Who: Graeme and Giada
What: She wants something she's not ready for...
Where: Thier Apartment
When: Last Night
Status: Completing in comments
He couldn't believe that this had already happened. It hadn't even been a week, or...well, maybe it had, but it was still way too close together. They had gone to Alexandria's funeral, where Graeme stayed close to Giada, allowing her to wander away if she needed some space, or cling to him when she needed support. She had lost a good friend, one of her
best friends to a virus that had no cure, and just a few days later she finds out that her sister-in-law has the same thing. That same horrible sickness that was spreading like wildfire. He knew how close the two girls were, and he could tell that Giada was hurting. He could tell that she was scared, and he still didn't know what more he could do other than hold her and let her know that he was there. Graeme knew that he couldn't fix this. He knew he couldn't cure Savannah or bring Alexandria back, and he couldn't even tell her that nothing was going to happen to Sav.
They had just returned home from Mungo's, after visiting Savannah, and both of them were quiet. Neither of them said anything as they removed their jackets and placed their wands on the counter. It was so rare for their apartment to be quiet. Usually it was noisy, and fun, and energetic. But lately it had been anything but.
The quiet sound of Graeme clearing his throat sounded magnified since that was the only noise that had been made in quite some time. He leaned against the back of the couch, folding his arms over his chest as he stared down at his shoes, biting at the inside of his cheek, trying to think of something to say. After a good 10 seconds or so, he looked back to her. "Are you tired?"
It really shouldn't have taken him that long to think of
that, but he was just at a loss. It was usually so
easy to talk to her. He hated that it wasn't right now, and he hated
why it wasn't even more.
She couldn't remember, not once in her life, feeling this completely and utterly hopeless.
There hadn't been a single real moment that Giada had thought Alexandria could actually die. She'd been worried, she'd been concerned for her friend, but she'd never actually forced herself to believe that there was a chance Alexandria couldn't make it. Elphias had come out fine, a little worn for wear, but...fine. He was home and okay, he was alive. Giada wasn't used to this pessimistic view on life, if you could call it that. Everything that could maybe lift her spirits was immediately spun around in her head, coming up with some horrible
what if. It was exhausting to even think, and it had only been a
week.
Giada spent too much time hanging up her coat, fingering her sleeve as if there were something wrong with the threading. There wasn't anything wrong, other than the obvious, but this awkward silence she and Graeme had been finding themselves in was almost as bad as thinking about all the dramatics that were going outside of their flat. Almost.
"Yeah, I'm gonna--" Giada jerked a thumb toward the bedroom, a tight smile on her face before she headed down. Her body was tired, but her mind was still whirling like the floo connection; maybe just lying down would help.
“Yeah, me too. I’ll be in in a second.” He returned the forced, tight smile as she walked into their bedroom, leaving him in the living room by himself. He shut his eyes for a moment, and raised his hands to press his palms against them, letting out a sigh. He wanted to calm himself down a little bit before following her in, because he knew if
he was tense, or upset, that wasn’t going to help her at all. So, he just breathed in and out until he decided to drop his hands back down to his sides and join her in the other room.
He stood beside the bed, quickly changing into a simple t-shirt and a pair of pajama pants before he turned around to sit down on it, his back to her as he removed his watch. “Do you want anything?” He looked over his shoulder at her as he fiddled with the clasp.
Giada was pulling the covers over her body by the time Graeme came in, having been wearing a rather large 106.1 t-shirt and just pulling off her slacks. She didn't feel any sort of need to freshen up, to change into her actual pajamas, or to really try; she was going to sleep to put her mind off of everything going on, there wasn't any sort of need to delay that. She did, though, smile at Graeme and suddenly felt quite guilty about being in such a sour mood. See--everything turned into something bad, a simple smile made her think about how lousy of a girlfriend she's been. They'd barely been living together for a week, and she was already making it unbearable---ugh, that was the last thing Giada wanted, and she pushed the covers off and moved over to him to wrap her arms around him, pressing her forehead into the back of his neck.
