Lost in the rain }} Ever

[rumour]

She wasn’t sure what started it this time.

But then, recently, it had taken less and less to set him off. Before it was because he was drunk. Driven by the power of God or whatever the fuck used to spew from his lips, self righteous nonsense that reasoned out his need to beat his daughter to a pulp. As she got older, as she grew and he got worse, and the beatings turned from slaps around the face to hospitalisations, the self righteous nonsense had stemmed from rants to mutterings, the eventually nothing but spat words as she lay in pain on the floor, reminders that she was evil, the devil, and not fit to walk this earth.

There is only so often you can be told these things by your father before you start to believe it. Before you started to resent the very air you breathed as much as the one person who was supposed to make sure you were okay. The one person who was supposed to make sure that nothing bad ever happened to you. The one person who was supposed to make sure you were always safe. Her existence was always doomed to be one that was somewhat fucked up, and the events of the last two weeks had done nothing to help with the girls mental stability. Talon had tried to kill her, Oregon had shown up at her house and forced his way in – she’d ended up in hospital twice, more often than she ever cared to frequent that damned place in such a short period of time, and she still ached. She still hurt.... but her physical injuries were nothing compared to the damn of emotion and confusion she was struggling to maintain. Ever, Oregon, Talon, Cassidy, Eliese, Justin – that new kid, Hal-score or whatever he called himself... why did these people seem so fucking content to mess with her head? She didn’t know.

Sat at home, listening to the TV, the last thing she was expecting however tonight was her father returning home, wrapping his fist in her hair and throwing her to the floor, rebounding her head from the coffee table. He was yelling something, and she fought desperately to cling to consciousness and figure out what it was she had done this time, but nausea inducing pain brought on by a kick in the ribs ensured that that battle was lost.

It did not take long for consciousness to return, the yelling rousing her from pain filled drowsiness, the words still muffled by her foggy head, but she was vaguely aware she was no longer on the floor. As a fist contacted with her cheek, still fractured from the last time, Rumour yelped in pain, lifting her hands in front of her face, shielding her head with her arms as blow after blow landed amongst threats, abuse and alcohol smelling breath.

She had no idea how long it lasted. Longer than last time. Worse than last time as she slumped to the floor, curling up and pressing her hands into her ears as she pulled her legs up to her chest amongst broken glass. He was gone, dragging himself to bed and leaving her to bleed now he’d worn himself out ridding the world of evil. For the first time in a long time, as Rumour held herself and wondered why she had been allowed to live to endure this yet again, she cried and the walls of the damn she had built in her mind broke.

Rumour didn’t remember how she got outside. How she had managed to get to her feet and make it out of the front door and away, the same as how at first, she had no idea where her bare feet were taking her. As she half ran and half walked, her arm hooked around her ribs and stomach, rain began to fall, the few drops quickly becoming a sheet of water impossible to see through, the pathetic fallacy of the moment lost on the girl too overwhelmed by fear and pain to think of anything else.

When she realised however where her feet were taking her, where she was going, she let out a small whimper, stumbling on the sidewalk and nearly falling to her knees. Pausing, something of a battle waged in Rumours mind as her clothes stuck her skin, blood washing from her face and arms as she fought it out inside her head. When she started walking again it was with purpose, covering the distance as quickly as her legs would allow her, pressing herself against the familiar door and tracing the number on the front before finally lifting her knuckles and rapping on the wood, silent tears mingling with the rain water as they fell down her cheeks.

She’d run away. And this time, she wasn’t going back.

[Ever Goodman]

It had been a long fucking day. Long week, actually. His foreman had won the bid on this massive skyscraper project months ago but the thing had gotten stalled due to budget constraints. Now that all the loose ends were tied up-- where as it had been hurry up and wait for the employees of said construction company, now it was hurry and play catch up because this thing needed to go up like yesterday. Long hours, back breaking work…it had left Ever a zombie every night for the past seven. Not that he minded. What the hell else did he have to do? It was going to be a nice paycheck at the end of the day that was for sure.

