Secret Things

by Andrews, Nazarea

  I watch him, quiet, as he settles himself, as he shoves down the roiling emotions. And finally. Finally. He looks at me and gives me this tight little nod. Tiny and heartbroken and tense.

  “Okay.”

  This is it, then.

  After all these years together. This is it.

  He’s waiting for me to say the words, to make this thing happening between us real and official and over.

  And Camden. Camden is hurting. I’m tired of them all hurting.

  So I say the words.

  “I think we should break up.”

  Chapter 11.

  Posted on Fractured Realms Message Boards

  @VictriTrashyGirl Anyone in Vancouver get pics of Victri?

  @CecileCruz Victor Vanes was seen in LA near his apartment with band member Jace Newton on Saturday {Picture attached}

  @FraleySilentSister where the hell is Dimitri?

  @FractalEndHallow Dimitri Blackwood was seen at a Small Things event with co-founder Carissa Auckes in Seattle. Co-star Camden Martin was also in attendance [picture attached]

  @VictriTrashyGirl: Guys. Look at Jace and Victor. Someone tell me I’m projecting.

  @LostinBlackwood Cam looks so sad. Why does Cam look sad, you guys?

  @MrsMartin4Real What the actual fuck is happening this summer?

  ---

  I think I knew it would happen.

  Before Cari and I fell into this strange relationship that wasn’t a relationship--it happened all the time. I’d date a girl and fall for her, and realize too late that she wasn’t as into it as I was. That it was fun but not real. That I was a good fuck but nothing to build a life with.

  So I wasn’t surprised.

  I knew Victor was who Dimitri loved. Fuck, it’s one of the things I admired about them--the length and strength of their relationship.

  But there was a part of me. A stupid part. That hoped that this would be different. That I meant as much to Dimitri as he means to me.

  It hurts more than I expect when I realize I don't. When he casually announces that Vic is on set, despite the way we left the band, and everything that's happened after.

  Cari wants to ask about it. She watches me, and I can see the question lingering unspoken between us. But Cari is good at reading me, and she knows I'm not ready to talk, not ready to unpack the shit that is this failed relationship. So she doesn't say anything when I tug her into my arms at night, curled in her big bed. She just presses a kiss to my forehead and goes to sleep there, giving me what support she can.

  "What about this theme?"

  I glance up, half-heartedly, from the campaign I'm playing on Call of Duty. All I can see is purple and feathers and I make a face. "No."

  I'm not sure how it happened. The calendar clicked over from August to September, we got a long weekend that saw radio silence from Dimitri and Vic, and a box of plans showed up at our house.

  Small Things is a charity Dimitri and Cari founded together. One of the things I'm so damn proud of them for that I can barely function. And every year, they do a huge gala, Enders Gala. It's held Halloween night, and Cari spends two solid months before it happens planning with a small army of people.

  And that's after her assistant and Small Things staff spends two months before that setting up preliminary shit Cari doesn't have time for.

  She frowns at me as I shake my head and return to my game. "Cam!" she whines, drawing out my name like a song. "I need help!"

  "Call your partner in crime," I say, ignoring the flutter in my chest, and the way she goes still and watchful.

  "Am I going to be your date again this year?"

  "If you don't mind," she says carefully, following my lead and ignoring the shit I just said. I flash her a quick smile.

  "No pink or purple. Or neon."

  She makes a face, "Spoilsport," she grumbles and I laugh. Then curse as Tristan's guy kills me.

  "Motherfucker," I grunt, waiting to respawn and scowling at the screen.

  "Hey, what’s for dinner?"

  "I made a lasagna. With salad. Vegan. Just put it in the oven, and I'll finish the salad before it's done," I answer, distracted and she makes a low happy noise in her throat.

  I feel bad. I've neglected her over the past month, wrapped up in Dimitri and everything that was new and shiny.

  "Hey, Cari?"

  She kinda hums in response, a distracted yeah? that strings a grin across my lips.

