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 Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 9:23 pm
Who: Cesc and Melisande
Where: Gambino General Hospital, 2nd floor loby
When: late evening
Weather: Air conditioned a little too cold for the rain still outdoors
Melisande had been kind.
Cesc, on the other hand, had been deplorable.
He had ignored as many messages from the Muse as his conscience would allow in the past month. In his heart, he felt it just -- there was no reason to involve anyone else, especially his sweet friend, in so much unrest and danger. To have to tell the Muse of what he was going through, the isolation, the suspicion, the pain...
But how must he have looked to her? He could see that now. Negligent at best -- a grade A a*****e at worst. He had to apologize. And so he would, at this first opportunity.
Sweet Melisande! She, on the other hand, she'd left him encouragement in all the ways she could in his absence the past months. Quiet, without pressuring him to meet, she had understood. It pained him to think how she might.
He waited there, on the cold bench down the hall from Shepard's room at Gambino General, his hands folded together. The light was blue inside, and fading and grey outside. The air smelled like latex and disinfectant. This was not, he thought, the best place to apologize. But he had messaged her already, and he did not like to stray too far away from Shepard or Granny. Not yet, at least.
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Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 10:50 pm
The moment she'd gotten the message, Melisande had left. She did not open the door to the Loft, and lock it carefully behind her. She did not smile at the gentleman at the door, as she always did in passing. She did not raise her hand for a cab, and watch the lights pass as she traveled the long miles between them. The moment she'd gotten the message…she flew.
A cerulean rain coat was all she took, and a one line note was all she'd left. Melisande's cheeks were pink from the wind and the flight, her curls a wild mantle over her shoulders. Petals tangled in her pale locks, and rain still sat beaded on her overcoat like jewels. Hospitals were a place of quiet and rest, but she didn't slow until she rounded the corner and saw him here.
"Cesc~"
Her voice caught just the slightest bit, rare for the Muse, but the joy carried easily in the distance between them. Lips parted, cheeks still pink, Pasha took in the image of him like a flower finding the sun. He was actually here. He was okay. He was…
…beautiful.
With a strange little chime, Melisande closed the distance between them suddenly and surprisingly forcefully. She wrapped her arms around the Stag's neck as they rocked back against the wall, pressing her face against his hair. An explanation could wait.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 9:43 am
Cesc rose as he saw Pasha appear, and for a moment he could only look at his friend, at the wild curling golden ivy that was her hair, and the brightness exertion left upon her fair cheeks. He opened his mouth to greet her, but silence stayed and the expression remained. He only barely had the presence of mind to open his arms as she flew toward him, and to close those arms around her when she was against him.
"Melisande--" His voice returned at the very last second before the Muse embraced him, and although what he still wanted to do was apologize, all he could do for a moment was hug his friend. The impetuous, sudden nature of her motions brought a soft laugh from him. He wasn't quite sure when the last time he'd laughed without a note of nervousness or anxiety in his voice.
To see other people -- to see his own friends, the ones of his own kind dearest to him -- was blissful. It was grounding. It was comfort and solace and peace. And after the isolation of the last few months, all he wanted was to linger in it.
But that wouldn't do.
"I missed you," said Cesc, his hand touching her damp curls, smoothing them against the fabric of her coat. "Melisande, I am so sorry. So sorry I was -- absent. These past few months..." He pulled away just slightly, enough to look down at her. "They've been hard. Please, forgive me -- I'm sorry if I hurt you at all."
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 10:42 am
Pasha pulled a little back as well, though her arms were still crossed at the wrist behind his neck. She listened silently, but the joy in seeing him practically glittered in her eyes. He floated higher now…and not only that, Melisande realized with a little ripple of shock that their embrace had the length of them pressed soundly together. She gasped a laugh, both at the sensation and the fact that it hadn't been the first thing she'd noticed.
