#time to slink back into hiding until i finish an actual fic wahoo

[tallycraven]

A small continuation of “brainwashed” 👀 a small moment where Scylla helps to calm down Raelle, the first time Raelle attempts to touch her. But her hands start to shake uncontrollably with a bad headache. Scylla comforts her by being forehead to forhead with Raelle and telling her to concentrate on her smell to get her to relax.

haha oops my finger slipped here’s a 1.8k word addendum to this (; 

(pt. 1) (pt. 2) (pt. 3) (pt. 4)

also available on ao3!

Raelle still feels like a monster sometimes, Scylla knows. She’s seen moments where Raelle flinches at her own reflection or adamantly avoids looking at it. She’s watched Raelle double and triple-check her pockets and make lists for the smallest of tasks. All things to help herself stay stable; all things recommended to her by her therapist. 

Scylla also knows that Raelle tiptoes around her. She treats Scylla like the most delicate of snowflakes on a bright sunny winter day and almost never lets herself touch Scylla the way she wants to. And Scylla understands. She gets that it’s hard and painful and takes time. It’s not like she doesn’t have scars from what happened. 

So, she survives on grazing touches and brief hugs, prolonged contact through clothes when they sit close to each other. She lets herself miss Raelle’s kisses and imagines the day that Raelle will finally let herself touch Scylla again. She remembers and relives their first time together, their second time, all the times after that, waking up in the same bed and feeling Raelle’s fingers press hard into her hips. 

It’s nothing close to reality, but it’s enough to keep Scylla grounded. 

Healing takes time, Tally said once, when she and Scylla were waiting for Izadora to finish helping Raelle with her weekly fixing session. No matter how much you want her to give it to ya. 

Scylla giggles at the memory; remembers the way Tally had wiggled her eyebrows and shifted her hips in an attempt to entertain her. 

“What’re you laughing at?” Raelle asks, head perking up from looking at the comics in the newspaper in front of her. 

They’re settled on the couch in the Bellweather beach estate— a house that’s become a home for the four of them over the past few months. Scylla’s been spacing out, repeatedly reading the same paragraph in some book Abigail gave her for the past ten minutes and intaking none of it, while Raelle’s been going over the Sunday paper. 

(Keeping up with current events is a good way to stay present, according to some Fort Salem-assigned brain fixer; but Raelle only ever reads the comics and half-asses the crossword.)

They’re sat by each other’s sides, like usual. Close enough that Raelle’s knee can bump into Scylla’s thigh whenever she shifts.

“Oh, nothing.” Scylla smiles, moving so she’s sitting with her legs crossed and facing Raelle, choosing to give her a tiny bit more distance between them. “Just remembered something Tally said.” 

The crinkle the forms between Raelle’s brows is downright endearing. 

“What’d she say?” Raelle turns to mirror Scylla’s posture until they’re both facing each other on the couch with their legs crossed.

Scylla weighs her options briefly before remembering that truth is a virtue that she’s been learning to master. Especially when it comes to Raelle. 

She takes a small breath and smiles. “Uh. Said that you’re gonna need time and I should be patient about wanting you to touch me until then. Which is absolutely true and I’m willing to wait forev–”

“I do want to touch you.” Raelle says, quickly and all in one breath so that it comes out sounding more like ‘Idowannatouchyou.’

It takes Scylla’s mind a little bit to catch up, deciphering the words that sounded for a brief moment like another language and then unraveling the bundle of emotions that said words have given life to in her chest.

Scylla must spend too long looking at Raelle in wonder, because Raelle’s suddenly beet red and staring down at her hands. They’re trembling, but it’s not the worst that they’ve seen. She’s made a lot of progress.

Raelle presses her palms against her thighs and takes a deep breath. 

“I do want to touch you.” She repeats, this time slower. “It’s just. M’nervous.” 

The emotions in Scylla’s chest melt into something soft and sad and full of love. She scoots herself a little closer to Raelle —slowly, of course— and holds a hand out, palm up, and waits. 

Raelle looks from Scylla’s face to her palm, recognizes the offer and places her own palm by it. 

Scylla traces a familiar ‘S’ and watches its twin bloom in Raelle’s palm. She lets it fade slowly before grazing her pinky along the side of Raelle’s hand and very slowly brings her own hand against Raelle’s. 

The tremors are smaller now, but Scylla’s focusing on the touch of Raelle’s hand against hers. The pads of her fingers pressed against the base of Scylla’s palm and the warmth of Raelle’s own palm radiating against her fingers.

Scylla shifts ever closer until their knees bump and stay touching. She’s watching Raelle’s face to tell for any telltale signs of the need to run and finds only concentration.

Raelle’s taking slow but shaky breaths, eyebrows furrowed with her jaw tensing and untensing. For a moment, Scylla considers pulling back. But she knows that would upset Raelle; it would launch her into a cycle of blaming herself for not healing fast enough.

“Is this okay?” She asks instead.

Raelle’s nod is hurried. “Yeah, it’s good.”

She presses forward some more, leaning so that her forehead bumps lightly against Raelle’s. She can feel Raelle’s unsteady breaths and the tension in her temples. Her hands are starting to shake more despite how hard Raelle is staring at them.

“Hey, focus on me, yeah?”  

Raelle swallows and stays silent, clenches her eyes closed in that way she does when the headaches start to pick up.

