A/n: Thanks go out to Paladin Dragoon, who was the only one to have reviewed this at the time I decided to move on. Yes, there are a few chapters which are short. I kept that one brief because the original had some…interesting details. I don't want to be too graphic since my writing on this site is still in its infancy.
This chapter contains some het type stuff, nothing too graphic, pretty fluffy and sweety-sweet. I am not a sweety-sweet type of person, so go ahead and mock me if it's atrocious….
Nikki
Pleased:
Decrescendo
It was the time of the coda: legato; sostenuto. It was the dream reversed, the sediment of magic, sound and rhythm peeling layer by layer into the silence...my signal to relax at last. This table, this side-lit mirror that would tell me where I had missed a spot in my careful nightly cleansing, were parts of the ritual. I wasn't a religious man, but this came as close to prayer as any priest's kneeling and candle-lit midnight vigils. I was just praying to a different god, that was all.
Slowly, somewhere between eye shadow and lipstick, the tension in my back began to ease, the knot between my shoulder blades to come untied. Between the last wash of cleanser and the bath to wash away adrenaline and sweat from my skin, all aches were dispelled, so that I was exhausted by the time I emerged from the bathtub.
She was at the table when I came into the bedroom; having already bathed while I was taking off my makeup, she was now taking care of her own shapely face. All she had on was a pair of pajama pants and a clip to hold her hair away from her neck and face as she washed away the last of the show. She looked more beautiful to me in that moment than she ever did after all her hours' work of preparation for a performance, perhaps because of how human she seemed as opposed to the unearthly, untouchable creature of costume and amplification. Her face contorted as she wiped paint from her cheeks, she still managed a smile as I kissed the top of her head.
"Looking good, Miki," I smiled, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"It went pretty well tonight, do you think?" she asked, now working on her forehead. "I really felt connected on stage—how about you?"
I loved how she never pretended to be self-effacing when she didn't feel like it was called for. She had performed gracefully tonight; her voice had been in exceptional condition, and she had never missed a single gesture. She knew her piece of the show had been exemplary, and she could admit it without ever seeming arrogant.
"You worked really hard," I praised her. "I wish I had five just like you—we could take over the whole world."
She shook her head. "I don't," she said, "because then you'd never know which one of us was the real me." Turning to me, she asked earnestly: "Did I get it all?"
I took her face in my hands, carefully turning it this way and that, and finally pronounced her done, unable to resist flicking the end of her nose with a fingertip. She slapped my arm with a squeak, and I blew out the light, getting into bed.
She climbed in beside me and pulled up the quilt under her chin, sighing happily and putting one arm around me. "Night," she said, tucking herself close enough that I could feel her small bare breasts against my chest. "I love you." I didn't return her embrace just yet; I remembered something she had forgotten. Rather than telling her, though, I decided to let her find out for herself.
"Ooh! I almost forgot." She sat up and pulled the clip out of her hair, reaching across me to set it down on the nightstand. I said nothing, merely enjoyed her small intrusion into my personal space. She smelled of the bath and clean bed linen, so I can't say I exactly minded.
There. "Are you finished, dear heart?" I asked as she drew the blanket up over herself again.
She giggled. "You tease me too much, Nikki." But there was no rebuke in her voice. "Goodnight."
This time I returned the arm that crept around my side, guessing she had remembered everything. "Goodnight."
