blackholesandrevelations

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aeryn sun,
oom

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It's cold outside.

With his hands shoved in his pockets of a jacket, and he was wearing old jeans (and Bar managed to make them look like one of his favourite pairs back home and they even smell of his sister's lavender detergent), he can blow out his breath and it comes out in white puffs of visible air and it makes him grin.

Never this cold in Florida. He's been to Maine a few times, visiting friends. Family. Always loved the cold air. The stark way it made him able to breathe clearer...and made his nose run.

He grinned. And felt like a child. And loved every second of it.

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You couldn't rely on things. Not when there's always going to be something to ruin your good mood. A hurricane that breezes into your life and back out again, leaving devastation in it's wake.

The boots didn't make much noise on the grass, a muffled thud. She wasn't trying to be quiet though. Approached from behind, spoke suddenly.

"I never recreated with him."

He shut her eyes as she spoke, his hands tightening into quick fists in his pockets.

But he knew this. This was something Jack had murmured one night, one night when they were getting along and Aeryn was know where to be seen.

But to hear her say it...

"Good."

"Not that it would matter if I had."

Her voice was very quiet, soft even. She knew it mattered, he knew it mattered. Why else would she say it?

He stayed silent, just blowing air out into the sky. White puffy breath-clouds.

He turned to look at her over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows.

"You know how I was raised." The sentence came out dry, clogged up her throat and she folded her arms, kept the world at bay.

She looked fragile. Fragile and strong. Shivering from the cold, but with a jaw of tempered steel.

"Frelling someone means nothing to me."

"You're cold." He talked over her, so he wouldn't hear what she was saying. He got tired of hearing that. She doesn't mean it. She can't.

"It's getting colder here." Aeryn said by way of answer, shrugging off his concern.

"None of them meant anything to me." None of them but you. She had tried to convince herself they did, but they were pale imitations. Maybe she just wanted to feel that again, that dizzying rush...ridiculous emotion called love.

She drank too much. She frelled up too much. She didn't know why she was saying this.

He shook his head. "It's okay." And it is.

"I'm tired, Aeryn. Of fighting you. What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to understand." Compassion. He taught her that.

"You keep blaming me. And you weren't there...you don't know what I was like..."

Beat.

"It was the worst of me."

"I'm not blaming you."

Anymore.

"I'm sorry." He said, the words bubbling out of him. "I'm sorry that I die--" the words almost choked him, he doesn't want to die. He doesn't want to leave her. Ever. "--and that it turned you into what you were."

He ran a hand over his hair. "Would it have been easier, you think, if I had never shown up?"

If he'd never have learned he'd been here before...but then he'd never rekindle a friendship with a great man...or learn to waltz with the tiny woman who battled Scorpy herself.

"Easier? Yes." She had never been one to mince her words, or hold back for fear of hurting someone. It just amazed her that she could be so cruel to him, if only for that microt.

"I watched you sleep, for a long time that morning. I was happy that you'd come back. Then I remembered."

She turned slightly, walls all crumbling, pain in her chest (same old pain), etched on her face. She took a faltering step forwards, towards him.

"I'm sorry too."

"C'mere." And it was all her could manage, as he faltered towards her as well, hands reaching for her.

He needed this.

Warmth. Home. Everything you never knew you needed. And it's alright, in his arms, to be weak and not hold your ground. Aeryn clung to him like the survivor of a shipwreck; hard, icy, arms tight around his shoulders.

Say what you came here to say, you can't let it go on.

Can't stop it either. Doesn't want to. "I'm sorry." Again, hoarse and unsure. "I'm sorry."

"Shh." He murmured, holding her tight, tighter than he's dared in a long time. Her hair tickled his nose as he buried it in the dark locks, shutting his eyes and holding onto this.

For dear, dear life.

"No. I need to speak." But she didn't, nothing apart from that, lifting her head to look at him with unsteady eyes.

Just like home. She'd forgotten what it felt like to belong somewhere, like you'd always been there. Quickly recalled when the skin of her nose brushes against his, moving to the side, head tilted. Not yet a kiss, she breathes in his air, it hurts, and her lips urge forward to meet his.

"Okay." He whispered, breath hot against hers, and he closed the distance between them, in a soft kiss.

Love. A weakness to be afforded. An emotion to be learned, passed aside, come back to, held onto, savoured.

Love. Her love. A sanctuary. A burden. A pain. An everything. Sweet and sour and full of undeniable flavours. Tastes like the past, heavy on tongue.

"I--" She began, breaking the kiss. Her hands never left him, tightened there at the back of his coat.

He cupped her face, resting his forehead against his. "You?"

"I never realised how much it was going to hurt."

Don't let go. Just don't let go and it will all be fine. She knew that wasn't true. She couldn't keep watch all the time and the microt John saw that door he'd be gone. Back to face his doom.

"Stay here. Don't ever go back. Stay with me."

She had to ask him that. She had to. And he didn't want to tell her no...but he needed to get back on Moya...wormholes...Scorpy. Fuck.

"Aeryn." He said, and it came out strangled and broken. "I..."

Can't.

"Stay." A command. An insistence. Cold fingers grip his, pressing them to her face and she doesn't look away.

He always has to be the hero.

He almost said come with me but knows she can't before the thought finished itself out.

He looked down at her, frowning. He hated it here...he wanted to leave so badly, he hated that this place could keep him trapped. But he'd be miserable for her.

Maybe he could hide it. (He was always a bad liar).

"'kay."

It's a lie. A sweet lie and they both knew it. You can never lie to yourself, not for long.

"Don't lie to me." Make it the truth.

Aeryn detached, moving away from his warmth to stand apart, catch herself - pull herself back together. "Don't go. If you see the door. Wait."

Her mouth formed a grim line. "I'm going to find some way to save you."

"I'd never leave without telling you." He stepped foward, upset at the loss of her. He reached for her, grabbing her arm. "Don't...I'll stay. If you want me to, Aeryn, I'll stay."

And he would.

He would go anywhere for her.

"No."

She remembered, whispered conversations with the other John. Things he would tell her. The way his eyes would light up when he spoke of wormholes...his obsession.

Yet she made no move to jerk her arm away.

"You can't stay here forever. I just need time, to find a way."

"I'll stay as long as you want me here." He murmured. Because there is no conviction for his obsessions (I am not obsessed. Wormhole, Aeryn, Earth, Aeryn, Scorpius, Aeryn) without Aeryn with him.

Time it always came down to time in the end. Bad timing; there wasn't enough of it, you didn't have the time to change things.

Time ends.

Right outside your window and there was nothing to be done about that.

"Let's go inside. It's cold."

Aeryn moved her arm then, let it slide upwards until her fingers intertwined with his.

He gripped her fingers tightly and nodded, moving towards the door.

And he felt whole once again. And it scared him how dependent he was on her. But he loved it all the same.

Maybe she would always be in the lead a little, walking quicker so he wasn't ahead of her.

That was just how she was.

But she won't let go of his hand. Not for a long while.

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