(no subject)
Author: wolfraven80
Title: Moments
Fandom: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Character: Eirika (Seth/Eirika)
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Seth/Eirika Modern-Day AU (Takes place after events of Seven but works just fine as a stand-alone)
Link to Table
Also on ffnet here
Day Four: Egypt
We’re on our private beach, Seth, reclining in a long chair, reading a book, while I sit on a beach towel in the shade of an umbrella, painting my nails to match my little red bikini, when I get the call. It’s Ephraim and I almost drop the phone when I hear what he has to tell me.
Seth springs out of his chair as, the moment I end the call, I start to cry. "What’s wrong? What happened?"
"They got them," I say as I cling to Seth.
"Who?"
"Pablo and Riev. Oh, I can’t believe it." And I laugh, tears still streaming down my cheeks, and I hug Seth and kiss his lips, while he looks bewildered.
"Eirika, I-" I interrupt him with another kiss. I feel as if I’ve been Atlas, carting the world around on my shoulders, but now it’s gone and I’m as light as the seabirds coasting overhead. "Darling..." he says, gripping me by the shoulders. "Do you think you could start at the beginning?"
"Ephraim called. He’s had word from Duessel. Pablo and Riev- both of them have been arrested. They were supposed to rendezvous in Cairo apparently. They managed to follow Pablo right to Riev and they’re both under arrest now."
"Both of them?"
"Yes."
"They’re sure?"
"Yes!"
His arms wrap around me like a vice. "Thank God." I had thought him calm, relaxed, but the fervency of his whisper tells another story.
"You were worried?" I ask, pulling off his sunglasses so I can see his eyes.
"How could I not be?" He strokes my face and stares into my eyes. "After everything..."
I smile and trail my fingers through his hair. "But it’s over now. We’re safe now. We’re..."
Safe as we’ll ever be... I suppose that’s as much as we can ask for. I take a breath and turn my thoughts away from Pablo and Riev. With any luck it was the Egyptian local authorities who caught them so that they’re rotting in a drafty stone cell right now. With rats. I hope there are rats.
Seth tilts my chin up. I look up into his eyes and find kindness there and understanding. We’ve walked this path together.
"We’re on our honeymoon," I say then. "And I can think of better ways to enjoy our time... can’t you?" I wink and his lips quirk. Taking his hand in mine, I grab my beach towel and lead him towards a promising looking spot of shade.
After all, we can’t having anything sensitive getting sunburned.
Also on ffnet here
Day Five: Old
We spend the day in Nassau to celebrate. Freedom: from worries, from work, and, with any luck, from the past. We visit a waterfront market where we pick out souvenirs for ourselves and our friends- rum, liqueurs, crafts, and some lovely exotic jams like the ones we’ve been having for breakfast- and then visit a few of the trendier stores. I pick out a pair of earrings with tanzanite and opal inlay. A blue stone with the swirling turquoise of the opal... I’m a sucker for pieces like that.
Before dinner we head to the beach. Clutching our discarded sandals, our fingers intertwined, we walk barefoot in the surf. An ambitious wave washes over my ankles, splashing up my calves and I laugh and wind my arms around Seth’s waist. He’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt, of all things. Yet wearing it unbuttoned the way he does, he somehow manages to make it sexy rather than silly.
He nuzzles my hair, my ears, and whispers that he loves me.
"Will you still love me when I’m a withered old lady?"
"Of course." I yelp as he nips at my ear. "As long as you don’t have twenty-five cats."
I want to come up with a clever reply but the way his lips are trailing along my jaw is just so distracting...
Seth straightens and clears his throat as a trio of beach-goers walks past us. Since he’s so jittery about public displays of affection, it’s really a blessing that we can afford our own little island. "We should head to the restaurant," he says. I resist the urge to tease him and ask what’s so embarrassing about making out with a gorgeous woman in public. I’m certain he’d mumble something about it being "not proper," or some such thing you’d think came out of a Jane Austen novel.
