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 Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 10:59 pm
It was her turn to press a kiss to his cheek, enjoying every moment he was beet red. "Sorry." Even then, she couldn't help but say it. Stormy was aware of several occasions when it could have happened, but...
One of the moths wriggled in her foot and made it instinctually twitch, and a touch of reality chilled her. She hadn't thought about it, but--what if they transferred through sex? Or were contagious? Or even something more mundane like what if Gale felt it during?
(But that was an insult to the people who had died, to reduce it all to an inconvenience. She had ran from it then, and she was still running.)
She nestled more against him and sighed through her nose. Stormy didn't want to return to the real world and the mistakes she had made in them. She was still dead set on being in oblivion for as long as she could. Most especially with Thane quiet.
"What does it mean to leave a mark on someone?" she asked out of the blue.
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Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2017 7:47 am
"Nothing to be sorry for," said Gale, though his face was still scarlet, and he knew that she was saying it because she was Stormy, and she was sorry. He leaned into the kiss to his cheek, feeling the warmth of her lips, his fingers idly tracing circles against her hip.
It was so lovely and intimate and quiet here. Just the two of them, the outside world not yet intruding, Stormy against his side, nestling into him as though she wanted nothing more than to be close to him. Gale exhaled a breath that ruffled her hair a little, the closeness intoxicating and pleasant in a way that he wasn't quite used to yet.
The question startled him, though it shouldn't have, because Stormy's mind worked in mysterious ways. "Do you mean physically or mentally? Well, I mean, I suppose both work. Physically has an obvious meaning, but I suppose when it comes to mental or emotional, it's just...the impact you've had on them. Good or bad, whatever it is, it's there. Some sort of meaning."
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Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2017 9:20 pm
"I wouldn't physically. I think." Stormy wasn't so sure anymore. As a trainee, the idea had been laughable. Now...She wasn't so sure. Stormy had yet to get a chance to really explore that side of herself; all of her bad decisions had been impulsive but well-meaning. She wondered if that was just a symptom. "But...I can see the appeal." Enemy, friend, lover. Something to show for each.
Unsurprisingly, she shied away from talking about mental marks.
"Does it ever bother you that you've been marked by others?" Stormy reached out for his hand, the one with O's mark and Death's hourglass on his wrist, and thumbed the symbols gently.
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Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 4:05 pm
He let out a breath of thought, Gale's eyes flickering upward, growing slightly distant as he mulled this over. "I think also there's a line drawn as well - how far is too far, how much is too much?" A laugh escaped, a little amused. "I'm sure there is a line, it's just a little...undefined."
He hadn't really considered it, but now he was; the faded, blackened scars that ran along from his shoulder to the palm of his hand, evidence of Caelius's stint with a runic dagger. The faint, whisper thin line around his eye where the Horseman had toyed with him.
Gale's hand turned over automatically as Stormy's fingers traced the marks left there, two more that he preferred not to think of, if he was being honest with himself. His gaze refocused, flickering down to where her gentle hand touched his skin.
"Yes," he said, after a moment, voice quiet. "I don't like having either of these on me. It makes me belong to something that I don't want to belong to; a part of me given to someone else. Or something else."
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Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 9:46 pm
Her eyelids drooped until they were half-closed. Only the glide of her thumb was evidence that she was still awake, that it was just her mulling it over.
"I don't think I've left marks," Stormy said. "I think it's the opposite. When they leave, the space of them marks me. I think that's why I am like I am, all emptiness and uncertainty."
She'd had that semi-conversation with Thane before, in the hazy way a transfer of thoughts and images and meanings could occur in one's head. He'd called her a child for not taking responsibility for herself. A scareling with a dangerous weapon and no direction. She didn't exactly disagree with him.
"Changed my mind," Stormy mumbled. Her stroking stopped. With her pointer finger, she lightly pressed her nail into the hourglass tattoo until a faint white line divided it horizontally. "Maybe I do want to make my mark. Maybe then I'd feel more real."
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Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:54 pm
Gale's fingers curled a little at the touch, wrist still facing up, Stormy's thumb smoothing over the marks. "Not all emptiness," he said softly, quietly, because he had never thought she was empty, and because he had always thought that she would never have been able to love him if she was truly empty. "There're things in you for you to find."
And me, as well. But he knew what she meant. It wasn't intended to condescend or patronize, Gale's lashes lowering a little. He didn't flinch as her nail pressed into his skin, his gaze flickering to watch the movement, his other hand still idly tracing circles on what he could reach just below the hem of the borrowed shirt.
