Fic: Malaika (Spock/Uhura STXI fanfic)
Title: Malaika
Author: tehlanes
Rating: R (non-explicit sexual content)
Characters/Pairing: Spock/Uhura
Part: 1/1
Wordcount: 2983
Summary: They are both fully aware of his shortcomings. But in moments like these, Nyota is amazed by how little it truly matters.
Warning: Spoilers for the movie, obviously. Set significantly post-film, but non-specific to any time period. And while I am not sure if it is my head-canon or not yet, I was compelled to write it all the same. For those curious, the song featured can be found HERE at youtube. Lyrics HERE. <3
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek. Just the arrangement of words in this particular story.
He is an unusual, albeit exceptional, lover. Reflecting-perhaps too often-upon this, Nyota is convinced his pleasure is paramount to hers.
She is also convinced it is not always his choice.
She can still hear his shuffling feet in the adjacent room. They are tired, restless; they are searching; whatever they are, she only knows one thing for sure: they are absent from her bed. Their bed.
As she lays in silence beneath the warmth of the blanket, her eyes fall with a heavy heart upon the clock, still set to Vulcan Standard. That alone is enough to tell her what she needs to know about the man now absent from her side, his sheets still radiating with his warmth next to her.
This is not the first time she has awaken to his absence. It will not be the last.
Whether it is the science of synapses and currents of heat that keep her awake and aware, or merely the sweet recollection of his embrace that is always slow to settle in her mind, it is of no consequence on nights like these. Whatever reason she chooses to believe-and it is a different choice every time-one truth remains: in the end, she still feels the ghost of his touch upon her skin. It does not always make her smile.
Tonight it makes her brow settle into a contemplative line as she listens to his footfalls, so close yet so far away. Tonight, her lover is a vagrant.
But try as he might, she realizes he is never truly free, or lost, whichever he decides to be. Visions that once belonged to him and him alone now belong to her as well, staking settlements in her conscience, creating colonies, establishing treaties with each and every one of her own memories. An ideal relationship, any other woman would say, but they do not live her life. With each bridge they build-these memories of hers, synchronizing with his on a monumental scale-she fears they also erect a boundary, a neutral zone that they still do not dare cross.
He is an unusual, albeit exceptional, lover. Reflecting-perhaps too often-upon this, Nyota is convinced his pleasure is paramount to hers.
She is also convinced it is not always his choice.
She still remembers-with a cold, hard clarity-the first time they made love. She had been terrified to touch him, unsure of which boundaries to heed and which to cast away, and had met his eye with the complete and utter lack of confidence she had sworn she had retained when he had first laid her upon the bed. Her fists had palmed the sheets, her teeth nearly drawing blood from her lip as she struggled not to reach for him, to cry out for him and guide him as he explored her body with an almost childlike, timid curiosity, completely denied of her touch. She had thought that he would see this opportunity for initiative, his own canvas onto which to paint a myriad of whatever he desired. Imagine her surprise when he had not made the preference to explore every inch of her, to completely saturate his hands, his mouth, his hips in the feel of her, even at her eventual verbal encouragement.
Instead he had drawn two fingers so delicately-so weightlessly that she had wondered if he would ever make contact-over her skin, tracing her lines as if he were exploring a star chart, connecting each droplet of sweat that had formed from her initial apprehension.
It had been new to him, that circumstance-new to them both-and Nyota had erred in mistaking his gentility for a novice's meager ministration. She had lost her control and had released her fingers from the sheets, tentatively reaching out to the side of his thigh to pull him closer, to guide him where she wanted him. She had reached up with her other hand as he had loomed over her, to caress his jaw with her fingers that she knew would be cool to his skin.
She still hears the inhuman sound that curled quietly in his throat, still sees the clouds that had covered his onyx eyes as he had shied from her touch. She still hears it, because there are nights when he still makes it, nights when he still cannot allow her the use of her hands, pinning them high above her head where they are not a threat to his carefully knitted resolve.
It had frightened her, but enabled her all the same that night, wanting so desperately to see what he felt as his fingers intertwined with hers deep against the pillow, his hands seeming to make love to hers more ardently than the rest of his body was when he finally took her, burying his face in the crook of her neck to muffle his shameful, pleasured breaths, to hide his amorous eyes as he came undone above her, around her, inside of her.