The restaurant is new and was advertised as "hip" and "stylish." L’Arachel said it’s the place to be in Nassau. It’s a split level affair with dining on the lower floor and a bar slash club up top. As we work our way through a delightful array of fresh seafood, I can hear the thump of a bass beat, like the distant heartbeat of something huge and old, a whale, or some strange creature of the deep, or maybe of the ocean itself. To me, it’s more intoxicating than the fruity, rum-laced drink that I’m sipping.
While I enjoy a pina colada cake- the house specialty on the dessert menu- Seth nurses an aged dark rum. "Is it as good as your scotch?"
He tilts his head and stares at the amber fluid, his hands around the glass. I have to stifle a laugh- he looks as if he were pondering the meaning of life, or something of similar gravity, rather than a question about how good his rum is.
"It’s very nice," he says finally. "I prefer scotch. But it’s very good rum. It seems like a waste not to try it while we’re here."
It’s getting late. The rhythm from upstairs is louder now and I can feel it tugging at me like the tide. I put my hand over his. "Seth?" He looks up from his drink to meet my eyes. "When you’re done, I’d like dance."
It’s very expensive, very well aged rum, meant for sipping. He downs what’s left of it. And I know it’ not because he likes club dancing- he doesn’t. In fact he mostly will stand there with his hands on my hips, doing his best to at least sway in time, while I do the actual dancing. But he knows what that sort of beat, the kind you can feel right down to your bones, does to me.
The beat crashes over us like a breaker once we’re upstairs. It’s nothing quite like I’ve heard before, a kind of blend of trance and island music. I take Seth’s hand and lead him through the swaying crowd beneath the technicolour strobe lighting. Already I can feel the atmosphere of the place, the energy on the dance floor in my veins, making me warm and heady.
I raise my hands above my head and rock my hips. Seth may not be able to forget that he’s in the centre of a crowd, but I can lose myself in music like this. Under the club lights, no one is more than a flickering shadow cast in the colours of stained glass. I could drown in this music, in his closeness, in the energy of a hundred people all moving in time, riding the same wave.
The world I live in is one of rules and structure. The money has never meant freedom, only a different set of obligations to a different group of people. That’s why we used to go clubbing when we were younger, Tana and I. We went to lose ourselves, to be in a crowd, not above it or to one side, but in it, in perfect rhythm with everyone else. When our fortunes fell away beneath the persistent drum of the music, we could find something old, something primal.
The synth beat sends shivers down my spine. Still swaying in time, I step closer to Seth and trail my fingers along his bare skin. A delicious rumbling sound pours out of his chest; I can feel it beneath my palm.
It’s hot. Sweat beads on my forehead and begins to trickle down my neck. And it doesn’t matter than the music is mixed by a DJ and piped through speakers, that’s it’s a synth beat and not a tribal drum, because to me the beat runs as deep as the ocean, its story as old as the tides. It’s life and struggle, and love and sex and it races like ichor through my veins.
"Seth," I say, leaning close to his ear so he can hear me in the din, "let’s go home."
He doesn’t protest.
The flight back is going to be torment, I know, but just a while longer and then we’ll make love on the beach in the moonlight. Even now as we leave the club, in my mind, the music has melted into the rolling lull of the ocean.
Also on ffnet here
Day Six: Young
In spite of our late night, Seth wakes at dawn. I hear him rustling around as he pulls on his jogging ware and I’m tempted to go back to sleep. But running on a tropical beach at dawn isn’t something I get to do every day and the thought of a picture-perfect sunrise wins out over sleep. I have to dash to get ready, but I manage to catch him on the veranda doing his stretches.
"Would you mind some company this morning?"
He smiles and nods. He’s always quiet it the morning. Quieter.
The ocean is dark as we begin to run, but the sun is a burst of yellow peeking out from the deep purple clouds that hover on the eastern horizon, and the others, higher in the sky, begin to blush in the face of the sun. It’s so different from back home. In the city, dawn is little more than an orange haze through the smog.
We run without speaking, without touching save when his arm happens to brush against mine, yet I feel closer to him in this silence than I ever have. All the years I’ve known him, without ever really knowing him, and now to be here, where to say nothing is to say everything...
