|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 9:47 pm
It should have felt weird, walking into the apartment that she had done anything to get out of just days before. It didn't though. As she turned the key in the lock and stepped over the threshold, it still only felt like home to her.
Almost as an afterthought, she grabbed a pink folded paper slipped over the doorknob with a rubber band - a noise warning. She frowned but simply shook her head and refolded it; she had no idea what Khaldun had done after she left but she would mention it.
She shut the door behind her slowly, quietly, and turned her gaze onto the dark room. He wasn't here, but should she have expected that? As much as it hurt to think, maybe he had finally decided to be on his own. Maybe she'd just hurt him too much for him to stay around. Despite the fact that her chest ached at the thought, she would have understood. She just dropped her keys and the warning slip onto a stand by the door and kicked her shoes off by the front mat.
Before she could head to the bedroom to set her things down and try to sleep for more than the couple of hours she was catching every night, a rather unpleasant smell caught her attention. She walked the path to the kitchen and found the shattered glass of the blender, along with what was left of the joke of a smoothie she had begun to make, splattered across the floor. She assumed that was the stench that was permeating the entire apartment, along with the sickly sweet aroma of stale baked goods. She just sighed.
"I'll deal with it later," she mumbled to herself and turned away, pushing the door to the bedroom open with one hand as her other began to pull the strap of her messenger bag over her head. Just as she was about to drop it on the floor, she glanced briefly over the bed, then suddenly back to it and froze with the still overstuffed bag poised in the air.
He was still there, just.. asleep.
She was suddenly mindful to be quiet, even if she should have been chewing him out over destroying the kitchen (and all of the other things she hadn't noticed yet). She set her bag down softly at the foot of the bed and rounded to the side he was facing, frowning to herself. It was late to be asleep, even for Khal. She reached out slowly and touched his face, finding it warm but not burning with any kind of fever. She supposed he really was just asleep, even if he should have been up hours ago. She could have left him and gone to sleep on the couch, tried to make herself look a little less stressed and upset, but there were things to say. Now was just the same as later.
She brushed the hand that had touched his face back, pushing his disheveled dreadlocks away from his eyes. "Khal," she spoke softly, one knee on the edge of the bed as she leaned over to say his name lowly, "wake up."
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:06 pm
Time meant nothing behind tightly drawn curtains, swathed in darkness. After Tanzanite had left, Khaldun was reminded again of how alone he was after all. He disposed of the body and then slunk away to the one spot in the apartment that wasn't covered in blood or broken glass to go feel sorry for himself and recover the energy he didn't have to sustain his new form. Kaia's bedroom was usually off limits on principle, but the door was wide open. He just intended to sleep off the burn-out that followed his fit of rage. But lying here in her empty bed was the closest thing he had to her presence, and it reminded him of his failure more strongly anything else in the apartment. He slept for a long time. When he woke up he just wanted to sleep some more, to forget what had happened. He'd hardly moved since he first collapsed there, foregoing nearly all his basic needs. Faintly he knew that Kaia was due to be back any time after the first day passed, but he didn't even know what day it was any more. He was sure, in the lethargic waking hours he spent staring at the wall or the ceiling or the clock, that he'd pull himself together soon and figure out what he was going to do and probably get out of this room before she caught him here. But he had drifted off again.
Her voice and touch brought him back because he was over-rested. He blinked the blurriness out of his eyes and opened them, not conscious of whatever had disturbed him. Then his eyes went wide and he sat bolt upright. He'd never gotten as far as really imagining this scenario. His lucid dreams were memories, not plans. He hadn't seen her since she'd packed her things and demanded to leave, and she had come back looking almost the same as when she had left. She had probably come back for the rest of her things, or to rid herself of the one thing that she didn't want to suffer any longer.
He turned his face away from her, clearly embarrassed to be found where he was. He couldn't even splutter out any sort of explanation for it. She would have seen right through any lie he put together on the spot. He had yelled himself hoarse with Tanzanite and hadn't spoken for two days since, and his voice sounded all scratched up. About the only thing he'd gained in two days was a bit of composure - his tone was perfectly neutral. "I'll get out of here."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:09 pm
She had no idea what had happened to him in the time he had been gone. She didn't know that he was now a general, or that he'd been sleeping for the better part of two days because of it and all the other stress in his life. She had barely slept at all, to be honest, and the days that had flown by for him had been drawn out in every little agonizing second for her. She felt like it had been much longer than just a couple of days since she had first stepped out into the rainstorm.
