Work Text:
An adonis, he was not.
Alice was not particularly poetically inclined when it came to Victor. Sometimes, she thought there was something wrong with her in that regard. Shouldn’t people in love be describing the objects of their affections with superlative adjectives? Victor certainly used the odd flowery turn of phrase regarding her, saying things like “eyes like emeralds” and “hair as soft as silk.” He’d even tried writing her a poem once, although all that had proved was that he was better at drawing than he was at writing.
Alice, however, could not do the same for Victor. She studied him sometimes, trying to come up with the words to describe him properly. His skin was – marble? Ivory? Alabaster? No, it was just plain white. His hair – ebony? Raven? Black would have to suffice. His eyes – Alice couldn’t come up with a single turn of the phrase that would make having eyes that sometimes seemed to be all pupil and no iris poetic. “Dark, deep pools” was the closest she could get, and that sounded like the start of something infinitely depressing. His body was not leanly muscled – it was skinny and fragile-looking. She could not accurately say his face was carved by the master hand of the gods. And he was clumsy, shy, and prone to daydreaming – not qualities usually displayed by the heroes of romantic poems. In short, Victor was a far cry from perfection.
But then – he’d turn and smile at her. And Alice would feel her heart melt all over again.
She’d never been a big fan of perfection anyway.