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 Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 8:57 pm
 Sick Bird
Zurine is not doing well. *
This wasn't right.
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Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 8:59 pm
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Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 9:00 pm
Lost and Found
Learning of how deeply in trouble she is, Cesc goes to find Zurine. *
He exhaled. At least now, she was safe.
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Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 9:04 pm
Strangest Heartbreak
After Cruz breaks up with him, Iorek, Cesc and Shepard talk *
This wasn't good...
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Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 9:05 pm
 Poor Iorek
It was a constant refrain in Rhedefre's head after Iorek left. It repeated so many times on his walk back to the bakery, his eyes set forward and his brow furrowed in thought, that eventually it began to morph. Poor Iorek. Poor Iorek. Alas, poor Iorek. I knew him, Horatio…
Cesc shook his head. Poor Iorek. Was that really what he should be thinking? His friend was hurt -- and so was he, once, twice. Reks would feel what he had felt. The sting of rejection was only that: the first biting feeling of what really became a fever, a mixture of humiliation, dashed hopes, anger and upset. Then came blame, inward or outward, and some attempt at denial. And then the fever passed, leaving some trembling, idiot weakness in its wake.
No-- that wasn't quite right. Cesc threw his mind back to two summers prior, when he had -- had thought, he amended-- unceremoniously lost Zurine's affections. With that, there had accompanied the fever a great and abiding sadness…
Love, Shepard said, cannot remain unspoiled without tending. Broken off from its source, it bleeds and festers and ferments into fury and sometimes hatred and then finally settles into apathy with the passage of time. What was that, wondered Cesc. What was the half-life of love betrayed before it soured and then neutralized into nothingness? Enough time had not passed in those months between for him to feel nothing for Zurine. His… deepness of affection, if he wanted to call it that, had only gone so far as a wounded sort of anger, the foolishness of pride and disappointment.
Had he loved her?
Did he love her?
Cesc's heart quickened in his chest. It was a question he did not want to answer, pulled away from like same-poled magnets. He turned his mind forcibly -- to Melisande.
Melisande…
… still in his mind he could see the angelic lines of her face, the deep quietness of her eyes, the sweetness in the turn of her lips. She had gravity, did Melisande. It was impossible not to be drawn to her, even the caprice in her temper-- or the drama that followed her, like a living opera. She was music and light and charm, needing only an audience. And he had lost his head and climbed on her stage and kissed her.
That rejection -- that had stung. That had set him down into deep embarrassment, made him feel terribly young and brash and ridiculous. She had been in the midst of a choice… two Raevans, proud and powerful, like no one he had ever known. Zul… Vivi called Zul a wrapped-up star, his core all power and elegant violence and energy, barely contained. He was handsome and charming and deserving of the Muse. Cesc could not fault her her choice. It was the choice any woman-- or man-- would have made.
But he had long since reconciled that he could hold those opinions and be hurt by them simultaneously. He did not want to see them together. To see their affection, the power of their connection. He could bid them joy and still want no active part in it, not until he'd made peace with his own embarrassment. There was something in all of it that made him feel strange and less-than, like he was misplaced, or some magic was forgotten in his making.
Or that perhaps strong men were not deer, not pink, not bakers of delicate confections, not saddled with powers that needled and did not protect.
Cesc looked at his hands. There were old burns and callouses on them, and they were so much larger than they had been at Frei, when his entire build was more fine-boned. His forearms were thick, well-muscled, and he knew his shoulders to be broad and straight. He was not lacking in strength anymore, could hold and heft great weight and spar with Iorek -- Poor Iorek -- the strongest of Raevans and hold his own. His voice was deep and mellow. He felt masculine, felt a man. Was that not enough?
But he was pink. His hair, his stubble, eyebrows and everything else. His wings stretched wide and held well in the sky-- but they, too, were stained the most feminine color. Why should it detract? He wondered. What was masculinity, that a color could diminish it so materially?
