SPN fic: "lovers alone wear sunlight"
Title: lovers alone wear sunlight
Author: Signe
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Lenore
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 3,046
Spoilers: 2x03, Bloodlust.
Notes: This is a companion piece to ' until twice i have lived forever', the final part of a trio of stories that began with ' You who are free, rescue the dead', though I think it can stand alone. As always, I owe a huge debt to flipmontigirl for not letting me be lazy, for making me tell the story as it needed to be told, and for being right far too often. Thanks also to vegetariansushi for her editing prowess, and to annalazarus who rescued me when I got lost. Dedicated to tvm, who is a darling and deserves far more than this.
Light format for those who prefer it.
lovers alone wear sunlight
They're a friendly bunch at Ray's bar, everyone knows everyone else. It's a small town, after all, like all the small mid-west towns she's lived in. There's dancing on a Friday night, karaoke sometimes, and she's had offers. "Hey gorgeous, wanna dance?" or "You and me, how about it?" they might say.
She tries to blend in.
She doesn't manage that well though, not really. Sitting at the darkest end of the bar, silence like a sullen companion beside her. Straight back and eyes that look only at her drink or as though fascinated at the scratches on the dark wood bar. Shaking her head at the offers. They don't bother asking now, six months down the line.
A stranger comes into town. Must be, because it's been a while since she's heard any of the lines.
"A beer," the man says, "and another of whatever the lady's drinking."
He's too close for her comfort, close enough that she can smell the reek of the road on him, smell the hours traveling. It's strong, he smells weary.
"No," she says, and tacks on, "thanks," as an afterthought. But the scent is familiar. The years roll back and she's remembering. She looks up.
Twenty towns or more ago, that's how long it is since she's seen him. She doesn't settle down too long these days - it's not safe. She's been staked through the chest by an idiot who thought it would kill her - it didn't, but it hurt like hell - and she's been threatened by others who've gotten too close to the truth. So she moves, she and those of her people who're still with her. Not many now, her family, not many.
He looks older, wearier. There are creases around his eyes, and they're not from laughter. He doesn't look as though he's laughed in a long time.
"Sam," she says. "Sam Winchester."
"Lenore." He remembers her name. She's strangely touched by that. He must have rescued so many.
She doesn't touch her drink when it comes. She doesn't want it, not when she can smell and feel the rough thrum of blood so near. His heartbeat a little too fast, a little unsteady, but strong, very strong.
He gulps his beer down as though it will rescue him. He looks as though he needs rescuing, from himself if nothing, no one else. He looks worn and frayed and alone.
She doesn't care about humans, or human woes. But Sam. Sam she does still care about, in some unnatural way she can't quite understand, that goes beyond his saving her life or a one night stand that felt like more. She doubts she can rescue him, not fully - some roads are one way - but maybe she can make him forget, for a while.
"You look like you sleep as much as me at night," is all she says, and then she gets up and walks out. She knows he'll be behind her.
*
His smell is stronger outside, away from the confusing mingled human scents. Here it's just him, musky sweat and the notes that make him Sam, unique, unforgettable. She's hungry for all of him. Impatient. She wants to throw him against the wall outside, bite and taste and inhale, press her nose into him and fill herself. She wants to feed on him, wants rich human blood that tastes nothing like the bitter tang of animal blood.
She wants all this, imagines it as she stalks down the road, Sam a few paces behind her. Keeps on walking, step after step until her key's in the door and he's right there, pressed behind her, and they're tumbling into the house and she doesn't have to hold back a second longer.
So different from the first time. He'd carried her - kitten-weak she'd felt - still bleeding from hunter wounds and hurting from dead man's blood. This time she's strong, as strong as he is, and she revels in it. There's no hiding, no pretence, no need for gentleness.
She slams him into the wall of her hallway, and he fights back, stripping her as she strips him, his hunger almost matching her own. They stumble along, a tangle, until she throws him to the ground, stripped bare. Not just naked, completely bare and open, and it catches in her throat, seeing him like this.
She forces his hand between her breasts, where her heart should beat. Lets him feel the quiet skin and absence of life. Watches his face for fear or disgust - testing him - and he looks at her as though she's beautiful.
And now, she can slow down - there's time, after all. Time to memorize him, each new scar - too many - the deep male scent of his pits, the lingering trace of beer on his mouth. It tastes better on him, warmed by skin, than from a glass.
