girl-type returns.

[Sinclair] When she told him she'd decided to go back to Kansas for awhile, it wasn't in bed after fucking each other into sweaty, limp-limbed messes. It wasn't snuggled up on the couch watching Tripoli bang around trying to flirt with the radiator or hugging an aluminum can on his way to a drowsy spirit-slumber. They were in the shower, and he'd just moved her hair off the back of her neck, kissing her shoulder with the sort of random, thoughtless contact and affection that sometimes still startles her a little, because it is not what most people would expect from someone like Alex.

And not the sort of thing Sinclair expects from anyone.

She had closed her eyes and exhaled, and water was hitting the top of his head as he wrapped his arms around her from behind, a rare moment of quietude at night, before sleep, after workouts or cooking or just dealing with summer's heat hitting his apartment and deciding to get clean before getting into bed. And she reached back, rubbing the pads of her fingertips over the top of his head, and said

I think I need to go home.

And because he knew then that she had no other abode, no place but her car where she actually kept any of her things, it had to be Wichita. Which is quite far away from Chicago.


She didn't talk much about why. Just that it felt like time. And truth be told, what other explanation could be asked for? She hasn't seen them since she left for college. They haven't seen her since she was still 'human', or pretending to be human. She hasn't seen them since they were inducted into the networks of Glass Walker Kin around the world. Thank god they both know how to use a computer, and use one without difficulty.

Alex mentioned going with her. Sinclair had a minor freakout-slash-panic-attack, at one point verbally flailing that her own tattoos were plenty enough for them to deal with and oh my god Alex they still go to Church what if they ask if we have sex and it would have been a little more funny if she hadn't been so genuinely -- if briefly -- stressed about throwing too much at her parents at once. Like their daughter, the Fostern Galliard they haven't seen in something like three or four years.

Covered in tattoos. Pierced through the arm and the ears and other-places-they-will-never-ever-ever-ever-ever-know-about. Intricate scarring across her back.

Of course, at the time that she was talking to Alex about going to Kansas, she wasn't thinking about that, really. She was just saying: it feels right now. it's time. and i have to go.

and i have to go alone.


So he'd stay in Chicago. Or do whatever he did with his time. Plan for this Easter Island trip. Jerk off. A lot. Work out. Keep himself up. And she'd get in her El Camino and head out. She texted him when she'd stop to pee or grab some more food. She sent him pictures from the road off her fancy little phone her parents sent her. She took pictures of herself with goofy expressions and thumbs-up when she got to the Kansas state line.

But before she'd do any of that, she'd sink down on his lap in his bed and arch her back into the press of his hands against her, the gasping adoration of his mouth on her, and she'd make those little noises like she's not quite sure what to do with herself, lit up from the inside out and bucking slightly, panting against his shoulder after her orgasm, holding onto him, breathing in the scent of him from his body and from his very pillows.

One of which was conspiculously missing when she left, along with one of his Harvard t-shirts. A dirty one, recently worn to the gym. Borderline disgusting with his sweat, but when one gets right down to the necessity of her taking it, utterly drenched with his scent. Even after it started to really get gross and she had to wash it, it retained some of that smell of him, and so did the pillow, and

so. She needed them.


Like she needed to call him. Not even every day but... frequently. It seemed like she was happy. If there was much drama, it didn't come across in her messages or her tone. She seemed uncertain for a few days. And then her accent started coming out, the midwestern twang without the drawl of a southerner's voice. She called him rather excitedly when she said they were going up to Arapahoe Basin to catch the very very last of ski season, and that she'd already decided to take snowboarding lessons.

It was while they were at the lodge and her parents were talking to some other middle-aged couple by the fireplace that Sinclair was up in her own room, calling her boyfriend and, without quite intending to or even knowing what she was doing, instigating phone sex. Another thing he was first at, listening to her god-knows-how-many-miles away telling him in soft, panting whispers what she was doing to herself. How she was thinking about his tongue.

And then moaning in that shuddering, relieved, overcome way she does when he slides into her after they haven't been together for a week or longer, the way she sounds when he stretches her out slowly. Telling him, as filthy as she gets when they're in the same bed,

i miss your cock, baby. i miss feeling you come inside me.


