Relapse

"If black is how it comes, it's how I'll drink it," Lochlann said. He gave her a sheepish smile and then took the cup with a "Thank you" as she passed it to him. Wen she sat down, he joined her against the flat of the roof, letting his back press against it and his shoulder brush hers before he settled in completely.

Lochlann took a sip of his coffee. It was good, and he realized now he'd probably need it.

"Sorry," Lochlann said, grabbing onto her metaphor. "It's not a bomb I've ever really dropped before. I wasn't sure how to minimize the damage."

His breath hung in the air for a moment so he took another sip of the coffee.

"Did you try and steal my school record?" he asked her.

It's what he would have done.

He was a little bit relieved when she said she didn't take his school file.

"Well," he admitted. "It's what I would have done."

Not that he did look up her school file. But he'd tried to steal one or two. It was getting harder after the last few times. When she said she'd googled him, Lochlann considered this. He didn't think he'd really come up on google--his name was uncommon enough, sure, but he didn't really have social media and his family was surprisingly good about keeping away from online listings.

But then he understood what she meant and he took a deep breath.

"Hah, swimming with it," he said, catching her joke, but he was tilting his head back to rest against the roof. Shit. She asked good questions. He couldn't blame her for wanting to know.

Lochlann licked his lips and then regretted the gesture. He took a long sip of coffee.

Did he want to eat her?

"Yes," he said. "It's the worst part."

He shifted and took another deep breath. He was starting to feel warm and he unzipped the first few inches of his jacket. It felt too tight on his neck. He wanted desperately to take his shirt off.

Lochlann fidgeted with one of his sleeves, still holding the coffee.

"It'd be easier to forgive me, I think, if I didn't want it so badly," Lochlann told her. She was right. If this was going to work, he'd have to lay this out on the table, too. He'd already come this far, but it still felt like he was stripping himself down to the bones for her.

He tried to put this in words, too.

"The curve of your neck," Lochlann said, feeling his face grow hot as he said the words. "it's beautiful. I can't decide if I find it beautiful if it's because I want to kiss it, if this want is sexual, or if it's...well..."

Or if it was because he was afraid to sleep because he might dream about ripping into it.

He wanted to back step.

He wanted to say, I don't want to eat you but you make me hungry. But that implied to him that this was in some way Cat's fault, and it wasn't. She wasn't doing anything. It was whatever was fucked up about him.

He believed her about the file and returned her admission with a smile.

Cat made a few jerky movements next to her. He still had his head tilted back up against the wall so he missed the cause, but he assumed it was him until the smell of warm coffee hit his nose and he realized she'd spilled some on herself.

"I think I have..." he put his own coffee down and reached into his pocket, removing a folded up tissue to hand to her for the spill. It was clean, but had clearly been shoved in there without too much thought. Then, he realized she'd already found one, so he apologized and moved it back into his pocket next to his cigarettes.

He was almost glad for the coffee thing because it gave him a moment to think. It seemed to be all he ever thought about but when it came time to put it into words, Lochlann had none.

Her flat comment about her neck took him back and he realized he felt relieved by it, but also guilty.

"Hands, too," Lochlann commented. For some reason, he felt better saying hands. He never really thought about eating her hands, but instead what it'd be like to be touched by them. That felt safe.

Weird for him to say, but safe.

He wished he thought of it earlier.

"I'm okay," he said, and he was surprised to find that he was. Admitting that he wanted to eat her was....oddly freeing. It was almost as if by saying it he wanted it less, although that wasn't entirely true. "I'm more worried about how you're taking all of this. I mean, i imagine you don't usually have strange men telling you they want to eat you."

he realized the double entendre and frowned.

"This is different," he told her. "I feel like I'm breaking all the rules and now I don't know how to play the game."

It took Lochlann a moment to remember she was a writer and an artist. When she made the comment about hands producing awesome stuff, his face blanched and then turned scarlet. He picked up his coffee and coughed, then took a sip, because oh fuck, was his mind in the gutter.

"I am a grade a pervert,' he confessed when he finally had his voice back.

The mood was a lot lighter than he expected and he was relieved.
Suddenly, her fingers were laced within his and her cheek was on his shoulder and she was
touching him.

He relaxed against her and she'd be able to feel some of the stiffness leaving even his hands and his shoulders. He never realized how stiff he was until he suddenly wasn't.

"I like you, too," Lochlann said. To hear that she liked him made his heart flutter. He licked his lips again and, when she said she liked his neck, his face felt hot but this time not from shame.

"I would like that," Lochlann said. "To make our own rules. But I think it's only fair for you to make the first one."

He gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

"I think, though, we should probably both go to the hospital afterwards," he said. He paused for dramatic effect and then said, "To check for brain activity, because we both must be insane."

He reached down and took his coffee and said, "But I don't want this to be a bad idea, Cat. For either of us."

This already felt different. This already felt like maybe, this time, everything would go right.

Lochlann was very seriously nodding for the first rule and looking especially grim, so when she lifted his hand and kissed it, he realized she'd been joking. He gave her an embarrassed smile that quickly straightened back once the conversation switched.


He stretched his bad leg out before them again and rested his other arm on his knee, holding the coffee in it.

"Okay," he said. "That's a fair rule. I worry it's going to be easier said than done."

For him, probably. Cat was good at confronting her fears, as she kept showing them over and over again. If she confronted him, he could walk away with no problem. He suspected the magic around them might have something to do with it.

"This is kind of like having a safe word," Lochlann said.

She was close to him, so close, and Lochlann could feel his heart beating a little bit faster.

He felt a little bold with his next question, but it was a question that fell into this category. For Lochlann, sex and death were inexplicably linked.

"What if I want to kiss you?" he asked.