For You

Summary: MC (Freya) and Colt spend the day together and return to a familiar place. A future fic that assumes MC stays in LA.

The same horrible dream keeps plaguing her. It jerks her awake, gasping for breath, at the same time every night. Tonight is no different. Freya bolts upright in bed, breathing hard and clutching the sheets. She glances at the clock. 3:03 AM. What is it about this time?

She takes a shuddery breath, willing her grip to loosen. A warm, familiar hand runs slowly over her back.

“Nightmare?” Colt asks sleepily.

“Yeah. I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I don’t mean to keep waking you up.”

Colt yawns and sits up beside her. His arm wraps around her waist and she leans into him.

“Don’t apologize.”

“I just wish they’d stop.”

“I know.” Colt squeezes his arm tighter. His face is pinched with frustration when she looks at him.

“What is it?” she asks.

He tugs her back down to the bed so they’re lying face to face. His lips brush over hers.

“I wish I could help.”

“You do,” she reassures him. “You’re here. That helps.”

Colt pulls her closer and she nuzzles into his neck, his warmth and his familiar scent relaxing her.

“I love you,” he says.

Freya tilts her head up, capturing his lips with hers. “I love you too.”

The next time she wakes up, it’s to the sun starting to shine through the window. Colt is holding onto her, his chest pressed to her back and his face buried in her hair. He’s still asleep, his breathing slow and even. She tries to ease out of his arms but he wakes almost immediately.

“You know you try to sneak out every morning and it never works,” he mumbles sleepily.

Freya grins. “I’m not trying to sneak out. I keep wanting to surprise you with breakfast and you keep ruining it.”

He props himself up over her, his lips drifting down her neck. “I don’t want breakfast. I just want you.”

The words make her laugh. “I can’t tell if that was supposed to be really cheesy or really dirty.”

“Whatever you want it to be.”

He kisses down to her collarbone, pulling the strap of her tank top aside to kiss her shoulder.

“Mmm… Colt…” She threads her fingers through his hair.

His hand drifts under the thin fabric, roving over her stomach. She arches instinctively into his touch, whimpering quietly when he pulls her shirt over her head and kisses down her chest.

Heat pools in her belly when she wraps her legs around him and he groans, his hips thrusting into hers.

“God, Freya… “

He eases her pajama shorts off, then her underwear. A smirk crosses his lips when she pushes at the waistband of his boxer briefs.

“You’re so damn impatient,” he murmurs, pulling them off and nipping at her neck.

“That’s entirely your fault.”

She moans as they start moving together, holding onto him tightly.

“Oh, Colt,” she sighs.

She will never tire of the feeling of him against her, the way they fit so easily together. Her hands drift over his back, into his hair, down again, until her fingers dig into his skin and she cries out. Colt groans and collapses against her.

Sometimes she still can’t quite believe they’re here. After everything that had happened, the last thing she’d expected for them was a happy ending. And yet, Colt is next to her, has been morning after morning, night after night. His fingers lazily tangle with hers.

“I can feel your brain working. What are you thinking about?” he asks her.

Freya shrugs. “Nothing in particular. Just happy we’re here.”

She feels his lips quirk up against her neck.

“Shut up,” she laughs. “I didn’t just mean naked and in your bed.”

His eyes meet hers when she rests her head on her hand so she can look at him.

“I’m happy we can actually be here together. It’s so… normal.”

“I told you we wouldn’t let anything stop us,” Colt says confidently.

“I know. It was just hard to believe it would actually happen sometimes.”

Freya lays back down next to him. “And I still can’t believe you stuck around LA and came back to school.”

“It was that or listen to you keep nagging me about it.”

She starts to protest, but he kisses her, hard. “And I’m glad you did,” he breathes against her lips.

“You’re welcome.”

Colt smirks. “You’re just glad I stayed because I live alone and we don’t have to hang out in your dorm room.”

Freya shakes her head and lightly punches his shoulder. “Oh yes. Totally just using you for your apartment.”

“At least you admit it.”

She huffs playfully and settles back against him. One of his hands trails up and down her back and she closes her eyes.

“Are you still glad you stayed here?” he asks.

She knows him well enough by now that she can hear the slightest hesitation behind the question. She opens her eyes.

“I am,” she answers without pause.

She thinks about Colt, about her dad, about all the reasons she’d stayed.

“Leaving didn’t feel right,” she continues. “Not after everything.”

“Even though Langston was your dream college?”

Freya kisses him soundly. “Yes. I realized there are more important things. And I’m still in a good college.”

“I would’ve come with you, you know,” Colt says after a moment.

She’s momentarily stunned. They’d talked about staying together, wanting to be together, after everything was said and done, but… “You would have?”

Colt nods. “I don’t have anyone here anymore. Wouldn’t have missed anything.”

She cups his cheek in her hand, and the tinge of regret in his eyes slowly starts to disappear. “You still have people here, Colt.”

She fully expects him to repeat that he doesn’t, but instead he just offers her a half-smile and says, “We should get up.”

“Why? It’s Saturday. We don’t have class.”

She snuggles back into his chest and locks her arms around his waist. She grumbles when he disentangles her and sits upright.

“C’mon. I’ll buy you donuts from that stupidly expensive place down the street.”

Freya cracks an eye open. “… fine,” she relents.

The bakery she loves is crowded, but they manage to snag a table outside. She laughs when Colt ends up with chocolate icing decorating his lips and kisses it off.

