Chapter Text
Belly has never not wanted Conrad Fisher in a way that made her feel a bit delirious,a bit disgusted with herself and very, very, guilty. Even before she knew him at all, she remembers just wishing that he were hers; predictably, it had been the moment she laid her eyes on him. She remembers wishing, no--praying, that he were single, before deciding that him being single would hurt worse than if he had someone. They met for the first time ever on the third of July, at exactly 11:21 AM, twelve years ago, when towards the beginning of her and Jeremiah's relationship, he had taken her to his summer house in a small town called "Cousins" for their family's fourth of july party.
Belly was skeptical about meeting his family for the first time just three months into their relationship but Jeremiah had turned his puppy dog eyes and had said, "Come on, my mom will love you, and I guarantee you that you would love her more.", he had said, kissing her forehead in a way that calmed all her nerves instantly. Everything was just so easy with him. She could just be herself, she could just let go, always knowing that Jeremiah will be there for her. He made her feel safe and secure in a way that she always thought was necessary in a relationship. Plus, he is hot almost to a fault and also happens to be a great kisser. They became friends when she visited Finch before taking admission and he was in charge of showing everyone around the college. Fast forward to six months later, when they were swimming at night in the college pool, trying to splash each other with water, he'd said that he wished they could be more than friends.
Now, prior to that moment, had she thought about it? Of course she had, once or twice when his blue eyes would linger on her for a moment too long. Jeremiah Fisher was someone that everyone wanted. He lit up every room he went into, always being the centre of attention. From his tanned skin to his piercing blue eyes to his extremely pointed nose to his full lips to his beautiful dark blonde curls---choosing to give him a chance had been the easiest thing ever, and that ease continued into their relationship for the next three months, until they went to that godforsaken party and everything changed, even though, to everyone else,including Jeremiah, everything looked exactly the same.
"I don't know, Jere... I'm sure your mom is great, but your dad will also be there right?", she had said, fumbling with the hem of her t-shirt, remembering how Jeremiah wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of his father. " I'm pretty sure he won't be. Even if he were, my brother's gonna be there, so that would mellow the dickhead inside of him by a mile. He'll be too busy to impress and bond with Connie to notice us.", Jeremiah had shrugged, as if his father's blatant preference of his brother over him didn’t bother him at all. He never talks about it, ever. One would expect his relationship with his brother to be strained, but it is actually quite the opposite. His brother goes to Brown, just an hour away from Finch-- so they see each other almost every other day and each time Jeremiah is back at Finch, he is even more sunshiny than his usual self.
Belly remembers him telling her one night when he was almost blackout drunk, that both his parents had always loved his brother more than him, in a way that was so noticeable, and so unfair that he wanted to hate his brother. "The worst part is,", he said with a hiccup, "Conrad's just himself, he's not trying to take anything from me at all. He feels more guilty about being the favorite than I feel sad about not being enough. I think he's the only person in my family that truly loves me, for me. I don't need to ace school or be a quarterback or score some fancy internship for him to love me. He just loves me because I'm me. It makes me so mad at him, you know. If he were just an insufferable dickhead, it would have been so much easier. I mean, he is insufferable at times but I can't imagine my life without him. Sometimes I wanna punch him in the face but he is also my absolute ride or die. And I really want you to meet him someday." Jeremiah finally finished, letting out a breath, adding, "You’d love him".
Oh. She would love him, alright. If only Jeremiah could know just how much.
Belly should have expected a mcmansion, she did expect a magnificent house and yet it did not prepare her for seeing the Beck House for the first time. The house is frankly ridiculous, beautiful in a way that seems homey and yet as though it were from a dream and had not been tainted by the impurities of the real world. Even though it was her first time coming here, she felt like she was home. As Jeremiah parked his jeep, a female voice rang through the house " Connie! They're here!", followed by a gorgeous slender blonde woman in a long summer dress who came running with all the poise in the world, screaming, "My baby boy!" in glee.
Jeremiah ran to her, and hugged her fiercely, momentarily forgetting Belly. "Mom! Ugh finally! I am so happy to see you!", Jeremiah said, spinning her around twice, before letting her down as she giggled. " I’ve missed you too. Look at you, so pretty.", she said, her hand brushing his cheekbone, before pulling him in for another hug, mumbling, "And so grown up. I don’t like this Jerebear. You're supposed to be my baby forever." "Mom, come on.", Jeremiah grumbled, clearly embarrassed to be babied at 19 and subtly gestered toward Belly, who watched the interaction with a smile, and confusion because Susannah looked at her son with twinkling eyes, that's how happy she was to see him. Belly couldn’t understand how Jeremiah thought that his mother did not love him enough.
