Chapter Text
They take a walk around the afternoon.
They fall asleep snuggling in June heat and wake up feeling groggy, so Natalie suggests they walk around for a bit. Travis can never say no to her anyway.
They pick up a bottle of Jack on the way. Natalie thought maybe they shouldn’t have, considering how they get when they drink in public, but she figured they deserve it after the heavy conversation today. She hadn’t fucked a guy to spite her dead father who would have slut-shamed her for it and instead talked about her feelings like a real adult, or whatever. So she deserves some shitty whiskey.
They turn the bottle between them back and forth until Natalie gets an idea; she takes a big gulp into her mouth, pulls Travis closer to her with their interlocked hands and spills the liquid to his mouth. He groans but swallows it. She laughs with glee.
“You are insane.” He says after.
“You love it.”
He doesn’t protest.
Natalie feels chatty now. Travis made her talk a couple hours before and now with alcohol in her system she wants to say so much more.
“I love your hair like this. It feels so soft between my fingers when I pull it.”
Travis laughs with a faint blush to his cheeks. “Thanks.”
“Mine is never as soft as yours, and I’m supposed to be the girl.”
Travis raises an eyebrow at that, but answers “If you wouldn’t dye yours every month, yours would be as soft too.”
“Don’t you love my red hair?” She asks with a fake pout.
He scoffs. “I do, but you brought up the girl hair stuff.”
She doesn’t answer. Her mind is elsewhere now. “D’you know my dad is buried close to here?”
Natalie doesn’t know why she said that. It is true though.
Travis doesn’t say anything to that at first, but his face falls.
After a while he tries. “Do you want to visit him?”
He looks like he’s praying for her to say “ No .” and Natalie doesn’t want to, not really. So she says “No, of course not.” She doesn’t know why it comes out weak and unconvincing.
He doesn’t call her out on it, even though Natalie knows he could tell. They walk around a bit more. Travis puts some of the remaining whisky inside his flask and dumps the rest in trash with the bottle. Right as Natalie was about to protest he pulls her in, shakes his head no and makes her drink some water from the fountain in the park they stumble into. She drinks a few gulps of water through Travis’ hand and lets him wash her face and mouth with it too.
She tries not to think about her father’s rotting corpse being less than a mile away from where she is barely standing. She wonders what he would think of Travis. Bitter scum, he would probably hate him too. The thought amuses her, her father who was hell bent on protecting Natalie’s purity hating Travis, who is afraid to touch her half the time.
“Why are you laughing?” Travis asks, catching up to her.
“I’m imagining my dad meeting you.”
He frowns.
“He would hate you because he hated the idea of any guy touching me, y’know, dirtying me and he wouldn’t have any idea I spent months trying to get into your pants.”
Joking about her honor comes easier to Natalie, rather than filling her head with memories of her father.
He wasn’t always a terrible dad, that’s the worst part. Sure, he hit Natalie and her mom, but those don’t stay as solid in memory. For instance, Natalie remembers him teaching her how to tie her shoelaces, she remembers him forgiving her stealing quarters from his pocket. She doesn’t know what makes someone a bad person, not anymore. He was an abusive father and a husband, but Natalie has eaten people. What ethics book should she consult to compare those offenses? Isn’t she clearly worse than him? Or is he the reason she was doomed to end up just as violent? Her father having existed on this earth doesn’t just mean the memories of him that Natalie has, good or bad. Natalie is the biggest proof he has. His DNA is etched into hers, eating away at her insides like a parasite that makes you a piece of shit.
That’s the question, isn’t it? Is Natalie this damned because of him or is it her own making? Hell, her father used to say there was something rotten in her even before everything. Accepting he was horrible means accepting Natalie carries that horribleness inside of her.
“Do you want to see your dad, Natalie?” She almost misses it, Travis says it so softly, as if speaking to a scared child. Maybe she is.
“I already told you no.” She manages.
“Yeah, the thing is I’m not sure I believe you.” Alcohol makes him bolder than he needs to be.
Natalie starts walking away, half registering that she is walking in the direction towards the cemetery. She can feel Travis following her, like a friendly ghost. She doesn’t know if he can tell where they’re heading, but he doesn't say anything if he can.
Then they arrive.
The sun is long gone so there isn’t much to see, not that there usually is. Natalie’s mom sold her wedding ring to pay for the fucker’s funeral. Fifteen-year-old Nat had no idea dying could cost so much. Now she knows it doesn’t have to.
“Hey, I was being an asshole before. You didn’t have to have come here to prove something to me.” Travis’ voice breaks through the existential reverie she is in.
“That’s not why I came here.” She doesn’t feel like taking a jab at him for following her here.
He’s silent, waiting for her to start talking like he did that morning.
