hold me really tight (until the stars look big) - II

Julie bites down on her lower lip. 'I don't—fuck, you're right. Damn, that's some difficult shit.' She runs a hand through her hair. 'I don't know what you should do, honestly.'

Tate shakes his head again. 'Neither do I, Jules. Neither do I.'

'But by all means, I don't think you should keep the girl locked up in that room. That's—that's fucked up. That makes the whole thing worse for the both of you.' Julie heaves on a sigh. 'The island is big enough, you two can easily avoid each other if you want to.'

'No,' Tate says immediately. 'She can't—She has to know where she stands. We—I gave her too much freedom and she—she got us in major trouble. I can't—Mica, Mica has two kids to think about and Jael just—' He shakes his head.

'This is where Julie and Alec live,' Marcus points out.
'Are they a couple?' Mica asks. 'They seem like a couple. But apparently so do Tate and I.'
'They aren't explicitly together, is all that I can say,' he grins, smiling. 'They care about each other a great deal, though. It's... complicated. But they make it work.'

Julie frowns. "What did she do?" she asks, carefully. She takes another sip of the fruit cocktail, noticing Tate drank way too much of the vodka, but she doesn't say anything about it.

Tate takes another swig. 'Enough,' he says coldly. 'Nothing that was explicitly her fault, but her inability to keep quiet after we gave her the OK on leaving the house and meeting with a "friend" could've gotten me in jail and Mica with me as an accomplice.' He shakes his head in disbelief. 'What if that had happened, huh? What if Mica had gone to jail? Would she have to give up the babies?'

Mica nods. 'Like that,' she muses.
'Yeah,' Marcus says slowly. 'Like that.' Then: 'Can I ask you something? You don't have to answer it if you don't want to. It's pretty rude.'

Julie nods slowly. "Okay. Okay, you're right, that's not a good thing." She takes a deep breath. "Are you planning on keeping her locked away forever then?" She looks at him, pursing her lips. "If you do that and she manages to get away, you're six feet under, you know that, right?"

Tate sighs. 'I know. I just—I need some more time.' He puts the bottle in front of Julie. It wasn't a big one, but he drank nearly three quarters of it and he feels it. He looks at the clock on the wall—they've been talking for more than an hour now.

The sun has set, and while Mica is certain Marcus has some creepy, bare-footed night-vision, she, in fact, does not. Which is probably the reason Marcus has caught her seven times in the last ten minutes.
'How can you see, for god's sake,' she asks him. They have to go through some weird forest thing before they reach the shore again, but Mica is tired, and pregnant, and so, so done.

Julie nods right as Alec comes in. He's wet and messy and he holds Polar's leash tightly. "I need to take a shower," he says dryly. "And I guess the dog needs to take one too." Polar's fur is full of sand and mud. He's not even white anymore.
Julie snorts. "Yeah, you could say that."

'Take him to the outdoor shower,' Tate says, words slurring.

'I'm sorry,' Marcus tells her, 'I should've thought about the fact that you don't know the way back in the dark.'
'You should've thought about the fact that I was born in Boston,' Mica tells him. 'Us city-people do not prance through nature bare-footed like you do, Mr. Vaughn.'

Julie rushes towards Alec. "I'll help you," she says, slipping past him towards the outdoor shower. Alec follows her, looking at Tate apologetically before he goes after her.

'Alright then,' Tate calls after her. 'Just leave me, that's completely fine. It's not like we were having a conversation!'

Marcus laughs. 'I do not prance through nature, Ms. Mays.'
'You so do,' Mica chuckles. 'You may not see it, but you so do.'

While Alec tries to push the dog towards the water spray, Julie gets rid of her blouse so she's in her bikinis again. "He's really strong, isn't he?" She completely missed Tate's words. 

Upstairs, in her room, Jael finally finishes her tacos. She feels sick from all the crying she did. The skin around her eyes is red, and she's dead tired, but she doesn't want to sleep. So instead she tries to read, sitting on the bathroom floor, where it's cold and hard and not comfortable to fall asleep.

