Lacey.

Two days after Travis had woken up, things weren't exactly going well. He was up about half of the day and the other half he took refuge in his bedroom or sometimes mine. I wasn't sure if it was fatigue or pain that had him seeking solitude. Oftentimes, I would enter my room during the day and find him passed out on my bed. My real bed. The rest of the furniture came yesterday and we spent the day setting everything up.

At night, he would start off in my room usually because when I went to bed, he was already passed out in it. But at some point in the night or maybe he just woke up earlier than I did, he would leave.

He spent much of his time awake with Ben. He was practically glued to his hip. Whenever Ben was, Travis was within reaching distance. Travis didn't speak much but I caught him whispering random things to Ben. Or sometimes they would just look at each other and seem to have a conversation before they both left the room. I was jealous because I wanted that sort of connection with him.

But then he'd be in my bed curled up underneath my covers at night and all of my negative feelings would disappear because he was here. Plus, he wasn't ever pushing me away anymore. He just wasn't very present.

He had nightmares but I didn't shake him awake or touch him. Instead, I would say his name until his eyes fluttered open and each time, he looked at me like he was seeing a ghost for the first thirty seconds. We kept space from each other in bed, I think it made Travis feel better. We didn't really talk. Though, Travis wasn't talking much, period. At least not since our little heart to heart the other day. I think the reason he stuck so close to Ben was because Ben seemed to live on the same wavelength as Travis. Ben didn't need Travis to say something to know what he wanted to say.

The others didn't let Travis' lack of personality get them down. They acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary. I suppose they had dealt with Travis healing from injuries and going through withdrawal before but I hadn't. And it bothered me how distant he was being. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and never let go because Travis was a very touchy feely person. It seemed like he could never keep his hands to himself in the past but now there was nothing. And I didn't know if it was something he was craving but was too detached to ask for or if he genuinely didn't want to be touched right now.

Though, I did breathe a slight sigh of relief yesterday when Travis got up from the couch at one point when everyone else was working on setting up the furniture. He walked with an obvious limp.

Annabeth had called out after him, "Stop babying your foot. It'll make it worse."

Even though they weren't coddling him, at least they were paying attention to him.

Currently, we were all sitting in the living room which now had a love seat and an extra large l-shaped sectional couch to accommodate the four tall men. Ben and Travis were sitting on the longer half of the sectional next to each other. Travis was slouching like a half-dead man while Ben was on the outside end, leaning closer to him so they could both look at something on Ben's phone.

Annabeth was on the same side of the couch sitting on the other side of Travis, flipping through news channels to see if anything else came out about Melkin. The love seat was being taken up by Hannah and Cameron but there was as much space between them as could be. It was weird, considering she still wore the engagement ring he sent her but they acted like there was an invisible force field between them. Every once in a while, I caught Hannah spinning the ring around on her finger and Cameron's eyes would also go to it.

Despite one half of the sectional still available, I was sitting on the floor and leaning against the couch near Travis' feet. Finn was on the ground with me but he was lying flat on his back. He had asked me for stretching advice because his hip was bothering him and I showed him some of what I used to do to limber up for dance. Finn was horrible at stretching, staying in each position for about two seconds. We were currently taking a break, which he'd requested.

Then, the most frightening, peculiar thing happened.

Three knocks echoed around the house.

Finn looked at me. "Was that you?"

"No. Was that you?" I countered because we were both on the hardwood floor. The others wouldn't have the opportunity to knock like that, even though it was obvious the knock came from the other room.

"Hells no," he said.

The knocking started again. Harder and unrelenting. The only people who would be coming to this house were the people in this room. And none of us would knock. We weren't expecting any more deliveries with furniture. We weren't expecting anything at all, as far as I knew.

Finn hopped up on his feet and dusted off his hands. "I wonder who's come to say hello. Maybe it's the mail man. Or a neighbor. Maybe they brought me fruit," Finn trailed going out of the living room.

Cameron followed and I stood up. Travis' hand gripped my shirt but my I slinked out of his reach and left the room before he could do anything about it.

Finn opened the door with Cameron behind him. I moved so I was next to Cameron, curiosity getting the better of me.

"Oh it's only you," Finn said anticlimactically, and turned away from the door.

"Sorry?" a familiar voice said.

