RP Sunny and Larimar


She watched him and swallowed when he started to move toward her. Her breath started to pick up as he got closer to her, closing the space between them. She was fully shaking by the time he got close to her, tears starting to bubble over her lash line. She couldn’t bring herself to look up at him. At least, not until his hands touched her elbows, holding her in his hands.

Warmth ran through her, filling all the cold and empty space with heat and flames and warmth. She shivered as it rushed through her and brought her body back up in temperature. She hadn’t been warm in months, her fire all but gone, and he brought it back to life with a single touch. The shaking became crying and her hands pressed to his chest.

“I-I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean any of what I said, I didn’t. I don’t want you to eat me, I just didn’t know what to do. I thought that maybe if you wouldn’t have me, maybe you– but I didn’t mean– I don’t want–” She broke off as her tears won out and her crying became sobbing. She restrained herself, bringing her hands from his chest to hers. She wanted so badly to throw herself into his arms, to feel them wrapped around her again. Just the thought that his arms around her could fix this, could maybe fix them.

But she couldn’t initiate, so she held her hands to her chest and tried to keep still, shaking and sobbing be damned. She needed him to want to hold her. She couldn’t make the choice for him, no matter how open he left himself to it. The moment her sobs started to die down, she quickly started to talk again. “I’m sorry that I’m broken. I’m sorry that I can’t let you go. You don’t know what you meant, what it meant, what I wanted it to all mean. You don’t deserve to have to deal with this, with me, and I’m sorry that I’ve done this to you. I just want– I just want to start over. Please, can we start over?”

Finally, she looked up at his face and tipped her head back to meet his eyes. Her face was damp, her eyes shiny. There was so much fear swimming in them because she didn’t know if she could bear him saying no. The knife in her chest was pressed almost to the hilt. The tip of the blade grazed her heart, and he had the power to drive it all the way through, to end everything.

Or, she hoped, he would take it and gently free it, leaving her intact, taking away the pain. He would take her in his arms and he would make everything right. He didn’t know how much power he had at that moment. The power to shatter her, to break her beyond repair, to reject her again. The power to make her whole, to fix her once more, to accept her again. They could be everything still. There was still a chance.

But it was up to him. It was all up to him. Sam couldn’t just take it this time. Todd had to want it all on his own.​
 
She melted under his touch. The same hands that had turned so many bodies cold and lifeless now held her, and she responded with a flood of warmth that spread out from his palms, up his arms, into his shoulders, and blossomed into his chest, filling the cavity where he should have a human heart. She pressed herself up against his chest, and he let her.

He ached when she pulled herself away, though the fire still licked at the ice in his chest.

She sobbed, and he waited, listening. Listening to her voice and her heart. Feeling her warmth swirl all the emotions around them in the air, flooding him but not drowning him. She was being so careful not to hurt him, and he saw when he looked in her tearful eyes that she was afraid of him hurting her. Not in the way he’d been afraid, though. She wasn’t afraid for her body. Her heart, after so much chasing, that was what was exhausted, on the verge of collapse, of surrender.

He was afraid, too. She’d see it in his eyes. He was afraid of himself, afraid of what else he might do to her. Afraid for her, and afraid for his own heart, or what was left of it under layers of predatory nature and frost. His eyes were damp, too. But he smiled, something just at the corner of his mouth, as his first tear fell.

He let go of her, just long enough to put one hand on the small of her back and tangle the other in her hair, and pulled her close.

“There’s no starting over,” he said, quietly. “We can’t change what we’ve done to each other. But… maybe, if we both try, we can heal it. Together. I’d be willing, if you are.”

He leaned forward, and kissed his wolf on her forehead. His lips were cold against her heat, but maybe… maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe it was how it was meant to be. Maybe she was right. Soulmates, in the balance they gave each other.

In the hope that maybe, this could be fixed. That they could heal. Together.
 

In Todd’s eyes, there was a fear. She recognized it for what it was– layered, complex, far more so than her own fear. But he would have more to fear. He would have more to be afraid of, between the two of them. And as she watched him, while he watched her, his lips turned at the corners up into an almost smile, the barest hint of one.

When he withdrew his hands, she thought everything inside her might shatter. She could feel cold start to sweep in and felt everything tense, and then right when it all would have broken, his arms wrapped around her. A hand at back and a hand in her hair, holding her close to him. The knife came free and was thrown into some forgotten corner as she threw herself into him, as her arms wrapped around him. Her hands went high on his back and buried in the far too big shirt he wore, her fingers tracing over the bottoms of his shoulder blades.

The tears kept coming, but now they were accompanied by a smile as she registered his words. She let the tears fall, as she let go of everything. She let go of the fear, that he would run from her or attack her. She let go of the despair, that they would never be able to fix what they were meant to be. She let go of the pain, that had been so deeply ingrained in her body that it felt like she couldn’t breathe.

She let go of it all, and for the first time since their night together in Billings, all of the tension in her body left. Her heart felt like it had room to beat again. Her lungs began to work the way they were supposed to. She took in long and deep breaths, ones that made it clear how shallowly she’d been taking in air until that moment. For the first time since their night in Billings, Sam felt her body unwind and fall into Todd’s, practically using him to keep herself upright.

