scorpiobird | You keep me breathing 'cause you're the storm that I believe in [Sean Kendrick 08/09/16]

Corr is standing on the outside of the stall I have been retrofitting for almost two weeks. Though the stables here in Darrow do not face the sea, I have secured him one that is nearest to them, and it does alright for him, as long as I bring him to the sea every other day. The grooms at Villa Cordova are nervous of him; it is a good thing, I think. They ought to be. But at least his stall was built for a draught horse, and so is sturdy and strong.

I look up from mucking out his stall when he shuffles and moves, expecting, reacting to someone calling to him. A handful of the grooms and other riders know him now, even only after two weeks. But they only speak about him when they're speaking to me. The sharp call brings my attention. I peer around the edge of the stall, hand still on the rake and shovel.

I would know that red hair anywhere, after first seeing her on the beach.

"Puck..."

Where Corr is, so is Sean Kendrick and I hear him call my name in a clear, certain voice. The voice of someone unhurt. In my haste to get to him, I catch on the stall door that I haven't opened wide enough. Extracting myself nearly sends me tumbling but I don't care.

The last glance I had of Sean Kendrick before Darrow was glassy red sea and a prone form but here he's standing and whole, all corners and scant words and I don't care if I'm being hysterical. I rush at him and throw my arms around him, not giving a whit about the rake and shovel or their designated task.

I tell myself I won't cry but my eyes are being contrary. "You're all right," I say, and then I say it a few more times to make it real.

Puck is already nearly to me before I can do anything about the rake and shovel, but I manage to get them out of my hands before her arms are around me. There is no hesitation before my arms are around her as well, holding her close to me. Not only because she is a piece of Thisby, reed-like like her fine island pony, but because she is Puck.

When I pull back from the embrace, I look at her slowly, carefully, as if it will confirm she's here even more than touching her had. She is real as riding on the cliffs, real as Thisby's perpetual drizzle, real as the Mare Goddess telling me to make another wish.

Here we both are.

I lean down and touch my lips to her, as she did to mine before the race. For luck, she said.

This is the most real I've felt in three days. I'm surrounded by the warmth of horses, the scent of hay, and Sean Kendrick's mouth on mine. I squeeze my eyes shut and keep close, holding on until I believe it. "You're here. You're all right. You're–"

And then I remember and I pull away just enough that I can look at Corr. My eyes trace over his back and rump, nervously looking down until I see both of his hind legs solidly on the ground. I'm hit with the fresh impulse to cry before I turn back to Sean. "You're both all right."

He's here. Corr's here. Dove and I are here.

"Their stalls are near each other."

There is something in me that wants to linger, to cherish this as long as possible, as if it might be taken from me again. Puck seems to feel the same way in the way she stays so close. Finally, I think, Darrow feels a little more real. A little more like Thisby.

It's not the way I wanted to feel like a place was home.

While she looks at Corr, as if she expects to see something amiss, I look at her. She has a scattering of half-healed cuts and bruises, and they paint a picture of surviving the races that I did not see this year, for arriving her. Her words paint the picture that I did. What a curious thing.

"Near enough, yes. I made sure he wasn't too near the other horses. I still don't know--the ocean here, Puck, it's--" I shake my head a bit. Then, softly, I say, "The race started, and then I was here. You made it through the race."

"We won, Dove and I." It's the first time I've said it out loud to anyone, to any of the strangers I've met over the last few days. "And you..."

How can I say it when Corr is standing there in front of me, gloriously whole and unharmed? He's a brave thing, the only capall I might come to trust. The sight of him at the end of the race, bent low over Sean, is burned into my memory with the heat of tears. "And you got tangled up with Mutt Malvern and that wretched piebald."

Sensing my mood, Dove pokes her head through the bars of her stall and cranes forward, trying to lip at my hair but not quite reaching.

"But you're safe."

"Puck," I say, and the sound of her name, the weight of it in my mouth is full of so much, full of pride and honor. She got her prize, her purse, to be queen of Skarmouth on the back of her island pony. And here, no one can touch us.

