“He’s not a vampire, an’ no, he’s not even exactly sure of the location of my house right now. He’s a human tha’ got some outside help as t’ how t’ bind vampires.” Victor looked down at the floor. “I-um would you mind jus’ laying there with me? If not I get it, y’know I’ve been gone an’ such.”
She’d been going to sleep on the couch. Been going to say ‘no’, before he even asked. Except when he did ask, it was so diffident, so already sure of her ‘no’, she changed her mind. “Yes, alright, Victor d—” She did cut off the ‘darling’ before it left her lips. “Go put on some dry clothes,” she said instead. If she really looked at him nude, tonight, fuck knew what might happen.
She slipped back into the bathroom to gather up his wet clothes without, again, waiting for an answer. How did you recreate the space in your life that had been left empty, that had started to heal? If he had just been away, and kept in touch, that would be different, but he had been /gone/. Utterly absent in a way that brooked no argument and left only room for grieving. What did you do when the grieving cycle was brutally interrupted by a /lack/ of absence?
Summer became aware that she was standing over the dryer, arms braced on its top, staring at nothing at all. Helios sat in the kitchen entrance, watching her with grave blue eyes. “Yes, alright, fuzzbutt,” she told him, and let him let the way to her bedroom.
Victor didn’t say anything, he didn’t let it outwardly affect him when she didn’t tack on the ‘darling’ at the end of her sentence. He knew he couldn’t just expect her to go back to how things used to be. Wordlessly he went and changed into the dry set of clothes. As he tugged on the shirt he looked down and examined himself for the first time in a long time. There were new scars to add to his old ones and surely there would be new nightmares to add it his old ones as well now. Part of him wondered what he was thinking and if he should have come here at all. He should have just kept Summer out of it all, the last thing she probably needed right now was his sorry ass waltzing back into her life. Victor lay down on the bed, his hands tucked behind his head while he just stared at the ceiling, waiting for Summer to come back.
Just like that, standing in the doorway to her room, seeing him lie on the bed — tasting the renewed darkness inside him — just like that she was crying again. Not sobbing, but the hideous, silent, burning tears that welled up and overflowed, welled up and overflowed with every blink, spilled out from under closed eyelids. She hit the light switch, plunging the room into silvery darkness, and picked her way to the bed.
Somekitty hit the floor with a mrt and a thump, and she climbed into the warm spot left behind, turning her face into Victor’s shoulder and curling up against his body. He still smelled faintly of blood and pain, although she wasn’t sure if she was actually smelling that or if it was just empathic synaesthesia. Hesitantly, she lifted a hand, lightly brushing it over him until she touched his mouth, and left her fingers there, trembling slightly.