Somehow the day has turned to dusk. Somehow the crowd has turned to just the two of them. Somehow the thought of being with her again, like that, after so long, doesn't fill Erich with an excitement so extreme it verges on terror.
What there is instead: a sense of rightness. Not quite inevitability, no, but the natural flow of things. A sense of of course.
Of course after meeting here at the park, after holding hands and standing up for each other (well. more melantha standing up for erich, protecting him with her words the way he would protect her with his teeth and claws), after spending an idle hour with the rest of the world,
after spending months apart from each other, after slowly weaving themselves back together again with nights curled up together, nights where she wrapped her arms around his chest from behind and held him because he was all upset,
of course, of course. After all that: of course they would leave together tonight. Of course they would go somewhere together. Of course.
It makes perfect sense.
--
He turns to her as she lifts her face. He turns to her and she kisses him, and his arms slide around her back as hers wrap around his neck. She sways into him and he is there for her, there to catch her in this slow-motion upward fall of hers. They kiss in the grass, near the sidewalk, as the west turns red and the first lights of the evening come on.
When their mouths part he smiles. He leans down for another kiss, softer, a stolen thing. Then he wraps her hand in his, nodding. " 'kay," he says.
--
Sometimes he misses his Mustang. The small spaces, the bedroll he had in the back. All his earthly possessions wrapped up in a racingstriped shell, and when Melantha joined him there they felt so close. When they sit in his truck they are farther apart, and he misses her warmth against his side. So he holds her hand: holds her hand as they drive notveryfar to Sherman, then to 18th. It's a Hamptons Inn & Suites. It's the sort of midrange hotel that vacationers stay in, that college students stay in while looking for a job. Erich parks behind the hotel and then leans over the wheel to look at it. Leans back, unbuckles his seatbelt, hops out
and comes around to let Melantha out. Well; she's probably let herself out by then, but he helps anyway if he can: it seems like a romantic gesture to him. His hand finds hers again just as soon as it can. He smiles at her. He's so happy.
Melantha ArgyrisNaturally, she thinks he must be too distracted or too tired or too Something to understand what she meant. Every other time it's come up -- in conversation, and not in just the desperate reaching for each other that colored a few weeks this summer whenever Melantha would crawl into his bed with him and start kissing him -- he has seemed excited and anxious and worried and tense, to the point where sometimes she thought he didn't even want her, really. Sex, maybe. But that it had become something weird and detached from both of them, an idea as big as whether or not there's a god. So when she asks him if he wants to go somewhere, and he just... calmly, softly says yes, no wonder she thinks he must not be catching her drift.
He does, though. And he kisses her back, his book pressing against her back as he wraps his arm around her, and she feels an ache for him spreading through her like waking embers. Her body moves into his, closer, and he stays solid, swaying gently with her but remaining rooted, steady, in a way that no one who doesn't know him like his packmates know him would ever expect. They're kissing slowly, and she's whispering the location of a hotel, just... magically. Off the top of her head. With no planning or foresight of course, not from the woman who has spent roughly a decade embroiled in methodical plotting , not from Melantha, who may be one of the smartest people Erich has ever or will ever meet. She just made that address up by guesswork. This is not the secret agent you're looking for.
Erich, who is strangely -- and it is strange, even to Melantha, who knows him -- calm right now, just smiles. Kisses her again, and feels her breathe in against him.
--
They walk back to, then get into the truck, and he's reaching for her hand again as soon as they're in motion, and she's watching him like she has something on her mind. Which she does. Which isn't the old Mustang or about not being close because let's face it, they live in frighteningly low digits of square footage, but she doesn't voice those thoughts yet. He parks, and he hops out of the truck to come around but of course Melantha already has the door open. Of course she's getting herself down before he gets over there to be romantic or just because he likes her or both, and of course she's giving him sort of an odd look because what are you doing,
but he's so happy. And there she is, sitting in the passenger seat but with her body turned sideways, her knees toward him, and Erich smiling up at her, ready to jog and bound and hop and Melantha is just looking at him, with that odd look on her face and in her eyes.
ErichSo that smile of his -- well, it doesn't fall off his face entirely, but it does change somewhat. Quirks, hesitates, becomes a little smaller and a little uncertain.
"What's the matter?" he asks her. He has one hand on the frame of the car. The other wants to cover her knee or take her hand, just to have some part of her to touch, but after a moment it joins the first. Both on the frame of the car, then: one up top, one on the vertical B-bar separating front window from rear tinywindow. "Are you okay? It okay if you're changing your mind."
Melantha Argyris"I'm okay," she tells him, first off, answering the second question before any others follow. She does look troubled, though, her brows drawn together. "I don't know," she says, with that thoughtfulness that is as intrinsic to her as her blood, as her very soul. "You just... seem so calm. And you've never really been calm about this. And it's weird because the moon is full and you seemed like you were gonna get into a bare-knuckle brawl with that woman and you kept bringing up the rite and... then like. One-eighty, you know? Suddenly you're like Mr. Happy Zen, and I just... wasn't really expecting that, and don't really know what happened to your mood between being kind of dark and angry and what-the-fuck and then... this.
"Which..." Melantha goes on, her eyes tracking over his face, working it out like a math problem even as she speaks aloud, "makes me feel kind of cut off from you, instead of closer to you. Like I just have no idea what's going on in your head. And it's not like one thing is better or worse than the other, just... I don't feel like we're on the same wavelength? Which sounds really stupid, but it's what I mean. You feel far away."
She licks her lips, pressing them together for a moment, watching the light from the hotel play across the different angles of his face. Her eyes lift up to find his again. "And I think it also just feels sort of weirdly artificial. Not you. Just... all this, I mean. Like we can't just... fall into each other anymore. It feels so... awkward like this, running off to a hotel, and like... the hotel room has this one specific purpose and that's to give us a place to have sex, and it just..."
All this trailing off. She takes a deep breath there, shaking her head. "I didn't think it would feel weird until we were getting to the truck and getting inside and coming over here. And maybe some other times it wouldn't, I don't know. It just does right now. I think maybe... they're tied together. The weird feelings."
Her hands have come up; her fingers lace together, intertwining. She sighs and drops them to her lap again.
ErichWhat Melantha says, in truth, makes Erich feel a little bad. His crest falls, his shoulders sag a little. He hangs on to the truck where he braces himself, leaning his weight on his hands a bit more. His eyebrows draw together.
"I don't... really know how to explain it. I didn't even think I'd had a mood swing or whatever. I mean yeah the moon's full. But I went to the library today and I got a good book and I read that book out in the sunshine until I fell asleep. Then when I woke up I saw a lot of people I knew, and maybe that Lola lady pissed me off but then you and Charlotte were both there sticking up for me. And you held my hand. And Charlotte gave me a chocolate, which I don't really know if I can eat but I guess we'll find out eventually.
"Anyway. Then after that we met Javed's student. And she was pretty awesome too. So... I guess in the grand scheme of things I had a pretty good day? And it was a nice, mellow, chill sort of day. And in all that mellow-chill, there was really only just a little bit of what the fuck. So... yeah.
"That's why I'm pretty happy. And chill."
