Akilah is loose-limbed and slow with something, foggy in the way Mari can’t help but associate with vodka snuck into bottles of lemonade and girlish giggles. She’s smiling, blinking against the sunlight the way she always is as she leaves Lottie’s side nowadays, and Mari feels her chest go tight with jealousy even as she grins at the sight.
“It’s so beautiful,” Akilah says as she makes her way to Mari’s side, where she belongs. “Do you see it, Mar?”
The wilderness, Mari thinks, but doesn’t say. She drags her eyes down the length of Akilah’s frame, searching for something. Doesn’t find it. Before she can reply, Akilah speaks up again.
“You can’t,” she adds, and her face knits into a neat little frown. “You can’t see it. I wish you could.”
Mari wants to explode, a little bit. “I wish I could too, sweetheart,” she says instead, the bite softened by the tail end of the sentence the way all her words are around Akilah. And she fucking means it, so, there’s that. “What did you see?”
Akilah hums, reaches for Mari’s hand and laces their fingers together. “Blood,” she says, though the look on her face doesn’t sour. It’s more matter-of-fact than anything, her grip flexing against the bones of Mari’s hand. “Tests,” she adds, and Mari aches to know exactly what she means.
“Can you show me?” She asks, and Akilah shakes her head.
“It’ll show you if it needs to,” Akilah replies, light as anything. Mari bites the inside of her cheek and tastes blood. Tastes resentment, so bright it hurts.
Akilah tugs and Mari follows, like always. She’s pressed herself against the bark of a tree, pulled Mari right up against her, the two of them sharing warm breaths like one body split in half. She looks like an angel, Mari thinks, hair pulled back from her face and sweating in her tank top. She might be an angel.
Mari wraps her arms around Akilah’s waist, rubs her thumbs up and down the curve of her hips. She wants to be furious. Not at Akilah— or at least not mostly— but at herself, at Lottie and Travis and Natalie and everyone who put gentle, sweet Akilah squarely in the jaws of the wilderness in lieu of Mari. She wants Akilah to keep raising the animals, cradling soft warm-blooded things so carefully in her arms. Wants Gen to keep hunting, the thrill of her muscles straining under the weight of meat retrieved from the surrounding woods. Wants to stop feeling like she’s fighting an uphill battle to figure out her own place in it all.
She hates that she’s a little jealous of Lottie and Travis too, that there’s a not so tiny sliver of her heart that hates that they’re the ones who see Akilah in this vulnerable state. The ones she chooses to go to.
“How are you feeling?” She asks, aware of how much these sessions take out of Akilah.
Akilah wobbles in her grasp, leans forward to rest her forehead in the crook of Mari’s shoulder. “Good,” she murmurs, and Mari can’t tell if it’s true or not. “What time is it? Did I interrupt something?”
Never, Mari wants to say. “Gen is out,” she says instead, “I was just refilling the water.”
Akilah hums in response. “Need help?”
“It’s fine,” Mari says, mostly meaning it. “I’ve got it handled. Do you wanna sit down?”
Akilah shakes her head, bumping awkwardly into Mari’s arm. “Let me walk with you,” she replies, and it might be dumb, but Mari can’t deny her much of anything.
“Only if you’re sure,” she says instead, lifting one hand to rub slow circles on Akilah’s back. “I think Tai and Van are screwing over by the lake, so I’ve been taking the long way.”
Akilah’s laugh is muffled but Mari grins brightly for having earned it.
It’s the difference between Akilah and anyone else— Akilah knows she’s fucking around, is familiar enough with Mari to cut to the soft pink middle of her, to just roll her eyes at the biting words. After all, she’d first introduced herself to Akilah with a crude joke, and then, afraid to let it linger in the air and make the younger girl upset, had jumped to reassure her it wasn’t true. Ever since, it’s been Akilah who hears Mari step directly in it and stays wrapped around her shoulders.
Last week, Mari had asked why Mel was being such a bitch lately and Gen had snapped back, immediately protective of her friend. It had been Akilah who had laid a hand over Mari’s and stepped in, pointed out that Gen couldn’t exactly deny something had been off about Mel ever since she’d caught Shauna’s eye. It’s like you and Jackie, Akilah had said knowingly to Mari, dialed up to eleven. Mari had blushed, caught, and that had been enough for Gen to break out into laughter, the slight forgotten.
“That’s okay?” Mari double-checks, when Akilah hasn’t voiced any complaint, and Akilah hums.
“I can handle a little walking, Mari,” she says, and Mari takes her at her word.
She releases Akilah slowly, can’t help but smile as Akilah blinks sleepily at the sunlight as she pulls away from Mari’s front. She reaches down and tangles their hands together, always more comfortable— safer— when she’s touching Akilah. They’d crash landed beside each other and, for all Mari’s been trying to endear herself to the various leaders of the team since minute one, it’s Akilah she’s been returning to at night, Akilah she sits with beside the fire.
“D’you wanna check on the animals with me after?” Akilah asks, swinging their joined hands, and Mari can almost pretend everything is normal. Can pretend Akilah isn’t drugged out of her mind and Shauna isn’t trying to usurp Natalie’s throne, that they’re not wearing shreds of their old clothes and all desperately seeking affection and attention from whoever lands in their huts.
“Yeah,” Mari replies, a smile eking out, “that sounds perfect.”
Akilah grins brightly in response. “I’ll race you to the lake,” she says, and Mari laughs.
“We’re holding hands, dumbass,” she replies, and watches the absent way Akilah’s eyes track down their bodies as if realizing the fact for the first time. “How about we take it slow?”
Akilah hums again, bumps clumsily but purposefully into Mari’s shoulder with her own. “Fine,” she says, mock dramatics to match Mari’s own, “I see how it is. Have it your way.”
Even completely sober, Mari can’t help but break into giggles, and, well, that means Akilah doesn’t stand a chance. They’re one unit, sharing limbs and hearts and smiles, and Mari can’t help but think that she’s a little jealous of Van and Tai and their ability to find covert places to fuck, if she’s adding people to her list.
“C’mon, dork,” she says, instead of voicing any of it. “And then we can check on your animals and…” She trails off, unable to figure out what next. “And whatever.”
“And hang out?” Akilah asks sweetly, batting her eyelashes in a way that just lets Mari know immediately that she’s learned to play her like a fiddle.
“Sure, Key,” Mari says around her smile, “and hang out.”