He is Coach Scott, sitting with her behind the bleachers after seeing the bruises in her arm. He is Van, holding her freshly dyed hair back while she pukes at a party. He is Travis , waiting for her all night so she can keep a promise.
She glides on the soil of the cemetery like a ghost until she’s standing before a headstone reading “Vernon Scatorccio 1959-1994”.
“Useless son of a bitch.” She says and spits on his grave. Not on the tombstone, not on the cross. She spits hard and loud right where the soil is, then the sudden idea that her spit is technically a liquid that could nourish something in his grave upsets her. There are no flowers to grow, but there’s a patch of weeds right on the bottom corner of the grave, a sign of negligence. No matter how obsessed her mother was with him, she rarely visited here. Natalie chalks it up to her never being over his death, so she just can’t bear to face its everlasting proof. As if he ever stopped haunting them both.
She kicks the soil and spits again, right below the headstone this time, for good measure. Just so her message is clear to God.
Then she makes her way to Travis, standing awkwardly a few paces away. His hands keep going in and out of his pockets like he doesn’t know what to do with them. He doesn’t know that Natalie wanted to kill her father. He doesn’t know that she wanted it more than once. He doesn’t know that she almost did.
She pulls him towards herself. He looks confused, but his hands find their way to her back, like he wants to hug her, comfort her. Natalie has a better idea. She goes to her tiptoes and kisses him silly. She kisses and kisses him. He is stunned for a second, then he reciprocities. His kiss is just as fiery and enthusiastic as Natalie’s. It reminds her of a version of Travis where he didn’t have much to fear, much to care about. Perchance they’ve finally found their equilibrium; they’re meeting each other at their crazy.
But of course she still thrives on surprising him, taking things a step further. She pulls his bottom lip between her teeth and bites it. He yelps. She smiles at the horrified yet horny expression on his face. He’s being dramatic, really. Natalie’s bitten him in worse places. Though maybe he’s horrified of his own desire, and isn’t that hotter to think. Natalie starts kissing his jaw and down his throat. She can smell his aftershave under his soft skin. She likes that he’s always so soft. He moans lowly at the back of his throat.
She already talked a lot today, said enough. She was good. Now, she needs Travis to understand her without words like he used to. She goes back to kissing his lips again, hoping that will send in the message that she is done talking.
Of course, he breaks the kiss. “Do you think it’s a good idea—”
“Yes.” She doesn’t even let him finish.
He kisses her way harder, hands in her hair, like that is all he needed to hear. Like he brought Natalie to her father’s grave to fuck her there. To prove something.
His kisses are urgent, like running away from Aziraphale, like they did in those nineteen months. Running across Canadian forests, running away from the horror and the hunger and the betrayal. What is death compared to all that? The cemetery feels fitting then, no running from death here. No chasing it either, like they once did too. Just accepting it. Their bodies might be young to the eye, but Natalie can see the rot if she focuses; the scar across Travis’ neck and her missing tooth where Shauna punched it. She got it done after coming back, with the resettlement money, she can still tell from the difference in tone though. And of course, their fathers.
He starts peppering kisses across her cheeks, gathering her tears in his mouth. She didn’t even realize she’s started to cry.
“Are you sure about—”
“Yes, Travis.”
He starts going lower then, kissing her chin, and holding her face. His fingers gently brush against her lips, copying her. She can sense that he is trembling slightly in his knees. She breaks apart from his hold to eye him up and down.
“I’m not scared.” He says, out of breath. “I’m not scared of here, I’m just— I just can’t wait.” His eyes look almost guilty from the admission.
The fact that he is shaking with the need to kiss her and love her right here feels dizzying, almost like a drug. Who knew the way to get Travis going was her piece of shit father’s grave?
“
Do you— Do you want to prove something to him ?” She asks then, tilting her head to the headstone adorning her father’s name.
Any guy would have that fantasy, Natalie assumes. Travis isn’t like any guy though, not at all. Nevertheless, she can’t wrap her head around why else he would act like this. Her mind wanders to when they first got closer, like it seldom does. The day she retrieved his great-grandfather’s ring. They were near a cemetery then too, now that Natalie thinks about it. A fresh and teenage-made cemetery. She can’t help smiling at the memory of her tackling Travis beside his father’s days old corpse. Maybe he just wants a rematch. Maybe he’s nostalgic, in his uniquely fucked up way.
He backtracks almost instantly, “What? No.”
She can’t help the nervous smile tugging at her lips, “Why is this working so well for you, then?”
“You always ‘work well’ for me, Nat.”
That isn’t enough though, Natalie needs him to say more.
“Nah, something’s gotten into you. You’re like, possessed.”
“Maybe I am. We’re in a cemetery after all.” She can feel his breath in her face. He holds onto her hands now, rubbing them softly.
