Her hands are on his shoulders. On the side of his neck.
He doesn't like to be touched, generally speaking. He never has, because in his experience for as long as he can remember, touch was never positive. Touch never felt good until her, and it never felt good after her. If it were any stranger on the street, any random nurse or too-handsy well-wisher, he'd have instinctively shrugged it off. He'd have felt that awkward discomfort instantly and moved to rectify it.
Her touch feels familiar. His body recognizes it. There's no strange, no awkward, no distance. There's only comfort, and then a kind of need — touch starved, because she hasn't been around to meet the quota and nobody ever took her place.
It works. He focuses down. He reels in instead of expanding out, and is honed.
"Sabine," he manages for the first time, and then all that stubborn, frightened, defiant willpower breaks.
He folds around her, drags her in. Less an embrace, more burying himself into the side of her neck and hanging on for dear life.
She feels the same. She smells the same. Her skin smells like her skin, and he forgot what that was until now. She's solid beneath his hands, solid in his arms. She fits almost the same — though he's thinner, he's also put on some muscle, so it nearly evens out. She feels right.
It's her, it's her, it's her-
There are things he's wanted to say to her for years, too many to fit into a single conversation let alone a single moment, but god damn if they don't all try at once anyway. They come rushing out in the form of word-vomit, broken, frayed at the seams as the fabric of her shirt goes wet with ugly tears he will totally refuse to admit to later.
"I'm sorry, I'm such a fucking asshole, I didn't mean to, I swear, I can't believe you're here- you were right- you've been asleep for six years- also, I don't give a shit about that rock, holy fuck, I'm so fucking sorry, and you weren't supposed to leave without me, you were gone, and I-" A beat, and then he reels back when the next horrible realization pings a reminder in his brain. "Your parents. I have to tell you about your parents. I-"
Yeah, maybe that order to breathe would come in handy right now, because he's feeling suddenly light-headed and a little less than concretely stable on his one and a half shitty legs.
no subject
He doesn't like to be touched, generally speaking. He never has, because in his experience for as long as he can remember, touch was never positive. Touch never felt good until her, and it never felt good after her. If it were any stranger on the street, any random nurse or too-handsy well-wisher, he'd have instinctively shrugged it off. He'd have felt that awkward discomfort instantly and moved to rectify it.
Her touch feels familiar. His body recognizes it. There's no strange, no awkward, no distance. There's only comfort, and then a kind of need — touch starved, because she hasn't been around to meet the quota and nobody ever took her place.
It works. He focuses down. He reels in instead of expanding out, and is honed.
"Sabine," he manages for the first time, and then all that stubborn, frightened, defiant willpower breaks.
He folds around her, drags her in. Less an embrace, more burying himself into the side of her neck and hanging on for dear life.
She feels the same. She smells the same. Her skin smells like her skin, and he forgot what that was until now. She's solid beneath his hands, solid in his arms. She fits almost the same — though he's thinner, he's also put on some muscle, so it nearly evens out. She feels right.
It's her, it's her, it's her-
There are things he's wanted to say to her for years, too many to fit into a single conversation let alone a single moment, but god damn if they don't all try at once anyway. They come rushing out in the form of word-vomit, broken, frayed at the seams as the fabric of her shirt goes wet with ugly tears he will totally refuse to admit to later.
"I'm sorry, I'm such a fucking asshole, I didn't mean to, I swear, I can't believe you're here- you were right- you've been asleep for six years- also, I don't give a shit about that rock, holy fuck, I'm so fucking sorry, and you weren't supposed to leave without me, you were gone, and I-" A beat, and then he reels back when the next horrible realization pings a reminder in his brain. "Your parents. I have to tell you about your parents. I-"
Yeah, maybe that order to breathe would come in handy right now, because he's feeling suddenly light-headed and a little less than concretely stable on his one and a half shitty legs.