home.

Devon

Quiet as they board a new plane bound for Denver. Quiet as she seats herself and buckles herself and puts the arm-rest up. Quiet if a little grumpy-seeming as she tucks herself under Rafael's arm and against his side, unabashedly seeking comfort from him in a way she seldom ever has, and which no one around them can fathom. That man over there makes them feel like they're in a cage with a hungry lion. That girl held in his arm makes them think less of the proud lion-tamer and more of the dead doe the lion is feasting on for now, which is the only reason it does not lunge for their throat. They feel momentarily safe from him, but not comfortable with his presence, or with hers, or their complicity in her danger.

Their animal brains lead them in exactly the wrong direction. No, she is not his feast. And her presence only makes him more aware of them, more dangerous to them, especially when she is so clearly vulnerable.

When the flight attendants drift by with their carts, Devon asks for bourbon. Shows her ID, because she has her wallet and everything. She doesn't shake when she drinks it, iced, but she is quiet. She's no longer crying, hasn't been for a while now. She's just really quiet. Not that unusual; they go whole days without talking. She ends up falling asleep after the bourbon; it hits her harder than she really expects, but though she didn't feel hungry when she woke up she wonders when she last ate. She wonders when she last had alcohol. Her head lolls on his chest and she naps, and when she wakes they're still in the air and he has nuts for her, or trail mix, or whatever little snack they handed out. She eats it silently.

Eventually they land, and disembark, and she holds his hand as they walk wherever they're going, most likely to where Franklin waits with the car.

It's then, in the back seat with the partition up, that Devon starts talking. She tells him all about it: starts with something awkward, like:

So... we were both in the sixteen hundreds. In New England. Yeah?

--

He hears about the Noyes family and Mercy, who she was. She says she knows she must have run into him at some point but she can't remember when exactly or anything else about it, but that she's getting ahead of herself. She fills in the blanks between their brief meetings back then. She tells him:

I don't think I've ever wanted -- needed -- to fuck you that badly before. And I've wanted to fuck you really bad sometimes.

Which is worth a dry, relieved laugh here or there. But she means it: tells him how it made her feel. In sparse, uncomfortable words, which are all she has, but she tries. It helped her, in a way she needed, at a time when she needed it, and it made her stronger. She doesn't know how, but it did.

Devon is crying again as she starts talking about how rapidly Assawetough and Oiguina and Hannah became important to her, cruelly important, and she's never had that, and she didn't think she ever would, and now she's not sure she ever will again. There's not any comfort to give her: her friend-sisters are dead. Her first coven, known only in a single evening, is long gone, and he can't really understand, and she doesn't expect him to, but she's sad.

They are at his place. She is briefly quiet as they go in, composing herself. Maybe they make food, or order food, or just go and sit on the couch while she tells him the rest. All the bits and pieces she didn't have time back then to tell him, or the parts he missed entirely, or the things she didn't have words for until now. The memories she gave up, so that the men in that town wouldn't chase the women she led away, wouldn't kill the women left behind. How she knows one of them was about him, and maybe it was when they first found each other back then.

So maybe he gives her his memory of that. Like patching a tire.

There's nothing after that. She knows she gave up a season to the Ladies. She knows why. She doesn't regret it. She's sorry she couldn't tell him what was happening before it was happening. She's sorry she left him alone. But she's not sorry she did it. She doesn't have to say that bit aloud; he can see it in her eyes, hear it underneath her voice. Devon has no regrets about what she did. Any of it.

Now Devon is reclining on the couch, her feet up, her shoes and socks off, and there's no enamel on her fingernails or toenails, no makeup on her eyes or lips, and only the earrings she usually has, her everyday things. The clothes he last saw her in, which are clean and seem no worse for wear. She has her head on his lap, and is looking up at him, and she's holding his hand in her hand, holding it over her middle, sighing. Her eyes are a little red from bouts of tears, but currently dry.

"Need to call Brian and Sheila," she murmurs. "And Mum. And Naomi. Just really don't want to deal with it all right now. You know?"

