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Counting Stars.
She tilts her head, eyes gazing upwards, not looking for any one star but seeking all of them. It had been here, beneath the night sky, where in every direction there are stars, that she had first voiced her wish to fly. The silver swirls and whirlpools of galaxies, delicately spaced sequins neatly arranged into simple and familiar shapes, dance through her minds eye. Diamonds strung through ink and velvet skies.
A soft, warm hand comes up to cup her cheek. Thumb caressing the rubbery stretch of skin there as the lines of the palm catch her attention. The swirls on her hand mimicking those in the skies, allowing her to feel them there now that she can no longer see. She turns her face down, nuzzling into the touch even as it slips away, touching against her sharp chin and to her shoulder. Smoothing down along the long, clean line of her arm until fingers lace together. Squeezing softly, sharing warmth and comfort, before guiding her to curl her fingers into the rough fabric pushed up and bunched around an elbow.
“Don’t let go of me, okay?”
Her heart briefly stills and dips in her chest. The crooning voice behind her ear repeating back to her what her own had once pleaded. After a moment one edge of her mouth lifts up as she aims a crooked little smile in the direction of the voice. “Okay.” There’s beat of silence before a sudden gentle tug has her balance tilting. Her feet barely stumble forwards as the pair set off at a slow and easy pace. “But if you fall, you’re on your own.”
The voice beside her chuckles softly and sends her heart galloping through her chest. “That’s probably wise.”
They must be a sight to behold as they move across the courtyard. The almost sightless blonde clinging to the elbow of the crippled brunette as Clementine’s crutches come down to swing her forward or to knock away a piece of rubble before Violet could trip. Their progress is steady and careful and filled with gentle murmured words. There is no hurry tonight, no urgency, just comfort and companionship.
They couldn’t have traveled far, perhaps only a hundred feet or so before Clementine halts, her hand coming up to catch Violet around her belly before she could stumble into their destination.
“Clem?” Buttermilk strands, frosted blue by starlight, tumble forwards over Violet’s face as she frowns softly. “Why did we stop?”
“We’re here.” There’s a shift of movement, and the sound of Clementine’s crutches clattering against something solid. Violet feels her guts tighten as Clementine carefully disentangles her fingers from her sleeve and shifts both of her hands onto the blonde’s narrow hips, guiding her around so that she is nose to nose with her. “I just need you to scoot back slowly. The cart is right behind you.” She can feel the tension seize through the older girl. The cart harbors both a fear and relief for her. It took her away once before, away from her friends and her love, but it also brought her back home to them too. “Vi, it’s okay. I promise. It’s just the easiest thing to help you climb onto.”
Clementine's eyes are drawn to the quick dart of tongue as teeth bite down on the corner of thick pouty lips. “What about you?” Clouded green of the one uncovered eye peers back at her. The corner pulling into a squint as the girl wills Clementine’s face to focus, huffing in frustration when it doesn’t. “Can you climb up too?”
“Once you’re up you can help me. But first, we need to get you up there.” Her thumbs stoke against the frayed denim of her jeans, the fabric shifting soothingly against sensitive skin as she positions Violet more centered to her. “Ready?”
The blonde fumbles for a moment. Her fingers finding the edge of wood and curling tight. Shifting herself backwards until the lip butts up against her ass and setting her jaw firmly before she nods.
“Alright then, on three.”
Violet makes tiny little dips at the knee, bunny hops, with each number that Clementine counts down, until she says ‘one’ and tightens her grip on Violet’s belt. She doesn’t actually lift the blonde -she couldn’t do that no matter how fervently she wishes she could- more so she guides the direction of her jump. Plus, it offers Clementine just one more excuse to touch her.
As Violet wriggles and shuffles herself backwards, Clementine allows her palms to lay flat against the slim thighs, stroking along them as the other girl shifts around onto her knees. Her brows knitting in determination as she finds and pushes the brunette’s crutches aside before holding her hands out.
“Okay, Clem. Your turn.”
Clementine’s ascension onto the cart is less graceful. Hands grasp elbows, fingers gripping firmly as the amputee hobbles closer. The count down is repeated but Violet pulls too early and Clementine jumps too late, resulting in more of an awkward scramble and stumble than anything else before the two girls collapse into a pile of tangled limbs and breathless laughter. Gradually their laughs dissipate, drifting up and away and lost into the vast, empty skies above them. Pushing herself up and away from sprawling across the blonde, Clementine carefully rearranges herself to settle down beside her. Guiding Violet to lay pressed against her side, curling her arm around her shoulders and threading her fingers between Violet’s long, slender ones.
