Work Text:
Sitting across the table from you. Once again. Alone with you. Just you and I.
Talking to you. Looking at my fingertips on the stem of my glass as I think of what to talk about, something light, relaxing. You deserve some downtime, time away from it all.
Talking to you, but getting distracted by how much I like the sound of your voice, your laugh.
Coveting that flash of your long white neck when you throw up your chin to emphasize the punchline you’d used to demolish your opponent, some fool who thought he could get the better of you in an argument. Coveting the wild flash in your eye, your smirk, your devastating intelligence, your ferocious beauty. Those perfect hands that you use to sweep away everything that is not you. The way you bring your whole self to every interaction, every single thing you do. The way your whole self manages to be so much, despite coming from that exquisitely petite frame. The way your whole self fills up every room, dominates every conversation, steals the light from every other being. There is nothing, there is no one else.
I am a goner.
Listening to you speak, but not listening to what you say. Just listening to your voice. And watching your mouth.
You are still talking, but I have no idea what you are saying. Instead I am consciously restraining myself from standing up and walking around to throw myself at you, draw you into my arms, draw you against me, draw you into me. To achieve what? Some kind of nonspecific violent desire to crush you into merging with my self. It is not even sexual, it is way beyond that. A terrible longing to pour myself in and around you, to be free to cherish you, properly and completely, with all my senses, to revel in you. To obliterate everything else, to be with only you. To have you be with only me, me alone. To have you for myself. No ship. No crew. Just me and you.
I know you don’t want me like that. There was a time I was a normal man who wanted women in a normal way, and if they didn't want me back, I'd just move on to the next one who did. And there were plenty who did. There still are. But now there's you. There is nothing normal about you. Everything about you is extraordinary, and you've ruined me for normal forever.
Realizing you have stopped talking. You have grown serious, your head to one side, a low pout on your red lips, your hand twirling your glass as you observe me watching you. Are you waiting for my answer to a question you've asked?
Wondering what you might have said.
Your gaze flickering down to my lips. It is not my imagination, it feels as real as a butterfly-light touch of your fingers.
My hands creeping across the table towards yours.
Our gazes locking, your body, at least, recognizing a need for mine that your conscious self will never admit, never allow.
Your gray-blue eyes darkening, scanning mine.
Breathing.
Our fingertips meeting, tentative.
Closing my eyes on the depth of electrical swirl, a single touch enough to elicit an overwhelming whole-body response.
Waiting out the single beat before inevitably feeling you startle and pull your hands away.
Letting my head fall forward, sighing, as I hear you jump to your feet, scramble to talk about some thing, any thing, every mundane thing in the whole never-ending galaxy of things it is our destiny to traverse, side by side, maddeningly close, yet never truly together.
When all there is,
all there really is,
in a whole universe of things
is you.