Timeline: Pre-relationship
Notes: Written for heatherlayne_n at the fandom_stocking community on livejournal, who wanted something with a literature tie-in. All quotes are from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
I often forget to say so on this one, since I update it so infrequently, but thanks so much to everyone who leaves comments, they really brighten my day!
Surreal (That a Girl Should Be So)
"What are you reading?" she asks (she doesn't need to ask, of course, but she likes to; it makes everyone else forget she isn't normal), though what she really means is why.
He looks up at her, something close to guilt in his face, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner almost falling from his hands. "Nothing much," he says, trying to sound nonchalant (she appreciates the effort even as it falls flat between them). "Suppose you know it by heart, anyhow."
"And from my neck so free the Albatross fell off, and sank like lead into the sea," she quotes softly, coming up beside him, her fingers tracing the faded gilt of the title. "I'm not that kind of albatross," she says, looking him in the eye, relieved at how he doesn't look away, how he closes the book and sets it aside.
"Never thought you were, darlin'," he says, and his hands (so recently filled with old tales, old myths of the sea and sky and those caught between them) catch at her own, his fingers as warm and firm as his gaze.
She looks down at him, this man who'd fought and struggled for her, who'd believed in her even when her words were hardly her own, who'd paid the price for it in blood and never regretted, never blamed her for a moment.
Her hand reaches out (hesitant, hummingbird), to touch his face, words rising to the surface in her mind as her fingers trace down his throat, coming to rest in the hollow at its base.
"Instead of the cross, the Albatross about my neck was hung," she says (the words falling like a chant, a rite) and she feels the grasp of his hand on hers grow tight, watches something flare in his eyes; watches as the way he looks at her changes, the balance between them shifting, a damaged thing stretching its wings.
Faith, she's been told, is meant to fix what's been broken; here and now, she thinks she might understand how.