Rafael

Feels like some sort of rescue. Does to him, anyway. Feels fiercely, desperately protective of her all the way home. She's quiet most the way and he's alert, vicious, arm heavy over her shoulders. Glares at anyone who looks at them. Nearly growls at the TSA agent when they have to come apart for a while, when one and then the other has to go through the scanner.

On the plane he's awake the whole time. He doesn't watch a movie. He doesn't read a book. He doesn't leaf through a magazine. Just sits, watchful, scaring everyone in his vicinity.

She gets bourbon and sleeps. He buys a sandwich for her, too, which is waiting for her when she wakes.

--

In the car she starts talking. Starts telling him everything he missed. They were there together -- more or less -- but they hardly saw each other at all. He has his half of the story too, shares it with her sparsely. No point going into details, as they're all terrible: the rapid downspiral of that town into paranoia and hate. The women rounded up and carted off. The one they hung in the town green. The ones they beat, and clapped into stocks, and dragged before kangaroo courts to berate and demean.

He doesn't say too much about it. Just: it happened. He saw. And he waited because he knew she would do something, but he didn't know what, and he didn't want to make more trouble for her.

Did kill those fuckers in the woods, though. Would've killed more the night she broke all the women out, but -- they didn't follow. Town was fast asleep. Didn't wake to any of it. And now he knows why.

--

Still has Franklin. Still has that luxurious sedan. Still has that townhouse, and the lawn is manicured and the interior is well cared for, so he must still have his housekeeper. No one else home except him and her, though, and he's thinking house finally feels like home again now that she's back in his life. Returned from whatever other-world she was in, which was so far away and so inaccessible she may as well have been dead. She may as well be risen from the grave.

He makes hamburgers while she tells him the rest of it. She does almost all the talking. He's quiet, but he pours her water and later juice. He serves up amateurish but edible burgers. Even cuts a couple slices of tomato, pulls some lettuce leaf. They go sit on the couch while they eat, and while she talks, and while he listens.

He patches that bit of memory for her. She'll never have it back, not truly, but he gives her enough to build an imaginary scene. The church, the people exiting, the way he stepped forward and said her name.

And how she looked at him.

And how she walked out, because she couldn't stay.

Neither of them can patch her memory for the other two remembrances. Nor for the season she lost, the one she gave up. What she learned and what she forgot. That's all gone.

--

He puts his hand over the top of her head, thumb sweeping her brow. It's a curious, protective gesture. "Call them tomorrow," he says, simply. Perhaps it's a sort of absolution. She's not a bad daughter, niece, friend. There's just too much going on, is all.

Devon

Like she has a fever, Devon thinks. The way he puts his hand on her, like she's hot and he's going to cool her off, but his hands are never, ever cold. Some winters, especially in Boston and London, it would get so cold and she'd get sick and up til the point when Sheila would bring up some of that freakishly potent tea of hers that tasted like death but restored Devon year after year, flu after flu,

Devon's mum would put her hands on Devon's brow, and her hands would be so cold because it was winter and her mum didn't always have the best circulation and there was never a time when she was so fucking grateful for her mum but those moments. It was like ice could be soft and tender, like snow could love you back. Other times her mum's hands were always warm. But feverish, waiting for Sheila's special tea, feeling like she'd never feel better again, a cold hand on her brow was like being touched by a god.

She closes her eyes as he strokes her forehead. He's never taken care of kids. His dad maybe never did this for him, or maybe he did and that's where he learned it. But the touch is so soothing, so calming, that Devon nearly falls asleep again. She's got meat in her belly, and she's told her story, and Rafa's big palm and heavy thumb are making her drowsy again.

She tries to nod but can't. Just says: "All right."

Rafael

Just quiet for a while. Probably stuff he could say. Could tell her how much he missed her. Could tell her how awful it was, not knowing when or how or if she'd ever be back. Could tell her what that was like, all of it, and how the salt in the wounds came when everyone started thinking, suspecting, or at the very least wondering if he'd done something to her.

