So, this was for the Kisses OS collab that Innika had started. I was supposed to write about RuMya or ShivIka or PriVeer, but ended up writing on KhaTia which I obviously could not post there...but anyway, it is based on Coldplay's Fix You. Enjoy!
Stuck in reverse
She looks dazzling, more of a woman than ever. Her hair, worn open tonight, frames her face, making her look softer, more relaxed than usual. He watches her laugh as Shivay Sir says something in her ears. He has difficulty taking his eyes off her even as Sir leaves her side and mingles among the members of Mumbai's glittering aristocracy. He watches her as she moves through the crowd, throwing a smile or a word at passing acquaintances. He watches her act the role of the queen as she hugs strangers and looks through him. He watches her across the vast universe that separates them.
........
When you lose something you can't replace
The air inside the car fogs up the glass windows. The pouring rain outside makes it difficult to see through the rivulets of water streaming down the windshield. The wiper sits, useless. Eyeing her through the rear-view mirror, he notices her looking pale, her nervous eyes alternately darting at the windows and her phone screen. The traffic is at a standstill and judging by the state of the road, they will be here for some time. The Oberois wouldn't worry about her safety since they knew he was with her. But she didn't know that.
"Don't worry Madam. I've seen worse," he tells her.
She looks at him for a moment, wide-eyed, and then for the first time in their brief acquaintance, flashes him a smile. By the time he arrives with her at the Oberoi mansion, she is telling him of the time she spent a weekend in Florence and it rained relentlessly right through her stay. She waves at him before disappearing into the house.
........
Could it be worse
He stands rooted to the spot as she runs down the garden path towards him. In her lehenga-choli, she looks like some kind of medieval princess. The fairy lights strung along the trees add a glimmer to the sequins on her dress. He watches spellbound, as she reaches him.
"I wanted to thank you."
He can't fight the blush that makes its way to his face. He had never meant for her to know it was he who had taken care of the matter.
"Shivay told me he had no idea of the problem with the building so I guessed it was your doing. Thank you so much for getting rid of those goons."
Her face is lit with a glow that he has never seen before.
"I can now go ahead and open my Reiki center! Thank you thank you thank you!"
And later that night, he would tell himself in the darkness of his room, it was simply her excitement and momentary happiness that made her do it.
She reaches forward and hugs him. He is robbed of speech and can hear not a word of what she says if she speaks at all. The embrace sends sparks through his very blood, making it sing. When she lets him go, he barely notices the look of sudden confusion flashing across her face.
Trying to go to sleep that night, he tells himself over and over again, this is not possible. Stop dreaming. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
......
Just what you're worth
He arrives at her door because Mrs. Oberoi asks him to check the security on the floor where the bride is waiting. The corridor stands empty. He wonders if he should be there at all and knocks uncertainly. The door is opened by her of all people.
She is dressed in red, looking every inch the bride she is destined to be.
Her face is framed by sparkling jewels, the red of her veil appears to bleed into her face and for a minute he is at a loss for words.
It is a decision made in a moment of madness, of senseless passions running amok. He feels her clutch at his hand as they rush down empty corridors, effectively eluding the security that he himself had set in place.
Every time her hand presses down on his, he feels something settle but doubt is a relentless monster.
He is full of apprehension as she surveys his apartment. It is a modest affair but normally he is a proud owner. Today he sees the rooms through her eyes, eyes that must have seen luxury he could not even imagine.
When the Kapoor's security team arrives at his doorstep to take her away, is it relief that he feels?
...........
Lights will guide you home
He is relieved. Finally he can rebuild the tattered life he was living. Tomorrow he will leave the city, his past, his pain. He will try starting all over again, vowing never to give way to emotions this easily ever again.
The knock on the door surprises him. He thinks it might be his real estate agent, with some document he had forgotten to sign. It turns out to be Mr. Shivay Singh Oberoi.
He stumbles back as an envelope is handed to him by the man he had grown to hate. He knows, without opening the letter, it is the resignation he had deposited that very morning.
"Khanna, I will ask you a single question and you must answer honestly" the man intones, his voice aloof as always.
He feels anger rush through his veins but he manages to nod in response.
"Do you love her?"
She is waiting outside, in the dark corridor. He barely believes his eyes as she walks over to him, tears streaming down her face. She comes to stand before him, trying to still the sobs that betray how broken she feels at that moment.
"Were you going to leave without a fight?" She asks as her eyes search for something in his face.
"Who said I wasn't fighting?" He responds, his voice breaking as he tries to hold himself back. She deserved so much better. How could she want someone like him?
