Skinny Love: when two people love each other but are too shy to admit it but they still show it.
1.31.17 What Had Happened Was" (Edited from live play with Emmaline)
Today was no different than any other day he'd been in Rhy'Din: protests and exploring. He'd spent a good portion of the morning and early afternoon helping out Daphne and her friends with the protest, but somewhere around noon, he'd decided to take advantage of the free pizza and brought some to Grace's shop for everyone. After checking in with his mom, giving her updates on the protest and some of his usual Frankie antics of hitting on Grace's co-workers, he'd left...or might've been chased out by Isaac which had him cackling in that goblin-like way.
He'd started to head back to the protest, but lifting his chin skyward, the soft drops of snow landed on his face and hair, melting against his body heat. Georgia wasn't prone to snow, but he was familiar with it from the other business trips he'd taken with Leah in other areas. He'd always liked it, at least when it was the soft fluffy kind. And there wasn't much. Couldn't skateboard when there was snow on the ground! Not unless you're pulling something from Jackass, maybe. And it was that brief moment of getting distracted by snow that had his short attention span leaning away from the protest and into wandering.
Em' didn't have much use for snow. It was cold and wet and vaguely intimidating, like any unknown quantity, and because her experiences with it weren't at all like they showed you in the movies. There was no blanket of soft fluffy white, no piles of crisp powder to make desserts or snowmen from. No, in Atlanta" Snow meant snarled traffic, everything you wanted to do closing down, no chance in hell of making it onto a Marta train, and sheets of dangerous black ice. It meant being cooped up in your house with nothing to do but get on the internet, binge watch Netflix or play video games. And if the ice knocked the power out' There wasn't even that. There was a whole lot of sitting around, held captive with your family members, trying to remember what the hell you did with yourself in the days before the internet.
As the first flakes fell, Em's brow furrowed, her full lips curving downwards into a scowl. Fucking snow. She jammed her hands into her pockets, hunched her shoulders against the wind. Her gaze was trained exclusively on the ground in front of her, watching like a hawk for the sudden sneaky appearance of ice.
He'd already learned that not all things foreign was a bad thing. But he hoped this place didn't drown him in snow. He wasn't ready, dammit. He was wearing black skinny jeans and a loose grey tank top beneath his leather jacket. If he got wet...that was going to suck. Though for whatever reason, it had him digging out his pack of cigarettes, perhaps for the contrast of snow and fire.
His Vans kicked the loose dusting of snow over the cobblestones, leaving a lazy scuff of footprints that hinted at the dark stones through the prim white. The cigarette fixed to his lips, one hand cupped around the other holding the lighter as he fought the cheap Bic to come to life. A particular gust of wind caught him, extinguishing it and forced him to crinkle his nose and turn to the side. Blocking the breeze with his back, he managed to get that crackling cherry burning before tucking away the lighter. Glacier hues that seemed to fit the weather today scanned around where he stood, sure enough distracted by the simple fact of lighting a cigarette. What was I doing again?
But nothing could distract him as much as a glimpse of someone walking in his peripheral, and...from what he could tell...was a female. Of course he looked. A hunched figure, eyes downcast. He blinked, only catching a curve of a jawline, high cheekbones. Pale ebony skin that had him furrowing his brows. She seemed familiar, but from the undetermined view he'd managed to get of her, he didn't quite recognize her. That didn't mean he wasn't staring like a fool.
The girl's features were difficult to make out, just at present. She was looking down, for one thing, her face angled towards the cobblestones as she watched her step carefully. A black knit cap covered her head, long black microbraids trailing out from underneath it along her shoulders. Her stick-skinny frame was swallowed up in a heavy winter jacket, black with the kind of microfiber downy fill that added a good several inches to your body's circumference in every direction. Even so, the legs that appeared beneath it were clad in black skinny jeans, too, hinting at a slender outline underneath, and her feet were encased in thick-soled black sueded boots. Turning a corner onto a larger avenue, she walked with purpose, her posture somewhat defensive but only because of the weather. She looked like she must be in a terrible mood, the way she was scowling you could practically see the little cartoon storm clouds wreathing her head like a halo, but really she was just cold, her mind a million miles and maybe a parallel universe away.