"I didn't tell you to get out." She moved from the one knee she had on the bed and let herself fall onto it instead, sitting on the edge with one leg tucked under the knee of her other, which still hung to the floor. She watched him then, looking for any sign of harm or distress, though she found nothing. It was surprising, after what she'd seen that he'd done to the blender.
"I need to talk to you. We need to talk." Her eyes fell from him then and she shifted a little as if she were uncomfortable, though the problem wasn't with her position, it was with the sudden feeling that her insides were going to turn inside out. She plucked at the comforter he had disheveled and wrinkled during his sleep, scratching at an invisible flaw with her nail.
Where did she start? What did she say?
"I left Chase." She seemed to be going for the blunt, no-beating-around-the-bush thing lately. Somewhere in all the drama and pain she had lost the need to sugarcoat anything. Then again, this wasn't exactly bad news she was delivering for him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:51 pm
He had been about ready to scoot off the bed and hide in the other room until she left again. Or maybe just leave first. He didn't dare power up or teleport now, not for a while yet. Sleeping so long had actually become detrimental. He was tired, but sleep didn't seem to be the cure for it.
"Okay." He sounded defeated in advance. He turned his head when she stopped him. He had both legs off the bed right now, sitting beside her, watching her nervous behavior as he waited to hear what she had to tell him. His mind sluggishly tried to figure out what she wanted to discuss that they hadn't discussed already. He had tried to explain himself to her and she rejected his advance as nothing but drunken idiocy. When he tried to give her space and take his first steps away from her she chastised him. None of it made sense to him. As far as he knew she just wanted him out of her life. He wasn't sure he could handle being talked down to again in this short a time, especially if it was by Kaia.
"You did?" He was suffering a little bit of disbelief mixed with sleepiness, which showed in his voice and expression at the news. Like he didn't know how to react to it, to celebrate or wait for the inevitable 'but'. Was he still dreaming? He didn't want to ruin it by provoking any second thoughts, but he couldn't help his curiosity. "But, I thought you left because..."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 11:14 pm
"Yes, I did" the words were laced with frustration and stress, "just listen to me, please?" She didn't think Khal understood the first thing about why she had left, not really, or he wouldn't have done what he did in the first place.
Her hands moved up from the bed to rub across her tired, aching eyes instead. When she dropped them, it hadn't helped any of her irritation or the dark half-moons under her bright eyes. Selfishly, she just wished she'd come home to him drunk so this conversation wouldn't have been so much like pulling teeth. Of course, she'd already made it pretty clear that she didn't trust him when he was wasted.
"I've spent the last two days with Heather, trying to figure all of this out." Her eyes met his briefly and for a moment she considered reaching out, trying to get things across to him with some kind of gesture, but even as her fingers twitched at the thought she held back. Affection between them was strained by all the unspoken things that hung in the air, by their own awkwardness together since that night. She'd only ever really been close to him when she was sad and stole it for herself and it had ended terribly.
"I only know two things for sure after not sleeping almost at all for forty-eight hours. One is that I can't be with him." She paused, glancing down very briefly and looking for anything to focus her attention on. There was nothing and even as she kept looking she knew it was unfair to avoid this just because she was nervous, she had to say it to his face. So she let out one long breath and looked back up at him, right into those dark, lost eyes. She steeled herself and willed her voice not to crack and show her nerves.
"The other is that I don't want you with anymore of those.. harlots. Ever." The nervousness had curled her hands into tense fists and there was a slow, faint flush rising to her paler-than-normal cheeks. What was left between the lines was her claim, she was staking it in the only way she could force it out.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 12:55 am
His eyes were on her, watching her relay to him the basics of last two days she'd spent away from home. So. She'd broken up with her boyfriend and now forbid him to date anyone else. There was a long pause while he considered what it meant, the implications for a coexistence like theirs. It was no clear invitation to anything more yet, but he could handle an arrangement like that for the time being. Almost anything if it meant they were no longer apart.
