The Setting Or The Rising Of A Sun.
Part One
Ghost Eyes
It's dark as they lie there. No, not dark; dim. There's one bar of light from the landing throwing yellow to the crevasses of their skin. His tongue tastes her, Worming its way from collarbone to neck, then back again.
Outside the dirt and the finger smudged window lays the passacaglia of city life. The on-off vibration of an old soul struggling to claw its way to the surface. It should just give up, Elizabeth knows. She knows this more than her own name. Isn't that what people do, surrender when the fog clouds too densely across their eyes?
It's what she did. Isn't she people?
"There's a party next week" There's always a party; A Night Out. One drink. Five. Elizabeth thinks as she stares at the ceiling and wonders what drowning feels like. She hums in agreement, feeling Wickham tighten his hand on her hip, his fingers branding her with this memory.
"It's for work. Christmas party" His lips move into her skin, sucking one earlobe between two rows of teeth and giving a possessive tug. His day old stubble rubs across her skin. She usually doesn't mind it; it makes her know what it feels to be a man. Elizabeth turns to him suddenly, disengaging her ear with a painful drag. She shuffles between the stark sheets and rolls towards him.
"A Christmas party?" His face is barely see-able in the dim, yet it is there. The bulb of light merging the sharp line of his nose. The faint stab of his eyes. It's not dark enough to be intimate; it's not light enough to be loving. It's an appropriately adrift feeling. Neither here nor there. Neither giving nor taking.
"I need someone pretty on my arm" (And nothing more).
He supposes it was meant to be a joke, but honestly they both knew it isn't. There's nothing more she has to give. Strange, how the one thing they both share is the understanding that they will never understand. A rare gift for finding pleasure within the pain.
The constant rolling and shifting but never the click, the key pushing harder and faster the torturous drag the hollowness of pleasure of two people riding together then,
Nothing.
That was all they ever could be.
Two wrecked voyages lost in a stormy sea.
-x-
And so Elizabeth finds herself leaning against a black cab, waiting for Wickham, inhaling the smoke from the cabbies cigarette. The cabbie leans beside her, clouding his senses with the sweet tar. Clinging to his lungs like a child gripping onto their parent. He needs this, he needs this release. It gives him some consolation, some warmth, in comparison to this dark day. The constant perpetual motion of the city blurs around him, he doesn't remember past faces, past places, past memories. He remembers the feeling though. The feeling of being rooted, being drowned, whilst some business man on his blackberry slips in and out of his cab as easily as slipping on a glove. The business man belongs here, he owns this city. There is no room here for struggling cab drivers, with nothing waiting for him at home besides a cigarette and a well of loneliness.
"Where are you headed next?" The cabbie asks when the silence becomes too unbearable for the both of them. They have been standing side by side for five minutes now. Neither realising their gifts for attracting lost souls. Elizabeth wears a deep purple dress which falls to her knees; the cabbie wears a flat cap of beige tartan. Elizabeth shuffles uncomfortably in her heals she has never been able to stand the pressure, the curve of the foot. The cabbie wears ancient black dress shoes, he taps his foot to a rhythm of a long forgotten symphony he never had the passion to finish.
"It's a Christmas party. George has the address" She offers in return, turning to give him an apologetic smile. He doesn't understand why, she isn't the one leaving him stood here in the bitter December air. He doesn't mind the wait; it gives him a chance to smoke. He allows himself the time to study her face, as he has it. It's usual, no defining feature which is just hers. The cabbie doesn't think he'll remember her face, but he wants to. He wants to remember the look in her green specked eyes which he sees in his every time he catches his reflection. A shadow of their former lives, a whisper of promise.
Ghost eyes.
