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[little_duck]

The weather hasn't really grown any warmer, but Prim can't stand the idea of staying cooped up any longer. She's still supposed to be resting; for as many strange things that happen in Darrow, they don't have a bead on faces disappearing. Prim figures that she'll be fine. After all, she survived dying.

It wasn't anything like dying, anyway.

When she'd died, there had been flight and peace. When her face had been stolen, there had been darkness and silence.

She's so glad to be awake again.

Sitting on the fence at the edge of the land on which their house sits, Prim watches a rabbit seek out a bit of bare earth where the snow has melted away. The wind is changing; she thinks it might rain or snow. At the sound of footsteps behind her, Prim turns, a greeting on her lips.

Comments

[little_duck]

"I thought that too, maybe," Prim says. She chews on her lip, trying to find the best way to fold her hands, something that will make the butterflies settle down in her stomach. "I missed you, though."

The butterflies won't leave.

[beautyof_form]

"I missed you, too," Hanna said, her breath catching, eyes wide and imploring. "Oh, Prim, I'm so sorry."

There was nothing else to say, really. She didn't deserve to make any excuses.

[little_duck]

"I'm sorry too," Prim says, and holds a hand out to Hanna. "I-- it hurt. It hurt, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't go out and sleep with any boys or anything. I thought about it, but..." She chews on her lip.

[beautyof_form]

Hanna wanted to tell that she'd have understood, if Prim had found a boy of her own, to answer whatever curiosity she might have had, but she realized it might've been the wrong thing to say.

It might've been a gradual learning curve, but she was getting there.

"I don't want to do those things with anyone else," she said, which was the absolute truth. She stepped forward, slipping her hand into Prim's. "I want... I want us to talk about what we are to one another. It was silly of us not to, before."

[little_duck]

Prim smiles down at their joined hands, starting to feel right again. She doesn't know how she didn't know some part of her had been missing, but here it is.

"Okay," she says, flicking her gaze up to Hanna. "Let's talk about it." She's learned to be brave in the past few years, but there's still a bit of fear when she asks, "What am I to you?"

[beautyof_form]

"We are friends. I would like to be more than friends. I don't know what label would be preferable to you. Girlfriend, a somewhat informal declaration of commitment. Lover, which tends to connote a sexual relationship. Partner, a formal declaration of commitment, often used by adults when legal marriage is either impossible or unwanted," she said, watching Prim with open curiosity.

"I know I would like to kiss you more often. I would like to show you what an orgasm feels like. They're quite nice."

[little_duck]

Prim smiles so hard that her face hurts. "Girlfriend," she says, selecting the term that she hears the girls at school use to refer to themselves. They have boyfriends, of course, but she will have a girlfriend. "That's what people our age say. You're my girlfriend." She uses their linked hands to pull Hanna closer.

"I would like those things," she says quietly, cheeks going pink. "I want you to show me."

[beautyof_form]

"All right. Girlfriend," Hanna agreed, smiling with a bit more confidence, her thumb gently stroking the back of Prim's hand.

"I will. Whenever you'd like," Hanna promised, then, with a slightly mischievous smile, she confessed, "I did a bit more reading."

[little_duck]

Prim echoes the mischievous smile with a tiny grin of her own. "I'd say right now except I don't think that's probably smart of us." She pauses. "What kind of reading?"

[beautyof_form]

"It was very informative. Some of the books had pictures," Hanna said, and though she wasn't certain she understood the purpose of waiting, she certainly wasn't going to argue.