" Oh. You must be Isabel. It's so nice to finally meet you, honey.", she said, finally smiling at Belly and pulling her in for a warm hug. Belly feels like she has known this woman all her life. In some weird way, she felt as safe around her as she feels around Laurel. Like, she knows this woman would take a bullet for her. The thought surprises her but she recovers quickly. "Thank you for having me, Mrs. Fisher. You have a lovely home.", Belly said with what she hoped was a charming smile. "Oh please. It's Susannah, dear.", she said, waving a hand, while hovering behind Jeremiah to see if she could help. " Mom. Stop hovering.", Jere said with a laugh as he is getting the lights and the beers from the jeep and hands her a beer carton, a figure runs from the house.
Belly hears him before she sees him. Since he is someone she exclusively thinks about for ninety percent of her days, she remembers exactly how it had happened. She heard his shoes making a sound first, a gentle thumping sound as he jogged towards them, his voice following closely. "There he is! Let the festivities begin!", he had said as he made their way to the three of them, a voice laced with happiness. In the years to come, Belly would replay that one sentence over and over in her head, because it is the first ever sentence she heard him speak, and because she is pathetic.
She looked at the silhouette before his face; tall, a bit leaner and paler than Jeremiah, the hair in his head straight and dark, sitting wonderfully messily. When she finally dragged his eyes to his face, her entire world stopped. She felt like her body was somehow too small and she would choke immediately, like someone had reached down her throat and held her heart in a tight grip because either it was beating way too loudly or it had stopped because Belly definitely felt like it was not beating right. She has never seen something so beautiful in her life. Not just when it comes to people, she has just never seen anyone or anything so ethereal in her life, period. He has high cheekbones (like Jeremiah), a beautiful pointed nose (like Jeremiah), and a set of plump lips that are adorned by a beauty mark above his top lip (like Jeremiah). He looks like Jeremiah, she can see the resemblance, it's small, in a way that people can tell they're brothers, but he also looks so much different than Jeremiah, he has to, because looking at Jeremiah has never made her feel like she was not even in her body, like she forgot what it is like to be a person. Looking at Jeremiah never made her hands itch to touch him because in her eighteen years of life, Isabel Conklin never once thought of someone so painfully angelic looking that she felt the need to make sure that they're real. His eyes are not Blue like Jeremiah's, they are the lightest shade of sea-green, and they gave her a once over, before turning to Jeremiah and hugging him close.
"Stop with all the hugging, damn. You saw me last week.", Jeremiah said into his shoulder, a sound similar to a sniffle clinging to the words, and Belly swore she saw him shake a little and hug his older brother a little tighter. "What, just cause you got a girlfriend now, you gotta pretend you're all tough and shit?", he said with a smile and Belly saw exactly why Jeremiah thought his brother hung the moon because Conrad embraced him like he wanted to take all his worries away, and it worked because Jeremiah relaxed, like he was holding a breath and now he can just let go. "Did you get taller?", Conrad had asked, still not letting go, running his hand through Jeremiah's golden curls before releasing him, ruffling his hair again with a smile so fond that it made Belly's chest ache just at the sheer beauty and sincerity of it. Belly felt her mouth go dry, or was it filled with saliva? She doesn’t remember now, and couldn’t differentiate in the moment either. She was way too aware of herself, the way people are after smoking a particularly good joint, that sweet moment when their brains shut down and they don't know what to do with their body. " I'm nineteen.", Jeremiah rolled his eyes before shoving him at the shoulder and adding, "And, you saw me last week."
"Yeah. Teenage, a wonderful time to grow.", Conrad said in a teasing voice before his mom linked her arm through his and turned him toward Belly. " Connie, stop messing with your brother and meet our guest.", Susannah said, in a mock stern voice, but then she looked at her eldest son like he was some kind of religious deity that people should be thankful to have walking amongst them. Okay, yes, Belly understood what Jeremiah was talking about. He just shook his head before finally turning his eyes to Belly.