Could say all that, but what's the point? None. Not tonight, anyway. He's just glad to have her back. Doesn't quite trust it yet. That's why he's so alert, so watchful, so vigilant, even now. Doesn't trust that it's not a trick, a dream, and then he'll open his eyes and she'll be gone again.

Doesn't share that with her either. No point. Just takes a breath, then gives her hand a squeeze.

"Come on. Take you to bed. We can talk more tomorrow."

Devon

Fey thing that she is, with that black Irish hair and those otherworldly eyes: who could blame him for thinking her reappearance can't be trusted? Perhaps he's being tested by gods heretofore unknown to him. Perhaps, because she has no scent, she was only ever a figment, except:

he's met Brian and Sheila. He's met her mum and Naomi and she's given him muffins. Of course she's real. Look at the way she looks at him now, not quite sensing how he's feeling but sensing that now isn't the time, isn't the time, can't be the time right now because she is still holding on to centuries-old grief and triumph in equal measure and is not fully with him yet. She's not ready to let go of the one in order to dive once again into the other.

He squeezes her hand. She exhales, all in a rush: "Love you. Love you so much, Rafa." And bizarrely, because not even the way their hands touch is erotic at the moment, and she doesn't seem aroused, and she doesn't have that glint in her eyes or that redness in her lips that signals him so keenly: "Will you fuck me?"

Rafael

Brow furrows. He doesn't know how to answer.

"You want me to? You don't need to just ... be, for a while?"

Devon

She'll say it sometimes when they're kissing. Panting. Steam heat between them, his hands up her shirt or down her pants, her legs wrapping around him, and it's quite obvious to them both what's going on but she says it anyway. Never quite a question or a request; usually it's a demand. She says fuck me when he's already inside of her, or just about to be. Says it when she's either giving him permission or telling him to get on with it, she's ready, don't wait, please.

By then he already has her taste in his mouth. Not like this.

He is right to be bewildered.

Tears almost come to her eyes, but not quite. She isn't overcome right now. Her brow wrinkles in response, and she nods. "I don't even -- I just want to feel real. I want to know I'm here."

Which is the best she can do, right now, to explain. That it isn't lust. That it isn't the fact that he's so hot, he makes her so hot. That she doesn't even care, right now, about getting off, about getting there, about getting hers. And she feels almost bad about it, asking him for something so intimate, so singular, but somehow the other option seems like asking him to hit her until a bone breaks or skin splits, something she doesn't really want and he wouldn't do, but would have the same effect: to ground her where she is. When she is. Who she is. To bring her back fully to her body and her own time.

And she wouldn't ask, but she does, because it's really quite simple:

"I just need you," Devon whispers.

Rafael

He doesn't get it. He does get it. He's not even sure himself. He's not sure of this either: what she asks him for, and why.

Couple beats go by. Then he gets up, her hand still in his. He pulls her with him, firmly, not roughly. His hand in hers turns, adjusts, clasps the other way. They leave their plates where they are, bits of breadcrumbs speckling the surfaces.

Up those spiraling stairs, then. He never lets her hand go. She hasn't been in his house for three months, but little enough has changed. Guest room probably still the way she left it. His bedroom certainly is: still impersonal and underdecorated, though unmistakeably his by scent and presence. The curtains and blinds are open. Moonlight outside picks out details in the little yard: the tree, the fence, the grass.

Lights are off in the bedroom. He closes the door behind them and it's all shadows. "You wanna wash up first?" he asks.

Devon

Seems like a yes. Seems like an unhesitating one, actually, the way he gets up, helps her up, takes her hand, leads her upward. She doesn't remember the last few months: feels like a couple of weeks at most. Her time sense is warped; that's why she needs this.

So they're in the dark, door closed, and just being here lights her up a little bit. She feels it, low and warm, rising up through her body. The first time. Every time after that, in his big bed, on his soft sheets, in his ridiculously warm arms.

