hero of war

The air was crisp but warmer than she had expected being up on a cantering horse. She wasn’t technically supposed to gallop the trail horses but she was pushing the horse as fast as she could without breaking the trail rules. It was a safely concern, especially during the winter. There wasn’t snow on the ground but the ice was a concern. When the thought of ice popped into her head, she slowed the pace even more, knowing that if the horse slipped, she could be hurt, too. The mare she had dressed for the ride was responsive and probably would’ve slowed down on her own accord fairly soon anyway; they were coming around a curve that usually took them into a trot. 

A half an hour later and she was nearly finished with the route. Another ten minutes and she’d be back at the stables. As the thought of seeing Alex again didn’t have her stutter this time; she would be fine. Why she had gotten so worked up to begin with was beyond her. Sure, he had heard the thoughts in her head but plenty of people had to have had those exact same thoughts about him. While telling herself she was overthinking, again, she didn’t notice the fox that ran across the dirt path but her mare certainly did. The horse reared up and Addie tried her best to hold on. She wasn’t able to keep her hands from slipping off the reigns. When the horse reared again, she fell in a very gangly fashion, landing on the ground on the right side of the oath but not before her arm crashed into a pile of rocks on the ground, her forehead hitting the same patch of rocks. The horse skittered forward and pounded at the dirt as she tried to reorient herself.

She was dizzy, beyond anything she could remember, and she couldn’t move her left arm. She managed to shift enough to move her uninjured arm to her fore head. When her fingers found her forehead, the stinging was unbearable and she immediately pulled her fingers from it. Taking a deep breath, her line of vision shrunk. Tunnel vision. She knew what was about to happen and she managed to avoid the small outcropping of rocks as she fell, slipping out of consciousness. 

Her eyes flickered open, just barely, and she saw the backend of the horse. She was nibbling on grass along the pathway. How long had she been out? Had she even been out? Before she could even push herself up, she was out again, her hair falling into her face as she slipped away again.

There wasn’t much left to do. Alex should have left as soon as he finished in the barn, but he found himself puttering instead. He found unnecessary things to do, rearranging one of the stacks, walking the near grounds and picking up any scattered trash, pulling weeds from the small garden. He knew he should leave before Addie got back, but the weaker part of him wanted to see her one more time while he had the opportunity. After all, he told himself every time that it would be the last time he saw her, so he wanted to prolong it. 

He kept an eye on the time, too. He knew the time it took to run each trail, he had spent enough time there to seeing the coming and going of enough people. He had learned how much time each one took, without really even trying to. Which meant he knew when the time dragged too long and his eyes stayed on the empty exit of the trail. Every second that passed, he told himself that she could have stopped somewhere. She could be taking it slow. She might have decided to sit down for a while and avoid coming back. There were a thousand logical conclusions to how long it was taking, but it did not stop the string attached to his rib-cage from tugging at him, telling him something was wrong. 

He shut his eyes. Clairvoyance was not a gift he often used; the one thing that was not out of his control since the accident. It came and went, occasional images, flashes of future or possible futures on his eyelids. He rarely sought it out, because the future was a dangerous thing to know. But now he found himself seeking out one person in particular with it, mind falling along the well known trail he had taken. He flew along it finding nothing, nothing, then. A riderless horse. He recognized it as the one that Addie had taken. It took only a glimpse of dark hair before his eyes were open again and he walking. No, he was running. He couldn’t remember the last time he had truly ran, but he stretched his legs to their limit, racing towards the exit of the trail. 

It was a solid five minutes of dead sprint later that he came to a skidding, panting halt at Addie’s side. Black spots danced in his vision. She was dead. Blood spilled everywhere and the world around him dimmed to black and white. He was burning, everything was burning hot and he couldn’t breathe for the stench of blood. He was gasping at desperate intakes of breath, but none of them seemed to be drawing oxygen to his blood. There was too much death in the air, screaming and gunshots in his head. 

No. It was a breathing body in front of him. A breathing, bleeding body. He reached for his medical bag but his hand came up empty. His hand came up bloody. No, no. There was no blood there, not yet. There was blood on Addie’s head, and he tore off the flannel shirt he was wearing to press against her hair, trying to remind himself that a head injury did not have to be fatal. They bled so much, but that did not mean the same thing as dead. A familiar twisting sensation coiled in his gut and he bit down on his lip until he tasted blood because he could not throw up here. She wasn’t dead yet. He had to keep repeating that to himself, he would not allow himself to fall into the past, not now. 

Somewhere inside of him, the doctor clicked into place. He couldn’t be Alex at the moment, he had to be something else. “Addie, Addie, I need you to wake up.” He couldn’t see any other injuries, and he hoped there was nothing hidden. He didn’t dare to move her until she was awake. He laid a hand against her face, eyes shutting and grimacing at what he had to do. He delved into her mind, reaching out to drag her back into the waking world. 