To hear that Mutt came for me in the race, as she saw it, doesn't surprise me in the least. He's had his head off for me for years, and this year was the worst of it. That piebald was no help. There is a part of him, dark and bitter, that hopes she was the death of him. I hate that ugly black of me.

While Dove cannot reach, I can, to comfort Puck. I lift my hands and touch her hair, cup her head gently between my palms, and lean down to her. I feel a smile tugging my lips. "Seems our luck was good for each other, even if it took us from Thisby."

In this moment, I understand how Sean can get by on so few words. I don't think the sound of my name has ever carried so much weight as this, as Sean Kendrick cupping his hands around my face and looking me in the eye. In the sound of my name, I know that we are still King and Queen of Skarmouth and that he owns Corr and I've paid for the house and he will still bring me bread for dinner.

"Malvern can't take anything for us now." Neither father nor son can touch us in this place and for that, I am perhaps a little grateful to be here.

But so long as there are horses running, Sean Kendrick is my luck.

"Where do you live now?" Where can I find him? Where can I keep from losing him?

"Ocean View," I say, and sigh a laugh of irony at the name, as Eowyn, who works and boards her horse here at the yard, had when I looked in the packet with her there to help me. "It doesn't view on the ocean at all."

I can't bring myself to pull my hands away from her. Corr peers at us over his shoulder and, after a moment, tosses his head like we are completely exasperating. Maybe we are to him. It makes me laugh a little.

"Where are you then?"

"High Gate Terrace." Its advantage is that it's nearer to the countryside than his place, which suits me fine. My parents fished the seas but their deaths taught me to respect some distance between myself and the water. Even if it isn't the same sea, even if it isn't the summer, I'd rather be further inland. For Sean, there is no advantage in either place. Too far from Corr and too far from the sea.

"You ought to stay with me. It's quicker to see Corr that way." And there it is, just the way I asked him to join me for dinner without thinking, I've asked him into my makeshift lodgings.

We are already King and Queen of Skarmouth but that doesn't account for the odd surety I feel.

My basic knowledge of how Darrow is laid out, from looking at the map a time or two, does not provide much on the location of this complex. Puck's reductive statement, simple and clean like inviting me to dinner, feels real and tangible, and for a moment that is all that matters.

"I would like to stay with you, Puck." I run my fingers over her hair and down her jaw gently. "If you've got the space for it."

And just like that, it's done. It's decided. Sean Kendrick will stay with me the way Dove and Corr are now boarded together in the same stable. He touches my hair and I wonder if he's tying knots in threes and sevens to root me back to earth, to make all of this feel true and real.

"I've got two bedrooms. More than enough." Two bedrooms and space for him to join me in one of them, if we want it.

The very prospect of a flat that large is boggling. I was stunned at the size of my own--just one bedroom, but it was a proper bedroom, and a proper bathroom, and kitchen open to the sitting room, and all of those were separate things. No more rolling from the bed to the stove in the morning. No more sitting on cans of tinned meat while I shave. Two bedrooms sounds palatial.

I can't help but smile a little. Something in me longs to kiss her again, but I keep myself from it, just yet. "I suppose I ought to find a good bakery. Nothing's quite as good as Palssons."

"I'll keep track of the days until you find one."

I'd planned to linger here, cosseting and feeding Dove as a means of avoiding going to that flat. It's too big for one person when I'm used to being one of three Connollys and one of five before that. To be the only Connolly in Darrow is a lonely thing.

Seeing Sean makes me a little more eager to try and make that place my home. I tip my head up but it feels like there's miles between us that makes it difficult to kiss him in such a state.

"I'll make supper tonight, at least."

"Beans?" I tease gently and amiably. The light in the stables, coming in from outside, makes her hair all fire, makes my heart all fire. I feel as if I could run for ages, with all the speed of any of the fastest capaill uisce, just fueled by her smile. "Or chicken?"

