Rose Colored Glasses | HS AU

Chapter 4

Cicely's eyes fluttered open and at first she didn't know why. But then she heard a shout and a long, deep moan from downstairs. It was Harry again. Her hands pushed at the duvet and she flicked on the light by the bed. As she left his room the sound of him moaning in his sleep, words she couldn't understand reached her ears, but louder without the muffling of the door. She didn't bother to keep her footsteps quiet as she made her way to the stairs and down to the first floor, her eyes adjusting to the dark.

    A scream, blood curdling and filled with anguish, ripped through the house, and Cicely flew the remaining few feet to the couch. The sound of Harry's scream, sharp and frightened, shook her to her core. She just wanted him out of there, free from the clutches of whatever demon robbed him of his sleep.

    "Harry!" She said, loudly, jostling his shoulder to try and rouse him. Unlike last night when she had knelt by the couch, Harry wasn't flailing around. He was stick-straight, as if held in a straight jacket, but she could feel his pulse racing when she pressed her fingers to his sweaty skin. It was almost more frightening—seeing him unmoving but mumbling nonsense in his sleep. The only part of him that moved was his head, ever so slightly shaking back and forth, a stream of Nos leaving his lips.

    "No," he mumbled, "please, it's too dark, please." His words from last night were back again, and she wanted to know where he was. What endless circle of hell he had found himself in and how to dig him out of it.

    She decided to do what she had done before, and tried to lift his shoulders from the couch. But this time, Harry's body was so tense that she couldn't lift him, as if he had made himself a thousand pounds. As he let out another loud groan, she grimaced—she had to wake him, she just didn't know how. "Harry," she said again, "wake up, please. Please, Harry."

    But her words didn't seem to do anything, because the next thing she knew his scream was filling her ears, the sound ripping at her heart. Her body seemed to move without her knowledge as she threw herself on top of him, her knees falling to either side of his hips, her palms cupping his face. "Harry," she said softly, brushing her thumbs across his cheekbones. "Wake up for me, please. It's Cicely. It's safe, I'm here."

    Somehow, that seemed to rouse him, because his eyes fluttered open, his hazel eyes meeting hers in the dark. She was inches from his face, and she wondered if his sight was filled with her face just as hers was. "Cicely?"

    "It's me," she said, brushing his sweaty hair off of his forehead. "You're safe now." She could feel the sigh that left his body intimately, her skin touching his in parts. That was when she realized how close they were, how completely improper her position was. She was on top of him for Pete's sake. Her knees were on either side of him, their most intimate parts just inches from one another. If her elbows weren't propped up on his shoulders, her chest would be touching his.

    She scrambled to move, but Harry's hands moved to her hips, halting her in place. Her eyes flickered to his, trying to read him, decipher what he was doing. Usually she had a hard time reading Harry, understanding what he wanted and needed. But now she had no problem. She watched him lick his lips, his pupils still blown out from the dream trained directly on her. When his grip didn't shift from her body, but his thumbs brushed across the shirt she wore—it was his—and she knew.

    He wanted to kiss her.

    Cicely had never been kissed. Boys had tried, but they'd been disgusting, as had every other man she had ever known, and she had no interest in them. Until Harry, she hadn't ever understood romance novels, the attraction people described in them. Every man who had ever showed interest in her had been boring, unattractive, and more than anything, just made her want to run in the opposite direction. But Harry made her want to race towards him at full speed, the darkness in his gaze and warmth in his heart made her want to know his stories, the way he looked at her made a part of her heart race that she had never felt before. He made her feel alive, as if she had been sleeping for nineteen years, just waiting for him to arrive.