Summary: They met by accident one August afternoon. The incident happens three times. They become friends. He doesn't tell her that he's been crushing on her since day one. He's her friend. Surely, that's enough?
(or: the All-Human Modern AU, First Meeting-to-Friends-to-Lovers-kinda-Slow-Burn that I needed and ended up writing because somebody had to do it. Now edited. Now has a serious outline, so let's just hope I won't be too lazy. If I am, I'm sorry, I did my best. Please, R&R. Please! Title because I'm a Virginia Woolf fiend. Quotes because I love Keats)
Rating: T-M
A/N: Sorry if it's too sentimental or cliché or, well, too much. I've been hitting a dry spell with this one, never finding the right tone or anything. I think I had six to eight drafts, and lemme tell ya it was a piece of work to get through. (This is why I can't write sentiment)
"The Lighthouse"
V
"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full
And the harvest's done.
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
(La Belle Dame Sans Merci, v.1-12, J. Keats)
The setting sun poured out swirls of molten gold, painting the horizon in watercolours of peach, orange and pomegranate. Treetops, flower buds, vegetable shoots basking in the light seemed to blush. Eyes lost in contemplation of the landscape before him, Rubeus smiled somewhat wistfully. He should take a picture of this, shouldn't he? Keep a memento of the beauty before him. (That was what the camera on his smartphone was about, right?) Send it to Minerva. In short, share the experience with his (best) friend. He knew she'd love it. After all, she enjoyed relaxing on the old oak bench and contemplating the back garden as it faded into the forest. Had loved how, in wintertime, the frost had covered the branches in fairy-lights, like sugar-spun mirrors of silver glittering in the sunlight.
With a clink and a fshizz, he opened his bottle of Carling and downed a great gulp of lager. Some of it fell into his beard and he tried to brush it off with his sleeve. He made a few clicks on his phone, and the picture was sent.
He awaited her reply with bated breath, not that he'd ever admit to it. In fact, he'd try to deny it if anyone asked. (His body language would betray him anyway.)
He hoped to entice her to come down and relax this weekend. Mrs Jones was doing a special for Saturday tea, and Minerva could probably use the break. The poor woman had been swamped with work lately what with going on a school trip to Rome for a week with her Year 5 (her minions as she liked to call them, which she would fiercely deny if they asked), submitting to the utter joy that were the compulsory training programmes, marking and balancing grades, attending teachers' meetings and parent-teachers evenings, and so on. Not to mention that, being Deputy-Head, she had plenty of other duties that didn't have to bother with.
Yeah, she'd need a break, alright, before she exploded from the sheer stress and exhaustion. (Personally, he thought she worked far too much, but try telling her that, right?) He gulped down some more beer and scratched Fang's head, then looked down as his phone pinged.
":)"
"Lovely view" 'Not as much as you, though,' he thought, then chided himself for it. There was no use for that kind of thinking. They were just friends.
"Want to come down this weekend?" he sent.
This time, he didn't even have to wait for her answer. His phone rang shrilly. (He'd have to change that horrible tune at one point to something that wasn't completely machine made).
"Hi" her soft voice announced.
"Hi"
"I'd love to come down this weekend. Not sure I'd have the time, though."
"How are ya?"
Not getting enough sleep, for one. And sick and tired of work, and I just want to relax and see you, she wanted to say.
"Well, I'm still behind on my marking, but I…. urghhhh. I'm so fed up with it!"
"Sounds like you need a break, then, l- Min."
"Yeah. Maybe. I want one, anyway."
"They're doing a special at The Lighthouse this Saturday for tea. They're bound to have your favourites" he said, hopeful. Maybe she'd take the last of her work with her, and he'd try knitting again while they both watched reruns of Bake Off on BBC iPlayer.
"'S a compelling argument, that, Rubeus"
'Da' mean ya're comin'?"
"Aye. I'll be there around 11, if that's alright? I'll bring round some groceries we could cook something, maybe?"
"Yeah" he answered in his soft gravel of a voice, a tender smile gracing his lips.
"See you on Saturday, then Rubeus?"
"Aye. Ta."
He kept on smiling, something warm and fuzzy and contented erupting in his chest. She was coming this Saturday! Oh God, it had been too long since they'd met face to face. He felt so giddy he could have danced on clouds. Literally.
He downed the remaining half of his lager.
He was already picturing it. Minerva, nerves frayed by the journey and the exhaustion, but ready to unwind far away from all the pressure from her work. Watching her unwind little by little. They'd start by unpacking her trunk. She'd giggle a bit as he'd help with her bag, and the groceries. Then, she'd join them in the kitchen, and her cheeks would be slightly flushed. Maybe her hair would be mussed, maybe it would be down. Maybe she'd raise her thin, muscular arms, her delicate wrists, her spindly hands to put her hair up. (It was always a treat to see. Her lovely neck would be bared. There'd be a gloriously enthusiastic light in her eyes, and a hint of challenge.)
And…
Yeah.
He'd get the entire day to bask in her presence. To drink in the sight of her. To make her laugh. Share stories. Admire her as she watched his woods, so bustling with life…
He cleared his throat suddenly, his face clouding.
He should stop thinking about her like this. Should stop picturing a life with her. Stop monopolising her time. Hogging her.