He pauses a little. Then he does what he'd wanted to earlier: takes one hand off the truck and reaches out to her, takes her hand instead. Looks at it, smaller and slenderer in his hand.
"It is a little weird, though, to pre-plan sex like this," he admits. "I mean even if it's kinda spur of the moment. It still feels a little like... I dunno. 'Weirdly artificial'. But I don't really know what to do about that, except maybe just ... try to look past it and remember that even though it's sort of all deliberate and plotted out, what we've got between us isn't."
Melantha ArgyrisMelantha frowns at the mention of Lola. It's not a hateful frown; it's certainly a troubled one. "That Lola lady pissed me off, too. I mean... she's opinionated, awesome, but then she started being an asshole about it for no reason, and when she got called out on it, she just ignored me, tried to shush me, and then ran off after her boyfriend."
The disappointment in Melantha's tone is not quite as palpable as the disgust. And she doesn't stop there: "I mean, seriously, if you resort to sneering at and insulting people as your argument for why they're wrong and you're right, or why you don't even have to consider their perspective, it's pretty obvious at that point that you're just a child substituting curse words for actual maturity, right?"
She huffs her breath out, and realizing now that she has completely interrupted Erich mid-thought, she winces. "I'm sorry."
--
Listening again, he says that she and Charlotte stood up for him. And hand-holding. And chocolate. And Javed and Javed's cub-in-training and library and sunshine and nap and yay. Melantha feels bad.
Erich takes her hand, and she feels slightly less bad. Hers rests atop his, slender but not without its callouses, not anymore. She doesn't grow her nails long and keep them manicured anymore. She puts on a lot of lotion to make up for all the hand-washing she does, working in a restaurant and trying not to get sick or just skeeved out. Her hands tend to smell like the oatmeal-and-shea-butter stuff she uses, with just a hint of almond.
She sighs, trying to smooth out the internal wrinkles created by her kneejerk response, which is to hear what he says as trying to talk her into it, talk her out of her thoughts, talk her out of her feelings on this, convince her to just ignore it and relax, baby, even if it feels uncomfortable and strange and not quite right, just shh. She does look uncomfortable for a moment there, her brows knit together, her lips turned down at the corners. God, men have turned themselves inside out because of that look on her face. That sad, uncertain look. Even good men. And to think: it's not even intentional right now. It's not on her face on purpose.
"I wish we could just have sex in our beds," she whispers, and she whispers because she feels guilty even saying it. "Like... watch a movie and curl up and it be like any other night and sometimes we make love and sometimes we don't."
Melantha looks sad. Melantha is sad. "Erich," she says, and exhales, and
pulls at him, her hand to his shirt, tugging him upward to her, inward, bending at the waist so she can kiss him even as she's urging him to climb up the truck and into it,
over her.
ErichMelantha goes off a bit about Lola. It's not hateful, but it is angry, and it is disappointed, and --
-- somehow, in the midst of it, Erich starts smiling. And by the time she finishes, apologizing, he's leaning in and cupping her cheeks in his hands and laying a soft little kiss on her mouth.
"Don't be," he says. And: "I'm not laughing at you, by the way. I just... love how you you are."
--
He talks about why he's not so upset. She looks like she's upset. So he takes her hand, and she gets that frown that makes him want to reach into the truck and scoop her out and just hug her for hours. She tells him what she tells him, and
he gets this look on his face, longing and wistfulness and -- a shade of guilt, almost, because the way they're talking makes him afraid that secretly in some tiny part of their hearts they wished Charlotte was ...
different. or maybe not living with them. or --
-- no. He doesn't wish any of that. He doesn't he doesn't he doesn't, he literally shakes his head to get the thought-of-the-thought out of it, and by then she is saying his name and she hardly needs to even pull, she hardly needs to urge him to do anything. Her hand on his shirt finds itself pressed and caught between them as he comes to her, closes on her, meets her kiss in the middle, clambers awkwardly into that truck with her.
It's very crowded. It's very cramped -- at least until his hand finds the seat release, drops them both back with a thump. Then he reaches out and grabs the door, shuts it. "Here," he whisper-pants, "c'mere," coming back to her, wrapping his arms around her and scooping her off the seat and then there's some more fumbling and turning and flipping and -- he thumps back in the seat under her, kicking one foot against the dashboard to slide himself up.
Melantha ArgyrisShe wrinkles her nose at him when he's smiling and happy because she's just so her, because she didn't mean to interrupt and it's not like ranting helps but now he's being all cute about it. Melantha lets him kiss her. She says: "Of course you're not laughing at me," because that would be really dumb.
--
So much of the sadness in Melantha's eyes is due to similar thoughts as the ones that get Erich shaking his head. She doesn't want to leave the tinyhouse. She doesn't want Erich or Charlotte to leave the tinyhouse. She wishes Charlotte were different, for reasons that have to do with the fear and sometimes loathing and sometimes sickness and sometimes sorrow that color the Silver Fang's ethereal eyes sometimes. Melantha would be lying if she said she didn't wish that those things, all those things that make Charlotte afraid or hateful or sick or sad could be eradicated.
She'd be lying if she said she didn't wish that Erich's family weren't dumb and unfair and loved him anyway and she'd be lying if she said she doesn't sometimes wish that Erich could face the yawning pain of his own grief and the shrieking spectres of his own anger instead of rolling them both into a tight little ball and locking it away in NoThinkAbout land because if she can do that stuff then he sure as hell should because it's only through trial and trouble that we reach the stars, et cetera.
Though she is perhaps the most realistic, pragmatic, down-to-earth member of the trio, Melantha is at her heart an idealist. It hurts her when things cannot be as she wishes they were, as she believes they should be. That bad things happen, that people feel pain, that things are unfair and unfixable, that the world is full of horrors and agony so deep it seems sometimes that humanity groans under the weight: she can barely stand it, because it shouldn't be like this.
But sometimes it is. And she is only, these days, learning to live with it on her own, without supplicating her spirit and her purpose in life to some greater thing than herself, some cause -- some tribe -- that stands for all her ideals. It's a lot harder to take it all on herself and mitigate it to something a little more... realistic.
Realistically, she knows that none of them are going to leave each other, and she doesn't want that. And she doesn't want Charlotte to be uncomfortable and she knows Charlotte is Charlotte and maybe Charlotte will always be as Charlotte pretty much is now, and she loves her and will love her truly and deeply and entirely no matter what. Realistically she knows it's okay to get a room at a hotel or a bed and breakfast sometimes even though it feels kind of awkward and reminiscent of revolting sacrifices made for the sake of Gaia and the war. Realistically she knows things, but that doesn't stop her wishing that there were some magic to make all the things she wants coexist together, peacefully and happily and at the same time.
Like Charlotte being Charlotte as Charlotte is and being happy that way.
Like all of them being together in the tinyhouse.
Like being able to roll over and be with Erich without having to go somewhere.
There should be a wand, or something, to make it all So.
--
She aches, and so she reaches for him, pulling him to her and kissing him, and he just... climbs up to her, instantly and eagerly, pulling the door shut and tangling with her in the dark, their legs denim-clad and Erich all over her suddenly. Melantha is overwhelmed by the way he kisses her, crowds her, suddenly drops the seat back and she yelps as she falls backward, thumping her head on the rest. She regains some of the wind knocked out of her with a deep breath, only to lose it again as his leg moves between her legs.
