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There’s something special about being trusted with a body. Something that Emily still doesn’t quite understand, but feels so deeply. That trust, that offering of vulnerability, it’s a little like the moon, so precious and grand and lovely, but a mystery all the same. Ethereal, far from reach. Belonging to a whole other world Emily knows no part of. Something she so desperately wants to capture in the palm of her hand. But for so long, that inky night sky, full of dying stars and burning meteors for wishing on, kept it from her. There’s just so much space.
But she’s adrift now, freed from the moorings of gravity and earthly laws. And the moon, cratered yet endlessly full, shrinks just for her. Just so she can hold and cradle and have. But no matter how she looks and appraises, there’s still so much she doesn’t know. Still so much she’ll never know. Because this is new territory. She’s never held the moon before, never reflected it’s light in her eyes.
That’s what this feels like, she decides. Out of her depth, off balance, but so unbelievably lucky. That there’s someone she loves so dearly she wants to hold them close. That they want to stay close when so many others keep a distance from the girl a little different, a little odd, a little too frighteningly herself.
The funny thing is, this isn’t the moon to Sue. This isn’t the sun or the stars or any awe striking bit of the cosmos. This, tentatively starting to claim a body not your own, being given that chance, is something she knows. With Austin. Even with Sam, though that thought sours Emily’s stomach so she tries not to think it too long. It’s more like an orchard for Sue, maybe not somewhere she makes a home in, but somewhere comfortable and familiar to step back into nonetheless. Rows and boughs she knows, even if they look a little different with the changing seasons.
Autumn with Austin, maybe, leaves still clinging to their branches, but only clinging. Trying not to slip away on the rocky winds that come. There’s gold and fading reds there, painting a pretty picture, but it can’t last. The leaves fall and tumble. Dry amongst the yellowing lanes with grass gone soft and tired.
Winter with Sam, hopefully, all bare and lonely. Cold.
A beautiful, blooming spring, she prays, with herself. Something just budding, fragile jade leaves coming to life. Sweet, pink petals slowly beginning to unfurl. A lovely place for the lark to perch and sing her lilting melodies. Somewhere the sun shines just a little bit longer with every passing day.
Emily wants, wants so desperately for that eternal spring.
But moons and orchards and flitting little songbirds aside, Sue knows how to touch and hold and soothe and excite, and Emily loves her all the more for it. And she’s learning too, in the stolen moments when there are no prying eyes to judge a girl who might love her sister in law just a little too much.
Under the table at breakfasts of scones and milk tea and sliced apples that Emily drizzles with honey just because she can, feet and ankles brush, entwine. Just because they can, and because it makes the morning a little sunnier over the drab news out of the paper. And at the salons Sue still hosts, very sparingly now, hands find each other in the quiet corners. Thumbs brush across knuckles and palms align.
It’s the gentle hand against the small of a back, guiding, or the easy sweep of a stray curl back behind an ear, that Emily lives in. Revels in. The hand on her shoulder when Sue needs to reach past her, or the brush of hips and shoulders passing by in a tight doorway. It’s the little things that sustain her through each and every day, be they dreadfully long or so regretfully short, dripping with honey and syrup or dashed with salt.
But, it’s the nights that are so nourishing, hidden away behind closed doors, sheltered in the darkness that only parts for the soft, auburn lamp glow burning low on the desk. Here, in this safety, they can do all as they please. Emily can braid nonsense patterns into pretty, dark hair, only to comb them out with her fingers and start again and again and again while Sue’s lashes fall low to rest against her cheeks. She can hold the world in her hands, fingers trailing over the swell of cheekbones, thumbs brushing the angle of her jaw. She can start to drift, start to doze, with a familiar heartbeat flush under her ear.
And she can try to wrap her mind around that fact that she’s allowed to. That Sue allows her to look and touch and treasure. That Sue wants to do the same, even. It’s a wild concept. But more so, it’s a rather charming one. Something that will never lose its novelty. Not when it’s her. Not when it’s Sue.
——————
Somewhere beyond the frost lacing up the window glass, the first snowflakes are falling. Unseasonably early. Still young, still fresh. And of course—of course—they’ve already marveled in that. The evening was whiled away walking and swaying and spinning under the drifting flakes, Emily sticking her tongue out to catch them, Sue laughing. But she joined in too, and all the coercing it took was a tug at her wrist and a silly grin.
Even though the newness, the exhilaration, never quite wore off, eventually they found their way back inside. Coats and gloves and hats and scarves, snowy and dripping, still hang by the hearth to thaw out, dry out. The pink of flushed cheeks and fingers and noses has since fallen away, sturdy walls blocking out the worst of the chill. And thick quilts and woolen blankets do the rest of the job.
