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The Game of Love
[Do You Sleep?] [Secret Peepings] [Into the Wild Blue]
[Bottoms Up!]
[Je Reve de Toi] [This Night of A Thousand Stars] These
Things: [Part 1] [Part 2]
These Things
Part Two: “Better Days”
~Two
Weeks Later~
Lina awoke to a dark room. Her eyes searched for the source of her lost
sleep. She was rewarded with a light snoring; Gourry was still asleep.
As streams of new morning light crept through her curtain, she pulled
her knees to her chest. Four weeks, she told herself. It had been four
weeks since it happened, her period had been happy to remind her last
week. Four weeks since she had almost lost herself and their baby. She
caught a tear as it rolled down her cheek.
“Why am I crying?” she asked quietly to the dark.
It was the nights like this that reminded her, the quiet stillness that
brought the loneliness back.
“I told myself I was past this,” she whispered as she caught another
tear. “I’m OK now.”
Gourry moved next to her snuggling in the best he could. Her breath
hitched in throat. She wasn’t OK. She really thought she had gotten over
it. She even discussed it with Gourry earlier, on the first day she felt
better.
~*~
She crawled up next to him a few sunny days ago. He looked at her
with those heavenly blue eyes and she almost lost it. They were clear,
for the first time in weeks, and she felt a pang of guilt for putting
him through so much.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
“About what?” he questioned, shifting his weight.
“For everything,” she started, nervously. “For all the pain I’ve
caused-I never meant to hurt anyone-anyone I knew. All of this is so new
to me; I don’t even know how to act. I haven’t been in control of my
body for a month and a half and it scares the hell out of me. I’m sorry
for what I’ve done to you. I‘m glad you were there; I wouldn’t want to
go through this with anyone else.”
That was the first night they touched. Nothing much, really but it was a
huge step forward for both of them. In the previous weeks after her
relapse, Lina would sleep as close to the edge of the bed as possible.
Tossing and turning in her sleep, she’d yell things out and be up for
hours. The circles under her eyes were proof to that. That night, they
lay quietly next to each other, bodies touching. Rolling over to her
side, she reached for him.
She thought that was it. She thought she would be fine and things could
proceed as normal. Sitting in the dark, tear-filled eyes, listening to
her lover sleep as she sat up, awake, she knew now that she wasn’t.
Her mind wandered to her first week she felt better. How helpful people
were that first week. She remembered Gourry and Amelia’s smiling faces
and how relieved she felt when she saw them enter her room, smiling. The
flowers they placed on the nightstand, the vibrant golds and reds and
pinks reminded Lina of the flower fields they used to pass and she
smiled, knowing she’d be better soon.
The kitchen staff seemed to be working overtime as Amelia and Gourry and
various servants paraded back and forth to her room. She couldn’t
REMEMBER the last time she had seen so much food! However, she couldn’t
eat much. She still had trouble keeping things down. It would be running
back and forth to the bathroom every time she had more than a plate and
felt ill until Gourry fetched a bucket and stayed by her bedside,
pushing the hair from her face and soothing her worries.
~*~
She awoke a few hours later, freezing. She sat up to pull the blanket
from under her and saw Gourry, still cuddled up next to her, fluttering
his eyes open.
“Are you alright?” he, asked, seeing her tear-streaked face and propping
himself up on one elbow.
“I jut got up to get the blanket-I’ll be fine.”
Her voice wavered.
“You’re not fine.”
“I’ve been up the last couple hours, thinking. I’m very fortunate to
have people who care about me as much as you and Amelia do. I don’t know
how I could have gotten through this without you. Thank you.”
She turned to him, fighting back tears. He pulled her to him and held
her tight as she cried out the rest of the pain. When she was finished,
she pulled away to look at him again. Wiping the tears from her eyes
with his thumb, he looked into her eyes.
And he felt it; the tears, the pain he had swallowed for so long. It
came back up as she looked back at him, and he realized again just how
close he came to losing her again.
And then she was on him, pushing him down, kissing him in that old
familiar way, a way he had almost forgotten. He brought his arms around
her, and rolled her back over. She roamed over parts of his body that
she had forgotten and for the first time in a month, felt something more
than pain and sadness. She was suddenly filled with a wanting, and a
need to be touched again.
When they broke apart, she spoke.
“Gourry, I need you.”
“You told me that already.”
“No,” she shook her head. She unbuttoned her pajama top, just a little,
revealing a little more than she had in the month before. “I need this.
I don’t want to hurt anymore.”
“But I don’t want to hurt you,” Gourry protested, buttoning her shirt.
“Leave it!” she said, and unbuttoned it again. “You’re not going to hurt
me. Besides, we can’t really do anything anyway; Amelia already told me
that we should wait a few more weeks until we do anything. But that
doesn’t mean we should stop doing everything, because I still
want to do something.”
To emphasize her point, she took his hand and placed it on her breast,
surprised when she jumped. The sensation of that alone was almost too
great! Leaving his hand there, she unbuttoned the rest of her shirt,
letting it hang loose.
“Are you sure about this?” Gourry asked, sliding his hands back up to
rest on her shoulders.
“Yes,” she answered. “Don’t worry about hurting me.”
She kissed him again, softly this time. He was determined to let her
control the show, not because he didn’t want to, but because he was
afraid of hurting her. So it was Lina who took his hand and placed it
under her top, it was Lina who slid it down her shoulders, and when she
motioned for him to continue, he gently rubbed her nipples with his
thumbs, waiting for the noises. She jerked up, and nodded. Picking up
where she left off, he pulled the string of her pants, enough to slide
his hand in. Testing it, he ran his fingers over her and smiled when her
knees locked.
She rolled over to make it easier, and was surprised when he abandoned
his pants. He kissed her again, tracing her body with his fingertips,
warming her up and drawing her closer to him. He brushed the hair from
her face, and traced it behind her ear, down her neck and to her breast,
where he circled the nipple before pulling it gently. She moaned in his
mouth and he did it again to the other side, mimicking his motion on her
other breast. Pulling away for just a moment, he paused to pull her
pants all the way down. She didn’t stop him and he knew she wouldn’t.
Pulling them past her ankles he paused, breathing her in. This was the
first time she had been naked and comfortable around him since before
all this, and he wanted to enjoy it just a little while longer. He
kissed the place where the curls and her legs met and she whimpered. He
looked up. Her eyes were closed and her hand was tangled in his hair. He
kissed the convergence again, waiting for it. He tried again higher,
lightly kissing around her bellybutton.
“No no no no,” she murmured, pushing his head back down.
He opened his mouth to protest, but she opened her eyes a slit and
smiled. He continued where he was, kissing a trail from her bellybutton
to where her legs were joined. Letting her hand control his movements he
brought his mouth to her, searching with his tongue what he knew he’d
find. He rubbed it over that little nub and was rewarded for his efforts
by Lina hitching her in her breath and pushing his head harder against
her.
It had been so long, she had almost forgotten what it felt like. It was
a feeling like no other and she pressed her hips against his tongue
harder, hoping to create a feeling like she once had; one of letting go,
and love. It came; she could tell when it did. She suddenly couldn’t
remember why she was sad before. She just knew it was her and Gourry,
and that was all that matter. Nothing in the past or future could ever
break this bond. She finally let it all go, the pain, the anger, the
fear and the self-loathing. In one long moan it left her.
As she drifted off to sleep later, she realized she actually felt
thankful. Happy that she hadn’t cried herself to sleep for the first
time in weeks, she allowed herself to nod off.
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