The sharp scent of cigarette smoke drew her gaze, dark eyes flashing furtively as she sought the source. When she found it, she very nearly tripped over a cobblestone, her focus instantly drawn away from what she thought she'd seen to the whole....trying not to faceplant on the bricks thing. "Fuck!" Exclaimed the teenager as she caught her footing and then her balance, frowning at the brick like it had tripped her on purpose.
The image of memory contrasted in his head with the sight before him. But everyone was prone to change over time, and it'd been two years. Still, he didn't have enough proof to make a confirmation of his suspicions. He wasn't opposed particularly to making a fool of himself, but he really wasn't interested in making the 'oh, I thought you were someone else' conversation if he was wrong.
That terrible mood seeming to emanate off her didn't go unnoticed, and he tried to play it off like he wasn't just...staring at the fucking girl. But there was no way around it, he was. He wasn't trying to be a creep, but dammit if she didn't just seem so damn familiar.
He lifted that cigarette to his lips, brows dipping low on his forehead and threatened to disappear into the shadow of his eye sockets. He'd only caught a glimpse of the face that turned toward him, as briefly as it was. But between that, and the sight of her tripping -though catching herself- then the voice that rang out that matched his memories...His eyes looked like they were going to pop out of head. "Holy fucking ****balls.." He had a particular way with words.
Emotions clashing into one another, a tornado centered into a hurricane during a volcano eruption was...pretty accurate for the chaos in his head. And it was those clotted thoughts that had his long, scrawny legs walking in her direction. "...Em"..." There was a feeling like a punch to the gut that it was her, and if it was...damn it if they both hadn't changed. Hell, he'd probably grown half a foot since she'd seen him last. And aged a good five years physically in the past two.
Preoccupied with not falling, she had forgotten what it was that had made her stumble in the first place. She was examining what looked like a scuff on her boot, her frown carving ever deeper into her expression, when the memory came crashing back to her, borne on the wake of a colorful string of expletives that was achingly familiar.
Her gaze darted up again, up and then further up, as the face she expected to see wasn't where she'd remembered it last. Craning her neck, she found his eyes at last and her mouth fell open in surprise. He'd said her name, too, and whatever doubt she might have tried to rationalize evaporated the moment she realized that it was "Em", not "Um", that had left the not-so-stranger's mouth.
Swallowing roughly, she opened her mouth to speak and....nothing came out. Clearing her throat, she felt like someone had let an entire flock of butterflies - their wings tipped in broken glass - in her belly. "...Jesus you got tall."
It didn't take him long for that wide gait of his to close the distance, yet it seemed to take forever at the same time. Like those dreams where you kept walking along a corridor that seemed to just keep getting longer instead of shorter. But, alas, she did and he was staring at her like he'd just seen a ghost.
The swell of all those colliding emotions had him scratching at the back of his neck below the hairline, eyes casting to the ground as he nodded slowly with the beginning of a smirk that...didn't really feel genuine. "....Yeah, guess I did." Flicking those icy pools at her, he let his hand fall to his side. He'd pretty much forgotten the cigarette in his hand. "And your...hair...got long." Okay, even for him that was lame. Snickering at himself, he went to cross his arms and nicked himself with the cherry of his cigarette on the opposing wrist, only to spaz a bit with a flick of his hand to fling it to the snow dusted cobblestone. "Ah, fucking shit. So.." rubbing his wrist, he decided to just...come out with it. "Where the fuck have you been?" He winced at the way he said that, but she'd dropped off the face of the Earth two years ago with no notice.
