be fine without her, that he wasn’t worth her leaving her family...but Chrissy had been able to see right through him ever since the first time they’d met. Leaving her was killing Xander inside. She wasn’t going to let that happen. “If they really love me, they’ll let me go,” she breathed. “They’ll accept you. Accept us.” She shook her head. “I choose you. Always.”
He wasn't even all that surprised when she growled at him. He hadn't expected her to take any of this well. No, he didn't want to do this. He knew that as well as she did but that didn't mean that he shouldn't do this. "And what are we gonna do when we leave?" he asked her. "I've got this truck and less than a hundred bucks. Where will we go? How long can we possibly last on that?"
“We can sleep in the truck,” she told him. “Go hunting when we need food.” She curled around him, nuzzling at his neck, feeling the rasp of stubble against her nose. “We’ll go somewhere with big forests. Set up our own pack, live off the land if we need to...” She shuffled a little closer, clinging tightly to him. “Please, baby, don’t leave me behind,” she begged. She pulled back, enough to look him in the eye. “We both know you need me. What are you gonna do on full moons without someone to take care of you? To keep you away from people?”
She had an answer for everything. She also had a point. He wasn't sure what he was going to do on the next full moon without her to help keep him locked up, help find him a place to be safe away from people. The sting of resentment towards his father came back full force because without him there'd have been no damn curse in the first place. On the same token, however, without that curse, he'd have never found the pack or Chrissy. A double sided coin if there ever was one. "You ready to go tonight?" he asked her. "Prepared to wear what's in this bag or my clothes til I can find some sort of job wherever we end up?"
Chrissy nodded jerkily. She carried most everything she needed in her purse. It was a messenger bag, normally stuffed to the gills with clothes for working out, her wallet, and most importantly, a picture of her mom, her dad and her, when she was 3 years old. It was her most treasured possession, other than the gold wolf necklace she always wore on a long chain around her neck. “Let’s go,” she said, a little shakily. “Right now, just you and me.” She threaded her fingers into his hair, tugging him close for another kiss.
He knew he was probably making a huge mistake but he couldn't really bring himself to care. Not when she felt so perfect in his arms. Not when he couldn't imagine his life without her in it. She was his world. She was the one thing that had a greater hold on him than the moon. Xander knew he couldn't live without her and now with her saying she was ready to go, that she'd leave with him, he wasn't about to look back. If he took too much time to think about it, he wouldn't go. He returned the kiss, lingering on her lips for a long moment. Drawing back he gave a gentle smile and he took one more hit from his cigarette, stubbed it out on the tailgate and gave it a flick. Then he kissed her roughly, letting out a soft sound against her lips. "Let's go," he murmured. "Right now."
Chrissy was loathe to move, loathe to let go of him. But she had to, if they were going to get away. They had to get a decent headstart on her dad, on the rest of the pack. She had no doubt they’d try and follow them, try and catch them as quick as possible. Sliding out of his lap, she hugged her bag to her chest, walking around the truck to the passenger side. She climbed in, chewing on her lip, panic and worry making her stomach churn. Was she being stupid? Was she making a mistake? But then she remembered the look on her dad’s face when he’d caught her and Xander making out after a pack meeting. The disgust on the pack elder’s faces when they’d stood together, holding hands. All because Xan was cursed, not born. It made her sick. Setting her jaw, she grabbed Xan’s cigarettes off the dashboard, lighting one with trembling hands. She needed the help to calm down right now. “Where’r we gonna go?” She asked softly, once Xander was in the cab.
Xander let her get in the cab while he lifted the tailgate and closed it. He rounded the truck and climbed in and once he was settled, he looked over at Chrissy. She was scared. He didn't have to be a wolf to be able to sense that on her, but seeing that he was, it was easy to decipher just how worried and upset she was over this whole thing. He hated knowing that he was partially to blame for the scent coming off of her. "You pick," he told her, reaching over to her side to open the glove compartment and pull out a map. "I vote somewhere near the east coast. Far enough away that once we get there, we don't have to worry so much. Your dad might come looking for you, but I doubt he'd suspect we'd go that far. What do you think?"
Chrissy took the map, unfolding it and looking at it, a little dazedly. “East coast sounds good,” she said quietly. It was starting to sink in, the reality of what they were doing. “Let’s just head for the interstate,” she said. “And take it from there. We need to get as far away as we can before my dad notices I’m gone.” Putting her bag on the floor between her feet, she curled up on the seat, feet tucked under herself as she leant forward, knocking ash off the end of the cigarette. Her mind was a whirl as she tried to think things through, tried not to freak out. She was leaving her family, her friends. She was choosing Xander over all of them. She wasn’t regretting that choice, would never do anything else, but it didn’t mean she was jumping for joy, either.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked her as he pulled the truck out of the place where it was parked and headed off towards the interstate. "You don't have to do this." He didn't want to force her, didn't want her to go if she wasn't ready or didn't think she could handle it. He wasn't the sort of guy that would have pushed her into something she didn't want and he could tell she wasn't exactly happy about leaving. She might have wanted to be with him, but was he really worth all the hassle? She could have any guy she wanted and not have to leave her friends and family. Someone who wasn't cursed, an outsider. "Maybe there's another option," he breathed, though he knew there wasn't.
Chrissy nodded firmly, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I’m sure,” she said softly, turning her head a little to nose at his neck. “I wanna be with you. I love you.” She’d never been more certain of anything. She didn’t want to be pack leader, not if it meant losing Xander. And she loved her father, but they’d been fighting tooth and nail for months, not just because of her relationship with Xan. It wasn’t really a choice. “There’s nothing else we can do,” she murmured, shifting so that her cheek was resting on his shoulder, and she was cuddled up to his side.
He shifted his left hand to the wheel and slipped the other around her body, holding her close to himself. There wasn't any other choices, not if they wanted to be together. Her father was never going to accept him. He knew that. He'd never be good enough for Chrissy in the Alpha's eyes. It was just a truth that he was going to have to deal with and because of that truth, he was going to have to go. The only good thing that was coming out of it all was that he was getting to take Chrissy along for the ride. It might not have been the smartest option, but as he steered the truck towards the interstate, he knew there was no turning back.