[attr="class","elisatestbody"]
TW: Allusions to Sexual Trauma.
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In this moment, as he met her need in kind,
BARNABY FINCH stopped being Bee to her. [break][break]
Instead, he became yet another faceless man in a sea of them that she had known, and through this yet another means to a hollow, unsatisfying end. [break][break]
If he wasn't Bee, then Elisabeth could pretend she wasn't herself, either. That she was a stranger surrendering to her own weakness and need, and whatever collateral damage ensued from the fallout could simply be denied, buried, and left to rot.[break][break]
Elisabeth loathed this part of herself, that pretended as well as Bee did.[break][break]
She despised the way her mind willingly closed itself off, its frantic thoughts strangling themselves like flowers choked by thorns, as her body demanded things her heart was afraid to give her.[break][break]
And she resented that there had been a part of her, small and quiet, that had longed for this again in a different way. That Bee had seen that part of her in the Petalburg Woods, and that she had ultimately rejected whatever tenderness he might have offered her in that moment.[break][break]
Because he had seen her that day in the Slateport slums, her cruelty unveiled in all its ugliness.[break][break]
Because he had seen the rampaging Emboar that had unraveled her into a frightened girl again, helpless and terrified.[break][break]
Because he had seen her without the walls that she had taken years to build for herself, and beyond them, how she
ached so much to not be alone.[break][break]
He knew her.[break][break]
He knew her, and that frightened Elisabeth more than anything in the world. [break][break]
How could she believe in the purity of Bee's friendship, or in his sincerity, or in his supposed lack of ulterior motives? The risk was too great, if she was wrong.[break][break]
And she'd been wrong so, so many times.[break][break]
Something in Elisabeth had silently decided she would only trust Bee when he became a monster that she recognized, and he had finally given her what she wanted.[break][break]
"Elisabeth--"[break][break]
Was she still this painfully afraid of being known by someone?[break][break]
"Wait."[break][break]
Why was she still punishing herself?[break][break]
"... I shouldn't have come here."[break][break]
Only as he disentangled himself from her did Elisabeth realize where his touch had left her. The burn scars on her thigh whispered of other evenings like this one, of hands that had held on covetously tight rather than shirk away.[break][break]
"Bee," she started to explain, but no further words came.[break][break]
Because
he was Bee again.[break][break]
Because she was no good at pretending, in the end.[break][break]
Elisabeth crumpled and fell to her knees, cradling her head in her hands as her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. When she glanced up at him, she saw him through a curtain of golden hair: the receding silhouette of his back as he approached the door.[break][break]
"I'm sorry," she whispered, to herself, to him.
"I'm sorry."[break][break]
As always, in this moment, she showed Bee more weakness than she'd ever meant to.[break][break]
Elisabeth buried her face in her hands, and cried.
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