the news being on so loud was less to hear and watch and more to just shut out anything that wanted to go through her head from coming through. she’s adept to the concept of shutting it all down and making movements mechanical. so that’s all there is. johanna knows the news stories, and by now there’s no new information so they just keep rotating the same points. she doesn’t need the random interjections and opinions of strangers. what she needs is to be ready to leave. they all do. because he’ll be back soon. she knows that. no other room in her head for the sticky cobweb kind of thoughts. no other room in her head to consider for a moment if he didn’t. just her hands sorting through the final things to pack ( clothes to wear in case it’s gonna be another day before he comes around, toys and food for the dogs -–– she’s been living out of the suitcases for two days now, watching and waiting and ready. )
patriot stays near her, silent and watching with a protective calm that she came easily to love and depend on of the canine. she loves them both equally, and lets taco run off when he feels like doing so. barely pays it any mind. but what she does notice is that it takes patriot’s attention fully. it’s what stops her hand. reaching out, she turns the news on mute and tries to listen. patriot does as well and she nods for him to run down the hall like he wants to. there is no sounds of struggle, so she instantly tries to tamp down the way her mind grows weeds in the thoughts of it being too late, that it took him too long, that someone came looking for him and found her and the two dogs instead.
in the hallway, she put her axe. maybe she was losing it, and this was an unnecessary and paranoid step -– it didn’t matter. she learned early on in her life that seemingly ridiculous measures were the difference between survival and death. her scope of who to keep alive just expanded. the desperation that kicks in instantly at the idea of any of them threatened -–––– . she pauses at one of her plants, something she hadn’t packed and hadn’t had the heart yet to kick to the curb, when she hears his voice. a breath pauses in the back of her throat, heavy or something, and she moves forward. her paranoia and anxiety at the edge of stomach threatening to leave if she could just see him, and despite those feelings her footsteps are still as quiet as they always are.
steve is crouched to the floor, petting the husky when she finally sees him. patriot’s on her side and soon enough joining to greet him. she can’t help but want to join, too.
moving to where he is, eyes searching over the skin that she can see for wounds, she sighs when she drops to a crouch right next to him. her hands reach to hold his face. home is a heavy word, and not something she ever thought she could truly find. but they made it in this place they’re going to have to leave. they made it together.
❛ -–– and you are, too. ❜
Guilt was a pervading emotion that seemed to grasp a hold of his mind and refuse to release him no matter how hard he tried. In the days, weeks even that he had been forced to leave Jo and the boys behind, he’d been made a great many things. And one perpetuating label that he had never thought would be attributed to him in the entirety of his life. A fugitive. Someone who had been regarded as the pinnacle of the American Way, but what was that anymore? The good ol’ days, though incessantly flawed, never prepared him for the America he was now a part of. One where the government would see to it that he be used as the weapon he’d been intended to be all along. To be at the gate, waiting for instruction, unsure if this mission would be the one he could no longer tolerate the shock collar vicing his airway. They would not be able to do the good they promised to do, if someone was pulling their strings.
It wounded him, day in and day out to see his name plastered across television screens and newspapers with such a vile word attached. But even then he would not be made to feel as though he had made the wrong decision. He could be called arrogant, idealistic, wrong all they wanted but he wasn’t going to disparage his beliefs to follow the crowd and obey. Not when he knew it wasn’t the truth path.
But as he watched Patriot bound down the hallway toward where he crouched before his brother, he felt that familiar tug of guilt within his chest again. Large hands were immediate in their purchase of fur, pulling his companion into his embrace as he exhaled sharply. As he felt the familiar lap of affection from Patriot as it mixed with his own gentle whine, he knew that she could not be far behind. Could he face her without losing all sense of his own composure? Would his own feelings of turmoil conquer him finally and reduce him to the mess that he could scarcely hold together? He had little time to contemplate this as he watched her step before him if only briefly to address his previous question. His mouth ran dry as moist cobalt hues found her slight frame, feeling his skin ignite and his hands release their dog from his grasp.
And in that moment she has him, her smaller form bent before him as soft hands frame his features within their grasp, reminding him that he was indeed, home. He breathed, shakily as his own hands reached out to find the narrow of her neck, feeling her skin as his thumbs followed the curve of her jawline. Home, a relative term when you could no longer call a stationary place home. For home now resided within her and their boys. If only he could find a second to breathe it in.
“ ----I’m sorry. ” He choked, knowing he didn’t have time to be this way, but he cannot seem to switch it off. His palms paved their way to cradle her face within them, feeling the apples of her cheeks. “ ----I didn’t mean to be gone for so long. “
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