Page 125 of Gates of Tartarus

The guys on the couch exchange a long, exasperated look, before Lachy points at the floor.

“We’re about to watch movies. You can sit there. There’s not enough room on the couch.Or,” he says coaxingly, ‘you can go sit on the chair over there. Much softer. Nice chair over there. It can be all yours from now on.”

Walker looks up at him with a smirk and leans back against the couch, before saying in a strange echo of Jonah from a few short nights ago, “That’s okay. I’ll earn my place on the couch.”

Lachy sighs and flips on the TV, muttering under his breath, “At this rate we’re going to have to buy a freaking sectional.”

???

The guys and I watched movies until my eyes grew too heavy, and I fell asleep curled up between them. Someone moved me up to my bedroom at some point without waking me, so when pain rouses me in the middle of the night, it takes a moment for me to remember where I am. Reaching out to my bedside table, I groan, realizing that I left my little bottle of pills downstairs, and I force my aching body from bed to go get them. After taking two, I make myself some hot chocolate and wander into the large living room overlooking the wine-dark Sound, lured there by a low crackle and soft, dancing shadows in the hall.

The lights are low in the room, just a soft glow from the dying fire. Curling up on the overstuffed couch, I watch the flames through unfocused eyes. Sitting in front of it, I stare ahead unblinking, wrapped in a knee-length, ratty old sweater that I refuse to get rid of, hands wrapped around the warm mug. The silence of the night suffocates the small kindling of happiness the guys managed to create today, and the reality of the past few days pushes in in its place. My head hurts, my body aches, and I feel completely empty, everything inside me washed away by pain and betrayal. Quiet music is playing somewhere in the distance, a girl’s breathy, sad voice echoing faintly over the water.

Everything right now seems unreal, temporary. It’s all strobe lights – moments flashing in and out, brief bursts of intense focus before everything goes dark again. I’m living in the space between seconds, ricocheting from too much emotion to none at all, from feeling normal to feeling lost and desperately alone. I’m trying… I’m trying so hard to be… just… okay. Just okay. And I can get there when Lachy, or Jonah, or Walker are around. But left by myself, I can see all too clearly the blankness beneath the surface, the empty pages. The book of myself has been erased somehow, and everything is nothing more than a Potemkin Village, fragile and false. It’s maybe why it was so easy for me to agree to Lachlainn’s and Jonah’s plan. Because it felt like someone else agreeing to it. A decision in someone else’s life. If I were normal, and whole, and not broken.

I sense more than hear Jonah enter the room. He pauses, waiting for me to look at him, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the glowing embers. Exhaling softly, he walks forward and sits beside me on the couch, not touching me, and not saying anything. After a few minutes of staring at the fire with me, he reaches out and takes the mug from my unresisting hands. I lean into him, resting my head on his shoulder, wrapping myself in his warmth instead. The music in the distance echoes my mood,and I catch quiet words echoing in through the window.I want to be alone… alone with you does that make sense…

Everything is so still and silent I can’t even hear Jonah breathe. The only sounds at all are the quiet cracks from the fire and the eerie phantom song floating in on the breeze. Jonah doesn’t speak at first, moving forward like a ghost, tracing his fingers down the edge of my jaw, a whisper of touch on my skin. “Ah, Kai…” he whispers, voice a feather on the wind. He sighs, and the sadness in it hovers around me, gossamer strings tangling with my own strands of sorrow, almost glistening in the firelight. It’s hard to breathe in this moment, the cemetery past a noose around me, and desolate future like storm clouds on the horizon. Lightning flashes of pain run through me with sickening clarity –everything ends. There’s a poignant pause, and I wait for him to tell me that it’s all going to be okay, that things aren’t as bad as they seem. Pretty words, pretty lies, but comforting in a way. The things people say when there’s nothing to say.

“You must feel so broken…” he whispers helplessly. “Just… I can distract you during the day, but it must come crashing down at night. And there’s nothing I can do…” There’s a catch in his voice, and I tear my eyes away from the fire to look at him, the faint sting of surprise rousing me from my stupor.

“You’re not going to tell me that it’s all going to be fine?”

He shakes his head slowly, consideringly, but doesn’t look away from me, honesty naked on his face. “I don’t make promises that I can’t keep, Kai. And I can’t promise you that it’s all going to be fine. It would taste like a lie, and I never want to lie to you.”

