A/N: Challege to the readers. Think of your OTP, then have the more "dominant" (outgoing, forward, whathaveyou) of the two narrate the story. Tell me how I did on making it ambigous to most major pairings, yeah? (S/R, H/D, N/L, etc) As a side note, I'm absolutely in love with this.
Pick One
10/07/05
It was snowing outside. It fell in large, sticky flakes and built up quickly, up past my knees in the span of three hours. Large drifts covered the house, locking us in for days on end, with nothing to do but read and talk.
Generally, you liked the snow, but that day you had a terrible case of the flu and outside weather made your ailments all the worse. You wouldn't complain about them out loud, I knew, but I knew they troubled you all the same. You suffered silently, something I never quite understood, but took as part of your personality.
I remember that day clearly because it was the first time you ever gave any evidence to the fact that you returned my affections. For months I had made advances, straight declarations of love, but you had just brushed them off. No, maybe not brushed them off exactly, but maybe...considered them a phase. Or the result of something funny I had eaten. Either way, I remembed it distinctly.
You were curled up in a blanket, a large jumper engulfing your small-boned frame, the fire blazing before you. A glass of ginger ale sat to your left, uneaten saltines beside it. Sleep had just come and gone, and a glazed look still hovered over your eyes as you waited for the veil of it's effects to be lifted.
A rumbling cough traveled through your chest, and I looked up from the paper to watch the light from the fire flicker across your soft, pallid face.
You mumbled something, which I heard quietly clearly, but I would take any chance when we were alone to nudge you in the right direction.
"What did you say, love?"
One side of your mouth curving upward ever-so-slightly, you turned your face towards mine and gave me a soft, wry look. A bit of loving resistence sent in my direction.You loved when I called you that, but you never would admit it. After your past, love wasn't something that came easily.
You spoke, voice low and rough, but however more clearly. "I said, what's in the news?"
Sickness had drained the color from your skin, perhaps, but it could never drain the light from your eyes. The grin you were trying so hard to suppress from my sharp eyes came shining bright through your eyes. You didn't realize this, or perhaps you hoped I didn't, but I kept it my little secret anyway. You eyes really are the window into your soul. A soul which I'll never be able to live without; a soul which I know more intimately than my own mind.
I glanced down at the paper, then folded over the ever-growing list of obituaries. That tends to happend during wars.
"Sunshine and kittens, love."
The quirk found it's way back up to your lips, and you shook your head. Turning back to the fire, you mumbled again. Perhaps your voice was worn out, perhaps you only wanted me to repeat myself.
Something to which I gladly obliged. "What did you say, love?" I put down the paper.
"Don't you ever quit?" Your hands wrung the blanket your were nestled in.
I grinned like a chesire cat, something I couldn't have done if you had been looking (for it tended to worry you that I had some other wooing method up the sleeve of my robes,) and I slid off my chair. It had been starting to feel to far away from you for comfort.
I turned out each lamp in the room in turn, ignoring the fact that I could have used magic. It was killing you to know what I had intended to do now that I was done reading about sunshine and kittens, and putting out each lamp by hand just built up the tension.
When I finished, I came to a slow kneel in front of the sofa, slightly to your left. Fingering the crocheted pattern absently, I watched you watch the fire, coyly ignoring my presence.
You couldn't resist looking, however, when I took your hand in mine and ran the pad of my finger in your palm in tiny circles, light as a feather. Your skin was hot, a sure indication of an elevating fever, something that worried me.
The sudden sensation caused you to bite your lip. You did that, most times, when I affected you. You did that when you were holding back an emotion, something I didn't like you to do, but I took solace in that fact that you had an emotion for me you were holding back.
Biting your lip was my signal, the one I needed to know I'd gone far enough and now it was time for you to maybe, just maybe, return my affections.
But this time, it wasn't time to hold back. I could see it in your eyes how miserable you were, how much you needed soothing contact. It was time for you to come to your senses.
"You leave me in agony," I whispered.
You gasped quietly, and still stared on at me silently, a bit horrified at the strength in my words and my sudden straight-forwardness.
"You leave me restless."
I continued to stroke your palm, then gradually traveled to your wrist, where I grazed my fingernails softly.
"You leave me without a purpose."
I was biting my own lip now. Your eyes were filled with such emotion that you wouldn't dare allow yourself to show affected me so much I had to. Logic told me to stop, I was going to far for your fragile state, but my heart, and yours, cried out for me to continue.
Agonizingly slow, I lifted your wrist and pressed a feather-light kiss to the warm, tender flesh. I swallowed nervously, then looked back up. Tears were gathering in welling, shining pools along your eyelids, threatening to fall.
"You leave me incomplete."
You claimed later on that it was the fever that caused you to react. You claimed it was the fever and the whirling surroundings that caused both of your hands to work on their own, to clasp my face below my chin, and pull my lips to yours.
I claimed later that you loved me all along. I claimed that you knew it, but refused to allow yourself to love, for fear of losing what you loved.
You still refuse to accept my account of your actions as fact, although it doesn't take much to get you to repeat the action, just by taking your hand.