sandandwater | Lie awake all night wondering...

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Current Location: Marcello's Studio

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Lie awake all night wondering...

And then I'm in your arms I'll try to relax
Don't want to lie awake all night wondering where we're at
Oh this tossing and turning won't clear these blues away
When I am longing just to hear you say
'No Turning Back' - Sarah Blasko

Six months ago she walked out of his life, or tried to at any rate. Pippa couldn’t sever all ties with this man no matter how often she told herself it would be better, easier, safer. No, there were phone calls and letters, emails and now he was here with her in Venice. Here because she had asked him to come.

What was she doing?

Lying in his arms and pretending things were fine, acting as though there weren’t problems and issues to be settled and discussed. She was savoring the feel of his skin, hot and still damp with sweat, against hers. She was listening to him breath deep and even as he slept. Studying the lines and curves of his face, the delicate cheekbones and the wide, generous mouth—she could still taste his kisses when she swallowed involuntarily. Shifting, she stifled a groan as sore muscles protested, strained and aching from vigorous lovemaking. She sighed.

Pippa was not sleeping.

It would be morning soon and he would wake, she would have to find some way to either continue this charade (oh, the cowardice that taunted her) or face their relationship (lack thereof) head-on and the consequences of her actions. Would he want to discuss what happened? Could he find a way to forgive her? Should she forgive him? Did he realize that she still loved him? Too many questions and no easy answers no matter how hard she searched.

Keep trying.

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She was dressed and had her hair pulled back in a loose knot behind her head, Pippa had even taken the time to remake the bed in an effort to distract herself. She didn't know if what she was insisting was the right thing or not, but she did know there was no way she could stand an entire morning of awkward shuffling around this small studio with him.

At least in the workshop, there was room. And if he wanted to leave, she wouldn't be far from home. She didn't want him to leave.

She also gave him some privacy to get dressed, leaving him in the bedroom while she went into the kitchen for a glass of water. She'd find proper coffee on Murano.

Rory told himself that Pippa didn't leave because she couldn't stand to be in the room with him. Told himself several times, in fact, but never made it to more than half-convinced. Once dressed, he brushed out his drying hair and went to find her.

"Ready when you are." He tried on a smile, then let it slip away when he realized it must look as artificial as it felt.

She palmed the keys for the boat, they hand been sitting on the counter, and placed her glass in the sink. "Do you want these?"

She'd rather pilot the craft, of course, but she knew she'd also end up going to fast and too reckless in her current mood. That was fine when she was alone, not when she had someone with her.

He started to open his mouth to decline, but then a few of his own experiences in the passenger seat with Pippa driving replayed in his memory. "Sure," he amended, extending a hand to accept the keys from her. He himself wasn't as interested in speed as he had been on the way over from Murano, which might not be a bad thing.

She followed Rory out, locking the studio behind them and once they reached her boat, Pippa wordlessly went about removing the cover and dealing with the line. She also took a seat out of the way instead of standing by the captain's chair. How different things could be in so short a time frame.

"Thank you." What else was there to say at this point? He was doing what she wanted, humoring her at the very least and she hadn't really been very forthcoming with why and where they are going.

The combination of Pippa's words with her distance made him flinch again. The whole morass had started this morning with her thanking him.

Though Rory didn't slack on the speed on the way back to the glassmakers' island, he was nevertheless scrupulously careful about his piloting. If his focus on what he was doing reduced his conversation to bare necessities, he had the impression Pippa didn't want to talk much to him anyway.

On the contrary, as they headed across the water way, many things came to mind that she wanted to share with him, but Pippa stopped herself. Friendly chatter seemed somehow obscene to her in light of what felt like a tenuous hold on their relationship and anything more meaningful wouldn't be a good idea while Rory was at the wheel. If things devolved again...

No, she wasn't going to think that way. She was going to try and repair a little of the damage done.

"There's someone I want you to meet." Someone, not something. Her glass masterpiece certainly felt real and alive to her, she poured enough of herself into it, enough of his likeness too--it was why her fellow gaffers had known who Rory was, recognized the flesh and blood that inspired the art.

Someone for him to meet. Ruddy hells, the last thing Rory felt like doing was making polite first-meeting conversation with anyone. But he would force himself somehow. Manners.

"Who is it?" he asked softly. God help him if it were Maestro Alessandro, or worse, Marcello. He didn't want to meet either man in his current mood.