Tate doesn't realise he's in the middle of Jael's room until he actually is, wobbly feet, dizzy head and all. 'I—'

Marcus laughs, bright and loud.
'What?' Mica asks, confused.
'You can't see it either, Mays,' he tells her. 'You fell twelve times. You can't see a damn thing in here.' He helps her get over a fallen tree, hands warm and soothing on her hip.

Jael pushes open the bathroom door, and she freezes, hand on the doorhandle. "Tate...?" she says, a little bit confused. "Are you—are you drunk...?" She can smell it on him.

Tate gets closer, closer, closer. He doesn't—he doesn't know what to do with himself. He never knows what to do with himself around her. He cups his hand around her jaw, thumb swiftly swiping over her bottom lip.

Jael stares at him, breathless, heart racing. His touches are like fire, like ice on burned skin, like home.
But he's drunk, a voice inside her head nags. He's drunk, and you're his hostage.
"Tate," she whispers.

'Not a hostage,' Tate slurs. 'God, you're so not a hostage. Can't you—can't you see? I can't believe you bought that. I call—I call you a hostage to remind myself, to make myself believe that's what you are, that's what you are, that's what you—you are. I can't—I can't want you like I do, Jael, you're supposed to be my hostage.'

There are tears trailing down Jael's cheeks. "Please, don't make this harder," she says, her voice thick. "You're making this only harder—" She swallows back a sob and squeezes her eyes shut. She's crumbling at his touches.

Tate caresses her cheek, softly, carefully, like she can break. She looks like she can, he thinks. Break, he means. Cracks are already showing. 'I think I love you,' he says. 'I think I do, really. But if you have Stockholm syndrome...' He shakes his head. 'I rather jeopardise my own happiness, than unknowingly take advantage of you.'

Jael wanted to hear those words so badly. She kept hearing him say them in her dreams, waking up with wet cheeks and this hollow feeling inside.
It's still there and it doesn't go away, even now she heard him say the words she so desperately wanted to hear. "You're not," she whispers. "You're not. You're not, I promise you're not taking advantage of me. I'm not—I'm—" She's breaking. "I love you. I've always—always loved you, I loved you before Denny happened and I love you now and I loved you every second in between but if you refuse to give me the part of you that I want so badly, what am I—what am I going to do...? I don't know—I don't know what to do..." She's breathless, she's crumbling.

'Macy would've liked you—' he rasps. 'God, she would've adored you. And I—I adore you, too. But please, you can't—you can't make this any harder than it is. I—I want you. God jesus fuck I want you. But we need to—we need to figure this out.'

Jael's fingers are trembling as she closes them around his wrists, holding him like he's going to be gone in seconds. She has no words left to say, just stares at him, not able to do anything but just cry, silently. She's wrecked. 
"I can't do this," she whimpers, and she starts to sob.

Tate stays in place even though he could rip his hands out of her grip in a second. Her fingers are thin, she's pale, she's frail. 'Neither can I.'

Jael wants to melt into him, she wants to kiss him, she wants to feel his arms around her, but she doesn't do anything. She just closes her eyes, silently cries.

'I'm sorry,' Tate says. 'God, I'm so sorry, I need—I need—' He kisses her.

Jael flinches when he kisses her, like he burned her. It's just a tiny movement, but it's there anyway. She kisses him back at first, melting into him, wanting nothing more but to give in, but then pulls back softly. "Not like this," she whispers, lips still touching him lightly. "Not like—not like this." Not now he's drunk, not now he probably won't remember any of this...

'I'm sorry,' Tate says, kissing her cheek before he turns around—falling face first on the ground.
'I'm fine,' he moans, not moving. 'Just—just give me a minute.'

Jael gasps and quickly kneels next to him. "Do you—you should lay down..." She tugs at his arm. "C'mon, you should—" She runs a hand through his hair, smiling a little, absentmindedly.

'Are you blind?' Tate asks. 'I'm very clearly laying down.' The floor is cold against his cheek.

Jael bites down on her lower lip. "On my bed, I mean. That's more comfortable than the floor." She just keeps sitting next to him. "C'mon, you can't just—you should—" She runs a hand down his back, silently taking in details.

Tate groans. 'I'm perfectly fine right here, I swear. Just—I'm just resting.'