But he kept being clingy. Kept inviting her to outings or days together, even though he knew she was probably busy with work, because he just wanted to take care of her. (He didn't try to fool himself into thinking that that was just a friend thing. He'd gotten past that stage a long time ago.) He kept expecting her to turn him down. Mostly, if he were honest (and this seemed to be a rare moment of complete honesty with himself), he froze up completely at the idea of her becoming aware of his feelings. Clammed up entirely. Some delirious dread creeping up his spine. A sweat running down his back, a crushing his ribs, puncturing his stomach and clutching his vertebrae kind of thing.
He'd lose her.
He would, yes, if she ever learned of it.
Just the thought of that made him want to curl up on the mossy ground like a small wounded animal. Could he be any more pathetic?!
Not that he usually was such a drama king, but her friendship was precious to him. He wasn't friendless, exactly – people seemed to like him well enough in small doses – but he didn't have any kind of proper mate. Not even Tom. No one was as close a friend to him as she was. He couldn't talk with the others as he did with her. They wouldn't understand.
He shivered suddenly. Despite the mildness of the evening, a cold wind seemed to have started to blow. Well, the weather had only recently turned warmer here, in Northumberland. After all, it was only late April.
Fang yapped, and nuzzled his leg, asking for his walk. With a sigh, Rubeus tried to push all the gloom away. He got up, scratching the dog's head.
"Come, Fang." Excited barking answered him, and a tail wildly wagging. He snorted, and it turned into a full belly laugh.
"Excited for ya walk, are ya, boy?"
He tried to focus on the dog as they walked to the exterior of the village. He wasn't in the mood to meet anyone in the street and have to make small talk. He was tired. Too tired, he realised to keep on fighting with himself. To try to keep thoughts of her away from his brain. Too tired of finding himself wanting again and again and again, he realised with resignation.
Of course, he was attracted to her from the start. But he'd been mindful. Tried to stop himself from falling. Because that was the thing, she was totally his type. Strong and soft and bad-tempered, too. And nothing would come out of it. Nothing. He knew that. Had known it right then as he took in the sight of her for the first time.
He was nothing, nobody. Just the gamekeeper of an obscure village in the middle of Northumberland. A man with no ambition. No desire but to keep his dog and his cottage and his woods. He wasn't good enough, would never be good enough for her. He'd once reflected that she was so far out of his league that she was in the stratosphere while he was stuck on earth. He was wrong. She was up there with the moon and the stars. A friendship with her was already more than he'd dared hope. And Rubeus knew to be content with his lot in life.
So how had it happened?
He remembered how they'd walked in the woods on a perfect January afternoon. Everything felt crisp and fresh, a world made anew, very little humidity in the air. Just the frost and the gelid river with its meanders. With its little nooks and the wooden bridge to walk over it. How they'd burrowed themselves under layers of wool. Her pearl grey knitted beret – she'd had to let her hair down and it was framing her face in a cascade of ebony – and her gloves and her scarf too. And another one, old-lady-pink as he liked to call it, which he'd lent her. (Her own scarf wasn't thick enough.) Her cheeks and her nose were reddened by the icy air, and she was laughing at his antics while Fang was running ahead of them. He'd turned his head towards her, and her eyes held such a fond look that he'd felt warmed just by it. He'd have taken off his scarf would it not have been completely ridiculous and unexplainable to do so.
Had this been it? The point of origin? The first time he'd felt the adrenaline rush, the pull towards her?
Lovesick fool that he was! Pathetic oaf!
Oh, it had happened at the Christmas Market, probably. When she'd blushed a bit – again- as she apologised – again – for her behaviour the time before.
He knew that the sound thing, the reasonable thing to do would be to not see her again for a while. At least until his heart was mended a little.
He couldn't.
He really couldn't.
If he was like after only two weeks of not seeing her, how could he not spend time with her? These days, the warmth of her smiles was sometimes enough to sustain him, he felt.
Aye, at times, when she smiled just so, the fondness in her eyes near scorching in its brightness and warmth, she took his breath away. (She was brighter, more complex than the proverbial starlight. Her smiles were the taste of rich dark chocolate. The roughness of the mossy bark and the smell of humus too. The scent of freedom in the summer and scavenged raspberries. The crinkling of a fire at Christmastime when all the family had gathered around it.) Whenever she smiled, the words were stuck in his throat. His heart, his foolish beast of heart hammered in his chest, begging begging begging to be released. Or at least for him to speak the words. The ones that nearly tumbled out of his mouth before he'd catch himself and smile like a fool. "I love you. I love you. IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.") He felt the urge to kiss her and steal the breath from her lungs, nourish himself with her taste, her oxygen, the core of her. In those moment he was always one second from giving her everything. "What do you want, Min? I'll give it t'ya, I swear. Everything. The entire world. The moon and the stars. And my woods. They're yours. All that I am and my heart. It's yours. I'll never ask for it back, I promise. Just, please, keep it safe." He usually just grinned like an idiot.
So, yes. He would keep seeing her. She was his best friend, although he always wondered why. "Why do you waste so much time on the washed-out me? Don't you have better things to do than humouring me with your friendship? Better places to be? Aren't ya tired yet?" ("Because you're you." She would have answered had he asked.) He yearned for her in silence, with no close friend to talk with but her. Burning for company, he was. A touch-starved beast. A famished heart. Seeking seeking, always seeking her…
With a shaky sigh, he brushed away a tear that had traitorously rolled down his cheek and shook himself back together. They were back in front of the house. The walk was finished. He let Fang in and went inside, closing the door behind him.
