Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

april, 1997 — little shop of horrors final dress rehearsal, columbine high school

Sometimes, Claire wondered why the hell she stayed in the drama club after her freshman year.

Between having to listen to Alyssa’s yearly showmance drama, Mrs. Thompson’s constant ranting, and being so sore, worn out, and sick that she’d be knocked down for days after a show finished, it felt like there was no logical reason to keep doing this.

She thinks about quitting more than she cares to admit. Then again, who doesn’t think about quitting the drama club?

She’s pretty sure it’s a universal experience. The beaten-down looks on the faces of her fellow cast and crew as they get lectured once again scream that it’s a universal experience.

But it’s also ten o’clock on a Wednesday night, after the last full dress before opening night. Everyone is exhausted and hungry and wondering why they decided to do this. It’s like that feeling when you’re going through a tunnel, trying to hold your breath the whole way through, and your vision starts blurring right when you see the light on the other side. Only the vision blur is exhaustion, and the light is coming from a drive-thru sign.

Mrs. Thompson dismisses everyone when she realizes she’s too angry to continue reading her “notes” from the night’s performance.

They all scurry like rats abandoning ship, and it becomes a mad dash to the exit, then around the building to the cars they moved to the front of the lot when it was still light outside.

Claire can practically smell the McDonald’s fries as she unlocks her SUV, collapses into the driver’s seat, and turns the key in the ignition.

Dylan is busy folding himself into the passenger seat, the same way he does every time he gets into her car.

It’s good comedic relief after the verbal beatdown Claire’s just suffered.

She’s yet to bother telling him that if he pulls the bar on the bottom of the seat, it will move back. But she’s starting to wonder if he’s doing it just to make her laugh. He’s seen her adjust her own seat enough that he should know he can fix his, but he’s never been above making himself look like an idiot just to make her smile.

It’s what makes him a good friend. It’s also why she’s never said no to driving him home after a rehearsal or show.

That, and her dad would probably kill her for stranding Dylan at the high school.

Their families have been friends since before either of them were born — the Klebolds and the Draytons.

They’ve spent years telling stories about how they met in college and managed to stay in touch, even after Tom and Sue moved to Colorado and Ward and Lizzy moved back to his hometown in Louisiana.

They were such good friends that when Claire’s mom died, and her dad was left alone with no support and a newborn right after Christmas, Tom and Sue took them in.

By February of the next year, her dad had found a little house on Cougar Road, twenty minutes away from Tom and Sue’s place in Lakewood.

Then, when she and Dylan were in the third grade and the old house in her neighborhood that tucked back into the mesa went up for sale, the Klebolds bought it.

You’re sort of sentenced to be best friends with someone when his mom has pictures of the two of you playing in a turtle sandbox wearing nothing but diapers. But it’s worked out pretty well for the two of them.

They have this routine now since she started driving and roped Dylan into doing the sound for the drama club.

Her dad works the 6:00pm to 6:00am shift at the sheriff’s station on Wednesdays, and Claire claims she doesn’t like to be in the house alone overnight.

Of course, the second her father mentioned this to Sue, she offered to have Dylan stay with Claire those nights to keep her company.

So now, every Wednesday, after they get out of rehearsal, they stop by Blockbuster, go through the McDonald’s drive-thru, and head back to her house to rot on the couch until they both crash.

It’s a good deal. He funds her chicken nugget habit, and she doesn’t give him shit for liking Clueless more than her.

Their friends tease them because that’s what stupid teenage friends are supposed to do.

Alyssa loves to remind her that “he’s tall and sweet and so totally cute! And he hugs you, like, all the time!” She’s starting to think Alyssa can’t fathom a world where a guy and a girl could be affectionate without being in love.

And to be fair, Claire isn’t blind. She knows Dylan’s good-looking, especially since he started to let his hair grow out from the boys’ regular Sue had been choosing for him since he was four.

But it’s Dylan. He’s the guy that held her hair back and then scrubbed the puke off her couch when she got drunk for the first time. You don’t grow romantic feelings for someone after you’ve seen what they look like hurling up old gumbo and the cocktail they cobbled together with Ecto-Cooler and Southern Comfort.

She’s not actually all that sure what his friends say about her when she isn’t around. She knows they’re good guys, for the most part. And even if they come off a little creepy sometimes, they always remember to invite her and her friends along if they’re going out.

Claire does her best to not act bothered when Robyn comes around. 