Devon catches her breath and she shakes her head. Breathes out the answer: "No."

Rafael

Leaves him feeling oddly naked, that. Would've been a shield of sorts if they'd washed up first. Gone through some sort of routine that terminated naturally in bed. Then he could have found her under the covers, as though they simply happened upon one another there. Wouldn't be so deliberate, so considered, such a conscious choice.

To go to her. Not because they're both overcome with passion, drunk on desire. Not that, but something more spare, bare-bones, the sort of copulation people engage in when they've been through natural disasters. They've been through something of the same: neither natural nor a disaster, but an upheaval all the same. He lets go of the doorknob and moves toward her, and as he does he feels it too, tendrils of want spreading through his limbs.

Tried to kiss her in the airport but it was too soon, too raw. Here in the dark he tries again, and the same way: cups her face in his hands, his mouth finding hers.

Devon

Devon makes a sound half-cry and half-relief, mostly sigh. Mostly breath. She sounds grateful when he comes near, takes her face in his hands, kisses her. She finds herself molten when he does, her mouth opening almost instantly, wanting but not quite wanton, leaning into him with her body. Her hands tentatively find his sides, run up his body, then clutch at the fabric covering him as the heat in that kiss intensifies.

Her hands rise up then to his face, pulling at him more fiercely, her kiss growing hungry. This is how she knows she was right not to ignore this errant thought, the one she almost discarded at first because it was not borne out of mindless lust and fierce attraction. This is how she knows this is right, this is what she needs, this is okay. She isn't asking him for something wrong or bad or cruel. She's crossing the rift of three months apart from him the only way she knows, truly and deeply, will work.

His body. Hers.

Her body. His.

Devon kisses his neck next. She groans when she does so, her hands creeping up his shirt, savoring his body's heat and the delightful ridges and planes of muscle she finds beneath his skin. Her teeth show; she bites him lightly, folds his skin gently between her teeth, sucks. Tastes.

Rafael

Knows it too then. Not a mistake. Not something sordid; not him taking advantage of her vulnerability. Feels right. Always did, even from the first when he was pretty sure they were wrong for each other. Feels like -- a homecoming. A rift closing.

Skin shivers like an animal's when she runs her hands up under his shirt. Been a long time since he's been touched like this, or maybe at all. He lets her go to pull that shirt off, yanking it up from the back. Skin is hot and body is hard; none of that has changed. He reaches for her clothes next, the same things she wore that morning so long ago. He pulls open buttons, zippers, fastenings. Peels her out of one layer and then the next, and when she's naked or near enough he scoops her up. Easily, one arm around her waist. Carries her bedwards.

Devon

Never once has she wondered what he was like before her. Well, that's not true: she wondered once, and then realized it was probably like the night they met: buying. Seeing, needing, paying, fucking, and then moving on. Maybe there have been other girls, even other kinfolk, but Devon truthfully doesn't know enough about the politics of kin and garou pairings or -- heaven forbid -- Silver Fang mating protocol to really feel threatened or uncertain about it. Not like he's her first either. Neither of them came to this virginal and uncertain. Neither of them came to this broken.

Nor do they come to it broken now. She doesn't feel so fragile when she bites his neck and sucks on his skin. She wants to growl. He didn't make her feel fragile or vulnerable in the woods all those centuries ago: she felt stronger, after fucking him. She felt better. She remembered who she was, even if she didn't yet know how much power she really had.

Right now it's not about power though. It's the other piece: it's feeling like herself again. It's feeling like she's in the right body, the right time, the right place, with the right person, doing the right thing. It's coming home. It's being who she is.

Rafael shivers; Devon's body trembles in mute, animal response. She doesn't think about how long it's been since he was touched, though if she reflects on it later she will feel a momentary pang of mixed-up guilt over her absence and worry about his behavior in that absence. Devon knows him more or less pretty well, and she knows now she's a badass witch who takes no shit, but still: who among us is truly free from all insecurity? That will come later. Right now, all she senses is the shiver, and she knows it's because she's touching him and he likes it, and she likes that he likes it. She likes that she makes him shiver like that.

