Disclaimer- I own nothing.
The roles are reversed. Not so fluffy as the second or as deep as the first- just a loose portrait of Steerpike. Hm. Not sure how I feel about this. The fourth should be better, I hope.
For anyone and everyone who reads/has seen/knows of Gormenghast. Where are you all?
It was not moonlight that filtered in through that muddy window- it was a cold, pale glow.
Fuscia knew that soon the sun would rise and that she would have to start pretending again quite soon.
But for now, that was later. And for later, she left it.
For now, she watched the shadow of clouds pass across the young man's sleeping face. He slept in her playroom because she had told him to, because he was good and clever enough to be allowed in. He was strange and mysterious and beautiful enough to be allowed to stay. He didn't know she was watching- if he did, he would have turned his face so that she could see and adore it better.
But for now, he slept half-turned away from her. That pale light caught the sharp angles of his face. It put silver streaks into his dark hair, made his kitchen-worn skin look soft. Now was the only time she felt she could be so near to him without some unexplainable fear. She turned over his hands, inspected the grime under his nails and the length of his fingers. His palms were rough from work. She had never worked a day in her life.
His arms were strong, she knew that. She knew it from the times he had held her, mostly in play or affection, but once in frustration, desperation for her to like him better. He never hit her, only scared her. And yet somehow the temper, as well as the gorgeous mystery, was enthralling. His body, like he had said himself, was nothing short of magnetism. His face was not the fairytale-hero strong chin and clear blue eyes. It was awkward, the way his mouth curled, the narrowness of his eyes, the way his eye would twitch slightly when he was angry…
And yet she found herself adoring it. Unable to stay away from him, both literally and in the sense that her mind was never far from thoughts of his charm.
The paler light had gone, replaced by a dim, warmer glow. He stirred and she knew that he would wake early, because he always woke early. And he always liked to think he was awake before her. And he usually was. But not always- once he had caught her watching him when he woke, the second time he caught her, he became suspicious, even paranoid. The third time, she had pretended to be asleep the second his eyes opened.
She cast one fleeting look at his sleeping form, his half-raised eyebrows, the ghost of a smile on his lips from some happy or malicious dream (but who was he dreaming of?), his hair falling around bare shoulders, the sheets loose around his waist.
In a moment of daring, she lay her hand palm down on his chest.
She could feel his heartbeat, so she knew he had a heart.