Erich won't stop moving. She pants a breath out as he's trying to scoop her up and do this and do that and just... grabs him by the arms, feeling them in her palms but also just holding onto him, not to push away but to make him hold still a second, so her grip is strong and firm and her eyes are wide and watching him from the shadows that the world descends into when his body blocks the light coming through the windshield.
Melantha holds him there, over her still, until he stops for a moment or two. She watches him for that moment or two, her lips parted, and then her grip gently eases, her palms sliding up his arms, now a caress, now an appreciative one, skimming the sleeves of his shirt. Her arms don't wrap around his neck as before in the park, but her hands trail down over his clavicles, over his chest, feeling him out through the fabric.
She doesn't tell him, in the midst of this, about the mythology of virginity, how it is a ritual thing and not a physical thing. She doesn't tell him about those rituals, not because she doesn't love him but because, for one thing, now is not the time, and for another thing: he is a man, and they are sacred beyond sacred. She doesn't tell him that she's a virgin, or what that means to her, that she is a maiden as much as he is a full moon, but she looks at him not with reverence,
but invoking it.
"I love you," she whispers to him, as her hands are reaching his lower abdomen, finding his belt and starting to undo it: blindly, for her eyes never leave his.
ErichErich isn't very good at going slow. He doesn't have a lot in the way of patience, and he has way too much in the way of boundless energy. He doesn't have a lot in the way of finesse or skill, either, and way too much in the way of oh my god this is really happening again.
Still. She puts her hands on his biceps. She doesn't push him away, but she does hold him. Hold him fast, and strong, and by the grip of her hands and the power of her will alone she brings him back to a sort of mutual clarity. A sort of awareness of her, of himself, of the two of them in this together.
He's panting softly when he comes to a standstill. Looking at her in the darkness, eagerness fading to question fading to comprehension. Recognition. Her hands move, then, sliding up his arms, rumpling the sleeves of his t-shirt before skimming over that fabric. His shirt is sandstone-orange, and it advertises Chimney Rock, where he and Charlotte stopped to sightsee on their long meandering path from Washington, D.C. She explores him through the arch of words over his chimney, through the cheaply silkscreened image of Chimney Rock, and when her hands make their way to his belt
his eyes close, his brow falls against hers and he lets out this low utterance, this soft moan of wanting and needing and almost getting. She's hardly even touched him at all. She's touched him to the core of his being, touched him in a way that resonates all the way through him, when she tells him what she does. His eyes open, clear in the darkness, their color lost to the shadows.
"I love you." He says it right back. And he smiles, and it's sort of this shy, young smile, as though they haven't already fucked every which way before, as though they weren't pawing at each other
in the front seat of his truck
out on the street.
Melantha ArgyrisThey are literally in a hotel parking lot. It's right there. And instead, Melantha is hauling Erich into the cab of his truck, which is sort of dingy and has its own smells and funky spots that are easily associated with three young adults sharing it as their only means of transportation between a mountain town and the metro area and sometimes moots. She's kissing him there instead of in a queen-sized bed or their tiny soft mattresses in their tiny cozy lofts. It didn't get very warm inside from the drive between City Park and downtown, and it isn't any warmer from a few moments spent sitting with the door open, but Erich is plenty warm for both of them, and Melantha is hardly cool to the touch either.
He pants. He makes that sound, quiet and longing, and her hands slow and still on his belt buckle, her chin lifting. She's going to kiss him again, but she tells him she loves him instead, and he loves her back, smiling because truth be told, he is young and sometimes he is shy and because they both -- miraculously, given what he is and what she's done -- are innocents. Idealists, in some ways, even if they serve those ideals in brutal, uncompromising ways. That is the price of passion, perhaps. Of faith.
--
Melantha kisses him again, her hands moving on his belt again, unfastening the buckle, unwinding the leather from its mooring. She slips her fingers between the strap and the denim beneath to unfold the fabric hugging the circular metal button, and though it feels like some point of no return, some dangerous thing, she lowers the zipper of his jeans. Maybe it is a point of no return; if someone comes knocking on their truck door, it will be hard to convince them that they were just... y'know... hugging or something, not doing stuff, when Erich is lying on top of her with his pants undone.
"Stay on top of me," she whispers to him in the dark, pausing their kisses for just a moment to tell him the reason: "you're warm," which he is.
Her mouth moves to his again after that, soft and searching,
slow.
ErichStay, she says. He's warm.
Erich warms indeed to hear that. A slow flush of happiness: so pleased, on such a silly, animal level, to hear her praise him. Warm. He keeps her warm. He's useful, he helps her, she likes having him close. He's smiling when her mouth finds his again, and that smile lingers, lasts,
fades ever so slowly into the intensity of that kiss. She has slid his zipper down. He is caressing her sides with his fingertips, through her shirt, under her jacket if she has one. He hasn't even reached under her clothes yet; hasn't touched her breasts; hasn't tried to undo her pants, but --
he's getting there, maybe. He shifts over her, settles his weight differently. He's moving against her and into her motion, a slow oceanic roll of his body from shoulder to hip, his spine fluid and loose and relaxed. His fingertips tug at her shirt, bring it up until he can slip two fingers under, touch the bare skin of her waist. And then hooking under her waistband, tugging testingly at it here and there.
"Up front or behind?" he asks: her buttons and zippers, he means. It's an odd sort of politeness. He doesn't want to fumble and paw blindly for minutes on end.
Melantha ArgyrisThey've gone so slowly -- or were going slowly, sort of, back when some nights Melantha would climb up to his bed-loft or invite him in a whisper to come to hers, and holding each other turned to caressing each other turned to kissing each other turned to biting back gasps, turned to her hips rubbing against his thigh for satisfaction, his groin aching with need. And then stopping, one way or another, until they either forced themselves apart or ...kept going, only to stop again. Every time it was the same, and it was getting to the point where Erich couldn't stand it any more and then Melantha just stopped sleeping beside him at all and it's been a complete mess.
She shivers softly at how carefully, how lightly he's touching her through that rolled-sleeve flannel, the t-shirt underneath. It's not enough, after all this waiting. After sometimes thinking of him when he's in the shower. Or seeing him working on the tinyhouse... shirtless. Or stretching when he wakes up across the gap between their lofts, and the way the sheets lay over his body when he's on his stomach. She kisses him harder, more heated, as he's searching under her hemlines for skin, for entrance, as she's getting so distracted that she doesn't even reach into his jeans.
Unless she's not distracted at all, and is uncertain.
Unless she's not distracted or uncertain but something else entirely.
The windows are beginning to steam over.
--
Up front or behind?
Melantha blinks. "Huh?" she asks, and what he says makes no sense at all, has no relation to buttons or zippers or whatever, and she's looking up at him with mild confusion as he's moving over her, with her. Her heart is just... thudding in her chest, surprisingly loud.
"You don't have a cover for the bed," she says, thinking he means the back like the back of the truck, like that's somehow a better idea than up front in the seats.
