| 18+ | Damian looked so different with his shirt off and a crop in his hand. He felt more real: no longer wearing the mask of the good doctor, he was the Exorcist, the master over my wildest fears, the stones on the shore over which my ocean of ma...
As she began to calm, he expected her to squirm away. But her body only became more limp until she was like jelly against him, her breath shuddering as exhaustion took the place of fear. He felt wrong for being so close to her, when she had not asked for that intimacy...but she wasn't moving away.
"Kiiji told me I had to face it," she said at last, her voice weary and hoarse. "He said I can't always depend on you to help me..."
"Kiiji said that?" Damian would be having words with the reaper the moment he had the chance. But for now, he had to know what it was Samara was facing. "What did he tell you to face? What was speaking to you in your room?"
"The Grey One," she muttered. "Ugly...awful...has my mother's voice." She gulped and shuddered. "It lay there and told me all the things my mother thought of me."
"They were lies, Samara," he said gently, but she frantically shook her head.
"They weren't lies! They were memories. They were all the words she truly said. I can't tell myself these horrors aren't true when they...are..so...real." Her grip tightened, pulling at his shirt as if she might rip it apart in her fists. He could feel the tension moving through her, the pain, the panic. "I would rather stare at that ugly thing all day and night than ever have to hear it speak my mother's words again."
She was choking on sobs and struggling not to weep. Damian had never felt so entirely inadequate to help. How could he comfort away cruelty? How could he erase memories? How could he take the things a young girl had been taught and make them stop tormenting the woman she had become?
So he held her. It was all he could do, all he could offer. He held her until the sadness subsided and anger took its place, and she cursed her mother until she dissolved into tired tears again. But then she was quiet and still, and for the first time she seemed to realize where she was. She pushed her head back, breaking the closeness between them at last.
"I'm sorry," she muttered.
"Don't be," he said quickly. "Next time tell me that you're struggling. I hate to think you were up there all that while and I didn't know what was happening."
"You shouldn't be bothered with all my problems," she said. "I understand you're doing your duty as an exorcist, but you shouldn't have to listen to me complain about things that can't be changed. My parents...they were as they were. Nothing will change that."
"It doesn't make it right," he said. He hated to see the way the pain lingered in her eyes, the way she looked away when she spoke as if the agony she bore was somehow unworthy. "If you need to complain, then do it. If you need to cry, or curse, or be angry. Do it. Tell me. Let me help."
She closed her eyes. "I shouldn't rely on you."
"Why? It does not make you weak to need help. This is a burden I've willingly taken. I'm offering whatever I can. You don't deserve to suffer alone. Even if I can't take the pain away...let me shoulder some of it."
She opened her eyes and looked up. He could see the tears hovering again, so close to falling. There was a little bruise on her lip, indents from where she'd nearly bitten it hard enough to bleed. Her face - reddened, swollen from crying - was mere inches away. He brushed away her loose hair, tucked it behind her ear.
"You're not alone here, Samara. Remember, I promised: I'm not leaving." Her face was so close. The pain in her eyes was fading, and there was something brighter there. Cautious, but...hopeful. He wanted to see that look always. He wanted to take all the pain and replace it with that small, timid hope.
"You promise?" She needed to hear it again. If she needed to hear it a thousand times, he would still gladly say it.
"Of course. Yes. I promise."
Suddenly, before he even had time to realize what was happening, she had pulled herself closer, with her hands on his shoulders, and her lips met his in a kiss that was at once passionate and uncertain. But when the shock passed, and he gathered her body close to his again and kissed her in return, the uncertainty fled from her touch.
When they parted they were breathless, hair mussed. He could still remember the first kiss they shared, so long ago it seemed, when it had been all heat and lust. Now...there was something in that kiss that had not been there before.
"Do you...want to go back to your bed for the night?" he said, his voice shaking to even ask that question, fearing her answer. She shook her head. Her arms were still around his neck, her face still so close, her lips red, swollen, glistening.
"I want to stay in here," she said. "Please."
He nodded quickly. "Of course. That's fine...I...companionship is a good distraction..."
She smiled, and it was such a devilish, wicked grin that he stiffened just at the sight of it. "It is a very good distraction," she said softly. "Would you...care to distract me more?"
With a smile like that, it impossible to say no.
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