Fic: Milk and honey. (Rose/Ten, PG, very AU, the "Skinned knees" -verse.)
Milk and honey. Rose/Ten, PG, sooo AU. This was written for the poetry challenge at then_theres_us, though I wrote it too late for that. It's a continuation from Skinned knees and the fourth of july and World's fair. This came, too, from the line, "everything she did was so human."
20.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.
Rose had looked out the window, at the air and sky that was, impossibly, whiter than the examination room walls, whiter than the pressed coats and aprons, pale and thick with clouds. Beyond the river was the city and beyond the city was the airport, and beyond the clouds was heaven, and it could wait.
He meets her in Alexandria; he's gone ahead to secure the guide and settle their arrangements. It's been six days since they saw each other last. An eternity. And so he meets her at the gangplank with that welcome wonder in his eyes, trembling like the first moths of dusk. So wary of all happiness. But she knows it is in part from the wariness that springs the joy, renewing and awake and grateful and weirdly innocent. She takes his hand again, fits his bony-strong fingers together into her thin ones and weaves them tight into whole cloth. "You promised there'd be camels," she says.
"We're by the sea," he retorts. "Camels like their liquids on the interior." He looks down at her. She remembers the safari helmet he toted around through the sixth grade; there's a shadow of it hovering over him, the chinstrap loose around his neck and sweat beading on his cheek. He's grinning and manic and eager now, in both points of her life. "Did you know, they recycle water vapor as they inhale ? And their coat-"
"Lunch first," she says, firmly. "Lunch and then the Encyclopedia Britannia, if you must."
"Practical Rose," he says. But his stomach growls under her palm when she balances herself to lean up for a kiss. She giggles into his mouth. "Hmm," he says, his eyes still comfortably half-shut. "The two of you may have a point."
They eat kofta and drink fruit juice in an open-air cafe near the old quarter and he teaches her to say please and thank-you in the local dialect. She picks it up quickly and the teenaged waiter almost blushes when it rolls off her tongue. "I should never have let you stay with Jack," her man says, watching the reactions. "He's always hovering on the border of an international incident."
"Cyprus was lovely," she says, ignoring the tone. "He took me to the theatre at Limassol." She traces the fine hair on his forearms with her fingernail. "You could see the ocean from there, too."
"Rose," he begins, and stops. He's been doing this lately. Since Rome. Since the steps at the Capitoline, when she looked out and said-
"This is my choice," she says. "Out of everything in the world, I chose this." She glares at him seriously and he smiles back, firefly happiness flickering and disappearing in his sad dark eyes, his hands wrapped around hers. They feel cooler than the air, or she feels warmer. Impossible to tell. "So you might as well show me to my camel."
"They spit," he says, mildly.
They sleep out in the desert, in a tent pinned down near scrub grass and knotted trees. Their guide is a young man with a strange sense of humor; he sings to the camels and tells them jokes, and Rose sits in the sand and watches the two men strip the saddles and packs off with careful attention. Her man sits beside her when they're finished, and unfolds the map. "Here, and here, and then there." He points at the dots. "That's Saqqara, the necropolis of the old kingdom. Then to Cairo. We'll visit the museum- an old friend of mine's a curator there- and then a suite at one of the oldest and finest hotels in the quarter."
"Mm," she says, spreading her toes in the sand.
"We could have done it by train," he says, suddenly. "Are you tired ? If you're tired-"
"I'm not." She leans towards him, kisses his shoulder, rests her head carelessly on his shoulder, breathes deep and even and slow. He relaxes. "Not at all."
She is.
"You don't have forever," they told her. They were trying to be kind. To be firm with her and her fantasies, her train tickets and plane tickets and the man in the hallway, waiting with a mangled hat in his hands and three flavors of licorice in his pockets. The candy gets the maps and notebooks sticky but he never seems to mind. He has the bad habit of licking his fingers. Rose had looked out the window, at the air and sky that was, impossibly, whiter than the examination room walls, whiter than the pressed coats and aprons, pale and thick with clouds. Beyond the river was the city and beyond the city was the airport, and beyond the clouds was heaven, and it could wait.
"Nobody does," she'd said back. She'd gone out into the hall and he'd been staring at the frame of the door, right at the spot where she emerged, waiting for his eyes and hers to meet again. He'd had such faith.
But she fears he won't have it forever.