And so zombie Ever had come home that evening, (a little early even thanks to some afternoon storms moving in and hanging around) headed straight for the shower to wash off the stink and sore, eaten a little bit of left over Chinese and had a cold one, and fallen into bed before the sun had even finished going down.
The man was sawing logs in less than ten minutes; the rabbit eared television set turned on but on mute; the movie some sappy love story about a man and a woman separated by the dogs of war…or some shit like that.

Not that he was going to be getting much rest though.

The nightmares had been plaguing him hardcore this week; especially since he’d gone to bed so freaking exhausted every night; mind blank and open for whatever his subconscious was wanting to fling at him.
And damn had those nightmares been some graphic ones; burning into his mind and causing flashes of daytime reveries that left him stunned and sickened.

Ever could see his own hand yielding a machete against some flailing…thing…a person or…no…it had had a set of pointed teeth. Blood all over him, on his face, waking with a start to feel the ghost of the warm fluid on his hands. Another dream had his heart pumping so fast as he chased down a …what the fuck kind of monster was that? Nothing he had seen in the movies lately. He was sure he would remember that. He’d been waking with the ghost of those dreams haunting him; cold sweats and thunder in his chest and hardly able to see past the headache that was tearing his brain apart.

The same kind of nightly hallucination that had the young man tossing and turning in his bed now; covered in a fine sheen of sweat despite the fact the air was on full blast and he only had on a pair of white boxer shorts.
The female, a middle aged woman with a wide spread grin and onyx eyes moved toward him and Ever had this ache in his chest like he’d rather die before killing her. But…the woman came at him; tossed her hand out and threw him against the wall. Even in the hazy dream the young man could feel the pain flare through his body. He was going to die.

The rapping on the door was quiet at first and Ever didn’t think it was real. It had to be part of the nightmare. And then it became more deliberate and the young man woke up with a start, forcing his body to sit up; eyelids still closed and sealed together with the sticky slumber sand that gathered during sleep.
He half thought this was still some part of the nightmare. He would throw open the door and a zombie would be out there, arms outstretched and jaw open wide and dripping for a gnaw on his head.

Cracking the door just a little and barely able to open his eyes due to a garish street light shining straight on them from the sidewalk, it took Ever a moment to realize this was real and that was really Rumour standing out there in the pouring rain. Blinking the sleep from his eyes Ever became lucid instantly; reaching out to grasp her forearms gently in order to pull her through the door.

“Rumour!” The room was pitch black and he fumbled for the light; squinting as he found them and the yellow bulb in the ceiling cast a harsh glow down on the blood, rain and tear streaked female. “What the fuck happened?!”

He wasn’t cursing at her really; but yes, as soon as his dark russet eyes traveled quickly down the slight, shaking woman holding herself together as if he had really broken her, the anger began to boil inside of him. The fucker had done it again.
Ever swore every single time this would be the last time because loosing Rumour’s company wasn’t worth Rumour loosing her life. If she never spoke to him again that was the burden he would have to suffer. He’d been too fucking selfish too many times; -this- time he would end it for her.

Still a little haze from sleep Ever stumbled over to the bed and grabbed the twisted sheet off of the mattress; throwing it around his best friend’s shoulders and lightly rubbing to dry her. She was drenched and shivering, and he pulled her close; winding his arms around her as he stroked the sheet over her back and did his best to warm her with his lumbering frame.

[rumour]

At first, Rumour didn’t think he was going to be in. She despaired
at the thought that he would be somewhere else tonight when she needed him, when she had decided to finally claim her life back and ran from the man who had ruled it for the last twenty four years, the man who had taken from her, her blood right, her sight, and so very nearly her life on so many occasions. If Ever was not here, now, she wasn’t sure what she would do, where she would go other than back.

It had taken a breakdown to make her run this time, an emotional flood she couldn’t stem, one that was making tears stream from her eyes for the first time in years, since before she cared to remember - to believe that she lay dying once more to make her run. She was not sure if she could live to do it again. Not sure if she could replace the wall and survive it crumbling once more. She was not as strong as she made out to be. She was not as hard as she would prefer people to believe.

