A/N: Written a while back for the tumblr prompt 'kiss in relief'.
Stolen Breath
There isn't much sound below the opera house. Even the comings and goings above, the rehearsals and the bustling crowds carry no noise to the deep cellars, buffered too completely by the walls upon walls and floors upon floors. In the night, especially, when the music has faded to no more than soft hums and whispered goodnights, the silence is encompassing, staved off only by Christine's heartbeat in her ears and the sound of her husband's breathing beside her.
It is that breath that she now listens to, the tide of it pulling in deep before flowing out once more. She feels it against her jaw, the rise and fall of a narrow chest against her side and the occasional twitch of a willowy leg tangled in hers. His hand rests over her heart, fingers drumming now and again to some unheard melody that he will no doubt jump from bed in the morning to scribble down before the distractions of day wipe the notes from his mind.
All of these movements, so familiar now, ought to steady her, she knows. It ought to steady any young wife, she tells herself, ought to be evidence enough that the night will be a pleasant one, a restful one.
But she waits. She waits and she waits and—there it is. A hitch in his breath, a stillness, a sharp inhale and a shaking exhale before he shifts, a different angle but always closer to her, and it all evens out once more.
The waiting begins anew. Like when she was a child, she recalls, and her father would teach her to count the seconds between lightning and thunder to know how close the storm was. She counts, every breath, every change. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale—there it is again.
That stretch of limbo grows shorter every night, the dead silence longer, the gasps louder. Each morning, he awakes more haggard than the one before—nothing to concern yourself with, my dear, restless dreams, nothing more. He doesn't realize that she knows, that she lies awake at night with dread coiling in her chest, all smooth-scaled and clawing at her ribs.
Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Not perfect, but calmer than it has been in a long while. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale… Exhale… She allows her eyes to drift properly shut, stroking her thumb along the back of his head, smoothing the thin strands of hair there. Inhale… Exhale… Inhale… She doesn't remember the last time she slept a full night. Exhale… When they first married? A year ago, now. Inhale… It seems like so long ago. Exhale…
She waits.
And waits.
Her eyes snap open, a leaden weight plunging through her gut.
He isn't moving.
She shoots up to sit and he falls away from her, limbs limp and unwieldy. She can feel her heartbeat in her mouth, closing the back of her throat as her hands go to his face, to the side of his throat, to his wrists, to his chest, too frenzied to absorb any of the information they might gather. Still he doesn't move and her eyes flick from feature to feature, trying to find something in the dark to latch onto, some sign of something, but all she finds is stillness, a slack jaw, his bony thinness seeming so much starker all of a sudden.
She shakes him, tears stinging her eyes as she mutters his name over and over, louder each time until she is practically shouting in her pleas, fingers digging into him through his nightshirt. Wake up, wake up, Erik, please, WAKE UP—
A gasp.
His chest heaves and he all but scrambles upright, glowing eyes bleary as he blinks once, twice in order to focus properly. He is panting, trying to catch the breath that his sleeping body had denied him. Her hand flies to her throat in an effort to quell the racing of her pulse, her own breaths trembling with a suppressed sob and her eyes shutting tight against the flow of tears that trails freely to her chin.
"Christine." His voice is gluey and rough with sleep, silver tongue clumsy over the syllables. The sob escapes in a tangle with a huff of laughter. When he coughs, says her name again, she shakes her head, surging forward to cup his cheeks with a tender ferocity, opening her eyes just long enough to find his lips and crush her own to them.
She absorbs his grunt of surprise with a soft sweep of the lip and her hands scramble to his shoulders, down his arms to grab at his hovering hands and place them on her sides. She needs to feel the solidity of him and so she leans forward until their chests are flush. He needs no further urging, a gravelly groan tingling into the back of her throat as his hands glide along her back to clutch her tighter to him. The friction of his fingers kneading into her side anchors her to him, and when he parts her lips with his own pull, the fear is forgotten in lieu of the salt of his skin.
But not for long when she feels his breath coming in short puffs against her mouth between quiet pulls, gasps suppressed for her sake. She pulls away just as he takes her bottom lip between his teeth, her hands coming to his cheeks once more. His eyes flick across her features, chest rising and falling in a stormy rhythm.
"Erik—"
Her mouth is stayed when he threads those long fingers through her hair and pulls her to him again, swallowing up any concern she might have had and replacing them with a low-thunder rumble. Her fingers rake down his cheeks, his neck, until she is gripping into the collar of his nightshirt to pull him closer again. She hears how he forces his breathing to steady, hears the rattling from his lungs, but he doesn't stop, even as she falls to her back against the downy pillows. She doesn't miss the way he sucks in another breath, turning his attention to her neck.
The tears flow down into her hair and she stymies the trembling whimper for his sake as he mutters endearments, panting between words against her ear. She thinks, by the shaking of the thumb that wipes a tear away, that he knows.
