[ prp ] taking carol business (taymerica)

[lizbot]

snow place like home

"If it makes you feel any better," she drawled, lifting one foot and propping it up against the dash, "...pretty sure it all went to my legs."  

[lizbot]

tender and mild

The admonishment received a much more lewd testing of the candy, but soon enough she was relenting, biting into it properly with thoughtful focus. Brightening with earnest enthusiasm and blatant gluttony, America leaned across the island counter and grabbed two more. "It's really good. Like, really good. I like the way they stick and snap and crunch just enough, but don't overstay their welcome." Candied vampire fangs followed, but so did a story about the time she'd got kicked out of bible study for improper use of a hatpin.  

[lizbot]

a beary merry christmas

She patted the space beside her with a demanding, impatient look.

rejam

 

[Rejam]

aisle be home for christmas

He put it back, and in a rare show of public affection beyond chaste hand-holding he pushed her hair behind her ear so that he could kiss her there, too.

"It's not a waste if it makes you want to try," he said quietly. "Not even a little bit. But if you don't want to try right now I promise I won't bully you into it. You just tell me what you want and that's what we'll get."  

[Rejam]

tender and mild

The lectures were suspended, of course: fair was fair, a rant traded for a story, and then another. When he laughed it was crooked and quiet, not the full uninhibited laugh he sometimes gave her when they were alone, but it was the most he'd offered since Thanksgiving.  

[Rejam]

beary merry christmas

He obediently folded up next to her, reaching out to prod disapprovingly at her boots before waiting for her to enlighten him, turning his eyes towards the ceiling.  

[lizbot]

aisle be home for christmas

There is always that desire to be brave, for herself, but maybe for him too. She remembered him asking her if she was ever afraid and he'd seemed so startled to find out the truth of it, and at the time she'd immediately wanted to take it back, to be that girl.

Giving him a small squeeze of a hug, America offered a smile and answered, "Let's go with the mushrooms." Because being with him like this might mean she wanted to be brave and fearless, but it also meant accepting that she wasn't and didn't have to be.  

[lizbot]

beary merry christmas

Sitting up on her elbows, America made a show of toeing off her boots and then flopped right back down, bring up her phone as she did so with a broad smile. It was selfie time.

rejam

 

[Rejam]

aisle be home for christmas

And that was it. No protests, and, markedly, no disappointment.

"I make a mean portobello steak," he assured her as they moved towards the produce, tightening his arm around her waist as if to remind her: I'm here. I'm not leaving.  

[Rejam]

beary merry christmas

He had been expecting a grand surprise. This was a surprise but it was not grand.

"Oh god," he groaned, making an attempt to extricate himself.  

[lizbot]

beary merry christmas

She didn't make it easy, using her free hand and legs to keep him down, taking as many pics of them together as she could.  

[Rejam]

beary merry christmas

This led down a natural road of playful fighting, but before it can progress down the second natural road he called a stop.

"I will negotiate," he said loftily.  

[Rejam]

all of the other rain deer

It starts drizzling mid-afternoon and when the first sound of rain hitting the roof reaches his ears Taym closes his eyes in absolute bliss, in very nearly the same face he's ever made over a particularly delicious bit of food.

"That," he says, eyes still closed, "is the sound of God telling me to go stoke the fire. And you to go get those abominations you call marshmallows."

He detangles himself, but his destination is not the fireplace but one of the long plate-glass windows stretched along one side of the cabin, and here he stands, watching the little path down to the woods, the one they'd had a run down that morning, grow misty with rain.

"Look," he says suddenly, in nearly exactly the same tone he'd had when he'd cornered a fish for her in Russia, all pleased and boyish. "Deer."  

[Rejam]

what's the sense in hurting my pride

Taym as a reader of poetry did not dovetail with the image he'd spent so long cultivating, but the image had taken such a beating over the past few years anyway that maybe the barriers were less formidable than they'd once been.

Taym admired poetry, or more specifically he admired poets for having what he did not: control over their thoughts; the ability to neatly square away complicated feelings in a few ambiguous lines. In one of those strange dream-worlds they'd been offered a vision of power and to Taym this had been self-control, starting with the chaos of his own feeling.

He was walking with her down the rain-damp trail, picking their way over fallen branches and through shallow pools lying in the tracks, and he'd joked that he wanted to see a bear but America of course had seemed to think that if they went outside and hoped hard enough the bear would simply be there, in accordance with the fundamental laws of the universe.

And he was thinking about poetry while the companionable silence settled around them and while he held her hand (his did not shake, and he didn't notice it yet), and about a night uninterrupted by her need to escape, and about all the complicated things he wished he could say to her, and none of it stuck, so he used someone else's words instead.

"In your most frail gesture are things which enclose me," he said suddenly, quietly, running his thumb over the backs of her fingers, "or which i cannot touch because they are too near. Your slightest look easily will unclose me, though I have closed myself--"

And then he was flustered, too much sappy sentimentality, too much hokey worn-out schmaltz, too cliche, too tired, too ridiculous for him, and he swung her hand back and forth between them. "They make you read that in high school?"

lizbot

there i did the thing u_u i hate him

 

[Rejam]

dash or dancer

They're a few hours into the first day, sometime past grocery stores and selfie battles but not yet to the point of theatrical candy making, and it's some offhand comment but of course it usually is, and things simmer up to a quick heat and his voice has that thing in it, that edge of dangerous quiet that indicates that any second now it's all going to break out into yelling and that sarcastic little way he has of repeating back what she's just said to him like he can't believe she'd had the nerve--

--and once again he closes his eyes and he swallows and he's visibly trying to wrest control back from his irrational rages and it looks for a minute like maybe he's going to go have a sulk and a smoke so he can come back something approaching calm, and then of course there will be the traditional post-sulk-n-smoke welling-up of affection and clingy hands and kisses behind her ear, and maybe that would actually be a relief, given how standoffish he's been--

--and instead he inhales level and calm and he threads an arm around her waist and there's no music and they aren't underground and to be honest there's not a lot of movement going on at the feet level, but it's something, and he buries his face against her hair and he tells her she smells good, tells her he's sorry, tells her not right now, tells her that saying he has two left feet is being generous, and maybe that much is true on some level but almost the only thing he has is a natural physical grace that's in evidence here, an easy fluidity of movement behind the caged tension of his dissipating anger, and this is a transparent ploy to avoid talking about it but really there hadn't been anything to talk about in the first place, or at least not anything they were actually able to put into words, and--