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Robin
There's a strange object in the sky. It's large, round, and illuminates the dark land around him. Robin can't remember it ever not being there, and he's been there for ages and ages! But above all, it's beautiful. Sometimes it looks blue, other times it's coloured a deep scarlet or the colour of autumn leaves. More often than not it reminds him of snow found in the middle of winter, almost sore to look at. But Robin can't tear his eyes away, no matter how hard he tries. And he tries hard, just to see how much he loves it- whatever it is. Leaf calls it Moonah. He breathes the words into the air, watching as his breath comes out white instead. The words slip into the air and disappear as quickly as they'd left his lips. Moonah. It sounds perfect.
Leaf is inside their cave doing whatever it is she does with the meat Robin has found. Robin, despite his eagerness to help, is terrible at preparing food. The last time he tried, Leaf ended up unable to keep her food down for days. They're a team, Robin hunts and Leaf prepares. Not that she's not suited for hunting at all, on the contrary, she's better suited than Robin himself, he thinks. Her legs are thick like the trunks of the trees nearby, her hands are rough from her days of hard work, and her face is worn, but with two lines from her nose to her mouth that crinkle when she smiles. They're the features he likes best about Leaf. Like Robin, she's covered from head to toe in hair. Thick on her head, arms and legs, perfect for the rough, cold nights.
Many of their friends have moved on, not suited to the lifestyle that Robin and Leaf have taken. Their cave, though cosy and comfortable, is stationary. Humans have legs for walking, running, hunting. For exploring and leaping and living. Their friends hadn't understood how they craved one place. It was Leaf who liked it, she thought it was practical. Close to a river for fishing, close to the forest for animals, clothing and food. Robin likes it because Leaf likes it, and when she's happy, he's happy. But the nice view he gets of Moonah certainly helps. He likes Leaf, she's smart, she makes him laugh, and she's sensible. She listens to him rambling about things he's seen through his long, long life.
How the Moonah changes shape every so often, but so regularly that he's started mapping the days. How he saw a small bird out one day with a red belly, how sweetly it sang and how Robin, caveman and all, never wanted to hurt it. He's a caveman, not a monster. Besides a bird that tiny would be of no nutritional value. The nice thing about Leaf is that in a world where hunting and moving means survival, she stays and listens. Robin is a simple man, he loves fire and Moonah. He doesn't like bears. He has siblings and a cousin who have moved on, and he wonders when, or if, he'll ever see them again. He loves how sometimes the sky splits with flashes of light, how cold the snow that falls from the sky is, how occasionally the stars shoot across the sky. He loves this, and as Leaf comes out of their cave hauling their pile of furs with her, shouting him that she's finished preparing their meal, Robin thinks he might just love her too.
Fanny
Fanny Button has always liked nighttime. As a young girl learning etiquette and manners, the night offered a small amount of respite and some private time from her teachers and parents. Her nanny often told her stories of dastardly men, of foreign spies who operated at night. It's very uncouth to think of a lady doing these things, yet the idea of her living another life always excited her. Now, at the ripe old age of sixty, it just makes her nauseous.
Her bedroom is lavish, as are all the rooms at Button House. She shares a four-poster bed with her husband, covered in gold accents and white cotton sheets (silk irritates her skin). The window overlooking the gardens has always been her favourite, even as a girl. It's double-doored, with the doors opening outwards, and a seat acting as the windowsill. She saw herself as a heroine, princess, whatever, standing at a window waiting for her prince. In her teenage years, when she was much more sensible in her opinion, she spent hours there reading, sewing, or stitching. In summer the window would remain as open as she could push it, bugs often found their way inside but the maids dealt with them. In winter she would sit, entranced by the snowflakes and frost patterns on the delicate glass. Autumn was filled with orange leaves and rain, while spring brought pink petals and more rain that tapped on the window like a gentle ghost asking to be let in, like a Cathy to her Heathcliffe.
