Written for a prompt from gracianasi on Tumblr. "A kiss... as a promise."
Enjoy and please review!
It is a beautiful day for a wedding.
The thought happens upon his twisted mind, unbidden and most certainly unwelcome, as he sulks silently in the shadowed corridors of Sainte-Chapelle awaiting, with the rest of the attendees for the arrival of the bridal party.
Why he has come is a question that not even he can answer. Every fiber in his being had screamed in protest, continues to do so even now. Yet come he had.
Perhaps he needed to see it come to pass with his own eyes.
It was quite possible that he finally succumbed to the madness that tempted him at every turn.
Maybe he was just a glutton for agonizing punishment
Whatever the reason, he knew he had to be here, to see her even if just for the last time. He yearned to hear her airy laugh rival the chiming of the church bells as they announced the happy news, longed for her infectious spirit to fill his empty soul with the music only she could and needed to see her eyes light with that brightness to outshine the sun that would greet him upon his unavoidable exit into light when all was said and done.
He did not fight the ironic twist of his malformed lips at the thought of the sun. In all likelihood, it was madness itself that had driven him, a pitiful creature of darkness, to step foot into the very Kingdom of Light he against him better judgement. Oh, but she had always been the driving force behind his actions, good and evil and try as he might, he is powerless to fight any temptation she might present to him.
The opening chords of Pachelbel's Canon in D alert his keen ears to the opening of the chapel doors and the breath rushes from his lungs on a long exhale as he beholds her. Sh is the very embodiment of an angel, resplendent in a gown of snowy white still not pure enough for her celestial existence. Smile bright, her eyes roam the chapel, brow furrowing ever-so-slightly until her target is acquired and her posture visibly relaxes.
As the final, frothy notes melt away into the air, he takes half a step forward, needing to see her, needing to just be near her again. Miraculously, she does not startle at his movement, even flicks her eyes upward - perhaps in welcome?- before turning her attention to the droning priest performing the rites. His collar suddenly seems to tighten of it's own accord as the full realization of what is happening washes over him.
No, no , no. This can't be real.
But it is and he can only watch, helpless from the shadows, as the one his soul loves solemnly promises her life and fidelity away. To have and to hold, she pledgs. For better or worse, professes. In sickness and in health, she vowes. Each and every word with a luminescent smile and a heady peace that he would never know.
She does not know that with every word she utters, she shatters the remaining fragments of his heart, piece by sordid piece.
Love. Honor. Cherish.
Better or Worse.
As long as we both shall live.
He chants the words in his mind, over and over with a syncopated rhythm that mocks the very essence of their meaning. Empty promises that mean nothing for him.
She had made a promise to him as well, once upon another time when all he deserved was her hatred. Instead, she had pressed a ring into his palm and a kiss upon his lips, exorcising the demons within and turning the ghost into a man. The man who had loved her enough to set her free.
The man that loves her still.
He is pulled back to the present by the exchange of rings, so very different from the one she left him that night. If only she knew that he still wears her ring, has never removed it from the little finger of his left hand- an homage to the one he will never wear on its neighbor. In that moment, he needs to feel the weight of the diamond, its sharp edges and map it ridges. He reaches, desperately, with grappling fingers... and he feels nothing.
His fingers still and his heart drops to his stomach as the terror sets in. All he had left of her...gone. And he doesn't even know where to begin searching.
But then...
Something- someone?- takes his hand, the touch feather light at first, then growing heavier as it slides a constraint around his finger. His eyes shoot open then- when had he closed them?- and his breath is drawn sharply in even as his jaw drops open.
Christine stands in front of him, her delicate lips lifted into a shy smile as she fits a band of gold securely on his left hand. Moving her fingers to his palm, she weaves them together, adding a pressure to her hold as her gaze slides from his eyes to the remaining ring that the priest holds, lifting her brows to her hairline.
No, no, no. This can't be real.
Again, those cursed words ricochet through his head even as his trembling hands seem to move without direction, retrieving the small band and slipping it onto the waiting finger of his bride.
HIS words
HIS wedding
HIS bride!
There is much of him that still cannot believe the reality of it all and he will certainly never tell Christine that he was a voyeur at his own ceremony.
Though his hand are securely laced with hers, anchoring him in place, his mind is still grappling and it is only when he hears the age-old words uttered, joining him to his bride in the sight of God and Man, the he allows himself to believe the vows.
Christine beams up at him as the priest gives his final blessing, tipping her head slightly with a haughty tilt of her chin, challenging him to deny her in this very public place. A smile, perhaps his first true smile, ghosts across his lips before it is swallowed by hers. One of his hands releases her fingers to softly cup her cheek and she responds by grasping one of his lapels to pull him closer.
He swears he can hear the disapproving huff from Madame Giry as he usually does when he encroaches on her prim bounds of propriety but today, not even the church can give him pause.
In that moment, he forgets about any propriety the might be required, in the church or otherwise, and instead loses himself in the sanctity of her. He pulls her closer, fingers twining themselves through her dark curls. His hold tightens as she deepens the kiss without shame, parting his lips, gliding over his tongue, sealing her words with the kiss she could not give him in that cellar.
How far they have come since that night.
Once upon a time, a ring and her lips upon his cursed face simply meant forgiveness.
On this day, those same things mean eternity.