Now my bed sheets smell like you (Jazalea)

Subject: Re: Now my bed sheets smell like you (Jazalea) Sun Oct 25, 2020 4:20 pm

It was quiet now.

Away from the roar of the shower, away from the heat of their bodies panting, away from the wracked sobs that wouldn't stop no matter how hard she tried.

Everything was calm and quiet here in bed, Azalea wrapped securely in his arms, head resting against his chest, her breathing keeping in time to his heartbeat. Had she been a medical professional she would have been better suited to listen to the story of his heartbeats. Their rapid steadying pace satisfying to the exertion of earlier finally coming to an end as he too relaxed.

The small chill of bare skin being exposed to air was long gone, the Auror having pulled up his slightly scratchy blanket over them both a while ago. There had been no need to talk at first, nor had either of hem been sure of what to say. Yet now, with their breaths slowly returning to normal and their muscles relaxed, Azalea felt the need to justify.

He and't asked for a rustication.

He hand't asked anything really.

Which was why she had to tell him.

55 Minutes earlier

"It's okay, I'm here."

"I'm- I'm fi-"

"You're safe."

Now

"Jake?"

The man merely hummed, to contented to form properly syllables. For a moment, she considered leaving him that way. Nothing she had to say couldn't wait til tomorrow.

Except tomorrow there would be kids, work, emails and various other things that would provide for an excuse to delay the conversation once more. So it had to be now.

Closing her eyes momentarily to straighten her resolve, she pressed a soft kiss into his torso, hopefully waking him up a little bit more to the world.

"Jake... it's not what you think," she finally managed, listening for his breath to hitch, for his eyes to pop open for for him to give a sign that he understood. "He isn't... like that. This was.... mutual." The brunette paused, unable to use the word "consensual" because she had no memory of it. But her memory wasn't the most reliable at any given time. She had forgotten major life events so what was one night with her gentlemanly, caring and adoring boyfriend.

"I know what it looks like, but it really wasn't."

39 Minutes ago

The witch didn't know when the soft reassurance had turned to hard kisses. His repeated mantra was seared into her brain from the hot water and steam still plunging the bathroom into a near sauna sate. Azalea didn't remember when he had guided her to sit down but she remembered when she had changed her seat, positioning herself in his lap as her fingers fumbled around with the drawstring of his trousers.

"Are you sure," he'd breathed heavily into her ears before catching her earlobe between his teeth and tugging lightly. Azalea had nodded, shifting to accommodate him until they had become one.

Now

"I didn't talk to him," she continued, not daring to look up at him. He had gone still, proof that he was listening intently. He hadn't made to push her off him, off his bed, out of his house and away from his life. Though Azalea was sure that was the part that came next.

"Not just because of Ethan," she confessed, talking into the crook of his arms instead of to him directly. "Not because Ethan was sick anyway." she added, clarifying. "I can't," she finally added, her body shrinking with shame and regret. "I can't leave Ethan. His mom left him when he was born. He can't have another person abandon him, he can't." A small tear made its way down her face, splashing assistant Jake's tanned skin, another joining it a few seconds later.

Abandonment hurt normal children greatly but to people like Azalea, it meant a great deal more than someone simply leaving you. Being a product of such a tragedy herself, the witch could never forgive anyone the crime, least of all herself.

"I know it's not fair to anyone. Not to him, not to you." Not to Ivan and Adrienne, she left unsaid. "It just is what it is."

20 minutes earlier

His clothes lay in a soaking pile on the floor, his footsteps splashing through the flooded bathroom as he carried her out, barely conscious. The t shirt she had borrowed lay forgotten on the sink. Only the absence of the sound of rushing water suggested someone had turned off the shower though Azalea couldn't tell who it had been.

The feel of the starched sheets barely registered as he laid her down, following shortly after. It had been so natural to curl into him, to neglect the pillow and rest her head where it belonged. His arms had enveloepd her perfectly, pulling her in close and covering them both with the blanket.

And there they had lain, trying to understand what had just happened.

And what had to happen now.

Now

"You have every right to hate me," she spoke as quickly as she could, trying to get the words out with minimal pain. "If you never want to see me again, I'll understand. We can... tell the kids something. To explain why won't be around." Her voiced trembled slightly at the idea of never seeing Ivan and Adrienne again but in the end, that was his decision. They were his children. The Newbury children were tough, they had faced enough disappointment in their young life, she was just another one they would forget as they grew older.

"But..." she started, the trembling in her tone even clearer now as she spoke. "If you... for some reason don't want that. If you... if we..." unable to bring herself to say the words she desperately wanted to, Azalea ducked her head into his chest again.

And the words she hadn't dared say out loud hung around them regardless, thickening the air with doubt and conviction all at once.

