Fic: Just In Case (1/1)
Title: Just In Case
Rating: PG
Pairing: Daniel/Charlotte
Word Count: 761
Summary: They’re not ready to let go yet. Spoilers through 6.17 - The End.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: Because... just because.
Just In Case
His shirt clings, tugs at the creases; the heat beautiful, tangible -- real, like her.
She looks, stares; a little vacant, a little lost, and it throbs between his ribs, how the lights catch against her, dance on her skin; she’s the most beautiful music, the most perfect silence, and his chest aches with the pull of her, the need for her he’s tried to learn to breathe through, but needs, burns instead to breathe with.
He sees, in the black of his mind, the play of sunlight through the leaves, filtered and dulled as she moved on and he remained; he swallows hard, because that’s all behind them now, all lost to the fall. When he reaches her, he resists the urge to touch, to push; wills her to remember with the color of his eyes, the set of his lips -- the thrum of his pulse and the cadence of his breaths, as if the world could exist between the two of them alone, in them alone, and for no other.
She opens her mouth to speak, but the words catch as she meets his gaze, and there are tears behind her eyes as they widen, reflect his features when he reaches to wipe away the smear of red, her lipstick traced too stark above her mouth: here is no place for her blood to be spilled, not anymore -- not here; and he hopes that she remembers, hopes that even as it hurts, that it heals: to know that it’s over, that it’s done.
There are tears on her cheeks when he pulls away, breathes again, and he hopes -- hopes in the very depths, in the very beating of his heart -- that the only thing she knows is that he loves her, that the only thing she hears is the way it sounded, to say it, tinged with sea salt and the promise of rain.
They’re alone now; the seats are empty, the show long since done, and they’ve been left behind to soak up the missing notes, the lingering chords -- but there’s nothing wasted, nothing broken in the taste of her lips, the slide of her tongue as the tears fall, too quick for him to measure, to catch or to pause, and so he basks in the finality, the rightness -- the echo of a time gone by, long forgotten, never lost: the tang of her tears like the breeze of the sea, and he holds to her until he can feel her warmth in his bones, until he can measure the flutter of her heart in her chest by the press of his lips at her throat, and when he sobs into the crook of her neck, her hands splayed along his spine make it alright; make everything alright.
His eyes crack open, half a blink, and he catches movement in the distance, eyes that he knows: his constant watching him, wavering, ready to leave, but it doesn’t matter, not anymore -- to lose his tether means nothing now, when he only means to fly.
To lose an anchor is meaningless, when his soul’s already home.
He smiles, and it mingles sadness with so much joy; and he knows that to have her again is a taste of heaven, full and fresh and perfect -- lush and precious, but only just a fleeting touch, even as it lasts forever. And he knows -- somehow, ephemeral -- that it could be more; and when he’s willing to take his hands from her curves, his fingers from the give in her skin, he could maybe know it, touch it, drown in it and never have to breathe again, but for now he holds her to him, inhales her scent and closes his eyes, and loses himself, drowns in her, because she’s enough.
She’s enough.
Those eyes he knows are gone; he understands, somewhere nameless, that he’ll never see them again; that he’ll know their weight soon enough. The end is inevitable, that much is sure, and they’ll find their way there soon; his hand in hers like the bridging of a gap, her palm on his chest measuring the leaps of his heart, ensuring that they both make it to other side unscathed.
They’ll leave, soon enough; they’ll leave, and move on, and it will be everything.
But they’re not quite ready to let go yet, just in case.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Daniel/Charlotte
Word Count: 761
Summary: They’re not ready to let go yet. Spoilers through 6.17 - The End.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: Because... just because.
Just In Case
His shirt clings, tugs at the creases; the heat beautiful, tangible -- real, like her.
She looks, stares; a little vacant, a little lost, and it throbs between his ribs, how the lights catch against her, dance on her skin; she’s the most beautiful music, the most perfect silence, and his chest aches with the pull of her, the need for her he’s tried to learn to breathe through, but needs, burns instead to breathe with.
He sees, in the black of his mind, the play of sunlight through the leaves, filtered and dulled as she moved on and he remained; he swallows hard, because that’s all behind them now, all lost to the fall. When he reaches her, he resists the urge to touch, to push; wills her to remember with the color of his eyes, the set of his lips -- the thrum of his pulse and the cadence of his breaths, as if the world could exist between the two of them alone, in them alone, and for no other.
She opens her mouth to speak, but the words catch as she meets his gaze, and there are tears behind her eyes as they widen, reflect his features when he reaches to wipe away the smear of red, her lipstick traced too stark above her mouth: here is no place for her blood to be spilled, not anymore -- not here; and he hopes that she remembers, hopes that even as it hurts, that it heals: to know that it’s over, that it’s done.
There are tears on her cheeks when he pulls away, breathes again, and he hopes -- hopes in the very depths, in the very beating of his heart -- that the only thing she knows is that he loves her, that the only thing she hears is the way it sounded, to say it, tinged with sea salt and the promise of rain.
They’re alone now; the seats are empty, the show long since done, and they’ve been left behind to soak up the missing notes, the lingering chords -- but there’s nothing wasted, nothing broken in the taste of her lips, the slide of her tongue as the tears fall, too quick for him to measure, to catch or to pause, and so he basks in the finality, the rightness -- the echo of a time gone by, long forgotten, never lost: the tang of her tears like the breeze of the sea, and he holds to her until he can feel her warmth in his bones, until he can measure the flutter of her heart in her chest by the press of his lips at her throat, and when he sobs into the crook of her neck, her hands splayed along his spine make it alright; make everything alright.
His eyes crack open, half a blink, and he catches movement in the distance, eyes that he knows: his constant watching him, wavering, ready to leave, but it doesn’t matter, not anymore -- to lose his tether means nothing now, when he only means to fly.
To lose an anchor is meaningless, when his soul’s already home.
He smiles, and it mingles sadness with so much joy; and he knows that to have her again is a taste of heaven, full and fresh and perfect -- lush and precious, but only just a fleeting touch, even as it lasts forever. And he knows -- somehow, ephemeral -- that it could be more; and when he’s willing to take his hands from her curves, his fingers from the give in her skin, he could maybe know it, touch it, drown in it and never have to breathe again, but for now he holds her to him, inhales her scent and closes his eyes, and loses himself, drowns in her, because she’s enough.
She’s enough.
Those eyes he knows are gone; he understands, somewhere nameless, that he’ll never see them again; that he’ll know their weight soon enough. The end is inevitable, that much is sure, and they’ll find their way there soon; his hand in hers like the bridging of a gap, her palm on his chest measuring the leaps of his heart, ensuring that they both make it to other side unscathed.
They’ll leave, soon enough; they’ll leave, and move on, and it will be everything.
But they’re not quite ready to let go yet, just in case.