New SS: Starlight Express CLOSED Indefinitely - Page 46

Originally posted by: 6thElement

Ah! I didn't see it that way at all...But see that's why when you write, I get to see another perspective.

The next one is really from Maan's POV. And I hope he doesn't turn out to be the one you hate soon.

Thank you

She didn't answer but her forehead slightly creased and her fluster showed in her trembling smile. His lips thinned into a line and she moved in for him to enter her abode.

It smelled of vanilla and cookies and melting sugar, like he'd walked into a room out of Martha Stewart's magazine. Only she was going for a minimalistic theme, with a wingback chair in the far corner by which a thin rectangular window overlooked the street. Mauve drapes ran along the width of the windows and fell to the sides like scarves. One couch that could seat three when squeezed in, sat in the middle of the room, opposite a sleek modern TV. And a Moroccan touch played on the rug, atop which was an antique coffee table heavy on rustic wood was centered. Earlier he'd made a few references to her apartment as house. But those mentions came back to him with an inlaid anger, he couldn't answer to. They were right in their claims. This was her home.

He took the tree to the nook opposite to where the wingback chair was and she unwrapped the base in which the tree was to be placed. After a few scratches on his hands, he had the tree standing; bare and living; yet a complete misfit amidst her dressed up home. Once she excused herself to go off into the other room, he found himself next to a drying bouquet of white and blue hydrangeas, mixed with half-white peonies. She must have got them before her trip to Seattle and now they held a memory of her past, in their dying hues that crumbled under his touch.

Her presence in the room, took his attention back to the bags into which she was digging for the ornaments. She took a gold colored string of balls and threw up on the tree. One by one they all found their place: red and gold glass balls, imitation gold snowflakes, plastic adorned candles, a small wreath and a few neatly tied ribbons of red velvet were hung using red satin ties. The tiny Christmas lights went up and the power cord sat waiting on the floor to be plugged in. The star was left behind and he did his share of helping by reaching to the tip of the tree to top it off like a hat. When he bent down to plug the lights, she screamed, making him look up from that stance.

"No wait..." She cried and went running to the other room and came back holding two medium sized red and gold sacks; its ends tied off with thin golden ribbons.

"We can't switch it on without gifts under the tree" She said, leaning forward to place the bags by the base - that was now taped off in red shiny paper. He stopped to smile at her and then the moment of reveal came. The tree lit up just like her; the electric hum now buzzed as the sound of the spirit and cheer that coursed through the tree. She clapped and held her laced fingers close to her chest.

"It's beautiful..." He heard her whisper, with a longing as though the tree was still not hers to rightfully adore it.

He kept his eyes on her unable to shift or get any closer. The train had been different - it felt like they had been on no one's land then. But here in her home, he felt a watchful gaze of all that made up her home - the walls to the ceilings, including the blue carpet - tying him up in a displeasing restrain. She looked back at him and held her smile. A dull ache permeated his being without his knowing while he responded with a withering smile and walked to the TV. He picked up the DVDs stacked there and scanned her collection shuffling them from one hand to another.

"This is just too bad...Either you have a secret fascination for animation films...Or we will really have to do something about this form of peter pan syndrome of yours"

She stomped across the room and snatched the DVD's back, clearly looking annoyed.

"Don't psych read me based on my DVD's...Do you know the depth and difficult concepts these movies sometimes touch on..." Her voice edged a mild frustration as if it wasn't the first time - or that he wasn't the first person - she was explaining her DVDs to.

His smirk faltered unable to muster a comeback. "Geet...are you always this serious?"

She blinked a few times while he made it sound like a defect and then she saw his eyes slightly widen with undeclared panic. His forehead creased, eyes crinkled and his full mouth came up into a slow pout. All of which was a mirror image of how she'd framed her face and once the realization came to her, a sudden burst of laughter forced its way out of her lips, washing along with it the inane look on his face.

"I'm hungry…Do you have anything to eat?" He asked stilling her from the spams of laughter that shook her, while his hand stayed limp over his stomach.

"I have the second best thing that can happen to you on Christmas eve…" She said and hurried to the kitchen.

While the background filled with clatter and sounds of cupboards being shut and opened, he sat down on the floor and switched on the DVD. The TV came alive with the opening theme of Disney; with its stars flying over the screen and sending fairy dust all over; with tinkerbell, in her tiny, body hugging suit grin at him.

When he thought there was an unusual silence prevail over the kitchen, he muted the television and craned his neck back and tried to catch a glimpse of her there. He thought he saw something retreat in a flash behind the entryway arch that led to the kitchen. It took him a few seconds to realize what it was and a knowing smile broke opened his lips.

"Stop hiding…Geet" The small pleasure that he felt then was untold and hidden to her. It was still a hide and seek inside him, that he could never explain. And perhaps the lightness came from not knowing what he was seeking and what was hidden from him. Because it clearly wasn't inducing the opposite of what all this were meant to: nervousness. There he was sitting amidst all that was alien to him and she was in the middle of it. Yet, there was something quite inviting about the setting; like the natural attraction that everyone had for things that came with a warning label: drugs, alcohol and everything else that was forbidden – not to forget women in rebound.

