Kismet

Thirty One [The Truth]

Harry flops onto his back and you resume your position astride his lap with a victorious grin, "can't be that bad, right? Just take in the sights." His eyes are immediately drawn to your chest softly rising and falling with breath, your nipples sparked from just having his body on top of yours. He licks his lips and nods in agreement, his hands landing on your thighs and smoothing their way towards your center. You wrap your fingers around his wrist to halt yet another attempt at distraction, your gaze landing on the cross inked onto the back of his hand, "hey, dreamy? I've always wondered why you have this cross tattoo on your hand. I mean as far as I can tell you're not religious... at least not a practicing Christian."

He watches you inspect his ink as your eyes roam farther up his arm and across his chest. His heart starts to pound behind his ribs and he knows that you are very inquisitive and if he is completely honest with you, then this conversation is doomed to be steered in a direction that he's not sure he's ready for. He isn't sure if he will ever be ready, so he supposes now is just as good a time as any, but it still doesn't make him feel any less sick to his stomach. He's imagined this exchange and the varying degrees at which it can play out, but his instinct tells him that he has some emotional grappling on the very near horizon, "um..." Your sight fixes on his and the extreme eye contact that he desires to withhold, something that has always intimidated you a bit, "each... one... is for a premonition that stuck with me somehow."

His comment about already having seen each one in color now makes a lot more sense, although now your mind is running wild with interest about the details of each one. You know Harry well and are quite aware of how overwhelmed he gets talking about his dreams and anything personal in general, but you are hoping that with your new-found closeness that he will be a little more willing to open up.

Your fingertips trace over the holy bible on his bicep before you draw your gaze to him in question, "deadly church shooting on Christmas mass six years ago." Your face softens and he can see your throat bob with a grieving swallow before you circle the ship on the outside of his arm. He rubs your legs as if to soothe you and assure you that he is okay with the intimate conversation, "that one is for the ship that collided with an oil tanker awhile back. There was a fire and an explosion. I think five thousand or so people died including children."

You press your palms to his chest before sliding them up to cup his neck and jaw, your chest dropping to meet him in a kiss that conveys empathy and compassion. He hums and kisses you, colored memories of fire, blood and crying mothers scroll behind his eyelids and he squeezes them shut to make it stop, "are you okay? We can change the subject. I didn't know what I was getting into and I don't want to force you to-"

His chest fills with adrenaline as he prepares himself to confess something that lives inside of his mind with almost near-constant pressure and guilt. His eyelids flutter open before he shakes his head slowly as if to communicate that he wants you to keep prying, to be his siren who steers him and who he prays will love him unconditionally. Your relationship and your lives may drastically change within the next few minutes, but he is prepared to fight tooth and nail for you to understand and to hopefully carve a beautiful path of intense mutual clemency, a shared obsession that he already houses, "m'fine. Which one is next?"

You sit up and rub your hands up and down his newly colorful arm before your index finger lands on the anatomical heart. He breathes in deeply and his head is filled with the beeping of a heart monitor, sterile white walls, a defeated surgeon and a devastated family, "failed transplant." It's almost too much for your sensitive heart to handle, you want to ask him if every single one of his premonitions unfold a negative circumstance but it almost seems as though the answer is laid out before you in the form of permanent artistic expression. You trace the outline of the butterfly's wings and elusive tears spring to his eyes, vibrating puddles that line his bottom lashes, "I- I... dreamed that my schoolmate didn't make the swim team because his butterfly stroke wasn't strong enough and when I sympathized with him about it, he revealed tryouts had been rescheduled. He called the Emissary that evening and... mine and my family's lives were destroyed that same night."