Aug. 3rd, 2014 11:29 pm
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature;
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grimvisagedEarlier today, he'd stood barefoot in his post-shower fog and stared down the hazy figure staring back at him through the filmed bathroom mirror: Dark, bedraggled, indistinct. Fueled by a nameless compulsion, he'd snatched up the razor from its place amongst the neat line of complimentary toiletries, and didn't wipe the steam from the mirror until he'd finished.
It was a poor job, with patches of stubble and shaving cream overlooked, and he can't say whether he feels more or less like himself, not knowing what that feels like in the first place. All he knows is that it felt a little like relief to look into the mirror and see someone different there.
Hair still hanging in a damp and stringy curtain around his freshly-shaven face, he's now sitting in the corner of her room, a figure half in shadow, waiting for her to return.
Unlike Rogers, she almost always knows when he's watching her. She's patient and does not force his hand, but there is volumes to be read in her silent acknowledgment of his presence: The subtle stiffening of her posture or casual flick of her gaze. They speak the same rarefied language, they two, and there is a certain thrill which accompanies the knowledge that he is, in fact, not as singular as he had once believed.
Unlike Rogers, who comes packaged with a compelling yet overwhelming burden, she demands nothing of the man he is nor of the man he used to be. She is simply waiting for the day when his resolve breaks and he does more than watch her from the shadows. They both knew it was coming; it's been coming since he first laid eyes on her, here. It should bother him more how futile it's been, resisting her inexorable pull.
It was a poor job, with patches of stubble and shaving cream overlooked, and he can't say whether he feels more or less like himself, not knowing what that feels like in the first place. All he knows is that it felt a little like relief to look into the mirror and see someone different there.
Hair still hanging in a damp and stringy curtain around his freshly-shaven face, he's now sitting in the corner of her room, a figure half in shadow, waiting for her to return.
Unlike Rogers, she almost always knows when he's watching her. She's patient and does not force his hand, but there is volumes to be read in her silent acknowledgment of his presence: The subtle stiffening of her posture or casual flick of her gaze. They speak the same rarefied language, they two, and there is a certain thrill which accompanies the knowledge that he is, in fact, not as singular as he had once believed.
Unlike Rogers, who comes packaged with a compelling yet overwhelming burden, she demands nothing of the man he is nor of the man he used to be. She is simply waiting for the day when his resolve breaks and he does more than watch her from the shadows. They both knew it was coming; it's been coming since he first laid eyes on her, here. It should bother him more how futile it's been, resisting her inexorable pull.
no subject
When he had slipped into this room to wait for her, his goal had been simply to look different. It surprises him a little now to learn that some part of him is pleased by the compliment, a long-buried vanity scratching its way through the layers of his memory. He wonders, but doesn't ask, if she remembers how he looked when they were lovers, whether it was more like one or the other. He wonders if he had stopped caring by then.
His head feels lighter, and he lifts the fingers of his right hand to skim across the freshly-cut ends of his hair, feeling where the strands fall against his cheek. When he stands, he crosses wordlessly to the mirror, trailing pieces of hair across the floor, and then stares at the man beyond, at this hybrid of the two people he used to be. He flicks his gaze over and finds Natasha behind his reflection, watches her as if she were on the other side of the mirror instead of in the room with him. He finds himself always wanting to touch her, but she seems so often like his memory—Distant and unreachable, held carefully behind the glass.