Broken
She comes to him in the night.
Not like he's sleeping anyway. He's counting heartbeats, breaths, how many times he's almost lost her to this cruel world, and the shadows all look like monsters. The ones from his past, the ones that walk the dying world they keep holding at arms' length, the ones that live inside them.
She comes to him without a word.
Moonlight paints her body's pain pale, but it doesn't reach her eyes. In their blue, he sees too many lost souls, little girls and boys that escaped this Hell on Earth with tiny jagged pieces of her heart in their small hands. In their wet shimmer, he sees himself as she sees him. A lifeline of last resort. An anchor to the hope she's so desperately trying to hold on to.
She comes to him bare.
Her touch is there, but not there. Still, his battered body craves the promised oblivion just as much, and he's weak. Always has been. 'Specially for her. Merle seen it. Rick. All the rest of them. God knows she's seen it, and there are ghosts in this bed. Of what they were, of what they could have been, of what they still could be, but fuck. He's only human, and his flesh responds. His body comes alive, even while she starts to splinter, scatter into the seductive darkness.
She comes to him.
His hand burns a trail up the bow of her back, his thick fingers find her curls, bring her to his chest, and his lips brush across her smooth forehead. Over and over. Until the first salty tears slide from her cheek to his, and he soaks up her sadness. Tries to swallow her sins. "Shh." He traces her ribs, traces her scars, traces the life's blood that still beats beneath her skin, a little unsteady but there even now, and they ain't ashes, but they're burning. They're burning, and he's not going to let her get consumed. "I know you. You got to feel it, too."
She comes to him broken but beautiful.
But that's okay. Because he's broken, too.
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