"Do you think it will snow again?" She asks in way of conversation, Wickham is five minutes late and she needs something to take her mind off the raising anger. The cabbie contemplates this, as if he is a zealous follower of BBC news. He goes to reply but they both hear the click of a door opening. The cabbie turns to see a handsome man in a suit stepping quickly down the steps. He is shoving something into his back pocket which he later realises to be a wallet. He steps up towards the woman in the purple dress with the empty heart and kisses her lightly before they both slip into the cab. All mention of the weather is forgotten. The cabbie flicks his cigarette to the curb and shrugs. Nothing new, he wonders if his unfinished conversations outnumber his finished.
It's expected of him to return their pleasant conversation; it's also expected of him to drop it when it's most convenient to them.
-x-
It's easy for them to slip into the party. They're running slightly late ('Fashionably late' Wickham tells her as he leads her down the steps into the throng of people). They're walking together now, through the crowds. Wickham keeps a heavy hand on her arm, and glances around. A predator stalking out his pray. Elizabeth thinks back to the cab driver, and wishes she had that freedom to just move on through the city. She looks to her arm, being tightly gripped with Wickham's hand and wonders how many other marks he has impressed into her body.
Into her mind.
It takes Darcy a while to even notice they are here. When he does it is with a spike in his heart. He sees them together at the bar, Elizabeth sitting lightly on one of the stools while Wickham stands with his back against the bar, scanning the crowds. Why was Darcy even surprised? He had known Wickham would sneak in, he hadn't expected it of Elizabeth though. Then again, what would he have expected of her?
When Wickham's eyes find him, it's obvious that he has been the person he was scouting out. A small smirk spreads across his face, one that Darcy had seen so many times before it seemingly haunts him. With slow languid movements Wickham presses himself to Elizabeth's side; Darcy turns on his heel and walks away quickly.
(Keep walking. Walk. Walk. Don't show it. He can read you)
-x-
It's another hour before Darcy sees Elizabeth again. He has been doing so well, taking his eyes firmly away from where she spoke with Charles and Jane, two of his friends, his uncle. He didn't mean to look at her, it was impossible not to. Just a flick of his eyes and then they were somewhere else, his mouth speaking to someone else. Anyone else.
She brushes past him, not noticing he's there. Darcy knows that walk, the speed, the swing of her arms. He turns his head in the direction she had passed him from. There's Wickham, a blonde in his arms, skin pressed to skin.
"Here, you look like you could use another drink" Darcy offers softly as he approaches her. She's leant against the stone wall running along the edge of the balcony. She flicks her gaze in his direction, not allowing any comfort to spark across her eyes.
"Thank you" Her voice sounds as if she has just been crying, she hasn't. She knew when this day came she wouldn't be able to shed any tears. When she doesn't reach forward and take the champagne glass from Darcy's hands he places it beside her. His strong fingers pulling away slowly. "You don't need to stand out here with me. You should go back in, it is your party after all"
"No, no. I'll stay, I want to. You know how uncomfortable I am at… these things" Elizabeth watches as he trails his fingers absentmindedly up and down the curve of the glass. His index finger running along the edges, sweeping a circle along the top. Elizabeth imagines it's her body, her curves. His strong hands tracing patters up the cracks of her skin. It would be different with him. It wouldn't feel like she was dancing on the lip of the cliff, it would feel like she was stood at the heart of a forest.
The image scares her.
He scares her.
"Yes" She smiles softly "I remember"
"I thought you had come with Charles and Jane, then I realised you came with Wickham"
"Yes, he invited me to" hang off his arm"arrive with him. I didn't realise leaving with him wasn't part of the bargain"
"I forgot you two were together" He admits after a pause, taking another sip. Passing off the lump in his throat for a swallow.
She lifts her head backwards slightly, and gazes up at the stars. The consuming black. "The operative word is together, there is nothing together about us" She laughs again, pressing her palm to her forehead. "I was a fool for letting it go on this long. I knew he did this, and I don't care. It still just hurts"
"It's not just you he's done this with, if it's any consolation" It sounds pained. "He… plays with a lot of women"
If you could call Georgiana that.
