Their Father was asleep in the red leather armchair when they returned that evening. He had never scolded them for staying out in the dark moors for long hours, not even as children, and for this Heathcliff would be forever grateful. His Father understood his need for a little bit of wild serenity, and that was everything this place offered – somewhere to wander mindlessly, a place he now knew like the scent of his sweat or the shape of his teeth in his own mouth, somewhere he could fall endlessly into silent darkness, where the cliff face was Cathy's face.

Cathy walked over to him and smiled slightly, taking the patchwork blanket slung over his legs and pulling it up to his shoulders. "He looks so peaceful," she said in a hushed voice. Heathcliff nodded, using a hand to scrape his hair back from his face. "I love to see him like this," she murmured, and then she appeared deep in thought, and her smile sank. "He still hardly ever sleeps soundly, y'know, since Mum died. I wish he could be happy."

"He is," Heathcliff countered. For all their Father had suffered (and he had suffered horribly), he was not disheartened. Heathcliff knew Cathy's laughter always had his eyes roaring to life as though lit from within. "He's proud," he added.

Cathy turned to him them and reached out, squeezing her shoulder with her little bony fingers. "Yeah," she said. "He's proud of you."

Peter Earnshaw had showed him the most profound kindness he had ever known – and not in giving him food, or water, or shelter, but in giving him something to love, in delivering him to Cathy. And he had therefore happily suffered to please him, because he would suffer anything, if it exorcised the ghosts in their eyes.

Heathcliff shrugged. "I don't think that's quite –"

"Look at you," she whispered, and now her eyes were lit burning blue and gold and ablaze with life, and Heathcliff found himself sipping in air, astounded by it. She was swelling with feeling. "You've had such a hard life, and look at you now. No-one would know anything about your past, Heathcliff – you're everything Dad would have wanted you to be, everything he hoped for you. You proved him right, what he said all those years ago."

Heathcliff simply drank in her eyes, engrossed.

"You proved him right. You give him faith," she said tenderly, and seemed to absent-mindedly touch her necklace, with the cross on her throat.

Heathcliff nodded once, blinking and turning away, "Alright, flirty, give it at rest," he chuckled. She shook her head at him, sniggering.

"You're such a mardy arse, aren't you?" she scoffed, and then walked slowly out of the sitting room and into the hallway, her foot hitting the first step of the stairs with a tap. "Are you staying here, or are you ready for sleep?"

"Sleep," he answered, his muscles aching from knocking in clean horse shoes. He walked to follow her.

"I'm showering first," she insisted. He noticed as she disappeared behind the painted white wood of the door, the sound of the lock catching did not come. He stared at the door for a moment, excited, blanched with confusion – but then he walked away, to their room, and let out a shuddering breath.

When Cathy returned, the scent of lavender soap undulating from her skin, he was lying in the bed, with all of the lights turned off, and breathing steadily and evenly. She thought of the breeze pushing air gently through bare branches. He slept as they always did – he in a t-shirt and a pair of their Father's oversized, thick cotton pyjama-bottoms, waiting on the left side of the bed, the duvet peeled back slightly to allow her to slip inside.

She whispered, "Heathcliff?"

The night time had set in and had sent the room glowing and soft, eerie and delicate indigo. He turned to her, a single little oblong of moonlight hitting the high curve of his cheekbone, a tiny white diamond of light in his black eye. "Hello," he replied quietly.

"Heathcliff," she started. Suddenly she felt uncomfortable; despite being sure he knew the rhyme of his heart and the tangle of purple veins in his wrists better than she knew her own. There was a spare room, now Howard was gone. He had no reason to stay in her room, in her bed, not properly dressed. If her Father knew, she knew he would be revolted. She looked down at herself. "Do you think you should perhaps – well, would you like your own bed?"

He frowned in the dark.

"This is my bed."

"But now, we have Howie's that's spare. And you can have it."

"I don't want it, Cath," he answered sternly. "I want to sleep beside you, in our room."

