(AN: This was originally meant to be a one shot, but I enjoyed experimenting with this writing style. So this time from Lara's perspective!)


I notice it in the way you're always playing with your camera. You fidget, tweaking apertures and playing with the focus as though you're trying to find the perfect settings to line up the perfect shot, but you no matter how many shots you take, you never find the one you're looking for.

I catch you looking at me through the lens. It's nothing unusual, you've always done so, but now you have an unusually tense look on your face. What do I look like to you? Broken? A shattered psyche with ghosts in my eyes?

You've made sure I've kept my promise. I don't...really know if it's helped. But it matters to you, and that makes it matter to me, and maybe I actually believe some of it. I see the things in you that you've seen in me, the cracks in your breath, the nightmares that keep you awake.

You stare at me through that lens, and I can feel the tension in the air. Like something shifts. You set the camera aside and scoot along the couch until you're next to me. You've missed this, you don't need to tell me that with words. And you know I have too. The closeness, the old normal that you've tried so hard to reclaim. You put your arms around me, and your breath is hot against my neck.

We're so broken, you and I. The thread that keeps us together is weathered and worn, but it is not severed. You slip into my lap, your eyes questioning, your expression desperate. You kiss me, the second time, and like the first it breaks me. Your body is warm, too warm, or maybe it's my skin that's burning. There's no one to see, no one to stop us but ourselves as you claim my lips with your own. Your fingers dance a maddening rhythm up my ribs, tracing the contours of scars and discovering new ones.

Too soon, you gasp for breath and pull away, but I don't let you go. Your head tilts back, your pulse racing against my lips, and your taste is something I'd never known I'd yearned for. You say my name, a quick, shuddering gasp. Your tears mingle with mine, and then you're kissing me again, nibbling with your teeth and rocking your hips and I accidentally bust off half the buttons on your blouse when your moan rumbles in my throat.

You laugh, and it's the first time it's sounded normal in months. I don't dare to breathe a word, and you don't let me speak anyway. You're all desparate kisses and hungry hands and we don't stop to think, we don't stop to ask if this is right or wrong, but I want this, I've always wanted this. Your skin is burning too, the only salve the roughness of my hands. You take one, kissing the callouses on my fingers, licking the scars and nuzzling your cheek against my palm.

That means so much to me. You probably don't know, you might never know what that gesture does to me. It fills in my cracks, though it does nothing more than to inflame the fire building inside. It reminds me I'm human, that these hand are good for more than just killing.

You move, wanting us to go to a bedroom, but I stop you. There are only nightmares there, bad memories of bad dreams and if we do this I want it in a place that's both of ours, to add another good memory to so many others. You kiss me gently, fueled by a swell of emotion that drowns us both. My cheeks burn again, and I don't know whose tears they are.

I've always been the one teaching you, showing you things, but this time you're the teacher. You show me how to make you come undone, you teach me with every breathless cry and coiled, trembling muscle. I'm so eager to learn and the shadows in our minds are chased far away.

The sun shines through the front window of the flat. You stir besides me, your hand closing around mine as though you sense my intentions to get up. You look at me imploringly. You're afraid I'm restless, that I want to go.

"I just have to use the loo."

"Oh." Your smile is sheepish as you tuck some hair behind your ear. You need to be reassured, and I finally have the words that you need to hear.

"Right now, for the first time, I feel like I can stop running. I don't know if that will last, but I promise you. I'll always come back to you. No matter where I go or what do."

You let go of my hand and as I head to use the toilet, I hear you hum something that sounds suspiciously like Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing. Your smile brightens when I roll my eyes at you, and I only love you more.

"If only it were that easy," you say, and reach for your camera.

If only.