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Chapter Text

It felt like a play where everyone knew their parts except for her. There was coordination, choreographed steps and well-rehearsed lines. There was inside jokes and gossip, titters and comments about the most controversial couples and the odd bachelor or two. Every smile was two faced, every polite word was ingenuine.

Gigi felt miserable.

But at least she was miserable outside, where she didn’t have to hear the laughs, the endless roar of the band, didn’t have to feel every eye on her when she inevitably did some sort of social faux pas that added to every hushed comment about her. And some of those mistakes were so small, she didn’t know why it mattered; a fork was a fork!

Her tail coiled around her knees like it was trying to make her feel better, careful around her right leg that ached in the cold air. It only made her feel more pathetic; that her only bit of pleasant company was a part of herself that wasn’t all hers.

“Too much in there?”

Gigi’s neck cracked when she jerked it up, rocketing to her feet with her hands fumbling to find a natural position. They ended up jammed in her pockets like she was a particularly sullen teenager.

“Just needed some air,” Gigi said. By this point, all she knew of herself was her social clumsiness. She was too much but not enough, every word was misplaced. “You?”

It was the prettiest lady in the world standing in front of her. She was draped in a dress that was a beautiful shade of green. If anyone else were to wear it, they’d look like they were wearing moss, had fallen into a dirty pond and taken all the algae with them when they climbed out. But she made it stunning; it was the light green of the sun-on-grass with the subtle dark emerald patterning of deep forests. Every curve was confidence, every shine of gold jewelry was three steps before gaudy and just enough past wealthy.

By this point, Gigi realized he’d been staring too long. The woman’s words had flown over his head while he’d been admiring her. But her eyes were an amused goldenrod. There was a flower in her hair, a simple one, a rose of some sort. It grounded her, made her seem more real instead of ‘particularly intimidating painting on the wall of some rich guy’s house’.

“Pardon?” Gigi said with a very, very dry mouth.

“I just needed some air too.” The woman leaned over the balcony railing. The sun had just dipped below the horizon, and she made a noise of disappointment. “Oh no, I missed it.”

“The sunset?” The forest beyond the estate’s well kept lawn was wild and riotous, and had already swallowed up what remained of the sun’s light. “Um, there’ll be one tomorrow, I’m sure.”

“That’s true,” the woman said with a sad mouth. “But it will not be today’s.”

Gigi didn’t know what to say to that. The marble bannister was the wrong color to match with the trim and facade of the house, but it was probably bought for the location rather than the style. It was cold underneath her palm.

“You came out in time for the stars?” She offered. They were indeed bright. “I mean, they’ll be there later too, but, uh, you get to say hello right when they came out?”

Her hair tumbled over her shoulders in green ringlets. She made looking straight up at the sky a very serious act instead of something silly. “Hello,” she said. “I wish I knew your names.”

“That one’s Achird,” Gigi said, pointing to a seemingly random spot in the sky. “It’s part of Cassiopeia. That one is Caph, and there’s Castula, and they’re both also part of Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia isn’t one of my favorite constellations, I like Orion more, he’s just cooler, but the names of his stars aren’t as good, I would have chosen better names than Rigel and Betelgeuse, Bellatrix is okay though, and I’ve been talking too much, oh I’ve been talking too much now, I’m sorry-”

“I’m going to guess that you like constellations?” She giggled with one hand covering her mouth. Gigi wished she hadn’t; he wanted to see the curve her mouth made when she laughed.

“I read,” he said lamely. “At the library in- in my house. Lots of books, if you ever want to see them,” his eyes widened, “not like- not like a proposition or- you don’t have to? I have a lot of books, nobody else has really read them so I can’t talk to anyone about them and I wish I could, uh, I wish I could.”

“Orion is lonely, isn’t he?”

“Not- I don’t think so?” Gigi blinked and looked at her gloved hands. “He had Artemis, I think?”

“I think he’s lonely.” The curve of her mouth was sad again. Gigi didn’t like it.

“I’m Gigi,” she stuck out her hand for a shake, then realized her mistake and did a half bow, then second guessed herself and took the lady’s hand to clumsily kiss her thumb. “And you’re probably going to leave after that, I think.”

“That’s not my name; that’s too long!” She laughed without covering her mouth this time. Her shoulders shook with her humor. “I’m Fauna.”

“Oh,” Gigi said, somewhat faintly. “Fauna?”