A brief smile moved fleetingly over her mouth when he burned himself with that cigarette, the cigarette that had drawn her attention towards him in the first place. In a flash, she could see the first time they met in her mind's eye, the way he'd been busy staring at her —in a very different way than he was just now—lost his footing and ate it on the skateboard. She'd laughed then, but she couldn't quite bring herself to laugh now.
Paralyzed, Emmaline was so overwhelmed that she had no idea what to do. She wanted to cry and she also wanted to throw up. To hug him and to punch him. It left her standing there, staring dumbly, her eyes like twin chestnuts in her head, wide and unblinking.
His words cut right to the center of her. Sharp and precise, Em had no choice but to take the wound and let it bleed. It was the least of what she deserved for letting things fall apart the way they had. "I..." her voice failed her, and she forcibly dragged her eyes away from his, hoping maybe that would help her find her words.
"My fucking dad. He flipped out about you and went ballistic. Even more than the first time. He— he disconnected my phone, fuckin'....made up move across town." She was staring at a spot on the brick walls on the opposite side of the avenue, unseeing as her expression began to twist and it started to look like maybe the tears were winning. "I ...I snuck out like three times trying to find you. He moved us out of state."
He'd rubbed his wrist to dull the brief burning pain, but it was the least of his concern. What was a little burn" When it came to that first day he'd met her, it was bittersweet. Of course there was sentimental value for the fact it was their first meet...but the biting the curb part hadn't been his best moment. And sadly, not his worst.
His mixed emotions were eating at him, and now guilt swirled around them to the way he'd spat those words at her. But for so long, he'd felt left in the dust, left behind. He'd tried to find other ways to contact her, but came up with zilch. Which, considering his resources...was a rather impressive disappearance.
His sharp mouth cut into a frown seeing the way those words stung her, and he mentally chewed himself out. Regardless of the reasons, or his suspicions, that wasn't fair. Feasting on his bottom lip for a moment, he fell silent and simply let her explain. It seemed they couldn't quite meet each other's eyes, but that didn't really surprise him either.
His eyelids blacked out his vision as he let out a slow sigh. "...I had a feeling it was your dad. He's always fucking hated my guts," snickering, he slowly opened his eyes. "At least I hoped it was your dad.." He muttered, raising his arms to cross them over his chest with a creak of that leather jacket. He'd had suspicions that it had been her dad's doing, but he couldn't tell if it was intuition or denial. Her words confirmed his trust in her, but that didn't stop him from looking to her with a faint raise of his brows. "...You stuck out to look for me".." Only for his frown to grow deeper at the sight of glistening chestnuts. "Em...I.." He didn't really know what to say at that point, trailing off to abuse the hell out of his bottom lip with his teeth before he shook his head and uncrossed his arms to try to pull her into a hug. Two fucking years was a long time to not see your best friend who you used to see on an almost daily basis.
At least I hoped it was your dad. Something in the way he'd said it made her look up at him, and her gaze searched his face like she was checking it for accuracy, like she had to convince herself that what she was looking at was real. "He...I think he must have found out about..." Emma trailed off, her mouth twisting around the words she couldn't quite say. Her meaning, though, was heavily implied. Must have found out that we started sleeping together.
His crossed arms brought a sad sigh, and her mouth felt dry as a lump swelled in her throat. She was fighting actual tears when he asked her about the sneaking out. "Yeah," she muttered, her voice sounding strange as she struggled against its shaking. "I couldn't find your number and you weren't online and I just thought if I went to—-" The words tumbled from her lips in a rush about the same time he reached for her, and they were cut off by an anguished, half-strangled sob as her arms went around him in kind.
When she looked up at him, he didn't deny her of looking her in the eyes. Though they didn't stay there as he could feel that heated darkening of his real skin behind the illusion. Swallowing, that hand was back at it scratching his neck before rubbing it. "Yeah...he didn't like me before...finding out about.." Clearing his throat, his eyes were a bit all over the place. Not as if ashamed for have slept with her, but...well, he wasn't as smooth with the ladies as he made people think. And he probably wouldn't have been awkward with Em, but...there was a break of falling out of familiarity in two years.
