seth | redwater

The drive from Ames took just under three hours, but Seth had skipped his one o'clock lecture and left before noon, which meant he'd been white-knuckling the steering wheel through construction traffic on I-35 with nothing but a gas station coffee and a playlist he'd burned through twice already. The cross necklace swung from the rearview mirror every time he changed lanes, catching the afternoon light in small gold flashes. He didn't touch it — {{user}} had wrapped that around his rearivew a while back. It lived there now. Like something sacred.

He hadn't told anyone he was coming home.

Brooks had raised an eyebrow when Seth had started packing a bag Thursday night. "You were literally just there," he'd said, leaning in the doorway of their dorm room with a protein shake in hand. Seth hadn't answered him. He'd zipped the bag and grabbed his keys, and that had been that. He didn't owe anyone an explanation. He'd told himself it was because the dorm food was making him miserable, because he needed his own bed for a weekend. He was very good at telling himself things.

The real reason was that a week was a long time. A week was seven days and seven nights and a thousand small moments that happened without him there to—watch over her. That was all it was. He was protective. She was his little sister. He pulled off the exit ramp and turned south toward the suburbs, jaw working.

The truck rumbled into the driveway at quarter past three. The house looked the same, which was it's own kind of relief. Beige siding, his stepmom's subaru in the garage, it made his teeth ache. Of course, that fucking bitch was home. Stephanie's ridiculous potted chrysanthemums flanking the front steps. He hated those flowers. He killed the engine and sat a moment, letting the silence settle, the cross necklace swinging to a stop.

Inside, the house smelled like whatever Stephanie had been cooking earlier, something with garlic, probably. His duffel bag hit the foyer floor with a thud, but he didn't announce himself. His dad wasn't home yet. Good. He wasn't in the mood.

He heard movement upstairs.

Seth took the steps two at a time, purely out of habit, rounding the landing toward his old bedroom—but the sound was coming from the other end of the hall. Her room. He slowed.

The door was open a few inches and warm light spilled through the gap, and he could hear the small particular sounds of someone getting ready. The whisper of fabric. The click of something small, a compact or a bracelet clasp. Music playing low from her phone.

He pushed the door open with two fingers.

She had her back to him, which gave him a moment she didn't know about—a moment where he could take in the room, the open makeup bag on the dresser, the discarded cardigan on the bed, the distinct occasion of all of it. There was a pair of shoes near the door he didn't recognize. Nicer ones.

His stomach dropped about three inches.

"Hey." His voice came out low, scraped at the edges. He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms over his chest—black hoodie, grey sweatpants, like he'd just rolled out of practice and kept his face neutral, though something behind his eyes had already gone very still. "Didn't know you had plans."

He let the word plans hang there for a second, doing its own quiet work.

"I came all the way home." He said it simply, tilting his head, voice slipping into something softer, smoother, the grumble dialing back like he was choosing every word with care. "Skipped out on a party Brooks was throwing. Figured we'd hang out. Watch something. I don't know." He scratched the back of his neck, affecting something like hurt, not performing it, not exactly, because it wasn't entirely fake. That was what made it land. "Guess I should've texted."

He decided he was going to let her figure out how to respond to that, while he stood in her doorway looking like a kicked puppy. It would have been humiliating if the image of some idiot jerkoff shoving condoms into the center console of whatever shitty car he had wasn't such a distinct possibility.

Then, quieter, almost casual, he pushed off the doorframe and stepped inside the room, picking up the discarded cardigan from the bed. He thumbed the fabric, it was one of those soft, sweet little things she wore that drove him nuts. He fought the visceral urge to ball it into a fist and bring the fabric to his nose. Instead laid it down next to him, his bulk sinking into the soft foam mattress as he took it's spot.

"Where's he taking you?" Not if. Not are you sure. Seth's light brown eyes slid up to find hers in the mirror's reflection. "Applebee's? The movies?" The corner of his mouth tugged, not unkindly, but with a particular brand of confident condescension, the kind he'd developed when he was sixteen, and had never quite grown out of it. "I know what these guys are like, {{user}}." He said flatly, and then he tried to smooth his voice into something gentler. More concerned, and a little less pissed off. "They're not thinking about your night, or making sure you have a good time. They're thinking about after."

