A/N: So here you go. Your M rated chapter. It's my first attempt at an M rated piece so I'm pretty damn nervous. But I think we all need a little bit of LieselxRudy smut in our lives, don't you?
It's not going to be very graphic, but I guess I'll see how it goes.
It was a day that wore a silky, grey gown of morning, clothed in harsh, disinfectant sunlight beaming down on the shimmering, silver concrete laid out below it. Large, curling wisps of cloud bloomed and billowed, reaching towards the sky like the remnants of a smoker's cement lungs.
The constant murmur of far off gossip returned like the rustling of leaf carcasses on the Autumn ground, as it normally did on the start of each day; the small world that was Molching was awake, and crawling with life.
It was one of those mornings that resemble a twisted and - quite frankly - painfully boring limbo, each second identical to the one prior. Another moment of paper white sky; another moment of mindless marching to a grey, crumbling brick oblivion. One hour was much the same as the others, bleeding into each other at a leisurely pace like the dull raindrop veins on the smoky glass.
*October 8th, 1947
Four years and a day.
The pale curtains glowed like sun-struck eyes, glaring sleepily through cheap, industrial cotton eyelids. The room was warm and illuminated in the soft, milky half-light, giving the walls the odd and slightly ironic appearance of a blush.
It was to this symphony of indistinguishable, buzzing voices and the spluttering, throaty cough of motor engines that the Book Thief awoke.
Liesel's eyes slid open a little, peering wearily at the stream of daylight that seeped through the dragging strokes of her eyelashes. A long, impatient sigh was drawn from behind her teeth as she burrowed further under the duvet, burying herself in Germany's finest, institutional sheets. Thin, makeshift sleep crumpled over in layers, like a slab of fabric, enfolding her in a stuffy, uncomfortable embrace of sorts.
Liesel Meminger had never necessarily been a morning person.
You would have thought that she would have noticed something wasn't quite how it was supposed to be. She was an intelligent woman, perceptive, with the eyes of a thief. But it was either the unwillingness to wake up or the remains of the whiskey consumed the night before that fogged up her head like the concrete clouds outside.
There were many hints available to select from. Far too many. It was like a trail of breadcrumbs, fragments of the events beforehand. They would peek up from the corners of her peripheral vision (if she could be bothered to open her damn eyes), dancing at the edge of her unsteady mind like the folds at the edge of a page. If counted on fingers, the telltale signs would add up to a grand total of seven.
Some of them were hidden; some were glaringly obvious, laid languidly out among the scraped teeth of the dark floorboards and chipped skirting board.
There were seven standout hints to choose from.
And yet, oddly enough, Liesel discovered the insignificant, all-but-invisible eighth hint. The one she wasn't supposed to think about at the dawn of a surprising revelation. The one that anyone else wouldn't have noticed.
Then again, Liesel Meminger had never necessarily been a morning person.
As she shifted a little in her slumber, she felt an uncomfortable jab in her side through the thin quilt of the mattress. It was an impertinent prod from non other than a thick, iron spring, poking up like a bird through the branches of a tree.
That was the first alarm bell, sounding in her head.
One eye cracked opened in confusion. Never, ever in her many years sleeping at 18 Grande Strasse had mattress springs ever interrupted her sleep. Her bed was created from high-quality, goose-feather, no-springs-guaranteed goodness and this was not it.
This is the first thing she noticed. Well done, Liesel. Well done.
The seven signs followed somewhat in order after that.
Liesel pushed herself up on her elbows, rubbing her eyes with her palm. The duvet slipped from her head, revealing the room she resided in. The features of the room began to emerge in more clarity. Her eyes stung a little at corridor of light reaching through the slice in the curtains.
The first sign struck home when she noticed a corner of wooden floorboards. In her room, her floor was composed from a rich, finely embroidered rug that was a little too large for the room, and acted simply as a surrogate carpet, which - she noted - was currently absent from her view.
Two: there was a significant lack of a bookshelf, much less any actual books. That was the second warning sign that this was not her room (if that wasn't a warning sign, then I don't know what is).
Three: the air didn't taste of regality and passed-from-generation-to-generation dust, like she was now accustomed to. It tasted of cheap, newly plastered paint and the familiarly unfamiliar homely scent of dried sweat. Whose sweat, she did not quite know, so she naturally assumed it belonged to her.