Curling her fist Rumour banged harder on the wood, desperation, adrenaline, these were the only things keeping her on her feet; that kept her fist banging against the wood. She ached and she hurt and the world seemed adamant to keep its oxygen from her, to rock the world beneath her feet and blur the sounds she relied on to see. Again she thought the door would never open, but when it gave and she stumbled back, wrapping her arms around herself, it was with a whimper of relief. He was there. Oh damn – she hoped it was him anymore.

The grip on her arms and the voice told her it was him, and Rumour lost the ability to speak, or think rationally. Pulled inside, when he wrapped his arms around her she tensed up, pulling away, but then sunk into them. She was glad for his warmth, glad for the security and the comfort he offered without words in the simple embrace and she clung to it desperately. Despite herself, she cried against his bare skin, dampening it with her tears and shivering in his arms. If Rumour could see herself she would scowl at the display of weakness, the way her knees buckled and she finally slumped against him, unable to support her own slight weight any longer.

She would have cursed the fact that she had run, that she allowed herself to be driven from her home and her father and into his arms, but as it was Rumour thought nothing like this, nothing for at that moment she thought nothing that could be translated into sense. Her thoughts were not coherent, but there was one thing the girl was truly sure of.

She felt safe.

[Ever Goodman]

There was little resistance against his embrace, and it was just then that Ever knew this was not his Rumour.She was the ghost of Miss.Kitty. A china doll broken into a thousand pieces and he was too afraid to let her go lest all those shards go crashing to the floor. He had finally broken her. Her father had broken her.
And so the man held her as if holding her together; as the sobs rocked her fragile body, as they rocked his own with tremors of fear and frustration.

Had he killed her? Had that son-of-a-bitch finally murdered the audacious spirit that Ever had come to admire so badly it hurt him inside? God damn him if that was true. God help him because the young man that hurt inside wanted to release some of it through his fists. Maybe if he’d done it before it wouldn’t have come to this. Ever had failed in so many ways but none so much as Rumour’s friend. He should have gone to the police regardless of the threats of Rumy leaving him. He should have confronted the ‘God-fearing’ man despite the consequences; even if it had meant loosing her companionship. He had been so fucking selfish.

She fell into his chest and Ever wrapped his strong arms around her; held her close as much to comfort and warm her as to soothe his own weary spirit. Blame can be terrible weapon against ones own soul. A terrible, terrible thing.
But now she needed him to focus, and so Ever reluctantly let the woman go in order to let his eyes fall over her weakened frame; taking in the black blue and the bursts of faded crimson dripping from her clothing.
“Oh, God….Rumour.” He winced as his dark stare landed on a cut across her nose; the way it looked kind of wrong, like at the wrong angle. He hoped it was just the shadows, and that her perfect, perfect nose was not really broken.

Dropping one arm around her waist and slipping the other underneath, Ever lifted her as if she weighed nothing, carrying her to the disheveled bed. Still refusing to let her go the man could do nothing but slump onto the edge and clasp her against his chest. She was still shaking so badly.
“Hey…its gon’ be okay.” He lied; for once he really couldn’t tell her the complete truth. He didn’t know what would happen now. Ever was still trying to dry her with the sheet, but Rumour was soaked to the core and it was useless. By now his own inadequate attire was wet, but the only thing that mattered to the man was her pain. Her face was so full of pain it broke his heart. Again.

“Rumour can you talk to me? Tell me what hurts...”
What if he had rebroken her arm? What if she had more ribs broken? Ever knew she didn’t want to go back to the hospital and he knew he could not fix those kinds of aches. But she was here now and at least for the moment he could hold her and pretend that everything was going to be fine.
But it wasn’t going to be fine, was it? Nothing was ever fine.

[rumour]

Rumour was not aware of much at that moment, or in the following few. She heard her name and she felt his arms around her, the warmth she leeched from his skin into her own, but she felt like she was watching the entire thing in third person. His words were distant, his arms the ghost of a memory from brief and rare embraces they had shared before – his warmth a fantasy brought on by a mind fractured and numbed by the cold; too close to hypothermia for it to be anything less. There were few things in these moments that rumour were certain of’ few things she believed to be truth and reality rather than fantasy.