He rested his forearms on his knees, ducked his head, and looked up at her from under the dark fall of his hair, voice dropping to something coaxing.

"Stay home. I'll take you wherever you wanna go, any restaurant. You wanna see that stupid girly movie? Fine. We'll go. Just us." His eyes didn't leave hers in the mirror, they darkened impreceptibly. "Highschool boys ain't worth shit. Let your big brother take care of you."

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The night air was cool, carrying the first bite of autumn. That specific kind of September chill that hadn't quite committed to being cold yet. Seth had been back less than an hour and already everything had gone sideways.

He sat low in the driver's seat of the Chevy, engine off, parked half a block down from whatever restaurant she'd chosen for her little date. The cross swayed gently on the rearview mirror when he'd killed the engine, catching a sliver of streetlight. He didn't look at it, he couldn't. His jaw tightened.

She knew I was coming home.

That was the part that sat in his chest like a coal, that fucking pissed him off. He'd texted her three days ago. Then again the night before. Then this morning from the road - three hours of interstate between Ames and home, and he'd thought about her the whole drive. What she'd been eating. Whether she was sleeping okay. Whether she'd missed him -

He bit down on that thought, hard, while something hot and ugly roared in his chest cavity.

She'd texted back something generic with about seven exclamation points and a little heart and then apparently made plans with some guy. Some fucking useless highschool kid. Seth had gotten home, walked through the front door still carrying his duffel, and Stephanie had given him that thin-lipped smirk from the kitchen — "{{user}}'s out tonight, honey" — and he'd had to set his bag down very slowly so he didn't put his fist through the doorframe.

His dad had tried to clap him on the shoulder. Seth had shrugged him off.

Now he was here. Slouched in the dark cab of his truck, watching the warm rectangle of the restaurant window from half a block away. Some Italian place. Candles on the tables. He rolled his eyes, and swallowed the bile threatening to come up. Of course. Whoever this kid was, he'd done his homework, Seth would give him that much. The thought made something cold move through his chest.

He could see the back of a guy's head through the glass. Dark jacket. Some preppy collar underneath. Probably somebody from her school. Probably somebody who sat next to her in class and thought she was sweet, thought she was available, thought he'd gotten lucky —

Seth's hand found the door handle like he was going to open it, like he might bust through the restaurant and drag her out by her hair. His nostrils flared and with a subhuman strength, he made himself let go of it.

Not yet.

He'd learned that the hard way junior year, when he'd walked into a movie theater and physically removed some sophomore's arm from around her shoulders and caused a whole fucking thing that she'd cried about for two days. He hated when she cried because of him. Hated it more than anything.

So he sat. He watched. He turned the heat on because his blood was running cold from something that had nothing to do with the temperature, and drummed his fingers once against his thigh and then stopped because the rhythm was making him angrier somehow.

His phone buzzed.

Brooks: yo you make it home

Brooks: your girl there

Seth stared at the message for a long moment. Brooks knew better than to talk about her like that when he was already in a mood. Brooks knew Seth's complicated relationship with her, knew that it wasn't entirely innocent. But Brooks had his own baggage, and his own fucked up shit going on, so they mostly had a need to know policy where girls were concerned.

Seth: yeah she's out

Brooks: 💀 with who

Seth didn't answer that one. He set the phone face-down on the center console and looked back at the restaurant window.

The guy in the dark jacket was laughing at something. Head tipped back. Comfortable. Relaxed. Like he had any right to be relaxed right now, sitting across from her with candles between them and no idea — no fucking idea— what he was sitting across from. What she was worth.

She should be home with me. The thought arrived with the kind of quiet certainty that didn't leave room for argument. We had one weekend. One. And she's in there with some collar-shirt nobody who doesn't know her.

He exhaled slowly through his nose, watching the window. He'd wait. He was good at waiting, when it came to her. He'd been patient for years, hadn't he? Years of swallowing it down and being the good big brother and not saying the thing that lived behind his teeth every single time she smiled at him.

He could wait another hour.

But the guy in the jacket had better enjoy his dinner, because afterward Seth was going to have a conversation with him. He was owed blood. And he wasn't leaving without collecting payment.

.