Through her peripheral vision, she saw him rolling down his sleeves which had to be another reaction to the fact that she had zeroed in on his forearms when she caught sight of him. While she had only been in his company two times before this, not a single moment of those two encounters had been this uncomfortable. He wasn’t looking at her despite the fact that she was now at least trying to redirect their conversation to a more usual route for the two of them.

The longer she stood there in front of him, the more she was getting from Alex. Not just how he was feeling, but what he was thinking. It was very general and mostly a continuation of the colors she saw coming off of him, but it was there. Woman. Undeserving. Sleeves. She wanted to step toward him, to apologize for throwing this wrench into their getting to know each other. On the other side of things, she didn’t want to change the way she had felt when she saw him. She had felt it so there was no use trying to deny that; that would only make things more complicated and that was unnecessary. She had never been the kind of woman to make things unnecessarily complicated and she wasn’t about to start now. Nodding at his statement, she offered her understanding, “so, no ride?”

They were both over thinking at this point and it was showing. She took a deep breath and exhaled, shrugging. “I know you…heard all that. So, just to…clear the confusion, I meant it.” And with that, she turned toward the stables to get one of the horses ready for the trail, all the while, the hope of him joining her on the trail floating through the air toward Alex.

The stables were a barn over from where she had walked in on Alex moving the hay bales so she could still feel him despite no longer being able to see him. Stepping inside the second barn, she was greeting with a few snorts and one whiney. They had gotten fed but it was creeping up to the early afternoon; they’d be getting a second round of hay in a few hours. She nodded and offered a simple “hello” to the farm hand who looked like he was cleaning saddles off to the side. 

After a solid ten minutes, she had managed to get one of the trail horses saddled up and ready to go. She had done this dozens of times, both on her own and with Cass. She was familiar enough to know how to properly get a horse ready for riding and she knew the pieces of the saddle to check before she climbed on. Walking the horse to the outside, she glanced to the left to the other barn and she felt those thoughts creep back in. With a shake of her head, she put her left foot into the stirrup and swung her right leg over. The horse shook her own head as she started toward the trail; the horses knew the drill by this point and for that, Addie was grateful. With everything occupying her headspace right now, she wasn’t ready to have to make choices about which trail to take; the horse would do that for them. 

Thoughts were pouring off of her in loud, vivid colors. They mixed and twisted, and Alex caught in the confusing mess of it, trying to pretend that he didn’t hear it all. He didn’t think he was doing a very good job of it, considering. It was just so...unexpected. People did not look at him like this. There had been moments in college, of course. Even a few dates. But at that point he had still be sane, still kept up at least a little with appearance. He’d always been clean shaven and kept his hair neat, his clothes pressed and clean. Nothing like the way he had let himself go now. 

It was clear that Addie liked broken things. She had to. He still didn’t think she realized just how broken he was, but she knew that he was at least not entirely whole, and yet here she was, seeking him out yet again. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her, even when the thought came up in her mind. He couldn’t, just yet. He hadn’t sorted out his thoughts on the matter yet, which meant he wasn’t sure how to look at her. Looking felt dangerous at the moment, because he might see a girl instead of just another person, and he had spent the past several years of his life seeing humans in nothing but a medical context. 

He did look up with a hitch in his breath when he realized that she was picking up more than just emotions from him. They were not touching. There was quite a bit of space between them, in fact. He did not understand this connection they had, and it was beginning to worry him. Something had started out stringing them together like a spiderweb, all thing and fragile and breakable. But now it had turned into a thread. Still breakable, still nothing that would hurt too badly should it be broken, but he feared if it was left, it would only grow more and more. Then, if it were to be broken, he thought they both might feel the effect of it very strongly. And maybe this was it. Maybe the truth wasn’t that all of his resistance had been for her sake, to protect her. Maybe it was because he knew that eventually she would grow bored of the shiny new toy and move on, just as he allowed himself to believe he had someone in his life once more. He was tired of hurting. He did not want to invite more of it into his life. Everything good he thought he got turned rotten in his hands, so maybe it was him, but it was consistent. He did not want her to rot, both for his sake and for hers. He swallowed, and shook his head. 

Again, he swallowed. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. He let her walk away. She was colored in truth, so he couldn’t say that she was lying for some reason, not when he could see inside of her mind. His skin felt electric. She wanted him to follow, he knew, she almost expected him to. He was left standing in place, no movement to follow or go back to work for several minutes as his already scrambled brain attempted to sift through what had just happened. 