She knew she hurt. She knew that she could not breathe easily through her nose, that her breath came in shuddering gasps through her lips that shot pain down into her chest and ribs; ribs that had never been given true time to heal from when they had first been fractured a few weeks before. She knew that her head span and her ears were deafened by numbness. She knew that her skin bled and seeped through her clothes, and that the embrace holding her together, that prevented her from falling apart entirely, curling into a ball and weeping was also causing pain. Pain from bruising and breakages, but also a pain she could not even begin t comprehend, curled deep and burning within her chest.

Slowly, very very slowly, Rumour began to warm. Her shivering became less violent and her breathing eased as she stopped fighting for warmth and accepted it from his skin and with warmth came rationality. With warmth came reason and less numbness, and clear mindedness that only pain could provide as she realised she was no longer standing, but sat in his lap, curled against his chest. She didn’t want to move from there either, did not feel the need as she so often did to pull out of his embrace and establish the boundaries she had tried and failed to maintain on so many occasions.

No. This time Rumour was content to sit in his lap and curl up against his chest; to cling to the only semblance of safety she had before reality came crashing about her shoulders. For a long while she didn’t talk, simply sat in his embrace with the bed sheet about shoulders. She was still cold, her skin icy, but at least she was beginning to warm. When she did finally talk, it was quietly, her voice strained. ”Everywhere” She told him in reply to his question, subconsciously moving closer to his skin even as she asked her own request. ”Can.... can i shower?”

[Ever Goodman]

Ever could feel every tremor that raced through her; they became the trembles crawling across his own skin. He could feel the thunderous beating in her chest, in his own chest as he held her; wanting desperately to thieve her pain. And when her breathe began to calm and the pounding heartbeat stilled to a lazy staccato, the young man’s did the same; every faltering hammer within his chest firing an ache that echoed through his whole body. The pain and anger that he was feeling right now was altogether different than the one Rumour was experiencing but it was an intense ache none-the-less.

Her voice seemed to come from out of nowhere after what seemed like an eternity and though within her silence he had found the edge of insanity (not knowing whether she
-could- speak or if her wounds had broken her that badly), Rumour’s reply did nothing to compose the young man.
He didn’t even want to imagine all the damage her father had done this time. Just the wounds he could see were bad enough. Her nose was definitely broken and even wrapped in the sheet, lacerations on her arms and legs were staining his exposed skin. That wasn’t even taking into account her wounded insides. Rumour’s ribs definitely hadn’t had proper time to heal adequately and God forbid if she had internal bleeding. Ever wondered at how pissed the woman would be if he waited for her to surrender to sleep before sneaking her to an emergency room to get x-rayed. Knowing his snarky friend she probably wouldn’t speak to him for a few days. Which…well, if she ever spoke to him again considering what he was planning to do to her father.

But he couldn’t think about that right now. Ever couldn’t consider what the consequences of his actions would be in the future while he had time to hold her right now.

“Shower would probably help…” He told her hoarsely and carefully stood, arms still embracing the slight woman as he walked slowly towards the small hotel bathroom. Kicking the door open Ever turned sideways to carry Rumy in, reluctantly releasing with one hand to flip on the light before setting her down on the toilet. He reached past the tacky multi-colored shower curtain and turned on the spray, holding one hand under the water while it turned from bitter cold to a balmy temperature.
Giving his alarm filled chocolate eyes back to Rumour, Ever winced once more at the odd angle of her nose and inhaled deeply, bringing his shaking hand to her chin to tilt her face up just slightly. “I’ve gotta’…you gotta’ let me do something Rumour.” He told her in a forced dogged voice. “Just…here…” He let his hand drop from her face and carefully reached for her hand, bringing it to his hip. “If it hurts too bad just squeeze. Squeeze as hard as it hurts…”

He dragged his tongue across his bottom lip to moisten it and then lifted his hands back up to her face. Careful not to do more harm than help, Ever positioned his thumbs along the bridge of her nose and inhaled deeply, closing his eyes as he twisted the cartilage back into the proper place. He let the heavy exhale out on a curse word and stepped back, giving the young woman a chance to react to the sudden burst of pain -he- had caused her and hating himself all the more for it. Having to cause her pain, even in trying to help. Which would be a story that would continue as he helped her with another problem, but again, I digress.
“I’m so sorry Rumour…” Ever told her roughly, wanting so badly to wrap his arms around her again for the caused pain but knowing that moment between them had passed. “Can I…are you going to be able to stand up in there?” The question was purely innocent, of course. He was only thinking to ease her any way that he could.