"I don't need anything," she muttered, letting a long breath out through her nose. Giada honestly did not know what to do with herself. With Savannah in the hospital, so soon after Alexandria...it was hard to keep up hope, as it had felt like everything she'd ever known or believed was quite suddenly untrue and unrealistic. Maybe this was how muggleborn students felt, finding out that they were magical; nothing they knew couldn't be questioned, and there was an entire world of questions and concerns to find out.
Giada kissed Graeme's shoulder and slowly pulled away to lie back down, though her fingers played with the bottom of his shirt. It was comforting, not having to sleep alone and she smiled lightly again.
Seeing her smile, even a little one like the one she was giving, made him feel so much better. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her
actually smile, and not give one of those forced ones that only made it more obvious that she was depressed. Sometimes he wished she would just pout, and be completely stoic than
pretend to be alright. But, if it made her feel better, then he’d go along with it. This one was genuine though, even if it was subtle.
He ducked his head down slightly as he felt her resting against him, finally getting is watch off, placing it on the bed stand beside him. Her reply made him nod, turning around when she kissed him through the fabric of his shirt, feeling her hands linger at the bottom of it as she began to lay back down. Graeme swiveled himself so that he could tuck his legs beneath the sheets, scooting himself down so that he could lay beside her. He propped himself up on his elbow, resting his head in his hand as he gazed down at her, watching her smile again. He gave her a smirk, and raised his other hand to begin playing with the ends of her hair.
“You should do that more often…” With that he leaned down and kissed her temple, moving down to her cheek before he gave her a soft kiss on the lips. He hadn’t
really kissed her in a while. Probably since she found out about Alexandria. Not that he didn’t
want to, but there just hadn’t been a good time or place for that. Usually when they were home, they were both too exhausted to do anything, and when they were out lately, they had been at either the hospital, a funeral home, or a graveyard.
That didn’t really set a romantic mood.
Her hands immediately slid around his neck, pulling Graeme down into a deeper kiss. Her fingers sifted through his hair, and,
really, Giada? You didn't honestly forget what it was to kiss him. It only felt like you did, your mind was only playing tricks. But, she was falling for the tricks, and she kissed him back a little harder, holding him tighter. Morbid thoughts coursed through her head; what if
Graeme caught the virus? What if all of this time, it was just sitting inside of him, waiting for things to calm down and then---
bam, struck him down faster than she could blink? No, she couldn't lose Graeme, she
couldn't lose Graeme.
They weren't doing any more than they already had; Giada's bare leg curled around Graeme's as she not so subtly tugged him on top of her. She thought it was going to be a lot stranger than it was, living with a man, sleeping with a man, but not
sleeping with the man. Giada sometimes found herself wondering how Graeme really felt about their lack of a sex life, even though they were rather good at snogging. Very good at snogging. They hadn't gone much further than anything she'd done with Emmet---well, yes, okay, there were
some things, but it wasn't an odd feeling, it was a comfortable progression that Giada was satisfied with and...and Graeme seemed to be okay
too, but what if he was just being nice? What if he really resented her hesitation?
Good thoughts, all her good thoughts were turning to shit, and she reached down to slip her hand up under Graeme's shirt.
He couldn’t help but be the slightest bit surprised as she pulled him down to kiss him, but he wasn’t about to fight against it. There was no way for him to know what she was thinking as she kissed him so deeply, or as she pulled him on top of her, but he was trying not to think about it. As far as he knew, there was nothing strange or out of place about her behavior, except for the fact that this had just come out of absolutely no where. He
was a little curious about
that, but there wasn’t any need to question it. Not yet, anyway. He was just glad that she wasn’t crying again. It killed him to watch her cry…
Feeling her hands creep under his shirt, Graeme’s eyes shut tighter, feeling her fingers move up his stomach to his chest, as one of his own hands went to her waist. The other was used to hold himself up, since he was halfway on top of her and didn’t want to completely crush the girl.
