Fourteen Non-Verbal Ways to Say I Love You

by Woldy

Summary:

A love story in the form of a list.

Notes:

A belated ficlet written for tetleythesecond's request "Celestina Warbeck as a working-class Woman of Colour who has made herself a career". This is not betaed and I apologize for any mistakes.

1. With a brush of her lips over my temple as she slides into bed, smelling of smoke, sweat, and ever-so-faintly of perfume.

2. Taking three minute showers so that there's enough left in the tiny hot water tank for us both.

3. The slide of her fingers up the inside of my wrist, pressing my skin like a promise, as I pass her bag over. Her manager never seems to notice.

4. Three hours spent standing in the kitchen, chopping until the knife blunts, simmering until her hair almost stands on end, and stirring until the spices blend to perfection. The smell of my favourite dish lingers in the air for days.

5. Playing a slow, hot melody on my skin with her tongue, until I'm moaning and swaying, and afterwards she's smiling up at me with shining lips.

6. By cleaning the house when I'm too busy (nearly always during the Hogwarts holidays), even though she cleaned offices at the Ministry for three back-breaking years and hates, hates, hates it.

7. Letting me lace her into the corset before she goes on stage, and waiting for my hand to lift from the small of her back even when the stage manager is barking her name.

8. By firing her manager when he notices the way our hands tangle together and snarls that she'll never work in this town again if the secret gets out. The replacement is a petite redhead who books twice as many gigs, and sends us a jointly addressed card next Christmas.

9. Bringing me one stolen sprig of lilac every day until the blooms fade.

10. Flooing to check with me before agreeing to the European tour that makes her career. I see her smiling from the cover of Witch Weekly two days before she's home.

11. One tiny gift from every city she visits on the tour: books, chocolate, postcards, marzipan, a silk scarf, a vial of delicious hazelnut liquor, an absurd woolly hat, a box of gelato charmed to stay cold. When I ask how long she spent searching for these, she flushes and looks away. That night, she presses endless kisses to my belly as though relearning my body inch by inch, and the meaning is as clear as if she's spoken it: "I never stopped thinking of you."

12. Putting her new Gringotts saving account in both our names, even though it's more gold than I've ever seen before. I nearly faint when I see it, and Tina catches my arm, smiling that now-famous smile. "Maybe it's time we replaced that leaky tap?"

13. The look in her eyes that says I'm beautiful, even when my hair starts to grey, my hips inevitably widen, and my breasts droop.

14. Never saying to me the words she's sung a thousand times, seducing the audience with her smile and apparent sincerity. Words are fickle, fragile things and they get devalued by repetition. We mean more to each other than they could ever express.