"Someone very special to me." Her voice wasn't much stronger than his, but she was looking directly at him as she spoke. "I've spent every waking moment with them for months now. I honestly don't know where I'd be without him. He's what keeps me going."

She knew how those words must sound, she even offered a silent apology for them. "Come with me to to the glassworks studio?"

It was early still, hopefully there would be few people around. Few people she would have to ask if they would leave and give her and Rory some privacy.

He knew how her speech would have sounded coming from anyone else but Pippa ... but this was Pippa. If she'd fallen in love with someone else, she would have told him already, and he therefore wouldn't be here. It was as simple as that.

So he disembarked and even offered a hand to help her step up after him. Then he followed her with both hands shoved into his pockets. It sounded like he was about to meet the maestro after all, and his heart sank at the prospect.

As they walked, Pippa turned her head every now and again to look up at Rory, pressing her lips into a firm line and rubbing her palms together only to find them sweaty. She was nervous. Very nervous. Would he think she mad for this, be offended or feel somehow wronged because she hadn't sought his permission for what she'd done?

Or would he understand?

Maybe it didn't matter what he reaction was, only that he have one. There wasn't time to think about it now, not when she was pushing open the door to the building already sweltering with the heat of lit furnaces.

Pippa shook her head as one of the men turned to greet them with a grin and ready welcome. Words died on his lips at her look. Now is not the time for friendly visits, this is far more important. He did, in fact set his pontil aside, take off his gloves and gesture at another gaffer to join him outside, leaving as Pippa and Rory entered.

"Grazie." She murmured her thanks before turning her full attention to Rory. "I know it's almost unbearably hot in here, I'm sorry, but can you just...just wait here a moment? Please?"

She wanted to clean up the area around re Rosso, remove the drop cloth and make certain that he was lit properly. Rory would have to forgive the unfinished base, his visit had interrupted her work.

Rory stopped at Pippa's request and leaned up against a nearby table, checking first to make sure it held nothing potentially dangerous. "Of course," he replied, his tone almost docile. Whatever Pippa's purpose was in bringing him here, he'd go along with it.

In fact he was just as glad to have a minute or two to himself. He could try to get his thoughts, if not in order, at least more settled than they currently were. He could try to dig up a smile from somewhere inside and get it pasted on his face in time to greet this person who kept his love going.

He was a stage performer. He'd met audiences with a smile at time he was feeling exhausted, depressed or angry. He could handle this, he kept telling himself.

In the back of the large building, Pippa pulled open heavy wooden window covers, letting in the early morning sunlight behind the sculpture. The effect was something just short of amazing even to her, what had been dulled ambers and reds, muted yellows and rusty oranges seemed to come alive, full of vibrant hues and shades, the various thicknesses and densities of the structure affecting the way light was dispersed. Re Rosso nearly glowed.

Fey fire, she thought to herself as she moved her tools to the side and then stood appraising her work one last time. Because of the unfinished base the massive glass was anchored to, the statue stood nearly seven feet tall, his face just out of her reach.

Head and shoulders, nearly a complete bust, held the most painstaking detail before seeming to melt and morph into a vaguely humanesque pillar of multicolored glass; the result was a figure that was both whimsical and intimidating. Pippa actually smiled, it was Rory.

She went to retrieve her lover feeling a bit more sure of herself, a little more calm. Until she saw him leaning against the work table and the nerves came rushing back. Would he be offended at what she'd done to his likeness without his permission? Would he think she out of her mind to devote so much energy to one obsessive project? Would he say anything at all?

"Ro? This way..." She spoke softly, holding her hand out to him. "I hope you'll understand."

He had by and large ignored the furnace heat and the slight prickle of sweat it produced along his hairline. When Pippa returned, he took her proffered hand and followed obediently, looking for a human figure in the direction she led him. There was no one there, but there was ... there was ...

Rory's steps faltered as the details of the sculpture before him came clear in the back-lit glow. A tall column in brilliant shades of flame, like a male body shaped and stretched by heat. And emerging from the top as though claiming form and definition from the liquid fire the glass had once been ... himself.

His own features, from upper chest to the top of his head, rendered with exquisite precision. His were the lips that curved up slightly at the corners, his the glassy hair that seemed to drift upward as if lifted by a hot breeze. The forward-facing eyes held no defined iris or pupil, combining with the enigmatic smile to lend an air of mystery to the figure's expression.

