2020-02-11 - Not that kind of dream

By now, late at night on the 10th of February, Anne really ought to be all healed up. But the dog-sitter is paid up through the end of the week, so let's just get through the week without tackling an issue that's absolutely going to be an argument (going back to Anne's house / bringing the dogs to the apartment). Dinner, sex, sleep, wake suddenly, gagging and sitting up in bed against a rise of bile.

Patrick has been drunk enough to throw-up many times, but last night was what? A cocktail, maybe two - and he takes a couple deep breaths, blowing them out slowly. Assuming his dramatics woke his bedmate, he makes sure to point out, "It wasn't what you think." This is him having yet to notice that there are even crazier vibes in the air than his dream... or vision... or whatever.

It's true. By now, the question of 'how's Anne's foot?' can be answered with 'great, thanks!' even if there was still some residual pain and soreness that'd take another week or so to fully dissipate. It at least means she doesn't have to bring the boot to bed anymore, which has probably dramatically improved their sex-and-sleep life just in time for their sex-and-sleep life to be dramatically changed again by the 'what now?' question that seems to haunt the end of the week. At the very least, Anne seems unwilling to have the argument and has been stubbornly ignoring the inevitable.

There is, of course, no better way to ignore said inevitable than being jarred awake by someone violently gagging beside you on the bed. Her eyes flare open, but what hits her first isn't the excuses that Patrick manages to throw up but the deep-gutted sensation that something was different. It's enough to get her scrambling out from under the covers, squinting around the dark of their Patrick's room to make sure there were no shadows coming for them while she comes up on her knees behind him. Her hands are cool as they press along his back, her breath a little quick, "Do you feel that too?"

Said back stiffens immediately at the press of those hands, with Patrick physically curling away from them toward the edge of the bed for a few seconds, looking uncommonly pale in the dark room. "Stop. Wait." He covers his eyes with one hand, shifting the other around until it attaches itself to one of Anne's, holding on to it stubbornly for another couple of seconds. Until he gives up, shaking his head and peeling his hand from across his eyes.

Which leaves his looking for hers, still adjusted enough to the darkness to be able to pick them out from the shadows of facial features. Nervously low, "Feel what? I really don't want us to have had the same nightmare. It will make my skin crawl."

There's a grimace when he pulls away, her fingers frozen in the darkness between them until his hand comes to attach itself to hers; then she curls her fingers around his own and holds steady while the crazy vibes in the air run chilly fingers of their own down her backbone. She says nothing in the moment, there's just the sound of her breath coming out in quiet, rapid little puffs, until he moves his hand from his eyes and she comes around to settle beside him rather than there behind him. She keeps her hand caught up in his, but now she applies a little pressure, a squeeze, a firm rub of the pads of her fingers along his skin.

"You had a nightmare?" she throws another glance around the room before she returns to the profile of his face, "A Dream? I didn't have a Dream, I don't think we're Dreaming now," it's a quiet rush of words. "But it feels different. Like.. like something changed, I can't explain it. What was your Dream? Are you hurt?"

Cranky Patrick request/demands, "Stop saying it like that. It wasn't that, it was - " He shakes his head, the irritation fading along with the nastier after-effects of the [whatever] that woke him. There's a shiftiness in him now, a side-eye going to Anne, approaching a subject he'd prefer to keep untouched. But this is a real one, not just one they'll have to argue about later. "It was like lifting a memory off of something." Which Anne has never done and he refuses to do any more, so that was a helpful little metaphor, Patrick, thanks. Hence his sniff of displeasure.

"What changed? I don't..." Use abilities enough to notice right away. "...know what you mean." Despite being snippy with her at the start of this pose, he's now intent on pulling her nearer, scooting her way in turn; it's a cold, dark February morning, so he's earned the right to be a little freaked out.

"Stop saying it like what? I'm just trying to understand --" comes the snap back, but it wasn't as sharp as it could be or would've been under any other circumstance. The annoyance at his demand was tempered by this sensation she was unable to shake, and it was enough to let the shifty side-eyeing pass without blowing up at him. Instead, there was just a quiet murmur, a low pleading: "Don't look at me like that, I just.." care about him. ".. want to make sure you're okay." And there's a shiftiness in her, too, but it's movement towards him, just a scant amount, as her brows furrow from his incredibly helpful explanation.

