brighton | the sun in the trees bleeds marigold and wine { senna }

He sighed once he was comfortable; it was never quite apparent just how tired he was until he lay down in his own bed, and let himself relax. His muscles were sort of sore, and his limbs felt heavy. “Oh,” he said in the dark. With who Senna was, and – importantly – how she was, it was easy to forget that the horrors of Britain’s wizarding war had touched even her life. “Right.” He blinked in the dark a few times, pulling his drifting thoughts back to center. He’d meant it when he’d offered her a verbal hand in the dark.

“Yeah, hang on,” he said, shifting more onto his back so he could slide an arm under her neck and curl it around her body. He rested his hand lightly on her side. Her hair tickled his chest. “You wanna talk about it?” he asked softly. The pair had spent most of the night discussing various philosophical and political stances on things – in a very disjointed, often nonsensical way, of course, most of which he couldn’t remember – but when they’d been talking about their lives, the conversation had revolved mostly around him.

His “oh” felt like something slipping into place. Senna couldn’t help but wonder if he was a bit of a seer sometimes, maybe he had picked up that edge of her emotion all day and at the mention of Florence, it finally made sense. She wanted to remember tomorrow to try and convince him to let her test his seer abilities but then again at this point, her thoughts and memories were more wisps of clouds disappearing into the night sky of her mind. She wasn’t sure of anything at all except the dark blackness of the room and Kai’s arm now curled around her.

He made her feel safe, he always had, and maybe that’s why thoughts of Florence floated to her mind now. Safe to remember, safe to miss and mourn or something in between that she hadn’t quite figured out yet. Or maybe even safe to even rage at the injustice of the world blinking out such a bright light before she even had a chance to really live.

Senna didn’t really have an answer to his question. She hadn’t really brought it up with any purpose in mind, didn’t have anything new or revelational that she needed to get off her chest. It was just something that visited her again and again in the quiet of the moments before she fell into sleep. This unshakable feeling that Florence should still be here, that she wanted her here with her, that she missed her fiercely. She gave the tiniest of shrugs in reply. “I still miss her,” she whispered in the dark.

Then a thought occurred and she wasn’t sure if the pulse of energy was a good sign or a bad one. “Do you think I’ll stop feeling like that at some point?” She almost didn’t know if she wanted to hear what he might say in reply.

Kai nodded, his gaze unfocussed and lingering on a blurry smudge on his ceiling before his eyelids slid shut. He’d have to work extra hard to stay awake if she wanted to talk, he thought. Especially with his eyes closed. “Um,” he said, buying himself time before he opened his eyes again. He trailed a couple of fingers up to her hair to brush it away from where it was tickling his chest. “Yes and no,” he answered after a short silence.

He opened his eyes, feeling a little disoriented as he found nothing much to focus on in the relative darkness. His answer sounded like a cop out, but it wasn’t really. “I don’t think it’ll go away, but… probably change,” he elaborated softly. He moved his hand back to rest on her side, hoping that the action was comforting. He was tired; there was more he wanted to say but his English was escaping him a little. The wizarding world in London was small, and people tended to hang around. Everyone knew someone who’d died – even him – but not everyone had lost someone they’d loved.

He wondered what would have happened to him if someone had died when he’d been in love with them. A mess, he concluded quickly. Some kind of mess of his own making. “Tell me about her,” he prompted quietly.

Senna gave the smallest of sighs at his answer. She hadn't been expecting.. old-age wisdom or answers that ringed true.. especially not at this time of night? Morning? But a small, tiny part of her had hoped he might have an answer that would help soothe whatever was still fraying deep inside her. Her emotions were circling around her head, wisping out of her and away before she could grab onto them. She was over-tired, she thought now before she blinked in the darkness as he elaborated, not having expected it.

She moved her arm a little so she could touch the back of his hand on her side, her fingertips resting softly there, needing the tactile touch. "Yea, change," Senna said back, her words a whisper in the dark. She loved and hated and loved change. She used to think she thrived on it, but Florence had changed that. The irony was almost lost on her, but not quite.

