This one is inspired by a song I love dearly: Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues. I feel like this sucks, but writing something is better than nothing for daily practice, esp. during a hell week when I've had to grade way too many midterms while trying to handle election stress!

N: NIGHTS IN WHITE SATIN

Nights in white satin, never reaching the end,
letters I've written, never meaning to send.
Beauty I'd always missed, with these eyes before,
just what the truth is, I can't say anymore,
and I love you, yes I love you, oh how I love you!

She was a vision to behold in any season, he could admit as much. But there was something about Cindy Vortex in the dead of winter that just about stopped his heart. As the snow fell down in swirling patterns outside his apartment, he remembered exactly why no other relationship had ever felt quite as right as this one. Her breath coming out in little puffs in the icy air, her distinctly agreeable jasmine scent, her dazzling green eyes, the way she tugged at his coat sleeve when she disagreed with something he said.

They had fought, and they had sent each other letters (handwritten ones, because Cindy said she liked to keep them in a box under the bed when he was away and castigate him for his STEM-brain scrawl over the phone, but really, he knew it was because she missed him). They had sworn each other off, and they had been unable to keep their hands off one another. Arguments were the currency they had been dealing in since childhood, but he wouldn't trade their messed up dynamic for the world.

He watched her look of concentration as she removed her contacts and started to unfasten her earrings. She shimmied out of the elegant beige dress she'd worn to the award function they had attended that night, until she was clad in just a white satin slip that cut off just above her knees. Her lithe silhouette was mesmerizing. He spotted the clasp of a chain sitting faithfully below the nape of her neck. No matter what else she took off, she never let that pearl out of sight. Sometimes, when they were yelling at each other, he noticed that her hand would go almost instinctively to the pendant, as if to assure herself that things would be alright. He loved that she wore it everyday. He loved how delicate it looked against her soft skin.

When she turned around to face him, he did a double take.

"What?"

His mouth couldn't make words.

"You've seen me wear far less before." She smirked. "No need to get this excited every time you see a girl undress, Neutron."

"Well, I know, but..." His voice trailed off as she sat on the arm of the chair he was settled into.

She laughed. "Dazed and confused much?"

He set a light hand on her knee, noticing her barely perceptible intake of breath.

"You're hardly just any girl, Vortex." He pointed out.

"That, I'll admit is true. I'm simply better."

"I don't know. There are some gorgeous, brilliant women at MIT."

"Well, geniuses come a dime a dozen at Harvard." She countered.

"Do they, now?" His hand edged a little further up her leg, touching the lace fringe of her slip.

"Getting frisky, James?"

"I don't know, do you do this with the other supposed geniuses at Harvard, Cynthia?"

"That's none of your business."

"Well, I'm making it my business." He pulled her onto his lap in one swift motion.

The room was so silent that he swore he could hear the rapid pulse of her heart. A familiar heat grew between them.

And then. So quietly he barely heard her at all. "What are we doing?"

He failed to understand the question. She knew where this was going. Where it always went. She was smart enough to figure that out. Surely—

"Is it always going to be like...this?" There was something new in her piercingly direct gaze.

On impulse, he gently reached over to touch a small wisp of her golden blonde hair.

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean?" She repeated. "I mean, what...is this? Where is it going?" There was a slightly frustrated tone to her voice.

"Cindy—"

"I know you have your pick. You made your point."

"So did you." He retorted.

"That's different. I-"

"Enlighten me, Vortex, how is it any different?"

"God, Neutron, of course it's different. Just because you're on the cover of Time, don't go thinking that I'll just simper over you like the others. I am perfectly capable of finding someone else."

"When did I say you were incapable—" He was confused. "If you want to get it on with some half-wit, be my guest, I'm not holding you back." The minute he'd said it, he felt regret wash over him. Why couldn't he control his tongue around her? Old habits die hard, they say...

Now he'd really done it. She got up off him and started to rummage for her dress.

"Cindy, where are you going?"

"I'm leaving since you can't be bothered to tell me what this even is without insulting me." Neutron, if there was any time to just admit you love her, it would be now.

"We always insult each other. That's what we do." That's what you say instead?

"Do you love me?" She asked point blank.

"What?" He was shocked, frozen to the spot. Could she read his mind?

"Did that big brain of yours short circuit?" She mocked, holding her dress but not bothering to actually put it back on.

He stood there, looking at her stupidly, and thought he saw a flash of pain cross her face.

"Well, thought so. It's been about as much fun as always." She started to gather her things and he willed himself to say something. Anything.

"Do you love me?" He turned the question on her, hoping to buy a little time.

"That's not fair and you know it."

"How is it not fair, Vortex?"

"You know the goddamn answer. You always have, haven't you?"

He shook his head. "No. I don't know the answer. Really."

"Now you're just being mean, aren't you?" Her mouth curdled into a frown to keep from crying and she tried to push past him.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and felt her tense up immediately. "Hey, wait. I'm not trying to be mean." He glanced at her earnestly. "Really, Cindy, I mean it."

"You know, perfectly well," Her voice broke, "that I've loved you since we were kids, and you just want me to say it so I'll be humiliated and you can lord it over me for the rest of our lives...I know you didn't feel the same way. That this is just a fun little game you play to amuse yourself. I'm not cerebral enough for the great James Neu-"

He cut her off with a kiss. She wasn't expecting it, but she didn't pull away. At first.

"What the hell, Jimmy?"

"This is not a game to me." He said seriously.

"You don't have to pity me, you've already gotten some embarrassing material out of this."

"I don't pity you, and I don't think you're embarrassing. I think you're...magnificent." He offered, awkwardly. "And how could you ever think I didn't...feel for you? That I don't...love you?"

Now Cindy was the one at a loss for words as he fingered the dainty links of her golden chain until he felt the smooth roundness of the pearl in his grasp.

"No one could ever compare."

"You mean it?" There was a vulnerability in her he'd never seen before. A kind of guarded softness.

"I don't lie."

"So that means you weren't lying about the MIT girls." She teased. He could hear an edge of slight jealousy there, though.

"You said it yourself. None of them are you. It has always been you, and it will always be you. I hoped you knew as much."