Now, though, her back still facing Alex, she could feel his confusion with her thoughts. She didn’t know how to erase the ones that had entered her head. He was going to see them; there was no way around that. She could only hope he just continued to be confused by the fact that she found him attractive. Hell, she certainly confused as to how he had gone from one to the other. She had only really taken into consideration that he would be a friend, another empath that she could talk to when the colors got too strong or too bright. But now, she wasn’t so sure that was the case. 

She pivoted back toward him when he asked if she needed help or if he should keep working. She half shrugged as she tried to keep her eyes on his but she was struggling. His forearms were distracting and she was desperate for anything to keep herself from looking like even more of an idiot than she already was. “Nice flannel.” Nice flannel. NICE FLANNEL. She was smacking herself mentally for that comment now. 

“I, ah, was just going to go for a ride. So, if you wanted to join me, I could saddle up on of the other trail horses for you? You look like you’ve been on a horse before…am I right? A break from the…heavy lifting might be nice.” The words she spoke come out a bit more fluid this time despite the fact that she was still trying to keep her line of sight at eye level with him. It was so unlike her to get to the point of being flustered that she lost her words but it had just happened a moment ago and her foundation was crumbling. Thankfully, she was able to pull herself back together and actually attempt a normal conversation. Well, as close to normal as these two got.

Alex started coughing. She’d caught him so by surprise, that he had sucked in air wrong, somehow. Attractive. The word rattled loosely around his brain, like he was trying to discover the meaning of it. Maybe he was. Because it could not be what she was thinking now, though the thoughts rolled off of her in heavy, reluctant red waves. He knew she wanted to erase them, block them away from him, and he didn’t know if it was because she didn’t want to feel that way, or just because she didn’t want him to know she felt that way. Did it matter? 

He finished tugging his sleeves back down. It was still chilly enough that even having been working, it was not uncomfortable to have them back down. A little sticky, sure, but he had dealt with worse. He did not want to hear her thoughts as she considered what she wanted from him. He’d thought he wanted to know, but not like this. He was not suited to wading through these things. He hadn’t even thought to consider Addie in that way; he had hardly acknowledged the fact in his mind that she was a woman. He didn’t think he was going to stop thinking about it now, and now she was not the only one avoiding eye contact. He couldn’t stop asking himself what she saw about him. He was messy and unkempt, and currently, dirty. He did not deserve the way she was thinking about him. 

He was getting warm around the neck. He would give anything to move away from this line of thoughts, but he had a bad feeling they had fixed themselves into a circle of it and something would have to be done in order to break out. He tugged lightly at his sleeves once more, glancing over the red and while flannel shirt he had chosen for the day. He was never going to view it the same. “Thank you.” It was more of a mumble than anything, eyes turned to the ground rather than her. Now it did feel too warm to have the shirt sleeves pulled down, but there was no chance he would push them back up. 

Even now, her hands clenching the steering wheel of her small battered civic, she was thinking about whether or not a photo of a barn cat and her kittens or a newer horse would be best to send when she arrived. She had considered, on more than on occasion, that she was pushing it. She was crossing a line with texting so often without a response. And yet, every time she convinced herself that she was being a bit too pushy, she somehow ended up sending a photo any way. Oscar needed to be appreciated. That was what she was telling herself, anyway, but even that was getting old.

Addie saw the yellow before she had even stopped her car. She slid the car to a halt and reached for her jacket, all the while, keeping her eye on the barn door that the soft waves were pulsing from. Alex was here? There was a slight shift as the yellow started to bleed into a teal blue. Flight? Fear? Whatever it was, Alex knew she was here, now, too. Sighing, at herself mostly, she pushed her door open and climbed out. It was warmer than it had been the past few days, pushing fifty. Fifty in January was remarkable and it was the perfect excuse to get out of the apartment and out of the heart of the city. And now, she had another opportunity to talk to him. She just wanted to be his friend, to spend time with him. 

She walked toward the teal, hoping it would dissipate. And while the teal faded slightly, it was replaced by cerise, a color Alex had put in her head a while back. But cerise clearly meant something different to Alex. Now, it seemed matter-of-fact. When she rounded the side of the bar, coming to stop in front of the open double doors, she had nearly opened her mouth to say something about Alex following her around but she was stopped her in tracks. Long hair falling into his face, sweat dripping down the side of his face, forearms bare under sleeves that had been rolled up. Shit. She immediately tried to focus on anything but those thoughts; thankfully, Alex offered the fact that Cass wasn’t around.

Addie nodded, throwing her thumb over her shoulder. “I…uh, yeah…she’s, she’ll be back later. I was just…going to go for a ride. It’s nice out.” She turned, looking toward Cass’ house because she knew she wasn’t doing any sort of job keeping her fact straight. Oh my God. Eloquent Addie, eloquent.