“Fauna,” she confirmed.

“I think I need to sit down.” Gigi did just that, right leg finally giving out so he sat down harder than he meant to. “I’m sorry for all that, I made a bit of a fool of myself-”

“You apologize too much,” Fauna said. “But it’s nice; everybody in there,” she inclined her head to the door leading back inside, where it was bright and loud and too much, “they say something mean and then act like you didn’t understand what they just said.”

“They do that,” Gigi agreed. “I don’t like being at these things all too much.”

“Then why are you here?” Fauna sat next to Gigi. She smelled nice. Gigi felt like a weirdo for noticing that.

“Because if I don’t show up, more people talk.” Gigi’s tail scraped at the floor. “Why are you talking to me, you’re the most- most,” Gigi struggled to find a word that fit, “incredible person here.”

“That means a lot coming from someone who knows all the constellations and their stars.” Fauna’s eyes twinkled. “Those are much more impressive, in my opinion.”

“I don’t know all the stars.” Gigi felt like she was back inside, every conversation a minefield of what she should say, had to say, shouldn’t say, could say. Her cheeks felt warm and her suit jacket was stifling.

“I think you know enough of them.” Fauna’s cadence sounded like she was always on the verge of falling asleep, even when her eyes drilled through you with sharp and sparking alacrity. “And I don’t know any of them.”

“I have books,” Gigi offered again, but with steel slipped into her spine this time. She could not let nerves rob her of this. “I can send them over to you?”

“A book club.” Fauna smiled and she was beautiful even as the shadows of night slipped over her face like a mask. “I wouldn’t be opposed.”

“Well, I am posing.” And when Fauna laughed, Gigi felt like she’d finally said the right thing.

-

-

In fairness, Gigi did not really understand what courting was. Perhaps in concept she did, what it was meant for and how it ended. But the signs of it, the rules, the acts; this she did not know.

So when Fauna came over to personally return the book Gigi had sent her, all of a sudden Gigi had a visual of what it would be like if Fauna lived with her. The space she’d take up in her library, she’d probably sit in the chair by the corner that the sun warmed to perfection at noon. At Gigi’s dining table, at the head of the table, fed and pleased by Gigi’s own cooking, by Gigi’s own hand. She’d line the hallways with her perfume and fill the closets with her dresses in every shade she owned.

She was wearing blue today.

“What did you think?” Gigi asked, smothering nervousness in its sleep so that his voice only trembled a little bit.

“I liked the protagonist,” Fauna said, settling in the chair Gigi had imagined her in. The sun was hidden behind clouds today, it was a rather gray morning, but the library felt warmer anyways, with her in it. “She was independent and proud, and it let her stay that way. That was nice.”

“It was,” Gigi agreed, and felt his stomach settle a little bit. The table was set with a teapot, two cups, and some little pastries Gigi had made. They were a little bit burnt at the edges, Gigi had left them in too long when he’d gone to greet Fauna at the door and let her in. He nibbled on one now. “I liked the setting, too.”

“Oh?” Fauna took a pastry and bit into it. Gigi watched her mouth curl at the edges in a smile. Her eyes brightened. “This is quite good, Gigi.”

“Thank you.”

“You should send me books and pastries next time.” There was a little bit of jam at the edge of Fauna’s mouth. Gigi couldn’t stop staring at it, and the way Fauna’s tongue slipped out to lick it clean. “But then I’ll never want to leave, and I wouldn’t want to be a bother.” She laughed. It didn’t really sound like her laugh.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to you staying,” Gigi said. “I- I enjoy your company.”

The quirk at the edge of Fauna’s lips could be a smile. It could also be nausea, from the slightly burnt pastry. Gigi didn’t trust herself anymore. “That’s sweet of you to say.”

“I try,” Gigi said, and shoved the rest of her pastry into her mouth before she said something even more incriminating. Her tail scratched at her shoe like it too was disappointed in her.

“I did think,” Fauna looked out the window as she spoke, “that the ending was rather sad.”

This, Gigi flinched at. “You do?”

“She gets the house, and the job, and the status she wanted,” said Fauna, still not looking away from Gigi’s yard, where the weeds overtook the few feeble flowers grasping at the trellises that Gigi had set up. “But she’s alone.”

“It’s a nice house,” Gigi tried, but it fell flat in the space between them. Their tea was going cold. “Maybe there’s a sequel.”

