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[allgotrabies]

Hey, it's Annie, you know what to do.

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[allgotrabies]

She cries out, soft and short, ending in a breathless giggle. The pressure of his fingers creates a warm, electric line all the way down her body and she murmurs, "Níos crua, mar seo, le do thoil..."

Hands on learner, as promised.

[madaboutit]

Sweeney shifts to lean over her a bit more, though he doesn't climb on top of her. Instead he bites at the other purpling marks running down her shoulder. He's rough with her, but not urgent. Quite to the contrary. Each is taken with clear intent.

"Cá?" he purrs against her.

"Where?"

[allgotrabies]

She touches a space on her ribs, just above where they stop. "Anseo."

He's bruised her up and down already, but she's ticklish there, which makes her extra sensitive.

[madaboutit]

He nips at it for only a moment, but something occurs to him, and he draws back enough to give them more weight.

"Ya ne'er hav'ta say it in Gaelic, English is just fine, but I want ya ta know a few important ones." He tips his head between each, giving her the chance to repeat them back to him.

"Sea. Yes.
Níl. No
Moilliú le do thoil. Slow down please.
éirigh as. Stop it."

He is very serious about each of them, and is prepared to stop where they are if she's not comfortable with any of them.

[allgotrabies]

It's funny, really, how having a different language makes it easier to imagine saying them. Then again, English requests were frequently ignored when she was human, but so far one hundred percent of the things she's said in Gaelic have been responded to.

"Sea," she says, after she's whispered the words to commit them to memory. "I'll say what I need. If you do too."

[madaboutit]

Sweeney's eyes meet her in solemn gentleness.

"Beidh mé." It's accented with a small nod. "I will."

[allgotrabies]

She touches his cheek, swallows hard. "Sometimes when I'm with you I think I'm not really dead."

Which is, she knows, an odd thing for someone to say. It's less odd than the things she thinks when she's alone.

[madaboutit]

He catches her hand without any roughness, just that he might pull it to his chest. Sweeney urges it flat against, right below his sternum.

"Can ya feel my heart beat?" he asks with a supportive fix of his eyes on hers.

[allgotrabies]

She doesn't take her eyes from his, but she concentrates on how warm he is, on how his chest rises when he breathes. Underneath it the flutter of his pulse, like a small bird. "Yeah."

[madaboutit]

"This is where I died." His eyes lower to where their skin meets. "The last time, at least."

Sweeney looks back up to her. "We're both here. Together. Livin' our dead lives." Like Dead Wife. At least this has less rotting.

"It's a'right if ya only get ta feel it some of the time. I'm glad ya can feel it with me."

[allgotrabies]

She keeps her hand there. "You remember how alive your daemon was, though?" Barrog had suited him so well, besides being so much more talkative than he was.

[madaboutit]

"I do."

His chest aches at the reminder. Sometimes when he wakes up, he still looks for her under the bed.

[allgotrabies]

"Mine wasn't." And the implications are so terrifying that as soon as she says it she has to mentally veer from it.

"Barrog really didn't like me," she laughs. "Does some part of you just really want to bite me or something?"

[madaboutit]

Sweeney shifts, pushing up a bit more so he can look down at her, and she can see the soberness in his expression. He takes the time with his words, and they are a sincere confession.

"You remember when we were in the grass an' talked 'bout fear? An' ya asked me if I was afraid of ya?"

[allgotrabies]

She doesn't answer right away. She takes a moment to study him, his expression, the line of his mouth. "Yeah."

[madaboutit]

"An' what did I tell ya?"

Sweeney's gentle; he needs her to understand all of the parts so she can accept the whole.

[allgotrabies]

"You were afraid of wanting too much." Though she wishes she had asked him to explain further. She hadn't because she'd been afraid of putting too much pressure on what trust they had.

[madaboutit]

"An' that's what ya are fer me," he tries to explain. "Bein' here with ya." Sweeney glances up to the ceiling for a moment. "Bein' what I am when I'm with you. Bein' myself." He lifts his hand to tuck her hair behind her ear.

"Bein' with you, when ya see me naked, e'en with my trousers on. When ya see me like no one else does, an' ya not only accept it, you crave it."

"Barróg keeps me safe. Keeps me from gettin' too close ta people who can hurt me." His lips tighten for a moment, concerned about the admission.

"An' that's you." He offers the faintest of shrugs. "She hates that ya can get ta my underbelly." Sweeney's lips tighten again. When his voice comes again, it's barely a whisper.

"An' that's the heart of our fear 'bout you." He shakes his head. "But I'm facin' that fear. Bein' with you...it's worth it."

[allgotrabies]

Her hand is still just below his sternum, still in the space that took his life.

Her desire to protect her pack is a given. But with this pack it's unique. Her ferocity over Connor is very different from what she feels about Sweeney here, now. With Connor it had been righteous anger at men who treated him as disposable.

Sweeney, though. The risk for him is her, and she doesn't know how to protect him from herself, but she's trying.

"I want you to be safe with me," she whispers back, too close to him right now to dare speaking any louder.

[madaboutit]

The sound in his chest is soft, like a chuckle that never escaped. Sweeney rests his hand over hers and looks up.

"Whad'ya think this place is?" He offers with a soft curl of a smile.

"This is me, givin' you a place ta be you. With me, when ya'll have me." It's certainly not his place as it is hers, but it's also for them.

"This is a place ta drop the bullshit an' just try ta let ourselves be ourselves. Where it doesn't matter if we fail, 'cause it's just us here. 'Cause we can be safe here."

[allgotrabies]

She tucks her head against his chest, feeling so much and so complexly that she resorts to the nonverbal language of her people. It's comfort and it's submission and it's a promise wrapped up in the simple movement of lowering her gaze to be nearer to him.

"D'you know, that time in the boat, was the only time Solvang did anything without me moving him?"

[madaboutit]

Sweeney's hand shifts to cradle her head, encouraging her place against him. "Don't know," he pokes gently. "I was enjoyin' the bit b'fore that with him wrigglin' around in yer shirt."

He kisses her hair, encouraging her to continue, just wanting to get a touch of levity in before what he expects to be a bout of something darker.

[allgotrabies]

A soft laugh. "I would've just taken my shirt off if we weren't being watched." She shifts her weight, letting herself lean against him.

"Most people seem to really miss having their daemon around. I mean I miss seeing 'em all. But mine, I don't feel like I even really saw him. We didn't talk. He slept, I think. The whole week pretty much. Now he's gone but I don't know what I'm supposed to be missing."

[madaboutit]

He listens and reflects on the idea.

"I don't think you hav'ta miss him," Sweeney answers honestly and with the faintest of shrugs.

"You already know yer tryin' ta scrape pieces together ta f'gure out what ya have ta work with." His brow lifts, silently asking if he's making any sense.

"Ya don't need a cat snake ta tell ya yer strugglin' with that. Maybe he wasn't pushin' you 'cause ya already know ya need the pushin'. An' it's takin' all ya got an' then some. Makes sense ya wouldn't have that much energy ta give him."

[allgotrabies]

She nods. She wants that to be the case: a sign that she's exhausted, not that her worst suspicions are true.

Annie looks up and catches sight of one of the potted plants, and it makes her smile. Maybe her soul is half-dead. Maybe she'll never gather enough pieces of herself to make another whole person. But she sure as fuck felt alive when he brought her in here, and she can let herself imagine it would have pleased the mongoose, too.

"Tell me something fun you and Barrog got to do?"