She had come seeking him. Not to the stables themselves, persay, but once she had felt him there, she had sought him out. He kept forgetting that when it came to Addie, he was not alone in his powers. She could feel his presence just as surely as he could sense hers. Maybe it was because he spent enough time with Cass, who was quiet about her powers, who kept them to herself and rarely opened the borders of her mind.  He caught himself thinking that all other empaths were able to shut things out and did so regularly. He did believe that Addie was capable of doing so, but she had never been taught. Or she had never tried. Even he had been able to, before. 

He might have offered to teach her, if that wouldn’t encourage....whatever it was she wanted from him. That was another thing he couldn’t grasp. She kept pushing, kept seeking him out, texting him, but why. What was it she could want from someone like him? She said that she wanted to help, but nobody really did something without wanting something in return. Even subconsciously, there was always an other desire. There were plenty of ideas. Ranging from her not being liked to be told no, to her thinking that she could learn something from him. She could learn what not to do, that was for sure. He didn’t think he had anything else that he could coherently give her. 

It was hard to think about, with her standing there. She was colored orange with surprise, though it was and wasn’t from seeing him. She had known he was here, it was how he looked. He was piecing through her thoughts now, working on making sense of them. His appearance spiraled through his head, and he glanced down at himself. He needed a haircut and he needed a shower, and clearly she felt the same way. He finished carrying the bale in his hands to the opposite side of the barn, tossing it up on top of one of the stacks. He started rolling down the sleeves of his shirt, finding himself strangely self-conscious of his appearance. 

She was spiraling again. She was nervous, and seemed to have something to do with looking at him, and the pieces were not connecting in his mind. He shoved his hands into his pockets, thumbs hooking through belt loops. He nodded. He didn’t know what she wanted from him, here in this moment. “Help necessary, or is it best to remain in work?” He questioned, mostly to get past whatever moment this was. 

As hard as he tried, he could not stop thinking of Addie. Nobody in his life had ever stuck like this, and he didn’t know if it was him or her, or if there really was some odd connection between the two of them. He did know that the purple still lingered in his apartment, and every time he touched the counter where she had set her things down, he caught a glimpse of a memory of her standing there. Every time he rubbed his hands together, he couldn’t forget the feel of her fingers between his. It was easy to tell himself that he just wanted the silence that she was able to give. Someone living a life as loud as his searched for any form of peace. 

But it was more than that. There was something specific about her that he was yet to understand. So instead, he worked. He kept working, pushing himself a little harder every day, like the physical could eventually bleed into the mental and make him stop. For once, he did not look forward to going to the stables. Without the thoughts of others to fill up his mind and take up the empty space, he was left with only himself and the dim murmurs that occasionally drifted across the fields. He had taken his time, raking, mowing, carrying sacks of feed from a truck to the stables themselves. 

The last project of the day came down to hauling hay bales from one side of the over-sized barn to the other, making room for something. He rarely asked for the purpose of anything, only grateful for the work. Then he felt her. It wasn’t a physical thing, when he straightened and looked around, there was no sign of her. But Alex knew that Addie had arrived at the stables. He considered leaving. There was still work to do, though, and it was rare that anyone came into this barn. He kept working, nearly halfway through when the fresh scent of leaves and wind and incense swept across the barn. Purple filtered on around him and he stood with the square bale he was holding still suspended in his arms. He could feel sweat dripping down his back, thinking that maybe this was for the best. Let her see him in honest truth, nothing glamorous. 

She was standing in open double doors and Alex allowed himself a moment of eye contact. He tried and failed to find good words, and instead nodded in greeting. “Your friend is absent.” He could assume that she was here to see Cass, hope that she would leave it at that. 

And then, Oscar was gone, poof, into thin air. Suddenly from behind her, there was a sharp meow and she turned slowly, her arms now crossed in front of her. “Real mature.” He had started doing that when he came back in the gray tabby form; apparently, even familiars could get powers if they served their witches well. She opted, this time, to send a photo as apparently, a video was too much to ask for.

[Text message to Alex; Thursday, 8:38 p.m.] I tried to take a video of Oscar when I got home because he was being particularly cute but he wasn’t having it. So, you’ll have to settle for this still life of my asshole cat who doesn’t really fit in this part of his cat tower but still tries to make himself fit. (Photo.)

Text message to Alex; Thursday, 8:38 p.m.] I hope you had a good day at work if you were out. It was a little chilly. 

There was something oddly domestic, about these text messages. He had done it himself, he knew. In replying to her, he had assured her that he was actually reading all of her texts in the first place. He’d given her false hope, so to speak. He found himself perched on the edge of his couch for an undetermined amount of time, staring at the small square screen of his phone and feeling his head sink a little lower with every passing second. He wanted to know why Addie had latched onto him so quickly, so thoroughly (as if he didn’t already know). He wanted to know if there was a way to effectively warn her off (he didn’t think there was). 

