Page 116 of Thorne
"That's not…" He pulls his hand from mine. Stands. Paces to the window, pushes the blackout curtain aside, stares at something I can't see. "That's not what I want."
"What do you want?"
He doesn't answer. His back is to me. His shoulders are tight. The tension in the line of his spine covers something else.
"Thorne?"
He turns. The light from the window catches his face. He looks tired. Worn in a way I haven't seen before. The flat affect is gone. The rage is gone. What's left is something I don't have a category for.
He crosses back to the bed. Sits beside me again, closer this time. His hand finds my face, cupping my cheek, his thumb brushing the corner of my eye.
"I thought you were dead." His voice is barely a whisper. "When I came through that door. You were on the floor… There was blood everywhere and I?—"
"I'm not dead."
"I know."
"You told me I wasn't allowed to die."
"I did."
"So I didn't."
Something shifts in his face. The thing underneath, the thing that has no name, surfaces. Just for a moment. Just long enough for me to see it.
"I don't know how to do this." His voice is rough.
"You don't have to." I meet his eyes. "Slow isn't what we are. Careful isn't what we need. What we have works."
"But you're hurt." His brow furrows.
"And I'll heal." I reach up and touch his jaw. The stubble is rough under my fingertips. "When I do, you can shove me against whatever wall you want. But maybe give me a week."
Something cracks in his expression. Not quite a laugh. But close.
"You're lying here with stitches, and you're making jokes about me fucking you against a wall."
"I'm telling you the truth." I hold his gaze. "I don't need you to be gentle with me. I need you to be you. The same man you've been in that room every night. Just," I wince as I shift position, "maybe horizontally for a while. Until the holes close up."
He stares at me. His jaw works. Whatever he expected me to say, that wasn't it.
"You're impossible."
"I'm practical. There's a difference."
He leans down, his mouth finding mine. Careful. Careful is new. One hand braces beside me instead of on me, his body hovering just enough to protect my side, to avoid the IV taped to my arm.
The restraint in it hits harder than anything else.
He could take. He doesn't.
He chooses not to.
Something tight shifts low in my chest.
He breaks the kiss, but he doesn't go far. His forehead rests against mine, his breath still mingling with mine, like he hasn't quite let me go.
"I'm staying."
