After Hours

[Caillen Winters]

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He nodded to her quick reply on the whereabouts of Alaine. It was a relief to know that she had recovered enough to do her job, although the information in no way put the youth's troubled mind at ease. His mother had been known to work herself to the bone before, and he sincerely hoped that this was not one of those times.


The thought of Alaine pulled troubled feelings to the surface, a harrowed frown shadowing the boy's blue eyes. He couldn't stand to consider her for long, or the old feelings would return, and the confusion always threatened to swallow his restraint in gaping jaws. Best to leave that be, for now. He would deal with his mother when the time was right.


For now, he had other things on his mind.


That familiar French tickled his ears, and as usual Caillen understood what she was saying. Although he couldn't speak French himself, their time spent together as children had ensured that the slate wolfdog had a surprisingly large French vocabulary which he could understand. Her inflection alone had the ability to affect him so deeply, though; that familiar voice, accompanied with such an unfamiliar phrase (it had always been he telling her not to worry) made the large male shiver slightly.


He held the silence till she spoke again, refusing still to turn to the woman perched like a nervous dove at the side of her bed. It was a fear that if he looked at her now, he might do something unpredictable, something that might hurt her. And strongly, so strongly, he remembered the shallow glaze of fear in her eyes when they had last met - The memory haunted him still. Caillen wouldn't risk touching her again.


Sylvie's following words caught him by surprise. There was a strange note in her voice that he had never heard before, and it alarmed him, made him wary. Slowly, he turned to face her; Simmering pools of blue were still hollow with shame, and underlying it, the chaotic confusion of his own mind. He didn't know what it was he had wanted, coming here; what he had wanted from her. From them. All he knew was the need to see her again. It had eaten away at him, even when in the presence of another - He might have loved Sepirah, Caillen realized painfully, if Sylvie hadn't come back. If she hadn't shown her face again, he might have easily spent the rest of his life in real happiness with the ebony jackal. But still she took that from him.


He couldn't be happy, knowing she was here. He couldn't be happy knowing that she was waiting for him. He could never be happy, thinking that she might belong to someone else.


The snarl crossed his features without thought. Caillen wanted her to know what she did to him, the way she tied his insides in knots, the way she shredded his happiness. The way she made him crave her like a drug, the way she plagued his mind like a relentless sprite. He wanted her to know of the pain she had made him feel, how he had withered without her.


But the snarl died on his face, as blue gaze looked at her intently, drinking her in like he was a man lost in the desert and she an oasis. Of course he forgave her. He always would, and maybe that would kill him in the end; But he couldn't help it. Somewhere deep in the twisted cavities of his heart he still did, and always would, love her. Suddenly, the young male looked tired, just tired all over. Tired of fighting himself, and fighting her.


He stood awkwardly in the center of the room, blue eyes gazing at her desperately, trying to convey what his tongue could not. "Sylvie, I... I just... Y-y-you..." One large, clawed hand swept through sandy bangs, and then he was stepping towards her, standing a long meter from her beside the bed. The ball was in her court now.