–

Brushing her hair from her face, she shoved the change into her pocket with her free hand. Then, she accepted her tea from the barista at the counter who handed it to her with a smile. Mornings were not Addie’s time of day, at least not recently. She had, at one time, loved mornings. But that had been before she moved to the city. The hustle and bustle wasn’t really for her. She knew, someday, she’d be living closer to the outskirts of town, like Cass. She liked the wide open spaces, the cleaner air, the clouds in the sky that you could really see for miles. As she stirred the sugar into her tea, she slipped her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and snapped a photo.

[Text message to Alex; Thursday, 08:04 a.m.] I’m not a morning person recently but your tea photo (in a yellow mug, I might add) from last night has inspired me to give it a go again. Alright, World, I’m ready for the good stuff ~ (Photo.)

Alex had expected to get a flurry of demanding texts after the photo he sent, but the phone stayed silent. Maybe all it took was replying to one of them. He thought it was possible (though not likely) that Addie had just wanted to prove she could get to him. It didn’t line up with her thoughts or feelings, but he would come up with reasons and excuses, anyway. He told himself that this was a good thing and he went to bed. After about another hour of sleeplessly staring at the ceiling, he fell asleep. He was up in the morning before the sun, walking to work as it was rising with a fresh cup of coffee. His day to keep things up at the stables, meaning that he could be more relaxed, though he was doing his best not to think about the fact that he had been stupid enough to reply to Addie’s text. 

[Text message to Alex; Wednesday, 9:43 a.m.] He’s starting to take this personally, which should honestly scare you. (Photo.)

[Text message to Alex; Wednesday, 10:21 p.m.] Honestly, just tell him he’s cute before he has an aneurism. Kthankshaveagoodnightbye. <3 (Photo.)

Through a great force of will, Alex did not look at the first text. He told himself that he was going to stop looking at any of them, that they would do nothing but make him want things that he couldn’t have. His phone felt heavier most of the day for it, his work distracted as he did everything he could to not think about the notification that had popped up on his screen that morning. He worked late and went to bed early, but he did not sleep. Half an hour after lying down, he got up again and went to his kitchen instead, rustling around until he found an old box of tea that he didn’t remember buying. By the time he had water beginning to steam in a pot, his phone buzzed again. This time, he did not have the will to ignore it, and his phone flicked open, glancing over both of the photos and struggling against a smile. In a moment of weakness, he poured his tea and snapped a picture. 

[Text message to Addie; Wednesday, 10:32 p.m.]

[Text message to Alex; Tuesday, 9:02 a.m.] Title: Model: Oscar, time: 9:00 a.m., my bedroom (Photo.)

[Text message to Alex; Tuesday, 6:58 p.m.] I might have been pushy but Oscar did nothing to be ignored…except be ridiculously good looking. (Photo.)

[Text message to Alex; Monday, 5:15 p.m.] Oscar is upset that you haven’t texted to say hello. (photo)

[Text message to Alex; Monday, 5:16 p.m.] He feels neglected and is now seeking excessive attention. (photo)

“I can only hear what they tell me, not read their thoughts…” Nova admitted. “I wish I could though. Just imagine what they’d be thinking about.” Although sometimes, if he listened hard enough, he could barely hear the whispers the flora around him only meant for their own. He, of course, couldn’t understand what it all meant and eventually wrote it off as yet another thing he was honored to be privy to, but not privileged enough to comprehend. And that was fine. He was fine. “For what I can hear though - their requests are quite simple.” He chuckled a bit. For as much as plants could overpower him if they wanted, they still couldn’t escape their most basic needs. “The plants in my shop compete with each other and try to win extra fertilizer from me. Bushes get annoyed if I stand too long in front of them and block their sun when I’m walking through the park. Some flowers lament their fate of sitting on a window sill their whole entire lives. Others wait for the day they are picked and made a wish upon. I could go on and on about the things I’ve heard, but I wouldn’t want to bore you…” That had definitely happened before, and he knew to stop himself before he got too far ahead.

Alex nodded. She was finally understanding the point of it, even if she didn’t seem to be completely sold on the idea of green, yet. Oddly enough, she looked more pleased with the idea of the grey. Almost like she had expected as much. But there was no telling. Only tendrils of thoughts or feelings ever slipped out of her clouds, wisps that didn’t last long enough for him to understand. He nodded. “Clouds. Made by the wearer.” That much he could tell. She was the one making sure that nothing got in or out, though that was something he was grateful for. It made him feel normal, for once. Having a conversation with someone without wondering if they were speaking or thinking. His eyes fell down to the counter out of habit, hands wrapping around the coffee mug she’d given him. The idea of a friend was so foreign, he didn’t know what to make of it. Finally, he nodded. “Not lacking now. There are dandelions breaking through the sidewalk.” 

