(no subject)
time around his neck, Ten/Rose, g
She points to his round watch on one occasion. “It doesn’t work,” is all he says, his breath warming her cheeks as they sit close together. “but I like it. Don’t you?”, 2302
a/n: I am ridiculously nervous for this. I was gonna post something else, but I just ended up writing this instead. I'm not entirely sure it even makes much sense, but apparently that's just how I roll lately.
006.
Her legs are stinging all over from the nettles, and her shoes are brown with dirt when she reaches the water. She knows it’s dangerous here, she knows there’s been talk of all sorts of terrible things preying the area, but with her cheek against the sunshine and her eyes on the sunlit water below she cannot find the will to care. Hours of trekking and of not knowing where she was, or where to go, and she is finally here; at the water’s edge.
Gently, she bends down and dips a hand into the crystal clear water. The water is cold, but not freezing. It helps in the heat blustering down from above. She cups the water in her hands, bringing it to her lips thirstily.
She is so wrapped up the beauty of what is around her, the voice from behind her startles her into falling back.
A young man with almond hair and almond eyes and a handsome face is staring down at her with a peculiar smile on his face. “Sorry,” he laughs at her bewildered expression. “I didn’t mean to make you fall, I was only saying hello, I… anyway.” He holds out his hand to help her up and smiles wider when she takes it.
She looks at her shoes for a moment. “Sorry,” she mumbles, brow furrowed.
He laughs, a lovely sound that makes her laugh back. He wears a long suit and tie, and has hair with a life of its own. A round watch hangs around his neck on a chain, gold and glinting in the sun. “Quite alright,” he says and she swears he gives her hand a subtle caress before letting go. “I was just… wanting to say hello. You don’t get many people out for a stroll about here, I think, at least I haven’t seen anyone.” Then he pauses and his eyes meet hers. “Except for you. I saw you in the woods before, I think. But you were gone before I could say hello.”
“Yeah… I,” she shrugs, laughing a little, “I like to come here… I was looking for the stream actually.”
He nods a few times. “And so you should.”
She holds her hand out. “I’m Rose.”
He takes it, and holds it in his own for a moment or two. “Nice to meet you, Rose - very nice. Not many find the courage to come here.” She finds that she very much likes the way he says her name, the way he talks.
“I haven’t seen anything like the stories say,” she admits. “Nothing to hurt anyone.”
At that he smiles broadly, eyes alight. “That’s because I’m here,” he tells her with all the certainty in the world, and how could she not believe him?
She laughs, nodding along. “Right, alright then… what was your name?”
“Where did you come from?” he asks without answering. “I’ve seen nothing or no one for miles and miles.”
“I live back there,” she points vaguely behind her. “What about you, you can’t live here, can you?”
He looks at her, his smile small but genuine. “I don’t really have a home,” he tells her.
“Oh.” Her face falls, he sees it does.
For then, he shakes his head at her crestfallen expression, shrugging it off as little value. “Nothing that matters,” he says. “I like it here, don’t you?” Before she can answer, he then takes her hand. “Will you… that is…” He clears his throat, and looks into her eyes, “Stay awhile?”
She only grins back, and it’s an answer enough for him.
-0-
They meet by the stream again and again, though he still won’t tell his name. He speaks with an influent tongue sometimes, and when she asks what language he’ll shrug and say it’s just the right one. They talk and laugh and occasionally she’ll catch him looking at her in a way he really shouldn’t, and she wishes she didn’t like it so much.
He’ll talk of the wonders of the water and they will watch the clouds together, sometimes. He’s the man she knows not even the name of, and she doesn’t care that he mentions so little of himself whenever she asks.
She points to his round watch on one occasion. “It doesn’t work,” is all he says, his breath warming her cheeks as they sit close together. “but I like it. Don’t you?”
Whenever they have to say goodbye, she’ll kiss him on each cheek and hug him tighter than she should do. “I’ll see you later,” he always says with a hand cupping her cheek and another on his watch, and she’ll smile with a, “Not if I see you first,” before running off into the trees.
-0-
One day though, she comes and it’s different. For her, not for him. He gushes about plants and clouds, and he threads his fingers through hers whenever a free chance, but she is subdued and she thinks he knows it. He doesn’t say anything, and she hates the secret that eats at her chest. She knows she must tell him.
It’s a while, but eventually she can hardly bare to listen to his stories without feeling tears beat at her eyes.