It’s harder than she thinks it should be, mostly because Robyn has never done anything to deserve being hated. But also because she hangs on Dylan, and it just makes everything feel sort of… icky.

Alyssa says that’s what jealousy feels like. Claire is still trying to form an opinion on why Robyn pisses her off so much.

It’s sort of an existential crisis she’s been having, and she’s reminded of it on the drive home. Dylan has chosen the backing track, and fittingly enough, it’s “No Surprises” by Radiohead.

By the time they’re walking through her back door and the dogs are running to them like they’ve been gone for a year, Dylan’s eaten all his fries and half of hers.

He forgets the food on the kitchen table to get on the floor with the dogs, while she walks upstairs to change out of her school clothes.

They’re the only dogs in the world he isn’t wary of — which is ironic, considering Duke and Beetle are both Rottweilers and Eric’s Yorkie scares the crap out of him.

The cat forces herself into the mix at some point while Claire is in her room changing, planting herself in Dylan’s lap like the regal little matriarch she is.

It’s endearing to walk into a dark kitchen and see Dylan, smiling from ear to ear, backed up into a corner, surrounded by the house animals. It’s almost as endearing as the way he stands up and starts stripping in the kitchen, just so he can hand her his hoodie before running up to her bathroom to shower, the same way he does every Wednesday.

It’s their hoodie really, this faded old green thing with a slit in the collar and thumb holes cut in the cuffs. It was Dylan’s first, and she drowns in it, but she puts it on anyway because it smells like him and home, and it hasn’t been washed in just long enough that it’s worn soft.

She wears it so much Alyssa and Kelsey assumed it was hers. Eric bitches that Dylan smells like honeysuckle on the odd occasion he’s the one with it on.

Claire tries not to think too hard about how often she’ll pull the sleeves up to her face just to smell her own faded perfume, along with Sue’s laundry detergent and whatever body wash she’d thrown in Dylan’s bathroom that month.

She keeps telling herself that it’s only comforting because it’s familiar, not because she can smell the menthol from Dylan’s cigarettes and the aftershave that’s transferred after he rests his head on his hand all day.

By the time he’s made his way downstairs, hair still dripping onto the towel thrown over bare shoulders, Claire has the VCR queued up to Beetlejuice and their food on the coffee table. He sits on the floor in front of her and passes back the hair products he grabbed off her bathroom counter.

The opening credits roll, and she starts brushing the knots out of his hair between chicken nuggets.

This is something they’ve silently decided to keep to themselves — mostly because their friends would think it was weird, and intimate, and the “are you sure you’re not dating” comments would only get worse. But also because it’s one of the few things they’ve kept up that’s truly just theirs.

She never acknowledges the way he gets a little loopy when she runs her nails over his scalp or how his head will lull against her leg when she gets distracted by whatever movie they have on.

Sooner than either of them would like, the moment is over, and neither of them can justify Dylan sitting between her legs any longer. So he stretches out on the opposite side of the sectional.

Over the years, it’s become almost intimate, looking across the couch and seeing Dylan, shirtless and sleepy with a pillow clutched against his chest.

She wonders if he feels the same way when he sees her in his hoodie and sleep shorts, hair haphazardly clipped up — if he’s even aware that he’s the only one allowed to see her like this.

She pushes the thought away because the more she looks across the couch, the more she thinks about how romantic this all seems.

—

It’s almost six in the morning when Ward cracks open the kitchen door, worn out and still in uniform.

The dogs are asleep, the TV screen is glowing blue. Dylan Klebold is snoring on his couch. Claire is curled up on top of him, passed out and drooling, hair tangled all over the place.

It would be a whole lot cuter if his little girl wasn’t using his lanky-ass godson as a mattress.

He decides to put a stop to it before he can get annoyed enough to do anything about it.

“Y’all best get your asses off that couch before you end up late to school.” He shakes her shoulder and watches her brain stutter back to life from whatever dead coma she was in.

“Damn it, not again.” It seems that they’ve both decided to ignore whatever it is that he’s stumbled upon, and he’s thanking God for it. He isn’t a skilled enough parent to deal with something like this after a twelve-hour shift and no sleep. She stumbles off of him, rubbing over mascara-stained eyes. “Dyl. Get up. We fell asleep on the couch.” She starts poking at him, and when that doesn’t work, she drops his limp hand onto his face.

