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Set directly after the previous chapter and told in Christian POV, having returned home.
I thought he had gone.
I crouch here where he once was and my mind mocks my heart for its delusion. As if he could ever go from me. As if there could be a time when the realms of possibility would meet with the removal of him from me. As if I would ever want it if it could.
If he were to leave I have no grasp of what would be left of me.
His body walked from mine, treaded through the door in which my back now slides, and out to them, in surrender. I know it happened. I did not dream it.
It means nothing now.
If away from me he breaks, if without my touch he aches, then that he is gone was the real lie.
He never left.
...
My teeth dent my lower lip to hide a laugh filled smile, and I watch his tumbled scurry from the view of the bed: my favourite new pastime.
Bare skin half covered in linen shield, hidden feet shuffle under crimson sheet. No walk from a bed to a fridge has ever been as sweet.
With a make shift dance of scuttle and trip, a train of bed clothes follows him in his mission led path.
One hand clinged to waist to hold wayward sheet, one grabbed on handle to open the fridge; watching his muddled determined wrestle can only leave my cheeks with a grin.
"Are you having some difficulty?" I whisper to his strand laced ear; my body pressing his to show I am there. The half let shiver and muscles tensing under skin tells me every last cell is alive and aware.
"No..." and I know exactly the face he is pulling with no need for sight. "...I'm fine thank you," he says, losing the battle with disobedient cloth
In passion and heat he gives himself freely, lays his self bare for me, in skin and in soul. Open, he offered all to me minutes before, and I took it completely. Moments later he is timid, within himself, and I let him be. He is shy inside, holds a delicate blush of private reserve, and I would do all things to protect it.
I will let him be him with me, in every form that takes.
"Here," I murmur low, as I move both hands to grab falling sheet, and wrap it in modest gather at the dip of his back.
His chest takes a heightened breath in and gentle pink flush tiptoes onto that beautiful neck.
"Thank you," he says.
...
My eyes are broken now I have seen his fate, they see him sad and they refuse to see truth at all. Wet irises look up from the floor in which I sit and need no push to tell my heart he is here/the lie/the familiar comfort of the lie.
He is sprawled out within my bed, gorgeous bones wrapped in crumpled sheets, and a sleep laced moan falls from his parting lips. That little murmur that slides from dreamy bliss and makes my skin hum when it traces/tracing my neck. He is stretching slow with that half complaint frown, and rubbing a soft palm over drowsy brows. Dark strands flop in adorable boyish mess, and he is smiling in that way that is saved only for me.
He is not here because I need it, although I will not pretend I do not.
Out in the world he looked at me, hopeless and small, and I know not a thing has changed. He is mine, as he ever was, because he needs me, as he ever did.
...
My arms wrap his delicate waist, hands cup the base of his spine, and we stand, in perfect stillness. His nestled head in the crux of my chest and warm shallow breath on the tip of my skin, I cannot help but think it.
He is mine.
With the click of the door, our little world is sealed in tight. There is another, noisy and rough, it sits out there waiting, we are both too aware.
Yet with the radio sounds and our skin pressed in warmth, we sense nothing but each other. Doubt and tomorrow and the sadness they bring gain no entry. I will not bring them here. He does not need that from me and though questions plague every hour, I do not desire to.
If he needs to be held, then I will hold him. If he needs to forget, then I will let him. If he needs to be calm, then I will be still.
Today, with the joining caress of melody and my touch, we are still.
I feel his body move within my protecting grasp. He begins to sway, very slow. I would barely know it but with the curl of his lip on my collar bone flesh and the flicker of his pulse beating fast onto mine, my heart picks up every change. Gently, he sways.
"How's such a baby a fan of Ben E. King?"
The opening beats thud slow through the room and my fingers trace his skin in time with the tune.
"I like...I like the film it's from," he says. "It's my favourite."
"Ah 80s then. That sounds right," I smile. "It's a sad one. You're a softy really aren't you?"
"Me?", he lifts his head.
"Don't worry, I won't tell a soul," I promise in a hush.
"Funny," he faux frowns and rests back where he began. "I don't think it's that soft, kind of nice..."
My hands guide his hips, my thighs brush his side and I move us slow to the beat with barely a change.
He drifts with a whisper "...people change, like you weren't who you were to begin with, or who they thought you were...things always change, but none of that matters...they love you anyway..." and he catches himself "...or something like that..." he murmurs. "...anyway, it's a good film."
"Sounds it," I say, with a kiss to dark thick locks.
The melody runs, the words fill the air, and with our bodies in time, in this moment I know he is mine.
...
At times I have found myself thinking I want him to be happy. I have told myself that there is part of me that is selfless enough. I did not need to tell a single part of me that I love him enough.
But he is not.
Tonight, with barely a word, he screamed it out.
"They'll be wondering where I am."
The pain laced duty rings through my ears and aches my eyes.
They do not know who he is and they do not care. If this is how they treat his beauty then they do not deserve to set their gaze upon it. There can be no point in the abandoning if it only serves to make him weak.
If that is what they choose to do with him then I choose to take him back.