"Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others."
― Virginia Woolf
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Growing Pains
by AbsentAngel
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He is seventeen, and Romeo doesn't really know when it happened, but suddenly he realizes that the guild's adorable little sky dragon slayer isn't really adorable, or little, any more.
At some point she has traded in knobby knees and lanky elbows for toned, slender limbs. He still remembers they way she would stumble and trip – as if her spirit and drive couldn't fit in her little body – but there isn't so much as a whisper of that awkwardness in her movements now. In fact, it is opposite.
She is all grace, and sometimes he swears that she must walk on air with the effortless way she moves. Hips that he has only just discovered, sway with such sensual elegance that he sometimes wonders if she was meant to be a dancer. She has the body for it – thin, but strong; like a willow. She makes even the simplest of movements seem so fluid, and Romeo finds that even the way she covers her laugh with her long pale fingers, the way she tilts her chin and exposes the charming curve of her neck while she thoughtfully examines the request board, is entrancing.
Sometime between the fragile age of fifteen and sixteen, Wendy Marvell has transformed from a girl, to a woman.
The realization is a costly one. He splits the blame between his father (for setting a terrible example), Wendy (for changing), and himself (for not having the discipline necessary to keep himself from staring). Her smiles, the ones he once admired as being cute, do strange things to his stomach. For the first time he notices how soft her lips look and wonders how they feel – how they taste. At night, he dreams of her pale hands, her long delicate fingers, and wakes up with his heart racing and his boxers uncomfortably tight.
It is nerve wracking, new, and confusing. It is all these things, but mostly it is just terrifying. Because somehow Wendy Marvell has become his best nightmare, and he doesn't even know the first thing to do.
.
.
.
She is sixteen, and Wendy realizes that she is attracting a different sort of look from the male population.
At first, she pays it little mind. She keeps herself rather busy after all. Between missions and improving her healing capabilities, she has little time to dwell on much of anything else. But when she notices that look (followed by a bright blush) from Romeo, she feels her chest swell with a shy sort of pride.
Suddenly, she is very much aware of the way his eyes follow her. She becomes intimately familiar with the feel of his gaze lingering at her neck and caressing the exposed skin of her calves and thighs. She finds it thrilling, but it has the unexpected effect of making her own eyes travel.
She has long since recognized that Romeo is attractive – Lucy reminds her with sly, suggestive winks all too often – but she has never looked at him before in that sort of light. At least, she hadn't. Now when she looks at Romeo her eyes linger and her pulse quickens. When her eyes trace the firmness of his jaw, the defined line of his shoulders, something inside her whispers of more than just admiration. It whispers of possibilities – of things that are within reach if only she is brave enough to grasp it.
At first, she isn't. On the battlefield, in the infirmary, she is all confidence, but with this her courage fails her. His shy smiles, his worshipping gaze, feeds her spirit though, and soon she finds herself brave enough to return his shy smiles with coy ones.
When he follows her out of the guild one night and asks (in a jumbled mess of words) if maybe she would want to join him for a mission, her heart drums heavily in her chest.
She says yes, and they both know she is agreeing to more than just a job.
.
.
.
He is eighteen and she is seventeen, and as they walk down the hallway to their shared hotel room (two double beds, they had told the woman at the desk) they both know what will happen the moment they are safely tucked away from prying eyes. They have been dancing around each other for months now – maybe even longer – and both feel the excited thrum of nervous anticipation as the key slides into the lock. The door is not even completely shut when her hand runs down the length of his arm and he shudders in response.
Their eyes meet, reflecting the curious inquires dancing in their irises. They have stolen kisses before – in the guild storage room, in the alley behind Fairy Hills – but they have never been so uninterruptedly alone. His thumb, calloused from his training, brushes against her smooth cheek. It is a silent question, an opportunity to pull away, but she kisses him instead.
They are no longer children, and as their hands and lips roam, they determine that the change is an acceptable one. Because in the darkness of the hotel room, age is just a number used to mark time's passage. It does not measure their triumphs, it does not measure their failures – it does not measure them. They are older than they are, and understand more than they should. If age was measured in spirit, his would be 'man' and hers would be 'woman'.
His fingers tangle in her hair, and her lips skim a scar on his shoulder. With only the grinning moon outside their window as a witness, the words 'him' and 'her' – 'you' and 'me' – merge and blend in until the breathy sighs, the low moans, sound more like 'us'.
AN: idontshipthat prompted me on tumblr to do a RoWen and this is the result. Not really sure how I feel about it to be honest … but I hopefully I didn't completely butcher these two. Uhg, this one was just really hard. Honestly, I debated on whether I should even post it. I just don't feel like I have a firm grasp one these two character wise.
Hopefully it was at least somewhat enjoyable and not screaming OOC?