Myrnin knew that the dynamic of the relationship was changing. He didn't know for sure how fast, or even quite the direction the relationship was headed, but he was certain that things had changed. Logically he knew much of Claire's recent… discomfort… was likely caused by that fateful night in her bedroom. The night he had desperately wanted to leave town. The night he realized he absolutely could not leave. Not without her... The night he kissed her.
He had lied, of course. Mostly. It had been her mind that first attracted him to her, but that wasn't entirely true anymore. The way she bit her lip, or the way she rolled his eyes when he got slightly manic, the way she zeroed in on experiments the same way he did. All of these things. The way she walked, her lilting voice. Everything she was, was attractive to him.
He couldn't quite recall when the first inkling of attraction came. Not when he was ill, certainly. Only her blood, and perhaps her mind in his saner moments, was attractive to him then. She was nervous, and perhaps overly polite. He couldn't remember the last time she called him 'sir' or even anything else that showed he had authority over her. He wasn't entirely sure he did have any authority over at this point anyway. Either way, he didn't want that Claire back. The one who thought of him as her boss, not her friend. Her friend. He had told her once that he didn't have friends, and that was true enough. But now he had her. And he couldn't imagine his life without her. He'd be long gone, certainly. Odd how such a young child, a human, could have had such an effect.
He was still furious with himself for kissing her. He knew she loved Shane, knew she didn't love him. But he had truly thought he was going to leave, never see her again. She could have been his. Maybe not yet, but eventually. Amelie had sworn she would turn her when the moment came. In Myrnin's mind, the time had come and passed several times. But Claire didn't want it. She so desperately didn't want eternity it shocked him and made it impossible for him to take the matter of turning her into his own hand. He refused to hurt her like that. He had hurt her so many times already. He wondered if she took his kissing her as another sort of betrayal. Since that had happened she'd been quieter. More withdrawn from him, focusing more so than usual on her task at hand, the times she actually showed up.
Before he could call her and ask her to come in, and even on her days off, even at strange times, even when she complained, she would show up. Now she came in only when she was meant to and left the moment she was allowed. No matter how many times he called, she refused to come in, sometimes even refused to answer his calls. He missed her, desperately, which was made worse still by the fact that he still saw her often.
He had spent the night hiding in the corner of her bedroom one evening. How horrifically easy it was to hide in plain sight. He had called, and she refused to answer, until finally on perhaps one attempt too many, she had answered the phone, snapped that it was her day off and hung up before he'd even said hello. He knew it was wrong, on some fundamental level, but he could not help himself, and simply had to know what was going on. He had opened a portal into the secret room of the Glass House and snuck into Claire's bedroom. He had planned to beg her to tell him what was wrong, what he had done or what he could do to fix things. She wasn't in her bedroom. He paused, suspecting she might be in Shane's room, but after a moment he realized her scent was only lingering in the house, she was simply not home. He decided to wait for her, rather than seek her out.
It was just a few hours before she got home, and he stood patiently in the corner the entire time. She came in looking surprisingly tired. Not physically, and nothing like the time Amelie had forced her to work for him over several days with no sleep. He hoped it was truly the lack of sleep that had been her punishment, and not himself. He had never before yelled at Amelie in such a manner, until just after Claire had left. Made her swear to him that she would never put Claire at risk like that again. Never make Myrnin's weakness such a threat to Claire. No, when she came into her bedroom that night, she looked… like she had spent hours doing mentally taxing work. He couldn't believe she had, not with how intelligent she was. Nonetheless.
She didn't notice him. Didn't notice him standing in the darkened corner of her bedroom, and suddenly, despite his promise to himself that he would find out by any means what had been bothering her, he found he could not make himself move. She didn't bother to change before collapsing onto her bed. A fact that both relieved and disappointed him. Within moments her breathing evened out, and her heart rate slowed significantly.