And why should he have need of fighting, of offensive power? He had taken it up out of trauma, out of a desire to never be as useless as he was in the jungle-- not of insecurity. Or was it that he wanted to prove, to himself and anyone else, that he would not be a liability in a fight? People tended to assume a delicacy that Cesc did not have because of his born coloring. Some days it was an easy weight, one that floated from his shoulders. Other days? Other days it was deep and dry and caught fire in his ribcage. He would quietly simmer: what did they think he had learned from the jungle, from confronting a murderer once his friend, from seeing Zurine broken and weeping and Lazarus mangled and Anya sobbing madly against him? What had he learned-- how to break? No-- no. He had only learned anger, anger that had to be exhaled and put to use so that it didn't bottle up and corrode his insides-- like-- like---
Like poor Iorek…
Rhedefre snapped from his reverie. He felt like he had woken from a dream, waist-deep in thought, surprised to be in the real world again. Iorek had said something. That he'd been upset, and then fine, and then upset again. He'd flip-flopped, his gentle demeanor failing to save him once again from rage. And Iorek trained with Cesc, he burned off anger the same as the stag did-- didn't he?
There was something not right about what he had said…
Cesc pulled open the door of the bakery. He couldn't pretend to know everything, to know what Iorek needed, or what Cruz needed, or what either were truly feeling outside of the initial burn of coming apart.
He could only content himself with thinking, dissatisfied and concerned, the same repeated chorus...
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Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 9:28 pm
The Sweetest Thing: Redux "Batter up!"
Cesc settled back in his seat, pulling his modified hat low over his eyes. It was his day off, and a marvelous late-summer day he'd been treated to, the sky dotted with passing clouds and the salt-smell of the beach on the air. Somewhere in the park, someone was having a barbecue, the scent of the smoke flavoring the air.
He sat at the local baseball diamond, half-slouched, his cup of water beaded with condensation. He didn't know how long he meant to stay-- bad baseball, like the rec league currently on the field, was better than no baseball, but only just barely.
"Geezus, Mom, just find a seat!" A voice, strangely familiar, filtered into Cesc's thoughts. The back of his mind quietly went into work, flipping through pages, while he continued to watch the plodding game.
"What's your rush? We're here for the whole thing-- take your pretzel." An older woman's voice joined the first. "Noah? Noah, come here. Sit down-- no, sit down THERE, Noah. Close to Mommy, okay? Hey! Jackie. You put your phone away unless you're taking pictures of Dad's at-bat."
Cesc's ears stood up. The name came up just as he'd located it-- the high school girl who'd come to the bakery so long ago, who'd liked him, who'd-- who'd kissed him in the kitchen while he tried to show her how to make her favorite treat.
He spun in his chair without thinking. He lifted his eyes up to the trio who were filtering into the seats in front of and to the left of him, a rowdy little boy with a glove-- holy s**t, that kid had been so much smaller the last time he'd seen him-- a sporty mother with her hands full of snacks, and…
Yeah. Jackie.
She was making a sour face at her mother and looked up from her phone just as Cesc was studying her. Immediately, she dropped the gaze, her face red, her posture stiff and uncomfortable, like someone had frozen her her joints. She swallowed and sat down heavily, pulling her shirt down and plucking uselessly at the fabric. She stared, determined, at the field.
"Noah, get--c'mon, munchkin. Get on the chair. This whole row isn't yours. Let's watch Daddy!" Her mother wasn't paying Jackie the slightest attention, and Cesc was glad for it. His heart was beating quickly although he wasn't entirely sure WHY; he'd always liked Jackie in a platonic way, been sad that she had disappeared so abruptly… it hadn't been so awkward, had it?
Cesc tugged on his cap. Maybe it had. She'd taken a chance and kissed him, like he had done with Melisande. And he-- like Melisande-- had kissed her back although he'd meant absolutely nothing in the act.
s**t.
Was that how she'd felt? Hell, was that how Melisande had felt?
Cesc straightened in his chair and then sunk lower, unsure of what to do with his hands. He looked at Jackie, part of him willing her to look back toward him, part of him hoping desperately she did not. What would he even say to her if she did? He was certain after so long without contact that no feeling remained. It couldn't. But awkwardness-- ********, awkwardness refused to die or even diminish.
