Disclaimer: I don't own The Bartimaeus Trilogy...if I did you can bet it wouldn't be marketed to children...;3 -
I...am in love. The very idea of it baffles me. I look down at the face of the boy in my arms and feel my essence throb.
"What was that, Rekhyt?" Ptolemy asks sleepily.
"What? What do you mean...?"
"You...it kind of felt like you were boiling...inside. I really don't know how to explain it..."
"Neither do I."
I carry Ptolemy inside and flop back into the softness of his bed with him still curled on my arms. We lay there a for a moment, then I think of a way to explain.
"Ptolemy, how do you feel when you look at me?"
He rolls over, now wide awake, settling with his knees on either side of my torso. He stays there for what seems like a long time, occasionally reaching out to stroke my face. Finally, he takes my hand and places it in the center of his chest.
"Do you feel that? That's how I feel when I see you."
I can feel his heart pounding hard through the layers of bone, flesh, and cotton that separate it from my hand.
"And I feel this..."
He moves my hand to his cheek and I feel the warmth of his blush.
"And this..."
He's almost whispering now, moving my hand to his mouth and kissing it. I feel warm air rushing back as he inhales my scent.
"When I look at you, Rekhyt, I feel love...I cannot really say it any better..."
My essence throbs again, making Ptolemy, who was now sitting on my stomach bounce a little. He laughs.
"It feels like that! Exactly like that!"
"I like it."
Sitting up, I send Ptolemy sprawling on his back. I switch our positions and straddle him, grinning devilishly. His expression is the epitome of coy curiosity, but hot desire flashes behind his dark eyes. (1) He pulls me down on top of him and kisses me, long and hard. I know he wants me to stay with him. Wants me to hold him while he sleeps and be there in the morning. I also know that I can't. After several long moments we have to stop for air. I pull myself up on my elbows and kiss him chastely.
"I have to go now..."
His smile is gone so quickly, I wouldn't have been sure it had ever been there at all, were the image not etched permanently into my mind. Lightning fast, he wraps his arms and legs around me and hangs on for dear life.
"No. You don't need to go anywhere."
I try, in vain, to pry him off gently.
"I have to go on patrol, Ptolemy...to keep you safe!"
"I'll be much safer if you're here beside me!"
"What if I fall asleep?"
"You don't sleep, Rekhyt!"
I couldn't argue with that... Slowly, so he wouldn't fall, I turn my form into smoke and slip from Ptolemy's grasp. The smoke flows off the bed and forms back into the cat-boy's shape, now standing.
"Alright. I really can't argue with you, but there is something I have to do before we settle in for the night."
I lean down, brush Ptolemy's unruly hair off his forehead and place a light kiss there before striding back out to the balcony. It takes a moment of looking to spot it, but I finally see the kings letter down in the garden below. It's stuck to a large and rather loudly colored hibiscus. Sighing, I shift my essence yet again and shimmy down the wall in the shape of a small lizard. This has been an exhausting evening...far more work than I was hoping for. Ptolemy probably thinks I swooped off and left him - what's that...? A far off and nearly imperceptible rustling met my ears. ISomethingI was heading this way.
Quick as a flash, I've got the letter clamped between my teeth and am hot footing it back up the wall. No time to lose, I shift my shape as I walk, taking on Ptolemy's familiar form.
"You're in danger. We've got to work fast."
A burst of wind swirls around the room, dousing the lamps.
"Wha-what's going on, Rekhyt?"
"Assassins." I whisper. I cross the room and scoop him up, pressing the letter into his hand. "Don't lose that. It's important."
I slip him between the legs of a large chair standing in the corner of the room, fling open the chest beside it and fling the first garment I find over the seat. Luckily, it was a long, dark blue robe; not likely to be very noticeable in the darkness.
"Stay here until you are sure it's over, till morning if you have to. No matter what, they must not find you."
Nearly inaudibly Ptolemy whispers from his hiding place, "What about you?" His voice is shaking from fright and tears.
There goes my essence, throbbing away. I change from Ptolemy's look-alike to the dark cat-boy and kneel in front of the chair, pulling the sheet aside and locking his dark eyes with my green ones.
"No harm will come to you, and if that means giving my life, then so be it. I love you, Ptolemy."
I lean in and kiss him and he calms down right away. Tears are still rolling down his face, but he smiles at me.
"I love you, too...don't die, alright?"
I nod and slip out from under the sheet. Shifting back to Ptolemy's guise, I slip noiselessly beneath his bed sheets, pretending to sleep...and waiting for the attack to come.
(1) Looking back I realize just how cheesy this is...
NOTE: Ptolemy's hair is purely creative license...I have no idea what it would have looked like... I see its being black or dark brown, semi-long and mop-top-ish... END NOTE
WHOO! This really has been a long time coming... Haaa short chapter is short... So the actual plot will be coming along in the next chapter or so instead of this just being a lot of running about and making out, haha! I hope everyone is excited about that...I have this bad habbit of writing pointless, fluffy BL BS and going around in circles, BUT I HAVE A PLOT IN MIND FOR THIS! Believe me...I do! Really! 0_0 I'm so glad people are actually reading this... TT_TT Forgive me for being a bad, lazy, cheesy author...(slaps herself on the wrist)