[rumour]

A testament to the true nature of Rumours broken state, she didn’t react to being carried, didn’t react to being placed on a toilet or to the voice talking at her. The girl was practically catatonic as he lifted her hand to his hip, and though her fingers curled around him, though she registered when he told her what she had to do, to squeeze his hip in time of the pain, the true nature of what she had lived through the night came into view. The sudden bloom of pain in her nose brought nothing but a small mewl from her lips, a whimper that was in no way consistent with the agony shooting through her face. Now her nose was realigned it allowed a fresh stream of blood to flow, and Rumour leaned forward, her hand cupped beneath her face to catch the flow of crimson as it fell.

Rumour still whimpered, and longed for Ever to hold her again. The moment in her eyes was not gone – though he might expect normal feisty Rumour to swear at him for the pain, to kick him in the balls and cause him pain too, this Rumour wanted nothing more than to sink to the floor and curl up. She wanted nothing more than for the pain to end, to feel the bliss of nothing that came with unconsciousness. In these moments, Rumour wanted to die. She wanted to surrender to the inevitability of her father’s promises and relinquish her hold on life, to sink into the darkness and never wake up. Heaven did not open its arms to her, nor would hell be a place of welcoming – this she knew, but even the unknown boundaries of purgatory where better than the mind numbing pain of her reality.

Slowly, the pain in her nose subsided, along with the flow of Crimson from its end and Rumour sat up, the blood rolling down from her palm and down her arm, mingling with the blood from other cuts, dampening bruises in their wake. She couldn’t remember if they were from the photo frame or the coffee table... or was the blood in her hair the result of the photo frame? Her fuzzy mind couldn’t be sure – but she could hear the shower, and she longed for the soothing warmth of it on her skin. She always found peace in the water afterwards; last time she had spent a day in the bath, locking herself in her room and ignoring the world and it's problems for but a few short hours.

Now though she wanted the shower, but when he asked if she needed help her hand found his forearm and gripped it, leaving a bloody print on his skin. “Don’t leave me”her blind eyes cast about for his face, searching the air in front of her where she knew it should be. She didn’t want to be left alone. She didn’t want to lose the pillar of strength she as clinging to – the person she had sought out in the night when fear and pain had made her run. She didn’t want to lose the presence of the only person in this world she felt like she could trust... the only person who didn’t hurt her. He’d scared her, once, but the pain in her chest was indication enough that that incident was forgotten. When it all came down to it – when she truly thought about it, the man whose arm she clung to like a lifeline was the only person she had.

Rumour didn’t know if she could stand – her legs had given way beneath her last time after running, walking and very nearly crawling the mile or so to his room, but now she tried. She pushed herself to her feet and swayed slightly, managing to climb into the shower thanks to her grip in his arm. Once beneath the spray however she slid to the floor, letting it fall on her head, forgetting about clothes and the small fact she should probably take them off, finally letting go of his hand and closing her eyes. The water helped, if nothing else.

[Ever Goodman]

If he’d had known that moment hadn’t passed Ever’s arms would still be around her now. Holding her together, holding it all in, holding on to the hope that one day the Rumour that he admired from the very beginning would come back someday; that she was not so far gone that he’d never see that mischievous smirk again.
Just as he was a pillar to the broken woman she was one for him as well. A rock. A safe place that he could always return to when the big wide world full of unfamiliarity threatened to swallow him whole.
He had grown more comfortable with the world and the blank roll of film that was his past as long as he had one familiar thing to cling onto.
Pictures scattered all over the room but all of those faces were strangers. Save the ones of her. Most of them held the same pose of the fragile woman. Her hand held up in a palmy appeal for him to quit the paparazzi thing but there was always a playful smile on her lips that belied the request.

Ever wondered if he would see that smile again, for the expression that was etched across her face now looked like heartbreak.

