Lilith's WPs

WP for the theme: Secrets.

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(In a journal kept on Lana's desk:)

My secret is a simple thing. A little joy. A thing that I can never share because it will scare you; because it's a thing that I don't think I should ever tell you.

Sometimes I open your door at night, just a little. I wait by the door to hear you breathe, that light little noise of your breath passing through your lips. I can make out the trace of your face by the moonlight, the fall of Lady Luna's light on your form.

When you're sleeping, you're heavenly to behold. You look so peaceful. You even smile every once in a while. I always wonder what it is you're dreaming about. I always hope that you're dreaming of me and that's why you smile, because the girl who loves you more than anything is in your dreams and you're dancing with her, that you're making me as happy as you do when you're awake. And…

I always wish that I could gather the courage to step inside your room, to creak the floorboard a little too loudly so you stir a little. I always imagine you'd sleepily call out my name, and I'd respond that it's me, and that I had a bad dream. Maybe it won't even be a lie, because I dream sometimes of awful things happening to me–like you walking away from me, like you telling me you don't love me. Or maybe I'll tell you I was just coming in to check on you. In a way, it's what I'm doing when I slink into your room.

And in this little imagined dream of mine, I always get the courage to ask if I can join you. And you smile that adorable sleepy smile of yours and say, "Of course, love, come into my bed." And you hold your arms wide for me, and I…

I don't always have my mind made up on what comes next. Most of the time, I crawl into bed with you. It's the first time we would be so close in a bed together, underneath the sheets. I look into your half-tired silver eyes, so beautiful like Lady Luna's light, and–

Sometimes I imagine you kiss me sleepily. That you give me a chaste good night and that you hold me to your chest and fall asleep. Sometimes that's enough.

Sometimes I imagine you asking me about my bad dream. I tell you about my bad dream and you assure me you'd never turn away, and of course you would never tell me that you don't love me. Because it would be a lie, and you wouldn't lie to me. You pet my hair like I'm your favorite pet the whole time, telling me such soft and kind words, and I feel so loved. You hug me. You kiss me goodnight. You chase the tears that fall from my eyes away and you hold me to your chest as we fall asleep. Sometimes that's enough.

Sometimes I imagine you telling me that you had a dream. A good dream. One where we were together and you realized that… you're ready. Ready for something new. Something big. Because I'm your soulmate (I always cry when I think of your voice saying those words) and that you know we were meant to meet each other for a reason. You suggest we start looking for wedding rings in Savior. That we start a virtual family there. It'll be practice for the real thing. Of course I always am overjoyed and I accept. You hold me and we stay up for hours talking about our shared joys for the future. How you think I'd make a beautiful bride. How one day we could have a family. How we could be so unspeakably happy together now that we are two soulmates who have found and want each other so completely. And eventually we fall asleep in each other's arms, so many kisses on each other's lips.

Sometimes that's enough.

But sometimes I look at your sleeping self and I wonder what it would be like for those imagined situations to become… more heated. For your kind words and your warm gaze to become hot and wanting things that yearn for me like I yearn for you, quietly, alone in my room, expressed only in my own thoughts and now in this pen. For you to show me the way forward to another depth of our relationship. For you to show me what it's like to… be with another. To be with you in the way I only want with you. I keep it quiet and hidden so I don't scare you.

Sometimes I imagine that chaste kiss becomes something more. That you can't hide your true self from me. That you have feelings like mine and we kiss, more and more, more urgently. And… the rest that follows is so urgent. Because you can't wait any longer, and neither can I, now that you've given me a sign of your interest.

Sometimes I imagine your comforting me from my bad dream turns warm and heated. Those kisses, that embrace, they become more wanting, desiring things. You banish all the dark thoughts in my head of you leaving with your heat, your presence.

Sometimes I imagine that your good dream tells you you're ready to take the next step: not marriage in Savior, but something else. Something that's almost sacred in all of the books I've ever read about the embrace of true love. You kiss me over and over again, take me into your embrace, and we fall into each other. You teach me and I teach you, learning the other. I yearn for it. I yearn for you.

But I try not to linger on those sinful versions of my fantasies. Not while I'm in the room with you. Not while my eyes are caught on your dreaming face, not while I spy the little curve of your lips.

You told me on that one night in Savior over dinner that you want me to kiss you–not long before I confessed one of my truest of feelings, not long before you promised you would love me so long as I would have you. And yet, while I have kissed you since then, while I have felt the warmth of your lips against mine, I… I can never bring myself to step closer to you when you sleep. I can never bring myself to the thought I have every night that is more powerful than all of these fantasies, spurred on by your little dreaming smile.

I want to kiss you. To give you a gentle little kiss. To tell you I love you just like when you fell asleep on the phone with me. And to hear you murmur it back.

Because I may yearn for you, want you, love you, in all the ways that a lover spins her desire into the cloth of imagination as she's frenzied on the possibility of ecstasy: but I can never picture myself fully as someone who deserves you like that. Not yet. Not yet. I can content myself with a kiss and an 'I love you' and then to slip away back into the dark, to close the door behind me, and then to shed all of my tears of joy and then fall asleep with the crack of dawn, my head racing from the excitement just like every time I receive a sign of your love.

Because… How can I dream when your love is my dream? How can I sleep in my own bed knowing that my promised one who loves me is in my house, a dream come true in every single way?

I want you in all the ways, shameful and secret even though some are innocent and others are sinful. I can never tell you. I can never show you. You'd be frightened. You'd run away back to Russia and I'd be alone for the rest of the life that I have left until I… until it's over.

In reality, we are still newly-minted chaste lovers. But in my flights of wakeful dreaming, you have made me yours, your lover, your fiancée, your bride-to-be, your intended wife and mother of our children to come, so many times over, so many lifetimes over. It is so hard to stop myself.

Because all of those fancies, all of those beautiful lies I tell myself: I want them to one day be truth. I want them to be real.

Like your love for me is real.

It will take time for you to be ready; it will take me showing that I am worthy of your choosing, worthy of your love. Until then, it remains my secret, kept by me and kept by the moon, how much I truly love you, adore you, want you, need you. Until then, Zalgiman Jokai, I, Lana Branfeax, must hide the true depths of my love for you. I must hide my moonlight visits. I must hide my waking dreams.

Until my promised one feels the same. Until my promised one deems me worthy.