Membrane

- for Evie, who is now by the roadside of patient regret -

I look down at your prone, snoring form and ask you impossible questions.

Do you remember our first kiss? I do. I remember the fierceness of it, the way your lips seems small and quivering under mine, before you opened up and let my tongue invade your sweetness. You tasted of honey and something that I couldn't quite put my finger on; that I now know is the faint breath of danger on someone forbidden. You always did live outside the rules and my God I hated you for it.

Back then, I hated everything about you. Back then I hated your smirks and your raised eyebrows; how you'd stride around the hallways like you owned the place. I hated your 'Holier-Than-Thou' attitude and the way you'd never let anyone get the better of you. You had your place and you knew. You liked it, no, correction, you loved it, it gave you inexpressible power and everywhere you went, people stared at you, whispering behind hands and closed eyes.

Back then, you were the only thing better than me, better than all my blustering and failed attempts to get you to look at me, if only for a moment, if only in hatred and even that was better than your long silences and calm indifference. Being hated by you was the only thing that kept me going, trying to keep ahead, trying to best you, at Quidditch, at classes, at everything that I could think of, even kissing.

That first kiss bruised my soul for two days while I lay awake at night, my hands touching my mouth in silent reverence, my whole body shaking from not just the cold. I wandered around in a daze, my eyes stony and set apart, tripping, clamouring, falling, falling, falling deeper into a part of my mind that I had never known to exist, never even thought to dream of. You were there a lot, on the backs of playing cards while I played exploding solitaire, you were there in a mind-consuming blinding way. Every time I saw you it was like you looked straight through me, every time the same, every time it was like you couldn't give a good goddamn about me and I stung with hatred.

That kiss stayed in the room with me wherever I went. When we were together, hunched over Potions classrooms or trying to hex each other out by the lake in the sunshine, it was like a big troll standing in the space between us. I could never get close enough to you. I still hated you, but there was an underlying passion that flamed from somewhere and made me sting and pant whenever you danced through my mind, making my soul ache in ways you could never imagine.

When you pounced on me while passing the broom shed after Quidditch practice, dragging me inside and locking the door, I wasted no time in re-acquainting myself with your tongue, the hollow of your mouth was a blossoming pit of taste and blunt teeth. You had dragged me in there to talk, but when my hands ran up the toned skin of your sides under your jumper, you melted to me like golden honey from a spoon and I drank you in.

I was never gentle with you. I bit down onto your shoulders, poked you with blunt elbows, pushed my nails into your back as the passion roared between my ears and between my legs. It was all consuming flames that drank in our souls until it was the only thing we would ever be able to see.

Do you remember how you felt under me? You wrapped your legs and arms and sharp ankles around me and gasped softly, the sound of it roaring loudly in the depths of my heart. I was lost to you before I would ever be able to admit.

You wove yourself around me, you were my membrane holding me altogether, forced in and out and forbidden trust and forgotten loyalties to passion and oh my God you were amazing. You were something that I couldn't define, couldn't conquer with all my logics and magic and reasons. You were someone that I couldn't capture in my cage of power and self-preservation because you were high as the sky, a tiny being on a distant and darkening star far away from horizon and where the light danced. You were my definition.

I was teetering on the precarious edge of 'Will I, Won't I' before letting go and letting gravity make the choice, falling so fast that the ground rushes past you like a hurricane over still waters, heaven dropping into you lap like a precious treasure that is never quite understood. I never understood what went on beneath your many layers that I could never peel of fast enough in the coolness of night, I never knew what it was to be something different to what I was already trying to become.

I was your façade, a puzzle you had already worked out from that very first moment we met on the train, from the very first time we playing each other at Quidditch, the very first time we duelled and fought with glove and spit. From the very first moment we kissed, the very first moment when you completed me and I was addicted to your rose tasting mouth and chocolate covered skin and smooth vanilla hair.

You were Jupiter, large and red mouthed, love delicious and it made me so hungry I thought I could swallow the moon. Love is a flame, neither timid or tame, and you burnt your words of passion into my thighs and memory like you had always been there, your hands travelling the continent of my skin like it was the only kingdom that you ever wanted to belong to.

My heart fell in love with you long before my mind even caught up and realised.

Do you remember the first time I told you that I loved you? It was dark, the stars covered up by clouds of longing and something more; we were lying on my bed, talking in low tones behind silencing charms, tangled in blankets and I couldn't see the outline of your face. I love you. There, I said it. I hate you I hate you I hate you. What do you want me to say?

I love you.

And you never answered me, just feel asleep with your eyes open and let me curl into your chest and heart.

Can you hear me whispering to you in the night? Can you sleep through my love and want for you?

- finished -