watching (chelsie/mark)
Chelsie/Mark (SYTYCD4)
PG for angst, very implicit mentions of alcohol and sex.
Inspired by this photo:
and the keyword 'watching'.
(1,119 words) Not a MarkSie fan, but this was requested at the SYTYCDFF forum.
She watches him as he sleeps on his belly, her own eyes drowsy and heavy-lidded. He’s tiny and perfect, with fingernails like little translucent shells on the tips of his delicate fingers, and paper-thin eyelids veined with blue. His lips form a small pink bow under his button-like nose. The soft, dark, downy tuft of hair on his fragile head looks honey-gold in the saturated wash of the late afternoon sun.
(Ever since she first set eyes on the little tuft of brown hair, the pinkness of his newborn face, she had been watching him; watching to gauge his reaction as she lay, soft and quiet and vulnerable in the hospital bed, her eyes upon his beautiful face. He’d cried. What else could he have done?)
He watches them with a strange sense of detachment. He is beautiful, and she looks lovely, the light falling around her figure on the bed, curving over the dip of her waist to alight across the rumpled bed sheet.
He imagines himself stretched out behind her, in place of the golden light that holds her body in its loose embrace.
She moves, gently cupping his head in the palm of one hand, sliding her other arm under his sleeping form with care. Cradling him against her chest, she shifts, the mattress dipping with a quiet creak as she reaches the edge and stands. She tips her head to check his sleeping face, her back bathed bright and white in the sunlight, bright as the loose tumble of her hair, and brushes with the knuckle of one crooked finger a strand of dark hair that has fallen over the milky skin of his forehead.
(She was there, watching, when he began to babble - it had begun with Dada, of course; she’d been telling him every day about his Daddy, his wonderful, handsome, kind Daddy. It would have been wrong if he had said her name before his.)
She takes careful steps out of the bedroom, and he follows close behind. The nightgown she is wearing is long and pale, and it floats about her ankles in the delicate golden backdrop of the sun. He can see the indistinct silhouette of her legs under the softly shifting fabric that skims her body as she walks to the kitchen.
He feels nothing sexual, seeing the shape of her body. He wants only to reach out and touch her, to cup her elbow in his palm and turn her body towards him. He wants to speak aloud, to tell her, It had always been you. I just wish I had known. He almost aches with the pressure of it, but he can’t find the means to let her know. The words are suspended in his mind and press against his consciousness, but they won’t come out and let themselves be known to her. They rest heavy within him.
She turns toward him, and suddenly the words rise up, filling his being, threatening to break free from him. She seems to move in slow motion, and he can see the flutter of her eyelids, her eyelashes, and the shift of her weight from one foot to the other as she turns.
Her gaze moves past him, and he is shattered. She leans forward, wary of the child nestling in her arms, and closes the bedroom door. The slight displacement of air that he feels as she leans back again is like the swiftest brush of her fingertips, and he goes forward to meet it with a sigh.
She returns to the kitchen, and he circles the island in the middle of the tiled floor. He watches her face, and she looks, all of a sudden, remarkably tired. He wishes he could reach out, like he never did before, and press kisses to her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks. Everything and nothing holds him back from this impulse.
He whimpers in her arms, fussing and fidgeting, before he wakes and begins to cry, his small face screwed up and pink with exertion. She jiggles him slightly up and down, humming and shushing in an odd little rhythm. One day he will grow too big, too old, to be cradled in his mother’s arms.
(She watches him so that as he grows and lives and loves and becomes, unknowingly, with each passing day, more and more like his father, he will know that he has always been loved by his mother, who watches him with her weary eyes, so like his own.)
He easily falls back asleep, his head pillowed on her chest, and when she sighs - a tremulous, exhausted exhale of air - he feels guilty; guilty for not helping her raise the child, guilty for leaving her, guilty for not giving her the love she’d deserved when he’d had the chance. They were best friends.
She returns to the bedroom to set him in the crib, arranging his body carefully. She checks and re-checks his position before she leaves the room, turning on the baby monitor attached to the side of the crib. When he looks at her again as she emerges from the sunlit room, her arms look empty, lonely, and he wishes he could fly into them, lift her up and spin her, watch her face light up with a smile that reflects his own expression. She opens a kitchen drawer and rummages for a while, finally plucking a hair elastic from the mess inside, and pulls her blonde curls up into a ponytail as she returns again to the room where the baby is sleeping. She misses a strand just off the centre from the nape of her neck, and he wants to curl it around his fingers, kiss her neck where it had lain, before tucking it into the messy gathering of her hair and smoothing his hands down her shoulders.
He wants, he wishes, he aches; but he knows that it’s his fault that he can’t. He knows it’s too late to wonder what would have happened if he’d stopped buying them drinks, if he’d stayed the night afterwards, if he’d taken the chance to listen to what he’d tried to ignore, if he’d been unafraid of what it had all meant - because who could be afraid of love?
(She watches him because she knows that Mark will never be able to return from that alcoholic night, from the roadside, from the heavens. Chelsie watches him so that wherever Mark may be, he can see their beautiful baby boy, happy and healthy and whole.)
He watches her, and it is quiet in the house. She sits by the crib and watches as he sleeps, his tiny fingers curled around one of her own.
