In Love and Politics
By Hollywood Recycle Bin
A/N: Beta-read by Author07. Thank you so much!
***
She's not a part of your world.
You've known that since the first moment you've laid eyes on her. Since you've noticed the straightness of her back as she sat on your bed, the elegance in her movement and the strangely formal way she addressed you. She seemed unreal to you then, like a mannequin or a doll, too immaculate with her unblemished skin and softly flowing waves of shiny dark hair.
You used to have a doll that looked like that once. You used to love it. Played with it until the perfect hair became tangled, and the plastic lost its shine.
You play with her like that sometimes now too. Touch her until she loses that control she held so tightly, until sweat salted her skin and ran down the curves of her back and her hair fall damp and messy on her silk covered pillow. You've always loved her as your princess—perfect and poised—but you love her even more like that; when she loses that mask, surrender that control to you, to your hands and your tongue and your mouth. It's always at times like that when you think she's truly perfect.
Truly yours.
You know that you're the only one who gets to see her like that. Gets to see her open up, see the real her, her pain, her joy, her desires, her fears, but you also know that while it means the world to you, and to her, that it means nothing to the rest of the world.
In any other relationship, you know that the world wouldn't matter; wouldn't even be relevant. In any other relationship, all that truly matters is your world and her world, the world your love built together. It doesn't work like that in the world you're in now, this world of politicians, dictators and crystal chandeliers the size of your old bed room.
Here in this world; she doesn't belong to you.
Here, she's not Rosie. Your Rosie.
Here, she is Queen Rosalinda Maria Montoya Fioré.
She belongs to her people.
***
Her hair smelt of flowers when she came out of the bathroom. Not the cliché kind like roses or lavender, but something more exotic. You've always loved the feel of it in your hands as you run your fingers through it, love to bury your face in it as she touched you. You love it best like this; at night in the oversized bedroom you share together, her hair wet and unkempt, and her face clean of makeup. You think she's more beautiful this way than she is during the day, with her hair smelling of products and her face covered in powder.
This was your Rosie, in all her natural glory.
This was the girl you belonged to.
The floral silk robe dropped to the floor. The dim light touched and played against the curves of her body, against creamy, unblemished skin. There was a playful curve of a smile; her lips even without lipstick still looked too red and too full to be real.
You pulled her down and proved that they were with your own.
Her mouth still tasted like the wine and chocolate from tonight's gala. You've never been good at holding your liquor but it wasn't the liquor that had you intoxicated right now. Instead it's the way she moved against you, the way her wet lips slid against your mouth, her tongue teased you as graceful hands glided over your flesh; manicured nails scraped on that sensitive spot, just over your hips.
Your moan was muffled by her possessive kisses. It's her who was in control tonight, and while you occasionally like to be the one in charge, you don't really have any complaints because she's your Rosie, and even on nights like this, when she's the one who takes the reign, you still feel like she's yours in the way she touches you, the way she loses herself in your body, like a woman possessed, starving for the feel of you.
Even when she's the one steering the wheel, you still make her lose control. It's the best compliment anyone's ever given you.
Her touch is so familiar to you. Even after years of being together, her touch still excited you, and every night you're with her feels like it's new, like she's exploring you all over again even when she already knows your body so well.
She knows every inch of you; from the old scar from a childhood bike accident, to the exact shade of your erect nipples. She knows the most sensitive parts of your body, knows where to touch, where to tickle and where to drive you crazy.
She knows all of you. As if there was a map to you that only she possessed, or a class only she had taken. Her nails scraped against you again, fingers moving with perfect rhythm inside you
This time you moan into her ears. You own nails dug in, leaving crescent marks on her pale shoulders.
You gave her an A+ in Carter Mason 101.
***
Costa Luna is a conservative Roman Catholic country.
You knew exactly what she was going to tell you the moment she mentioned that. Not that you expected anything different. After all, Rosie had said so herself, that life she had with you, the one without the expensive dresses and fantastic balls, that was her fairytale life. The ordinary one with school and burgers and a bait shop and bitchy cheerleaders, that one where she can spend her whole day with you, just sitting around or shopping or spraying water at each other, or even kissing you under a tree with no bodyguards or lurking reporters; that was her dream life.
To be ordinary, and to not care about anything more than just, going to college or getting a job. That was Princess Rosalinda's happily ever after.
