By the Way Chapter Thirteen

By the Way

By: Provocative Envy

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Author’s Note: And now I’m going to stun you all and write a happy chapter. Short, but yes, happy. Novel concept, right? At least in this fic.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I was afraid to fall asleep that night. It was a strange thought--being more scared of my subconscious than I was of reality. But, really, that didn’t make it any less true: the fact remained that I spent the better part of three hours rolling over and over and over, unwilling to get comfortable, unwilling to succumb to blessed, blissful slumber.

And so I slipped out of my dormitory and went to the lake.

Again.

I took all the same steps I’d taken the previous night, winding my way through medieval corridors, my feet shuffling against the same cold flagstones, my eyes growing accustomed to the same eerie, blank darkness.

But I was outside, finally, and rushing towards the lake, my hair streaming out behind me and laughter bubbling up from somewhere deep, deep inside me, and it was then that I realized I was running, sprinting, really, towards absolutely nothing, that the shores of the lake were as deserted as the hallways in the castle, but I’d wanted to be alone, hadn’t I, so I had no reason to be disappointed, except I was, disappointed that is, and that made no sense at all, none whatsoever.

And then I heard footsteps and I knew, intuitively, that something exceptional was about to happen.

It wasn’t a shout that reverberated inside my body until I reeled with shock, with excitement. No, it was more a change in the air, the atmosphere: it was crackling with electricity, alive, suddenly, moving and buzzing and vibrating and wreaking all sorts of havoc, the kind that can’t be reversed, can’t be helped.

The kind I’ve never wanted to reverse, never wanted to help.

“Back for more?” I called back to him, shivering with anticipation.

He started at the sound of my voice, his head jerking back.

“More what? Verbal abuse?” he sneered sardonically, his arms crossed over his chest—he was only a few feet away, the space between us relatively small, but I was sentient of every last inch, every last millimeter.

“If that’s what you call it,” I shrugged noncommittally: oh, but he couldn’t know that adrenaline was coursing like water through my body, fluid and easy and suddenly very, very precious.

He snorted, and then asked, his tone curious, “Why do you even come down here, Granger?”

“Because it’s quite a bit better than the alternative,” I replied wryly.

“And the alternative…?” he persisted, his gaze intent.

I sighed.

“The alternative would be to lie awake, for hours, watching all my nice, normal roommates sleep, wondering how they do it, how they’re so uncomplicated, wondering why I think about things so much that my brain refuses to shut off. Not exactly healthy, is it?”

He shook his head: I took a step forward.

“What do you think about?”

His soft inquiry rang in my ears even as I floundered for a reply.

“I don’t know,” I lied, looking away. “Everything, I suppose.”

“No.” He said it with certainty, with a wealth of meaning. “What really keeps you awake, Granger? What do you really think about?”

“I…” I trailed off, blinking, my heart hammering inside my chest, my palms sweaty.

I took another step forward.

“I think about how strange it is that I’m afraid to go to sleep,” I answered. “I think about how I’m probably the only person in the world who’s terrified of her dreams, because that’s exactly it, you know? I don’t want to dream because I know that if I let myself, I’ll dream things that don’t make sense, that I don’t really want to happen.”

I was rambling, I knew, but he was staring at me, into me, as if he understood what I was saying, as if he knew where I was coming from and where I wanted to be and where I was going.

I took another step in his direction: we were close, so close, but it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough.

“What do you dream about?” he asked: my eyes were on his lips, cherry red against that milk-white, perfect skin.

“What do you think?” I returned, laughing tremulously.

“Tell me,” he implored.

“You,” I confessed. “I dream about you.”

And then he cupped my face in his hands and leaned forward, and my eyelids dropped of their own volition, and I was waiting for the inevitable, waiting for it, but then my eyes snapped open, and I noticed that he had freckles in his eyes, spots of black and flecks of gold lost in the gray.

“Why did you kiss me last night?” I blurted out.

He didn’t move.

“Was it because you wanted to or because you could?” I persisted.

He didn’t reply, but his gaze was locked on my mouth.

“Why did you even come down here?” I whispered.

His eyes flew to mine.

“I came down here,” he said softly, deliberately, intensely, “because I thought…no, I hoped that you might come, too.”

And then he smiled, really smiled, and I almost laughed at how fast my pulse raced, how sweet his lips tasted, how gentle his roving hands were as they unbuttoned my pajamas; I almost laughed at this strange, bouncy feeling that was running through my body, glowing and fizzing and just this bright burst of senseless, unprecedented effervescence, almost, and when he laid me down on his jacket on the grass, and we were skin to skin to skin to skin, the sensation just multiplied, it seemed so infinite, and when he kissed a line of pure radiance down the column of my throat, my only thought was that this was perfection, truly, since he’d said the exact right thing, and was doing all the right things just then, his fingertips dripping ecstasy as they caressed my thighs, my stomach, my hips.

And then it was over, shattered, lost in the poetry of our bodies melded too close, so close, and he pressed his lips against my temple, his breathing ragged, his arms locked around my shoulders.

“That was perfect,” I murmured, wishing there were adequate words for everything I was thinking, everything I was feeling.

“No,” he whispered into my ear, “No. It was better than perfect.”

I could finally sleep.

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