“Let go,” she had begged raggedly against his ear, and she still remembers how his hand was not quite big enough to hold both of her wrists down as he grabbed for her leg, trying so desperately to hold her still while he himself was coming apart. So she had met him halfway, and gripped his hand with both of hers, their fingers entangled like briars in an embrace of heat and sweat and energy all their own. But he never once gave her what she asked for when she had thought, so selfishly, that she knew what he needed. He never reached out and grasped for her mind with his the way his hand so desperately clung to hers, even when she knew that every touch pleaded to share a memory, a feeling, a lifeline. That was when she knew.
It was always, and will forever be, more than just an act to him.
Even now, after so long, she is careful not to curl against him when they rest, has taught herself distance and restraint, when to push for physical contact and when to let it go.
Sometimes her toes brush his in the night and he shifts in his sleep, startled by the cold and by the imprints her dreams leave on his mind. He has often described them to her over morning meal.
He is a considerate lover, even now. Especially now. He does not complain of these instances, nor does he suggest new and more effective ways to keep himself from her and vice versa. Still, she finds herself wishing he would so that she might have a more reasonable excuse to be infuriated with him. Her inner voice brands him callously as selfish for not wanting to share with her on a consistent basis, and she knows he hears this on the instances he does give in. And on these instances his mind is filthy and laden with argument, invasive and perverted by need and primal desire that he reluctantly reveals to her. It shames him, but she is grateful for it. And she makes sure that he knows despite her accusations against him, she is aware of what he does and why he does it. And she makes sure he knows she loves him all the same.
She shivers slightly, her skin hums with energy, and images flash behind her eyelids as she rolls-ever so slowly-into the open space he has left on the bed. Still warm.
Everything about him lingers on her.
Her eyes flutter open, her nose buried deep into the blanket, into his pillow, though she deigns to be bold and peer into the darkness of the conjoining room. She wonders if he can hear her now, beckoning him to come back to her, to let her hold him, or if that connection is long since severed. She still has yet to learn exactly what he means when he cannot find words to say it.
Like tonight.
He had been rough with her again, and part of her knew it was her own doing for being intentionally complicated, forcing him to choose for himself and for her. She could still feel his merciless grip on her hips as she struggled to grind down on him, leaning back on his knees, his thighs, aching for release. He was cruel, and yet so callously tender as he held her in place, setting the pace for her-slow and agonizing as he moved with her, relentlessly deep as each of her moans ground hoarsely from her throat and melted on her lips. Her nails had torn at his wrists, his forearms, without thinking, and his near bestial cry had alerted her to just how much he had been holding back; the sweat slick against his chest, his skin flushed green, the muscles in his neck taut and aching with the burden of self-control and still it was not enough as one hand gripped her harder, the other lifting from her skin just long enough to snap back with a roughness that surprised even her, causing her to cry out as he bucked into her, unforgiving.
The look on his face had been the most beautiful mix of degradation and arousal she had ever seen.
And yet he still treats the bruises that mar her body as a due she has yet to fully agree to pay, though she herself cannot recall a time where she has not done so, and with a full and glad heart.
His fingers pleaded with her skin, offering a truce after his brutal treatment, massaging and kneading her hips, her thighs, and she hadn't been able to stop the satisfied croon that escaped her lips as she was finally free to move. Palms splayed against the back of his legs, she had rocked against him, lost in the feel of his body against her fingers. Yet the trembling of his hands was not lost on her, and she watched him with heavily lidded eyes and wanton gasps as he tentatively touched the lower part of her belly, fingers spreading wide over the slight bulge that had begun to form within the last month.
She muses with a deep breath into his pillow and recalls how she could have come at that moment, just from the unabashed wonder that he let slip into his gaze.
But he hadn't allowed it, stilling her growingly frantic pace, closing his eyes, desperate to resolve this battle between his heart and mind. And she had whispered to him again, words that she said far too often but never ceased to mean. Called his name and beckoned him to let go, to realize that he was not just a man of two worlds, but a man of three: Vulcan, Earth, and this new world he wanted so badly to create with her, to hold and cherish but would forever be denied the words to express it.
Tonight she had been greedy for him, as he thumbed her, hand still extended protectively-possessively-over the lower part of her torso, fucked her but at the same time loved her, the only way he knew how. His free hand shook and had reached for her and she still cannot say whether the cry that came from her lips was one of fleeting pleasure or genuine joy as she leaned into his touch, his fingers grazing her cheek as they tangled themselves selfishly in her hair. With one finger at her temple and thumb on her cheek, his face was a mask of control but his eyes implored hers, begged hers, and she had nodded, forever digging her hands into the sheets to steel herself.