Dylan wakes up, and stumbles upstairs to change, and Claire toddles into the kitchen to drink straight from the orange juice carton.

“Jesus, girl, have some class and use a damn cup.” She’s shoving a dry biscuit into her mouth with the hand not holding the orange juice, getting crumbs all over the floor. The dogs are in love. Ward is only appalled because he can see his late wife rolling over in her grave.

“Like father, like daughter.” She’s setting up the coffee pot for when he wakes up, the same way she always does. “Eat something before you pass out.” She throws a Twinkie at him like it’s real food. He eats it because it’s the thought that counts, and they’re both aware of the house’s desperate need for a grocery run.

“Love you, ya little shit.” He heads off to his bedroom, and she keeps chugging from the orange juice carton.

“Love you too, Daddy!” He’s 95% sure, from the sounds the cat is making, that Claire gave up and let her have the biscuit — which means she’s probably tossing one to Duke and Beetle right about now. He doesn’t have the heart or the energy to go back to the kitchen and stop her.

He’s pulled in every favor the department owes him to take the next three nights off to go watch the show she’s in. Even if he’ll be rolling out of bed an hour before to meet up with Sue and Tom at the school, he’ll be damned if he misses seeing his baby perform.

The drama kids keep a seat reserved, up next to the sound booth, for all the family members who’d have to cross through the veil to show up. They’ll put flowers, pictures, little tokens for good luck. Almost the whole school does it for events now. It’s sweet to look at — this outpouring of love. Because what is grief but love with no place to go?

Claire has a dedicated photo of her mother, with a scrap of her favorite dress and a sprig of baby’s breath from her wedding bouquet tucked behind the glass in the corner. Sometimes, if she can find a bloom on the magnolia tree out front, she’ll take that in too and lay it on the seat next to all the other photos.

(Ward doesn’t know that, at this time, three years from now, he’ll be placing his own daughter’s photo in that seat. He has no idea that when the magnolias start blooming in 1999, she’ll leave him all alone in this world.)

Chapter Text

june, 1997 - summer vacation, united airlines flight 8948, denver airport ---> lafitte, louisiana

Their flight takes off from Denver International Airport at four in the morning, and, surprisingly, everything actually goes pretty well.

Claire and Dylan’s parents had banished their children to the depths of economy seating while they sipped mimosas and perused magazines in first class. But really, once Dylan managed to twist his too-long limbs into his window seat, with Claire tucked into his side, it was all too easy to settle in for the two-and-a-half-hour flight.

“How long have the two of you been together?” the old woman in the aisle seat of their row asked, interrupting Claire’s reading with a knitting needle tapped against her knee.

“I’m sorry?” Claire stuttered, dog-earing her page as she looked up.

“I asked how long you and that young man have been an item, dear.” Claire looked down—at Dylan’s arm draped across her chest, at herself practically sitting in his lap. She knew what this looked like, and it was going to be impossible to explain her way out of it.

“Oh, we aren’t together, ma’am,” she said, settling further under Dylan’s arm and clutching her book to her chest. “Just close friends.”

The woman gave her a look—one that said I don't believe a damn word coming out of your mouth—before turning back to her knitting.

Before they knew it, the wheels had touched down, and Claire and Dylan were meeting back up with their families, claiming their bags, and loading everything into the back of Grandma Millie’s powder-blue Tahoe.

It’s a yearly tradition. At the start of the summer, both families make their way down to Jean Lafitte for ten days.

They all stay with Ward’s mother, Millie, and spend their time relaxing, tanning out by the inground pool Millie had installed a few years back. They’ll make a day trip to New Orleans to go to the zoo and stroll through the French Quarter. But for the most part, the whole trip is about getting away and doing as little as possible for as long as possible.

Sometimes family will visit, at least the family that doesn’t already live on the property. But for the most part, it’s just the six of them and Grandma Millie’s basset hounds in the house.

It’s about an hour from New Orleans to Jean Lafitte, and since Grandma Millie drives like a bat out of hell, Ward insisted on taking the wheel.

The only unfortunate side effect of this arrangement, although it promised their living arrival to Millie’s, is that it left four grown adults—three of whom just so happened to be fucking tall—to cram together in the back bench seat.

Thankfully, Claire takes after her mama in that department, considering she’s barely five foot one.