Being the sole focus of his attention made her feel uneasy. Like he would know that currently she is thinking about how long his fingers are. Or how his canines are the perfect size and shape, how she wants to trace the shape of them with her finger and then her tongue. How she wants to suck on the mole on his lip. "Isabel. I'm very glad you're here. Jere won't shut up about you.", he said, and Belly immediately wished people would call her IZabel in the same exact tone and pronunciation that he had, instead of just plain old "Isabel" or "Belly". Although she cannot deny she wanted to hear him call her Belly too, relish the way he puts intonations and stress on syllables in a way that is different from others, others being normal people who didn’t make Belly want to become a puddle at their feet.
"It's nice to finally meet you, Conrad. I've heard so much about you.", she managed to say, and if all three of them noticed her voice go higher, they had the decency to not mention it.
So much about you, and yet nothing prepared me for this, she thought, accusatory, as though he could hear her. She tried her best to focus on what was being said around her, she did, but all she could see was how his stupid grey t shirt clung to his body as he said, "Let me take that.", and took the carton from her hands. Their fingers brush when he does, and Belly thinks she would collapse because even after the moment passed, she could feel his touch, like an electric shock that lingers for a while, and in that moment, she knew that this, he would linger for more than a while, he would stay with her, within her for a long, long time.
She knows, she is staring at him shamelessly, and she knows his mom and brother(her boyfriend,by the way) are noticing. " Why don't we go inside?", Susannah clasps her hands loudly, and Conrad gives her smirk, as if he knows everything she has thought since seeing him. "Come on, Bells.", Jeremiah said, with a smile, and Belly knew as he lead her to the house, that she messed up.
"I've been so excited to meet you. You're the first girl he has ever brought home.", Susannah said, as she sauteed some garlic and onion. Belly just smiled, trying very hard to focus on peeling the potatoes and not reveal that she is struggling to not gawk at Conrad who was mixing batter to make dirt bombs; his specialty, he had said.
"Yeah, he would actually need to date a girl for that, Mom.", Conrad snorted.
"I'd actually need a girl to do that but as you’ve fuck---", Jeremiah started before Susannah glared and pointed at him with a spatula.
"Jeremiah Fisher! You will not use that kind of language in my house.", she warned, but with no real malice behind it.
"Okay.", Jeremiah said with a laugh, raising his hands in mock surrender. "Since you’ve been involved with every girl in our general vicinity, since I was like, twelve...it's been hard for me to date.", Jeremiah said shrugging.
Belly felt like throwing up. Of course, he is a fuckboy. Of course, he is. He's way too gorgeous to not be a fuckboy.
"It's not like that, come on.", he mumbled, eyes briefly flicking toward Belly's. She doesn’t know what came over her but she couldn’t help herself asking, "So what's it like then?", surprising everyone else and herself.
"Yeah, Con. Tell my girlfriend how it's like.", Jeremiah said, grinning.
"Well, Isabel. I'm a very generous person who cannot say no to beautiful women. So...", he said cheekily, making his mother and brother roll their eyes in a almost an identical way.
"You're so full of yourself, aren’t you?", she said with a scoff. What an insufferable asshole. Wow, Jere was right about that too.
"No, but the girls certainly were", he whispered, leaning a bit forward, eyes locking with hers.
" Okay, that's it. Get out.", his mother said, shoving him on the arm, making him laugh. "What? She wanted to know what it was like.", he said, looking at her, daring her to say something more. "And when are you going to bring Nicole home?", Susannah asked, raising an eyebrow.
Nicole.
Belly hated her right away. Even the name sounds bitchy.
"Mom. Please don't.", Conrad sighed, exclusively looking at the bowl, while Belly exclusively looked at his long fingers dipping in the batter. " It's just...you’ve been with her since last summer", Susannah started before Jeremiah snorted and said, "Oh he has been with her, alright.", earning a glare from his brother.
" I haven’t even seen her since last summer, Mom.", Conrad added, bringing his index finger to his lips and he looked right at Belly before licking it clean. She has always read the expression "brain short circuiting" but never really understood it, until she had to witness his lips close around his index finger and eyes boring straight into hers.
"You were texting her yesterday.", Susannah pointed. " Stop looking over my shoulders. Jeez.", Conrad said, voice irate. "Nicole and I are friends. That's it.", he said in a clipped tone.
" So, when's dad coming?", Jeremiah asked, trying to change the topic. "He isn’t! It's just gonna be us this year. Isn't that great?", Conrad said in a bright voice and Belly has only known him for two hours but even she knows he is not this sunshiny.