There are duties left to do here at the stables, though. Not only with Corr and his half-mucked stall, but with some of the other horses. There are plenty of grooms here, probably more than a stable this size needs, but I am still working to make myself as invaluable as I can. What else can I do?

So, reluctantly, I pull back from Puck. "I have some things to finish. But I will be there." It's not like on Thisby, where pulling myself away from the Yards was a task itself. When the duties are done here, they are done. "For supper."

"Who knows, it might even be chicken and beans," I say, lifting my brows and trying to look as light and carefree as any flirting island girl. I don't imagine that it looks right on me, which probably just makes it funnier.

The truth is, I have bread in my kitchen that's not as good as Palsson's and sliced, plastic wrapped thing that claims to be pork. I'd been as curious as I'd been mystified when I saw it and thrown it in with the other assortment of novelties and recognizable foods. There's quite a bit I don't imagine wanting again.

Sean pulls away from me and I try not to sigh. I can see beyond him that Corr still needs tending, that he's not fobbing me off and it's just as well. I imagine there'll be a little trial and error in the dinner I make.

It was an unfortunately easy place for us to part. I had tasks to finish in the stable, and Puck had tasks of her own, and we drifted apart as we had come together. But it was like Thisby, this time. We knew each other's space, obliquely.

It wasn't until I was leaving the stables a few hours later that I realized I had neglected to ask Puck her flat number. So, upon entering High Gate Terrace, I spent an undue time checking the post boxes before I found her name, and then heading up to her.

I knock at her door gently, all wrapping knuckles, and am aware that I should have gone back to my own flat at Ocean View to shower and change from the smell of horses and Corr. It's too late now.

Sean arrives and it's sort of wonderfully familiar. There's no loaf of bread under his arm but he's rumpled and smells like horses and maybe he's a little messy but that's Sean. We can both trace the webs on our hands for the dirt that's permanently there.

His delayed arrival has also saved him from hearing all my various unkind words for the stove. It's troublingly familiar but also more advanced than the range we'd had at home and I'd known in all of its temper. By the time he gets here, I'm a little more poised and there's pork with potatoes and apples on the stove, stewing away.

"You found me all right," I say, as oddly relieved and touched as I'd been the first time he came for dinner.

"A little more difficult than home," I confess, and relay that I had to find her by postbox as I step into her flat. It smells marvelous. My own meals have been small and free, things fished and plucked from the sea with my own skills, because my limited income needs to be used toward feeding and housing Corr. I know I can't eat like that forever, but urchins and mussels and crabs will do for now.

I wrangle myself out of coat and boots, keeping it all by the door. It's easier to move around in sock feet. And, not so surprisingly, easy to catch Puck's hand and lean down to kiss her gently.

He's right, of course. There's no Connolly House here and even on Thisby, I think its significance was only to me. For everyone else, it had been a house that happened to have a ragged trio of orphans who also happened to be Connollys. I wonder what Sean called it in his head and then put the thought aside for a kiss.

"Oh just invite yourself in, won't you?" I say, hoping it sounds sweet rather than actually annoyed. I think I've misfired because I've never once been sweet in my life and why should that change today?

"Shall I go back out and come in again?" I ask, arching an eyebrow at her, a bit curious at her testiness, whether it's real or fabricated, her resting heartrate of irritation that so often reminds me of one of Malvern's prim horses, but in the best possible ways; that so often reminds me of Thisby in only wonderful ways.

Instead, I tilt her chin gently and rest my forehead against her, silent to ask for another kiss with how close we stand. I can smell the food, but it doesn't seem ready just yet. And it seems a wondrous magic that I never even knew on Thisby that Puck is here.

"And let the draft in? No thank you, Mr. Kendrick." I'm smiling now, though I think he must feel it more than he can see it we're so close. There's no draft in this late summer night and he's more than welcome to be here, to kiss me again.

The height difference between us is abominable and I have to raise up on the tips of my toes to kiss him properly. I shift in his hold, asking him to keep me up with his arm.

