What We Left Unsaid

”Well, what the fuck do I do now?”

The only answer to her question was the muffled humming of the air conditioning unit and her own, irritated huff.

”Stupid!” she added with a hiss and a disapproving shake of her head, hands moving to rest on her hips. “But you just couldn’t fucking help yourself, could you? So you fucking leave your goddamn friend out in the hallway all night. That’s so fucking stupid!”

Slowly, she let her arms drop back down to her sides and she crossed the room, stepping carelessly over the body that was still strewn across the floor and dropping herself down onto the couch. She let out a sigh as she leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees and hands clasping together. Her head tilted as she considered the whole situation.

“I should just leave you here to deal with the consequences of your own fucking actions,” she thought aloud, “and I really don’t think the guys would disapprove, honestly. But, on the other hand, we can’t exactly put someone on a plane who’s in and out of consciousness because of the pain, can we? So what should I do, Baker? What should I fucking do?”

With a shake of her head and a loud sigh, she scooted forward a bit on the couch and leaned down so that she was better able to reach the man’s face and turn it towards her. She gave his cheek two quick pats, but when he didn’t immediately wake, she happily switched to a full-force slap that echoed across the room. He stirred immediately.

”Ah!” Zacky hissed out in a pain-filled cry, before suddenly groaning and raising both of his hands right back up to his head. The force with which he clutched the sides of his face turned his hands white, and the way his entire body immediately tensed had his breathing quickly switching into very rapid, very shallow pants; his pain-filled reaction was clearly to more than just the one slap, hard as it might have been. It took almost a full minute for him to finally force open his eyes, and another few seconds for them to finally land on her, but when they did, he quickly tried to jump up. “Rinaldi, I--”

Pressing her foot to his chest and easily pinning him back down on the ground, for he barely had any of his strength at the moment, she gave him a patronizing smile and a loud tsk. “Easy there, Baker,” she told him in a tone much too relaxed for the situation at hand, “trying to stand up right now would not be beneficial.”

But he looked as if he completely disagreed, and she figured that was because he had managed to figure out what needed to happen in order to make his pain go away. “Rinaldi, please!” he begged her with desperation clear in his voice, even as he slumped back into the ground and pinched his eyes shut again. He made a small noise of pain before he forced them open once again, those amber eyes of his pleading with her. “Please make it stop!” he asked of her weakly. “Fucking please! I need your goddamn help right now!”

She only tilted her head in curiosity, looking down at him with an expression of simple contemplation, her face showing absolutely no trace of sympathy for his obvious agony. “And... why should I help you right now?”

He let out a low growl, agitation obvious, and those pleading eyes of his quickly narrowed back to a glare. “Because I’m your fucking mate!”

She only clicked her tongue disapprovingly in response. “Wrong answer. So fucking wrong, it’s almost laughable. Would you like to play again?”

“Because...” he started, his tone sounding almost deflated before he paused to groan and pinch his eyes shut again, rolling onto his side and curling his body up. He panted for a moment, then finally blinked open his eyes and looked at her, eyes pleading once again. “Because I would do it for you. Because, as much as we fight, you know that there’s more between us than just hatred. Because I care about you, Rinaldi, and because you care about me.”

Ava was silent as she only stared back at him, taking in his solemn, sincere expression and finally letting the mask on her own face drop. Her eyes were thick with emotion, her brows furrowing at his little revelation, and her lips tugging down into a deep frown as she held his gaze, looking thoroughly touched. Then, little by little, the corners of her lips and her eyebrows started to twitch, and it wasn’t long before her expression was morphing into one of absolute amusement, a wide grin on her lips as she laughed wholeheartedly. Her amusement only grew when the man before her scowled and glared back up at her moodily. “Oh my gosh was that fucking hilarious! I have to give you credit, Man, that was pretty damn heartwarming and emotional; I’d give it an... eight out of ten, I think. Could have been better had you tried to throw in a proposal into the mix, but I understand you’re not exactly in your best state of mind at the moment.”

“Fuck you!”

“And there’s the Baker that I know and hate!” She had a cheeky grin on her face as she spoke to him, and her response earned her a roll of the guitarist’s eyes and then an small laugh that he was apparently unable to contain.