“A sequel?” And Fauna turned back to her, an eyebrow raised. But there was something different in the lines of her; something no longer turned towards the pitiful yard, the plants, Gigi‘s clawing for life outside of herself at her estate.

“Where- where,” Gigi searched, for words, for something, everything out of reach, “-where she gets friends, and family, and everyone comes to live in her house-”

“-it’ll get crowded-”

“But she wants it crowded,” Fauna watched Gigi stand and pace, a stumbling sort of walk with his tail whipping around his legs, and hid her smile behind her hand. “She wants the noise-”

“-it’ll get messy too,” Fauna perched her head on her hands, tilted just to the side, “so much cooking and cleaning-”

“-but she’ll do it anyways,” Gigi retorted, “because she wants the people she loves to eat well.”

This was the smile Gigi wanted. “Does she want flowers in her yard?” Fauna asked softly.

“Why would she say no?”

“Well,” Fauna leaned back in her seat, smoothed the folds of her dress so it was even more perfect.

Gigi’s breath caught on a snag in his throat, a place where the flesh had grown like a never-healing wound; a word he couldn’t pronounce but had to say. He settled for staring at the soft flush in Fauna’s cheeks while his tail stayed still by his knees.

Fauna tucked her hair behind her ear. The sun drifted over her face with a tenderness; the world loved her too. Too? “How can I argue with that?”

-

-

Gigi had never done this before.

“Oh you have never done this before, hmm?” Fauna made wearing a sundress with grass stains over her knees look like the newest style. Gigi’s trousers merely looked blotchy, and like she was a child playing in the dirt. Her face probably looked like it too.

“I’ve done it once or twice,” Gigi deflected. He was settled awkwardly on one knee, the other leg sticking straight out. It didn’t ache for once, but he’d rather not take any chances. “I did all this by myself, you know.”

He gestured at ‘all this’; scattered patches of mixed flowers, a rusting trellis or two, and an empty plot he’d been planning to do something with at some point.

“I am impressed,” Fauna said, with a wry smile. She helped Gigi up. Her hands were warm through the thick gloves Gigi had loaned her. “But we can do better.”

Gigi wondered if she could tell how much he missed her by how he waved goodbye. The sun had set an hour ago, his back ached from leaning over plants, his knee was a whole other world of misery he didn’t want to touch. But, there were more flowers than before, some planted and some beginning to grow. There were some vegetables that Gigi had tried to incorporate into dinner, which was a mistake because they were either unripe or just terrible, but he and Fauna laughed through the miserable salad.

“It could be worse,” she had said, with that twinkle in her eye that made him feel pinched closed with his trying to hold everything in before she could see it. “They could have been moldy.”

“They taste moldy,” Gigi had responded. “I think the worst has already passed.”

It was dark out now, and the meal had been long since finished. Gigi half stood, half leaned against a chair as she washed the dishes. Fauna had walked out the door, Gigi looked at the clock in the kitchen, no less than ten minutes ago.

“It’s quite dark, isn’t it?” Gigi spoke aloud to herself. Very carefully, she set the plate she had been drying down on the counter. One breath, two.

She didn’t even bother to grab a coat before she went sprinting out her front door.

The path was shadowed and gritty, Gigi almost fell flat on her face at least three times. Her knee ached like a bitch, but she gritted her teeth and swallowed down her nausea.

“Fauna?” She called. Her breath puffed out white in the cold air. “Fauna?”

There was a shape in front of her, melting out of the shadows. A bulky jacket over a sundress that floated just below the knees. Fauna’s nose was ruddy, her mouth was an ‘o’ from surprise. “Gigi?” She tugged her coat tighter around herself. “What are you doing?”

“Um.” Gigi leaned all her weight on her left leg. She was panting for air, and it went down with a biting sort of freeze that scalded her lungs. “That’s my coat.”

“Oh. It is.” Gigi couldn’t shake the feeling that Fauna had been expecting something else.

“And,” Gigi cleared her throat, “it’s really dark out. You shouldn’t walk home so late.”

“I’m not far,” Fauna said.

“Then a walk from my house to yours in the morning shouldn’t be too much to ask.” Gigi’s smile was a flash of white teeth in shadow. “I insist.”

“You insist,” Fauna’s voice was amused.

“I insist,” Gigi repeated, and reached out her hand in the dark.