Finn moved fully out of the way and Carlos was standing on the porch. He looked the same as before but not. He still had ratty pants and a worn out hoodie that threatened to hide him into the backdrop of any setting. But his dark hair was taken care of and trimmed, ending around his chin which made him look significantly younger than before.

"You guys are alive," he said as a greeting and held out a hand for Cameron to fist bump.

Cameron did so hesitantly. "We are..." he looked back at Finn, who didn't seem at all surprised Carlos was here.

Finn waved his hand like it was no big deal. "Carlos called us to check in after things went to shit in a handrail."

"Hell in a hand basket," I corrected the saying as Carlos opened his arms for a hug from me and I wrapped my arms around his neck.

Finn powered on. "We had him come watch the house for a bit while we went to Melkin."

And at the thought of Melkin, a panic chilled my bones and the monumental feeling of screwing something up hit me in full force as I looked at Carlos.

"Oh my god," I cried out. I gripped Carlos' shoulders even tighter.

There was a crash from somewhere behind me and Ben yelped.

"We didn't clear your name," I whispered and pulled away from Carlos enough so I could see his face. Carlos was so nice and polite and friendly to me when I first met him, he saved my skin when we were talking to Scully and went along with my crazy plan to even talk to him and I had left him out to dry when I was clearing everyone's names. "We had our records wiped and I told Josh names to make sure to get and I forgot to tell him yours!" I turned my head to find Cameron. "Why didn't you tell me his name?"

"I don't have a record." Carlos shook his head.

"What?"

His eyes went to something behind me and he let go of my waist. "I'm clean. I always have been, appreciate the concern though."

"What?" I asked, "How? Really?"

Cameron spoke up, "He wouldn't be effective in his job if he had a record or cops sniffing around him."

I remembered then that Carlos was the middle man between the suppliers and the Caseys. He often met with them to pick up whatever they wanted us to sell. It made sense now, considering if he had cops looking into him or following him, he would've been in a world of hurt. My chest lightened at the thought that I hadn't sentenced Carlos to a life of hiding his true name. I knew there were going to be some Casey's with things on their record still. I just hoped Josh was able to fix as many as possible that deserved it because well, Vik had been a Casey once and he certainly didn't deserve it even if he was alive.

"Annabeth told me I could crash here whenever," Carlos said.

"Yeah," Cameron nodded, "Sure."

I turned to walk back to the living room but as soon as I did, I ran into a very apathetic looking Travis standing barely a foot behind me.

He didn't say anything explaining his appearance or how close he was hovering behind me. He spun around on his heel and I followed him back to the living room, where everyone greeted Carlos. Well, everyone except Travis. Hannah seemed to already know him from when he stayed here before.

Travis grabbed the back of my shirt and tugged as he sat down, plopping me quite literally right between himself and Ben. I did my best not to bump into Ben's shoulder as I fell but I didn't think I succeeded. I was practically sitting on one of Ben's legs and one of Travis' with how little space Travis provided.

Annabeth, who was also already on the couch, wasn't amused.

"There's more space right there," she complained, pointing to the other side of the couch where Carlos was currently getting comfortable.

Travis practically melted into the sofa and his voice lacked any threat when he answered her. "Scoot over. Don't be a bitch shit."

Annabeth scooted over but it was only so she could grab the pillow closest to her.

"Pick," she said, whacking Travis in the face with the pillow. "One." Again. "Word." A third time. "Bitch or shit. Not both."

Travis only sighed and pushed his hair out of his face.

I tried to get up but Travis just wrapped more of the back of my shirt around his fist, tightening it. I didn't want to cause a scene for no reason so I sat back down, trying in vain to get comfortable but it was no use.

The others filled Carlos in on everything that had gone on and where we had been. Travis offered no input. Ben was looking at something on his phone and when I glanced over to see what it was, he shielded it from my view. Despite my wiggling, Ben had only moved his leg over a fraction, seemingly not caring or not noticing Travis being a little too territorial. Or, maybe Ben did know and that's why he kept me pinned between the two of them. I was pretty sure his alliance would always default to taking Travis' side.

I tried to peek at his phone again.

Ben glared at me and whispered, "Get your own phone."

"What are you looking at?" I asked.

"Where's your phone?"

"In my bedroom." I didn't need it out here. Everyone I had any interest in contacting was right here already.

"Then go get that and stop snooping."

This time I glared at him because while the others might not have noticed Travis not letting me get up, Ben must have known, with how close we were sitting. He grinned, knowing he'd won and passed his phone to Travis, screen side down so I still couldn't see.