Nyota closes her eyes tight and curls into the diminishing warmth of her lover's empty space as she recalls the feeling of his mind on hers. And she understands why he cannot find his words, not because he does not know them or how exactly to express them.
But because there are none.
His mind is a savanna, where white light rains down on her and soaks her ebony skin with warmth, the colours of the plains gripping her senses, wild drums pounding in her ears. A song, one she has heard before but cannot place, thrums through her veins, a voice so gentle, so passionate as he hums it on the wind. A flash, and her peace is destroyed, pierced by the cries of the millions, followed by angry, violent words in the tongue of an ancient, proud people now on the brink of extinction. His words, in a voice she barely recognizes through the thick of its emotion.
Drums. Another voice. A mother's voice. Singing to him. It is a whisper in the trees, in the grass of the plains, and yet louder and more distinct than the screams of the dying. Two voices. One of them now her own. Beckoning him.
“Spock.”
She still does not know whether she heard it in his vision or whether she spoke it aloud, as wave after wave of emotion and light crashed over her. That song...
Rolling onto her back, Nyota opens her eyes, humming softly as her brow furrows.
A beat.
And she understands what he has so longed to say-as the tune echoes in the adjacent room with the thrum of strings.
She is resolved in this, just as she knows is he. With careful tread she climbs from the bed, her bare feet greeted by warm carpet as she pads across the room. The sheets are shed, her body bare for only a moment before trading her covers for an oversized shirt that she has gleaned from her lover, but he has never worn. He has made this the sole condition for her frivolous theft of his belongings, and yet they still smell so distinctly of him that she wonders if perhaps he sees the sentimentality in it after all.
On her toes, her neck craned toward the darkness of the adjacent room, she can see the soft glow of a large candle burning brighter, and she halts in the doorway. She knows this room well-spends much of her day in it when not on duty-with its haphazardly painted walls covered in swatches of potential colours while the old furniture has been pushed to the side to make room for the new to come.
So selfless of him to sacrifice his study, his books now barred nearly from reach by the divan he sits on. But she knows better. It is no sacrifice.
He does not look at her, but she knows he knows she is there, in the doorway. His fingers give pause for an almost undetectable moment, resting against the strings of the lute in his lap.
He starts again. The song thrums through her entire soul. She knows this.
His voice is even and cool as he hums the tune, this tune that seems forever grounded in his mind, and now in hers. She feels a deep warmth in the pit of her stomach at the sight of him: disheveled, half-clothed, restless hair, ever present expression. He has come here to think, to use his music to force his emotions back down and bend them to the will of his self-control. It is the mathematics, the precision, he says, that brings him here when he cannot say to her what he wants so very much to say.
And it is the song-his prayer-that someday she will know.
That of all the things he has lost, of the entire world-and the mother-that he will never see again, he still strives to make a home. That with Nyota, he is home.
She pads lightly on her toes to him, a soft smile on her face, her eyes lidded lazily from sleep, from the flicker of the candle, from the mere presence of him, calling to her without calling. And he plays. And she sings.
“Kidege,” her voice is rich and heady, the familiarity of the Swahili words rolling sweetly from the tip of her tongue, “hukuwaza kidege.” She hums as she reaches him, reaches for him, because she knows when she should, and when she should back away. She swears for a moment that his head cranes to meet her, to let the back of her fingers graze his temple as they fist gently into his hair for a moment, but she cannot be sure. Then again, she knows she does not need to. Not now.
He lifts the lute from his lap in a silent gesture and she heeds it, crawling into his lap and securing her back against his chest. He repositions the ancient instrument in front of them and continues to play, and for a moment, Nyota hears drums as she revels in the marvelous heat of him, and does not know if it is remnants of his dream or the beat of their hearts. So rare, so precious this moment.
“Nashindwa na mali sina we, ningekuoa Malaika,” she sings so softly, and her heart stops-shatters-when he parrots her, his voice low and gentle and alive in her ear.
She cranes her head to look up at him as she reaches, covers his nimble hands with her own, her fingertips caressing his heated skin as he plays the lute. She feels him tremble, but his face is impassive as he watches her hands, enveloping his.
“Malaika, nakupenda Malaika,” he sings, but he never finishes as she takes one hand and pulls it from the lute, ever so gently pressing it to her stomach.
And even though they are seated, she feels him stagger beneath her.
He meets her eye, but he cannot find words, to tell her that this is his choice. She shakes her head and cranes her forehead to his, the bridge of her nose caressing the tip of his, telling him he does not need to.