“For real though, why are you so excited about this?” She can’t help but press.
He seems to be glad to see her talking. There’s a smile there, slowly taking hold of his lips.
“I just— I don’t know if it’ll make sense. I just want you to feel good, even with all the shit he said to you. I want you to, I don’t know… reconstitute the memories he left with you about sex, or yourself, or whatever.”
Natalie is so stunned she can’t even make fun of him for using an SAT word to talk about having gothic-romance-sex.
“It has nothing to do with him, just like it had nothing to do with my dad when we got together. We deserve it to not be about them.”
“We are literally standing on top of his grave.” Natalie states the obvious, like she hadn’t brought them here.
“Yeah, and isn’t that the biggest testament that he’s gone? We’re here by ourselves, Nat. No one else is here, not our shitty fathers, no one who has hurt us. We’re living, and they can’t do anything about it.”
“How is this the emo guy I caught sulking for days before I kissed him silly?”
“Well, I guess the answer’s in the question, right? He isn’t here because you kissed him silly.” He smiles.
“So, what are you gonna do about it?” She asks, because she still needs to hear him say the part she longs for. Sue her, she wants to hear how much she’s wanted, apparently so much so that his knees threaten to give out.
He doesn’t say anything at first, just starts peppering kisses along her lips and jaw again and Natalie thinks she won’t get a verbal answer, due to the nature of her question, or what she seemed to suggest with it.
But then he surprises her again. He makes his way down her body, and once his knees hit the ground he looks at her with his shining eyes and says, “Whatever you want me to.”
It feels so much more erotic than it has any right to. It’s such a cliché line, really. Not that Natalie has ever been on the receiving line of the phrase. Something about a man kneeling in front of her, and giving her full control, while the man who only sought to take it lies dead beneath them.
Natalie grabs him by the hair and pulls him straight to her core. She must be warm there, because the second his lips meet the ridge on the zipper of her jeans’, he moans. Or he’s just happy to be led where he wanted to end up.
If Travis thinks he can spew all that flowery shit and expect Natalie to take it quietly, he‘s wrong.
“Take it off.” She orders.
It comes naturally to her, always has. Unfortunately not a lot of guys were into it before Travis, so she learnt to reel it in, suppress the urge. Even learn to say the opposite of what she wanted to. Take instead of give. Offer instead of request. She didn’t grow up in a home where she could ask for things, nor was she given any favors in the later portion of her life. She’s found a home in Travis, though, as cliché that sounds. She made one, really. She’s made a place inside his heart where they can both just be themselves, without pretending. It brings to mind an image, a circle of handmade huts in a clearing of the woods, a testament to survival, to community. A childhood full of hurt and alienation in her home, and now she had someone to rest in.
Travis doesn’t disappoint her; he opens her zipper with his teeth. She smiles to the approaching evening sky. Her hand continues petting his hair.
Once her jeans are pooled around her ankles, he waits for further instructions, his cheek flush against her thigh, looking up at her with those expectant doe eyes. He looks utterly wrecked already. Buzzing with life and warmth. She brushes her thumb against his cheek, he leans into it. Her heart has never felt so full. After everything they’ve been through— he’s been through, he still trusts her like this. Trusts Natalie to care for him. Opens himself up to her so easily. Offering his vulnerability to her on a silver platter.
Love is a strange thing. Natalie hadn't been familiar with it that well before Travis. It hits you with something far deadlier than desire. She is used to the rush of sex, her pulse quickening and her palms itching to take her pleasure. But being trusted like this is unlike any feeling. It gives her purpose, it gives her something to hold onto.
She tries to do the math of what she should take off or not in her head. It isn’t cold, it’s the middle of June. She doesn’t want to flash anyone though, not that anyone would visit a cemetery this late. She decides to leave her shirt on, and nods her head to say ‘keep going’ to Travis.
“Can I take this off?” He asks nonetheless.
“Sometime this century.”
He doesn’t protest, doesn’t even acknowledge the obvious jab. He must be too gone to care. It makes heat pool in Natalie’s stomach unlike any fire. His eyes are drowsy, and almost wet, like he’s refusing to blink them closed. There is nothing around them except for the long gone and stones that carry their names. Natalie wants to say something, anything, to let him know it‘s okay for him to relax a bit, but she can’t find the words. Maybe she doesn’t want to break the fragile bubble they’re in. It’s precious, how excited he is about this.
He exhales and starts taking her bleach-stained underwear off. They’re black, or used to be, now appearing gray from over-washing. He uses both his mouth and his hands. Natalie lets him.
Once her underwear is off, the reality of the situation hits her again. She is half naked in the middle of a graveyard. The night breeze hits her there and she shivers slightly. Travis gulps.
“Can I?” He asks again, looks at her there and at her eyes.