Four: an empty whiskey bottle lay despondently on its side, mournfully dripping a small stream of gold like droplets of blood. Alcohol of any kind was strictly prohibited from the top floor of the Bürgermeister's home. This rule had been solidly set in place after a certain incident - a year since the bombing, at the age of fifteen, Liesel had gradually and systematically drank an entire bottle of champagne that she had stolen from the mayor's kitchen, in remembrance of her Papa. They had found her passed out on the floor of her bedroom, clutching shards of the shattered empty bottle in her bleeding, tearstained hands.
Five and six came along in such a jumble of confusion and fear, they were almost indistinguishable, hitting like a punch to the gut. Her clothes were spread across the floor like marionettes with their strings cut, seemingly tossed there in a hurry. They lay there incriminatingly, glaring resentfully up at her like murder victims. The remains, the carcasses of last night.
It was then that with a jolt, she became aware that she was wearing nothing. She was completely naked beneath the duvet. Suddenly, the sheets she had tangled herself in seemed impossibly thin, impossibly, unacceptably uncovering. Panic ate away at her bare skin like the heat that had suddenly gripped her body as she scrambled to cover herself.
Those were the first six signs. The seventh came next. The one that could have cancelled out all else, if she had bothered to pay any sort of attention.
Liesel glanced over beside her and was both astonished and awed to find Rudy Steiner fast asleep. Also completely naked.
It was that moment when her heartbeat just stopped for a second or two. She honestly hadn't been expecting this. Why she hadn't noticed his presence to begin with is completely beyond me, because it's the type of thing someone would realise first off.
Then it hit her. Everything that had happened the night before came rushing back like a hurricane, making the light, little butterflies in her belly awaken. They seemed to be eating her insides up.
She remembered why she was here.
What she had done.
Oh.
Oh.
Shit.
*October 7th, 1947*
Four years.
The night before.
Four years.
This week of the year had always been the most difficult. Of all weeks during the year, this one broke through their carefully crafted walls. It was one of those walls, built up from the rubble of their former lives, the remnants of their homes, the corpses of their childhood. It protected them from the worst of the storm.
It was a shelter of sorts, thrown together beneath their ribcages, enclosing their torn and battered hearts. It smothered every artery, every vein, like cement, corrupting her yet numbing her to the extremities of her grief. She didn't want it to be like that. But in the end, blunting her emotions was a small price to pay for it not hurting. It didn't hurt as much any more. It only hurts a little now.
After that incident with the Whistler so many years ago, Liesel had made a resolution not lose control of her emotions again. It was too much for her, too high a cost. And she didn't want to put that kind of strain on Rudy, if she could help it.
Rudy had seemingly went along with this resolution, taking it in his stride and moulding it to himself. Truthfully, he needed just as much help as she did. The image of his mother's body being carried away was the stuff of nightmares, biting at the corners of his mind ever since. It couldn't be dulled by time. But it could be oppressed.
Four years.
They survived the next four years in a somewhat peaceful oblivion, dutifully shoving away any thoughts that could potentially break them down. But it was always the same when that day came around, an anniversary of sorts, a birthday for destruction. Another year since the heartbeats of a plane's ribcage rained down upon them like snow.
It was this date that the walls would be picked apart, their shelters slowly and lagouriously destroyed, until they were bare and wildly vulnerable, open to be damaged. It was always the same. Always the damn same.
This year had found Liesel curled up by Rudy's front door, having staggered over to Herr Steiner's shop from the Bürgermeister's house. Herr Steiner, rather predictably, was out of town - he always was at this time of year - yet Rudy had stayed home. A 'closed' sign that hung neatly in the door stared down at the shaking woman that desecrated its territory.
It was relatively early evening when Rudy finally came home, finding her trembling on his doorstep.
'Hey, saumensch,' he said simply. He wasn't surprised as such. After all, it was always the same.
Liesel looked up at him through wide eyes. 'Hey, saukerl,' she murmured.
He had sat down on the doorstep beside her, apparently not caring about the passing glances of his neighbours. His arm automatically wove round her shoulders, pulling her into his neck. This always seemed to calm her down a little. That boy's neck works wonders for her. It's really quite fascinating.
He didn't need to ask what was wrong. Instead, he went directly for the next, most important question. 'How are you doing?'
'Oh I'm having a smashing time,' she spat out bitterly.
'Really? I thought it was just me.' A small laugh fell from her lips, as easily as rain, and she burrowed further into his neck.
'Aren't these things supposed to get easier with time?' she mumbled.