Please don’t listen, it’s so dark in here.

What was the most difficult thing when they started to meld in this way was that she wasn’t trying to listen to his thoughts. It was the same struggle she found with her own abilities; she wasn’t trying to feel other people’s emotions. It just happened. He had to know that was how this worked, too. And yet, he was still asking. She shook her head in apology as she took a deep breath and pushed herself to stand. “You say madness. I say…I don’t know what I say?” She was getting overwhelmed with her own emotions. Her words were stuck on her tongue and she couldn’t put them into a coherent thought. He had pegged her as childish earlier and now, it was really starting to show. This had not been how she wanted this meeting to go. She had expected a nice, albeit, short, conversation and then she’d text him later and he’d actually respond. She could tell that this was not the way it was going to end.

Her chest was tight in an uncomfortable way and not because of things she had heard in his head or the darkness he was so worried about her being swallowed by. Her chest was tight because he hadn’t given her the opportunity to even try. The more she stood there, the more stupid she felt and she felt bad for feeling that way. This was what she had been talking about with Jack the other night – the fact that she spiraled with her emotions sometimes. It got exhausting, especially because a half an hour from now, she would be back in her apartment, smacking herself for this. Hindsight, and all.

“I’ll…I’ll text you, okay?” Her voice was more settled, despite the buzzing in her chest. She took a few steps toward the door and glanced down at him as she stepped past him. Because stubborn always wins. She had to stop herself from reaching out to touch his shoulder. Just one more try. No. Addie turned to walk backwards, as she had that first day, taking a few more steps toward the door. “You…should text me back when I do, yeah?”

“Better does not mean good.” Alex shuffled back at her, just as quickly. He knew she was stalling. The idea of leaving set against who she was at her core, he could feel that too. But she was making ready to do so anyway, because he had asked her to. It wasn’t because she understood why, she was still spinning reasons for him to have to want her gone. The fact that nobody else had ever tried was there, yes. It made this setting strange and out of sorts for him, but it was not the reason for him pushing her away. It was because neither of them deserved this. He did not deserve anything good in his life because of the things he had done (or not done) and she did not come close to deserving the kind of horrors he could accidentally show her. 

“Difference between hearing and listening. Seeing and looking. Don’t look.” He didn’t think she would even know how to go looking, if this was not one of her powers. She didn’t have enough practice to know how to navigate a mind, but sometimes lack of discipline was more dangerous when it came to these things. There was no telling what she might stumble on just wandering in search of answers, because someone like her would inevitably go searching for answers to some of her many questions. “Words get lost,” Alex supplied, in mournful understanding. It was an every sentence sort of thing for him, so he knew the pain of it. There were few things more frustrating than a word running away, though apparently he was one of them. He knew he wasn’t giving her what she wanted, but he was not the person she thought he was, either. 

Nothing had been lost in translation. Was it even a self-confidence matter at this point? It seemed to run so much deeper than that. He was struggling on every front and no one had ever tried to help him. He seemed almost awestruck at her offers to help and be there for him, as if he had never been offered that before. It wasn’t pity that washed over her but an earnest want to show him what friendship could really be. 

Addie focused as he seemed to slip; she could hear it it now much more than his flickering colors ever had showed her. Keeping himself from falling off the edge was more than just a behind the scenes task. It was a wonder he could still even function. He was trying to pull himself back, focusing instead on her words and she nodded in agreement with him. “Amethyst is more than just purple but you know what I was trying to say. I’m just…not as eloquent as you are…” The tears that still fell were threatening to shatter her but she was here. She was going to be here.

Then, the space around them changed. Not only could she feel it, but she could hear his thought process. She tried her hardest to will him not to, but he had said it. Please go. Her muscles tightened, especially in her hands, around his, and she simply nodded. “I’ll go…for now.” For now. She wasn’t going to just drop this, or him. “For now.” She didn’t let go just yet but she knew she was going to have to. One hand pulled back. Then the other. And the colors from the other spaces came filtering back in. She hated to think she had just left him with the words and colors again. She took a deep breath and settled her eyes on him, making sure that he had really meant it before she stood up. 

The barriers between them were eroding more with every second of skin contact spent. He couldn’t say who it was causing it, her or him, or the dangerous combination of both of them together. They were no longer two separate minds, his thoughts were hers and visa versa, and it was such an odd thing to be a part of, he didn’t pull away immediately this time. She was going to leave soon anyway. “Cerise.” He muttered quietly, as he picked up on the smug rightness coming off of her, filling up her thoughts and coloring her a rich pink. It wasn’t necessarily a bad look on her, but it smelled too sweet for his taste. Please don’t listen, it’s so dark in here. His head was bowed, eyes shut as he thought it hard enough that he knew she would hear. 

