Miss Alayne, [ he murmurs against her hair, and this close he can see himself reflected in the wetness that threatens to break from her. ] It's really you.
[ It's like—
Stones knocking around inside his chest, or the sound of bells on a cold winter morning, or the smell of warm chocolate on a rainy night; Isaac feels so light, so overwhelmed with relief and a type of unfamiliar joy that he laughs against his teeth, lip caught between the ivory, his whole frame instinctively shaping itself to shield her from an imagined draft. They're close enough that Isaac could imagine them being in a movie, or a television show where they could hem and haw about who kisses the other first (and instead they'd bump noses, and they'd laugh, and—), and Isaac finds a hand curled and raised against the jamb of the door to keep him from swaying, shyness and uncertainty surfacing with as much power as the joy of finding her again washes through his vocabulary.
What does he say to her? What should he do? What if—
[ It isn't often that people get this close to her and when they do, their proximity is often followed by rough hands on her shoulders or the unwelcome crush of a man's mouth against hers. (—Dontos had reeked of the cheapest wines while Petyr had breath that smelled of mint and Marillion had wreaked of mulling spices, his smile wide as he spoke of forcing himself upon him as if it were a refrain to one of his songs—) But Isaac — he hovers halfway between expectation and restraint, one arm extended to tether himself to the doorframe as Alayne finds herself bridging that distance regardless. Her face franes forward, her expression blossoming like the face of the flower having suddenly found the sun. But when she comes close, she doesn't kiss him, just lets the moth wing of her lashes brush the rise of his cheek, a hand reaching for the nape of his neck to draw him into an embrace.
There is comfort in familiarity, in rediscovering things long since lost. COMPASS had given her the Striders, then Gwen Stacy, then Lucrezia — but in time had taken those things away as well, leaving Alayne more bruised and aching than before. Even though she wishes her touch to be gentle, it is colored by that loss and so she clings rather than holds. They had never been close during their time aboard the Tranquility — never as close as this, at least — but with the mark of the ship comes a sudden intimacy. ]
Yes, [ she says quietly, her voice hushed now that her mouth is near to the shell of his ear. Lady, who has perked at the mention of Alayne's name, now sits at attention, waiting her turn with him. ] 'Tis I, and 'tis you as well.
I am not a stranger with a familiar face. I promise, I am your Alayne.
Isaac's nerves lose all their feeling outside of their point of contact, and Isaac feels every single finger pressed to the back of his neck like it's a brand on his very soul, like a claim - like the burn of the bite when he'd taken it months ago (months, has it been so long?). He feels nothing, and he feels everything all at once, long-ignored parts of himself coming alive like someone had lit a candle in the darkness of his mind.
She's not soft the way Lydia was, nowhere near her type of buxom and open beguilement; Alayne is not the loud sensuality Erica wears like armor, either, nor is she the gentle swinging between sharpness and gentleness that Allison tiptoes with a dancer's grace. Alayne is all of these without the practiced pretense, at least not the way Isaac knows them to be, where the illusions are left out in the open for boys and men to tear apart and find the traps laid underneath.
Alayne is a wolf, much like the one that stands by her now if not more so, and she's a wolf in ways that Erica could not be, a wolf in ways that Lydia could hope she might become, a wolf in ways Allison could only hunt and try to understand. Isaac had only tasted so little of Alayne's kindness - and it was nothing like the tenuous strength that Derek had offered him a long time ago.
The rise of her curves press against his front, and it spreads heat throughout him through the layers of clothes they wear. Isaac breathes deep and Alayne still smells like snow, like dusted raindrops across one's shoulders; he holds still, that the scent might never leave his lungs, and he cuts his hand with sharp nails that the pain might drive the yellow of his eyes back to blue. He wants to hold her, to keep her, and the fierceness of his attraction could nearly subsume the genuine concern for her well-being that had drawn him to her in the first place.
He is all of sixteen, going on seventeen, and when he places his free hand against the small of her back, Isaac lets his eyes fall close and his head come down, their noses bumping as his forehead comes to rest against hers. ]
I'm your Isaac.
[ If he opens his eyes — if he looks at her like the dream she is, Isaac doesn't know what he might do. ]
[ Isaac's hand is a presence along the dip of Alayne's spine just as the flat of his forehead is a gentle pressure against the sloping curve of her own. For a moment Alayne thinks that she has assumed wrongly, that Isaac will kiss her with their noses bumping and the babe-like curl of his hair tickling her temple. (And she realizes, in that very same moment, that she wouldn't quite mind if he did — that unasked is not the same as unwelcome, and that the want that rises in her sudden and strong is not new but something held at a distance for so long that it had been all but forgotten.)
The world stops and starts with the measure of his breath, the subtle heave of his chest against hers as he exhales, the warmth of him filling Alayne's mouth, prompting her to part her lips in the hopes of holding him there upon the soft pad of her tongue.
Your Isaac, he says, as if he belonged to her, as if the hand curling over the nape of his neck was a collar rather than flesh and bone. Alayne has never had anything she hasn't stolen or cheated, never once in her life. To be presented with something (someone) now without so much as prompting takes her aback and fills her with wonder, making her bones tremble in both anticipation and fear, riddling her heart with both loyalty and young love.