"What kind of mark?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 12:46 am
"Things in the mist of it," she agreed quietly. But if today was any indicator, then...No, stop thinking about it. Thinking never saved her from herself.
Stormy hummed another sigh in thought. "I don't know. You're the most permanent thing I've ever decided on. A tattoo would be tacky, a scar too morbid..." She tucked Gale's arm around her closer as she fixated on the hourglass, barely aware of his toying fingers.
"You're infecting me, Gale. I'm starting to think too much." It was the closest she had sounded to pouty in a very, very long time.
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Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2017 6:08 pm
He tried not to let the fact that she had called him permanent make his heart beat a little faster, except it did, and it was. Stormy had always been the most important thing in his eyes; and it hadn't changed. The ache of missing her had been abated, now that she was back, now that she was in his arms and he could have her with him.
"There are other things that can be permanent that aren't scars or tattoos," he said, tugging on the hem of the shirt, but she was still staring at the hourglass.
Gale's lips twitched, just a little. With a careful and deliberate movement, he rolled over, just a little, so that he was partially atop her, a hand bracing on Stormy's other side, Gale reaching with his free hand to catch one of Stormy's. Fingers laced together as he gave them a little squeeze.
"Do you need another distraction?"
It was a little playful, a little self conscious, a little affectionate.
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Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2017 9:28 pm
The movement was more than enough to break her reverie, and Stormy blinked and flushed. "Hmm...Tell me first," she negotiated, most of the pout gone but some of its stubbornness remaining. "I want to know what you think." These were going to be the things she might fixate on instead, something in the back of her mind told her: no longer the dead, but the living and the ever present questions of them.
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Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2017 9:40 pm
The hand that had been braced on Stormy's other side rose, gently smoothing away a tendril of hair from her forehead. Gale felt the tender fragility of this new intimacy between them acutely. it was foreign territory, a little frightening, a little uncertain, and wonderful and exciting all at once, and yet he wanted to explore everything about it.
"What I think about permanent marks?" Gale gave a small hum of thought. His fingers were still tangled with Stormy's, free hand traveling absently along the side of her face. "Tattoos, too tacky, as you've said. Scars, too morbid. Probably piercings fall under that realm too, or really any bodily modifications, but I mean...there's things like names or memories or less visible options, I suppose."
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2017 8:18 am
"Names can change," she who wasn't born Stormy argued quietly. "Memories can be taken, modified, destroyed, forgotten." A sliver of despair was starting to touch her in spite of the contact, the moment. She hated how easily she could slip in and out like that.
Her fingers squeezed his, to remind herself that they were there.
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2017 7:03 pm
She was slipping away from him; he could feel it, could feel the slight edge, the difference in quality of the air shifting around them. Stormy's fingers were tightening around his own, and Gale pressed them closer together, leaned over her and brushed a kiss to her forehead.
"That's true, they can," he said quietly. "Don't think, love. Focus on me. You are my permanent life. I will give you whatever you want from me to make you remember that. My home, my heart, my name, my memories. Everything."
He didn't want her to slip away again. He didn't want to lose her to her thoughts, not when he had just found her again.
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2017 9:22 pm
Stormy gave him a curious look. Had she been her alternate self, that Legacy of Memories, she very well would have taken up the offer.
Instead, she tucked herself against him and closed her eyes, his shirt now an effective blanket to bundle her up.
"We should try to sleep," she mumbled into his skin.
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Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:21 pm
He relaxed a little, still worried, still wondering if she had lapsed back into her thoughts the way she tended to do when it was all too overwhelming. But Stormy was curling against him, lips against his collarbone, and Gale wound his arm around her, pressing his face into her hair.
"We should sleep," he said, in agreement, voice soft. He let his eyes fall shut, but his mouth brushed Stormy's temple.
"I love you."
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Posted: Sat Jul 22, 2017 11:33 pm
It was the most damning thing, but she had to accept it. Re-accept it, really, since she had entertained the idea of separation for so long that it had almost become real in her head. Maybe it would be easier like this, feeling nothing but Gale's presence. Like looking up into the stars and knowing the light was there, even though it took ages to reach you.
Stormy kissed the spot before she rested her head against him. "Love you too, Galestorm," she murmured. And then she curled up, closed her eyes, and began to stargaze.
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