drowning never felt so much like flying as it does right now
Then and there, she decides that she likes the way his laugh lights up their little table; it is both warm and sad and longing, it is full of life and loss and so many things she wants to almost-taste, but not quite. Not quite - Moira does not wish to dip into his well of sorrows and slip the water into her own cup. To drink from his alongside hers would drown her at the bottom of the sea. That is where she would find him.
Her almost-lover. The ghost that eludes her. The man who was not meant to be hers, perhaps, or maybe he was and she messed up enough that he became tired of waiting.
She does not know.
Moira knows so little and too much.
And she knows that she likes the way he laughs, the way the timbre of his voice resonates in their little corner that is too warm and not warm enough. Briefly, she wonders, if that's the drink which heats her cheeks or if she's blushing with a cheeky grin. So terribly few times has the phoenix been cheeky - growing up she could not dare to be so. Blight they would whisper and sneer. Monster some would remind her again and again. Downtrodden, beaten until shame is all she knew - for what she had no control over, yet still felt responsible for - Moira had no opportunity to be rowdy.
But she stood; with a smile she stood, undefeated and ready to climb her mountain again. Now, she does not miss the way the question is not answered, or the way his voice tips low until she has to strain nearer. Carefully, like a dance she's so unversed in, she leans in near so his mouth is at her ear from somewhere on her exposed neck, so that she might catch his words and keep them as her own if only for a night - for tonight - and pulls back with a curious tilt of her head.
Something like fear crawls in the edges of those eyes now, something that begs him not to say things he does not mean, something akin to pain flickering and flickering and sputtering to stay alive, to light a fire, to be known by the world that she would have it forget. So Moira tilts her head up, looking down her skinny nose at the man of silver and gold and sunsets and wishes and secrets so mighty and far away she cannot dare to hope for them, through a nest of shadows that hide her burning gaze from him more and more. Between them, the tapestry of light flickers and she unravels the strands. At her request, they fall apart like she does over and over.
Until there is nothing left.
Only the whisper of light is left, and even so it is a slow and quiet death, too.
"You intrigue me endlessly, and I don't know if I like that." Warbling voice comes out wilting and sweet; like death and decay, it is rotten and it is fragrant and something you cannot simply pull away from. Midnight wishes are made to voices like hers, voices that are meant to be forgotten, meant to soothe and calm, but never meant to keep and cherish like his - like a musician's or a bird's.
Time slows his ticking and watches the girl with shining dark eyes, the boy with fire and ice in him, watches in silence as her lips part. Breathe she thinks, forgetting what it is to live and not drown in the depth of all that is Michael, for Moira is quite adept at drowning in people she should not. And yet, a creature meant for the skies is so horrible at swimming. Perhaps that's why her swan dives always end in a watery grave. "I don't like to feel vulnerable," she whispers at last, lips nearly pressed into his cheek before she ducks back under the shelter of his nose. "You make me want to confess, you make me soft."
