Work Text:
Sea and Sky 4: Interlude
by 'rith.
He curls beside me in sleep, and I watch him as he dreams.
He is...finely made, a body honed to perfection by the demands of his mentor and his own driving passions. The fact that I now know his body, have traced the lines and planes of it intimately, still astonishes me. I had never thought to be here, like this.
But dreamed, yes. When I was younger I came back time and again to see him, to stand and fight by his side. Even as my own weaknesses kept me from committing full-time to our..."work," I still answered whenever he called. How could I not?
My heart's own love teased me for that. "Tell him," she said, eyes gleaming. "And invite me to watch." I blushed, and shook my head: no, never, he isn't interested, and besides which I have *you.* Then we made love, drifting with the sea's deep currents, and my attraction to him was such a fleeting thing compared to my devotion to her.
The truth of her death overwhelmed me. For so long I wandered aimless, never daring to stop for fear that I might shatter with her loss. But time, as they say, heals--and in time, I found both purpose and power enough to live again. As for love--
I see her smiling down at me, in my mind's eye. No, my heart, I answer her unspoken question; here is friendship and comfort and desire, but not--it is not--
Idiot, she says in the voice of my own subconscious. Don't be so quick to decide. Enjoy this for what it is. Let tomorrow fend for itself.
Her wisdom--my own?--strikes true, and I smile to myself in the dark.
A blue-black comma of hair falls over his eyelid when he shifts, and I brush it away before the small irritation wakes him. He does not rest enough, so every moment he sleeps is a blessing. I do not mean for anything to disturb him; this night, the city he protects must do without his guardianship.
If that is selfish, then so be it. He has given me too great a gift to share him with anyone else. And the warm comfort of his body against mine lulls me into a gentle languor that I have no reason or desire to resist.
Of necessity I reached out to him first; it was *not* by accident the movement of my hands caught his eye, that day on Montauk Point. I knew that he seemed fascinated by the gestures of spell-casting, and his beautiful reaction to a simple motion was all the invitation I needed.
He reached back for me with such loneliness, a mirror to my own.
I know already how I should rouse him, when morning comes. I want to map the shape of him with hands and tongue, learning the places that make him sigh even in sleep.
But for now I only hold him close, and wait eagerly for the dawn.
END