#love.............

hold me.  /  accepting.  /  @islelight

Xion still flinches at touch, let alone on days like this.  It’s been a good day!!  Spent with someone Xion holds desperately dear.  But some nights she dreams of hands splitting her chest open and when the girl wakes she cannot imagine touch as anything but violence.  Even touch from one like Kairi — and she goes still and stiff when familiar arms wrap around her waist at the doorway.  The panic lasts only a moment and Kairi, noticing her distress, is already pulling away.

“Sorry —” she says.

“It’s okay,” Xion says, guilt in her throat.  Kairi releases her and Xion turns to look at her, head tilting; the light is dimming and the moonlight spilling in is a poor illuminator.  The single lit lamp is hardly any better.  Kairi’s expression is barely visible, an uneasy mix of embarrassment and — loneliness?  Xion can’t place it.  It’s hard for her to identify her own emotions, let alone another’s.

“Kairi?  What’s wrong?”  Xion wants to take her hands but the thought of contact makes her uneasy and she asks, again, “Kairi?”

“Do you — want to stay the night?” she asks, voice quiet, their eyes meeting.  Xion’s heart skips and she wonders why and knows why all at once.  “I just…have nightmares, sometimes, and I…”

That’s a familiar refrain.  It’s always easier with another body in the room or in the bed; she’s spent nights curled around Roxas or Lea, holding tight, trusting their presence to keep the dreams away.  Or at least to make them less devastating.

And while the idea of holding too tightly makes her skin tight and her heart erratic, it also comforts — a night free of nightmares, maybe, with one so close.  And more than that (  kairi will always be more than everything else  ) — she wants to help her.  She wants to make her happy.

??????????????????