Chapter Text
The small, shiny little silver key that Wolfwood was handed was tangible proof that things had changed. It sat silent in his large palm, the garage key dangling from the shared ring. Livio gave a final parting thanks and a firm handshake to their new landlord, Nai Saverem. Wolfwood gave him a nod that left his head bowed a little lower, the teeth of the key cutting into his palm as he gripped it for dear life. The apartment loomed behind them, the echoing hollow of the bottom floor all theirs.
The landlord got into his shiny white car and left, Wolfwood hesitantly looking over the edges of his sunglasses, the sunlight painful and making bright spots dance before his eyes, his optic nerves throbbing into his skull. Wolfwood’s gaze followed a few moments despite the agony before he pushed the shades back up onto his face and put the keys in his pocket.
He bent down and picked up four huge duffle bags—
“Nico, I can get some, let me help,” Livio insisted.
“You get the door,” he compromised.
—and carried his bags into their new apartment.
It smelled like synthetic lemon and bleach with an undertone of freshly dried paint, the windows open. He trekked his boots across the proper hardwood and into the smaller bedroom, setting his bags down while Livio trailed after him.
Theirs; his.
The first proper apartment he’d ever had in his entire life.
“We should go through and make note of anything we find that might be off or broken and take photos,” Livio reminded, the smell of the chemicals worsening his headache. But it was his apartment that was giving him a headache. It wasn’t the smell of a dark alleyway’s dumpsters. It wasn’t someone else’s uncomfortable couch leaving an ache in his back or their pets waking him up. It wasn’t traffic from nearby after he’d passed out on the first suitable surface outside. It was his goddamn apartment.
“Sure,” Wolfwood grunted in reply, scared to give Livio too much of his attention. But he was sure his little brother noticed all the same, he was just being polite and not pointing it out. He shoved his hand in his pocket and gripped the key again, letting it bite bruises into his fingertips and the garage key bully up against his knuckles.
He let Livio with his fancy, updated smartphone take the occasional photo that Wolfwood could have believed were a portal they were so high quality. For the most part, it was inscrutable, minor things Wolfwood wouldn’t have even bothered to notice, the apartment well maintained. All of the appliances were relatively new, the time on the microwave, stove, and coffee pot unnervingly aligned with the time on their smartphones.
The garage was cluttered, but organized. Gas cans, tools, an air pump, large rubbermaid bins labeled with different holidays on a large metal rack. Their half of the garage had space for Livio’s car and Wolfwood could squeeze his bike in front of it. A large truck sat on the left side while a smaller car sat out in the driveway behind it, both belonging to their upstairs neighbors.
Livio took several photos, then came back inside, Wolfwood avoiding stepping on his heels. He felt like the little brother with how he was trailing after him and not paying attention. He kept staring at the paint and the ceiling and the cut of the wood floors.
“Nico…?”
“I’m good,” he promised, waving him off as he shuffled back into their apartment. He should take something for his migraine. “You got your friends waiting on you to get your stuff, right? Go on, I’ll be fine,” he promised.
“Okay. I’ll text you when we’re on our way back.”
“No rush. I’ll probably look at nearby places and pick some food or groceries up or whatever.” He wasn’t sure if that was the truth. He was too distracted. But Livio’s footsteps echoed across the empty apartment, then he left through the front door, closed it behind himself, and Wolfwood heard it click.
He quietly made his way into his bedroom. He sat on the middle of the floor cross-legged. He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. He could smell the lingering scent of cigarettes on the duffle bags in his room. His eyes hurt, a soreness to them. He pressed his palms up under his sunglasses and rubbed at them, wiping away the tears from pain, exhaustion, and relief. It was only about three or so tears, his eyes too dry and his heart too hesitant for any more.
He listened to the almost electric humming of the insects, the drone of a plane overhead, and the crinkle of the first few autumn leaves in the soft breeze.
He laid back, slow, measured, vertebrate by vertebrate onto the wooden floor until he was staring at the ceiling. He took the keys out of his pocket, set them on his stomach and folded his hands over them. He rolled his thumbs for a moment, awkward, a kid trying to decide where to start.
“Thank you,” he mumbled to God. “For the apartment. And my brother.” He wouldn’t have the apartment without Livio. His job as a personal trainer and his credit was enough to get the two bedroom apartment completely by himself. He didn’t need to bring Wolfwood anywhere with him. He was a competent adult because he’d always been a competent kid. But Livio did because he loved Wolfwood and that love probably kept Wolfwood from doing anything stupid that he couldn’t take back.
“And I know I shouldn’t be apologizing to you, but I am sorry for what I did…I just know Liv probably won’t want to hear any apologies. So I’m just gonna try to keep my shit together and be grateful is all…Oh, and not fuck it up,” he added quickly. “So I—”
Wolfwood was interrupted by someone else calling for God. But the kind of call that made him flush down to his collarbone. It was drawn out, sensual, and worst of all endearing.
