Work Text:
I can only see them when they open the book, their soft hands cradling the spine.
I watch as their face lights with different emotions whilst they read the pages of my world. Happy giggles, sad tears, and those moments when they mumble to themselves that they wish they could be a part of my world.
I wish too that they could join me. Or I join them.
I know less of their world than they know of mine, only catching glimpses of where they’ve opened the pages and sat for hours. Lush green trees and grasses, their house, their odd trinkets and fuzzy pets. Or, my favourite, cozy little cafés where they most always get the same thing.
Their world is so different from mine but I want nothing more than to join them in it.
I watch as they read my story, experience the world I inhabit and love every reaction.
The way their eyes catch the light as the sun sets when they sit by the window, the way their eyes start to shut when they’re so tired but don’t want to stop reading, the way they smile almost every time they pick my book.
That smile that lights up their face, the dimple in one cheek. The crinkles by their eyes and the snort of laughter. I most love the moment when they laugh so hard they have to take their eyes off the pages just to calm and then read the same passage over and over.
The tears I love less but only because they cry when they’re sad. Though I must admit that the reddening of their nose is quite endearing. Those tears make me wish even more so to join them outside the inky pages of my story. I so wish I could hold them and tell them it would be alright. To be there and be their shoulder to cry on whilst I whispered sweet nothings into their hair.
I relate to their anger over shitty ‘characters’ and wish I could rant with them over how annoying they are.
I wish I could feel the soft caress of fingers over my skin instead of seeing those fingers on pages.
I wish I could hear that voice, unmuffled by the inky edges of my world.
I wish I could smell the perfume I know they put on every morning and the garlic they eat in copious amounts.
But. I can’t.
I am but a character in a book, confined and bound to watch as this person I’ve come to love nears the end of my story.
They’ve closed the book, I see them no more.
All I can hope for is that they love this book enough to pick it up once more. So maybe I can look upon them a little longer. So maybe I can fall in love just a little more.
I know nothing can ever come from it, I do. But when has that ever stopped anyone from falling in love.