[brown eyes meet hers, and Emily feels cut open, a living dissection subject, the air so painfully cold. she wants and she does not want, she feels and she cannot feel, it's her own hands feeding herself into the fire. the storm never ended, it just carried on inside her head. it's always there, it's engraved in every corpse she left. it's a madwoman's keening like the banshee on the moors, unable to bring herself to stop because there is too, too much inside of her to close the door when perhaps she should.
how do you want, when you've mastered crushing desire into dust under your heel? she can't bear to have her here, leaving her open to the elements. she cannot make herself command her away, because she doesn't know if she wants to be alone.]
I don't know...I don't.
[and as she breaks eye contact to try to breathe, Andy will probably understand the emotion that grips her, bends her posture, twists her expression. shame, coursing through her like so many strings pulled taut. shame, that someone sees this. someone she's supposed to be protecting, nurturing, shielding from this. that's her role, to let them brace themselves on her, a foundation when they crumple.
even as she wants to shrink, to disappear, she manages one thing. to move her hand, and place it over one of Andy's on the arm of the chair. every part of her is tense, but it's not trying to remove her. it's the desperate reaching out of someone trying to find a lifeline, to not drown by. breathing, stuttered in the tell-tale way of someone trying not to cry, to not panic.
she looks up at her, and has to look away again, unable to bear it. she'll weep, if she has to face that piercing gaze for too long. tries to speak, cannot. tries again, and her voice is a whisper, at risk of disappearing.]
...help me, Andy, please.
[if she was asked what she meant, she wouldn't know how to answer.]
no subject
how do you want, when you've mastered crushing desire into dust under your heel? she can't bear to have her here, leaving her open to the elements. she cannot make herself command her away, because she doesn't know if she wants to be alone.]
I don't know...I don't.
[and as she breaks eye contact to try to breathe, Andy will probably understand the emotion that grips her, bends her posture, twists her expression. shame, coursing through her like so many strings pulled taut. shame, that someone sees this. someone she's supposed to be protecting, nurturing, shielding from this. that's her role, to let them brace themselves on her, a foundation when they crumple.
even as she wants to shrink, to disappear, she manages one thing. to move her hand, and place it over one of Andy's on the arm of the chair. every part of her is tense, but it's not trying to remove her. it's the desperate reaching out of someone trying to find a lifeline, to not drown by. breathing, stuttered in the tell-tale way of someone trying not to cry, to not panic.
she looks up at her, and has to look away again, unable to bear it. she'll weep, if she has to face that piercing gaze for too long. tries to speak, cannot. tries again, and her voice is a whisper, at risk of disappearing.]
...help me, Andy, please.
[if she was asked what she meant, she wouldn't know how to answer.]