PG for angst, very implicit mentions of alcohol and sex.
Inspired by this photo:
and the keyword 'watching'.
(1,119 words) Not a MarkSie fan, but this was requested at the SYTYCDFF forum.
She watches him as he sleeps on his belly, her own eyes drowsy and heavy-lidded. He’s tiny and perfect, with fingernails like little translucent shells on the tips of his delicate fingers, and paper-thin eyelids veined with blue. His lips form a small pink bow under his button-like nose. The soft, dark, downy tuft of hair on his fragile head looks honey-gold in the saturated wash of the late afternoon sun.
(Ever since she first set eyes on the little tuft of brown hair, the pinkness of his newborn face, she had been watching him; watching to gauge his reaction as she lay, soft and quiet and vulnerable in the hospital bed, her eyes upon his beautiful face. He’d cried. What else could he have done?)
He watches them with a strange sense of detachment. He is beautiful, and she looks lovely, the light falling around her figure on the bed, curving over the dip of her waist to alight across the rumpled bed sheet.
He imagines himself stretched out behind her, in place of the golden light that holds her body in its loose embrace.
She moves, gently cupping his head in the palm of one hand, sliding her other arm under his sleeping form with care. Cradling him against her chest, she shifts, the mattress dipping with a quiet creak as she reaches the edge and stands. She tips her head to check his sleeping face, her back bathed bright and white in the sunlight, bright as the loose tumble of her hair, and brushes with the knuckle of one crooked finger a strand of dark hair that has fallen over the milky skin of his forehead.
(She was there, watching, when he began to babble - it had begun with Dada, of course; she’d been telling him every day about his Daddy, his wonderful, handsome, kind Daddy. It would have been wrong if he had said her name before his.)
She takes careful steps out of the bedroom, and he follows close behind. The nightgown she is wearing is long and pale, and it floats about her ankles in the delicate golden backdrop of the sun. He can see the indistinct silhouette of her legs under the softly shifting fabric that skims her body as she walks to the kitchen.
He feels nothing sexual, seeing the shape of her body. He wants only to reach out and touch her, to cup her elbow in his palm and turn her body towards him. He wants to speak aloud, to tell her, It had always been you. I just wish I had known. He almost aches with the pressure of it, but he can’t find the means to let her know. The words are suspended in his mind and press against his consciousness, but they won’t come out and let themselves be known to her. They rest heavy within him.
She turns toward him, and suddenly the words rise up, filling his being, threatening to break free from him. She seems to move in slow motion, and he can see the flutter of her eyelids, her eyelashes, and the shift of her weight from one foot to the other as she turns.
Her gaze moves past him, and he is shattered. She leans forward, wary of the child nestling in her arms, and closes the bedroom door. The slight displacement of air that he feels as she leans back again is like the swiftest brush of her fingertips, and he goes forward to meet it with a sigh.
She returns to the kitchen, and he circles the island in the middle of the tiled floor. He watches her face, and she looks, all of a sudden, remarkably tired. He wishes he could reach out, like he never did before, and press kisses to her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks. Everything and nothing holds him back from this impulse.
He whimpers in her arms, fussing and fidgeting, before he wakes and begins to cry, his small face screwed up and pink with exertion. She jiggles him slightly up and down, humming and shushing in an odd little rhythm. One day he will grow too big, too old, to be cradled in his mother’s arms.
(She watches him so that as he grows and lives and loves and becomes, unknowingly, with each passing day, more and more like his father, he will know that he has always been loved by his mother, who watches him with her weary eyes, so like his own.)
He easily falls back asleep, his head pillowed on her chest, and when she sighs - a tremulous, exhausted exhale of air - he feels guilty; guilty for not helping her raise the child, guilty for leaving her, guilty for not giving her the love she’d deserved when he’d had the chance. They were best friends.
She returns to the bedroom to set him in the crib, arranging his body carefully. She checks and re-checks his position before she leaves the room, turning on the baby monitor attached to the side of the crib. When he looks at her again as she emerges from the sunlit room, her arms look empty, lonely, and he wishes he could fly into them, lift her up and spin her, watch her face light up with a smile that reflects his own expression. She opens a kitchen drawer and rummages for a while, finally plucking a hair elastic from the mess inside, and pulls her blonde curls up into a ponytail as she returns again to the room where the baby is sleeping. She misses a strand just off the centre from the nape of her neck, and he wants to curl it around his fingers, kiss her neck where it had lain, before tucking it into the messy gathering of her hair and smoothing his hands down her shoulders.
He wants, he wishes, he aches; but he knows that it’s his fault that he can’t. He knows it’s too late to wonder what would have happened if he’d stopped buying them drinks, if he’d stayed the night afterwards, if he’d taken the chance to listen to what he’d tried to ignore, if he’d been unafraid of what it had all meant - because who could be afraid of love?
(She watches him because she knows that Mark will never be able to return from that alcoholic night, from the roadside, from the heavens. Chelsie watches him so that wherever Mark may be, he can see their beautiful baby boy, happy and healthy and whole.)
He watches her, and it is quiet in the house. She sits by the crib and watches as he sleeps, his tiny fingers curled around one of her own.