  "Missed you."

  That gets her attention and she looks up at me.

  "I missed you, too," she whispers. She sounds so damn sad and lonely that I immediately kill the game and twist to her.

  "Why didn't you say something?" I demand, softly.

  "Because you were happy. You both were. I didn't want to take that away. I still don't."

  Damn.

  Sometimes, I love this girl so much it hurts. "I don't deserve a friend like you," I tell her, and she rolls her eyes.

  "Shut up, you dumbass."

  I dodge her playful slap and she smiles. Relents when I tug at her ankle until I’ve dragged her close enough that I can hug her legs and she can pet my hair.

  "Do you wanna talk about it?" she asks, softly.

  No. Yes. No.

  "I miss him. Which is stupid, because I see him every goddamn day on set."

  That. That is its own kind of torture. Seeing the man I'm still obsessed with, the one I was slowly falling in love with, and seeing nothing in his eyes--it's killing me.

  "I should have known better."

  "Stop that," Cari snaps, her voice whip sharp. "You didn't do anything wrong, Camden."

  "I hooked up with a guy in a relationship, Cari. Pretty sure that's wrong."

  "Takes two to tango," she shoots back. "And Victor and Dimitri have been falling apart for years. If they were happy together, he wouldn't be with us every waking minute. He wouldn't have kissed you or let any of this happen. He wouldn't have needed to." She stares at me. "Happy people don't fool around on their partners. Something was broken there for a long time before you came along."

  "It doesn't matter, because he's with Victor," I say stubbornly.

  She's quiet, but it's that kind of heavy quiet that makes me scowl. "If you have something to say, just say it."

  "I think you know," she says evenly.

  "Don't be fucking cryptic," I snap, grumpy. She arches an eyebrow and her grip on my hair tightens, just a tiny bit. Enough that I relent and ease up against her, muttering sorry into her knee.

  "It's going to be okay," she murmurs in answer. And I want to believe her. I want to believer her so damn badly.

  I just can't.

  When Cari starts packing on Thursday, five days after Victor arrived on set, I remember.

  “Fuck,” I snarl, and she looks up at me, her eyes sympathetic. “Did you forget?”

  I grunt at her and stare at my closet.

  I normally love conventions. It’s a big party. Cari once joked that it was a weekend long slumber party with the cast of Fractal Ends, and it’s not that far off. And I like getting close to the fans. It’s a chance to interact and hear what we’re doing wrong and right on a level that I don’t usually get. I love the girls in cosplay and the guys who look a little embarrassed to be there, but also reluctantly excited. I love the cast in the green room and the hectic pace of the autograph lines. I adore the ever-increasing creativity in photo ops.

  But it’s also unrelenting exposure to Dimitri, and I’ve been doing my best to avoid that for five days.

  “Do I have to go?” I mutter and Cari presses alongside me, a friendly steady warmth.

  “Yeah, babe. You do. But we’ll hide as much as possible.”

  I roll my eyes and she nudges me forward. “Black jeans and your Imagine Dragons shirt. And your leather jacket.”

  “For the panels?”

  She hums a quiet affirmative and then reaches out and grabs a gray button-down. A black one. And then shoves me lightly toward my dresser. “Not picking
out your boxers, dude. Get to it.”

  It’s easy to fall into rhythm with her, and within an hour, we’re packed. I toss my script for the next episode on top of my bag. “We leaving after filming tomorrow?”

  She nods. “I’ve got the tickets on my tablet. We’re on a flight out at eleven fifty.”

  “Where are we even going?”

  She side eyes me for a second, and I see that flash of concern that’s becoming annoyingly familiar over the past few days. I’m tired of seeing concern in her eyes. It’s my job to take care of her, and having the tables so abruptly turned is throwing me off.

  “Detroit,” she says softly.

  I nod again and she hesitates, and then. “You okay, sweetie?”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  It’s an answer spit out on instinct without stopping to consider if it’s true or not.