She walked out with two stoneware bowls full of clear pale yellow broth and bits of dried green something floating around, as if she wasn't the one he'd sighted behind the archway wall.

"Presenting from the exotic kitchens of Ms Geet…drum roll please…" She sat down next to him, folding her legs and artfully balancing the bowls in both her hands, "Noodle soup…"

Helping herself to the clear liquid and then picking up a strand of noodle and carefully lowering it into her mouth, she spoke again. "It's only Maruchan Ramen…" She shrugged; guilty that that was all she could manage. He dismissed her and sipped the soup. It was hot but not hot enough to not be able to savor the warmth and the prick of extra saltiness before it trickled down his throat. She was indeed right. It was undoubtedly the best thing on that cold and strange afternoon.

He studied her while she tilted her head back again for another blob of twisted noodle and he fully realized his searching for something in her eyes then. Perhaps a little something that might bring meaning to the proximity with which they were sitting on the floor and almost sharing a meal. He wasn't going to fool himself into thing that this was momentous for all of the dark future looming ahead of him. After all he was second fiddle; and he wasn't sure to what. He felt like that intermediary bed or pillow you wouldn't mind sleeping on when you are not home for a day or two; for we are all aware that we would go back home after that one or two nights outside…

However something did happen the next second. Just like that the bowl she was holding tipped and the entire contents stained her top and jeans. "Oh…" She made a queasy throaty sound and got up, running to her room.

A few minutes later she voiced over, "I think you should go home…" His eyebrows shot up to the middle of his forehead at her suggestion, "I don't have anything decent to wear and I haven't done laundry…you must go now"

"I'm sure you can find something...just drape it on, even if it's one of these window curtains" He said without a care, while Wall-E chased around Eva in the television. After exchanging a volley of recommendations and threats back and forth – the one including where he asked her to pick something from the laundry basket given that he wouldn't know the difference; to which he needn't have to be in the same room to know she was rolling her eyes – she came out of her hiding.

He casually shifted his gaze to her, to find out what had indeed brought about the prattle for a pair of clothes. And he blinked. The sight of her froze his hand holding the spoon half way up to his mouth and a slow choke started up his throat. He coughed without a smile, except with an incredulous look that was far from mocking her attire. She was in loose pants that didn't quite reach her ankles, paired with an oriental print grey and black t-shirt that almost came up to her knees. Dressed like a barrel of clothes with enough room to fit another small person inside, she took a step towards him – dragging the collar to her neck when at once she also pulled on the edge of the long shirt by her thigh, appearing to be at the heights of discomfort.

"Don't laugh…I know I look like a buffoon" she warned.

But how could she say that? When she was anything but a circus tent. And if he could put it right, she still had that untouched charm – the kind that should spell work when it came to women and still he thought she was only endearing.

She came around and when she was about to sit down, he held her wrist, placing his own bowl to the other side. For all the talk that had lasted minutes ago, there was an unmistakable silence climbing into the room. She met his eyes and he hoped for some charisma that could will her into sitting close to him. This time she wasn't scampering out and neither was her hand shaking out of his hold.

"I promise not to smell your clothes…and trust me...this is a clean pair that I'm wearing" He tried his hand at humor, which was uncharacteristic of him at such times. Her lips curved and before he knew, she was sitting between his legs. His hands hung over his knees not touching her and she had quite a bit of distance to lean back to rest against his body.

It was a decision she'd to make on her own and he suddenly felt he'd all the time in the world to let her make it.

Her back came alive with a tingling of the sorts that were rampant over her skin. She'd watched Wall-E a hundred times on the same television and yet she couldn't place the scene playing on the screen. The song 'La vie en rose' came along and the trumpet blowing from the speaker, made her feel out of place and awkward.

When she thought her heart couldn't go any faster, she heard him address her.

"You haven't told me yet…" He paused, drawing her attention and she slightly turned in profile to see his eyes that was fixed on her with an intensity that made her want to flee.

"What is the first best thing that can happen to you on Christmas?" He ended.

She hadn't really thought of an answer at that time. But she'd assumed that comfort from simple food like soup was only second to an ocean of other things in life, she herself was yet to experience.

Her hands went around her as though she was feeling cold and wiping out her mind clear of all apprehension, she slowly fell back. In that distracting moment, it was vivid an instant as any the fraction of second he held his breath while her back rested against his chest. She couldn't entirely make anything of it, when she didn't know what she was erasing out and what she was writing then in the book of her destiny.

But just as unexpectedly her thoughts were non-existent and she could feel the answer in his arms that came up to slide over hers.

"The first best thing, is sitting with a man who can make you forget there were first best things and so forth on such evenings…"

She took in his raspy jaw that dug into her cheeks…"On Christmas eve…" She managed to whisper out.