Sue is warm, too, curled at her back. Idle fingers play across the shell of her ear, smoothing away messy, curling strands of hair and gently rubbing at the soft spot just behind. Right then, Emily understands the cat’s purr. All the warmth and sunshine that wells up in her chest has nowhere to go. She’s utterly intoxicated in the contentment and melts with it. And because that gentle rumble belongs just to felines, a quiet, airy sigh will have to do in its stead. All the tension she carries through the day just fades straight away, a wisp of smoke in the wind.
“Do you like that?” Sue asks, barely a whisper in the quiet night. And she sounds just as fond and charmed as Emily feels.
Emily can hear the curve of an amused grin in that voice, knows the slight way it tilts her tone. In reply, she just hums an approving note, too pleasantly relaxed to worry over words. But then again, she never really has to worry over words with Sue. They come easy, welling like groundwater in a spring. “You always know the right things to do,” she murmurs, small against the sheets.
But Sue hears. She knows she hears, because there’s a soft kiss pressed at the corner of her eye, just beyond the reach of her lashes. And more of that lovely, liquid warmth pours to pool heavy in her limbs, light in her chest. It settles her body, melting her down to only the good, and stirs her heart. Poetry bubbles up, but for once, for now, she leaves it to simmer, scripting behind her closed eyelids instead of on scraps of paper. In the morning, she’ll write the words, but for now, she lives them, breaths them out in a easy exhale. Because Sue’s fingertips are still meandering over wispy hair and soft skin and another kiss falls against her cheekbone and she really, really can’t bring herself to put a stop to that.
Once, carefully, she reaches back to catch hold of Sue’s hand. Bending willing fingers, she presses tender kisses against the curve of each knuckle, treasuring those hands. They’re good to her. Sue’s good to her.
She slips into dreaming that night lulled under by those warm touches, feeling ceaselessly loved.
——————
Fever has never felt so lovely, Emily thinks. Because this comes with none of the coughing and congestion and aches that set deep in her bones. There’s only the flush of warmth across her skin, the haze in her head, and the shiver that spills down her spine. Stars sow gold across the dark of her eyelids. And the fresh well of tears clings in her lashes but doesn’t quite spill.
There’s no stuffy, clueless doctors. There’s no keeping a bowl at her bedside, just in case. There’s no raspy throats or throbbing skulls. There’s only—
“Sue,” Emily breathes, searching, gasping that name in like oxygen. She’s sure it’s just as vital to keeping her heart beating, if not even more so. Still, she’s breathless, trying to soothe hungry lungs.
Eyes struggle to flutter open, still washed in feeling and sensation so deep she feels ages from surfacing. But when she looks, sight blurred with misting tears, it’s to harvest moonlight dripping in through the window, spilling orange and gold across the rumpled sheets. Empty sheets.
“Sue,” she calls again when nothing but space and silence meets the first. There’s something a little like desperation bleeding into her tone, laced with a rough edge. Her limbs still feel pleasantly loose and boneless, slow to cooperate, but she reaches absently out anyway, searching for warm skin. Because she’s suddenly cold and shivering without her sun, her heart. And maybe it’s silly by now, but fear still flickers alight, a small matchstick glow, somewhere deep in her chest. Because someone can always take this away from her. Anyone. From Austin to her parents all the way down to Death himself. And she’s not ready to give this up. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be ready. And right now, she just needs weight and warmth and the curve of a smile pressed against her shoulder.
“Just breathe, Emily,” Sue says, finally edging into her line of sight, a hand on her knee. Pink cheeks and messy hair are an undeniably wonderful look on her. She smiles, a soft, small thing, and settles in close, their hands lacing together with a gentle squeeze. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Those have to be the sweetest words Emily Dickinson has ever heard. Better than the poetry that makes her whole body ache with the impact, better than any song or sermon. Better, even, than the ones she scratches down on paper scraps, bringing with them the deepest root of satisfaction. Because, truly, there is nothing she fears more than that. More than losing Sue again. She has faced that particular, gnawing loneliness again and again, stared it right in the fanged mouth. But her bones are growing brittle, eaten down to near nothing. She can’t live apart from Sue again. Something will surely crack.
She breathes in, deep and full and sweet.
“Come here,” Emily insists, leading with their twined hands and pulling Sue ever closer. A little clumsily, she guides Sue overtop of her, tugs her down until they’re lying flush together.
A relieved sigh comes unbidden, and Emily smothers it against the loose curls draping against Sue’s temple. This is what she’s been craving. Skin and warmth and pressure, an undeniable, unbreakable closeness. That’s all it takes for all the jagged edges pricking at her chest to smooth, for all the whirling, windy thoughts in her head to settle. Ease and contentment come in like the rising tide. And when a more clear headed awareness returns too, feverish haze abating, she takes to pressing slow, gentle kisses against Sue’s hairline and tracing looping patterns across the small of her back. And Sue breathes easy and warm against her collarbone, the slightest upturn of a smile just touching the slope of bone there.