"I don't know," she admits to his own question while still trying to understand the answer to hers. "It just feels like something's .. shifted, I --" It catches her off-guard, the way he pulls her near, and it's just the right amount of vulnerability that has her sinking into him. She puts a hand to his cheek, another around him, intent on being as close as possible. "Are you okay?"

Patrick holds on to Anne in a way that's not entirely comfortable. One arm lays across her back, hand against the back of her neck, beneath her hair, the now-and-then flex of his fingers tangling and relaxing in it. The other hand holds her upper arm, gripping hard for a long space while he bends his neck, leaning his cheek into her touch. Eventually, the question penetrates and he nods in a rush, turning a kiss into her palm before he peels away from it, breathing in a couple of breaths of real-world-air.

"I dreamt," but no. "Or remembered. Whatever it was, I was grinding up bones. With a saw. Like at a sawmill. The old bones of someone I really wasn't fond of." And that's why he needed to catch his breath, to be able to lean away enough and look at Anne, searching for some flicker of cognition in the dark: he's reasonably sure this is Family Business and thus likely terrible, in case she wants off this ride.

It wasn't uncomfortable enough to get Anne to do anything more than shift to readjust her weight, to push herself closer to him for as long as he needed until it was time to catch his breath again. She drags her thumb along the line of his jaw, her other hand following the slope of his shoulder and across his chest, until her palm settles somewhere near his heart and she takes in a breath of him, holding it as he kisses her palm and leans away. She exhales, trying to focus on this and not the other crazy vibes, brows knitting at his explanation.

But if he expects her to pull the e-brake, jump out of bed, and leave this space entirely based on a memory of some chopped off bones, he was nuttier than his crazy dreams.

"It wasn't really you," it wasn't a question. There might've been a ten year gap where they didn't speak to one another, but she was pretty certain he hasn't gone around throwing bodies into sawmills, now or ever. And there in the dark, she looks conflicted, but not about him - she gives him just enough time to catch his breath before she draws herself up against him again, her hand cupping the back of his neck, leaning to nuzzle her nose into his cheek. "Something must have happened. Something big. I mean the last time I felt weird like this was after that fune --" And now she's the one to stiffen, to swallow heavily and lean back again, to squint at him through the darkness.

"Patrick, maybe you need to call Margaret."

The argument is written all over Patrick's face for a second or two. It wasn't really him, but he hikes a brow upward, leans his head to a contrary angle, and looks at Anne in the dim room like he wouldn't be so sure of that. It helps to be pulled back to her again a second later, to keep forgetting the smell of that nightmare in favor of the much more pleasant smell of Anne. But then she's the one pulling away, and the 'tchh' sound that comes out of him is as much surprise as it is frustration, can't they just cuddle for like four seconds without - "God no."

Nope, they can't just cuddle for four seconds without catastrophe. Patrick quits the bed in one hasty motion, turning on the bedside lamp and making everyone squint against the middle-of-the-night. "So sorry to wake you, auntie, but I've had a nightmare about bones being disposed of at the old family mill." Anne gets a flat look and a head-shake, then he's off to the kitchen.

Whiskey seems appropriate.

It's too dark to see the wholly unamused look that Anne passes to Patrick when he does the contrary tilt of his head, but maybe he can see the whites of her eyes as they are rolling. She still pulls him back into her, not overly eager to have any sort of argument that involves the potential of him grinding up bodies, until that whole separate realization has her leaning away and him quitting the bed. She stays in the tangle of the sheets, shielding her eyes from the sudden brightness of the lights with her forearm as she groans. "I'm just saying," she defends, but he's already off into the kitchen, leaving her there in the empty bed.

It takes a minute, but she comes into the kitchen while he's midway through making his cocktail, wearing his shirt instead of the robe he bought for the purposes of her not wandering around his apartment in the nude. For the record, she hasn't worn that robe once. "Not every problem can be solved with a cocktail," she remarks with a frown, but even as she says that, she's walking around to fish in the cabinets for her own cup and sets it beside him expectantly. "You could call her in the morning. A courtesy check to make sure things are okay. Maybe it was just... maybe you just picked something up from the museum and it was many, many years ago," but that doesn't explain her own feeling of 'weird.'

