#i INTENDED for this to stay 2 paragraphs and then i grew feral

[tidelure]

she wants to say : i don't understand. the most different i have ever felt was at your side, and since then i have returned to the thing i have always been. nowadays my feet don't even leave the floor when i am walking, just coast down a groove already worn into the world.

but instead she says, "mm," says, "it must be hard without your uncle," pointing out the only other difference in the room that she can identify without looking in a mirror. a clock is ticking somewhere around them, and vedia can feel the stacking metronome of her failure, pulling her hand away to stretch the half-thawed fingers before reapplying the lacquered nail to its work. it occurs to her as she pries at the little sliver of hurt that she should be aching too, that even though four years have passed and that is enough time to shed a whole layer of skin, for her things are the same while wymon says everything is different. as if to confirm she's not the only one still living in the same locked room, she adds, "but you're still at the docks." dissatisfaction raps along the cage of her ribs. she can't use her other hand to leverage the thing out, integral as it is to the upkeep of her towel. there's something wet knocking at her eyes. "my fingers are still too cold, i can't ⸺"

water and heat is supposed to heal a great many things. what it can't make well it can at least make better: it cleanses mud from a girl's blue-cold legs and restores her warmth. it flattens pain and allows for easier extraction. when vedia places wymon's thumb in her mouth and holds still, its with the intention of something curative. in her mouth the tip of his finger is thick. it tastes like salt and bitter. the fat of her tongue is pressed against the ridge of his nail, the living components of a pearl and the soft oyster stomach that keeps it safe. her breath snags, a hole ripping through it, and she tightens her hold on wymon's hand in response, the slim ends of her fingertips slipping into the valleyed ridge between thumb and pointer. her lips purse, sealing. gently, with all the softness of instinctual care, she sucks on that tenderized spot until she feels something dislodge itself, the offense something slim and brackish on her tongue.

"sorry." vedia clears her throat, swallows the thing that pained him. something burns in her throat and down the lining of her torso. it isn't the remnant of firewood. "⸺ it's... it's out."

" yeah ... " wymon admitted in defeat, grimacing as he assessed the damage. he would've chosen to endure the stinging, written it off as a mild finger prick, if not for how she uses the wound to bridge the gap between them again. her hands are the same as they always were : delicate, fairy-like. though wymon was not a particularly large man, one of his hands could swallow both of hers, could pin each dainty wrist together effortlessly when the moment called for it. recollection tied a knot in his throat as her nail scraped against rounded, now puckered flesh.

he suckled on his lower lip, raking it between his teeth as a makeshift dam, fearful of what may spill out if he didn't. her inquiry proved to make that impossible. " i've been ... " the male trailed off, hypnotized by the repetitive grating of her fingernail, the oxytocin release that her grip inspired.

what he wants to say : i've been awful. i've been alone. i've been riddled with enough grief to drown an olympic swimmer. i am water-logged and always leaking, leaking, leaking. my body is a piece of broken driftwood. i'm haunted by mistakes and burdens that aren't mine. even more than that, there is not a day that i am not haunted by YOU.

but it came out as, " everything is different now. " he meant it.