Nebula (Andromache×fem!OC)

X

"Raven. It... It really is you."

Something in her gaze was sorrowful and Nebula began to wonder if it was a mistake to reach out like that. She knew it was a bad idea but her body and heart had her lunging towards the warrior of a woman before her brain could even begin to think up a good enough argument for it. There was no turning back, now.

"Andy... Hi. Wh... Why are you here?" Nebula sounded almost breathless as she spoke. Andy wondered if she'd had anything to eat or even drink since she left them. She couldn't help but blame herself for not keeping her home with them or for not at least trying as much as she could to get her to stay. It had been the raven's choice in the end but if she'd at least made her explain the reason for it, perhaps she would have forced herself to leave the woman alone. The others would have respected it too if she just wanted to get away.

Instead, here she was, bringing trouble to her doorstep once more.

"You lost your apartment."

"Mhmm."

"You lost your job."

"Mm."

"How long have you been out here? No, let me guess... Since I dropped you off?" She nodded slowly. Andy tried to force down her regret and remorse with a difficult swallow as she sat by her side, resisting the urge to reach out too soon despite the way the slow retraction of Nebula's fingers from her arm left bits of stardust behind that sparked against her skin. "How about the money I gave you? It's enough to rent a new place for a while. You could have gone anywhere with it, done anything with it... Why do you choose suffering over comfort, little raven?"

As Andy brushed some of her hair behind her ear, fondly admiring how they still reminded her of the barbs of a feather, they were both choked up by their draw towards each other. The urge to say "I missed you" became rather overwhelming for the women who shared a long gaze filled to the brim with what was unsaid until Nebula turned her head. She found it was much easier to speak to Andy without having to look at her. The eye contact hurt too much in the best way possible. Her beauty and the emotions swirling about in her irises that Nebula couldn't understand; she was addictive to watch and an impossible-to-breathe sort of beautiful that was too magnetic to indulge in.

"I was walking around Paris in this giant old coat I saw among my things for the first time in years. Just trying to decide what was real and what wasn't. How much of it... Us... Happened or if it was all a really powerful, shattering dream. I didn't know what to do with what you gave me. Felt like hush-money. 'We kidnapped you and now we're returning you, hoping you won't tell on us' money. It made me feel like I was nothing. So fucking insignificant and worthless to you... Yet it's the only thing I had of you, Andy so I just held it tightly under my arm as I walked with no direction in mind until hours later, my tired feet led me back here. The physical pain brought me back into reality but then I found myself reliving the traumatic experience that brought me to all of you and got stuck in my mind again."

Nebula couldn't read Andy's expression with only the glance she spared her but there was a light furrow to her brows that made the raven almost instantly give up on any hope at all. Gently, she pushed a bottle of beer over to the woman, hiding her face behind her knees as she whispered, "there. It's all inside that... Other than what I used to pay for the drink. What you gave me felt too obvious so I switched containers to something less strange and stuffed it down that in the bathroom of some bar. If that's what you came for, Andy, you can take it back. Don't feel guilty about it... There was too much, anyway. If you could just give me a little so I can eat something tonight, I'd be grateful."

Andy stared at her incredulously for a moment, heartbroken that Nebula could think so little of her but soon found it in herself to blame her own previous choices. Nebula had been the one to bring up leaving but Andy didn't dare utter a single reason she should stay. Too scared to dream. Too scared to fight for something and feel this much emotion after much too long a time.