ErichErich isn't really thinking about why she's not reaching into his jeans yet. Erich isn't really in a place to think very clearly at all, truth be told. Erich is putting his hands under Melantha's flannel, and then under her t-shirt, and he's shuddering a bit at the feel of her while their kisses get a little harder. A little more heated. Open-mouthed, searching, tongues flicking, tracing.
He asks her about where her pants zip up. It's a stupid question; she's wearing jeans for godsake. But he asks anyway because he wants to be polite and she is justifiably mystified. He laughs under his breath,
"I meant your pants -- are these jeans?" His hand explores: he runs his palm down her thigh, and then he's just touching her for touch's sake, running his hand back up and around and oh, he's feeling up her ass. How's that for polite. "Nevermind," he whispers,
he's figured it out,
he reaches around front and one-handedly manages to wrestle that button open. He's very careful with the zipper, his mouth leaving hers, his head bending to the task. He pulls it down little by little and when it's all the way down he sits up a bit, kneels in the under-dash to start tugging her pants off.
Watching them come off. Watching her skin show itself in the streetlight, the moonlight. He looks up at her when they've managed to wiggle her pants down to her knees. "Do you want me to -- " he flushes, maybe she can't see it clearly in the dark but he does, "I mean, I could try to lick it. You. Your ... you." Red. Red red red.
Melantha ArgyrisErich has lost the ability to think. Or form coherent sentences. Or remember what she was wearing. Or say what he wants, when what he wants is to lose himself in her taste, or just make her feel good, whatever that takes, and maybe she would like this yeah that sounds good he'll do that okay yeah good.
Even if he can't say it.
Melantha lifts her hips into his touch when he's stroking her, feeling her through that sturdy and rather thick denim, which still can't manage to conceal her shape or how she moves. Nevermind, he says, roughly getting her pants open, pulling at them, not kissing her anymore, which Melantha makes a bit difficult, trying repeatedly to get his mouth back up to hers. She feels her jeans moving down, Erich moving away, Erich looking at her skin, looking at her, asking her if she would like him to, y'know, maybe, sort of, like,
do that thing.
It is really, really hard to keep the spark of hilarity from entering her eyes, and then blossoming brightly, and then exploding in a little firework of laughter, light and happy. She reaches for him, pulling him back up towards her, urging him to cover her again because cold, Erich, remember?
She kisses him, firmly now, her hands in his hair. She's smiling, smiling, kissing him over and over even though she has something to say. "If we go inside," she whispers, "I'll teach you how I like it."
ErichTruth be told he's maybe just a little tiny bit relieved when she declines. Not because he doesn't want to make her feel good but because he's not very sure of himself or what he's doing or how it would even be accomplished in a place like the front seat of a truck. When she pulls him back up he goes willingly, eagerly, rising up her body like a wave made flesh and blood.
Their mouths meet. She is smiling this time. He kisses that smile off her lips, thinks absurdly that he can taste it, sweet on his tongue, as it fades to intensity. She tells him that if they go inside,
if,
she'll teach him. She'll teach him how she likes it. That sends another slow shudder up his back. Turns him on so much for no real reason he can discern. He pushes his hands under her tshirt, up along her back until he finds and unsnaps her bra. It seems too much effort right now for him to get it off, so he just makes do: puts his hands under, holds her breasts in his palms,
groans quietly into her mouth as he shifts over her, comes closer to her, reaches down to pull her hips up and forward and now: now they're pressed together there, separated by a few haphazard layers: her underwear and his, plus his half-undone jeans.
Melantha ArgyrisShe's not entirely sure Erich heard her. Or understood her. But that's okay: he was confused by her pants not so long ago, and it wouldn't be the first time the two of them have misunderstood each other. He kisses her, shuddering from want, reaching under her clothes with those achingly warm hands of his to unsnap her bra, move it out of the way, cup his palms over her breasts while they kiss, both of them with their pants undone but not off, Erich groaning, pressing closer to her.
Melantha lets that go on a bit then pulls back, pantingly, looking for his eyes. "What are you doing? You don't want to... go inside?"
Which is what she was trying to suggest. Since that wouldn't be confusing at all to anyone, of course.
Erich"What?"
His turn for a moment of mild bewilderment now. She's pulled back, his eyes are glazed. He's panting through parted lips, his hands are up her shirt, he's -- quite frankly -- grinding on her through their lowerwear. It takes a moment for her words to register.
"Wait -- what? Oh." He pushes up on his hands. Looks down, grabs his pants, does up the button and the zipper. "I thought we were just gonna ... I thought you didn't want to go in anymore. We can go in."
Melantha ArgyrisHopefully he moves his hands off her tits before he pushes up on them, but it's a faithful hope: she doesn't think he'd hurt her. Not willingly.
Melantha watches as he pulls up his jeans, fastens them quickly, stumbles over his words but not really because he knows just where he's going. She licks her lips, swallows, and smiles. "I changed my mind."
She does not say say again, but let's be honest.
--
Melantha sits up, reaching back to refasten her bra while Erich does his belt. She tugs up her jeans quickly, buttons and zips, pushing her tousled hair out of her face, reaching around for her backpack on the floorboards, and -- when they're both 'decent' or as close as they're going to get -- she pulls open the door and gets out with him, grabbing his hand and walking with him, not bounding, no, because she does not want to look crazed, but not exactly taking their time, either.
They get a room for the night. They're handed keys. This isn't a high-class enough establishment that there are bellhops offering to help them with their bags. There's no concierge. It's a mid-range hotel at best, or the high end of low-range. It is clean, it is quiet, and it is basic.
Melantha starts making out with him in the elevator as soon as the door closes, pressing herself to him, her backpack hanging off her shoulders behind her.
ErichHer faith is not misplaced: he moves his hands. Of course he did. He'd move his hands even if she'd told him to pull his pants up and come inside with her mid-coitus; even if he was a second away from orgasm. He wouldn't hurt her.
Not willingly.
They make themselves decent, or they at least make the attempt. He thinks about grabbing that old backpack of his out the back just so it looks less obvious that they're going in there to screw like jackrabbits, but then he decides fuckit, who really cares. They get out of his car, he locks it, she takes his hand. They don't bound but his teeth are worrying his lower lip; it's sheer anticipation. Under the lobby lights, everyone with eyes can see the flush in Erich's cheeks. They'd see more than that if he didn't have his hands jammed into his pants pockets, stretching out the denim in ways that manage some minimal subtlety.
Melantha has to pick up the keys. Erich just shakes his head quickly if she offers one to him: his hands are in his pockets! They go over to the elevator and the second the door closes they fuse together like magnets. She presses herself to him and he takes his hands out of his pockets and just
scoops her up off the ground: scoops her like she's ice cream. Hah! He would laugh at the thought, it's a funny thought, his favorite thing ever is ice cream and it is also Melantha so of course: she is ice cream. But he doesn't laugh, because he's too busy kissing her, and his hands are laced under her thighs and her hands are on his face or in his short hair or she's wrapped her arms around his neck.
The elevator dings. He pulls his face away from hers to look over her shoulder. He doesn't put her down. They make their way out of the elevator like that, Erich carrying Melantha down the hall past ice machines, vending machines, doors and doors and doors and --
-- there's their room. He stops in front of it, side-on so she can stick the key in. He laughs for some reason when the little light goes green. "I like those keycards," he says.
