Work Text:
Sometimes when she wakes up in the morning she still doesn’t believe this is her life – that he’s real, that the last three months haven’t just been some sort of weird, hallucinated fever dream.
On mornings like this, when she wakes up slowly, one foot still stuck in unconsciousness, she remembers him in pieces: her hip registers the warm weight of his hand, fingers twitching softly in sleep; his eyelashes tickle the nape of her neck where he’s slid down on the pillow and buried his face just over her shoulder in the middle of the night. Their feather-light touches send goose bumps down her bare shoulder along with a flash of a memory from the night before.
---
Lizzie had walked through the door of his apartment to the gentle sounds of a piano coming from the direction of his living room. She thought for a second he might have put NPR on again, but standing in the entryway made her realize she could feel the reverberations of the strings through the soles of her feet as she slipped off her flats.
The feeling spread up through her body, blooming in her chest and spreading out into her fingertips as she followed the sound. Her breath caught in her throat at the doorway to the living room where, his back to her, William Darcy sat at the bench of an immaculate, dark wood upright piano, playing one of Chopin’s simplest preludes.
Not wanting to startle him, she took a moment to admire the strong muscles in his back, taut while he perched on the bench and moving smoothly under his dress shirt as his arms spanned the length of the keyboard. As she padded barefoot toward him, the bare skin of his forearms came into view where he had rolled his sleeves up to the elbow. She couldn’t tamp down the smile that spread over her face at the sight of his long fingers handling the changing chords with an unexpectedly even and graceful pressure.
Neither of them had said it yet – not since the disaster that was last Halloween – but she also couldn’t stop the swell of feeling that gripped her heart at the sight of him: love, love, love.
Deciding she was no longer content to simply ogle her boyfriend (no, boyfriend wasn’t the right word… Partner? Man-friend? Neither sounded right, she’d have to give it more thought later), she softly spoke his name.
“Will?”
His fingers stilled on the keys, but not before he stumbled on one of the more difficult chord changes and hit a wrong note. With his brow furrowed he turned his face up to the sound of her voice.
“Hi there.”
“What is this?” she asked with a breathy laugh, gesturing toward the instrument.
“Well, I had hoped it would be obvious that it’s a piano.”
She swatted his shoulder and rolled her eyes. “Will…”
At this he turned to face her fully, straddling the piano bench.
“Last week when we were out to dinner and there was that jazz pianist at the restaurant, you mentioned how you wished you hadn’t quit lessons as a child. So I did some shopping around and tried to find you something unobtrusive that you can practice on when you stay over here. I looked at a few baby grands, but I knew you’d be happier with something less…ostentatious.”
With the last word his mouth turned up at the corner, teasing her.
“I don’t even play piano, Will.” She was smiling down at him now, carding one hand through the hair at his temple while the other played with the silk of the tie he still wore.
“Well then, I guess it will just be a very beautiful and expensive picture frame holder,” he replied. “Sit down, see if there’s anything you still remember.”
He scooted left on the bench to make room for her to sit, waving his hand with a flourish toward the keys in front of him.
“I thought you said you didn’t play?” she asked as she sat down, nudging his shoulder with hers.
“I don’t,” he answered. “My mother taught me that piece when I was very small, and I guess it must have stuck around.”
Her face softened at the mention of his mother. She could see the sadness wash over him at the memory and watched as he visibly suppressed it, pulling his chin away from his neck. Sometimes it still amazed her how much he had opened up to her in these last few months; it was now only occasionally that he regressed into old habits, usually only at the mention of his childhood. Desperate to move the conversation forward, Lizzie turned toward the piano.
She made a big show of cracking her knuckles, stretching her neck, and shaking out her hands before placing her fingers on the keys and playing the opening notes of… “Chopsticks.”
“No,” Darcy laughed. “Play something real. Please? For me?”
He looked so eager to hear her play that she couldn’t help but smile. “Ugh, fine. I’ll try.”
It had been a long time since Lizzie sat at a piano, but she really did forget nothing, apparently. Her fingers found the familiar keys with little effort, traveling across the expanse of the keyboard. The phrases rose and fell, and Darcy stared at her hands and face with a quiet awe.
As Lizzie lost herself to the simple melody of the piece, Darcy moved closer, brushing her hair off her left shoulder. He leaned in slowly, his right hand low on her back as his face neared her neck. He kissed a slow line from the juncture of her neck and shoulder up to her ear, and her fingers began to fumble as he reached the soft stretch of skin behind her earlobe.
Finally she stopped playing altogether.
“You know, it’s really hard to concentrate when you do that,” Lizzie sighed as she angled her head sideways to give him more access to her neck.
“I realize that, actually,” came his reply from near her hairline. “You just look so lovely while you play.”
“Lovely?” She raised her eyebrows at the antiquated compliment. “Why, Mr. Darcy,” she giggled, “this is so forward of you.”
She could feel his smirk on her skin before she saw it. When he finally spoke, his low voice near her ear sent shivers down her back.
“Elizabeth Bennet, I am absolutely spellbound by you.”
She turned toward him completely then, her eyes searching his face. It wasn’t exactly a declaration, but the piano went unnoticed for the rest of the night anyway.
---
Lizzie’s soft sigh at the memory must have been louder than she expected; behind her the sleeping Darcy shifted and stretched a leg between hers where they were tangled together under the sheets.
She turned around to face him, brushing the hair from his face. Before he opened his eyes she stole a soft kiss and watched as his lips turned up in a smirk.
“I could definitely get used to waking up to that,” he murmured, his eyes finally opening.
At that Lizzie smiled. “Play your cards right and you definitely will.”
The longer they stared at one another in such close proximity, the more Lizzie felt she was going cross-eyed. Not ready to fully wake up yet, she buried her face in Darcy’s chest, causing him to let out a small chuckle. He wrapped his arms around her as best he could in their current position and once again lowered his mouth to her ear. His warm breath stirred the hair at her temple.
“Good morning.”
Lizzie’s heart did something that felt like shrinking and expanding at the same time, and suddenly she was glad her face was hidden from his eyes. If the smile she was biting her lip to control right now were any indication, it wouldn’t be long before she said the few words she knew he was (very patiently) waiting to hear. This morning, however, she was content to enjoy this simple moment before the craziness of the day began. Raising her head to look him in the eye, she realized she had finally settled on a title for his role in her life.
“Good morning, love.”
(la fine)