Work Text:
Klaus talks in touches.
Vanya hears the small tremors in his hands when they brush against her knuckles; she passes him the tea and the pale, early light falls on his wrist, bright speckles of morning on tanned skin.
She reads it on his mouth, reads clenched teeth, reads the strain written on the furrows on his brow. She hears it in the drum of nails against tarnished wood, in the beats against chipped ceramic and the saltshaker, hears it in the shudders of wood with each bounce of his knee, and braces herself.
Klaus tries his tea, scalds his tongue, spits a ‘Jesus fuck’ against his hand, and Vanya leans across the table, catches his wrist and steadies his hand, steadies the tea that might have spattered across his chest.
The quivers wane; Klaus raises his eyes, allows her to see his quiet remorse, touches her with a gratitude too tender for words.
‘Fuck me sideways,’ he heaves, and Vanya runs her thumb over his wrist.
It’s eight thirty-six. Her bus departs at eight-fifty.
‘Do you want me to stay today?’ she asks.
He shakes his head; she can hear his curls shake around his ears as she stares at his tea. Sage, lavender and St. John’s wort. He prefers matcha, she knows, but that is a luxury they seldom can afford. She buys him sage and lavender, he buys cedar incense and cards and little knock-off crystals.
‘I’ll be back at five,’ she tells him.
She takes her coat; the skies promise rain. In the doorway, she turns, listens to the percussions against the ceramic again, to the restless knee under the table.
‘Shall I lock?’ she asks.
He nods.
She closes the door and turns the key; there is no lock to turn, no way to open the door from within.
‘Take care of him,’ she tells the empty corridor, and walks down the stairs with a gentle imprint of a not-there hand on her shoulder.
She blames a migraine, excuses herself, takes an earlier bus home. Crosses the doorstep at four forty-five. The kitchen smells of ashtrays and cabbage and burnt dough; she finds the oven lathered in batter and the window wide open. In the bathroom, there’s an opened can of peaches on the toilet lid.
Klaus sprawls across the sofa, chin tucked against his chest, one knee hooked over the armrest. He’s a noodle on the best of days, long but malleable, an awkward fit in most of their mismatched chairs. He’s knocked the left shower wall loose with his elbow.
Vanya leans against the sofa, peers down. Klaus talks in touches; she sees scratches on his his forearms, red abrasions on his wrists.
That bad, huh? she does not ask. His breath quivers as she smooths her thumb over abraded skin, gentles the welts and wishes, wishes, wishes to see them soften and fade under her touch.
‘Chinese?’ she asks.
He meets her eyes, hopeful. Almost young.
It passes.
‘General Tso’s,’ she assures. ‘I’ll order it, but then I have to practice. I left early.’
‘You came early,’ he says. Caresses his gratitude into her knuckles.
‘Headache,’ she smiles. They live in a world of the unsaid and unspoken, the never-voiced; Klaus talks in touches, Vanya reads vibrations. Thumb on his wrist, she soaks up his pulse and bites the inside of her cheek at the sweet pain of it, at the warmth and quiet pledges in his blood.
‘Van-Van,’ he says, and Vanya knows what it means, and breathes the same unspoken words when her mouth touches the back of his hand.
She leaves him on the sofa. In the foyer, she picks up the receiver and orders Chinese.
When she returns, violin case in hand, Klaus is seated, back-to-armrest, knees drawn to his chest. He is a quiet audience.
As long as she can remember — ever since she found the ghost-eyed Four knees-to-chest by the door of her childhood bedroom — he has been a quiet audience.
She forfeits the sheets, abandons rehearsed compositions, carries her bow over the strings as a gentle breeze flits across water. Listens.
Klaus is a moth’s frayed wings, a green pond, a small, lone lantern in the endless, shadowed halls where no light ever shines. She breathes her calm into her bow, allows it to steer her hand as she wills, drifts on the consonance and listens to the echo within the shelved crockpot, the hum of the walls, the chorus from their smudged windows.
Klaus is petrichor and pastel pills and wisps of smoke adrift under starlit skies. He hides his face, forehead perched against his arms, curls as untameable as his spirit, and Vanya’s bow plays ease into his shoulders, sings weary relief into his back, coaxes longer, slower flutters of breath past his lips.
She plays until there is a knock on the door. Neither of them are hungry; the fried rice and General Tso’s and complimentary rice crackers are left on the kitchen counter, and Vanya tucks herself away on the sofa, winds herself around him until they are eye to chin, rests her hand on his clavicle.
‘Hey, Vanny, hey,’ his eyes say.
His lips are dry; she sees the teeth marks and touches the corner of his mouth. He has grown into his face, she thinks. She remembers days when he was too-large eyes and pimpled skin, barbed mischief on a too-wide mouth and wild bramble above too-thick brows. Now his face is angular and sharp, cheeks sunken and eyes marred with thin crow's feet.
She rests her thumb on his mouth, follows the curve with feather-light touches, follows the ebb and flow of soft breaths against her hand. He sighs, a drawn-out, slow exhale spilling across her fingers, and she flits her thumb over tender skin until he closes his eyes.
She soaks in it — in the gentle contours of his jaw, in the warmth under her thumb and the little flutters of lashes that hide iridescent copper-green and shadows older than his years. She eases her thumb over his lips and rests her cheek on his shoulder, and listens, and hears the longed-for, silent chuckle reverberate in his chest a moment before he bites her finger.
Thumb trapped between his teeth, she smiles, feels her very cheeks burn under the strain and knows she must look ridiculous - mouth too wide, nose too small, forehead like a dinner plate — but he nibbles again, and Vanya —
She entwines their fingers, and skims her lips over his mouth, and gives him her unspoken promise with his stolen breath.