'Supposedly,' Rudy sighed. 'But I'd just love to punch the bastard that said that.'
'Agreed.'
They lapsed into a soft, comfortable silence that wrapped her up like a blanket. It was those silences that she longed for. Not the cold, empty ones that she faced alone; the ones she shared with her best friend, ones of peace and mingled breath and that content feeling she got when nothing needed to be said.
'Let's go somewhere,' Rudy piped up suddenly. The proposition hung in the air like a bird in flight, then flit away, the words scattering against the pavement.
'Sure,' she said. 'Where?'
'The river,' he replied. She had looked up at him then, and had seen in his childish blue eyes that the river was the only place he wanted to go, and that was fine.
She had leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, said something vaguely along the lines of 'okay', and they stood up decidedly.
'Hang on,' Rudy said, as inspiration struck his features, and he disappeared into the two-bedroomed flat above the shop. She had glanced around absentmindedly and for some reason, wondered if the plump grey clouds that filled the sky like an ocean were as soft as they looked. It's these kind of side-notes that Liesel has an impressive talent for remembering.
*October 7th, 1947*
Four years.
Rudy reappeared, a mischievous glint blossoming in his eyes like a drop of ink in water, and Liesel was reminded with a jolt of the child he once was. The child she fell in love with.
He held up a small bottle of whiskey. 'All I could find.'
'No champagne?'
'Yeah right, saumensch. You're not going near champagne ever again,' he smirked, earning him a cuff around the head.
'Oh shut up. That was three years ago.'
'I heard you tried to pick a fight with your bookcase-'
'That's not true!' she gasped scandalised, cuffing him a second time.
'Come on, you old drunk, we're wasting precious alcohol time,' he dangled the bottle in her face, the gold liquid swirling around like a pretty tornado, and she slapped it away, but the corners of her mouth were curving into a heavily suppressed grin.
He leaned forward to capture it with his own, but she pulled away. 'Only if you win me in a race.'
'So I can't kiss you unless I win you in a race?' he asked incredulously.
'For the next five years,' she said solemnly.
Rudy looked at her, then looked down the road, then back to her. 'That kiss is mine, Meminger.'
'You wish, Steiner.'
They knelt down in the dusty road, shoulder to shoulder and swallowed by a sudden serious silence, buried deep under their fingernails as they dug into the gravel. There was no attempt to shatter through it. This was business. Serious business.
Or it would have been if she hadn't cheated.
Liesel had thrown several metres between her and Rudy before he had even realised what had happened. There were several more metres between them by the time he had stumbled to his feet. And then they were running.
It always comes down to running. Always.
She could remember the way the wind brushed past her face, as if it had somewhere it had to be. She could remember pushing her way through a heaving crowd of gales, murmuring tunelessly through tree branches. She could remember the pounding of her feet as they beat the ground like bullets; the euphoric sounding of alarms in her ears as her heartbeat scraped to a higher speed.
A laugh bubbled up in her throat, tearing through the thick, suffocating grief, and was released from her lips. It had mingled beautifully with the wind in her hair and the thrumming of her wild breathing. Somewhere behind her, there had been Rudy's breathless laugh sounding out against the wind.
She wanted to scream as elation - the exhilaration of experiencing life's small joys - and anguish - the despair of loss - battled out savagely in her belly, eating at her exhausted lungs and tugging at her veins. So she had laughed. And he had laughed. Because everything was fine.
They had both laughed. And she hoped to God that they would never stop.
*October 7th, 1947*
Four years.
They could never forget.
They had reached the river in a tumbled mess of hearts and bones and laughing, always, always laughing. Rudy, being highly superior at races, had caught up to her. They were neck a neck, struggling with each other like children in a brawl. As they reached the grassy banks, Liesel stumbled, dragging Rudy down with her.
The next thing Liesel knew, once she had opened her clenched shut eyes, was that Rudy was above her trying to steady his breathing and obviously suppress the laugh that was swelling up behind his teeth.
They caught each others eye, and his laughter spilled out over her, now unrestrained, and she relished it; it tasted so sweet in her lungs.
'I win,' he murmured, a confident smirk plastered to his face.
'As I recall, no one won,' she contradicted.
Regardless, he had already leaned in, had already pressed his mouth against hers. It could have been the remains of her earlier excitement, or longing to avoid any negativity. Or it could have been the odd, swelling heat building up in her belly. Whatever it was, she had found herself pushing herself up against him, kissing him back with enthusiasm.