The others in the room continued their catching up like nothing unusual was going on.

Travis looked at whatever was on the screen for two seconds. "No."

I tried to snatch the phone when Travis tried to pass it back in front of me but he pulled his hand out of the way and in a flash, he passed the phone back to Ben behind my head instead.

"Too slow," Travis said.

I directed my glare at him. "What are you two doing?"

There was a small amount of amusement dancing around in his eyes and I wanted to light it up and let it consume him. I wanted the old Travis back but I wasn't sure if I was going to get that Travis again because that older version of Travis had demons lurking in every corner of his mind.

"I'll tell you later," Travis said.

I narrowed my eyes. "You promise?"

He nodded and Ben passed the phone back to Travis. I realized too late that I completely missed the chance to try to snoop again while Ben was doing whatever it was he was doing. When Travis took the phone, he looked at it for longer this time. I tried to peek.

However, my sight was cut off when a hand wrapped around my head and over my eyes from behind and I was pulled backwards into Ben's chest. I flailed and felt him chuckle underneath me. Ben had one hand around my head so I could've easily got away but I was too afraid of hurting his other shoulder in the process.

"Maybe," Travis said but I couldn't see him.

In the background, I could hear Carlos talking about his family.

Annabeth groaned loudly and there was a shift on the couch but I couldn't see what.

When the hand left my eyes, I saw that Annabeth was no longer on our side of the couch. Instead, she was on the same one as Carlos. Travis, despite having extra room now, made no attempt to scoot over. The phone was also out of sight completely.

Ben leaned behind me. "You wanna call?" he whispered.

Travis' hand that was still on my back pushed me forward so he had enough room to lean closer to Ben and whisper more secrets literally behind my back.

"Maybe. You think they'll do it tomorrow?" Travis answered in response.

"Yeah," Ben said. "We can give them extra. We just have to get it here."

"Carlos can do it," Travis suggested.

"Seriously?"

"He owes me," Travis hissed.

Ben whispered even softer back. "For what?"

"Hitting on Lacey."

I buried my head in my hands and groaned. I didn't know exactly what they were talking about but it was obvious Travis still wasn't over the stunt Carlos pulled when we went to question Scully.

Ben laughed and he might have said something I couldn't hear or mouthed something because Travis responded to him with, "I don't fucking care."

Only after Carlos left to what we were calling the guest room, which Annabeth also outfitted with a bed, did Travis get up from the couch. Him and Ben left without a word, practically speed walking out of the house. Well, as fast as they could considering Travis' ankle.

A little bit later, I found myself at the kitchen counter sitting on a bar stool, looking at my phone. I was toying with the idea of whether or not I wanted to call Josh yet. He deserved a thank you but I didn't know if he'd be too busy to talk.

Hannah and Carlos came into the room shortly after. Carlos sat down in the stool next to me as Hannah sat on his other side. She had a large box of beads separated into different sections that were organized by color and size. There was a phone case in her hand.

Carlos tucked his arms in close to himself, as if he was permanently trying to take up as little space as possible and leaned over to look in Hannah's jewel box.

"I like these colors," he said pointing to green, black, and grey.

"And you don't care what I do?" Hannah looked carefully at him.

"Nope. I'm easy."

Hannah grinned. "If only more men in this house were like that."

I laughed without meaning to and out my hand over my mouth to try to hold it in.

"I still can't believe you're with Cam," Carlos said quietly.

I realized he wouldn't have known about Hannah until he came here before. And then Finn and Annabeth were driving to and from Melkin, burning down the Dacostas and picking us up. That would've been a lot of time to spend in a house with a stranger.

Hannah shrugged. "He's not as bad as everyone thinks he is."

I pursed my lips to the side because that was absolutely true. Cameron liked to present himself like an active grenade about to go off if you got too close. Which...he was, sort of. But he was also the one that kept making sure I ate regularly, got out of bed, held me while I cried, and pestered me constantly while on runs which took my mind off Travis. It was easy to see before that Cameron was good at picking people apart, finding what made them tick, and put everyone's pieces together in just the right way so no one died. But I was learning he was also pretty good at finding all of the broken pieces and building them back up.

"How's Travis doing?" Hannah asked me.

"Okay, I guess," I said, spreading my arms out on the counter top and lacing my fingers in front of me.

Hannah's eyes twinkled at me. "He looked a little more than okay earlier."