“I’m getting married next week,” she tells him when he is facing away from her, his hands in the water. His words of water plants and fishes stop and die in the wind. He remains very still for a moment or two, and she wonders if he heard her at all.
When he turns, finally, to look at her, his expression is perfectly blank, only the quiet remains of shock filtering through. “What?” It’s half a whisper; his voice a little raspy as though his breath has gone and he’s forgotten how words work.
“His name’s Michael. He’s really quite nice, I think. I’m sure you’d like him,” she says quickly, as fast as possible, her eyes on the riverbed, on the water, anywhere but on him.
“Michael,” he repeats, and it sounds oddly like an insult. He is very still for several seconds. “You didn’t say,” he whispers finally. “Why didn’t you ever say?”
“I didn’t know until today.” She ducks her head. “It’s how it works. He’s very rich and very clever, that’s what they said.”
He frowns then, shakes his head and stares at her. “Then you don’t know him.”
“Not yet,” she says quietly. “But I will soon.”
He shakes his head again, again and again, and then he takes hold of her hand. “Don’t,” is all it takes to break her.
She swallows back tears. “I have to,” she says quietly. “I can’t just… I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he tells her honestly. “Please… Come with me. We can do things together, we can do extraordinary things. I’m good at that, and so are you.”
She stares at the sincerity clear in his eyes and she wants to, oh she wants to. “I can’t… what would they say? I just…” She forces herself back from him.
“Rose,” he speaks softly, his hand squeezing over hers. “You can’t marry a man you don’t know, a man you don’t love.”
But she slips her hand out of his, her footsteps taking her back. She shakes her head, and tears slip slowly from her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says. She turns to run home, this time without taking his hugs or his kisses with her.
-0-
She barely sleeps at all that night, and nightmares do nothing but plague her when she does. His face is all she sees, alone and disgusted and broken all at once. He walks away from her, he’s always walking away.
She wakes suddenly, breathing caught in her chest and fists gripping the sheets. Once calm, she sits up. Tiptoeing out of bed, she looks to the window. The woods are quiet, dark, outside her window. A fog has settled on the leaves, pushing a silence into the night.
She stares at the beautiful and haunting forest, and then back to her small wooden room. She misses him, she realises. More than she ever thought she would, more than she ever should. And this is wrong, she thinks. All she wants is that man with no name and knowledge enough to fill a star.
Swallowing the fear that tries to rise up, she slips off her bed and puts on her muddied shoes.
-0-
The woods are darker than she expects. The trees are different at night; they claw through the mist and shadows, oddly shaped and grisly looking. It’s colder, too, and she wishes she had thought to bring a jacket. She breathes heavily, the wind breathing back at her, ripping against her bare arms, cheeks and neck.
She walks on, though she realises soon that she’s not sure if she’s going right or left. It’s dark and cold and nothing but the man she’s working her way towards keeps her going.
She trips, and she keeps tripping, the roots of trees cruel and catching in the dark. Her hands hold out in front of her, and she tries to head west and turns left several times, knowing all the while that that has to be the direction of the stream. As long as she keeps moving, she’ll get there, she tells herself over and over.
It is as she trips yet another time, cutting open her knee and hitting her head hard on a large branch, she begins to wonder if that’s true. Lying there, she cannot move at all for several moments. She’s dizzy and he’s not here to protect her from the beasts that lurk in these woods.
-0-
He finds her, like he always must. She sees him ahead, though at first it’s just a darkened figure against the night and she stops. Then she sees his flapping coat, and his wild hair, and she almost runs to him, almost because she is already limping and she wouldn’t get very far without falling down again.
He sees her, and as soon as he does he’s rushing towards her. “Rose!” And his voice is there, layered with astonishment, with joy. She swallows and reaches out to him, grasping fistfuls of his coat before leaning into him to crush him tightly into a hug. “You came back,” he says again and again.
She can only look up at him, breathing fast and heavy. Then, gently, she leans up and kisses him on the lips. Her hands reach through his hair, his mouth gasping over her lips and their noses jolting. It feels wonderful.
When they part she can only smile at him, blushing. “Hope you don’t mind.”
He grins at her. “Not at all.” He takes her hand, and guides her home to the stream.
-0-
She feels better in the morning, waking up with a long coat around her shoulder, the sun beating down even in the early morning. Her leg no longer aches, and she is soon greeted by a wonderfully familiar voice. “How are you?” he asks, bending down beside her. His smile is large. It’s obvious how pleased he is to see her.