He could hear the emotion in her voice when she spoke, and it was written in her eyes...her expressions...all of which he was watching and listening to closely. Almost as if he was still partially in denial that she was actually there. But the moment his arms had her locked into a hug, his head tilting and dipping to rest his cheek on the top of that hat. His jaw was tense, muscles jumping beneath as he closed his eyes. "I thought I was never going to see you again.." he muttered, fighting his own emotions though the thumping in his chest due to that effort could likely be heard considering where she was. She was most definitely real as the hug confirmed. Blinking his eyes open, his brows furrowed then as confusion struck him. "Speaking of...what the hell are you doing in Rhy'Din?.." This....was probably the very last place he'd ever expect to run into her.
It was that awkwardness that tore at her heart, the sense that she was looking at a stranger wearing too-familiar skin. Her face pressed into his chest still felt the same, even though he'd stretched out considerably since she saw him last. Though her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, moisture still seeped along the edges of her lashes.
Like a child she clung to him there on the street, her arms fitting into the space between his jacket and his body out of years-old instinct. She listened to his heart pound, sure that it only echoed her own, and she felt a little light-headed, which old made her squeeze him tighter, pull herself closer. And then he spoke, and the words were so absurd — and yet so perfectly accurate — that it broke the emotional spell, pulling a soft snicker from her lips. Feeling a little awkward herself, Em eased back from him, but only a little, like she was reluctant to let go of him and yet felt silly for being reluctant. Two years was a long time, and it wasn't like they were ever actually together. For all she knew he was together with somebody else.
"...Uh, yeah. Kinda fucked up, isn't it' Considering..." Em did separate herself then, much as she didn't want to, and as she took a step back, she pressed the heel of her hand to the outside corner of her eye, willing herself to quit crying. The teenager shook her head with a shrug. "...This is where work brought him, apparently."
1.31.17 What Had Happened Was" (Edited from live play with Emmaline)
Today was no different than any other day he'd been in Rhy'Din: protests and exploring. He'd spent a good portion of the morning and early afternoon helping out Daphne and her friends with the protest, but somewhere around noon, he'd decided to take advantage of the free pizza and brought some to Grace's shop for everyone. After checking in with his mom, giving her updates on the protest and some of his usual Frankie antics of hitting on Grace's co-workers, he'd left...or might've been chased out by Isaac which had him cackling in that goblin-like way.
He'd started to head back to the protest, but lifting his chin skyward, the soft drops of snow landed on his face and hair, melting against his body heat. Georgia wasn't prone to snow, but he was familiar with it from the other business trips he'd taken with Leah in other areas. He'd always liked it, at least when it was the soft fluffy kind. And there wasn't much. Couldn't skateboard when there was snow on the ground! Not unless you're pulling something from Jackass, maybe. And it was that brief moment of getting distracted by snow that had his short attention span leaning away from the protest and into wandering.
Em' didn't have much use for snow. It was cold and wet and vaguely intimidating, like any unknown quantity, and because her experiences with it weren't at all like they showed you in the movies. There was no blanket of soft fluffy white, no piles of crisp powder to make desserts or snowmen from. No, in Atlanta" Snow meant snarled traffic, everything you wanted to do closing down, no chance in hell of making it onto a Marta train, and sheets of dangerous black ice. It meant being cooped up in your house with nothing to do but get on the internet, binge watch Netflix or play video games. And if the ice knocked the power out' There wasn't even that. There was a whole lot of sitting around, held captive with your family members, trying to remember what the hell you did with yourself in the days before the internet.
As the first flakes fell, Em's brow furrowed, her full lips curving downwards into a scowl. Fucking snow. She jammed her hands into her pockets, hunched her shoulders against the wind. Her gaze was trained exclusively on the ground in front of her, watching like a hawk for the sudden sneaky appearance of ice.
