Work Text:
There will come a time, when my world ends. Cleft by six gleaming silvered arrows, my world will fall heavenward, the last vestiges of his consciousness seeking mine.
I will sink, when this happens, mind aflame, mouth open in a soundless scream, and the archer will fall too, eyes frothing, as I twist their mind to pieces. The shrieks will ripple out beyond this place, for leagues and leagues and leagues. The flora and fauna will whisper to their descendants of what has happened, and nothing will grow here for seven years. The archer will rot for nothing.
...For now, though, my world is safe.
For now, my hands clasp his, as we two-step our way through the kitchen. Time has lined our fingers with her fine-haired brush, and the little divots of our palms fit perfectly against one another. The bones of his knees—my Dilbert—nudge against my thighs, and our hips creak ponderously as we sway, captivated by the air between us. Above, the clock on the mantle ticks and ticks and ticks, before letting out a tock, and we use the rhythm to propel ourselves closer and closer, and we laugh, tangling, twisting, until I can’t figure where he ends and I start, a continuum of limbs. God, we’re old, my love, I think. How did we get this way? I reach up a hand to trace his face—his hard, beaky mouth, the basin of his cheekbones—to see his features the only way I can, and he catches my wrist with his teeth.
Time, my love. He nips my fingers, one by one. We’ve been using the time we’ve been given. His many-fingered moustache, cool and soft, dances against my palm, before winding down the path of my arm, and that too becomes a continuum, as his lips seek out mine.
In this moment I wish to see him in the way that he sees me, to read him through more than touch and sound. But I settle—it doesn’t feel like settling, I think. That’s because it isn’t, you’re worth more than settling for, Eustacia, he threads his hands in my hair—for the chill of his skin, the expansion of his chest against mine, the gentle rocking of our old bodies over the tile. You’re always right, you know, I smile into his mouth. I know, he smiles back. “Bastard,” I laugh, breaking the kiss. Yes, he huffs. His mustache curls around my jaw, lazy and content, before pulling me back in, and we stay that way, swaying, chest to chest, lip to lip, chasing breaths in the way that only old fools in love can achieve through diligent practice.