Disclaimer: JKR owns all.
VIVAASA
by: carpetfibers
Day 251
She is a quiet in the darkness, a lip gnashing silence that refuses abandon. He treats each joining as a challenge, a gauntlet thrown down by her despite of- and perhaps even in tremulous spite of- his pleasing touch. He knows she feels enjoyment; he knows she craves the nightly encounters. She always returns home just short of breath, clothes rumpled and mouth relieved. She eats without tasting, and it is always she who moves first. She is quiet in the night.
She is a single cry in the blankets, a nail wrenching gash along his back. He leaves each mark untouched, a visual representation of her surrender. He never reminds her of the night before; there are no affectionate pecks shared in the mornings or traded while watching a late afternoon show. He has held her hand, once, in the park, but it was she who touched first, and he tells himself that such things are normal. She hides her mouth in the pillows and does not let him see her face as she loses herself in the blankets.
She is a huddled warmth in the moonlight, a shapeless curve against his chest. He watches her in the moments after, sleep far from his thoughts. His mental calendar reminds him of its existence in those seconds, and he pushes away from the creeping reality. He has never wanted for time to stop its pull; he has never wanted for time to cease. His life of complication and plotting, childish and selfish in its greedy need to exact itself, has no place in this current moment of now. Her hair is always free in the dark hours, its tendrils caught in his fingers, and she never denies him that comfort. She stirs but does not wake, and each accidental touch is electric in the moonlight.
She is gone in the morning, a slight indentation left behind in the mattress. His breakfast made in early hours and left beside him waits, slightly chilled. There is something different each morning, and he takes it as a hand-off. He returns the favor with the evening meal, and to the neighbors and the anonymous world, their lives exist as couple, as a together, and some distant part of his mind has begun referring to his place on her bed as home. He spends the morning hours, the meal untouched, listless in her room. His eyes watch the ceiling, seeing nothing and remembering times past. He attempts the impossible, he attempts to not think, to not consider- to not plan. He lies still and it is in the noontime that he moves, a violent action, both purposeful and direct. He straightens the creases from the sheets, folds and tucks and pulls the blankets into their proper form, and when his hands are finished, all traces of the night before are hidden.
He sits then, head bowed and temple cradled, and waits for proof that he has not been imagining it. That he has not been dreaming it. He waits, because in the night time, the dark hours, in the hazy light of the moon, he has something he never had.
The door opens. "Hi," she says. Her hair is tied back today, the pony tail resting youthful and strange when framed by her quizzical eyes. "Sleep well?"
He stares in silence, the moment only two seconds of heartbeat and breath. His chest swells, the pain deep and dear in its peculiar newness. "Very. You?"
She smiles crookedly. "Yes, but now I'm famished. The lecture this morning felt like ages- what say you to heading out for curry? I'm dying for something spicy."
He nods and reaches for his coat. As he follows beside her, listening to her effortless chatter, he recognizes the pain for its real origin. How peculiar that he should feel it as an ache, when all the rest of the planet called it happiness. He takes her hand this time, and the surge of pleasure that flushes her cheeks twists his heart.
He is happy, and gods, it is good.
End Day 282