[Closed, Mature] Never Felt Like Any Blessing

[Aremu Ediwo]

Night, 28 Hamis, 2720
The Ibutatu House

The memory of Aurelie’s hand on his bare chest lingered as they set together about the bandaging. It burned in him like a fire, and when her fingertips just barely brushed over his shoulder blade or side, it actually ached.

Aremu knew himself, and he knew something of control. He thought he could have kissed Aurelie like that for hours, and been glad if it. It was not that he did not want; he did, with an intensity that half-frightened him. But he did not - could not - want her badly enough to do it less than the right way.

By the time the bandaging was done, he was drained. It was well night by now; Aremu’s eyes were aching, and half-open. Aurelie came and sat beside him, taking her hand in his, looking up wide-eyed at him.

“Yes,” Aremu rasped; his throat ached again, worse from when he had held back grunts or aches or pain as her fingers found the tender soreness, “please. I...”

Aremu closed his eyes for a moment, pushing through the haze. “I have nightmares sometimes,” he said, quietly, frowning at Aurelie. It wasn’t quite a lie; sometimes he didn’t remember them, and so he couldn’t be sure. “I don’t want to frighten you, but I’d like to sleep with you here.”

His thumb stroked softly over her hand. He lifted it to his mouth and kissed it, tenderly, looking at the freckles and calluses and scars with a little smile. They were beautiful hands, he thought, aching, small and shapely and strong in the same way Aurelie was, with a bone deep knowledge of what they could do, and a competence.

Aremu set her hand down lightly; he rose, and took a few slow, deliberate steps, and took his shirt from where he has folded it. He pulled it on, grateful for a lack of buttons, and came back to Aurelie; he did not like to sleep with a shirt, but he thought - I want to respect you, he thought of saying, and he thought then of Tom, and couldn’t but grin.

They lay down in the bed, a little ways apart.

“May I hold you?” Aremu asked, very softly. He rolled over onto his side; his fingertips closed the space between them, and he took Aurelie’s hand once more carefully in his.

If she let him, Aremu thought, aching, he would curl her against him, settle his body against her back and tuck his arm around her. He wanted it; he wanted to cradle her in the circle of his arms and against the warmth of him, to have her hair just shy of his lips. He knew he didn’t deserve it; he knew better than to have asked. Perhaps it was the tiredness, the length of the day, the quiet perfection of the kisses they had shared; he asked anyway, and he hoped.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 28, 2720 - Night | The Ibutatu House

Once again, she was struck by that delicate mix of relief and anxiety when Aremu agreed with her suggestion. A suggestion that was likely sign that she'd taken leave of her senses, or more like that she never had any to begin with. However inexpertly phrased, it was deeply forward. Sometimes even she was forced to wonder at herself.

Nightmares, he said. Aurelie thought, briefly, of Bernie. They had been roommates a long time—most of Aurelie's life in Brunnhold, really. The other girl would wake up sometimes, and wake Aurelie with her—sobbing, or gasping, or shouting. Aurelie had never felt close enough to ask her about them, or even do much more than lie awake in the dark until the sounds stopped. Distance made the thought strange, heavier than it had been when she'd lived it through. This was no place or time for it; she wondered that it had even come to her at all.

"A-ah, well. Good." She smiled again, flustered as always by the kiss to her hand. She didn't want to think about Bernie, or anyone else, or Brunnhold at all. It didn't belong here and now. She had tried this whole week to think of it as little as possible. The process was arduous, but there was no point in thinking on it. Aurelie knew she could set it aside, just as she had set aside thoughts of Briarwood and most of her life before. This was the same.

There was plenty to think about with what was in front of her. Aremu got up and put on the shirt she'd brought down from upstairs. Aurelie couldn't decide if she was more relieved or disappointed. Relieved, probably—she did actually need to sleep, after all. The disappointment felt so ridiculous she couldn't help but smile at herself. When she looked over, Aremu was grinning as well. What at? She wondered, but didn't ask. It was plenty to see him do it, without knowing the reason.

A space was between them, just as there had been when they'd watched the stars. No less deliberate. It seemed bigger now. As proper a distance as one could get, given the circumstances. Not, she reflected, that it mattered. Or at least it mattered less, an amount that was easier to ignore.

Aurelie turned her head, not quite settled. Unsure she could be settled, honestly. This soothed some part of her nerves, the part that would have lain awake and wondered if something had changed with real sleep, overnight. The rest of her was rather the opposite. She was keenly grateful that they were alone in the house now; for a flicker of a moment she contemplated explaining herself to anyone else, and she couldn't do it.

"Mm," she nodded, her face hot. She wouldn't be able to sleep that way, she thought. It was going to be hard enough to begin with. She wanted it though. More than she wanted sleep, clearly, because she took Aremu's hand and moved closer. For all that her heart was trying to escape, there was a comfort into tucking herself against him. A sort of ache too, that she tried not to place. She knew what it was all the same, and it was a different kind of wanting than what she'd been holding against before.

Aurelie closed her eyes. Before she could think better of it, she brought the back of his hand to her mouth in a sleep-softened sort of kiss. Idiot, some part of her thought, but she already knew that. She let it linger, then settled his hand back down.