Masked
Masked
Written for: ag_fics Fic Battle 2.0
Prompt: rubberglue- Masquerade.
Characters: A/G
Rating: PG
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It might as well be a masquerade. Gwen thought. Something about her life felt so disjointed. It was like she didn’t completely fit into the world that carried her. Each day she went to work and did the time. She sold flowers to the loved, the loving, and the lonely. Oh yes the lonely. Sometimes they’d wander in just to get a bouquet, or a stem or two roses or daisies or carnations for themselves. It was this crazy world of seeking and never finding.
It was…just this hole in the middle that she didn’t get. Every relationship left her unfulfilled. Every kiss from a guy didn’t hold steam or flame.
It was like she was waiting for something, like something was searching her out. But there was no finding. There was no meeting. It just went on. The dull momentum. The unsatisfying existence of life.
*
Hell, call it a masquerade, Arthur surmised. Work again, a train, a route, but it wasn’t the one he wanted to travel. It gave him no satisfaction of feeling, understanding. He rushed to work, rushed to be on time, to not miss a meeting, to hours later feel like the rain of boredom. Monotony consumed it all, the days and the nights. Little shadows waited on the other side of confusing dreams. Relationships felt holed from the thickness of solid. Something lacked to make him break up or be shaken up. He couldn’t understand what was wrong with him.
Why, no matter what he did, no matter who he was with, he longed for something beyond. No woman could bring him to the golden glow of a hearth. No woman matched the phantom one of dreams he could not recall enough of to piece together.
It was like he was living to find something else, to reach out and touch the essence of something that he didn’t know what it was. And as he waited to get to it, life held no real spark. It lacked sorely.
*
She carried the newest bloomed flowers in, a myriad of gillyflowers. They lost the hold of her hands though between car and door to shop. She picked up the most she could, but a bunch dropped underneath the bridge’s railing and landed near the brook of water.
*
They landed right near his feet. Now a bunch of fallen flowers was no real reason to look for someone, someplace or something, but these were enough to fit maybe four or five bouquets and they were perfectly budding, vibrant in color. Someone had to be missing these. So he lifted his head, turned around, during his lunch break. He had less than ten minutes left and it would be wasted on this. Oh well, food wasn’t tasting all that great anyway. Just horribly bland.
Well and there it was, a little establishment of lavender and blue coloring, with hints of red. Avalon’s Floral Garden. He moved up to the bridge and crossed to the higher level, a weird sensation starting to fill him the closer he got to the little building.
*
“Oh.” She pricked herself on a thorn of one of the white roses. So strange, she never did anything like that. And this sensation she was getting.
This…
Hands placed something down upon the counter. Gloved hands. She stared at them for the longest amount of time. Déjà vu and yet not understanding of why. She lifted her head. Looked up into his eyes. Seeing a mask of hollow feeling. Like that one that covered her own. Too eerily like it.
And gillyflowers. Bunches and bunches of them.
“Er…I found these on the lower end of the bridge. Um, wild guess, but thought they might be yours.”
A supply of flowers cost good amounts of money. Ones that would fill the brightest bouquet were treasure even beyond. Her fingers grazed against his black gloves and she gave a little shiver.
“I’m sorry. I hope I haven’t frightened you.” He probably was with how he kept staring, his gloved fingers couldn’t leave her bared ones. Those dark curls of hair. The light dash of freckles upon her cheeks, nose.
Something…
“You haven’t. Thank-you.” She practically stuttered on those basic words. A stammering of reply and emotion and yet the easiest thing to say.
Why?
A customer came in, demanding attention. He backed away. She had to let go. His time was up. Back to the monotony. Her time was being demanded. Back to the usual service.
***
Hours moved to days and it was the most oddest of feeling. Both never realized it before, but now they saw all the brooks of loneliness as some bit of covering, A cloak. No. A mask. Emotions so masked by their own insecurities or maybe something far more sinister. Maybe something outside that they had no control of until now.
It quaked at them. It lured them. Pulled so hard she had to find it and so did he.
The bridge lay still, the fine old stone one. It wanted them. It beckoned them. It turned away all outsiders. It whispered in the wind.
Cam…
But nothing too complete. Fadings before it all could be found.
However did that matter? When their footsteps touched the bridge’s base.
When…
They looked at each other. Gazed without making the other run. Touched when it became too unbearable. Strangers did not behave this way. But when warmth teased at your skin, told you that there were masks to be lifted, taken away, you pushed away your cautiousness.
His fingers reached out to her cheek. They slowly moved over the soft skin, no gloves upon fingers this time so he could feel the sweetness. She moved into it, her own fingers reaching out. Touching the chest of his red tie. He closed his eyes. Desiring. Yearning.
Lift it away. End the curse.
Lips pressed to lips and sparks answered with stark reveal. They stopped standing still and moved forward. Their shoes dug into the stone ground as they pressed to feel more of each other. As the masks commenced to fall, be destroyed. As awareness dawned like a babe’s first new beautiful morning of life. As they felt the trickle of recall turn to the spring of memory. Lips did not want to leave each other. Physical awareness wanted to keep in the warmth.
But part they would have to. For just a second or two to say it. To feel it. To understand it.
Found.
The other was found. The masks were disintegrated, burning in the flames of the witch’s defeat.
For they found…each other.
They were once again…
“Arthur.”
“Guinevere.”
One.
Without loneliness.
One.
With passion.
One.
Of eternal roots of love.
“Found you.” He whispered with tears and shakes.
“Yes…finally.” She echoed, a spring of joy.