After a moment, Fauna took it. Her hand was cold. They walked in a companionable kind of silence that Gigi didn’t want to ruin with something stupid, so he said nothing. But his tail brushed the back of Fauna’s knees anyways.

“I appreciate it,” Fauna said quietly, when they were at Gigi’s door and he was fumbling for his keys.

“I couldn’t just let you steal my coat,” Gigi chuckled nervously, searching every pocket on his person twice. “Or let you walk home in the dark.”

“One of those things is not like the other.”

“Take your pick on whichever one makes me look better.”

Fauna laughed as Gigi just tried the door, having given up on the idea that she’d brought the keys with her. It creaked open; she’d rather foolishly left it unlocked when she’d headed out rather haphazardly. Gigi only noticed Fauna had been shivering when she helped her out of the coat. She shooed her to the fire pretty quickly after that.

“It isn’t that bad,” Fauna called from the other room as Gigi put the coat away, then puttered to the kitchen to put the kettle on. She could smell Fauna’s perfume in the hallways. “I wasn’t out there long.”

Gigi called back, “Can I keep your thumbs when they fall off from frostbite?”

“My thumbs aren’t that nice.”

“I disagree.” Gigi came into the living room with a tray in hand and stilled at the sight of Fauna curled over the fire. The heat brought a good flush to her rapidly warming body. Her eyes were closed as she luxuriated in it. “I’ll replace my thumbs with yours, and then maybe I’ll finally have a garden worthy of being called a garden.”

“Do you consider yourself the joke cracking type?” Fauna stretched up to her full height when she noticed Gigi. She went and sat on the couch, and stopped Gigi from taking a seat at the armchair across from it. “‘Green thumbs’? It was terrible, but not terrible enough to keep you from sitting with me, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure,” Gigi repeated, and perched himself at the very edge of the couch. Fauna raised an eyebrow at him.

“Are you scared I’m going to make an attempt for your thumbs?”

“I think we need to move away from the thumbs topic,” Gigi said, and this made Fauna laugh again. He hoped the sound would soak into the walls, the floorboards, so he may always hear the echo of it even when she wasn’t there.

Later, when the fire was near dead and the tea had long since been finished, Gigi woke up. Her mouth was dry from being open while she slept, and she licked her lips quickly before looking over at Fauna to see if she’d noticed the embarrassing position Gigi had fallen asleep in.

But Fauna was asleep too. They had scooted closer together at some point during their discussion, and now she rested her head on Gigi’s shoulder. She was warm, her breathing even as she mumbled something while nuzzling closer into Gigi’s arm. They were hip to hip, thigh pressed flush to thigh, and if it weren’t for the fact that both their backs would protest in the morning at sleeping on the couch Gigi would be entirely content with staying like this.

“My neck hurts,” Fauna said, and yawned.

“We should go to bed,” Gigi said quietly. He helped Fauna up, letting her lean on him as they walked up the stairs.

In a decision that had his heart racing and his mouth going dry, Gigi opened the door to the spare bedroom that was next to his. Fauna stepped inside, looking around at the rug, the bed, the slightly dusty set of drawers.

“Thank you again,” she said, when she turned back to him. Gigi still had one hand on the door, while his tail pushed against it as if to keep it open.

“Of course!” Gigi scratched at the back of her neck, grinning awkwardly. “Call me if you need anything, I’m right next door.”

“This means we can garden in the morning,” Fauna said sleepily, before he could close the door. Her eyes were softer like this, honey warmed in the sun. “Books, pastries, gardening; I thought I said that would make me never want to leave?”

“Oh no, you’ve found out my evil plan.” Gigi stretched her leg out as discreetly as she could, hiding her wince. “Now you can never escape.”

“Good night, Gigi,” Fauna’s hand moved up, towards Gigi before seemingly aborting the movement to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Good night,” Gigi said, and closed the door. She could hear Fauna moving around, the sound of fabric rustling and the mattress squeaking as she got into bed. Gigi pressed her forehead against the cool wood of the door and shut her eyes tight until white exploded behind her lids.

Sleep crept in slow, then smothered her all at once. What she dreamed of, she couldn’t remember.

Chapter Text

He learned to cook, learned to garden, learned to bake. Oil burns on his forearms, dirt under his nails before he washed his hands vigorously, flour smeared over his cheeks and the batter sticking his hands together as he struggled to get it all in the cake pan.

