AU
Ric|Diane
Set mid-pandemic
Rating T for mild sexual references
Characters belong to the BBC. Words are my own.
i. Morning's Undone and the African Sun
Your alarm sounds at 5am these days.
You do not leave the house until 6. You don't get up until 5.20.
You hold me tighter in those empty twenty minutes. So tight, it wakes me, in a comforting way, as if the love is overwhelming, so much so I simply must be conscious of it.
It reminds me what I mean to you.
It reminds me what we are to each other. Sometimes it is easy to forget, amidst the madness.
It also reminds me of that night we spent together oceans and oceans away from here.
There have been two periods of time in which our lives have made blissful sense together. They are separated by years. No. Decades. Other lovers and spouses, pride and hurt, denial and cowardice. Somewhere almost exactly in the middle of them, we had that one night in Africa.
You hold me now like you held me then. Your arms around me, from behind, pulling me in as if I could melt into your chest. As if we could simply mould into one. My arms becoming your ribs, my jaw fusing to your collarbone. My brain into your heart.
You didn't want me to leave you then, now you don't want to leave me. It is almost the same.
Just as it was then, it is never long enough.
When the pink morning sun bled through the window of your childhood bedroom in Elmina, I felt a sort of dread. I slipped out from under your forearm and trembled as I dressed. It wasn't cold. I shook as if I were withdrawing from you, or as if you were the only thing that made sense in the world. As if being without your touch now somehow made me uncertain in everything and lacking in confidence. As if I was unsure where I was. Who I was.
Now it is you that draws away from me. I turn so I can watch you dress. You don't seem unsteady, but you always look so much older in the mornings. I bite my lips to hold back the things I want to say. Don't go. It's too dangerous out there. Stay in here, in bed, with me. Are you afraid of this monster like I am? Perhaps you had wanted to say them to me too, all those years ago. Different demons chased us then.
"Go back to sleep." You always say, sounding weary as you put on your tie. I always wonder what it matters now, as you straighten it in the mirror, when no patient will see it under layers of plastic. Your patients will barely see your face, they won't care what you are wearing.
"I'll get more done if I stay up now." I always reply. I don't want you to feel guilt for having woken me, for fear you will opt to sleep in the spare room across the hall, when already I do not see enough of you. In truth I will likely roll around the bed alone for the entirety of the morning, reading Keats under the sheets and watching the cold, English sun as it rises; wishing you were still here with me, or wishing I was in another country entirely.
We never watched a sunrise together in Ghana.
I will not get anything done this morning. I will crawl to my desk where my research thesis waits, with a coffee, around noon.
"Coffee?" You ask from the edge of my side of the bed and it is as if you read my mind. You do that a lot. You reach down and brush the hair from my temple. I stare at you in silence hoping that you will kiss me. You always do and it is always somewhat of a surprise. For no real reason. Only sometimes the lines of when we can touch each other are blurred and confusing. Again it takes me back to balmy hospital corridors in a foreign land. The morning after you loved me. My eyes burning into you, while yours dart around us, terrified of onlookers and their judgement. How you would pull me into a side room where we could kiss in secret and you would whisper things onto my white skin that no doubt you shouldn't have.
Now is fine, later is not.
"I love you." your voice permeates the silence. It is rich and deep and warm. Like a hot summer sun rising and I am the cold, morning air. You could just slice right through me. How much I would like to pull you by that unnecessary tie back towards me. Under the duvet. Clothed or unclothed I wouldn't care. As long as I could hold you I would stay here in this bed until I rot away into the mattress. I want to ask you why we didn't watch more sunrises together, while we could still go outside.
Instead I give you my bravest smile and prepare for another long day without you.
"Be safe."
"I always try."