For a long moment she does nothing beyond breathe his breath, the air between them warm from one another's mouths. Isaac's eyes are closed but Alayne's remain open as she gazes at him, so many of his features blurred and out of focus, but the whole of it still beautiful to her — familiar and made soft by proximity and complete. They had hardly known one another aboard the Tranquility and yet suddenly they found themselves reunited like old friends. A fierceness clenches in Alayne's heart without warning.
Never leave, she thinks and then shuts her eyes. Never go away again. ]
I was frightened. [ The confession sounds small but feels large in her mouth. ] I did not wish for us to be strangers again.
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[ It's like—
Stones knocking around inside his chest, or the sound of bells on a cold winter morning, or the smell of warm chocolate on a rainy night; Isaac feels so light, so overwhelmed with relief and a type of unfamiliar joy that he laughs against his teeth, lip caught between the ivory, his whole frame instinctively shaping itself to shield her from an imagined draft. They're close enough that Isaac could imagine them being in a movie, or a television show where they could hem and haw about who kisses the other first (and instead they'd bump noses, and they'd laugh, and—), and Isaac finds a hand curled and raised against the jamb of the door to keep him from swaying, shyness and uncertainty surfacing with as much power as the joy of finding her again washes through his vocabulary.
What does he say to her? What should he do? What if—
I want to hold you. ]
You remember me.
no subject
There is comfort in familiarity, in rediscovering things long since lost. COMPASS had given her the Striders, then Gwen Stacy, then Lucrezia — but in time had taken those things away as well, leaving Alayne more bruised and aching than before. Even though she wishes her touch to be gentle, it is colored by that loss and so she clings rather than holds. They had never been close during their time aboard the Tranquility — never as close as this, at least — but with the mark of the ship comes a sudden intimacy. ]
Yes, [ she says quietly, her voice hushed now that her mouth is near to the shell of his ear. Lady, who has perked at the mention of Alayne's name, now sits at attention, waiting her turn with him. ] 'Tis I, and 'tis you as well.
I am not a stranger with a familiar face. I promise, I am your Alayne.
no subject
Isaac's nerves lose all their feeling outside of their point of contact, and Isaac feels every single finger pressed to the back of his neck like it's a brand on his very soul, like a claim - like the burn of the bite when he'd taken it months ago (months, has it been so long?). He feels nothing, and he feels everything all at once, long-ignored parts of himself coming alive like someone had lit a candle in the darkness of his mind.
She's not soft the way Lydia was, nowhere near her type of buxom and open beguilement; Alayne is not the loud sensuality Erica wears like armor, either, nor is she the gentle swinging between sharpness and gentleness that Allison tiptoes with a dancer's grace. Alayne is all of these without the practiced pretense, at least not the way Isaac knows them to be, where the illusions are left out in the open for boys and men to tear apart and find the traps laid underneath.
Alayne is a wolf, much like the one that stands by her now if not more so, and she's a wolf in ways that Erica could not be, a wolf in ways that Lydia could hope she might become, a wolf in ways Allison could only hunt and try to understand. Isaac had only tasted so little of Alayne's kindness - and it was nothing like the tenuous strength that Derek had offered him a long time ago.
The rise of her curves press against his front, and it spreads heat throughout him through the layers of clothes they wear. Isaac breathes deep and Alayne still smells like snow, like dusted raindrops across one's shoulders; he holds still, that the scent might never leave his lungs, and he cuts his hand with sharp nails that the pain might drive the yellow of his eyes back to blue. He wants to hold her, to keep her, and the fierceness of his attraction could nearly subsume the genuine concern for her well-being that had drawn him to her in the first place.
He is all of sixteen, going on seventeen, and when he places his free hand against the small of her back, Isaac lets his eyes fall close and his head come down, their noses bumping as his forehead comes to rest against hers. ]
I'm your Isaac.
[ If he opens his eyes — if he looks at her like the dream she is, Isaac doesn't know what he might do. ]
no subject
The world stops and starts with the measure of his breath, the subtle heave of his chest against hers as he exhales, the warmth of him filling Alayne's mouth, prompting her to part her lips in the hopes of holding him there upon the soft pad of her tongue.
Your Isaac, he says, as if he belonged to her, as if the hand curling over the nape of his neck was a collar rather than flesh and bone. Alayne has never had anything she hasn't stolen or cheated, never once in her life. To be presented with something (someone) now without so much as prompting takes her aback and fills her with wonder, making her bones tremble in both anticipation and fear, riddling her heart with both loyalty and young love.
For a long moment she does nothing beyond breathe his breath, the air between them warm from one another's mouths. Isaac's eyes are closed but Alayne's remain open as she gazes at him, so many of his features blurred and out of focus, but the whole of it still beautiful to her — familiar and made soft by proximity and complete. They had hardly known one another aboard the Tranquility and yet suddenly they found themselves reunited like old friends. A fierceness clenches in Alayne's heart without warning.
Never leave, she thinks and then shuts her eyes. Never go away again. ]
I was frightened. [ The confession sounds small but feels large in her mouth. ] I did not wish for us to be strangers again.