“It’s alright, we don’t need all of it,” Fauna soothed, taking the bowl from him and moving around his kitchen like it was her own. “You’ve got all we need, sweetheart.”

The pet name made Gigi shiver, made her melt. She wondered how obvious she was and then immediately shut down that train of thought before she got too self conscious.

“How long?” They asked, perched up on the counter as Fauna slid the pan into the oven and settled next to him, leaning instead of sitting but being the same height as him regardless.

“Half an hour.” Fauna’s voice was like a song, Gigi allowed himself to admire for but a moment. “Then we check.”

“Sounds excellent,” Gigi said, kicking his feet for a few seconds before he realized how childish he looked and stopped promptly. Fauna’s giggle made him smile goofily, and he found himself continuing anyway.

“We can make the frosting later,” she said, turning slightly towards them. Her dress was slightly stained with flour, patterned with flowers that they couldn’t name but she could, and Gigi couldn’t stop themself from taking one of the berries they’d set aside for the cake and feeding it to her with a gentle hand.

Fauna made a face at the tartness, and Gigi was overcome with the terrible notion of kissing her to try its flavor for themself. They just ate one instead, wallowing in the sound of her laugh at their expression, and imagined life was like this every day.

The cake was good. Fauna’s satisfaction was better, in Gigi’s opinion.

-

-

“What blend is this?” She asks one day, testing out the terms and words for tea that Fauna had taught him. “It’s good.”

Fauna left the pot on the coffee table after pouring her own cup, bringing her legs underneath her as she curled up on the couch. “Saffron,” she responds, and Gigi’s pocketbook aches.

“I need to pay you back,” Gigi says promptly, and Fauna both laughs and prevents him from getting up, her hand warmed by her hot tea cup as she places it on his bare arm. Goosebumps prickle up his arms and spine and the back of his neck, and he thinks if he could live under her touch, her gentle hand, he would.

“You don’t need to do that, silly,” she says with that smile that flays him open. He’s in love in the way that remakes him every time he thinks about it, and he thinks about it often to the point where he is always changing shape, always being pulled into a form that loves Ceres Fauna.

“I am not silly,” they say instead. “I am very serious.”

Fauna nods, tries to keep her face stoic and fails, and this only endears her to Gigi more. “Very serious,” she agrees. “I have never seen such a serious bachelor before.”

“In all your years.” Gigi puffs her chest out. “I have reached levels of seriousness other serious bachelors have dreamed about.”

“I am unsure if they dream about it, but carry on,” Fauna says with her laugh suffused into her voice like the saffron into the tea and it makes it sweeter, makes it tear Gigi apart in the best way.

“Carry on,” Gigi echoes, and musters up the courage to hold Fauna’s warm hand.

-

-

“They think we’re courting.” Fauna says this with the distaste she reserved for those who stepped on bugs instead of removing them, and Gigi tried his level best to not wilt. Instead, he just bobbed in the water a smidgeon lower, watching her as she sat in the shallows with her shoulders bare to the sun and the pudge of her tummy under her swimsuit and a million feelings bubbled in his belly that he couldn’t give names to, shouldn’t give names to.

“Ah,” Gigi said instead. “I’m sorry.”

Fauna shook her head furiously, ringlets dancing about her face and sprinkling lake water everywhere and if it weren’t for what she just said Gigi would have tucked them back behind her ears. “It isn’t your fault,” she insisted. “They just have nothing better to do than to gossip and buy things they never use.”

“They should try baking,” Gigi said, feeling quite like he was reading off the lines of a play, an old one, a tragedy. “For we are not the courting type, we are the, uh-”

“Gardening type,” Fauna said, with an odd tightness to her mouth.

“Yes.” Gigi ducked their head under the water for a moment, coming back up shaking their head not unlike a dog. The water must have gotten into their eyes, blurred their vision, for they thought they saw Fauna’s eyes trace the lines of their arms as they smoothed their hair back. “We swim too.”

“We dabble in swimming.”

“Oh no, I don’t dabble.” Gigi did an awkward flip and came back up with a mound of leaves from the lake bed on his head. “See, I am the opposite of a dabbler.”

Fauna’s laugh, and maybe Gigi was running out of similes, was like the hurt one felt when they stubbed their toe. It came on once, sharp, then settled into a dull throb, and this was what their heart felt like when they heard her laugh and weren't able to kiss her.