She nods, understanding. Thinking of the blonde in his arms right now. Thinking of all the times she let things slide. The underwear she once fancied she saw shoved in the dash of his car. The missed phone calls, the uncertainty.
"It was my sister"
"What?"
"Who he played around with. Last year, I thought it was fine at the time, they had always been close; he had always been kind to her. I didn't think it was anything serious, it was and she just wasn't telling me. Soon he lost interest he went behind her back. Soon he got sloppy and she… saw for herself what he was like"
There's a pause. Nothing passes between them. Just silence building up like a glass wall. One which is almost unbreakable.
"And he still works with you?"
"He doesn't work for me. Did he tell you he still did?"
"Yes, that's why I'm here for this party I'm so sorry, Darcy. I'm so sorry I've just gate crashed your party, I didn't realise. You must think I am so arrogant"
"No, of course not. Well I did, in my eyes you had just gate crashed and acted with no guilt or shame"
"If I had known I"
"It's fine" He smiles at her slowly. "I'm glad you're here
From where she stands, Elizabeth hears the slight clink of Darcy's teeth on the pristine glass. She can see the ebbing lights of London pulsate around her, crimson, emerald, and golden.
The air is bitterly crisp but her mind is heavy. It feels like honey dropping down the edge of a knife blade, the ooze tearing but so slowly now it almost feels natural.
She turns her eyes to him slowly, watching silently as he stands pressed against the balcony railing throwing him forward, towards the city. It seems unnatural; he doesn't belong to the vast ever changing rotating jungle. Like a fair ground ride of colour and tinkling controlled by an overzealous Sadist.
Elizabeth wonders if he is just as lost as she is.
A gentle breeze crescendos around them, spilling a symphony which tangles her fingers into the dark tips of his hair. Pulling him back to her once more. Pulling his heart back to her.
Always to her.
-x-
"I don't want to be alone tonight" She admits when he finally (finally) silently asks. She doesn't address him; she knows she won't be able to handle the rejection in his eyes. She faces the rippling wind as if it holds the answers to all the questions she has ever known. She splays her fingers onto the stone work and absentmindedly runs her thumb along a particularly prominent crack. She hears Darcy shuffle beside her, sees the edge of his black suit lift itself off the stone and waits for the inevitable moment when he too leaves her.
What she doesn't see is Darcy slipping his jacket from his broad shoulders. His hands start to tremble slightly as he catches it. Hoping, praying that he doesn't drop it and then proceed to look like an idiot. He needs this to be perfect. He never thought he would hear her say those words (I want you, you, you). For as long as he has known her there has been no other quite the same. Now he has seen the master-key, no other cut slots into his heart quite as smooth.
With shaking but sure fingers he presses his jacket around her shoulders which have picked up against the slight breeze. Elizabeth closes her eyes, catching her bottom lip between her teeth, and feels the slight press of him against her back.
"Neither do I" It's low and honest, whispered into the valley joining the back of her ear to her neck. Elizabeth enjoys the drag of his smooth cheek against her skin, the fingertips of some feeling at the fluttering of his eyelashes on her ear as he pulls away.
She stays standing there for a few minutes, her fingers clenching around the edges of his jacket, her head turned in the direction of his retreating figure. He shoves one hand into his pocket as he walks, making the material of his shirt stretch slightly over his shoulder blades; the slight silhouette of bone makes something painfully hot shoot up Elizabeth's spine.
-x-
From that moment on Elizabeth is sure something is shifting between them. She stays outside a few minutes more, trying to trace his outline through the crowd until he disappears from view. She slips off his jacket, shuddering slightly against the rub of the silk-lining against her shoulders. The room is loud and hot as she re-enters, the twittering voices buzz around her uncomfortably. She wonders what disaster it would take to clear the room. She wonders if he would still want her afterwards.