"Oh, now, we wouldn't want to let the draft in," I say, lips all tipped up in a rare smile now, because the Connolly's little home had seemed abundantly warm and wholesome, the one time I was inside. Comparing it to my tiny flat over the stables had reminded me of everything I lost when my father died. But Puck? Puck is a glorious Queen of Skarmouth now. Even if Skarmouth is very far away.

With Puck leaning up and me leaning down, we can kiss, and that is easy and simple. I can't help but be swept up in it, in the warmth and nearness of her.

I'm seized with the sudden impulse to say hang dinner. I'll push Sean into my shower and then curl up against him when he's warm and dry. I think it's among the most silly, fanciful things I've ever thought, especially in a long life of being eminently sensible.

I keep kissing him and my knees actually go weak, like I'm some kind of damsel. Sean could scoop me up right now and run away with me if he liked.

When she sags in my arms a bit, I break the kiss with a curious sort of expression, though I never loosen my grip that I have around her ribs. There haven't been many other girls in my history that I've shared kisses with, and her closeness, her soft breathing and clean smell and narrow frame, it all reminds me that I'm a bit out of my element.

I offer her the tiniest of smiles, uncertain but enthused. Her cheeks are softly pink, and I wonder if mine are also a little flush. I find I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they were.

It's not quite the same as that time we'd sat on the beach and I'd whispered in his ear, conjured up a future. When I'd said those things, I'd felt a glimmer of Thisby's magic, real or imagined, and thought I might make it true.

We are not king and queen of Skarmouth and there's not a loaf of bread to be seen, but Sean Kendrick his here and he's holding me solidly in his arms. That's a start.

"I've only got what was here when I arrived, by way of plates. I hope that's all right." It's such a silly thing to ask, but it feels like I ought to with the scent of food still in the air.

"More than me," I say a bit curiously, impressed that her building provided her with so much. My little apartment seemed to have been cleaned out, or perhaps never stocked. There had been linens, but not much else. It was a good thing I didn't need much.

Even with the smell of meat and vegetables becoming stew, I can't quite pull myself away. I cup Puck's cheek and hold her very close to me, like she will anchor me to the earth or the ocean or both.

"I'm glad you're here," I say, and feel very selfish for it. But I haven't been allowed a lot of selfishness. "I'm glad you're alright."

There's a lot to worry over–Gabe, Finn, the house, the fate of George Holly and Annie. It's enough that I shouldn't be glad to be here or so glad that he's pleased I'm here too but my mind keeps revisiting the last sight of Sean I had on Thisby. He's whole and looks happy and Corr, at last, is his.

"We'll be all right," I say and I believe it. We're both used to managing.

I put my arms around his waist and hold myself close to him. He smells of sweat and horse and I don't care because it's Sean.

With Puck so close, I feel like I could close my eyes and just live in this one single moment. Her here, Dove and Corr at the stable, this flat that smells of good, cooking things. She is warm, and real, and wants to be in my arms. I want to be in hers. This, more than anything I realize, is maybe what I have secretly been dreaming for all these years. Not just a roof over my head and peace and Corr, but Puck Connolly.

It hurts, a little, that it has to be in this place. But nothing is without a little bit of misery, even when it is at its best.

"I should try and wash up a bit better, if we're going to eat any time soon."

It's true, though I'm reluctant to let him go anyway. I have to, lest I want a repeat of the boiled over dumplings. And he really ought to wash up at least a little.

"There's soap and towels in the bathroom and the water stays hot a long time, if you want to do a proper washing." Even though I've just suggested it, I'm suddenly embarrassed at my boldness and at the thought that he might take me up on it. And then Sean Kendrick will be starkers in my bathroom and I'm not sure I know how to cope with that.

"Won't make much of a difference, with filthy clothes," I say with a smile that says more about the issue I see with being clean but putting on filthy clothes than I see with being stripped off in Puck Connolly's bathroom.

"Should have thought to grab a change of shirts, at least." This only makes me shrug a bit. There's nothing for it.