“Well, shit…” he mumbled as he listened to a headboard slam into the wall. He sighed and sat up, keys collected in hand. That conversation was over. No apartment was perfect and the first drawback of this one was apparently the thin walls.
He got up and went over to one of his duffle bags and tugged out his phone charger and a half crushed pack of cigarettes. They probably saw Livio’s car leave and assumed no one was downstairs. It would be rude to do something like blast music and would make a bad first impression. Wolfwood was trying to keep his head down—and trying to keep it so his new upstairs neighbors weren’t loud assholes back.
He sat up against the wall by the window and plugged his phone in, listening to expletives get pulled with ease out of his upstairs neighbor's mouth—and with good reason given the noise of the bed. He lit a cigarette.
Wolfwood looked up the cost of noise canceling earbuds and winced. He looked up a nearby grocery store, nearby restaurants, cigarette between the fingers holding his phone. He listened to his neighbor orgasm, the voice dipping down into a deep tenor. He flexed his toes in his boots. The first thing he should do is pick up laundry soap and fabric softener. He'd heard the second didn’t matter, but he liked the lingering clean smell of fabric softener and that outweighed anything else.
It was also a practical purchase. He would try to use what cash he had before even considering the credit card Livio had given him. Money may burn a hole in some people’s wallets, but Livio’s burned something in his heart, the smoke coiling in a way that felt too familiar to noxious guilt.
He made a small list. Eggs were probably good. Bread. Milk. Rice. Adobo and garlic salt, maybe some turmeric, chili powder, and cinnamon. Chicken, ground beef. Frozen vegetables. Did Livio have cookware? Regular dishes?
Wolfwood chewed on the filter, knowing he should ask him. It was a harmless, easy question.
He added asparagus to the list. Butter. Coffee—coffee filters. What else was reasonable and common to have in a kitchen? Pasta. Pasta sauce. Garlic, onions. He wanted to add fish, but that was expensive. This already was probably over budget. He scratched his nose as his neighbors started going at it again, cigarette to his lips.
He latched his house key and garage key to his bike key, the darkness of the room making him do it more by feel. Livio would need lightbulbs. Unless he already had those.
Wolfwood deleted the entire list and looked at the menu for a cheap burger place. The list felt like it had too many things on it, too many things that might inconvenience Livio or end up being duplicates.
He didn’t even know if he should go grab a towel and shower curtain for himself because Livio might have an extra. He flicked the dead cigarette outside and lit another, blowing smoke through his nose. He had no idea if Livio’s friends would be expecting food too. He should just wait until he came back.
He listened to his neighbor orgasm again as he got up to go smoke outside in their backyard. He was quiet as he pressed the screen door back in place, not wanting to bother them. It was fenced in by white painted wood, the grass mowed and the shavings swept from the narrow cement pathway. A small shed sat towards the back. Wolfwood moseyed along the pathway, allowing himself to be nosy as he looked over the edge of his shades into the dark glass of the shed. A lawn mower, a weedwacker, some chairs, a firepit. Nothing extraordinary, all practical.
He turned around, eyes catching on the way the glass door to the upstairs balcony opened, a plant resting on a stool sprawling out of its pot and over the edge of the balcony and almost right above his and Livio's back door. Soft laughter from a lanky blond whose hair caught on his lashes—who was completely naked, his entire body was covered in scars. His wrists and his thighs were covered in the kind that everyone should mind their business about, but he also had some under his chest that implied he had tits at one point, a massive burn scar that left him without a left nipple, and he had a garish scar along the underside of his stomach. He had a messy thatch of pubes that dripped a glimmering mess along his thighs that caught high noon sunlight.
He turned around to face the yard with that soft smile that would make the moon yearn. Wolfwood swallowed as he watched his eyes go wide and he froze. He bit down on his cigarette filter. Drawback number two: however the hell this was going to make his neighbors act like towards him and Livio. But to be fair, he was the one outside ass naked dripping cum all over his balcony.
“Uh…neighbor,” Wolfwood explained as he pointed to himself, trying to quickly let him know he wasn’t trespassing.
“I—oh my god, I thought that was tomorrow…!” he fumbled, running away like a cartoon character as his limbs failed while he ripped open the door and whirlwind back inside. He poked his head back out, calling out, “I’m sorry! Nice to meet you!” all in one word before slamming the balcony door.
Wolfwood wouldn’t be surprised if there would be a stain on their ceiling from the poor guy melting into the floor. He sighed and scratched his scalp, then made his way back inside. Fuck it. He was being indecisive about what to order, so he’d just go for a drive and come back once Livio texted him.
His head was still killing him.