He's everything she isn't. Warm-skinned, grown from the first time they met, older. He's thicker around the waist, broader across the shoulders, not the half-man, half-gangling boy she remembers, and there are stray white hairs among the shaggy brown. She thinks he looks even better.
She tries to show her awe as she kisses him, sharp nips and long, slow touches. Curves into him, body and hands and lips all kissing him. He opens his mouth to hers, and she slips her tongue minnow-swift inside. He smiles against her neck as she takes the point of his nose between her teeth, and lets out a warm rush of breath as she kisses each eyelid in turn. His lashes are soft against her lips.
He leaves her breathless.
"You're beautiful," she says, "so beautiful," and smiles as he looks self-conscious under her admiring gaze.
"I want you now," he says, and then. He reaches up for her, as though he's been waiting patiently all this time while she relearned him, but can't wait any longer. He reaches up with desperate touch, huge generous hands sweeping over her, and the hunger-pain flutters to a halt. There's just want, and it feels-it feels wonderful.
She hopes he can feel it too. Resonating through her skin, peaking her nipples under his exploring fingers. It's in the wetness between her thighs, and in the breathy moans that don't sound like her anymore. It's in the different ache in her belly, one that's anticipatory, not desperate.
He's tender when he holds her face, skimming his thumbs across it as though to help her form a smile, but he doesn't make even a pretense of tenderness when he bites and suckles her breasts until she thinks she could come from that alone. His thumbs rasp rough and warm against her swollen nipples, perfect pleasure-pain.
He keeps teasing though, rough and gentle by turns, bringing her to the edge and pulling her back, until she's shamelessly rutting against him, her cunt wet against his belly, his cock sliding tauntingly between the crease of her thighs and she can't wait any longer, too long, it's been too long and she needs to have him inside her before she goes crazy.
When he sinks into her, the heat is amazing. Feels like she's burning inside, feels almost as though there's life inside her, and she has a moment's hideous sense of loss of what she was. Tamps down on it instantly, because she's not ashamed of who she is, she's not something less, and she won't let herself think that, ever. But she howls her loss anyway, loud and primitive, and again, when she comes, she howls her joy.
*
After - when he's slid out soft from inside her and she's grown cold again - she's hungry. It comes rushing in on her, hunger greater than she's had in a long time, and the desire to go out hunting is almost overwhelming. The moonlight is streaming through the window, shadowy-white and welcoming; it's her time.
"Come to bed," he says, sleepy voice like a little boy, and she has to remind him. She looks out and points.
"It's the middle of the night," she says, and lets him take in her meaning. She expects him to get up and go, but he just repeats his demand, and she's so surprised she lets him take her hand and takes him upstairs to her bed. It's too small for both of them really, but he curls in tight as though he's used to having too little space, and they fit.
She holds him while he sleeps, breathing in the smoky soft scent of his hair, letting his warmth make her feel warm. The hunger dies down to a quiet ache, but doesn't disappear. His skin is so very thin under her fingers, the blood beating so close to the surface. Loud in the silence of a small town night.
The night is long, the clock on the dresser counting out each hour as though she needs reminding how slow time can be. She considers getting up, slipping out to feed without waking him, but it feels almost like a betrayal of his trust. So she lies still, folding around him afresh each time he turns in her arms. And thinks about this human who treats her like anyone else, who saved her, who looks at her as though she's beautiful. Makes her feel beautiful again.
When the morning light first appears, she sits to one side against plumped up pillows and watches him. He's sprawled in his sleep, taking up most of the bed, and he's gorgeous. His back is modern art, all sharp lines and curves together, warm skin that's seen the sun - she can almost feel it when she brushes his back with her fingertips. Her room feels dusty and dead in comparison with him, like a life lived in a black and white photograph, and she wishes she could keep him here forever.
When he surfaces from sleep, he stretches, long and leisurely, lifts his head up and smiles at her. It's the closest she's ever felt to contentment, just that moment, in that smile.
*
He leaves in the morning, still early, work to do, he says. Demons to kill, he doesn't say, but she understands.
"Don't suppose you have any coffee?" he asks first, bashfully. And she laughs her no, waving her hand to encompass her bare kitchen. She has a fridge, but there's nothing in it he would want.