He was running out of similes to relate the thump of his heart to the way he could recognize Fauna’s step on the stairs, the sound of his laugh in his own ears to the kiss of Fauna’s rasp in the sweet air of the kitchen. The shake in his hands when he was too close to her, the steadiness of her own when she was rolling out dough or repotting plants. Gigi wished he was more of a poet, to better put love to language.

“And what is that?” She asked when she finally stopped laughing, though her smile was still wide and bright.

Gigi beamed. “No idea.”

Fauna laughed again and the throb pulsed, became an omnipresent wound, and her mouth was the most fascinating thing to Gigi in that moment.

“I’m the opposite of a dabbler for gardening then,” she finally said, hiccuping slightly in her bid for breath. Her hair was plastered to her forehead from the water. Gigi couldn’t feel their feet anymore, but their heart was rattling in their throat; they could feel that.

“Gigi?” Fauna asked with the sun being swallowed by her eyes, and this was different.

Gigi licked her lips, tasted the lake water tinged with the earthiness of the leaves he quickly brushed out of his hair. “Yeah?”

She studied him. He’s a bug in her garden, and he’s not sure if she’s about to crush him or deem him an important part of the ecosystem. Or something. He’s a dabbler in gardening.
So his tail loops around Fauna’s waist and pulls her in deeper, his feet far away from the ground so Fauna wouldn’t fare much better even with her height. She yelps. He squawks.

“Oh!” She giggles in his arms, legs kicking awkwardly, skin so soft and scented not with the flowers and lilies and daylight the romance books said; no, she smelled like a person, earthy and warm and alive with salt, and this was terrible for him, actually.

“There was a duck,” they say by way of explanation, though all waterfowl had vacated the lake when they’d entered. “Or a goose.”

“Probably a goose if you had to save me,” she agrees, a lifeline for them. “Terrible creatures.”

“Oh the worst,” Gigi breathes, and her tail does not let go. She would pinch it if that wouldn’t hurt; now was not the time to be a wingman.

“Gigi?” Fauna said again.

They look at her, tail weakening in its grip. “Yes?”

She kisses him and tastes only a little bit like lake water. The rest is the sweetness of the apple pastries she was partial to and he made a point of making, the ones that were buttery and flakey and tucked into the basket he’d brought.

I should put nutmeg in those, Gigi thought dazedly. That and cinnamon would be good.

“I’m sorry,” she said into the side of his neck. They floated in the water, her hands on his shoulders. Fauna’s hair, green like sun bleached moss, stuck to his skin, tickled his cheek and he had to restrain himself before he took a greedy, obvious breath. “I shouldn’t have.”

And maybe Gigi had lived her entire life on the line of ‘shouldn’t have’, on sublimated desire for the sake of others. And maybe he wanted this more than he feared losing her forever, that he’d take a single moment of this instead of a life lacking Ceres Fauna, even if it hurt.

“If I asked you to kiss me again,” Gigi croaked, frog-throated and apple-cheeked. “Would you?”

Fauna looked at her, wide eyed. This was the most off balance Gigi had ever seen her, water up to her neck, sparkling on her cheeks.

“Would you kiss me again?” Gigi repeated, like the words had fallen short in the mere inch of space between her mouth and theirs.

Her smile spread across her face slowly, coy in the way Gigi loved, craved.

The sun brushed over them in painted gold.

-

-

Gigi hadn’t realized she’d be a giggler, but she was one now. Joy inhabited her like no other feeling did, the door open and she couldn’t close it, not that she wanted to. It was so warm to feel it, summer in the flutter of her heart the moment she heard the crackle of footsteps on the gravel outside.

There were less and less excuses from Fauna as to why she’d come over to Gigi’s house; gardening, baking, painting, dancing. Now she knocked on his door and would give him a shy smile that he would try to memorize but could never recreate perfectly.

I wanted to see you, she’d say, and Gigi would let her in, and she’d spend the whole day with him. It would take an hour of stolen glances and slight brushes of hands before he’d cave and he’d ask for a kiss, and Fauna would do it with her hands on his cheeks. Her heart beat so close to his that when she left, the echo remained.

Then, when her hair was messed up by his hands and she’d gotten him back by blowing raspberries into his neck until he squirmed out of her arms, they’d do whatever they wanted.

“We should dance,” Fauna murmured one time, curled around him in the kitchen, their kitchen at this point.