After a while we pause for a breather and to take in the sunrise. The sea has caught light from the sky and glints with magenta and gold. I smile up at him as his fingers trail over my cheek, brushing away a stray lock of my hair. For a moment we stand there looking at each other in the dawn light, when all at once I’m struck by a sense of deja vu. I ran with him once before on a sultry tropical morning when I was quite a bit younger.
"Do you remember the last time we did this?" I ask him.
"You mean during your first spring break?"
"You do remember."
He grimaces. "How could I forget? I wanted to kill Innes." Ephraim and I had come up with the idea of renting an island for spring break. I was dating Innes at the time and Tana was seeing Cormag. The five of us decided to vacation together and dad sent Seth to keep an eye on us all.
"Was it the first time you’d been to the Caribbean?"
"Yes."
I laugh. "Honestly, Seth, you got sent to a tropical island for work. You make it sound like it was terrible."
"It was," he says with a groan. "You spent most of the trip in a bikini. You asked me to help you put on sunblock."
"Did I?" It’s hard to keep a straight face.
"Yes! You were terrible!"
"I didn’t know," I protest. "You acted as if you were... indifferent, as if I was still a little girl. I was just trying to get you to notice me."
He shakes his head, the sunlight catching on his russet hair and turning it to a blazing red. I resist the urge to run my fingers through it. "I took cold showers every day and reminded myself that it was unwise to think about my employer’s daughter in... those terms."
"I wish you’d said something."
He shakes his head. "You were nineteen, in your first year of college." His fingers trace down my cheek. He sounds so earnest when he speaks. "You were so young..."
I quirk an eyebrow. "And now I’m older and wiser?"
"Hardly." He tugs on the brim of my cap, pulling it down over my eyes.
"Hey!"
My hand darts out. He yelps and leaps back as I get the ticklish spot on his ribs. Before I manage to get at him again, he catches my wrists and pulls me against him. "You’re still terrible," he says.
"I’m still after your attention."
"You have it," he whispers and kisses me.
Also on ffnet here
Day Seven: Heart
I’m not sure what it was that woke me but I find myself listening to the lull of the waves, trying to drift back to sleep. I’m starting to float away when a groan startles me back to wakefulness.
I reach out. In the darkness, Seth’s skin is clammy. I can hear him breathing raggedly. He moans again. "Seth." I grip his arm and give him a shake. "Seth, wake up."
No sooner is he awake than he sits up. His silhouette reaches up to rub at his shoulder. His right shoulder, where he was shot. "I’m sorry," he croaks, his voice rough with sleep. "I didn’t mean to wake you."
"It’s all right. I was awake anyway. You had a nightmare?"
"Mmm."
"Was it about... what happened?"
"Yes."
I rub his back and lean my head against his shoulder. "It’s all right," I whisper. It’s the first time I’ve known him to have a nightmare and I’m at once relieved and saddened by it. I’m not the only one who’s been afraid. And for all his bravery in the waking hours, Seth’s body still remembers what it is to be shot. This thing that’s happened to us all, even though it’s over, it’s a part of us now.
His arm winds around my waist and he squeezes me and presses a kiss to the top of my head. "I love you," he says before lying back down. I, too, lie down, close against him so I can hear the thrum of his heartbeat.
It’s the steady rhythm of his heart, rather than the lull of the waves, that finally soothes me to sleep.
Also on ffnet here
Day Eight: Borrowed
"I’ve been overdue for this vacation," I say with a sigh as I lounge in a stuffed chair. I feel lethargic after our outing earlier today. Seth took me snorkelling and I didn’t drown. I consider this a remarkable accomplishment. After that a picnic on the beach and now a quiet evening indoors. It’s perfect.
"It’s just what we needed," Seth replies as he finishes chalking his pool cue.
He leans over the pool table, takes aim, and sinks the two in the corner pocket. I watch him as he moves to the opposite side of the table and sinks the five and the six in one shot. He goes after a nice easy shot- the red ball (is it the three or the seven? I can never remember.) and misses. Possibly on purpose. "Your turn," he says with a smile. Definitely on purpose.