"No coffee, no food," she says.
"I need caffeine," he says, "I don't function well without it these days." He stretches yet again, long length of him, glimpse of bare belly above his belt buckle, smile on his face as languid as a summer pond. More peaceful now than he was last night, and if she's given him that, she's glad.
"There's a place, two blocks this side of Ray's bar," she tells him. "Coffee always smells good there." Not that she's ever tried it.
"Thanks, yeah," he says, and pulls his dusty boots on. "I'll give it a try."
He's out the door and she's this side of it, closed, before she realizes that he didn't say goodbye.
*
She wakes up as the sun goes down. The house feels empty.
As she's dressing, she tells herself she's just dressing up - her new silver-gray shirt, a black lacy bra and matching panties - because a woman has to some times, to feel good. Even a vampire. Keeps on telling herself that as she heads out the door, as though repetition will make it all the truth there is, until she's seated at the far end of the bar, nursing a beer she doesn't taste and listening out for familiar footsteps, waiting for a familiar scent.
When he comes, she doesn't hear him above the growl of Johnny Cash on the jukebox. She jumps when he rests his hand on her shoulder, heavy a moment.
"Sorry," he says, "didn't mean to startle you."
She smiles at him and shrugs, taking in the tension that's back in the way he stands, and the mud on his clothes, and doesn't ask how his day has been. He looks tired and bitter, and like he needs more than beer can give him. But beer's better than nothing, she guesses, so she matches him drink for drink until the evening's gone and they're stumbling through the doorway of her house, Sam barely able to stand.
He's a mess, and she has to guide every move he makes. His kisses are in her hair, on the curve of bone behind her ear, sloppy in the crook of her neck. He bites her there, silly grin afterwards, playing with her, too drunk to understand his own game.
He's heavy when she undresses him, swaying uncertainly on legs that seem too long for him to control. He leans, one hand outstretched against the doorframe, all awkward angles and impossible mathematics. He falls when she tries to pull off his jeans, and laughs, white molars gleaming in the milky light. She tugs, hands lifting him, the tight muscle of his thighs sliding through her hands as she pulls the denim down.
He is vulnerable, laid out naked before her, eyes closed and arms out wide, a crucifix, an offering. And she doesn't understand what she has done to deserve this simple trust, but she won't abuse it.
There's dried mud on his cheek - she wipes it off with his discarded tee-shirt, then strokes the shirt down his chest, watching him shudder under the touch. He's still soft, his penis limp in the crook of his legs. She palms it, spongy-soft in her hand, feels the twitch of interest.
"I'm not too drunk to fuck you," he says. "If that's alright with you," he adds, so politely she barks out a laugh in response.
She strokes him to hardness, learning fast the touch he likes best, the twist that makes blood race hot into his cock, warming her palms, the flick of her thumb that makes his thighs tremble.
"Yes," he says, "yes, like that," and she tugs harder until he gasps and lets his head slip back against the floor.
"Or you could fuck me," he says blearily, "'cos I don't think I'm moving." And she lies like a blanket over him, guiding him inside her, and they stay like that, joined, unmoving. It's enough, the remembered warmth as welcome as last night, and she rests her head on his chest. She reaches out each side for his hands, and hers fit when he closes them around her. It feels intimate, almost too much, something more than she feels she has the right to, but she doesn't let go. They lie like that even after he softens inside her, the slow and steady rise and fall of his chest under her the only motion in the room.
*
"Do you remember?" he asks. She'd thought he was asleep underneath her, but his breath hitches in question.
"Remember what?"
"All of them. All the others. We cut off his head, you know. Did'ya know that? Lots of blood. There's always lots of blood."
"Sam-"
"You'd be surprised how much blood there is in a person. Or maybe you wouldn't, because you'd know. Of course, you'd know. Not that you-But you'd still know, stuff like that."
"Sam," she tries again, louder this time. "It was a long time ago."
"He was your friend though."
"Yes." There's no point denying it.
"I'm sorry."
"I know."
"I just wish I could forget, sometimes, you know? All of it."
She doesn't answer, because there's nothing she can say. She doesn't know what it is he needs to forget, why he's alone right now when he's clearly a man who needs the company of others. She doesn't know where his brother might be, and she doesn't ask. There are too many things that might have happened to a man like Sam doing a job like his. The burden of memory weighed on him visibly when they first met, and it can only have grown heavier with time.