He locked up all the doors and closed the windows, then made his way out in the driveway. He put out his cigarette, then traded his shades for his dual-sport helmet, zipped up his jacket, then started the tour of his new neighborhood. Maybe he’d find a nearby Costco or an Ikea or something he could squat in for a few hours if the sunlight got to be too unbearable. Some place that was large and handed out food samples.
He felt ridiculous. It was his apartment. His apartment, his home. But for right now it still just felt like another wayward point. He knew he’d have to make it his own before it felt like anything else and even then there would be the nagging that he’d fuck something up and get them kicked out. Or that the longer they were there, the worse it would be and all of their things would be in boxes and bags and they’d have to leave again after a year.
His bike rumbled softly under him at a stop light. He should take something for his migraine. He should text Liv. He should just buy things he needed if he was already out and about. He should go to a library and look up places that were hiring now that he had a proper address. He should be paying attention to where he was. How did that list keep getting longer?
Wolfwood waited until the light was green, counted to two and used those two seconds to imagine some asshole running a red and shattering all the bones in his body and smearing him all over the pavement, then pulled away from the red light.
He pulled over a few times, the phantom sensation of his phone vibrating in his jacket pocket a lie brought on by his own anticipation of the moment. But at some point, the text message was real and Wolfwood headed back and parked in the street since the moving truck was in the driveway.
It was a parade of black gym uniforms, the place Livio worked for, the friends he had made. All capable, all shuffling color labeled boxes in an orderly manner into their proper rooms. Wolfwood wanted to help, but he’d get in the way of whatever system they had going. He could start unpacking, but these were Livio’s things and he might break something or touch something he shouldn’t.
He knocked the kickstand of his bike out and swung his leg over, keeping his helmet on as he made his way inside. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Livio echoed over his shoulder as he carried a box into their apartment. “Did you decide on groceries or just buying dinner?”
“Nah, decided to wait until you got back. I didn’t wanna bug you with fifty questions while you were trying to haul all this shit in a truck and then out here.”
“You wouldn’t have bothered me, Nico,” Livio reassured without hesitation, without any malice, setting a box down in their living room.
Wolfwood felt like his own lack of response stretched for an eternity, it felt rude, it felt like it would speak for him. He knew it could be unnerving when people couldn’t see his face to gauge responses. Where had he read that it took two or three seconds of silence for it to feel like a rejection in a conversation? Was that a real thing?
“I, uh…You know,” he waved his hand, finally moving his stiff leather covered body. He realized his passiveness earlier might have actually been worse. Maybe Livio had been expecting some kind of food when he got back and now there was nothing. “Did you want anything specific?”
“I’m not going to be picky today, I promise,” he joked, his diet ever important for his job. “The only thing I don’t really like is raw onion and avocados. You can get whatever you’d like, Ni. Oh—is your card buried in your bags? Did you need mine?”
Ever considerate.
“Livio, what’s the white label again?” a friend called out from the doorway.
“Bathroom,” he replied, voice deep from his chest as he projected, a tone Wolfwood wasn’t familiar with. To be fair, there was quite a lot he was relearning about Livio.
“Nah, it’s by the top,” Wolfwood replied to their earlier conversation. “Am I getting something for your friends or…?”
“No, they’re fine. They ate before they came over. So really,” Livio insisted, digging his wallet out from his back pocket. He opened it and handed over his credit card anyway. Wolfwood hated how easy it was to take it. “Get whatever you’d like. I can dig out any specific kitchen things if you need them if you decided you wanted to cook something.”
“I mean if I did it would be something basic,” he reminded. Cereal, pasta, toast.
“I mean most things come with instructions now or you can look up a recipe to read or watch on the internet. If you mess it up, it’s not the end of the world. God gave us pizza and cereal for a reason.”
Wolfwood cracked a smile under his helmet. “I’ll skip the food waste and get us a pizza. Topping preferences?”
“What style crust?” Livio asked instead, making his way back outside, the metal water bottle clipped to his hip clicking with each step.
“Normal?” Wolfwood replied, confused. He watched Livio crack a soft smile.
“Then how about sausage and peppers then?”
“Sounds good. Delivery boy, out,” Wolfwood announced, carefully tucking his card into his jacket breast pocket.
“Oh, Nico?” he called after him, Wolfwood stopping and doubling back, the heat from the sun and his clothes making him sweat.
“Hm?”
“Do you like pineapple on pizza?” Livio asked, loitering by the truck, some soft sparkle in his eyes like when they were kids. It was some harmless little question, but he had been doing it quite often and despite Wolfwood starting to find them annoying at times, he could never seem to deny him an answer.
“Depends on the sauce, I guess. They still got like…fruit pizzas? Like when we were kids?”
“I don’t think many places do, if at all, no. Same with dessert pizzas.”
