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The sharp cuff to the face had been a brief spark of life to Lloyd in the last few months.
“You monster! You killed my sister!”
The man’s voice in front of him cracked. If the punch hadn’t made him stumble, the grief in that voice did. Just enough that his left foot shifted backwards in the snow, against the slate of the pathways that made up the streets of Flanoir. He hadn’t been here in so long.
“This is a mistake! That wasn’t Lloyd!” someone had shouted back in defense. Lloyd wasn’t sure who. The other’s voice still resounded in his head, still pierced his skull despite doing all he could to not let it show on his face.
But over the past few months, he had only known distance and cold nights, known dark ruins in search for the Cores, known starry skies with no one to share it with. His cheek ached, and his arms felt as if they were weighed down with lead.
I deserve this anyway.
And like that, Lloyd took in all the biting hatred and despair that was still being thrown his way, long after the man had left with tears streaming down his face.
He thought he felt something in his own eyes before he finally left the others, saying he needed to be alone.
Lloyd had felt very little for so long. At least the pain gave him something.
“Lloyd?”
When she came by, it was like the soft memory of a dream that kept being on repeat, one that he wished he hadn’t had to wake up from before.
Lloyd smiled as best he could. “Hey, Colette… what are you doing out here?”
Because the last time, it had been her who had called him out to the balcony, out into the cold where her skin was feeling the brisk air. Few could have gone out into a snowstorm with a happy grin like she did. So, he had wanted to feel the cold too, placing his own hands into the snowbanks, starting a sudden snowball fight that Colette had already prepared for with a sneaky lob of snow aimed at his head.
That really had only been two years ago, hadn’t it? Time felt so still.
Colette had already reached for his hands, despite them being gloved, despite him not holding back at first. He stared at the touch with blank eyes, seemingly unable to understand what was happening to him right now.
“You’re hurt. You don’t have to hide that from us… from me.” Colette gripped his fingers tightly, the snow catching onto her hair, melting against her cheeks. “You’re not on your own, remember?”
Still, he couldn’t speak at first. He kept staring at how she held him. At her hands.
“Lloyd?” Colette repeated, following his gaze. “I’m sorry… should I not have-”
“It’s been so long since I felt you,” he said suddenly. The words came out hoarse, as if scraping against his ribs in all its pain. Hearing that from himself, he winced.
It had just been months of traveling, months of keeping his mouth shut for the sake of his mission, for his pact with Martel. And each night alone had been so cold and made his hands feel numb.
His face still ached from the punch, but the spike of pain from it had been sudden, revitalizing something in his limbs that it frightened him for a moment. And as the snow fell, as it made everything so quiet, the numbness had come back.
Colette’s fingers entwined with his, her body moving closer. The embrace felt natural suddenly, like back then.
“Is this what you need?” she asked him, murmuring into his jacket. The snow was still in her hair. He buried his face in it, giving himself to both her heat and the chill of the world surrounding them.
Telling her he loved her made him feel something again too.
It was hard letting her go – even after they both went to his room.
“S-sorry,” he stuttered, the cold finally getting to him, teeth chattering just slightly. At least it helped him with his grin. “I get cold easily now.”
“Heh, it’s okay,” she reassured, rubbing her hands against his arms. “Does this help?”
“A little, yeah,” he said, his voice lighter now. “Thanks.”
She giggled, the room a bit dark with only the lamplights from outside giving any light. “Remember when you used to do the same with me?”
“Yeah, you were freezing! I was worried that you got like, frostbite or something…”
How weirdly easy it was to fall back into this again – full of normalcy and settling into a rhythm that he realized had been gone for so long. Before, it had all just been a pull of either constant stumbling in the dark, or staying still, so still he could barely feel himself breathe.
But now, he smiled, and Colette was here, touching him so gratefully. His eyes half-shut, feeling her palms press against the sleeves of his jacket. “Need to make sure you don’t freeze too!” she said happily. Her cheeks were still red, and she flicked glances at Lloyd, shy as her own smile was shining in the dark.
He wanted to tell her how much he loved her again, but he felt his body sink against her hands. His head lowered a bit, cheek pressed against hers. He could hear the hitch in her breath, the room so quiet. “I think it’s making me sleepy…”
Colette didn’t say anything at first. Her touch moved from his arms towards his hands, then pulled him along to the bed that sat lonely within the middle of the inn’s room.
But they didn’t sit on it, not yet.
“Lloyd…tell me how long you’ve been gone.” She finally looked at him directly, her voice hushed, not wanting to disturb the falling snow.
Even after Lloyd finally met up with friends, could finally speak with them in more than half-words, time couldn’t seem to sync with him. Just movement, just the pact hanging over his head, the danger always present. “I’m not…really sure.”
“Almost 10 months,” Colette said quickly. Maybe there was a hint of something accusing in it – but not like everyone else. The accusing eyes of the grieving brother in the town square, the strained voice of Emil and… “But you know that.”
A hint of confusion. He shook his head. “What do you…”
Her hands swiftly moved away from his, and it was like being shut away in the dark. Cold and far deep into something nameless.
