He is fading fast, his head falling forward, eye lids heavy, closing ever few moments before he jerks himself back into awareness. The man has been taking hits off a hip flask every few moments since he arrived, watching her over the top of it with stormy eyes shot through with zydrate lightening. He watches her with eyes like she's betrayed him and it makes her skin feel tight, makes Shilo wish he'd stop. He burns like a furnace beside her, putting off more heat than she imagines possible and unless she wants him to sleep right here on the table she'd better start moving him somewhere else. Graverobber is unwieldy, broad and so much taller than her. He's almost a dead weight for which she has no leverage to aid in their half falling, half stumbling progress up towards the second floor. The stairs are a near disaster and she has to stop part way up, leaning back against the banister as he slumps over her. Covers her entirely in the heat and scent of his skin. His mouth and nose are pressed against her throat and he gives a low rumbling laugh, pets a hand across the curve of her hip as if she were a favourite pet.
"Y'smell good," he mumbles, rubbing his face on her skin and she flames, blood rushing to flush her pale cheeks even as she betrays herself with a full body shiver. He's going to undo her. Still, the idea of letting him sleep on the couch again never crosses her mind. It is the better choice, easier to manoeuvre him there - no pesky stairs that she's trying to drag his uncooperative weight up again, stumbling like a new born colt - and, in so many ways that defy her to name them, safer. His eyes, still grey like storm clouds are dangerous. He is no longer graceless and wild but touchably human.
In some ways Shilo had hoped that this glimpse of him - the man and not the character - would sober her, would ease the intoxication of his skin and remind her of his age. Would shake her off of him. If anything it only makes it worse, makes her skin shiver when he stands to close and she feels certain that her heart is learning to beat in time with his. She wants to taste the skin just below his jaw.
His weight tips her over and she's too tangled round the lanky twist of his body to correct herself as they fall together. Her shoulder jars hard on the door of a long unused spare bedroom and she lets herself sag. The door gives a hollow, wooden sound when she drops her head back against it and she allows herself the moment to just let his weight lean. She can feel a fine bead of sweat on her spine and unless he starts actually helping her she's not going to be able to get him much farther.
She is constantly amazed by the sheer size of him. He is such a showman that she always expects his larger than life appearance to be some trick of the light. Nothing to worry about here folks, just smoke and mirrors because no one can be this beautiful, this dangerous, this built to last. His hair tickles the bare skin of her collar bone and he hums a jaunty tune against the skin of her throat, trailing off as he forgets what he's singing, picking up again on a different song that he thinks is the same tune.
She fumbles; hand twisted awkwardly behind her for the door knob, catches her fingers on it and struggles a little more. Ah, there it goes, the handle catches, the door swings open and she presses her body the other way. Keeps them standing with equal and opposite force or some other law of physics that she never paid that much mind to. He is petting her hair, a wig of course but trailing his fingers through it. She wonders what it's like to have someone stroke their fingers through the long strands of your actual hair, wonders how it tugs at the scalp and if it hurts.
When she does finally get him to the edge of the bed she has only just managed to get him to step out of his boots - no easy feat, mind you, his hands braced on her shoulders as she fumbles with buckles - and peeled his coat off when he sways. She knows he is going down before he starts his descent and she, in what she realizes is foolishness, tries to stop him, hooks an arm around his broad back and tries to tip him back the other way. Only succeeds in having her arm pinned under his body on the bed, a plume of dust billowing up around them.
Perhaps she should have changed the sheets.
She berates herself for such a silly thought at a time like this and tugs, trying to move a mountain at her pinned arm. He makes a murmur of disapproval and Shilo scowls at him, wig askew, body held against his because he's got her trapped. Damn mountain of a man. He seems more real than other people, heavier as though he has more particles than everyone else. Perhaps that is the weight of him that draws her in, his gravitational pull.
"Shilo needs her arm back," she chides, scrambling up to try and kneel beside him, to wrench her arm out from under his back. He just rolls to one side, forcing her down onto the bed beside him with the pressure on his arm. She gives a frustrated shout and shoves at his chest.
She only succeeds in rousing him enough that one large hand comes up to wrap around hers, hold it against the warm beat of his heart in his chest. She takes a minute to consider her situation, pinned under the weight of him in a dusty bed in an unused room in a house that was a prison. She gives a sigh; a great heaving thing weighed down with years of being confined and hates him for keeping her here. As if she hasn't been trapped in this house enough for one life time. Enough for an eternity of lifetimes.
She tries to make herself relax, tells each muscle to let the tension, let the fight go. Starts at the bottom and works her way up until her shoulders drop, her spine relaxes and some of the headache forming behind her eyes slips away. It's easier than it ought to be. His breath is warm on her face and his heart beat is a comforting thrum against her palm. Graverobber is still burning like a furnace and the heat of him ebbs the stress out of her muscles, she can feel herself melting against him. Despite her better judgment.
Asleep he seems so human, soft at the edges and unlike his showman self. There is no three ring circus, no crowd to dazzle and even under his makeup he seems less theatrical. She wants to touch his mouth, see if his lipstick - not quite black, she realizes from this close up, the light from the hall spilling through the still open door to illuminate his face, but rather maroon, a stained purple, polychromatic and she feels foolish for thinking that anything about him could come in monochrome - is as slick as it looks.
Her arm is trapped under his body and the other is caught tight in his hand, she cannot move them and that is her excuse. At least that's the one she'll be sticking too if he catches her at this. His mouth is soft when he sleeps and the lipstick is waxy on her lips, tastes odd when her teeth catch at his lower lip, draw him down into a kiss. When he shifts against her, a tension rising in his body like the tide and licks his lips, laps at hers as a consequence she's terrified that she has woken him. That she'll have to explain this.
Taking advantage of you in the night? She'll say, laughing as if it couldn't possibly be true, no, no, you imagined it, you dreamed it up.
But he's still asleep and his mouth tastes faintly bitter so Shilo lets herself indulge for a moment. He'll be gone in the morning, a showman again, the ringleader, master of ceremonies and he'll get this show on the road. So she takes advantage of the time she's got, saves parts of him for when he's gone again.
Author's note: Hey, kids. I just wanted to take the time to thank my wonderful Beta, Catalin, who has been sick recently and still makes time for me.
I'd also like to say a special thank you to Grace, who has been reviewing me. Because you don't have a FFN account I can't respond to you reviews as I have for others but I wanted to say that I really appreciate that you're taking the time to read and review. Your reviews are always so eloquent and careful. Thanks so much.