"By letting me go?" This time her hands hit him on his chest. And then she strikes him again and again and he stands there and takes it. Something slowly dawns in him. The restlessness he had carried within for months suddenly stills and then breaks apart in a million pieces. This time when she raises her hands, he doesn't hesitate to capture her wrists and pull her close to him. She doesn't struggle but instead wraps her arms around him.
They pull apart at the sound of a throat clearing. Shivay Sir stands there with an odd smile on his face.
"I will not accept the resignation. Take some time off for now. When you are back, we'll discuss your plans of opening a security agency. The Oberoi Group might be interested in investing in something like that."
Khanna watches the man, a hundred thousand thoughts flashing through him and Shivay Singh Oberoi adds almost as an afterthought.
"It is time we broadened our horizons."
............
And ignite your bones
It rains right through the ten days they spend in Munnar. Outside the foggy glass windows of their room, bearing silent witness to their undoing, lie the lush greenery of the mountains and the bleeding red of the paths crisscrossing through the tea gardens. Ensconced in the layers of blanket, he watches her as she sleeps. Everything about that moment feels unreal to him. With every blink, he fears he will wake up from this dream, to an empty bed, back in his drab grey Mumbai apartment. With her head resting against his chest, she looks far too fragile. Her breath fans his skin, raising goosebumps. He lifts a finger and gently tucks an errant strand of hair behind her ear. His hand lingers, savouring the feel of the satiny skin beneath his rough finger. A smile appears at the corner of her lips as with one finger she starts to trace lazy patterns on his chest. Eyes still closed, she pulls him in and he bends to her touch. After that, he doesn't get time to think of the surreal nature of what is happening to him. In his arms, she feels far too real for that.
......
I will try
He doesn't like to see her doing the chores around the house. Every time she enters the kitchen, he hovers around her, helping her, wrestling the tasks away from her. He takes the maid servant aside to give her a talking to every time he arrives home to discover that she had prepared dinner for them. He nurses the blisters and burns that appear on her hands despite the million precautions he tries to take. These marks mock him, pricking his guilty conscience. She did not deserve this, they tell him over and over again. You stole her away from what was rightfully hers, the life of luxury she was born into. Thief, they call out to him.
He has nightmares and wakes up in cold sweat. He tries to reason against the tiny voice that warns him that he was living in a fool's paradise. Would she not one day turn around and call him the thief that he was?
......
Fix you
She watches him thrash through another nightmare. Sweat pools on his forehead. She lifts her hand and runs her fingers through his rough curls. He calms down somewhat. As her fingers play against his skin, he slowly opens his eyes. The irises gleam in the light of the street lamp that filters in through the open window. He blinks once and then glances at her. Surfacing from a nightmare, she knows his eyes will seek her out. Her fingers weave through his hair. His hand fumbles around the bed sheets and finally latches onto hers. She is half-expecting it when he pulls her closer against him, and she feels his heart drumming out a mad rhythm against his chest. With soft strokes, she tries to ease the pain, the anguish flooding through him. She longs to take out every last drop of poison the nightmare has left in its wake. She longs to have him sleep restfully, in peace, dream happy dreams of love and wishes fulfilled.
"Jaan," her words are a mere whisper, in the stillness of the night. She feels him listening to her with every cell of his being, his body attuned to her every move.
"All those months when I was almost getting married to a man I did not love, I would get these terrible nightmares." She feels his fingers tighten around hers as she speaks. "And then I would wake up to an empty bed. It was awful. But I would try to focus on the positives in my life and you know what?" Her smile was lost in the darkness but he senses it.
"I realised what you meant to me when each night trying to think of what gave me joy, I inevitably ended up raising memories of the time I spent with you."
She straddles him as she speaks, feeling his growing need for her through the sheets. She hovers above him, luxuriating in the sensation of his hands running across her skin. The effect she has on him is still intoxicating in the delight it gives her. When she is certain that the nightmare is all but forgotten by him, she lowers her face, and whispers into his ear, "I want you to know that the next time you are visited by a nightmare, I will make the pain go away just like I am doing now." She gives an expert wriggle and hears his breath hitch.
And she proceeds to mark him with bites and licks against his neck, his chest, bruising his skin, trying to draw him away from the darkness of the nightmare to the light of the love they had shared. And with every bite, she murmurs like in prayer, "And the next time. And the next. And the next."
When he pulls her closer and turns them around, to have her pinned down under him, she smiles. "Know that every time you have a nightmare, you will also have me beside you to wake up to."
"Always?" he asks. His question makes her tremble for the raw need it holds.
She lets the question hang in the air for a mere moment before replying. "Always."
The kiss sends ripples through her and she feels it stretch and expand till its energy reaches the farthest corners of the universe, carrying with it their seal of love.
The End.
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