Title: "A House on the Sand"
Author: monimala
Fandom: Dil Chahta Hai/Bollywood
Rating/Classification: no adult content, angst, futurefic. 400 words. Sid/Deepa.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.
Summary: After the events of the film, Sid hears and listens…
Deepa fills up his silences with chatter. Her voice is nasal, high-pitched, not the least bit dulcet or gentle, when she calls, "Siddhaaaarth" across their house. Sometimes it grates on him. Sometimes, he wants to yell at her: Bas! Shut up! But he never does. He's never yelled at anyone in his life. Too many years of hanging out with Akash and Sameer, he guesses. And he's grown thicker skin. He's grown up. Moved on. He's resistant to fits of that kind of passion.
Besides, she cannot help it. That's just the way she is. She laughs too loud, a little too much, and the noise creeps into the quietest corners of his mind. Even when he makes love to her, she is all words. "Haan." "Aur." And "Sid…Sid, main tumse chahti hu…"
She always tells him she wants him.
He doesn't have to ask her why. He knows the answer. She wants him because she just does. She loves him because she just does.
She holds him tightly. Too tightly.
But he doesn't slip through her fingers like sand.
He stays in her palm. A thousand grains each etched with her name.
He made a conscious decision to do that. One day on a beach. In Goa. He turned to her, looked to her, and said, "Don't leave me."
"Never," she'd whispered into his neck. "I never will."
And now Sid is…content. Safe. A little less broken.
She does not drink. Not even a drop of champagne when Akash and Shalini throw a bash for their daughter's first birthday. She doesn't ask too much. She lets him paint the curve of her stomach with daubs of red and gold and blue.
She lets him be. She doesn't come looking when he locks himself in his studio for days, just speaks through the door to tell him that there's roti and dal on a tray if he wants it. She collects it hours later, when the food's gone cold, and chides him through the wooden panels for his paagalpan.
She laughs a little too loud, a little too much, and the noise creeps into the quietest corners of his mind.
He laughs with her. Often. More than he ever thought he could.
But he does not dare to love her more than absolutely necessary.
He's resistant to fits of that kind of passion.
And to suffering that kind of loss.
--end---
bas - enough!
haan - yes
aur - and
main tumse chahti hu - I want you
paagalpan - insanity
May 6, 2006.