But he had pulled away, pushed himself off her. Trying to shove away the disappointment that clouded her, she sat up, brushing the grass from her tangled, almost German hair.
'I still think I won,' she muttered.
'Believe it all you want, saumensch, it won't make it true.' He took a swig of the honey gold liquid. Liesel laughed as he pulled a contorted face. 'Ugh, it tastes like shit.'
'And you would know how that tastes, because?'
'Hey, I've eaten my fair share of shit.'
'Franz Deutscher?'
'How did you know?'
'Rudy, I was there when you were covered in the stuff.'
'Oh yeah.'
She had pulled the cuboid bottle from his grasp, 'You must be drinking it wrong.'
Then she had taken a gulp of it herself. Her throat had stung with fiery bites as the whiskey ran down it, catching in her chest. The rest was sent flying into the earth with her saliva as she spat it back out.
'You know,' she said thoughtfully, smacking her lips, 'It does taste like shit.'
'Let me try it again,' he said, reaching for the bottle.
The next hour passed as a stubborn competition between Liesel and Rudy, attempting to outdo each other's attempts at keeping the stuff down. As the dark seeped into the pale evening sky, the whiskey disappeared centimetre by centimetre, another inch of putrid gold gone. The bottle was passed between the two, and they gulped it down. It was a dare of sorts, an unspoken challenge to test the boundaries they couldn't possibly have crossed any other day.
*October 7th, 1947*
Four years.
She would make herself forget.
As the evening drifted lazily into another frosty Autumn night, the taste of the alcohol lost its sting, even started to taste almost pleasant, in that perverse, bitter way. Before they knew it, the bottle was empty.
They weren't drunk as such, as it wasn't a large bottle. But the spirit had woven its way into their bloodstream, making them jollier than usual, and a lot more giggly. They had even ended up singing - yelling - the German national anthem, very poorly out of tune, because Liesel and Rudy had never necessarily been able to sing that well.
In retrospect, it was probably a stupid idea to drink half a bottle of whiskey. Liesel had been hoping to blunt her grief, and it had worked. Mostly. Though it was good for a distraction, it all but shattered that wall she had built up over the years, as honestly, alcohol was great for scratching away the protective surface, leaving old wounds revealed and vulnerable. She was liable for attack. It would have been simply too easy to break her down then.
Around nine (not that they had any way of telling the time), a steady pulse of rain began to fall, dripping down their necks and arms. In a buzz of exhilaration and over-sentimentality, they had run, laughing, forever laughing, away from the river, Liesel dragging the singing empty bottle through the air behind her.
They reached Rudy's front door, giggling like children, as the rain began to thicken, dribbling down their faces. That was how they stood for the next five minutes, desperately trying to delay the inevitable: the moment when Liesel would force herself to walk away, go home, and fall into another nightmare that would be waiting just for her.
*October 7th, 1947*
Four years.
It would always come back.
It wasn't long before the giggling stopped, and they looked at each other. Rudy gazed sadly down at her, always seemingly on the verge of saying something, anything, to prevent what was to come.
'Do I have to go?' she pleaded, the words slipping from her mouth before she could stop them.
Rudy said nothing, but simply looked at her tenderly, rain running down his face.
'Please,' she whispered, 'Help me forget.'
He gulped, and nodded, still unable to say anything. Instead, he reached forward, cupping her damp face in both hands, and kissed her.
'Stay with me,' he murmured into her lips.
She nodded numbly, kissing him back in desperation, her thin arms wrapping round his neck. Precipitation painted their skin, yet there they had stayed, locked in an embrace.
There was a movement beside her, and somehow the door was open - Rudy must have unlocked it - and suddenly, she was being backed into a wall, a door, something.
He was so close, pressing her up against the cool, white wallpaper of the hallway. She could remember the taste of the liquor on his warm breath, the raindrops on his lips. It was oddly delicious. She kissed each shard of rain off his mouth, relishing the feel of it. His tongue slid between her teeth, and she welcomed it gladly. That golden swelling in her belly had returned, burning at the knot of her stomach like a fire. His fingers gently dragged her damp, dark yellow hair over her shoulder as he pressed his lips softly against the newly bare, tender skin of her neck.
His hands had crept down from her face to her hips, lifting her up so that she was level with his intense, blue gaze. Her fingers tangled in his lemon hair as she pulled him closer, her legs wrapping round his waist. His mouth was travelling across her face, her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks, anywhere he could reach was attended to by his lips. It felt glorious.