Does this also mean she’s sitting in Dylan’s lap for an hour on bumpy back roads? Yes. Is she desperately trying to keep from laughing at the sheer awkwardness of the hard-on obviously pressing against her ass with his mother less than two inches away? Also yes.

She can see Dylan biting his knuckle and thinking of Grandma Millie in a swimsuit. Sadly, things don’t seem to be flagging, and Claire can’t pinpoint if the sweat gathering on his brow is from what’s going on in his shorts or the fact that it’s a thousand fucking degrees in the car even with the AC cranked.

It’s clearly neither of their faults. He’s a teenage boy. For god’s sake, a stiff breeze gets him hot and bothered. It doesn’t mean he’s into her.

Still, when the car comes to a stop, Claire lets Dylan slip out from under her and tuck that shit into his waistband before Grandma Millie sees it and promptly has a heart attack.

Thankfully, everything goes smoothly from there, and everyone can feel the sense of calm wash over them as they pile into the house with all the bags they can carry.

The house may as well be older than the family name—a long, thin raised cottage sitting on the same brick pylons it’s sat on since Grandma’s grandparents built it in the 1880s.

It sits on almost an acre of land that backs up to Bayou Lafitte. And between the pelicans that Grandma has made friends with, the pool, and the various sheds and guest houses Grandpa built before his passing, the whole property is like a Drayton Family commune.

Her aunt Lydia lives in one of the guest houses with her daughter and her “friend” Caroline. Really, it’s not like everyone can’t see straight through that cover. But knowing Grandma, if she isn’t directly told, she’ll keep on acting like she doesn’t know until she’s dead.

Cousin Jed lives… somewhere on the property. Claire’s never been really sure where he resides or how exactly they’re related. All Ward’s ever been able to tell her is that Grandma Millie isn’t Jed’s grandma, and he’s lived there and looked the same since before Ward himself came around.

Her mom’s family lives somewhere in town, but they’ve never much cared for Ward, and by extension, Claire. If anyone thought things were rocky when Claire’s mother was still alive, then they might as well have fallen off a cliff when Ward up and moved to Colorado after she died. They don’t talk now, and Claire isn’t even sure if they know she visits every summer.

And anyways, who wants family members that don’t want you when you have Grandma Millie and a house with the smell of gardenias and vanilla baked into the walls?

The room she and Dylan have shared since they were kids is the only one on the upper extension. From what Claire remembers, it was added on when the second family to make it through the house outgrew the bedrooms it was built with. Grandma Millie says it’s “small as a shoebox” and that she and Dylan will have to start sleeping in separate rooms “next year.” But she’s been saying that since they were in the fifth grade, and next year is still yet to come.

The walls are painted the same light blue as when Grandma was little. There’s an old mattress that isn’t quite a queen and isn’t quite a full on an antique frame tucked into the far corner, and a night table that matches. That’s about as far as it goes in terms of furniture.

You have to walk through the screened-in porch at the back of the house just to make it to the stairs of their room, and if you listen real close at night, you can hear the locusts chirping in the cattails on the bayou.

They set their bags down, and it’s like she and Dylan are synced when they both fall onto the bed and start laughing like hyenas.

“God, you’re such a perv.” She scolds, although there’s no heat behind it as she smacks his arm and wipes away the tears that have gathered in the corners of her eyes from laughing so hard.

“I am so fucking sorry.” He’s wiping away his own tears, flat on his back next to Claire. “I’m never living that down, am I?” he asks, blushing so bad it’s reached the tips of his ears.

“Not until we’re in the old folks’ home and I forget because I’ve got fucking dementia or some shit.” She’s still laughing, so hard that her sides are starting to ache.

—

The first night is unusually awkward because it’s hotter in Louisiana than God ever intended Earth to get.

Claire’s honestly not sure who moved first. All she knows is that she and Dylan went to sleep on opposite sides of the bed, with a pillow between them, and woke up in the middle of the bed, disgustingly sweaty and on top of one another.

The following two days are spent half in the pool and half next to it.

By the third night, with the smell of a bonfire still sticking to their skin, Claire and Dylan give up on trying to separate themselves. They fall asleep pressed together, his chest flush against her back, arm tucked around her waist.

The fourth day they drive up to New Orleans and spend most of the day poking around the Audubon Zoo. Even though Claire and Dylan are already familiar with what’s there, Lydia, Caroline, and their daughter Lila tag along, and the little girl is enthralled both with the animals and getting to spend her day with the big kids.

