Seeing him in her head,
feeling it, heated her blood, her bones, filled her chest. Plenty of everything enough to fill her eyes, and she blinked back the threat of a downpour. How long had she reached out beyond the confines that held her to shield, she couldn’t number. None of that now. He was safe, no one would find him again unless she wanted them to. Because she no longer had to focus on keeping herself perpetually conscious enough to defend herself, or him.
It was selfish, on some levels, she knew that.
She shook herself, drawing away from the regret that threatened to swallow her, the wondering if everything would have been easier if she had let the humans have what they wanted. No, it wouldn’t have been, she chastised herself, they would have taken her blood, her genetic make-up, grafted her abilities like all the others they had stolen…
His voice brought her back out of herself and she focused on him.
How long
had it been?
She took him in as he moved towards her. The same gait, the same shift of his form from one leg to the other, yet it seemed smoother, but there was no hitch of hiccup in the mind where there may have been outside of it. Her gaze settled momentarily on his left hand and she smiled, something gentle, and then traced up along that arm towards his shoulder, up the side of his neck and ear. His hair was peppered heavier with silver and her smile broadened just enough to allow her teeth to peek through. But the splintered edges of his thoughts rippled her perception even as she tried to smooth the fabric out.
He sat beside her, shifting himself enough to be just at her side, one hand reached for her thigh to pull her all the closer, and the other about her shoulders. It was second nature to lean into him. Even with however long it had been, however the distance, she had held him closest to her. Even constructs in her head that she made of him to speak to when she needed the distraction, when she needed quiet, when she wanted to give up and give in.
When he brought her face to his and kissed her just enough, her grip on the space about them shuddered. Even as a presence in her head, it was still
him. It was difficult, still, to grasp that fact. That it was actually
him in her head, rather than a form of him she had created from her own memories. Her fingertips slid along the line of his jaw. “I’m right here.” She breathed against his ear, her reply to his claim to possibly never seeing her again. But that had been a very real concept that she had accepted a long time ago. Never seeing him again. Never being outside of that place ever again.
Yet in that place, even in her fatigue, she could feel the wealth of emotions that wanted to spring free, no longer tempered by the vacuum created when her abilities coupled.
“I love you.” She told him, because before anything else, she wanted him to know that. “At some point I’m going to fall sleep.” And she wasn’t sure if she would be able to control it, nor did she know if he would be stuck within her head if she did. She was so exhausted, his questioning about it fluttering like a moth trying to escape against her thoughts.
She had a horde of questions she wanted to ask him, but simply sitting there, knowing that he was beside her, both in her head and out, was enough to lull her inquiries for the moment. “How did you get here?”
__________________
you are not alone
'cause someone's out there
sending out flares