Private Finished And still you call on me...

He felt like he was talking in circles with her. He'd told her the truth. He'd tried talking, but it was like shouting at the bottom of the ocean. His words were dissolving into nothing.

Lochlann reached up and took her hand from his shoulder. He squeezed it in his own.

"I want you to show me," he said, indicating that he wanted her to show him by touching him. "Where you would shoot if you wanted someone to die slowly."

Her hand was small and soft and cool in his own. He knew they were made for each other, but he never realized they were both carved out of ice.

His expression was serious. This was something he needed to know. This was something he trusted only her to tell him.

His leg.

Lochlann nodded. His eyes dropped to where her hand was and memorized the space.

Lochlann seemed to understand something then, perhaps for the first time, because when he looked up at her he was smiling. He stored that information away.

He wasn't sure why he was doing it. he needed to make distance between himself and Guin, but he couldn't stand it. He braced himself for rejection, but Lochlann wrapped his arms around her middle and ducked his head so she couldn't see his face.

It was probably the first time he'd ever hugged her.

"I missed you, Guin," he said. "I didn't want to leave you. I did everything I could to make sure I didn't come back empty handed, to make sure it was worth it, but it wasn't, and I'm sorry. I miss you."

Lochlann felt like he'd been dying since the first time she'd shot him. Maybe he'd just been bleeding out the entire time.

Lochlann could have agreed with her on being insane. He had to be, right?

Despite everything that happened we would never stop believing that she wanted him dead. There was a small part of him that still wanted to hate her, but it was buried under a mess of other emotions so murky that Lochlann had to look for it.

Mostly what he felt about Guin was uncertainty.

"No," Lochlann said. "I can never forget."

He held her for another moment but then dropped his arms.

He spent the entire last year wishing he could forget.

"I don't expect you to forgive me," he said. "I don't forgive me. I don't even really expect you to understand. There's not a lot I can tell you to try and make you understand."

He swallowed. He wouldn't look up at her at first, but he realized he couldn't address her feet.

"You broke something in me and I can't fix it. I can't fix you. I don't even want to try. But you were right. I'm in danger. You're in danger. We're dangerous. I don't want to be dangerous to you. It's bad enough that I want to eat you. I don't want you to get shot because of me."

He shrugged. He came here to talk, but he'd hoped it would be with her instead of to her.

Why would she get shot?

It was just the form of violence Lochlann focused on. Guns played a more significant place in his life than knives, even though he had more scars from knives than guns.

"Why would you get beaten to an inch of your life for leaving the island?" he asked her.

Lochlann did not enjoy being sober. He did not enjoy all the feeling that happen with it. He did not like how sharp he was, how quick his reflexes were. He felt dangerous.

He did not enjoy sitting before Guin like this. He wanted to back up his chair.

Their last night in the hospital wasn't supposed to be the last. It was supposed to be the beginning of something else. But, like every other time, it was just a different way of saying goodbye.

Lochlann tucked his hands into his pockets to stop them from shaking. It didn't matter that he hadn't had a drink in god know when. It wasn't that.

He wasn't sure he could stop himself from touching her.

"I don't understand" Lochlann agreed.

She stepped away from him and Lochlann wondered if now she understood why he wanted to talk about this. He hadn't been able to get information from her before he'd left. It felt cruel to do it to her at the time and it felt cruel to do it now.

"I've spent the last year trying to understand and failing," Lochlann said.

The distance between them was vast and part of him wanted to rise up from the chair and close it. But right now, there was something rigid about Guin that reminded him of a deer that caught scent of a particular viscious predator. Her eyes were past him so he knew she wasn't thinking of him, but there was no reason to rise and loom over her and remind her that he was dangerous, too.

"Is it safer for you if I stay out of your life?" he asked.

He already knew the answer to that.

He was going to kill her or she was going to kill him.

He and Guinevere did not agree on much, but that had never been a point of contest. They belonged to each other.

It was so obviously safer.

But he was hers.

The idea of staying away was becoming impossible to fathom.

Lochlann considered this.

He watched the way her arms wrapped around herself, as if she was cold, but Lochlann knew better. It was a pose he found himself frequently.

A theory on that gesture was that it was to defend the sensitive stomach area from being attacked. People would pull in when they felt vulnerable or scared, and it also covered the area that was typically the cause of most pain. Not just physical pain, but emotional, too. When stressed, the body draws blood away from the stomach and ceases digestion. Even if it's not a noticeable pain, it's still enough to make a person crawl in on themselves.

He'd woken up like that. He'd sunk to the floor like that. He'd dove into a lake and curled like that until he couldn't stay human anymore.

It was a gesture that he did not expect to see on Guinevere unless she'd been hit hard.