His russet eyes widened briefly at her pleading and the sudden grip on his arm, and the young man shook his head in negation, forgetting like he always did that she couldn’t see the silent argument.
“I won’t ever leave you.” He told her huskily and found he didn’t recognize the empty voice coming from him.

His arm was steel as she used it as leverage to climb into the shower, and when Rumour sank down into the tub Ever scrambled in after her, shielding her quivering body from the hot spray. He adjusted the temperature of the water to less than boiling and turned back around, his wide eyes taking in the sight of her shattered soaking form and the way the blood washing off her body mingled with the water around his feet. Pushing his dripping hair back out of his eyes the man bent down to carefully grasp Rumour around the waist, pulling her to stand as carefully as he could. Ever could feel her knees shaking, still threatening to give way beneath her, so he pulled her against his body and snaked the arm around her waist.

“Stay with me Rumour.” He told her in a voice forced with a serenity that did not match the strained look on his visage. “Hold on to me. I’ma help you.” The young man clung to her cautiously while trying to not to squeeze too tight; aware that the slightest pressure could cause her the greatest pain. He drew the saturated tee-shirt up and over her head, leaving it in a colored puddle at their feet while he smoothed her damp chocolate locks away from her eyes. Her face was so pale. So drawn. Once again the fleeting thought that he was gazing into the face of a broken china doll raced through his mind.

Without hesitation Ever’s shaking fingers found the button of her linen shorts, slipping it loose and letting them fall off her hips and into the puddle with her forgotten shirt.
A heavy sigh escaped them man as his stare fell down her quivering form. Her olive skin was marred with blooms of blacks and blues and purples like flowers across a pastel canvas. There were so many lacerations seeping crimson he found he couldn’t continue counting them. She was emaciated; trembling, and weaker than he’d ever seen.

And it killed him.

Grabbing a hand towel hung from the soap dish Ever begun to gently draw the soft material along her trembling limbs. He winced when it passed over a slash along her collar bone, and drew her closer to his chest. “I don’t want to hurt you Rumour.”
He murmured softly and looked up into her vacant crystalline eyes. “Tell me if it hurts you.”

[rumour]

It was with slowly blinking eyes that Rumour realised that Ever had climbed into the shower with her that the lack of water falling onto her bruised face was because he was blocking it, rather than God deciding she didn’t deserve even that soothing reprieve from her aches, from her pain. She whimpered when the hands wrapped around her waist, lifting her from her place of safety into the corner and relieving of her curled up position. She barely noticed the change in the temperature of the water – was just thankful to feel the spray on her shoulders again, of the support of her pillar again. Rumour buried herself in these feelings, loosing sense of all else.

It returned as her shirt was lifted from her head, her shorts loosed from her waist and lost to the tumult of reddened water at her feet. Flinching when his fingers grazed her face, Rumour realised slowly that the action was not one of malice but of benign intent, and a small hint of a smile flickered across her lips and features with the gentile action. Freed of her clothes, and with the water dragging her clouded mind from the murky depths of her protective indifference, Rumour snaked an arm around his neck as instructed, clinging to his shoulder and using him to keep upright. She knew however, that if it wasn’t for the arm around her waist, pressing her to him she would be once more on the floor. She didn’t have the strength to remain standing anymore.

”I’m here” She murmured quietly, her reaction to his demand, his request delayed, but there none the less. She was there. She was still there. Beneath the bruises and the cuts and the fractured mentality, beneath the pain and the thoughts she didn’t want to have, the flood of emotion that had caused her to run, she was still there. It may take awhile for her to recover.... and once the floodgates had opened there was little chance she would ever be able to close them, but the real Rumour would come through and be present – the girl he had glimpsed behind the sass and the kicks and insults. The one that cared. The one that was terrified of caring. The one that was terrified of having someone care about her. She was still there.... and the sass and arrogance would come back. Eventually.

She barely noticed that cloth passing over her skin, passing over her cuts. She winced, but it was a reaction she couldn’t control. Pain? Hurt her? Every movement hurt some part of her, even now his fingers rested on a bruise around her waist.... but the question lay in what she could handle. Years of putting up with hurt had bred a somewhat high pain threshold into the girl, and whilst he passed the soft fabric across her skin she winced only twice, as it passed over a wound that likely retained some glass, and never made any move to stop him. Once he finished, she found herself leaning more heavily against him, found herself depending almost entirely now on the arm at her waist. Exhaustion tugged at her eyes and she closed them, but before unconsciousness claimed her for the night she had to say something.

