What Now?

[Oriena]

She was half expecting Nox to offer a useless explanation, but he didn’t say anything at all. Beyond that brief thought, Oriena wasn’t actually sure what she wanted from him; not sex necessarily, but intimacy of the finite kind – a moment she didn’t have to explain or fight for, that could just exist in the now. To sit in silence even. She certainly didn’t want to talk. They were broken pieces, rough-edged, and they did not belong together. But they understood the shape of the other nonetheless, and if she might not ever admit it, she had come to value it.

His kiss wasn’t the sort she would have accepted from him usually. Not that Oriena was completely without softness, but that had never been a part of their connection – she’d nearly always spurned kindness from him, else outright scorned at the effort he wasted on her. On some level she was aware that he would do whatever he thought would please her, now and probably always; it was who he was, who he had always been beneath the horde’s infection. She’d hated it primarily because it dispelled the illusion, and now that was gone anyway.

For a moment she was quite still against him, for once prepared to give him the space to decide what he wanted without her sharp-eyed judgement finding him ever wanting. His reasons didn’t matter. Then she kissed him back, not like a battlefield, and not with the anger she had been suffused with only moments before. She was doused, feeling the exhaustion of her body’s toils rather than the pain that usually promised her she was still alive. If he was giving then right now she wanted something simpler, more imperfectly human. Not tender, exactly. But a refuge.

There was still an emptiness to him, but Ori wasn’t looking for a lover’s connection, and she had no heart to break. She accepted it for what it was because he gave whatever was left freely enough, even if it was broken. For now she forgot about it entirely – neither of them were here to solve their problems or be one another’s answer. In the strange loophole of their relationship she allowed something close to affection in with the pleasure, or familiar possession anyway; the kind you didn’t find with a stranger. He didn’t fight her for the lead, which she took naturally rather than with the sort of force they usually played games with. Nox didn’t need to think or dwell on what was lost, and for that matter neither did she.

Afterwards she made no effort to vacate the shitty motel blankets. It was a different kind of satiation, and naturally left her in a different kind of mood. For now, she didn’t say anything.