And with so much kind space freed in her normally busy mind, she gets to thinking, following draping trails of ribbon wherever they lead. But, they always seem to wind back around to a certain someone, tying around her wrist with a neat, red bow. Something about fate, she muses.
“Do you ever wish we could do more together? More than this?” Emily hums, a little wistful.
At the words, Sue lifts her head, giving an appraising look, before settling back down. “What do you mean?” she asks, and maybe it’s too good of a question, because it leaves Emily quiet and thinking.
There’s a feeling like sinking, a caving somewhere deep at the core of her, but words are harder to put to it. Even now, comfortably in bed with the only love of her life, she’s still wanting, aching for something. She craves it, only, she can’t sort exactly what it is she’s craving. Only that she just wants this—lying together, kept close, starry eyed and dusted in a blush—but more. More intensity. More intimacy. More connection.
“It’s like this,” she starts, but falters short. Adjusting, she rearranges them, Sue on her back, Emily just beside, propped on an elbow. And all the while, Sue watches her with a curious gaze, compliant.
She breathes out slow through her nose, and meets stunningly sweet eyes. “There are so many impossible things I want.” Suddenly tentative, she reaches out, fingertips skimming delicately from the pulse at Sue’s wrist all the way up to her shoulder. Then, she smooths them down to the first ridge of rib, bone curving in to protect so many precious things. And farther down she follows them, counting the dips and rises, the spaces between every fine bone.
Sue never breaks from her gaze, even when a shiver follows the exploring touches. Something in her eyes turns richer, deeper.
“I want to plant flowers in the spaces between your ribs so every breath of violet and iris makes you think of me,” Emily breathes, low and soft. But every word takes some of that ache, some of that craving with it. Even if the feeling in her chest doesn’t loosen all the way, at least she can share it. It feels better to give it a voice.
Her hand brushes lower, slipping from ribs to abdomen. She splays her hand flat there, reveling in the noticeable intake of breath it earns her, the slight jump of thin muscle beneath the skin. “I want to share all the birds and butterflies and winged things that come to life every time you look at me. So you know what it feels like.” She grins a little, still touched with softness around the edges.
Taking her time, Emily takes Sue gently by the wrist, bringing her hand close to press feather light kisses to her fingertips. To the tiny pinprick scars from needlework or rose thorns. To the slightest white line left by the slip of a paring knife. To all the little marks collected just by living a life. They’re precious, memories of good times and bad, but Sue doesn’t need any more of them, Emily’s sure. The world should learn she’s worth favoring, worth protecting. “I wish I could heal every little scratch and cut. Fill them with sunshine and smooth them away,” she murmurs against Sue’s palm before gently letting her hand go.
Breathing in deep, settling that empty longing in her chest to something quiet and distant, she lies back. Gazes up at the shadows that collect in ceiling corners. Still, they stay pressed shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. Not that there’s much other option in her little bed, but it’s nice to be close. Emily wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It’s things like that,” she finally says to fill up the quiet. “I just…” she starts, at once at a loss for words. It’s an unfamiliar feeling, one she isn’t quite sure she likes. But, soon enough, they come, weighty but so endlessly wonderful all the same.
“I just love you so much,” she says, turning to meet Sue’s gaze, always so warm and kind and lovely.
Sue just smiles, an amused little quirk of one corner of her lips, eased with the honey in her eyes. “Emily,” she sighs, “you don’t have to do any of that.” Her tone stays light, buoyed and fond.
Their fingers lace, and when Emily glances down at them, she feels Sue’s other hand push into her hair, threading through pillow ruffled strands. “I‘ll always think of you, in every breath. And I know what the butterflies feel like; you aren’t the only one hopelessly in love.” Her smile grows a bit, well worn, a little lopsided, and so, so warm. Emily could stay happy forever just knowing she’s the one that smile lives for.
“And when I get a paper cut thumbing through all of your poems, or a scratch out in the orchard with you, I wouldn’t want that to go away.”
There’s a beat, a moment where there’s nothing but the quiet sounds of living, of heartbeats and breath.
“I don’t need the impossible. I only need you.”
Maybe, just then, Emily doesn’t need all the impossible things either. The yearning ache in her chest collapses in on itself, fills in with all the love she already has. Because, really, what is more worth anyway? She has this. She has Sue, and that’s all she’s ever wanted. A whole lifetime behind her, ahead of her, and that’s all she wants for. And now, Emily has her, hand in hand. They have each other, and even if it’s still behind closed doors, stolen away, that’s impossible enough for her.