![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furgoodThe room smells of stale perfume and burned plastic. The light of a bleak dawn falls over her, hitting her in bars of warmth, pressing insistently at her eyes. It's easy to turn over, grumble and reach for a blanket she doesn't have and press her face against the person in her bed. It's done without thinking, without pause. A hand hesitantly reaches up, presses against her curls.
As she drifts back to sleep, something nags. Who's sleeping with her? Alfie stays with Royce more often than not. Phi doesn't sleep over. It's a drifting thought and it keeps bumping against her consciousness like a cat that wants affection. There's a smell of something else, beneath the perfume, the plastic. Ash? Ash and something cloying. Her eyelashes brush against fabric as the world slowly seeps in. Right, she's curled up into his chest. Of course. She curled tighter, hands grasping at his shirt. Right. She missed him.
She missed him. The thought burns, a hole straight into her heart, a gasping breath pushing free with the pressure of it all. He strokes her hair, trying to coax her back into sleep.
Did she miss him? Deep down, it's obvious. Of course. In the same way she misses the ocean so much that she braves the bite of cold water in spring. It hurts but it hurts good and sharp and she loves it despite it. Had she been fooling herself for two years? Two years of kissing and smiling and learning the body of someone else, someone who didn't let her twist herself into the thing he wanted from her. Who was happy to remain apart from her, not curl up inside her, not twine their souls into one. Who wouldn't hurt her, not even a little, but would push her to be something more.
She hadn't wanted to come here. She'd wanted to stay in that oasis of freedom, a breath of life outside Panem, a world that made her happy to be herself. Where she could tease and flirt and learn and grow. Where she could hear.
But she's here. And it pulls a breath from her once more, slow, even. Right. And maybe she didn't fool herself. Because half the reason to stay there, to hide there, was the fear of this feeling. Of knowing she knew herself. Knowing that she never gives up on him. And there's a rush. Her family. Her pack. Her sister. All the things she was giving up to hide from the way he made her feel, the things he did to her, the cruelty of watching him pull her heart strings. He played her beautifully, with all the love in him. Love is cruel. He was cruel. He never meant it that way but it makes all the harder to accept.
She sits up, looks at him. He tilts his head, a gesture she remembers intently, a gesture so vividly familiar that it hurts. She sees the gray version of him, taller and painted where he's scarred, intently speaking with hands and then later words aloud. A thousand things try to sprout up through her lips, a million words, the things she thought about saying, about doing. She holds them in. Gently, Meulin touches his face, runs her thumb over the holes along his lips. He flinches but doesn't stop her. The pain is penance.
"I had the strangest dream."
Her voice is softer from practice. A gentle whisper that means it. Her thumb traces over his lips now, no sting of threads to brush against her skin. Even after two years of being elsewhere, several other instances of love making, she can still feel the threads on her thighs, brushing over her breasts. She's not the girl she was then. She's seen the world, seen worlds. She's been herself in so many forms. She's a woman grown and he makes her feel like a girl again. A girl so bright, a girl so sweet, so simple. A girl so naïve, so young, so easily led.
"I was somewhere else. Somewhere bright and warm and safe."
Her hand traces to the line of his jaw, up to the empty holes in his ears. Peacekeepers don't get to keep jewelry in their ears. Peacekeepers don't wear more than blinding white. So stark. So bright, like a girl in seafoam white, like a boy in capitol white. Her fingers work into his hair, tugging on the curls.
"I loved it but I still needed to leave it."
Because it was an oasis. And you can't live in an oasis forever. Oasises are spots of respite in a burning world, but you have to pick up, you have to keep going. Healing from your wounds can take days, weeks, years. And some scars are still fresh, some don't close over for months. But eventually, you have to leave it behind. Eventually there is more to life than lounging and fishing and walking the same paths day and day out.
And it's then she realizes how deeply she's changed. If she'd never gone to the Meadous, she probably would have been content to stay like that. In District Four, lounging and fishing and walking the same paths. Pulling him along. Pulling Derek and Chuck along too. But she's done that. She's done the healing and the waiting and the sunsets.
"It wasn't my real life. Real life is here." A pause as she takes him in. Takes in all his faults. All the pain. All the suffering. It will be a road fraught with struggle, if she choses him again. Hadn't she promised herself not to choses this again? Hadn't she promised herself not to try to keep fixing people? Not placing her heart back in this cage?
Not until a Kurloz. Not until a Meulin. Most motherfucking bound together
But second chances and third ones. Especially third ones.
"When we find them, after this war is over, I want to see every inch of Panem. Every bit. The parts full of sand and the parts with trees taller than buildings. The really cold parts, the hot parts, the fields, the oceans on all the coasts, the rest of these mountains. And I want to fix my ears, so I can hear the rain and the birds and the waves. So I can hear you."
