#juleia

Altheia pushed back from him, rest a hand on his cheek and turned him to face her.  A shadow of sorrow had passed over his countenance, and she sighed softly as his gaze dropped.

She slid slightly along the bench away from him, then patted her lap.

“Come here.  Lie back.”

He blinked at her in surprise, then smiled and twisted around, pulling up his legs to rest booted feet on the bench and laying on his back, resting his head in her lap and wriggling in until he was comfortable, one leg bent up, the other dangling off the edge of the bench.  Altheia returned her hand to his chest, the other in the thick waves of his hair.  Silence fell between them, as Altheia slowly ran his hair between her fingers, lightly scraped his scalp with her short nails, looking down fondly as his eyelids slid shut.

“If I was a cat, I’d purr,” he murmured sleepily.  And then, despite not being a cat, he made a sound with his tongue against the roof of his mouth that did sound remarkably like a purr, and Altheia laughed.

After a few minutes, he quietly said,

“I wish it could.”

“Hmm?”

“Last.  I wish it could last.  I wish… I wish I was a better man.  Someone who deserved it.”

A lump of sorrow rose to Altheia’s throat, and she brushed Julian’s hair back from his forehead.  She ran her forefinger along the top edge of his eye patch, eyebrows raised questioningly when he looked at her.  He nodded with an uncertain smile, and she gently removed the patch.  Julian blinked and rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand as it adjusted to the light.  Now, when he looked back at her, she could see the depths of both of his eyes, the crimson sclera that many feared or found shocking but which she saw as a scar of a battle he’d fought and won, of his strength.

“What do you want?” she asked.  “When this is all over, when we’ve found the truth, proved that you didn’t kill the Count, proven to you that you didn’t do the bad things that you think you did.  What then?”

“What do I want?  What does it matter what I want?”

Altheia ran her finger down Julian’s jaw, along his bottom lip.  “You’ll have to do something .  Go somewhere.  Be someone.”

A faint frown touched his brow.  “I uh.  I don’t know.  I've never thought about it.  I was sure I'd hang , and there's not much of a future after your neck snaps, you know.”

Altheia tutted disapprovingly.  And then waited, her fingers lightly tracking the sharp contours of his face, watching the thoughts running behind Julian’s eyes as he looked up at the stars.

Eventually, he tentatively started,

“Do you think…”  He shook his head as if frustrated with himself.  “No, I couldn’t.  No.  I can’t think like that.”

“Humour me.”

“Hmm?”  He looked up at her, puzzled.

“Pretend that you think you can .  What do you want?”

“This.”  His voice was very small, strained, as if he didn’t dare to hope.  “I want this.  With you, and… and what Pasha has.  A…  a home.”

He closed his eyes, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. 

Altheia smiled gently, resting her palm over his cheek.  He sighed and nuzzled into it.  Her heart pounded with a kind of excitement, a surge of nervous happiness that he’d said he wanted her .  Almost without thinking, so self-absorbed that he hadn’t even realised the effect his words could have on her.

“Why can’t you have it?”

“I don’t deserve it.  I’ve done nothing to earn your… your affection, your feelings, for me, whatever they may be.”

“You don’t need to earn affection, Julian.  You can just… have it.”

One corner of his mouth lifted in a small, sad smile.  “Is that so.”

It wasn’t a question, not really.  It was a statement that she was wrong, that it wasn’t so, that he couldn’t just have affection.  Altheia looked down at him, at his head cradled in her lap.  His gaze drifted, breath exhaled in a soft sigh through his nose.

“Yes, Julian.  It’s so.”

He turned his eyes back up to her with a slight shake of his head, almost as if pitying her naivety.  The fingertips of his left hand brushed over the backs of her knuckles, of the hand resting on his chest.  There was a wistfulness to his tone as he quietly said,

“My dear, everything has to be earned one way or another.”

Her heart ached for him.  She turned her hand over and curled her fingers around his.  Only then did she realise how rare it was for one or other of them to not be wearing gloves.  Of course, his were to cover the murderer’s brand on the back of his left hand; but he didn’t need to hide it from her.  Now, she ran her fingertips in slow circles around his large, cool palm, tracing the lines, creases and callouses of a life lived.  With another faint sigh, he brought her hand to his lips.  Seizing the moment, with one eyebrow raised, she said,

“Do I have to earn it?”

Julian froze with his lips against her knuckles, eyes wide as he looked up at her.

“N-no?  No!  No of course you don’t.”  His lips moved against her skin.  “You deserve it, unconditionally.  And… from someone better than me.”