The door shuts behind them. She slides the keycard into its holder near the door, which is also a master switch for the lights. The drapes are open. The floor lamp, the desk lamp, the bedside lighting and the entryway spotlight are all on. Erich doesn't care about any of that: he walks over to the bed and pretty much topples onto it with Melantha, his weight on her for a moment as he wrestles out of his shirt.
Melantha ArgyrisMelantha is ice cream. That would be a new one to her. But she is smooth and she is melting, molten, and she is sweet when she kisses him like that, letting him lift her up, wrapping her legs around him, letting him just carry her out of the elevator and down the hall to their room, grinning at him whenever he takes his mouth from hers so he can see what room they're going to. Nope. They turned left; should have turned right. He turns them around, carries her back the other way, past the elevators, and the other ice machine, to the room
which delights him because magnets and little green lights and key-cards.
"You're so weird," she says, breathlessly, whispering for no reason as she leans down, pushing the handle downward to make it open after the light goes on.
She does not put the key card in its little holder, in fact. She drops it when the door closes, shrugs her backpack to thumping on the floor, leaning into him to kiss him as she pulls off the flannel atop her t-shirt. The room is cool but not cold, and her arms are around him again before he makes it to the bed. They fall. He struggles out of his uppermost layer, and she reaches for his belt for the second time tonight.
ErichThere's something at once awkward and graceful about that way they make their way into that dark room. Drapes are still open: moonlight and light from the parking lot below gives some clarity to their path. He finds the bed, anyway. It's not hard. Hotel rooms are ultimately built around the bed. That's why people come here: to sleep, to rest, to watch TV, to fuck. She leaves a trail of belongings: keycard, backpack, flannel. She peels these things off her upper body and he holds her with one arm wrapping around her lower back, keeping her from losing balance or causing him to lose his,
at least until they're at the bed. The mattress is soft. He loses his shirt. She undoes his belt. He helps: the button, then his zipper. Then her shirt, pushed up until she lifts her arms, then off. He is kneeling over her, straddling her thighs; he grabs her around the waist and slides her up the bed until he's straddling her shins instead. Then she's undoing her bra and he's working on her jeans, repeating the feat first accomplished in the front seat of his truck.
Her jeans come loose. They get them off her together between his tugging and her wriggling and his tugging some more and her kicking them off. He grins as he tosses them on the ground, coming back to her, coming down over her, pectorals flexing as he takes his weight on his hands.
"So," his grin is equal parts cheek and shyness, "were you gonna teach me something?"
Melantha ArgyrisThey hurry through the steps they'd managed in the car, and then a few more: his shirt, her flannel, his belt, his jeans, then her shirt, leaving her in bra and Erich just
picking her up, lifting her up, putting her higher on the bed. Melantha laughs, again at his eagerness, his rush, his lust, even though they're both still wearing shoes, for fuck's sake. "Erich -- Erich, you're doing that thing again," she tells him, as he's tugging her jeans down, so intent that he doesn't even notice she hasn't taken off her bra, doesn't seem to notice her sneakers, so eager that he looks like he's going to just eat her up.
She's not mad. She's a little breathless from kissing him, from her own pounding heart, from -- frankly -- nerves that careen up and down, rattling her and then dropping her in freefall at unexpected turns. She's not telling him to stop. She doesn't want him to stop. She just looks caught, her breath high and her color pink at the tops of her cheeks, her hair tousled as though windblown, her bra... soft and white and seamless and covering breasts that keep moving every time she breathes.
Her jeans are around her knees. "I'm not trying to be weird," she tells him, quietly, reaching to touch his face. "I'm really not."
ErichHe's doing that thing again.
This time -- and for the first time -- a flicker of strain goes through Erich. He drops his head, lets it hang between his rounded shoulders for a moment, taking a breath. Taking a break. Her hand on his face brings his eyes back to hers.
"I know you're not trying to be weird," he says quietly. "And you're not being weird. It's just -- it's hard for me to slow down right now. And to keep slowing down and then changing gears and ... getting out of the car, getting in the car, getting out of the car, coming up here.
"I just ... don't know what I'm supposed to be doing? Or where exactly the line is between what's okay and what's doing that thing again. Or even what that thing is? I'm just -- "
he flops down rather suddenly: rolls over and flops on his back, exhaling, frowning at the ceiling.
"I feel like I'm not getting this right. Or doing what you want. Or something. And I can barely think and my blood's burning up and -- I just don't know what I'm supposed to do."
Melantha ArgyrisMelantha is half-undressed and wants to be close to him. More than anything, she wants to be close to him. If she could just curl up with him night after night and sleep beside him, she thinks she'd like that quite a bit, actually. If sometimes they tugged each other's sleepwear off and made love, that would also be nice. Even in the truck, she didn't want him to be anywhere but holding her for more than a couple of seconds, at most. She misses him. A lot.
So when he looks troubled, it's okay, and even though he's strained and trying to remember how to breathe and how to think, it's okay. Even though he says it's hard to slow down and all the gear-changing and in the car out of the car no wait back in then nope, time to get out, then mauling each other in the elevator then whoooa, slow down -- she gets it.
But she looks sad when he rolls away from her, flopping onto his back. It makes her shrink into herself a bit, her shoulders dropping.
--
Back in DC, it was smoother. Sort of. They fought and almost hated each other. He wasn't sure he could be with her without tearing himself up inside over the disgusting man she was also fucking. She wasn't sure she knew how to be with someone she wasn't trying to destroy. They didn't really talk about sex, or their relationship, in any defined way. None of it had a place. They've defined it a little more since then, over the past few months, after months of total separation -- no phone calls, no texting, nothing.
Were they boyfriend and girlfriend in DC? Have they been all this time? Was the sex something that could last, or would last, if they met again?
But she loves him. And he loves her. And she wants him and he wants her. Yet somehow tonight -- with a hotel room all to themselves and condoms in her backpack -- every time they find a groove she feels herself slip out of it. Out of sync. Away from him. And this, more than anything, is what she doesn't want.
"You're what I want," she says quietly, looking at him, curling up on the bed beside him, her knees up and her jeans down, laying her arms over her shins, hands resting softly on opposite shoulders. "I don't know why everything keeps... feeling strange and weird and not-right to me, Erich. I don't want it to be like one of those times when we were both just oh my god I might never see you again. But you're so... eager and in a hurry and it's like maybe we should just fuck once and then you'll relax a little more and be with me, but I don't want that, either."
She exhales, lifting her hands to her face to rub the heels of her palms against her brows. "And I keep getting excited and hurrying, too, but then it feels like it's just careening and that freaks me out and I feel like I have to do this because after all I suggested it but I keep 'screwing it up' or something, and that makes me kind of mad and..."
Melantha sighs, turning to look at him. "You're not doing anything not-okay or wrong, Erich," she says quietly. "You're really not. I love you and I want you and I really just want to be close to you, but I can't just... fix the fact that I keep getting overwhelmed and anxious. I don't think you want me to ignore it and just... go along with whatever, either. All I can do is talk to you about it."
ErichHe's made her sad again. Well; no. They argue about this sometimes -- not seriously but more like arguing to keep themselves sharp: he never makes her do or be or feel anything. He does things of his own accord. She feels things -- sometimes in reaction, it's true -- of her own accord.