Slowly, she released him, and settled her hands flat against his chest, instead. The Stag was a Frei no longer. "You've done it again, haven't you." His absence, his change, his apology, the hospital…she didn't know the story, but she knew him. Her smile softened, fingers curling against the gold lapels. "You didn't hurt me, Cesc. I trust in you. But you did sell me short."
"You put yourself between us and the darkness again." She hadn't a clue what had transpired, but it was resolved now, Melisande knew...or the Stag wouldn't have summoned her. Her voice was little, words just for him, and his light caught along the rain-wet edges of her.
"I would have stood beside you."
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 10:58 am
A soft, half-guilty laugh escaped the stag. With Melisande's arms were still upon him, and so he did not let his own arms fall politely by his sides, as his frei self would have. He let his hands slide to just under her shoulders.
"I know. I know you would have," Cesc's voice was warm and low. He plucked a stray petal from its golden confines, gentle. He shook his head. He kept the petal between his fingers. He could not just let it fall. "I'm sorry to have kept anything from you."
The stag's eyes darkened. "But it wouldn't have been right telling anyone else when it was going on. I didn't even know the danger, myself -- I couldn't bring anyone else into it. Believe me, Melisande, I thought it was just... " His eyes trailed down the hallway, to the darkened hospital rooms. "How can I explain?"
His dark mood broke as he looked back at Melisande, wry humor touching his face. He lifted a helpless hand and looked at the Muse, half-smiling.
"Well. It turned out one of my friends was a murderer." It came out better-humored than he expected, a completely ridiculous statement.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 11:09 am
She tilted her head at his touch, letting him draw the petal from her hair. With the wind and the rain, Melisande knew she probably looked a mess, but it was the farthest thing from her mind. She listened to his words, and noted silently that he made no promise of next time. Her smile faded as he continued.
"A…murder…" Suddenly, the world seemed to fall out from under her. Her hands clutched his jacket where they had been only touching. Images of dark hair and red lips and closed eyes and bright blood flashed through her mind, beautiful and terrible. The hospital. "No. Is…is she-"
She couldn't even ask it. Melisande's eyes filled, the image of Cesc swimming. Though she'd met Shepard, his safety never crossed her mind. Instead, her thoughts went to Vivi, the lovely Frenchwoman that had made her feel so welcome on every occasion. It couldn't be…Cesc couldn't be smiling, not if…
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 11:25 am
Cesc immediately shook his head at Melisande's distress, silently chiding himself for being so vague and obtuse in his explanation. "No, no, no, no, no -- there was an... attempt. Well, three attempts. This woman, she poisoned an old friend of Vivi and Shepard's, and then another friend who came to visit us. She... tried to do the same to Vivi, Shepard, and our grandmother -- well, not actually our grandmother -- you understand." In his haste to calm the Muse's nerves, he was nearly tripping over himself. He laughed, but the sound was not wholly at ease, self-deprecating.
Then the smile faded. "She tried, but she did not succeed."
The stag's hand was gentle as it stroked the Muse's curls again. "Believe me, Melisande, I know the value of help now. Without Zul at the end, there, I may now have been a pile of light, for all I know. Instead of..."
He looked down at himself, at his newly born body and clothes.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 11:44 am
Relief washed through her the moment he clarified. She laughed and blinked away tears as his explanation came tumbling out. It surprised her, how strongly she'd reacted to news of Vivi…the woman was a precious thing in her own right, and Pasha could only guess what she meant to the Stag. The news that she was fine, that everyone would be fine, made her weak with relief.
"Zul helped you?" Her eyes were still bright, but a fond smile had returned. Melisande pushed back a bit to admire the changes, smoothing his lapels before lifting one hand to his antlers. She went slowly, giving him ample time to dissuade her should he choose, and trailed the backs of her fingers along the grand new spread. "Looks like he did a good job!" She couldn't help but tease just a little, even as her fingers traced from point to valley.
"Meekly did the branches part
for his fine and antler’d brow.