He'd already learned that not all things foreign was a bad thing. But he hoped this place didn't drown him in snow. He wasn't ready, dammit. He was wearing black skinny jeans and a loose grey tank top beneath his leather jacket. If he got wet...that was going to suck. Though for whatever reason, it had him digging out his pack of cigarettes, perhaps for the contrast of snow and fire.
His Vans kicked the loose dusting of snow over the cobblestones, leaving a lazy scuff of footprints that hinted at the dark stones through the prim white. The cigarette fixed to his lips, one hand cupped around the other holding the lighter as he fought the cheap Bic to come to life. A particular gust of wind caught him, extinguishing it and forced him to crinkle his nose and turn to the side. Blocking the breeze with his back, he managed to get that crackling cherry burning before tucking away the lighter. Glacier hues that seemed to fit the weather today scanned around where he stood, sure enough distracted by the simple fact of lighting a cigarette. What was I doing again?
But nothing could distract him as much as a glimpse of someone walking in his peripheral, and...from what he could tell...was a female. Of course he looked. A hunched figure, eyes downcast. He blinked, only catching a curve of a jawline, high cheekbones. Pale ebony skin that had him furrowing his brows. She seemed familiar, but from the undetermined view he'd managed to get of her, he didn't quite recognize her. That didn't mean he wasn't staring like a fool.
The girl's features were difficult to make out, just at present. She was looking down, for one thing, her face angled towards the cobblestones as she watched her step carefully. A black knit cap covered her head, long black microbraids trailing out from underneath it along her shoulders. Her stick-skinny frame was swallowed up in a heavy winter jacket, black with the kind of microfiber downy fill that added a good several inches to your body's circumference in every direction. Even so, the legs that appeared beneath it were clad in black skinny jeans, too, hinting at a slender outline underneath, and her feet were encased in thick-soled black sueded boots. Turning a corner onto a larger avenue, she walked with purpose, her posture somewhat defensive but only because of the weather. She looked like she must be in a terrible mood, the way she was scowling you could practically see the little cartoon storm clouds wreathing her head like a halo, but really she was just cold, her mind a million miles and maybe a parallel universe away.
The sharp scent of cigarette smoke drew her gaze, dark eyes flashing furtively as she sought the source. When she found it, she very nearly tripped over a cobblestone, her focus instantly drawn away from what she thought she'd seen to the whole....trying not to faceplant on the bricks thing. "Fuck!" Exclaimed the teenager as she caught her footing and then her balance, frowning at the brick like it had tripped her on purpose.
The image of memory contrasted in his head with the sight before him. But everyone was prone to change over time, and it'd been two years. Still, he didn't have enough proof to make a confirmation of his suspicions. He wasn't opposed particularly to making a fool of himself, but he really wasn't interested in making the 'oh, I thought you were someone else' conversation if he was wrong.
That terrible mood seeming to emanate off her didn't go unnoticed, and he tried to play it off like he wasn't just...staring at the fucking girl. But there was no way around it, he was. He wasn't trying to be a creep, but dammit if she didn't just seem so damn familiar.
He lifted that cigarette to his lips, brows dipping low on his forehead and threatened to disappear into the shadow of his eye sockets. He'd only caught a glimpse of the face that turned toward him, as briefly as it was. But between that, and the sight of her tripping -though catching herself- then the voice that rang out that matched his memories...His eyes looked like they were going to pop out of head. "Holy fucking ****balls.." He had a particular way with words.
Emotions clashing into one another, a tornado centered into a hurricane during a volcano eruption was...pretty accurate for the chaos in his head. And it was those clotted thoughts that had his long, scrawny legs walking in her direction. "...Em"..." There was a feeling like a punch to the gut that it was her, and if it was...damn it if they both hadn't changed. Hell, he'd probably grown half a foot since she'd seen him last. And aged a good five years physically in the past two.
