et les mots croisés [ dare ]

[Ronnie Jay Beckham]

Forbidden Forest

october 1947. continued.

Darius' lips pressed to hers and the world stopped completely.  He tasted like summer nights and vanilla; impossibility in her grasp.  Ronnie's heart sped for a moment (she couldn't think, she couldn't breathe, she could only feel), then it slowed.  Fears slipped away and Ronnie's hands moved to the Slytherin's shoulders and chest and cheek.  His skin was silk and stone, his jaw the work of an Ancient Grecian sculptor.

Then reality caught up to her, a cruel shock-- she still couldn't breathe.  Ronnie's eyes widened, and the hands on Darius' chest pushed, rather than pulled.  At this moment, she wanted this (wanted him) more than anything in existence, but any longer and the sweetness would fade to the burning sensation of suffocation.

Ronnie pulled away from his lips, and the absence of him felt as though she were a sinner cast from his heaven.  "Darius, please..." she gasped.  She shook, desire spilling from her lips and commanding her movement.  "I can't...breathe."

[Darius Palomer]

A warm, tender flavor—purely homemade with enough passion to spare and untouched by the industrial, forward-marching habits of man. In confessionals and silent schoolyards, he’d only ever tasted the feminine essence of stainless steel and rogue lipstick—

(Only taken, never thought.)

Alabaster touched glass, the harsh lines of Roman ideals melting into softness and natural beauty. The essence of art laced their lips; their touch was as delicate as paint strokes. As the moment lingered, he wondered if this was the only way he could ever create in his idle dream of blasphemies and mutiny—where the burning in their resisting lungs felt like miracles in Hell and the heavenly beacon that was Ronnie lit that gray world and spun color once more.

"Darius, please..."

But perhaps he was selfish in those thoughts. Darius rolled onto his back, culpability fully revealed, and they laid side-by-side. “Sorry,” he let out in a hoarse whisper. He grasped for the touch of her hand and closed his eyes to forget his mortality. An exhale, solid and sure in its form.

“I wanna ask you a question.”

[Ronnie Jay Beckham]

They separated, and Ronnie yearned to close the distance between their fluttering chests once again.  She drew a breath and held onto it, as if the lack of air would restore the taste of his lips mixing with hers, of his hair and his cheek and the skin by his collar and the way she felt when they touched and--

(This wasn't happening, it couldn't be, he was too attractive and popular and sweet, he couldn't possibly want someone like he r  coul d  he ?)

But with him, she was something different.  They were different.  She melted upon him like butter on a pan, beneath him like metal under heat, around him like a heart without a beat.  They were woven together, Mother's best embroidery, Anabel's tight braids.  With Darius, Ronnie changed, grew, smiled, became.  And it was more than that.  She was a sinner and he was her priest, and she would--

"I wanna ask you a question."

She felt the careful (and yet rough, like homespun wool and grandfather's scruffy cheek; he felt like strange variation of all she had left behind.  she liked it) touch of his skin on hers, and finished the move.  Their fingers entwined, a small repercussion for what sense of him she had lost, but it wasn't enough.  Something (she dared not call it what she wished; it would be foolish to admit even to herself: lov--) pushed her towards him, and she let go of his hand, turned, to press herself to his side.

Shaking fingers hesitantly brushed the fabric of his shirt.  She glanced up, delighted, and yet so terribly afraid.  (He would push her away, now, scorn her, laugh that she should fall for such a trick.  She didn't, couldn't breathe.)  "An--" she shivered.  "Anything."

[Darius Palomer]

Good God, the world felt like a lightweight.

It felt like just him and Ronnie, like they’d been separated and placed in a different plane of existence and they were watching everything else unfurl beneath them. Like they were alabaster, glass, and stone suddenly liquified into mere thought and nothing mattered—except for themselves.

Or maybe they were the lightweights drifting off of this earth. Either way, either any other way, it felt…

Darius blinked, feeling a tremble in the tips of his fingers. Underneath his fingernails there was a tremor, and there was no distinction if it was himself or her or some other force entirely. Because either way…

(It felt beautiful.)

Now the beauty was lost—and then regained in the movement against his right side. Without a care in the world, he draped his arm over her. It was lead, that arm, even when everything else had a white feather touch. Harsh lines against soft, curses and swears collided with comforts, and now it all intertwined like the singular threads in a heavy rope. Everything was together. Everything was what it was supposed to be.

The night dawned on him then. Damn it, was this some type of prank from their cruel world? When they were together so slowly, every precaution taken, everything else was growing and flourishing and tearing at the seams. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

His blue eyes settled on her—he liked the depth of her chocolate brown irises and how they absorbed the rights and wrongs committed by humanity. He liked the way her body shifted in a tender way when comforting a hiccupy first year or second year or, hell, every year. She was kindness incarnate, the embodiment of everything good and warm and feeling. But she was not so soft and plush; yes, Darius had seen it. Seen that iron layer that hid underneath everything that Ronnie Jay Beckham was.

“What are we?”

Why would he want to claw his way to the core and rip out everything that she was when he could have her?

“What do you want us to be?”

Why was she getting this and not a better man?

“Isn’t it getting past curfew?”