Regardless, though: he rolls away from her. And she is sad.
And he feels a little wretched, especially when she curls up like that. He reaches out to her and rubs her back gently, slowly, his big palm smoothing over her lovely skin. She talks to him because it's all she can do, but what he doesn't really know how to tell her is that that's exactly what he needs right now.
For her to talk to him. To tell him what she wants, and that he didn't do anything wrong, and that she doesn't really know what they're doing either. It's weird and it's different and
it's almost like they're virgins again.
"C'mere," he whispers after a while. And his rubbing hand becomes a beckoning hand, and then a wrapping-around hand as he curls her against the side of his chest. For a little while they cuddle, and it's almost like those mornings when they used to cuddle together in the same bed in the tinyhouse. Or in D.C. Or out in the woods, atop her sleeping bag and underneath his.
"Maybe ... maybe you could take the lead." He feels a little silly even saying it. "Maybe you could set the pace, and I could follow. But we don't have to do anything, okay? I know you know that but I just had to say it aloud."
Melantha Argyris"I forget," she whispers.
--
It does not go without saying that she lets him rub her back, without flinching away or tightening up. It does not go without saying that he has to wait a bit before she comes to that c'mere, and it doesn't go without saying that he sees a flicker of resistance and defiance in her eyes, a kneejerk refusal because she is tired of being placated or cozied up to and come here little doll I'll make you feel better and if your tits just happen to rub up against me while I comfort you, poor thing, well... more the better.
Melantha doesn't go to him right then. She frowns, looking away, but she reaches down and eases one foot out of its sneaker, then the other. She lets the shoes thump to the floor. She rustles a bit as her jeans go the rest of the way off her legs, schlumping noisily to the floor off the too-smooth covers of the bed. No longer does she wear those skin-tight stretch jeans that show off her ass, the cropped jackets that do the same, the heels, the push-up bras no matter what is over them, the low-cut anything, the uniform she knows and understands as well as she understands the harshness of home-cured leather, the heartwrenching warmth of something spun and knit by the one woman who could do both, who died three winters ago.
It's this in-between stuff she doesn't know, and doesn't understand, and doesn't know how to navigate.
Melantha, in her socks and underwear now, finally comes to lie down next to Erich, but she pulls the edge of the blankets over her, rolling up in them as she tucks against his side. He feels silly telling her she could take the lead, especially since she's sort of been in the lead this whole time. He says: they don't have to do anything. That she knows that.
I forget, she says back, quietly.
--
Melantha closes her eyes, her face against his chest, feeling his heat, his breath, smelling him and the grass he slept in earlier. She wants to apologize for not fucking him. For not going for it in the car, for not going instantly into the hotel, for not being a wanton sex kitten, for not being good to go, for not being ever so pleasant and pleasing. And the desire to apologize for any of that makes her so sick she wants to curl up on herself, she wants to scour her skin in the shower, she wants to vomit. She says nothing. She keeps her eyes closed, even as tears well up behind them.
"I don't want to do anything right now," she whispers,
whimpers,
the tears starting to roll.
Erich ReinhardtAnd
he's
done it again. Of course Melantha would insist that he didn't make her do anything, but that doesn't mean Erich doesn't feel like he's made his friend and maybe-girlfriend? cry. Yet again. He has a notion that if he went back and plotted the number of times they've talked seriously and the number of times she's cried, he'd get a disheartening proportion. And of course this time, as with every other time, Melantha's miserable-ness makes Erich feel miserable himself.
So he wraps his arms around her shoulders. He pulls her very very very close, turning on his side to face her, weighing her lower legs down with his own. "We don't have to do anything," he tells her, his jaw against her temple, nuzzling. "But I'd like it if we could just hold each other for a while. Until you're feeling better."
Melantha ArgyrisThe truth is, Erich might one day do the math. How many times they've had a Serious Discussion and how many times she has ended up in tears. And it will make him miserable. And she will ask him whether it's less miserable if she's miserable and doesn't cry, somehow. Which of course it won't be, not in any way he can justify, and she'll argue about how crying is just a thing people do and so not a big deal and maybe he should gauge their Serious Discussions by the ratio of which ones worked out in the end with the two of them understanding each other better or even by the ratio of ones where they treated each other with kindness and respect, and maybe then he won't feel so AUGH about it, but
that's a debate they can have another time. When she isn't. You know. Currently crying.
--
Melantha feels his arm close around her where she is curled up against him, cocooned in the wrong side of the blanket that covers the hotel bed. He turns toward her, and his arm and the blanket at her back and his body and the blanket at her front provide quite a lot of protection from the outside world, which is nice.
Being nuzzled is nice. Being reminded -- verbally, even though she knows and he knows and he knows she knows he knows -- that they don't have to do anything at all. And he wants to hold her, which she is pretty sure he alwaysalwaysalways wants to do and which she very much wants him to do right now and maybe he knows that but again: it helps to hear it aloud.
"I'm sorry I'm such a mess," she whispers, tucked close to him, wriggling one hand up to wipe some of her tears off her cheek. She slips her feet under his calves, snuggling closer to his warmth. "I don't want to be. I just feel like... I'm on this roller coaster. And I can't see the turns or dips coming. I'm on Space Mountain. The one in the dark?"
Erich ReinhardtErich's brow furrows at that word: a mess. It makes him ache. It makes something inside him pace and howl.
"You're not a mess," he says firmly. "A mess is like... a mess is what people call things that aren't useful and are just taking up space and would be better tossed out. Like if I broke an egg, and that egg isn't useful anymore, it's just a smear on the ground and I should clean it up before it stinks -- that's a mess.
"You're not un-useful. You're not just taking up space. You are not better tossed out. You are NOT a mess. You're... if you have to be something, you can be clutter. Clutter is like... useful stuff, but it's just kinda jumbled up and disorganized and it's not like you want to throw it all out. Like the crap up in my loft? That's clutter. It's really my clothes and my books and my pocketknife and maybe a spatula from downstairs, but it's definitely not stuff I want to throw out. I just need to pick it up and set it right and then it'll all be useful again.
"That's you. You're just ... I think maybe it's like you're a box of really useful cool stuff, but between moving from D.C. and retiring from being a secret agent, it's like someone grabbed you and shook everything up and now you don't know what goes where and maybe you've even kinda forgotten what some things are good for, or how to use other things, or whatever. But you just need to pick stuff up and set them right.
"And," he's building up steam with his analogy, "maybe right now for you it's a little like when I was a kid and I'd dumped my stuff everywhere so much that it's like, overwhelming to try to organize all of it at once. But if it's too overwhelming to try to clean the whole clutter up right now, maybe you can just ... pick up one thing at a time and start using it. And then when you put it back, you put it back somewhere nice and proper and -- okay, I think I've reached the end of this metaphor.
"But you get what I'm saying, right? I don't think you're just... goo on the ground. You're useful stuff shaken up and mixed around. Okay?"
A small pause.
"And yeah I think that's Space Mountain. I dunno, I've never been to Disneyland."