So she laughs. Darkly, softly, low and guttural, she chuckles. It vibrates through her teeth. Her teeth part; he's moving and whipping off his shirt, and she opens her eyes to drink in the sight of him, greedy now. Advances on him even as he's reaching for her jacket, shirt, leggings, whatever: she finds him and grabs his hips and all but shoves him to the bed. Gets a step or two, really, only: he is quite heavy. And big. And solid. And intent, as ever, on stripping her down to nothing.

Next thing she knows her knickers are around her ankles and her bra is on top of his foot.

Next thing after that are his arms under her thighs, her ass, folding her legs up, holding her around the waist, turning her, laying her out on his enormous bed.

Absolutely gone and forgotten are the thoughts she had of guilt for asking him for this. Frankly, so is the thought that maybe it's fine: she just needs to fuck, get fucked, it doesn't even matter if she comes, it doesn't even matter if it's good, she just needs to be close to him like this. Fuck that.

Devon arches her back when she lays down on his bedspread; she pants softly as her spine relaxes, her hands running up his arms.

"Oh, fuck," she mutters, exhaling the words, glorying in them.

Rafael

Surprises him when she laughs. Didn't expect that. Seemed so vulnerable at the airport. So raw all the way home. Didn't think she'd laugh like that in the dark, like something powerful and wanting. Didn't think she'd shove him toward the bed either, backing him up a step or two. Maybe even three.

Beat of pause. Then he goes for her clothes. There go the jacket, shirt, leggings. There go the panties -- knickers is the word that comes to her mind, which he'd be amused by if he knew -- and then the bra. He kicks it aside. He picks her up. Mattress is a glorious thing, absorbing her momentum as he all but drops her there. There go his pants. There go his shorts. He follows her onto the bed, and her hands run up his arms, and he's got his dick in his hands stroking off as he comes down over her, kissing her.

Licks at her breasts. Sucks at her nipples, fiercely, his free hand scooping under her back to lift her toward his mouth. She mutters some small, lustful obscenity. He touches her between her legs, strokes her cunt to see if she's wet enough, to see if she's ready.

Last time they fucked was three months ago. Last time they fucked was four hundred years ago. Seems crazy but it's true. Still remembers the forest, the way it smelled -- pure -- and all her ridiculous clothes that they had to get her out of. Easier this time around. Neither of them fearing for their life. He nips at her shoulder on his way back up; finds her mouth again and kisses her burningly, his hand tangling in her hair -- so black, and her eyes so blue. So blue he can see it even here in the dark.

"Gonna fuck you," he whispers, which is an fyi or a warning or a promise; hard to tell. "Put your legs around me."

Devon

There is a part of Devon that wants to stop his hand stroking his dick. It's not a pleading part but a... well, somewhat bossy part of her. She wants to bat his hand away and take him for herself. She wants to lay claim to him and even after all this time it's not a claim she feels entirely obliged to. But it's one she wants. She kisses him groaningly, arching, whimpering at the loss of his mouth and then gasping when he starts licking at her breasts.

She thinks of how he loves her tits. She laughs again, that same shadowy sound as before, and all but grinds her breast into his mouth. She even likes the sting of it when his teeth scrape at her flesh. All of it is good, now. All of it helps. All of it satisfies this need of hers, calms this anxiety and uncertainty that she is all too eager to be rid of.

His hand slips between her thighs and it's electric; Devon gasps, clutching at him, works her pussy on his hand for several seconds. Not right away, no, but he feels her then: he feels her warm, feels her grow wet, feels it when she starts to squirm. Feels her whimpering, newly vulnerable all over again, when he lifts his mouth from her bright pink nipple and bites her shoulder briefly, kisses her hard.

