There's Always Some Fear In Love

[MethodicalSlacker]

At last, the time came to speak the syllables that would shatter their silence. Specificity be damned; any statement uttered would start a countdown to the end of their embrace. It was only proper to carry on with physical contact for only as long as was appropriate, and the one-time couple was coming up on that marker shortly. But he felt no desire to let their bodies part.

This fact startled Max, even terrified him slightly, but it mostly delighted him. On some level, he had been concerned with the possibility that he may not even possess that capability, after a long period of chastity and focus on his intellectual pursuits. There had been an inkling of doubt, earlier on, that he'd be able to approach the festivities of the night with due passion and enthusiasm. Thankfully, his paranoia had been just that and nothing more.

With a start, he realized that his tangential remembering of his previous trepidation had carried on over into real time—he had embraced her for fairly longer than he thought proper or appropriate. Max considered briefly the kind of question that would naturally accompany a de-coupling of arms, and settled on an innocuous enough one.

"What," he asked, gently pulling out of the hug, "are our plans for the evening, when we get back to your house?"

[MurderWeasel]

The hug went on and on, and Misty was just fine with that. She gave only the faintest of passing thoughts to the world beyond them, wondered for only a split second whether to be embarrassed by the prospect of being sighted by strangers passing in their cars or looking out their windows. Who cared what people she didn't know thought? And really, to an observer they weren't even doing anything questionable. It just felt, somehow, intimate.

And then, Max disengaged and asked what came later. Misty's smile only widened, her cheeks rising and narrowing her eyes, but pulling that off took major self control, because the truth was his question had caught her off guard and was throwing her for a real loop as to how to respond.

"Oh," she said, voice lazy, comfortable, relaxed as her mind whirled a mile a second, making the best use of the time her nothing words were buying, "you know, well, I just figure..."

This was a minefield, far more than the sidewalk to her bare feet. Max could be innocently asking exactly what his words implied. It would be entirely in keeping with his behavior throughout the night, his general demeanor and all she knew and expected and assumed of him. Planning ahead, curious and courteous.

On the other hand, though, he could be—in a very gentlemanly and polite fashion—inquiring whether there would be an opportunity for their time together to end in sex. It was not a possibility Misty had really given that much thought at any point in the lead-up to the event, because she hadn't really expected things to go this smoothly, hadn't thought she would feel this comfortable and right around him. But the walk, and specifically the hug, had changed things, and now she didn't know what she thought or how she felt.

She wasn't the sort of person to rush into making a relationship physical. Most of her past romances had not progressed to the point where clothes came off, but things had gotten hotter and heavier a couple times. She was not ideologically opposed; in fact, there was a place for sexual acts in ritual, up to and including penetration. It was not something she had experimented with yet, but she'd kicked it around in her head as a possibility for the future, and what was a prom-night hookup compared to that? But this also felt like something more, or something she wanted to be different. What it meant was impossible to articulate, because she didn't even really know.

"I was thinking, we just kind of..."

So what she was getting at, was that she was probably, maybe, mostly alright with (or even into?) the idea of things going some vague and undefined degree of further. She thought. Perhaps. If the opportunity presented itself. But of course she could be misunderstanding completely, and she did not want to come off as a slut. She had this suspicion that Max would be very, very disappointed to think that of her, that it would cheapen the closeness they'd felt thus far by making it seem to him commonplace for her, despite the fact that it was not.

"...hang out, chat, I can show you around a little, see what sounds good? Really casual."

She hoped that was the right blend of implication and deniability.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Max nodded. That sounded appropriate, if he was understanding her correctly. Leaving the intricacies and nuances of the night to the whims of chance and fate felt like the most natural and ultimately optimal outcome. Dropping pretenses of formality might be a nice change of pace, considering the levels of politeness and cordiality that Max had attempted to uphold throughout the evening. In practice, that had often amounted to friendliness and what might be considered casual attitudes by others, but it was the mindset that he wished to free himself from. He longed to discard the rules, just for a few moments.

