Water laps at my waist, and I frantically search through my guilt for a solution. Okay, Falon, think. I need to snap him out of this in a way that doesn’t make him want to snap my neck. I reach for him again, my hands now shaky and unsure. I hesitate just before I connect with his hands. I don’t want to set him off even more by touching him in a way that could be more triggering. I think through the horrible things I know he’s been through and try to suss out a way I can touch him that isn’t going to make what he’s experiencing so much worse.
He’s been held down, held back, forced to watch and endure.
I decide not to try and touch his arms or shoulders. I don’t want him to think I’m just another soldier here to make him hurt.
Another pained whimper comes out of the massive male in front of me, and I fucking loathe that I have no idea what to do.
I bring my hands up, and before I can really think it through, I cup Zeph’s cheeks with my palms. He doesn’t react in any way that makes me think he can feel me, but his gryphon doesn’t appear and literally bite my head off either, so I go with it. I crawl over his frantic hands as they continue to scrub at his now bleeding skin until I’m settled firmly in his lap.
His eyes are still somewhere else, and I press my forehead and nose against his as I cradle his head and start to hum, my mouth centimeters away from his. He’s panting through whatever flashback he’s currently being forced to endure, but he breathes in my song each time he fills his lungs, and I decide to give whatever the fuck I’m doing time to hopefully draw him out a little.
I press my head against his firmly so he can feel me, but my touch isn’t demanding or cruel. The tips of my fingers edge his wet black hair, and the scruff of his new beard feels prickly against my palms. I stare at his haunted, scrunched eyes and just hum.
I have no idea what I’m even singing. The damage I’ve been doing to my throat over and over again doesn’t help to make the tune any more identifiable. I sound like Scuttle and a toad’s tone-deaf baby.
Gradually I fix my cracked and battered voice onto Radiohead’s “Creep.” I mellow it out, humming the Daniela Andrade cover of the song that I like to play on repeat when I’m feeling moody. I sing it on a loop against Zeph’s frenetic breaths, my face touching his and my hands holding him.
I feel his tense muscles slowly relax, but I don’t let myself celebrate. Nothing about this situation is worthy of any level of elation. He pulls in a deeper breath than the others that came before, and I go from humming to softly singing the words to my moody song choice. I try to picture the tune and lyrics seeping into him and helping to invite him out of the dread that’s consuming him.
Zeph’s hands stop moving behind me, the scrubbing coming to a stop as I tell him the musical tale of how I’m a weirdo. Surprise ricochets through me when I feel his large hands wrap around my waist and pull me tighter into him. I don’t miss a gravelly note as he inhales me and his clenched eyelids begin to smooth out.
My thumbs trace his cheek bones as I sing about wanting a perfect soul. His chest starts to move in time with mine, and then all at once, honey-kissed eyes are staring directly into mine. Pain bleeds out of his stare, so I just keep whisper-singing to him, my own eyes telling him that I’m here. That he’s safe and not back anywhere that could be causing the haunted look in his eyes.
We stay like this for a long time, me singing the same song over and over again as I sit in his lap and do my best to hold his fragile pieces together. I’m not sure how many hours separate when I first got here until now, but the water is warm and pressing lazily against us as his thumbs start to brush against my ribs in time with the languid beat of my borrowed tune.
I don’t ask him what happened or if he’s okay. They’re stupid questions I refuse to lend my splintered voice to. I can see it in his eyes and feel it in his body that he’s not ready to leave this moment yet. I’m in no rush; this is the least I can do. They’re my marks that are etched into his skin and terrorizing him, this trauma is on me.
I think that Wekun can probably do whatever my dad did to me and make them go away, but Zeph isn’t ready to hear any of that yet. So I wait patiently and start the song over for the hundredth time.
“You tried to break the mating?” Zeph suddenly asks me, his voice quiet and even.
I stop my song and immediately feel the peace it brought slip through my fingers.
“I did,” I admit, my thumbs going still on his cheeks.
He doesn’t say anything, and my confession floats around us, slinking in and out of the silence that settles between us.
“The Ouphe enslaved my people,” he tells me, his face hard, but his eyes beseeching like what he’s saying isn’t easy for him.
“I know.”
“I’m covered in their magic.”
“Yes, you are.”
He pauses for a minute, and I see unmasked vulnerability flicker in his eyes. “I don’t know how to live with that.”
His confession soaks into me, and I nod my head in understanding. “You have two choices then,” I start, my eyes flitting back and forth between his, our faces still pressed together like we’re telling secrets. “We either figure out how to get rid