They can argue about the robe later.

"No, but I've yet to meet one that can't be helped along its way." Patrick's not actually making real cocktails in here. He's putting ice in a glass and then whiskey on top of the ice and drinking it, so that's what Anne's about to get, too. He glug-glugs a couple of pours into her glass for her, laying a flat gray stare on her during that rationalization about what he picked up from the museum. There's no specific argument against this theory other than the one written all over his face, the one where Anne is all kinds of wrong but this whiskey is good; he sips it and holds the stare on her till that's done. All of that is his way of saying that he's not calling Margaret, so she should stop suggesting it.

"What did you feel? Describe it."

There's at least no argument about whether or not whiskey-and-ice constitutes a cocktail or not. She flicks a look down to the liquid that he pours into her cup and then she's quick to turn her face back up to him, meeting his flat stare with unflinching intensity in her own blue eyes. She doesn't actually take a sip until he drops the stare - then, it's with a frustrated little sigh through her nose as she takes a few sips from the glass.

"I don't know if I can," describe it. "I.. you woke me up, but the second I was conscious it just felt like .. like things had shifted." She doesn't look at him now, eyes on the liquid in her cup before she takes a bigger drink. "It feels like something's changed. In the things I can do."

Patrick's quiet while she speaks. He's quiet after she speaks, too, looking at her through a long silence on his part, letting the normal hum of the sleeping apartment fill the space. The ice machine helps by dumping some new cubes into the little collector bin, justifying the goosebumps that prickle his arms and make the hairs stand on end. "What do you think it is this time?" He shakes his head faintly, tipping a finger under her chin to tilt her attention up from the glass so he's looking straight into the big blue eyes - not frustrated, not arguing, not stubbornly waiting her out.

Very quietly, big secret, don't tell anyone, "I can feel it."

Less quietly, "Fuck."

There was a reason why Anne wasn't looking at him; when he tilts her chin up, he can see it. That conflict that was written all over her face but hidden in the darkness of the bedroom earlier was visible there in the light of the kitchen; it swims in the blue of her eyes as she meets his gray stare. She answers the question with a faint shake of her head - not enough to break the contact, just enough to convey the hopelessness that she feels in the moment.

His quiet secret makes her take in a noisy breath. It comes out in a heavy sigh that accompanies his 'fuck'.

There's a secret of her own passed along, a whisper that carries with it the faintest rattle of fear: "We keep playing with things we don't understand." It's not a 'we' that includes him. Then, she echoes him: "Fuck," indeed.

Putting the drink away, it's done enough and is just ice now, Patrick is back to pulling on Anne again, first by the front of her his shirt, then the arms, till she's all the way over here. Being mooshed. "If everyone can feel this - " He breaks the eye-contact and shoots a glance over the top of her head to the window. From six floors up, they oughta be able to see lights throwing on in windows all across a sleepy city; his steps head that way, bringing Anne with him.

"They have to be related. My nightmare and whatever's happened to the world this time." His smile is very small, very brief, and very dark. "We better wait and see what else shakes loose from tonight before talking too much about that nightmare," by the way.

Anne's own glass was still half full, but he was pulling her towards him and she didn't want to spill, so down onto the counter it went. She needed him more than she needed the drink anyway, because her head was racing about the things she's done to this point to see if there were any connections between her and this moment, and the reality that she could've done something to have this happen now? It scares the shit out of her. She doesn't say it aloud - she doesn't even say she needs him aloud - but the way she pulls and burrows into him, the way she lets him take her wherever it is they need to be, should speak lengths.

"Maybe," she doesn't see the smile because she's nuzzling into his chest, taking in breaths of him as he looks for little lights in the darkness. "I won't say anything," about his nightmare. "That's yours. I.. it's not mine," she shakes her head, she clings a little tighter. "What do you think they could've done? Who could've done it?"