He is fixing the hotel balcony with wire and screws when she comes back from the desk. "Just a teensy structural integrity issue," he says, apologetically, trying to hide the streaks of rust and grime on his previously-clean shirt by folding his arms. His arms are too skinny for that to really work. "Took me no time at all." He jumps up and down on the platform and the railing wobbles for a second, and holds. Rose rolls her eyes and goes into the bathroom to splash some cold water on her face- night is falling, and the temperature retreating, but the three flights of stairs didn't do her any favors. "Are you all right ?" he asks, hovering in the doorway. "Too hot ?"
"It's fine."
"You should take a nap before dinner." His hands are knotted in his pockets. His voice is suspiciously casual.
"I am fine," she says, in a low voice. It isn't going to upset her. She's perfectly alright. She doesn't look at him, but into the mirror, at the corner of the wallpaper behind her. She doesn't want to close the bathroom door but she will, just for a moment, to get that sympathetic gaze off of her back.
"We could stay in-"
"I said I'm fine," she hollers, and throws the washcloth across the room; it lands in the bathtub with a slap. He must take her at her word this time, because he puts his hands up in surrender and leaves the room, leaves the suite altogether and shuts the door behind him. Rose sits down on the edge of the tub. Her hands are wet and she rubs them on her dress; the cotton sticks to the tops of her thighs. From the open windows she can hear the sounds of laughter and the thump of a ball getting kicked in the street. She doesn't know how long she sits there like that, thinking about nothing as hard as she can, but her dress is dry by the time he comes back. He clears his throat to make her look up, and holds out his hand for her to take.
"Come upstairs," he says.
They go up to the roof: the manager has given him the key and made him promise not to do anything inappropriate in the sight of their neighbors. He tells her that with a wink and Rose wonders whether or not he crossed his fingers as he swore. There's a thick military-style blanket already laid out; he lays down on his back and pulls her down against him, cradled to his side. Up here the noises of the city are fainter, softer, a watercolor of sound melting into the atmosphere. His heartbeat is louder than the rest. "The ancient Egyptians believed in the sky goddess, Nut," he says; his voice is low and soft and she can hear it through his mouth and through the vibration of his chest in counterpoint. "The stars sailed on her belly." He points up, to a small band of stars. "That big fellow there. They called him Osiris, but do you know what the Greeks called him ?"
"Orion."
"Right on the nose." He beams at her. "They thought the gods changed people into stars to preserve them forever. And of course," he pauses, and launches into what might be an impression of their old Sunday-school teacher. "And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever."
"I'm amazed you remember that."
"I memorized all the bits about stars and planets. Do you remember my telescope ? Those ratty old star charts I used to bring to your window in the middle of the night ? Your roof was hell on the undercarriage, as I recall. My mother could never understand how I got so many splinters in the seat of my pants." She remembers every second of it, just the way he tells it. The flaking paint on the sill, his impassioned whispers about the bull and the big bear and the little bear and the seven sisters. The cold air on their faces, the vastness of space and the closeness of him and the freshness still in the world. In everything. She feels a chill and it shivers up her spine, makes her draw closer and giggle for no reason. "Rose ?"
"Are you saying you'll put me in the stars ?" she murmurs. He rolls onto his side. His arm is under her head, his face so close to hers that they breathe in and out from the same pocket of air. His eyes are perfectly dark, like black lilies.
"You're already there," he says. "The brightest thing in the universe. When I look up, you're the only thing I see."
They lie in silence, her forehead pressed against his mouth. "What are you thinking about ?" he asks, after a minute. She slips her right hand around his left one, puts his ring between her thumb and forefinger and turns it a little. It goes around and around in her grip.
"I was just thinking about how I'd gotten some bad advice. I don't think I'm going to listen to it anymore."
"Good for you."
"The circle," Rose murmurs, "another symbol of eternity. Right ?"
"Yes." A grin creeps into his voice. "And pancakes. Traffic patterns. Kettle drums."
"Wagon wheels."
"Cheese."
"You think everything's a symbol of cheese."
"So I do," he says, and kisses her forehead. "So I do."
They lie in bed in the morning and miss breakfast, kissing without speaking while the sun warms up the other side of the sheets. Her legs feel warm and heavy and her eyelids are cool where he kisses them, dusting fluttering touches down her eyelashes and onto her cheeks and saving her lips for last. Everything exists in this second, she tells herself. Nothing ever really ends.