Preoccupied with not falling, she had forgotten what it was that had made her stumble in the first place. She was examining what looked like a scuff on her boot, her frown carving ever deeper into her expression, when the memory came crashing back to her, borne on the wake of a colorful string of expletives that was achingly familiar.
Her gaze darted up again, up and then further up, as the face she expected to see wasn't where she'd remembered it last. Craning her neck, she found his eyes at last and her mouth fell open in surprise. He'd said her name, too, and whatever doubt she might have tried to rationalize evaporated the moment she realized that it was "Em", not "Um", that had left the not-so-stranger's mouth.
Swallowing roughly, she opened her mouth to speak and....nothing came out. Clearing her throat, she felt like someone had let an entire flock of butterflies - their wings tipped in broken glass - in her belly. "...Jesus you got tall."
It didn't take him long for that wide gait of his to close the distance, yet it seemed to take forever at the same time. Like those dreams where you kept walking along a corridor that seemed to just keep getting longer instead of shorter. But, alas, she did and he was staring at her like he'd just seen a ghost.
The swell of all those colliding emotions had him scratching at the back of his neck below the hairline, eyes casting to the ground as he nodded slowly with the beginning of a smirk that...didn't really feel genuine. "....Yeah, guess I did." Flicking those icy pools at her, he let his hand fall to his side. He'd pretty much forgotten the cigarette in his hand. "And your...hair...got long." Okay, even for him that was lame. Snickering at himself, he went to cross his arms and nicked himself with the cherry of his cigarette on the opposing wrist, only to spaz a bit with a flick of his hand to fling it to the snow dusted cobblestone. "Ah, fucking shit. So.." rubbing his wrist, he decided to just...come out with it. "Where the fuck have you been?" He winced at the way he said that, but she'd dropped off the face of the Earth two years ago with no notice.
A brief smile moved fleetingly over her mouth when he burned himself with that cigarette, the cigarette that had drawn her attention towards him in the first place. In a flash, she could see the first time they met in her mind's eye, the way he'd been busy staring at her —in a very different way than he was just now—lost his footing and ate it on the skateboard. She'd laughed then, but she couldn't quite bring herself to laugh now.
Paralyzed, Emmaline was so overwhelmed that she had no idea what to do. She wanted to cry and she also wanted to throw up. To hug him and to punch him. It left her standing there, staring dumbly, her eyes like twin chestnuts in her head, wide and unblinking.
His words cut right to the center of her. Sharp and precise, Em had no choice but to take the wound and let it bleed. It was the least of what she deserved for letting things fall apart the way they had. "I..." her voice failed her, and she forcibly dragged her eyes away from his, hoping maybe that would help her find her words.
"My fucking dad. He flipped out about you and went ballistic. Even more than the first time. He— he disconnected my phone, fuckin'....made up move across town." She was staring at a spot on the brick walls on the opposite side of the avenue, unseeing as her expression began to twist and it started to look like maybe the tears were winning. "I ...I snuck out like three times trying to find you. He moved us out of state."
He'd rubbed his wrist to dull the brief burning pain, but it was the least of his concern. What was a little burn" When it came to that first day he'd met her, it was bittersweet. Of course there was sentimental value for the fact it was their first meet...but the biting the curb part hadn't been his best moment. And sadly, not his worst.
His mixed emotions were eating at him, and now guilt swirled around them to the way he'd spat those words at her. But for so long, he'd felt left in the dust, left behind. He'd tried to find other ways to contact her, but came up with zilch. Which, considering his resources...was a rather impressive disappearance.
His sharp mouth cut into a frown seeing the way those words stung her, and he mentally chewed himself out. Regardless of the reasons, or his suspicions, that wasn't fair. Feasting on his bottom lip for a moment, he fell silent and simply let her explain. It seemed they couldn't quite meet each other's eyes, but that didn't really surprise him either.