By night five, they’ve dipped into Grandma Millie’s weed stash and get high in their room at midnight. The events following this decision are hazy at best and will remain unspoken until the end of time.

Night six holds another bonfire, and everyone gets a little sticky from the marshmallows as they swap family stories like it’s the first time they’re hearing them. Claire falls asleep on Dylan’s shoulder, and he gets to feel like the knight in shining armor carrying her up to bed.

Grandma Millie has half the town over for a crawfish boil on day seven. There’s a lot of cheek pinching and plenty of promises from the town bitties to put a brick on Dylan’s head if he doesn’t stop growing.

Day eight is… odd. Claire and Dylan get sent to the grocery store and end up being stared down by Claire’s sixty-year-old doppelganger—the same long dark hair and big green eyes. Even the same freckles, just starting to show up in the early summer. 

Claire’s seen enough pictures to know it’s probably her grandmother. And she knows she’s being stared down because Claire’s mother wasn’t much older than she is now the last time her family saw her.

Dylan sets a large hand on her lower back and gently guides her into the next aisle while she’s still stunned into silence. Neither of them bother telling Ward, but Claire spends the whole night sobbing like she can’t breathe against Dylan’s chest.

The sky opens up in a torrential downpour on day nine, and everyone spends the day inside playing cards and getting tipsy with Grandma Millie. She sneaks Dylan and Claire sweet tea cut with Crown Royal until they can’t walk straight.

The next morning, there are rounds of goodbye hugs and twenties slipped in Caroline’s handshakes before everyone piles in the car, back to the airport and their real lives.

Claire does her best to sleep off her hangover on the plane ride home and ends up hurling in a Denver airport terminal garbage can with Dylan holding her hair back.

By the time they’re pulling into their respective driveways on Cougar Road, the spell is broken, and real life creeps back in.

Kelsey and Alyssa sleep over and pretend they can’t smell Dylan all over everything they help her unpack.

All their friends have learned over the years to not get on Claire or Dylan for not talking about the trip. They never really do, almost like it’s some sort of secret pocket of time that stays between them, where they can keep on acting like it’s nothing when they wake up tangled in each other.

Besides, cheer practice starts the next morning, and Eric supposedly has a job all lined up for him and Dylan, and they’re back to their real lives.

(It’s the second-to-last summer they’ll all spend in Lafitte. Two years from now, Ward will make the trip alone, with a framed picture and a little urn to put up next to his father’s on the mantel. Tom and Sue will stay home, because they can’t face Claire’s family without feeling like they’re to blame.)

Chapter Text

december, 1997 - christmas time, littleton, colorado 

Christmas in Littleton has always been Claire’s favorite part of the year.

Sure, it's fucking freezing, and the snow makes it hard to go anywhere, but when all your friends live within a five-minute drive of you, it’s not too much of a hassle to spend all break skipping between houses.

Their whole friend group is currently piled into Claire’s living room, bundled up against the freezing air seeping in through the windows, mainlining Christmas cookies while they all get a little tipsy and spread across the furniture and the floor.

It’s the last night before Claire gets kicked out for the holiday, when she’s sent to bunk up with Dylan while Grandma Millie comes to take over her room, and Lydia, Caroline, and Lila commandeer the guest room.

It’s the same way both families have done things since Claire and Dylan’s first Christmas. Christmas Eve is more formal, a nice traditional dinner at Sue and Tom’s, where everyone dresses up and splits a few bottles of wine too nice for any other time of year. They’ll all spend Christmas morning together, crowded around the Klebolds’ Christmas tree, drinking coffee and opening presents until noon.

On Christmas Day, Ward does his best to cobble together every bit of quality seafood he can get his hands on and makes one big boil of it. Claire and Dylan spend all day watching Christmas movies or convincing Grandma Millie to play Doom.

Claire’s family leaves a few days later, and it leaves Claire and Dylan to ring in the new year with just their parents, shoving grapes into their cheeks under the kitchen table at midnight.

Christmas is another one of those times where Dylan and Claire have mutually—and silently—decided that the real world doesn't matter. That they don’t have to talk about the fact that they’ll be practically on top of each other, sharing Dylan’s twin bed for the next two weeks.

For now though—since they’re surrounded by friends who will get on their asses for being all over each other—Dylan’s sitting on the floor in front of her, passing back novelty Christmas Oreos from the package sitting in his lap, covered in peanut butter straight from the jar.