“Hmm.” He was fascinated by the movement of her throat, the delicate nature of every muscle working in tandem, and he was thankful for the formation of the human body and its variance in sizes that it let something so vulnerable be near his mouth to kiss it. Though he had to stand up on tiptoe to do so, he did, pressed his lips softly to Fauna’s neck just to hear her suck in a gasp.

“Scandalous,” she said, mirthful. Gigi did it again. This time Fauna took his hand and spun him around, his tail held in her other. She hummed a song he didn’t know but found the rhythm in all the same, his free hand resting lightly on her waist.

Their leg hadn’t ached in months now, their old cane tucked away in a distant closet in the house. Gigi stumbled only a little bit, caught immediately by Fauna’s arm around their waist.

“Do we need a break?” She asked concernedly, her thumb rubbing against their hip, so they were reduced to a goofy smile.

“No, I’m alright, dear,” they said, testing the pet name out. It came out more gentle than they expected, like at some point it had become as soft as the insides of them it had passed through.

Fauna’s eyes twinkled as they swayed, some unknowable song in the beat of their hearts. “Dear?” she echoed. “Do I have antlers?”

Gigi blinked as the joke registered, barking out a laugh as she attempted to spin Fauna, who went along with the clumsy movement graciously. “I would love you if you were a deer, don’t worry.”

“Feed me berries from your hand,” Fauna teased. “Brush me.”

“I don’t know what else deer do.” Gigi found themself being spun this time, tail on Fauna’s hip to regain their balance. “Deers?”

Fauna, confidently: “Deer.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Thank you, baby,” Fauna said promptly, and when Gigi spluttered and nearly tripped over their feet, she caught them again.

“Let’s never speak of this again,” they grumbled into the crook of her neck, tail wound around her upper thigh and playing with the flowy hem of her dress.

“Of course,” Fauna agreed. “Sweetie.”

Their groan was long and tortured, but their smile said the opposite.

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His collar stuck to his neck, dampened with sweat. For not the first time, Gigi wished that Fauna was with him to fix it, to make him laugh and lessen the weight of omnipresent discomfort that settled like stones in his chest.

The music was lively and the dancing matched, and Gigi was reminded of how he and Fauna met in the first place, at a ball just like this. He searched the room again, praying for the sight of light green hair, golden eyes, a pink mouth flush from his kisses. Because Gigi would have kissed her when they left together, arm in arm from Gigi’s home, open and courting and no one would judge her for being with him.

But there she was, walking through the doors with a nod and a smile at the porter. She wore silver jewelry this time, and with a start Gigi recognized the scattered stars of Orion around her throat. Her dress was a dark green this time, verging on the point of black. It was a meadow at sunset, the ghost of flowers in the ruffles at the shoulders.

Fauna met his gaze with the shyest duck of the head he’d seen on her, and for a moment Gigi felt soft. The light in the room gentled, he was in a dream where every line became a curve and the world bent towards Fauna. It was fuzzy, indistinct, motes of light dancing around her like a halo, and Gigi had become too much under her attentions.

He turned away, slipped into the throng on the dance floor. Gigi let himself be passed from one dance to another, nameless faces a blur to his eyes. His tail was wound tight around his torso, not wanting to trip anybody with a wayward appendage. At the corners of his vision, there she was, moving towards him slowly, hand to hand to hand.

When they met, it was easy to slip into position. Their hand on her waist, one on her shoulder. She mirrored him, a tightness to her mouth that slipped through their ribs, accusatory.

“Did you not want to dance?” Fauna asked them, spinning Gigi carefully and gathering them back up in her arms.

“I very much wanted to dance.” Gigi’s voice crept out as if from within a deep, dark well, quiet and lost. “With you.”

“Then why didn’t you ask?”

She swallowed, darted her eyes around the room like there was something safer than Fauna’s warm eyes, something less judgemental than Fauna’s downward curled mouth. Against her will, her tail unwound itself to brush against Fauna’s calf.

“Scared,” Gigi mumbled like it was enough of an answer.

“Of what?” Fauna sounded gentler than Gigi deserved. Gigi deserved maybe a little screaming, a little pushing, a few days of social ostracization before she was allowed to rejoin society.

“I don’t want people to-” Gigi cut himself off when they brushed by another couple, his dress shoe narrowly missing Fauna’s foot. He tried not to cling and tried not to drift away. “To judge you,” he finished lamely, the waltz ending with a low hum into the night.

