Hold My Hand and Don't Let Go
An Akagami no Shirayukihime (Snow White with the Red Hair) Fanfic
To his knowledge, his miss has never been good at dancing, whether in balls or dance classes. She steps on toes, misses steps, or tries to go the wrong way. He had assumed she just wasn’t made for that type of dance.
Waltzes are slow, elegant, practiced to the point of perfection, and done, most importantly, in a ballroom. They show perfect control, perfect restraint. Perfect for a princess. (He was beginning to understand why she kept insisting she would never be one."
This–is something else entirely. This is spinning barefoot until by all accounts you shouldn’t be standing upright. This is leaping recklessly into a crowd because you trusted your partner, you trusted the entire village around you, where everyone has their role and everyone knows the steps by heart. This is rushing, visible energy, humming through the night, building itself up with the crescendo of music. Bright, bold, powerful–
It is mesmerizing.
And just like his miss.
Red hair, flushed cheeks, and shining eyes come running over to him as the music slows (it never quite stops, just dallies long enough to switch partners or slip out for a drink), and her fingers twine through his.
“Dance with me, Obi?” she asks, breathlessly, earnestly, and unaware of his heart in her palm, along with his hand.
“Of course, miss.” He smiles and lets her pull him through the swirling crowd.
He’s a fast learner, always has been, and most of the steps he had caught by watching. Still, he slips up a couple times, and his miss has to guide him back around.
“It’s kind of fun to be the one leading you for once,” she giggles.
Well, if that’s how she wants it.
He starts to step left, but she laughs and drags him right. He grins and ignores how her hand tightens on his arm. He spins the wrong way and she drags him back to her–too close. He steps back a little further than necessary.
“Stop! You’re doing this on purpose,” she laughs when he takes his next step in the wrong direction.
“Doing what on purpose?” he asks far too innocently.
Her expression shifts into something strange, and she grabs his shoulders and drags him forward when he’s supposed to step back. Well, maybe she wants to change directions. She knows more about this than he does.
But she doesn’t step back.
She just–stops.
Her hands fall from his shoulders and press against his chest, and really, they are far too close,, and she’s not even holding onto him, so it should be easy to pull away, but still, he feels locked in place under her hands and that sharp gaze.
They need to keep moving, though, or they’ll be trampled. He keeps expecting someone to bump into them, or yell, or something, until–until he realizes she’s led them right to the center of the circle, the movement ringed around them, but not touching.
“You don’t have to do things just because I like them,” she said. “Zen might have sent you years ago to take care of me, but I don’t want to just be your job.”
“You’re not.”
Relief spreads across her face and makes her shoulders sag. Her tone changes too. “You always do so much for me to make me happy, but I can’t do the same for you because I never know what you want.”
This is dangerous. Her standing so close to him, touching him, with the torchlight reflected in her eyes as she asks him what he wants, as though he hasn’t been trying to forget since the day he realized.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But it does!” Her love is going to be the death of him someday. It would be so much easier to keep his distance if she didn’t care. “What do you want, Obi?” Her eyes narrow. “And no lies or jokes. I’m being serious.”
He’s well aware of that thank you. He wonders briefly if he could get away with a lie, but he’s pretty sure she knows him too well now.
He licks his lips. “I want you–” Her breath hitches, and the words, to be happy, die on his lips. And . . . that’s true too, but not what he wanted her to hear.
She tenses, and he waits for her to pull away, to let go, to leave. Instead she curves into him, rising onto her toes and tilting her face towards his.
“Then have me,” she breathes, and the words steal all the air from his lungs.
He must be dreaming. That’s really the only explanation.
“Obi?” She looks so uncertain, so scared–of him, but not in the way he ever expected. “Say something. Please?”
He can’t.
She swallows, and he can feel her hands start to shake, then she drops back to the ground. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have–”
That moves him. He catches her face in his hands and his lips meet hers. She gasps at his touch, then her hands fist in his shirt and she stretches back up on her toes to reach him better.
His fingers brush her hair, and he tangles them in it before dropping his other hand to curl around her hip and pull, because he’s finally crossed the line, he’s gotten too close, and now nothing is ever going to be close enough.
No, this isn’t a dream. Not with the way his skin lights on fire when her fingers come up to brush against his jaw, slide through his hair, and run down the back of his neck. Not with the way she shivers in his arms as he brushes one hand down her spine. No, this is real and almost certainly going to kill him.
When she finally pulls away, gasping for breath, he doesn’t dare open his eyes. He knows she doesn’t go far when he feels her nose brush his and their breaths mingle. She doesn’t move after that, just stays wrapped in his arms as though she can’t think of a better place to be.
He opens his mouth before he even knows what will come out. “Miss, I–”
“Oh, please no!” The force of her words startles him into opening his eyes. “You know my name.” He hadn’t thought she had it in her to truly beg anything of anyone, but the look in her eyes changes his mind.
He leans his forehead against hers and breathes, “Shirayuki.”
It sounds like a promise.
She sighs contentedly, then drops her heels and leans her head against his chest. “What were you going to say?”
He doesn’t know, but it doesn’t matter. If she truly wants this, truly wants him, then there is only one thing to say. “I love you.”
Her head shoots up, and she stares at him, searching. She finds what she’s hoping for (or maybe she doesn’t find what she fears), then sucks in a deep breath. “I love you too.”
Then she grabs the collar of his coat and hauls him back down to her.