I pull myself up and retrieve my pool cue. I pick up the blue chalk and dust the tip of my cue because that’s what you do, right? And then I glance around the table for a shot I can manage. I used to play now and then in college, but only enough to know the basic rules and to be able to make simple shots.
I spot something, the fourteen sitting near the corner pocket where Seth’s misplaced shot nudged it, and I wonder if he set it up for me. I line it up, take the shot, and I’m pleased when I sink the ball without sending the cue ball in after it. After that I spend a while circling the table looking for my next target. "Any suggestions?" I ask, looking up at him.
"The eleven in the bottom right pocket."
I scan the table for the eleven. Ah the red striped one. "What? I can’t pull that off." I’d have to hit the cue ball on the side somehow in order to send the eleven flying in the right direction.
"It’s not that difficult. Let me show you."
He holds me by the shoulders and nudges me a bit to one side. Then he tells me to take my pool cue. I lean over as if I were going to make the shot and wait for some direction. Instead of directions, Seth leans over me, one arm on either side, taking hold of my hands around the pool cue and adjusting my aim. In the air conditioned room, his body is a mass of heat against me.
His face is near mine and I turn just a little so that we’re almost touching. "I think you might be taking advantage of the situation, Mr. Knightly."
He chuckles. "Perhaps. Are you complaining, Ms. King?"
"Hmm." Suddenly my mind is filled with pool cue innuendoes. "Why don’t we go on with the lesson?" I say, though I’m far too distracted to pay attention at this point. He shows me just how to land the shot, but he doesn’t pull away as the ball goes hurtling into the pocket. Instead, as we both straighten, he winds his arms around me and I lean back against him. And for a moment we just stay that way without speaking.
This time together, alone like this, away from our jobs and responsibilities, and freed from the worries that have haunted us of late... I feel as if it’s something on loan that I’ll have to return as soon as we head back home. And I cherish it all the more for that.
For the hundredth time I glance down at the ring on my hand and the one on his. I have to remind myself that he’s not on loan, that he’s really mine, to have and to hold...
Also on ffnet here
Day Nine: Blue
Sitting on the sandy beach, encircled by Seth’s arms, I’d be content to stay here forever, watching the waves roll in and out. The tide is coming in and the crash of the surf is soothing.
"What are you thinking?" I ask him, for there’s a tension that courses through his body.
"Nothing."
"Seth..."
He heaves a sigh. "It’ll have been a year soon."
So that’s it. I should have known. I’ve been thinking about it too, but all this time I’ve been so wrapped up in my own fears that I hardly noticed how Seth has worried too. He’s always so calm, so steadfast, that even I overlook it sometimes. "I know."
"If I could have protected you better-"
"You saved my life, Seth."
"You shouldn’t have had to see what you did."
I turn to face him. The sand beneath us is still warm, the waves still rolling in and out without pause. The sun is beginning to sink and, bathed in its light, Seth’s skin takes on a burnished glow like a bronze statue. Yet as my fingers trace down his arm, he’s only flesh and blood. "Seth, it’s thanks to you that I’m alive. I know that. You were the one who stayed late that evening. I know dad had told you that you didn’t need to stick around for the meeting. It was just Grado after all- old friends." A mirthless laugh. It’s hard to believe still. Everything that’s happened... it’s like a nightmare, one that doesn’t go away in the morning.
But here we are, after it all. Here we are together.
"I was there because you were," he says. "I should’ve-" I stop his lips with mine. It’s enough to know that he loved me even then. It’s enough to know that he would make things better if he could.
"I love you," I say very firmly then, looking him in the eyes.
He smiles, tangling his fingers in my hair. "I love you too." And then I lean back against him and watch the rolling surf as his arms squeeze me tightly.
The ocean is a vast, endless blue that goes on and on, as our lives go on- not without ripples. I’ve wondered how I’m to reconcile it, the ebb and flow of our daily lives and the stormy breakers that can leave us strewn on the shore. The only answer I’ve come to is that it’s moments like these, quiet moments that I can treasure, that I can hold dear, these are what’s important, these beautiful shards of life.
And so I stare out at the horizon as the sun sinks into the ocean, content to be in Seth’s arms. He brushes a kiss over my neck and whispers my name, and for this moment, I have all I need in the world.