If Graeme were to say that he hadn’t
thought about doing more with Giada, that would be a complete lie. Of course he had. He was 20 years old, a guy, and he had a girlfriend, who he loved, who was
gorgeous. Of course he
wanted to do more with her, but…he didn’t want to do anything unless she was ready for it. He understood how scared she was about it, and he understood that she had never done it before, and that was
fine. He had done everything to try and assure her of that fact, and had never tried anything if he had a feeling she was uncomfortable with it. It was up to her, when they would take the next step.
Her hands continued to run up and down his sides and Giada wasted no time in pulling Graeme's shirt up and over his head. Part of her wanted to push his own hands around, to get them to move where she wanted them to, but her own natural hesitation, even though she was trying to push past it, was keeping her from doing so. It was also frustrating her beyond belief, and Giada tried her best to cover that up. She shifted, just slightly, to--well, she could hardly think about what she was doing, but after
pressing certain parts together, her eyes opened and took a sharp breath.
No, it wasn't scary, it was a good feeling, it was going to make you feel
good, Giada. Graeme loves you! Graeme isn't going to hurt you, everything will be
fine. The strangely comforting, soothing voice came back and her quick hesitation was quickly covered as she kissed him hard again, hands pressing hard to his shoulder blades to try and bring him
closer. He wasn't close enough, she needed to
feel him and make sure he was actually there and not sick and dying in a hospital bed. In a slightly frantic motion, just--barely noticeable, Giada moved her hands from his back and tugged on the bottom of her shirt, but it was stuck between their bodies. No--off,
now---
"Graeme--" she said into his mouth, squirming to pull her shirt free.
At first, he was fine. He was absolutely
fine with everything she was doing with her hands, and where her hands were
going, and what she was doing with her body against his own. He wasn’t complaining because his hormones had admittedly taken over for the time being, and all he was focused on was the feeling of her skin and the taste of her lips, and the intense knots that were forming in his stomach that were probably caused by adrenaline. It wasn’t the first time he would have seen her without a shirt on, but with the way she was moving he could tell it was going to lead to more than it had been in the past.
But this was until a sudden rush of reality hit him. As much as he was
enjoying everything, and as much as he did want this, this wasn’t what
she really wanted. He knew that. She just
thought she did. So, as much as he hated to do what he was about to do, he knew that it was for the better. He couldn’t let her go through with everything while she was in that state of mind, while she just wanted something to make her feel better so she didn’t feel as miserable and shitty as she had been feeling lately. And if that was all this was, than he didn’t want it either.
Reaching down, he grabbed a hold of her hand, curled his fingers around it, and pulled away from her kisses. “Giada…” His mouth was still close to hers at this point, giving her one more kiss before he pulled back to look at her. “This isn’t what you want right now…” He swallowed roughly and tried to keep his breathing steady, not knowing what she would do or how she would react to his words. “If you go through with this now, you’ll only be using it as a distraction, and you’re going to
regret it. You don’t
want this, love. Not right now. Not like this.” He kept his voice calm, trying to explain things to her as gently as he could, not ever losing eye contact with her.
Giada was trying very hard to retort, to tell Graeme that he was wrong. That she
wanted this and that he didn't know what he was talking about and to just keep kissing her. She was trying, really hard, but even though it felt like she it was the only thing that could make everything okay, to make her feel better, something she
needed---Giada couldn't find the words or the courage to fight against him. How he'd been able to read her true feelings, she'd never understand, but she looked away and nodded quickly, feeling awfully stupid.
"Right, you're right," she muttered quickly, turning her face away from Graeme in a futile attempt to hide the tears that had sparked in her eyes.
Nothing was making sense anymore, she couldn't even get her boyfriend to agree to shag---well, no, that wasn't the
exact case, it wasn't the case at
all, really, but it
felt like she'd messed something up. Everything was so bloody messed up, everything---her friends weren't supposed to die, her sister-in-law wasn't supposed to get sick, she wasn't supposed to make every day with her boyfriend miserable, and no matter how hard she tried to put it out of her mind, she
couldn't run to her father or mother and cry, because they wanted nothing to do with her.
"Sorry," she choked out, rubbing at her eyes frantically, and making to move out from under Graeme, though she knew she'd immediately miss the warmth of his body.