But she was older now. Heathcliffe was no longer a rogue misguided by love. He was a mess, an abusive, awful mess and Cathy was better off dead than with him. The window no longer held the appeal it once had. But for old times sake, Fanny sat on the seat with her back to the wall and stared outside. It was far too cold to have the window open as wide as she did, her mother would be rolling in her grave! But Fanny had not a bit of care left within her. She glanced outside. Above her, the moon hung in the sky. She reached out a hand, like she did as a child, and closed her hand around the object in the sky. Unsurprisingly, when she opened her hand again she found nothing but the signs of her age.
The moon was high and surrounded by a cluster of stars, glittering in the dark. In the darkest hours, everything seemed huge and minute at the same time. George was somewhere in the house, Fanny wasn't sure exactly where. Compared to the moon, her problems seem tiny. Yet, right now, it feels like the world might end. George doesn't love her. Though, this is not a shocking revelation for Fanny. Love is something that has always just escaped her clutches. People in her position don't often get love-filled marriages. The fact that George respected her was more than enough. But now, that respect has slipped through her fingers too. She has nothing but her life, the window, and the moon.
For what seems like the first time in her life, Fanny is scared. Scared of her future, of what George will do next. He's a gentle soul (or so she thought, now she's not so sure), and a quiet man. He's a good husband too, kind, sweet, remembers their anniversary and has gifted her with a couple of darling children. But now...now Fanny is unsure of what comes next. Until now her life has been written out like a standard, albeit boring, novel. She was born into wealth, her mother married for security and she would too, and her daughter will as well. She learned how to be a lady, she had many friends. Fanny Button was an eligible bachelorette until she married, and her husband was a lovely man. A rough bout of smallpox left her skin marred, and yet he stayed and swore out anyone who told her she was anything other than beautiful.
The next few chapters were also predictable. She would grow old with George, she would watch her children marry securely and produce heirs. She would ask the butler to change the children's old bedrooms into nurseries and playrooms, she and George would sit and watch the world go by, making sure their family was well protected and safe. In only a few hours, Fanny's perfectly written life has been torn to shreds and the last chapters burnt to cinders by a ruthless God. Fanny stands, her nightdress swaying in the cold breeze, she flings the window open wide until the doors clatter against the walls of Button House. She will not cry, but her eyes will burn terribly, and she hangs her head like a condemned woman on the gallows. All that's missing is the rope on her wrists and the bag over her head.
Behind her, the clock strikes three, and the doorknob rattles.
Julian
He knows what love is -baby don't hurt me, of course- but all jokes aside, he does. He does. His parents loved each other, in all their terrifying, shouting, shitty glory. They could shout profanities and insults and god knows everything fucking else at each other, and yet at the end of the day, they got into the same bed, said 'I love you' to each other and slept. And that was love. His father went out while his mother stayed home and cleaned. His mother sewed their clothes and cooked and did everything while his father worked a 9-5 job five days a week. They came home, they ate, his mother asked how school was while his father ate his food, dead-eyed and nodding in all the appropriate places. Occasionally they would have parties. Huge, lavish things that Julian could only witness from the between the bannisters at the top of the landing.
His mother flirted, his father leered, and Julian watched as the men joked about their wives being useless for anything but sex and cleaning, and the wives joked about running away with a much younger, thinner, fitter man. He saw men joking about hitting their wives, women joking about brandishing a rolling pin should their husbands come home too late. And yet, at the end of the night, they all found their partners and headed home or to the guest bedroom, always together with whom they had started the night with. That was love. The idea thrust upon him with fairytales and movies. What girls fawned over and boys pretended to vomit at.
Julian knew what love was. He did.
Love was nothing special. Love was convenience. Love was security and safety.
Through his teens, he saw something people called love. He lost friends to love. He gained nothing from love. But it was through this that he saw, sex and love could be separated. Sex was untouchable compared to love. Sex was wild, free, undeniably unrestricted. Behind closed doors, Julian fucked anyone who consented (that was the most important part) heatedly. Nothing was off the table, as it were. Where love tangled up people, trapping them in a relationship filled with misogynistic jokes and a distaste for men, sex was no strings attached fun.
Coming home at three in the morning absolutely sloshed, aching in the hips, hickies up the column of your neck. That was the life. Falling asleep dreaming of what romp you were participating in next, that's how Julian spent his nights. Up, working, having sex, going home, sleeping, repeat.
