Disclaimer: yah, right.


Warning: *laughs* don't let the slash bug bite you.


A/N: inspired by Draco Veritas 11. guh. I'm not saying this is what I predict, or what I want. Maybe it's just what I feel from it, through it, about it.





guess I thought I could never feel
the things I feel
~~tori amos, `hey jupiter'


~~~~~~
~~~~~~fuse.
~~~~~~
I see you first behind my eyelids, coming into focus. Slightly blurry, your edges dancing, smudged with rain and shock and distance. It's not really the glint of silver in your hair, sharp as a knife between my ribs. It's not the slash of your mouth, which must be cutting you just as it's cutting me. Before I ever heard you, I knew it was you because suddenly, it was as if a thousand street-lamps had switched on. Why is it you have to blind me?


Sometimes it's easy to think that if you weren't this beautiful, I wouldn't need you. Seeing you now bespells me, that is all. I can't seem to move, or breathe, or remember why you're there, why you're looking at me like that, as if you see through me to the wall behind me. The rain is gathering on your lashes, falling down your cheeks, but it looks like you have never shed a tear in your life. Maybe I'm glad, but when I look into your eyes, I'm not, not when you look at me like that. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry....


Because if you weren't this cruel I couldn't hate you, and I need to... Don't I? Is that it? You want me to, you want me to be as brittle as the brick digging into my elbows, scraping against my shoulder blades. If you want me to, maybe I will. Maybe I can. Maybe I can be anything you need me to be.


And if you ever touched me, I would stand very still and let you go. I would look you in the eye, the grey flint sparking against my bones, digging deeper and finding things, all sorts of things I was trying to lose. I don't need them now. I don't need anything. Just stop looking at me like that.


I can't read a word of this new language, though it seems as if we've spoken it before. And this silence is so thin, I can put my hand through it, as though there's nothing on the other side. Like shapes in the mist, indecipherable, just beyond my reach. Blank shapes, slick and metallic and tasting oddly of blood. I can't bring myself to want to know, it seems. I don't know these streets, really, I can't find my way, and if you won't forgive me there's really nothing I can say. I can wait for you, even though there isn't time, no time left. I thought I told you....


I won't break. Do your worst. If you would stop this-- if you would break-- maybe you could, if you wanted. Break me.


Or just take this hand and lead me where you want us to go, I don't know anymore, because--


I think I finally see you-- I think I finally knew you, when your lips touched mine.


You didn't break me. You kissed me.


I didn't think it would be so easy.
~~


Maybe you hear a sound like something breaking, but don't stop. If it seems I cry out in pain, don't turn away, because I can't promise you anything, but the plain truth is, if you turned away now, there would be nothing to see when you looked back.


This is the turning point, this is where we make or break it, and honestly, I don't care, because beyond my fear and bewilderment and pain, I can feel the rain, slipping through my skin. Within me, there is only a rushing, a noise like water rising to the surface. Rising, flowing, calling-- blood to blood. I feel you there with me, and somehow it's different, denser, sharper. Like shards from an opaque window, shattering. Everything stops, and everything starts, and why do I feel smothered breathless and like too much air is forcing itself into my lungs, and I could burst or fly away or both.


If I stifle a cry, I'm just surprised the world hasn't ended. I'm still breathing, and so are you. Well, we're getting somewhere, then.


It's like I can feel the underside of this cloak of daggers, the secret hidden layer, turned inside out, rubbing my senses raw. You're furious and I'm barely conscious, and I have no idea what just happened, but-- maybe I do.


Or maybe I've half-drowned in the rain, and am dreaming this, all this, which I no longer have a name for.


Nor do I need a name, not like I need you-- without a thought to go around between us, without a breath, everything so brilliant and cruel in the darkness, so silent in the pounding of the rain. There aren't any words to describe this, encompass it, break it, or take it away. A dead end, impossibilities looming both ways. Still, I won't go back now. I can't go back, you see that, don't you? How can we go back like this?


And I don't just mean we'd die if we don't run. Not that I'm running-- not even now. Once, not so long ago, you'd have believed me, but now all I can do is just say it again. I don't understand anything anymore.


You are so cruel, and yet you show me beauty. I said I can't hear you, but this-- I never expected this. I thought I knew. I thought I knew you.


Maybe I didn't.


What can I say?


Thank you.


~~