Ambiguity. It was their world. They breathed the peculiar air, trod its paths and gracefully danced over the shifting ground. The musty air they breathed in their hermetic existence was crowded with the unsaid, eye contact so frank and yet so cowardly as the gap between them filled, unspoken words piling higher and higher, filling the chasm that parted them and instead building a mountain to separate them. Was it pain? Was it need? Was it, Heaven forbid anyone heard the usually understated agent being so melodramatic, love?
Dreams of strong arms, of inhaling the subtle fragrance that lingered on that groomed skin. The desire to be something other than in this state. Not being deferred to. Not having to be wise. Was there an answering spark of need in the other's eyes? Or was it just desperation causing hallucinations.
Tea, the staff of life, it stiffened sinews rendered infirm by the fractured coruscating cares pressing down upon them all. Why did they have to save the world, or at least the British Empire, such as it remained, yet again? They were librarians. They should not have such responsibility. The library was a den of intolerable sexual tension with its nervous silences, not suited to the crass nature of 'real' life.
It took reserves of courage usually used only in tales of derring do and in world saving, but at last the intolerable détente was broken. A soft kiss shared as the sun set, sending the falling dust motes into a riot of blazing passion. And yet their feelings did not reflect the tiny particles' exuberant display. Their eyes met. Knees hit the carpet with a soft thud, the loudest noise that penetrated the chambers of this most sacred of places, high churchlike ceilings reflected the noise dully as carpets absorbed the echo. Passion? Here? Shock. A gasp. A falling teapot. A witness? No. They were not stupid. No one had seen. They barely had. A shared rueful gaze and a nearly identical subdued quirk of the lips. A characteristic smoothing of the hair that rarely had anything to do with neatness, but not always anything to do with nerves.
Quiet footsteps on carpet, peaceful inhalations, making the moment last, enjoying the other's scent on their own shirts. A pause, long fingers twining in an unconsciously seductive manner around the door handle. A turn at the other's inhalation.
'You may borrow my copy.'
A nod. 'I will return it promptly.'