fic: after us the deluge. [his dark materials] (original) (raw)
after us the deluge
his dark materials. r. 1300 words. for 
petitesmorts. the city would spin reckless in those days and london is smoky when he cuts it for her, just a slice of it against the curve of her mouth.
Responsibilty, Asriel?
Spits it through the painted skin of her mouth and his name hits hard like a curse.
His hands rest on the table between them, small, insufficient barrier.
(Not that he needs one, he allows, carelessly. He’s always been able to handle Marisa.)
Slight nod and she laughs, the sound of it is bitter, rich.
I don’t trust you.
It sounds like a promise, of course. But then most things do when they come from her and his mouth curls at the edges.
Fingers click in the air, sharp call for coffee and the boy scurries forward, tripping over his feet. Are quite finished with that, dear? and her lips grow tight, his hand passing over hers. (Light against the ring finger. He never thinks.)
He leaves with a brush, his lips against her cheek and the lady will pay her own way.
-
Their first meeting went like this-
He drank port and she drank water and her husband was poorly and absent. The room glittered, heavy wine, music. The city would spin reckless in those days and London is smoky when he cuts it for her, just a slice of it against the curve of her mouth.
(Sometimes, she longs for it- the time, of course. The wine and not him.)
She was a little younger, then- a little softer. (Half of her edges now are his. Not that she’ll ever admit it.) He wore his pride well, a little snug around the shoulders and exquisite cut and her fingers curled around her necklace when they spoke.
It was never about the words.
When she left, he watched her and she knew and arrogance. That’s the blade they share, swift cut over the shape of her shoulder.
-
Making a habit of this, Asriel? Seducing married women?
His mouth turns.
I wouldn’t call it that. and her scoff musical in it’s timing, chiming into the end of his words.
Her furs spread out beneath them and her teeth sink into the crook of his neck, hard and she is never jealous.
Never.
Her heels click on the floor, swish of silk and bear against the marble.
Liar.
-
Come with me.
I can’t. Please don’t ask me.
He doesn’t of course. Tries her name on the slope of his tongue, last attempt at intimacy.
Marisa.
She closes her eyes, turns away just little. There are pearls, tonight, curved around her neck. Edward’s pearls. They feel tight, cold.
He brought them back from Paris, went there for a weekend last year. Marisa did not accompany him.
(He was in town that week, he had lodgings in London and Marisa lay two nights tangled in him and her furs. They did not need to light a fire.)
She closes her eyes. He closes his heart.
-
The chit has his hair, his chin.
At night, while she sleeps, Marisa stands in the doorway and looks for herself in the child’s dark lashes.
Lyra is restless as she sleeps, moves and turns and her legs thrash and her body twists.
Asriel was made of stone as he slept, ever the statue. Ever locked heart. She remembers tracing sonnets and things into the skin taut across his chest and his breath had hitched. Still, he slept.
There is a sigh, a snore from the pile of blankets and she turns out in to the hallway.
There is nothing of her in the child.
-
Years later, she smokes cigarettes in his bed.
You are not a ghost he tells her and she shivers, all pale skin and silk.
The window faces north and she stares out of it, blank eyes like a china doll. Closes her eyes and imagines the child is safe, asleep in the next room.
Imagines Asriel’s bed is her own.
He turns over, the sheets following the curve of his body and the cold night air brushes past. Her smile is brittle, one arm folded across her chest.
It’s been a long time since she’s dreamt.
-
They had plans once.
Take it all, take the world. Take everything. Do everything, his mouth against the curl of her neck and the taste of revolution running fast in their veins.
She leaves it with him when she walks away, cold blood under the tailored cotton of her dress. Goes to meetings now, with men that came to the funeral, bent their head over Edward’s grave. She was clever, once. At ten and twelve and thirteen, before she let her skirts down and hair up.
After dusk now, she burns the midnight oil and coats her elbows with chamomile because this skin there is rough from resting against the dust of a thousand turned pages. And the in morning, she paints twice under her eyes to keep the shadows at bay.
(If you look closely, they hide in her irises, instead, flying there from the flesh beneath. No one looks closely though. With a mouth like that, you don’t make it to the eyes.)
He becomes the revolution. She becomes the fortress that he fights, the rocks against his waves.
-
Here is the truth-
(Or at least one tale of it.)
She does not know why she wants the child (still).
She is not a sentimental woman, never one for keeping letters under her pillow and other marks left by other lovers have been burned and buried and the girl, herself is nothing special. Wild, unruly. A terror at best and merely common at worst.
(The child is not him. The child has nothing to do with him.)
-
And maybe, it’s about second chances.
Lyra treks dirt into the drawing room, mud smeared at the end of her skirt and where that girl found a field in the middle of London, Marisa will never know.
(It makes her think of the dark brown patches his boots left on her carpet and the scowl that met her frown. There was a taste of domesticity when he kissed her, then and it faded as quickly as it came.)
Lyra. Her voice is soft. This no way for a lady to behave.
The stains wash quickly. She does not expect this.
-
Once, she met the witch.
(We will not say when, how. Once. That is enough, for now.)
The lines already drawn, the ammo piled. She’s on one side of it, slight smirk and one hand tucked into her skirts and he’s on the other. The other with the witch.
There is a mark on the woman’s neck, dark and daunting.
(Lie about your lovers. I care nothing.)
The glass trembles in the hold of her palm, cracks till there is blood there. Later, she will chide herself for her weakness and not for her strength.
-
Keep the child safe.
Sometimes, she wonders how they made her. How their limbs and bodies and the heady collision could possibly create such a creature.
Lyra was made to save the worlds, all the worlds. Sometimes, she wonders if the pull between her and Asriel was just destiny.
(Except that they kept coming back, kept turning, even after the girl was made and it was all over and done. Even then they burned.)
She is no one’s pawn. Not even the gods and Asriel with his iron clad pride is even less so.
If they die, they do so knowingly. Walk the steps, make their plans and it this the kind of sacrifice that neither of them should be capable of. And the intention is this.
Save the child. Save each other.
He’s never held her quite so tenderly as he does when they fall and his lips kiss away the anguish at the corner of her mouth.
(I’m not frightened. His name sits oddly on her tongue so she doesn’t say it. Too much. Too final.)
They die the way they were meant to have lived.
Together.