#justqueerious

It doesn’t cure it.

It doesn’t change what happened.

Quynh had so much she wanted to say. She wanted to scream, to shout. To shake Andromache, to shake all of them until the icy tears ran hot. She wanted to make demands, she wanted to throw them all overboard so they’d know. So that they’d feel the same pain, the same fear. The same terrible constant revival before it happened again and again.

The pain she’d suffered. All the horror she’d endured for five hundred years. Locked. Sealed.

But when she saw Andromache stepping from that car, near running when she spilled from the passenger side, and she felt her in her arms and that body sagging into her like she’d never left, every word, every horrible, awful thing died on Quynh’s tongue.

Andromache’s lips were the only thing that erased the bitter, soiled taste of salt that seemed permanently etched to her healing tongue.

Andromache’s arms dragged away the touches of cold that had never faded.

Even upon coming to land.

She can only speak a hairsbreadth of a second before she falls back into their kiss, Quynh hates how she shakes against her, hates how the moment she felt Andromache in her arms she melted.

You don’t deserve this! You don’t deserve my love again! Her mind screeches.

But oh, feeling her there, seeing her..

Quynh can feel the pain. She can feel it in the hammering of Andromache’s heart, the trembling of her own fingers that sink into Quynh’s long black hair.

I know..I don’t..I never gave up. I never stopped.

You were never just a memory.

You lived and breathed inside me and I hoped and hoped and I tried and-

They’ll have to talk,  they’ll have to. Being back together like this, it doesn’t make it all okay.

She knows, they know they both know.

But Quynh’s cheeks are wet, and so are Andromache’s and she doesn’t know where Andromache’s tears start and hers end. She doesn’t know in that moment how to feel anything but gripping, painful relief.

“Andromache..my..Andromache.”

Quynh just wants to rest. She just wants to feel safe.

Andromache’s arms are safe. They’re strong, her eyes blaze and brighten and soak with fresh tears and there’s no way to say how desperately she wants to just sink and feel loved and warm.

“Quynh, my Quynh..”

Tense, erratic, relieved happy laughter bubbles forth. It surprises Quynh with it’s sound. She cannot believe she could make such a noise again. And maybe she’s dreaming but Andromache’s fingers clutch just that side of too tight to be a subconscious hallucination.

Later, later complications may come. No, will come.

There’s inevitable pain, heartbreak, sorrow, all those to follow.

But they’ll be okay.

And in this moment, these seconds, these arms.