Unspoken Feelings, Unspoken Doubt
By SP
There had been days that she harbored doubt. It always rested deep within the confines of her heart, festering and bottled up until something provoked it enough to come roaring out, threatening to destroy all in its path. So it was difficult to not let it overtake her, to suppress it as to not let the others worry about her.
Because everything was all right. It couldn't be anything less than that. Because her friends called her "uptight" and "cold" only out of joking concern, simultaneously mocking and yet wary of the stoic and rigid control over every aspect of her demeanor. They cared. She knows they do. They couldn't understand how someone could still get through every damning day with everything that happened to her on their travels.
But there was never any choice but to survive. It was the only thing she schooled in herself that she could rely on at all times. Emotions were fickle, thoughts were fleeting. Survival was all.
She was – is – a princess. An Empress. She couldn't be any less to her people. Ankles together, shoulders back, face conditioned into an impenetrable mask of emotionless features. She had to be the last to fall back and first to get up after being beaten down.
Because no matter how many times the wind was knocked out of her lungs, it only served as a reminder to how much they liked the taste of air.
It's not like this new world was any easier than the life she had before. He knew that. The High Entia was assimilating into this newly integrated society, but there was still much work to be done. She had a race to rebuild, to nurture, to grow, to lead. She couldn't afford personal happiness. The Antiquas were a dynasty built on blood and anger, nothing less. Her family led their people practically since time existed. Their lives had more gravity than petty desires and wishes. She was raised for more than her own life.
Compartmentalize.
Bury it.
Forget.
Of course, those actions would only last so long, until the nightmares and visions and fears caused her to shoot upright in her bed with a sheen of sweat and quaking hands. She had to blink a few times to reorient herself, to remember she was in her cramped flat in Colony 9 and not at the summit of Prison Island and the sheets she clutched weren't her brother's robes as they said their farewells.
And more often than not, she would feel a rough hand threading through her tangled tresses, a small gesture to drag her back from the world of unwanted memories.
"Melia," a voice heavy with sleep would mutter, hearing the rustle of him sitting up. "Come back," he would say, half hoping that she would finally open up to him. "Come back to me."
Usually she didn't respond. Quite rarely, in fact. He knew that task was almost impossible, that whatever still haunted her after all this time would be wretched to pry out from the confines of her mind. So he allows her to take her time with coming back to the here and the now, and her breaths become less rapid and her body relaxes. As Dunban studies her patrician nose and the hands neatly folded in her lap, he hopes that someday their conversations wouldn't be heavy with their burdens and stresses and emotions. That he wouldn't have to steal opportunities like these to truly appreciate Melia's beauty, what was lit by the moon. That one day they'll be more than people looking for help in people who can't even help themselves.
But that day is in the distant future, one that neither of them are able to discern on the horizon. So they settle into a furtive pattern, dancing around the actual problems they face. They don't talk about how she sobs in the clinic's storeroom when there's so many patients and not enough bed and she's so tired she can hardly heal the sick and the wounded and the ill and feels useless. They don't mention how his morning workouts are longer and more intense, how he disappears from the Colony for days without notice, how his frustration with the lack of progress with the Defense Force is seeping into how he treats his men. That both of them are truly lonely people – Fiora was older, wiser now, beginning a life with Shulk, and building relationships with her own people was a struggle that seemed insurmountable.
Of course they don't mention these things. That's how they are. That's how they've worked so well for so long.
Some nights are at his house, where they have to darken the ether lamps and close the windows to not give reason for gossip the next day. Other times, like tonight, he would let himself in when he knew Sharla had her hands full at the clinic (or, more often than not, conspicuously lurking around the fortress barracks). Melia would be reading a new book every night at her favorite armchair, knees drawn up to her chest, and shoes discarded on the worn floors. She'd look up, surprised that he still shows up night after night, as if she couldn't believe people care about the least-loved, least-favored, least-remembered heir to the Crown of the High Entia. At least what remains of it. Her eyes would be filled with a sorrow he knew he couldn't lessen, and his dragging steps indicated that the Hero of the Homs was slowly cracking from the pressure he and everyone else put on his shoulders.
She offered him tea. Every damn night.
"Yes," but not too quickly to seem perfunctory or anxious.
She would set down her book on the cushion, page neatly folded over, as she walked – no, practically glided – to the stove. Silence pervaded as the water boiled, but it would give Dunban ample time to memorize every detail of her being before his stare made her self-conscious and closed off.
A mug would appear beneath his chin, and he would mutter "thanks" before shakily holding it with his good arm. She would always wait until he sipped, and then greedily drain her own. They'd exchange pleasantries – how the Defense Force training was faring ("awful," he spat out. "They can't hold a candle to what we had before the Mechon attack"), how the clinic was holding up ("better than what we experienced last week, but I fear we are becoming much too reliant on Sharla and I's expertise for the amount of patients that need more staff") before they merely had the clock ticking to interrupt their breathing.
