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happiness is

Chapter Eleven - Cry Me A River

Plaything

Title: Cry Me A River (11/??)
Author: so_jayded
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2100
Genre: Hancest



Taylor

When the movie on Lifetime ended I got up and wandered into the den across from our bedroom to grab the scarf I was working on. Even though I had to finish up Tabby's sweater, I didn't want to do it right then because all I could think of was how I might be the one babysitting her over the weekend without Zac, and that sort of hurt my heart. When I bent over to pick up my yarn, I bumped my head on the DVD rack and one of the cases hit me on its way down. I picked it up. My fingers brushed over the cover case that Zac had made, like he always did when he made DVDs of our trips.

This particular cover made my lip tremble a little because we looked so damn in love and content on it. I was sleeping against him, my hand fisting his t-shirt and he was grinning up at his camera as he snapped the picture of the two of us. We were on a couch or something, because we were squished together more than we usually were in bed. Nassau. Just last December, we'd been this happy and now, today, I was wondering if he was ever going to come home and if he could ever forgive me for being such a moron.

I slipped the DVD into my knitting basket and picked it all up, heading back for the living room. Princess met me half way, mewing pathetically up at me. "Shut up," I told her. "It's all your fault he's gone."

I stepped over her and went back to my place on the couch, letting myself drown in the sound of my knitting needles clacking together and the rhythm they made. Knitting always made me want to sing, but today it just made me want to cry because what if Zac never came home? I looked down at the blue and black yarn I was knitting together. I was making it for Zac, something to surprise him with since I always told him that I hated his scarves. Looking at it now, though, I wondered if I was going to have to put it in a box and mail it to my mother in order to get it to him, and that upset me even more, so I tossed the needles to the ground and picked up the DVD out of the basket of yarn.

I got up off the couch and went over to the DVD player, turned it on, and popped the disc in. As the video started playing, I stood there in my socks and sweatpants, watching myself in my shorts and t-shirt pull Zac toward the beach. He had the camera trained on my face and I was grinning like a maniac, ranting about building sandcastles or something.

I lost it then, dissolved right into sobs and dropped to my knees in front of the TV. The kitten came up to me and rubbed her head against my thigh and I jumped away, scurrying across the floor. "I ruined everything," I sobbed to myself. "He doesn't want me anymore because I'm so. So weird." I tucked my knees against my chest and watched Princess climb into my yarn basket. "I should've never wanted you," I said quietly. "Why can't I just be normal so Zac won't have to deal with my stupid habits?"

She looked up at me and mewed pathetically again and I broke back down into sobs, holding my knees and watching the TV. Zac had an ice cream cone and I'd stolen the camera from him, zooming in and out on his tongue, swirling around the cone as I made stupid jokes about blowjobs and what I should expect later. It seemed like the video was a thousand years old, but it was from December, right around Christmas after the first leg of our last tour.

"Why did you leave me?" I asked the TV, like Zac on film could just give me an answer. "I didn't-didn't think you wanted to f-force me..."

I wiped my face pathetically, making a face at the mix of snot and tears on my hand and then I wiped it against the couch, reaching down for my needles again, trying to keep my mind off of things while I watched the video. I got four stitches in before I realized I'd messed up the pattern and I threw them down again, feeling like an idiot. "I can't even knit right, Princess," I mumbled. "I'm so useless and stupid and no wonder Zac h-hates me."

Zac-on-TV yelled at me to not dunk him into the water with his camera and I stole it, turning it on him and pushing him backward into the ocean. I choked back a sob and wiped my eyes again.

"Tay?" I heard Zac ask quietly, from behind me.

I turned around and sniffled, taking him in, and so, so glad he was home before jumping to my feet and nearly tackling him to the floor. "Oh my God," I mumbled into his neck, tightening my arms around him as tightly as I could. "I missed you so much, I'm sorry, I love you. I'm so, so, so sorry."

Zac's hand rubbed my back softly. "Hey," he whispered. "Hey, it's okay. I'm sorry I left."

I started crying again, thinking about waking up without him and spending the whole day alone on the couch, watching shitty movies and just being away from him. I moved my head away from his neck and kissed him, sliding my hands down his back to rest right over his butt. "I'm sorry I said no," I whispered when we broke away. "Never again, I swear."

Zac made a face and started to say something, but I brought our lips together into another kiss and started walking backward toward the couch, taking him with me. He moved away from me. "Tay, what're you doing?" he asked, looking at me like I'd grown a second head.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" I asked him. I hoped I didn't look like shit. All the crying had made my face a little puffy and I wouldn't've been attracted to me if I were in his shoes, but I usually thought I was hideous. He always told me I was delusional. I hoped maybe love made him blind or something, so he would just throw me on the couch and make love to me for the rest of the day to make up for all the hours I hadn't had him with me.