His mouth tastes like milk and honey, eretz zavat chalav u'dvash, the welcome to paradise.
20.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.
Rose had looked out the window, at the air and sky that was, impossibly, whiter than the examination room walls, whiter than the pressed coats and aprons, pale and thick with clouds. Beyond the river was the city and beyond the city was the airport, and beyond the clouds was heaven, and it could wait.
He meets her in Alexandria; he's gone ahead to secure the guide and settle their arrangements. It's been six days since they saw each other last. An eternity. And so he meets her at the gangplank with that welcome wonder in his eyes, trembling like the first moths of dusk. So wary of all happiness. But she knows it is in part from the wariness that springs the joy, renewing and awake and grateful and weirdly innocent. She takes his hand again, fits his bony-strong fingers together into her thin ones and weaves them tight into whole cloth. "You promised there'd be camels," she says.
"We're by the sea," he retorts. "Camels like their liquids on the interior." He looks down at her. She remembers the safari helmet he toted around through the sixth grade; there's a shadow of it hovering over him, the chinstrap loose around his neck and sweat beading on his cheek. He's grinning and manic and eager now, in both points of her life. "Did you know, they recycle water vapor as they inhale ? And their coat-"
"Lunch first," she says, firmly. "Lunch and then the Encyclopedia Britannia, if you must."
"Practical Rose," he says. But his stomach growls under her palm when she balances herself to lean up for a kiss. She giggles into his mouth. "Hmm," he says, his eyes still comfortably half-shut. "The two of you may have a point."
They eat kofta and drink fruit juice in an open-air cafe near the old quarter and he teaches her to say please and thank-you in the local dialect. She picks it up quickly and the teenaged waiter almost blushes when it rolls off her tongue. "I should never have let you stay with Jack," her man says, watching the reactions. "He's always hovering on the border of an international incident."
"Cyprus was lovely," she says, ignoring the tone. "He took me to the theatre at Limassol." She traces the fine hair on his forearms with her fingernail. "You could see the ocean from there, too."
"Rose," he begins, and stops. He's been doing this lately. Since Rome. Since the steps at the Capitoline, when she looked out and said-
"This is my choice," she says. "Out of everything in the world, I chose this." She glares at him seriously and he smiles back, firefly happiness flickering and disappearing in his sad dark eyes, his hands wrapped around hers. They feel cooler than the air, or she feels warmer. Impossible to tell. "So you might as well show me to my camel."
"They spit," he says, mildly.
They sleep out in the desert, in a tent pinned down near scrub grass and knotted trees. Their guide is a young man with a strange sense of humor; he sings to the camels and tells them jokes, and Rose sits in the sand and watches the two men strip the saddles and packs off with careful attention. Her man sits beside her when they're finished, and unfolds the map. "Here, and here, and then there." He points at the dots. "That's Saqqara, the necropolis of the old kingdom. Then to Cairo. We'll visit the museum- an old friend of mine's a curator there- and then a suite at one of the oldest and finest hotels in the quarter."
"Mm," she says, spreading her toes in the sand.
"We could have done it by train," he says, suddenly. "Are you tired ? If you're tired-"
"I'm not." She leans towards him, kisses his shoulder, rests her head carelessly on his shoulder, breathes deep and even and slow. He relaxes. "Not at all."
She is.
"You don't have forever," they told her. They were trying to be kind. To be firm with her and her fantasies, her train tickets and plane tickets and the man in the hallway, waiting with a mangled hat in his hands and three flavors of licorice in his pockets. The candy gets the maps and notebooks sticky but he never seems to mind. He has the bad habit of licking his fingers. Rose had looked out the window, at the air and sky that was, impossibly, whiter than the examination room walls, whiter than the pressed coats and aprons, pale and thick with clouds. Beyond the river was the city and beyond the city was the airport, and beyond the clouds was heaven, and it could wait.
"Nobody does," she'd said back. She'd gone out into the hall and he'd been staring at the frame of the door, right at the spot where she emerged, waiting for his eyes and hers to meet again. He'd had such faith.
But she fears he won't have it forever.