The one you knew she could never have.
You believe her when she tells you that she wished things could be the way they were before. You believe her when she tells you she wished she could be here with you than out there, at meetings and ceremonies. You believe her when she tells you there isn't anything in the world she wants more than to kiss you on the lips in front of everyone and say to hell with the rest of the world and their close minded, bigoted ways.
But you don't believe her when she tells you that someday, she will do just that.
Costa Luna is a small island nation after all. And despite the fact that you sucked at history in school, you know enough about it to know that this small island nation can only survive on connections and alliances. On the money of tourists (the very rich few who knows about this paradise), trade agreements, and good will of its larger neighbours. It survives on its anonymity, on the fact that it's small, harmless and doesn't step on anyone's toes.
Rosie has a tough game to play as leader of the country; she needs to keep the country visible enough to be heard and invisible enough to be out of harm's way. She already has other factors working against her; her gender, her age, her enemies.
A lesbian queen will really change Costa Luna's position; put the country on the map, make a name for it, all around the world.
General Kane may be locked up somewhere, but there are many like him, and many who are even worse. Not just dictators and country leaders, but land developers and corporations, business men who will want to turn the place into a larger tourist trap, destroying the nature of the place, and the people's simple way of life and profiting off the sweat on their backs.
If Costa Luna gets put on the map, it wouldn't be long before those people notice it, before they try to destroy it. Rosie maybe a wonderful and competent leader, but she's only one person; no matter how great she is she cannot fight a battle on that many fronts at the same time.
You understand this. You understand it perfectly. You've grown up in the past few years after all, and you've learnt from her as much about the political game as you did about all the sensitive spots on her body. Well, maybe not as much.
But you have learnt a lot.
Still, even if you do understand it, it doesn't mean that you don't want more. It doesn't mean that you don't have your own happily ever after fantasy where you're both finally free from it all to ride into the sunset together.
It's a selfish fantasy of course. Because you also understand that she's Queen Rosalinda of Costa Luna. That she is mother, daughter, sister and friend to all of her people. No matter what happens, she can't leave them behind.
Like you said before, she doesn't belong to you. No matter how much she wants to be.
***
There's another ball tonight at the palace. For the past two weeks the place has been buzzing with people, caterers, flower arrangers, decorators and chefs. All the best money could buy.
The parties that Rosie threw are grand, filled with the kind of things a young girl dreams about when she dreams about being Cinderella, at a ball for the first time in her beautiful dress. It's everything a girl like that would hope for, a grand palace with the ceiling glittering with chandeliers, men and women dressed in their best, descending the marble staircase, a dance floor with musicians on its side playing soft romantic tunes.
There are even several handsome princes, waiting to sweep them off their feet.
But it's been a very long time since you've had dreams like that and so when Rosie hands you the invite, you just gave her a small apologetic smile and told her you'd rather sit this one out.
It wasn't that you don't know how to play the game of course. You may still be you, the bait shop girl from Lousiana, but you constantly don't hang around at royal palaces without picking up a few things. You know that you can hobnob with oligarchs like the best of them if you need to, and you've been around this crowd long enough to know who's cool and who to avoid. And it wasn't like a lot of them didn't have some ideas about your relationship with the queen already.
It's just that having 'some ideas' and actually knowing, actually being out about it to them, were two very different things. And while some of them are cool about it, others aren't and you know how this crowd works now. They were all about images and public relations and as long as you and Rosie remain safely in the closet, none of them could do anything to hurt you, Rosie or the country.
You understand your position here, and hers, but it's not what you want. And you're sick of being reminded of that position all the time; sick of having to deal with 'the public face' and having to pretend that you and Rosie aren't anything more than just good friends, all the while watching her, the perfect women of your dreams, smile her charming princess smile at all those rich, eager men and dance with them through the night.
If the world was any sort of a fair place, it would be you dancing with her at the ball. You, with your hand in hers, the both of you, gliding together across the dance floor, big skirts spinning around you.
Instead you're here, in your room, waiting, once again in a silky pink floral nightgown she bought for you (who'd have thought that Rosie was such a fan of irony). Waiting for the ball to end so that the spell would finally break and Queen Rosalinda would finally melt away and your Rosie would return to you.
