Laurel was a quick study. Maybe a little too quick. He was hoping that he would have more time to teach her slowly. He wanted to show her what to do, but that wasn't quite it at all. He wanted the two of them to get close, fumble, touch. All of that was possible with the sort of training that they’d been doing.
Instead, she was ready to hit the skies, even if he wasn't.
“Why have you been prolonging this?”
“Maybe I don't want you to be able to fly away. Then, I’ll never see you again, like when you ran off to your parents in Brighton.”
“I wasn’t running away, I just needed to find somewhere that I belonged. You know where you belong. I still don't understand where I do. I am going to have to leave soon, though. I have to find out where I came from. Now, it seems even more important than ever before. It matters what family I came from, right?”
Nathan wanted to believe and say that it didn't matter. That would be a lie, though. It mattered because family ties meant more in his world than in hers. But at the same time, it didn't matter to him at all. He had wanted her when she was human, and he wanted her now that she was something else. The same thing made it easy to push it all aside. At the end of the day, no matter what she was, he had a feeling that he was going to desire Laurel, no matter what.
He didn't like the idea of her leaving, though. Nathan offered to take her wherever she needed to go. He didn’t want her to take off on her own in case something happened. She may have thought that she was invincible because she was a dragon, but he knew better.
“I know that you're not ready yet, but you'll be ready soon. And then we will go find your family together. I don't know if we'll actually find them, but we will certainly search.”
She smiled at him and touched his face softly. It warmed Nathan inside and for a moment, he thought that it wouldn't have been hard at all to lean forward and give her a kiss. It was what he’d wanted to do for so long. Nathan had this strange idea that one kiss from Laurel would seal the deal. What deal he didn't know, just that it had to be so.
Then she blew him off. She flipped to her dragon self and set up into the air, high in the sky. He shook his head and shifted as well. It was time for her first lesson, and she was already too high and probably going too fast. He had to catch up to her quickly, so she didn't hurt herself. It was obvious that she had far too much inside of her to deal with. He could definitely relate and felt his own body propel into the air toward her.
***
(Nathan)
It was almost intimate flying with her, getting close and feeling the wind on his scales. Nathan had probably never felt so relaxed in his whole life. He was certain that, somehow, this was how it was all supposed to be. It was a true realization, knowing deep in his heart that it was true.
It didn't help that he couldn't have her. Maybe that's why he wanted her so badly to begin with. Nathan had considered it. He knew that sometimes it was easier to pretend that he could ignore it all, but when he was with her, it was a completely different story. How badly he wanted her right then, right there. What he wouldn't have given to take her into his arms.
Nathan had been so deep into his thoughts, that he didn't see that they had gotten lower, and he didn't even see the tree that was just a little too tall, sticking out of the landscape. He hit the top of it and was going and flying forward. Tumbling to slow down, he came to a stop on his back. The pain quickly pushed him down into his human form because he wasn't trying to stop it. He would then feel better as his energy could go to healing and not maintaining such a large creature.
Nathan closed his eyes, trying to slow down his breathing and deal with the pain that was rushing in like a tidal wave. Everything hurt, and even though he knew he would heal quickly, it did not mean that it wasn't going to hurt like hell until then. Like it did right then.
“Nathan! Are you okay! Oh my gosh. You just bit it.”
He looked over and saw Laurel rushing toward him. He was supposed to be teaching her the proper protocol and instead his own mind had given him reason to hurt himself in an embarrassingly dramatic way. He didn't know if he'd ever be able to look at her without wondering what she was thinking. At the moment, he didn't want to know.
“Nathan, are you okay?”
Once again, he was so caught up in his own thoughts that he wasn't even really paying attention to her, not her words. He hadn't even answered her and now Laurel looked even more concerned, like he might just keel over and die right there. Nathan knew that it wasn't the case, though. He felt pretty good, even if his pride had a hard go of it. It was not enough to really stop him.
“It's alright, Laurel, really. I'm just a bit embarrassed, more than anything else.”
“Embarrassed? I can't believe what I just saw. Are you sure that you're not hurt or something? That looked rough.”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” His voice was tight.
He wished that she would move back a little bit. Her shirt was a little lower than he’d noticed before, and he could see half of her large globes, swaying in his face. They were just swinging and jiggling around, making him focus on nothing else. What kind of fresh hell was that supposed to be?
How was he supposed to pay attention to anything with that going on in front of him? How badly he wanted to lean over and rub his fingers over the nipples, feel the weight of them in his palms.
She knelt a little closer and now the clothes that worked beautifully in taking all this attention, was pressed up against his chest as she looked at the cuts on his head. He couldn't even feel it, anymore. The pain that he had felt before was nothing compared to how he was feeling at the moment. He couldn't say anything, do anything, but just stand there frozen, making her think that he had gone stupid or something.
“You know, it's really good that you showed me how not to do it. I will definitely pay attention. What had you running into trees?”
He certainly couldn't admit that he had been fantasizing about her and that's why he had gone into the tree. No man could ever admit to such a thing, it was unheard of. Nathan had already shown more emotions with Laurel than he ever meant to.
Finally, he told her that he was going to try to get up, but he winced the whole time he tried. He wasn't ready to get up, but he was ready to put a little distance between the two of them. Having her that close was really starting to mess with his head.
She didn't get off of him quite so quickly, though. Instead, she asked him why he wanted to leave. Nathan was ready to come out of his skin, and Laurel had no idea why.
