Recognise || Heithan
Ethan found himself nodding and wished that he hadn’t. She was already hysterical. Did he really need to add to that. But he couldn’t stop his mouth from moving - some things never change. “I did. Heidi. I did.” That’s all he could say. Paul and Ben had spared him the details about what had happened, but he knew for sure that he had died. He watched her small chest rise and fall rapidly and he knew that she was about to fall into a panic attack. That was until his words finally sunk in. She recognized them immediately. The knife tumbled from her hand again and she held them empty hand up to Ethan. It felt like the two of them were hovering in the silence for hours. But slowly, he watched Heidi catch her breath.
Pressing both of her palms to the floor, she crawled her way to Ethan before getting to her feet. She was hesitant. It was as if she was afraid of touching him. It was like - if she touched him - he would disappear and she would be left alone all over again. But she finally did it. Her hand touched his face gently - letting her index finger run over the hollowness of his face. Her finger grazed over the slant of his nose and then found the fullness of his lips. He couldn’t help but smile. He was sure that she still didn’t believe that he was there. Sure. She could feel the skin on his bones and he could hear the beating of his heart, but that wouldn’t be enough. She would believe that this was a dream. He wasn’t real to her. Not yet.
"Heidi Elizabeth." He had fought himself for so long, keeping his hands off of her body. But his defence was breaking. He wasn’t sure how she would react to what he would do next, but he knew that he had to step up to the plate. "I told you I was going to Heaven. Where did you think that I meant? I’m not going anywhere without you." Taking a small step forward, Ethan’s left arm wrapped around Heidi’s waist and his right hand cupped her face - tilting it upwards so that his search for her lips was easy. He skipped any formalities that he usually would have taken when kissing her and, instead, kissed her with the longing he felt in his soul. He had been away from her for far too long and had only just realized the piece of him that was missing from his heart. His lips layered with and against her passionately and he used his arm to bring her as close to him as possible. There was no air and no room between the two of them, but he still wanted her closer. Closest just wasn’t close enough anymore.
The way his arm slithered round her waist, holding her waist so that his forearm was set closely to the middle of her spine and its hand was gripping to the opposite hip while the opposite hand, his right hand, was caressing her face as if she were a delicate flower ready to break. It was all so familiar and recognisably, the touch and feel of his arm, was the sole thing that Heidi remembered most. Ethan would always wind his arm around her like a vine and hold her face so gently, as if she were the very moon in his hands. Despite this, it still stung to be touched. This was just a ruse. A trick her mind was playing on her. Even the words he had spoken prior, which were true to what Ethan would have said couldn't sway her mind to believe that this really was him before her and not a figment of her imagination.
Then they were kissing. To say Heidi was taken aback would be an understatement and at first, she stood as still as a Bernini marble figure. But, even she couldn't deny the familiar sense of home that the fluidity of his lips laced with hers gave. It was as if he were painting the stars in the night sky and elongating the rays of the sun to warm her very core. This kiss was waking her up, making her alive as she always felt with Ethan. Tears started to fall from her closed eyes and in reaction, her hands shot up and took hold of the thin but firm neck and forcing it closer to her. The fire inside her was burning bright and it was like being a man who had gotten stranded in a forest and had finally come home.
Heidi felt her knees threaten to give out from the inundating sensation clouding her interior. Her mind was a mess, and after weeks of being a dark void, it was giving her a slight headache. Unwillingly, she broke away from his lips and proximity, but still kept close. Hands traveled to the bony shoulders while her head fell to the crook between his shoulder and chest - and in that moment, hearing the heartbeat from his chest that was fluttering rapidly like a machine working overtime to get to its destination and the slight rasping of his breath leave his chest, Heidi knew it was Ethan. She didn't know why she knew, she just did. Hands led her arms to wrap around his neck with her right hand caressing the curls at the crown of his head as she pulled him into her embrace, holding onto him as if he would deteriorate away into oblivion. Heidi still wasn't sure if this were real or just one of her lucid dreams, but with each passing second, she held tighter and tighter, not uttering a single word.