The words that sounded remarkably like "This is all we can ever have. Nothing more."

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Subject: Re: Now my bed sheets smell like you (Jazalea) Sun Oct 25, 2020 4:59 pm

"Jake?"

The soft hum had escaped from his slightly parted lips as he laid quietly in the darkened room. Azalea's body was curled in to his, and the aftermath of their union left him feeling tired, but in a good way. It hadn't been planned, but... then, when had they planned any of their times together? It had happened, despite what would have been better judgement, and it had been needed. He'd been too focused on getting the witch to the bed to stop for the bruise paste in his top drawer, and now they were curled up beneath the blanket, Jake didn't want to move to get it.

"Jake... it's not what you think,"

The tension came through the man's body quicker than expected. For a brief while he'd forgotten about the anger he felt towards her boyfriend reincarnated as she tried to explain that it had been mutual. But... even as Azalea said it, he wasn't sure he believed it. There were many things that had changed about them both over the years, but the idea that Azalea would sleep with both of them... it didn't sit right. And the marks upon her body were so... violent...

The insistence that he wasn't like that, though...

Jake remained quiet, unsure what he could say in that moment. By all accounts, he could not judge the relationship with Josh that Azalea had because he did not know the man. He couldn't take the moral high ground and say that what Josh had done was unacceptable, because he was here, in the dimming afterglow of sex with another man's girlfriend.

The only sign that he was listening, and awake, was the gentle circle Jake was drawing at the top of Azalea's hip bone, because he couldn't find the words to say that would make it go away.

It was no news that Azalea had not told her boyfriend what had happened. She'd already told him that before. But, Jake listened carefully to the reason why Azalea had not told her boyfriend what had happened. It was not Josh that was holding her back, but the fear of leaving the boy that she had become something of a mother to when she'd entered the relationship. It made sense to Jake, with everything he knew of the witch, that she would find it impossible to leave a situation where children could be hurt by her leaving.

The tears splashed on to his chest from the witch's cheeks, and Jake moved his other hand up to her cheek, catching the tears and pushing them away from her skin.

"I know it's not fair to anyone. Not to him, not to you."

Jake shifted slightly beneath the witch, turning on to his side and then moving down enough in the bed to bring himself face to face with the witch. He'd been ready to say something to console the witch before him, but Azalea had been much too set on getting everything she wanted to say out in the open.

"You have every right to hate me,"

"I could never hate you."

"If you never want to see me again, I'll understand."

"That's not what I want."

"We can... tell the kids something. To explain why won't be around."

"You will be around..."

"If you... for some reason don't want that. If you... if we..."

All of his words had not gotten through to the witch as she spoke over him, or perhaps he'd spoken too softly to be able to be heard in that moment. Maybe she hadn't wanted to hear him, in case what his words had been had not been what they were. Her head dipped in to his chest again, though, as she finished, finding it's safety in that area as it always had.

There was nothing he could really say to her in that moment that would make it easier. Making a choice between him and Josh was something the witch couldn't do. Even if she didn't want Josh any more, she couldn't leave him because it would mean leaving Ethan behind. Something that terrified the witch more than she could explain to him. It was why she couldn't pick him, not outwardly, because it would mean the same thing.

And if she closed the door on them... what they had, or could have, it would mean living in a world that neither one of them could return to. Not now they knew what they had. Jake's lips found the witch's forehead again in that moment, pressing a soft kiss in to her hairline as he held her close to him.

"I wasn't lying when I said on Friday that I would wait... If this is all you can give me... That's all I'll ask for." Jake whispered softly in to her hair, the small up and down movement from the witch's head denoted her understanding as her hold on him tightened a little bit more.

For a few moments, Jake sat quietly, inhaling the scent from the witch's shampoo. There was probably a world of things he could say, but they wouldn't come to him in that moment. There must have been a way around all of this, but it would not present itself. They would just have to take each day as it came, and work from there. There wasn't anything else he could do. Except...

"Would you like me to heal the bruises for you?" He asked carefully, knowing full well that Azalea would not do it herself. If the witch agreed, Jake would tell her he was getting the paste from his bedside before he moved away, temporarily, from the witch to retrieve it. The man would turn the bedside lamp on to aid them, before shifting back across the bed, and very carefully applying the medicine to the witch's skin. It would take a while to find and apply it to all the marks her boyfriend had made to her body, but he would do it a thousand times if she asked.

Once they were all covered, Jake would settle back down in bed, and the witch would curl back in to him, her head rested on his chest as they both laid still in the silent room. Jake's mind would come up with promise after promise he could give the witch, but none of them left his lips.

The only one he vehemently focused on was that if Josh had hurt her purposefully, or ever hurt her purposefully, Jake would kill him where he stood.

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» Why Does It Always Rain on Me? (Jazalea)
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