She could remember that vague sensation of being carried, seemingly up a flight of stairs if she was not mistaken. Then another door had opened, and for some reason, she had realised that she had been clutching the bottle entire time. It fell from her grasp and hit his bedroom floor with a musical thud.
Then another surface had come up to greet her: Rudy's bed. She was laid carefully down, seconds later joined by Rudy settling above her. Again, her fingers wove into his hair, pulling his lips down to hers. He kissed her with a hunger, grazing his teeth against her bottom lip in an odd, burning frustration and making her breath catch in her throat.
Liesel hadn't been sure what exactly was going on. Normally, she would have pushed away this behaviour as stupid hormonal lust. Something she needn't worry about because it hardly concerned her. It was true that every so often, she would lose herself in Rudy's embrace, but she would always be clear-headed enough to stop it before it had gotten too far.
But fear of loneliness had made her reckless. It had made her long for his touch. Powered by the burning, golden fizz of the alcohol in her chest, she was drunk on his love; she drowned in his kisses and knew that she had never wanted anything else. Nothing else existed to her in that moment. Only Rudy's lips, his rough, tender lips brushing across her throat.
She remembered at that point that she was pulled into a kneeling position opposite Rudy as he carefully began to tug off layers of her clothing. She had obliged, gently pulling off his own clothes. Slowly, steadily, they had systematically undressed each other in a soft, thoughtful silence; removed all that separated them, piece by piece, reaching over to touch or kiss another patch of bare skin that had been revealed for the first time. It was almost like mapping uncharted lands; Rudy was already taking mental notes of each bump or line of her body as he kissed each in turn. His fingers played each protruding rib from under her skin like piano keys.
She had tried to avoid looking at him. She was afraid what she'd find if she did. Somehow, the image of Rudy would always remain to her that smug, grinning boy who ran races in the street, that's how it always should be. And she assumed it was the same for him, for no matter what he discovered or exposed, his eyes always seemed to flit back to her face, that one dearly familiar feature of hers that he knew well in the wake of this new territory.
And she was worried what he would find. Bones jutted out from under her skin in odd places, having never really been able to overcome the malnourishment of her childhood. Her flesh was uneven, marked with the Führer's signature stamped all over her body. The long, thin scar snaking across the back of her neck from the bite of the parade day whip. The numerous brushes of grey from the bruises that never quite went away. The harsh but loving kisses of goodbye from Himmel as the rubble embraced her like a child. Her body was an imperfection, a blot on a page of words.
As the last few scraps of modesty were unravelled from her, as she became bare, her arms moved to cover herself, cover the imperfections. It wasn't something she had generally thought about, let alone worried about, but she had never expected to be in this situation. But there she was, wrapped in her best friend's arms as he slowly and sweetly took her apart. She didn't want him to see what was underneath. It would hurt too much.
She felt her arms being gently pulled away from her body. 'Don't,' she whispered pleadingly, her eyes clenched shut.
There was a moment of deafening silence. Then she felt him pull her close, bury his face in her neck and murmur into her skin, 'Schön.'
Then his lips devoured her, kissed every inch of her that he could find, as if she were as sweet as vanilla, as if she were as complete and whole and pure and utterly wonderful as he made her feel. Her eyes fluttered closed as his fingers caressed the imperfections, made them his, as carefully and lovingly as if she were made of glass, and she felt her lips part in a silent cry of fear and euphoria.
It was around that point that he had pulled her into his lap, so that she straddled him. It was also when Liesel felt a cold pang of fear brush down her spine. It was going too fast, speeding ahead to an unknown outcome. Yet she pushed forward, plunged deeper into the void.
Everything had frozen, just for a minute, as he rested his forehead against hers and tried to steady his breathing. His eyes met hers and held them, as he reached up and brushed the hair from her face, silently asking her the question she had no idea how to answer. This was the crossroad. This determined what came next.
And when she had looked into the deep, lustful blue of his eyes, she had seen fear. He was as afraid as she was, and for some reason, she found she loved him so much more for that. He was still that hopeful boy with the smug grin that ran races in the street. The boy next door. Her Rudy.
He didn't look to her for permission, he looked to her for reassurance.
*October 7th, 1947*
Four years.
Only he could make her forget.
She had held him close, kissed his forehead, and nodded, almost imperceptibly, but it was enough for Rudy.
