Fic: Magnum Opus (1/1)
Title: Magnum Opus
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Daniel/Charlotte
Word Count: 639
Summary: There are worse things than this. For valhalla37, who requested “Daniel and Charlotte” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. General spoilers through Season 5.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: For valhalla37: Having never written these two before, and knowing how much you enjoy them, I really, really hope they don't suck.
Magnum Opus
Her fingers dance like nymphs on the solstice, lost against the naturals and stark atop the flats. The soft scrape of her fingernails on the keys tugs at his heartstrings, quivering until the very last of the tones are lost to memory.
The notes wail a little, quiver out of tune - the moans of the angels when the heavens cave in - but she’s dead-on, pitch perfect; it evens out.
“No,” he whispers, but it cuts the ether and she stops, and he barely breathes as he waits for it all to crumble; it doesn’t, and he thanks a God that science can’t prove for miracles, both big and small.
When he leans over her, it’s more an excuse to touch - to let his fingers linger against the nailbeds, trace the cuticles and slide up the slick half-moons to the tips - than it is to change the tempo, the key; he breathes in as the hollow in his chest gives way to fit the poised globe of her shoulder, and with the faintest, strongest hints of lavender and mango and sea salt he feels complete again, feels whole; and fuck, but he’s missed her, this heart he’d never had.
And there are worse things; worse things than her laughter ringing off the black keys, ebbing and flowing like a scale, like the tides - worse things than her breasts shivering with breath and life, or the curve of her mouth that betrays her smile; such a smile.
There are worse things.
“Like this,” he breathes, and it catches, misty-eyed and choked against a thing he feels fill his chest and reach the brim, and overflow, and damn it all, but his palms shake against the subtle hills of her knuckles as he gathers her hands, just above the wrists and shifts them down, cups their curves longer than necessary, too quick to memorize (not that he needs to), too long to forget. He feels himself begin to fall a little, begin to collapse, but it’s a fever-dream, and her hands, rough at the tips with the remnants of ancient worlds - younger than time, than this, but only just - are face-up against his before he can fully understand what the world feels like without her touch against his own, thumbs caressing the creases, and where the pads of his own fingers brush the pulse in her veins, he finds his solace, his anchor - the only home he’s ever wanted, ever known.
And if this is what it took, if this is what his soul was worth, what the slow leak of his blood and the torn muscle in his chest - before his heart, behind his soul - could buy from a hellbent universe, then it’s worth it. It’s all worth it because she’s real and warm beneath his hands, and there is not price he wouldn’t pay to have that again, to have her.
“Mmm,” she murmurs, hums, her tongue darting over her lips, the flutter of a hummingbird as her mouth curves into a soft smile that’s lighter than the clouds and more brilliant than sunshine. “You’re right.” She takes the next measure flawlessly, a symphony, and when she turns to him - finally - the depths and the heights and the sheer vastness of eternity, of love beyond death, shining bright inside her eyes, it’s so breathtaking that he thinks he might drown in it, in them, in her; it would be alright, though - it would be alright. “It’s better this way.”
Of course, Daniel thinks. Of course it is.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Daniel/Charlotte
Word Count: 639
Summary: There are worse things than this. For valhalla37, who requested “Daniel and Charlotte” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. General spoilers through Season 5.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: For valhalla37: Having never written these two before, and knowing how much you enjoy them, I really, really hope they don't suck.
Magnum Opus
Her fingers dance like nymphs on the solstice, lost against the naturals and stark atop the flats. The soft scrape of her fingernails on the keys tugs at his heartstrings, quivering until the very last of the tones are lost to memory.
The notes wail a little, quiver out of tune - the moans of the angels when the heavens cave in - but she’s dead-on, pitch perfect; it evens out.
“No,” he whispers, but it cuts the ether and she stops, and he barely breathes as he waits for it all to crumble; it doesn’t, and he thanks a God that science can’t prove for miracles, both big and small.
When he leans over her, it’s more an excuse to touch - to let his fingers linger against the nailbeds, trace the cuticles and slide up the slick half-moons to the tips - than it is to change the tempo, the key; he breathes in as the hollow in his chest gives way to fit the poised globe of her shoulder, and with the faintest, strongest hints of lavender and mango and sea salt he feels complete again, feels whole; and fuck, but he’s missed her, this heart he’d never had.
And there are worse things; worse things than her laughter ringing off the black keys, ebbing and flowing like a scale, like the tides - worse things than her breasts shivering with breath and life, or the curve of her mouth that betrays her smile; such a smile.
There are worse things.
“Like this,” he breathes, and it catches, misty-eyed and choked against a thing he feels fill his chest and reach the brim, and overflow, and damn it all, but his palms shake against the subtle hills of her knuckles as he gathers her hands, just above the wrists and shifts them down, cups their curves longer than necessary, too quick to memorize (not that he needs to), too long to forget. He feels himself begin to fall a little, begin to collapse, but it’s a fever-dream, and her hands, rough at the tips with the remnants of ancient worlds - younger than time, than this, but only just - are face-up against his before he can fully understand what the world feels like without her touch against his own, thumbs caressing the creases, and where the pads of his own fingers brush the pulse in her veins, he finds his solace, his anchor - the only home he’s ever wanted, ever known.
And if this is what it took, if this is what his soul was worth, what the slow leak of his blood and the torn muscle in his chest - before his heart, behind his soul - could buy from a hellbent universe, then it’s worth it. It’s all worth it because she’s real and warm beneath his hands, and there is not price he wouldn’t pay to have that again, to have her.
“Mmm,” she murmurs, hums, her tongue darting over her lips, the flutter of a hummingbird as her mouth curves into a soft smile that’s lighter than the clouds and more brilliant than sunshine. “You’re right.” She takes the next measure flawlessly, a symphony, and when she turns to him - finally - the depths and the heights and the sheer vastness of eternity, of love beyond death, shining bright inside her eyes, it’s so breathtaking that he thinks he might drown in it, in them, in her; it would be alright, though - it would be alright. “It’s better this way.”
Of course, Daniel thinks. Of course it is.