At his request, she tilted her head a little, wanting to see his face, but she could only see an outline of him in the dark. So instead she settled back into the crook of his arm, comforted by his warmth, as memories and ghosts of feelings flitted to the top of her mind. She was sure she had told Kai about Florence before, but maybe only in light-hearted jokes about her teenage love as she tried to get over the heartache, maybe only in anecdotes of how her mum and dad had reacted to her telling them she was dating a girl and all the hilarity and awkwardness that came from parents realizing their children were not carbon copies of their own interests and preferences. But perhaps not in the way she felt like sharing about Florence tonight, where the dark would cocoon her secrets and feelings and not let them get away too soon.

She bit her lip and started talking about her first love. How they had met as Senna worked at the funeral home Florence's family had run, how she had been outgoing and reckless and how Senna had idolized her bravery, how they had this automatic sort of connection, one that made her feel like she wanted to know more and more about her, know every little thought she had, how classes felt eons long whenever Florence wasn't there, and how those times they spent together in the ballet studio, with Florence dancing for Senna, felt even longer and she never wanted it to end. Her voice was a barest of whispers when she spoke of how she wished Florence had had the chance to grow up, to live.

Senna spoke more than she had intended, more than she thought she had enough words to say, and she wouldn't blame Kai in the slightest if he had fallen asleep during her diatribe. Maybe the ache inside her chest was that she hadn't really said all of that aloud in so long, maybe the words just needed out no matter if it was her friend or the darkness there to listen.

He had to work to stay awake while she spoke, he really did. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to know – he was sure he’d only heard pieces of this before, either in lighthearted ways or ways that were more weighty but allusive rather than direct, and these were the kinds of things he liked learning about other people – but it was very, very late. And he was so very far from sober. By the time she stopped speaking he was half sure he’d dreamed parts of what she’d explained; he was just thankful to still be conscious at the end of it. Kai nodded slowly when it was clear that she was finished speaking, and he gave her a gentle squeeze. He was a little sweaty, but didn’t move an inch.

What was it like for someone to die so young? Senna had loved her then, but they’d both been kids, and Senna was a proper adult now. She'd talked a lot about what life was like when they were together – she hadn't said it so explicitly, but she'd explained a lot about the way she'd seen the world back then. Her perspective. Even so, any conceptualisation of Florence as a twenty-something-year-old was pure conjecture. She clearly missed her, but… “You miss the future, too,” he said, knowing he was right as he said it. His voice was a little hoarse and he considered searching for those glasses of water he’d brought in earlier, deciding ultimately that it was far more work than it was worth. “The potential,” he added.

Sen smiled a little as Kai squeezed her and patted his hand with hers a couple times. She was glad to have told him, happy to have gotten the words out into the world where maybe a piece of Florence's spirit could hear them. She heard the gravel in his voice as he mentioned the future too and nodded once. "Yeah, that too," she agreed through a big yawn, her eyelids drooping. The words she expelled seemed to leave with a lion's roar and leave a calmness behind that lended itself to sleep very easily.

She turned her head a little and left a light peck on his chest in thank you, one kindred soul to another, before she patted his hand again and felt herself slide into sleep, thoughts and dreams of Florence but also the future dancing through her mind's eye.

/end

He waited a short while to see if she had more to say, but the waiting and the silence, coupled with her body against his, was comforting in a way he was having trouble resisting. He let his eyes close, telling himself he’d be able to wake up if she needed to talk more. When she spoke, patted his hand, and kissed a spot a little to the side of his nipple, it felt like the end of a conversation. So he let it be.

Not feeling a particularly strong urge to say anything else, he shifted a touch to get more comfortable. As she curled into him more neatly, he stroked his thumb on her waist. After a very short while, his breaths became more steady and his head lolled a little to the side, and then the stroking movement slowed to a stop. He fell asleep dreaming of distantly connected things, like the texture of circular stones by the sea, and twirling ballerinas.

/end