#Fall Into Your Sunlight || Lugh and Caity

[croinagreine]

54) things you always meant to say but never got the chance

Meme: Things PromptStatus: Open

Two months. Two months since she’d been kindly asked to leave the new life she’d grown so attached to behind. Arrived at the Belfast airport. She’d lasted all of a week milling about her aunt’s spare room, before moving back to the Greenbriar Estate. There wasn’t anything for her in Belfast anymore. Nothing but haunting memories and family that had for the most part found it more convenient to pretend she didn’t exist. So she’d gone back to the first place that had felt…not heavy. Not as though she were the black sheep. Back to where she’d first tried to start over. Though her duties were not the same. No instead of tending to Her Grace, Caity cares for the creatures cherished most by her.

Days were filled with things to keep her busy. Up before dawn, breakfast and free time spent to pasture. Groomed and glossed and given saddle time. And in the evenings? Those are kept for herself. Save the ones Her Grace asked for her company. But tonight isn’t one of those nights. And Caity Buckley, finds herself perched along one of the fence posts. The fog rolling in over the moors, as the sun sunk beneath the blanketed horizon. It’s beautiful. In ways maybe only to her. As if some in bygone day she had known it differently. Known it better. But the thought drifts away in the quiet sunlight and her attention turns back to the journal in her lap. The pen removed from the front as she flips through the ink covered pages, to find the first available blank one.

1 August

It’s been two months now since I left you and the boys. And everyday where it should become easier, I find it isn’t. I still wake with my mind buzzing to remember what the boys schedule is. If you had asked something more of me. But of course a moment later I am reminded neither is of any concern to me anymore.

I feel weathered these days. Like the old oak that stands in your grandmother’s garden. Weary but still sound somehow. I suppose that’s silly. Me thinking I have much in common with a tree. But in an odd way I have found myself beneath more often than not in the evening hours this summer. Wondering if you were ever scolded for climbing into its branches. If you ever scaled to the top and felt like the king of the world for how high it must reach. I have thought to ask her Grace but I haven’t. It’s not really my place.

A pause that leaves an idle mark upon the paper. Green casting itself over the landscape again. A breath taken in and released, that is neither steady nor sound as she begins again.

I miss you. And I suppose that’s to be expected. Sharing the day to day as we did. I miss the way your children love you. I miss the way no matter how bad their day, you could bring their smiles out with not but a few words or sometimes just a look. I miss your voice. The way it carried through the house. Even the times its cause was because the children had once again robbed your shoes of every lace, in order to make a net for that troublesome small army of wee green men they had to stop from invading their castle. I miss your smile. Rare thing that it was. And I miss the way you used to look at me when you thought I couldn’t see.

I should have told you the truth that day at the airport. I should have said yes when you offered to marry me so I didn’t have to leave. But I was afraid. Afraid that you were offering for all the reasons other than the one I really wanted. Afraid because I wanted it. Afraid that I wasn’t afraid of you in the same way I have been of everyone else for so long. I should have told you that. I should have come clean. But I didn’t. And now this is what I am left with. Writing letters to you everyday. Ones I’ll never send. A tragedy all its own really.

She stops again. A hand that lifts to wipe away pooled tears.

I love you, Lugh Sweeney. I should have told you that every day from the moment I knew. I love you, because of who you. I love you because underneath that thick shell of yours you are sweet, and kind and all things anyone would be lucky to find in a lover. I love you, because while Her Grace rescued me, you saved me. You and your children. I just wish I could have returned the favor, instead of mucking everything up.

In Confidence,

Caity Buckley

[croinagreine]

18) things you said when you were scared {Nanny}

Meme: Things PromptStatus: Open

She doesn’t know how badly she’d been thrashing about or how far her cry had carried. She’d thought herself beyond this kind of thing. Reliving the terror of the things done to her. Reliving the horror of knowing there was no justice for it in the end. All she does know is somewhere between her own cries and stinging burning pain of metal set to skin–she’d heard her name. Her name framed in a voice that had no business within the place she existed. And that voice grew into hands. Hands that framed her shoulders…then her face. Their grip firm but not…not what was…

She snaps to awareness. Instantly feeling the chill of the room as blankets and sheets are flung from her in her panic. Pure reaction in the way she back peddles. Trying to get away. But the head board proves stronger than her backwards momentum and she comes to a very sudden–rather thudding stop. Terrified green trying to look everywhere at once, trying to rationalize where she was–what was happeni–

Red hair, far richer than her’s could ever be–even for the way the soft light from the evening lamp washes it out. Eyes greener than her own set in a long face and it’s breaths before she realizes the obvious. She’d been dreaming. It was a nightmare. And the person at her bedside wasn’t her monster, it was…

She’s practically flying forward. Arms wrapped around his neck, wedging her face between the too. Silent sobs wracking her own frame seconds later. Because whether she wants to admit it or not…she needs that physical assurance. That anchor to settle her back in the real world. To convince herself this was real and not the other place from which he’d all but yanked her free of.

