There's heat against her neck, warmth, a tongue and she melts, arms sliding around his waist, touching every part of him she can to be close and feel him. She sees stars in her mind- and space- and time dances around them, fracturing, useless until the morning and she watches the shadow of him pass through the door, replays him redressing in her mind, still in the dark, of the room, of night.
She pulls herself together in the morning. A black coffee and a slice of toast, dry.
She can feel his gaze on her still though she knows that he is far gone by now, away with his Clara even though last night his eyes had burned lines into her body that she can still feel, his lips had touched her skin in so many different places.
He always leaves.
She always knows this.
He always goes back to her- to Clara.
She finds the bottle of scotch on its side, resealed.
She drinks from it again.
She sees him there, watching her, watching her be beautiful- she knows that he thinks she's beautiful- and then she sees him go off, walk away with another human, back to her, arm around their waist and she tells herself she hates him.
She hates him, she hates him, she hates him.
She tells herself it again, that she hates him, but she only tells herself because she knows that she can't.
And he carries her from yet another jail, cradles her against him and in her drunken state she can't help but wonder what kind of man loves like this- so fickle- so fierce- each in turn.
She feels the alcohol sluggishness in her veins, weighing down her lips as she speaks, asks,
"How do you do it?"
He feels so tall when she's in his arms and she looks up and can't focus on his face but he murmurs a reply which her brain takes a moment to decode.
What do you mean?
Voice soft, gentle.
And then he's laying her in a bed she sinks into and she puts her hands on her shoulders, tries to pull him close.
He puts his hands on hers, firm, careful, and she thinks that that's it- he'll be close to her again tonight- but then he kisses her forehead and his breath is warm there and he's going again, out of that door.
He's back in the morning, when she wakes up groggy, folded over a kitchen island, glass of room temperature water in front of her and head held in her hands.
He sighs and she can't help but fix her gaze on him, his rumpled clothes, clearly slept in, and his flattened hair.
His eyes are so blue and set on hers and he stands beside her, rests a hand on the countertop, and sits on one of the stools.
"Last night you asked me what kind of man I was." He says, sounding rough, sounding like he doesn't need an answer.
And somehow then he is pressing her against the wall and she has a leg over his hip and her arms around him and she can feel that double heartbeat so close to her own and then before she knows it he is gone.
She stumbles, bereft, to another bar, orders a drink the same colour as the grass they'd played in as children and pretends that the burning in her throat and chest is the alcohol's fault.