She knows what it's like to want to forget too, so when he trembles in her arms and the tears flow messy and loud, she cries as well, can't help herself. The salt tracks feel foreign on her skin, his mingling in with hers, but she remembers a time when she used to cry. Remembers being a child, and feeling loss and pain, feeling the huge hurt of it. She doesn't have that now. Now, she has hunger and an empty space where everything else used to be, and she thinks it's better this way. Emptiness is better than the uncontrollable highs and lows of human lives.
That's why she offers to turn him, even though she knows he'll say no. But if she doesn't, she'll always wonder if, always have moments of regret, and she doesn't like to leave herself anything to regret. She doesn't even finish the question before the answer is clear in his eyes.
"I had to offer," she says, and shrugs her shoulders as though it's no great thing, as though this isn't the first time she's ever made this offer.
*
He doesn't say goodbye aloud in the morning, but she feels it in the kiss he drops soft and final on her shoulder, and in the way he lifts her hair off her face for a moment then lets it fall back and hide her again. She doesn't open her eyes, doesn't want to make it awkward or complicated. And she doesn't want to say goodbye, or hear him attempt some meaningless assurance that they'll meet again. He's a hunter, he leads a hard life. He's not immortal, and he refused her gift. So she lies still, even long after the sound of his car has faded into the background noise of the waking town. She doesn't move until the trace warmth he left on the sheets has faded, and the room feels gray again.
And then she turns over, head in the pillows, and sleeps for a little, while the world is bright and busy outside. It'll be time to move on again soon, before the old tales catch up with her and hers. Until then, she can sleep a while.
*
unlove's the heavenless hell and homeless home
of knowledgeable shadows (quick to seize
each nothing which all soulless wraiths proclaim
substance;all heartless spectres,happiness)
lovers alone wear sunlight. The whole truth
not hid by matter;not by mind revealed
(more than all dying life,all living death)
and never which has been or will be told
sings only-and all lovers are the song.
Here(only here)is freedom:always here
no then of winter equals now of spring;
but april's day transcends november's year
(eternity being so sans until
twice i have lived forever in a smile)
E. E. Cummings
Author: Signe
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Lenore
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 3,046
Spoilers: 2x03, Bloodlust.
Notes: This is a companion piece to ' until twice i have lived forever', the final part of a trio of stories that began with ' You who are free, rescue the dead', though I think it can stand alone. As always, I owe a huge debt to flipmontigirl for not letting me be lazy, for making me tell the story as it needed to be told, and for being right far too often. Thanks also to vegetariansushi for her editing prowess, and to annalazarus who rescued me when I got lost. Dedicated to tvm, who is a darling and deserves far more than this.
Light format for those who prefer it.
lovers alone wear sunlight
They're a friendly bunch at Ray's bar, everyone knows everyone else. It's a small town, after all, like all the small mid-west towns she's lived in. There's dancing on a Friday night, karaoke sometimes, and she's had offers. "Hey gorgeous, wanna dance?" or "You and me, how about it?" they might say.
She tries to blend in.
She doesn't manage that well though, not really. Sitting at the darkest end of the bar, silence like a sullen companion beside her. Straight back and eyes that look only at her drink or as though fascinated at the scratches on the dark wood bar. Shaking her head at the offers. They don't bother asking now, six months down the line.
A stranger comes into town. Must be, because it's been a while since she's heard any of the lines.
"A beer," the man says, "and another of whatever the lady's drinking."
He's too close for her comfort, close enough that she can smell the reek of the road on him, smell the hours traveling. It's strong, he smells weary.
"No," she says, and tacks on, "thanks," as an afterthought. But the scent is familiar. The years roll back and she's remembering. She looks up.
Twenty towns or more ago, that's how long it is since she's seen him. She doesn't settle down too long these days - it's not safe. She's been staked through the chest by an idiot who thought it would kill her - it didn't, but it hurt like hell - and she's been threatened by others who've gotten too close to the truth. So she moves, she and those of her people who're still with her. Not many now, her family, not many.
He looks older, wearier. There are creases around his eyes, and they're not from laughter. He doesn't look as though he's laughed in a long time.
"Sam," she says. "Sam Winchester."
"Lenore." He remembers her name. She's strangely touched by that. He must have rescued so many.
