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Artemis' muscles ached pleasantly as she stretched an arm out across the plush pillows of the couch. The blanket she lay under was just thick enough to capture the heat of her body without feeling suffocating and just heavy enough to anchor any restlessness in her chest. The lazy tick tick tick of an analog clock filled the silence, quiet enough to be tuned out. Loud enough to tune out the ringing silence.
Artemis hummed contentedly.
She stretched out her arm further, trying to loosen the tightness in her joints. Her fingers happened upon more warmth. She pushed towards it and a hand closed around hers. She knew it. Stout fingers, rough callouses across the pads of the palms. The crooked ring finger. She turned her body to face it.
There was empty space in front of her. Not yet warmed by the body.
No couch should be this large, she thought to herself. Not large enough that two could lie on it and not feel the full warmth of the other. Artemis frowned. "Come closer," she mumbled, voice still heavy with sleep.
In response, the hand squeezed hers tighter, running a thumb over her knuckes. The other hand found her hair, mussing what length had been left out of her braid. Found her scalp and pushed gentle fingers over it. She sank further into the couch with a sigh.
But no body pressed close to hers. She could not smell the ever-permeable scent of gun oil underneath lemon soap. No head weighing down the crook of her collarbone.
The hand on her scalp moved down to cradle her jaw. Through her annoyance, Artemis leaned into the touch. Fingers reaching down to her neck to press their heat against her jugular, feeling her thrumming heartbeat underneath. A calloused thumb stroked over the skin of her cheek, her lips–
Artemis' eyes flew open and the cold hit her all at once. She was alone.
Her back ached from the cool concrete that she had been laying on, its rough pattern maybe permanently etched into the skin of her arm beneath where her head had been resting. The shaved side of her head prickled against that skin. She breathed, carefully; as if one wrong movement would tear open her chest.
The air bore the tear of rapid gunfire and screams to follow. More of the same from this godforsaken apocalypse dimension. It didn't particularly inspire her to leap into battle in the name of Justice at the moment.
And she knew that if Jason had heard her say that, he would get this funny tilt to his mouth. Would say that he hadn't expected her to fall to apathy so easily.
But Jason— she swallowed another breath. He had never held her like that. She'd never told him she wanted him to.
Never got the chance—was it because she'd been burying that swelling feeling in her chest eveyrtime she looked at him? Because she'd thought they'd have more time?
Quickly, she blinked away the wetness blurring her vision. It spilled down her cheeks anyway.
She never would now.
She bit down on her knuckle to keep the rising sob caged within her throat. It tasted like blood.