22
955 Words
"How are you feeling?"
Elizabeth pulled the covers a little closer around herself and kept her eyes firmly closed.
"Tired."
"Unsurprising...anything else?"
She opened her eyes slightly to look at Sawyer.
He was sitting at the end of the bed and he had apparently been awake for a while because he was dressed already.
"Hungry."
That wasn't what he had been asking her and she knew it, but she was avoiding answering the way he needed her to.
"What about physical sensations?"
She sighed, and sat up.
"Nothing...kind of achy, maybe, but that's also unsurprising," she was avoiding looking at him, and still unwilling to give any more detail.
Sawyer let it go for the moment, and nodded towards a glass of water on the bedside table.
"You should drink that."
"I'm not thirsty," she folded her arms across her chest.
"Drink it anyway."
Elizabeth took a deep breath, and drained the entire glass.
She set it down and looked at him defiantly.
"I would have preferred coffee."
"I know you would have preferred coffee, but you need to pay attention to the way you're feeling and how you're responding to things. No coffee, no alcohol..."
"...no fun?"
He sighed, and rested his hand on her thigh over the sheets.
"You think I'm taking this too seriously?"
"No," she admitted, "I'm just disappointed. The way I felt last night... I thought you were right, but I guess I was just frustrated. What are we supposed to do now? It's not as if we can go to a doctor or look it up online."
"Lucky for you, I'm a terrible person."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Elizabeth furrowed her brow and brushed his hand away from her thigh.
"Did you get the impression I didn't know what I was doing last night? It may have been instinct telling me it was worth trying, but I was drawing from experience and your response was exactly what I was hoping for. If it doesn’t happen now, I think it’ll happen next month, or maybe the month after that."
Elizabeth blushed, but she wasn't exactly oblivious to his past, and she had teased him about it a few times before.
"Who would have guessed that your infuriating obsession with frustrating people might actually serve a useful purpose one day?"
"Hilarious."
"I thought so... do you have a plan, anyway? Seeing as you're such an expert on this..."
He shook his head slightly.
"No."
"So what happens now?"
"It's not like taking antibiotics to clear up an infection - I wasn't trying to cure you of something... but I guess we wait and see whether you start showing any more signs or not. There's a cycle to it; you're sensitive, and you have a little less control than you normally do. That might start to amplify itself, or... Elizabeth, you've been through this before. You know what we're trying to achieve. Do you really need me to list everything?"
"I don't know what's going to happen this time."
He paused and looked at her carefully.
"Are you afraid?"
"No."
He didn't particularly believe her.
“Are you sure this is what you want?”
“What would be the point of going through all this if I wasn’t?” Elizabeth pushed the covers away and stood up. “But... I do want coffee.”
Sawyer smiled, and glanced toward the stairs.
"By all means - go down and see what Klara has to say about last night. You know she was awake while we were in the shower, right?"
Elizabeth stopped searching through her clothes, and sat back down at the end of the bed next to Sawyer.
"Fuck... I hadn't even thought about that. I'm..."
"...distracted? Unable to concentrate?"
"I was going to say 'mortified' but I know what you're insinuating."
"I'm not insinuating anything - I was asking you a question."
She shrugged, but he was right; she was distracted by him.
"It's not the same as it was before. I'm having trouble thinking about anything other than what happened last night, or what's going to happen next time, but it's not as if I'm delirious; I just don't want to think about anything else."
Sawyer seemed sceptical, but he decided to change the subject rather than pressing her further.
“I should go and make sure my sister doesn’t really think I was accusing her of hurting you.”
“You have an erection."
She wasn't looking at him, but she was blushing fiercely and she had muttered awkwardly; he laughed and put his hand down his pants to adjust himself so that it was less obvious.
"I hadn't noticed. Thanks for the warning."
“Sarcasm is really not…”
“...I wasn’t being sarcastic; I hadn’t noticed.”
She glanced at his crotch and then back up at him.
"How can you possibly not have noticed that?"
"It happens," he shrugged, "you're my mate - I'm not always in control of what my responses are around you. This is a perfectly natural reaction if you're starting to come into Heat, though, and you may not think we achieved anything last night but my body seems to disagree. The fact you noticed before I did says something, too."
"Yeah, it says 'I'm sitting next to a guy with a big d**k'. It's not exactly subtle when you get hard, as you are well aware."
Sawyer laughed dryly.
"Why do I feel like you're mad at me for that? I can't help it."
"I'm not mad at you," she stood up and began to get dressed, "I think you're right."
"There's no need to sound so surprised. I know your body better than I know my own."
- Writer