As they lay there together in silence, beneath the surreal blanket of wisping brushstroke clouds and scattered winking lights, Violet could feel Clementine’s heart beating in her chest. The strong and steady pulse, thrums soothingly against her cheek and Clementine could hear Violet’s soft breaths, rising and falling easily from her side.
With a soft breathy sound, Violet shifts onto her hip, her chilled nose burrowing into Clementine’s neck as she murmurs quietly. “This is really nice.”
The blonde sounds so open, so peaceful, like she did that night atop the bell tower when they admitted their feelings for each other. Where they had shared their first kiss. The corners of the brunette’s mouth turn up at that memory and her arm instinctively tightens around the girl who had stolen her heart, letting her feel how she felt. “Yeah. It really is.”
Violet would happily lay in Clementine’s arms forever. The easy quiet between them caressing over her skin takes away her jagged edges and soothes her fragile soul. She curls herself deeper into the brunette’s side, mumbling words that Clementine almost misses. “It’s my birthday…” Her forehead pinches into the lightest of frowns. “At least, I think it is.”
Clementine’s soft chuckle ripples through the still quiet, like a pebble skipping water. “How do you know that? We don’t even know what day it is anymore, never mind an actual date.”
In her arms the blonde shrugs. Shoulders rolling up to her ears before easing back into her usual slouch. “I don’t know for sure.” Violet’s voice is pitched low in her uncertainty. The purring rasp that gave it life and stirred Clementine’s affections rumbling from her chest. “I was born in the spring and I’ve been counting the days since the weather started turning. I know it’s not like, a hundred percent accurate, but I’m pretty sure I’m close.”
“Okay then, how old are you now?”
The pinch between slender brows returns and the corner of Violet’s mouth drops down. Voicing her answer hesitantly, almost questioningly. “Nineteen... I think. Harder to keep track of the years than seasons.”
Clementine hums in quiet agreement. Trying to recall her own age. She’s pretty sure she turned seventeen last fall, during the Delta raid. She squeezes the fingers wrapped up in her own, bringing their joined hands to her lips and pressing a kiss to the knuckles, smirking softly with how the movement draws Violet flush against her. Chest against chest, two hearts beating together under the stars, thrumming against each other on hummingbird wings. “Here’s to your last year as a teenager. What do you want to do with it?”
She can feel how Violet’s lungs expand behind her ribs as she takes a deep breath, and how she deflates softly when she breathes out slow and long. “Honestly?” Her voice strains a little as she sighs and her words tremble with melancholy. “I just wish I could look at the stars with you. I want to see our constellations again.”
Clementine’s eyes fall to the choppy blonde head tucked against her shoulder, pressing her cheek to the golden crown as she murmurs softly. “We can do that.”
As Violet pulls back, the whispering voice of a warm spring breeze toys with the thin ashen strands scattered around her face. Her unbandaged eye fixes just to the side of Clementine’s tawny gold orbs, blinking twice before she squints and shifts the almost blind organ over and holds her girlfriend’s gaze. “How?” She questions curiously, the first flutter of excitement stirring in her belly like a newly emerged butterfly. “I can barely see shadow and light. I’m six inches away from you and it still took me two attempts to look you in the eye.”
“It’s simple, Vi.” Clementine said quietly, raising their joined hands to her own face. Sliding her fingers away from the spaces between the blonde’s and shifting them down to encircle the slim wrist instead. She presses Violet’s fingers to her face, guiding the dexterous digits over the sweep of lashes and swell of cheek. Helping her to map out the planes and angles of her features, and delighting in the way her frosted peridot eye lit up in understanding. “I can help you touch them. If you’d like?”
“Yes!” Violet’s cheeks heat at the high crack in her voice and the eagerness of her cry. Clearing her throat, the blonde tries again. “Yeah, I’d like that, Clem. I’d like that a lot.”
Chuckling low in her throat, Clementine coaxes Violet to lay back down beside her. Coiling her arm around the slender blonde’s shoulders and holding her tight, the brunette raises their joined hands into the sky. “Which would you like to see first?”
There is no hesitancy in Violet’s reply, the words tumbling from her lips even as she snuggles into the younger girl’s side. “I want to see yours.”