"You mean when he wanted to castrate me?" Carlos interjected and my cheeks got hot with embarrassment.

Hannah laughed.

"I'll tell him to back off," I rushed out because we had only hugged.

"It's cool," Carlos said. "I can handle him. Just make some cookies with me to make it up to me?" He rested his elbows on the counter similarly to mine and nudged my arm with his.

I nudged him back with my elbow.

"Whaddya say? Chocolate chip? Peanut butter? Eh?" he asked.

Hannah oohed over the peanut butter option right as Travis walked into the kitchen. His eyes went straight to Carlos' elbow hitting mine.

Carlos moved away with a laugh under his breath. "I'm trying to get Lacey to help me make cookies. What kind do you want?" Carlos asked as if he had a death wish.

I really didn't understand Carlos as a person. I could figure out most people. In fact, that was something I prided myself on, especially when I went through training. It was even considered a skill to be able to read people and their motives but Carlos was throwing me for a loop. His body language said wallflower but then he would invite Travis into a game of Russian Roulette: "Which one of these comments is going to be the one to set Travis off?"

Travis tapped a finger against the side of his leg and I wasn't sure if he was annoyed or he was tapping out the beat to a song. His facial expression was less than impressed with Carlos.

"We need to talk to you outside," Travis said instead of answering the cookie question.

"What about?" Carlos asked but got up from his seat anyway.

Travis didn't say anything but looked at me for a second and tilted his head. I shot up from my seat, eager at the fact he was including me and also not willing to let Carlos go outside all by himself with Travis and Ben. I didn't want their version of talking to include fists.

Carlos was already outside by the time Travis and I stepped out the front door and onto the porch. As soon as the door closed behind us, Travis' hands found my waist and his lips were on mine in a hard kiss.

I didn't move at first. I was too surprised and then my body woke up to the fact that he was actually kissing me. My chest fizzled warmly as he moved his lips against mine and I started to kiss him back but when he squeezed my hip just a little too hard, I was brought back to where I was. The porch. Making out with Travis. In front of Ben and Carlos.

I pulled away from him and tried to hide behind my hair. Travis has a hand on his chest.

"That wasn't necessary," I said quietly, now that the haze of kissing Travis was gone and I realized he was most likely doing this because of his issue with Carlos. I didn't like that, considering he rarely touched me otherwise.

Carlos took that moment to speak up. "Yo, Miller," he yelled. "Stop kissing your girl and get your ass over here."

Travis groaned while I prayed for Carlos' life. My boyfriend walked towards the other two a few feet away from the porch with me trailing behind.

"You're serious about this?" Carlos asked as soon as Travis was near. Apparently Ben had filled him in and I had managed to miss it.

Travis nodded. "You gonna do it or not?"

Carlos crossed his arms, for once in a confrontational manner instead of a shrinking way. "Why me?"

"He'll try to go with anyone else," Travis said as the reason which, while I still didn't understand what it was for, was better than the one he gave Ben earlier.

"Cam will ask what's up if we go," Ben added. "He's used to you running around."

Travis snatched Ben's phone and held it out to me with an image on it. "For Finn," he explained. "We're getting it."

I stared with wide eyes at what he was showing me.

"No..." I don't even think my voice could've been classified as a whisper, it was so low. "You're kidding."

Travis shook his head and grinned the smile I missed. "It'll keep him busy and out of our hair."

I put my hands up on his cheeks, like I was trying to frame the smile.

That night in bed, I crawled on my side of the bed and tried not to disturb Travis sleeping. However, as soon as I got settled, his leg pressed up against mine and I swore there was a smile on his face but it was dark.

"I'm sorry for kissing you like that," he said. "I found where jealousy was hiding."

"What?" I whispered.

"I think I lost some of my emotions. Like how you lose your phone all the time," he said, his voice heavy with sleep. "I just have to find them again."

I frowned. "You don't need to be jealous."

"I know. But you helped me find it," Travis' voice was slow and he barely got through the last word before falling asleep. "Thanks."

Carlos left the next morning saying he had an errand to run. That's all he had to say and Finn didn't ask any details. No one did. The day continued on as normal as it could for seven people who didn't have actual jobs. I ate. I went for a run. Cameron joined me for the last half of it. I showered. Travis slept. Finn woke up Travis once to ask him if he wanted to come measure things outside with him. Finn left with a measuring tape in hand and a frown on his face. Ben joined him instead and they started measuring random spaces. Annabeth said it was to figure out where we could build things. I didn't have the heart yet to ask who was building these things.