I press a kiss to her temple this time. "I'll be right back, then."

"You should have brought a clean set. Next time, leave some here, perhaps?" It's a pretty scandalous suggestion. I can picture half of Skarmouth's matrons aflutter at a man keeping extra clothes, and presumably being naked while he puts them on, at the home of an unmarried woman.

It's terrible of me but that only heightens the appeal.

"The food can simmer, so don't rush on that account."

The prospect of it warms me in a way that I'm mostly unfamiliar with. Puck's cheeks are pink as well, so I think, she must be thinking of the same thing I am - that we are young and unmarried and this is a scandal, in some ways.

Boldly, as I turn to look toward the little hall to the bedrooms and presumably the bathroom, I say, "If the food has to simmer, I suppose I'd rather wash up proper then."

"Take your time. I'll run your clothes down to the laundry downstairs," I say. It's both for his sake and mine now, because I need to drink some cold water before my thoughts merit a trip to the confessional.

I like to think I'm not so old fashioned as all that but I've never been courted before, at least not that in a way that I'd bother to pay attention. But Sean Kendrick and I are more than courted and I don't think anyone in Darrow would see anything wrong with this, which adds to the temptation.

I stand by the door and wait for him to get in the bath, ready to fold them into a towel and hurry down.

Edited 2016-09-11 05:25 (UTC)

I make every effort to be discrete with how much the idea thrills me, but I'm sure I'm quite flushed, to think of being naked and bathing in Puck Connolly's apartment. Still, she's gracious enough to offer, and I'm more than gracious to accept. I strip off in the bathroom and then, cracking the door only a little, pass her my clothes.

I murmur no thanks, though I hope she knows I think it, and then it's the task of figuring out the shower. Hers is a bit different than mine. And looks significantly less likely to spit rusty water at me than the pipes in the bath for the grooms at Malvern's Yard.

I try not to look and, in truth, he passes me his clothing through a gap that's barely the size of a space between confessional booths so there's not much to see but the knowledge remains. Sean Kendrick is undressed and the clothes I hold in my arms smell like blood and salt and horse, yes, but they're also still warm from his skin.

I make myself take the stairs down to the basement all the way to the sixth floor, just to wear out some of the nervous energy that it puts in me and then I make myself wait downstairs while the laundry cycles. It doesn't take long, which I suppose is what 'high efficiency' means and they're spun so thoroughly it won't take much to dry either. Either way, Sean probably is stuck upstairs, waiting.

The shower is brisk and swift, though I know I don't have to worry about the water. Puck's soap smells clean and fresh, though not overwhelming, and I scrub off the smells of the way and even wash my hair quickly. When I'm done, I contemplate what to do, how to act. Here I am, alone and stripped off, in a young woman's apartment; something that's never happened before, something I never really contemplated happening.

In the end, I dry off until the heat-pink turns to friction-pink, then wrap the towel I've just used around my person to conceal some modesty. This is how I leave the bathroom, to the smell of food still cooking, and gently call, "Puck? Are you back in?"

In the last week, I'd marveled at how quickly the machines did the laundry but tonight I'm terribly aware that the time to wash and dry Sean's clothing far outlasts even the most luxurious shower–something I doubt Sean has taken. By the time I make it upstairs, he looks mostly dry and his skin is pink from heat.

I'm struck again by the fact that it never occurred to me that broken ribs leave a scar after they heal. He has other marks and bruises yet but my eyes go to the bruises. And then to the rest of his bare chest.

I'm staring and I realize it with a terrible blush. I can't say a word, I'm so embarrassed, and I just hold out his clothes.

For a few minutes, I am alone in Puck's apartment, wearing nothing but a towel. Then, when she finally returns with the washing, there is a moment where we just stare at each other before it seems to dawn on both of us: here I stand, wearing only a towel, in Puck Connelly's apartment.

I murmur a thanks as she hands off my clothing, and then I return to the bedroom to quickly put my clothing back on before I am indecent too long. I didn't think I would be so flustered by something like this, but here I am, hiding as I try to compose myself once more.

