jacket: your muse bundles mine up before they go outside / but .. the scarf thing
IT’S ALWAYS DIFFICULT TO LEAVE A COMFORTABLE WARMTH. when your limbs fit the surrounding area just right , the mixture of one’s own body temperature with someone else’s and whatever fabric or surface — melded into one simple perfect formula. joints tend to relax , bones seem to turn into lead , in the opposite of discomfort. every moment of that feeling , a stolen GIFT ;; an anomaly like much of what he’s had and what he does. HE , a man who has revelled in the throes of excess and beyond , would live in a cave and get by on fruit and boiled leaves and meat to immerse himself in this SIMPLE sensation daily if he could. there is guilt — for there having ever been a time when he’d had the luxury and more and hadn’t noticed its simplicity. how much inexplicably subtle pleasure it held in those small . . . quiet moments. how it could have been had he made different choices , how he could have just as easily have gone without. the problem with drawing lines in the sand has always been that they disappear with a breath of air.
she makes it easy ( it’s always her ) , prodding him back into balance without ever asking the questions he knows he one day will have to answer. questions she never utters even in their most tumultuous exchanges. it’s a chasm she knows she doesn’t have to scream or whisper into for the echoes to ricochet off the walls of his mind. her SILENCE in it , is louder than anything else he hears. she must know that as well.
her weight is nestled comfortably under his arm , head cushioned against the softest part of him , below the collar in the easiest position to pivot and meet his gaze when she feels the need. they are watching the news — an interlude to the program they’d been enjoying moments before. the pensive silence during the headlines is a shared one. his thumb idly ghosting back and forth against the fabric of her arm like an indecisive wave , other hand rubbing the bare skin on his head , smoothness to stubble as if staving off an invisible itch. it’s a habit he’d gotten after the regular shave he’d chosen to start getting before wearing his hat. he realises it mid-scratch and drops his arm to kiss her head to show that he’s still there. present in her warmth and not SPIRALLING in ideas and tension from the news. that despite his protest and obvious reluctance before , his presence here and now with her is not a burden.
when his burner rings , his eyes don’t waver from their heavy-lidded settlement on how she rests on him. unwilling to move himself — remove himself from the hearth they’d created , when he’d only just begun to accept that they could ( it is always hard to leave her even when he resists her to do otherwise ) . he watches the dim outline of her head pause from the natural cadence of his breathing before returning to her usual bearing of practiced calm. ‘ you should get that. dembe might need you. ’ he isn’t sure what that note is in her voice ;; if it is resignation , disappointment or acceptance. he lifts his arm with a bracing breath in the same moment she leaves it and reaches for the small black flip phone vibrating on the table ;; appearing to weigh it in her hands for a moment before pressing it into his.
the conversation doesn’t last long. he doesn’t have to say the words , she is already standing , hand reaching across her chest to rub her arm , watching him rise to get his things together and put on his jacket and coat with soft lips pulled into a mutedly pleasant expression. like she’s rehearsed it in her mind and decided on just the one — something content enough so as not to make his exit harder for him. why she seems to insist on gatekeeping whatever guilt she thinks he’s feeling , he hasn’t managed to unpick yet.
a heaviness settles over his chest as he returns the gun to the back of his waist and puts the fedora on his head. the FINAL touch. lips part as he moves toward her. she meets him halfway , already lifting her chin up to him like a flower turning to meet the sun , expectant of his touch , knowing where his hands will go — to settle at either side of her face. he always used to kiss her before leaving. the apology is at the tip of his tongue before he swallows it and summons an explanation instead. ‘ i know . . . you don’t have to do that. ’ lips linger at her lips and then at her forehead before he finally moves to the door with decisive strides.
‘ wait ! ’ a breathless sound , RESONANT in that smooth way of hers. his brows lift , turning slowly on his heels , hand stilled on the brass handle.
instead of coming towards him , she opens a drawer to retrieve something folded in tracing paper , which she unwraps carefully and lifts from its feathery confines.
❝ what’s this ? ❞ he weighs his head to the left , mild confusion registering on dry features as she brings it toward him into the light.
it’s a shade she used to say he looked PARTICULARLY good in , out of all the colours he favoured — brought out his eyes , gave them depth. the memory brings him the urge to chuckle ( as if the SCUM he meets will notice how deep his eyes are ! incredible ) , even though it’s not mirth that springs to his eyes as he watches her unfold it and stretch it out , feeling its luxury under her fingers before she lifts herself on tiptoes to wrap it around his neck , pleased with herself to be able to do it. ‘ you have to keep warm. you’ve been coughing. ’
his throat tightens as he watches her , greys darting to follow each movement , studying every part of her. the tenderness with which she’d done it — the hopefulness for his interest in a gift she’d obviously sought out , the pride in her choice , and the . . . and the love in her gaze when she needlessly smoothed it under her palms , pressing against his chest and then resting there , admiring how it looked against the rest of him. ‘ i knew this would look nice on you.’ a piece of her to wear. a soft reminder of her care. that he’s cared for by his wife. that he is loved.
there is unfiltered honesty in her gaze when baby blues find his stone greys. something open and soft and somehow unassumingly bright , like a raw jewel lost and unearthed again ;; having the soil slowly cleaned away to reveal that it could still glow. still glow for him. if he’d let it. just by giving her his time. whatever he could spare. and in that moment he understands what she has been trying to tell him since the moment she’d laid eyes on him again. each minute he’s spent being alone in this world ( in which he also realises he hasn’t , he’s had dembe ) she’s spent the same way ( despite the semblance of family she’d retained ). he won’t leave her in that abyss anymore.
the kiss he gives her is deep. a promise. ❝ i love you. ❞