Another time, she might laugh -- not cruelly -- at his warning. FYI. Whatever it is. This time she just shuts her eyes, feeling like she's falling from a great height, and her legs -- oh, her long, sweet, soft legs -- they rise up and fold around his waist, and she's about 80% of where she'd like to be before he fucks her usually but right now, just this moment, that momentary sharpness and shock is exactly what she needs.

Rafael

Knows she's not quite there yet. Progress after all: that he knows. That he can learn. Doesn't seem to matter to her though, and that's perplexing too. Knows that's an invitation when she wraps her legs around him. Knows it's an invitation when her eyes close like that.

Knows it. Takes it. Great sheets of muscle in his back and flank: they drive him into her, and it's not particularly gentle; it's not timid. Force of it pins her to the bed. He growls to feel her like that. He tries not to bite her, so he kisses her instead. Loves her so much, suddenly and inexplicably, at the edge of madness or need.

Has his arms wrapped around her. Not crosswise under her back, but under her arms, shoulders. Has his hands cupping the back of her head, her hair smooth and cool between his fingers. Holds her like that, momentarily still, heavy atop her and hard inside her.

Wants to know if she's okay. Doesn't quite have the words for it, so he just watches her. His breathing expands his chest into hers; they're so close she can feel every exhale. After a while he kisses her again, softer this time.

Devon

What she needs. Not what she'd normally want, ask for, expect: she cries out when he pushes himself into her, clutches at him as though for dear life. She groans as he grinds deeper, squirms her hips to meet his own. She remembers that he hasn't fucked her in three months -- by his reckoning. She knows what it's like when he hasn't had her in three days. When he hasn't had her in a week. Her hand seeks his: her fingers lace through his own, gripping him as he grips her, pins her, fucks her against that decadently firm, deceptively soft mattress of his.

He kisses her and she remembers, sudden as the last recollection, how she once told him not to bite her until he was coming. How, when he came, he kissed her instead. How it thrilled her, shocked her, intrigued her, scared her. Inflamed her.

But he's not fucking her. He's holding her, holding himself in her, and any moment now she's going to come back into her body and feel him there, invasive and invited at once, and

she begins to cry. Not from pain or loss or fear or disconnection but something else entirely. She couldn't name it if she tried. She weeps, and she's grateful, and she is aroused, and she knows he'll think this means she isn't okay, he should stop, so she won't let him: Devon reaches for him, pulls him closer, kisses his mouth and bites his lower lip and urges him on with a roll of her hips. There are tears on her face when she kisses him back.

Just as soft.

"I love you," she whispers, even as she is urging him to fuck her, fuck her, make her feel it. Something so tender, so inexplicable: her eyes meeting his, holding on. Her voice so very quiet: "I love you so much, Rafa. I missed you."

Rafael

If she can't even name what it is that makes her weep, what chance does he have?

None. That's what. So he's lost: he's baffled again, and alarmed, and his eyebrows are coming together and his brow is all awrinkle. He's two seconds from backing off. Apologizing. Something.

But she holds him. She pulls him closer. She kisses him and he doesn't respond, not at first, not except to mutter something that might be a question, only it never makes it there. Her teeth in his lower lip: he draws a breath. She moves, fucks him because he isn't fucking her, and that breath comes blasting back out, a harsh pant. His brow touches hers. She kisses him, they are kissing, it is soft.

She tells him something that sounds like a confession, or a promise. He smooths her hair back. Draws back so he can see her, and he's still frowning, uncertain. So she tells him again, and another piece. She missed him.

His brow knits harder. For a moment some emotion threatens to break over his face, or simply break him. He takes another breath. It shudders.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "Me too."

Then it's too much to bear. So he stops looking at her. So he kisses her instead, fiercely, eyes closed; he wraps her up in his arms, tighter. Kisses the side of her neck -- it burns like a brand. No warning or fyi this time as he starts moving into her. Just the motion itself, intimated in his musculature, expressed in his body. Fucks her hard and deep, slow, holding her like that, enveloping her as thoroughly as he can.