“You presume I care,” Fauna murmured, tucking a lock of hair behind Gigi’s ear. Gigi’s collar felt soaked, a lump in her throat as people started retreating to the edges of the room for refreshments.

She led him, then, outside. A different balcony from where they’d first talked, a different house entirely. But the sky was the same; draped in the colors of night, pinpricks of stars, the moon lifting lazily like a clump of fluffy meringue.

Perhaps Gigi had been baking too much.

“Tell me the names of the stars?” Fauna asked, moving to sit on one of the benches before Gigi hurriedly tugged her jacket off and laid it on the marble.

“It’s probably cold,” Gigi said, licking her dry lips.

“What a gentleman.” Fauna sat daintily, one leg over the other. Her necklace glimmered around her throat, a nebula, Gigi’s favorite constellation, but they were scared to ask if it was worn with them in mind.

But they talked anyways, mouth dry and tongue clumsy, of all the stars named and unnamed. All the stars seen and unseen.

“I’d name one after you, if I find one that no one has seen before,” Gigi said, head pillowed on Fauna’s shoulder. The clench in them had eased, the fear so far away now and seeming so irrational when perceived with distance.

“Really?” Fauna looked at him from the corner of her eye, her fingers playing with his, thumbing over the soft in-betweens.

“Everyone would know your name.” Gigi couldn’t bear her gaze on him, the weight of it, felt so small and nothing under it that he felt the dream would shatter.

“Gigi.” She had them turn towards her, their tail ever so inclined to reveal their true intentions wrapped fully around her waist. “Can you say my name?”

Breath came unsteadily, came shakily with their fluttering heartbeat and fuzziness of mind. “Fauna?”

She closed her eyes, head turned ever so slightly towards the night sky. “Again, please.”

The way she said ‘please’ was criminal, unethical, knife to the throat in the dark. Gigi could barely see her face in the low light and memory wasn’t doing her justice. They leaned in closer, light playing over the contours of her face, definition turned dream-silk hazed in night.

“Fauna.”

Gigi imagined they could hear her heartbeat, could see life pulsing in the flex of her throat as she swallowed.

“Would they say it like that?” She said hoarsely, and her eyes were all pupil in their sea of gold. “My name, how you say it?”

“I don’t think they could,” Fauna continued when Gigi was entirely lost for words. She cupped his face in her hands, thumbed over the jut of his cheekbone like it was a flower petal; worthy of reverence in its fragility, needing tenderness as much as sunlight. “Not like you do. You say it like it’s…” she paused to search for the words, searched for them in the open awe of Gigi’s face. “I can’t say.”

“Fauna,” Gigi said again. “Ceres Fauna. My Fauna.”

She let out a whine, animalistic, fox in the woodshed hunting for warm throat and she kissed him with the hunger of such a starved thing. Her mouth was soft against his, her nails pricking his jaw lightly when she held him in place, ensured he couldn’t run from her wanting tongue.

“Gigi Murin,” she said in a voice so wrecked it knocked Gigi out of their body, left them floating in the flow-of-sand-under-wave roll of her rasp. “I very much hope that you know I love you. And that I don’t care about anything but that.”

“Well.” He licked his lips, tasted tea and her earth. “I can see that now.”

She let him swallow up her laugh when he kissed her again, the cold on their skin ignored, the shine of the stars above piercing through his shell.

“Don’t be scared,” she whispered into the needy press of their mouth. “Never be scared.”

“Ceres Fauna,” they said like prayer. “We missed the sunset.”

She paused, eyes finally tearing away from him to survey the horizon in its matte entirety, immaculately groomed estate with trees doubtless planted set distances from each other. “There’ll be tomorrow’s,” she said, kissing his lips like she couldn’t bear to be too far. “It won’t be today’s. But it’ll be tomorrow’s.”

“That’s special too,” Gigi agreed, tail being petted by Fauna to make them shiver from something other than the cold. “What about the sunrise?”

Fauna paused, lips kiss-swollen. “We should go home,” she said slowly, and home was a word that made supernovas form in Gigi’s tummy. “So we can wake up in time for it.”

“Tea and biscuits,” Gigi said in a wonky accent just to hear her laugh. “And a sunrise with you.” They grinned. Everything was in place and right and whole. “That sounds perfect.”