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[brainventilator]

It's a hot night. The hottest in weeks. Every fan and air conditioner in the town is set to full blast, struggling weakly against the oppressive heat. Almost every house has the windows shut and the artificial cooling struggling to keep up. Every house, that is, but one. Sitting at his desk with the window open, Mordecai slouches in his seat and

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[msskagpocalypse]

If anyone had bothered...if anyone at all had asked Lilith what she could feel she would lie. Don't feel anything. Not in the arms of the men she led on, moving against them until they almost thought fucking her was their own idea - not in the coolness of the expensive linen pillow she refused to cry into most nights.

Truth be told, she could feel. Right now she could feel the rough, stone grit of Mordecai's house moving against her back. Her shirt riding up, the sharp pebbles leaving scratches as she shifted her weight to retrieve a cigarette from her pocket. How many nights had she resisted? Friends are weaknesses, worthless bullshit...but tonight, doing anything other than standing below his bedroom window would be madness

A year ago on this day, her entire life had caved in {Daddy can't come home. Daddy's dead, Lilith!} and that made this day an impossibility

[msskagpocalypse]

Her knees curl up, a reflexive search for the safety of childhood. She forces her legs straight, hand groping along the bed until it finds a friend, curls her fingers around his. She can't look away from his eyes {the sound}, the sharp furrow between his brows {the sound}, the movement of his lips; {the sound} of the single word repeating itself in her head.

Since.

She nods because her throat is too full of barbs things she would never say. They are breathing the same patch of air by the time her other hand curls around his forearm in a desperate plea.

Don't say the words.

[brainventilator]

The urge to finish his sentence is quickly strangled by the pleading look she gives him, the desperate need for the truth not to be spoken aloud. Maybe she's afraid of what it will do to her, or maybe she simply doesn't want to be reminded of what she lost, but whatever the case he listens to her and bites his tongue, hard.

"Okay," he whispers, quieter the second time. "Okay."

Some things don't need to be said. He squeezes her hand and looks her in the eye, trying not to think about what to do next. Emotional moments and his thought process don't mesh well. The only thing to do is to simply go with his gut, and so he puts his arm around her and pulls her into a one-armed hug. If his gut ever led him wrong, let it not be now.

[msskagpocalypse]

His arms are already the arms of a man, so different from the only man to ever hold her like this. She is left shell-shocked, wide-eyed and confused by the depth of his gesture. Her body is tight and wiry against him like a tense thunderstorm captured in the form of the girl he's known since they were five.

There is only one point of softness, the eye of the storm...

She exhales, so slow that time might have stopped, so warm that even she cannot tell if her lips are pressed to the base of his neck, or if it's just the heat of the condensation making the hollow there radiate heat.

She feels an insane urge to buck against him like a wildcat until she is sated and can lie still again, but she looks up into the face of the boy who shared her first cigarette and knows that it would destroy them.

"Mord." In this moment she has never wanted anything more. She turns, flipping her body and dislodging his arm in a split second so that she is facing away, free to breathe evenly again. "Your bed is creaky." An observation to break the

[brainventilator]

He's much less apt at understanding his own urges when he holds her close that way, much less capable than she is at understanding what his hormones say, but they're familiar in an uncomfortable way and that's more than enough for him to know. When she says his name, he feels strange and anxious, as if waiting for something, but then she turns away and flips herself over and the waiting is gone. Over and done with, and nothing but a flippant remark to show for it.

"Some things never change," he replies, staring at the back of her head and trying to pretend that they didn't just have a very weird moment. "My bed's always creaky, don't ask me why. Every bed I every get is creaky. Maybe my parents are cheap, or maybe you're sneaking in while I'm at school and jumping on it. Who knows?"

[msskagpocalypse]

Her shoulders roll, a small stretch that might be her body trying to get her closer to him; traitorous bitch. She can feel the wetness gathered in her eyes - tears that refuse to be cried. Who'd have thought she could feel at all?

Who'd have thought {fuck it. Fuck it all.}

She came here to tease him, to take him, to lose herself in her best friend and make him grow-up finally; make him hate her for using him like the other guys he goes to school with. He deserves a helluva a lot better than that.

"I'm tired." She shouldn't have come here.

[brainventilator]

Maybe, maybe not, but he invited her in and it would have been downright rude to decline.

"Me too," he replies quietly, but he thinks maybe they're tired for different reasons. He's been studying, and his head is heavy and he's tired. She, on the other hand, has a world of grief on her shoulders and no means of getting it off. They both have reasons to be tired.

"You can sleep here, if you want." He mentioned it already, but he feels it very important to re-state this now. "I don't mind. You shouldn't be alone tonight." A pause, then he adds "You should be with a friend." Not simply with a warm body, but with someone who cares.

[msskagpocalypse]

"We're all alone." Lilith doesn't know why she bothered to say it. It's a stupid, sullen, child's comment.

She kicks off her boots, letting them land with a satisfying thunk at the bottom of the bed. After a second she wiggles back against him and his warmth, hoping he'll choose to shut the hell up.

Sometimes, when she closes her eyes she is ten years old and daddy is reading her the best bedtime story; really a history book about famous female space pirates. Times when she drifts to sleep and she remembers what the word happy meant.

"Goodnight, Mordecai."

[brainventilator]

The feeling of her back pressing against his chest is enough to make him close his eyes, his arm back around her waist. He can smell the sweet scent of her hair and her skin, close enough to tickle his nose, and for the moment he can't think of anything else that would make this better.

"'Night, Lilith." He whispers, giving her a gentle squeeze.

[msskagpocalypse]

In the morning he'll wake up and predictably be left with nothing but the dusty smear from her boots on his sheets.

She is left with something more.

A lingering feeling of...

Peace.