She can hardly believe she’s here with him. She shouldn’t be, she’s been told more than once by her family what path her life will take; yet she finds that she doesn’t care now.
She knows she loves him, and just how much.
He holds out his hand for her. “Come with me,” he asks.
This time she smiles, she takes his hand and nods.
He beams. “It’s not very often I ask someone twice,” he tells her.
“When have you ever asked anyone other than me?” she laughs, tapping him lightly on the shoulder with hers.
“How do you know I don’t ask pretty girls to come away with me all the time?” he asks.
“Oh do you really?” she says, eyebrows knotted disbelievingly.
He grins. “Well, if I ever have, you would be the only one I’d ever ask twice, the only one I’d ever want to hold hands with everyday.”
They walk then. They walk by the stream and through the wood, and she asks where it is they are going more than once. But yet, he only grins back at her, finger on lips and winking mischievously.
They walk until eventually the trees begin to thin and flowers bloom by their feet. “Do you ever wonder my name?” he asks eventually, her hand stuck in his, their footsteps quiet in the grass.
She looks up at him. “Yes,” she says eventually. “All the time.” She pauses. “Why won’t you tell me?”
He looks at her, his shoulders giving half a shrug. He looks away. “I don’t know it,” he says. “I was lost… I don’t… There was just me, and my watch, alone in the woods. And this is where I stopped.” He looks at her. “I didn’t know who I was. Sometimes, I still don’t.”
She swallows, staring at his darkened eyes. “You must’ve been frightened.”
“I found somewhere,” he says quietly, and squeezing her hand, he leads her from the trees.
And there is house; a small, magnificent little, blue cottage hiding between the trees, its colour slightly faded and it’s windows small, but beautiful nonetheless.
“Do you like it?” he asks. “Sort of disguised, isn’t it?” He looks around. “Takes a certain person to get into this neck of the woods.” And he looks at her, stares at her like she’s the most wonderful thing he’s ever seen. “We can go in,” he says. “If you’d like. It’s actually much bigger inside…”
She follows him into the blue, little house; the wonderful, young man with time around his neck.
She points to his round watch on one occasion. “It doesn’t work,” is all he says, his breath warming her cheeks as they sit close together. “but I like it. Don’t you?”, 2302
a/n: I am ridiculously nervous for this. I was gonna post something else, but I just ended up writing this instead. I'm not entirely sure it even makes much sense, but apparently that's just how I roll lately.
006.
Her legs are stinging all over from the nettles, and her shoes are brown with dirt when she reaches the water. She knows it’s dangerous here, she knows there’s been talk of all sorts of terrible things preying the area, but with her cheek against the sunshine and her eyes on the sunlit water below she cannot find the will to care. Hours of trekking and of not knowing where she was, or where to go, and she is finally here; at the water’s edge.
Gently, she bends down and dips a hand into the crystal clear water. The water is cold, but not freezing. It helps in the heat blustering down from above. She cups the water in her hands, bringing it to her lips thirstily.
She is so wrapped up the beauty of what is around her, the voice from behind her startles her into falling back.
A young man with almond hair and almond eyes and a handsome face is staring down at her with a peculiar smile on his face. “Sorry,” he laughs at her bewildered expression. “I didn’t mean to make you fall, I was only saying hello, I… anyway.” He holds out his hand to help her up and smiles wider when she takes it.
She looks at her shoes for a moment. “Sorry,” she mumbles, brow furrowed.
He laughs, a lovely sound that makes her laugh back. He wears a long suit and tie, and has hair with a life of its own. A round watch hangs around his neck on a chain, gold and glinting in the sun. “Quite alright,” he says and she swears he gives her hand a subtle caress before letting go. “I was just… wanting to say hello. You don’t get many people out for a stroll about here, I think, at least I haven’t seen anyone.” Then he pauses and his eyes meet hers. “Except for you. I saw you in the woods before, I think. But you were gone before I could say hello.”
“Yeah… I,” she shrugs, laughing a little, “I like to come here… I was looking for the stream actually.”
He nods a few times. “And so you should.”
She holds her hand out. “I’m Rose.”
He takes it, and holds it in his own for a moment or two. “Nice to meet you, Rose - very nice. Not many find the courage to come here.” She finds that she very much likes the way he says her name, the way he talks.