With another of those small, darkly amused smiles, Patrick nudges at Anne's forehead with his chin, intent on grinning at her and not just toward her. It's not worth the effort if no one's even looking. "At least we can be reasonably sure that it was neither of us." That's some very cold comfort on a very cold, dark night; but he was partially right, with a few lights jumping on here and there, but it's a good distance, and it's a damp February night, so it's not as dramatic as he was hoping for.

"Which just leaves the usual suspects. Someone in my family. Alexander Clayton. One of those monsters from the other side. A bunch of people with pitchforks." He entertains himself enough to chuckle.

It takes her a second but she ultimately meets his grin and his chuckles and she stares back with a furrow to her brow, her own eyes dark and unamused. "Why are you smiling?" she shakes her head, looks over her shoulder to the window. "What if someone's hurt? What if they.." she breathes out, looks back to him with a note of frustration in the blue of her eyes. "I guess it won't take long to figure that out, if it is one of them," that's another cold comfort on this very cold night.

"I'll text Alexander in the morning," she says with a note of resignation. "Patrick, what if.." she winces, and that look of inner turmoil is back. "What if we keep doing stuff and it's making them stronger and us.. weaker?"

Why is he smiling? "I'm not answering that question." Because Patrick isn't stupid. Instead, he wraps both arms around Anne and turns her to face the window, so any inner turmoil he's seeing is in the reflection of faces in the dark glass. One hand lifts, and he taps his index finger to a smudge that might be a light in someone's window. Or a streetlight. It's really too hard to tell from here.

"Then we have no one to blame but ourselves." He probably would've been better off not answering that question, too, but there it is. "As you said, we keep playing with things we don't understand. Eventually, we're going to find out that all we've been doing this whole time is arming a bomb. Boom," right in her ear, but at least very quietly. Also, by 'we' he totally means 'all you guys and not me.'

"One day, you're going to tell me the things that you're thinking and we're going to fight about that instead of arguing about the fact that you won't answer my questions," Anne's just a little snippy about that, muttering under her breath as he turns her around to face the window. She should go back to bed, make a point, but she sinks back into his chest instead and stares not at the smudge but at the reflection of him in the window, as he whispers 'boom' into her ear and makes her flinch.

"Stop it," she whispers just as quietly, "I'm scared, Patrick."

Patrick does not tell Anne what he's thinking this time, either, but it's 'that's really unlikely.' She can probably divine as much just based on the dubious expression worn beneath the momentary lift of his brow, a real 'whatever you say, dear' look. "For good reason," he answers of her being scared, looking through their reflections to the blurry image on the other side of the glass. "But the world isn't burning right this moment, it would seem. So we are at least safe for the moment." Here is a kiss for her cheek; that should boost her right up.

"Realistically, how long before you can't resist anymore and have to start figuring out what's changed?" He means before she starts fucking with her before/after powers.

She twists away after the kiss to her cheek that provided no assurances, no comfort. This time, she puts her back to the window - realistically, probably not the safest place to stand - and turns her eyes up to his. "Why?" she demands. "Why do you want to know? What does it matter? I won't do it here, if that's what your concern is," she motions about the apartment, but keeps her eyes hard on his own. "But I want to know why it matters to you."

Stubbornly, she folds her arms over her chest, and she waits.

This is a turn of events for which Patrick was not prepared, judging by the way he leans back from the sudden demand and the stubbornly folded arms. But okay, sure, he's on board for a middle-of-the-night fight. He even does Anne the courtesy of not leaning hard into her in front of the sixth floor window behind her, instead detaching his arms and mimicking her posture. He, too, can fold his arms stubbornly, though his tone and expression are more baffled than fitey just yet. "Why in the world would it not matter to me?"

Now he waits right back at her. Super productive.

"You don't get to throw every question back at me, Patrick!" Anne says that sharply to his question, to his stubbornly folded arms and his stupid gray eyes. Her own posture is defensive, tight, she was probably putting more weight on the window than was actually recommended. It's probably a good thing she weighs about a buck fifteen soaking wet. "Because I can't tell if this is your version of caring or if the question was just more self-preservation than anything else. And my god, Patrick," the sigh is bone-weary, exhausted. "I'm so tired of fighting with you," she slumps.

