Husband and Wife

It was near midnight, and Remus Varana couldn’t sleep. He’d tossed and turned. He wasn’t too warm to be comfortable, and the feather comforter didn’t fail in keeping out the cold. His pillows were perfectly soft, his body suitably exhausted.

He sat up and rubbed his face. His wife continued sleeping, her back to him, her hands gathered at the duvet top to keep herself tucked in. She wore that satin shift he liked so much. She didn’t seem half as intimidating in her sleep, and it gave him a small iota of courage.

“Eave,” he murmured.

She drew in the long inhalation that usually announced that she’d woken up, and turned onto her back with a sleepy, questioning little sound.

“I need to say something.”

She pushed her hair out of her face and into something of a tousled mane, half sitting up and looking at him with lidded, dark eyes still glazed from sleep.

“Sometimes, you’re very hard to be with,” he murmured, which drew a drowsily raised eyebrow out of her.

“You woke me up to tell me I’m a pain?” she answered, looking both amused and slightly incredulous.

“Just let me finish, will you?” he sighed, watching her lift one hand to concede to listening to him and beginning to speak. He began slowly, as though he had to fathom how to word what he wanted to say. “In order to really get the best out of you, there has to be a degree of risk, or impression. Sometimes, it’s difficult to know that I don’t impress you. People have to impress you for you to love them, which is thoroughly depressing when I know I couldn’t if I tried.”

“Remus-“

He cut her off by raising his hand. “To everyone else, I’m a relatively impressive man. I have a fat province and a reputation in politics, I’m not disliked by any member of the court, I’m urbane and strong-willed and capable of great things.” He paused, shrugging his shoulders in a defeated fashion. “And then the doors close. And I’m locked in with you. You, with a stronger will. You, whose reputation is preceding mine. It used to be, ‘Oh, you’re Remus’ wife’. Now, it’s, ‘Oh, you’re Eave’s husband’. You, who everyone loves, or wants, or fears. You who’s better at being a man than I am.”

She stared at him, hand midway to another sweep of her hair simply out of habit. “It’s not my intention to best you at anything,” she replied quietly, beginning to look considerably more thoughtful.

“I know. I’m not saying this to put any blame on you,” he clarified. “I just need to explain this. You consistently question why I went to another woman when I had you. It was because I needed to impress someone. I saw the way Violet looked at you, with her adoration and her awe and her refusal to believe you’re anything but magnificent. And I realised that was how I wanted to be looked at. It’s how everyone wants to be looked at, Eave, and you get that look so often. I needed to know that someone found me impressive, when the doors close at night. I needed to be with someone who didn’t do everything better than I do. You’re better at politics, I’ve watched you. You’re better at socialising, I’ve seen you doing it. You’re better in bed with women – I’ve seen that, too. You’re like this dream man compressed into a woman’s body and it’s so difficult to constantly be your inferior, to know that I’ve not impressed you since our wedding day ended and you realised I’m not half what you thought. It’s hard to be your wife.”

She simply stared at him for a good few moments. Eventually, her hand rose and placed itself on his shoulder. “Did she give you what you needed?” she enquired, without any particular venom in her tone. It seemed to be a question, and nothing else.

“No,” he answered, glancing at the hand on his shoulder. “I mean, she looked at me like that. But when she did it wasn’t right. It felt like a hollow victory, because it’s not her I want to impress. You impress me every day. I’m sorry I broke the rules, Eave. And I’m sorry I made you shut her out when you loved her so much. I just couldn’t stand to see her give you that look any longer.”

He expected a tirade about how he’d made her do something so hard just to get rid of a pair of eyes. He expected her to say something much more masculine than he would, no doubt about what she’d do if she wanted someone’s eyes out.

She didn’t. She came to lean her cheek against his shoulder. “I understand,” she murmured.

He blinked at her, and she looked further amused.

“Did you not think I’d comprehend? You’re essentially saying, ‘I married a woman, I sort of need her’. You could have just said that at the very beginning and I’d have put her down in a heartbeat and come back here to at least try to darn your socks and make you pastry.”

He chuckled, and slowly closed his eyes. “Please God, don’t make me pastry. You’ll kill me.”

“You’re a swine,” she murmured, without much enthusiasm in actually offending him. “Now, are you going to come to bed and be my husband, or sit there pouting in your night shirt all morning?”

Simple answer to that.