That was probably their longest conversation. Because she was curled up in bed in the dark afterward, snow outside under the moonlight, talking quietly to them even though she probably didn't need to, talking about... anything. It didn't even matter at that point. The trip they're going to take. How she likes snowboarding. That she was really tired. And that she missed him. Stupidly, and repeatedly: she missed just seeing him.

She confessed finally to stealing his pillow and his shirt, though it wasn't really much of a confession. That she thought about taking his soap, too, so she could wash with it.

She told him about her father meeting Tripoli, and how Tripoli had a new best friend and she wasn't sure she was ever going to pull him away from the mechanical engineering professor. Ever.

Sinclair fell asleep in the middle of that conversation. Quietly. He could hear her breathing slow down and steady. Her phone was using the speaker at the time, so there was no rustle as it fell from her limp hand. She just... slept. Deeply, serenely, as he's always felt and seen her sleep when she's been beside him.


No phone call to tell him she was coming back. A message to his phone with a picture some neighbor took of her parents on either side of her, quite firmly smooshing her face with a kiss on each cheek, and her nose all wrinkled up, slightly sunburnt from being up in the mountains. Then another one, later in the day, taken by herself at the Kansas state line.

Now leaving...

And a mock sad-face expression, lower lip jutted out.

Even later, a picture at the Illinois border. Pointing to how many miles to Chicago. So much excitement. So much looking forward to seeing him again. Soon. Soon. Just another hour. Just another half out.


And no Sinclair at his door.


Til a phone call, his girlfriend sounding weary from the road and, frankly, something else. "I'm sorry, baby," when she told him what had stalled her. There was something in the graveyard. She wasn't hurt, at all. But she was exhausted, drained of whatever kept her going, and she was going to the Loft to crash.

Only after falling face-forward into one of the spare beds at Katherine's, Sinclair

for one of the first times in years,

discovered that she couldn't sleep.


It's the middle of the fucking night on the twenty-seventh of June. She's clean. Showered at the Loft, trying to settle herself down so she could sleep. Her hair is drying but still damp, and all bedraggled, because as soon as she ran a lathered hand over the tattoo on her ankle, she thought this isn't going to work. Didn't grab a comb. Just pulled on sleep pants (dark blue. little elephants. green trim.) and a t-shirt (, , , , , and a picture of a chameleon) and flipflops and went back out to the car.

And came to his place. He might be awake. Might hear the key turning in the lock when she comes in. Might hear her slip the flipflops off and lock the door behind her, though she's moving quietly as she knows how. Sinclair doesn't turn on any lights. She'll find him by scent, whether he's in the living room or the bedroom or... anywhere. And whatever he's doing, whether sleeping or awake and waiting, she'll go to him

and fit herself into the space beside him,

wrap her arms around his middle,

and bury her face against his chest.

[Alexander] [dis is for lukaz!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 6, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)
to Sinclair

[Alexander] The first time she told him she was going home, they were in the shower together. Alexander, left to himself, takes his showers scalding hot. His tanned skin was flushed from heat, and his eyes were closed, and he was relaxed and lazy and getting sleepy as he wrapped his arms around his girlfriend from behind and leaned, nuzzling, into her.

Then she said I think I need to go home, and his eyes opened. She doesn't mean she needs to go back to the Brotherhood. Or the Loft. Or even her El Camino. These things were not home anymore. She only had one home, and it was half a continent away.

He thought about it for a little while. Then he kissed her behind the ear, softly. His response was surprisingly mild, surprisingly gentle.

Okay.


A few weeks later, if she lets him, he helps her pack the car. He buys her all sorts of goodies for the trip. Chips. Soda. Sandwiches. Peaches. Energy drinks. A small cooler to stash everything in. Ice, to keep it all chilled.

The night before she leaves, they make love. They stay up late, even though they both know this means Sinclair will sleep until noon and then head off with the sun already past its apex. They fuck, and they fuck again, and when they've worn themselves out they lay in bed and talk about Kansas, about the road, about how that El Dorado was made for long trips, and about how the trip up from Florida on a goddamn speedbike was, in all honesty, punishing.

She drops off while he's talking about envying, for once, those fat bearded bikers on their Harleys. He knows because of the way she sleeps, and because of the way she's heavy and warm and boneless against him. In the morning, when she's climbing out of bed to get her clothes on and get in her car and drive to Kansas because fucking hell it's already 11:30am, he pulls her back in, laughing, then not laughing but panting, moaning, muttering adoring filth against her skin as he bounced her on his lap and made her make those little noises like she's not quite sure what to do with herself.

