The kiss brings his pain from the fight the day earlier into sharp focus, but he doesn't shy away from it. Even that feels good in a way that has him sinking into her lips and pressing heavily into the hand on her back, so grateful to know what amount of force to use and how close he is to that line. He isn't naive, he knows he's hurt her a couple times, but she's the only one he trusted not to be too fragile, that he reached out for even when he was numb. It isn't a hardship to kiss her back, even with swollen lips and a hopelessly bruised up face. She's used to that by now, as much as he wishes he could insulate her from certain aspects of his nature - but the inherent violence shifting under his skin is what first drew them close. He thinks she has a version of it too, and maybe that's why he doesn't have any trouble being open with her the way he'd hesitated with Maria.
The pain is good, the pain means he's here, present with her at last. He pushes through it into her mouth until his lungs sting and breathing through his busted nose is labored. The second she pulls away to look into his eyes, he cheats and hugs her even tighter, pressing their temples together as he tries desperately to catch his breath. Soon he knows he'll have to move, and that will be its own separate awkwardness, but if she doesn't mind this for now than neither does he - and there's something satisfying about his body finally reacting to the world around him, even if it isn't so convenient at this exact moment.
"You'd know if I slept bad." His nightmares aren't subtle and he has them often enough that she'd know the difference. He doesn't dream about losing Maria anymore, but Karen. This tenuous thing they have stolen from him before he ever gets the chance to tell her he was wrong. Maybe that's what now is for, but he always manages to put it off. "I think... it helps me, too. When we stay like this." Sleep together, he means. He'd do it if it only helped her anyway, but knowing he has a better chance at nighttime peace is a good incentive.
With the back of her shirt still open to the air, one hand holding it up where he's holding her, his other hand alights on her side, traveling from her ribcage down to her hipbone and back up in a barely-there graze of callouses. He's so grateful he can feel it, the softness of her skin and every reaction, that he's not even thinking about how this could be seen as an escalation. He just needs to feel more of her before something is stolen from him again - before he can't anymore.
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The pain is good, the pain means he's here, present with her at last. He pushes through it into her mouth until his lungs sting and breathing through his busted nose is labored. The second she pulls away to look into his eyes, he cheats and hugs her even tighter, pressing their temples together as he tries desperately to catch his breath. Soon he knows he'll have to move, and that will be its own separate awkwardness, but if she doesn't mind this for now than neither does he - and there's something satisfying about his body finally reacting to the world around him, even if it isn't so convenient at this exact moment.
"You'd know if I slept bad." His nightmares aren't subtle and he has them often enough that she'd know the difference. He doesn't dream about losing Maria anymore, but Karen. This tenuous thing they have stolen from him before he ever gets the chance to tell her he was wrong. Maybe that's what now is for, but he always manages to put it off. "I think... it helps me, too. When we stay like this." Sleep together, he means. He'd do it if it only helped her anyway, but knowing he has a better chance at nighttime peace is a good incentive.
With the back of her shirt still open to the air, one hand holding it up where he's holding her, his other hand alights on her side, traveling from her ribcage down to her hipbone and back up in a barely-there graze of callouses. He's so grateful he can feel it, the softness of her skin and every reaction, that he's not even thinking about how this could be seen as an escalation. He just needs to feel more of her before something is stolen from him again - before he can't anymore.