capeandcowl2020 | Open Post 002

Once he has the collar away from her, it disappears right back into his sylladex, just in case she were to attempt to try to snatch it away again. He makes a strangled noise of distress at the back of his throat when the torrent of feeling looped from her to him doesn't let up even with the device wrested from her grasp. God, what if this is just too much for her? What if there's a limit to how much she can take in? That would just be fantastic, wouldn't it, great reunion gift there, Vantas. He shouldn't have come back at all.

The hand that still rests on hers curls around it, fingers linking with hers -- the other one he'd used to stash the collar away moves to her shoulder as he scoots forward to kneel beside her.

"Ruka. Listen, it's not you. That's not yours. Ruka. Ruka. That's not you." He repeats her name, trying to call her back out of him, his heart. The longer he does, the more panicked the edge to his voice grows, the more pleading it sounds. "Ruka."

A name. Over and over, pulling through the darkness, but she has to see this through to the end. She has to swallow it down to where her own heart can break it down, or else it'll never dislodge from where it burns her nerves and chokes her breath. Her hand spasms in his, trying to grab hold and flinching away, back and forth.

Fire burns through the darkness, bright and powerful like the sun, somehow more blinding than blindness; the ghost before her seems to grow more solid, light defining more features. It's so hard to recognize anything familiar under fear, but gradually it burns away in the wake of something bigger, something brighter. Less of Karkat Vantas filters back through the loop, draining down. Light overtakes darkness, and in that illumination, everything snaps into place. Her vision focuses on the world outside her.

Hope.

"... Karkat?"

The panic eases when the feedback loop between them does, settles into guilt and worry. When she says his name, though -- for the first time in two years -- his breaks off in his attempts to call her back, words stalling in his throat. His heart throbs; he can't tell if with pleasure or pain. The hand holding hers trembles.

"You idiot," he forces out past the verbal roadblock. "Why would you do something like that?"

It isn't allowed to tremble there for long; he's barely allowed to get the words out before she's moving again, using her hand in his to pull herself up, forward, release, she unashamedly throws herself forward and wraps her arms around his back in an unsteady hug. Her hands make tense fists in the fabric of his shirt, and she doesn't have the strength to keep herself from shaking.

"I thought you were dead." Quiet and shaking, honest, in the way she so rarely is or was. "How could I believe it was you?"

He tenses as an instinctive fear flutters in the region of his stomach when she first throws her arms around him, but it's quickly trampled and overtaken by something stronger, something familiar; that need to be close that moves his arms to embrace her in reciprocation before he even consciously wills it.

"I'm sorry," he breathes, dazed. He's really here. He really made it. He has this back. For a moment, he has trouble believing it himself. His hold on her is likely too tight -- one arm wrapped crushingly around her ribs, the other flung across her shoulders, the back of her neck. He'd forgotten this, this desperation, the way his heart seemed to want to pick up a new career as a battering ram, the way she felt and smelled and sounded like this, in his arms. Or perhaps they'd both simply changed in the interim of separation. He struggles to press closer to her, despite their uncomfortable position on the floor. "I'm sorry."

She'd forgotten just how warm he always seemed to be. He's thinner than she remembers, a little more narrow, and so many of the little things are different, or distorted in the distance of time. He smells different, his hair is too long, his voice hits the wrong pitch, his body's been whittled down so much. It's too much to take in, and she's terrified of waking up.

"I'm sorry," she echoes, muffled words into his clothing. "I didn't believe you." Didn't believe in him, didn't trust him, didn't put any stock into his promises.

"No, don't worry about it," he tells her, remorseful.

Some things never change; Karkat wishes the fact that he only sees clearly in hindsight wasn't one of them. He'd come here wanting a movie-script reunion and expecting a flat rejection -- of course both of those scenarios were impossible, he would have known that if he'd thought about the people involved. That's not Ruka. That's not Karkat. Things are never, will never be so simple as that. He threads strands of dark hair through his fingers, thinks about the bright color it masks.

"I was stupid, waltzing in here out of nowhere and acting like you should be able to just take it in right then and there."

Her arms move, wrapping around him a little different, a little tighter, as if that will keep her from shaking, keep him from noticing. His heart's still rattling around inside her, but so's hers, a chaotic mess soothed from sinking into black depths by his borrowed hope.

"You're always stupid."

She pretends she isn't crying.

It's more awkward than the heartfelt scenes of long-awaited reconciliation movies and books would spin, where everything always seemed to fall back into place.