Jael gets on her feet and quickly gets to the bathroom. She wets her hands and comes back, drops on her knees and puts her cold, wet hands in his neck. "Come on, Tate. You can lay down on my bed, that's—that's better."

Tate freezes. 'That's fuckin' cold,' he tells her. 'That's really fuckin' cold. Can you please get your really fuckin' cold hands out of my neck? I'm trying to sleep here.'

Jael tugs at his arm. "No," she says. "You should get on the bed. You can't sleep on the floor. Come on, Tate..." She bites down on her lip.

'You're annoying,' Tate tells her while attempting to stand up. 'Cute, but annoying.'

Jael does everything in her power to help him keep standing on his feet. "Thank you," she says dryly. She pushes him on the bed.

Tate nods, serious. 'My pleasure,' he says, letting himself fall face first on the bed.

Jael sits down next to him, silently runs a hand through his hair, wondering how much he'll remember tomorrow when he wakes up.
She swallows hard and leaves him alone, taking a seat at the armchair in the corner of the room. Back in New York she slept for days in a chair, so she's used to it.

Tate sleeps.
Downstairs, Marcus sees Mica to her room. 'Go shower,' he smiles, 'I'll make you something to eat.'
'It's midnight!' she protests halfheartedly.
Marcus shrugs. 'I'm not tired, are you tired?'
'Not really. I napped before and slept through the entire flight.'

While Jael is slowly starting to fall asleep, head resting on her knees, Alec and Julie are walking towards their little cabin. The dog is already inside in the kitchen, parked on his blanket.
"I'm so cold," Julie groans. They're both soaked from washing the dog. 
"How convenient. You promised me a shower together," Alec teases her.
"I did not!" She punches him in the ribs. "You just—Fine."

Marcus grins, says 'That's settled, then,' and turns around. 'Go clean up,' he says, 'I'll do the same, and we'll eat. I know you're hungry.'
Mica rolls her eyes, but turns around anyway. 'Fine.'

The night goes by swiftly. Jael is so exhausted she's not even dreaming, there's just sleep and nothingness and it's good. 
Julie is up early, tending to breakfast for all of them. She makes a shitload of sandwiches and puts them in the oven while Alec is taking a morning run around the beaches of the island.

Mica went to sleep at two after thanking Marcus, but wakes up at nine thirty because of the weight pressing on her bladder. She makes a mental note to talk to Tate later before remembering Marcus' sisters are coming over.

It's been a while since Julie didn't have to wake up too early to get to work. The island is silent, no one is working, and it's weird.
She thinks about the garage, about the little apartment Alec and her share. She doesn´t really want to go back to shore, yet.

Marcus was up and ready early, knocks on the door of his mother's small white house.

Tate, on the other hand, wakes up with a head as heavy as stone.

Jael has been awake for some time, light nightmares hunting her. She's still sitting in the chair, hugging her knees. She's sleepy, and stiff from sitting in the same position for a long time, but she doesn't move. She just slumbers, head on her knees, eyes closed.
When he wakes, she looks up, though.

His mother has always been a pretty woman, but never a wild one. The white picket fence surrounding their small house and the smell of pancakes wafting through the open window say enough. When she opens the door, she smiles. 'Baby,' she says, face lighting up. She pulls him in for a hug. 'Come in. The girls are almost ready.'

Tate knows he's not in his own bed and past experiences have taught them that no matter how bad the hangover, you should always leave. He's done this countless times before. Clenching his teeth, he breathes in deeply and sits upright in one fluid motion. Fuck, he thinks. Fuck that hurts. He can't believe Julie just left him like that, yesterday. He was drunk out of his mind and she just danced after that boy of hers like it was nothing. He feels rage bubble up in his throat, swings his legs over the side of the bed and gets up.

Jael sits up straight. 'You should—you should lay down,' she suggests, noticing he wants to leave as soon as possible. She knows how to handle a hangover. She found Denny on the couch more than once a week, piss-drunk or hangover. It's nothing new to her.
'Just—just lay down, I'll get you some water.' She already gets up for the bathroom.

'No, no, no,' Tate protests. 'I'm fine. I'm fine. I should—I should go.' He walks towards the door, hand on the knob.