“We can start over.”
HEARD IT FROM A FRIEND
Tyler Martin & Lucy Everett
prompt: safe
He shouldn’t have been surprised to find her where he did. In their old home -- that word never really fit the place though, he knew that as surely as he knew his own name -- it was a safe bet that he would find her in a similar place. Hiding place. Tyler supposed that wasn’t a bad word for it. You couldn’t really hide in a building filled with werewolves though and she’d suffered more for that than most. Standing in the doorway now he corrected himself. Not most. All. Lucy had suffered more than anyone else and no matter where she’d tried to hide she’d been discovered, dragged out and beaten into a bloody stupor. Time and time again he’d cleaned blood from her face and hair, wiped it from her chin and neck with a damp cloth, popped her joints back into place or set her bones, dressed other wounds that he tried and failed not to recall as he hovered on the threshold.
Only the top of her head was visible. The light was off but he could see her blonde hair and just pick out the sound of her breathing. The room was silent otherwise, silent and still. She hadn’t made any attempt to personalise the space yet he noticed as he stood there. With a frown threatening in the crease of his brow he stepped inside all the way and closed the door quietly behind him before making his way around the bed to where she sat on the floor. Her shoulders were pressed against the side of the bed and her hands were in her lap. She was staring at them.
Wordlessly he lowered himself to sit beside her. How many times had they sat like this? Silent and still and simply taking what little comfort they could from one another’s presence? But this was another world. A whole new world. There was a light at the end of the tunnel now, a sense of hope and the promise of a real home. It had been so long that Tyler had almost forgotten what those things were like. Looking at Lucy now he suspected she had long since given up on finding them again.
“They asked if we wanted to join them for dinner tonight,” he told her, keeping his voice quiet and gentle. Drawing his knees up he set his folded arms atop them. With dark eyes he watched her face in profile, the subtlest working of her jaw as she chewed over the words he’d spoken. “Can you imagine how much spaghetti they go through in one sitting?” One of his weak attempts at making her smile. It had reached the point where they failed much more often than they succeeded. When Tyler had come to that realisation it had felt like another little piece of him had fallen away but none of this was about him. Tyler hadn’t made anything about him in a very long time. Lucy had been coming first for years now.
“You don’t like spaghetti?” Another exercise in futility. She blinked and turned her head towards him a little but still didn’t smile. Tyler fought back a sigh. “It’s safe here, you know,” he said instead, lowering his head just enough so that he could see her eyes better. They still weren’t focused on him but he could see them at least. In a subtle act of desperation he rocked sideways just enough to bump his arm against hers. She rocked a little. Tyler was relieved to see that she didn’t tense or flinch away. “We can start over.” He smiled when he said that and angled his head even more to try and catch her attention.
Her eyes turned just enough to find his face and he offered a fresh smile and a nod as if to say really. Rocking again he gave her another little bump. Tyler felt a flash of relief and hope when he saw a faint trace of a smile on her lips. It was a start. Now he just had to keep working on it. If he let it slip then they would be right back where they started. “So,” he said with renewed confidence that he started to feel in earnest when her eyes lifted and met his properly, “how about that spaghetti?”