He didn’t think she realized how easy it would be for him to give in. He was tired of fighting, tired of being alone. But this was the life he had chosen for himself, he had made his bed, so to speak, and now he had to lie in it. There had been people here and there to offer help, ending at an offer. Nobody as stubborn and determined as Addie, though. People took one look at him and wrote him off as a lost cause, because they were able to see the truth. Addie though, he didn’t know if she was just to dense to see it, or if she just didn’t want to. That was the part he couldn’t figure out, even if they were connected like this. 

“Knowledge does not equate agreeing. Roots dig deep and branches reach high, and there is no simplicity in the pain of growing. Each ring proves a lesson learned.” He dipped his head once more. This was helping, somehow. Putting his focus on her instead of himself. He wanted, needed her to know that she was far from simplistic. He didn’t know if that would help his case with convincing her to go in the long run, but she did not deserve to think so little of herself. “Poetry and eloquence don’t always hold hands and should not be substituted for one another. Broken words and sentences assemble themselves into nonsense and the madness is called eloquence when it should be known as....” again, the word he was searching for escaped. He searched, but it had run off into the recesses of his mind, to make a reappearance sometime in the middle of the night. He shrugged. “Madness.” 

She was fighting him as much as he was fighting her, and he felt a certain amount of pride in himself that he was able to overcome the urge not to, and accomplish his own goal. For now. Those two words held so much foreboding, and he tried to not allow himself to be relieved at their presence. It needed to be for good. But he didn’t say it. She would hear it, he knew that now, and that was even more dangerous. Her hands dropped away from him, without any fight on his part, even if he wanted to hold on. He had thought the outside world would come back in a slow fade, but it hit him like a brick wall, and he bent his head for a moment to learn how to bear it again. It didn’t get better as time passed, the noise only grew. Colors mixed around him, turning to such a blur he couldn’t pick them apart. 

She felt him break when she finally touched him and all she wanted to do was keep that relief steady. She could see the creamy orange rushing off of him in massive, large waves. It was the response to her touch; she expected it to slow, for some reason, but it kept coming. She didn’t move, not even for a second; as he sat there, tears continuing to steam down his face. She felt the worry creep in, wondering for half a second if she was hurting him, somehow. But Addie knew what the colors meant – the creamed orange meant relief and that was a good thing.

Even though the tears, he was undeniably handsome. His eyes fluttered open to a blue she had never seen before and she felt her breath catch in her chest. Her fingers lingered for just a moment too long; that seemed to be the new normal when it came to Alex. “You don’t have to be whole, Alex. You just have to be you.” He seemed fixated on that fact: used to be whole. As if he wasn’t enough just as he was. He was complex, intelligent, and poetic, things that Addie had never been, not really. Complexity was not a word one would ever use to describe her. She was smart, yes. But smart and intelligent were two very different things, just as royal purple and amethyst purple were two very different colors. She had never been poetic; always writing as she spoke and never speaking eloquently. 

The way his hands shook in hers, even with the support she was providing, had her chest heavy with worry again. Then, she understood why he was shaking. No place for light here. Her heart sank into her chest and she nodded, but then she smiled. “Alex…” her eyes flicked up to meet his, his face still stained with tears. She scoffed, reaching forward to brush more tears away. “I’m going to play semantics with you, right now, like a child. Because you didn’t tell me to go just now. You said there’s no place for light.” She tightened her grip on his hands again and then brought her other hand to rest on his knee. “Stubborn always wins. You’ll learn eventually.” 

How was he supposed to argue with fate? He didn’t believe in it himself, sometimes a meeting was just a meeting and coincidences happened all the time. That didn’t make it easier to argue with someone who did believe in fate, and even him in all his disbelief couldn’t deny that there was something about this. Something about her. It felt right. It felt like this was where they were supposed to be. How was he supposed to build an argument about that? It was not pity that drove her to him, that he could fight. He had no weapons for this, though. His hands were as empty and helpless as they had ever been. 

He could breathe again. Like he had been holding this breath all his life, and now it let out in a great gasp of orange. She didn’t directly hear him, not yet, which meant he wouldn’t force himself out of it yet. He was so tired of fighting, and this was rest. Caroline was rest. Then a thought flickered through his mind that had to be the most surprising thing he had heard from...anyone. Eyes swept down in response, thinking he must have heard something wrong. He was out of tune, he was jumbled, except hers was the only voice inside his head besides his own. The idea of her seeing anything like that in him, with his shaggy hair and untrimmed face, clothes full of holes, it was unrealistic. Something had been lost in translation, he decided. 