Later in the day, we were all back in the house to eat. Ben's phone vibrated and I saw that he had an incoming text message from Carlos. Less than a minute later, a sleepy Travis stepped into the room. His hair was pushed every which way from sleeping on it wrong. He had his usual jeans on and one of his hoodies. He shoved his phone into the pocket of his jacket and I assumed that Carlos had woken him up.

A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door.

"That's probably your meat basket," Ben told Finn, standing up from his spot next to me at the table so quickly that he nearly knocked his chair over. I grabbed the edges of it before it fell.

"My...what?" Finn looked at Ben funny.

Travis nudged him toward the door. "We got you a meat basket. We couldn't afford a fruit basket."

That was a lie. I was pretty sure they could afford anything they wanted based on how much cash they had in this house. Finn, well aware they weren't strapped for cash, didn't question it. We followed Finn toward the door, with Annabeth joining us. I glanced behind me and saw Cameron poking his head around the corner, curious.

Finn opened the door and at first glance, there wasn't anything there. The back door to the house squeaked open and I saw Carlos squeeze inside the house.

"Wait, what?" Finn asked as he walked onto the porch.

There was a tiny wicker basket on the ground with a pink blanket on the inside. On top of the blanket, there was a light pink baby pig with a few darker spots scattered on its tiny body. It looked infinitely cuter than the picture Travis had shown me.

"Holy shit!" Finn's laughter pierced the air as he bent down and pet the piglet. There was a leash and collar on it, keeping it in the basket but the pig was too busy sleeping to move. Attached to the collar was a note that Finn leaned closer to.

"Here you go. Ben and Trav," Finn read aloud.

The piglet snuggled deeper into the blanket inside the basket.

"Holy," Finn took a deep gasp in and then he was running at Travis. He collided into him so hard that the two went tumbling to the ground like Jenga blocks.

"Fucking ow," Travis said and the rest was a mumbled mess because Finn was still hugging him tightly.

Finn looked up from the ground at Ben, "Come on, get in on this, buddy."

Ben tapped Travis' leg with the toe of his shoe. "No thanks."

Finn jumped up from the ground and hugged Ben as gently as he could even though it looked like he was barely able to contain his excitement.

"You got me a pig?" Finn shouted.

"You got him a pig," Annabeth echoed, with much less enthusiasm.

Cameron's confusion was heard from where he was standing down the hallway. "You got him a what?"

"Ohh!" Hannah cried out and pushed past Cameron, heading right to us. "It's so cute!"

"This is for me?" Finn ignored everyone else.

"Yeah," Travis grunted as I helped him off the ground.

"Surprise," Ben added with jazz hands in the direction of the pig.

Finn lifted the basket up to his face and started scratching the piglet with one of his fingers, bringing it into the house for everyone to see. "This is so much better than a fruit basket. Fuck those things." He shoved the basket in Annabeth's face. "Did you see what they got me? This is mine. They got me a pet!"

"Have you had a pet before?" I asked.

Finn was starting in awe at the piglet still as he answered. "I've never had anything of mine like this."

That hit me a little harder than I think Finn intended it to but I kept my face as neutral as I could. Travis' hand held one of mine and he pulled me out of the front door while everyone was oohing and ahhing and get that out of my faceing over the pig.

I hadn't expected Finn to take so well to the present. I half expected him to think it was a joke, not fall in love with it instantly but then again, this was Finn.

"That was really sweet of you guys," I stated.

Travis shrugged. "We're on a farm. Seemed fitting."

The sun was setting but Travis walked us out beyond the bench we had sat on before until we were a good distance from the house. He pulled me so that I faced him and held our joined hands up while he placed my other hand up on his shoulder. He wrapped his hand around my waist, pulling me closer to him.

"Will you dance with me?" he asked.

"That depends," I said as we held perfectly still. "Have you found the part of yourself that loves music? Because I don't know where my phone is to play anything."

One side of his mouth tipped up in a smile. "Possibly. We can test it out."

Travis hummed a song I didn't recognize as I led us around in small circles until the sun disappeared behind the tree line.

I hope you liked it. I love those two little goobers so much. Vote, comment, tell me what you think (or find me on discord - link is on my homepage and chat with me!), have a great day, and don't forget to smile. You're all awesome! <3