"I think I fall in love with people… a little too much."
Her voice breaks the stony silence, and she feels the man beside her flinch. She doesn't look over at him though, knowing that he'll just storm away and leave if she does. She looks down at the broken shards of the lamp he broke before in his rage, in his angry tangent about how she was just a stupid girl who knows nothing about the world, nothing about the horrors it faces.
"Just," she pauses and bites her lip before smiling softly, "just in the way they sound they sound at 4am, or how they look when they smile."
She chooses now to look at him, and she's smiling at him when their eyes clash. He looks afraid to her, cautious and worried. She knows he's just waiting for her to kick him out, to leave him like everyone else has in the past.
"And it's so addicting when their eyes light up," she presses on, scooting over the couch towards him. "Because you've remembered something they may have said."
And she does think of things he's said. Not the things from moments ago, not the nasty cruel jabs about how she doesn't understand anything in this world. No, she thinks back to when he would smile at her and call her beautiful, when he would willingly lie beside her in the grass and tell her the stories of the stars, when he would eventually relent and swing her around the living room singing softly to the sweet music playing. She thinks back to before, before the realities of this world crashed down around their ears.
"I think I grow attached to people… who I know will leave," and she reaches out to touch his hand lightly, caressing the back of his balled up fist, "but I can't help it. Because I see all that you are, when you don't really see it yourself."
He's got a tear on his cheek, he's trembling in his seat but she doesn't say anything as she just keeps reassuring him with gentle touches. He's a sad man, one who's suffered so much for one so young, and she hates it. She hates seeing a man once so passionate and fiery as nothing more than an empty hollow.
"And sometimes I wonder, how someone's heart grows so cold," and his eyes squeeze shut tightly as her hand settles over his chest, bunching in the material and clinging on, "and I think that maybe… it's because for a while, it was left out in the rain."
She presses herself against his side, dropping her head on his shoulder as her hand stays on his chest while the other slowly begins to unravel one of his fists. It's slow going but it's worth it when all the tension finally leaves him and she's able to twine their fingers together. It's rare now for him to let her this close, to let her touch him and cherishes it.
"You know some days I struggle, when there's nothing left to say," because she does, when she wakes up and sees him staring at the ceiling completely lost and alone. "Because I still don't know how to convince you that out of everyone, and all the ones that leave…"
There are many, many who have left. Some willing, others not, but it doesn't matter now as another tear follows the first and she's reaching up to pull him into her embrace. His face presses against the hollow of her neck and she shushes as his breaths come out in painful chokes.
"I'm always the one still standing here," she whispers into his hair, kissing it lightly, "with an umbrella, just big enough to cover your heart."
I was toying with the idea that Paul was returning from war as, if there is a modern say setting AU for me I always like to imagine Paul in the military, and this came of it. The dialogue from Dawn is all from this little poem I found on tumblr, and I would link it if I could find the orginal post, but it's a very beautiful poem.
Sorry if I made you sad :(
Oh, and Starfire1407? This is also for you!