INVOCATIONS
There is something ethereal about her, he thinks, and rolls the word around in his mind. Ethereal.
It fits, nearly too perfectly, and he has to touch her pulse to make sure, his fingers gliding up her throat and settling just beneath her jaw, pressing gently and counting the beats in his head.
One two three four five six
"What are you doing?" she asks, laughing, turning her face to him, her breath warm against his fingertips, and he loses track of where he was, loses the count, loses the rhythm. He drops his hand, and he can still hear her pulse in his mind.
One two three four five six
"Nothing," he says. He traces instead the narrow ridge of scar tissue that twists up near her bellybutton. It's the one that nearly got her killed in the war, before Edea, before her powers, before her gift.
It is a gift if you can't die, right? Even if she'll outlive him, even if she'll outlive them all. He's always known that SeeD means early retirement--and the way things are looking, he'll be out by his twenty-fifth birthday, if he's not dead yet. We've got a short shelf life, Zell said once, his ever present grin in place even though he hadn't been joking that time. Squall doesn't think about it too much. Death's inevitable, and the panicked, breathless feelings that come with thinking about it aren't worth the hassle.
"That tickles," she murmurs, just when he thinks she is finally asleep, and so he moves his hand higher, away from the scar, tracing up over the gentle slope of her breast, over her collarbone. He spends a long time with his fingers hovering over the hair draped across her shoulder, plucking out the bleached blonde strands from dusky black with absentminded precision. Rinoa's eyes are closed, but he knows she's not asleep, just dozing; she doesn't sleep much anymore. Neither of them do.
Her breath comes out in a soft whisper, and inhales like a secret she never meant to slip.
Breathing.
Proof enough that she is alive, isn't it?