Disclaimer: Not mine. Title comes from an e.e. cummings poem
how s t r a n g e l y my l i f e is curved
Sometimes (most times, always, forever) he wants to kiss the little spaces in between her fingers, which must be small and delicate and perfect.
He saw her play the piano once (long ago in a house overgrown and forgotten) and thought that it was beautiful, but most of all so clean and simple and fresh. She stopped playing, though, as soon as she realized that he had entered the room, shut the piano, stole away, and he never heard her play again.
(he always wanted to tease her about it later, but never could, and so the memory lies half buried until even he cannot remember how much of it is fact and how much of it is dream, the only thing remaining being those spaces in between her fingers which stretched to reach that one note right at the end)
One time he reached for her hand, inadvertently (accident, desire, purpose), all he wanted was to bring her back to ask her about the paperwork, but her palms were calloused and tough and he forgot.
Yes sir? And her fingers were bony and strong and seasoned.
It's stupid, but I thought it would be soft... And she shook her hand free and stood stiff, and what was strange, he thought, was that she understood.
It was so stupid of him, he eventually decides in the end, to be surprised, because playing piano isn't all that different from shooting a gun. The finger still has to stretch and curl and choose its bang with precision.
And when he saw her out there in the battlefield, he knew by her eyes that she had killed and struck and destroyed.
You can't do that and keep your hands clean.
But her hair always shone so golden and bright in the sun, a halo mirage, that he managed to convince himself otherwise, even as she buried dirt under her palms and blood under her fingernails. He molded her into a savior for him, but gave her a gun and forgot that it would make for very pretty irony if he prayed that she would taint her hands for him.
He realized it too late to make a difference, and by that point he was already scrubbing his hands raw in the sink to make them as clean as his idea of hers.
And then he would stand in front of that mirror and think this is a lie, a lie, a lie, and wonder if it was wrong that he still wanted to kiss those little spaces in between her fingers.
(because they seem so small and delicate and perfect and make believe)
A/N: So this was one of those weird rambly pieces that I haven't done in a while, and I hope I did it ok. I'm still not entirely sure that it makes sense to anyone but myself, ugh. But still, I hope you enjoy it and read and review!