“The Good Spin” chapter one: Like a Swan’s Neck
Relationship: Kite & Spinner Clow
AO3 link. please comment!
“Beautiful…”
For a moment she lets herself believe he’s looking at her. But he isn’t. She can feel it when he is, like it burns through her. She’s always smoldering, weak and thin as paper, when he’s around. It’s only been a week that they’ve been waiting for the weather to warm up, staying indoors by a little fire. Just talking. But he’s looking at the clear, placid lake. He’s looking at her dear swans.
“They really are…” More graceful than she could ever hope to be, and with more bite, more bravery. They’re a little more like Kite than they are like her. Long, a glowing white. The moon with a beating heart. She wants to lay her head on his chest and hear it. It must be even and warm, and she wants to make it fast like hers. “But that’s not all.” She has to make her case. It’s not worth his time if there’s no point. “They’re important to the ecosystem. They keep the pest population down.” She smiles, knowing she sounds smart. Knowing her voice is little and sweet, a bit like a mouse. She’s mousey. She wonders if he likes that.
“Yeah.” He folds his arms across that skinny, welcoming chest, and turns to face her. “I’ll do it. I’ll help you.”
Spinner exhales and her lungs feel so starved she expects steam from her lips. Her hands collect at her chest and her knees bend a little. She would wrap her arms around him--
“Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Kite--”
He holds up one long hand.
“Please, Spin.”
“Kite.” She melts to hear her nickname. It’s never sounded so friendly.
She reminds herself it’s just infatuation. This dashing hunter, a little too old for her, blowing through her town with the same spring wind she feels upon her face. Tall, lean, his voice deep. A man. She’s just a girl, even if she looks like a woman, even if she feels wise beyond her eighteen-- almost nineteen, she says often-- years. He’s seen so much more than her. She listens to his stories later that night as they discuss funding for her project.
“I thought I was going to die,” he says, recounting his freezing journey through the mountains. “I couldn’t feel my feet, and my nose, well…” He places a fingertip on it. “You can imagine that was the first thing I was afraid might get frostbite.” He says such mean things about himself, even if he’s beautiful.
“I--” I like your nose. It might feel soft against her cheek. He might like the smell of her. “I’m glad you made it.”
“Me too.”
He’s been sleeping across the room, the attic loft in which she lives alone. Her friend comes by sometimes. Banana, with her pleasant laugh and smile. Kite likes her, but he doesn’t like her. Spinner has to believe that. That his little smiles and jests are for her alone, because she’s young, because she’s pretty, because there’s some part of him that could want her as much.
But tonight they’re alone, making their separate thatch beds with her threadbare blankets.
“Thanks for letting me stay here, Spin.” He’s always so kind. She knows he grew up with less of a bed than this.
“It’s no problem. I’m sorry it’s so…” She shrugs. She has no money. No parents to make a nice home.
“Spin, I used to live in a sewer.” He looks up from his duffel bag, grinning like it can’t hurt, his history and his destitution. “Besides this...this city is much nicer than where I grew up anyway.”
She likes to think it’s because she’s here. But that’s selfish. He’s seen places far more beautiful.
He’s all the way across the room, but she can feel him. Kite says that means she has potential to be a hunter. That sixth sense, that awareness. He says he doesn’t mask his presence because he trusts her. He says it’s because he needs to keep his guard up. He says it’s a wonder she’s lived here so long and been so safe. He can protect her. She wishes it wasn’t just his...what had he said in that soft baritone? En . She wishes he could sleep with an arm around her, keeping her safe. He doesn’t even snore. He’s so perfect. She sweats in her sleep and wakes up tossing and turning with an ache between her legs that feels so heavy. Is it because he’s in her dreams? She shudders to think that she might say his name. That she might blabber some i ntelligible nonsense that he hears.
When she wakes up he’s boiling water for coffee. She’s started drinking it black, like him. They take it on the little run-down balcony of her loft, upon its creaking wood. He looks so messy in the morning, but ethereal still. His hat left on his bed, his nightclothes so loose. He looks so skinny under there. She wears her hair up, a loose tank top, shorts that she hopes he notices. She feels kind of whoreish, even if it’s what she’s always worn. Even if she’s always subtly slipped her bra off at night when no one is looking.
He’s looking. She swears it. His eyes are so kind to her. Who could look away? This virginal young woman, all pink and new? She knows he trails the shape of her. Knows it’s a chilly morning, and it shows. She hates herself for loving that.
Because he won’t do a thing. He won’t touch her, he’s too good. Even when she makes it so, so obvious, he doesn’t say a word. But he has to know. He has to see the way her face flushes, the way she giggles when he jokes, the way she stares with her mouth hanging open just-so, bubblegum idle on her teeth.
She lets her hair down, red curls falling softly onto her shoulders. She swears he grips his coffee cup a little harder.
“What’s the plan today, Kite?” She takes a sip.
“We should get started cleaning up the lake.”
It was the only thing left here that remained untouched, until now. It’s just her, left, that’s pure. He must know that.
“Thank you, Kite.”
“You’ve gotta stop saying that,” he tells her, leaning his head in her direction, smiling that way he always does. Humble and sweet. She sighs. “When we’re done...I was thinking of asking you something.” He turns his face back out to the still-rising sun. He glows all over like the hillside.
“Hm?” Her toes curl. Her ears feel hot, but numbed somehow.
“I’m thinking of forming a little research group. It would be a good experience for you.” He takes a slow sip while she’s floundering, flustering. “Banana, too. If she wants to. We can travel. You can...you can leave this place knowing your swans are safe.”
She must be silent for too long, because soon he’s placing a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently.
“Sorry--” She composes herself, placing her coffee cup safely on the flat railing of the balcony. “I was just...I’ve never left here.”
“Maybe it’s time. You said you wanted to be a hunter, right?”
“Yes.” Would she look so regal as him? Would she carry herself with that well-earned pride? She’d keep her flannel hat forever, in his honor. For the man who made her. She swears up and down to him she'd always worn it, and she has. She's been her old world for so long, no one can tell her to wear a hat. But still, can't her world get a little bigger? Can't she make six-feet-three-inches of room...
“Consider it, Spin. I won’t bug you.” He sighs, stretching his long, long legs. Like a swan’s neck. She wants to bury herself in his pure, white feathers and languid limbs.
Banana comes by. Kite adores her dog. It follows him around and Spinner feels dizzy watching. He’s so sweet. His hands look so soft despite all that hard work. She wants them through her hair and on her back. She wants their fingers laced together. Her dear friend, smiling knowingly, smack her on the elbow.
“You’re a dork,” Banana says, folding her arms and looking out at the delta of the lake. Kite is preparing the equipment.
“Shut up…” Spinner looks at her feet, shame overtaking her.
“I don’t blame you, Spin. He’s gorgeous. ”
Spinner’s mouth opens, soundless, and her brows raise.
“My god, I’m not gonna steal him from you!” Banana giggles and sticks out her tongue. “He’s too old for you anyway. Isn’t he like...thirty?”
“He’s not that old. He won’t tell me. I think it’s because his hair is white.” But she did the math based on the stories he told. Twenty-six or twenty-seven. “He’s self-conscious.”
“You’re smitten.” Banana pats her on the back and grins, showing her teeth, and then trudges off toward the lake. “But I won’t say a word!”
She doesn’t have to. It’s all plain as day.