It doesn't take her and her fevered heart long to find him within the swimming crowds. He's the only person in the room that sets everything around him ablaze. He's talking to two gentleman, he's smiling. As he speaks and listens he is unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of his shirt allowing everyone to see an expanse of skin, solid and hers. Her heart coils tight, tight enough to grip her stomach in its clasp and squeeze until it hurts. And it does hurt, more than anything. She just wants this, she needs him.
One of the gentlemen notices her as she approaches, his gaze rakes over her until she forces her eyes down in oppressive humiliation. She realises she shouldn't feel like this now, she's an equal to them. She should be an equal to them. She's not though. The chess game of gender politics is one she has yet to learn.
"Thank you for letting me borrow your jacket" She raises her eyes to him, and him alone. Holding out the jacket towards him, hoping for the shock of skin on skin. Anything to set their hearts into an everlasting motion. Darcy doesn't allow this, however. He gingerly accepts the jacket with a small smile. Elizabeth watches him assess the jacket, his eyes flickering wildly for a heartbeat, trying to find the closest point of contact which is as far away from her fingers as possible.
It makes her want to grab his exposed arm. Press her palm stretched wide across his chest and wait for him to feel the burn. The same burn she now feels, he must understand.
Instead, she smiles at him politely before turning away wondering if she was dreaming. Wondering if she had dreamt everything about him. Hoping she will wake up alone and shivering. She would rather lay alone with this fantasy, than live with this humiliation.
It soon becomes clear to her that Darcy is teasing, and doing so with a keen eye. He sparks around her for two hours. (10,567 heart beats too long). Darcy revels in the frustration he sees in Elizabeth's eyes when she smiles politely as she speaks, but constantly seeking him. Her green eyes turn sharp, she knows his game. She realised when he allows his finger tips to trail along her lower back, tracing the line of her underwear carefully, and applying pressure when he hears her voice hitch as she replies to some tedious business associate.
Two hours later Darcy can't go on. He needs her. Now. Right now, he doesn't care who she is speaking to, it could be the Queen for all he cares. There is nothing to snap his agitation, his frustration. The primal desire he has never been acquainted with yearning to claim and thrill. Something deeper, deeper within himself. Her. Just her.
"I can't believe you organised this all by yourself, Mr Darcy" It's Mrs. Tompkins, and Darcy has never heard anyone speak so slowly in all of his life.
"My sister Georgiana usually helps me, however she preferred to stay home at Pemberley this year" Darcy nods his head at her gently, allowing himself a heartbeat's pause in order to glance pointedly at Elizabeth standing opposite him. She understands him straight away, her eyes fall towards the floor, somehow a feeling of responsibility for the closing up of his sister rises in her throat. Something sits heavily in her chest; they were together last year, when did I meet Wickham?
"So Darcy had to organise it himself, he wouldn't let me help him at all" Charles chips in brightly, almost stepping forward into the centre of attention. Elizabeth looks up at him, smiling warmly at the doting expression she finds in Jane's eyes.
"That's because last time you helped me with something you set a pair of curtains on fire" There is general laughter around the circle when Darcy speaks. Elizabeth was always jealous of this trait. He was able to charm, flatter, and entertain like the magicians of her childhood, the ones where she could never work out how they do those things. Elizabeth would never understand how Darcy, with apathy to large crowds, was able to bewitch.
"It was an accident"
"I don't think anyone else at your daughter's first birthday party saw it that way" Elizabeth supplies. Darcy looks at her and a mutual understanding passes between them. It was as if, in supporting each other, they were in essence building up the loss between them. Forming a bridge between their minds.
Elizabeth Bingley's first birthday party had had its ups and downs. Everyone was there, it was early evening and the cake was sitting ready in the kitchen for the candles to be lit. Darcy had organised most of the day, so naturally everything was running like clockwork. Jane was knelt beside Elizabeth's highchair, while the two Godparents stood side by side to the edge of the scene, smiling fondly. No one was quite sure how Charles managed to orchestrate the next few moments. The lights had gone dim, and the usual round of 'Happy Birthday' had begun. Before anyone could get through the first two lines there was a crackle and the living room curtains had burst into flames.
