It's been too long since she last shared comfort with someone. Not just comforted a companion, as she often does; not just let herself be comforted. But to hold someone vulnerable, and make herself vulnerable at the same time — it's a shared experience that isn't easy to describe.

Their lips connect, the steadfast magnetism between them unrelenting. They always come back to this, making up for what they can't say by drinking each other up through their hands, their eyes, their mouths. It's so natural, even when forced to pause, and laugh, and save the Stetson from being crushed between them (joking that it doesn't even need a peg to hang on, all he has to do is stand up). It's like breathing. Holding on, not letting their ghosts pull them apart; laughing, moaning, whispering muddled words. Eyes connecting more than usual, just to be sure of each other. Fingers twisting in sheets, tugging at hair, gripping each other, white knuckled.


She wraps herself in him, head spinning in the afterglow. It takes several long minutes to come back down.

Eventually, she finds herself on her side facing him, lazily tracing the crow's feet at the corner of his eye with the pad of her thumb.