Star
Peace and quiet was a rare commodity in the line of business he'd fallen into lately, and he couldn't quite tell whether it was the peace or the quiet that really caught him off-guard.
The quiet was explained easily enough; there were few of the Mansion's residents willing to come to the roof and fewer still foolhardy enough to disturb his habitual place of brooding. Four stories up, the late night stars didn't seem any closer, but the ground was calm and far away. Hanging between Heaven and Earth, things were quiet, subdued. Time slowed and distorted out of measure.
The peace was harder to quantify. He was sure it had quite a lot to do with the warm body he curled his arms and legs around, confident it stemmed from the white-streaked brown his face rested carefully against. She was calm and still, and between them, things were easy. He wasn't sure why--he never quite understood the ebb and flow of their relationship--but between the cool breeze of the night air and the plain clean scent of her shampoo, he didn't care to know 'why'. Normally, he would be half-holding his breath, waiting for it all to fall apart, but tonight, somehow, was different.
Shifting carefully against her hair, he turned his face upwards towards the sky. Out here in the country, there was no light-haze to obscure his sight, and instead of a few speckles of light, the sky was crowded with stars. Perhaps it was this novelty that had him studying the sky so intently and allowed him to spot the falling star in enough time to nudge her attention to it. "Look."
Her head turned to track the motion, a secretive smile over her face. "Y'gonna make a wish on it, sugah?"
He took a deep breath, considering her question for a long time after the star disappeared. Eventually his own mouth was touched by a lopsided grin, and he bent to speak low in her ear. "Why shoul' I wish for somet'in' I 'lready got?"
The laugh she rang through the night was the first time in a long time that he'd heard her laugh without restraints.
