[ Krouse wasn't good at being touched. Too self-conscious and too rigid, always second guessing how he held himself in relation to anyone else who got close enough to try it. There must have been a time when he was pliant, but those childhood memories were fuzzy and unmappable.
He had to learn how to be handled as he passed through a series of blindfolds and restraints, dependent on the guidance of prison guards at his elbows every time they took him out of his windowless cell. He knows how to let himself be moved, when and where to relax in anticipation of pressure and force. Giving himself over to the mechanization of the group had been easier because of it, an extension of a principle.
It's different with Noelle. He doesn't have to convince himself to untense, the only feeling he gets when her tentacle slips up his back that of aching relief. The memory of a tentacle, even maybe this one, coiling around him and dragging him in doesn't seem to have anything to do with this gentleness.
The last person who was gentle with him was Noelle. She'll still be the last one. He's as grateful for that as he is for the gentleness at all, the ache an almost feverish warmth in his chest.
Perched in her palm, he can see every shade of brown in her glossy irises. There are so many more than he remembered. He wants to count them, one by one, until he can't forget.
And somehow he's still surprised when she pulls him in closer. It's the first time he locks up, startled awkward all over again, and then he stops thinking. He throws himself into the hug like she's pulled him freezing and breathless out of deep water, his arms looping tight around her back as he buries his face in the crook of her neck, in the soft fall of her hair, in the warm and present closeness of her pulse. His hand fumbles up to the back of her head, cradling her like the fragile and perfect thing she is.
When he starts crying again, he doesn't try to stop. It'd be like trying to stop breathing, choking off something vital and irrepressible. He gives himself over to it as recklessly as he gave himself over to her touch, and it's quiet all the same, exhausted little shudders heaving his shoulders as he dissolves into nothing but this moment. ]
cw: prison brutality
He had to learn how to be handled as he passed through a series of blindfolds and restraints, dependent on the guidance of prison guards at his elbows every time they took him out of his windowless cell. He knows how to let himself be moved, when and where to relax in anticipation of pressure and force. Giving himself over to the mechanization of the group had been easier because of it, an extension of a principle.
It's different with Noelle. He doesn't have to convince himself to untense, the only feeling he gets when her tentacle slips up his back that of aching relief. The memory of a tentacle, even maybe this one, coiling around him and dragging him in doesn't seem to have anything to do with this gentleness.
The last person who was gentle with him was Noelle. She'll still be the last one. He's as grateful for that as he is for the gentleness at all, the ache an almost feverish warmth in his chest.
Perched in her palm, he can see every shade of brown in her glossy irises. There are so many more than he remembered. He wants to count them, one by one, until he can't forget.
And somehow he's still surprised when she pulls him in closer. It's the first time he locks up, startled awkward all over again, and then he stops thinking. He throws himself into the hug like she's pulled him freezing and breathless out of deep water, his arms looping tight around her back as he buries his face in the crook of her neck, in the soft fall of her hair, in the warm and present closeness of her pulse. His hand fumbles up to the back of her head, cradling her like the fragile and perfect thing she is.
When he starts crying again, he doesn't try to stop. It'd be like trying to stop breathing, choking off something vital and irrepressible. He gives himself over to it as recklessly as he gave himself over to her touch, and it's quiet all the same, exhausted little shudders heaving his shoulders as he dissolves into nothing but this moment. ]