He swallowed and put his drink to his lips, missing the straw and nearly poking himself in the eye with it. What was he doing? He needed to calm-- calm down and re-center and decide what he wanted to do.
Cesc knew one thing very quickly. He wanted to talk to her, strange as that sounded. Wanted a chance to apologize. Or to have her see that he was just as good of making an a** of himself. And to let her know that she had NOT made one of herself. No-- patronizing. No mention of that. Just of his own assery.
He took in a breath and looked at Jackie. From what he could see, she hadn't changed much. Her face was less cherubic, her hair with highlights, her lashes blackened. She looked more of a young woman than she had before. What was she now, he wondered-- 18, 19?
Her ears were red. She turned her head slightly and looked sideways at nothing-- checking to see if he was still there. He looked away quickly, eyes back on a game his brain had no interest in comprehending anymore. Cesc felt ridiculous. They were both tremendously aware of each other and somehow content to sit in total silence.
It stretched half an inning, and then Noah's patience with the game waned.
"MOMMA," he called, holding a ketchup-soaked fourth of a hotdog. "I don't wanna have this anymore."
"Then put it in the trash, Noah," his mother murmured, holding out the cardboard tray she'd bought over for him. He dropped the food there, his hands still red-smeared, and poked at the other food debris forlornly.
"I wanna have ice cream now," he murmured, looking under a few remaining french fries as if he'd find it there.
"You're not full?" His mother checked.
"Not for ice creams.............." said the boy, looking wistfully at the ice cream booth. He fidgeted, sitting up on his knees and then kicking one shoe out to poke at the ground. His mother stood, taking the trash and holding out her hand for Noah to take.
"Alright. Jackie, do you want one--oh, NOAH! Your hands are so filthy!" She immediately forgot her first question, pulling her son through the stands to reach the ice cream (and napkins), both mother and son chattering over each other as they went.
Jackie looked over at them and then back at the field, resolute in her gaze. Cesc straightened in his chair, pulling his shirt. It was taking time to scrape up his courage, like the knife he was using just wasn't quite reaching the bottom of his giant barrel of cowardice.
Oh, geezus, he thought irritably. Just do it, numbnuts!
"Jackie?" Cesc leaned forward, his voice unsure, as though he'd just noticed her.
Her shoulders went stiff, but she turned toward him, slathering a runny, plastic smile onto her face as she did so. She half-rose, her eyes were rounder than they should have been. "C--esc? Hi!"
She seemed as though she was just going to look at him and then beat her retreat--but her eyes lingered on him longer than either expected. She hadn't seen him for a long time, Cesc realized. Before his growth, before the jungle...
How changed was he?
"You--you look---" Jackie started, holding on to the back of her chair. "You look different."
"So do you," answered Cesc. He half-smiled, a surrendering expression. "You look very nice."
Her eyes dropped and she shrugged, swallowing. "Thank you."
There was a beat of silence, and it seemed like the conversation would die right there, failing to catch air. Cesc grasped for a question--he didn't want her to leave yet, not yet. "Are you going off to school soon?"
"I am, yeah... Gambino U." She looked back up at him, her lips pursed, and nodded a few shallow nods. Jackie pointed toward the ice cream with her phone then, standing. "I should really go help with the ice cream, though... she won't have enough hands."
Cesc rose as she did, his lips parting. "Yes-- yeah, of course. Jackie--"
She paused, looking at him with her lips pulled between her teeth. "Mm?"
"Jackie, this is really awkward and I'm sorry," said the stag, the words tripping over themselves as they left his mouth. "The way we, uh-- I feel like I was really--really dumb about everything, and I'm--I'm really sorry about that--."
"--ohmygod, Cesc." She looked at him with full astonishment, her mouth half-open and her eyebrows half-up and her face slowly reddening as he spoke. She shook her head, pulling down her shirt with one hand and then plucking at her shoulders, as full of motion suddenly as her brother. "Don't-- just-- shut up, ohmygod, it's fine."