"Then why are you picking a fucking fight?" Patrick's legitimately baffled still, and he gapes at Anne while she slumps, searching her face like he's honestly just trying to get a clue from it. "If you're that bothered by the question? Then I take it back." He stares at her for another second or two after that, still trying to comprehend how things turned so quickly from holding on to each other for dear life to...

Shaking his head, he turns back into the kitchen, sliding cups into the sink, screwing the cap back on the bottle, side-eyeing Anne crossly, normal people things.

There's a little squeal of frustration when he turns back to the kitchen, but Anne's obviously not done. So she stomps after him, and doesn't really let him get that far before she's reaching for his arm. "Patrick --" she had no real intention of stopping him from his trek to put the whiskey cups back into the sink if that's what he really wants to do, but she does hold onto his arm for as long as she can.

"I care about you," she breathes out, like these are words she's held onto for so long that it's almost exhausting to let them out now. "But I'm so confused by you."

Patrick had no real intention of worrying about tidying up the kitchen, so it's fine. If Anne wants to stop him from doing that, he's not going to put up much of a fight about it, just swing back around to look down at her with the last wash of the aforementioned bafflement draining away. "I don't understand why," she's so confused, he means. Seriously, he looks at her earnestly and even gives her shoulders a little shake, a hand on either of them briefly. "I don't know how else to make it clear to you that what happens to you matters to me."

With a less authentic sniff of he injured variety, he tacks on, "And, frankly, your insistent blindness to this fact is starting to get insulting." No more shaking. Well, one last one, then he'll just frown at her sternly and cross his arms again. That seemed like a suitable posture for his mood.

"Stop it!" shaking her, she means - Anne tenses herself as he shakes her shoulders and she glares up at him. She wanted to shake him, too - he didn't get to be the only one frustrated and maybe mildly insulted by what was going on between them. But she doesn't cross her arms over her chest again. She puts her hands on his forearms and turns her eyes up to him, not looking away this time. "I don't know why you can't understand why I would be at least remotely confused by what's going on between us," she huffs. "You don't ever tell me what you're thinking, half the time you won't answer my goddamn questions! And when we talk, we fight, and I don't know, Patrick."

She tightens her hold on his forearms, refusing in the moment to let go. But she does let her shoulders sag, weary. "I.." And it's on the tip of her tongue, what she wants to say. Instead, she answers the question that started this whole thing, like it was what she meant to say to begin with: ".. I won't go overboard. Trying to figure out what changed. I can at least give it a little bit of time, see what other people do."

"Dear God, take a look around you for a moment. Where are you? Where have you been since leaving the hospital?" Patrick scoffs, maybe not so much fake-injured as he would've liked that earlier sniff to indicate, more actually insulted, now that he really has to think about it. "I brought you home with me so that I could be available for you, to make sure someone was looking after you, to - " Make vague gestures at the kitchen, at all the things that aren't toaster pastries and oranges that live there now. "This is really starting to feel like a deliberate act on your part."

And now he's all cranky and can't want to be relieved that she's being reasonable about figuring out whatever happened. Flatly, "Oh good. When I'm done being angry at you, I'm sure that will be very comforting."

"A deliberate act? Patrick, I asked to come here! I asked you to help me, because I needed help. Because I need you," Anne loudly emphasizes that 'you', because that was a pretty pertinent part. Hell, it was the most important part of everything she's said up to this point. She drops her hands from his arms as he makes vague gestures around the room with a huff, fussing with the hem of her his shirt because she needs something to keep her hands busy. At least she doesn't roll her eyes at him when he talks about how comforted he'll feel when he's not angry anymore. Maybe, let's see!

Man she doesn't roll her eyes so hard, it's like she's got control over her own body or something. But she looks absolutely unamused with him. "I'm entitled to how I feel." Beat. "And you know what? At least I tell you."

Patrick makes the same vague gestures at himself, ending with open hands that he winds up smearing across his face and shoving into his hair, deeply frustrated. "I have been here for you." He can emphasize pronouns, too! "And yet somehow? It's not enough. It's fucking baffling, Anne. You're fucking baffling." So he pulls on his hair with both hands, just one good tug, then slaps his hands down out of his hair, letting them fall limply at his sides.

"Apparently you don't, if you've been here for however many weeks - " Three and change. " - this miserable and confused." He reiterates this assessment with a hard look at her unrolling eyes: "Just absolutely fucking baffling."

