Too Early For Forever

It's a cold November night. The trees have shed their thick cover of leaves, foolishly, exposing their brittle bark skins to the world. The wind whistles loudly, yet so high up, she can't hear a thing. The tiles of the roof are uncomfortable, but she has long gotten used to their hard edges digging into her legs.
She leans back on her arms, gazing up at the myriad of stars scattered freely across the stone black slate of the night sky. A chill creeps down her bare arms, her long, black hair flowing gently to the side in the breeze, and she shivers. The soothing peace of solitude is difficult to release, but she reluctantly begins to rise from her sitting position to retrieve her jacket from inside.
"Oh, you going in?" asks a familiar voice, currently hinted with badly suppressed sadness. She glances up, meeting his bright, olive green eyes. He is dressed in a thick parka, and holds her sweater in his right hand.
Her heart seems to swell in her chest at his thoughtfulness. "No, not anymore. Thanks." She smiles at him, gratefully accepting the clothing and pulling it on as he carefully takes a seat beside her, by the cold railing. He pulls her icy hands into his warmer ones, fire and ice, instinctively weaving their fingers together. His skin against her sparks tiny lightning bolts through her veins, too calming to be adrenaline—but that's the feeling. She lets herself relax in his assuring company, resting her head against his shoulder, thighs touching lightly. He is the only one she would ever allow in her private sanctuary.
She allows her eyes to slide closed, imagining the tranquil silence wrapping around them like a thick, wool blanket, accompanied by the flickering of a blazing fire. Times like this, just sitting together doing nothing, are the ones she loves the most.
His soft question does not pierce and shatter the atmosphere, merely sending ripples of disturbance that can be easily smoothed out. "Why do you like it up here so much?" His tone is wondering and curious, rather than accusing and scorning. She likes his way of inquiring much better than theirs, and lets herself relax.
He waits in anticipation for the answer. She is silent for so long that he expects her never to answer. Maybe she has fallen asleep? He leans over to check, doing his best not to jostle her.
He holds his breath as he studies her face closely, afraid even the soft fluttering of his exhales will rouse her. She is so stunningly beautiful he wouldn't be able to breathe anyways. Her expression is smooth of stress and tension, the furrow that appears between her eyebrows when she feels on edge now nonexistent. He is loath to wake her up and disturb her after such a tiring weekmonthlife, and starts to return to his original position.
"I like it up here..." she whispers suddenly, and he realizes with some embarrassment that she was awake after all.
"Why?" he prompts, still curious. He's always curious about her. She's too mysterious, too distant... He's afraid someday he'll wake up and find she has dissolved into a fine mist, beyond his reach forever. He never wants to let her go, and is afraid she's leave him someday.
Her eyelids flicker open, revealing those piercing blue eyes, as icy as her hands. "It's..." she fumbles for the words, "really private. It's my own. When everything is too much, I come up here and it doesn't seem too bad anymore..." Her gentle voice fades as her eyes shut again.
He blanches. She said she came up here to be alone, for isolation and privacy...but he was up here. With her. Intruding. Was she angry at him? Did she really want him to leave, but she didn't want be rude and kick him out? He swallows, at a loss. What to do? Could he stay? Would she want him to leave, even if she hadn't said anything?
"What's wrong?" she asks, her voice breaking through the panicky haze of his mind. She had felt him tense under her head, and lifted it to turn back and examine his expression. He'd concealed his emotions quickly, something he'd always been particularly skilled at in all the time she'd known him, and it had been hard for them to open up to each other at first.
"N-nothing." He avoids her eyes—of course she would be able to read them, too easily.
She frowns to herself, knowing she has upset him, and reaches up to touch his cheek lightly. When he leans into her palm, she takes that as a signal he is not angry at her, at least, and moves her hand to the back of his neck gently to pull his face toward hers.
He tries not to blush when she draws his head down close to hers. Does she have no idea what she does to him? She seems to have no qualms against this confident movement, but he is less brave than her. He's always known that, and her courage is one of the things he admires in her the most.
"Tell me what's wrong," she demands, her voice contrastingly soft.
He wonders if she likes to embarrass him on purpose. At least subconsciously. "Um..." he stalls, failing miserably at avoiding her intent gaze. He doesn't want to lose his eyes at the cost of letting her disappear from his sight, so he focuses on the three freckles across the bridge of her nose. They're small and dainty, their delicacy reminding him of the girl who holds his heart.
She trails her fingers down his cheek, her touch hummingbird light, sending spider webs of electricity through his skin. "Will you please tell me?" Her tone has changed—still equally quiet, but more pleading, like sweet cajoling.
He swallows with difficulty, spellbound by her dulcet voice, and manages to force some words out of his throat. "Erm, are you sure you're okay with me being here?"
"Why would you say something like that?" she asks, slightly offended. She doesn't show it though, cautious about revealing too much emotion to him in fear of scaring him away.
The confusion in her eyes is like a breeze of cool air. Relief floods his body, and this uptight set of his shoulders releases slightly. "It's just…" He stops, inhales, and tries to speak again. It's so hard for him to talk about things like this. "Well, you said… You said that this is where you come to be…alone. But I'm here…?"
She stares at him wordlessly, feeling her eyebrows draw together. "Really?" she blurts out before she can check herself. Always speaking without thinking through…it's one of her worst flaws.
She regrets it instantly, as he jerks out of her grasp and pulls away slightly. Not too far, at least, she thinks to console herself as she reaches out to him again. He lets her wrap her arms around his waist, but his downcast expression makes her wish she could snatch the word right out of the air. "No, no, I didn't mean it like that," she whispers, feeling her own features pull down in correspondence to his.
He peeks at her unhappy countenance, his heart sinking when he sees it. It was just an instinctive reaction, one like an irritable kitten clawing out when the hand runs its fur the wrong way. "Sorry," he says immediately, hoping with every cell in his body she will forgive him.
The tightness around her chest releases at the sound of his apology, and she looks back into his eyes. "It's not your fault," she says, still ashamed. "It was mine. I just meant that about them. I don't mind you. I don't mind you anywhere, any time." She has the urge to beg for him to stay with her forever, but decides it's too much still. It's too early for them to say 'forever.'
His smile seems to light up her entire world in just a second, like the birth of a new star. The nebula beforehand shines in its own way, but this burst of brightness is just so much more. She loves his lightning bolt smile, and loves that she caused this one even more.
So when she reaches up to press her lips against the underside of his jaw, just a butterfly touch, it's not actually right to blame her. After all, it was him being so irresistible, wasn't it?
He blushes again, but holds her tightly. She presses her cheek into the center of his chest, below the hollow of this throat between his collarbones, closing her eyes to the steady thumping of his heartbeat. Her fingers flit along his sides up to his shoulders before skimming back down to hold his hands. He tightens his grip, so very glad she's brave enough to touch him like this.
She's not trying to make him uncomfortable, really. He's just so shy, she can't resist. It's just that…he can't see she's incapable of leaving him. That she loves him just as much as he does. That she never wants to leave him. That what they have is something special, something she thought she'd never be able to have.
So when they stare out over the city at the sunlight breaking the darkness between the trees and sky, shattering the outline with those finger-like rays of light, she knows this is how she wants to begin every day of her life...watching the sun rise, with him, in her happy place.
Still, that sun—not matter how magnificent—is no match for the brilliance of his grin.