The last time we'd been apart for more than three hours, we ended up spending the rest of the day in bed. Maybe it was creepy, but I felt like having him inside of me made him that much closer to me and it made up for all the hours we were away from each other. "Tay-" I cut him off with a shake of my head and yanked him back against me for another kiss.

Zac pulled back. "Tay, no."

It was weird, having the situation flipped around on me. I wondered if it would be fitting if I stomped out of the house. "What?" I asked quietly. "I'm not worried about the cat, Zac." I ran my fingers through his hair. "Please..."

"You just told me you'd never say no again." He stepped away from me. "The last thing I want from you is to force you, Taylor."

I closed my eyes and let another tear slip out. I'd screwed up again. Of course. "That's not what I meant."

"That's sure as hell what it sounded like."

I collapsed back onto the couch, any will to even look at him gone. "No," I said, my voice shaking. "I just don't want you to leave again. I'll do anything, Zac. Do you want me to get rid of the cat? Stop knitting? Throw away all my scarves? Break all my fingers so I can't play the piano?" I looked down at the floor, where Zac's scarf was sitting half-finished and screwed up from my mistake earlier. "I can't live without you. I don't want to learn how."

Zac sat down next to me, rubbing the back of my neck with his left hand. I felt his ring dig into my skin and it was comforting to know he still had it on. "Look at me, Tay," he said after a moment.

I forced myself to look up at him and he looked so serious, I wondered if something terrible was about to come out of his mouth. "Yeah?"

His hand tightened on the back of my neck, thumb still stroking my skin. "I love you so much. So much." He paused. "I guess I'm just afraid... I'm afraid that you're getting tired of me, is all."

I shook my head vehemently. "I could never get tired of you."

He smiled. "I guess not, huh?" He paused, his thumb still tracing patterns on my skin. "Mom said-"

"You talked to Mom?!" I asked, horrified. I did not want our mother to know about our sex life, no matter how supportive she'd been about it.

"I didn't, like, give her details!" He replied, equally horrified.

I buried my head in my hands, groaning. "Oh, God, how am I supposed to face her on Sunday, Zac?"

"Uh... the same way you faced her after she walked in on you giving me a blowjob when she was coming in to put away my laundry?"

Groaning again, I felt my face turn bright red. "Shit, Zac, why did you have to remind me of that."

Zac laughed and I looked over at him. "Are we OK?" he asked quietly.

"As long as you promise not to do it again," I answered. He nodded and pulled me close, kissed my hair, and watched the screen.

"I think you were right about that vacation," he said after a few minutes of silence. "Look at us. We had such a good time."

Nodding, I kissed his neck. "We need romance again," I said, tightening my arms around him. "We're getting too used to each other, maybe... Like... an old shoe or something. We need more excitement."

He nodded and pulled me into his lap. "There's Arby's on the floor," he mumbled. I shook my head.

"I'm not hungry," I murmured back. "Can you just, like, hold me? For a while?" He nodded against my neck and kept his arms around me, rubbing circles on my back and pressing little kisses here and there. "I missed you," I told him. "We haven't been away from each other for that long in... forever."

Zac nodded again. "I can't remember the last time."

I thought about it. "When Mom and Dad separated us. God, that was." I counted. "Almost six years ago." Mom and Dad had separated us when they found out about our relationship. After Dad ranted and railed about me molesting my brother - which made me feel like shit and cry for hours - they decided the best way to deal with it was to keep us apart. So they kept me in the basement spare room and Zac in his room and we were only allowed to see each other at meals. It'd been hell for two weeks until I'd finally broken down in front of Mom and told her that if she kept us apart, she was going to come downstairs and find me dead one day. We'd had a family meeting, Zac and me practically on top of each other sobbing, we were so glad to be able to see each other again, and they'd decided to tentatively allow us to have monitored time together. It sucked for the two months we were 'chaperoned', but then one day Mom came up to us, almost in tears, and told us that she understood and was sorry she'd kept us apart.

That was the worst three months of my life, followed quickly by the best, since I basically moved into Zac's room after we'd gotten the OK from Mom and Dad.

Zac nodded, breaking me from my thoughts. "Ever since then, it's been just you and me, huh?"

I let my eyes fall closed against his neck. "Can we go to bed? For a little while?"

Zac laughed against my skin, the vibrations sending shivers down my spine and making my dick twitch in my sweats. "On one condition," he murmured, biting against the crook of my neck.

"Yeah?" I asked, half-gasping. "What's that?" I slipped my fingers under his shirt and made patterns on his skin with my nails.

"The cat stays out of the bedroom."

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