Title: Pillow Talk
Description: "But it is harder, on some nights, to forget the gory details and the sinister purple that clouds every memory they have together."
Rating: T, for adult themes and an obvious lead-up to MirSan sex.
It is almost easier to have hope in the darkness, when the darkness feels like it's all you know. It is almost easier to believe that all can be well again when you lie at your wife's side, an arm wrapped around the softest part of her, protectively, desperately. It is almost easier to remember your name when you are moaning hers, the cloak of night as thick and as present as the release of tension and yearning and pleasure.
It is the light that confuses him, because in the light, all of his fears have come true. The sun shined on as his father was devoured, and the sun shined on as he prayed for a future that was his own and not Naraku's. It is the day that makes him feel hidden, that makes him feel helpless against the universe.
He doesn't know when this happened — when black became more comfortable than white, when darkness gave him hope and light made him tired. All he knows is that in the sun, he feels torn between the distractions of domestic life, and the horror of all that he has left behind.
It is easier to confess your heart when the sun has gone down because he does not feel watched, because he feels like all there is in the world is this: him and his wife, lying side by side, awake for far of the nightmares to come and silent, the warmth of each other the only anchor they have to this life they try to live.
"Sango," he whispers, "are you awake?"
"Yes." Her voice is a soft blanket that sounds much stronger than she truly feels. He knows, because he knows her, and he knows, because he is the same way.
"May I tell you something?"
He loves her for not turning to meet his eyes. He loves her for the curve of her bottom resting warmly against him, and he loves her for nodding without looking back because she knows he has never been able to keep his eyes off of her for one second.
"I am still plagued by a curse that has moved from my palm to my heart."
He loves her for turning around at that moment, because there is no greater safety than looking into the gaze of the woman you love. Her eyes are awake and warm, so warm that he can feel toasty in the cold of a fall night. She places a hand on his chest and he sighs.
"What do you mean, Miroku?" she asks.
"I still lived as a cursed man," he admits as he looks away from her and to the skies that lay beyond the roof of their home. "There is too much behind me to live as if I am free. I am still chained by the way I used to live, even after I've achieved my ultimate goal." He raises the previously cursed palm to his face and stares into the uncovered skin, the absence of an enormous hole.
Without warning, his fingers clench over the skin and harden into a fist, and he closes his eyes with regret. "At times, I feel there is nothing left to live for."
His eyes open when a warmth overtakes his fingers and jerks them to a pair of lips, supple and rough. He watches as she presses his palm to her mouth, hard and firm. He can feel her teeth through her skin and he knows this is not a kiss, this is her silencing a scream that still tears at the sides of her throat.
She turns his hand over and the fingers that are not clasping his run over what used to be, the hole that once was and no longer is. She is so gentle, and it leaves him aching.
"Shouldn't the absence of an absence make me feel whole?" he wonders aloud. "A hole. A void. A tunnel of nothing. How can it be that I mourn the absence of nothing?"
"You turned a curse into a weapon. It is far from nothing." His hand is released, and his wife rests a cheek against his shoulder. The two rest in silence, tired and not quite sleepy. Their thoughts are heavy; they always are.
"I love you, Sango," he finally says, a confession that spills from his mouth like stones to be hurled at his shaking figure. Even now, attachment feels like a weakness, a string to be pulled and plucked and snipped by a man who has ruined their lives many, many times.
"I love you, good monk," she finally whispers, her heart hammering as hard as it always does on nights like these: when they speak aloud of their fears and their hopes. For words make emotions real, and sentences weave together all the ways that everything can be ruined.
He props himself up to hover above her body, and in the darkness, they look upon each other. She is the woman that he loves, and he is the man that she chose to let in. They have made a life for themselves, and they are trying to move on.
But it is harder, on some nights, to forget the gory details and the sinister purple that clouds every memory they have together.
"Let me show you how I love you," he murmurs, his lips suddenly at her throat, and her moan is the only response she is capable of giving.
"Make me forget," she breathes as her hands take in the body she has come to know so well after so many lost nights such as these.