Chain
The first of three absolutely lovely prompts given to me by vorpalbladedwitch over on Tumblr for the latest round of this meme.
He loved her hair - the tangled mess when she showered, the sleek sheet when she combed it, but most of all, he loved the soft curls he threaded his fingers through when they lay close in bed.
He remembers watching her comb it straight and pull it up, baring the line of her neck and the sweep of her shoulders as she skewered it into place with hairpin after hairpin; he remembers, when they'd returned from their evening out, taking his time at finding and removing each one of them, working his fingers carefully through her hair and against her scalp while she leaned back into him, remembers watching dark strands tumble free again, pushing them aside to taste her pale skin, salt and flowers. (He remembers it lank against her brow, sweat-sodden strands sticking to her throat, half-obscuring flesh already bruising, remembers curls shadowing her eyes as they'd stared at each other while the world fell apart around them, remembers blood and bile and the sickeningly-sweet smell of flowers overlaying it all.)
He remembers but she's gone, gone, dead and a ghost and he should hate her for all she had done, all that she cost him (his brother, his home, his heart, and he cannot say which of those is the worst of her sins), but even when he hates her so much he thinks he cannot breathe he cannot stop even the most knife-edged memories from softening at the margins with her smiles, her laugh, and it drives him half-mad. It haunts him still when shadows paint spirals on the sheets in the still small hours of the night, chokes him when a breath on the street brings a floral scent all too reminiscent of her shampoo, winds around him in heavy coils when he sleeps until he wakes dazed, lost in what was until he reaches out and finds the bed cold and empty beside him, lost all the more thereafter.
Sometimes, he thinks he'd been sleeping his whole life before her, and that when they met that first touch had kindled his awareness and he'd become a man who felt and wanted and lived instead of just being, and with that truth small wonder that losing her should leave him hollow and drifting, anchored only by recollections of the curve of her mouth and the heat in her eyes and the feel of her hair, catching on his fingers and tangled around his wrist like silken chains.