Claire speaks in her sleep, which was a fact that surprised him. He heard his name more than once in just the first hour since she fell asleep. He kept listening intently, hoping to hear more. He never did, and soon her mumbling turned nonsensical. Suddenly her positioning on top of the bed bothered him. He lifted her off the bed and cradled her with one arm. Even without his enhanced strength, she was light enough to do so. He pulled the covers back with the other, then gently placed her underneath them. She whispered his name again, and half in a desperate attempt to wake her up to ask her what she was dreaming, and half in his own desperation for her, he kissed her. Just a brush of his lips on hers, but still a kiss. She stirred slightly but did not wake. Suddenly panicked by the thought of her waking he fled back to his laboratory, his home.
Ever since his blind trip down the oubliette, night terrors had visited him whenever he slept and so he refused to do so. Instead, he organized the lab through the rest of the night. Claire was meant to arrive early the following morning and he thought she may appreciate it, she did often get annoyed at the state of the lab. Chaos was usually a word she would use to describe it. He couldn't disagree, even if it hardly bothered him.
She was late, and even with her recent behavior, it was unusual for her. He paced the lab, nervously checking the pocket watch he had found while organizing the lab. He finally heard her heartbeat, from the end of the road, an hour late. He found he was suddenly and uncontrollably angry.
"You're late," he snapped, not bothering to turn around. The fury in his voice shocked even him. He heard Claire pause on the bottom step.
"I-" she started, "sorry." She didn't sound sorry. In fact, she sounded...completely emotionless. He found that that infuriated him even more. Some part of him realized that her recent distance from him was affecting him more than he originally thought. The smell of his own blood hit him, and he dropped the newly shattered pocket watch to the floor. A shame, she would have liked it.
He took a deep, unnecessary breath. "Just do your work, Claire. Or leave. I don't care." He was lying to her again. Claire, as quietly as a human could, walked over to the lab table she had claimed months before. She had told him he wasn't allowed to touch her experiments, but she never seemed too angry when he did. He tried not to, but sometimes he just knew how to make it better. Several hours passed, or maybe just minutes time seemed to run together, in complete silence. If you discounted Claire's continuously beating heart, the sound of her breathing, and the general clinking sounds she made as she worked on her most recent experiment.
"Please, Claire." Myrnin heard, realizing just moments later that it had been him to speak. There was a begging note to his voice. Claire glanced over at him, a neutral expression on her face. Too late to turn back now, he continued, "please, just tell me what's wrong. What have I done to upset you?"
Her eyes filled with unshed tears, shocking him. She turned away from him quickly, but he already moved to the other side of her. He grabbed onto her arms, tight enough to not allow her to turn away again, but loose enough to be painless. He found he felt as though he may start crying as well. She wouldn't look at him.
"Claire, please. Please," Myrnin begged again. One hand reached up to brush away a tear that had escaped her eye. She jerked away from him and, defeated, he dropped both hands and took a step away.
"Whatever I've done," he said quietly, turning away from her, "I apologize. If you want to leave you may." He heard Claire stand, and for a horrified moment, he truly thought she was going to leave him, never to return to him. She took two steps away, then paused.
And then she said the one thing, the one thing, he truly did not wish to discuss with her. "Why did you kiss me?" she asked quietly, her voice barely even a whisper. Myrnin did not turn to face her. She did not turn to face him. He could have sworn in that moment his unbeating heart skipped a beat. For a panicked moment he thought she was referring to just the previous evening when he had watched her as she slept, but then he realized she was referring to the night had told her he was leaving.
"You know that I don't like to provide answers to questions that you already know, Claire," he answered, just as quietly. He was avoiding the question and they both knew it.
"I don't!" Claire shouted suddenly. He heard her whirl around to face him, but he still couldn't bring himself to face her. "I don't know why you did it!" He could smell the salty tears rolling down her cheeks. "I don't know why you would kiss me just after you told me you didn't care about me!"
He turned sharply, meeting her eyes. Every emotion bubbled together into a furious statement, "I never said that I didn't care about you."