Melia would grasp her mug with both hands as he would set his empty one down, slowly moving over to her with a fire she knew she couldn't stand against for too long. The mug would only be set down just before he would pin her with his hips against the countertop, undoing whatever was left of her hair by this hour with his good hand. Her hands would tug at his clothes, treading the thin line between shyness and desire as her lips covered her exposed neck.
There was never a set boundary to what was and wasn't allowed between them. Too afraid to upset the precarious balance they maintained. Most of the time would simply mutter "bed" between breaths and they'd make their way somehow. Melia would take his hand and lead him through the mazes of clutter and books, blushing madly all the while. Or he would stumble backwards all the way until his back hit the door, almost making him lose his grip on her bottom. There were even a few times where she would lie back on the countertop and let him crawl on top of her, but they both knew those darkened bedrooms were their sanctum, their holy place, where earthly attachments had no prescence.
It was difficult to say how this came into existence. Somewhere the definition of "friends" and "friends who have sex" was where their perpetual limbo laid. Dunban didn't want to make her feel as if having a partner was some societal duty she was obliged to uphold, and Melia couldn't let him burden himself with another person to worry about. They had enough on their plates.
They worked, in that unhealthy, codependent sort of fashion. They knew by now the contours of each other, how Melia's hands were smooth as silk, how the undersides of Dunban's knees made him writhe in ticklish agony. That he was awestruck when she made a point to press her lips to every scar that criss-crossed his torso during one of the first rendezvous, and how she remembered her embarrassed gasp when his tongue slipped past her lips for the first time. And, as time passed, how he would groan into the dip of her neck and should when he was spent and how she would curl back into herself in her moment of pleasure. And how, after everything, their parted lips couldn't bear to say anything else but "thank you" and "you're welcome" or even a cheeky "ready for another go?" How they'd fit together in sleep like puzzle pieces. How they couldn't even dare to ask for anything more, in fear of ruining an already fragile thing.
They needed this, despite their unwillingness to mention it to each other or to themselves. They needed an outlet, a way to release tension through his drawn-out and aggressive thrusts and her teasing, fervent grinding. How she fell in love with his voice and idealism and musky scent of his skin, how he couldn't forget the sounds she made when he stroked her head-wings and the feel of her hips buckling beneath him and her eyes when slits of moonlight would pass over them. How they didn't need to ask for understanding or comfort – it was always just there.
So she would let the sheet fall from her breast and turn to only be pushed down on the mattress, knowing he does everything in his power to make these nightmares stop, to replace them with something much, much better. And if he tried to leave her prone form to carry out AM inspection at the fortress, she would deftly pull on the waistband of his trousers to pool at his feet and graze his erection ever-so-lightly until he had to stay. And he would nip at her shoulders and trail down to the vee of her thighs when she began to move away from the body that wrapped around hers in sleep.
They knew this couldn't last. He should be starting a family. Setting an example. She had to reinvigorate an entire culture. They couldn't let themselves become attached.
And yet they did anyway.
And, even possibly, fell in love.
Actually, that was a lie. They knew they let those pesky emotions overtake a system they thought they had complete, firm control over. How they fell in love without ever mentioning it or knowing that they were until Melia caught herself looking up at the clinic's doors, hoping he would be dropping off supplies or another injured soldiers, and Dunban found himself tugging her into alleys and nondescript words just to see her, to feel her, to satisfy the craving that seemed would never end. How she didn't care what people thought when he made her dance to silly folk tunes in front of the entire Colony at festivals, how a smile graced his implacable face when an envelope with her sweeping handwriting would be passed to him when the mail delivery came in at the fortress.
He poured out his hopes, his fears, his dreams, his demons into her hands. She cut open freshly-healed wounds to bleed her flaws and failings and disappointments onto the limbs that intertwined with hers as they listened to rain pattering onto the tin roof. They laughed about her fear of small children ("until they are able to feed themselves, of course") and they shed tears over his inability to be both mother and father to his toddler sister.
There were more sleepless nights than not. Someone would awaken when the moon was still high and lightly tap the other or simply dive below to resume whatever activity was carried out before their respective stresses took their toll. Dunban was better at leaving when he knew Melia was deep in sleep (but she never truly was and could hear the floorboards creaking as he left). It was easier for her, after making love, (sex, fucking, whichever was the most emotionally ambiguous) to say good-bye right then, only to be asked to stay, only to leave for their respective duties from different doors at different hours.
Of course they never left the other's side.
It worked, for the most part. At least they thought it did, or wanted to think so. Fiora never commented on the occasional feminine gloves lying on their staircase, and Sharla never asked about the cravats that littered the kitchen from time to time. Melia was able to talk more, and to have others open up to her. Dunban could control his anger, and was less of a prick to the "incompetent" soldiers.
But they knew they couldn't last in a flux forever. That this purgatory wasn't created to be perfect nor permanent. That a surprise mumble or look or touch would tip the scales one way or another. When nothing would be the same.
But that day is not today, Melia thought to herself as Dunban's arms slid around her torso and she turned her face towards his. No, definitely not today, where she could exchange regret and sadness for pleasure and joy with the man she loved.
But it would come soon. One day. And she doubted she would be ready for it.
A/N: Thanks for reading!