Promise Me

It's always the small things in life that seemed to mean the most. The innocuous details, or beautiful banalities that captured a mind.

The pinchy face frown Adagio gets when she concentrates on a book. The way she'll cross and uncross her legs, elegant and yet agitated.

The polaroid photo she lets Sunset keep of her and Twilight in her dresser. The fact she doesn't judge, not even by the look in her eyes when Sunset mentions her.

Pulling in the sea salt breeze, listening to the sound of rolling waves, Sunset closes her eyes. She leans against Adagio's back. Tucking her arms under, she brings them up in a hook, to her front, crosses them over to embrace from behind.

"Mm." Adagio shuffles in place, cross-legged on the rocks like her. The thick, flat stones that jut up from parts of the city's coastline make for the perfect seat. "Done with your massage?"

"For now." Sunset shudders. Heart trembles. She wonders if Adagio can feel it through her blouse, or imagine the catastrophes running through her head. How easy it would be for Adagio to slip and fall however many dozens of meters to the rocky shore below. "I just want to relax."

Adagio bends her left arm backwards, elbow at an awkward angle. Finding Sunset's cheek with the palm of her hand, she cups it and strokes. "You're not already, then."

Sunset opens her eyes for the briefest second. The light of early dawn greets her, the sun's pale-gold climb in the east painting the grayish-blue ocean in dazzling colors. Muted colors, faded. No less spectacular.

She shuts her eyes again, a little harder. Jaw clenching. Forearms squeezing, until Adagio lets out a wheeze. She doesn't complain.

"It's the wedding."

Adagio takes that in for a moment. She says nothing, but continues to reassure through her physical touch. The gentle scrape of manicured, sharp, lavender nails on skin brings delighted shivers waltzing down Sunset's spine.

Her chest tightens. Her head feels too wide. The lump in her throat and pull of her muscles makes it difficult to maintain a neutral expression. She tries anyway, though it makes her mouth and lips stretch more than she wants. She always feels she must look ugly when she's upset like this, trying to speak around an open grimace.

"What if... what if it..."

Tears come. The lump bobs with force. When she does speak it arrives with shuddering breaths, bunched shoulders, and molten, saline cheeks.

"What if it happens again."

"It won't," Adagio whispers. She finds Sunset's hair now, coiling digits around the fire locks.

"You don't-"

"I know I don't know that." Sunset hardens her embrace, turning her arms and fists into an interlocked steel grip. As if it's silk, Adagio's hands ease and pry them apart with the slightest touch, taking Sunset's hands in her own. "You're correct that it could. Bad things can always happen. That doesn't mean they have to, so..."

"So?"

"Don't borrow the trouble."

Sunset breathes in, breathes out. Her intent is to relax. Her deep breaths come and go with too much force, too much speed. Crown she's bad at this.

"Take your time," Adagio says, as though she knows. She probably does. The way she can read Sunset like an open tome has long unsettled, soothed, and intrigued her. It's a strangely compelling combination.

"I can't hide anything from you," she mutters.

Adagio, yawning from the morning's fatigue, stretches her back. She does so cat-like, Sunset knows without having to look. A long, luxurious, elegant feline arch that rolls from sacrum to scapula, popping stiff joints along the way. When she does it supine, it shows off her tummy. She often does so when Sunset happens to walk by, whether on the bed or the couch, just to soak in the attention Sunset can't help but pay to her body.

"I am very old. Though, I haven't much acted it."

"Mh?" Mind off the worst of it, Sunset leans back in, placing her chin on Adagio's right shoulder. Their cheeks touch, and whatever sound either of them make travels through the flesh, vibrates the bone. "You seem a lot more mature than me."

"That maturity was learned, dearest." Their joined hands drop slowly lower, into Adagio's lap. Through the spaces between her fingers, Sunset uses hers to rub along exposed inner thigh.

"You never told me about that." Sunset grins, chortling on the last few syllables. Air pushes through her nostrils, and with their faces so close, she feels Adagio's smirk.

"There are many things I haven't told you." The smirk falls down. Adagio falls silent.

Sunset squeezes her hands, thumbs rubbing across the top. It's what she used to do with Twilight's, and it feels like cheating. She loves Adagio, just as much as she loved Twilight.

She hates that she can't move past her.

"Something wrong?" she asks.

"Sometimes I worry."

"About?"

"What you might think. I've been alive a rather long time. I've done some things you may not respect."

"Didn't you basically come to Earth in the Dark Ages?"

Adagio's response takes the form of a non-committal grunt.

"Lots of people did bad stuff back then, I doubt you were especially unique. It's not like I have the most room to judge anyway."

Adagio snorted. "The most you did was take over a highschool and make them your bitch."

"And the demon-"

"And the demon thing, yes, yes, I know."

Now, Sunset's turn comes to go quiet. She breathes in, and out, smoother and better controlled the second go-around. "Well. There's a lot I haven't told you, either."

"Even, then?"

Sunset laughs. "Probably not. I imagine you killed some people. If I did, I don't know about it, or it's tangential."

Sunset felt the question forming on Adagio's lips. 'Tangential?' She doesn't ask it. Instead she tips her chin up, in her form of a nod.

"We carry ourselves with us, no matter how far we go. For me, it's simple. I lost my power."

Sunset opens her eyes, leaning back to better look at Adagio's face and raises one quizzical brow. Adagio meets her gaze, tough and undaunted. For all the time they've been together, she doesn't recall Adagio shying away from eye contact even once.

"Your power?"

"My voice. My magic. My... past." Adagio's frown stiffens, lips thinning into a line. She squeezes Sunset's hands, a bit painfully. "I tried to hold on for so long, that piece of myself. It hurt my sisters, and so I had no choice but to grow up. I had to let it go."

"And did you?"

Adagio's shoulders hunch up for half a second. "As much as I can. They think about it less than I do."

"You still think about it then."

Adagio says nothing. Sunset hears the answer, moves close. Pressing her face between her bicep and bosom, nose and lips to pale-gold skin, like the dawn's early sun. "I'm sorry," she mumbles.

Adagio leaves behind one of Sunset's hands to massage her scalp. "And so am I, for you. But I know if she could see you, she'd be happy."