Departing involved Luthor extracting himself from his position as Alle’s pillow, a mission that required Spook’s help and some artful swaparoo.
“You’re welcome to the spare bed,” Xane said, one foot already on the stairs. He looked ready to drop. “We’re just up here if you need anything.”
Yeah, no! Spook knew better than to walk in on Xane and Luthor in bed unless he was looking to join in. Besides, his neediness had already eaten up enough of Xane’s day, and his body was channelling what little energy he had left into the act of digestion. This rendered him untroubled by the notion of sitting quietly in the dark, listening to Alle’s snuffles and breathing in her scent while she crushed his bicep. Man did she have a heavy head.
An indeterminate time later, she roused with a start, brow furrowing and lips twisting as she processed his appearance on the sofa. “You’re okay?” The question came out startlingly hesitant, as if she was unsure of the etiquette of asking it.
“I’m approximating functional,” he replied, determinedly not delivering bullshit.
“I was worried about you. I was scared.”
“I’m sorry I scared you.”
“No, don’t do that,” she said peeling herself off his shoulder to squint at him through the dark. “It makes it sound like you’re irritated that I cared enough about you to be afraid.”
That kind of was how he felt. “Navigating other people’s emotions alongside my own isn’t terribly easy. I’m not well, Alle. Some days are better than others. You’ve seen the good, and now you’ve had a glimpse of the bad. I don’t like being around people when it’s bad. It’s not only that I don’t have the capacity to deal with them, I don’t like that they pity me, or use me to mirror their own emotional insecurities.”
He could tell she was biting her tongue, ruminating how to respond. “I’ll remember to give you space when you need it.”
Maybe she would.
They exchanged cautious smiles. Questions burned bright in her eyes, questions that no doubt deserved answers, but his reserves were very limited at the moment. How much poking into his psyche he could take right now was highly questionable. “Should we go to bed? Xane offered the spare room.”
“Is that not where you spent the day? And I’ve only just woken. What time is it even?”
He shrugged. Probably closer to dawn than sundown. “I’m still exhausted,” he admitted. There was also something about being in bed with someone that made communicating easier. Possibly because bed sharing came with intimacy implied, hence removed several emotional as well as physical barriers. In bed, you could be close to someone, without having to maintain eye contact while you talked. Besides at least it’d be slightly more contained. The open plan was starting to make him feel exposed.
“Okay,” Alle agreed. “Is it upstairs?”
“Down.” He nodded to a door towards the rear of the room they were in, tucked away beneath the shadow of the mezzanine. Within, the spare room smelled strongly of freesias, courtesy of being closed up for so long with a reed diffuser doing its thing. They undressed down to their underwear and got in beside one another, not bothering with the lights.
“Was Xane with you?” Alle asked, her frown drawing hollows in her cheeks.
“Yeah.”
Rather than resting her head on his shoulder, she turned onto her side, and found a groove for her curvy arse against his loins. Okay, spoons was a good choice. Spook rested his chin against her clavicle.
“What’s so special about him that he gets to be there for you, but your bandmates went to extraordinary lengths to make sure I wasn’t?”
The answer to that was both simple and immeasurably complex. “I guess they were trying to protect you… me… both of us. Alle, I spent most of the day in the exact same state as when you left this morning. You didn’t miss anything.”
“Besides Xane demonstrating his superpowers.”
The hurt rolled off her in sharp waves, making it impossible to avoid the sensation of being serrated. “Alle, he doesn’t have any superpowers.” Not entirely accurate, but not of the variety she meant. “He was just there. And he talked to me when I was ready to be spoken to. That’s it.”
He knew he hadn’t convinced her.
“Look, if there’s a superpower involved, it’s that he manages to offer support without me feeling weighed down by his opinions of me, or me getting spun out by his emotional reaction to my shit. It never feels as if I have to live up to an ideal or his expectations. I can just be the fucked-up human that I am.”
“It’s not about sex? He doesn’t just turn up and fuck you until you’re smiley again? Because all I’ve ever heard about Xane from anyone is that he uses sex like a laser pistol. Blasting with impunity until everything succumbs to his touch.”
“We didn’t have sex,” he said into the skin at the back of her neck. “I asked if I could give him a blowjob, and he agreed.”
“Shit!” She strained to turn her head far enough to see him.
“Problem?” He lifted his hands off her.
“No,” she snapped too quickly.
