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It wasn't unusual for Kam to go days without speaking to or hearing from the one woman he had let worm beneath his skin. Even through all his self-loathing and trouble it had never crossed his mind to distance himself from her - not even when he had wanted to be distant from himself and everyone else in his life. One self-destructive trip to Mars had changed that ability to wait for her to come to him and now, sprawled across his couch weak and broken, he felt the need to have her present growing ever stronger.

Too, he wondered, if she had been alarmed at his absence. It had been more than a week since they had even spoken - unusual in itself, even when they didn't have the time to meet in person.

The dark man drew a shallow breath and pulled out the phone to tap out a quick message:

[To Ariel: Can you come by?]

It took most of the concentration he had to finish the short sentence and press send before the phone was dropped onto his chest amid the blanket he had half-curled into. Then his eyes swept back to the TV, empty and sunken as they were, so that he could stare numbly at the people flashing color across the screen. He didn't want to be alone with the knowledge his wonder had forced upon him, with Rayyan's memories rattling around in his skull, but she was the only person he felt he could face in such a state.

It was the sound of her bike outside that first drew his attention away from his hazy thoughts - a sound he had heard dozens of times before, rumbling like a contented cat outside of his front door. It was pure comfort to hear it, the theme song that always signaled her arrival, and even through the residual ache in his bones born of sleeping days upon a cold, stone floor, he felt the relief flooding his system instantly. The bike's engine died but gave way to the metal grating of her key in his front door and finally, like a slow motion entrance he couldn't see, the sound of her boots echoed upon his tiled entryway.

His dark, troubled eyes swept away from the glaring light of the TV screen and up to her own - red and bright even in the darkness around him and the backwash of light silhouetting her figure. Beneath the pain and sorrow and loneliness, the mourning he still felt for people he'd never known, the broken man felt part of his soul brighten in her presence. His guttering embers were called to her flame and the weary mask of his face broke into an honest, if dampened smile.

"Yeah, I'm sure she was," he answered, acknowledging what she'd said but too relieved to see her to really care what Sana thought or felt. He'd tossed her out on her a** for a reason and even if some small part of him felt guilty over it, another part of him felt relieved for the absence of her in his life. She was stress incarnate and Ariel was better than any drug he'd ever had.

The dreadhead reached out with one broad palm to grip her just behind the knee of one leg, trailing it up over her outer thigh and letting it come to rest just below the swell of her hips. He was too weak to extend his arm much higher and the lack of nutrition he'd suffered was showing in the muscle loss of the bicep he'd exposed. It didn't stop his eyes from following the path the rest of the way, before they came to settle on her eyes again.

"I'll call her later if it'll make you feel less guilty about me wanting you here instead." The insinuation was written in the sloppy smirk of his lips and the way he tugged, weakly, at her leg to pull her closer. All he really wanted was to sink his arms around her but, feeble as he was, he wasn't quite up to the task of being forceful about it.

There was a peace in him as she crawled over his body and settled herself across his hips. She felt heavier than usual above his weakened form, sure, but it was an inexplicable comfort to feel himself drowned beneath the warmth of her. She was his, his secret and his mystery, his lover found in shadows. There was no one to impede them, no one that could taint the things that they shared.

She was one of the only comforts he still held in this world - one of the few people he hadn't completely let down with his own selfish behavior.

For now.

The dark man squashed that thought beneath his resolve and turned his tired eyes up to meet her bright ones. There was a peace in the fiery gaze, maybe simply because she felt so much like home to him. The hearth that he found rest next to.

"I know. I've been sick, kind of stuck on bedrest for a while. I'm feeling better though. I just look like s**t."

He managed a weak but playful smile for her benefit as both arms rose and slid around her waist slowly, circling her body and drawing het close to him. The contentment he felt was spelled clearly across his face and if she couldn't see that, there was the deep, relieved sigh that escaped him once he crushed her against his torso. All he'd wanted during his internment was to see her face.

Cosmos help him, but nothing felt so right as her.

"I'll be okay though, don't worry."

At a hospital somewhere?

The comparison was almost laughable but, if he'd let that insane bit of mirth escape, there would have been no explaining it. He just shook his head lightly at her question and left it at that, not willing to add more lies to their new truce or his own guilty conscience. There was so much he wanted to tell her and yet, if she was not already a part of this war then he didn't want to risk dragging her into it.

There were some secrets best kept.

