Between the Covers
Jan. 1st, 2014 07:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
intheheartTitle: Between the Covers
Rating: PG
Summary: Aaron and Clara and staying in.
Notes: Not about what you think it's about.
Aaron and Clara go out sometimes, sure—dancing, or just to see their friends—but they really prefer to stay in, hip-to-hip on the couch, watching movies or television but more often reading.
There's something in a book, they think, an intrinsic value they've both treasured since childhood. She is the daughter of a journalist and an English teacher, he the son of a writer; they know the power and the peril of words, the evil they can do but also the hope and the strength they can grant, the cruelty, and the comfort, and the shifting beauty of language.
--
When things get dark, Aaron invariably turns to Catch-22.
Clara doesn't understand it, but then she's never liked the book. It's too upsetting for her, too bleak a black comedy. The death and horror interspersed with painful satire and unhappy laughter, no. It's not for her.
Aaron, though. He loves it, and once he told her why: because of the ending, the hope in the knowledge that there is always a third option, another way out. When things seem darkest, he says, Catch-22 reminds him that no matter how they hem you in, you can escape.
That, she can understand.
--
Clara chooses spiritual poetry. Rumi, or Rilke, people like that. She isn't really spiritual herself, or at least it isn't something she calls part of her life, but Aaron knows it gives her comfort that other people are. Perhaps that's part of it.
She likes the taste of poetry, he knows that too. She told him once that her father would read Shakespeare to her, to put her to sleep; impromptu lullabies of Hamlet and Othello. She likes the rhythm of the words.
She reads them in sunlight, her mouth moving with the sounds. It comforts him, to watch her.
--
Aaron told her on their second date that he enjoyed romance novels. At the time she thought it was odd—not perhaps that he read them but that he admitted it so easily—but now that she knows him better, it makes perfect sense. He isn't one for prevarication, or for shame.
He is one for comfort, and romance, and prioritizing relationships. He skips the sex scenes when he's not in the mood for a laugh, but he loves the climaxes, pledges and proposals and finally, understandings.
He reads them to her, sometimes, murmuring into her hair. She likes that.
--
Half a bookcase was devoted to children's literature long before they ever considered a baby, all of it Clara's and all of it well-read. Aaron assumed at first that it was research: Clara mainly works with children under the age of ten. But it's deeper than that.
She likes the simplicity, the black and white morality beneath sometimes complex storylines. She likes happy endings—earned, perhaps, but happy all the same. She told him once that these books can be lies, and she knows it, but that not all lies are wrong. That some lies are necessary.
He understands that.
--
Ivy calls to invite them out, just as Clara is making tea and Aaron was perusing the bookshelves. "We're all going to go dancing," she says, "except Olivia, but she volunteered to take the kids, so that's fine."
"Ours are already in bed," Aaron tells her, and makes a face at Clara when she raises an eyebrow. "Anyway, I don't think we're in the mood, Vee. But thanks for the invitation."
"Books again?" Ivy asks, knowingly. "Whatever, enjoy your night. Love you!"
He hangs up and turns to his wife. "Ready?"
She smiles, holds up two mugs. "Let's do this."
Rating: PG
Summary: Aaron and Clara and staying in.
Notes: Not about what you think it's about.
Aaron and Clara go out sometimes, sure—dancing, or just to see their friends—but they really prefer to stay in, hip-to-hip on the couch, watching movies or television but more often reading.
There's something in a book, they think, an intrinsic value they've both treasured since childhood. She is the daughter of a journalist and an English teacher, he the son of a writer; they know the power and the peril of words, the evil they can do but also the hope and the strength they can grant, the cruelty, and the comfort, and the shifting beauty of language.
--
When things get dark, Aaron invariably turns to Catch-22.
Clara doesn't understand it, but then she's never liked the book. It's too upsetting for her, too bleak a black comedy. The death and horror interspersed with painful satire and unhappy laughter, no. It's not for her.
Aaron, though. He loves it, and once he told her why: because of the ending, the hope in the knowledge that there is always a third option, another way out. When things seem darkest, he says, Catch-22 reminds him that no matter how they hem you in, you can escape.
That, she can understand.
--
Clara chooses spiritual poetry. Rumi, or Rilke, people like that. She isn't really spiritual herself, or at least it isn't something she calls part of her life, but Aaron knows it gives her comfort that other people are. Perhaps that's part of it.
She likes the taste of poetry, he knows that too. She told him once that her father would read Shakespeare to her, to put her to sleep; impromptu lullabies of Hamlet and Othello. She likes the rhythm of the words.
She reads them in sunlight, her mouth moving with the sounds. It comforts him, to watch her.
--
Aaron told her on their second date that he enjoyed romance novels. At the time she thought it was odd—not perhaps that he read them but that he admitted it so easily—but now that she knows him better, it makes perfect sense. He isn't one for prevarication, or for shame.
He is one for comfort, and romance, and prioritizing relationships. He skips the sex scenes when he's not in the mood for a laugh, but he loves the climaxes, pledges and proposals and finally, understandings.
He reads them to her, sometimes, murmuring into her hair. She likes that.
--
Half a bookcase was devoted to children's literature long before they ever considered a baby, all of it Clara's and all of it well-read. Aaron assumed at first that it was research: Clara mainly works with children under the age of ten. But it's deeper than that.
She likes the simplicity, the black and white morality beneath sometimes complex storylines. She likes happy endings—earned, perhaps, but happy all the same. She told him once that these books can be lies, and she knows it, but that not all lies are wrong. That some lies are necessary.
He understands that.
--
Ivy calls to invite them out, just as Clara is making tea and Aaron was perusing the bookshelves. "We're all going to go dancing," she says, "except Olivia, but she volunteered to take the kids, so that's fine."
"Ours are already in bed," Aaron tells her, and makes a face at Clara when she raises an eyebrow. "Anyway, I don't think we're in the mood, Vee. But thanks for the invitation."
"Books again?" Ivy asks, knowingly. "Whatever, enjoy your night. Love you!"
He hangs up and turns to his wife. "Ready?"
She smiles, holds up two mugs. "Let's do this."