“We should totally play truth or dare,” Alyssa suggests, giggling and sloshing an almost empty bottle of peach schnapps from her place on the couch, half lying in Kelsey's lap.

For some reason, maybe because of the alcohol, or because they're all stupid teenagers, everyone agrees, and forms a loose circle. Nate chugs the last of his beer and sets the bottle sideways on the carpet, waiting to be spun.

Since it was her idea, Alyssa spins first. It lands on Zach.

“Alright, buddy, pick your poison?” She’s just drunk enough that she adjusts her top, leans forward, and doesn't make a fuss when he stares down her cleavage. Devon smacks him.

“Dare.” He raises his eyebrows and leans forward. Alyssa leans back onto the couch, like all her fun is lost.

“Lick the bottom of your own foot.” That’s a harsh one. “Heel to toe.”

He does it. Not that it really shocks anyone. They’re all drunk, and the type of people who are unable to turn down a dare. Everybody laughs, and Zach spins the bottle.

It goes on like this for nearly an hour, simple back and forth, a few truths, mostly dares. Kelsey and Eric get stuck playing seven minutes in heaven in the coat closet, and both come out stumbling and covered in lip gloss.

The bottle lands on Claire as everyone’s energy starts fading, and just her luck, it’s Eric on the other end of the spin.

She picks dare and tells him to do his worst.

“Go shotgun the smoke out of Dylan’s mouth.” She thinks she’s misheard for a moment, and when it lands, well…it wasn't what she’d expected. Not in the slightest. Eric is smiling like he’s come up with something game-winning.

But Dylan is out on the front porch smoking, in plain view of the whole living room, and Claire isn’t going to let Eric get one over on her.

“Watch and learn.” She pushes off the couch, shoves her feet into her slippers, and heads out the front door.

“Hey.” He smiles, so wide his glasses go a little crooked on his face. “You just come out to say hi?” She shakes her head and wraps her arms tighter around herself, teeth chattering in just a thin long sleeve. “C’mere, it’s cold, you dumbass.” He wraps his free arm around her, presses her against his chest as she settles freezing cold hands underneath his hoodie, against the bare skin of his back.

“Eric dared me to come out here and shotgun your cigarette.” She’s not sure what it is about this moment, but he’s looking down at her like she’s his whole world and then some. Suddenly, this stops feeling like a dare and starts feeling like an excuse.

“Yeah?” She can feel the eyes on them through the windowpanes, even as she shivers. They’re all enthralled, leaning forward like they’re watching a new episode of Friends. “You gonna follow through, babe?” He’s never called her that before. She’s not sure why she’s getting so nervous when they’ve done hundreds of things arguably more romantic than shotgunning a cigarette on the front porch.

“Yeah. I’m gonna.” She uses him for balance, stretching up to meet him as he takes a puff from the menthol burning in his hands. He leans in, lips barely pressing to hers while she inhales.

It’s a proper kiss, for a moment, when he drops his cigarette onto the porch to thread his fingers through her hair. But then smoke starts to billow out of her nose, their lips separate, and Claire’s head falls against his chest.

“That—” His mouth hangs open, hand still tangled up in her hair. “Jesus, that can never happen again.” She’s nodding and stumbling a bit, palms still flat on his back.

Neither of them are sure they can keep that promise. Not when a kiss that lasted less than three seconds is doing this much to them.

“Our friends are watching us.” He stays silent. All he does is walk her back—to the space between the front door and the window—and cage her in against the brick.

“I’m sorry.” It’s like the real world hits him when she looks up at him and his knuckles scrape against the cold wall. He untangles his fingers from her hair and lets them rest on the side of her neck instead. “I shouldn’t have done that…I’m sorry.” He kisses her head, so gently she could’ve mistaken it for an accident if every nerve in her body wasn’t already lit on fire.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” She takes a hand off his back to wrap around his wrist, thumb running over the soft skin just above his sleeve. “It was just a dare.” She smiles up at him, that soft, gentle smile she keeps just for him. He smiles back.

She means it, even if they’ve been teetering more and more on the edge of something since June. They can both feel it, how heavy the tension gets when they’re all alone late at night, wrapped up in each other.

She can feel it now, with his hand on her neck, bodies pressed together against a brick wall.

“We should go back inside before they assume we’re making out.” His thumb runs down the column of her throat and presses into the hollow between her collarbones.