THE END
Title: Moments
Fandom: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Character: Eirika (Seth/Eirika)
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Seth/Eirika Modern-Day AU (Takes place after events of Seven but works just fine as a stand-alone)
Link to Table
Also on ffnet here
Day Four: Egypt
We’re on our private beach, Seth, reclining in a long chair, reading a book, while I sit on a beach towel in the shade of an umbrella, painting my nails to match my little red bikini, when I get the call. It’s Ephraim and I almost drop the phone when I hear what he has to tell me.
Seth springs out of his chair as, the moment I end the call, I start to cry. "What’s wrong? What happened?"
"They got them," I say as I cling to Seth.
"Who?"
"Pablo and Riev. Oh, I can’t believe it." And I laugh, tears still streaming down my cheeks, and I hug Seth and kiss his lips, while he looks bewildered.
"Eirika, I-" I interrupt him with another kiss. I feel as if I’ve been Atlas, carting the world around on my shoulders, but now it’s gone and I’m as light as the seabirds coasting overhead. "Darling..." he says, gripping me by the shoulders. "Do you think you could start at the beginning?"
"Ephraim called. He’s had word from Duessel. Pablo and Riev- both of them have been arrested. They were supposed to rendezvous in Cairo apparently. They managed to follow Pablo right to Riev and they’re both under arrest now."
"Both of them?"
"Yes."
"They’re sure?"
"Yes!"
His arms wrap around me like a vice. "Thank God." I had thought him calm, relaxed, but the fervency of his whisper tells another story.
"You were worried?" I ask, pulling off his sunglasses so I can see his eyes.
"How could I not be?" He strokes my face and stares into my eyes. "After everything..."
I smile and trail my fingers through his hair. "But it’s over now. We’re safe now. We’re..."
Safe as we’ll ever be... I suppose that’s as much as we can ask for. I take a breath and turn my thoughts away from Pablo and Riev. With any luck it was the Egyptian local authorities who caught them so that they’re rotting in a drafty stone cell right now. With rats. I hope there are rats.
Seth tilts my chin up. I look up into his eyes and find kindness there and understanding. We’ve walked this path together.
"We’re on our honeymoon," I say then. "And I can think of better ways to enjoy our time... can’t you?" I wink and his lips quirk. Taking his hand in mine, I grab my beach towel and lead him towards a promising looking spot of shade.
After all, we can’t having anything sensitive getting sunburned.
Also on ffnet here
Day Five: Old
We spend the day in Nassau to celebrate. Freedom: from worries, from work, and, with any luck, from the past. We visit a waterfront market where we pick out souvenirs for ourselves and our friends- rum, liqueurs, crafts, and some lovely exotic jams like the ones we’ve been having for breakfast- and then visit a few of the trendier stores. I pick out a pair of earrings with tanzanite and opal inlay. A blue stone with the swirling turquoise of the opal... I’m a sucker for pieces like that.
Before dinner we head to the beach. Clutching our discarded sandals, our fingers intertwined, we walk barefoot in the surf. An ambitious wave washes over my ankles, splashing up my calves and I laugh and wind my arms around Seth’s waist. He’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt, of all things. Yet wearing it unbuttoned the way he does, he somehow manages to make it sexy rather than silly.
He nuzzles my hair, my ears, and whispers that he loves me.
"Will you still love me when I’m a withered old lady?"
"Of course." I yelp as he nips at my ear. "As long as you don’t have twenty-five cats."
I want to come up with a clever reply but the way his lips are trailing along my jaw is just so distracting...
Seth straightens and clears his throat as a trio of beach-goers walks past us. Since he’s so jittery about public displays of affection, it’s really a blessing that we can afford our own little island. "We should head to the restaurant," he says. I resist the urge to tease him and ask what’s so embarrassing about making out with a gorgeous woman in public. I’m certain he’d mumble something about it being "not proper," or some such thing you’d think came out of a Jane Austen novel.