It's nearly 1pm when she finally gets on the road. He waves from the parking lot and follows her out to the main road, and it's only when she turns the corner that he turns to go back in,

where he finds his pillow missing, and his shirt, and this makes him smile to himself.


It's days and days later before she confesses to it. I know, is all he says to that, and she can hear the smile on his voice. They talk about snowboarding. A lot. Alexander's enthusiastic about snowboarding, though one wonders where the hell one goes to snowboard in Miami. They laugh about Tripoli, and he teases her gently about her rediscovered Kansas accent, saying something like

I don't think I actually believed you were a Kansas farmgirl until you went back and reacquired that twang, baby

upon which she probably teased him about wearing shorts to jog even in the middle of a frigid Chicago winter, and somehow that turns into a conversation about Tripoli, and from there, about missing each other.

When do you think you'll head back? he asks her, and even if he hadn't told her so, she would have known he missed her too.


She falls asleep in the middle of that conversation. He doesn't hang up on her. They end up connected like that, all night, speakerphones on, breathing gently across vast distances.


No phone call to tell him she was coming back. Just pictures. Her mock sad-face garners a response in minutes: a snapshot of him in an exaggerated woohoo! pose, hands in the air. And then later: Illinois. And then: Cook County. And then:

nothing.


The truth is, Alexander worried then. He knew she was only a half-hour out. He knew what she is, and what she does for a living, so to speak. He knew war isn't neat and polite, doesn't wait courteously outside the door until you're ready for it. He knew just about the only thing that would keep her from coming

(home)

to his door without so much as a whoops, gotta stop for _____! was a battle. Was, possibly, death.

When she called, he tried not to sound too worried. He didn't bother not sounding relieved, because he was. He tried not to sound disappointed, either, that she was going to the Loft. I'll see you soon, he said. Get some rest, baby.


It's the middle of the night, then, on the twenty-seventh of June. And Alexander is sleeping. Is in bed, on his back, and sleeping in a posture she's never seen him adopt before, except in those early days when they slept in the same bed and he was afraid to touch her: his arms folded protectively across his chest, his shoulders a little hunched up even in sleep.

He begins to stir when she settles into bed beside him. He's awake, confused, starting a little when she wraps her arms around him. Then she buries her face against his chest, and all of a sudden recognition flares and he knows who it is and he opens his arms and wraps them around her with a little groan, turning, burying his face against her hair even as she buries hers against his chest. He throws his lower leg over hers. They just hold each other for a while.

Then, muffled with sleep: "You're back."

[Sinclair] "Mmm," she confirms, and that is all she says for a very long time.

When she was gone, words were just about all they had. Words and a few photos. One single Skype chat while she sat at her parent's dining room table and admitted she wasn't going to go to church that morning because she'd freak everybody out and they'd try to save her soul and if they laid hands on her to pray she might start biting their arms off. But that was just once. The rest of the three weeks she was gone, all she had were words to share with him.

Now she's back, and she has her arms around his chest, his heart thudding against his ribs, below her ear, and she can close her eyes and breathe in his smell and feel him, hold him, and words aren't necessary to try and convey how,

well,

attached she is to him.

Words tried to communicate fondness and friendship. She wasn't a farmgirl, she insisted, she didn't live on a farm, she lived in a nice neighborhood with lots of culdesacs and fuck you, Vaughn, I've never so much as touched a cow that wasn't dead and coming to me off of a hot grill. Words tried to share longing, sexual and otherwise, when neither desire for sex nor comfort could be satisfied by sheer, simple, perfect physicality.

The one night they come close to it -- sex, comfort, all of that -- is the one time they fall asleep with their phones on. In the morning she gets woken up and drowses into the phone, to his sleeping ear: alex. alex, baby. i'ma go snowboarding again. don't wake up.

Which she ends up putting in a text message, too, anyway.

Just words. For weeks, nothing more than words. Typed out, spoken, recorded, written over e-mails, sent via instant messenger. Words and photos and then the sinking knowledge that she was killing something, or being killed by something. That fear was alleviated only when she called to tell him she was sorry, she couldn't come right way, she had to go to her pack, she had to go to the nearest place she could to sleep,

only to discover she couldn't, and to realize why.

And accept why.