She knows.
Author: tehlanes
Rating: R (non-explicit sexual content)
Characters/Pairing: Spock/Uhura
Part: 1/1
Wordcount: 2983
Summary: They are both fully aware of his shortcomings. But in moments like these, Nyota is amazed by how little it truly matters.
Warning: Spoilers for the movie, obviously. Set significantly post-film, but non-specific to any time period. And while I am not sure if it is my head-canon or not yet, I was compelled to write it all the same. For those curious, the song featured can be found HERE at youtube. Lyrics HERE. <3
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek. Just the arrangement of words in this particular story.
He is an unusual, albeit exceptional, lover. Reflecting-perhaps too often-upon this, Nyota is convinced his pleasure is paramount to hers.
She is also convinced it is not always his choice.
She can still hear his shuffling feet in the adjacent room. They are tired, restless; they are searching; whatever they are, she only knows one thing for sure: they are absent from her bed. Their bed.
As she lays in silence beneath the warmth of the blanket, her eyes fall with a heavy heart upon the clock, still set to Vulcan Standard. That alone is enough to tell her what she needs to know about the man now absent from her side, his sheets still radiating with his warmth next to her.
This is not the first time she has awaken to his absence. It will not be the last.
Whether it is the science of synapses and currents of heat that keep her awake and aware, or merely the sweet recollection of his embrace that is always slow to settle in her mind, it is of no consequence on nights like these. Whatever reason she chooses to believe-and it is a different choice every time-one truth remains: in the end, she still feels the ghost of his touch upon her skin. It does not always make her smile.
Tonight it makes her brow settle into a contemplative line as she listens to his footfalls, so close yet so far away. Tonight, her lover is a vagrant.
But try as he might, she realizes he is never truly free, or lost, whichever he decides to be. Visions that once belonged to him and him alone now belong to her as well, staking settlements in her conscience, creating colonies, establishing treaties with each and every one of her own memories. An ideal relationship, any other woman would say, but they do not live her life. With each bridge they build-these memories of hers, synchronizing with his on a monumental scale-she fears they also erect a boundary, a neutral zone that they still do not dare cross.
He is an unusual, albeit exceptional, lover. Reflecting-perhaps too often-upon this, Nyota is convinced his pleasure is paramount to hers.
She is also convinced it is not always his choice.
She still remembers-with a cold, hard clarity-the first time they made love. She had been terrified to touch him, unsure of which boundaries to heed and which to cast away, and had met his eye with the complete and utter lack of confidence she had sworn she had retained when he had first laid her upon the bed. Her fists had palmed the sheets, her teeth nearly drawing blood from her lip as she struggled not to reach for him, to cry out for him and guide him as he explored her body with an almost childlike, timid curiosity, completely denied of her touch. She had thought that he would see this opportunity for initiative, his own canvas onto which to paint a myriad of whatever he desired. Imagine her surprise when he had not made the preference to explore every inch of her, to completely saturate his hands, his mouth, his hips in the feel of her, even at her eventual verbal encouragement.
Instead he had drawn two fingers so delicately-so weightlessly that she had wondered if he would ever make contact-over her skin, tracing her lines as if he were exploring a star chart, connecting each droplet of sweat that had formed from her initial apprehension.
It had been new to him, that circumstance-new to them both-and Nyota had erred in mistaking his gentility for a novice's meager ministration. She had lost her control and had released her fingers from the sheets, tentatively reaching out to the side of his thigh to pull him closer, to guide him where she wanted him. She had reached up with her other hand as he had loomed over her, to caress his jaw with her fingers that she knew would be cool to his skin.
She still hears the inhuman sound that curled quietly in his throat, still sees the clouds that had covered his onyx eyes as he had shied from her touch. She still hears it, because there are nights when he still makes it, nights when he still cannot allow her the use of her hands, pinning them high above her head where they are not a threat to his carefully knitted resolve.
It had frightened her, but enabled her all the same that night, wanting so desperately to see what he felt as his fingers intertwined with hers deep against the pillow, his hands seeming to make love to hers more ardently than the rest of his body was when he finally took her, burying his face in the crook of her neck to muffle his shameful, pleasured breaths, to hide his amorous eyes as he came undone above her, around her, inside of her.
