Title: Fragility
Author: silverthorned
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon, creator.
Category: Spike/Buffy
Summary: Yin and yang and being breakable. Season 6 up to "As You
Were."
*
She was in heaven, she said. He tries hard to understand what
that means, but all the connotations and connections in his head
only latch onto fragmented bits of poetry and prose, leftovers of
an education he can barely remember, much less desire recalling.
Those pretty phrases and overblown sentiments obscure the
knowledge he avoids like holy water. Hiding the truth, they grow
thick and dark, a jungle of deep greenery. He rests in the
obsidian night they create, but he can smell the sunlight,
persistently battering.
In heaven, she said and walks away from him. He watches her go
into the sunlight that flows around her, yet doesn't seem to touch
her. He closes his eyes, dazzled, and the glowing afterimage
burns with pointillistic ferocity.
She is an angel without wings. Perhaps they were torn from her
when she left the grave.
He curses himself bitterly for his fanciful tendencies and angrily
stands. He wants to go after her, to offer her more than silence.
He wants to say all the words that, maybe said, would sound less
like crap and more like comfort.
She'd never accept them. He knows that, as well as he knows that
if he did, he would kill what life she has left in her eyes. So
he paces in swift steps, stopping short of the line between shadow
and light, pierced once again by the thought that they are as
separate in design as the day and night. As angels and demons.
He stops his pacing and sighs heavily. He looks again to where
she no longer is and turns his back, going back the way he came,
into the shadows.
Nights go by and still he keeps his silence. He still sees her as
adrift, even when her sharp wit hides the darkness deep within.
Her skin is sickly grey, her eyes are lost, and he watches the
deterioration with concern.
She fades. He can feel it under his fingers, the slow leach of
color.
It was a mistake, he knows that now, but she still sleeps in his
arms, still seeks something from him. In the part that hopes, he
thinks he knows the words for that something. Balance.
Acceptance. Love. Life. Trust.
He tries to give her these things, these expressions that are more
than the sum of their parts. Yet when he looks into her eyes,
when they are face to face, hip to hip, she is far away. He makes
love to her. She does not make love with him.
Yet she trusts him enough to sleep in his bed. To lie beside him,
her slender back to him, her neck inches away from his mouth. It
is a tenuous thread, that trust and he could sever it as neatly as
the gossamer silk of a spider's web.
He has become addicted to the steady rush of blood in her veins,
to the pulse that runs like quicksilver in her neck, a soft column
of ivory marble, blue veins like sapphire buried deep within.
Desire mingles with hunger, a hunger that has little to do with
his nature and more with the life that clings stubbornly in her
small body.
He knows that is why he would never betray her trust in making her
like himself. It would be so easy to test the tensile strength of
her will, to push until it snapped, bent past the point of
absorption.
He once desired to sap the strength from her, to drain her of life
in an act of instinct and raw emotion. He's come so close so many
times that he knows the limits now.
He gathers her close to him, her soft hair beneath his chin, her
bare skin hot against his chest, his arm beneath her breasts. She
shifts, minimally, murmuring breathy syllables of nonsense. He
closes his eyes and wonders if she knows his limits, how far she
can push until he breaks. How much he can trust her not to test
his fragile control.
How much they could hurt each other.
End.
Author: silverthorned
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon, creator.
Category: Spike/Buffy
Summary: Yin and yang and being breakable. Season 6 up to "As You
Were."
*
She was in heaven, she said. He tries hard to understand what
that means, but all the connotations and connections in his head
only latch onto fragmented bits of poetry and prose, leftovers of
an education he can barely remember, much less desire recalling.
Those pretty phrases and overblown sentiments obscure the
knowledge he avoids like holy water. Hiding the truth, they grow
thick and dark, a jungle of deep greenery. He rests in the
obsidian night they create, but he can smell the sunlight,
persistently battering.
In heaven, she said and walks away from him. He watches her go
into the sunlight that flows around her, yet doesn't seem to touch
her. He closes his eyes, dazzled, and the glowing afterimage
burns with pointillistic ferocity.
She is an angel without wings. Perhaps they were torn from her
when she left the grave.
He curses himself bitterly for his fanciful tendencies and angrily
stands. He wants to go after her, to offer her more than silence.
He wants to say all the words that, maybe said, would sound less
like crap and more like comfort.
She'd never accept them. He knows that, as well as he knows that
if he did, he would kill what life she has left in her eyes. So
he paces in swift steps, stopping short of the line between shadow
and light, pierced once again by the thought that they are as
separate in design as the day and night. As angels and demons.
He stops his pacing and sighs heavily. He looks again to where
she no longer is and turns his back, going back the way he came,
into the shadows.
Nights go by and still he keeps his silence. He still sees her as
adrift, even when her sharp wit hides the darkness deep within.
Her skin is sickly grey, her eyes are lost, and he watches the
deterioration with concern.
She fades. He can feel it under his fingers, the slow leach of
color.
It was a mistake, he knows that now, but she still sleeps in his
arms, still seeks something from him. In the part that hopes, he
thinks he knows the words for that something. Balance.
Acceptance. Love. Life. Trust.
He tries to give her these things, these expressions that are more
than the sum of their parts. Yet when he looks into her eyes,
when they are face to face, hip to hip, she is far away. He makes
love to her. She does not make love with him.
Yet she trusts him enough to sleep in his bed. To lie beside him,
her slender back to him, her neck inches away from his mouth. It
is a tenuous thread, that trust and he could sever it as neatly as
the gossamer silk of a spider's web.
He has become addicted to the steady rush of blood in her veins,
to the pulse that runs like quicksilver in her neck, a soft column
of ivory marble, blue veins like sapphire buried deep within.
Desire mingles with hunger, a hunger that has little to do with
his nature and more with the life that clings stubbornly in her
small body.
He knows that is why he would never betray her trust in making her
like himself. It would be so easy to test the tensile strength of
her will, to push until it snapped, bent past the point of
absorption.
He once desired to sap the strength from her, to drain her of life
in an act of instinct and raw emotion. He's come so close so many
times that he knows the limits now.
He gathers her close to him, her soft hair beneath his chin, her
bare skin hot against his chest, his arm beneath her breasts. She
shifts, minimally, murmuring breathy syllables of nonsense. He
closes his eyes and wonders if she knows his limits, how far she
can push until he breaks. How much he can trust her not to test
his fragile control.
How much they could hurt each other.
End.