‘They didn’t need words.’
WHAT YOU MEAN TO ME
Quinn Merrill & Phillipa Irving
prompt: by the light of a million stars
Every year he did something special for her birthday. Last year Nerys had been kind enough to get them into the museum she’d been curating at when everyone else was gone for the night. That had taken a fair bit of planning and forward thinking. This year he hadn’t had nearly as much time but he suspected she would appreciate the simplicity. Somehow he managed to surprise her every year though he wasn’t sure why or how. She knew he was up to something when the time rolled around but she never managed to figure out what exactly he had in mind. Hopefully this year would be no different.
He’d worked out a deal with one of the other fighters, agreeing to take two extra patrols of their choosing if they would keep her from coming up here before he was ready, to bring her up here at an appointed time, and when it was just the two of them to keep everyone else from interrupting them. It was a deal he’d struck willingly and without any sort of regret or second thought, something he was more than happy to do if it meant making her happy.
Right on time he heard the access door open. Quinn hadn’t long completed the finishing touches which had given him just enough time to put himself in place so that she wouldn’t be able to miss him when she was let out onto the roof. As she stepped out she looked around and he saw her jaw drop just enough to betray her surprise. One hand lifted to her mouth and the smile started to form.
Relief flooded through him and he greeted her with a smile of his own when her eyes found his. It was a warm and still night, the flames of the candles set along the edge of the roof and all along one raised inner wall barely even flickered in the tiniest of breezes as the last light of the day faded beyond the horizon. The stars would be out soon. On the ground he’d set a blanket and cushions and in the centre of that was a basket he’d had plenty of help filling with foods he knew she loved. When he offered a hand out to her there was a glass in it and she stepped forward almost gingerly to accept it and take a sip of the wine it held. From the smallest tremble in her fingers he suspected it was more to deal with the shock than any kind of curiosity about the vintage.
He offered her another smile, warm and fond and saying everything he didn’t need words to tell her. After more than three hundred and fifty years in one another’s lives they didn’t need words. A simple look could hold more meaning than anything their voices could shape and the one he gave her now said plenty. There was no one else he would go to this sort of trouble for, no one else who warranted so much effort and attention. Quinn cared about every single member of the pack but Phillipa was everything to him. She always had been. Always would be. And he wasn’t sorry about that. Not in the least.
Setting his glass down on the closest surface, the inside wall of the roof overlooking the courtyard down below, he took something from atop the basket set on the ground and stepped closer to her, close enough to see the way the light of the candles reflected in her blue eyes. Those eyes were looking up at him, fixed on his, and he offered her another one of those smiles that was reserved just for her as he stroked errant strands of strawberry blonde back behind her ear. The white flower fit nicely in the folds of hair there and when he was satisfied there was no risk of it falling out he lowered his hands and met her gaze anew.
“Happy Birthday, Bunny,” he said softly, for her ears only. Just for a moment he thought he saw tears in her eyes but they were short-lived, a trick of the light or maybe just his imagination. He pressed a kiss to her forehead with one hand cupping her face, his thumb stroking over her cheek. With a single glance upward he saw the first tease of stars in the night sky and with one gentle touch beneath Phillipa’s chin he guided her gaze upward to take it in.
Her hand found his and squeezed. Quinn returned it without a second thought. That touch told him everything she couldn’t put into words, everything she would otherwise struggle to articulate. He’d surprised her, pleased her, made another one of her birthdays special and unforgettable and that was everything he’d been hoping for. Everything and more.