Re: Venetian penthouse: Sam & Cris
The love Cris was talking about wasn't just about destruction. If it was that, no one would want it. It if was all the burned-out shells of houses and hearts, the scrape-clean of minds, if it was that gutting with nothing else to offer,—no one would love. But it wasn't. It came with good, and beautiful, and it came with days kept careful and perfect in memory. It wasn't anything like the movies, of course. It wasn't a constant high or a constant low, and like a flame, it waxed and it waned based on the conditions around it.—There were those who figured the bad parts didn't outweigh the good, those who had callouses over their souls, scar tissue built up around their hearts that they felt kept them safe. But Cris wasn't one of them. Maybe he was a stupid romantic, but he believed the words he said, and he believed love necessary to survival—even, or maybe especially, on the days it hurt.
If Sam had put him here, there wasn't anywhere else he wanted to be, despite the pink, scabbing fissure splitting his heart. It would seam back together with time. He didn't think about healing the way other people seemed to—like it was some end goal. It just happened. The body was made to regenerate, and it would.
Maybe his words were barrio, too earnest, but Cris didn't care. He meant it all and he felt everything, no lithium haze. It was as sincere as sincere could be. He smiled when she let him tip her chin, rose cheeks and blue eyes.—Sam closed her hand around the king and stretched up, and Cris met her partway for that kiss. His usual innate and latent heat was there, beneath blush of lips parting slightly on hers, but he didn't bring it to the surface. It simmered and he cupped her chin.
Like this, close and warm, he didn't think about Micah. He didn't think about Neil and the cool cast of his eyes or Louis and his hollowed voice. He didn't think about blood running so dark it looked almost like oil over sandy dirt. Instead, it all came down to contact, to the girl on top of him and her weight, literal and figurative over the ribs that separated her from his heart.
When he pulled back, it was in centimeters, fingers dragging down warming cheeks, down to close around her fist and the king again. In his mind, he whittled the moment down to the pair of them on the bed, immediate and lasting, and he didn't think about Abuelita watching from the living area or anything else even. It was an uncertain thing, the burn of tears still there, but... it held for a minute.
"Nunca he conocido a alguien como tú, mami." He said, after having just witnessed the murder of a man made to look exactly like her. But it was still true. "Lo he sabido desde el momento en que te vi."