Disclaimer: I own naught but that which you do not recognize.
I was much too far out all my life/And not waving but drowning. -Stevie Smith.
Five years. Five fucking long years.
Why this occurance, one she would have thought would be as natural as breathing, had taken so long in the process was beyond her. As far as she knew, she was still relatively healthy, albeit a hell of a lot skinnier than she had been before arriving (for that was the only word her mind would allow her to attribute to her presence here) in the middle of no-where New Mexico. Still healthy, regardless of the fact that her lunch, a cornupocia of junk food including a package of Oreo's split with Ruby and a dry packet of instant noodles- the water pump at Gas Haven had been rather hostile that morning-sat curdled upon the sand under the hot, always hot, mid-day sun.
Laura grimaced as the sharp sweet-sour taste of bile rose once more in her throat and her stomach purged itself of all contents and then some. She coughed once, twice, and a third time before raising a shaking hand to run across her mouth, taking with it the remainders of her meal, sweat, and mucus and tears. She was vaguely aware of how vulnerable her prone figure was, spread out on hands and knees, but regardless the faint sound of footsteps barely registered a concern in her exhausted mind. She only had thought of a glass of cool water, and perhaps passing out on the couch in the room the domestic part of her mind titled the living room.
A shadow passed in front of the sun, and Laura lifted her head. A part of her, the same part of her that sometimes prowled close at night, screaming urging tearing at her conscience to run run run and never never never look back, recoiled at the sight of the man in front of her. Another part of her, one affected deeply and profoundly by near constant heat stroke and a good strong case of Stockholm Syndrome, cried out for this ragged, unkempt and thoroughly manic knight in shining amour.
"Well, don't you look like mother-fucking Moses." She said. Her tongue lit upon some lingering aftertaste hiding behind her front teeth.
Sunburned and heavily scarred, the man's brow furrowed in confusion. Her stomach gave a jolt completely unrelated to its illness, and Laura realized her moral sense had long since packed its bags and hit the hills.
"Never mind, just help me up, Lizard-boy." A bony yet surprisingly strong arm extended and an equally bony, strong hand wrapped itself around her elbow. She was hoisted her to feet with ease, only wobbling when her knees threatened to give out of their own accord. The hand tightened almost to the point of being painful, not that the girl minded.
"You alright?" The man asked, voice of gravel raking over her fevered flesh.
"Just peachy." She said. Blessed be peripheral vision, for she caught the look of mixed pride and elation that flitted across his errant face. She cracked a smile that was more or less as jagged as the man beside her.