They were not far from Misty's domicile, now. The longer they spent in the night, the less time they would have with one another. Max wondered what his other friends were up to. He knew of a party further downtown, a truly bacchanalian undertaking complete with alcohol and illicit drugs aplenty. There were a few satellite offerings for most people's evenings, but that was what he understood to be the central mass, if the whisperings were to be believed. He had little interest in any of them. Max understood himself to be an introvert, and in his partying days (how few and sweet they were, in hindsight) had angled himself towards the corners of the rooms, away from substances and towards substance, conversations with personages yet unknown to him. If not for those long, winding exchanges of ideas, he would not have attended as many social functions.

"Alright, then," he said, moving back into a walking pace, "let's get there soon, so we can enjoy the time that we have, yes?"

A smile flickered again across his face.

[MurderWeasel]

"Yes," Misty said, letting herself slip into a formality she normally would've felt unsuited for, or even unworthy of, but that in this moment seemed natural and even genuine, "let's."

She picked up her pace too, sweeping the path in front of her with her gaze still, but her mind otherwise engaged. Max's response had been just as coy as hers, just as ripe with potential both innuendo-laden and innocuous. On the one hand, that kept the excitement of the unknown, the mystery and the potential. On the other, it also maintained the anxiety, the nerves and uncertainty and the possibility of getting worked up about what turned out to be nothing or getting excited about what turned out to be nothing. She didn't even know how she felt. Both of those things at once, and less and more too.

No, that wasn't quite right. She did know how she felt, underneath and above everything else. She was happy to be here, tonight, with this person. She was happy that the concerns she had were what they were, rather than something else. She was optimistic in a general sort of way, a way she was very much not used to, and she was ready for almost anything. Mostly, she just wanted to get there already.

They were nearly there, too. These streets now were familiar to Misty as the halls of school, the lines on the palm of her hand. She remained vigilant, but it took conscious effort bred from the awareness of how easily complacency could set in. She could see her place. She'd been smiling the whole way, and that didn't change.

[MethodicalSlacker]

They arrived at the house shortly. Max could feel a slight edge of cold from the breeze, and wondered idly if Misty might appreciate donning his suit jacket. By the time he seriously began to consider offering it, however, they reached their destination. Silently he cursed himself for his inaction, and promised that on a future occasion in which he found himself in a similar scenario he'd not dilly-dally for so long. The thought that Misty had been expecting him to bestow upon her the suit jacket frightened him, but a short moment longer spent on that train of thought led him to the conclusion that it was ultimately not very likely to be the case.

Coming at the house from a different angle shifted Max's perception of it, somewhat. The place of residence had not seemed "impressive" in a conventional sense upon his initial viewing, but a certain aspect of arriving at the front door and having to ascend to request entrance had filled him with a strange trepidation, a few hours earlier in the darkening night. Now, as he made his way down the sidewalk and witnessed the sight of the house from the side, he felt significantly less intimidated. Or perhaps the fact that this was his second viewing, not the primary impression of the house was what helped him to feel more comfortable.

"Here we are," Max half-whispered, as he stopped in front of the steps. A whisper? Because he was, admittedly, a little nervous about what was going to happen. Max was used to having fairly adequate intuition and an ability to puzzle out most situations he found himself in with facts and logic. This, however... well, he was certainly self-aware of the stereotype he was playing into, but he genuinely felt that the rules he most often played by were beginning to lose their relevancy. He had to be wary of decision paralysis, entering Misty's domicile. He'd also do well to be conscious of the time tested and true old adage; Whatever happens, happens.

Was that it? Or was it go with the flow?

It was something meaningless and trite like that, anyway.

"After you," Max said, gesturing with his hand to the front door.

[MurderWeasel]

Misty's apartment home was one of those normal, undeniable facts of life that were so fixed as to become background. She paid it no mind in most situations, and really only could see it with fresh eyes in moments like this, coming back with somebody new in tow. Max had seen it before, but Misty hadn't been outside at the time, hadn't had a front row seat to whatever his reaction had been. More than that, earlier in the evening it had been their point of origin, and thus something of limited importance at best, to be quickly left behind. Now it was their destination.