She shook her head, lips curving in a slight smile as she combed her free hand through his thick hair.

“Better?  Who would be ‘better’?”

His eyes dropped, his expression melancholy.  “Anyone.”

“I don’t want ‘anyone’.”  It was her turn now to raise his hand to her lips.  She couldn’t convince him that there wasn’t anyone better , not for her.  But she wanted to make him see that she saw all the things that he perceived as his flaws and imperfections, and she didn’t just want him in spite of them, but because of them, because there were many other facets to him, many things that were perfections , and every little part of him, the good and the bad, were what made him, him .  There was no shadow without light.

His gaze turned up to hers again, surprised, confused, but… hopeful .  

“You… you want…”

Altheia smiled, nodded.  There were probably words she should say, something affirming, reassuring.  But instead, she placed his hand over her heart, and placed her hand over his heart, feeling its pace pick up in sync with hers.  A kind of wonder came to Julian’s grey eyes, and Altheia bent and brushed her lips over his, feeling his shuddering breath.  

“Yes, Julian.”  Her voice was low, velvety.  “I want you to have my affection.  All of it.  And the only thing I ask in return…”  She pressed her lips more firmly against his.  “... is yours. ”

“You have it,” he said on a gasp, his voice and eyes earnest in their promise.  He seemed to choke a little, and then repeated her words back to her.  “All of it.  All of… of me .”

His hand hooked around the back of her neck as she bent down the rest of the way to kiss him with as much affection as she could manage.  His body trembled beneath hers, small noises escaped his lips and tripped over her tongue as she swept it gently over his.

Eventually she pulled up, looking down into dusk-grey eyes as her thumb stroked his cheekbone.  She was suffused with warmth, a feeling that they’d ignited something , committed themselves.  

A lump rose to her throat as Julian held onto her hand over his heart, as if he thought that if he let her go, he’d lose her.  

“I’m not going to leave you,” she told him with a warm, reassuring smile.  “I…”

I love you .

The thought came to her from a pulse of her heart that flooded every part of her with a warmth and certainty that the embers burning between them since they’d met, had ignited into something more, but that it wasn’t new .  It was right .  It was a coming home after a long journey.  It was waking up in strong arms after a nightmare.  It was a love that had always been, and always would be.

But she couldn’t say it.  It was too much, when Julian had only just accepted affection , to expect him to believe that she loved him.  More, she couldn’t expect him to return her feelings.

So all she said was,

“I want to be with you.  I haven’t felt myself for three years.  And I don’t know who I was before.  But what I do know is that this…”  She laced her fingers with his, their hands over his chest, feeling the rapid pounding of his heart.  “This is right .  There was something between us before.  I don’t know what it was, and I don’t know why we can’t remember it.  But I think… I belong with you.  I did then.  And I do now.  If you’ll have me.”

Julian looked as if he wanted to speak, taking a deep breath but letting it out soundlessly.  He bit his lip, his eyes shimmered.  Suddenly he sat up, and Altheia panicked that she’d said too much, that he’d push her away, repeat his assertion of the night before, that he was a terrible person who’d only hurt her.

“I’m sorry…” she said hastily.

But Julian only shifted so he sat beside her, his hip and thigh pressing against hers, and his arm wrapped around her front, gently tugging her to twist at the waist to face him.  He was still trembling, little whimpers and fragments of words escaping him, and the fingers of his left hand entangled in her hair and held her as his mouth moved against hers.  She leaned into him, one hand snaking up into his hair, the other around his back, pulling him close.  His right hand rested in the curve of her waist, slender fingertips pressing against her flesh and making a spark of pleasure ripple through her.

“Altheia…”  His voice was a hoarse, shuddering whisper against her lips as he pulled back just an inch, just enough that his eyes could meet hers.  “I’m yours.”

She felt a hot flush rise to her cheeks, couldn’t stop a delighted smile.  

“And I’m yours.”  She laughed softly.  “And you’re mine?”

“Yes.”  Julian’s smile was unreserved, the corners of his eyes crinkling.  “I’m yours, and… and you’re mine.”

“You’re mine, and I’m yours.”

They laughed together then, eyes closing, foreheads resting against each other, arms wrapped around them, shirts gliding over skin beneath restless hands.  Altheia didn’t know how long it would take to solve the Count’s murder.  She didn’t know exactly what their future looked like.  Much was uncertain.  But she did know that her feelings ran deep, she believed that Julian’s did, too, and that their future, whatever and wherever it may be, would be together .  Even if he didn’t quite believe it yet, she knew it.