She barely finished speaking as she gathered her purse and her brother's glove and scrambled away, her arms full and items pressed against her chest as she went.
Cesc stared after her, bewildered.
Well, he thought, he sure ******** that one up.
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Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 9:37 pm
Mending
The next time Cesc sees Zurine, she is much better--and bigger! *
He breathed. Why did his lungs feel so small?
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Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2015 8:43 pm
Talking Sense "And she ran off, leaving you feeling like a moron?" Azucar put his smiling lips to his coffee cup.
It was early morning in the bakery, early enough that Cesc had the time to sit across from the detective at one of the two-tops, his fingers drumming on the table. As the Spaniard spoke, Cesc lifted his hands to his face and dragged them down his burning cheeks.
"I was just trying to apologize," he said, muffled by his palms. "It was just so awkward."
Azucar swallowed and tore his morning croissant into two. Steam rose from the buttered layers. "Oh, yes," he mused. "It sounds tremendously awkward."
"Should I... look for her?" asked Cesc, dropping his hands. "I can't leave it like this."
"You want to leave it more awkward than it is now?" asked Azucar. "My friend, you are a glutton for punishment. What will you do? Hide behind a tree and pop out at her with an apology? Ask her to forgive you after you've scared the living daylights out of her?"
"That's not what I mean," said Cesc, laughing helplessly. "There's got to be a way to make this easier. Now that I really know what she went through--"
"You want to make her relive it as many times as possible?" interjected the detective smoothly, popping a bite into his mouth. Cesc said nothing at that, looking at him with his eyebrows up. Azucar took his time in explaining, shrugging. "From what I can tell, this girl had a crush on you two years ago, you did not reciprocate her feelings, and you've slowly crucified yourself for it ever since you noticed that un-reciprocated feelings are uncomfortable to have."
Cesc stayed quiet. His eyes dropped to his hands and he shook his head, slow. "It's not really that--"
"I think it is," said Azucar. "Tell me, were you good friends with this girl?"
"We were friends." Cesc's voice was firm.
"Good friends?" Despite his good-humored expression, there was a sharpness in Azucar's yellow-green eyes. He leaned forward slightly, his shoulders square. Cesc vaguely remembered the posture from his interrogation. "Friends that spoke outside of these walls? Texts on your phone, late nights, that kind of thing?"
Cesc's lips pulled between the rows of his teeth. He wanted, just to be contrary, to say yes. "No..."
"So you were more friendly than friends, you'll allow? That's what it feels to me," said Azucar, dropping back down in his chair. He took his coffee with him, relaxed, victorious. Cesc shrugged and nodded.
"Yeah, fine, yes," said the stag. He felt amused, and slightly annoyed, at having some of his self-righteousness taken from him. "We weren't really friends. But I do, and did, care for her."
"Cesc," said Azucar. "These things are always going to be awkward, when one person wants more than another from a friendship. She put herself out there, she did not get what she wanted. You have done the same. Call it karma, if you wish. But you can't just negate the awkwardness she feels because you can say 'I did it now, too!' She will still feel awkward. And possibly somewhat insulted that you want to bond over it."
"I'm not trying to bond over it," said Cesc with a wry, half-lifted smile. "I just want her to know I know I was a jackass and I'm sorry."
"So you've said your piece," said Azucar, shrugging. "She did not feel better." He paused, tilting his head. "But, I wonder..."
Cesc broke his gaze, looking at the pastry display case. "You wonder?" He didn't particularly want to know.
"I wonder, is that what you want your Melisande to do? To tell you she was foolish, so you could escape feeling so?"
Immediately, a dark blush rose in Cesc's face. His ear twitched, and he exhaled sharply. "No," he snorted. "No, I do not want her to tell me-- that." He was sure that Azucar would continue, but the detective sat, waiting, damnably patient. Cesc fumbled, thinking of the kiss--the confusion--the gentle rejection. Why did it still make him feel like such a jackass? Would he really feel better if Melisande gently told him that she understood, and apologized for having kissed him with no emotions attached to it? The thought of having such a conversation made him feel like he'd put on a damp, too-tight shirt made of horsehair.
