Chapter Text
Ling finds her covered un blood, scratches and bruises. He's no better than her, his hair in disarray,his eyes wide open, red and dry and vitrous with the far away gaze fear can give you. The one when you're half lost in frightening visions, not fully there anymore, despite being wide awake and alert at the same time.
They stumble into each others arms after a moment of blinking, each stuck paralyzed in their respective spots.
He'd tell her, later, of the vision she was — wild dark hair, pale and white only faintly greenish, and covered in red, blue, purple. She looked like she both was going to bolt at any moment and jump at you to tear your throat with her teeth.
But they moved, finally, after a moment, an instant that they definitely didn't have — pursuers still running behind —. He caught her, one hand on her flank, her back, gripping the fabric to try and hold her. The other at her cheek in cupping, or so it tried for he was far too shaky, and far to frantic, and she glided in his arms, melted, like water, like fresh blood you're trying from falling.
She gripped his clothes too, dragging him down with her. He held them as much as he could, half kneeling, half pulling, half falling. She relished in the feeling of his hands on her sides, he was there, and alive, and strong enough to catch her, and hold her, and pull her. His chest hit hers with each breaths, bone against bone, fragile cartilage, lungs filling together beneath the ribcage and skin.
She pressed her dirty wet face in his neck, shaking and crying and sniffling; she thinks maybe was mumbling things too.
He shushed her, stroking her hair with a rough hand that struggled to steady enough to apply the right amount of pressure, to stroke, smooth, fluid, comforting. Yet, comfort her it did. He was there.
Something in his chest rattled, he mumbled something, his voice too hoarse and thin for her to understand. She was going to "hm?" absentmindedly like she always did in those cases, when he spoke again.
"We have to go", he said.