Pathos - A Duskwood Fanfiction

Chapter 31 - sexual content warning

On a bus far away from Duskwood, and getting farther with every passing moment, Jake was seated in the very back, head resting against the window to his right as the moon-drenched highway landscape flew by. His hood was up over his head, creating a thin layer of cushion against the icy glass as he leaned against it, and he stared silently out into the darkness of the early night as the muted chatter of the other passengers ebbed and flowed around him.

He had placed his backpack on the empty space beside him, completely ignoring any sour looks that he got from people boarding that were looking to take the seat. Fugitive status aside, he had always preferred the solitude that long bus rides granted him, and had been known to get up out of his seat and pointedly push past the person who had the audacity to sit next to him if there was another empty set of seats available.

This time was slightly different, however. He wanted the solitude, yes, but he also couldn't bring himself to allow anyone to sit next to him when he could spend the entire journey daydreaming about what it would be like if she was there in place of his backpack. He closed his eyes as, for the hundredth time, he let that daydream take over, imagining how it would feel if she was asleep beside him.

He imagined the warmth of her thigh as it lay flush with his in the ungodly excuse for leg room that the cramped space allowed, and he imagined what it would feel like if she were to rest her head on his shoulder as she slept. He would raise the armrest that separated their seats and would pull her into him, wrapping an arm around her as she snuggled into his chest, still asleep. He would listen to her soft, steady breathing as she dreamed, and would carefully press his face into her hair, breathing the scent of it in.

It would smell like gentle perfume, he thought. Because it had when he had kissed her at Hannah's. He could still smell the phantom of it, when he let his mind drift. Her hair had been sleek and silken when he had run his fingers through it, and he thought of the way that the light from the streetlamps rushing by outside would catch in the highlights of it, occassionally becoming streaked with flashes of glimmering silver as the moonlight took over in the spaces that the streetlamps could not reach.

He knew that he would feel completely at peace if she was with him, if he could hold her in the way that he was dreaming about. There was something so profoundly powerful to him about the concept of holding her while she slept; pressing her into his chest and wrapping his arms around her to protect her while she was in her most vulnerable state. It was a desire that had seemed to be built into his very DNA - for as long as he could remember, he had wanted to do that with someone. He had tried to with his ex, but like the handholding that had never felt quite right no matter how much he had tried to force it to, holding her or hugging her for prolonged periods only made him want to claw his skin off as he fought to project a simulacrum of enjoyment.

His eyes remained closed as the bus drove on, the rhythmic sounds of the wheels on the highway asphalt mixing with the steady vibration of the vehicle's shock absorbers to create a heavily soporific effect. Without fully being aware of doing so, he began to fall into the lull of almost-sleep, his thoughts slowly starting to distort and nebulize as his mind allowed itself the rare occassion to disengage from its immediate reality.

As the bus whispered down the highway, he felt his brain gradually still, like a bowl of water that had been jostled and was finally coming to rest. As his thoughts levelled and deepened, the image of her lying on the motel bed sifted in slow degrees into his awareness, and he watched as she lay asleep with her head on the pillow. He could see the lengths of her hair tumbling down behind her head as she slept, and he could see the serenity upon her face as she breathed slow and deep. His inner gaze travelled over her face slowly, savouringly, tracing the impossible beauty of her closed eyes over and over. He could see her cheeks, remembered how soft and pliant her skin had been to his touch, and he followed the elegant curve of her jaw to the lips that were ever so slightly parted as she breathed.