”I’m sorry Ever”Her weak voice mumbled, half into his skin, half to the air, and quite possibly lost to the thunder of the shower. She was sorry for coming to him. Sorry for letting her see him like this, for seeing her weak. She was sorry that she had ran and sorry that she come to him. She was sorry that of everyone, he was the only person she trusted enough to come too. She was sorry for being a burden. But none of this made it form her lips. Only the muttered words, repeated. ”I’m Sorry.”

[Ever Goodman]

For a man that acted and looked awkward and clumsy Ever was quite adept at holding up the lithe woman while he bathed her broken form; the damp towel only a whisper across her wounds and bruises and sometimes even gentler murmurs with his fingertips across places not marred by injury. The balmy spray across his back and shoulders was a tender massage and so the man let the arm wound around her waist crawl up her spine, remaining there as he twisted their positions so she could benefit from the precious warmth.
His soaking boxers clung to him, and Rumour clung to him, and for a moment Ever closed his eyes and wondered if he could do this. If it wasn’t too much for him to bear. After all he was just a man. And this man’s soul was just beginning to heal from its own injury; shattered into a thousand pieces by loneliness and confusion and then, though he would never admit it to himself, a blow to the pounding organ within his chest one intense evening with this woman.

Ever wasn’t really sure how long they stayed under the shower, time seemed to have paused the moment he had opened his sleep sticky eyes to her shaking frame against his door. The skin of his digits had started to wrinkle and the spray had lost some of its warmth, but he could feel the woman loosen within his embrace, the water seemingly washing away some of her misery along with the seeping scarlet from her wounds.

He gave his back to the cooling spray and let the opposite arm snake around her hips as his hand dropped from her back, moving instead to brush the matted wet hair once more from her face. Though her brow still pinched every now and then as they shifted and her aching bones were moved, Rumour’s eyes had slid closed and the look upon her countenance had become something near tranquil. The man found his own tremors had stilled and the pounding in his chest grown calmer; something akin to hope springing up in place of the panic. She -was- here. She was here and she was safe now.

The young woman let her head fall against his chest with a breathless murmur he couldn’t hear, so pivoting slightly Ever turned off the cascade, just as the whisper was repeated. He frowned, hating that she felt repentant for anything; especially when there was nothing for which to take the blame. She had not brought this on just as she had been blameless every other time. Rumour didn’t deserve this. She never had.
“Don’t…do that. Nothing to be sorry for.” He murmured roughly, reaching to pull aside the shower curtain to reach for the oversized cotton towel. He wrapped it around her shoulders and rubbed the crystalline drops from her skin, keeping it there as he lifted her into the cage of his arms and stepped out.
She was no burden to him, not in the slightest. He wanted to be there for her. He needed to shoulder this for her. He hadn’t been able to save her from the man’s fists but he could give her this; his support. He could be her champion.

She seemed to have given in to the emotional and bodily fatigue; her form unmoving as he carried her back into the other room and laid her upon the mattress.
Ever always kept the air in the room cool and goose bumps erupted over her smooth olive skin. Wiping the towel across the porcelain surface once more he hurriedly stripped from the wet material that had become a second skin on his hips and swiped the cotton over himself, climbing onto the mattress next to her and pulling the covers over them both.

Unbidden he started shuddering again, and pressed himself against Rumour in order to reclaim the exchanged heat they had shared before. He carefully lifted gentle fingertips to her face; the tender digits moving across the slight scarring around her eye before falling to her cheek. Dragging his tongue across his lower lip Ever sighed, hoping the fox from the woman’s dreams would give her one night’s peace. If there were ever a time she needed tranquility within her hazy visions it was right now.

He lowered those moistened lips to her collar bone; to a gash that was still leaching a drop of ruby, as if he could kiss away not only the blood but the pain too.
“Don’t leave me, Rumour.” Ever whispered; an echo of her plea from before. And he meant it in so many ways.