“Tease,” he mutters when she traces the tip of her tongue over his lower lip.

“You love it,” she counters back, stealing the last donut from the box.

“Mmm,” she mumbles blissfully through a mouthful of fried dough and sweet maple icing.

Colt watches her with amusement.

“What? I have my boyfriend and donuts. It’s Saturday. It’s sunny. What else could I possibly need?”

He considers her. “I have an idea.”

She takes his hand as they walk back to his apartment and climb onto his motorcycle, though he won’t tell her where they’re going. She wraps her arms around him, holding a little tighter than strictly necessary, and feels his muscles contract under her touch. As he zips around traffic and the scenery flies by, it starts to look familiar.

They haven’t been back here since the first time, and memories wash over her.

She’d been falling for Colt, and honestly feeling stupid about it at times. As much as she’d been stubbornly determined to get to know him, he’d been so hellbent on keeping her (hell, keeping everyone) out. He was impossible. He made her want to throttle him sometimes, to tell him to stop being such a sarcastic asshole.

But you couldn’t control your feelings, she’d realized, whether they were meant to be returned or not. Then he’d kissed her, and those feelings had exploded into something she knew she really wouldn’t be able to stop.

Though she’d wondered at the time if those feelings were a mistake after he’d kept the truth from her about the Brotherhood and his plan, she’s had no doubts since then of her feelings for him and how deeply he returns them. Colt’s not one to do things in half-measures. She knows how much he loves her.

He helps her off his motorcycle and they wander towards the edge of the cliff. She peers over the edge.

“I swear it wasn’t that far down before,” Freya says.

Colt is silent. She glances over and finds he’s already stripped down to his underwear.

“I don’t recall agreeing to jump,” she teases him.

Colt shrugs, pulling her towards him and trailing his hands under her shirt. She sucks in a breath at his touch.

“I didn’t agree to jump with you either.”

She stands still, letting him start to undress her.

“Not gonna help?”

“Nope,” she says. “You seem to have a handle on it.”

He smirks and kneels to unzip her pants, dragging his lips down her stomach. When he stands back up, she loops her arms around his neck. She’s all too aware they’re mostly naked, but right in that moment, she doesn’t care.

“Why’d you bring me here, Colt?”

He tilts his head down, resting his forehead on hers. “You remember what I told you the first time we came here?”

Freya nods. “That your dad used to make you jump. And that you weren’t sure what he was trying to teach you, but that after that, coming here brought you peace.”

Realization washes over her as she says the words. “Oh. My nightmares…”

“Maybe it’s stupid, but-”

Freya places her fingers over his lips. “It’s not stupid.”

It’s his way of trying to help her, and she appreciates it more than she can say right now. Colt kisses her fingertips and she shivers at the sensation. She moves her hand to his cheek and brings her mouth to his, kissing him long and slow. “Thank you.”

A warm breeze drifts over them as they stand on the cliff. Adrenaline and nerves flutter through her stomach, but Colt takes her hand and grins at her.

“Ready?”

“No,” she laughs, but she jumps with him anyway.

She isn’t sure if she’s laughing or screaming as they leave the ground behind. Wind gusts around them as they fall, Colt’s fingers staying firmly laced with hers as they hit the water. The ocean is cold as the water rushes over her head, momentarily making her breath catch in her chest. And yet, as she bursts to the surface and the sun hits her face, she undeniably feels that sense of peace Colt was talking about.

It’s like doing something so undeniably nerve-wracking but exhilarating has made everything else seem easier to cope with, smaller in comparison. She smiles at Colt’s wet hair falling into his face and moves closer to him. He tilts her chin up, capturing her lips. He tastes faintly of the salt from the water and she sighs as he holds her against him, resting her head against his shoulder. They float for a couple minutes, treading water. Colt is staring out at the ocean, though he looks back at her when she lifts her head up.

“We came here for you too, didn’t we?” she asks.

He looks startled for a second, then says, “Yeah. Maybe.”

She waits patiently for him to continue, running her fingers lightly over the back of his neck and into the ends of his hair.

“I just wish I knew what my pop would think about what I’m doing now, you know?”

Freya nods. She knows what he means. “I think he’d be happy you’re making your own path. Everything you’re doing, all the choices you make, it’s because you want to.”

Colt’s quiet for a long moment, staring back out at the water, then says, “I think you’re right.”

He kisses her again and murmurs “Thank you” against her mouth.

“For what?”

“This. Everything. You’re one of the best damn things to ever happen to me, Freya.”

“You’re one of the best things to ever happen to me too, you know,” she says.

They start swimming towards the shore.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She can see the grin still on his face when they start climbing back up the hill and elbows his side playfully. “Even when you’re being impossible.”

“I haven’t been impossible today,” Colt counters back.

“Uhhh, you made me get out of bed. Early. On a Saturday.”

His eyes linger on her as they dry off and pull their clothes back on.

“It wasn’t even early.”

“It was before 10 AM.”

“And then I bought you overpriced donuts.”

“Okay, you’re being impossible right now,” Freya laughs, pressing her lips to his before he can come back with anything else.

They get lost in the kiss, his fingers tangling in the damp locks of her hair and her arms winding around his neck. Finally she pulls away, a little breathless, and touches her fingertips to his kiss-swollen mouth.

“Ready?” Colt asks her.

She glances back out over the cliff and the rolling blue waves of the Pacific, then tugs her helmet on. “Ready.”