"Whoa whoa whoa, wait a goddamn second!" Now it's Anne's turn to do something with her hands - hold them up like big flesh-colored stop signs. "I did not say I've been here for the past three weeks," see? Anne remembers, ".. miserable and confused!" Look at all the EMPHASIS! "Do you really think I'd stay here with you if I was miserable? I've been living without my dogs for three goddamn weeks to be here with you! Why would I do that if I was miserable?" She throws up her hands, looking up helplessly to the ceiling.

"God dammit, Patrick," she utters quietly, dropping her gaze from the ceiling back to him, blue eyes a maelstrom of emotion. "Here with you is the only place I want to be. I'm confused by you but I'm not miserable with you, I never have been."

After all that, it leaves Patrick looking wearily at her. "You're right," he says finally, eyes moving between her stop-sign-hands and then back to her face. "I shouldn't put words in your mouth." There's a hollow edge to what's going to have to pass for apology, since it's the best Anne's going to get out of him, some little misery of his own still there. He also shouldn't keep arguing with her, should just grab her despite the no-stop hands and take her back to bed and do all the things and say all the things that would undo this nightmare into which he seems to have woken after waking up from his other nightmare.

Instead, he looks at her dully and says, "I have tried to keep my opinions to myself for your sake, but if you want to know how I feel? The answer is... like something that's important, but not quite important enough. Like the book you're only reading because you're waiting for the next chapter of the one you really want to finish." Sighing one more time, just to really drive home the point, he tacks on, "And very tired."

"You're right," is not something Anne expects to hear from Patrick Addington, especially in the tone of minor apology. It actually makes her lean back, lashes fluttering before blue eyes vaguely widen, a visible hint that the sails of USS FITE ME were at least partially deflating. "No, you shouldn't have," she mumbles an agreement about him putting words in her mouth - he could absolutely put other things in her mouth, but definitely not WORDS, tyvm. Her tone loses its sharp edges though, leaning into that uncomfortable sort of awkwardness where the end of a fight is on the horizon but she's not quite sure how to push them over the edge and [hopefully] back into bed.

So there's a twitch forward, a shuffle of bare feet across the hardwood flooring that moves her an inch towards him, the frown on her lips deepening as she deals with the internal conflict of whether or not this is where she wants to end things tonight. It wasn't the best spot, but it wasn't the worst either - they could stop here and pick the argument back up at the end of the week, continue to fight about the things that didn't matter so that they could keep on ignoring the real issues underneath it all. And she decides that sounds best in the moment, she was all for that.

And then he had to go and open his mouth again.

The words take her aback, even though he says them in the dullest tone imaginable; if Patrick opted in that moment to use his powers again to read her, he'd feel the pain of ten years past unearthed, as fresh and raw as it had been so many years ago. "How can you say that?" The question brings out a tremor in her voice, and there's a moment of flailing with her arms as she tries to figure out the right posture for this moment - she folds her arms across her chest but it's too uncomfortable; she squirms and drops them to her side, but that's not right either, so she fusses with the hem of her his shirt sleeve, her nose crinkling and her brows knitting because she can't fucking figure out what to do with her hands. It brings out a little whine of frustration before she finally pushes herself forward, and she puts her hands on his arms because that's what feels best. That's what feels right.

"That's not.. that's not right, that's not how you should feel," insists the woman who JUST yelled at him for putting words in her own mouth. But maybe she sees the irony in that, which is why her face twists and she amends: "That's not how I should make you feel. That's not how I want to make you feel, Patrick, not when I've been waiting ten years to read this book again. Not when there's .. there's not a book in the world that's even remotely comparable, and I tried," she insists, huffing out a breath as she looks up at him, tries to meet the gray of his eyes. "Patrick, there's nothing else. This is where I want to be," it's said with a little tug on his arms, nails gingerly scratching the skin, to indicate that 'this' meant him. "This is the book I want to read. But I really, really want to get past the prologue, and I.." This last part is a struggle for her, not because the analogy was a difficult one, but man it was hard to talk about ~feels~ when she's done such a good job of not talking about them at all. But it comes out quietly, like it was a big secret, shh, ".. I want there to be other chapters. I want there to be a lot of other chapters. I don't want this book to end like it did last time, Patrick. It's too important." There's a pause as she peels her hand off his arm, lifts it to his cheek to make sure he's looking at her. "You're too important."

