Tea
Title: Tea
Pairing: Ginny/Luna
Rating: PG
Word Count: 643
Summary: She always makes time for tea.
Note: This is for zofbadfaith and her love for tea. :)
She always makes time for tea.
I noticed that long ago, before she had assumed a permanent occupation in my tiny little flat. No matter the day of the week, or the weather, or how much work she had to finish for tomorrow, she would always take twenty minutes at any given time to make herself tea. It often smelled of mints-she made her own tea out of little herbs and spices-but there was, on occasion, the times it almost smelled like a Muggle’s mixture.
It lingers on her. The tips of her fingers were always a little red because while she was the most graceful thing when it came to crossing the living room, she couldn’t stop herself from burning little bits and pieces of her skin when she heated the water. She insists on doing everything by hand, something I admire (I had no patience for it). It leaves its mark on her.
I can’t remember more than a few times that she did not smell of tea herself. It is rare that she does not; it only ever happens when she sprays some kind of perfume into her hair (which is actually rather a shame, because that musky scent that belongs to her scalp is intoxicating). It is, admittedly, one of my favourite things, to lean down and press a small kiss to the back of her neck and smell that smell in her hair with the pinch of tea that always stayed around.
I have woken in the middle of the night many times to nothing on my left side, to her empty space in the sheets. She would be in the kitchen with dim candles in crooks around the room, papers scattered on the counters and the table and the floor, a cup of warm tea between her palms. Her fingernails would scrape over the china that we had inherited from my mother, her lips pressing gently to sip at the only thing that seemed to keep her awake (except for me, but that was an altogether different story).
Once, and only once, I found her asleep in the kitchen. It was nearing three in the morning, and her tea was still warm when I covered my hand with hers. She did not wake instantly; but she’d always said my kisses did wonderful things to her, and the curve of her spine was always such an irresistible place for me. I pushed away the fabric of the long button up she was wearing (she only ever seemed to wear underwear and those button ups when she was home) so I could trace every vertebrae. She smiled a heavy lidded smile that greeted me happily. She wrapped her arms around my neck, buried her face in my collarbone, and said, “Take me to bed.”
That was the only time she had ever abandoned her tea.
I’ve never had a desire for it, the tea, but she makes me love it-not the taste, but the smell, the warmth, the comfort. She makes me love the way she’ll sit on the sofa with me, her legs in my lap, and sip at her tea, tell me of fantastic creatures that she dreams to write of. She makes me love the way she sits and stares out the window and loses her conscious thought process for a few moments, her blonde hair spilling endlessly over her back, with a mug of her peppermint drug in her hand. She makes me love the way she stands in the kitchen and asks me to kiss the sore spots on her fingers after she burns them. She makes me love the way she smiles when I do.
Secretly, I don’t think I’ll ever like the way tea tastes. But it tastes quite lovely in her kisses, and that’s just fine by me.