02-16-2019, 08:26 PM
She can tell by the direction of his thoughts, by the way he softens his hold on her, that he has noticed the wariness in her wounded heart. There a is heartbeat, precarious and fragile, where she braces for him to pull away, to withdraw from her and throw up his own cold walls to barricade himself behind. To hide from her and the way she struggles so hard to open up to him, to let him read the stories writ in pain across the surface of her heart.
But he only quiets inside, tethers the storm of his emotion so that it is not so quick to batter at her. He softens, slows, and even the heart pounding in his chest and pressed so firmly to the dark of her dappled skin seems to fade to a whisper-beat. His only concern is for her and the wild he’s recognized in the wounds she hides out of view. He cares nothing for his own heart.
It is so startling to her that she actually withdraws from him for a moment, steps back so that those wild brown eyes can find the shape of his face and the shade of something more than affection hidden in the back of such a beautiful gaze. She can hear the promises he wants to make, the ones he tries to keep buried - not to hide them from her, but to protect her from what they might make her feel again - and she is at once struck with a feeling so strong it nearly bowls her over.
There is a whisper inside her, something that managed to survive the crash of falling out of love, something that whispers and wonders and asks if maybe he is everything she thought she once had. If maybe, he is more. But a whisper, by its nature, is so easy to ignore so she pushes it away again, will let it build into something louder before she chooses to hear it again. Before she lets him see it reflected back at him in the quiet of her eyes.
He presses a kiss to her brow, and she can feel him buckling down on everything that swells inside him. All the beautiful turmoil of his golden heart. But she shakes her head at him, something so soft and beautiful creeping in to chase away the tension that had tightened in the hollow of such delicate features. “I like the sound of your soul, Magnus. You don’t have to quiet it for me.”
Then she’s slipping back beneath his neck, willing and wanting this time, settling so comfortably against the curve of his chest and the heart beating a greeting against her skin. She nips at his muzzle, so soft and with a smile on those pale, whiskered lips, tugging him back into a soft embrace with his neck slung around her. She lips at his jaw, follows the curve of it all the way to the hollow beside his mouth where she places a tiny little kiss, a promise to try like he is trying. To be as open as she knows how to be.
But there are still questions she cannot ask him, things she wonders at but has no words with which to say. Would he ever want to be more than just parents, share more than this mutual love for a life created between them? Or was this enough for him, a strange, unnameable bond between friends turned parents. But the not knowing is dissonance in her heart, a fissure tearing in this new calm she finds curled so contentedly in the warmth of his embrace. So she pushes it away, pushes the questions away. Will pretend for as long as she can that they aren’t answers she needs.
But he only quiets inside, tethers the storm of his emotion so that it is not so quick to batter at her. He softens, slows, and even the heart pounding in his chest and pressed so firmly to the dark of her dappled skin seems to fade to a whisper-beat. His only concern is for her and the wild he’s recognized in the wounds she hides out of view. He cares nothing for his own heart.
It is so startling to her that she actually withdraws from him for a moment, steps back so that those wild brown eyes can find the shape of his face and the shade of something more than affection hidden in the back of such a beautiful gaze. She can hear the promises he wants to make, the ones he tries to keep buried - not to hide them from her, but to protect her from what they might make her feel again - and she is at once struck with a feeling so strong it nearly bowls her over.
There is a whisper inside her, something that managed to survive the crash of falling out of love, something that whispers and wonders and asks if maybe he is everything she thought she once had. If maybe, he is more. But a whisper, by its nature, is so easy to ignore so she pushes it away again, will let it build into something louder before she chooses to hear it again. Before she lets him see it reflected back at him in the quiet of her eyes.
He presses a kiss to her brow, and she can feel him buckling down on everything that swells inside him. All the beautiful turmoil of his golden heart. But she shakes her head at him, something so soft and beautiful creeping in to chase away the tension that had tightened in the hollow of such delicate features. “I like the sound of your soul, Magnus. You don’t have to quiet it for me.”
Then she’s slipping back beneath his neck, willing and wanting this time, settling so comfortably against the curve of his chest and the heart beating a greeting against her skin. She nips at his muzzle, so soft and with a smile on those pale, whiskered lips, tugging him back into a soft embrace with his neck slung around her. She lips at his jaw, follows the curve of it all the way to the hollow beside his mouth where she places a tiny little kiss, a promise to try like he is trying. To be as open as she knows how to be.
But there are still questions she cannot ask him, things she wonders at but has no words with which to say. Would he ever want to be more than just parents, share more than this mutual love for a life created between them? Or was this enough for him, a strange, unnameable bond between friends turned parents. But the not knowing is dissonance in her heart, a fissure tearing in this new calm she finds curled so contentedly in the warmth of his embrace. So she pushes it away, pushes the questions away. Will pretend for as long as she can that they aren’t answers she needs.