He absolutely must be aware of the issues Anne is having with her hands. He is, after all, staring right at them the whole time, having made the decision that his own are just going to stay limply at his side for the foreseeable future. Patrick could probably justify the desire to cross them stubbornly over his chest again, but he's really fighting the urge, not least because watching Anne's struggle is the tiniest bit satisfying: GOOD, SUFFER! But then she's touching him again, and the breath he takes at first has the hiss of warning at the edge of it, but he clips it quickly and - after all that resolve to just stand there, being too tired to move anymore - he reciprocates the forward step, closing the little bit of distance.

His hands lift to scoop beneath her chin, thumbs laid along her jaw, index fingers touching the very tips of her ears. None of this should be enough to interrupt her during all that, and he seems intent on listening without breaking her train of thought, but at the first indication she's done? In the exact second after she gets to the last bit of what she's trying to say? He presses against her with a kiss that agrees with all those things, deep and wanting and hurting and they walked away from the window a couple poses ago, right? Because, otherwise, this story is going to end tragically with Anne falling out a window and it looking very much like Patrick pushed her out of it.

Assuming she doesn't fall to her death... that kiss breaks with a hurried, "We're letting everything get in the way. We have to stop doing that." Like. For reals. They do.

The truth was, in that moment, he could hiss all he wanted to and it wasn't going to stop Anne from touching him to get her point across. Nor was his hand on her face going to distract her from the moment, even if she leans into it to feel the press of his fingers more securely. She needed to get all of this out, she's been holding onto it for so long. For too long. And it wasn't the words or the book analogies that were important, but the stress of the feelings underneath it all, because if that's how he feels? If that's how he really feels? That was tragic, and maybe that hurt a little more than anything else, that she hadn't made him feel as important as he was to her.

And there was so much more to say beyond that last point, beyond her telling him that he was too important. But it wasn't something she could convey in words right then, not least of all because he kisses her like he does when she runs out of words. So she tells him with her lips against his own, with the gentle touches to his cheek and jaw and her fingers in his hair, because at least she's finally figured out what to do with her damn hands. And yes, they were away from the window now at least, closer to the kitchen because he was going to tidy up, so no one was falling six stories to their death to prematurely bring this story to an end. Or, maybe a whole new beginning, because we all know Patrick's got ghosts. Maybe Anne would just fall in with his brother and sister. Patrick Swayze did it.

Anyway, she doesn't fall to her death and he breaks the kiss, leaving her short of breath and tilting her chin up to stare up at him, her fingers all tangled up in his hair. The hurried words bring a crack of a smile and a dry bubble of laughter. "You're right," she wasn't going to argue against the truth, "We do." And then she pulls him back in for another kiss, because she wasn't going to let anymore words get in the way right now.

Giving Anne the benefit of the doubt, for all her professed lack of understanding, she can look back on this later and guess: Patrick hasn't got the strength of character to allow his ego to be shored up by insistent words. He didn't want to tell her how he felt in the first place, and having to hear her insist that he's wrong about how he feels would chew him up inside to the point that he probably would shove her out the window. He does have the strength to let a kiss slap a band-aid on his pride, to let it go on long enough that maybe everyone can forget why it became suddenly necessary to pull this close, to peel off what few clothes everyone is wearing at this hour, and to wind up back in bed where this whole fiasco started.

At least there, when it's quiet again, when Patrick's unwillingness to give voice to the things that make him want to shove Anne out windows is buried under the weight of how goddamn enamored of her he is, despite his intentions to harden his heart against the woman, he's willing to admit something small: "I wanted to know," how long before she expects to be figuring out what changed, he means, since that was the question that set the entire argument in motion (or his dodging of it did), "because I don't want you to do it at all. But I know that you're going to." And he shifts onto his side, bracing his weight on one arm, bringing the other over to very carefully outline the shapes of her features in the once-again-dim room, a fingertip-touch.

