Work Text:
Why didn't you tell me you were bit? Her voice barely exceeds a whisper, faltering, breaking on an exhale that sings of grief and loss. Soft, delicate fingers sift through his hair, grazing his skull, warm sparks tingling down his spine. Comfort. That's what this this, he realizes bitterly.
Didn't want ya ta look at me like that. Blue eyes are watery, teardrops adorning her lashes like damned fairy lights. His arm feels like lead when he lifts it to wipe the salty trails away with the rough pad of his thumb.
The fever burns through his veins without mercy, his vision blurring like a painting dipped in warm water. Sweat glistens on his dirty skin, plastering his shirt to his back, his head swimming as he struggles to hold on. Like what?
Like this, he replies, holding her cheek in his hand. Skin pale as porcelain, freckles speckled across it like constellations of stars. In her eyes, wide as the summer sky, sadness reigns. This is not how he wants to remember her, wherever he is going now. No. Shy smiles aimed at him, flushed cheeks warmed by the sun, brazen grins that make him stutter, tender hands briefly feathering across his skin – that is what he wants to take with him.
Soft, warm lips brush over his burning forehead. Why did you come back for me?
A bitter, barking laugh tears from his chest painfully, lungs closing up slowly as his heart slows down. It's a ridiculous question, a waste of her precious breath. Sharp pain that has little to do with the torn, weeping flesh on his arm or the flames of the infection lapping at him from the inside stings in his chest. She does not fucking know.
She doesn't even have a clue.
Wanted ta bring ya back home.