Scylla takes her hands in her own, fully now, lacing their fingers together and letting Raelle manage the tightness of the grasp. It’s slow and careful, but Raelle holds on tightly while Scylla rubs gentle circles against Raelle’s thumb with her own.

“I love you.” Scylla whispers. “I love you and I’m real and you won’t hurt me.”

Raelle’s breath catches at that and her eyes open for a split second before slamming shut again, tighter as she tries to push away memories of cold bodies and betrayal and violence unbecoming.

Scylla backtracks. She brings Raelle’s hands up to her lips and presses soft kisses to her fingers.

“Stay with me.”

Raelle swallows and nods, eyes closed and hands clenched around Scylla’s.

“Do you hear the ocean?”

A nod.

There’s a window open somewhere, letting in the sound of the Atlantic’s waves crashing against the shore.

“Can you feel my hands?”

Another nod, hesitant.

They sit in silence like that, hands together and pressed as close as Raelle’s nerves will let them. Minutes tick by and Scylla’s lost in the warmth of being so close to Raelle. She finds that she’d be okay if they just stayed like this for the rest of forever.

Raelle’s voice is quiet when she finally speaks. “You smell nice.”

Scylla can’t help the small laugh that bubbles out of her; can’t explain the tears that spring forth from her eyes or the way her chest tightens with incomprehensible affection.

“New shampoo.” She supplies in what she hopes to be an easy fashion.

Another minute passes and Raelle’s hands have stilled and her breathing is slower, calmer.

When Raelle speaks again, it’s with a new kind of nervousness. Something more innocent, less rooted in fear.

“Can I kiss you?”

Scylla would scold herself for nodding like an eager teenager if she weren’t already tilting her lips and catching Raelle’s between them.

It’s slow and careful, like Raelle’s learning how to kiss Scylla for the first time. It’s so polarizing and different from the first time they ever kissed that Scylla’s brain is doing looping circles. She’s trying to remember this moment, seal the way Raelle’s breath catches when their lips meet as a gasping rush of hot breath pushes itself past her own. Just in case Raelle needs to pull away for space again.

Scylla tries to memorize every push and pull; to be slow and careful instead of giving in to the base need for Raelle that lives inside of her. Of course, her body wins out—like it always does—to the feeling of Raelle against her, dropping her hands to pull Scylla onto her lap with a whispered, “Is this okay?”

Which, yes, yes it very much is okay for Scylla but she just has to check with, “Is this okay for you?”

Raelle’s hasty nod bumps her nose against Scylla’s and draws twin laughter from both of them before they meet in another kiss. Still slow and careful, but deeper this time as Raelle’s fingers spread across the small of Scylla’s back and press firmly while she gives an exploratory lick into Scylla’s mouth.

And gods after months of grazing touches and second-long hugs, Scylla thinks she might melt under the heat of Raelle’s kiss.

Slow and shy has given way to greedy want; Raelle’s hands grasp tightly against the back of Scylla’s shirt and they’re properly pressed together now. Scylla can feel the hard lines of Raelle’s muscles through her shirt, lean and lithe and so fucking unfair.  

She can’t stop the borderline-sinful groan that escapes her when Raelle cants her hips up instinctively to press deeper into the kiss. She’s humming. Her body’s pounding in time with her heart in a way that she can feel the desperate beat in her fingertips.

And then Raelle pulls away, eyes clouded but worried and careful.

“Are you okay?”

Scylla’s breathless, confounded at how kisses could render her body into a mess of pulses and need. But she manages the nod and smiles, drawing slow breaths of oxygen into her grateful lungs.

“Sorry, that…” she huffs a small laugh, “wasn’t what I was planning, I promise.”

Raelle has fallen quiet again, pulling her bottom lip (kiss-swollen and so so tempting) between her teeth and sucking on it for a second.

“I’m sorry if I rushed—” Raelle starts.

“No!” Scylla cuts her off, hands coming to rest on Raelle’s shoulders as she shakes her head. “No, no, it’s okay. I’m okay. Are you?”

Raelle draws her lip back between her teeth and bites, her brows furrow but her eyes never leave Scylla’s.

Scylla immediately shifts when Raelle doesn’t answer, already moving to climb off her lap, but is stopped when Raelle’s hands grip and pull her back against her.

“No, I’m—” Raelle husks, “Please stay?”

All Scylla can do is nod, eyes scanning Raelle’s face for signs, anything that’ll tell her what to do.

She smiles softly, brings one of Raelle’s hands up from her hip to her lips and presses a soft kiss to her knuckles. Her other hand finds its way to Raelle’s face, brushes carefully along the jagged scar on her cheek while Raelle leans into it.

“Slower?” Scylla asks.

Raelle nods, eyes fluttering closed. “Thank you.”

Their calm is disturbed by the sound of the front door opening and closing followed by the footsteps of the only two people it could be approaching the living room.

Scylla can’t even bring herself to move off of Raelle, it’s too warm and comfy, so she just braces for what comes next.

“It’s about damn time.” Comes Abigail’s voice as she falls backwards onto an armchair opposite them.

“Abigail!” Tally scolds, trailing in after her while shedding her jacket. She turns to Scylla and Raelle (who’s adamantly staring at Scylla’s collarbones instead of paying attention to her unit mates) with a smile, “Congrats, you two.”