Slowly, Clementine moves the pale hand in a familiar shape. Mapping out the invisible lines over and over and watching how the tiny smile painting pouting lips widens. Her almost sightless eye creases from beneath, though the wrinkled webs of burned skin remain unmoving. Leaning close, Clementine murmurs softly, words breathed directly into Violet’s ear. “Close your eyes. Let me draw them for you.”
Without hesitation, Violet obeys. Short light lashes sliding shut as over and over, Clementine guides Violet’s outstretched fingers. Etching out the shapes of each of their own constellations, branding them into the inky darkness of both velvet skies and minds eye. It’s strange, but the more Clementine leads her hand and the deeper against her side Violet finds herself melting into, the more aware she is of how her heart seems to skip. Violet can feel how the heat blossoms in her cheeks. Streaks of pink stroking over her chilled flesh as warm, sweet breath skims the apple of her cheek and stirs the thin wisps of platinum beside her ear. She could have lost all of this. The warmth. The love. The quiet moments where no words were needed but a thousand were exchanged in every shy little look and touch. She could have lost Clementine, for so many different reasons but, despite it all, every time the stubborn brunette had somehow managed to find her way back to her.
The next thing Violet knows is that she’s craning her neck, her lips searching for Clementine’s own. But her aim is off and she misses. Instead, her lips find the edge of Clementine’s nose, her own nose tip bumping up a little too firmly against the brunette’s -thankfully closed- eye.
“Shit.” The hint of rose pink to Violet’s cheeks flares scarlet and the heat reaches its touch all the way to her ear tips.
Well, so much for being romantic.
“Clem, I…” The humiliated blonde, with her face burning red, wriggles and twists herself free of Clementine’s arms. The heels of her boots digging against the bottom of the cart as she attempts to kick herself further away. “I’m so sorry. I-I can’t see… I couldn’t see… I-”
Her words die in her throat as Clementine’s hand grabs both Violet’s shirt and denim vest. Strong fingers curling into a fist around the fabrics as she hauls the blonde hard against herself. Chest to chest. Nose to nose. Half lidded topaz smoldering into cloudy emerald. The lips that claim Violet’s are gentle and slow, barely parted in a throaty chuckle and when she kisses her, the whole world simply melts away. Her hand, the one not wrapped in a handful of Violet’s shirts, finds and draws one of the blonde’s own to her cheek, coaxing Violet to touch her. To skim her fingers over the line and curve of her cheek, to feel how Clementine smiles against her lips.
Confident that Violet’s nerve will hold, that her hand will remain touching her face, Clementine carefully curls her own fingers beneath the sharp edge of Violet’s jaw. Thumb brushing the blonde’s warm, blush kissed cheek, the brunette tilts her head, changing the angle slightly and deepening their kiss. When the moment ends, neither girl retreats very far, just enough to allow foreheads to meet and press together and for soft breathing to mingle between them.
“That-” Violet breaks the silence first. Her voice pitched low in her throat and her dulcet tones smokey. “-was, intense.”
Bumping the tip of her nose against Violet’s, Clementine responds in her own husking tone. “You were gonna fall.” She murmurs, touching her lips to the other girls soft mouth. “What kind of date would I be if I let my girl hurt herself when she falls for me?”
Violet snorts without much heat behind it, her disdain for the cheesy line more forced and hollow than she cared to admit. She leans in again, now keenly aware of where to find Clementine’s mouth and determined to initiate a kiss of her own. However, she is disappointed to find her lips brushing the brunette’s chin as Clementine turns her head upwards, eyes cast to the heavens and her skin aglow in ethereal light.
“A shooting star! Quick, Vi. Make a wish.”
Sightless eyes roll as arms reach out and fold around Clementine’s neck. “Why?” Easing herself to lay flat on her back, arms drawing the younger teen to follow her descent. “I have everything I want right here.”
Clementine’s laughter is bright and warm, trickling through her crooked lips. And when Violet closed her eyes she could see the merry lights twinkling in golden orbs, tucked away in her memories. Propping herself on one elbow, the brunette flicks her fingers through the messy silver blonde bangs. Star fire eyes glimmering as they take in the pale face, scarred pink around sightless eyes. “Gross. You really need to stop asking Louis to help you with your flirting, Vi. That was so god damned cheesy.”
Violet grins, barks out a single overly offended scoff as she drags Clementine down on top of her. “You have the audacity to call me cheesy? I mean, who the hell takes a blind chick on a star gazing date?”