dejah_thoris | [milliways] Lost for you, I'm so lost for you

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[milliways] Lost for you, I'm so lost for you

[ cont'd from here ]

'More private' to her right now simply means away from people. She takes his hand and leads him into the shadows, moving down the beach away from the music and the flickering light of the bonfire. The white sand beach is flat here, gently sloping down to the waterline. The quiet envelopes them, the susurration of the waves the only sound save for the occasional distant laughter.

Her blood still sings with the heat of his kiss, her breath ragged and shallow even as she attempts to calm herself. She can feel him, deeper now than ever before. If she is like fire to him, then he is red hot metal, radiating strength and something more. Something raw. Powerful. She's almost afraid to look too closely, terrified she'll see what she wants to see and not the truth.

But this doesn't feel like simple lust to her. They've skirted around that for months now. But this is different. This feels real.

"Curtis..." So many words crowd up behind her teeth, catching in the back of her throat. She glances at him, watching the distant firelight catch in his eyelashes. When she speaks, all that comes out is,

"I love you."

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"Really," she says, that worry quickly washed away by her curiosity. "It must have been beautiful. How far north were you? Was there snow?"

He nods. (Carefully.)

"Not all the time," he says. "But we got some in the winter. A lot of it sometimes, I remember that."

The scene shifts in his mind: away from the field, toward freshly-plowed roads with piles of snow lining their path. Even then, a feeling of warmth envelops the memory. Snow used to mean curling up under a blanket with hot cocoa, or getting in snowball fights with other kids. It used to mean that hot prickly feeling you'd get on your ears and the tip of your nose when you came back inside.

Wistfulness curls around his next words. "It all melted by spring."

Her voice drops to an almost conspiratorial whisper.

"What was it called? The place where you were from?"

His smile fades a little, toward something more thoughtful. It's right on the tip of his tongue, like he's trying to find another word to describe the scene. Like cold, or city, or home.

And then the fog clears, and, unexpectedly, Curtis finds he's blinking hard, his vision blurring beyond what the champagne's done to him. The smile comes back, small and sweet and only a little trembly.

"Boston," he whispers. "I remember."

"Boston," she echoes. His memories have been so fleeting, so devastating for him, and for the first time, he's sharing those memories with her. She leans down and presses her lips soft against his forehead. Her fingers lace through his and she holds onto him.

"You all right?"

"...Yeah." He sounds faintly surprised by that fact. A few more blinks, and he comes back to himself, to her presence, to the room around them. "I'm good. I promise."

His forehead creases.

"You good, too?"

She beams down at him and gives the tiniest nod.

"I am. You just be sure to tell me if I get too nosy, all right?"

"You're not nosy," he says, tripping over the words in his eagerness to reassure her. "You're fine, you're just...asking stuff. I don't talk about that shit a lot but it's not like it's bad most of the time."

It only stings compared to what happened on the train. And here, where he can forget the train even happened -- and where the barriers he put up around those memories have weakened, because champagne is the best -- it's no problem.

"It's just stuff I forgot about."

"I know. I know." He can feel a warm pulse of the same gratitude, amplified by his reassurance. She feels blessed that he trusts her enough to open up. It's another milestone in an evening overflowing with miracles.

"And now it's all right to remember. It's safe to remember, hmm?"

"Maybe, yeah," he murmurs. Curtis settles his other hand atop their clasped hands. "Sometimes. Right now anyway."

That's better than he ever expected.

And then he brightens. "Hey, you wanna break into the chocolate?"

She waggles her eyebrows at him.

"Which chocolate? Because I'm curious about the hot chocolate, myself."

"You should definitely have the hot chocolate," he declares. Waving a wobbly hand toward the basket, "It's all yours, I'm good for now. Oh and try it with the marshmallows, too, there's marshmallows in there isn't there?"

"What are marshmallows? And you're coming back here, aren't you? I rather like your head in my lap."

"Marshmallows are the puffy white things. Here, yeah, I'm coming back -- "

He heaves himself to sitting, then makes a wild grab for the back of the couch as the room lurches. "Whoa. Shit."

Yeah, that's enough to spark another round of giggling from Curtis. Give him a second to compose himself.

She reaches a hand to catch him. She's never heard him laugh so much. The sound alone is just as intoxicating as the champagne.

"Now, now. No falling off the couch. I'd have to join you on the floor and we both know where that leads."

"Somewhere fun?" he manages, with all the innocence he can muster.

(By this point, that's not a whole lot of innocence.)

With effort, and with more support from Dejah than he realizes, Curtis grabs the thermos of cocoa and the bag of marshmallows. He solemnly presents both of them to Dejah. "For you."

She takes them as best she can and leans her shoulder against his back the whole while.

"You know, I think you're right. The floor makes a much better table than the couch. Here, bring the basket."

With that, she gives in to the inexorable pull of gravity and slides down, perhaps less than gracefully, to the floor. She lands with a quiet chuff of air and another flurry of giggles.

Curtis isn't far behind, hitting the floor with even less grace than Dejah. His laughter mingles with hers as he cranes himself around to grab the basket. It requires wrapping both arms around it to make sure it won't spill.

"There," he says with relish, plonking it on the floor right in front of them. Since he's already bent double, it's pretty easy to roll from there onto his back, head pillowed in Dejah's lap again; he lets out a long, contented sigh and folds his hands on his chest.

She's far less elegant here, legs out straight in front of her, but it doesn't matter. Not with Curtis in her lap again. She's still chuckling as she reaches over top of him to rummage in the basket for the chocolate. (Enjoy your face full of Dejah, Curtis.)

He can hear the paper wrapping crinkling as she opens it. She snaps off a not very small piece of chocolate and offers it to him, held daintily between her fingertips.

Oooh. Chocolate and a face full of Dejah. You know how to treat a guy right.

Propping himself on his elbows, Curtis stretches up to snag the candy with his teeth. He manages it on his second try; slouching back into Dejah's lap, he gnaws away at it contentedly, only pausing to offer up a muffled, "S'good," around a mouthful of chocolate.

She watches him eat, unable to suppress her wonder. Who is this mad man and what has he done with Curtis Everett? She chuffs a laugh and shakes her head.

Now, to the task of extracting the hot chocolate from the steel cylinder bar put it in. She taps her fingers against the plasticine lid. She pushes at it. She shakes it a little. She makes a quiet little frustrated noise under her breath. She's a scientist, an engineer! This should not be this difficult.

While getting drunk every day would be a terrible long-term solution to all of Curtis's issues, it's not bad as far as occasional short-term ones go.

"Mm -- " He gestures with one hand as he hastily swallows the chocolate. "Try twisting the top part? S'how it usually works."

Oh twisting. She would have gotten there eventually. (Shut up.) She does that and oohs quietly as the little cup comes off the end.

"Oh look, there's another little -- twisty -- thing." She untwists that and the rich smell of heaven washes over her. "Oh sweet holy mother. If I drink this, I will surely die."

Curtis beams.

"If you start to die, I'll save you," he says, as solemnly as he can. "I'll give you strawberries and, and..." What else can he give her? "Tea. And wine. I'll get another thing from room service with tea and wine."

She laughs, a rich low sound from deep in her chest. "Water, possibly? Or maybe -- I know."

She leans down, careful not to spill the hot chocolate, and whispers against his forehead, "More kisses. That'd do the trick."

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