“So?” Wayne raised an eyebrow before leaning back in his seat. He gestured to the one next to him and Jo didn’t hesitate to take it. She felt like she’d just chugged three RAGE energies after being awake for three days straight; exhausted and yet wide-the-hell awake.
“So,” Jo parroted, letting out a groan as she sank into the plush cushions.
“So what were you guys up to?” he elaborated. Though Jo had leaned her head back into the seat, closing her eyes against the warm, yellow light of the reading lamp, she could still hear the smirk in his voice. “I’m assuming you two played jail break so you could go see Eslar. How did it go?”
Jo couldn’t help but replay their conversation, the emotions running heavily enough between the two of them to be nearly tangible even from the other side of the door. Then, without meaning to, Jo found herself remembering the sound of silence, what was clearly a muffled kiss bringing the conversation up short. The blush that Jo had managed to walk off as she’d snuck back to their quarters rose to her cheeks once again. She sat up, blinking away the image.
“I think it’ll be fine by morning,” Jo offered, clearing her throat when she caught herself mumbling. She wasn’t embarrassed, far from it, but she also didn’t quite know how to process the information. She was happy Eslar and Samson had been reunited, but she was worried, too. If this whole ordeal, and by association Jo, somehow managed to come between them and what they’d just finally managed to act on after who-knew-how-many-hundreds of years, Jo wasn’t sure she’d be able to forgive herself.
“Well,” Wayne interrupted, “I’m glad you’re all right. I’m assuming Samson is too?”
“Yeah.” Jo let out a snort before she could stop herself; Wayne’s eyes widened a fraction. She shook her head but couldn’t keep the grin off her face. “He’s all right.”
This time, it was Wayne who cleared his throat, looking away with a blush that shone far more prominently on his pale skin than it probably did beneath her light brown tone. It was a small victory, but one that brought with it a familiar sense of camaraderie.
“Glad you two made progress then.” Wayne sniffed when Jo only continued to grin at him; it was obvious he knew that she and Samson weren’t the “two” who’d made progress at all.
When he got to his feet, Jo felt almost disappointed to see him go. Unlike her, he needed his sleep now. Being left alone with her thoughts every night was starting to become exhausting, especially when, more often than not, she found herself thinking about Snow and how far away he still was. They were getting closer by the day, but it still wasn’t enough. It wasn’t his touch or his embrace or his words of comfort whispered into her skin.
Once again, Jo felt the phantom pull of longing, like a physical rope binding the two of them together, making their separation a heavy, tangible thing.
“I’m going to bed, dollface.” Wayne pulled her back to attention once more, and this time, when she looked up at him, his face was knowing, eyes a little sad. Jo felt something tug at the center of her chest. She smiled up at him, hoping to convey some of her gratitude for his company. Judging by the wink he threw her, the sentiment might have been lost in translation. Especially when he added a half-teasing, “If you get bored of reading, or doing whatever else it is you do... I’m a light sleeper.”
Jo rolled her eyes, but the smile never left her face. “I’m sure I’ll be well entertained,” she said, gesturing broadly at the bookshelf behind her. Wayne just shook his head, shoving his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants.
“If you change your mind, you know where to find me,” he added, turning towards his and Samson’s empty room. “I’m sure we could both use a little stress relief.”
Jo felt the laugh escape her before she heard it, leaning back into the chair and running a hand down her face. They both knew she wouldn’t accept his offer; her relationship with Snow was something beyond even mortal comprehension now, a bond that Jo couldn’t, and wouldn’t, disrupt. Which made Wayne’s offer all the more comforting. Like old times.
“Have fun with your hand, Wayne,” she called to his back, softly enough for him to hear but not loud enough to wake Takako in the room over. She watched his shoulders shake with his own silent laughter, said hand coming up to wave at her from behind before he vanished into his own room.
In another life, maybe, things could have been different for them.
Bathed in the warm glow of the elvish lamp, Jo let her mind wander back to Paris. Where before, it had left a pang low in her belly, the memory now was mostly a comfort. He’d been there for her with Yuusuke and her re-formed family, and had taken her mind off of the stress of the Society in the best of ways.
They had fit well together.
Maybe, if she was just Jo, not Destruction, not one half of Oblivion, she would follow him to his room, ease herself into his offer for stress relief like she had in Paris. Maybe, if she had met him in another life not burdened by demigods and magic and their lives hanging in the balance of it all, they might have wound up finding each other, being together—no Society, just them. A sort of simple, playful relationship that could’ve happily extended across years.
Jo’s heart clenched, a painful twist that had her sitting up in her chair, a hand already pressed firmly into her chest.
It had been the thought of being with anyone else, she realized with start. Just the thought alone of being with someone other than Snow had been physically painful.
In fact, Snow had settled so completely into her mind that she hadn’t even realized how frequently she thought of him. That pull she felt, drawing her to him, was a near constant thing, dulled only by distraction and determination to breach that distance. Even now, with Wayne’s joking offer still hanging in the air between them, all she could manage to think of was Snow.
All shewantedto think of was Snow.
Snow’s hands on her face or in her hair or caressing her hip. Snow’s lips against hers or pressed gently to her temple, her forehead. Snow’s voice whispering comforts and moaning her name. The more she thought about him, the tighter that rope pulled, and as if it could somehow lead her to him, Jo let herself follow it.
It was hard to explain the sensation, like her magic was wandering freely, tracking the trail of breadcrumbs to where her other half might be. She imagined it was akin to astral projection—some true part of herself wandering while her physical form remained still. Jo’s body grew lax as her mind took over; every thought became hot and desperate, a neediness spreading the closer her magic got to that other end of the rope.
She pictured Snow’s fingers caressing her face, tracing the length of her body, tangling in her hair. She pictured herself beneath him or on top of him or just tucked in next to him, borrowing his warmth. She pictured—no. Shefeltthe thrusting slide of him inside of her, the curl of his tongue between her thighs. She could taste the words of promise and love pressed humid and sticky to her collarbone and neck. She didn’t even realize she’d slid a hand beneath the waistband of her pants, chasing the mounting pleasure.
Eventually—the closer she got to the end of the rope, the closer she got to a pleasure she’d been missing almost as much as the one who gave it to her so freely—she felt the images blur. It was less vision and more sensation, like all of her memories coalescing around a singular path. The path that led to Snow.
If she could have spoken, she would have called out his name. If she could have touched, she would have tugged him in close and never let go. If she had been standing, she would have collapsed beneath the burst of all consuming pleasure she felt building, spreading, dragging her under.
Jo hardly knew what she was doing, her fingers wet and sticky, her magic spread thin in an attempt to stretch farther than should be possible, but she kept going, chasing and chasing and begging and reaching for—