"I just--I don't want-- I don't want to feel awkward about her anymore," he said eventually. "I want to know that I can see her without feeling like that. Because we were friends, and I fu--I messed that up," he said, catching himself politely.
Azucar seemed amused, but his smile melted as Cesc finished speaking. Cesc felt too warm, strangely out of breath, but Azucar's mildness made him feel less patently ridiculous.
"You were friends with this Melisande, so you may be friends with her again," said Azucar. "You'll feel like a prize a** for a little while, and, if you both don't want it to be awkward any more, it won't be. Unless, well... do you still... want her?"
Cesc frowned. Did he? He hadn't thought of her that way for so long. His mind had been occupied with other things, other problems--other... women, if he was honest. It made him feel mildly ashamed, to have acted on a feeling that may not have had the right steadiness behind it, and to have turned his attentions...
... not that it had really been turning them. Not when Zurine was concerned.
"No," he admitted, still flushed. "But I do like her. I do want to be able to be near her--and Zul, really. They're both great people. I don't blame her for..." He shifted his weight, clearing his throat. "For choosing him over me. I'm no Zul."
Azucar's good-natured expression soured slightly at that. He frowned, his bright eyes locked on Cesc's. "Who's Zul?"
"A good friend," said Cesc, earnest. "He's an amazing person." Then, as Azucar seemed to be waiting for more, Cesc fumbled, continuing: "He's strong and a good man. Steady. Vivi thinks the world of him, too. He's always been there for me when I've needed it. Melisande deserves someone like Zul-- he would have been a lot more useful than I was in the jungle, and in a crisis--"
"This is going in a strange direction," said Azucar. "More useful than you were? Didn't you find the man in the jungle?"
Cesc shrugged. He felt suddenly very foolish. "I... was kind of garbage at protecting anyone."
"At protecting anyone?" Azucar smiled. "Is Melisande intending to go back into that jungle?"
Coloring, Cesc replied, "No." He licked his bottom lip. "But I was kind of garbage at protecting anyone here, too, that summer--"
"--so was Shep, so was I. And technically, that's my job," said Azucar. His eyes narrowed. "You think if you were this guy, Zul, you would have been able to?"
"He saved us then, you know," Cesc said, looking down at his hands. He was silent for a long moment. "I owe him everything." He exhaled, rolling his sleeve hem in his fingers. "I don't know. He's a better man than I am."
"Interesting choice of words," said the detective. "What does that mean, anyway, a better man? Better at being a man? Better at what, exactly?" He gestured around himself. "You are honest. You do your best. You keep a bakery going and hold down a job and indulge in your hobbies and attempt to be there for your friends. Sometimes people fail at protecting people--or I wouldn't have a job. Do they all give up afterwards?"
"I'm not measuring myself up to Zul," said Cesc. "He's one of my closest friends-- and I'm--"
"Not as good of a man? That makes sense, since you've never helped another person in your life."
"That's not what I meant." Cesc's voice was flat.
"Whether you meant to or whether Melisande's rejection made you do so, you think he's preferable to you. Why is that? Because of his strength and steadiness?"
"He--" Cesc stopped. What was he doing? Zul didn't deserve this scrutiny. Why was he indulging in it? Why had he ever? He was happy for Zul for being preferred. But why did it linger so? "I-- I don't know."
He stopped, shrugging. "You-- you don't know the Raevans. There's some that can make things explode, and some that can conjure poison and--if someone's in a tight spot, I just..."
"That's a very strange way to set up expectations for a relationship," said Azucar. "And for masculinity in general. Explosiveness? I can't make anything explode. I'm fairly certain I still qualify as a man. I find myself rather a good one, if I'm honest." He smiled brightly. "Your friend Zul, I'm sure he is, as well. But where do you find yourself lacking, that you are so concerned you will be so wholly un-masculine next to your friend? That you cannot make something explode at will?"
Cesc looked away. He desperately wanted a customer to come through the door and save him from this trainwreck of a conversation. "I don't know."
