Disclaimer: Merely borrowing for entertainment purposes.
Note: Came out of ‘stalking’ to write this for my sister who is deeply in love with this pairing, the lore that is around them and the fandom. I spent way too much time looking up not enough lore for this fandom. Please forgive any inconsistencies. Not Beta’d.. Mostly… I just really like commas.
“The Sound of Her Silence”
A soft puff of air is what wakes him. Like miniscule fingertips, invisible tendrils of breath tease the hairs of his beard. The sensation tickles but it's the sounds that follow that bring his drowsy mind to awareness. A hauntingly gentle moan from lips resting just below his ear. The sound of a mind lost in sleep, in blessed and fanciful dreams.
Involuntarily, a smile touches his own lips as his body wakes more with every passing breath. The paralysis of sleep slipping away like a fading fog and bringing awareness back to his mind. His left arm is almost completely numb from the weight of the body slumbering beside him and dear lord is he hot and sweaty. He would never have imagined that such a slight form could produce such an un-Godly amount of body heat.
And yet, the idea of moving away never comes. There is comfort in this intimacy and an emotion he still holds desperately close to his chest. Not for the fear of sharing, but for the fear of putting it into the world and of manifesting nothing short of disaster.
This moment of peace has already been hard won and he’ll be damned if this is taken from him too.
He will not lose her again.
Under the shrouded cover of darkness, his calloused fingers tenderly tuck the threadbare blanket back over the exposed shoulder of the woman resting alongside him. Her slender figure tightly tucked in the recess of his arm and curve of his body, while his fingertips gently push the sweaty strands of dark hair from her brow. Eliciting another soft puff of air that once more tickles the hairs of his beard. Her near silent but sleepy murmurs seem to echo in the room as her hand smooths up his chest and tucks itself firmly beneath his chin.
In all his years of solitude and silence, he has never felt more at peace than he has in this one singular moment. And while, it is almost ironic to him that for the majority of the time he has been ‘alive’, he has preferred the solitude. It's an easy void to exist in and he does that incredibly well. Noise has always been a constant in his life regardless of his desire for silence. An endless chatter to cover the horrors he has seen and survived.
Be it the easy and sometimes rowdy banter between companions, the endless mechanical sounds of the world he now belongs to. He knows the sounds of worlds dying, machinery being forcibly rent unusable and bodies being blown completely apart. Endlessly horrific sounds that never ease, never cease and he can never get away from. No matter where he has hidden himself, they haunt him in both the waking world and in his dreams.
And yet, since meeting her the noise has somehow changed .
Softening to an almost muted hum in the background. The chaotic landscape, dare he say, lightened while in her presence.
And while it wasn’t always that way, in the beginning she was just as loud with her noticeably retrained behaviors. Like the sound of a tea cup clicking against the metal top of his work table, often followed by a soft sigh before darkened lips murmured harsh truths or pondered musings. Exasperated groans toward his laissez-faire responses which almost always included equally annoyed barbs about his person.
He can’t help but wonder when her voice became the foothold to his own sanity.
Tenuous as that already was.
Even now, in the hush of this room he can hear the echoes of the ages. Remnants of the past little more than garish and useless adornments. The fleeting reminder that permanence is no more than a chaotic ideology haphazardly strung together on the backs of all that have fallen and continue to do so.
So much blood spilt .
Dark eyes fall closed as even darker thoughts swirl and form. So many years of ghostly fragments and gaunt faces. Of haunting reminders, mementos and pieces of songs from lives lost. All of which clamoring inside his head for acknowledgement and attention. The unconscious stroking her hair stalling under the onslaught of his memories.
…The gasping breaths of a dying body mercilessly pierced. Immersed in a terrifying aura of purple and green. Preluding his desperate cry before her form is dragged luridly across stone. The harsh scraping that echoes in his mind like a mockery of background noise. How the cold grip of terror and dread rose up his spine spurring little thought between action and inaction. The only fear he felt was the fear he wouldn’t get there in time even as he leapt off the cliff face...
Her silence.
That is a ‘sound’ he desperately wishes to forget.
Slender fingers cup his cheek, scratching lovingly at the hairs before gently pushing away the tears that unknowingly escaped.
“You are thinking too loud. Be still .”
Unbidden, a chuckle rises without thought as his own hand rises to grasp hers at his cheek. The sound of the bedsheet rustling his only response as he shifts toward her. Ignoring her amused snort as he bundles her even tighter in his embrace. Her tolerance of his touch as they wait for the rapid beats of his heart to slow from the terror of his own mind.
Her voice, soft yet raspy from sleep, piercing another level of his psyche as she tightens her own hold on him and murmurs into his throat, “I have you. I’m here. You are not alone.”
Body quaking, he focuses on the sound of her breathing by his ear and not the ringing anxiety of his own. Each focused inhale and exhale mirrored and repeated until finally the panic curling in the back of his throat unfurls. The tense muscles of his back relaxing under every tender sweep of her fingers. He focuses on the warmth of her unclothed body, whole and scarred and yet bare under his touch. The unintelligible yet gently coaxed words mouthed against his throat now turned to soft touches of her lips.
Relaxing his embrace, he presses a kiss to her crown and breaths deeply once more before pulling away. A few more breaths to calm the last fluttering of his rapid heartbeat. To realign his awareness from the horrors of the past back to the present. Drifter’s voice is hoarse with emotion as he attempts to speak.
“Sorry I, uh, got a bit lost there… for a sec.”
The reflecting light of her green eyes commands his awareness until the tip of her tongue peaks free to moisten her lips. Drawing his rapt attention to her mouth. Hands clenching in response, he takes a heavy breath before smiling softly.
“Ya know, I think we need somethin’ to snack on. Whatcha say? How ‘bout I go see about find’in somethin’ to eat?”
Another tender kiss is placed upon her forehead as Drifter begins to pull away from the safety of their shared embrace. Eris’ ever watchful eyes scanning his face briefly before narrowing slightly, reading his micro expressions and stopping him from moving further away. In moments, her expression relaxes and shifts to a knowing look. Murmuring softly she leans in, closing the space he had created.
“I do find myself rather famished. However, everything I need is right here beside me. As it has always been and how it will also remain.”
“Didn’t get enough of me earlier, Moonlight? We’re gonna need more than yer paste to keep energy up.”
Eris’ smile is slow but full of intent under the glow of her eyes. Wisps of sleep mussed hair fall over her third eye as she pushes him against bed beneath them. Darkly chuckling at his surprised grunt, her lithe form pinning his larger, unresisting form underneath her. The slow crawl of her hand against his chest dragging his attention to the rustle of fabric and the long legs now bracketing his hips. His expression transforming from barely constrained panic and the relentless need to put space between himself and his misery; to curling in the mischievous bend of a smile.
His war roughened hands smoothing up the muscles of her thighs before grasping her by the hips and rolling his own up against her. Smirking at her small gasp he does it again before purring huskily, “Ya know what? We got a couple hours to kill, just keep that vitamin paste close by. You’re gonna need it.”
