Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Hey." John said, looking her in the eye. "What do I have to worry about? Whats the potentials for this to all go pear-shaped? Do you think that lump of s**t in my head is what caused me to 'flame out', or could there be another explenation?"

" Yes! and when they meet and communicate! I don't know about aura's but I like watching them move around one another."

His voice came out more excited than he had anticipated and now it was his turn to blush, already dark cheeks becoming just abit darker as he moved on.

" Even when they're alone they produce such interesting things. When they think they're being followed they start looking over their shoulders, speeding up, trying to throw some unknown predator off their trail. Or when they're talking with a friend how they relax, bodies going loose and unprepared. Sometimes I can't beleive I used to do the same thing."

Laughter bubbled out, deep and rolling, and was brought back into control slowly to manifest as a smile.

" But I suppose for you the feelings aren't the same?"

Is that all it took? The brush of a hand? Being held close? Sometimes he wondered if his sacrificed humanity had been worth the trade of his power and the strength of his body. His eyebrows drew down in consternation as he puzzled out the significance of such actions, the biological responses they brought. He did not crave these things as she did and that made it hard to relate to those wants and desires. The most complex want he had had in a very long time was simply the want to hurt another, to feel their blood pulsing down his hands or over his mouth, to taste their pain in their blood and for the world to light up around him in savage exultation.

He never felt more alive than in a fight.

But if these things were what she needed, wanted, then perhaps he could provide them? Damion reached up suddenly as he made up his mind, reaching out from his leaned back position until his fingers found Tilly's cheek or not depending on if she moved. The rough skin of his fingers would meet the smoother skin of her face in a touch that was oddly gentle for the normally violent and destructive elemental. He would sit up more to cup her cheek, marveling quietly at the warmth there, the soft flesh, everything he had denied himself for years. His heart beat more rapidly and yet no adrenaline pulsed through his veins and while he knew that there was something off about this he also knew he did not care.

" Hm...finer things in life? What are those to you?"

So that was what fear was like. What had started out as a vague notion had become a grim certainty that he was going to bloody break her. His arm tensed up when she grabbed his hand but he never pulled away, too scared of hurting her to dare chance it. Which, in and of itself, was amazing as he had never cared wether he had hurt someone before, regardless of FtF status. His fear was only confirmed when she began crying or close to it and Damion was left frantically trying to come up with a way to stop it from happening. Like a computer his mind brought up rows and rows of images, data and the like gathered from months of study of people and their ways, forgotten when he took on the mantle of guardian.

One image seemed best though and actually seemed safer than anything he could come up with yet and for it he sat up completely, coming very close to her for a long moment until his free arm wrapped around her. His trapped hand moved and joined its twin around her smaller body and with them he brought he close, holding her against him in a hug that bordered on the way people carried delicate objects. Where most muscular folks were soft, somewhat squishy when relaxed Damion seemed all smoothed angles and hard surfaces, heat rolling in waves off his body like a well sunned rock and the faint smell of vegetative matter. Gently he held her to his chest, hoping this would stop the tears.

He didn't know how to handle those after all.

" I don't know how to do that, but I can try?"

It was a half question that he wasn't even sure he wanted to ask. Was this the right thing to do? Was this what she needed or wanted? No scientist he, Damion could only test and see how she responded.

" Don't ask me why, I'll never have the right answer."

And He wouldn't. He didn't understand the why of it, didn't even really understand the question, and it rankled in his mind. All the Hydra did know was that he wanted to protect her and make her feel better in a way that didn't precisely match up with the way he felt for his friends. He knew without testing the theory that he would go as far as was needed to make her smile or to keep her from crying, and the tanned humanoid lowered his face into her hair slowly.

" Just...please, accept what I'm doing? I'm not sure why but this is better than nice."

And it was, and he felt that he could do this all day if demanded of him. His hands gently gripped at her sides as he held her gently and felt the gentler curves she possessed as opposed to the harder ones of his own body. She fascinated him and that was enough for now. His heart pulsed beneath her hand strongly, beating no faster but harder for the touch of her hand, the skin of his chest just as rough as the rest of him. Damion took a deep breath and took in her scent the same way she took his in, another file for his brain to put away and filling in his mental picture of this woman, this muse.

" Is it nice?"

The sudden doubt didn't suprise him but the overpowering nature of the question froze him in place and sent a shock through his system, almost making him jump. The source was easy to locate and that was pacifying in a way but he needed to know the answer.