Listen
Sometimes all we need to bring ourselves closer to those we love is to stop for a minute, and just listen.
This vignette was written for Kio Redsen as part of my themed Patreon request day for the month of February 2019. This month's theme was simply "Love", and the story contains romantic cuteness between consenting adults. :3
Listen
The liger's hands were full, so full in fact that she had to hold the strap of her purse between her teeth as she fished forth and fumbled with her key to open the door, meaning she didn't offer her customary announcement of her presence to Saku as she slipped inside their home. Carefully she lowered her bags of grocery shopping to the ground, but just as she released the strap from between her teeth and moved to announce herself to the wolf, Steph heard something from deeper within their home which caused any words she might have been planning to utter to falter and fade within her throat.
She heard a voice. A familiar, but surprisingly soft and gentle voice that had to be Saku... singing. Singing without accompaniment, at least not any which the sabretoothed feline could hear, and singing music far more placid, far more tender and vulnerable than anything which Steph had ever even heard Saku listening to, never mind singing aloud. Sure, she'd heard the wolf sing before, normally in the shower or while getting ready for a night out. But when she did, it was usually with the same music blaring at full volume from the iPod dock in the bedroom, or from her phone's speakers over the rush of the shower's water. And on those occasions, it was more likely to be something much more intense, a song by the Distillers or Taproot or at the very least a bit of early era Linkin Park being passionately yelled at the top of Saku's lungs.
Today however, the wolf's voice was quiet and soothing, and the words she sang filled with a very different kind of emotion from her usual choice of songs.
"...but I'll be close behind. I'll follow you, into the dark."
Steph's heart skipped a beat, and after moving back to the front door and closing it ever so carefully, ever so quietly, she moved towards the source of the voice, bare paws padding silently on the carpeted hallway floor as she recognised the song being sung by the love of her life.
"No blinding light, or tunnels to gates of white. Just our hands clasped so tight, waiting for the hint of a spark..."
The liger barely held back a whimper. They'd danced to that song. Not on a date. Not on any special occasion in particular, but... on a night not many weeks after they'd started to get more serious about their feelings for one another, that song had come up on their Spotify playlist as the two of them sat talking, sipping beer and slowly working their way to the part of the evening where they began to remove clothes and bury their faces in various portions of their girlfriends' beautiful body. What had possessed Steph to try and get Saku to dance with her that night, knowing full well even then that the wolf really wasn't the dancing type, she didn't know. But, once they'd gotten themselves standing up, and Steph had started to rock and turn with the wolf in her arms as that song played... they must have spent an hour just standing there, Saku silently refusing to let go, refusing to move, refusing to stop embracing Steph tenderly.
Only much later had Saku confessed that the reason she'd held Steph so close and so tight that night was because she'd been crying, and hadn't wanted the liger to see how much of a sap she was, being so happy over just being there with her. But, even then Saku had feigned forgetting why exactly she had started to cry, what about that moment had set her off. To this day, Steph had never been able to figure out what about that particular moment had gotten Saku to open up. But now, as she heard the wolf continuing to sing...
"If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied; illuminate the 'No' on their Vacancy signs, if there's no-one beside you when your soul embarks... then I'll follow you into the dark."
Carefully, ever so slowly and quietly, Steph pushed the door to the kitchen open. The singing didn't stop though, and the sabretooth cat barely held back a giggle as she realised why. Saku was standing by the sink, washing up the last of yesterday's dishes no doubt in preparation for starting tonight's dinner, with the dark cables of two earbuds running down from her head towards her jeans' pocket, her phone no doubt held within. The more she stood there and watched Saku though, closing her own eyes after a short while and just listening as the wolf sang, the harder it was to do so. The harder it became to do anything at all but run forward and embrace the wolf so tightly, however inadvisable it might have been to do so while she was washing and racking a couple of kitchen knives.
"In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule, I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black. I held my tongue, as she told me, son... fear is the heart of love, so I never went b-back..."
It was when Steph heard that slight catch in Saku's voice however that the liger's heart simply broke, shattering into a million pieces right then and there as it hit home why this song had been so impactful upon Saku back then, in what was probably the first time she recalled hearing it.
"If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied; illuminate the 'No' on their Vacancy signs, if there's no-one beside you when your soul embarks... then I'll follow you into the dark."
Saku had found it rough before meeting Steph. Her life hadn't always been good, in fact from what Saku had trusted Steph enough to share, it had been fucking awful sometimes. It meant so, so much to Steph that since meeting her, Saku felt as though that had all changed. That her life was better now than it had ever been, and only light and goodness lay ahead in their future.
But... this song, talking about loving someone so much that you would venture into the darkness just to be with them for even a moment longer...
The liger's eyes bulged as she heard Saku's voice falter, heard the wolf sniffle, and watched a hand rise up to Saku's face, rubbing its furred back against her eyes for a moment before pulling it away again, glistening with the slight moisture of tears. She almost sobbed herself as she rushed forward, and with the clicking of her clawed feet on the linoleum of the kitchen floor, Steph saw Saku jump, stiffen nervously, bashfully, and turn her head just in time to see the big cat barrelling towards her.
"Saku..."
Steph whimpered as she grabbed her lover tightly, not giving the wolf time to make excuses, time to be ashamed of her singing or to explain away her emotional reaction. Saku just felt Steph's hands on her face, saw her lover's lips moving and head shaking, and felt Steph tug her earbuds free with two outstretched fingers wrapping around the cords as the sabretoothed liger whispered to her and peppered her face with adoring, desperate kisses at the same time.
"Saku, listen to me. L-listen, and please... oh god, please, believe me. I'll follow you, too. I... I'll never let you slip away, never let us be apart. I'd brave anything, face anything to stay with you, m-my... my sweet, sweet Saku..."
By the time her voice trailed off and their muzzles met in a deeper, lengthier kiss as Saku's own arms wrapped tight around Steph, tears were shining in the liger's eyes just as they were for the wolf. They sniffed and whimpered softly as the sight of those tears in their partner's eyes prompted more; more not just from Steph, but from them both, set loose in that moment and unable to be withdrawn or withheld. They wept and they kissed until their emotional upheaval left them with no more breath to do so, but even then as their lips parted and ragged, frantic gasps for air filled their lungs, they only took enough to allow them each the same longingly, feverishly spoken words.
"I love you."
Saku whimpered tenderly.
"I love you."
Steph mewled in the same urgent breath.
A split-second after those words had been shared, spoken not because it wasn't already known but because it always, always deserved to be said, their lips met once again. Their arms clutched tighter still at one another's trembling bodies, and as the sounds of gently smacking lips and the occasional lingering sniffle or whimper of emotive elation rang out between them, the two women heard to the soft, tinny echo of the song continuing to ring out through Saku's earbuds now dangling down her leg, and did the only thing that seemed right at the time.
They held one another, they kissed, they fell head over heels ever deeper in love, and they listened to their song, both now knowing for the first time that was precisely and undeniably what it was.
By Jeeves
With "I'll follow you into the dark" lyrics by Death Cab for Cutie.
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