She doesn't touch her drink when it comes. She doesn't want it, not when she can smell and feel the rough thrum of blood so near. His heartbeat a little too fast, a little unsteady, but strong, very strong.
He gulps his beer down as though it will rescue him. He looks as though he needs rescuing, from himself if nothing, no one else. He looks worn and frayed and alone.
She doesn't care about humans, or human woes. But Sam. Sam she does still care about, in some unnatural way she can't quite understand, that goes beyond his saving her life or a one night stand that felt like more. She doubts she can rescue him, not fully - some roads are one way - but maybe she can make him forget, for a while.
"You look like you sleep as much as me at night," is all she says, and then she gets up and walks out. She knows he'll be behind her.
*
His smell is stronger outside, away from the confusing mingled human scents. Here it's just him, musky sweat and the notes that make him Sam, unique, unforgettable. She's hungry for all of him. Impatient. She wants to throw him against the wall outside, bite and taste and inhale, press her nose into him and fill herself. She wants to feed on him, wants rich human blood that tastes nothing like the bitter tang of animal blood.
She wants all this, imagines it as she stalks down the road, Sam a few paces behind her. Keeps on walking, step after step until her key's in the door and he's right there, pressed behind her, and they're tumbling into the house and she doesn't have to hold back a second longer.
So different from the first time. He'd carried her - kitten-weak she'd felt - still bleeding from hunter wounds and hurting from dead man's blood. This time she's strong, as strong as he is, and she revels in it. There's no hiding, no pretence, no need for gentleness.
She slams him into the wall of her hallway, and he fights back, stripping her as she strips him, his hunger almost matching her own. They stumble along, a tangle, until she throws him to the ground, stripped bare. Not just naked, completely bare and open, and it catches in her throat, seeing him like this.
She forces his hand between her breasts, where her heart should beat. Lets him feel the quiet skin and absence of life. Watches his face for fear or disgust - testing him - and he looks at her as though she's beautiful.
And now, she can slow down - there's time, after all. Time to memorize him, each new scar - too many - the deep male scent of his pits, the lingering trace of beer on his mouth. It tastes better on him, warmed by skin, than from a glass.
He's everything she isn't. Warm-skinned, grown from the first time they met, older. He's thicker around the waist, broader across the shoulders, not the half-man, half-gangling boy she remembers, and there are stray white hairs among the shaggy brown. She thinks he looks even better.
She tries to show her awe as she kisses him, sharp nips and long, slow touches. Curves into him, body and hands and lips all kissing him. He opens his mouth to hers, and she slips her tongue minnow-swift inside. He smiles against her neck as she takes the point of his nose between her teeth, and lets out a warm rush of breath as she kisses each eyelid in turn. His lashes are soft against her lips.
He leaves her breathless.
"You're beautiful," she says, "so beautiful," and smiles as he looks self-conscious under her admiring gaze.
"I want you now," he says, and then. He reaches up for her, as though he's been waiting patiently all this time while she relearned him, but can't wait any longer. He reaches up with desperate touch, huge generous hands sweeping over her, and the hunger-pain flutters to a halt. There's just want, and it feels-it feels wonderful.
She hopes he can feel it too. Resonating through her skin, peaking her nipples under his exploring fingers. It's in the wetness between her thighs, and in the breathy moans that don't sound like her anymore. It's in the different ache in her belly, one that's anticipatory, not desperate.
He's tender when he holds her face, skimming his thumbs across it as though to help her form a smile, but he doesn't make even a pretense of tenderness when he bites and suckles her breasts until she thinks she could come from that alone. His thumbs rasp rough and warm against her swollen nipples, perfect pleasure-pain.
He keeps teasing though, rough and gentle by turns, bringing her to the edge and pulling her back, until she's shamelessly rutting against him, her cunt wet against his belly, his cock sliding tauntingly between the crease of her thighs and she can't wait any longer, too long, it's been too long and she needs to have him inside her before she goes crazy.
When he sinks into her, the heat is amazing. Feels like she's burning inside, feels almost as though there's life inside her, and she has a moment's hideous sense of loss of what she was. Tamps down on it instantly, because she's not ashamed of who she is, she's not something less, and she won't let herself think that, ever. But she howls her loss anyway, loud and primitive, and again, when she comes, she howls her joy.