He is fixing the hotel balcony with wire and screws when she comes back from the desk. "Just a teensy structural integrity issue," he says, apologetically, trying to hide the streaks of rust and grime on his previously-clean shirt by folding his arms. His arms are too skinny for that to really work. "Took me no time at all." He jumps up and down on the platform and the railing wobbles for a second, and holds. Rose rolls her eyes and goes into the bathroom to splash some cold water on her face- night is falling, and the temperature retreating, but the three flights of stairs didn't do her any favors. "Are you all right ?" he asks, hovering in the doorway. "Too hot ?"
"It's fine."
"You should take a nap before dinner." His hands are knotted in his pockets. His voice is suspiciously casual.
"I am fine," she says, in a low voice. It isn't going to upset her. She's perfectly alright. She doesn't look at him, but into the mirror, at the corner of the wallpaper behind her. She doesn't want to close the bathroom door but she will, just for a moment, to get that sympathetic gaze off of her back.
"We could stay in-"
"I said I'm fine," she hollers, and throws the washcloth across the room; it lands in the bathtub with a slap. He must take her at her word this time, because he puts his hands up in surrender and leaves the room, leaves the suite altogether and shuts the door behind him. Rose sits down on the edge of the tub. Her hands are wet and she rubs them on her dress; the cotton sticks to the tops of her thighs. From the open windows she can hear the sounds of laughter and the thump of a ball getting kicked in the street. She doesn't know how long she sits there like that, thinking about nothing as hard as she can, but her dress is dry by the time he comes back. He clears his throat to make her look up, and holds out his hand for her to take.
"Come upstairs," he says.
They go up to the roof: the manager has given him the key and made him promise not to do anything inappropriate in the sight of their neighbors. He tells her that with a wink and Rose wonders whether or not he crossed his fingers as he swore. There's a thick military-style blanket already laid out; he lays down on his back and pulls her down against him, cradled to his side. Up here the noises of the city are fainter, softer, a watercolor of sound melting into the atmosphere. His heartbeat is louder than the rest. "The ancient Egyptians believed in the sky goddess, Nut," he says; his voice is low and soft and she can hear it through his mouth and through the vibration of his chest in counterpoint. "The stars sailed on her belly." He points up, to a small band of stars. "That big fellow there. They called him Osiris, but do you know what the Greeks called him ?"
"Orion."
"Right on the nose." He beams at her. "They thought the gods changed people into stars to preserve them forever. And of course," he pauses, and launches into what might be an impression of their old Sunday-school teacher. "And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever."
"I'm amazed you remember that."
"I memorized all the bits about stars and planets. Do you remember my telescope ? Those ratty old star charts I used to bring to your window in the middle of the night ? Your roof was hell on the undercarriage, as I recall. My mother could never understand how I got so many splinters in the seat of my pants." She remembers every second of it, just the way he tells it. The flaking paint on the sill, his impassioned whispers about the bull and the big bear and the little bear and the seven sisters. The cold air on their faces, the vastness of space and the closeness of him and the freshness still in the world. In everything. She feels a chill and it shivers up her spine, makes her draw closer and giggle for no reason. "Rose ?"
"Are you saying you'll put me in the stars ?" she murmurs. He rolls onto his side. His arm is under her head, his face so close to hers that they breathe in and out from the same pocket of air. His eyes are perfectly dark, like black lilies.
"You're already there," he says. "The brightest thing in the universe. When I look up, you're the only thing I see."
They lie in silence, her forehead pressed against his mouth. "What are you thinking about ?" he asks, after a minute. She slips her right hand around his left one, puts his ring between her thumb and forefinger and turns it a little. It goes around and around in her grip.
"I was just thinking about how I'd gotten some bad advice. I don't think I'm going to listen to it anymore."
"Good for you."
"The circle," Rose murmurs, "another symbol of eternity. Right ?"
"Yes." A grin creeps into his voice. "And pancakes. Traffic patterns. Kettle drums."
"Wagon wheels."
"Cheese."
"You think everything's a symbol of cheese."
"So I do," he says, and kisses her forehead. "So I do."
They lie in bed in the morning and miss breakfast, kissing without speaking while the sun warms up the other side of the sheets. Her legs feel warm and heavy and her eyelids are cool where he kisses them, dusting fluttering touches down her eyelashes and onto her cheeks and saving her lips for last. Everything exists in this second, she tells herself. Nothing ever really ends.
His mouth tastes like milk and honey, eretz zavat chalav u'dvash, the welcome to paradise.