For the first time since their night together in Billings, Sam felt hope. They could fix this. They could do this. And as his lips met her forehead, she held him tighter. Not tight enough to hurt, or even tight enough to show her strength. Just tight enough to feel him, despite the oversized clothes. Just tight enough for him to feel her, pressing herself against him. Just tight enough… just tight enough.

“I want that. I want to do that. I’ll do whatever it takes. Anything, Todd.” She looked up, finally, letting the warmth that had returned to her out in a cloud of warmth. She let it curl from her body and into his. She knew he didn’t need it. Her wendigo didn’t need heat. But she wanted to give it. She wanted to give it, so she poured it out and into him, hoping he would accept it for what it was.

She untangled their bodies, but she never stopped touching him. Her hands traced from his back down his arms to take his hands in hers. She held them as her tears finally started to slow. And she never looked away from him, her eyes tracing the lines of his beautiful face as though she could ingrain the image of him into her very soul.

She pulled him closer, taking just a few steps back. When they were both in front of the couch, she sat, tugging on his hands gently. He could choose to sit with her, or he could choose to take his hands back. She was clearly giving him the choice, her smile small but clearly accepting of whatever he chose to do. “Will you… sit with me?”​
 
Her warmth just kept filling him, and he realized that for once, he didn’t feel like a hollow shell. He was buried in her, in her scent, in her touch, in that smile as she pulled him over to the couch. For a moment, just a moment, they were back in that crappy motel room in Billings, poised over the bed that would change the course of their lives.

He’d regretted that night. Added it to the stack with Liz and Arlo. But as she held his hands right now, he found it a comforting memory for the first time in a year. A year – had it really been that long? He wanted to say no, wanted to doubt it, but they both knew better. And they knew better than to fall into that bed again, and repeat the same mistakes.

But a couch? That, he could do.

He sat heavily, like he’d let her pull him down. His weight stopped the act from being too dramatic, but it made his point. Surrender. Surrender to the moment, to this half-step in what a year ago had been the wrong direction. They’d rushed, back then. If they’d waited, if they’d taken the time to get to know each other…

He sighed, and put one arm around her shoulders. He knew how thin he was. It used to be that after a meal, his angles would soften up. That wasn’t the case here. He’d gone too long in between. Maybe here, they’d be safe enough to make up for it. At least for a little while.

He looked at her, not quite so far away now as when they were standing up, as when she was chasing him. His wolf was thin, but her face had stayed soft. Her red hair framed her whole self like a halo, like a veil. He couldn’t look much better. He probably looked worse, looked like something out of a ghost story. But she looked at him with such happiness, such adoration, that he couldn’t help but smile back despite the exhaustion.

“I’m glad you came.” He smiled, reassuringly, but a glimmer crept into his eyes – real humor, an old friend gone too long. “I’d ask what you’ve been up to since Billings, but, y’know.”

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with her new scent, strong and clean with the slightest kick. The wry smile warmed up just a little more.

“I’ll admit, I liked the apple stuff better. Cinnamon and daisies aren’t a good mix.”
 

He made a show of sitting down with her, but sit with her he did. And when he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, she leaned into him, letting her head rest on his shoulder for a moment. She couldn’t help but laugh as her wendigo started to make jokes. That was the best sign she could have hoped for. Humor was a good sign. She smiled against his shoulder, letting herself relax into his chill.

Then he commented on her scent and she remembered. She swallowed and pulled back just enough to look him in the eyes. She might as well be honest with him. She cleared her throat and nodded, a hand going to her messy curls. “I changed it because I was… I was trying to catch you again. I wanted to give you back your things. I kept them, so that whenever you slowed down enough that we could talk, I could try to give them back.”

Her voice broke a bit as she spoke. She looked clearly uncomfortable with this line of conversation, but there was a set to her shoulders and jaw that said she thought it was important to be honest. Then, something in her eyes flashed, and she pulled her hair over her shoulder. She took a deep breath of it, then sniffed her arm. Her brow furrowed and she looked up at him. “I don’t use anything that smells like cinnamon.”

Sam looked back up into his eyes and the tension that had forced it’s way back into her body melted. She couldn’t stay tense, not when those lovely eyes like the winter dawn looked at her so kindly. She just had to hope he wouldn’t be upset she had held onto his things. And hopefully, he wouldn’t be upset to learn that one of the things of his she had was his Malibu. The keys pressed against her thigh in her pocket, but she didn’t tense back up.

Instead, she scooted closer to him, so their thighs were touching. She wanted that connection. She wasn’t stupid enough to ask him for more than contact right then. She wanted more. She wanted everything that was him. She wanted his skin on hers again, wanted that wholeness and connection again. But even she knew that couldn’t happen. Not for a long time. They had let themselves get in too deep the first time, and look where that had gotten them.

No. This would be enough, his thigh against hers, his arm around her shoulders. She could still share her warmth like this. She could still chase away his cold. She could still give him her love. And that was all she really wanted. So she curled into his side and let more warmth pour from her to him. She didn’t press too close, not yet, in case the information that she had his things bothered him enough that he wanted to back away from her.

She wouldn’t be hurt. She would understand.​
 
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