"You do."
He wanted to tell Azucar, don't you need to get to work already? But the detective failed to see the plaintive, exasperated expression in his eyes and sat, unmoved, with his coffee in his hands. "I don't want to talk about this."
"We seem to be anyway," said Azucar shortly.
Cesc sighed, trapped. "I don't..." He motioned with one hand to his hair, supremely annoyed with himself. "I don't really look the part."
"That's it?" Azucar's eyebrows came up. "Your hair? You feel less masculine because your hair is pink and you cannot make a car explode?"
Weakly, Cesc interjected: "I never said a car..."
"Listen, Cesc," said Azucar, smiling. "I'm impressed with your power. The light stuff? The finding ability? I think that's plenty cool, plenty powerful. And you're athletic, you work on yourself. But you shouldn't do it over this. If you see a man who doesn't have those powers, who can't beat you in an arm wrestling contest, do you find him less of a man?"
Cesc shook his head. His ears swiveled without reason. He wanted to get up. "I don't."
"You are too hard on yourself, my friend," said Azucar. "You think no woman will prefer you because you are not a very specific type of man--but you don't think about how there is no supreme single type of woman, or anything else of the sort. And you easily ignore when women flirt with you, prefer you, want you."
"No, I don't," mumbled the stag. He felt very young and very stupid.
"You do. Trust me, I'm a detective," said Azucar with a laugh. "I'm here enough times. What about that owl friend of yours?"
"She's got nothing to do with this," said Cesc quickly. He reddened again, rubbing his cheek with one knuckle. "That's--just history."
Azucar smiled broadly. "Call it whatever you will. But you can allow yourself that you are a man, and that you do well enough, if you should ever decide to look for it. I won't call you strong or handsome, or you'll dismiss those claims quickly enough. Fine, then--be a weakling, and be effeminate, but you're well-liked and admired. And too hard on yourself. But maybe that just comes with the age. You're right, I don't know Raevans."
He laughed again then, and this time Cesc joined him, although the color would not recede from his face.
"You see, when your insecurities are out, they sound more ridiculous than they do in your head, don't they?" Azucar stood. "I won't push it."
"You won't push it?" Cesc repeated, his voice incredulous.
"Just think about it a little. Be realistic with yourself. It'll make you feel better about your friend Zul--and Melisande, too--if you don't think of yourself as playing in the minors while they're in the Show."
He patted Cesc on the back, and, taking a last sip of his coffee, had the very thoughtful courtesy to leave.
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 8:56 pm
Not A Date
Cesc and Zurine go to Testuya's on a thing that is Not a Date. *
[ongoing]
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 8:57 pm
A Conference of Conjurers
Gertrude introduces Cesc to Lorenzo, and a world in magic he didn't know existed. *
[ongoing]
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 8:58 pm
Seeing is Believing
Cesc is called to Ethiriel's side to see something that deeply surprises him... *
He'd never been so pleased to have a game of catch.
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 8:59 pm
Snow + Gold
Cesc & co. ring in the New Year in a cabin in Barton--and have a snowball fight, to boot! *
"Happy New Year!" Cesc said, his breath clouds of rising white.
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Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2016 4:20 pm
Zurine They’d dropped Zurine off after an hour in the car, winding down the snowy streets without a care. Vivi drove while Shepard laughed, his laughter always lubricated by so much champagne. It was dark and clear and cold by the cabin, but as they came back to Gambino, street lights lit the night and dulled the stars. Cesc stared out the window, smiling and chatting.
He’d look at Zurine now and then, sitting in the back seat beside him. The lights would color her: yellow, red, green. They mixed on the smoothness of her skin like paints on canvas. They burrowed into the strands of her hair and glittered like snow in the sun. He held his breath and ticked his eyes away before her gaze moved to him.
The car idled in her driveway and Zurine leaned forward to hug him across the seat. “Happy New Year,” Rhedefre said as they pulled away, and she kissed him briskly on the cheek before floating out.
“Give Phiel a kiss from us all!” called Vivi from the window, waggling her fingers at the ice Raevan.
