22. crumble

Whenever he felt his heart was breaking, it was she that he'd turn to to put it back together. She'd wake to his mouth on her neck, his saliva and tears wet on her skin, his fingers clutching desperately at her flesh.

Usually, she would hex the shit out of him whenever he found her dozing, sprawled on her back with a musty old textbook open over her face, and gently shook her awake. She hated being awoken. But these were special circumstances. At moments like these –

(vulnerable ones, shameful and innocent and hideous and cathartic and beautiful all at the same time)

– she'd simply hold him, murmuring nonsensical reassurances as he'd thrust again and again into her not quite ready body.

It wasn't pleasant for her - she'd wake up dry and chafed - but it wasn't pleasant for him either. It never was, at times like these. He'd use her, but she never minded. She used him too, as a distraction from the awful hand that they'd been dealt.

Neither of them ever noticed when the other stopped being just a distraction. If they did notice, it didn't change the way they interacted out there. At least, it didn't change for a while. Not until another one of those times he woke her in the middle of the night, simply wanting to crawl inside her skin and hide from the world for a while.

He sank into her and she smothered a pained gasp as her body protested the invasion. He didn't move within her this time, just wrapped his arms around her as quiet sobs wracked his body and penetrated the silence of the room.

For once, her nonsensical reassurances coalesced into coherent words, repeated again and again. "I love you, I love you..."