Every leaf, in genuflect
along the rowan bough-"
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Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 9:43 am
Cesc's laugh returned as the Muse teased him gently, her fingers gentle against the new weight of his antlers. He bent his head to allow her a better angle to them, and lowered his ears so as to reveal the fresh length of them. Her teasing made his smile linger, and forced his humility aside.
"I may also have had something to do with it," he admitted, flicking his eyes up toward Melisande, his golden gaze half-obstructed by strands of pink hair.
As she began to speak, however, his eyes softened. He closed his mouth to hear her. He'd missed it, the sound of her voice in poem or song, the effortless way the words simply came to her. Unrehearsed, angelic. It brightened the dim hallways of the hospital, the close, floral scent of her chasing away the plastic smells that dawdled all around.
"I missed you," he said again as she was finished, head still bowed. His voice was quiet, earnest.
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Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 10:45 am
She flashed a smile at that, and her fingers traveled to his ear, delicately smoothing the edge between thumb and forefinger as she loved to do. The world faded away when he was so close…the worry within her had already stilled, and the warm peacefulness of his presence gave her a stolen glow.
"I missed you as well." Melisande agreed, lowering her hand back to his chest to settle over his heart. She met his eyes, finding the light there. So unlike Zul's gaze, where she could see her own reflection captured, or Rivener's sly intensity. Pasha's smile was slow, and she spread her fingers against his fine jacket.
"I was always close, though. Next time…together." Though it wasn't a question, she was asking for a promise, and her heart beat faster for it as she searched Cesc's face with sweet sincerity.
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Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 11:12 am
Cesc's eyes lowered as she spoke, and beneath the soft touch of her fingers his own heart began to beat faster. He was still bent, still lowered, and there was a part of his brain that whispered to him no, don't, don't look up again, don't look in her eyes. It was the part of him that knew his soul to be that of a prey animal, the instinct that knew what it was like to be captured, powerless.
But he looked up at her again, anyway.
He wanted to tell her that he would shield her always. That he would never let even the shadow of harm come to her.
But her softness, her looks belied her strength. She was no delicate lace, no weather-fearing flower. She had survived better than he through shared tumult and worse, even. He nearly came apart at the threat of losing his loved ones -- she had survived it. She was willing...
... what the hell would you know? He heard Cerise's voice, quiet, in his head.
... she was willing to stand by him, should he need her...
What the hell would you know?
Not much. But here, right now, he knew. He knew he wanted to do this. Whatever it would mean. Whatever she wanted to take from it. Whether she wanted none of him or all -- he knew, at least, what he wanted to do.
"Yes," he promised, his voice hushed and intimate and grateful and true, his body close to hers, his head still bowed, his eyes still upon hers. And he moved, slowly, just as though he meant to right himself, as though he only meant to pull himself back to his natural height.
But he didn't quite make it, and as he gained height, he slid just forward, one hand soft against Melisande's cheek. There was no hesitation although his heart hitched to be so close, and his brain spun with the shock of his sudden decision.
His lips pressed soft and warm against hers, his kiss a seal to the promise she'd sought.
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Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 8:26 pm
Melisande watched him consider, taking in the way his face softened. It was beautiful, how she could see the answer before he murmured it. Happiness rose within her, and the last of a weight she didn't realize she had been carrying vanished.
Her lashes lowered for a moment as Cesc brushed her cheek. Pasha tilted her face ever so slightly into the touch, still rejoicing in his closeness, his wholeness. It felt like butterflies, or the first sip of champagne. It was not a new feeling, but it was a precious one. Her eyes lifted again a moment later, lips parted with the first breath of thanks, just as Cesc closed the distance between them.
Surprise rippled electric through her. The image of him -the light of his gaze and the shape of his lips and the angles of his face- was what filled her mind even as her eyes closed slowly. The shock didn't last long. It was unexpected, but a kiss from her dear Cesc was a gift…there was no reason to make it more than the kindness it was, like Vivi's cultured salutations.