Himself. Rory. Ruadh Rí, the Red King.

Pippa stood beside him, still clasping his hand while she anxiously watched his expression. He could feel the waves of hope and anxiety rolling off her. See? he could nearly hear her saying. Look, see how special and important you are to me, how much I love you, how much you've been on my mind!

And he did see, how could he not see what was so transparently self-evident? She was crafting a masterpiece, not only in his honor, but wearing his face. It was glorious, a privilege to any man to be muse to such a creation.

And yet...

This luminous being before him had never been party to the murder of a sadist and serial killer. He clearly wasn't carrying around the horrific memories of said killer in his subconscious. He neither slept nor dreamed, and so could never feel the unexpected assault of those memories in the depths of the night. The Red King was pristine, unmarred, while Rory--

was broken.

What could he do, what could he say? He couldn't possibly tell the woman beside him that looking at her magnificent accomplishment made him feel ugly, degraded, unworthy. His own chest felt wounded, cracked and scored with deep, irreparable flaws. The ache in his gut spread to his entire torso, and still he stood frozen in place, feeling shamed in a way he hadn't felt since his own mother called him an abomination in the eyes of God.

But he had to say something.

Slowing his breathing-- when had his heart started pumping so fast? --he swallowed and summoned his voice. "It's beautiful," he husked.

But I'm not.

"Re Rosso, caro." Pippa squeezed his hand tightly before letting go, moving to stand before him. "Didn't you wonder at people recognizing you yesterday?" There was the faintest trace of wry amusement in the question; it didn't linger.

She was watching him as closely as he was looking at the sculpture, drinking in all the details with avid focus. What she saw had Pippa lifting a hand to rest against Rory's chest. He complimented her work but there was something not right here, not right with him. Time apart and arguments aside, she still knew this man well. Or so she thought. "I tried. When I left New York, I tried to not think about you. Not want you or need you. I didn't even want to love you because it hurt so much."

Her hand slid down the soft blue fabric of his shirt, fingers splaying over his stomach and the firm muscles she felt there, solid. Strong. "I couldn't help it, Ro. It doesn't seem to matter how hard things are, how wrong, how horrible--I couldn't stop thinking about you. I go to sleep and you are there in my dreams. You are the first thing I think of when I wake up. You're in everything I do and feel."

The redhead turned away as she continued to talk, the words tumbling freely now, walking to her master piece. The thing that caused so much strife between herself and the maestro, not that Rory needed to know that part of things. "At first, I told myself I needed to let go and forget. Just stop tormenting myself because it was over. The best part of my life was gone." Her hands slide up and over the red glass, its smooth surface as familiar to her as the contours of his face, his body. "Didn't matter, you know. Didn't help, so I tried sketching these images just to get them out of my head. I filled sketchbooks full of renderings. So many of them, every angle, all from memory. All of you."

She hung her head, laughed without humor, as she recalled the frenzied way she had worked, relentlessly striving for perfection and trying to capture every detail in an impossibly flat medium. Glass was to be the only way. That realization had shocked her then and it unsettled her now. "Rory, it wasn't Venice or Alessandro that gave me back my glass. It was you.

"It was you."

Rory shook his head very slightly, a reflexive refusal to take credit for what Pippa had obviously worked so hard to reclaim. He'd listened to her of course, taking in her description of what she'd been through since leaving New York and him. In many ways it mirrored his drive to find an outlet for his own distraught feelings. His hand clenched briefly in the memory of being gouged by a steel guitar string during one over-passionate practice session.

You're in everything I do and feel ... the best part of my life ... I didn't even want to love you ... needed to let go and forget. He might have said every one of those words himself. He felt balanced on a tightrope--no. Clinging to a lifeline in a flood of conflicting emotions, while he watched Pippa caress her creation. Her obsession.

"I don't ... know what to say." His voice dropped to just over a whisper as the tears welled up again. Hells, would they ever stop? "I've made so many mistakes."

It wasn't that she disagreed with him, on the contrary, she knew just how right he was. He'd made quite a few mistakes. But then, so had she. One look over her shoulder at him was all it took for her to realize she shouldn't verbalize any of her thoughts just now and certainly not any of his transgressions. He looked now the way she had felt for the better part of a year. How was it that she never realized it before? Didn't notice his pain? Was he that good at deceiving her or was she simply blinded by her own hurts to see?

