Junk Love.

twenty-seven.

"Good morning gorgeous." Mel whispers.

Still sleepy she tilts her face against his neck, likely freezing him with her cold nose. She wakes before the sun by the horn of a passing train that makes the ground quake then rumble like an actual shift of the earth's crust.

Shifting slightly himself, Carter wraps his arms around her to spoon her against his body tighter. Bitter cold seeps from the ground into her bones. They'd fallen asleep beneath the underpass again. With each other and layers of clothes they made it through the night.

"Morning baby."

His drowsy voice always turns her inside out. Despite last nights bad dreams when he wakes up like this, warm and groggy, she's never felt so strongly for anyone.

"How did you sleep?"

Carter lightly hits his leg against the concrete working out a cramp. "Terrible."

Kissing his neck she distracts herself from wanting to ask about his nightmares. Every time he cries out it terrifies her and she doesn't want to know. Not really anyway.

"I had a nightmare," he admits. "We were at a stoplight and I was driving this sweet car. It was summer. We were laughing at this dumb commercial on the radio and it really seemed like we were happier than we've ever been... Then you stopped smiling and you didn't have to say anything. I just knew. We were happy but we weren't happy enough. Then you got out of the car and you were just gone. I can't lose you, Mel."

The sheer vulnerability of Carter's tone unsettles her. "I'm not going to leave you."

"I've never loved anyone more than you, Mel. And I keep fucking up."

Although her face is pressed only lightly to his neck she can feel the quickening of his pulse against her skin. Bracing her palm against his cheek she kisses his jaw. "It was just a dream, baby. I'm not going anywhere."

"You promise?"

"I promise. You and me against the world, remember?"

Laying beneath the underpass where they shared their first kiss she's never felt such certainty in anything before. Even if her bones go hollow from sleeping outside, even if he made a stupid mistake, she can't deny how anywhere with him feels like coming home.

Living this lifestyle makes it difficult for Mel to imagine growing old little lone growing old with anyone else. Since meeting Carter it's all she can see.

☯

They follow the train tracks until their first stop at a gas station for a bathroom break. A seedy establishment where even the green Sin Clair dinosaur isn't safe from spray paint vandalism coloring the neighborhood.

On her way from the lady's room Mel pauses to peruse the candy isle. Meeting Carter at the front counter she shakes a box of candy hearts and the candies rattle inside. "Look what I got."

When he smiles at her it doesn't reach his eyes. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. She quirks her brow wondering what has him so flighty. Sure the grime on the walls has probably been layering itself since the eighties and the clerk has mustard smeared in his mustache but she's used to these sort of things. Him too.

"What's up?"

"Nothing." Another broken smile then he finishes, "I'm going to use the bathroom now."

"Ok..."

Despite wanting to ask what has him on edge she doesn't know how to question him without making a scene. These instances are when his temper is most explosive.