—On the Ferris Wheel—
by K.

Children’s screams could be heard all over. They wrapped around me like a blanket. Flashes of colour, smells sickeningly sweet yet so thin from their flakiness.

I couldn’t pay attention to it. Any of it. The fact that he stood, with his grey shoulder next to me, just an inch away, was enough to take my breath, all of it, away.

Something in me kept wanting to ask why I was here, with these people. They, so much more than I could ever be, seemed to find me worth a time. And I couldn’t fathom why.

We walked slowly, like in the movies, and people stole cautious glances. I heard Sasha flicking her long blonde hair over her shoulder in her ‘look at me’ way. I couldn’t be sure she did it, but I daren’t tear my eyes from his angel’s face.

Either he didn’t know I was staring, or he didn’t care.

I wondered whether his hand itched like mine. Itched to touch his perfect face, his long-fingered hands. It was all I could do to keep from twitching.

As we reached a central point, marked by a cotton candy stand, they discussed meeting points and times. He stood there and watched, not listening to any of them. He appeared to be in deep concentration but at the same time, his face was completely blank, and not in a covered up way but more of a clueless fashion.

After a moment, he turned his head, his determined eyes drilling right into my skull, and jerked his head so infinitesimally to the right.

With that we slunk off, just the two of us. At first we were slow, deliberately taking our time, hiding in plain sight. But we casually sped up, and it felt less like a game and more like we were on the run, being chased by an unimaginable threat.

His athletic body overtook my small frame. Leading, as was his habit. We ran through a hall, shaped like a maze and filled with wacky mirrors to distort your form into every extreme.

I tried not to think about the pressure on my chest and lungs, the asthma inside growing more aggressive by the second. I thought only of him, that I was running with him, doing this with him, for him, for me.

It seemed like a year . . . or a century—forever—when we came to a halt at the thirty foot wheel. Pairs lined up, filing into the old-fashioned red chairs with gold tape lining the edges.

My heart leapt into my mouth and stayed there, pulsing like thunder.

He turned to me. “Who’s going to find us thirty feet up?” he asked me with a grin.

I realised my mouth was open, and shut it quickly, before remembering he’d asked a question, and opened it again to gape at his beauty while my heart hammered at my tonsils, trying desperate bids for freedom with every pounding beat.

His smile stretched, delving into his beatific eyes as he grabbed my arm, just above my elbow, and tugged me closer.

I slid into the seat beside him, awestruck at the proximity I felt, and watched him pull the bar across our laps with a groaning squeal of protest.

My heart seemed to swell, threatening the expanses of my head itself, as I waited for the heights to grow, the sights to widen, while others piled on behind us.

Ten feet up and I felt a sudden warmth around my hand, skin soft as flower petals.

He was holding my hand!

I concentrated on the metal restraining device, memorizing every single scratch, patch of rust, and tried to relax my hand in his, so my eagerness wasn’t quite so blatant.

I couldn’t tell, not through the pounding in my ears, that he was speaking to me.

The only way I could get any kind of hold on my pulse was to pull my hand from his and stare as far away from his face, particularly his eyes, as humanly possible. The proximity was still there but as I tried to sink into the surroundings, I felt a little closer to myself, as opposed to some lost soul floating above the constraints of time on a high from his company.

After a moment he would later tell me lasted too long, I turned to face him.

“I’m sorry? I couldn’t hear you.”

And those words must’ve been the first I’ve spoken in months.

For a second he stared, his eyes not quite burning but there was energy in them that felt like friction, before his face broke into a hundred smiles and his laughter trickled into the air around us.

“No one else in the world is quite like you are,” he explained, for all the good it did.

It seemed like he wanted to go on, so I said nothing and tried not to think, because my mind can take over and before I can control it, I’ll be back to the non-speaking mess and coherent conversation will be a myth long forgotten.

“In all my time no one has affected me the way you do. Since you, I can’t hide what I think and feel any more than you can, which is saying something.”

Fate must have written this so that I had no lines, but at least I could listen.

“You mean too much to me now, more than anything the world has to offer.

“This isn’t love, this is more. It’s beyond soul mates. It’s everything in nothing, and about as natural as existence.”

What was I supposed to say to that?

I tried to open my mouth but he covered it with his own.

The kiss was like poison, intoxicating but addictive. It was a drug beyond imagination, an experience I couldn’t exist without, not after the first dose. But it was fulfilling and final, with a new beginning on the horizon.

A beginning with him.

XXX

A/N: I’m sorry it goes crap about two thirds in. It has so much more potential, but as I said on my profile, I got interrupted. I hate living with my mum more than anything when it comes to these meaningless little one-shots. Leave a little love and criticism in your reviews guys. And this is so incredibly not a sappy little love scene. This is eternity of togetherness.