Melantha ArgyrisNot a mess, he says adamantly, and explains why, because 'mess' to Erich is like 'damaged' -- broken, unfixable, worthless. It's egg goo on the kitchen floor. It's completely useless. Now clutter! Clutter is a concept he can get behind. Clutter is stuff you don't want to throw out and it's just stuff you haven't put away yet and clutter is fine and his laundry and his stuff is all clutter and all you need to do is sort it out and maybe don't try and do it all at once or you'll get overwhelmed, right?
Sometimes Erich gives very good advice. Couched in the minutiae of daily life, in normalcy and familiarity -- or, on occasion, in quotes from movies he got off Netflix -- he does his best not just to help, but to do the harder and often more important work: to understand. To prove he understands. Even if he doesn't realize how well he understands.
To be able to hear: I'm worthless, I'm useless when she apologizes for being a mess.
To say: no. no you're not. you're just disorganized.
Melantha wraps her arm around him, her hand still damp from tears, and pulls herself closer as he speaks, the blanket shifting aside to let them rest body to body, her face to his chest, her arm across his back. Her hand splays between his massive shoulderblades, and she sniffs a little, nodding when he asks if she gets what he's saying. She's not goo. She's a box of cool stuff that got shaken and mixed up. And yes:
"Okay," she concedes, as he says he's never been to Disneyland. She doesn't tell him how she got there, which was on a little weekend jaunt with one of the men she ruined. She just holds him, close like that, not to fall asleep, not to begin kissing him.
Just to hold him.
Until she feels better.
Erich ReinhardtThe essential sad truth about Erich is that he doesn't think all that highly of himself. He knows he's capable in combat. He doesn't think he's exactly mighty. He doesn't think he's very good at planning, at strategizing, at tactics. He thinks he's pretty terrible at saying anything meaningful or nice or eloquent or ... even comprehensible, most the time.
He's always pleasantly surprised when other people say something nice about him. He was, and would again be, outright delighted -- and honored -- to know that Melantha thought he gave good advice. Even if it was a little jumbled. Even if he himself doesn't even think, doesn't even realize, that sometimes,
occasionally,
the things he says are actually sort of worthwhile and not all mixed up and stupid.
--
Melantha wraps her arm around Erich. Erich wraps his arms closer around Melantha. She sort of burrows against his chest a bit, her hand open over his spine and his heart. He reaches back and flips up the edge of the blanket, wraps it around them like a cocoon. She's not going to sleep, but still, he does the two-legged version of turning three circles. Then his arm settles around her again, and --
he kisses her where he can reach her, which turns out to be sort of atop her hair. And then he tugs a pillow down under their heads and now they really are all cozy and comfortable and he realizes that honestly, he'd be okay with it -- totally fine with it -- if they did nothing more than sleep in one another's arms tonight.
Melantha ArgyrisWell then he's just dumb.
Not because actually, he's mighty and he's a master strategist. He's not. He is not eloquent and sometimes he barely even manages articulate or coherent. If he were a cunning, silver-tongued tactician, a velvet glove laid over truly awe-inspiring strength, then he would not have inadvertently (and then very intentionally) insulted Phoebe at the warmoot, gotten into a face-off with a kinswoman, 'made Melantha cry' about a hundred times, texted people I'M BORED from Cold Crescent, or started shouting his head off at the punishment rites. He wouldn't be Erich.
And Melantha, who worries less about his IQ or his self-control or his eloquence or his battle tactics or his adeptness at maneuvering through the politics of his people and a lot more about his willingness to try (and try again, when he fails), his compassion for others, his determination to do and be true to himself and his pack, and things like that,
would be flabbergasted and frustrated if she realized that he doesn't think highly of himself, even though apparently it's fiiiiine for her to say she's a mess. Because he's great. He doesn't always say the right thing and sometimes just says the worst things possible but he's great. He does try. Even at his most stubborn, he's still trying. She thinks he's just swell, and a lot better than Sort Of Worthwhile.
But then: she loves him. He's her friend. He's her real friend.
--
Who is lying with his shirt off in bed next to her, his bare arms wrapped around her body, which is clad in even less than what he's wearing. And they are pressed together and she is resting on his chest and listening to his heart beat while he cocoons them completely, rolls them up like an enchilada together.
He's taller than her. The blanket comes around them and the room gets more dim for Melantha, but she doesn't mind. She can breathe fine. She likes the soft, warm, humid darkness she finds there, tucked against his chest and breathing in not just that warmth but the scent of her own tears, his sweat, their bodies together. She likes the cave-like feeling of being wrapped up like this, hidden away -- buried, almost, but not in a dead or scary way. Just. Close to the earth, even though they are several floors up in a downtown hotel.
She kisses him over his heart, after a while. Right now she can scarcely remember how it was that she felt that spurred her to ask him if he wanted to go somewhere. She can barely remember what made her kiss him and pull him into the truck's cab after her. Right now all she can think of is how safe she feels, how comforted. She curls closer to him, snuggles, and it may sound trite or cute or just so precious, but she knows that he's not going to let anyone come sniffing at her that she doesn't want to sniff at her, and he's not going to touch her or sniff at her himself while she's sleeping or vulnerable, and she knows -- at least right now, this brief moment, she can contain this thought and believe it -- that it is acceptable if she just... isn't ready to have sex. Even if she thought she was.
Which makes her a little sad. And a little confused, because she doesn't yet understand completely why she's not ready, still, after all this time, it's not like she's never, it's not like she and Erich have never -- but right now, this moment at least, she is not beating herself up for not knowing, and she is not berating herself. Perhaps most vitally, she is not trying to convince herself of why she needs to power through and do it anyway, try anyway, because there's No Good Reason she should be so conflicted.
She thinks, finally: maybe there is a good reason. Even if she doesn't know what it is.
--
A long time passes. Maybe even into dozing. Melantha breathes in, after a time, lifting her head and working her face out of the blanket a bit to look at him, her dark hair mussy across her brow and eyes.
"I like kissing you," she whispers, her brows tugged together a little. "I... think maybe I'm still not ready to have sex. I don't know why." Some of those thoughts she's had over the past several, several minutes while they've laid together begin to find their way into words, so she can share them with him. "I keep thinking that it doesn't make any sense for me to not be ready yet, especially because sometimes I do want you, so much, and sometimes I think I feel or almost feel ready, but then something feels off or I feel freaked out and... and I also feel like it's sex or nothing. Kinda."
She doesn't say it, but she's thinking about that day in the meadow, when it was rainy but not flooding yet, when it was still so warm, when she asked him if he wanted to go somewhere in the woods with her and just feel her, all over, and let her feel him, and --
"And I'm not ready," she admits again, softly, like it hurts and bewilders her because it hurts and bewilders her. "But I like kissing you. I like sleeping with you. And I think it might freak me out less if I felt like I could hug you and snuggle with you and sleep with you and kiss you and... if it weren't so black and white, so point-of-no-return. Sometimes it seems like it's not really okay for me to say I want to slow down or stop, once we've started anything."
Melantha is still holding him. She takes a breath, her brow smoothing a bit. Her hand lifts from his back, reaching up to push her hair off her face finally, if Erich hasn't gotten to it first. "I know it sounds like I'm blaming you or something, but I'm not. I just... want you to understand how it ends up feeling whenever you say stuff about how it's hard to stop or slow down and you're confused or whatever. I'm confused, too," she says quietly. "And I don't want it to be this thing where I can't touch you or love on you unless I'm willing to sign a release saying that yes-this-will-end-in-penetrative-penis-in-vagina-sex, and... even if that's not what you want either, I kinda feel that pressure, and I think it makes me even more freaked out."