Claire froze and just stared at him. "You did," she whispered. She sounded broken. "You did. You said you only liked my mind, and then you kissed me." She was neither fully wrong, nor fully right, and Myrnin was dangerously close to admitting to feelings that he should not have. He said nothing, just stared back at her. "So just tell me why. Please."
Myrnin sighed, not sure how to answer. How do you tell someone you loved them? That the only thing you look forward to is seeing them? How do you tell someone that it kills you every day to see them with another man because you know they will never love you back? You don't. But you don't ruin things by kissing them either, which he already did. He had ruined everything. He could have lived with her friendship but not this. Not this cold distance.
When he didn't answer Claire shook her head sadly, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She sniffled, then turned around and started up the stairs.
"Claire?" Myrnin said, so quietly he hardly heard himself. It was a miracle Claire heard him. She froze halfway on one step. He kept his head down, fairly certain his gaze may just burn a hole in the ground. "How do you tell someone that you love them?" Claire didn't answer, but she also didn't leave. He kept talking. "Especially when that someone wouldn't -shouldn't- ever want you."
"How," Claire said slowly, "can you know someone wouldn't ever want you if you've never even asked?" Myrnin's head snapped up to look at her. She was still standing on the steps, facing away from him.
"And when they love someone else?"
Claire sniffled again. "Love changes," she stated simply. He saw her shoulders move up in a small shrug.
"Claire?" Myrnin said again. She turned slightly. Her hands were trembling but then, oddly, so were his. "I never meant to make it seem as though I don't care about you."
She stepped off the stairs and tentatively walked towards him. Myrnin met her halfway. "Why did you kiss me, Myrnin?" Claire asked. It seemed different to him this time. Not as though she were truly asking a question she didn't know the answer to, but as if she needed to hear him say it. He lifted a hand to brush away the falling tears. She didn't pull away from him this time, in fact, she leaned into his touch ever so slightly.
"Because I am hopelessly in love with you, no matter how much you shouldn't love me back," Myrnin whispered. He felt an odd rush from finally telling Claire exactly how he felt. A rush from telling her that he loved her, endlessly. And most of all, from the fact that she hadn't run from him.
He leaned towards her, giving her all the time in the world to pull away from him. She didn't. His lips pressed to hers slowly. She tasted like tears, and vanilla, and her lips felt incredibly warm against his. He could feel the blood flowing through her lips. One of his hands moved from her cheek to the back of her neck, while the other traveled to her waist. Her arms wrapped around him, sending shivers down his spine. She kissed him back just as slowly, and she seemed somehow through that just as confused and uncertain as he felt.
It went no further than that. He didn't think either one of them was quite ready for anything more, even if he desperately wanted more. He pulled away first and rested his forehead against hers. His lips were damp, and the slightest bit swollen.
"Why did you kiss me?" Claire asked and he could hear the grin in her voice.
A small smile played on his lips as he responded with a question of his own, "How do you tell someone you love them?" Claire let out a small giggle, and Myrnin found he let out a laugh of his own. She kissed him this time, longer than the first yet just as innocent.
He didn't know how long they stood there, marveling at their strange new semblance of a relationship. Although they kissed several more times, and though Myrnin did back them both onto the couch, the kisses remained innocent and gentle.
"Promise me you won't leave me like that again, Claire," Myrnin begged quietly, as they sat on the couch later on. She was still there, several hours past when she had to be. They had gotten some real work done, but not very much. Claire had cried and apologized for being so mad at him. He tried not to cry as he apologized for making her believe he didn't care about her.
"I promise," Claire whispered and for the first time she was the liar. Just six days later he drove her to the edge of town under Amelie's orders to see her off to MIT. And just one day after that he began searching for any excuse to go after her though he wouldn't like the reason he found.
Thank you guys for reading my first ever one shot! Please leave a review! Obviously, of course, all characters and content in this story belong to Rachel Caine. Only the plot belongs to me! If you guys liked this you should check out my other (work in progress) Clyrnin fanfic: Myrnin's Movie Madness. And look out for my upcoming stories! But seriously, please leave a review! The more reviews I get the faster I'll upload more stories and update my current ones!