From the time that Lily and John woke up (her first coherent memory of that is being clutched to a broad, heart-hammering chest; she's fast, but sometimes he's faster, with situational triggers being what they are) to now, a span of three days, Lily has only spent as much time apart from him as she's been literally forced to--there are, for example, technically no co-ed showers in QCI, but that didn't matter, the obstacles have been those instances where it's insisted that they deal with teachers and counselors and doctors on their own. That's going to keep happening, though, reminding her of what it was like when they first got here--at least this time she doesn't hit anyone, so that's a step up. They have to go back to class on Monday, if they don't have a good reason not to, and Lily would wonder why that bothers her less, except that she knows. School isn't like being cornered and asked to recite events as they happened, not giving her time to get her story straight with John and Ryan before what they said could be compared--she's been interrogated before, she understands the tactics. (As ever the kind of place she could be in where she wouldn't treat efforts to help her from adults as invasive is...distant.)

But today the only obligations she has are to stay in bed and fuss over her boyfriend, and that's fine by her. All the hungry, devoted attention they've been paying each other (as lightly tinted bruises and red marks on her skin and his attest to, almost everywhere that a balance of his strength and her acrobatics have been able to get them) isn't really ebbing, at all, but what might surprise people not privy to the soft, quiet periods between where they huddle in the dim light filtering through his closed curtains is that even Lily and John can't actually be having sex every waking second, and she wouldn't really want to outside of those times where anyone just wants to keep going, to stay wrapped up in sweat and breath and aching heat. But people need things like water, for example, and it's this need in particular that drove her to pull on sweatpants and tie back her hair into a ponytail for a few minutes after rolling out of bed and kissing John like she expected to be gone all day, and not just long enough to fill up two water bottles and grab a few portable food items from the kitchenette in the common room. She doesn't see anyone, and no one sees her, so she returns uninterrupted, bumping the door with its be-tied handle open with her hip.

"Hi." She sets down her armful of gifts on the desk underneath the window - the water bottles, two bagels, some oranges, granola bars, simple staples - where the setting sun means they're going to want to turn on a lamp some time soon if they don't want to sit (or...whatever) in the dark. Pulling her hair undone, she shakes it out and tousles it lightly before stripping off her pants and sandals, leaving her in a black camisole and black underwear because, as John noted by implication in his assembly of clothes for her not so long ago, it's a color that doesn't show stains, and then because it's just easy, even if black make her paleness almost ghostly.

She sits on the edge of his bed, leaning over her knees just a little and looking at her feet (her nail polish is chipping, she'll have to redo it) curling bare against the carpet before she closes her eyes, saying with a short, hesitant sigh: "Do you want to like--talk?"

It's possible she went for a walk because she needed to think, too, but who can ever say with her.

I can't write this in my dream journal. I have to hand that in and I don't want to spend even more time in Dolkar's office doing trauma comedown, I don't want to talk to her about it. She always wants something from me. But I should write this down.

It was me this time. I guess I knew that was coming and it shouldn't be different from the rest of it, but it was me, and it's different. And maybe I want to know why know, what I did, if I did something or didn't do something and it makes this happen but what's the point? Why would what I do matter? Everyone dies eventually and it's not like I'm surprised that it'll hurt. So what.

So what.

( [warning for: depression, implications of abuse, mention of self-harm] you want to come but your body won't let you. he steals it from me. he steals it from me. it shines like sweat, like jewels, like something that has died too soon. he fucks with the beauty. a kiss, a kick, a kiss, a kick, a kiss kiss kick. he steals it from me. it's out of my hands again. i need an island, somewhere to sink a stone, i need an island, somewhere to bury you, somewhere to go. )