Tina and Graves for number 25. “My nightmares are usually about losing you.” :)))
She could hear the crickets singing. It reminded her just how far away she was from the city, where the only noise was trains and cars and horse carriages and people talking. It was as if the whole of mankind had snuffed the natural world out; but here, out in the middle of nowhere, with the sun gone down and the crickets chirping, she remembered. And it was like returning home again.
With shaking hands, Tina lit her cigarette without magic, scraping the match along the side of the matchbox. There was the hiss of fire, and the flicker of orange coming to life at the tips of her fingers danced in her eyes long after she put it to the end of her cigarette and waved the matchstick out. She breathed in a lungful of smoke, held it just long enough before it began to burn, and let it out.
“Tina.” It didn’t matter that she didn’t hear him coming, because Percival could never surprise her. Her entire being existed in a state of expectation, waiting for him to arrive; so when he did, why be frightened?
“Did I wake you?” she asked, softly, turning her head.
The cottage did not belong to them; it belonged to some friend of a friend, who allowed them to use it for the weekend. A small vacation they had planned in order to get away from it all, because she had been getting more and more tense with each passing week, and no amount of back rubs, of Percival murmuring in her ear, of Queenie baking her favourite cake, could seem to relax her.
He slipped his arms around her and she leaned back. He was warm, but also strong. He had a scent to him, too, of tobacco and musk and mint, that she could easily drown in.
“Can’t you sleep?” he asked against her ear.
She shook her head. She took another drag, then held it over her shoulder. She felt him take the cigarette from her, then closed her eyes, tipping her head back against his shoulder.
“You should take more than a weekend with me,” he said. His voice sounded cottony from the cigarette. “You need a proper break, Tina. It’s the only way to make it through our kind of work.”
She smiled to herself. He was worried, of course – always worried – but he didn’t know. How could he?
One of his arms was wrapped around her waist, and she smoothed her hand along it. He wore nothing, which was not a surprise – when they went to bed, clothes were quickly taken out of the way – but still she felt her pulse quicken a little at remembering. It would have been easy to wake, and then to wake him; to chase her worries away with kisses and touches. But she had put on a robe and come out here, instead, to listen to the crickets.
“It wouldn’t help,” she said.
He propped his chin on her shoulder. “You’ve been having nightmares,” he remarked.
“Of course I noticed,” he said, teasingly, into her ear before she could say anything.
She laughed. “Yes,” she sighed. “Of course you noticed.”
He handed her back the cigarette. “Tina,” he murmured. “I just want to help.”
She took the cigarette but did not take a drag; instead she rolled it between her fingers, watching the smoke curling up away from the tip. “My nightmares are about losing you,” she whispered. “And how can I ever make those go away?”
She expected him to say all manner of things, of course; but she didn’t expect him to turn her around in his arms, so they were nose to nose. She didn’t expect to suddenly be looking into his eyes, which she would never be tired of.
“By drowning them out with good dreams,” he said, in the tone of someone who knew that was the true answer. “Put the cigarette out, Tina, and come back to bed. We’ll dream something good, together.”
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