AN: Hey guys! Just a little background—this was written a couple months ago for a larger story I was working on. Long story short, I got severe writer's block and abandoned it to my desktop, but today was reading over it and realized this little snippet didn't really fit in with the rest. So I'm posting it up for your enjoyment, however brief! HUGE thanks to wolfmusic218 for pushing me to even get started on that story, you were a blessing! Implied fallout between Reese and Carter (which would be obvious if this was part of a longer fic!) Please read and review!
We have not touched the stars,
nor are we forgiven, which brings us back
to the hero's shoulders and a gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it.
Snow and Dirty Rain, Richard Siken
Most nights he thinks about her dusty skin and her slant of her collarbone and her wide eyes and it's almost like he can't breathe.
He has nightmares now. Often, where he is running up a flight of stairs to a rooftop but when he gets to the top she is there and she tells him he is too late and she is tired. In the dream she calls him Reese. He wakes up sweating and disoriented.
He thinks far too much about the way she says his name, voice hoarse and honeyed. He thinks about her scent, like vanilla and sweet hot metal, and at times the hollow feeling inside of him gets so overwhelming he takes up pulling on a pair of sweats and jogging down the street.
He wishes he could tell her this, that she has become essential to these strange skins he assumes (hero warrior friend), but something always stops him.
Instead he dreams of skylights and dark hair and writhes through the night.