𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐞. | "oh, how you ache for gentle hands and the smooth waves of calming voices. i am no messiah of these things but perhaps my warmth will be the soothing medicine you have yearned for in the illusions of familiar faces."
一 in which...
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08 | eight
IT WASN'T UNTIL SHE STEPPED FULLY INTOher small apartment with James hesitantly in tow that Aurora realized the true reality of her current situation. A flame seemed to start in her lungs at the thought and it gradually morphed into a spark of panic that surged sharply into her head. Oh goodness, what in the world was she doing?
The space was dim upon first glance, weak sunlight always poorly filtered through the small windows of the complex, so the apartment was all nonlinear shadows and hollowed-out shapes. Aurora shuffled slightly to close the front door behind herself and the newly accompanying figure. When it did shut with a small click, the palm of her hand then slid on the wall for the light switch, eyes squinting slightly in the dark. Her fingertips were steady as they flicked the plastic leaver up, but a headache was beginning to form at her right temple and the young woman was still yet to address the outlandish circumstance that came in the form of a very weary James in her living room.
She had no idea what she was doing.
The man stood stiffly to the right of her, and in the now-illuminated room, Aurora could tell his back was rigid. His hands lay clenched at his sides, the baseball cap hooded over the hollow of his eyes, and everything about his body language bled an intense misplacement. He didn't belong within the plain walls of her apartment, and she suddenly realized this.
Aurora shifted, stepping from the edge of the room to tread around the loitering man. Her steps were soft against the hardwood, and a gentleness exuded from her movements. The young psychiatrist avoided his gaze, and instead resorted to advancing as if his presence didn't impact the air in the atmosphere; she had concluded that the best way to avoid a tangible tension was to pretend as if he knew the walls that surrounded them.
"You can have a seat if you would like, make yourself at home," Aurora hummed lightly as she let the strap of her bag fall from her shoulder. She still didn't look at him directly as she bent down to place the item neatly against the foot of the couch, but gestured at the furnishing slightly with her chin and glanced his way for a fraction of a second. From the quick glance, Aurora could see James had stirred minutely from the sound of her voice. But she didn't dwell on pausing to study him, knowing perfectly well that the freeze in her fluidity would not be continued naturally.
Instead, the brunette made her way into the kitchen and heard the hesitant sound of a body gingerly accepting her invitation. She breathed and he was there, she felt his impossible presence take up the entire space of her immediate surroundings, despite the fact that in reality, he was situated nearly twenty feet away. Aurora felt the dull throb of her head pound steadily with the quickened pulse of her heart, but yet somehow, despite the fuzziness of her nerve endings, Aurora felt a strange sense of control settle in her chest and spread warmly to her senses. Sure, she still had no clear sense of how to handle the foreign situation, but she did know that somehow it would fall in to place.