The words hit too close to home, are too much right now, and I stare down at my hands, clenched in my lap. “Everyone lies,” I say quietly, unable to hide the tremor in my voice. Reaching out slowly and very deliberately, he tilts my chin up, forcing me to meet his dark gaze.

“Everyone does lie, Kai. But not all the time. And not to every person. Your world has been changed in unthinkable ways, and you’re trying so hard it hurts to watch you. And Lachy, and me, and even Walker… we can see it. We can see the cracks. And I can’t promise you that we can fix the cracks. But I also don’t want you to think that they’re something thathasto be fixed for you to be whole, or for you to heal, or for you to… to be loved.” His voice stutters on the last word. “You don’t need to change for any of us. You don’t need to be okay right now, or pretend that you’re not hurting.” Leaning forward he places his fingertips lightly on my heart, and locks eyes with me, not letting me look away. “You don’t need to save this for the dark, when you’re alone and the shadows are long and dangerous. You don’t… you don’t need to hide the parts of yourself from me that you think I don’t want to see. Because I want to see itall, Kai.” His voice deepens, raw emotion making it rough and vulnerable. “You’re allowed to be whatever you need to be. I just… I just want to be there for it. Whatever it is. And if that’s too much for you right now, that’s okay too. Because I’m not in a hurry, Kai. You can have all the space you need. And I’ll fill in the empty corners when you’re ready for that.” His face twists into a rueful smirk. “Well, me, and Lach. And maybe Walker.”

I don’t know what to say, how to respond, and he can see it in my face, I think. The memory of the past few days, and worry verging on panic when thinking about what’s to come, batter against me. Jonah shakes his head softly. “What’s happened has happened, and the sun hasn’t risen on tomorrow yet.” A note of entreaty enters his voice, though it’s clear he’s fighting against it. He’s trying desperately not to put any pressure on me. “Just… stay here with me, Kai. Stay in the now, in this moment. There’s not room for anything else if you’re justhere. Don’t get lost in there, on your own.” He touches the side of my head gently with his hand, trailing his fingers down along my cheek, and a slow, almost forgotten feeling of a constellation of stars being born uncurls in my stomach. It’s like he’s writing himself into my sky, and it scares me, the permanence of this moment. When he speaks, it’s so quiet I can barely hear him.

“I just want to make things easier for you, Kai. Not barrel in here and try to fix things, or take this moment away from you if you need time with your sadness. Because that’s okay. But I wish I could make it all easier.”

“I feel… I don’t know!” I’m so frustrated I want to cry and scream at the same time, but I try to explain. “I feel all over the place. I feel swamped with emotions and they’re all different and all choking me. I go from happy to sad in a moment, from full to desolate. I don’t understand what’s happening to me. Something’s broken inside, and it’s scaring me, Jonah.”

Nodding, a frown creases his face. “What helps?”

I shrug helplessly. “I don’t know. I just want it all to be quiet. Just quiet, for just long enough to breathe. I want to be… different. I just wish I was different.”

The world narrows down to the light of the fire casting sharp shadows on his face, his full lips, and his obsidian eyes that are focused on me with single-minded conviction. “I don’t need you to be anything but who you are.”

Jonah’s eyes are fathoms deep, some kind of siren’s call luring me forward to drown in their depths, and I lean toward him, drawn by his words. “Jonah, I’m… I’m still learning who I am.”

The hint of a smile turns up his full lips. “You are the sunrise and the sunset, and all of the light and the shadows in between.” He’s close enough now that his lips brush mine with his words, their softness like butterflies, sending thousands of them tumbling into my stomach, fluttering and filling me with glittering wings. But he doesn’t press forward, just curls his lips into a smile, happiness sparking around in tiny fireflies. For a moment, everything is clear and simple. It’s just Jonah, and just me, just the firelight, and the sound of the wind on the water. And it is… it’s enough. This moment by itself is enough.

I sigh, and it’s like the weight of a hundred years falls off my shoulders with the exhale of air. There is something new, and fragile, being created between us, here in the silent night, with my sadness and broken pieces naked around me for him to see. I want to gather them all up to hide inside me again, but Jonah locks me in his dark gaze, the curve of his lips pulling an answering, tiny curl up from mine, and I leave myself bare before him.

