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dont_feel_itThere's no telling how long he sleeps. There's never enough sun to pierce the fog that swirls slow around the mansion, let alone the heavy curtains invisible hands draw each night.
Somehow always without him knowing. Or noticing.
It makes for heavy sleep, in this heavy world, where nothing can touch him and the only thing that shakes him awake is his own restless mind.
Except this morning.
Warmth seeping into his bones. The slow spread of a summer sun, the kind that rises determined, burns off the mist lingering on the water or in the trees. The kind that used to leave him pink and tender at the end of the day, wincing under the needlepoints of cool water in the shower. And when he blinks his eyes slowly open, he sees it.
A haze of gold. Like blinking up at the sky through rippling water. Everything suffused with it in a cloud of light, until he blinks again and it resolves.
Into the slope of a bare shoulder. Her arm the gentle sweep of the shore. And tendrils of pale hair caught against the pillow. (Tangled with too-dark brown, that still edges wrong, even as he pushes the thought away.)
Skin sun-warm, peach-soft, as the tips of his fingers just brush over it. All comfortable curves and blunted edges in her sleep. Her features lighter than he's seen them in months.
(He hasn't seen her in months.)
He doesn't want to wake her. She needs to rest.
But he can't help leaning into her warmth, the whisper of rustling cloth against bare skin, to brush the tip of his nose against the back of her shoulder, brush his lips across the same spot. Hand sliding to her waist, the rise of her hip beneath muddled sheets. Unable to do anything but breathe her in, reverent.
Maybe the closest he's ever felt to a miracle. Of all the ones she's brought for everyone else, this is the first. For them. No matter what the Rev would have called him. Degenerate. Defective. Broken. All of God's orphans, adrift just like him.
But not in this moment. Not this morning. Not when they are a miracle just starting to finally unfold.
Not when Audrey is beginning to shift under his touch, and for a few early, sun-soaked moments, everything can just be.
Perfect.
Somehow always without him knowing. Or noticing.
It makes for heavy sleep, in this heavy world, where nothing can touch him and the only thing that shakes him awake is his own restless mind.
Except this morning.
Warmth seeping into his bones. The slow spread of a summer sun, the kind that rises determined, burns off the mist lingering on the water or in the trees. The kind that used to leave him pink and tender at the end of the day, wincing under the needlepoints of cool water in the shower. And when he blinks his eyes slowly open, he sees it.
A haze of gold. Like blinking up at the sky through rippling water. Everything suffused with it in a cloud of light, until he blinks again and it resolves.
Into the slope of a bare shoulder. Her arm the gentle sweep of the shore. And tendrils of pale hair caught against the pillow. (Tangled with too-dark brown, that still edges wrong, even as he pushes the thought away.)
Skin sun-warm, peach-soft, as the tips of his fingers just brush over it. All comfortable curves and blunted edges in her sleep. Her features lighter than he's seen them in months.
(He hasn't seen her in months.)
He doesn't want to wake her. She needs to rest.
But he can't help leaning into her warmth, the whisper of rustling cloth against bare skin, to brush the tip of his nose against the back of her shoulder, brush his lips across the same spot. Hand sliding to her waist, the rise of her hip beneath muddled sheets. Unable to do anything but breathe her in, reverent.
Maybe the closest he's ever felt to a miracle. Of all the ones she's brought for everyone else, this is the first. For them. No matter what the Rev would have called him. Degenerate. Defective. Broken. All of God's orphans, adrift just like him.
But not in this moment. Not this morning. Not when they are a miracle just starting to finally unfold.
Not when Audrey is beginning to shift under his touch, and for a few early, sun-soaked moments, everything can just be.
Perfect.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-08 11:39 pm (UTC)She pauses, features so close he can see every flicker of doubt, the wish to back peddle, and he's shaking his head before she begins to turn away, apologizing for, what.
Nothing. He doesn't need it. It hadn't hit him.
Was he waiting for it to, in her hesitation? Had just pressed a smile. Like it was some joke between them. "It's okay."
Unwilling to let her go for whatever tiny transgression she thought happened. Arms shifting and tightening around her waist, until she stops trying to turn, looks back up at him. Hands back on his skin.
His smile a mix of amusement, reassurance. All aware. It's a tightrope to walk. But there's no tension anywhere in him when he's watching her, mouth curving. Tone dry, with just a faint edge of teasing. "I've grown more fond of her."
no subject
Date: 2018-08-09 12:14 am (UTC)It's only just a little dubious, while, also, being almost a touch amused, even when she can't stop the edge of her mouth from tugging outward, when she asks, "Have you?"
Like what happened last night, and this morning, alone, could somehow have even begun to erase even the smallest edge of every bit of damage she tried to do, space she tried to create, with every word out of her mouth, every touch of her hand, as Lexie. Even as he's nodding, and humming a note of agreement, that is all familiarity, close and clear and still not looking away from her, and she doesn't want to resist it.
When she has to kiss him, and she doesn't know if she'll ever entirely find the words for why all of it matters.
That it does hurt. That he hates Lexie because of her, what she did calling it all Lexie, calling it anything to save him.
But that, also, Lexie never had this, too, when she was only herself. Never knew a person like Nathan. That one good, decent man. Who the way to her heart guy was. Or Haven. The Troubled. Never figured out who she was. What she was meant to do. Be. Because Lexie stopped existing, except in her head, her words, reflexes, more shield and mask of herself than herself, from the moment Audrey woke up on that hill.
It's a tangle of thoughts, lost in a litany of kisses, but all of it is one certainty, when she doesn't want it to stop, wants to believe maybe that all could be done. Done, and over, and gone, too. A door closed. (Forgiven?) It's another proof of how high the stakes, steep the costs, narrowly the almosts -- how hard Haven is, and how much harder they should hold onto this now that they had it, this beautiful, hard-won, almost-lost-last-night-even, impossibility finally happening.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-09 01:35 am (UTC)He hums some assent, but it doesn't matter. None of it. Nothing except his hands catching her face, and the kisses he can place against her mouth, again, and again. And again.
Pushing forward while her palms slide down skin, dragging fire that snuffs out instantly, only to reappear on the next square inches she touches. Her breath coming fast against his lips. The heart he can't feel racing somewhere deep inside, trying fruitlessly to get to her, and those pancakes are going to have to wai ––
A sharp rap on the door startles him awake. Pushed up in a second, confused in a muddle of sheets, looking distracted from the door, where no sound comes, and then for Audrey --
Falling back with a huff of breath, because she isn't here. Of course she isn't here. She's isn't. They aren't.
The initial surprise of waking ebbing away, and it floods back, so real he thinks he can almost feel it. If he could feel anything.
Close his eyes, and see her again, turning towards him with sleep in her eyes and hair wild.
Pancakes.
Her hands on his skin.
How much. How much.
How he loves her.
A memory of loving her so strong he doesn't know where the memory starts and this feeling begins. Swamping him. Clarifying every unfeeling cell in his body. He loves her. He remembers loving her.
He remembers her loving him back.
He can't stay, has to move, starts to aim for the side of the bed, when he glances down. Double takes. Looks guiltily at the door he knows no one is behind, and carefully drags a pillow from the top of the bed to cover his lap.
He'll get up. Find her. Tell her.
...In a minute.