  I’m okay because I have to be okay, because being anything but okay would mean that Dimitri has hurt me, and I’m not ready to do that.

  “You should talk to him,” she says, abruptly. It startles me. Because she’s been pretty quiet and letting me deal with shit on my own terms. I’m not sure what to make of her changing that.

  “What exactly will that accomplish?” I ask softly. “He’s with Vic. I’m not gonna break up his happy little family.”

  If I could, I would have in the month we were together, before Victor showed up and brought it all crashing down.

  I shove the thought aside. “Let’s just go. Enjoy the weekend. Okay?”

  And slowly, like she doesn’t want to, but she does anyway—she nods. “Okay.

  James and Jax are on our flight, as loud and ridiculous as always, and Cari positions us between them and Dimitri. I see him register it, the very small slight, and the flash of hurt in his eyes. I try to ignore him but it bothers me, and her words come back to me.

  You should talk to him.

  I need to. The cold war silence we've been doing on set for six days won't work under the close scrutiny we'll be subjected to for the next three days, and I'm tired of it. So I wait until the plane takes off and reaches altitude and then I glance at her. "I need to talk to him."

  "Do you really think an overly full 747 is the place for that, especially with James and Jax right behind us?"

  The two actors hit Fractal Ends mid-season two, when Anne and Josef were traveling through time to try to stop an upcoming plague unleashed by a bad fairy tale villain gone rogue.

  This is my life. Sometimes I wonder where the hell I went wrong.

  "I think it should probably happen before we get to the con hotel."

  She nods. "I'll go to the hotel with Kristoff and Jeb. Share a cab with Dimitri," she says and I nod. Lean against her shoulder in thanks and she kisses my forehead and pats my knee before her attention returns to the book she's reading.

  I'm not really sure what I did to deserve Cari but I thank god for it every day.

  Two hours later, Cari snags Jeb and whispers in his ear as she juggles her carry on and oversized purse, and Jeb frowns back at me before nodding.

  I think we make our bodyguard’s job difficult when we do shit like this, but he at least lets us get away with it. Which is how I find myself shoved unceremoniously into a cab with Dimitri, with Cari yelling she’d see us soon and then dragging Kristoff away, trailed by a longsuffering looking Jeb.

  Dimitri has a moment to look startled, before the cabbie pulls away.

  For a few moments, there’s a tense silence and then, “Not that I don’t love your company, but I was under the impression you’d prefer not to be in mine.”

  I shrug. "We're about to be surrounded by a thousand fangirls for the weekend. Do you really think we can avoid each other?"

  "Do you want to?" he asks, ignoring the question.

  "I want to go back to normal," I say, something I didn't realize I was going to say until it's out there. "I don't want to fight, and I’m fucking tired of the tension. Let's stop and go back to what we had."

  Dimitri stares at me for a long moment and then, "I don't think I can."

  "Dimitri," I start.

  "No, you said your piece. Now it's my turn. You want what we had before this thing between us started. And I don't think I can do that. I know I don't want to do that. I fucked up and I'll take responsibility for that. But I want you, Camden."

  "It doesn't matter what you want," I say.

  And he kisses me.

  Quick and deep and fucking filthy, a press of hard lips and sharp teeth and the warm wet slide of his tongue against mine.

  Everything I've wanted and missed for fucking days.

  I moan into it, before I remember that this isn't mine. That it can't be mine.

  And he's grinning when he pulls back, this self-satisfied little smirk that I want to punch him for. His eyes are bright and smug when he says, "I'm used to getting what I want."

  We've been doing these cons, six weekends a year, and four international, for long enough that it's a well-oiled machine. When we pull up to the hotel, con staff is waiting, and escorts us upstairs, to the top floor that's been reserved for the cast and family from the show. Fangirls are watching as they usher us to the elevators, and even though I can feel the excitement coming off them in steady waves, they give us space, whispering amongst themselves as they take pictures.