“She’s a cutie,” said Shepard with a smile. His eyes went to the rearview mirror, finding Cesc’s.
“OH! Such she is a cutie,” added Vivi with a laugh. “More than a cutie, I think.”
Cesc said nothing. He leaned his forehead on the glass and they pulled away and drove home.
Vivi was laughing when they opened the door to the bakery, going up the back stairs to the residence. Shepard chased after her, dropping his jacket in the entryway like a child, taking the stairs by two. Cesc came in last, closing the garage, locking the door, picking up. He could hear Vivi upstairs, shrieking in gleeful French, and Shepard’s drunken, thrumming laughter. He shook his head, smiling.
“Happy New Year,” he said again, this time to himself, to the empty expanse of the bakery kitchen and the front of the house beyond.
He floated up the stairs to the second floor—checked with a quick look up to Vivi’s bedroom on the third, ducked into the bathroom to prepare for bed—and went into his bedroom. The slate-blue room was silent and still, his desk tidy, the jars of mismatched lost keys, rings, books, wallets, waiting patiently on their shelves for him to return them all.
He sat on the bed, looking forward to the mirror on his wall.
“I kissed her,” he murmured to the mirror.
For a moment, he let himself ponder all the hers he kissed that night. The easy kisses (Vivi’s tipped-up face and wide red smile), the chaste ones (Aina’s giggling, bubbling laugh like champagne herself), the friendly ones full of good humor and wishes for the future. The stupid one that had upset Ethiriel. Her smile sinking like stone in water, her gentle frown. He shook his head; bad move, Rhede.
Then he let himself move forward. Backward? That first kiss.
First kiss of the New Year.
He pulled off his sweater, tugging fabric over his head from the back, his curls splaying at the wool’s ruffling. He looked at himself in the mirror, the lines of his neck to his shoulder, the curves that made up his collarbone and the undulating sweep of his arms’ contours.
He rubbed his neck, his eyes unfocusing.
Was it crazy to believe she could want him?
If he let himself be honest, let the walls come down, he could admit it to himself, a whisper of a thought in the quiet: he missed her. Not how they were now, even though the bonds of friendship had been tested well—no, he missed having her, knowing she wanted him, knowing he could kiss her with abandon.
He was a kid then, when he’d been allowed to do it. Timid, sweet kisses. Puppy love kisses. <********> he thought. He’d like a chance at that again.
He wanted to kiss her. Not as friends. He wanted to kiss her, and if she’d come home with them, he’d have kissed her more. He’d have kissed her with both his hands cupping her face, kissed her until her lips split in a moan or a laugh, kissed her until he drank that taste of her he’d missed for months now.
And he’d tell her it wasn’t enough. God, if she wanted him—if he could have her—in this room, in this darkness, in this quiet, <********> he’d make her fill it with noise— He wanted to taste her, he wanted more than her mouth, the sweetness of her smile. He needed more than that…
Cesc drew in a slow breath and ran both of his hands through his hair. He pulled his lips into his mouth. Sweet little spitfire. She didn’t show him too much mercy in that snowball fight, did she? She’d avalanched snow on him until it bowled him over.
He should have told her he didn’t mind the cold, he thought. Not when she hit him with it, laughing. He wouldn’t mind it in his own bed, either, if she wanted to come and lay there with him. He wanted to sleep curtained by her hair, to run his fingers along the length of a side he’d never seen before, slow and unencumbered.
Cesc sank down on his back, his eyes at the ceiling, his breath coming in quick but deep, like he’d flown a mile. He dragged his hands down his face.
Hadn’t he promised her they’d just be friends? That she could trust him, rely on him, without complicating anything?
”s**t,” he whispered into the darkness.
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Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2016 4:23 pm
New Year, New Cheer
Cesc meets Phoenix and Zoe, new members of the Lab! *
[ongoing]
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Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2016 4:24 pm
Blind Disbelief
Things go poorly for Cesc and Ethiriel... *
Cesc breathed, flexing his fingers. Everything felt foreign.
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