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forty . . . time to heal ( may 6, 2281 — sanctum )
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CULLEN CLUNG TO Sloan's body until the sun rose, which seemed like an infinity to her as her tears eventually ran dry and all she was left with was the cooling of his skin beneath her fingertips and the soothing rubs Bellamy's thumbs were giving her ribs. He hadn't moved since she fell against him, supporting both her body and the corpse head laying on her lap, but Bellamy didn't say anything — he just held her because he knew she needed it.
When the sky began to fade from soft orange to light pink to baby blue, only then did Cullen let go of Sloan, watching carefully as Gabriel ejected the mind drive which she had stabbed through before Octavia offered her a sheet to cover him with. Cullen's fingers trembled as she draped the white sheet across his even whiter skin, eyes roaming around his peaceful face before he was completely concealed; even then, she didn't stray far from his body. She physically couldn't detach herself from him, no matter how long he had been dead.
She felt like everything inside of her had just slowed, or had been gradually coming to a stop since she first learned that he was dead. Her lungs were dragging in slower breaths, her heart was beating unsteadily, and her veins felt as dry as a desert — Cullen felt like she was dying, and it wasn't a concept she was a stranger to, either.
It was different, and while Cullen knew she had no right to compare Sloan's death to Bellamy leaving her in the bunker a hundred and twenty-five years ago because they were vastly different, she couldn't help but correlate the feelings. When Bellamy left, Cullen didn't feel anything for a very long time, and she thought that was because she depended so heavily on him to keep her running — he was her lifeline, and when he left, everything just shut off. But with Sloan, though he had actually died, Cullen was feeling everything. She felt every single beat of her heart — her heart that beat because Sloan had decided his didn't need to anymore — and it pained her entire being. She felt like she was on fire and freezing over all at once, and she physically felt her soul cringing away from the memory of him. She was in pain, and it fucking hurt.