It wasn't like it was nothing. Misty's family wasn't rich, and in fact almost certainly didn't even qualify as middle class, but they had some space. It wasn't a hovel. It was a two-bedroom two-bathroom with a kitchen/dining room, a living room, a porch, and an office/improvised guest bedroom that had served as her brother's room until he moved out for college and still seemed a little teenage-boy for her tastes, even though nothing of his remained besides a bookshelf stuffed with novels and textbooks, most of which he'd probably only pretended to read. There were other units in the building, but they had their own entrance, and the neighbors never interacted with them anyways, and Misty had one of the rooms, her own personal space, with a closet and a desk and enough room for her sewing machine. She even had a bathroom effectively to herself now.

In any case, Max wasn't recoiling in horror. She almost skipped up the steps, half in excitement and half to get inside they wouldn't be looking at the outside anymore, then set her shoes down for a moment and dug her key out of her clutch. She fitted it into the lock, a process slightly more fumbling than usual; was she excited, or nervous, or tired, or just doomed to embarrass herself when it came to a pointless, everyday task? In any event, fifteen seconds later the door was open and they were inside. Misty flicked on the lights, and gestured Max after her, locking the door behind them.

"Here," she said, gesturing him along, not like there was much space to get lost. "I'll show you my room. It's probably the comfiest place to hang out."

Well, it was. The living room was a bit too formal and boring, and the dining room was stiff and uninteresting, and the office was, as mentioned, her brother's old bedroom and thus to be avoided. Misty didn't set foot in her parents' room basically ever, either; she knew what it looked like more or less but that was about all that could be said for it, and also it'd be very weird to take a date there.

She hoped she'd made her bed today. She'd been meaning to, certainly, but had been so caught up in the whirl of preparations she wasn't sure if she actually had. And she knew there were shoes and clothes strewn on the floor, but hoped they could be kicked to the side surreptitiously and ignored.

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Okay," said Max, "Lead the way."

He disposed of his footwear in the front hallway, next to some other shoes, and continued forward in his socks. It would be impolite to stare into all the corners of the house, but it was difficult not to steal a glance here and there. His prying eyes were unwelcome, he realized, but insatiable regardless. Misty pressed on, venturing deeper and deeper into the house, and a growing feeling of unease settled in Max's stomach. Was this truly proper, or was an invisible boundary being breached? Despite Misty's willingness to invite him into her home, what about the other residents? What were the guidelines that they had set?

Worse than not possessing knowledge of the answers to these queries was, ultimately, the awkwardness of asking them, and the prudishness that would show through if he were to inquire in a serious manner. Surely it would dispel any and all goodwill earned earlier, out on the street. Additionally, the concerns of Misty's parents were likely far from her mind. It would be unwise to bring up a subject so far from the considerations of his host. Legal adults, they both were, or just about. There were responsibilities that came with that, and Max simply needed to trust Misty with her end.

But he wanted to raise at least one concern, even if he didn't know the most tactful way to do so. And, in not knowing, he would remain, until he did finally figure out how to say what was occupying his mind.

Max followed her to the room and waited for her to open the door.

[MurderWeasel]

As she opened the door and flicked on the light, Misty managed not to breathe an actual sigh of relief. She had indeed made the bed earlier. She'd also actually put most of her dirty clothes in the small laundry hamper in the corner at its foot, though not all of them; her bra was lying on the floor from where she'd ditched it when getting into her dress, which had built-in support to help with that whole looking-decent-while-being-strapless side of things. Misty quickly kicked the offending garment behind the door and continued into the room without breaking stride, heat rising to her cheeks only a little; she was still carrying her shoes and set these, and her clutch, down beside the hamper.

"Come on over," she called, probably needlessly, to Max, with a sweeping gesture encompassing both her bed and the rickety chair by her desk. The desk itself was quite cluttered, and a little of this spilled over to the seat; her sewing machine was set up next to the tackle box full of needles and pins and scrap and seam rippers and scissors and so forth, and a pale turquoise sundress was draped over the back of the chair, the project she'd been working on before Prom became so much more interesting and important, mostly altered to her particular size and fit.