And she sees the doubt. The part where he shuts down, the part where he pulls himself back from her, not physically, but behind his eyes. She presses her forehead to his, presses her lips to his.
"Come with me. Come for it all?"
Third chances.
As she drifts back to sleep, something nags. Who's sleeping with her? Alfie stays with Royce more often than not. Phi doesn't sleep over. It's a drifting thought and it keeps bumping against her consciousness like a cat that wants affection. There's a smell of something else, beneath the perfume, the plastic. Ash? Ash and something cloying. Her eyelashes brush against fabric as the world slowly seeps in. Right, she's curled up into his chest. Of course. She curled tighter, hands grasping at his shirt. Right. She missed him.
She missed him. The thought burns, a hole straight into her heart, a gasping breath pushing free with the pressure of it all. He strokes her hair, trying to coax her back into sleep.
Did she miss him? Deep down, it's obvious. Of course. In the same way she misses the ocean so much that she braves the bite of cold water in spring. It hurts but it hurts good and sharp and she loves it despite it. Had she been fooling herself for two years? Two years of kissing and smiling and learning the body of someone else, someone who didn't let her twist herself into the thing he wanted from her. Who was happy to remain apart from her, not curl up inside her, not twine their souls into one. Who wouldn't hurt her, not even a little, but would push her to be something more.
She hadn't wanted to come here. She'd wanted to stay in that oasis of freedom, a breath of life outside Panem, a world that made her happy to be herself. Where she could tease and flirt and learn and grow. Where she could hear.
But she's here. And it pulls a breath from her once more, slow, even. Right. And maybe she didn't fool herself. Because half the reason to stay there, to hide there, was the fear of this feeling. Of knowing she knew herself. Knowing that she never gives up on him. And there's a rush. Her family. Her pack. Her sister. All the things she was giving up to hide from the way he made her feel, the things he did to her, the cruelty of watching him pull her heart strings. He played her beautifully, with all the love in him. Love is cruel. He was cruel. He never meant it that way but it makes all the harder to accept.
She sits up, looks at him. He tilts his head, a gesture she remembers intently, a gesture so vividly familiar that it hurts. She sees the gray version of him, taller and painted where he's scarred, intently speaking with hands and then later words aloud. A thousand things try to sprout up through her lips, a million words, the things she thought about saying, about doing. She holds them in. Gently, Meulin touches his face, runs her thumb over the holes along his lips. He flinches but doesn't stop her. The pain is penance.
"I had the strangest dream."
Her voice is softer from practice. A gentle whisper that means it. Her thumb traces over his lips now, no sting of threads to brush against her skin. Even after two years of being elsewhere, several other instances of love making, she can still feel the threads on her thighs, brushing over her breasts. She's not the girl she was then. She's seen the world, seen worlds. She's been herself in so many forms. She's a woman grown and he makes her feel like a girl again. A girl so bright, a girl so sweet, so simple. A girl so naïve, so young, so easily led.
"I was somewhere else. Somewhere bright and warm and safe."
Her hand traces to the line of his jaw, up to the empty holes in his ears. Peacekeepers don't get to keep jewelry in their ears. Peacekeepers don't wear more than blinding white. So stark. So bright, like a girl in seafoam white, like a boy in capitol white. Her fingers work into his hair, tugging on the curls.
"I loved it but I still needed to leave it."
Because it was an oasis. And you can't live in an oasis forever. Oasises are spots of respite in a burning world, but you have to pick up, you have to keep going. Healing from your wounds can take days, weeks, years. And some scars are still fresh, some don't close over for months. But eventually, you have to leave it behind. Eventually there is more to life than lounging and fishing and walking the same paths day and day out.
And it's then she realizes how deeply she's changed. If she'd never gone to the Meadous, she probably would have been content to stay like that. In District Four, lounging and fishing and walking the same paths. Pulling him along. Pulling Derek and Chuck along too. But she's done that. She's done the healing and the waiting and the sunsets.
"It wasn't my real life. Real life is here." A pause as she takes him in. Takes in all his faults. All the pain. All the suffering. It will be a road fraught with struggle, if she choses him again. Hadn't she promised herself not to choses this again? Hadn't she promised herself not to try to keep fixing people? Not placing her heart back in this cage?
Not until a Kurloz. Not until a Meulin. Most motherfucking bound together
But second chances and third ones. Especially third ones.
"When we find them, after this war is over, I want to see every inch of Panem. Every bit. The parts full of sand and the parts with trees taller than buildings. The really cold parts, the hot parts, the fields, the oceans on all the coasts, the rest of these mountains. And I want to fix my ears, so I can hear the rain and the birds and the waves. So I can hear you."
And she sees the doubt. The part where he shuts down, the part where he pulls himself back from her, not physically, but behind his eyes. She presses her forehead to his, presses her lips to his.
"Come with me. Come for it all?"
Third chances.
