Original Fic: Makeshift Lessons

[interpretthis]

Title: Makeshift Lessons

Author: interpretthis

Genre: Romance/Fluff (much fluff)
Rating: PG
WC: 1,149

Notes: Warm-up #3 for the nano comm…exceeds the comment limit, so I’m posting it here.  Annnd…dude.  I do believe this is my first ever (completed) piece of original anything (save for the totally random and wacko bit for #1).  Shame it’s crap.  And the guy (Sy, annoying name really) is totally Bill. ;P

 
            

              I rummaged through the mess on my desk with vigor, knocking papers left and right in a hap-hazard attempt to tidy the untidiable.  I’d given up on purposeful cleaning – the sort where you set your mind to it, decide point-blank it’ll be the last time you ever have to clean anything, and get to work (it never works out in the end, but your initial intentions are good) – instead I’d taken to procrastination cleaning, which was a different sort entirely.  I could start, spend an hour at it, and end up with the same jumbled stack of papers switched around a bit, maybe in a different corner of the desk, that sort of thing.  But the point is not what I was doing at the time – far from it, in fact – the point here is what happened next.

                By that time I was up to my eyeballs in random paperwork.  The knock on my door was just like any other – a bit softer than usual perhaps, but that only left me more inclined to let the knocker in.

 

                “Yes?”

 

                He entered softly and silently, just as I took up a hugely over-dramatized renewal of file sorting.  I felt the blush creep up my cheeks and tried desperately to force it down.  It loved that, oh it just loved that, and flushed darker still.

 

                “Margaret…how’re you doing?” I could feel Sy’s eyes on me – not intrusive, not prying, not vacant, but light and sincere.

 

                “’M fine.”  I set the stack down – dropped it more like – and looked up to meet his gaze, eagerness and embarrassment battling for the hot seat in my mind.  “Just doing a bit of…cleaning.” I finished lamely.

 

                He gave a soft chuckle – not cruel, not cruel at all.  It sent a jolt from sternum to gut, and I was thankful he couldn’t see my face as he looked around.  Something caught his eye and he kneeled down with an agile bend, coming back over the side of the desk with a grin.

 

                “Dancing lessons?”

 

                I coughed.

 

                “Oh, um.  Yeah.  Picked it up at the market last night.  Caught my eye, you know.  I’m not much of a dancer, but…”  I trailed off, eyes fixed resolutely on my pencil cup.  Why couldn’t I just look at him like an adult?  Why?  I clenched my fist around the edge of my skirt, listening to bits of my brain throttle each other mercilessly.  He spoke again, voice smooth and calm and quiet, and I forced myself to look at him.

 

                “Would you like to dance?”

 

                “Excuse me?” I grasped the edge of my chair, trying not to focus on the way my stomach had swooped down to my feet.  It was very difficult.  I’m not an anatomy master, but I know stomachs are not meant to be anywhere near one’s toes.  “I mean.  Sorry.  Here?”

 

                He took a step forward, tussling with an outer section of the desk for a moment before raising his sharp blue eyes to meet my frightened, exhilarated gaze.  It was a moment before I noticed he held something.  A few loops of tape, strung around one another to make a graceful sort of…

 

                “Enchanté, mademoiselle.”  He reached across the desk to lift my boneless wrist in his fingertips, easing me up and onto my feet.  He looped the tape-corsage around my wrist, carefully leading me out from behind the desk as he did so.  Somehow I managed to make it into the clear (however paper-strewn) stretch of office to stand in front of him, his intimacy sending a thin shiver down my spine.  I took a deep breath, leveling my eyes on his, grasping his hand in my own, letting my other fall to his suited shoulder as I tried to calm my frazzled nerves.

 

                It wasn’t dancing.  Not really.  But it was almost perfect.  Really.  We swayed slowly in time, his chin resting softly against the crown of my head, our arms slowly, unconsciously changing position until mine curled around his neck and his encircled my waist.  I felt his heart pumping in his chest, swift, faster than I’d have expected it to be when he always managed to uphold such a calm demeanor, such quiet surety.  I threaded my fingers through his hair, palm heels light against the nape of his neck.  Moments passed quietly.  I lifted my head from his chest to see him, closer than he’d ever been, light blue eyes touching mine, thin, defined lips inches away, high, sweeping cheek bones, tiny creases etched into the corners of his lips, eyes.  He was quite a bit older than I, Sy, but that sort of thing had never gone to bother me.  There was a quiet wisdom lurking just behind his eyes, a soft grace in the way he held himself.

 

                This time there was no knock, and the visitor on the other side was much less welcome.  Meaning not at all.  Savannah George’s glare was fixed in place the moment she swooped in – she didn’t need to see us break apart hastily, brushing at clothing, and, in my case, tugging at locks of hair, to put herself in a surly mood.

 

                “Margaret, your paper’s an hour late.” She folded her arms across her chest, manicured nails peaking out from the crook of her elbow.  “Stenton needs it for the conference.”  Her glare deepened, jutting the heavy lines of her forehead into stark relief.  “I suggest you leave dancing…or -” she cocked an eyebrow, lips curling fiercely “-whatever for times when you haven’t got more important things to do.  Like your job.”

 

                She stormed out of the room in a flash, a whirling impetus of heavy perfume and permed curls, slamming the door behind herself with a sharp snap.  I hugged myself unconsciously, noting the smashed tape corsage on my wrist with a bleak stare.

 

                “It doesn’t matter, you know,” his voice was thick in my ears, low and purposeful.

 

                “What doesn’t?” My eyes flickered to his face and down again, not without catching the intense stare he’d leveled at me.  I willed my knees to stay solid.

 

                “She doesn’t.  None of it does.”  He took a step forward – the step between distance and intimacy – to grasp my wrist lightly, his rough, warm fingertips brushing against the sensitive skin of my wrist’s pulse-point.  He pulled the thin loops of the corsage away from the ring of tape where they’d stuck, temporarily restoring the delicate web.  He gathered me into his arms and I held tight, reveling in his closeness and warmth.  We spun softly on the spot, calmly, mindlessly, weaving our way through the mess of scattered papers, the only constant, unwavering presence in the midst of ceaseless entropy.

 

                “What do you say we make that a real corsage?”

 

                I grinned against his ear.

 

                “Alright.  Just as long as I don’t have to wear it.” 

                I felt him grin back.

                
-------fin-------

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