dreaming out loud,
& (a codename: knd fanfic)
title: dreaming out loud
author: hikasne
words: 1,133
torturetime: 30 LONG minutes, then countless hours of revising.
playlist: a fine frenzy, michael bublé
snack: peanut m&m's (only shades of blue)

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Every story, every good story, has a beginning…

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He watches her from afar, that very day, watches her move like silk on water, watches her laugh, admires her.
She's seen him. She hasn't let on that she has, but she has. She smiles, a little smile to herself, a secret smile, while he, he stares.
He can't have her, though. She's the unattainable, the whispered secret behind the opaque curtains, to heavy for human hands to move.
Or maybe she's not. Maybe she's taken with him, too.
They make sparks, a kindling, a secret, a gentle whisper, taken with each other, not knowing it, but it will come.

Soon enough.
(--I just haven't met you yet.)

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.

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ONE

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(Break—all my thoughts hit the floor,)

I will do it today, he promises himself, and today, he will. The ice is soft beneath her fingertips, but her expression is so utterly delighted that he can withstand the biting frigidness of the weather today. By the dim glow of the fairy lanterns hung on the bare branches of a leafless tree, her lithe body moves like water, pale and marbled with blue veins, lips and cheek rosy, long, graceful fingers, ever-moving, nails painted the blue of a summer-sky day. Silver tinsel and white strings of Christmas lights adorn the fingers of wood that reach toward the moon, never quite getting there.

The ice skids up from the sharp surface of her tattered white leather ice skates. Her obsidian hair flows seamlessly with the night, her snowflake-patterned fingerless—(and he doesn't see the point of 'fingerless' gloves; really?)—gloves revealing the bare milky skin of her arms and fingers. Today.

They're in a small place beyond their house, alone and encircled by a thin line of bare trees, aglow with lights and lanterns. The city twinkles, alive with Christmas, below them further down a snow-laden hill.

Stop falling! That was what she said as she helped him up, yet again, laughing as he held on to her mittened hands, trying to prevent himself from falling butt-first on the ice again. His heart bounces around his ribs like a pogo-stick. Her small hands are frigid in his big, warm ones, and she can't helped but feel loved—loved—when she feels his heartbeat thudding in his wrist.

And of course, the adorable red tint of his face.

Now, I'll do it now, he fidgets with himself, and the small box in his pocket. She's in her own world, catching snowflakes on her tongue, arms spread as if to welcome the white flakes falling from the sky like stars cascading from the heavens.

His candycane-striped scarf (Kuki's Christmas present) still bears hot cocoa stains from her recent 'experiment' in the kitchen, and he can't help but think this isn't a mistake, despite what Hoagie says. She raises her fingertips, upward, her flannel shirt riding up on her rounder-than-usual stomach. She's completely, deliciously fertile, yielding, permeable, delicate, penetrable, her body soft, spent, begging to be touched, with the extra weight she's been carrying. She is eating for two now, after all.

The night's still vivid in his mind.

He hangs onto the bough of a stripped-white tree branch, hoping—hoping that he can ask her without falling flat on his face. Is no even an option?

Yes, now, he muses silently as he crushes her form to him as effectively as possible with only one arm free—the other hand still clings to the tree. Why, why must he be so helpless on ice? Her lips, accidentally or on-purpose-- meet with the warm, comfortable, soft, almost feverish tan skin at the base of his neck, heating her mouth against his collar. Her soft breath is warm, instead of cold like the snow he is now accustomed to. Her long lashes flutter at his pulse point.

He takes out the box from his pocket, opens it, hoping, hoping. She stares for a moment at the small, circular thing inside, gaze snapping away to stare into his emerald eyes, which are wide with anticipation, only to move back to the thing nestled in the small, black box. Her small white hands, swathed in her whimsically-printed gloves, fly to her slightly bruised pink mouth, lips a perfect 'o'.

She gasps, surprised, and, for the first time that night, loses her balance, her back going limp against his strong right arm, and this time, it's he who pulls her up, not letting her fall completely. His arm finds the small of her back and he adjusts her, lifting her on tiptoe, until their faces are inches apart. Her eyes are hazy, still stunned, and he leans down to meet her lips, soft, open and frozen. He smiles, amused, helping her for the first time that night, after she's helped him off his ass more than a few times. His hands cup around her small but firm pregnant stomach, not sure what he's supposed to say. Her own hand finds her belly, resting her fingers on the swell of her torso, feeling the baby kick against her palm. They look at each other, both of their appendages frozen on her kicking abdomen, the moment undeniably, unspokenly intimate, and strangely, sexy. Her mouth is still agape, waiting for something. She reaches for the box, wanting it.

He kneels, finally at ease with the ice, hand sliding off the tree.

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Written for Sadie's contest, in case you didn't read the summary.
+ALI