Then there was pain. A powerful ache between her legs seemed to split her in half, rippling through her bones as he moved into her, and she winced, digging her nails into his shoulders. Rudy had groaned, gripping her waist. There was a pause, in which they had gathered themselves a little bit. Then it continued.
It was quite odd when she thought about it. The gripping soreness was a different kind of pain, nothing like she had ever known. It was bittersweet, and oddly gratifying, in a perverse, satisfactory way. It rolled through her system in waves, biting impertinently at her insides.
Beautiful, beautiful pain it was.
Rudy's name was forever printed on her lips as it was released in small gasps against his skin. He kept her close, one arm wrapped round her waist, his other hand stroking her hair as she buried her face in his shoulder, trying to stifle the yelps of pain. His lips stayed pressed tenderly to her neck as he rocked into her. He did not let a sound break from behind his teeth.
Liesel had not dared to look at what was going on below her. Truthfully, it had frightened her, more than any other experiences she had collected that night. It was a terrifying concept, how their bodies were seemingly joined. Of course, she knew the biological process; God knows, she had sat through enough damn health classes in her final year at school. But she kept her eyes clenched shut, bearing against the aching waves that seemed to be growing in size and frequency, hoping in equal measure that it would be over, yet not wanting it to end.
She could remember it suddenly picking up in speed. It hurt, growing steadily into a tsunami, a storm that she had to ride out. She could remember the tears stinging her eyes as the storm began to ravage her, sending her into stiff, savage spasms. Rudy seemed to be experiencing a similar afflictions as his movements picked up pace. Their panting mingled together in the hot, heavy air.
Her head tipped back as his lips ran across her collarbone. Her arms wrapped tightly around his neck and he laid small kisses across her shoulder. In a stab of sharp impatience and desire, she turned her head and caught his lips against her own, and she could taste a deep moan rising longingly from his throat.
There was an odd, swelling sensation in the tight knot of her stomach, rising up in her lungs like a volcano of delicious, burning glory until, finally, it was released from her lips in a hoarse cry of pain. Rudy's arms tightened around her, gripping her skin as he groaned again into her shoulder, a long, drawn out sound that burnt with desire, coupled with a gentle bite on her neck, then subsided.
Then there had been silence. Silence and the calming of breath. They had clung to each other, eyes closed, as they tried to settle their thudding heartbeats. Her fingers reached up to grasp his face in trembling hands and she leaned forward and kissed his lips, soft and true and exhausted, as his hands gently knotted in her tangled hair and held her there.
She rolled backward, pulling him with her, so that his head rested on her chest. She could feel his short exhales across her skin as she stroked his lemon hair.
'Hey saumensch,' he said.
Liesel smiled. 'Hey saukerl.'
She could remember being dragged down into the duvet with him as he pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her, and laid kisses across her lips. It was hard to tell what came next. Reality and fantasy began to distort in a spectrum of monochrome as she drifted into a troubled, dream-filled sleep, listening to the warm sound of Rudy's pulse and his slow breathing in her hair.
She dreamt of several things. A snowman in the basement; her Papa's gentle voice, squeezed out between two accordion lungs; and most prominently, the thought of Rudy Steiner naked, like she had at the confused and disturbed age of thirteen. He glowed in the dark, like he had so many years ago.
It was with these troublesome, yet oddly contented images, that the Book Thief fell into another morning.
Four years.
*October 8th, 1947*
Four years and a day.
The morning after.
Liesel clutched the duvet to her rapidly pounding heart as the memories flooded her mind, the images tumbling over each other in a wave of panic. Her thoughts were cracked and in a state of disorder at the hands of their golden, alcoholic creator, yet vividly clear, blazing under her eyelids.
'Shit...' she murmured. 'Shit.'
She looked down at Rudy, sleeping soundly, still buried in heavy layers of slumber. She was torn between the whorish longing to wake him so that he could wrap her up with some kind of reassurance - probably the more awkward decision - or the cowardly desire to retreat back to 18 Grande Strasse like the stupid slut she was.
The latter option seemed the better, slightly more honorable, choice, yet it didn't stop her proceeding with the first.
'Rudy?' she said pleadingly. 'Rudy, wake up.'
One perfect German eye cracked open in confusion as Rudy gazed around the room for the source of the familiar sound. His sleepy gaze fell on Liesel's curled up form beside him, and he frowned, as if trying to piece together a puzzle in his subconscious state - a fairly impossible feat.