Which is why she's here now, near-silent, wrapping herself around him just seconds before he wakes enough to wrap himself around her in turn, tangle together in his not-quite-big-enough bed, which she doesn't want him to replace with something larger because it's not like they ever take up that much space when they sleep together. She holds him even though he startles, and she shivers a little in relief or pleasure or aching happiness when he opens up his arms to hold her back.

You're back.

Mmm.

And she's holding him tighter then, suddenly, which she didn't expect to need to do.

And she's mumbling: "You can come next time, okay?"

[Alexander] He's still sleepy. He's still half-asleep, in truth. Alexander doesn't sleep as heavily as Sinclair does, but he sleeps so very regularly, like clockwork, that his body rebels against the idea of waking like this. The timing is all wrong, his neurons complain. Go back to sleep. Sleep.

He doesn't sleep. He's warm from sleep, his skin smooth and dry and almost hot to the touch. They hold each other tightly, and blearily at least on one's part, and it's been weeks and the press of their bodies together, their athletic, compact, taut bodies with their dynamite-charges of strength and energy, is at once new and remembered.

"To Kansas?" he mumbles back. His brain is moving too slowly to process this easily. He nuzzles her, sighs into her ear, and then thinks for a moment. "Your parents know 'bout us?"

[Sinclair] After the drive, after three weeks of activity and family, after a battle, after staying up later than anything in her wants to stay up, Sinclair is, quite frankly, exhausted. Her bones feel heavy. Her skin feels leaden. Her eyelids closed as soon as she let herself lay down beside Alex, and have not so much as flickered. At the same time, her heart is beating a little faster than one might think it would, being this tired. Her body feels him and recognizes him and her pulse flickers and then trips over itself as though rushing towards him, even though

he's right there.

"Mmm," she says again, keep her legs tangled with his, drawing him closer with her hands on his back, sliding her thigh between his as though almost to say be close to me. rub against me. feel me. cover me. fill me.

As though to imprint herself on him, as though to invite him to do the same, as though to somehow press their skins together so close that every single day of distance is obliterated from sense-memory. She mumbles out the story, the words slurirng together and tumbling out without verbal punctuation.

"Mama asked who it was when you texted me one day. And I said it was this guy Alex and she was all 'this guy?' and I was apparently all glowy and smiley and she just went mmhmm all church-lady and I said you were kind of my boyfriend and she was all offended that I didn't bring you home to introduce you and then dad came in and took her side and said I should've brought you and then they asked me like ten thousand billion questions about you."

She yawns, and exhales it slowly, making a little noise at the end. "I'm gonna move in, okay?"

[Alexander] Alex drowses while Sinclair wordtumbles. He laughs a little here, nuzzles her a little there. He gets the gist of it. Parents know. Parents not appalled. Parents want to meet.

All good.

Then she yawns, and he gathers her closer, and he's fumbling blindly with the blankets and tossing them over her when she says,

I'm gonna move in, okay?

and it's a second or two before that sinks in. When it does, his eyes flick open. "Wait," he says, and laughs. "Really?"

[Sinclair] The first questions were basic ones. His name. How old is he. What's his family like. Is he like them, Kin? What's he do? Where'd he go to school? What does he like to do? Is he nice? And she answered as diplomatically as possible, giving them simple answers, and -- frankly -- putting him in as positive a light as she could.

Then they were asking things like are you two serious? and how long they've been together and whether he makes her happy and what they do together and how they met. And, hardest questions of all, how she really feels about him, and have they talked much about it. She is not kidding about how many questions they asked of her. The professor and the writer, funnily enough, were exhausting their sole resource when it came to researching this new and potentially important addition to the life of one of the most important parts of their own.

After that wordtumble, she doesn't go into the fact that she had hours on the road to think. One of the things she thought most about was her relationships with the squishier, more vulnerable members of her tribe. Her parents. Her boyfriend-lover-not-mate-but-something. She thought a lot about this decision. It was not a whim that made her say what she just did.

But she doesn't go into that. It wouldn't really make a difference to Alex, she doesn't think, whether she thought it through or not. As long as she meant it. As long as she wants this.

Her eyes are still closed. He stirs a bit as he laughs, and she wriggles closer, halfway under the blankets, holding him more tightly. "Yeah," she hums, liltingly. She doesn't ask if the offer is still open. Or if it's okay. She knows it is. And it is.