  Dimitri leans into me. "You know this is going to set off the Blackden shippers," he mutters into my ear and I shove down the urge to shiver by a sheer force of will.

  Nudge him away from me. "Maybe don't give them more fodder."

  "Maybe don't look like you've just been fucked," he murmurs so low I barely hear the words.

  But they do drag a shiver from me and I send a scowl at him.

  "Behave in front of the fucking fangirls, Dimitri," I mutter.

  He gives me an unrepentant grin.

  And that sets the tone. He's playful and flirty and when he thinks he can, downright filthy. When we gather for the cast dinner, Dimitri nudges Kristoff and Cari out of the way, sits next to me and proceeds to fuck with me for the better part of two hours.

  At one point, his hand was curved around my cock, while I grit my teeth and he talked to Evans about the upcoming episode and what he had envisioned for Farley's arc in season seven.

  It was interesting, but I was more interested in not coming in my pants in front of half my coworkers.

  During autographs on Saturday morning, he was flirty and sweet, exchanging smiles and dirty stories with fans, and sending quick glances at me every time I looked away from him.

  Once he was asked about Victor and I saw his face flush before he smiled and shrugged. "He's busy with his music. He was hoping to be here, but our schedules just don't line up the way we'd like."

  I frown into the picture I'm signing and ignore his too hard stare, and try very hard to not wonder what the hell that means.

  The best part of conventions aren’t the hours with fans, or the drunken cast dinner, or even the quiet in my hotel room with Cari after it’s over.

  It’s the green room. It's where we aren't expected to perform, where it's safe to be rude and annoying and exhausted and whatever other myriad emotions we couldn't show the fans.

  I'm there, with Carissa leaning against me, after the autograph session. Jax and James are on stage, in the middle of a panel. Dimitri stumbles into the green room with his handler and I tense because every time I've seen him today, he's been pushing.

  I'm on edge and have no idea what to expect from him but the way he shakes off his handler and stares at me with bright, narrow eyes from across the room.

  I know he's got something in store for me and I know it's not gonna be good.

  He turns away from me, grabs a bottle of water and saunters over to a group of chairs. Diana, a recurring guest star that I adore, is sitting there, and she lights up when he lands in the seat next to her.

  Dimitri flirts like it's a fucking sport. I've always known that and I know it doesn't mean anythi
ng. But it bothers me a little that he's flirting with her, when I'm sitting a few feet away and last night he was working me to orgasm in front of her.

  So I watch from the corner of my eye as he chats with her and flirts and fucks around on his phone.

  Cari nudges me with a tiny fist, grumpy when she leans against me. “You’re scowling. Stop being scowly. He’s allowed to have friends.”

  I want to argue with that. Want to explain that he's not because he's mine. And then I want to throw up because what the actual fuck. Didn't I just say that we couldn't be more than friends?

  My phone buzzes in my hand and I glance down at it.

  Dimitri: You stare at me like that when I'm sucking your cock.

  I let out a slow breath and then.

  Dimitri: You blush like that too, especially when I do that thing with my tongue that you like.

  I should turn off my phone. I know I should. But.

  Camden: Gonna need you to be more specific. You do a lot of things with your tongue.

  Diana is talking about her daughter now, who just started pre-K. Dimitri makes an interested little noise as he reads his phone and his lips curl up into a smirk.

  Dimitri: Oh, that one thing I do when I lick you open while you’re begging to come and I won't let you.

  I remember that night. He'd gone down on me for what felt like hours, and never let me come. And then he'd rimmed me for even longer, until I was over the shock of it and thrusting back against him, begging for more as he tongue fucked me.

  When he finally gave me his fingers, it was lazy and easy and I came almost immediately, screaming and splashing across my chest.

  He licked it off me and rubbed against me in a slow sensuous glide of rolling hips and wet kissed before he came with a silent gasp against my neck.

  That was a good night.

  Dimitri: I want to do that again.

  I swallow down my groan and he meets my gaze across the room as my phone lights up again.