“I haven’t seen anything like the stories say,” she admits. “Nothing to hurt anyone.”
At that he smiles broadly, eyes alight. “That’s because I’m here,” he tells her with all the certainty in the world, and how could she not believe him?
She laughs, nodding along. “Right, alright then… what was your name?”
“Where did you come from?” he asks without answering. “I’ve seen nothing or no one for miles and miles.”
“I live back there,” she points vaguely behind her. “What about you, you can’t live here, can you?”
He looks at her, his smile small but genuine. “I don’t really have a home,” he tells her.
“Oh.” Her face falls, he sees it does.
For then, he shakes his head at her crestfallen expression, shrugging it off as little value. “Nothing that matters,” he says. “I like it here, don’t you?” Before she can answer, he then takes her hand. “Will you… that is…” He clears his throat, and looks into her eyes, “Stay awhile?”
She only grins back, and it’s an answer enough for him.
-0-
They meet by the stream again and again, though he still won’t tell his name. He speaks with an influent tongue sometimes, and when she asks what language he’ll shrug and say it’s just the right one. They talk and laugh and occasionally she’ll catch him looking at her in a way he really shouldn’t, and she wishes she didn’t like it so much.
He’ll talk of the wonders of the water and they will watch the clouds together, sometimes. He’s the man she knows not even the name of, and she doesn’t care that he mentions so little of himself whenever she asks.
She points to his round watch on one occasion. “It doesn’t work,” is all he says, his breath warming her cheeks as they sit close together. “but I like it. Don’t you?”
Whenever they have to say goodbye, she’ll kiss him on each cheek and hug him tighter than she should do. “I’ll see you later,” he always says with a hand cupping her cheek and another on his watch, and she’ll smile with a, “Not if I see you first,” before running off into the trees.
-0-
One day though, she comes and it’s different. For her, not for him. He gushes about plants and clouds, and he threads his fingers through hers whenever a free chance, but she is subdued and she thinks he knows it. He doesn’t say anything, and she hates the secret that eats at her chest. She knows she must tell him.
It’s a while, but eventually she can hardly bare to listen to his stories without feeling tears beat at her eyes.
“I’m getting married next week,” she tells him when he is facing away from her, his hands in the water. His words of water plants and fishes stop and die in the wind. He remains very still for a moment or two, and she wonders if he heard her at all.
When he turns, finally, to look at her, his expression is perfectly blank, only the quiet remains of shock filtering through. “What?” It’s half a whisper; his voice a little raspy as though his breath has gone and he’s forgotten how words work.
“His name’s Michael. He’s really quite nice, I think. I’m sure you’d like him,” she says quickly, as fast as possible, her eyes on the riverbed, on the water, anywhere but on him.
“Michael,” he repeats, and it sounds oddly like an insult. He is very still for several seconds. “You didn’t say,” he whispers finally. “Why didn’t you ever say?”
“I didn’t know until today.” She ducks her head. “It’s how it works. He’s very rich and very clever, that’s what they said.”
He frowns then, shakes his head and stares at her. “Then you don’t know him.”
“Not yet,” she says quietly. “But I will soon.”
He shakes his head again, again and again, and then he takes hold of her hand. “Don’t,” is all it takes to break her.
She swallows back tears. “I have to,” she says quietly. “I can’t just… I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he tells her honestly. “Please… Come with me. We can do things together, we can do extraordinary things. I’m good at that, and so are you.”
She stares at the sincerity clear in his eyes and she wants to, oh she wants to. “I can’t… what would they say? I just…” She forces herself back from him.
“Rose,” he speaks softly, his hand squeezing over hers. “You can’t marry a man you don’t know, a man you don’t love.”
But she slips her hand out of his, her footsteps taking her back. She shakes her head, and tears slip slowly from her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says. She turns to run home, this time without taking his hugs or his kisses with her.
-0-
She barely sleeps at all that night, and nightmares do nothing but plague her when she does. His face is all she sees, alone and disgusted and broken all at once. He walks away from her, he’s always walking away.
She wakes suddenly, breathing caught in her chest and fists gripping the sheets. Once calm, she sits up. Tiptoeing out of bed, she looks to the window. The woods are quiet, dark, outside her window. A fog has settled on the leaves, pushing a silence into the night.