Misty plopped down on the bed, near the pillow, and patted the mattress next to her in case Max needed a more direct invitation to get closer. She was starting to get nervous again, though. The initial high of realizing her room wasn't as bad as she'd thought was replaced with regret that it wasn't as nice as it could be. She had not been expecting company. The garbage bin by her desk was half full of crumpled paper and tissues and tangles of thread. Her bookshelves had not been dusted in at least a month and a half. The reading material on display was a mix of the vaguely respectable (a couple different bibles she'd never opened, a guide to the Tarot [and her deck was up there too; Misty had scored a 1977 Golden Dawn deck for ten dollars at a used bookstore], assorted grimoires and classic works of literature) and the humiliating (Wicca and Witchcraft For Dummies purchased out of morbid curiosity and carelessly placed alongside more worthy texts, an HP Lovecraft compendium, a collection of transcripts of Canon's greatest radio moments that she'd normally stand by but Max differed from her stance there and she didn't want to press it with him at all).

Her closet was shut but she knew it was overflowing with clothes in various states of destruction and recreation, and her cloaks and robes and costumes were front and center. The drawers beneath her bed were also packed with junk, including old school assignments she'd not gotten around to recycling dating as far back as eighth grade in some cases, plus her stash of things she didn't want her parents to know about cleverly disguised as yet another sewing kit, plus a number of journals and diaries partially used for their intended purposes and partially to catalogue her experiments and spells and rituals, which she hoped to condense into a personal Book of Shadows someday despite knowing that tradition was mostly artificial bullshit. She did have a laptop, but it was old and terrible and buried beneath a pile of muslins. On her bedside table was a sippy bottle that looked like it was for grade-schoolers because she'd been using it since third grade to hold her nighttime water and was only just this very moment realizing that was almost a decade ago.

There were candles everywhere.

She gave her best brave smile and said, "Home sweet home?"

[MethodicalSlacker]

Oh.

Interesting.

Misty's room was entirely not as he had expected. Max had anticipated a greater presence of the paganistic arts in her decor, and though their influence was largely present, he was surprised to see them relegated to several volumes clustered on her work desk. Though not his first impression of a woman's room—he had been into several in his youth, in the time when doing so was still innocuous and there was no connotation of romance to speak of—it was perhaps his first impression of a woman's room that was prepared for him in some fashion. He assumed the candles to serve an aesthetic purpose closely aligned to romantic functions, though the possibility that they were present for Occult reasons nagged at the back of his conscious mind.

He accepted Misty's invitation to take a seat, setting down with just a few inches between them. Taking another view of the room, he looked for a tactful way to describe it without offending her. He did not hate it, though he would never choose to live within its walls. Thus, he needed something objective, something that could easily divert from that subject, passed over in favor of whatever Misty chose to throw his way next.

"It's certainly cozy," he settled on.

[MurderWeasel]

"Mm," Misty said, "it's a little messy. Sorry."

Should she have played that up more? Or less? She didn't want to tell Max that she hadn't expected him to see the inside of her room, because that would sound like she'd been expecting things to go poorly, when the truth was simply that she hadn't been counting on them going this well. But she also didn't want to imply too strongly that she'd done a lot of preparation for him to be here, sitting next to her on her bed, because she hadn't at all and it really showed; had she known this was where the evening was going to end up, she would've put way more work into tidying and banished everything that didn't cast her in the absolute best possible light into the closet.

He seemed to be looking at the candles, so maybe he liked them, or maybe he thought they were really weird. A couple of them were Yankee Candle scavengings, stout round things with odors like desserts in little glass cups, but most of them were tapers in red or white, stuck in assorted mismatched brass candlesticks she'd picked up at thrift stores over the years. She had an actual chamberstick on her bedside table, right next to the sippy bottle.

There was no doing anything to hide the candles so Misty figured she should own it and light a couple. The majority of them weren't burned too far down; she had to be in the right mood to really get the whole room going, and whenever her brother was over (though that was much rarer these days) he complained he could smell burning wax from anywhere in the house if she had even a single little taper lit.