“They already think we're making out.” She scratches her nails down his back lightly, just enough to drive him a little mad. It’s the same thing he’s doing to her, and they both know it.

“Do you wanna make out?” He laughs, and it’s nothing but pure joy, brushing against her lips. “Cause we can make out. Right here right now. There’s nothin’ stopping us.” He’s leaning in farther, and the hand on her waist is starting to creep lower, and lower, and—

Zach swings the front door open, and Claire’s nose smacks into Dylan's chin.

The moment is ruined. Immediately. Between Zach absolutely pissing himself laughing, and Dylan fussing over Claire while she swears and swats at him, blood pouring down her face.

—

Dylan spends the next day feeling so awful about Claire’s nose, and the shiners that came along with it, that he offers to take her chore of driving to Denver Airport to pick up Grandma Millie, Lydia, Caroline, and Lila.

He does this on top of the endless doting, and the fact that he’s refused to leave her side for the last twenty-four hours.

She’s not really sure why he’s being so sweet. It’s not like it's the first accidental injury she’s ever suffered at his hands. For God’s sake, he was less sorry when he broke her collarbone play-fighting in middle school, and she’s still half convinced he did that on purpose. But who’s she to tell him to stop when he keeps running the pads of his thumbs under her bruised eyes and promising to never hurt her again.

The pickup is relatively uneventful, even if Grandma Millie and Caroline team up to eye Dylan suspiciously until Claire has thoroughly assured them that he’s not really to blame for the state of her face.

When Ward picks up Chinese takeout on his way home from the sheriff’s station, it’s like summer all over again—gathered around the too-small table, laughing until their sides ache.

Everyone settles in to watch It’s a Wonderful Life, the same way they do every year on the first night they’re all together again, and it gives Claire an excuse to tuck into Dylan’s side on the couch. He slides his arm around her shoulder and pulls her tighter against him. No one says anything, but Sue, Tom, and Ward keep looking at each other and smiling.

By the end of the movie, Lila has fallen asleep, and Grandma Millie seems seconds away from following. Everyone decides to call it a night, and Claire heads back to the Klebolds with Dylan.

Even in the freezing night air, everything is warm, in that way that only happens at Christmas time.

It all gets a little warmer when Claire’s standing in Dylan’s bathroom, brushing her teeth.

She looks boring, damp hair resting on her shoulders, plaid pajama pants sitting low on her hips, undereyes turning more purple by the hour. The door’s open, and it’s not the strangest sight when Dylan walks in wearing nothing but his boxers.

“Comfortable, are we?” she teases, voice muffled around her toothbrush. She’d spend forever teasing him like she’s bothered by it, just to see him blush.

He doesn’t answer, just walks up behind her, wraps his arms around her waist, and drops his head onto her shoulder. It’s a little awkward since he’s so much taller than her, but she leans back into him anyway.

“You’re really pretty.” He says it so quietly that she wouldn’t have heard it if his mouth wasn’t inches away from her ear, like he’s uttering his deepest, darkest secret. “And you smell really good. Like flowers.” His lips are brushing against her neck. Claire bites her lip to keep from making what would inevitably be a very embarrassing sound.

It’s not a kiss. There’s no defined press, no intention behind it. That almost makes it feel more intimate, like they’re standing on the ledge of this thing rather than just next to it.

Still, she goes with the safe response instead of the one that could possibly change their relationship in its entirety.

“You just bein’ nice cause you’re sleepy, or do you need something?” It would sound cold to anyone who didn’t know them. But Dylan smiles anyway and holds her a little tighter.

“Sleepy.” He mumbles. She spits her toothpaste in the sink and rinses her mouth out, all with him still attached to her

“You wanna go to bed?” She covers his arms with hers and feels him smile against her skin.

“We probably should.” It’s all very domestic, the way they walk back to his room, hand in hand, and settle into bed.

It’s a tight squeeze, the two of them in his little twin bed, but they make it work. Mostly because she’s half on top of him, leg thrown over his hips, head resting on his chest.

Claire falls asleep like that, to the sound of Dylan’s heartbeat. One she’d know across the room in the dark. A soft, constant lullaby that stays uniform under the rise and fall of his chest.

(She doesn’t know that she’ll be the last one to feel that heart stutter its last few beats. She doesn’t know that no one will be there to feel hers. That no one will know it’s even happened until she’s cold and blue.)