He wondered what it was that hit her--was it his admittance? His reminder of what happened to her last year? His asking her if she'd be safer if he left?

"I think it's too late for that, Guin," he said.

He didn't run away from her this last year. He'd run towards her, just in the wrong direction.

He still expected Guinevere Haze to be the one who put the final bullet in him. That used to scare him, but lately, it was bringing him comfort.

It didn't matter that he'd asked her to, or that he'd pressed her gun against his chest but she'd shot all the shots into the air. It didn't matter that she'd shot him and stabbed him and made him bleed because Lochlann was still alive.

"So if it's not safer for you if I left your life, and I think it's too late for me either way, where does that leave us?" Lochlann asked her.

He kept telling himself not to close the distance.

But Guin curled up like that made it next to impossible to stay in his chair.

But he lashed out when he folded in like that--it made even more sense for Guinevere to lash out than it did for him. She was deadlier, too.

But he couldn't.

Lochlann rose from his chair and approached her. Just like before, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against himself. He rested his head on top of hers.

She could lash out if she wanted. Lochlann was used to being in pain. Lochlann was used to feeling.

That was his biggest curse, he thought. Being a monster that could feel.

Her voice breaking was a mirror of whatever was already inside of him. Lochlann had been broken for a long time, but Guin found the pieces and smashed them into something new, something he'd never seen before. He was a whole different kind of mess now.

This was unfamiliar territory. Even the tarot card readings did not predict this for his future.

She was saying his name like she was pleading for something, but Lochlann wasn't sure he could give her whatever it was she was asking. He wasn't even sure if she knew what she was asking for.

Instead, he lifted his head off of hers and brought one arm up to tilt her jaw towards her, just like he'd done on the beach. He pressed his lips to hers softly.

There was sex behind his kiss, as there always was. There was the threat of being taken to the bottom of the lake. There was the promise that he would hurt her.

But there was also the promise of what he could offer her now, in his arms.

That kiss.

It was a kiss he honestly expected himself to give, but it was delightful to receive it from Guin. Of course, now there was the issue of the ache in his groin and just how badly he wanted to take her in the lake.

he took a deep breath and she pulled away, and though it felt like she'd just dumped boiling water down his lungs, a small part of him was grateful.

This was the cost of sobriety.

His eyes were dilated and his heart was racing and he was thinking about the various ways he'd love to ravish her right here and now, but worse than that, Lochlann was thinking about what she would taste like.

It was a thought he had often and he was able to numb it when he could numb his hunger, but without the promise of sedatives it came roaring up and bleeding in his ears.

There was a small hum of magic in him that seemed to suggest come back to me and Lochlann wasn't sure if he could control it or not.

But he didn't need to, because Guin had broken free.

"Oh," he breathed.

He touched his fingers to her lips in a gesture that he'd once seen her make, although Lochlann didn't realize he was doing it. His mouth felt raw.

He still felt like he was on fire and the only thing that could extinguish this was fucking or feeding.

He took a deep breath.

He tried to focus on what that kiss told him.

Guin had always been the one in charge of their relationship. She was more skilled than he was, far deadlier, and knew all the places to cut him down. Despite having wanted it for so long, it was Guinevere that fucked him first.

The distinction shouldn't have mattered, but to Lochlann, it did.

He replayed the moments of their fucking in his head and he understood something now that he hadn't been able to fathom for.

For the first time, Lochlann understood what it cost Guin to submit.

She was speaking his language fluently, but it was the difference between learning the words from a textbook or being immersed in the culture.

He took another deep breath.

He shouldn't have thought about fucking her.

He shouldn't have kissed her.

But he couldn't have lived with himself if he didn't.

He opened his eyes and looked into hers. Her face was hardened again and so was her posture.

But that was okay.

He had the moments inbetween.

Lochlann's eyes moved of their own accord and watch her stretch. He watched her spine curve and he remembered the night her back arched and he pressed his hand in the small of her back and held her while she moaned his name.

Lochlann couldn't close his eyes.

He realized that Guin had asked him a question.

He realized he needed to get away from her right now.

He wasn't running. Lochlann was not afraid of her. He was afraid of what he'd do if he stayed, of what he would ask for her.

Lochlann desperately wanted something to drink.

"No, I think that will be everything," he said, and he moved as though he was in a dream. Lochlann wasn't aware of the aura of sex that was dripping off of him as he walked passed her to grab his jacket from the counter. He was doing his best to keep his breath even as he went to the door.

The knob was in his hand when he turned to her and said, "You should eat more, by the way."

He'd left the lunch he brought for her on the table.

It was chicken tacos.

He hadn't forgotten.