Title: Skipping
Author: Moonlit Rainfall
Category: Warriors (Books)
Characters: Sorreltail and Brackenfur
Genre: Romance
Summary: What am I supposed to do when you are so beautiful and when we lie together and I listen to your heartbeat and it's skipping?
I like the way that you rustle around in my fur while we're sharing tongues, it always looks best right after you do, and the way that you nibble on the end of your tail to get the really tough fleas out of you fur.
I've said a lot of sweet things in my life and I know that these words won't mean a lot in hindsight, and that what we have is something platonic, something romantic, something frustrating and something relaxing. That we're a couple but we're not, that we like each other but we're scared and that there's a risk but there's no risk at all.
It's the way that the other cats treat you, the way they revere you, the way you are proud of who you are and humble at the same time.
It's the way that the west wind blows through our fur when we stand at the edge of Fourtrees, looking down at the moors, looking up at the stars together. But the west wind hasn't blown in a long, long, time, and sometimes I wish it did and other times I wish it didn't.
It's the way that your mother said we were good for each other and my brothers said we were good for each other and both of us not trusting them and not trusting each other and not trusting ourselves.
It's the way we're confused why we're in love and why we aren't mates, and the fear between us and the distance but the closeness and the gentleness and the roughness and the soothing and the fiction.
I wish I were not like the happy ones – the ones that have small minds, who know that they love and aren't afraid to love because of their small minds and I wish I could face fears with the blind trust that they have but I don't have the trust because I don't trust myself and I don't trust you even though you're the one I trust with more of me than would will ever imagine. And the happy ones are also pretty and I am also pretty or at least you tell me so when we are hunting together and laughing together and I never know if you are serious or not.
I like the way we curl up together at night, friends-but-not-friends, lovers-but-not-lovers, because of the way you rustle in my fur and the way I nibble on your tail and the little things we whisper to each other and laugh at and smile to while everyone else is sleeping, and how close we are even when it becomes as hot as the sun between us while around us the snow is falling and how you rub your whiskers on my face and I feel the roughness of them and the poke into my ears and I tell you to stop but you only laugh and rub against my face harder, marking me with your smell while stealing a little bit of mine.
I sometimes laugh with my friends, or ones who are not my friends, or with you, or sometimes I laugh with myself so that I can start to spin again and forget about our weird relationship, our love-that-is-love-but-isn't-love and I think of those with small minds who are in love and are also pretty.
You are also pretty, you are so very pretty to me and you say that I am pretty as well and I wonder if you are telling the truth because we both know that we don't trust each other and we don't love ourselves. But you are pretty, and you are a boy, and you are also my dearest friend, and what am I supposed to do when I curl up next to you at night and you rustle in my fur and rub your whiskers on my face and steal a little of me while leaving a little of you. What am I supposed to do when you are so beautiful and when we lie together and I listen to your heartbeat and it's skipping?