It was Darcy again who had remedied the situation, rushing forward into the kitchen for the jug of water he knew to be sitting on the counter next to the tea towels. With three strides he was back in the room, throwing the water into the heart of the fire and cautiously placing the tea towels down to quench the rest of the flames.
The room remained silent; the only noise was the gentle coo of Elizabeth from her high chair. Darcy turned to the child's aunt, who stood there, her pale dress now splattered with water and dark ash.
Charles, blushing furiously, had told them they could both shower in the upstairs bathroom, and borrow some clothes from the bedrooms. Elizabeth went first, Darcy was ever the gentleman, and he was leaning outside the bathroom door when she emerged. Her hair was damp; she wore Jane's vest and leggings. Darcy stepped forward and met her in the doorframe. Her smelling of soup and shampoo, him smelling of ash and fire. The mix was almost too much to bear for the both of them.
"That's beside the point. The point being that you, Darcy, are a workaholic. How many hours did you say you worked last week?"
"Eighty three" Elizabeth shakes her head of the memory, glancing at Darcy. Feeling his eyes heavily on hers. Begging her to understand some message.
"I thought you said it was nighty"
"I was exaggerating. It was definitely Eighty three"
Oh.
-x-
She rasps at the door to number Eighty Three with shaking fingers. The bones beneath her skin playing a childish tune as her hand flexes, paused inches from the wood, daring to knock again. Moments later the door opens, he's been waiting for her, pacing the floor threading his fingers through his hair. (In a way that will never be as comforting as he learns she can be)
"Come in" His voice seems choked now, they both know they won't be able to speak, they don't need to speak. Not now, not ever to understand each other. She steps into the room without a word, her eyes scanning over the clean palate of the hotel room, accented only by him. His black tie hanging over an oak desk chair, twirling itself around the edge like a ribbon floating downwards in a pool of water.
"Elizabeth"
He steps out from where he has been hovering in the shadows. He finds preference in the shadows, they are cool places built for those whose minds are stocked with treasure. He approaches her and Elizabeth notes the stretch of his shirt as his hand reaches for hers.
Their hands fold over one another like a swan's wings settling after flight.
All the moments, all their breaths, all their heart beats gathering up to this one.
-x-
They lie together on the bed. Darcy pulls himself up as smoothly as possible and glances at the clock on the bedside table. Elizabeth traces his birthmark as he does; the time for talking is yet to come. As she presses her fingers harder the faded outline reveals itself clearer to her. They both know it's there. Neither of them acknowledges how they know. How many sinking hours were just spent following the invisible maps of their skin. There is no indication in Time apart from the elephant in the room. The child busy with its own beginning. Elizabeth adds more pressure until it flutters a darker shade, the secret brand burned in the dip of the valley of his stunted wings.
She wonders how many people have seen it, how many people remember it. (Two in six-billion). It's the one thing that Elizabeth knows she will never forget. The paint splattered darkness against his pale skin. It's an imperfection the only one he can't hide. He can't control. Elizabeth wonders if she were to trace it with her lips, with her tongue, would it be hers. If she brandishes it as her own could she control it, could she control a tiny corresponding part of his heart? Would he surrender this blemish to her?
Would it count for anything?
She moves forwards silently and presses her lips there, covering the mark. Darcy's shoulders prick back as she rests her forehead up and into the back of his neck. Digging her crown into his thick locks. He feels like six a.m. on the 17th of December, buried deep within the cave of white dreams when the shaking tree branches tap-tap-tap at the window pane, but there's no need to be accommodating (So they tap-tap-tap and you let them).
He feels like home. His warm skin smells heady of cologne and fire.
She inhales again.
End of Part One.