“I thought wolves had super hearing or something. Good sense of smell?” He rolled his eyes at her bell comment, electing to not respond to it, instead working on getting his shirt on, fixing the buttons as she knocked. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He opened the door, the top few buttons of his shirt still undone, but if it would keep her from breaking down his door...
“Regrettably, I am.” But his tone was nothing but playful. “Now, what is so important, wolf girl?”
—Tampoco será tan malo, ¿no? —respondió tras leer aquella afirmación en los labios de la mujer, intentando ver las cosas por el lado positivo—. Seguro que también hay cosas que salen bien.
Leo had his shirt in hand, thankfully he was partly dressed, otherwise this would have been even more awkward. “You know, first you stay the night and now you barge into my room? Whatever will people say.” He walked over to the doorframe leaning against it for a moment with a smirk before closing the door on Remi. “Knocking is polite, wolfy.”
Fire lights along his veins, burning from the inside out. Except it can’t destroy him, won’t destroy him; immunity to flame is built into his body. If he tries to use anything, use any fire at all, it goes badly; it feels like it’s eating away at him.
So – yeah, it’s painful, and he tries not to call any flames to him, and it’s almost impossible. After all, the flames have always been tightly wound into his emotions; the slightest deviation from stoicism never goes well.
“Uncle Nano’s sent another message.”
Sean wraps his arm tighter around his knees at that, fisting his hands in the soft fabric that pressed against his knees. It had to be this lifetime that Nano and his mother were related and close, didn’t it? It couldn’t have been the next one, or the one before? “No.”
“You didn’t hear –”
“Nano believes his ‘tech’ fixes everything. I disagree.” He smiles into his knees, a wry twist to his lips. At least he can still be contrary without coming across as anyone but himself. They didn’t take that from him.
Remi twists her hands together in front of her. He can see her in the corner of his eye, on edge. Remi may be an Inferno, just as he is, but she doesn’t know what to do with a broken one. “If you’d just listen to him for a moment, I’m sure he could convince –” She cuts herself off sharply, leaving her sentence hanging as she coughs in embarrassment. After all, there’s no way she can finish the sentence without offending him, and if he gets upset – well, he’s already burned Rayne, and that should be impossible.
No wonder Remi is keeping her distance, he thinks, and huddles in on himself. “Convince me that I need to be fixed? Because you look at me and see a tragedy, right?”
Remi looks hurt, he realises when he glances at her, drawing back the hand she must have been about to reach out with. He’s still sure there’s pity in it, too; her gaze flickers from his face to the space where his arm used to be, and back. He wants to reach out for comfort, but he can’t. It’s too hard to admit weakness, not on top of the thing with his arm, and on top of years at the hands of a bunch of self-important scientists with no grasp of ethics.
“Stop it – stop looking at me like that,” he hears himself snapping, watching Remi withdraw with surface satisfaction and, deeper horror. Why can’t I stop? “You hear me, Remi? I don’t need your pity. I’m doing fine without it.”
Remi looks at him for a moment longer than he’s comfortable with, and he turns back to his self-pitying self, curled into a knee-hugging ball. “Let me know when you want company, Sean.”
“Go away.” And she does. He doesn’t know why he can’t stop pushing her away; this is how it has been in the weeks since he got out.
Except he does: they left him there for years. He was alone – without any real hope – for years. He can’t trust them not to withdraw the help they offer.