The restaurant is new and was advertised as "hip" and "stylish." L’Arachel said it’s the place to be in Nassau. It’s a split level affair with dining on the lower floor and a bar slash club up top. As we work our way through a delightful array of fresh seafood, I can hear the thump of a bass beat, like the distant heartbeat of something huge and old, a whale, or some strange creature of the deep, or maybe of the ocean itself. To me, it’s more intoxicating than the fruity, rum-laced drink that I’m sipping.
While I enjoy a pina colada cake- the house specialty on the dessert menu- Seth nurses an aged dark rum. "Is it as good as your scotch?"
He tilts his head and stares at the amber fluid, his hands around the glass. I have to stifle a laugh- he looks as if he were pondering the meaning of life, or something of similar gravity, rather than a question about how good his rum is.
"It’s very nice," he says finally. "I prefer scotch. But it’s very good rum. It seems like a waste not to try it while we’re here."
It’s getting late. The rhythm from upstairs is louder now and I can feel it tugging at me like the tide. I put my hand over his. "Seth?" He looks up from his drink to meet my eyes. "When you’re done, I’d like dance."
It’s very expensive, very well aged rum, meant for sipping. He downs what’s left of it. And I know it’ not because he likes club dancing- he doesn’t. In fact he mostly will stand there with his hands on my hips, doing his best to at least sway in time, while I do the actual dancing. But he knows what that sort of beat, the kind you can feel right down to your bones, does to me.
The beat crashes over us like a breaker once we’re upstairs. It’s nothing quite like I’ve heard before, a kind of blend of trance and island music. I take Seth’s hand and lead him through the swaying crowd beneath the technicolour strobe lighting. Already I can feel the atmosphere of the place, the energy on the dance floor in my veins, making me warm and heady.
I raise my hands above my head and rock my hips. Seth may not be able to forget that he’s in the centre of a crowd, but I can lose myself in music like this. Under the club lights, no one is more than a flickering shadow cast in the colours of stained glass. I could drown in this music, in his closeness, in the energy of a hundred people all moving in time, riding the same wave.
The world I live in is one of rules and structure. The money has never meant freedom, only a different set of obligations to a different group of people. That’s why we used to go clubbing when we were younger, Tana and I. We went to lose ourselves, to be in a crowd, not above it or to one side, but in it, in perfect rhythm with everyone else. When our fortunes fell away beneath the persistent drum of the music, we could find something old, something primal.
The synth beat sends shivers down my spine. Still swaying in time, I step closer to Seth and trail my fingers along his bare skin. A delicious rumbling sound pours out of his chest; I can feel it beneath my palm.
It’s hot. Sweat beads on my forehead and begins to trickle down my neck. And it doesn’t matter than the music is mixed by a DJ and piped through speakers, that’s it’s a synth beat and not a tribal drum, because to me the beat runs as deep as the ocean, its story as old as the tides. It’s life and struggle, and love and sex and it races like ichor through my veins.
"Seth," I say, leaning close to his ear so he can hear me in the din, "let’s go home."
He doesn’t protest.
The flight back is going to be torment, I know, but just a while longer and then we’ll make love on the beach in the moonlight. Even now as we leave the club, in my mind, the music has melted into the rolling lull of the ocean.
Also on ffnet here
Day Six: Young
In spite of our late night, Seth wakes at dawn. I hear him rustling around as he pulls on his jogging ware and I’m tempted to go back to sleep. But running on a tropical beach at dawn isn’t something I get to do every day and the thought of a picture-perfect sunrise wins out over sleep. I have to dash to get ready, but I manage to catch him on the veranda doing his stretches.
"Would you mind some company this morning?"
He smiles and nods. He’s always quiet it the morning. Quieter.
The ocean is dark as we begin to run, but the sun is a burst of yellow peeking out from the deep purple clouds that hover on the eastern horizon, and the others, higher in the sky, begin to blush in the face of the sun. It’s so different from back home. In the city, dawn is little more than an orange haze through the smog.
We run without speaking, without touching save when his arm happens to brush against mine, yet I feel closer to him in this silence than I ever have. All the years I’ve known him, without ever really knowing him, and now to be here, where to say nothing is to say everything...