“Let go,” she had begged raggedly against his ear, and she still remembers how his hand was not quite big enough to hold both of her wrists down as he grabbed for her leg, trying so desperately to hold her still while he himself was coming apart. So she had met him halfway, and gripped his hand with both of hers, their fingers entangled like briars in an embrace of heat and sweat and energy all their own. But he never once gave her what she asked for when she had thought, so selfishly, that she knew what he needed. He never reached out and grasped for her mind with his the way his hand so desperately clung to hers, even when she knew that every touch pleaded to share a memory, a feeling, a lifeline. That was when she knew.
It was always, and will forever be, more than just an act to him.
Even now, after so long, she is careful not to curl against him when they rest, has taught herself distance and restraint, when to push for physical contact and when to let it go.
Sometimes her toes brush his in the night and he shifts in his sleep, startled by the cold and by the imprints her dreams leave on his mind. He has often described them to her over morning meal.
He is a considerate lover, even now. Especially now. He does not complain of these instances, nor does he suggest new and more effective ways to keep himself from her and vice versa. Still, she finds herself wishing he would so that she might have a more reasonable excuse to be infuriated with him. Her inner voice brands him callously as selfish for not wanting to share with her on a consistent basis, and she knows he hears this on the instances he does give in. And on these instances his mind is filthy and laden with argument, invasive and perverted by need and primal desire that he reluctantly reveals to her. It shames him, but she is grateful for it. And she makes sure that he knows despite her accusations against him, she is aware of what he does and why he does it. And she makes sure he knows she loves him all the same.
She shivers slightly, her skin hums with energy, and images flash behind her eyelids as she rolls-ever so slowly-into the open space he has left on the bed. Still warm.
Everything about him lingers on her.
Her eyes flutter open, her nose buried deep into the blanket, into his pillow, though she deigns to be bold and peer into the darkness of the conjoining room. She wonders if he can hear her now, beckoning him to come back to her, to let her hold him, or if that connection is long since severed. She still has yet to learn exactly what he means when he cannot find words to say it.
Like tonight.
He had been rough with her again, and part of her knew it was her own doing for being intentionally complicated, forcing him to choose for himself and for her. She could still feel his merciless grip on her hips as she struggled to grind down on him, leaning back on his knees, his thighs, aching for release. He was cruel, and yet so callously tender as he held her in place, setting the pace for her-slow and agonizing as he moved with her, relentlessly deep as each of her moans ground hoarsely from her throat and melted on her lips. Her nails had torn at his wrists, his forearms, without thinking, and his near bestial cry had alerted her to just how much he had been holding back; the sweat slick against his chest, his skin flushed green, the muscles in his neck taut and aching with the burden of self-control and still it was not enough as one hand gripped her harder, the other lifting from her skin just long enough to snap back with a roughness that surprised even her, causing her to cry out as he bucked into her, unforgiving.
The look on his face had been the most beautiful mix of degradation and arousal she had ever seen.
And yet he still treats the bruises that mar her body as a due she has yet to fully agree to pay, though she herself cannot recall a time where she has not done so, and with a full and glad heart.
His fingers pleaded with her skin, offering a truce after his brutal treatment, massaging and kneading her hips, her thighs, and she hadn't been able to stop the satisfied croon that escaped her lips as she was finally free to move. Palms splayed against the back of his legs, she had rocked against him, lost in the feel of his body against her fingers. Yet the trembling of his hands was not lost on her, and she watched him with heavily lidded eyes and wanton gasps as he tentatively touched the lower part of her belly, fingers spreading wide over the slight bulge that had begun to form within the last month.
She muses with a deep breath into his pillow and recalls how she could have come at that moment, just from the unabashed wonder that he let slip into his gaze.
But he hadn't allowed it, stilling her growingly frantic pace, closing his eyes, desperate to resolve this battle between his heart and mind. And she had whispered to him again, words that she said far too often but never ceased to mean. Called his name and beckoned him to let go, to realize that he was not just a man of two worlds, but a man of three: Vulcan, Earth, and this new world he wanted so badly to create with her, to hold and cherish but would forever be denied the words to express it.
Tonight she had been greedy for him, as he thumbed her, hand still extended protectively-possessively-over the lower part of her torso, fucked her but at the same time loved her, the only way he knew how. His free hand shook and had reached for her and she still cannot say whether the cry that came from her lips was one of fleeting pleasure or genuine joy as she leaned into his touch, his fingers grazing her cheek as they tangled themselves selfishly in her hair. With one finger at her temple and thumb on her cheek, his face was a mask of control but his eyes implored hers, begged hers, and she had nodded, forever digging her hands into the sheets to steel herself.