So she told herself, until the kiss lingered.
The butterflies rose suddenly until they filled her. For a moment, Melisande remembered the wind, the breeze that caught her breath and tugged her petals away into curling eddies. It was like hearing a favorite song, and her wings spread silently as she curved into him. She responded without thinking, pressing her kiss against the Stag's with warm and graceful insistence. Her lips parted naturally, hand curling against his chest to pull him gently closer, all in the space of a few heartbeats before she had a chance to think.
A pulse of inspiration spread from her, ripples in a pond, unnoticed.
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Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 9:59 pm
She was kissing him.
She was kissing him.
There wasn't any way for Cesc even begin parsing the feeling. After months of isolation and insecurity, near-constant disappointment and loneliness -- to feel wanted, especially by a friend the Stag held in as high esteem as Melisande, was well and truly beyond description. Leave aside her ethereal beauty, the sound of her voice, the divinity of her grace. She was his friend, a friend who had taken their relationship upon her own shoulders when he could not find the strength or courage to include her, who had forgiven him when he'd confessed as much --
He should have believed in her strength. Should have saved himself weeks of agony, so many cheerless hours, by including her, making her his confidante.
Cesc's hand slid from her cheek to bury his fingers in the golden silk of her hair, brushing just softly against a loose petal as he did so. He did not know what he had expected her to do. It was his lack of consideration to that aspect that gave him the backbone to do it in the first place. But holding her slender form against him, feeling the heat of her mouth on his as he deepened the kiss, the thrum of his pulse in his cheeks and ears -- this he had not even dreamed, let alone expected. He was in a strange delirium, one that heightened as he felt her strange power ripple through him.
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 10:19 am
The moment stretched like a rising harmony, and Melisande forgot about the months and the news and the hospital around them. The warmth of him against her lips, the feeling of Cesc's hand tangled in her hair...
Cesc.
His name brought the world back in measures. Melisande broke the kiss gently, leaving her eyes closed for just a little longer as she lowered her chin. She tilted her face again to brush her cheek against his hand, heart pounding and dizzy in the best way. When she finally lifted her eyes, they were so joyous and brilliantly sapphire it was as though he'd left a little of his light behind.
Cesc had seen her at her lowest in the jungle...broken and famished like a fallen bird. This was Melisande at her richest. She was radiant, full with a happiness that surrounded her like Cesc's own aura. Her hand slowly relaxed upon his chest again before she let it fall.
No part of her truly wished to put distance between them, however small that distance happened to be. It was obvious in the sweet way her gaze dropped to his lips before lifting again to his eyes. She couldn't help her smile. Carefully, Melisande lifted her fingers to her temple and slid a blossom from her hair...reaching up to place it by his ear as she'd done with a wildflower in the park so long ago.
"Don't forget." Her touch lingered for a moment, she smoothed a lock between thumb and forefinger as she lowered her hand.
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 6:40 pm
It was coming back down from a flight, it was landing after soaring. There was nothing unpleasant, truly, about realizing he was back in the hallway, in a half-lit waiting room full of old magazines and plastic chairs, with Melisande. But it was still disorienting, slightly unreal, like waking from a dream in an unfamiliar bed. It was not the place, the air, he had just been in.
But she was still there, and she did not seem upset with him for his boldness, and that was all that mattered. Just the opposite, really -- she was inwardly sun-lit and beautiful as ever he'd seen her. For himself, he was flushed and his eyes were bright and soft and pleased, and his touch was gentle as he smoothed his thumb against her cheek as she turned her head. He wanted to kiss her again, but instead he ticked up his ear, took the flower from its resting place, and pressed it against his lips.
"Impossible," he said with a smile, returning the flower to its nook between his ear and antler, keeping it steady with his lifted ear. "It really is good to see you. I hope you have been... better than I was."
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