Title: first time

Pairing/s: Multiple

Disclaimer: drops this and runs

Rachel was fifteen.

Rachel was fifteen and beautiful, and terrifying, and a little bit scarred and a little bit cracked. Not broken, but shattered, lines running all through her and chasing after smiles and brittle laughter. She was fifteen and he was tall and brunette and in every way wholly, totally, not Tobias. He ran his hands up her ribs, whispering, sighing, while Rachel tried very hard not to think about sad brown eyes or pale, bony fingers.

She couldn't look at Tobias for a day afterwards. He never knew. Rachel died with that secret held tight in her fist, like the pieces of herself she'd clung furiously to for so long.

Cassie was nineteen.

She wasn't the type to fall head-first into things (not like Rachel, never like Rachel.) Cassie thought and weighed concepts over in her mind. She was the balance, the scales, and it wasn't Ronnie, or Jake in the end. It was a man with sparkling grey eyes and a charming laugh, who proposed to her on the fifth of September in her parents' house. He was the father of her first child, but not her second. Cassie married once and then never again, and sometimes at night she stared out at the stars, thinking about nothing and everything all at once.

There wasn't a bone in her body that didn't wish it had been Jake instead.

Tobias was sixteen.

She'd come to him at night, the night before everything went to shit and all the sadness in his heart had twisted into a cold, dead hatred. Rachel's hands were soft but she kissed him hard, and if he'd known-if he'd just fucking known--he wouldn't have wasted it. He would have made love to Rachel all night and held her close to him, but he didn't know, and when it was all over he pretended he was asleep while Rachel ran her fingers through his hair and whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," again and again until he thought his ears would explode with the sound. Tobias loved Rachel with all that he had, in a tragic, fateful way, and it was that love that destroyed him, in the end.

He blamed Jake, but he blamed himself, too, for loving a girl who couldn't live without sacrifice.

Marco was eight.

There were a lot of babysitters. A lot of teachers, a lot of social workers. If you asked Marco, he wouldn't tell you which one it was. Then again, if you asked him, he would deny it ever happened. Or say he didn't remember it, but that would be a lie (Marco was always lying). The truth was, Marco couldn't remember his mother's voice, but he remembered that, of all things, dark hair, big hands, fake smiles, angry lips.

No one ever knew, because Marco never told. A yeerk for a mom and a manic-depressive for a dad-no, he couldn't tell, never ever ever. And maybe Jake wondered, but he never said anything, because Jake was a good friend and his stomach twisted whenever he thought about it.

When the blade ship was looming in their vision, Jake gave Marco's shoulder a quick squeezed and murmured, "sorry." Marco's last thoughts were, "you've got a lot to be sorry for."

(Marco was best at lying to himself.)

Jake was seventeen.

It was rough and greasy and all harsh lips clawing down soft skin and muscle. A prostitute in a grimy back alley, the smell of strong perfume, old smoke. Jake took her against a brick wall and muffled his hurt in shrugged-off ecstasy, and because he was probably the most decent guy for miles, drove her home after. Jake never cried but he wanted to. All the ache in his heart, all the guilt, all the anger, every thought of why me, I hate this, I'm disgusting, was released in a final, quiet, broken cry of "cassie."

He called her, later. She never answered.

Ax-Ax never had a first time.

Ax died young, like his brother. Ax was the human equivalent of thirteen when he crashed to the earth. Ax was a child soldier long before any of the others were, and a soldier long after. Ax was the alien.

When the war was over and the Andalites finally came, Ax went to his parents' scoop. His mother pressed her forehead to his for a long time. She showed him a very pretty Andalite girl with pretty green eyes and a gentle smile, but Ax very quickly learned he was now as much an alien on his own planet as he had been on Earth for so long.

He thought of Estrid, sometimes, and Jake. But deep inside he knew he could never be anything but alone. Ax was the alien. (he would never belong.)

Ax died young and tragically and pointlessly, and it was then-only then-that he was finally home.

fin