She stares at the beautiful and haunting forest, and then back to her small wooden room. She misses him, she realises. More than she ever thought she would, more than she ever should. And this is wrong, she thinks. All she wants is that man with no name and knowledge enough to fill a star.
Swallowing the fear that tries to rise up, she slips off her bed and puts on her muddied shoes.
-0-
The woods are darker than she expects. The trees are different at night; they claw through the mist and shadows, oddly shaped and grisly looking. It’s colder, too, and she wishes she had thought to bring a jacket. She breathes heavily, the wind breathing back at her, ripping against her bare arms, cheeks and neck.
She walks on, though she realises soon that she’s not sure if she’s going right or left. It’s dark and cold and nothing but the man she’s working her way towards keeps her going.
She trips, and she keeps tripping, the roots of trees cruel and catching in the dark. Her hands hold out in front of her, and she tries to head west and turns left several times, knowing all the while that that has to be the direction of the stream. As long as she keeps moving, she’ll get there, she tells herself over and over.
It is as she trips yet another time, cutting open her knee and hitting her head hard on a large branch, she begins to wonder if that’s true. Lying there, she cannot move at all for several moments. She’s dizzy and he’s not here to protect her from the beasts that lurk in these woods.
-0-
He finds her, like he always must. She sees him ahead, though at first it’s just a darkened figure against the night and she stops. Then she sees his flapping coat, and his wild hair, and she almost runs to him, almost because she is already limping and she wouldn’t get very far without falling down again.
He sees her, and as soon as he does he’s rushing towards her. “Rose!” And his voice is there, layered with astonishment, with joy. She swallows and reaches out to him, grasping fistfuls of his coat before leaning into him to crush him tightly into a hug. “You came back,” he says again and again.
She can only look up at him, breathing fast and heavy. Then, gently, she leans up and kisses him on the lips. Her hands reach through his hair, his mouth gasping over her lips and their noses jolting. It feels wonderful.
When they part she can only smile at him, blushing. “Hope you don’t mind.”
He grins at her. “Not at all.” He takes her hand, and guides her home to the stream.
-0-
She feels better in the morning, waking up with a long coat around her shoulder, the sun beating down even in the early morning. Her leg no longer aches, and she is soon greeted by a wonderfully familiar voice. “How are you?” he asks, bending down beside her. His smile is large. It’s obvious how pleased he is to see her.
She can hardly believe she’s here with him. She shouldn’t be, she’s been told more than once by her family what path her life will take; yet she finds that she doesn’t care now.
She knows she loves him, and just how much.
He holds out his hand for her. “Come with me,” he asks.
This time she smiles, she takes his hand and nods.
He beams. “It’s not very often I ask someone twice,” he tells her.
“When have you ever asked anyone other than me?” she laughs, tapping him lightly on the shoulder with hers.
“How do you know I don’t ask pretty girls to come away with me all the time?” he asks.
“Oh do you really?” she says, eyebrows knotted disbelievingly.
He grins. “Well, if I ever have, you would be the only one I’d ever ask twice, the only one I’d ever want to hold hands with everyday.”
They walk then. They walk by the stream and through the wood, and she asks where it is they are going more than once. But yet, he only grins back at her, finger on lips and winking mischievously.
They walk until eventually the trees begin to thin and flowers bloom by their feet. “Do you ever wonder my name?” he asks eventually, her hand stuck in his, their footsteps quiet in the grass.
She looks up at him. “Yes,” she says eventually. “All the time.” She pauses. “Why won’t you tell me?”
He looks at her, his shoulders giving half a shrug. He looks away. “I don’t know it,” he says. “I was lost… I don’t… There was just me, and my watch, alone in the woods. And this is where I stopped.” He looks at her. “I didn’t know who I was. Sometimes, I still don’t.”
She swallows, staring at his darkened eyes. “You must’ve been frightened.”
“I found somewhere,” he says quietly, and squeezing her hand, he leads her from the trees.
And there is house; a small, magnificent little, blue cottage hiding between the trees, its colour slightly faded and it’s windows small, but beautiful nonetheless.
“Do you like it?” he asks. “Sort of disguised, isn’t it?” He looks around. “Takes a certain person to get into this neck of the woods.” And he looks at her, stares at her like she’s the most wonderful thing he’s ever seen. “We can go in,” he says. “If you’d like. It’s actually much bigger inside…”
She follows him into the blue, little house; the wonderful, young man with time around his neck.