Devon

His stupid hands on her brow again. It makes her so awake in a way she can't quite cope with; she opens her eyes and looks at him as he looks at her, while he processes what she has said.

Love you.

Missed you.

Doesn't miss him now, though; can't. He's right here. He's inside of her, loving her, making her feel it even if he isn't thrusting, stroking, giving it to her the way he does. She can feel him all the same. She knows he's here. More importantly, more to the point: she knows she's here. Feels his mattress, smells his sweat, feels his cock. Recognizes all of it, and that matters.

Me too.

That's all he says.

For once, it doesn't hurt her that this is all he can say. She feels gentle towards him for it; she wants to protect him from how alone he has been for the last three months. She wants to go back and make the Ladies of the Wood promise to protect Rafael from Naomi and her mum and the police. She kisses him, kisses him as he kisses her, and holds him tight when he gives in and kisses her neck instead, hiding his face. Arms around him, legs around him: Devon gasps when he starts to move. Thrust. Give it to her. She groans, because she can't help it. She gasps, once, close to his ear.

Rafael

Always did love the way she sounds.

Always did go a little crazy when she gasps. Or moans. Or whimpers. That's what set him off so ferociously the first time. Well, no. That's not true. The fact that she was there, and offering, and asking -- that was what set him off. But what he remembers more keenly than anything was how she sounded when she finally got his shirt off, finally lifted her body to his, finally felt that contact, skin to skin.

Loves the way she sounds now. Makes him ardent, lights him up. Takes this from something strange and uncertain to something certain, and pure, and hot. He growls, because of course he does. He pushes up on his hands, unless she pulls him back down. Doesn't matter. Either way: he fucks her, and it's hard, and hungry, and primitive, and utterly without finesse.

No question who he is, then. No question where she is, or when.

--

Groans into her mouth when he comes. Pants against her skin. Bites her shoulder.

Keeps fucking her a little longer afterward, just to feel her. Just to convince himself, maybe, that it's her. She's back. She's not going to disappear.

And after he rolls onto his back, he keeps an arm around her. Hiding between the moments are instants where he almost forgets she was gone. Feels just like it did, before. Feels like those three months were a dream, never happened at all. Didn't almost lose her at all.

Wants to say something to her. Tell her something. His love, or how much he missed her, or maybe even something so mundane as we've got a ton of shit to sort out tomorrow, but let's just ignore it tonight. None of the words come easily. In the end he just pulls her a little closer against his side. Hopes that conveys what he needs to: about love, about gladness, about the need to have her near.

Devon

She does not pull him back down. He pushes up on his arms and she looks up at him. Her mouth quirks; her eyes flash. She's enjoying this. Enjoying how he looks. Enjoying how he fucks her. Her eyes hold his when he thrusts, hard this time, driving his cock into her. She gasps, never blinking, almost daring him. Dares, and dares, until he folds forward and holds her again. Kisses her again. Gives her his body again, which is so magnificent, she thinks.

Drunkenly, she thinks of the word: magnificent. Murmurs it incoherently in his ear as he starts really giving it to her. And then it's just silly things: oh, fuck. oh, Rafa. oh, fuck.

Silly, precious things.

--

Wasn't really expecting to orgasm. Wasn't angling for it. Wouldn't have been disappointed if she hadn't. Would've been gratified and satiated if he'd come inside of her, held her close, been with her like this anyway. She would've smiled.

But that's not what happens. What happens is that he fucks her hard and fierce against his mattress and she groans, crying out loud in the night, wrapping her legs tight around him and digging her nails into him as she comes, screaming a little.

It's good. And there he is, when she comes back down, fucking her through it, and she can hear their skins smacking together, a wet and firm sound that makes her want to laugh and makes her want to fuck all over again. She sighs when he slows. She strokes his hair when he bites her. She kisses his temple and the arch of his cheekbone, in turn, as they slow to a stop. Turn. Hold each other in twisted sheets for a while.

Sure, there's lots they could say.

Neither of them has ever been that good at talking, though.