Alexander

we are, all of us, free men.

henry was coddled, was the sweet bystander, the hapless friend who grew too big to play his role and yet had nowhere to go until marcus had put distance between himself and kitty. henry was the one who made her feel attended, but marcus was the one who made her feel safe -- loved. as she was, as who she was, not a window into who she wished she could be. henry offered the view of adoration that came from affection, but not an affection that was heartily returned in the same manner. henry was the one who saw her as human only, no matter his knowledge otherwise.

he was her view into who she wished she was.

marcus was the world in which she lived, her reality. he was the one who helped her stave off the loneliness when he would allow it. he was the one that made her face her demons. he was the one who she desired, as a woman desires a man, and who she wished to be desired by. “i don’t know what to say,” she strangles, the feel of his lips in her hair makes her tremble, the wolf responding to his inhale through his nose as if making confirmation in how she felt for him. “i don’t know what to do… they’ll hunt me, marcus… i’ll be a hide on some ministry man’s wall because of her...that girl will have to become a monster every full moon for the rest of her life...”

she feels foolish, there in his lap, coiled around him as if she had no notion of her state of dress, only to realize it and look rightly abashed by it. she pulls away from him, scooping up the towel where it drooped and curling away from him, “i’m sorry… for all of it, for this… i can’t even imagine...” she clears her throat, trying to recover some of the very long ago lost dignity she had once laid claim to. “you don’t need this...” she pulls a hard left, and perhaps she is still responding to the desperate situation, or perhaps this was the cold water to wake her up to the absurd argument that had led them both to this broken bridge moment.