There is a shift, a change in the air as Jonah’s eyes widen, some kind of realization born in their depths. His pupils are blown out, eyes almost black with desire and longing, and he stares back at me with wild, almost fearful eyes. I open my mouth to say… I don’t know… something, and he shakes his head, moving forward. Leaning his forehead against mine, he inhales deeply before skimming his lips lightly over mine, giving me every chance to moveaway, then pulls back. For a moment, he pauses, staring down at his hands like he’s searching for an answer written on them, frozen in the flickering light and shadow, and I’m suddenly uncertain. I can’t see his face, and I’m not sure why he’s stopped.Just let me hold you… like a hostage… As if he senses my hesitancy, Jonah reaches out and takes my hand, slowly, so slowly, like he’s afraid I’ll startle and run if he makes any sound or sudden movement. He raises his head and studies my face before coming to some sort of decision.

Holding my hand, he moves it over his heart and keeps it there. I breathe in, looking for words, but he shakes his head again and presses my hand more firmly to his chest, head low, and he kisses the tips of my fingers. Cautiously, I lower my shields, letting his emotions in in careful waves, a low tide rippling through the emptiness inside of me. Closing my eyes, I catch my breath at the fire moving through me. It’s not fast, like lightning, a spark dancing along my skin, but deliberate and inevitable, lava-slow, searing brightness, so much that it hurts to look at it. It isn’t love, not yet, it’s too soon for love. He needs to learn the pieces of me for love – the hidden corners and sharp edges, the secrets that can’t be said out loud – but it is close. So close. It is determination, desire, and dark, desperate hope. And the way he sees me – the flare of light, like a single star in darkness, scares him, that I’ll light his sky and then disappear, long enough to make a wish and nothing more, and suddenly I understand the fear in his gaze earlier.

All of this washes through me in a moment, a completely silent moment, where even the fire and the lone singer hesitate, and though his head hasn’t moved, and his lips still rest on my fingers, I can feel his hands trembling as he lays himself bare before me and waits for my judgment, like a petitioner before his goddess, acceptance or rejection hanging in the balance of a breath. It’s too much, too much and just enough all at once, the rawness flowing ragged in my veins from Hideo and Gemma soothed and smoothed by the waiting man kneeling before me.

Lips meet teeth and tongue, my heart skips a beat at once…the singer starts again, and I lean forward into the warmth of Jonah, the promises his heart is making, the lightness and the newness of him. As he feels me move, everything flares into blinding white hope, like staring at the sun, and he pulls me off the couch and into him roughly, meeting my waiting mouth with his own, fervent lips. I’m straddling him, and he leans back, bringing me with him onto the soft rug in front of the fire. He kisses me like a drowning man finding oxygen, with a tender desperation, one of his hands wrapped around my waist pulling me tight against him, the other threaded through my hair.

“Kai…” my name is a trembling breath. His lips are soft and warm on mine, electric explosions of barely restrained joy creating a static spark across my skin. “Sorry, sorry…” he mumbles against my mouth, not pulling away from me to speak. “I’m trying to shield. I can do it. I promise.” His emotions flare in and out, and dance against me, but it’s different. They are fireworks in a dark sky, bursts of blinding happiness cartwheeling through a black void, and they are all that is pure and good and true. And I can tell he’s trying. He’s tryingso hard, but he can’t contain it completely. The result is… unexpected. It’s playful and skitters across my skin in shivering waves, never pressing against me, never pushing into me, just dancing around me in rainfalls of pure bliss. It’s like hide and seek with emotion, the feeling of an unrestrained smile flashing in and out, bubbling up inside me, and Ilikeit. I… really,reallylike it. So I lean forward and silence him with my kiss, my lips parting in a smile against his, only to feel him smile back against me.

He kisses me until I can’t feel time anymore, until my mouth is swollen and I’m dizzy with desire, then pulls back and trails his soft lips along my skin, from the corner of my mouth along my jaw. He keeps going, finding a spot behind my ear that sends a violent shiver down my body and has me pressing into him, arching against him. Jonah makes a pleased, masculine kind of growl deep in the back of his throat, which sends lightning bolts of lust straight through me. When he reaches my neck, he gently draws the edge of my sweater back and down, exposing my bare shoulder. I hear his breath hitch briefly as he stares at my skin, and I look at him for the first time. His mouth follows the path his fingers drew, along my neck to my shoulder. Shifting slowly, he moves in front of me, kneeling before me. The low glow from the fireplaces casts me in light and him in shadows, as he reaches forward and pushes my sweater from my other shoulder. I’m bare beneath it, other than a thin, black chemise and a matching pair of boy shorts. He strips my sweater from me completely and throws it to the side, then just stares at me.

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