#silverbuttercups

“I can’t believe we’re moving in together tomorrow.”

Lyra, her head resting sleepily on Silver’s chest, lifted her head to peer at the redhead. They were in her twin bed at her mother’s for the very last time. That was probably for the best; it was increasingly too small for a pair of human beings entering their twenties, in a room that was now almost entirely packed away into boxes and bags now. The drone of the fan, her proximity to her beloved, and his silence until this point had nearly lulled her before Silver’s statement cut through the drowsy haze.

Lyra tried to grin at him, but his gaze was fixed on the ceiling, his mouth set in a firm line. She frowned and rolled off him. Propping her head up with her hand, she gazed down at him. “What’s with the expression?” she said. “It’ll be great.”

“Gonna miss your room here,” he said. “As stupid and pink and flowery as it is.”

Lyra felt her concern lessen. She smiled and poked his cheek with the hand that wasn’t supporting her head. “Aww, no worries. I’ll make our room as stupid and pink and flowery at our new place.”

“Oh, fuck no,” he groaned, but a smile twitched on his lips. He reached out and grabbed her, pulling her on top of him. She giggled, finding herself gazing down into his deep vermillion eyes with more affection than she knew possible. He ruffled her hair. “You can do that in the spare room all you want, but our bedroom is going to be restful. Neutrals and cool colors only.”

“The spare room is for our Pokemon, and Typhlosion likes green, you insensitive bastard,” she said.

“Feraligatr is going to hate green. He looooooooves pink.” Before Lyra could object, he flipped them over and gathered her wrists in one hand, pinning them above her head. He leaned in closer and whispered, “Also, you failed. You didn’t say anything about the bedroom being restful.”

Her face flushed at the implication. “Oh, was I supposed to say something naughty?” She wriggled under him cutely. “‘Oh Silver, no rest in that bedroom! You may only ravish me in there!’” she simpered, the picture of melodrama.

He groaned and release her wrists. Settling his weight onto her, he buried his face in her neck and exhaled. The tickle made Lyra laugh. “You’re just...the worst. The best. But the worst,” he mumbled. She wasn’t able to as much as quip before he pressed a long kiss to her neck. She shuddered and wrapped her arms around him, holding him closer as his kisses roamed down to her collarbone and her shoulder.

When he came up for air, Lyra pulled him to her for a deep kiss, one that seemed to last for an eternity. She broke it to breathe, and Silver chuckled before rolling off her and crossing his arms behind his head. Lyra settled her head back on his chest, but restfulness had disappeared in the face of his physical ministrations. “I love you,” she murmured to him, resting her hand just under his ribcage.

He slid his arm around her, lifting the hem of her shirt to rest his hand against her waist. “I’m moving in with you tomorrow,” he murmured. “With...the person I love.”

“You sure are.” She closed her eyes and smiled as his thumb rubbed circles against her skin. “Shitty decoration taste and all.”

“Restful bedroom,” he reminded her.

“Nah. Going to keep you up all night every night, but you’ll be happy about it,” she said.

“Not if I can’t keep you up first,” he responded, his tone competitive.

She lifted her head to glare at him, but his expression was so dopey and happy that she couldn’t bear to ruin it. Lyra returned to his former place and sighed sweetly. “I can’t wait to start our life together,” she murmured to him.

She stares as the water curls back onto the sand. Repeat. The waves return to the land. Repeat. Small gusts brush against the seams of her skirt, and her thin brown hair drifts above her shoulders. She thinks, what has she got to lose? The millions of beige Tuscan grains beneath her dainty sandals manage to sneak between her toes. She wriggles her pale ankles while she moves closer to the deep blankets of water and until it sweeps across her feet over and over.

Her fist rises and rests against her chest, she should go. She knows he’s out there somewhere, but she’s not sure if she should look for him. They tell her he went missing. They tell her he won’t come back. And it isn’t that he doesn’t want to, it is because he cannot. He physically cannot come back to her, he physically cannot come back to them, and she cannot change that. She does not know where he is, she cannot possibly know where he is.

The oceans carry him wherever, it is something he never decides. His body shifts across the blue and no one knows where it might guide him. Or so they tell her. The truth is he had gone missing, the seas swallow him instead. Where he might dwell is something she might never understand, something she might never find out. He could be anywhere, far away from the ship, close to it, or close to her. She might never know.  

They tell her it seems as if the tides themselves took him away, as if they were alive. The night he vanished, tempests swept the boat, just as strong as her heart ached the moment she heard of his disappearance.

But she wishes to know, she wishes to find him. Alive or not, she pleads for the water to give him back. Her soft arms cradle her round, slowly growing abdomen, and as the sun above splashes the horizon a passionate grenadine, she steadily moves closer to it. The lukewarm ocean submerges her ankles and sandals. Salty drops stream down her pink cheeks into the greater sea of tears.

Her cracked lips press together in the face of the orange and cobalt wasteland ahead, she weeps. She cries his name out, her legs quiver. And from behind, she hears a noise. Her head turns and the liquid sky itself flows from her eyes. She observes the figure up and down, tattered, torn, dirty, with the blondest hair, the father of their child. He starts towards her, embracing her close.