She nods. “Yeah.”
He’s on her in an instant, the mellowed reverie they were just in cut off abruptly. It is, in other words, back on . He plants a kiss on her clit first and Natalie gasps, more out of surprise than anything. He then kisses her abdomen; pushes her shirt up a bit and kisses her right across where the wire of her bra meets skin. She chuckles. He kisses her across her chest, over her bra again. It’s dark red. She wore it wanting it to end up on Travis’ floor, but it’s fate was to stay on her, it seems, when she stands right across her—
Her thoughts are cut short when his lips are back to where they belong and he licks a long, lingering stripe across her. He has one hand on her behind and another holding her open between her legs, his thumb rubbing up and down inner thigh. He alternates between kissing and licking her. He is a bit off beat, but her senses are heightened due to the adrenaline, and everything seems to be working for her. His ragged breath hits her clit, and she moans.
“Hurry up.” She whines. She hates how she sounds like she’s begging, but Travis has any sense left in him he’ll understand that it’s an order.
He backs away a little and looks her in the eye, he seems a bit conflicted but after a second, he nods. Good. He’s been on his knees for less than five minutes and Natalie already feels like it’s dragged on for too long.
He goes right to sucking her clit then and she makes a sound close to yelling.
“Ah!”
His lips don’t stop their assault on her. He is alternating between sucking and little licks that make her want to scream so loud the souls of the dead wake up.
She can feel her chest swell and deflate with her increasingly ragged panting. A chill creeps up on her as the previously subtle evening breeze hits her sweat-dampened skin. It’s too much; she feels both like she could come any second and like she never will.
“Travis, please.”
He doubles his efforts instantly. Natalie feels like madness is consuming her. It’s ridiculous, she knows it’s just her orgasm approaching, but it feels greater than that. She feels dirtied and cleansed beyond recognition. She feels dead in the tips of her toes and so alive right where Travis’ mouth meets her body.
She tries to find purchase when it gets to be too much, hands shaking with need. She plants her right hand on Travis’ head once again so he can suck her harder and stronger. Her other hand drags across something while searching for an anchor, something rough to the touch and not tall enough to hold her up well. She doesn’t realize it’s her father’s headstone at first, otherwise she would’ve never touched it in the first place, but the moment her fingers graze over it Travis shifts the hand on her ass and glues them together on it. He moans into her as he continues to eat her out. Natalie opens her eyes and tries to hold her gaze on how he looks in the moment, committing it to memory. His eyes are wild and dark, gaze locked tight onto hers, as if in competition with his own mouth. The headstone is cold under her fingertips. Travis’ tongue is hot inside her. Somehow that contrast does it. Maybe it’s adrenaline from panic, maybe she’s fucked in the head. She doesn’t get the chance to decide which it is before she’s coming in long, crashing waves. He doesn’t let her go, keeps his tongue inside her, flicking it occasionally.
“Ha-ah!” She gasps and pulls herself away from Travis’ lips. She is spent and her knees are wobbling. Her head is mushy from the (welcome) over-stimulation.
She pulls her underwear and jeans on and sits on her butt on the ground, trying to catch her breath. He sits beside her and pulls her towards himself. Natalie lets him and they cuddle with their backs to the gravestone. Natalie doesn’t know if it is her father’s or someone else’s. She doesn’t care. Travis is right. Vernon Scatorccio doesn’t exist anymore, and his grave or anyone else’s doesn’t matter. They’re all just stones on empty ground.
Travis starts peppering kisses on her hair and holds her tighter.
“You did so well.” He tells her, his breath is still uneven.
That makes Natalie laugh. “Me? I didn’t do anything.”
“Disagree.” He says, knitting his eyebrows. “And not what I meant, I meant that you let me, and you let go. You did it. You stopped caring what this place meant or what your— Your father meant.” He is so out of breath it is laughable, really. He sounds like he’s run a mile. I guess eating someone out in a place they shouldn’t be caught at does that to someone. And Natalie had pushed him into herself pretty roughly, not like she let him laze around much.
He is also very hard in his jeans. Natalie smiles looking at it. He always gets so worked up.
“Thank you.” She says instead. She hopes he’ll get that it is for everything.
He nods and extends his hand out to her. She takes it. They both stand up, taking power from one another.
That is when Natalie sees the holes in his jeans, right across his knees.
“Holy shit, Trav, look at your jeans.”
“Huh?” He says and looks down.
They are dirty, covered in dust and soil and holes. His face darkens when he sees their state.
“I put you to your knees for a long time, huh?” Natalie muses, feeling cocky now that she has recovered from her orgasm.
“Fuck off.” He kicks a tiny rock at her.
They both laugh, stumbling out of the cemetery just like it’s any other place. Because it is.