*
After - when he's slid out soft from inside her and she's grown cold again - she's hungry. It comes rushing in on her, hunger greater than she's had in a long time, and the desire to go out hunting is almost overwhelming. The moonlight is streaming through the window, shadowy-white and welcoming; it's her time.
"Come to bed," he says, sleepy voice like a little boy, and she has to remind him. She looks out and points.
"It's the middle of the night," she says, and lets him take in her meaning. She expects him to get up and go, but he just repeats his demand, and she's so surprised she lets him take her hand and takes him upstairs to her bed. It's too small for both of them really, but he curls in tight as though he's used to having too little space, and they fit.
She holds him while he sleeps, breathing in the smoky soft scent of his hair, letting his warmth make her feel warm. The hunger dies down to a quiet ache, but doesn't disappear. His skin is so very thin under her fingers, the blood beating so close to the surface. Loud in the silence of a small town night.
The night is long, the clock on the dresser counting out each hour as though she needs reminding how slow time can be. She considers getting up, slipping out to feed without waking him, but it feels almost like a betrayal of his trust. So she lies still, folding around him afresh each time he turns in her arms. And thinks about this human who treats her like anyone else, who saved her, who looks at her as though she's beautiful. Makes her feel beautiful again.
When the morning light first appears, she sits to one side against plumped up pillows and watches him. He's sprawled in his sleep, taking up most of the bed, and he's gorgeous. His back is modern art, all sharp lines and curves together, warm skin that's seen the sun - she can almost feel it when she brushes his back with her fingertips. Her room feels dusty and dead in comparison with him, like a life lived in a black and white photograph, and she wishes she could keep him here forever.
When he surfaces from sleep, he stretches, long and leisurely, lifts his head up and smiles at her. It's the closest she's ever felt to contentment, just that moment, in that smile.
*
He leaves in the morning, still early, work to do, he says. Demons to kill, he doesn't say, but she understands.
"Don't suppose you have any coffee?" he asks first, bashfully. And she laughs her no, waving her hand to encompass her bare kitchen. She has a fridge, but there's nothing in it he would want.
"No coffee, no food," she says.
"I need caffeine," he says, "I don't function well without it these days." He stretches yet again, long length of him, glimpse of bare belly above his belt buckle, smile on his face as languid as a summer pond. More peaceful now than he was last night, and if she's given him that, she's glad.
"There's a place, two blocks this side of Ray's bar," she tells him. "Coffee always smells good there." Not that she's ever tried it.
"Thanks, yeah," he says, and pulls his dusty boots on. "I'll give it a try."
He's out the door and she's this side of it, closed, before she realizes that he didn't say goodbye.
*
She wakes up as the sun goes down. The house feels empty.
As she's dressing, she tells herself she's just dressing up - her new silver-gray shirt, a black lacy bra and matching panties - because a woman has to some times, to feel good. Even a vampire. Keeps on telling herself that as she heads out the door, as though repetition will make it all the truth there is, until she's seated at the far end of the bar, nursing a beer she doesn't taste and listening out for familiar footsteps, waiting for a familiar scent.
When he comes, she doesn't hear him above the growl of Johnny Cash on the jukebox. She jumps when he rests his hand on her shoulder, heavy a moment.
"Sorry," he says, "didn't mean to startle you."
She smiles at him and shrugs, taking in the tension that's back in the way he stands, and the mud on his clothes, and doesn't ask how his day has been. He looks tired and bitter, and like he needs more than beer can give him. But beer's better than nothing, she guesses, so she matches him drink for drink until the evening's gone and they're stumbling through the doorway of her house, Sam barely able to stand.
He's a mess, and she has to guide every move he makes. His kisses are in her hair, on the curve of bone behind her ear, sloppy in the crook of her neck. He bites her there, silly grin afterwards, playing with her, too drunk to understand his own game.
He's heavy when she undresses him, swaying uncertainly on legs that seem too long for him to control. He leans, one hand outstretched against the doorframe, all awkward angles and impossible mathematics. He falls when she tries to pull off his jeans, and laughs, white molars gleaming in the milky light. She tugs, hands lifting him, the tight muscle of his thighs sliding through her hands as she pulls the denim down.