“Well, shit,” Wolfwood grumbled awkwardly, looking at his bike, then back to Livio. His brother gave him a smile that he felt undeserving of, so he turned back to his bike again. Maybe he’d learn to make dessert pizza. Worst he did was ruin the oven and piss off their landlord and get them kicked out. Or maybe start a house fire. Maybe he’d have Livio help him when he wasn’t busy. Brother bonding. Was there a way to make a dessert pizza that wouldn’t ruin his diet? He could only make so many exceptions for the restart of their lives together before it became a problem.
There had to be some sugar free cream cheese or whatever the hell it was. He wouldn’t fuck this up. All he was doing right now was getting them a regular pizza. He was staying out of the way. He wasn’t going to fuck this up.
When Wolfwood got there, he paid for the pizza with his own cash.
He stood outside with his bike and waited until it was ready.
Once he brought it back, the moving truck was gone.
“I’m back!” he called out, helmet still on, visor still down, pizza in hand.
“I’m in the kitchen!” Livio called back. He had opened the windows again at some point. Livio had a couch. How nice. Wolfwood made his way into the kitchen and set the pizza down on the counter as Livio dug through a box.
“What’cha looking for?”
“Plates. I thought they were in this one, but…”
“I don’t think eating pizza with our hands and getting a little sauce on the floor is going to make much of a difference given all the mud we all tracked in here,” Wolfwood snorted as he pulled out Livio’s credit card and handed it back to him.
“Fair,” Livio laughed as he tucked it back away into his wallet. Wolfwood washed his hands with the dish soap that had already been put out, Livio waiting behind him to do the same. Familiar habits from Livio made him uneasy. They had changed and yet so many things were still the same about them. How easy would it be to fall back into moments from their childhood? At what point would they progress from that? At what point would Wolfwood round right back into someone who ruined everything?
He flicked his hands into the sink, no paper towel or hand towels out yet. He took his helmet off and set it on the counter, put his shades back on, then opened the box and tore off a slice for himself. He folded it in half and started chewing over the sink, Livio following suit, but didn’t fold his pizza.
“So I saw one of our upstairs neighbors,” Wolfwood decided to tell him around a mouthful of warm cheese and bread.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yup. Saw a lot more of our neighbor.”
“Nico—!” Livio smacked the back of his hand against his chest.
“Hey, woah, no!” he quickly insisted. “He came out onto the back porch naked as the day he popped out of his momma! I had nothing to do with that! I was dicking around outside and having a cigarette!”
“Oh my God…” Livio half choked.
“Tell me about it…” Wolfwood grumbled. “I’m waiting for the really awkward interactions to start. Also—we should buy earplugs. I could hear what led up to the being naked on the balcony.”
“Ah. Heavily noted. Also, Ni, do you not have an air mattress or anything to sleep on?”
“Nope,” Wolfwood replied, popping his p.
“Are you gonna go get one?”
Wolfwood chewed, a large mess of pizza in his mouth. He took another bite without answering him, without acknowledging the face his little brother made.
“So I’m eating and then forcing a real mattress on you?”
“They’re expensive,” he reminded.
“Not as expensive as being old and decrepit before you’re thirty from sleeping on the floor.”
“Slept on and in worse,” Wolfwood shrugged, biting into the crust of his pizza.
“That’s only helping my case, you know.”
Wolfwood grabbed another piece of pizza.
“Nico…” he scolded lightly. “Please? There’s like, a Lowes or Home Depot or something that can’t be too far, we can get it from there.” Livio was already looking it up on his phone and Wolfwood let him. He was aware he was losing whatever argument this was, but he also didn’t want to fight.
They finished eating, they got in Livio’s car, and Livio bought him a four hundred dollar mattress in a box, some pillows, and then sheets, pillow cases, and blankets. Wolfwood was glad he hadn’t spent any of his money today. The guilt ate through the pizza he had earlier to get to his stomach lining. They drove home and Livio let him avoid saying a single word the entire time.
He carefully unboxed the mattess for him, cut away the plastic, let it stretch out before he made his bed for him.
“Let me know if you need anything else, okay?” he insisted gently, met with more silence. “…Nico?”
“Got it. Thanks, Liv.” His words felt segmented, choked.
Livio left him alone in his room. Wolfwood quietly leaned the door almost completely closed. Privacy, but not wanting to shut him out entirely. He sat on the edge of the new mattress in his day clothes. He still needed to wash everything he had brought with him. He unlaced his boots and set them by the end of the bed, then laid back, vertebrae by vertebrae, until his head was pressed against the pillow. He folded his hands together over his stomach.
He breathed. He laid there on his back in silence. He listened to his brother unpack one of his numerous boxes of things. Then, he slid down to the hardwood floor and studied the ceiling for new stains.