“God, I fucking hate you. It was worth a fucking shot!” Zacky argued, but the usual venom in his tone was absent, partially because he was clearly drifting closer and closer toward unconsciousness again, his eyes no longer focused on her and his hands no longer white from the force of them pressing to his head. “You always were a heartless bitch, though, weren’t you?”

She had to snort at that particular comment of his, finally pulling her foot off of his chest when it was obvious he wouldn’t be able to get up anyways. “No need to be nasty, Baker,” she responded somewhat prissily, before rolling her eyes and blowing out a deep breath. “Relax; I can’t exactly interrogate you if you’re unconscious again, so I’ll make it stop,” she told him as she slid forward and dropped down onto her knees, giving his chest a reassuring pat before scrunching up her nose in irritation. “I swear, if you had any more strength than you do right now, I’d make you take a fucking shower and scrub at that goddamn smell first because I can still smell... is that the goddamn bartender from last night? Really?” She rolled her eyes. “You’re lucky I’m helping you when you smell like sex and her.”

His response was so quiet she could barely hear it. “You smell like Brian.”

Her laughter was immediate. “No fucking shit! We’re in a pack; that’s what fucking happens. I smell like Brian, like Johnny, like both of the Berrys, like Matt, and even like Kat. Hell, Baker, I even smell like you!”

“Not enough.”

And that was when she was certain he was completely delirious. Rolling her eyes and snorting, she didn’t even bother to acknowledge his commentary with a response, instead just pulling him up in a seating position and leaning forward so that the marking on her neck was right in front of his face and easy enough for him to reach. Even in his delirious state, there was no hesitation before his jaws were locking down onto her, his arms just as suddenly able to wrap themselves tightly around her torso and pull her forward so that she was kneeling, straddling him.

Just like the last time, she didn’t fight him at all, allowing him to pull her into him without complaint and molding easily into the position he wanted her in. But, unlike the last time, there wasn’t a rough and demanding phase as he held her to him; he went immediately into the gentle phase. Both of his hands stroked down her sides until they rested on her hips, his fingers giving them a soft squeeze as he practically moaned into her neck. And, as uncomfortable as she was with that whole situation, she kept herself still, because she knew better than to struggle against him when he had his teeth sunk in the junction of her neck and shoulder.

Ava only deemed it acceptable to pull away from him when, after quite a long period of time, he finally relaxed his jaw and pulled back so that he wasn’t biting her any longer, his tongue moving over her marking in a remarkably soothing way. But that one simple motion had her very suddenly jumping back, standing up and putting a decent amount of distance between them as she looked down at him warily. He, of course, only looked back at her with that stupid lost look that she was starting to seriously despise.

“What the fuck happened last night?” she asked, figuring there was no reason to not immediately jump to the point now that he wasn’t delirious from pain or anything. It took him a moment to snap out of his confusion, but when he did, his expression immediately morphed into irritation and he jumped up to his feet, already starting toward the door. She sighed. “You still need me to give you the tea, so why don’t you be a good little boy and answer my fucking question, yeah?”

Stopping in his tracks and slowly turning around, he let out a low growl and sent her a dark glare that told her exactly how much he appreciated her holding the tea over his head. The triumphant smirk on her lips was meant to tell him absolutely nothing about the fact that she had left that tea right in his room where he could easily get to it if he simply told her to fuck off and refused to play along. “Rinaldi,” he drew out in warning, leaving his statement purposely unfinished.

She only arched an eyebrow. “Hey, it’s your choice. But if you walk out that door, Baker, I’m not going to help you when you come running back to me wishing to lose consciousness. Your choice.”

Zacky growled lowly in response, taking a few very deliberate, very predatory steps toward her with his expression as dark as she’d ever seen. “You really want me to answer that question, Princess? Because I don’t really think you want me to run through all of those details! But, hey, your choice. Should I start by explaining how much more enjoyable it was to be with her than with you?”

The blonde only blinked. “I should certainly hope it was! Otherwise I really don’t understand what all the hype is about.” When the dark expression on the guitarist’s face only dropped into one of obvious agitation, she couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, come on, Baker! I’m not Brian. You really thought that would piss me off enough to want to be done with this conversation? Maybe you’re mind’s still fogged up, after all!”