Back underneath the starry skies with no one.
Back into the ruins where the air was thin and monsters teemed among the stones, the pathways blending in among each other.
Back into the numbness and not remembering what day it was or how long he had been gone, how long he had away –
Lloyd instantly reached for her hands again, gripping tight. “Please don’t,” he said, his voice breaking.
Colette said nothing, but she looked at him, her fingers entwining with his. “Lloyd…”
He was shaking. Because of the cold. It was just cold. But something inside him continued to tremble. His cheek still burned, the pain still there, reminding him.
“I can’t…remember…when we…”
He watched Colette carefully, his eyes now long adjusted to the dark, always to the dark. She was biting her lip, thinking hard – and then her hands went to his left, where his Exsphere glinted from the lamplights.
“The snow made this damp,” she said, voice still so soft. She peeled away the glove, even as it stuck to his skin. “You’ll definitely get sick with this on.”
Her hand made contact with his, fingers brushing against his knuckles, his palm. Like sparks, but warm and bursting instead of suddenness overwrought by grief.
“This one too?” she asked tentatively, taking his other hand. He didn’t move, didn’t react. If he moved too much, would she stop touching him? He didn’t want her to stop touching him.
Colette drew out her movements, fingers slipping underneath the hem of his second glove. His hand lay limp in her lap, absorbing the curves of the folds in her dress, like the ocean waves caught at a standstill within the night.
His hands were cold and shaking, and she held them with hers, bubbles of warmth erupting at every patch of him that she touched. The soft rush of her skin on his, the slight tickle of her thumb against his wrist.
Why did this all feel so new to him?
“Can you…” he started, stopped, like a missed step in that darkness he had been too long used to.
“Yes, Lloyd?” she asked him, still rubbing his hands gently, so gently, the way he would start a campfire when the winds bit through his jacket, pierced through his skull.
“You’ll…stay with me?” he asked. Some other sound left him. He tried to cover it up by clearing his throat. “I mean…just for a little while. I think that guy hit me harder than I thought.”
Small jokes that he said to try to lighten the air, even as the snow gripped it tight. Colette smiled. Her eyes went to their clasped hands. “I will. Just... please promise me something though.”
The word echoed through him; the press of a necklace in his hand, her eyes like the washed-out sunset over the ocean. But those were before, long before, if he could just remember that.
“Okay,” he said, to keep himself steady.
“You have to trust me.”
The skies came back to him; to a time where his chest felt to bursting as he clung to her tight. Trust me to know of your pain.
He can’t keep being a hypocrite to her.
Many of the past months to Lloyd were a complete blank to him.
He knew that there were gaps in his memory – the last clear one he had was visiting Dirk back home, hugging his father so tightly before rushing off, laughing off any worries. This was his promise to the pact, and he would see it through. And in the end, Colette would forgive him.
Yet sometimes, he found himself in a town that he had no recollection of ever entering through its gates. Or he would see stone above him, the light of a Core just a few feet away. Martel said her power would protect him, but he had questioned, and touching the cores sometimes felt too sharp and invasive, like running his hands over something poisonous.
At some point, Colette had drawn him down to the bed. He didn’t recall how, but he didn’t feel fear over it now. She was lightly touching his hands, then to his arms, revisiting every place that she had once known as second to her own skin.
He watched, fascinated, at every motion. He could have done so for hours.
“I think I just…stopped paying attention to everything else after a while,” he finally said. Colette’s hands moved to his collar then, pressing lightly against the back of his neck. His eyes fluttered shut for a moment, fingers pressing against the knots in his skin. “I thought maybe it was the pact doing it but…I’m not so sure now.”
It was easier to do things when one was numb to everything, wasn’t it? Or was it even harder than before?
“So…you weren’t just ignoring all of us?” Colette asked. And there was the small change in her tone. He rarely heard her angry, even if it was soft and more an impression of it than reality. And yet he felt its contours, its meanings, the way it stuck inside his chest like thorns.
“I didn’t want to,” he could only excuse. Colette’s hands moved underneath his collar, then forward, reaching the top button of his jacket. “I hadn’t heard about Palmacosta until later…”
The gaps in his head had been so frequent by then. For a time, he had wondered, and tried to keep his hands away from his swords unless he absolutely needed to use them.
In the shadows, he saw the worry etched into Colette’s face, fine sand that made its mark over the course of only a few years. Had she always been this worried? It took him too long to notice. “It was hard convincing the Church to not condemn you for that.”
“…Yeah, I’d…think so.” And still, his imposter was out there. Still, that one man’s grief would never heal.
“So many didn’t want to listen to me. Zelos said I shouldn’t be trying to reason with them, that I should just say to them…um…I can’t…repeat it, heh.” A hint of a smile, lighting up the subject, making the thorns sting less. “But people were scared and so many still depend on the Church. So I promised that I would find you, and when I finally did…you just…”
Like some echo through the night. Lloyd couldn’t remember. “I don’t remember,” he said.
“You barely even looked at me.”