'Rudy,' she said, a little louder.
Lucidity bloomed in his blue eyes as he looked at Liesel a second time, this time a look of recognition on his face. She waited patiently for it to dawn on him. His eyes widened and he sat up in shock.
'Oh shit.'
There you go.
'Rudy,' she said. He looked around at her with an expression of pleading denial, and she found she had literally nothing to say. They looked at each other in mutual speechlessness, the Book Thief and Jesse Owens undone.
'We-' he gulped, then began again. 'We did it, didn't we?'
Liesel let out a long puff of air. 'We did.'
'Oh.'
They fell into another silence, suffocated by the colossal event that over shadowed them. Humans, I suppose.
'Did it- did it hurt?' he asked across the silence, his voice enveloped by it.
'Yes,' she admitted. 'Quite a lot.'
'Oh God, Liesel, I'm sorry.' His arm reached across to hug her and then snatched back, a look of panic in his eyes, as if he would hurt her by his touch alone. There was a moment where she thought: where common sense and love were dragged battling into the spotlight as she weighed them up. Of course, the latter won.
Her fingers reached out and brushed the lemon hair from his forehead. When he didn't shrink from her, she slid across the mile wide stretch of mattress between them so that she was curled up beside him. The was a split second hesitation, then Rudy's tentative arms wrapped around her, pulling her into his body. It felt as if a barrier had broken, as if the restraint he had clearly tried to set in place had crumbled as she buried into his embrace.
'I'm sorry,' he mumbled again.
'Shut up, saukerl. It wasn't your fault,' she cuffed him lightly, smiling.
'What do you mean?'
'I was acting like an idiot,' she sighed, 'I should have gone home.'
He looked at her, his expression soft. 'I'm glad you didn't.'
'I know,' she smiled sadly. 'I'm glad I didn't.'
His hand reached across her face and pulled her lips to his, and she melted into his arms, rolling back with him so that he was on top of her. Instinct - stupid, stupid instinct - urged her to pull him back into the bed and let him take her again. But Liesel knew that her instincts had gone to shit as soon as she had asked to stay. It would be a long, long time before she would rely on them again.
'Besides, you did what I asked,' she shrugged, pulling away.
'Which was?' he prompted her.
She looked up, her rusty eyes painted with ice blue. 'You made me forget.'
He leaned forward again and caught her mouth in another kiss. 'You made me forget too,' he said softly against her lips. She smiled, and could taste his smile as well.
He broke off and grinned. 'So how much of that would you say was fuelled by the whiskey?'
'Ninety eight percent,' she said, 'Give or take.'
'And the other two percent?'
'Now there's a good question,' she said thoughtfully, 'Hormones? Over-sentimentality? Something along those lines.'
'Sounds about right.'
A laugh bubbled up in their throats, glorious and tired, and they settled back into the pillows. Liesel's head nestled into his throat, breathing in the homely scent of peace and dried sweat.
'Did you know what you were doing?' she asked in curiosity.
'Nope. You?'
'Why the hell would I know anything about this?'
'Good point.'
There was a moment of contemplation, as Liesel thought about the events beforehand - the texture of his lips against her skin, the taste of the moan rising in his lungs - and tried not to let the passionate jumbled mess of panic and lust rise in her throat.
'Did you enjoy it?' he asked tentatively.
'I don't know,' she said. 'Sort of. It was strange but...nice. Do you know what I mean?
'Yeah,' he said. 'It was weird, but I liked it.'
'I guess it's the type of thing that you get better at with time,' she shrugged.
'So do you want to try it again?'
'Fuck no.'
He laughed. 'So can I go back to sleep?'
'Go ahead.'
He reached down and dragged the duvet over them, hugging her close to him. Warm, black oblivion began to settle over them once again like a layer of dust. They drifted off a second time, buried in that satisfactory sense of victory that came with getting through that day.
*October 8th, 1947*
Four years and a day.
They had escaped.
They were victorious.
A/N: Holy crap, I hadn't expected it to be this long. This is the longest chapter I've ever written. Wow.
Anyway, like I said, this is my first smut piece, and I really hope it was okay, because I found it very difficult to write. I still feel like it isn't the best that it could be, but in the long run, I'm glad I wrote it.
I hope you enjoy it, and please leave a review.
(For future reference, I wrote a lot of this while listening to Salty Seas by Dévics. It's a beautiful song, just sayin')
