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Post by Lyra Newbury on Nov 29, 2016 13:36:31 GMT -5
Lyra held him as she slept, subconsciously forbidding him to leave her. She was exhausted and fell instantly into a deep sleep. Julian kept her warm throughout the night and his love for her seeped into her dreams. He danced with her on clouds at sunset, everything was orange and purple. Music played. They made love on the pillow-like clouds until suddenly Lyra was falling, plummeting to the earth with Julian nowhere to be found. She cried for help but no one answered.
She jerked awake, her heart pounding fiercely in her chest. Julian was still sleeping next to her, unaware of the pain that was filling her body. Everything inside her was hurting, tears threatening to fall, and a tightening in her chest that was suffocating her. There was no reason for any of it and yet it hurt just as badly as it had before. She knew how to make the feeling subside.
Lyra found her wand among their discarded clothes and shut herself away in the bathroom. She sat on the floor against the wall, her knees bent and her feet planted on the cool tile. The tip of her wand dragged slowly across her thigh, pain shooting through her body and forcing out the anguish she had felt. Tears slid down her cheeks until slowly all of the pain was gone. She felt a warm glow surrounding her. The fear and anxiety she didn't realize had been with her were now gone as she leaned her head back against the wall, her eyes shut and a weak smile on her face.
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Post by Julian Faust on Nov 29, 2016 17:13:10 GMT -5
He woke alone. At first he didn't know where he was, but the location came to him quickly. Without Lyra in the room he was free to let his expression resemble the worry and doubt in his mind. Still he didn't move.
Finally he stood and went to the bathroom door. He knocked.
"Everything alright?"
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Post by Lyra Newbury on Nov 29, 2016 23:07:46 GMT -5
Comfort never failed to follow the pain whenever she created a new scar, and the warm feeling would last much longer than the sharp sting of her flesh being torn open. If she wasn't so content sitting on the cool bathroom floor as angels sang to her, she might have worried why the agony had returned when Julian was still in her bed. She had everything she wanted now but still she needed this release. She should have been concerned, but she was at peace.
A knocking on the door woke her from her blissful haze. "Yes, I'll be right out."
Lyra stood slowly, then cleaned herself up and applied another charm to disguise the marks, fresh and old, on her thigh. She brushed her teeth and pulled her hair up, using magic to hurry along the tasks and pretend she had been freshening up before Julian interrupted her. She stifled a yawn before opening the door.
"Morning," she said happily.
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Post by Julian Faust on Nov 29, 2016 23:16:31 GMT -5
"There she is." he smiled when the door opened. He hid his anxiety and drowned his sorrows in his artwork. He could go days without eating or sleeping while working on a piece, and by the weight he had lost it showed. But Lyra's form of coping was far more dangerous.
He had no idea. And he would blame himself when he found out.
"I asked Mimsy to whip up breakfast and I have another surprise for you."
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Post by Lyra Newbury on Nov 29, 2016 23:22:05 GMT -5
A smile appeared as he mentioned a surprise. She couldn't imagine what else he would be able to give her beyond the wonderful evening he had shown her last night and into this morning, but she was excited by the prospect of a present.
"You didn't have to do anything else," she said, as was the appropriate response when someone spoiled you, but she quickly followed it with an excited "what is it?" Her eyes sparkled and she bounced lightly on the balls of her feet.
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Post by Julian Faust on Nov 29, 2016 23:25:27 GMT -5
Julian's brow rose before Lyra's excitement made him smile.
He took her hands and led her to the living room. Using his wand he activated her media system and introduced her to another muggle miracle: Saturday Morning Cartoons.
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Post by Lyra Newbury on Nov 29, 2016 23:59:37 GMT -5
She followed eagerly and when the projector came into view she didn't quite understand what she was seeing. She hadn't seen the projector in the movie theatre, the images just appeared on the screen. Julian of course had prepared for this by almost instantly turning the strange device on. Colorful drawings came to life on a small screen sitting against the far wall.
With a bounce in her step she rushed to the device to watch as the reels turned and light burst forth from a small lens. Although there was film running between the reels, every square was blank until it ran in front of the projection light. Lyra could just make out tiny still images appear before they were sucked into the machine and when the film was pulled through the other end and wound itself around the second reel the images had faded. But the action was alive on her wall as a cartoon dog and his friends ran up and down a corridor, shuffling between doors that all seemed to lead back into the same hallway.
Lyra spun around and jumped into Julian's arms, kissing him. "Thank you." She kissed him again. "This is amazing." More kisses. "You are the best boyfriend on the whole planet." Still more kissing.
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Post by Julian Faust on Nov 30, 2016 0:43:53 GMT -5
No he wasn't. He was good at the romance. He was a master at romance. But as a boyfriend he was terrible. He left her alone for weeks. He attacked her when he saw her, then distanced himself. He was a veritable yo yo pulling on all of Lyra's emotions. It was unintentional of course, but that didn't matter.
He carried so much baggage into their relationship, and when it came to the real responsibility of being a boyfriend - the loving, trusting, caring, thick and thin, mediocrity, day in, day out kind of love, Julian sucked at it.
But he took the compliment, and he beamed with her praise.
"I think Friday night movies and Saturday morning cartoons are a new staple in our...relationship." he said testing the word.
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Post by Lyra Newbury on Nov 30, 2016 0:55:43 GMT -5
Relationship. Boyfriend. Lyra had only recently realized she wanted anything like this, instead going on for years about how she only needed a man for one thing and it didn't require commitment. She was a new woman now, and this woman wanted everything Julian had to offer - and possibly somethings he couldn't.
Lyra pulled him to the sofa and laid with her head in his lap as they watched the cartoon dog and his lanky friend hide from a monster in a giant flower pot. Lyra laughed as the pot rocked back and forth as the dog inside shook with fear before yelping loudly and running away from the monster who had found him. Later, after Julian was gone, she would inspect the machine further and figure out how it worked, but for the moment she was happy to watch the cartoons with him and laugh at the trouble the characters found themselves in.
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