The thorns came back. He reached up to take her hand. “I’m sorry-”
“Wait,” she said, voice quieter again. “Your jacket is wet too, you know.”
A slow blink. He let go of her hand, felt her reach for the other buttons, unclasping them gently.
A few times she had done this for him on their own journey. When he would be so tired from all the walking, and just lay back in the grass as Colette played with his collar strips, tying them both into ribbons, or counting the buttons along his sleeves, marveling at just how many Dirk had thought to put on them. Small things that resurfaced, hidden away by something engulfing.
When Colette tugged at his sleeves, he let his arm slip through, only then noticing how his front had already opened, his suspenders pulled down. Half-asleep, half-disbelieving, he felt her hands press against his shoulders, taking everything down. The wind was chill, even inside the inn room, but her touch washed over him like warm sunshine.
Colette furrowed her brows in the dark. “You’re shaking,” she said. “Am I hurting you?”
“No…” He shook his head. “No, no, you’re not, just…” He pulled her close, cold at first, one hand against her waist. But his skin pressed against hers and it was searing and blissful and all he ever wanted. “Keep touching me.”
Colette still hesitated – unsure of whatever emptiness was still within him, even after reuniting with everyone. Something that made him fall away from everyone’s pleas for him, time and time again. Her hands tentatively slid across his arms, not quick and teasing like before, but soft and careful, like she was mapping the shapes of sharp glass.
“10 months…not just from me but… no one else at all?”
Lloyd only faintly understood, still holding onto her form, his shaking becoming less.
“You saw no one else,” she stated. “Or talked with anyone…hugged anyone…”
He blinked, the realization coming upon him in small waves. It seemed so…strange when he thought about it. “I guess I didn’t…Yuan doesn’t exactly like to give hugs,” Lloyd joked, though his laughter came off weak. “And…it’d be weird with Martel, wouldn’t it?”
But the expression on Colette remained serious, remained sad. Her hair fell against his neck as she shifted over to him. “But you’ve not even gone to see Dirk at all? Noishe?” Colette’s voice was full of regrets. “You’ve not felt anyone?”
Her hands moved from his arms to his chest, one moving underneath the hem of his shirt. He flinched slightly, but never moved away.
In the nights before with Colette, he would always be surrounded by her. In the nights after, he would be alone and cold, and the sky would be so engulfing that he’d fall away into it if he wasn’t careful.
It’s a blur, when she removes the rest of his clothes – his shirt, already upended past his head. Her hands were steadier when they reached his belts, unlatching the catch there, then gently having him lay back against the headboard.
There were nights when they had undressed each other, loved each other, when the nights felt warm instead of cold, felt reassuring instead of frightening.
Just the touch of her hand brought forth everything he had ever loved about her, in stark detail, as if he was even younger now, catching Colette within the starlight as she rushed towards her home with a wave to him.
“Remember when you’d always reach for my hand?” she was saying, sounding more at ease. Pretending for his sake? Or was she also…? “Even when we were kids… you never gave it a thought.” She giggled, still so close. It was only then he saw her unhook her overcoat, moving from her shoulders like water.
Like on the balcony from years back, she was moving towards him, but she didn’t need to ask his permission. He had already wanted her to give whatever she could. Her dress fell away, her stockings, her shoes, and then she was on top of him, the invigorating sensation of her skin all that he ever knew.
He panted, just slightly, and still Colette stayed, pressing her forehead against his chest. “And you were always still so careful when you did. Even when I felt you wanted to hold my hand harder, or hug me more…and I wanted that too.”
He could barely speak. His body was singing. His hands pressed against her naked sides. Overwhelming, drowning, when for months he only felt dirt and stone and the biting wind.
He couldn’t survive without this. He had been so close to not doing so. Dirk, who had taught him how to give the best bear hugs, Noishe who would always sidle up to him at every opportunity when they would walk outside, even Genis letting Lloyd surprise him with tackles or a friendly pat on the shoulder. And Colette, accepting his hand, gentle and waiting and eager.
Maybe if his time away from everyone had been shorter – just a month or maybe even less – he wouldn’t need this from Colette. Even after they had first started to go beyond brief touches, he had never felt this desperate, this hurting.
Colette’s chest was against his, and he took in a sharp breath. His hands went to her shoulders. “Colette…”
Her hair covered his face, shutting away the lamplight from outside. “Is this what you need?” she asked, and the tone was different, was careful. She was so, so careful with him.
“I…” He swallowed. His body arched, trying to catch every sensation, every part of her. “It’s just…Colette, it’s just been so long..”
She hushed him, and there was her smile, weathering even the worst of everything. And he wanted to apologize to her, to say he never wanted to leave her to deal with a world all alone. For he had now done the same and the loneliness was so unbearable and agonizing, and what if all that he felt, Colette did too? But she would smile and shake away those worries for him, and he couldn’t be responsible for that again-
She kissed him, her touch bringing everything back, and as he closed his eyes, he was once again a young boy seeing Colette leave the schoolhouse by herself, already rushing towards her and asking to take her hand.