She winced a little – she felt embarrassed, but nonetheless she felt a tremendous tremble of pleasure at his want for her. He spoke, however, with the kind of intimacy that she did not know existed – it was brittle as crushed glass, but there was something else, too, it felt like cold, glittering metal against the hot flesh on her back. "You make us sound like husband and wife," she murmured.

His hand unfurled on top of the duvet, and then he placed it, palm down, on his chest. "I am your husband," he said tiredly, nudging the centre of his chest with his knuckle. "I'm your husband here."

"Heathcliff – "

"If you really don't want me to be in here, then I won't," he said. "But I don't know why you're doing this. You were the one insisting things should not change, weren't you?"

"I – Dad's has told you to move. He did say it wasn't appropriate, at our ages. And I'm a girl, and you're a boy."

"It never bothered you before," he snapped.

"It doesn't bother me, it's just what Dad says."

"Well, fuck Dad."

"Oi!"

"Please, just come and lie down. Can we just talk about this tomorrow?"

"Heathcliff, you shouldn't be in the bed."

"Cathy, you shouldn't be arguing this late at night. I've knocked in ten horse shoes, today. I'm fucking tired. Just shut up and get in the bed."

A candle flame of anger flared in her, sheepish but bright, and a bead of waxed dripped down and pooled in her stomach. She snatched out for the nearest thing, her hairbrush, and lobbed it at him. It hit his shoulder with a muted thud. "Don't talk like that to me," she grunted. He sighed. She finally obeyed and wiggled in next to him.

He instinctively rolled onto his stomach and gazed at her. His eyes were black, empty roads in the witching hour.

"Cathy, I just want to be close to you," he insisted. He smiled at her, clearly at attempt to reassure her, but now she could not quite see anything but his teeth, gleaming down at her, jagged and strange like a wolf.

"I know you do," she said. "I just don't want to upset Dad."

"I'm just lying beside you. We aren't doing anything wrong."

She blinked at him, and then nervously stated, "Other brothers and sisters don't do this, Heathcliff."

He stared at her, and then she felt his hand, within the bed, bunch into a fist. He seemed to swallow down a different sentence to the one he spoke.

"Do you want a bed time story?"

"Yes," she answered intuitively, knowing they needed a release from this tension. He leaned over and grappled for two books, stacked on the bedside table.

"Do you want to carry on with Pride and Prejudice, or there's the next Harry Potter that we could start?"

"Chamber of Secrets is the best one," she nodded. She knew he preferred to read Harry Potter, also, simply because the language wasn't as complex. Heathcliff was still a slow reader, his jaw and tongue sometimes bumping against her forehead as he rolled long words around in his mouth, examining their sounds, plucking and pulling at letters. She loved to hear him read – her greatest accomplishment so far had been teaching him to read. His voice, as he had grown, had developed a gravelly lustre, and a soothing, wombing bass. The sound of it, muffled against her hair, was her most favourite thing. And despite her fear of angering their Father, she could not resist the gentle, sleepy tide pulling her to the shores of sleep. He flipped away the pages and began reading. She rested her head against his shoulder.

She could still smell the fresh air on him, the grass, the savoury, animalistic scent of horse hair. She breathed it in, and her hand slipped up to rest against his pectoral. The muscles beneath had bloomed. They were taut and strong, though he was lean – his arms and thighs and chest were all padded with blood and strength, and beneath his t-shirt, she could hear the rustle of tiny hairs on his skin. And his dark skin seemed to almost shimmer in the night, as did his dark eyes, and his long, dark curly hair.

"Heathcliff," she whispered as she sucked in his smell again, and rubbed her nose against his shoulder.

"Yeah?"

"I wish things didn't have to change," she explained, and then her eyes rolled closed as sleep started to take her, "but they have to, now. You know that they do."

He glanced down at her, frustrated, confused.

She yawned, her mouth stretching like a baby bird's, and then she shucked up closer to him, and he knew that she was about to move into a world where she could wander mindlessly, where she could fall into silent darkness – and he wondered if, for her, he still existed in that place.

A/N:

Yeah, this is a dead fandom, but whatever. Long live Queen Emily, and long live Heathcliff and Cathy!

Thanks again Pri!

Hope everyone liked this update. Let me know what you think if you've read it!