At times like this, you think that maybe you are the princess of the story. The one locked in a tower, eternally waiting for the day when your prince charming would finally come through and set you free so you could runaway together and get married.
You think that might make Rosie prince charming, and the world, the wicked witch.
Of course if that is the case then you can't really escape the wicked witch. Not that you don't already know that neither of you are getting a happily ever after.
In the real world, if happily ever after exists at all, it doesn't happen to princesses. Princesses have duties and responsibilities, they have images to maintain and if they're really unlucky, princes to marry for succession purposes as oppose to love. It's even worse when they become queen, and despite Rosie's promises, it's only a matter of time before the question of succession comes up.
Rosie is the only surviving member of Costa Luna's royal family after all (only surviving one of the direct line anyway), and without the royal family and its treaties with neighbouring countries, Costa Luna will be up for grabs.
It isn't something you like to think about much, but it's always there, the dark cloud that hangs over you and her. Your relationship with her is like Cinderella's carriage. Right now it's still there, still moving but it's only a matter of time before it turns back into a pumpkin.
And the moment it does, no matter how strongly you feel about each other, no matter how much you love each other, it can still be easily smashed.
A knock on the door broke you away from your dark thoughts and you can't help but smile. Even when entering her own room, Rosie still knocks.
But it wasn't Rosie at the door when you open. Instead it's the butler, Esteban.
"Her majesty is waiting for you in the ballroom Señorita Mason" he said politely.
***
The soft sound of music caressed your ears once you reached the staircase. Somehow the bright lights that had been there before the party had dimmed, rendering everything a warm shade of amber.
There was a trail of rose petals on the floor, leading down into a sea of billowing white smoke which moved in waves around the hem of a flowing silk dress. Though you've seen her a million times before in a million gorgeous dresses; the sight of her still takes your breath away.
She held out a single red rose in her gloved hands, and though most of the time you find roses overrated, from her they seem rare and exquisite. You play with it while giving her a faux coy smile.
"You know, for a Queen, you'd make one hell of a Prince Charming," you teased.
"Thank you," she bowed, and then reached out her hand. "Would you kindly indulge me in a dance?"
You looked down to your fluffy bunny slippers. "I think I'm a little underdressed for a ball."
She smiled and there was a twinkle in her eyes. You've always loved the way she looks at you.
"You are perfect," she says, and though you know that's far from the truth, somehow you believe her and you let her lead you to the dance floor.
***
It was a little strange to do the tango or the waltz in bunny slippers. You had gotten used to the heel of your feet being higher when you danced with someone, but you forget all about that soon after you started.
This was the radiant Queen Rosalinda after all, and it was difficult not to forget the rest of the world existed when you're right next to her; difficult for anything else to seem important when her hand is resting on your waist and her eyes are on you like you're the most fascinating and beautiful thing in the world.
You glide over the dance floor together, and it was just like you dreamed it'd be, you and her, the only two people in the world that mattered, bodies moving together with the rhythm of the music, and when she spun you round and brought you back to her, hands circling around you, you loved that it lingered for longer than it should.
And when she dipped you down and kissed you with her supple lips, you tell her you'd slipped because getting weak in the knees might fly for someone like Cinderella, but not for someone like Carter Mason.
Rosie's smirk told you she knew exactly what happened though, and you couldn't help but smile right back. As the night wore on, your head came to rest on her bare shoulders, and your arms tighten around her.
You hold onto her tight because your life is one long and lucid dream. You think maybe if you hold on tight enough, you'll never wake up.
"I am sorry I could not dance with you at the ball in front of everyone tonight," she said suddenly and reality rears its ugly head again.
"It's ok," you say, "I understand." It was a conversation you had both had too often before.
"No it is not. You deserve better than this Carter and I am sorry I could not give it to you." her words were still proper, but her voice was sad. You know her well enough to know when she's holding back tears.
"It's ok." you say again and you hold on tighter.
And it was true, it is ok, because right now Rosie is here—real and warm in your arms and though you know that it won't last forever, that eventually the world will come barging in and the spell would be broken...
Even though you know there's no happily ever after, for you or for her...
What you have right now... It's enough.
We're so close
To reaching that famous happy end
And almost believing this was not pretend
Let's go on dreaming for we know we are
So close
So close
And still so far...
END
Inspired by "So Close" by Jon McLaughlin (the song at the end of the fic)