Three months.
That's all it had been. Ninety-something days since Samael first said her name like it meant something. Since she first saw the way his shadow moved just a second out of sync with the rest of the world. Since she realized the line between life and death wasn't a wall- it was a thread. Fragile. Tangled. Binding.
Now they were here. Hiding. Waiting. Hurting.
Morrigan sat by the window of the cabin, knees drawn to her chest, fingers curled around a chipped mug of tea she hadn't taken a sip from in an hour. Outside, snow fell in soft, lazy spirals. The world looked like silence.
Inside, it was silence.
Samael hadn't spoken to her in two days. Not really. Just vague mutters- "I'll start a fire," or "There's food in the pantry." He moved around her like he was afraid of brushing against her. Like even that might break something already splintered.
It was driving her mad.
She stared at the back of his head now, across the room where he sat at the old wooden table, scribbling something into a leather-bound book. He didn't even look up when she moved.
He hadn't looked at her in days.
And it hurt more than she was ready to admit.
I love you, she thought, bitterly. And I hate you for making me feel like this.
Because she did. She hated the way he'd thrown himself into the Tribunal's fire to save her, and then shut her out completely. She hated that he chose her over safety- and then barely acknowledged her since. She hated how quiet he'd become, how heavy the air felt with unspoken words. And most of all, she hated the fact that despite everything-
She still wanted to touch him.
Still wanted to wrap her fingers in his hair and kiss the sadness off his mouth.
Still wanted him to tell her they were going to be okay, even if it was a lie.
But he didn't say anything.
He just... moped.
She couldn't take it anymore.
"Are you going to talk to me?" she said suddenly, voice louder than the silence deserved.
He didn't turn around.
She stood, walked across the room, heart pounding like she was stepping off a cliff.
"Seriously, Samael. You can't keep avoiding me like I'm some- some mistake you regret."
That got his attention. Slowly, he looked up, eyes rimmed in the kind of quiet pain she was beginning to recognize too well.
"I don't regret you," he said.
"Then why won't you look at me?"
He flinched, and for a second, she thought he might finally yell back. Say something. Feel something. She knew he could.
But he just dropped his pen, pushed his chair back, and walked to the fireplace like she hadn't said anything at all.
The rage snapped in her chest.
"Say it," she demanded, stepping in front of him. "Say whatever it is you're thinking. Scream at me. Tell me you wish we never met. Tell me saving me was a mistake. Just say something, Samael."
He stared at the flames, jaw clenched. "You almost died because of me."
"Yeah," she whispered, tears stinging her eyes. "And I'm still here. I'm still here, Samael. I'm not going anywhere. But you're acting like I actually fell."
His shoulders sagged like the weight of the cosmos pressed against them.
"I can't... risk it again," he murmured. "I don't know what I'd become if I had to watch them take you."
"You think I don't feel the same?" she snapped. "You think I slept a single night while you were gone, wondering if I'd ever see you again? Wondering if they'd already found you and erased you just to make a point?"
She stepped closer, her voice cracking. "We're both scared, Samael. But you don't get to carry this alone."
Finally, finally, he turned to her.
And his expression was shattering.
"I'm scared of what I'm becoming," he said. "Since the kiss. Since the night you nearly died. I feel things I shouldn't. Want things I swore I buried years ago. I look at you, and I don't feel like a reaper anymore- I feel like a man. A human. And that's the problem, Morrigan. Because reapers don't survive when they love. I'm fraying. I'm turning into something I'm not."
The fire flickered between them, casting long shadows against the walls. Fraying? She had heard that before. When a Reaper makes too much contact with the living, it instils a painful life source in them. In turn, this essentially makes them partly human. Emotions. Pain. Samael could feel all of it.
"I miss you," she whispered.
"I'm still here," he said, voice hollow.
"No. You're not. Not the way I want you to be."
The silence that followed stretched so long it became unbearable. Morrigan wiped her face with the sleeve of her sweater and backed away.
"Maybe we need space," she said, though her voice faltered. "Just... a few days. You can keep moping and refusing to talk and hating yourself in peace. And maybe I'll stop feeling like I'm losing someone I already lost."
She walked to the small bedroom without looking back, her heart breaking in fresh, sharp pieces.
As she closed the door behind her, she heard Samael whisper something too quiet for the wind to carry.
But the crack in his voice lingered long into the night.
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