He is vulnerable, laid out naked before her, eyes closed and arms out wide, a crucifix, an offering. And she doesn't understand what she has done to deserve this simple trust, but she won't abuse it.
There's dried mud on his cheek - she wipes it off with his discarded tee-shirt, then strokes the shirt down his chest, watching him shudder under the touch. He's still soft, his penis limp in the crook of his legs. She palms it, spongy-soft in her hand, feels the twitch of interest.
"I'm not too drunk to fuck you," he says. "If that's alright with you," he adds, so politely she barks out a laugh in response.
She strokes him to hardness, learning fast the touch he likes best, the twist that makes blood race hot into his cock, warming her palms, the flick of her thumb that makes his thighs tremble.
"Yes," he says, "yes, like that," and she tugs harder until he gasps and lets his head slip back against the floor.
"Or you could fuck me," he says blearily, "'cos I don't think I'm moving." And she lies like a blanket over him, guiding him inside her, and they stay like that, joined, unmoving. It's enough, the remembered warmth as welcome as last night, and she rests her head on his chest. She reaches out each side for his hands, and hers fit when he closes them around her. It feels intimate, almost too much, something more than she feels she has the right to, but she doesn't let go. They lie like that even after he softens inside her, the slow and steady rise and fall of his chest under her the only motion in the room.
*
"Do you remember?" he asks. She'd thought he was asleep underneath her, but his breath hitches in question.
"Remember what?"
"All of them. All the others. We cut off his head, you know. Did'ya know that? Lots of blood. There's always lots of blood."
"Sam-"
"You'd be surprised how much blood there is in a person. Or maybe you wouldn't, because you'd know. Of course, you'd know. Not that you-But you'd still know, stuff like that."
"Sam," she tries again, louder this time. "It was a long time ago."
"He was your friend though."
"Yes." There's no point denying it.
"I'm sorry."
"I know."
"I just wish I could forget, sometimes, you know? All of it."
She doesn't answer, because there's nothing she can say. She doesn't know what it is he needs to forget, why he's alone right now when he's clearly a man who needs the company of others. She doesn't know where his brother might be, and she doesn't ask. There are too many things that might have happened to a man like Sam doing a job like his. The burden of memory weighed on him visibly when they first met, and it can only have grown heavier with time.
She knows what it's like to want to forget too, so when he trembles in her arms and the tears flow messy and loud, she cries as well, can't help herself. The salt tracks feel foreign on her skin, his mingling in with hers, but she remembers a time when she used to cry. Remembers being a child, and feeling loss and pain, feeling the huge hurt of it. She doesn't have that now. Now, she has hunger and an empty space where everything else used to be, and she thinks it's better this way. Emptiness is better than the uncontrollable highs and lows of human lives.
That's why she offers to turn him, even though she knows he'll say no. But if she doesn't, she'll always wonder if, always have moments of regret, and she doesn't like to leave herself anything to regret. She doesn't even finish the question before the answer is clear in his eyes.
"I had to offer," she says, and shrugs her shoulders as though it's no great thing, as though this isn't the first time she's ever made this offer.
*
He doesn't say goodbye aloud in the morning, but she feels it in the kiss he drops soft and final on her shoulder, and in the way he lifts her hair off her face for a moment then lets it fall back and hide her again. She doesn't open her eyes, doesn't want to make it awkward or complicated. And she doesn't want to say goodbye, or hear him attempt some meaningless assurance that they'll meet again. He's a hunter, he leads a hard life. He's not immortal, and he refused her gift. So she lies still, even long after the sound of his car has faded into the background noise of the waking town. She doesn't move until the trace warmth he left on the sheets has faded, and the room feels gray again.
And then she turns over, head in the pillows, and sleeps for a little, while the world is bright and busy outside. It'll be time to move on again soon, before the old tales catch up with her and hers. Until then, she can sleep a while.
*
unlove's the heavenless hell and homeless home
of knowledgeable shadows (quick to seize
each nothing which all soulless wraiths proclaim
substance;all heartless spectres,happiness)
lovers alone wear sunlight. The whole truth
not hid by matter;not by mind revealed
(more than all dying life,all living death)
and never which has been or will be told
sings only-and all lovers are the song.
Here(only here)is freedom:always here
no then of winter equals now of spring;
but april's day transcends november's year
(eternity being so sans until
twice i have lived forever in a smile)
E. E. Cummings