http://austenianhorror.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] austenianhorror.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] bait_backup2010-12-24 02:02 am

I don't want a lot for Christmas, there's just one thing I need

*Tall and undeniably elegant, the tree dominates the room. Live fairies playfully roving within the inner branches like schools of luminescent fish, giving the evergreen an almost alien, restless quality. A dozen floating candles bob around the festive centrepiece, some having even traversed waywardly into the further reaches of the parlour. In the warm, wavering light, Victoria Higgs sits primly, half engulfed by an enormous, fir-green gown. Wine has loosened her posture and as a consequence her hands rest easily at her sides, brushing Regulus's legs. Tellingly, the adults have long left the newly-engaged couple to themselves, only their distant chatter emanating in from another room.

There's an expectant half-smile on Victoria's lips - it speaks of obligations, seasonal cheer and desire.*

[identity profile] spindleform.livejournal.com 2010-12-31 09:19 am (UTC)(link)

Perhaps it depends on... whom one has in their lives to be personable with.

[identity profile] spindleform.livejournal.com 2010-12-31 10:28 am (UTC)(link)
Do you believe I have any reason to mean otherwise?

[identity profile] spindleform.livejournal.com 2010-12-31 10:35 am (UTC)(link)
*It feels like a trick question, but it's better than previous topics of conversation so he gives her a false but accidentally earnest gaze as he concocts a weak lie.*

No...

I meant it's good. That you and your family could be here this year.

[identity profile] spindleform.livejournal.com 2011-01-01 05:09 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, well.

*He can't help by fidget slightly, though it is more likely a stifled recoil. He looks upwards toward the top of the Christmas tree instead of at her.*

Our holiday celebrations have been larger in the past. This is rather close.

[identity profile] spindleform.livejournal.com 2011-01-02 12:02 am (UTC)(link)
Is it? -Well then perhaps you'd like a coffee, I can ask Kreacher to... if you want.

[identity profile] spindleform.livejournal.com 2011-01-02 12:24 am (UTC)(link)
*He is sure he must have been kissed somewhere as an infant and close relatives have cornered him for a brief kiss on the cheek now and again, but the closest he has come to being kissed anything like this had been on a dusty kitchen floor with his soul at stake. Needless to say, the idea of another go at it isn't very enticing to him.

He isn't sure what to do or if lips are supposed to be wetted before this exchange or if this could possibly give him a disease, and that line of thinking does nothing but bring sores to mind. Nose crinkled in horror at his imagination, his lips are still as they meet Victoria's, and he simply watches her eyelashes in a suspended moment of awkwardly innocent union.*

[identity profile] spindleform.livejournal.com 2011-01-02 03:43 am (UTC)(link)
*He usually expects the worst, but this is entirely without precedence as far as he's concerned and is about as shocking as if Victoria had spontaneously dissolved or turned into bugs. Of course he has seen this happening, nearly impossible as it is to live through ones teenage years without bearing witness to some public displays of affection, but he had not thought it would be someone's tongue in his mouth or that it would feel as strange as that. The moment their tongues touch he snatches both her hands into his - not at all violently, but with no attempt to hide his haste - and leans back to look at her with the widest eyes.*

[identity profile] spindleform.livejournal.com 2011-01-04 02:33 am (UTC)(link)
So not just on holidays.

[identity profile] spindleform.livejournal.com 2011-01-04 02:37 am (UTC)(link)
Of course.

Well then, I will... tell you, when I come across them.

[identity profile] spindleform.livejournal.com 2011-01-06 11:32 pm (UTC)(link)
My mother never mentioned that.