[continued - let's be safe, rating wise, shall we friends? Children, hide your eyes.]

[just_a_phase]

"I tried that one first. Good luck, Rasputin. You're never getting away."

She might as well have tattooed an "X" on her arm, instead of a dragon around a sword. (She will never tattoo a name, though. Not even his. ...Maybe. Maybe the child who has a name now. But in kanji, for only her to know. For only her to be certain how to translate.)

"Now you get it," she hisses, seeing it click with the sheen of tears, "and by God, if you ever try to guilt me over one thing I did, I will break your arm. Goddamn you."

It's not easy, with his weight, to roll her hips up against his. She does anyway.

She can't remember what the main point of this is anymore. She should have warned him. She knew, she knew, when the box came out, that her grip on her temper was going to be tenuous at best.

It's gone, gone, gone, now, and so are her clothes, and she almost doesn't notice, just sneers back, "I'd hate to impose," and nips his neck, sharply.

Comments

[konocc]

(Continued back on the main thread.)

His head is swimming. Was she just that dense or unfeeling that she could not see that the last person he wanted to talk about - especially right now after...Was Pete fucking Wisdom? Everything else moves into the background and she can watch light die in his eyes as his thoughts move inward. He wishes he could let go and forgive the guy because its obvious now that she's tested things she wants that bastard more, and what he wants -

No, what he can live with...is her being happy.

As she babbles, he busied himself with dishes in the sink. He lives alone and never saw the point of paying for a dishwasher. He needs something to do with his hands because the only other thing in this room to touch right now doesn't want him to, or at least wants to hurt him more than love him. Soapy water glides through his fingers like strands of her hair as he begins to scrub something of his recent past clean while only seeing her out of the corner of his eye - like a ghost.

[just_a_phase]

She rubs at her eyes for a moment, muttering in Japanese, before she goes over and physically makes him look at her.

"Stop." It's an order. "Whatever's in your head. Stop. Stop comparing, or drawing back, or whatever you're doing. Stop running away from me inside your head, stop thinking you're so sure I don't want you. I brought it up because even when you make the remark you did, it makes me feel dirty. And I don't want to feel it again. I don't want to ever feel that again, but especially not when I'm with you. Even if I'm just having lunch with you."

Her hands refuse to let him turn his head from her.

"It's not nice. It's not fun. But I needed it said. So I never have to again. So you know that maybe it's part of the past that still hurts--but it's the past."

Her hands drop then and she wraps them--and the blankets--around herself, looking away. "This is now. Now has--has things we have to talk about. Too. I've never--do you understand? I've never not used protection, Piotr. I have condoms, I bought condoms when I was out! But I just..."

She trails off. It was you. And I forgot. The thing I never forget, I forgot, because it was you.

She mumbles, still not looking at him, "It's in my head, and it doesn't mean anything until it's out and I share it with you. And I can't...keep in things, sometimes. I can barely be solid. If there's something important, it comes out. And it is important. Because I know. I know what people, including you, think of him. Feel about him. And it hurts, sometimes. But I need you to know too that...that there's no reason for you to even think about him....at all. Because he's the past."