His eyelids blacked out his vision as he let out a slow sigh. "...I had a feeling it was your dad. He's always fucking hated my guts," snickering, he slowly opened his eyes. "At least I hoped it was your dad.." He muttered, raising his arms to cross them over his chest with a creak of that leather jacket. He'd had suspicions that it had been her dad's doing, but he couldn't tell if it was intuition or denial. Her words confirmed his trust in her, but that didn't stop him from looking to her with a faint raise of his brows. "...You stuck out to look for me".." Only for his frown to grow deeper at the sight of glistening chestnuts. "Em...I.." He didn't really know what to say at that point, trailing off to abuse the hell out of his bottom lip with his teeth before he shook his head and uncrossed his arms to try to pull her into a hug. Two fucking years was a long time to not see your best friend who you used to see on an almost daily basis.
At least I hoped it was your dad. Something in the way he'd said it made her look up at him, and her gaze searched his face like she was checking it for accuracy, like she had to convince herself that what she was looking at was real. "He...I think he must have found out about..." Emma trailed off, her mouth twisting around the words she couldn't quite say. Her meaning, though, was heavily implied. Must have found out that we started sleeping together.
His crossed arms brought a sad sigh, and her mouth felt dry as a lump swelled in her throat. She was fighting actual tears when he asked her about the sneaking out. "Yeah," she muttered, her voice sounding strange as she struggled against its shaking. "I couldn't find your number and you weren't online and I just thought if I went to—-" The words tumbled from her lips in a rush about the same time he reached for her, and they were cut off by an anguished, half-strangled sob as her arms went around him in kind.
When she looked up at him, he didn't deny her of looking her in the eyes. Though they didn't stay there as he could feel that heated darkening of his real skin behind the illusion. Swallowing, that hand was back at it scratching his neck before rubbing it. "Yeah...he didn't like me before...finding out about.." Clearing his throat, his eyes were a bit all over the place. Not as if ashamed for have slept with her, but...well, he wasn't as smooth with the ladies as he made people think. And he probably wouldn't have been awkward with Em, but...there was a break of falling out of familiarity in two years.
He could hear the emotion in her voice when she spoke, and it was written in her eyes...her expressions...all of which he was watching and listening to closely. Almost as if he was still partially in denial that she was actually there. But the moment his arms had her locked into a hug, his head tilting and dipping to rest his cheek on the top of that hat. His jaw was tense, muscles jumping beneath as he closed his eyes. "I thought I was never going to see you again.." he muttered, fighting his own emotions though the thumping in his chest due to that effort could likely be heard considering where she was. She was most definitely real as the hug confirmed. Blinking his eyes open, his brows furrowed then as confusion struck him. "Speaking of...what the hell are you doing in Rhy'Din?.." This....was probably the very last place he'd ever expect to run into her.
It was that awkwardness that tore at her heart, the sense that she was looking at a stranger wearing too-familiar skin. Her face pressed into his chest still felt the same, even though he'd stretched out considerably since she saw him last. Though her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, moisture still seeped along the edges of her lashes.
Like a child she clung to him there on the street, her arms fitting into the space between his jacket and his body out of years-old instinct. She listened to his heart pound, sure that it only echoed her own, and she felt a little light-headed, which old made her squeeze him tighter, pull herself closer. And then he spoke, and the words were so absurd — and yet so perfectly accurate — that it broke the emotional spell, pulling a soft snicker from her lips. Feeling a little awkward herself, Em eased back from him, but only a little, like she was reluctant to let go of him and yet felt silly for being reluctant. Two years was a long time, and it wasn't like they were ever actually together. For all she knew he was together with somebody else.
"...Uh, yeah. Kinda fucked up, isn't it' Considering..." Em did separate herself then, much as she didn't want to, and as she took a step back, she pressed the heel of her hand to the outside corner of her eye, willing herself to quit crying. The teenager shook her head with a shrug. "...This is where work brought him, apparently."