Simple as This {Leon/Owen Day 3!Blitz}

owen {♔} bowers-fox

“If I said I was scared would you believe me?”

“Aren’t we all scared, at least a little?”

“I suppose.”

And suddenly everything I’ve been missing comes back and it leaves me in a state of blurry eyes and lost words as his arms open and offer me what I’ve been wanting for the last three days—comfort. But there’s something infuriating about the casualness with which he presents the gesture, as if he’s not torn apart by our separation, and selfishness tinges my vision red as I take shaky steps in his direction until we’re face to face, and my hand comes up, a trembling fist meant to make intentions clear, but it falls short and rests upon his chest as I let myself collapse into his arms, every bitter word and angry thought dissipating into broken cries and jumbled thoughts.

(“Then let’s stay here, at least for a while.”)

For that’s all I really want now, the consolation that running isn’t an option, that we could pause the time that was quickly wasting away and just stay. But we both know that we don’t have that privilege, and despite the sobs that have proceeded to rack my body, I am content. I’m satisfied to be held again by someone who promised me the world while knowing the repercussions, for I have always been one to never think about the consequences, no matter how apparently imminent they might be.

My tears are still soaking his shirt and my arms still cling desperately to him and I attempt to ask a million questions at once, but the only one that makes itself known is just a simple word, “Why?” And I suppose if that’s the only word to make itself heard, “why” is a good one, for it covers the basis of a million questions in three simple letters (why did you leave; why didn’t you look for us; why did you hurt Charlie).

But “why” covers the simplest of these, so I leave the question hanging in the air as I raise my blurry vision to meet his clear eyes and wait for the answer that would most likely break me down before it would build me up.

owen {♔} bowers-fox

My legs crumble beneath me and I press myself as close to him as I can in a desperate attempt to hold onto this moment in time for as long as I possibly can. My hands wrap around his neck and feel for the warmth that’s been lacking for the last three days, and my head buries itself instinctively in the crook of his neck as his hands find their way to my back, slowly snaking upwards until they’re tangled in my messy mop of hair. The silence that I’m sure we’re both craving is broken by my sobs, and a part of me tries to hold them back in an attempt to slow down the world around us, but it’s to no avail, as they only break and hiccup as they catch in my throat, and only moments of attempted peace are broken by the thoughts of having to let go of him again.

I simply can’t hold on to Leon Krigel, no matter how tightly I bunch his shirt in my fists or bring my eyes to meet his, and it leaves me in a state of feeling helpless. So I don’t say anything, for I doubt there’s anything that will make him leave those he’s chosen behind and stay, only burying my head further down as I savor every second that ticks by, so that when I’m laying uncomfortably in the shifting sand amid Charlie’s snores and Aelia’s uneasy fits of rest I could hold onto the moments in which there didn’t seem to be death and despair hanging over our heads in a threatening manner.

“I don’t know.” His words catch me by surprise and crumble the walls of security I’ve convinced myself he’s built, as even if I don’t understand, he’s supposed to. In some twisted sense of words he promised to be the one to carry us, and his lack of a soothing answer only causes my body to heave harder as his hands dig deeper into my hair. (“You’re supposed to always know what to say, what to do, how to handle the situation and you simply can’t be as lost as me because we both can’t be stumbling.”)

Although these are just a few of the many things I want to say, none of them make themselves heard underneath my sobbing. But he makes himself heard loud and clear despite the crack in his voice as he cries out, “I miss you.” And I want to tell him that I miss him too but that doesn’t even begin to cover it, because I don’t just miss Leon Krigel, I long to hold him again and feel his embrace and this can only be the beginning of something I’m not willing to see end.

owen {♔} bowers-fox

The words echo over and over again in my mind, reverberations against broken walls and shattered glass, each letter cutting into my skin and crisscrossing my body in the forms of “I miss you” and “please don’t cry,” and eventually his words mix with the ones that are already bouncing across my thoughts, and they become so jumbled and mashed together that I can’t tell one from the other and I instinctively burrow as far as I can into his shoulder to tune out anything that isn’t happening in this exact moment, because here and now was the only thing that was important.

I’m brought back from my loss of thought by his thumb running along my jaw, finding its resting place on my chin as words clearly break through the clutter of thoughts, “Look at me? Please” And it’s the undertone of desperation that catches my eye and causes me to draw my attention upward to meet his gaze, though I almost regret it immediately because at least when I didn’t have to face him I could pretend that he wasn’t breaking. Because then I could pretend that only one of us was falling apart, when in reality we were two broken souls trying to piece together the other, not realizing that we were only breaking each other more in the process.

His other hand has made its way to rest on the small of my back, and it sends a shiver down my spine and for the first time since I’ve stepped into the sand I feel a chill surge through my body and it’s like a sudden downpour in the desert, a snowstorm in July. It’s unheard of and rare, and craved just the same, and it’s the same lust for rarity that makes itself known when I beg him not to leave, despite the fact that common decency tells me he will.

“Please don’t—don’t leave. I can’t lose you again.”

owen {♔} bowers-fox

When I had met Leon Krigel, I believed him to be invincible, that neither stone nor sword could cut through to his heart of gold, and I suppose some ever-shrinking part of me still regarded this as true, for his embrace wrapped me in the lies of comfort and companionship, no matter how many previous examples had proved otherwise.

As I watch his eyes I see the stars fading fast into the dark, night sky, engulfing the eager heart and cheerful soul that once defined him and replacing it with grief and despair and loss and I want nothing more than to look away and forget everything that’s wrapped around my thoughts, but any attempt would be futile, for I simply cannot forget Leon Krigel.

And some part of me doesn’t want to.

His hand moves gently to my cheek, and if the world didn’t seem to be paused in its tracks his words would get lost in the small space that hung between us, but every word attached itself to my thoughts and threatened to spill over as I tried to put an explanation to his reasoning, “For now.” So I long for now to last forever, to extend on into the night and past that to the rising sun and as far as I can see, because now is okay and now is good but anything past that can bring only sorrow.

“I can’t make promises, but I can stay for now.”

His words are accompanied by the light touch of his lips against mine, and the memories of the training center dance at the edge of my thoughts as I feel my breath hitch. Because as much as I want his words to comfort me without reasoning, I simply can’t figure out as to why.

It would take little to no effort for him to walk back with me to our small camp, to Aelia’s muffled breaths and Charlie’s annoyed sighs, and it would be back to normal. The simplicity of the four of us could be intact again and it would only take his will to say yes for it to be so and it angers me that the power of our happiness lies in the hands of a boy who I can hardly look in the eyes.

My vision tinges red with sudden anger and I bring my eyes up to meet his, “Why can’t you stay? You could come back to me, to Aelia, to Charlie even, and everything would be okay. Wouldn’t it? So what have you found that’s so important among those three that we couldn’t give to you—that I couldn’t give to you?”

(I gave you everything, and I only want this in return).