Khaldun felt a little more bold in the wake of that news, recklessly letting it lift his spirits and posture. Kaia's rejection and Kamboja's cajoling had been the only reasons he'd sought out such distractions again. He tried to joke around in a voice that sounded like death. "Hey, that's reasonable. I wouldn't want you with any harlots either."
There was a long pause while he debated a gesture of friendship as well. He opted to lean to the side enough to place one of his hands halfway between them both, gripping the edge of the bed. He flashed her a small, hopeful smile. "I guess we're both going to have a lot more free time now, huh."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:05 am
She could see the change it made in him, the way he immediately went from downtrodden to uplifted. She could hear it in his voice and feel it in the implications of his words, even though he was dancing around the subject even more than she was. He was clearly thinking about it even if he wasn't going to tell her exactly what he was thinking. It made her confident that there was still a bridge left to cross, one that she hadn't burned down completely, but the problem was the same as it had been before - neither of them were willing to cross it.
"You're so frustrating," she groaned out finally, her usually endless patience wearing thin because of both her lack of sleep and his terribly predictable reaction. She brought her hands up and rubbed them over her face in an irritated, tired gesture. Kaia could be stern, but this was something else. When she dropped her hands to the bed again, she looked back at him with a grumpy stare.
She didn't have a lot of options here. She could try to get him drunk and force him to be more open, but that took both time and effort, neither of which she had the patience for at the moment. She could try to force herself to be more open but she didn't know what else to say other than something extremely to-the-point and potentially embarrassing - impatient or not, she was still Kaia and that thought made her stomach knot up. Finally she just decided she'd have to spur him forward with some kind of gesture that he couldn't ignore, even if that was nearly as bad for her already frayed nerves as saying it aloud.
Her eyes flickered down to the hand that slid between them, to the way he was leaning in just so. Her heart was already threatening to beat clean out of her ribcage even at the thought of being in closer proximity, but there was nothing for it. She reached out slowly and slid her hand across the bed, until she brushed it over the top of his and settled it there with a timid squeeze. Her body leaned with the motion until she was finally just breaths away from his face, staring up into his eyes and trying to ignore the way her cheeks were all but on fire. She wished, inwardly, she had a few more shades of color so it wasn't as blatantly obvious as she knew it would look.
"This is as close as I'm coming," a double meaning with a stern tone - she was pushing herself as far as she could.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:13 am
"What, was it something I said?" he asked, genuinely confused by her annoyance.
He felt her hand slide over his and come to rest with her smaller and lighter hand resting on top of his. Even that small gesture made him light up. He was surprised when she leaned in close, crossed over all the jagged lines that made up the implied rules of their friendship. He had a couple moments of hesitation and felt his own heart racing when they locked eyes. It occurred to him that maybe he was reading into this all the wrong way like all the other times and this would spiral back out of control. Another wrong move and she'd slip right through his fingers again and he couldn't bear the idea of losing everything a second time over, this time for good.
And then she spoke, and it was a challenge to him. Kaia's face was so close, closer than they'd ever been, and she was blushing in a way that could be mistaken for nothing else. It had been a long two days and nights and he'd been dragged through every low point imaginable. He looked and felt like hell right now and he wasn't thinking straight. Kaia's bizarre wants and needs he was already sure he'd never really understand. None of that changed how Kaia was the one who'd helped him when no one else could. They both passed it off as just a friendship. But he'd always wanted to be closer than he'd been with her. He wanted her kindness and laughter all to himself in a way he'd never imagined possible before. Kaia had come back and she had picked <******** it all. Tonight he was going to be selfish and walk away from this last chance with no regrets.
"For now, maybe." And before she had a chance to respond, he closed the distance and roughly pressed his lips against hers as if it was the first and last time he ever would.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:23 am
If he hadn't followed through with the one thing she was challenging him to do, his first comment would have put her over the edge. As it was, she had one small, brief moment where she could feel her anger starting to swell beneath her exhaustion and then he was speaking again. What had he said? She barely caught it before his lips were crushing hers and stealing any breath she would have used to chastise him for being so obliviously frustrating.
