Title: Embrace
Author: Essyllus
Genre: Romance
Summary: It's just a hug. Really, it's as simple as that.
Author's Notes: There is a Stepping Into Darkness challenge set by me, inspired by this piece. You'll find the requirements in the C:KND challenge forum. This is not an entry, I suppose, because that would be incredibly unfair.
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All her life, Sonya has never liked the dark. Never liked it, never went near it, never cared to know it. But Lee knows a world more than Sonya can ever imagine, and this, this is where the trouble begins.
Trouble begins under a brown hooded cap, under shy kisses and a twisted tangle of yo-yo string. When she starts to reach for the unfamiliar, she knows that she's getting into something bigger than herself, something larger than life, and something powerful enough that she doesn't have the will to fight. Doesn't like to, doesn't want to, doesn't care to.
So when the enemy comes crashing down on Sector W, Sonya puts up a brave face, reloads her freeze ray, and just shoots. They can't see her if she can't see them, and she can't see them with her eyes closed, and besides, what else is there to see but the darkness? Because the darkness is comforting, the darkness just is, and the darkness is Lee.
Sonya can't live without Lee.
She knows every dark crevice, every soft-lined furrow that makes up his winter coat, and knows exactly where her arms fold in. It's a sanctuary, she likes to think, burrowing her head into his shadow and listening to his heart beat. It's safe here, a safe ethereal pulse, even though Sonya should know by now, like any sensible KND operative, that she should be more afraid of a redheaded girl in a silly colander helmet than any adult villain, even Father.
But Lee understands, and he holds on to her tightly. The darkness constricts and Sonya twists her way into it, struggles, refusing to see Numbuh 86 mouth decommission, because, because- what else is there to see but the darkness?
And in this small moment between her and Lee, this is where she wants to be.