Sunbeam Lair vicariously I live while the whole world dies

Everything falls quiet, and she lets it. She feels as if she's been picked apart by vultures, raw and pink and burning bright and rotting from the inside out. 
And what do you do? What do you do with pain, anger, resentment, misery; years worth of it, that has nowhere left to go? How are you meant to feel when pale gold eyes look down at you with utmost pity, and all you hear are car alarms, and you're shaking so much your bones may slide right out from your skin? 
Nothing, that's what. She does nothing. She is nothing. 
Akavir — oh, sweet Akavir, how hard he tries to soothe those wounds and patch up the scabs. How badly she wished she could believe him, hear what he said in more than just one ear. How little she had to offer him in return.
When he kisses her, dappling her arms and sure not to miss the sporadic ones that hide beneath the coarse fur of her neck, his face is held between two trembling forepaws and brought to her lips. Just one, though she lets it linger, and it is soft and full of words she cannot say. And when she grants him air, she leaves her nose pressed against his.