She was shocked to her core, despite it being the very thing she had just been willing him to do with every part of her being, and for a split second she was frozen into complete stillness. Then her mind jumped into overdrive and she was responding, pressing her lips back into his eagerly. Her hands swept up from where they were resting, brushing up over his chest and shoulders until she could hook them in the curve of his neck just beneath his jaw - holding him close to her and all but refusing to let him go. She poured every ounce of desperation she'd felt in the last week into that first kiss and by the time she drew her lips away she was gasping for air and her chest was heaving slightly between a lack of oxygen and a racing pulse.
She stayed like that for a few moments, leaning her forehead against his and holding him still by the gentle position of her hands. Her eyes slowly opened as she felt herself calming down, trying to focus on the darker ones so close to her. She didn't think she needed to say anything else about what she wanted, or who she wanted. He'd finally just taken her desperate hints.
"That wasn't so hard, hm?" Her voice was quiet, a whisper on her strained breath, but she was smiling despite it. It felt like the first time she had smiled in days. All of the tension and pain and hurt was draining out of her and leaving behind a peace that she had sought desperately. Then, with peace, her exhaustion was starting to overwhelm her - even in the wake of his kiss.
"I'm tired," she complained softly, letting her hands fall slowly from his neck. She leaned back slowly but, at the last second she just caught his wrist in her hand and pulled - trying to tug him down with a strength that was severely lacking. She was fading fast now that their business was done, but she wanted him close. She had no idea he'd been sleeping for days. She just relaxed into the pillow closest to her and gave his wrist one last, needy tug.
"Stay here," it was a tired mumble, and she was trying desperately to stay awake in the midst of her sudden crash, just long enough to make sure he didn't leave. It was a challenge that she was barely winning, though.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:55 am
In the midst of it he'd curled his fingers into the dreads that hung behind her, resting his hand against the back of her head as she'd wrapped her arms around him, and they were roughly entwined. They just kissed months into moments. He came away from her lips breathless as well, dizzy, but euphoric.
"You have no idea," he breathed back.
When she began to loosen her grip, he let his fingers run along the side of her face softly before he'd completely detached himself. Their eyes met and shared that secret understanding. He felt warm; they both felt warm. And happy. He could see in her amber eyes that she wanted this moment as much as he had. He'd always needed her, but until now he never even imagined how badly he did. She made him feel wanted, needed, protected. All that he'd suffered had been for her happiness, every time he held back his emotions had been out of reverence for her. In his hormonal state he would swear up and down that he'd do it all over again, just for this. All he'd needed was this affirmation that Kaia wanted to be his, and they didn't have to hold themselves back any longer. His passion for her was possessive. He had the power now to protect her like he'd never had before. He'd never let another Chase into her life. He'd never let anything come between them. She was his.
His laughter at the way she whined was quiet, but not mean. He was laying back too, following her hand down so their faces were level again on top of the pillows. Their joined hands lay in the space between them, his dark, bruised wrist encircled by her pale fingers. They tightened and he briefly felt his mind jump away from the happy moment to somewhere unpleasant and painful. He gently slid his wrist out of her grasp and took hold of her fingers in his own as a mutual reassurance that they were both really there for one another tonight. As if he wanted to be anywhere else right now, or ever. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:56 am
His laughter was an afterthought in her mind as he complied so easily, there was nothing to complain about as long as he was staying with her. She followed his movements with her bright eyes, watching him until he had settled across from her and she could just stare silently at his face. It hit her in that moment, where she was teetering on the edge of sleep, that they had just changed everything in the span of minutes. They had destroyed everything about their functioning but distant relationship and rebuilt it as something stronger, more deep than she could even guess.
He wasn't the teenager she had cared for, the one that had almost died before she knew his name. He had grown, become something more, and somewhere she hadn't realized how important that something had become. For the first time in her short life, there was something, someone, that was ultimately hers.
I'm not going anywhere.
The words made her smile as her eyes finally drifted close, as if that one assurance was all she needed to finally just relax and let sleep come. She shifted one last time until she was close enough to feel the warmth radiating off of his skin, letting it lull her into a peace where her worry and hurt disappeared. Her fingers flexed gently, squeezing his hand like it was a life line even as darkness began to draw her under.
She was home.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