Nyota closes her eyes tight and curls into the diminishing warmth of her lover's empty space as she recalls the feeling of his mind on hers. And she understands why he cannot find his words, not because he does not know them or how exactly to express them.
But because there are none.
His mind is a savanna, where white light rains down on her and soaks her ebony skin with warmth, the colours of the plains gripping her senses, wild drums pounding in her ears. A song, one she has heard before but cannot place, thrums through her veins, a voice so gentle, so passionate as he hums it on the wind. A flash, and her peace is destroyed, pierced by the cries of the millions, followed by angry, violent words in the tongue of an ancient, proud people now on the brink of extinction. His words, in a voice she barely recognizes through the thick of its emotion.
Drums. Another voice. A mother's voice. Singing to him. It is a whisper in the trees, in the grass of the plains, and yet louder and more distinct than the screams of the dying. Two voices. One of them now her own. Beckoning him.
“Spock.”
She still does not know whether she heard it in his vision or whether she spoke it aloud, as wave after wave of emotion and light crashed over her. That song...
Rolling onto her back, Nyota opens her eyes, humming softly as her brow furrows.
A beat.
And she understands what he has so longed to say-as the tune echoes in the adjacent room with the thrum of strings.
She is resolved in this, just as she knows is he. With careful tread she climbs from the bed, her bare feet greeted by warm carpet as she pads across the room. The sheets are shed, her body bare for only a moment before trading her covers for an oversized shirt that she has gleaned from her lover, but he has never worn. He has made this the sole condition for her frivolous theft of his belongings, and yet they still smell so distinctly of him that she wonders if perhaps he sees the sentimentality in it after all.
On her toes, her neck craned toward the darkness of the adjacent room, she can see the soft glow of a large candle burning brighter, and she halts in the doorway. She knows this room well-spends much of her day in it when not on duty-with its haphazardly painted walls covered in swatches of potential colours while the old furniture has been pushed to the side to make room for the new to come.
So selfless of him to sacrifice his study, his books now barred nearly from reach by the divan he sits on. But she knows better. It is no sacrifice.
He does not look at her, but she knows he knows she is there, in the doorway. His fingers give pause for an almost undetectable moment, resting against the strings of the lute in his lap.
He starts again. The song thrums through her entire soul. She knows this.
His voice is even and cool as he hums the tune, this tune that seems forever grounded in his mind, and now in hers. She feels a deep warmth in the pit of her stomach at the sight of him: disheveled, half-clothed, restless hair, ever present expression. He has come here to think, to use his music to force his emotions back down and bend them to the will of his self-control. It is the mathematics, the precision, he says, that brings him here when he cannot say to her what he wants so very much to say.
And it is the song-his prayer-that someday she will know.
That of all the things he has lost, of the entire world-and the mother-that he will never see again, he still strives to make a home. That with Nyota, he is home.
She pads lightly on her toes to him, a soft smile on her face, her eyes lidded lazily from sleep, from the flicker of the candle, from the mere presence of him, calling to her without calling. And he plays. And she sings.
“Kidege,” her voice is rich and heady, the familiarity of the Swahili words rolling sweetly from the tip of her tongue, “hukuwaza kidege.” She hums as she reaches him, reaches for him, because she knows when she should, and when she should back away. She swears for a moment that his head cranes to meet her, to let the back of her fingers graze his temple as they fist gently into his hair for a moment, but she cannot be sure. Then again, she knows she does not need to. Not now.
He lifts the lute from his lap in a silent gesture and she heeds it, crawling into his lap and securing her back against his chest. He repositions the ancient instrument in front of them and continues to play, and for a moment, Nyota hears drums as she revels in the marvelous heat of him, and does not know if it is remnants of his dream or the beat of their hearts. So rare, so precious this moment.
“Nashindwa na mali sina we, ningekuoa Malaika,” she sings so softly, and her heart stops-shatters-when he parrots her, his voice low and gentle and alive in her ear.
She cranes her head to look up at him as she reaches, covers his nimble hands with her own, her fingertips caressing his heated skin as he plays the lute. She feels him tremble, but his face is impassive as he watches her hands, enveloping his.
“Malaika, nakupenda Malaika,” he sings, but he never finishes as she takes one hand and pulls it from the lute, ever so gently pressing it to her stomach.
And even though they are seated, she feels him stagger beneath her.
He meets her eye, but he cannot find words, to tell her that this is his choice. She shakes her head and cranes her forehead to his, the bridge of her nose caressing the tip of his, telling him he does not need to.
She knows.