that airport on the coast.

Devon

The airport is small and municipal, this far to the coast. It isn't Portland. Devon is dropped off and she goes in and she finds a cafe, something. She has no ticket, not even an idea of which terminal to be in. She finds a place that sells coffee and pastries and she uses the cash in her pocket to buy some of each. Ends up curling up in a bench, back to the wall, feet on the seat beside her, dozing. Somehow she's tired. Has she slept in the past three months? The coffee and pastry cool, half-eaten on the plate and in the cup. She has no appetite right now.

Her phone sits cradled in her lap, even as she dozes, waiting for it to vibrate. Waiting to be told that he's here, he's come to get her. To hold her and make her feel safe.

A year ago she would have been disgusted at the desire for this, the pathetic vibe of it, but right now all she feels is hopeful that when he sees her, he will hold her, and not let go for a very long time.

Rafael

Girl cabs and snacks and dozes and waits, in the end, for several hours. Denver to this small coastal town is a two-step hop, and then there's the business of security checks and transit to and from the airport and, of course, getting a plane ticket in the first place. Wolf's probably thoroughly impatient by the time the wheels touch down. Day's tending toward night when phone buzzes on girl's lap.

Just landed. Where are you?

Devon

Devon is very bored. She dozes. She gets up and wanders. She avoids security people. She goes outside and bums a smoke from someone. She exhales smoke as the day climbs to its temperature peak. She finds a spot outside of the airport, under a tree, behind a bush: curls up and naps. Goes to a bookstore and uses remaining cash for a magazine and reads. Every. Last. Page. Even the ads.

Is sitting inside again, and her phone buzzes. He landed he landed he

WHAT AIRLINE

WHERE DO I GO

I MISS YOU

gets three text messages in a row. She's already on her feet.

Rafael

United? But I think it's Skywest here. Just stay where you are I'll find you. Where are you?

And then ten seconds later:

Nm I see you.

And he does. And she sees him too. It's a tiny airport; handful of buildings, maybe a dozen gates. Nothing but little puddle-jumper planes, some of them turboprops for fuck's sake. Whole day's flights fits on one screen, and this late there's almost nothing left on the boards.

He's walking past one of those boards. Doesn't have a thing on him, no luggage at all. Just himself in -- god, of course -- grey t-shirt, jeans. The jeans are grey today too, a dark shade a couple rungs down from black. He comes toward her quickly, pushing past some local who exclaims in surprise and annoyance, but does he apologize? No. He gets to where he's going: picks her up around the waist and wraps his arms around her and nearly squeezes the air out of her.

Doesn't say anything. Has his face buried against her hair, her neck. After a while, still without letting go, he just ... turns and sits down. With her. Still holding her.

Devon

She has no idea where she is. Somewhere in the fucking airport. And then another text: nevermind. He sees her. At this point, the fact that he uses 'nm' and the fact that he sees her are equal in their ability to make her want to burst into tears.

Devon's head snaps up as soon as she sees that text. He sees her. But she sees him, too. He's easier to pick out of a crowd: quite tall, and quite beautiful, and with a strength that even Devon doesn't know how to express in words. She doesn't quite know how to communicate what she's really seeing: his purity. The mad, mad blood in his veins.

Devon doesn't know that all Silver Fangs are mad.

--

So she bolts towards him, runs, and leaps onto him the way she did not so long after the first time they fucked, that time he was gone for days and she threw herself at him -- literally, in this sense. Throws her arms around him, wraps her legs around him, buries her face against his neck.

He picks her up. Sort of: catches her. Wraps his arm around her, squeezes her.

He hasn't seen her in three months. She sucks in air suddenly, and that's how he knows he really is squeezing the air out of her lungs. They're holding each other like doves, lovebirds, faces hidden. And then he turns, and sits right on the ground, and her legs adjust behind his back, and she doesn't look up, either.

Really no need to.

Everything she needs right now is right there.

Devon

[rafa sit on bench. not floor.]

Rafael

Passerbies chalk them up to lovers. Long-distance. Maybe she's a marine biologist or something, stationed on the coast for months. Maybe he's some sort of soldier. Maybe their work keeps them apart, or something about their lives. Doesn't matter. Anyone with eyes can see they haven't seen each other for some time. Anyone with eyes can see they're in love, and missed each other desperately, and their reunion is a private thing.

People avert their eyes. Go around them. No one looks at them, and they look at no one; just hold on to each other like maybe the sky will topple if they didn't. Seconds go by; then minutes maybe. He has a hand on the back of her head. Both arms tight around her. It's been months.

Devon

Long-separated lovers. Which is the case. A season, a spring. The way he holds her, his arms tight and corded and straining. The way she holds him back, trembling. Some people look away. Some people stare. One person takes a surreptitious photo for Instagram, tags it with something about themselves.

