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She refuses to let him hear her scream. Holding herself together with fierce determination as the blows strike with violent force, propelled by the strength of his anger and the depth of his despair. She struggles not to acknowledge them, even as each feels it will fling her backwards to dash against the hideously patterned wall behind her. Oh god, does he know how to hurt her. She has heard it said by those of his kind that “sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can never hurt you”. They are always wrong, of course. Even among themselves a well placed word can do more damage than any blow from fist or club. But she is not made of flesh. She is formed from the stuff of myths and dreams, carved by inspiration and song, painted with prayer and delusion. She has no physical form to bruise with wood or rock, but the words, his words, flay her alive. Each syllable honed to a razor sharpness by an intellect not dimmed by the whiskey. No, the drink doesn’t dull their edge at all, just frees his tongue to speak them, to spit vicious stinging insults that tear through her leaving fiery streaks in their wake. He is in rare form tonight, the words falling fast and thick. No slur to them this time, he hasn’t been drinking., the crisper than usual intonation giving each a sharper biting sting. Instead of whiskey and indignation, they seem powered by frustration enhanced by exhaustion. If the pale skin and dark circles are any indication. She would care more if she could think clearly through the pain. Instead she concentrates on holding herself together as his words threaten to rip her apart. Words that aren’t even for her. Words of derision for one named Chris and his incompetence. Words of disgust for one named Ray who didn’t try hard enough. Words of anger at someone he calls The Guv who seems to have many personal failings, the worst of which is not listening to the man who holds her captive. She listens, she has no choice, each word pinning her to the spot with spikes of agony. But most of his venom, his words of fire and bitter ice, seem fueled by a bone deep weariness, a hopeless anger at the world around him that allowed so many young women to die. A world he thinks should have tried harder to help. His outraged descriptions of their suffering, only adding to her own. When it is finally over, when he has run out of words, released her from his gaze, and turned his mind elsewhere, she lets slip the tight hold she kept on her form. The form she managed to maintain all through his assault by will alone and no longer has the energy for. The tatters he has made of her blossom into evidence as she finally allows her pain to show. She is careful to remain quiet, however, least he return to inflict more damage upon her. With his gaze no longer keeping her prisoner here, she scrapes together the energy to move as quickly as her injuries will allow. It seems to take forever, and she is desperately scared he will come back to torment her some more, but she manages somehow, and makes her way home as quietly as possible. This time was worse than any before. Even the soothing touch of her own abode can not stop the pain that sizzles through every part of her. She hasn’t any memory of arriving home, can’t even form a coherent image of what her home is. She knows this isn’t good. If even her very own place of safety is thrown into flux by whatever he did to her, the chances of her bringing herself out of this just got very small. She must be more injured than she realized, but is unable to think, possibly in shock, and too exhausted to do anything more if she could think. So she falls into something resembling a bed, curls herself around the worst of her pain, and hopes these are hurts that time can cure. --- It turns out they are not. By the time he finds her, her own form and that of her entire residence is wavering, shifting to appear first one way and then another. That her own self image is that badly damaged, scares him to death, but when such long held concepts as that of her own home start to flicker and fade, he knows she must be hanging on by a very small thread. What did that bastard do to her this time? He feels his guilt spike, every time she comes back battered from another assault. If his grip on physical form and reality had been better, stronger, then he never could have been pushed aside by the monster that now haunts them. Not that he would rather be as he was before. The world of flesh and blood never held him very tightly, always keeping him at a distance, removed from the joy others found there. Here he has her, and she is everything to him, all that he never found in the world he was born into. He would not wish to undo the strange confluence of forces he doesn’t understand, that pushed him from the life he held such a lose grip on, but how can he be glad of his own weakness when it brings her pain like this? He gathers her in his arms, pushing his own guilt to the back of his mind, and whispering soft words to sooth her wounds. At first, even his gentlest words make her flinch, scraped raw as she is. But he keeps on anyway, knowing that she is too far gone to manage without help. Wrapping himself around her he speaks of friendship and respect, of admiration and loyalty, of loneliness banished. But his words are not enough and she continues to fade from his grasp. Her home is nearly gone now, her pain still so evident on a face that changes from one moment to the next. At least she still has a face. So he reaches deeper inside himself and finds words of her beauty, of how it captivates him in any form, of how he longs for it, and for the gentle touch of her words upon him. He strokes her gently as a feather with these words, and the restless flickering slows to a stop, and some of the pain seems to ease. But she is still so nebulous, her features a sort of nothing that is everything all at once, and he is scared to death for her. But still he finds her so beautiful. Oh, he has made a has hash of all of this. Someone better, more experienced, more competent to love her, would know how to help her. But he hardly yet understands this place to which he has come. He was born to the world of matter, the world of that monster who shouldered him aside. He is still too awkward, too clumsy to help her. But there is no one else, her residence is too far gone now for any other to enter, even if they were to try. If he does not find a way to help her, she will die. So he pushes aside those parts of him that feel guilty and inadequate, unworthy to utter them, and speaks words of love. At first he speaks the plain but heartfelt words from his own mind, then fancy words borrowed from sonnets and speeches, from poets and priests. He steals metaphors from pop songs, similes from Hallmark, and promises from politicians. He covers her in a balm of words as thick and as soft as he can make it, all saying just one thing, that she is loved. He pores so much out into her that the edges of his own form start to waver, and he himself grays out for a while. He awakes too weak to move, but joyous at the sight of her laying beside him, her form now strong and steady. She looks again as he has most often known her. Her hair is golden and soft in the light of her slowly rebuilding abode. Her garments are once again the crimson color of which she is so fond, and her eyes are still closed, but he knows they will open to a brilliant blue. When she does finally open those eyes, he becomes frightened. He has spoken so much he was not sure he was ready to say. That he is even less sure she was ready to hear. He won’t take any of it back, not now. Not when it has healed her wounds, brought her back to him, whole. But he worries about what words she will find to speak to him. That even the most gently spoken of rejections will scrape and claw beyond all measure. For her he will bear that pain if he must, it will be far less than what she has had to shoulder, but the prospect makes him tremble. For a long time, she doesn’t speak at all. Just gazes on him, considering. And just when he is sure he can take no more, she says his name. The one he still can’t stop himself from using, even though it more properly belongs to the physical being he used to be. “Sam”, she says, “My beautiful Sam Williams”. And she speaks. Her words, her wonderful, amazing, glorious words pore forth as both soothing ice and the best kind of burning fire as they caress him with a deftness he is sure he will never master. And then, when he has ridden the wave of her words to new heights, she speaks the ones that send him off again. Not in grey this time, but a white hot mist of bliss and oblivion. She says “I love you too”.