We've been laying in the dark now for over two hours, and I know I need to get him out of here before Cindy wakes up, but he's nestled himself in my neck with his arms around my torso like he's hanging on for genetically-enhanced life, and I just can't bring myself to disentangle from him. Not when he needs me like this.
It started a few nights ago, this…whatever you want to call it. He showed up at my apartment, confused, incoherent, mumbling and stuttering, eyes desperate with incomprehensible – I don't know – fear, maybe. It really wasn't clear to me then.
But I did the only thing I could think of: I traced the pad of my thumb over his cheekbone and circled my hand around to pull him by the neck and press him to me in a hug. I could feel his heartbeat pounding into my chest, but as I stroked his hair and he buried his head in my neck, he began to calm down, heartbeat pumping a gentler rhythm between us.
I wondered at the time if that was his first hug or at least the first one he wasn't obligated by mission parameters to accept – or return, for that matter.
I'm not sure how Cindy would have reacted to what she could have seen that night, or every night since then: a very – dare I say – emotional Alec, lying horizontal and, pressed seemingly intimately, to yours truly.
I don't even know what's going on with him, but how am I supposed to explain to my girl how he's in my bed, touching the tiny part of my back that's exposed, murmuring wordlessly and breathing against my neck, clutching to me as if I'm his lifeline, and how I'm touching him all over right back? How I've never seen him so calm, and vulnerable, despite how he doesn't say one word during the nights, nor talk about it during the days? How, when he's against me, something deep inside me feels the need to be there for him, with him?
Tonight, earlier than what has become normal, he let himself in, quiet as a stealth-model X-series, crept to my room, my bed, and panicked when I wasn't there. I was drying off from my bath as quickly as I could, and when hastily slipped on my bathrobe, entered my room, and shut my door, he crossed the distance between us, bent down, and wrapped his arms around my still-damp body.
Naked except for my bathrobe and Alec pressed against me… I'm kinda freaking out. Because it feels right.
I can't explain how I know he needs the connection. How we both do.
Luckily, Cindy's not awake, yet.