Bravery Requires Fear

9. Alright

A/N: See end of chapter for notes on trigger warnings.
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" You have to, please."

That was how the night started out, and she broke after that and ignored every siren screaming at her to just wall up and walk away, and talked to him. It wasn't much, but it had her shaking and gripping onto him by the end. 

She didn't want to tell him anything, didn't want to tell him about how scared she was that he was just going to fall apart and die like he was when she first saw him, didn't want to tell him about how terrifying it was to walk in front of someone because they would be able to see her from behind and look at her ass and shoulders and hair and see all the little curves and her flaws from behind and not know anything about it. 

She didn't want to tell him about how terrible she felt when she learned he got a job because she didn't want him to feel some sort of duty and take away any semblance of control she had, didn't want to tell him how terrible she felt letting him go into the field with her both at work during the day and at night because there was a chance that he would end up dead in an alleyway again and it would be her fault.

But she did. She didn't tell him much, didn't answer many of the questions he wanted answered but she did talk. Talking was good, it was enough for him.

She didn't tell him that she hated the way she did those things, how sometimes when she hurt herself it was purely with the intent of making someone notice. Hoping someone would see.

Elaine Lyn most absolutely did not tell him how he scared her like nobody else could and absolutely did not tell him how he felt like her responsibility because of the fact that she was the only reason he was alive.

Did not tell him how they didn't happen to catch his breach pulse but just happened to know he was there on her earth when she lurched over and vomited because she could feel something snap into existence so quickly and snap back out just as fast.

She did not tell him that she only found him because his heat, his speed, was the opposite to her cold, her ice; and could sense it the second he popped up.

She didn't tell him how much she hated being around him because if she didn't get that stupid feeling he would be dead. How she hated being near him because she was the one who had to resuscitate him on three separate occasions and keep his body in one piece by freezing his innards and his limbs to keep them from falling apart.

She most definitely did not tell him how scary it was to know that she was the one thing that kept him alive, and the one thing that ended up killing him time and time again.

She didn't tell him how vulnerable she felt every time he was near.

How much it scared her to feel like that stupid, scared seventeen year old girl hiding underneath her cousins bed while his parents fought her dad in the other room because he'd been doing shit to her and then killed her siblings and broke out of county jail, how they were calling the cops.

She did not want to tell him how scared she felt that day when Grayson and his parents had to walk her into the courtroom so she could testify against his crimes, how every time she was around him she wanted to vomit because she felt the same level of vulnerability around him as she did that very same day. How she felt so fragile because he was giving her another purpose, giving her something to take care of when he should've known good and damn well that she couldn't take care of him the way he needed to be taken care of.

She would always be a bit fragile around him, and she hated that.

But it didn't matter now because they were both in separate beds in separate rooms and it was three a.m. and she couldn't sleep without feeling like somebody was right behind her staring at her back and looking at all of her things. That stuff had happened years ago and it was still fucking with her mind. What she needed was someone to lay next to, to just feel safe next to for a few hours so she could sleep.