"I'm sorry I worried you, Ari," his words were gentle and soft, unlike him, but the soft pull of his brows showed how much he meant it. He turned his head into her gentle stroking and watched her eyes as she traced the line of his cheekbones down to his jaw, to his lips. The fire he always felt at her touch was no less dampened but there was a need to remain in this tender moment. He didn't often allow himself to show weakness to anyone, least of all his fiery sprite, but if he couldn't show her then who else?

One of his arms uncurled from her waist and slid slowly up the side of her form until he could pull the long, thick black hair away from her neck. Up his hand crept until thick fingers buried in her hair and brushed it all back over her ear, exposing the side of her face and those beautiful, lidded eyes.

"I quit drinking," he murmured into the air between them, suddenly, though soft spoken. His dark eyes traced hers for the first reaction, wondering if she really knew how deeply he had spiraled out of control.

"Well, I'm trying, anyway."

"The second kind," he answered, solemnly, though his lips held the ghost of his usual smile for her sake - this was the least of his worries and he didn't want to put it on her shoulders. Her overall acceptance made for an easy admission and he wanted to tell her, like he wanted to tell her everything. There were so many things about each other that he knew they hadn't shared and, he was beginning to suspect, might never share for very good reasons. This was something he could admit because it was a flaw that was wholly, utterly mortal. This was his sin and not Gehenna's.

The spiral of his thoughts were caught by her playful tease and the little, familiar tug of his dreads. It made him laugh as he tilted his head back just a fraction to relieve the tension of her plucking fingers, slowly letting his eyes drift shut under the comfort of her weight atop him. For the first time in a long time, he felt content.

It was always her that fanned his flames back to life but now, with more knowledge in his mind than he wanted to claim, he couldn't help a comparison.

The arm still around her waist tightened and an eye peaked open, staring down the line of his nose to look at her.

"If I were to go stay out in my parents' cabin for a while, would you visit?"

Could you visit? the words echoed, implied.

It took a moment for him to realize that she was speaking from personal experience but he noticed the way her voice changed even before the narrative itself began. He heard that inflection in her tone, the way her heart seemed like it was suddenly on her sleeve - maybe it was just him, maybe he felt her emotions more keenly - but he felt his eyes drawn to hers as she started speaking. She watched his lips and he studied her face, reading her story as she spun it. It made his heart hollow in his chest and his arm tightened around her, so that he could hold her closer to him as the weight of her secrets settled into his skin.

It was a strange thing to find himself so protective, suddenly, over the force of nature that was Ariel, but he did.

"I'll sit in the stupid chair and tell people my name if I need to, I promise."

Only now the gates she had opened, the secrets she had settled in his soul, felt heavier beneath the sins already crushing him. Not because he couldn't carry her burdens but because she trusted him when he couldn't return the favor. Not for the first time, he cursed his blood and everything that Gehenna was. Cursed it, but didn't betray it this time.

"Just stay with me, Ari," he murmured as his head lifted up from the couch and his shoulders came with it, so that his words were a ghost across her lips, "kick my a**, anchor me down, whatever you want to call it. I got too close to the drain without you." The eyes he looked down into were bright and vibrant, the color of the swirling lava he'd nearly dived head first into. It was just as violent a hue but just as warm and welcoming to his Mars-bound soul.

Rayyan could keep Tanais with him in his memory so far as Kam was concerned.

Kam smiled into the tease, knowing by the tone that she was only mocking something she understood if she couldn't even put the bite into her effort. He could have felt more embarrassed by it but he knew he had tamed her too, as much as a creature like Ariel could be tamed.

"I wouldn't even dream of trying to get away from you, Kitten," he murmured into her lips, lingering there even after she spoke and letting her hold the weight of his head in her strong hands. Both of his arms slipped around her, anchoring him as he sat up slowly, so that she was deposited into his lap completely. It made a smirk stretch across his lips that he pressed back into hers again, dragging his teeth along her bottom lip lightly, teasing.

All he needed in the world was right here and he knew it.

"I don't need the bottle," he began, before scooting to the edge of the couch and slowly standing up with her held tightly against him. She was a lot harder to carry than Sidney, that was for damn sure, but he wasn't that weak yet and they weren't going that far. Even like this, he still wanted to prove he could handle her. As he wandered carefully down the hallway toward the open door at the end, the last thing he mumbled next to her ear was a whisper.

"I do need you."