For a second after he goes into the room to change, I can only stand there and think Sean Kendrick in a towel like some lovestruck idiot. Admittedly, I am lovestruck but I'm not an idiot and I force myself to turn away and put food in bowls and put them on the table to keep my hands busy.

It occurs to me now that I've invited Sean Kendrick to live with me and I've made a terrible mistake because if he's here all the time, I'll never do anything but stand here.

When I return from the bedroom, I'm still a bit flush from our encounter and feeling a bit reckless and indecent. The reckless part I am used to. It is a cousin, this feeling, to the feeling of riding Corr on the cliffs overlooking the sea, of letting his magic sink into me just for a few moments so we can both listen to the lure of the ocean. The indecent part is new. It is not that Puck makes me feel indecent; the contrary, in fact. I feel much too decent, when she looks at me the way she just was.

But when I step out, Puck has set the table in the moments I was gone. I have to put away indecently decent feelings Puck has set burning, because my stomach rumbles mightily.

"Smells good," I tell her, and am ashamed when my voice creaks a little bit.

He sounds nervous, even more nervous than when he came to our house the first time, surrounded by my brothers and Tommy Falk and a chicken. I wonder if he can tell that my own nerves are singing. They brightly remind me that nothing is really stopping me from kissing him until I can't breathe except my own propriety.

The thought makes me a little dizzy, so I pour a cup of water for us both.

"I'm not the cook my mum was, but we won't starve and I haven't scorched any dumplings this time."

"You could be feeding me poison, and I'd merrily eat it, Puck Connolly," I proclaim, because this feels true. I would prefer she not feed me poison, though.

Before I sit at the table, I catch her again and give her a kiss. Now that I'm clean--as clean as I can possibly get, through the graces of decent soap and the hottest water I could stand--it doesn't feel quite so imposing to kiss her. I don't smell of uisce, after all. Just her soap. The idea of wearing any bit of her scent thrills in me a touch.

"You haven't tasted it yet," I shoot back, jabbing a finger in the air at him. "For all I know, it's so wretched you'd wish for poison."

He kisses me and he smells damp and clean. My soap isn't heavily scented but I can smell it on him this close and I forget the dinner for a moment, wrapping my arms around him and holding on tightly.

I've never worried much about kissing. The times it had happened had been pleasant enough but they're nothing like kissing Sean. I could drown in this and not mind.

For a while, it was just this: the two of us standing unconscionably close together, the kiss going on into forever, Puck's arms around me and my arms around her. It is, perhaps, one of the most pleasant, thrilling feelings of my life to date. In that moment, there was nothing to want more than her mouth against mine, and the soft noise of our breathing.

Eventually, we have to pull apart. I do it reluctantly, but look at the food. I don't wish it to go cold while we're standing about being smitten.

"I have tasted your cooking before, though," I point out, and steer us to her table. "So unless you've somehow managed to make stew worse than the canned meat I've been eating for years, I can't imagine it will be wretched."

If this were Tommy Falk or one of my brothers trying to herd me to a table, I'd have made a lot of trouble for them presuming they could guide me around to someplace I was already headed. Sean's arm around me is gentle and, more than that, I want his arm to stay around me a long time.

"I've eaten my share of the tinned stuff," I say, though it was never gladly. Mum gave it to us sometimes when she or Dad were going out to the boat and then we'd eaten through the lot after they died.

"There'll be no tinned meat if I have my say. Not here."

The prospect of it, that there will be no tinned meat or beans if we can help it, that we can buy oranges and good cuts of meat for ourselves and coffee if we want, is something like euphoria for a moment. I don't know what to do with myself, really, at the thought of it. Every penny I've saved has been toward Corr; now, I have him, I have Puck, and we have this whole place.

It isn't Thisby--the Connolly house or my father's old home--but it feels perfect in that moment.

You keep me breathing 'cause you're the storm that I believe in [Sean Kendrick 08/09/16]

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