“Bits, pieces, memories, I don’t know what he is anymore.” He had told himself he was done, but again his face fell to pieces. He was fading back into nonsense, and this was exactly what he didn’t want her here for. He wouldn’t even know where to begin when it came to being himself. He had been lost somewhere in that place. Left behind in the sand, or the prison, or the fort. Stitched into broken bodies and folded flags. Fingers curled around Addie’s, trying to use her strength to drag himself back away from there. He didn’t want to go there, not now. He looked up at her again, listening to her thoughts to keep from hearing his own. He shook his head. “Amethyst holds more colors than purple and poetry is nothing but lies we tell ourselves to make tragic things seem beautiful.” 

Again, his eyes shut. Her fingers were a feather touch on his face, and he’d face the shame of a thousand more tears to feel them there. He deserved to be called a child, he supposed, after he had called her as much. He steadied himself all over again, grateful for the grip she had on him. It felt wrong to take her strength for this, but wasn’t it better to hurt her a little now to avoid worse pain in the future? He had taken a vow to do no harm, but what did that mean when facing two evils? “Please go.” He whispered the words. It would be too easy to take them back. Too easy to let this become normal. Easy enough that he had to do what he could now to stop it, before she had a stronger hold on him. 

When Alex turned to face her, she knew she had struck a chord. He had been making every effort to keep his body away from hers physically but he had just completely thrown that away to get his point across. The only thing was, she was far more stubborn than he was and she didn’t give up that easily. His slow words accompanied by his shaking hands drew her closer, her knees nearly touching his now. “You listen. Because I know you have been. And you tell me if you think I’m just going to listen.” And then, she reached out. Despite the fact that she knew he would probably pull away; despite the fact that he had just told her not to try to tether him. Her hands rested over his in an attempt to stop them from shaking. Her warm fingers curled around his hands softly and she drew in a long, slow breath, and then exhaled. 

Everything stopped.

It was ridiculous. And cliché and a dozen other words like it. But it was true. She felt the shift in the room and there was no way he hadn’t, too. The colors from his neighbors weren’t bleeding through the walls; the emotions from passersby on the street weren’t wafting into her head. Then came the tears, oh, the tears. She shook her head, unsure of what to actually do to help him in this moment. Had she made him cry? She was so focused on helping and trying to be a good friend; but had she just pushed him to that? She instinctively reached forward with one hand and brushed the tears from the left side of his face, then the right. “Alex.” She squeezed his hands in hers once. “If you tell me to go right now, I will.” Her thumb brushed across the top of his hand, “but please don’t.”

Alex didn’t bother to even try to look away from her. There was no point. He was stuck on this moment, on her, on all the silence that spoke volumes between them. She swirled with red and grey and sharp blue, and he wanted to fix it. She hadn’t looked like that when she’d arrived. She had been all her soft purple curls, it was only though talking to him that she twisted into other colors and her branches grew thorns. He had done this to her, just because she was trying to help, and it was exactly why she needed better than him. 

She was close enough to touch now. He had been wondering since meeting her the first time if he remembered correctly; if she had really shut out the noise. He had never found anyone who could do that, and he didn’t think she was trying. She had been trying to comfort, yes, but she hadn’t even known enough to set up shields around his mind. She didn’t even put shields around her own mind. She was too busy arguing with him, telling him what he already knew but was doing his best not to admit to. He knew that she wouldn’t listen, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to keep trying. It was written all in her leaves, far too much softness to ever give up on someone so easily. “Don’t want to hurt you.” He tried one last time, pleadingly. 

He jolted when she finally touched him. He had seen her hands coming, somewhere in his subconscious, but it hadn’t really registered until her hands were there, over his. He let out a ragged breath through his tears. Noise faded away, replaced with the soft rustle of wind through leaves and the gentle pleading of Addie’s mind. Another ragged breath. The tears were still coming, but now they were of pure relief, a weight off of his shoulders. He shut his eyes and grasped her hands, too weak to tell himself not to. He didn’t want to leave this moment, the only peace he had found in the past decade. 

His eyes opened again, feeling her fingers on his face. It was exactly the thing he should have expected from her, and his chest turned tight again. “Used to be whole.” He said, because he needed her to know that he hadn’t always been so pathetic. Maybe he had never been normal, but he had been whole. The vice around his chest continued to tighten. He had to tell her to go. It was right. She deserved that from him, and his mind tried to convince his mouth to say the words. His hands started to shake again, even with her holding them. “No place for light here.” He finally coerced himself into saying. He wanted, he wanted so badly to tell her to stay, but he couldn’t do that to her.