"One sec," Misty said, and she leaned over and pulled out the drawer under her bed closest her pillow and dug out an orange barbecue lighter she kept there for basically this purpose. She stood up, clicked it a few times, lit the taper in the chamberstick, and then walked around the room, touching that flame to some of the others. She made sure not to get anything smelly going; the last thing she needed was to give Max a pumpkin-spice migraine. When she had some flames flickering merrily, she set the chamberstick back next to the bottle and sat back down next to Max, just a tiny bit closer than she'd been before, but still not touching. She shifted back and forth a bit, the familiar give of her mattress suddenly feeling like foreign and possibly-hostile territory. She really did not know what was supposed to come now, what Max was expecting or hoping for or dreading. She didn't know about herself, either.

"Thanks again," she said, and she was going to add "for taking me to prom" but that didn't sound quite right, quite sincere or comprehensive enough.

"For being here tonight."

[MethodicalSlacker]

The sight of Misty lighting the candles was enough to put Max in a sort of trance. There was a delicate air of sophistication to her methodology, despite the modern barbarity of the initial lighting implement, which was shortly offset by the refined look and aesthetics of her chamberstick. The eerie glow of the candles both soothed and gave the room an air of danger. Surely Misty's bed was one of the most flammable objects he had ever laid eyes on, what with its blankets and the like. As she sat down next to him, Max took an extra few moments to gaze upon the orange flames, recognizing the likelihood of this being perhaps the only time he got the opportunity to do so. Whether or not proceedings would last beyond this night was outside of his knowledge.

But she was glad for his current presence, and, for his part, so was he.

"Of course," Max replied, "I enjoyed myself."

He noticed himself shift in his seat. That was not something he willed to happen. It was not often that Max's impulses got the better of him. Usually he thought himself rather adept at doing exactly what he wanted to, at any given time. The world bent to him when it had the chance. He did not often bend to his emotions.

"I enjoyed being with you," he found himself saying, quite surprisingly.

And, even more surprisingly, he found himself reaching out for her hand.

[MurderWeasel]

Misty felt a warmth spreading all throughout her body, and more than that her spirit. She wasn't quite sure what she'd been expecting. Nothing unpleasant, but also maybe nothing quite so direct and personal. His statement was pure and impossible to misconstrue. But this was a good surprise. Tonight had been one good surprise after another, and she on some level thought that she didn't deserve that. It wasn't melodramatic self-flagellation; Misty didn't hate herself or anything. She just knew that she was a flawed person, and more than that one a good bit outside the mainstream, and prom was such a typical high school experience that it didn't seem like it was supposed to end up like this for people like her. She was less Ivy, more Carrie.

But that didn't matter one bit.

Max reached out and she reached out and their hands intertwined again. It was different than before, because outside there had been a purpose of a sort to their holding hands. Holding hands while walking somewhere together felt like a whole different animal than holding hands while sitting on a bed together, and this time it had been Max who reached out, and Misty could feel her heart beating, could feel each breath pass from her lungs, could taste the faint hint of wax and fire.

She looked into Max's eyes. No, she gazed into them, drawn towards him almost as if on a string. She was, she realized, actually leaning in. Just a little. Mouth closed, but lips pursed. Just a little. Slowly, carefully, but somehow she'd scooted a little closer, because her leg was touching his now.

[MethodicalSlacker]

At some point, Max stopped being surprised by what was happening to his person. It was not so alien a feeling to be considered involuntary. These were movements he had willed to happen, warmth he had chosen to project. His thoughts were still in control, not his emotions, his passion—this was just the logical conclusion of the evening. Max had a cousin on his mother's side who indulged in degenerate behaviors that contributed nothing to society. He spoke with Max occasionally on the telephone, and Max indulged him because he was family. During one particularly uncomfortable family get-together, he pulled Max aside to talk about something he called a 'dating simulator'.

