Archive of Our Own ^beta

After, Nate doesn’t let you hold him—you want to, you want to curl him up against your chest like when he was small, as if he could still fit in your arms.

He scoots away across the bed and curls up on his side, hands folded under his head,  looking at you with a dark gaze so hollowed out, it makes you shiver and ache, makes you wonder if you did anything to make him like this, or if he was simply born this way, not quite right, something twisted up inside him and bending him the wrong way.

Maybe he was, you consider, remembering how this all started: Nate shoving you against the motel wall and kissing you, begging you, please please please in a voice you haven’t heard since he was in the single digits, how you melted at the sound, despite knowing this was wrong, fucked up, perverted, a line you never should’ve crossed. 

This is your son, you tell yourself, your baby boy. 

But Nate is larger than you, got inches on you and big paws that could pin you down and keep you there, yet he wanted to be under you, wanted you to be inside him, wanted you to hold him as you fucked him, all the way up this time. You gave him that, let him look you in the eye as you did—no more secrets, no more lies, no more hiding. 

Didn’t fix anything, he mutters, maybe to you, maybe to the room itself. Fucking bullshit.

What? you ask. 

I thought it would solve it, he explains, sitting up, giving you his back, the emptiness, but it didn’t do shit.

Nate gets up, gathering his strewn clothes, no more words passing between you.

He leaves you alone in the bed.