Response to Seanfhocal challenge 22. Set during Healing in the Vine
With Dignity
By ElspethElf
He watched the rise and fall of her chest, and heard the shallow murmur of her breaths as each breath fought to be heard over the quietness. He studied her now as he had studied her over the past years, fighting mutual curiosity with aloof dignity.
He knew she wouldn't know, wouldn't know that he held her hand as she stirred in a feverish sleep. And he knew that if he brought his face close to hers, so close that he could smell the crisp fragrance of willowbark tea, and the heavy, musky scent of her robe, she would still not know.
Closer he leaned, his guilty, thudding heart lurching and twisting, digging sharp roots deep into his mind. Closer still he approached, till his face tingled with the warmth of her breath, and his body screamed for the release of tension.
'You could get the pox too if you kiss her.'
He lurched back, so sharp and painful his head spun and spun with nauseating disbelief. He dropped the hot hand from his, turned his face away so he could think, and turned back again. He glowered, he glared, and he struggled with the cursed intruder who watched mutely through bespectacled vision.
He fought to speak and to reason. He battled to offer logical motive for the irrational behaviour that was relentlessly his, his, and cruel and shameful and humiliating. He wrestled with inner rage, and tortured at the devastating turn of event. He sought for his wit, his dry, sardonic tongue that was his only weapon.
In the end, his admitted defeat.
'Not a word to anyone,' he said weakly, straining over a dried and empty mouth. He looked up, eyes threatening. Pleading.
'Please?'
The air between them stirred and carried a caress of toleration, and toleration was what he sought. He had tolerated and he had endured all these years, and now it was his turn to be tolerated.
'I'm exhausted,' the intruder announced. 'I think I'll go and take a nap.' Silently she left, her steady thud of footsteps fading as she made for the stairs.
His shoulders slumped, and he sank deeper into his seat. He lowered his head into his hands, and let go a sigh of numb relief.
She won't tell, he thought to himself, over and over again. She won't tell. She won't tell and – he glanced quickly at the sleeping figure – she won't know.