He had passed the 'flags', then, in Misty's 'route'. Max recalled generally little about what his cousin had said, and he preferred to put him out of his mind, but in the absence of a clear plan the mind tended to wander to subjects not often touched upon. It disgusted him, the reduction of interpersonal relationships to linear options and routes, but it was certainly convenient for those who wished not to engage with the world as it was, or those who had no idea how to begin.

It was on these strange paths that Max's mind wandered as Misty's face drew near. It was these thoughts that tormented him so, mental caverns without sunshine that cursed him. Inconsequential meandering on disgusting pedestrian behavior occupied his head-space and prevented him from considering this moment the way he wanted to. The absolutely last image he wanted seated in his cognition right now was his detestable cousin and his abhorrent 'hobbies'. It was possible that this was his mind's way of motivating him to press further and further on into uncharted romantic territory. Perhaps Misty could exorcise these demons of distraction from him, if he gave himself over to her. If he let her consume his thoughts, occupy his heart, fill his hands, then he would be free from the fell clutch of memory.

So, he would.

Misty's eyes shined brighter than anything he had ever seen. The delicate rubbing of his leg against hers filled him with a warmth like the gentle caress of a summer sun. The tactile sensation of his fingers against hers sent him into a strange bliss as he dangled dangerously above something unfamiliar that rose and fell in his chest like the tides.

Max leaned in closely and kissed Misty on the lips.

[MurderWeasel]

For just a moment, Misty had been afraid that Max wouldn't reciprocate, even as he too leaned in. Maybe he wouldn't understand, wouldn't catch the subtle cues she was leaving, and if that happened then she wouldn't be able to bring herself to push further. Maybe he'd understand and decline nonetheless, for reasons of ideology or, worse, personal taste. Maybe she'd misread absolutely everything. Such fears seemed so silly as his lips met hers, but she'd worried nonetheless.

She'd kissed boys before. She wasn't about to pretend otherwise. She wasn't totally easy like half her classmates, had never ever had a "friend with benefits," and blanched at the thought of spin-the-bottle but probably would've played anyways had the opportunity presented itself. She had dated, though not in a little while. She had not, however, kissed a boy like Max before, a boy she felt quite this way about, after a night quite like this. She couldn't even fully articulate it to herself, but there was this thought that she was maybe just a little bit out of her league, not because he was rich (though he was) or handsome (which he also was) but because he was so confident. He at least seemed to believe in himself in this way she yearned to and pretended to but ultimately did not, and yet here he was, kissing her, and surely that meant he believed in this too. Maybe it wasn't love, not yet, but it was something more than like, that was for sure.

Misty leaned into the kiss more wholeheartedly herself, her lips moving against his, her hand squeezing his. She thought that maybe this might be an arena in which she did have a little more experience, and she felt honored to be sharing this moment but also a little ashamed. Not enough to stop, or to do anything differently, though.

No, instead she pulled herself in closer to Max, pressing her side against his, and raising one hand slowly and hesitantly towards his cheek.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Max leaned into the kiss as deeply as Misty, reciprocating and returning and responding in kind to each movement and shift as she pressed in impossibly closely to him. The warmth of the kiss reverberated throughout his entire torso, illuminating the very fiber of his being. It was unlike anything he ever felt before, and he wished dearly to be able to envelope himself in the feeling and not have to think ever again.

Yet it was not enough. Despite his best efforts, his mind was still wandering. What did this kiss mean for the two of them? Where would things lead? Where would Max draw the line? He tried to drown it out by wrapping his free hand around Misty's waist and drawing her ever nearer, but it was no use. Did he love her? Was he worthy of love? Was she worthy of his love? Max declined to answer any of these lines of questioning, for doing so would invite them into his mind to stay. Instead, the questions flowed on and on and ever forward, replacing each other like splashes of water running down a stream.

Max continued to hold the kiss, and wondered idly if he had been doing so for too long. He was unsure what denoted one kiss as opposed to many readjustments of lips and pushes and pulls of mouths being framed as multiple kisses.

He settled on the official ending of the kiss being when their heads had pulled far enough apart for him to look at Misty and see her entire face as he leaned in for more.