I watch the city burn, these dreams like ashes float away...
“Then stop pushing me away, dummy,” Lilitha crooned softly, melting into his embrace, holding him close. “It’s not what I want either.” She rubbed her cheek against his skin, breathing in the scent of him, sea salt and earth and a hint of sharp, acrid burning undercut with more notes of lovely green that mellowed the fire in his scent. Fire that made him smell more like home to her, no matter that it seemed to plague him so. She knew fire, knew the pain it could cause when it burned. And it had damn well never stopped her from using hers. Some days, the pain had only added fuel to the flames.
“I’m not saying neither of us is gonna get hurt, Mo. But it’s worth the risk, isn’t it? Or do you really wanna spend the rest of your life out here alone?” She tugged him a little closer, pressed her scarred chest against him as if to rule out the option of saying he’d rather be alone. He couldn’t possibly, not when she was right here offering him something so much better, offering to chase away that loneliness with cozy warmth and a flicker of firelight just the way she’d used to.
“Stay with me. I love you too, and you can still be my family if you want to. But only if you mean it this time, Moment.” She pulled back to look into his lovely teal eyes, brushing a soft kiss to his cheek in the process. “Don’t you dare say it again unless you’re gonna follow through. My heart can only take so much.” She’d survived it all so far, and honestly if he broke her heart all over again she was probably too stubborn to give up. But for once she wanted to do more than just survive. She wanted a life, wanted to make Taiga a home.
And there was room for him there. If he wanted to be there. “What do you think, Mo?”
...your voice I never heard, only silence.