Lost In Lucidity

We'll Only Last So Long

My knuckle taps the door softly, and I nervously adjust my grip on the sheath for the blade I just used to hack through the roots on the lab exit. I know she's going to be relieved, but I also know what I'm going to have to deal with from her first. Both of them. The worst part was I had already gotten it from everyone else down the hall less than five minutes ago.

I knock again when there's no response, knowing the slump the girls will be in. It takes a long, long time before I finally hear footsteps moving toward the door in a rhythm that matches my heartbeat. When it finally opens, Val stands there looking disheveled, a blank expression in her eyes. Before she can erupt, I try to talk first, blurting the first thing that comes to my mind.

"I-I got your machete back."

Val's face doesn't change. Her mouth just gapes slightly as she tries to process what she's seeing, and I don't help by pressing the blade forward into her arms out of instinct. The girl takes it and looks down at the object, then back up at me, still in a daze, most likely from waking from a grief induced slumber. When her brain finally catches up, her face tenses in anger, and I quickly regret having handed her a weapon.

She chucks the blade to the floor and begins huffing air between oncoming sobs as she slams her fists into my chest repeatedly. I stagger back with each blow and grit my teeth, trying to let her vent it all out, but man, she is livid. Finally, when there's no more hallway left to push, she stops and falls against me, immediately remedying the fresh pain across my shoulders and chest. I take her into my arms, squeezing her like a stuffed animal and snuggling my head into her hair as if she were as soft as one. I kiss her scalp a few times, relieved that it's over. No more Mason. No more guide. No more looming cult trying kidnap, murder, and end the world. We're as free as can be within the confines of the apocalypse.

"Why does everyone keep hitting me when they're relieved to see me?" I muffle into Val's head after a moment.

Val lets out an unflattering snicker-sob, "Because you're an idiot, Wesly Neyome."

"Yeah," I tell her, "I don't think I can help it."

"Like... 'I got your machete back'?" she mocks, "Are you kidding me?"

I let out a full laugh this time, cradling her head from behind, "I know. That was pretty dumb."

"So fucking dumb..."

A figure suddenly appears in the doorway behind Val, and when she sees me, the tear flow is instantaneous. I unhook one arm from Val and open it for Claireese to burrow inside, which she gladly excepts. I lay my lips on her too with relief and feel her warmth against my still damp clothes. The scents of my friends swirl together as I hold them tightly, creating an intoxicating bliss of nostalgia and comfort that I let myself fall in to. It's taken away for a while when we all head back into the room and I have to pull away, but after I shower once again, change clothes, then climb back into bed where both already lay racked out, I slip back into it and let it carry me to sleep.

~

While we all wait, Lyle sits between my legs, letting his one roll side to side across the floor with boredom. With my arms hugging him from behind, I squeeze him then kiss the top of his head, still relieved that he's alright. As he happily slides his hands up to grip my forearms in returned embrace, I try hard not to think about what I might have had to do had things not gone the way they did with Mason...

Claire leans her head on my shoulder with an arm looped through the crack of my own where I'm caressing Lyle. I lean over and give her the same treatment before reminding, "You don't have to keep holding on. I have nowhere left to be; I'm not leaving again." If I thought the first time we reunited was bad, she hadn't left my side since we woke up this morning, and she was even clear-headed now.