He only growled once again in response. “What do you fucking want to know, then, huh?! Ask your goddamn questions and get on with it before the fucking pain comes back, will you?”

Though she didn’t exactly like the fact that she was going to be doing what he was demanding she do, she did sober up relatively quickly, because she knew that there were things that needed to be discussed. “You didn’t hurt her or anything, right? You didn’t scare her off by fucking shifting or anything?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, she just fucking left after we were done. I don’t hurt women, Rinaldi!”

Her expression betrayed her lack of trust in that particular statement, but she said no more on the matter. “Then the destroyed room?”

“Happened after the fact. You know, when I was stumbling around completely blinded by pain and unable to even figure out what was going on before I was incapable of moving or calling for help. You knew about that, didn’t you?”

She scoffed at the accusatory look he sent her way. “And you didn’t? Werewolves literally never fuck around when their mated, and you’re going to stand there and tell me you didn’t realize there was a reason for that? Jesus, Baker! Do I need to teach you what a fucking litter is, too? Did you learn literally nothing about your own goddamn species when you were growing up?!”

”I never had a fucking heart to heart with my goddamn parents!” he roared, much louder than he should have given the fact that they were in a hotel room. But the fury in his tone and in his expression made it clear he hadn’t really been concerned about controlling his volume, at least not until he winced upon hearing how his own voice echoed. When he continued, his tone was just as furious, but much quieter. “How the fuck was I supposed to know any of this shit, huh!?”

At his outburst, she only growled and threw her hands up in the air, forcing herself to turn around and walk away from him before she started something that would really get the guests next door to call the police on them. She refused to feel sorry for him about this; it was ridiculous! “This isn’t one of those big pureblood secrets! We’re talking about basic fucking facts here, damn it! These are things you should just know or at least pick up in conversation or something. I guarantee you that every single one of our friends is well aware that there’s a goddamn consequence to royally fucking over your wolf half like that, Baker! Fucking hell! You even told me one of the reasons you didn’t want a mate was because you didn’t want to be tied down to one person! Were we having some kind of weird figurative conversation I wasn’t aware of?”

“I didn’t know, okay?” he drew out, over-annunciating each word as glared angrily at her. She could see the way he was flexing and releasing his fingers to fight off some of the extra irritation he felt, and was honestly rather surprised that he hadn’t resorted to violence just yet. Almost as if he could hear her confusion, Zacky took in a deep breath and sent her a pointed look. “So will you give me the goddamn tea already or what?”

Blowing out her own long sigh, she shook her head, doing her best to fight off all of the anxiousness she was starting to feel from the pent-up irritation. And she knew how dangerous that exact restlessness would be in a hotel room. She had to blink her eyes shut for a moment and take a few soothing breaths, before she finally nodded and looked back at him. “Fine, what the fuck ever. It’s in your goddamn room. But let’s be clear for once, Baker; you know now, and you damn well better not go and do something this fucking stupid again. I won’t help you again!”

He didn’t even wait around to hear the rest of her comment after she told him where the tea was, already at the door by the time she had finished speaking. He did, however, pause there for a moment and glance back over his shoulder at her, looking as if he was having some kind of internal debate with himself. “Why do you even fucking care?” he finally asked, turning more so that he was actually facing her as he waited for an answer. “I know you’re not jealous, so why does it even matter to you if it happens again? You’re not the one who has to deal with the pain.”

She rolled her eyes, arms crossing in front of her chest as she stared back at him with irritation. “I’m a fucking Rinaldi, Baker. Understatement of the century? We don’t do well with embarrassment. Besides, even if this wasn’t embarrassing as hell, the fact that you were actually willing to risk Johnny’s safety by kicking him out into the hallway when we’re not in our territory and someone out there knows to use silver ag--”

“Johnny was in the fucking hallway last night? Again?” The concern that flashed across his face appeared genuine, but was very quickly replaced with anger. “I told you I don’t sell out my fucking friends! Last I heard, Johnny had decided he was going to stick around downstairs with Jason even though the bar had already closed. I would never have left him in the goddamn hallway! That’s more your style. Remember the last time you came to a show with us? Yeah, you better watch your fucking accusations!”

The door was slammed shut behind him before she even had a chance to react.