Pippa let the sculpture be and did the only thing that made any sense to her, she wrapped her arms around Rory and held on tight. "We don't have to make any more."

We. Not 'you' or 'I', but we.

A simple sentence. A simple gesture. Such small things, but Rory felt something loosen inside him even as fresh tears trickled down his face. His arms slid around Pippa in a reflex of want ... and love.

Let it go, my son. In his mind he heard the words his Da murmured in his ear not long ago. You can't be strong all the time, none of you can. Let go and try a little less hard, hmm?

Rory took a deep, shaky breath and let go, crying softly into Pippa's curls. He still felt broken and unworthy, but somewhere deep inside he thought he might see how to be whole again.

He cried and she held onto him; how many times had he done the same for her? Far too many to count. Eventually, Pippa brought a hand up, slipping under that shaggy mane of hair to rest against the back of Rory's neck. "I am so sorry, Ro..."

Words, she knew, that wouldn't heal or help, encompassing far too many things: his mistakes, her own, their fight this morning, bringing him here...not being able to make it better.

Another tiny, reflexive head shake, but tears had too strong a grip on Rory for him to summon words to go with it. His arms tightened around Pippa, though, and his lips pressed against her temple. For minutes he just held her, soaking up her scent and feel, her very presence. Her warmth seemed to seep into him, easing tightened muscles in his chest and stomach, and her hand on his neck soothed the tension working its way into his scalp.

He at last opened his eyes to find the fiery glow of Pippa's creation wavering in his tears. She'd known so much about his imperfections when he left, and yet still felt inspired to cast the King in his image. Whether or not he felt worthy of it was entirely beside the point.

"It is amazing, sweet," he husked. "And I'm honored, truly." Suddenly he lifted his head to look into her blue eyes. "I love you, a muirnín. You do know that, don't you?"

His image, her ideals and all the love she had for the man, the statue wasn't as simple a thing as merely looking like Rory, there were layers and depth and processes filled with meaning, some of which she might never articulate, even for him. The Red King was more to Pippa than an attempt to capture Rory's physical likeness, she wanted to cast his spirit and energy, the essence of who and what she believed him to be. Wanted to show him all of the beautiful ways she saw her lover.

Pippa touched her fingertips to his chin, then cheek, traced the shape of his bottom lip before nodding slowly and whispering her reply, "Of course I know, Ro. How could I not?"

There was still pain, God knew, but he felt as though some other cold, hard thing was melting inside him and trickling slowly away. Rory blinked, startled to recognize that thing as fear. He caught Pippa's hand and pressed her fingertips to his lips, kissing them one by one.

But her fingers weren't enough. Rory bent his neck to bring his lips to hers, first in delicate brushes, then in a firmer nuzzle, then finally gaining entrance to her mouth for a kiss that blended sweetness with hunger. When he finally lifted his head he was smiling, a strangely shy smile for him, but a smile nonetheless. Resting his lips against her forehead, he breathed Is tú mo ghrá against her skin.

"I love you too, so much." Some day she'd like to say those words to him in his native tongue but right now she knew she would only mangle difficult syllables and the accent he made sound so effortless and graceful. Some day when she wasn't so immersed in her Italian--should it ever come.

Pippa knew that nothing had changed from this morning, except perhaps a new awareness of each other's hurts, and that they had many things to discuss and a lot of ground to cover. She knew this and yet she smiled too, smiled and hugged him again in relief. For the first time in months she felt like she could breathe, draw in as much air as her lungs demanded without fear of choking on it. It was a start.

"Kiss me again?"

Rory too knew that they were a long way from daylight, but at least he could see a glimmer. True, he'd be leaving at the end of the week, but every step they could take toward being able to face things together meant the world to him. He had hope, and he meant to keep a firm grip on it with both hands.

When Pippa asked for another kiss, his smile turned from tentative and shy to warm and knowing, something far more Rory. "But of course, sweet." His started this kiss with teasing nips and nibbles before sighing happily and claiming her mouth again.

She returned his affection and passion eagerly, her tongue dueling with and caressing his, hungry for his taste. Not quite satisfied but keeping in mind that the other gaffers wouldn't stay gone for long, Pippa pulled away far enough to break the kiss. Her face was faintly flushed and her smile was warm, "Thank you."

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