Lillian was a nice girl, she was in his course at university. Prim, proper, a blouse covering her collarbones and a skirt down past her knees. She wore little makeup and always had her hair tied up in the same way. A person of habit, just like Julian. Surprisingly to both of them they got along well. His friends thought she was a stuck up bitch, and her friends thought he was a no-good philanderer. To some extent both were correct. Lillian was strong-willed, standing her ground on her opinions- particularly on certain people, while Julian did sleep around he wasn't limiting himself to only women.
While she often told others what she thought of them with no filter, Lillian didn't often tell Julian her thoughts on his activities. Not that he brought it up often, but when he came to class sporting some badly done concealer over his neck, or god forbid with a slight limp, she didn't utter a word. Instead, a look washed over her features, vanishing as quickly as it had come. Lillian would be an excellent politician, having mastered the poker face as she asked if he had looked at last nights assignment (he hadn't) and if he needed help (he did). It never occurred to Julian she might be in love with him.
And yet, when the time came for him to enter the world of politics, a wife made him look better. A strong family man was what the average Joe was looking for. Why vote for a man with ten girlfriends when Average Joe couldn't get one? The public was looking for people like them. Lillian was there, available, safe. She knew Julian better than most did, it was only logical that he was to love her. That was love, safety. Lillian was safe. But when he came home one night to find her on the couch, her face blotchy with tears. Her voice wavered as she begged him to love her and only her. He didn't want to. Lillian was beautiful, but Julian craved more. Craved that feeling in his hips, the fire in his veins, longed for something more than missionary under the covers. But that was love. Safety, and boredom, and compromise. Marriage happened quickly after, a beautiful ceremony with his friends and family. A wedding cake with a wife dragging her husband by the collar of his jumper to the altar, cards congratulating them and filled with sympathy for Julian. Married life was good. They ate together, he made enough money to support them both leaving Lillian to her own devices during the day.
Then it happened, one kiss. A mistake. A strong drink downed too quickly. A basement filled with sex and sweat. The bitter taste of pills on his tongue.
The next morning when he limped home, satiated and feeling more content than he had in all the years he'd known and been with Lillian, he saw the disappointed look on her face. There was no rolling pin, no lecture, no arguing against his story that he was at Kenny's last night. That was love. Hurting, disappointment, safety. Lukewarm smiles and halfhearted kisses. He couldn't blame her for feeling disappointed in him, and yet he couldn't extend the same feeling to his actions towards her. Three weeks later, after another night that left his throat dry- from drugs, alcohol or whatever the hell else- Lillian slid an envelope across the table.
"Divorce papers?" He asked before his brain could catch up.
Wordlessly she shook her head. Out slipped three sticks, all with two pink lines on each. "Not divorce papers," Lillian said softly, one hand over her flat stomach.
"And it's mine?"
"Who else's?" She snapped, her poker face slipping for a minute. "Yes. They're yours. I- I haven't been with anyone else since we were married."
Dull guilt buried itself in Julian's stomach, like a blunt knife. "I know," She continued, "That I am not enough for you. But this is your child. If you want to leave me, fine. But be there for them." She still refused to look him in the eyes. Julian placed the sticks back into the envelope. Lillian was sentimental, she would probably keep them. She was also an idiot, keeping him around. What child wanted a father like him? Yet, when Lillian rubbed her hand over her stomach, almost miming how the bump would soon show, when the faint kicking of tiny feet would thump against her, and whoever was feeling for them.
Julian didn't know love, but he knew decency. He worked, he got himself a position as MP. He got Lillian her absurd cravings at odd hours of the morning, he went shopping for baby clothes with her, he took her to appointments and scans and baby classes. He painted their spare room pale yellow and packed her bags for labour. Julian went out every Friday and got drunk and high and fucked whoever was looking for a good time. Sometimes he avoided scandals, sometimes they followed him like a bad smell. But Lillian was always there when he got home, and his daughter was still there growing in size every day. All things considered, the birth of Rachel was fairly straightforward. Yelling and screaming, lots of blood, and finally the tiny wails of a baby.
Julian didn't know love, but staring down at his daughter, tiny and pink, with a small finger curling around his, a tear slipped down his face. Maybe one day he would be worthy of it.