In a quick, quiet confession, "But if you vanish, I will never forgive you."

Emotions are hard when you can't just psychic your way into figuring out what someone's feeling, aren't they, Patrick?!

Anyway, it doesn't matter - the words were said and the feelings were felt, and maybe Anne will look back on this later and accurately guess that it wasn't enough. But she pours all the energy she has left into what they do back there on their his bed, and in the quiet lull after, she tucks herself against him and forgets about everything for awhile except for how good he feels in the moment.

When the words come later, it doesn't bring with it the same kind of heated reaction as before. She tips her chin to lay her cheek on her pillow, casting eyes upward to his profile in the dark, and she lazily scrolls her fingertips along his upper arm while his fingertips re-familiarize themselves with the shape of her. One day, she's going to have to reconcile him being the most important thing with this other desire of hers, but that day was not today. "I wish I could give it up like you did," she admits in a quiet voice, her brow wrinkling. There's a small pause as she leans up, touching her lips to his chin and then to his lips, sighing against his skin. "I wouldn't forgive myself, either, you know."

Patrick can psychic his way into Anne's head any time he pleases. He just chooses not to. Which is for the best, since that door swings both ways, and he can give as good as he gets if it comes to that. It's actually the exact thought he has right then, after her little wish, and the reason that his fingertip stalls at the corner of her eye for a second before it sweeps up, drags across the indentation of her temple, and winds up traipsing across the delicate bones of her ear. "So do I," while he folds his arms around her tightly and enjoys being kissed.

That she wouldn't forgive herself either merits a tiny chuckle while he's burrowing in against her, putting his back to the window and all the people who may or may not still be awake and freaking the fuck out about their busted fucking powers. "I suppose us being in agreement is enough for now, then." It's not. He still wants her to be like I RENOUNCE THIS WHOLE PERSONAL QUEST & ALSO MY DOGS.

Barring that... "I don't usually find it useful to ask for promises that may be out of a person's control, but I need to know that you'll be careful, Anne, I need you to promise that you'll try to come home in one piece. I found my way back here. Promise me that you will, too."

Anne bites the very tip of her tongue when he supposes it's good enough to be in agreement, preventing herself from questioning 'is it?' if only because she knows the answer already. It wasn't enough, not for either of them - it wasn't enough that he didn't understand, and it wasn't enough that she wouldn't let it all go. But leave the god damn dogs out of it, they are cute and fluffy! But she tips her chin in a scant nod, walking her fingers up his bicep and along the slope of his shoulder, before down her palm sweeps to settle on his chest, right there over his heart as he asks for that promise.

"Patrick.." and she knew she had to tread carefully here, this was fighting territory. She turns her head up, looking for the gray of his eyes in the dark of their his room, her fingers gingerly tapping out his heartbeat against his chest. "I promise," she really does. "I'm not going to let anything keep me from coming back to you."

If she will quit the dogs, she can call it her room, and he'll sign off on it. Then you don't have to keep crossing things out in your poses. Just putting that out there.

Fortunately, that issue isn't even in the back of Patrick's mind right now. He hangs from the pause between his name and the promise that follows, the beat beneath Anne's fingers skipping uncomfortably until he releases a slow, relieved breath. 'Cause, really, asking for a promise like that could've been a quick trip back to Argumentville, and it's nice to detour around it for once. "Thank you," he says genuinely, covering the hand over his heart with his own and then bringing it up to his lips, burying a kiss in the center of her palm.

Sleep won't come back tonight. He'll spend a while quietly touching Anne, waiting for the night to finish itself. If there is any further cause to converse, it's quiet and safe - skirting the edges of whatever broke the world. And in the morning... well, that's when they are going to have to go their separate ways for the day with one last hurried kiss in the doorway and a mumbled, "Be safe," with some endearment tacked on to the end.

Which was supposed to be a wrap, but this seems appropriate before he has a chance to run off.

The tacked on endearment was 'my love,' which apparently Anne heard clear as day even though he was totally smooshing his lips against hers when he said it. Regardless, he's ready before she is and gone, so BYE ANNE.

She totally hears him and it totally makes her melt into the door. But she's still not giving up her dogs so #sorrynotsorry. That's going to be huge in the log now.