After a while we pause for a breather and to take in the sunrise. The sea has caught light from the sky and glints with magenta and gold. I smile up at him as his fingers trail over my cheek, brushing away a stray lock of my hair. For a moment we stand there looking at each other in the dawn light, when all at once I’m struck by a sense of deja vu. I ran with him once before on a sultry tropical morning when I was quite a bit younger.
"Do you remember the last time we did this?" I ask him.
"You mean during your first spring break?"
"You do remember."
He grimaces. "How could I forget? I wanted to kill Innes." Ephraim and I had come up with the idea of renting an island for spring break. I was dating Innes at the time and Tana was seeing Cormag. The five of us decided to vacation together and dad sent Seth to keep an eye on us all.
"Was it the first time you’d been to the Caribbean?"
"Yes."
I laugh. "Honestly, Seth, you got sent to a tropical island for work. You make it sound like it was terrible."
"It was," he says with a groan. "You spent most of the trip in a bikini. You asked me to help you put on sunblock."
"Did I?" It’s hard to keep a straight face.
"Yes! You were terrible!"
"I didn’t know," I protest. "You acted as if you were... indifferent, as if I was still a little girl. I was just trying to get you to notice me."
He shakes his head, the sunlight catching on his russet hair and turning it to a blazing red. I resist the urge to run my fingers through it. "I took cold showers every day and reminded myself that it was unwise to think about my employer’s daughter in... those terms."
"I wish you’d said something."
He shakes his head. "You were nineteen, in your first year of college." His fingers trace down my cheek. He sounds so earnest when he speaks. "You were so young..."
I quirk an eyebrow. "And now I’m older and wiser?"
"Hardly." He tugs on the brim of my cap, pulling it down over my eyes.
"Hey!"
My hand darts out. He yelps and leaps back as I get the ticklish spot on his ribs. Before I manage to get at him again, he catches my wrists and pulls me against him. "You’re still terrible," he says.
"I’m still after your attention."
"You have it," he whispers and kisses me.
Also on ffnet here
Day Seven: Heart
I’m not sure what it was that woke me but I find myself listening to the lull of the waves, trying to drift back to sleep. I’m starting to float away when a groan startles me back to wakefulness.
I reach out. In the darkness, Seth’s skin is clammy. I can hear him breathing raggedly. He moans again. "Seth." I grip his arm and give him a shake. "Seth, wake up."
No sooner is he awake than he sits up. His silhouette reaches up to rub at his shoulder. His right shoulder, where he was shot. "I’m sorry," he croaks, his voice rough with sleep. "I didn’t mean to wake you."
"It’s all right. I was awake anyway. You had a nightmare?"
"Mmm."
"Was it about... what happened?"
"Yes."
I rub his back and lean my head against his shoulder. "It’s all right," I whisper. It’s the first time I’ve known him to have a nightmare and I’m at once relieved and saddened by it. I’m not the only one who’s been afraid. And for all his bravery in the waking hours, Seth’s body still remembers what it is to be shot. This thing that’s happened to us all, even though it’s over, it’s a part of us now.
His arm winds around my waist and he squeezes me and presses a kiss to the top of my head. "I love you," he says before lying back down. I, too, lie down, close against him so I can hear the thrum of his heartbeat.
It’s the steady rhythm of his heart, rather than the lull of the waves, that finally soothes me to sleep.
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Day Eight: Borrowed
"I’ve been overdue for this vacation," I say with a sigh as I lounge in a stuffed chair. I feel lethargic after our outing earlier today. Seth took me snorkelling and I didn’t drown. I consider this a remarkable accomplishment. After that a picnic on the beach and now a quiet evening indoors. It’s perfect.
"It’s just what we needed," Seth replies as he finishes chalking his pool cue.
He leans over the pool table, takes aim, and sinks the two in the corner pocket. I watch him as he moves to the opposite side of the table and sinks the five and the six in one shot. He goes after a nice easy shot- the red ball (is it the three or the seven? I can never remember.) and misses. Possibly on purpose. "Your turn," he says with a smile. Definitely on purpose.
I pull myself up and retrieve my pool cue. I pick up the blue chalk and dust the tip of my cue because that’s what you do, right? And then I glance around the table for a shot I can manage. I used to play now and then in college, but only enough to know the basic rules and to be able to make simple shots.