Even more. Not freaked out to begin with. There's a lot that comes before that even more that has nothing to do with Erich.
She takes a breath like she's going to talk more, but ends up just holding it for a second, lips together, before she slowly exhales through her nose.
Erich ReinhardtSo Erich totally does doze off. One can hardly blame him for it: it's warm and he feels safe and Melantha looks like she feels safe too and this whole room feels nice and warm and safe and close and so his eyes close and...
and next thing she knows she's lifting her head. He's opening his eyes, blinking fast so maybe she won't notice he was asleep, tunneling one hand out from under the covers to wipe his eyes. She is looking at him with those remarkable eyes of hers, which a more poetic man could probably come up with endless metaphors for. To Erich they're just blue. A really, really pretty blue, and he smiles to see her even though her eyebrows are stitching together. So he kisses her there instead: right between her eyebrows, like maybe he could kiss that smooth.
Silly Erich.
Then he settles, his eyes on Melantha's as she talks. Tells him what she does. Explains what she's ready for and what she's not ready for; he listens, brow a little furrowed, but only from thought.
When she's finished he's quiet for a while. He reaches to brush her hair back again, absently, more to touch her than anything else. And then Erich leans forward, kisses her softly, gently on the mouth.
"What can I do to help?" he asks, very quiet.
Melantha ArgyrisNo one blames him, at least, for going back to the nap that was interrupted in City Park. Erich is, after all, an animal. No matter how rested he is, if he's warm and comfortable and feels safe, why on earth would he do anything but zonk out?
Melantha notices, but she just smiles a little, softly, as he wipes his eyes, nothing to see here. He's cute. He's silly. He's her best friend. And he kisses her forehead, before she starts to talk to him. His hand moves over her hair after she's done, and he leans over to kiss her.
It's not as easy a question as he thinks. Her brow re-furrows. "I want to not fight with you or have it be a meltdown every time we get going and then I need to stop," she says. "And... I know that's on me, too. But I do need your help with it. I don't want you to be like... afraid to touch me or something, or do the whole 'I lead, you follow' thing with me, because... I don't want you to stop showing me that you want me and just wait for me to initiate everything."
She's quiet a moment, then: "I'm not used to being allowed to say no. Or even caring about what my own mood is or how it changes. I'm used to... powering through, even when something doesn't feel good or right to me."
Another pause. Not as long. Something sparks in he eyes, some awareness she didn't have before, and she says quietly: "I think I need you to remind me when I stop that you still love me and want me, and it's okay."
Erich ReinhardtI'm not used to being allowed to say no.
Erich's heart could break. A ripple of absolute outrage goes through him, chased by a certain stomach-borne feeling of illness. Terrible, terrible, the things war required of her. Requires of them all. He wraps his arms around her. Glomps her, to be quite blatant about it: turns onto his back and pulls her half-over him where both his arms can go around her, and under the covers.
"I don't ever want you to power through," he says. "That's awful, and I think what you did before was worthwhile and brave, but I think it was awful that you had to power through and never say no. I don't ever want you to feel like what we have is ... in any way the same as what you did before.
"It's okay if you stop. It really is. I can't ... promise that it won't frustrate me sometimes, or make me a little crazy, but -- no matter what happens, Melantha, I love you. I will still love you. And I'll still want you. Okay?"
Melantha ArgyrisShe doesn't even think, at first, of how horrific that sounds. Not being allowed to say no. Powering through. Enduring sex, even when it wasn't good for her in any sense, for some greater cause. That would, of course, be the same cause that leads Erich into near-death on a regular basis. She doesn't even realize, at first, how chilling that is until Erich is breaking over her like a wave, pulling her closer, dragging her over him. Both arms are tight and warm around her, nearly impeding her breath, and her hair spills over him like waterfalls that go motionless as soon as they are caught in those locks and loops across his chest.
"I don't," she assures him, looking down at him, shaking her head. "I don't feel like what we have is like that. At all. I really don't, Erich."
And as though this makes it easier for him to believe, she kisses him, moving up on his body and resting her lips softly and briefly but warmly on his. She's still there, moments later, when he goes on, not making promises he can't keep, making others that he sort of can.
Melantha nods. "As long as you're just... frustrated, and not frustrated with me," she says quietly. "Then okay."
Erich Reinhardt"Good," he says quietly. "I don't think what we have is anything like that either."
She moves up, then. She kisses him, and he'd be lying if he said this didn't light a fire in him. It does. She's barely wearing anything, he's barely wearing anything, they're all alone together and --
and the kiss ends, and he lays his head down, wrapping her up in his arms again.
"I'm not frustrated with you," he says. "I mean... I get it. Sort of. Not really, because I didn't go through what you did? But thinking-about-it-wise, at least, I do get it."
Melantha ArgyrisMelantha lays her head down, too. She puts it on his chest, her arm around him and her leg over his leg, and closes her eyes, breathing in the smell of him again. She loves being close to him. Clothed or barely-wearing-anything, day or night, the Hay-Adams or this hotel or their tinyhouse or the grass, she loves this.
There isn't much she thinks of to say to that. Because it's okay, and good, and he understands as best she can hope he'll understand. So she doesn't say anything for a while, just laying next to him, burrito'd in the topmost blankets, breathing with him.
After a time, she murmurs: "Will you rub my back a little?"
Erich ReinhardtErich hesitates a beat. "Like... like a backrub, or just rubbing your back?" And in case it was the former: he rubs her back. As in: he rubs his palm over her back in circles, rather like someone trying to warm someone else up on a very cold day.
Melantha ArgyrisShe smiles against his body. "Just rubbing my back," she says, and he does, his rather large hand moving across her back, even with the straps of her bra a little bit in the way, warming her even though she is quite warm. She feels soothed. She feels soothed and comfortable and warm and loved and safe, even though he's got his jeans undone and she's in her underwear and it would certainly make sense if she was feeling a few other things, too. Which she is. Just... banked, for now. Heated and glowing but waiting.
There is residual guilt for her uncertainty and faltering. There's residual fear of rejection. These things are not easily or quickly forgotten or moved past.
Mostly, though: she feels comforted. She feels beloved. She feels safe.
--
Some time goes by, drowsy and silent, until Melantha whispers that she's going to brush her teeth. She does so with the little toothbrush from her backpack, so Erich can use the plastic-wrapped one in the restroom if he wants. She takes a moment, facing away from him because she is not ashamed and yet she is not naive, to take off her bra and pull on her t-shirt again, which is still wearing barely anything and in some ways is actually hotter, but it's certainly more comfortable to sleep in when she -- and he -- crawl back in bed.
It's still pretty early. Melantha, curling up beside Erich and tucking herself against his side as before, watches some of the hotel's in-room Netflix with him, burning through a few episodes of Parks and Recreation before one of them, or both of them, under the blessing voice of a manically optimistic and fearlessly feminist public servant,
simply fall asleep.
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