He shifts over the carpet, shuffling so he is less off to the side, repositioning himself so she is in the fork of his knees, making it easier to hold her. He clings to her, needy and fumbling, unable to decide where his hands should rest, unsure as to how he fits together with her anymore -- inexperienced and hampered by nerves all over again, as if he'd reverted to being a stupid teenager in the span of a few minutes. He wants to say something meaningful, but the words stick at the back of his throat, refusing to be articulated. He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what to do. He's messed this up so thoroughly already.

In the end, what comes out of his mouth is very simple, after a few minutes of struggle; he doesn't think about how it never ended well to say it before, doesn't even really decide that it is what he should say. It slips out, thoughtless as an exhale.

"I love you," is muttered into the side of her neck, against her pulse.

Edited 2013-03-07 04:41 (UTC)

Don't leave me are the words that catch in her throat, the words she wants to say, but can't. Because there's nothing she can say to make him stay, she knows. He has those people he wants to find, wants to protect and save, and even as selfish as she is, she can't force him to sacrifice anyone else just for her.

It isn't fair, how much she needs him, and how much he needs to be everywhere that isn't with her. It makes her hate him almost as much as she loves him, and she can't say a word for either. She couldn't even admit to them until she'd already lost him, and had known he wouldn't be back.

If she says it now, she's afraid he'll disappear again. Her arms shake and her heart races, and she's going to feel so cold when he finally goes again.

She's going to rip holes in that shirt for how tight she's holding on. Anxiety and fear coil in her arms. "I miss you so much," comes out in a rush, and she doesn't even notice it's still in the present tense.

She might not be able to say it, but the thing is -- she doesn't have to. Not to an empath. I don't want to, is his silent reply. He never wants to leave her. He doesn't even want to let go of her long enough for them to get up off the floor. Nothing is fair about this, Karkat thinks bitterly as her nails scrape at his back through his shirt, as their bodies shift against one another and he inhales the scent of her hair, rubs his hand up and down her back as if he could soothe away any of the things wrong with their lives. Nothing is fair about them.

He never wanted to love her the way he does, never intended to, sometimes wonders if he was never meant to in the first place. He does, though, whether either of them like it or not, and it's not fair that she won't ever say it back, that she won't ever acknowledge it -- he hates her for that, too, sometimes.

They were better off when they were children. Better off when they took each other and their place in the world for granted, before they could even recognize the value of being able to see one another every day. Better off when they cared less, needed less.

"I don't know how to fix this," he tells her helplessly, not even bothering to keep his voice from cracking. He doesn't know how to fix her, fix himself, fix the world. It's not fair.

The crack in his voice is sharp reminder; the suffering she felt was his, years of his, and how fair was it to force him to carry the burden of her heart when he was already so saddled with the weight of his?

This time it's her hand combing through his hair, sweat-damp and stiff with grime, split-ends, but who cares about something like that? She lifts her head, her hands smoothing into flat palms against his back. She shifts in his arms. "You're here," she murmurs, quiet into the shell of his ear, calmer now. "You're here now. That's enough."

No it's not, he wants to tell her. That's not enough at all. They both know he'll leave her again eventually. He'll hurt her and she'll hurt him, and the worst part about it all is it isn't something Karkat can control. The state of the world they live in is out of their hands; what they have now, however screwed up and painful, is the best either of them are able to do. It's not enough.

He doesn't say any of this, though. Merely shivers at the sensation of her fingers brushing against his scalp, her breath against his ear. Deprived of physical contact that wasn't pain for so long as he has been, the reaction he has to the simple touch and affection is almost overwhelming. He doesn't know how to react to it.

He lets out a sigh and pulls back from their embrace -- not by much, mind. Just enough that he is able to look her in the face again, take in the pallor of her face, the tears that cling to her lashes and glisten in streaks down her face, the pull of her brows and curve of her mouth, the shift in expressions. Refreshing everything he'd missed, recoloring his memory. For a while, that's all he does; look at her.

It's gentle and almost hesitant, when he finally leans in to press his lips to hers.

Even that small movement has her heart flickering in mild panic, the one hand tensing on his back. Is he leaving her, already? Is he rejecting her, finally? But he stops, and she freezes, uncertain of what to say or what she said that would cause this now. Her eye skims his face for some clue as to what he's thinking, but she's not an empath the same way he is; proximity isn't enough for her to sense even a fraction of his heart.

The confusion (anxiety fear trepidation) is plain on her face, spiking at movement once more. At contact she freezes for surprise—everything seems to happen so fast, so slow, it's hard to keep herself in the present—but the breath rushes out of her, the tension in her back and her shoulders easing, when she kisses back.

He really is there with her, isn't he? This isn't a dream.

But, she thinks, shifting on pins-and-needles legs and curling her fingers in his hair, that's no guarantee she won't wake up to an empty room, with no sign he'd ever been here in the first place.

No guarantee at all.

Open Post 002

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