               “Tell me he dunna….he dunna know where oi’am…please….”

Later she’ll know that couldn’t have made sense. Later she’ll understand how completely on the spot she’d put him. How awkward he must feel. But right now she just needs someone real to say it. Someone level to remind her, she’s safe. Someone, to just once not let her stand on her own two feet. Even if later she’ll tell him it was nothing more than a uncommonly vivid night terror…and that she apologizes for having woken him at such an unrighteous hour.

[croinagreine]

Good Morning October

It’s early and she’s already been up for a few hours. Long enough to shower, compromise with her hair fifteen times before it settled on an treaty agreement for the day, and shuffle her clothes enough to make it look like she had far more than she did. Black leggings she hadn’t paired with this particular muted orange sweater yet...or so she doesn’t think. It’s October first after all, the season is changing; and she might as well give it her own little welcome. 

Then it had been down the stairs, for a cup of coffee. Just the one to give her a stout boost to start her day, before she has to move back upstairs to wake her charges. A few more moments of sleep won’t rush their schedule, and it gives her just a few more moments to collect herself. Shifting around to the hallway door by the back stairs, to ensure she stays out of Mrs. Ravenchenko’s way. No sense making the other woman’s job any more difficult. And maybe she gets a little more lost in the changing colors outside the window near by than she should have because the next thing she knows there’s...

Sound.

Sound that’s filling the entirety of the house she’s almost sure of it. Big Band rattling her bones at volumes it was perhaps never meant to be played. And her coffee? Ends up all over her front. The burn of which is mostly ignored in the wake of other things. Other things like her usually very reserved mountain of an employer all but belting out the lyrics as two pairs of feet come pounding down the back stairs. Yell singing along as well--though maybe not as on key--as they barrel passed her. Diving for cover behind the kitchen island. Where they slide to a stop on hand and knee, peering around the corner before slipping around it out of sight. And with rather blown wide gaze the their quarry comes into view. And for an honest moment? She truly has no idea what to do with scene.

Mr. Sweeney--comfortable clothes...or well as close as the man himself gets anyway. With his not quite dress pant level slacks and buttoned shirt, with cuffs folded at the forearm. Though she supposes it has to be more comfortable than the well pressed---to the point she’s sure every fiber is stiff as a corpse and she’s often wondered which witchcraft specifically allows him movement--suit. Leaning in from the door way that had recently expelled the boys before turning on his heel. Disappearing through another door that led to the living room. Gone from her sight as quickly as he’d come into it...still singing along to the blaring music.

But what’s completely frozen her up? It isn’t the music. Isn’t the startlement of the sudden audible abrasion. Isn’t the fading scalding heat of her coffee, that’s soaked into her sweater, dripping off her face and hair...its the fact Mister Sweeney was actually smiling. And there’s something she just can’t shake that makes her believe no one’s really seen that particular expression in ages. Though the moments broken a second later because while she’d lost all control over her immediate self, Mrs. Ravenchenko had not and...

             You need towel. I get you one.

            “Th...thank...ye.”

[croinagreine]

52) things you said with my lips/teeth on your neck {Nanny}

Meme: Things PromptStatus: Open

She thought she’d been...quiet when she got up. Crept on tip toes rug fiber by wood grain into the bathroom. Where she’d closed the door painfully slow. Every cell in her body holding its breath. Because its four in the morning and he needs all the sleep he can get. Sleep that has evaded her for reasons that make her far more exhausted than she perhaps should be. Though maybe a bath will help, if only to prepare her for the day. Its going to be a long one but hopefully pleasent. She’d promised them a trip to the aquarium and then if they behaved perhaps a stop over at the boardwalk--(more importantly of course the arcade on the boardwalk but that’s besides the point).

A sigh as the water is turned on. A sound she wishes didn’t echo quite so loud in against the tile but somethings couldn’t be helped. And she’s up and across the room again. Brush lifted from by the sink to straighten out what tangles there were. And maybe she gets a little...lost in the repetition. The only excuse she can really come up with to explain how he’d so deftly snuck up on her.

The briefest of subtle starts. Green cutting upward to find his reflection in the glass before them. Settling back into the hands that frame her arms, as one of her own reach up to brush finger tips against his knuckles. A twitch of her mouth as warm breath washes over her skin. The grazing idea of teeth. Willing her stomach to untie itself from the knots that are still instinctive. He’s not going to hurt her, he’s proven that time and time and time again. Lugh is not him, and the fingers along his knuckles move northward. 

Thread themselves through strands just long enough to find a hold in if she were of the mind. But instead nails are brought to bear. Just enough pressure to tease. And the brush ends up finding a home on the counter again, a head falling a little more to one side.

            “Oi’d say oi’ dinna mean ta wake ye up but...”

Something rumbled and inaudible against her skin. That has his beard tickling nerves. That gleans a half giggled noise, and verbal tease from her.

           “Mister Sweeney...do ye kiss Her Grace with that mouth?”