"Connie. Behave.", Susannah warned, taking the potatoes from Belly and tossing them in the pan. " Can't a guy just be happy for no reason these days? Damn.", he said in a mock hurt voice, which made Jeremiah laugh softly.
Belly could see that her boyfriend was now calmer, because he suddenly learned his father will be a no-show. She wonders how crappy does a father need to be in order for both his sons to actively hate him, even the one he prefers; especially him, it seemed like.
Lunch had been a breezy affair. The food was delicious and Belly can see where Jeremiah gets his skills from. The Fishers swapped stories about Conrad and Jeremiah's childhood, and almost all of them were just Conrad fucking with his little brother for his own amusement. "You were such a mean little asshole.", Jeremiah had said, throwing a cherry at his brother across the table which he caught very easily and popped into his mouth before saying, " It's not my fault that you believed everything I'd said. In a way, I was preparing you for the real world, Jere.", he'd sighed, before looking at Jeremiah and letting out an actual laugh and Belly has never heard anything so melodious in her entire life.
At some point, she had excused herself because it was getting to be too much to be in his presence. Every word he said, every move he made, every breath he took, Belly was aware of all of it. She was sitting on the dock when she heard footsteps and she wished it wasn’t him, while wishing with her entire being that it was him.
"So...Isabel. I hear you're studying Psychology. That's neat.", Conrad said, easily plopping down next to her, like him being so close to her didn’t wreck every nerve ending in her body. " I am. And, it is neat.", she mumbled, not daring to look at him because she knows if she looked at him, she would never want to stop looking, or do something even more embarrassing, like kiss him on his stupid fucking lips. She wants to bite them till they bleed, and that thought surprises even herself. She has wanted to kiss people before, she has actually wanted to kiss Jeremiah a few times before he became her boyfriend but never like this.
"Listen...about the conversation with Jere and my mom earlier... I know you're probably thinking I'm some big fuckboy, but I am not. I just---", he started, but Belly interrupted him immediately. " I'm not thinking anything. You can fuck whomever you like. What's it to me?", she said, her voice carrying an anger she was sure he could feel. "I don't want to be unfairly judged, Isabel. If it were true, I'd have no problem with it, but it's simply not true and I just wanted to clear that up.", he said before getting up and turning to leave.
"Oh, and Isabel? Easy with the eye fucking, alright? I mean, don't get me wrong; I am flattered beyond words, but Jere will notice soon if you don’t reign it in.", he said in a smug voice and Belly turned her head to tell him to go fuck himself but then their eyes met and she saw the same desire mirrored in his.
She knows she is looking at him like she wants to fall at his feet and stay there for infinity while he is looking at her like he wants to ruin her completely, like he wants to take her by the throat and force her on her knees in front him, have her in a way that no one's ever had her before. His eyes roamed all over her, before zeroing on her lips, and his own parted a little and a tuft of air came out, a soft exhale. Does he know that all he needs to do is ask, and Belly would let the world burn. Jeremiah can burn with it for all she cares if it means she can have his brother, even if it is just one time. Just once.
Belly sure as shit doesn’t know how to go on about it, so she just mustered her meekest voice possible before saying, "Okay.", and making a show of casting her eyes downwards in as much of a showy way as she can without it being too obvious.
"Look at me.", he said, voice hoarse, like he had been screaming. She met his eyes, trying to make her own appear as doe-eyed as possible, and saw immediate fury, laced with hunger. "I'm not some wide eyed college sophmore that would be besotted with your whole innocent girl act. And I will certainly not entertain this, any of this, in any capacity. I won't tell Jere, but I need you to just fucking stop, alright?", he finished, breathing heavily.
"Yeah, everything about you right now is just screaming how you won't 'entertain' this.", Belly laughed, her submissiveness from a moment ago evaporating, as she stood up and looked up at him.
Conrad held her gaze for a moment before exhaling loudly and breaking eye contact.
"I will probably end up entertaining it anyway because I'm a low life with no morals.", he said with a humorless chuckle.
"But Jere--Jere is everything that is good. He is all sunshine and he deserves nothing but the best.", Conrad continued in a low voice, and Belly heard the same adoration that slips through Jeremiah's tone whenever he's talking about his brother.
" And,you, the girl who has not stopped oggling me since this morning, are not it.", he finished and Belly's eyes widened in surprise because this was not at all how she saw this conversation play out.
"Be good to him, Isabel.", he added, before looking at her lips one more time and walking backwards to the house, eyes never leaving hers.