I spot something, the fourteen sitting near the corner pocket where Seth’s misplaced shot nudged it, and I wonder if he set it up for me. I line it up, take the shot, and I’m pleased when I sink the ball without sending the cue ball in after it. After that I spend a while circling the table looking for my next target. "Any suggestions?" I ask, looking up at him.
"The eleven in the bottom right pocket."
I scan the table for the eleven. Ah the red striped one. "What? I can’t pull that off." I’d have to hit the cue ball on the side somehow in order to send the eleven flying in the right direction.
"It’s not that difficult. Let me show you."
He holds me by the shoulders and nudges me a bit to one side. Then he tells me to take my pool cue. I lean over as if I were going to make the shot and wait for some direction. Instead of directions, Seth leans over me, one arm on either side, taking hold of my hands around the pool cue and adjusting my aim. In the air conditioned room, his body is a mass of heat against me.
His face is near mine and I turn just a little so that we’re almost touching. "I think you might be taking advantage of the situation, Mr. Knightly."
He chuckles. "Perhaps. Are you complaining, Ms. King?"
"Hmm." Suddenly my mind is filled with pool cue innuendoes. "Why don’t we go on with the lesson?" I say, though I’m far too distracted to pay attention at this point. He shows me just how to land the shot, but he doesn’t pull away as the ball goes hurtling into the pocket. Instead, as we both straighten, he winds his arms around me and I lean back against him. And for a moment we just stay that way without speaking.
This time together, alone like this, away from our jobs and responsibilities, and freed from the worries that have haunted us of late... I feel as if it’s something on loan that I’ll have to return as soon as we head back home. And I cherish it all the more for that.
For the hundredth time I glance down at the ring on my hand and the one on his. I have to remind myself that he’s not on loan, that he’s really mine, to have and to hold...
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Day Nine: Blue
Sitting on the sandy beach, encircled by Seth’s arms, I’d be content to stay here forever, watching the waves roll in and out. The tide is coming in and the crash of the surf is soothing.
"What are you thinking?" I ask him, for there’s a tension that courses through his body.
"Nothing."
"Seth..."
He heaves a sigh. "It’ll have been a year soon."
So that’s it. I should have known. I’ve been thinking about it too, but all this time I’ve been so wrapped up in my own fears that I hardly noticed how Seth has worried too. He’s always so calm, so steadfast, that even I overlook it sometimes. "I know."
"If I could have protected you better-"
"You saved my life, Seth."
"You shouldn’t have had to see what you did."
I turn to face him. The sand beneath us is still warm, the waves still rolling in and out without pause. The sun is beginning to sink and, bathed in its light, Seth’s skin takes on a burnished glow like a bronze statue. Yet as my fingers trace down his arm, he’s only flesh and blood. "Seth, it’s thanks to you that I’m alive. I know that. You were the one who stayed late that evening. I know dad had told you that you didn’t need to stick around for the meeting. It was just Grado after all- old friends." A mirthless laugh. It’s hard to believe still. Everything that’s happened... it’s like a nightmare, one that doesn’t go away in the morning.
But here we are, after it all. Here we are together.
"I was there because you were," he says. "I should’ve-" I stop his lips with mine. It’s enough to know that he loved me even then. It’s enough to know that he would make things better if he could.
"I love you," I say very firmly then, looking him in the eyes.
He smiles, tangling his fingers in my hair. "I love you too." And then I lean back against him and watch the rolling surf as his arms squeeze me tightly.
The ocean is a vast, endless blue that goes on and on, as our lives go on- not without ripples. I’ve wondered how I’m to reconcile it, the ebb and flow of our daily lives and the stormy breakers that can leave us strewn on the shore. The only answer I’ve come to is that it’s moments like these, quiet moments that I can treasure, that I can hold dear, these are what’s important, these beautiful shards of life.
And so I stare out at the horizon as the sun sinks into the ocean, content to be in Seth’s arms. He brushes a kiss over my neck and whispers my name, and for this moment, I have all I need in the world.
THE END