imogen watches her when they return to the city. she pretends she isn’t doing it and laudna is never quite quick enough to catch her in the act, but after decades of being what she is, laudna knows what it feels like to be watched.
it hurts more than she would like to admit, that imogen is the one watching. waiting for the next time she snaps. it hurts more than she thought it would, but it isn’t just the watching—it’s the fact that a crack opened up between them as surely as it had on the crystal that night, and apologies and traded gifts had done little to patch it. with every new pressure, laudna can feel the crack widen and widen and now imogen is staring at her from across the fissure and for all that laudna is never truly alone, she is lonely.
oh what a bitch her voice is to betray her, to escape her so quietly, so uncertain. it has purple eyes locked on her in a split second, and in even less time, imogen’s mind pressed against hers.
what’s wrong? she asks, and when her body catches up to her shockingly quick mind, she asks again.
their friends are making no effort to look like they aren’t listening. laudna feels her skin blotch, hot and cold in awful patches. she sidles close to imogen, wants to touch her hand, coax her shoulders down from around her ears. wants, with all her heart, to feel as though her feet are on solid ground. not like her toes are skimming against it, just out of reach.
‘laud?’ imogen steps closer, ducks her head so she can peer up through the curtain of hair that drips between them. she hesitates, then splits it with a gentle hand. ‘hey, are you in here?’
it draws a soft laugh, and the implicit question—are you okay?—is without charge, without weight. gentle concern.
imogen makes a choked noise when laudna’s eyes overfill. she pulls her into the nearest alley—snaps over her shoulder to some unspoken query, ‘give us a moment!’—and pulls her handkerchief from her neck, presses it into laudna’s hand. she lets the curtain remain, lets laudna hide behind it until she has stoppered her tears and parts the divide herself.
‘s-sorry,’ she sniffs, wipes her nose. ‘i don’t know what - what came over me.’
imogen nods, sympathy clear in every line of her. the twist of her lips, her eyes, brimming with a sad sort of care. ‘did something happen out there?’
‘no, no. oh gosh, it’s - it’s so silly,’
‘no, hey.’ imogen reaches out, grabs her arm, and stops still.
for a moment, laudna is afraid that she regrets her action, and then imogen’s fingers flex and she only adjusts her grip, closes her hand around laudna’s wrist, palm beneath and bearing what little weight laudna presses down into it. her thumb strokes across laudna’s skin, and laudna’s eyes flutter closed, entranced, overwhelmed. had it been only a matter of days? not even. imogen had held her hand the night before as they fell into sleep together. but there was need there, laudna reminds herself, need and fear. this… this was something else.
her skin tingles with each swipe of imogen’s thumb.
‘laud? honey?’ imogen calls to her sweetly. a furrow dug between her brows. ‘where’d you go?’
‘i’m- i’m here. i’m here.’ laudna looks from the handkerchief in her hand, to imogen’s hold on her, to soft lilac eyes, flickers between these points until she’s dizzy. squeezes her eyes shut. ‘i’m sorry. i think i got quite overwhelmed.’
imogen doesn’t say anything. just strokes her wrist, her fingers leaving trails of warmth everywhere they pass.
‘i’m sorry,’ laudna says again, voice cracking. ‘for - for the rock, both of them.’
‘what? laud, we’ve talked about this—‘
‘i know, i know,’ she hisses, and she screws her eyes tightly shut, ‘i know, but you’re—i’ve ruined everything, i’ve broken us.’ at imogen’s sharp inhale, she weeps. ‘i tried to make it right, i would do anything to make it right, you can break my things, you can hurt me, anything!’
‘it’s all moving so fast, everything is changing and it’s not you and i anymore and i understand but i - please don’t leave me behind, please don’t send me away,’ she begs, and the hurt splintering up, the desperation, throws her eyes wide, steals the strength from her legs. she clings tight to imogen’s hand, her sleeve, and she knows she is crying again, making a frightening mess of herself, but she can’t bear it anymore.
imogen stares, lips parted.
‘i miss you,’ laudna admits, as thick tears leak from the corners of her eyes. ‘and i need you, i do, i’m losing my mind and you’re the only one i trust to understand so please, imogen, tell me what i need to do, what you want. you can have my things, you can scream at me, you can stab me with broken rocks,’
‘you can-‘ laudna scrambles for anything, anything she can offer that imogen might want but she has nothing, nothing this vibrant sweet brilliant girl could want, so she scrambles for anything that is precious to her, that she might take in retaliation. ‘you can have pate, destroy him,’ she chokes out, and imogen breaks.
‘laudna,’ she breathes, horrified. ‘no, no—‘
‘i don’t want to hurt you!’ imogen snaps—aghast, horrified. hurt. her fingers slip from laudna’s wrist like touching her burns, but when laudna collapses back against the rough brick of the alley wall, she holds her. hands sure and warm beneath laudna’s elbows.
holding her, she is so close. close enough that laudna could bite her, keep a little piece of imogen with her always if she is to be sent away. close enough that laudna could kiss her, her wretched wheeling mind tells her. she does neither.
imogen’s cheeks are wet. her eyes are wide and wet and clear—like laudna is seeing her, her anxieties, her care, her exhaustion, her struggle for control plainly, like some barrier has fallen, and laudna doesn’t know if she broke it or if imogen has let it fall.
‘laudna,’ she says again, corners of her mouth tilted down the weight of everything she is holding, with the weight of laudna, whose heart aches at the thought.
‘i never meant to be a burden,’ laudna says, though imogen is not privy to the way laudna sees her. laudna touches her cheek, the lines of strain. ‘i only wanted to help, only ever to—‘
‘i know. i know that. i know,’ imogen insists, and her hands tremble under laudna’s arms, and then laudna is trembling because imogen leans forward and presses their bodies together. not quite a hug. a pressure that feels sure and safe, solid.
without moving away, imogen speaks. her voice drops low, to a dangerous octave laudna has not heard often. it rumbles through her, passes from imogen to her, pressed close as they are. laudna’s breathe catches. in the absence of breath, it is easier to hear imogen as she says, hands clenching tight around laudna’s elbows, thumbs pressed to her pulse there like she can embed herself, her words, into what passes for blood, perhaps to bruise her words, indelible, into her skin.
‘never offer those things to me again,’ imogen says to her. her hands shake. she presses a little harder. it doesn’t hurt. ‘that’s not who i want to be.’
imogen breathes in. her stomach presses against laudna’s, soft, shifts with her breathing. laudna’s nails dig into her arms to hold her in place before she can move away.
‘please,’ she whispers. ‘a moment longer.’
imogen stills. nods. when she speaks again, her voice is forcibly calm. ‘we do need to talk. properly. about everythin’ that’s happened. but i—you need to know, laud, i don’t want you to go, i don’t want to send you away. fuck,’ she swears suddenly, and light splinters behind laudna’s eyes at the way the word cracks between imogen’s teeth. ‘if i could, i’d keep you right next to me. every fucking minute of the day.’ she draws back, despite laudna’s claws, and she’s no longer crying but her eyes are clear. she isn’t watching laudna. just looking. ‘we’ll talk, yeah?’
‘yes. yes,’ laudna whispers. ‘imogen…’
‘a minute longer,’ imogen says, and laudna doesn’t know if she gleaned the request from laudna’s mind or if she wants the same, but imogen leans in, presses her solid weight to laudna and holds her there for a minute more.
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