But they may as well be avoided entirely: Devon doesn't notice. Rafael doesn't notice. They are buried in each other. He is smelling her coffee and her cigarette, the grass outside, the stale air of the airport. She is smelling everything, and all of him, and mostly him. She lets herself be cradled. She doesn't ask him to loosen up, or let go, or talk.

It's a very long time before she even says, quiet: "Are you all right?"

Rafael

Doesn't really answer immediately. Makes this low sound, a grunt that could mean any number of things but mostly is just acknowledgment. He heard her. Just not ready to answer yet.

Bites her, softly. Nuzzles her shoulder and takes her gently in his teeth for a moment; nuzzles again. Then he draws back a little. Isn't squeezing her quite so hard. Isn't squeezing her at all, then: has her face between his hands, those big paws of his tender. He kisses her, a small, slow, soft thing.

Then, "Yeah. You?"

Devon

In a hotel room in Oregon, before they went out walking and before she and he slipped into bodies in other centuries, she told him not to bite her 'anymore'. Devon suddenly, vaguely remembers this. She cannot even remember why she told him that. She doesn't remind him of it now; she doesn't want to explain, chatter, go around it in circles.

He bites her now. Nuzzles and holds her gently between his teeth, then nuzzles her all over again, and it's hopelessly, inhumanly tender. She breathes in, and out, and he tries to hold her face and tries to kiss her but the intimacy of it is too much. Devon wriggles from his paws and buries her face on his shoulder again before he can kiss her, hiding, curling.

"Want to go home."

Then says:

"Want to see my mum."

And begins crying all over again.

Rafael

So he goes back to holding her, tightly, tightening his arms around her like maybe that'll help her put herself back together again.

There's a lot to unpack. Discuss. Ask. He knows so little: had nothing but some 17th-century witch's half-explanation, something about a price and a season. Had nothing but faith, really, that it wasn't just some dream, that he didn't make her up altogether. That she'd be back. And she knows so little, too: how or when he even came back from that other-life, and what's been going on in the meantime since she's been gone. Her roommate and her mother and her cousins in Boston and him: all of them moving about their lives, all of them suddenly askew in their orbits when she vanished so suddenly, so utterly.

It's too much. Neither of them can even start, except with the simplest threads. She's back. He came to get her. She wants to go home. She wants to see her mother.

He kisses her where he can, which happens to be the side of her head, somewhere above her ear. And then he gets up -- carries her if he must. Sets her down, if she can.

"Got your ticket," he says. "Heading right back out. That okay?"

Devon

When Devon starts crying, it wracks her. He can feel it all through her body, jerking through her limbs and ribs, radiating out from her spine. She's crying because she has to do all these things like call Brian and Sheila and find out what the hell they told her mum, and find out what Rafael did when the police showed up, and maybe find a new job. She's crying because really, she doesn't want to do these things. She wants to see her mum. She just wants her mum.

His mouth presses against her. He stands, her weight lifted rather effortlessly. She sniffs, trying to stop crying, but she doesn't realize he's trying to set her down so there she is, legs around his waist and arms around his shoulders, clinging to him koala-style.

She nods, wordless, hard, rough, against his shoulder. It's okay.

Rafael

She's crying. Hard. He can't carry her around like this; people will think he's doing something awful to her. Certainly can't try to go through security like this. TSA'll think he's some sort of terrorist.

So he sits again. And rubs her back. And waits for her to be okay, or some semblance of it. And glares, ferociously, at anyone who glances their way.

Devon

So Rafael sits, and Devon cries.

She quiets quickly. She's not the sort to go on and on. Especially not in public. She eventually is just curled up against him, his hand rubbing her back, her face hidden. She eventually is just breathing, holding onto him, until she starts to feel... something else. Something approaching normalcy.

For a long time she's just holding him, legs akimbo and curled around him, being held, until he's almost too warm for her, until her hips ache, until she can lift her head and look at him. Her eyes have turned red-ringed from tears. She sniffs. She has none of her makeup on. She still doesn't look like she wants to kiss or make out or anything. She just wants to see him.

If she spoke right now, she would just say that she missed him so much. She can't even think about how he might've felt. It surely must have felt longer to him.

"Can we talk about it tomorrow?" she asks, softly. "All of it. I just... need to wake up in a bed and feel normal for a moment. Start over."

Rafael

Doesn't try to kiss her again. Gets it -- instinctively, viscerally. It's too much. It's too intimate, overloading; after all that time, all that space, all that had happened.

Doesn't even know, yet, that to her it felt different. That the time that passed feels quasi-real, barely remembered. Maybe he'll know tomorrow. They'll talk about it tomorrow.

For now, he puts his hand on her face. No makeup to smudge and smear, no mascara to run wild down her face. Just his thumb smoothing across salt tracks, gentle and fond. "Yeah," he says again, quiet. "Come on."

He stands. He puts his arm around her, over her shoulders, heavy and protective. Steers her gate-ward, plane-ward.

"Let's go home."