I
think we skipped a step.
You
sit up slightly, mouth covering mine as your palm warms my breast, fingers
carefully stroking. The shift of
clothing is loud over faintly heavy breathing.
My hand presses against your chest, bandages.
We're
pretending something desperate.
I
push you away, catching breath and hiding from those eyes I want to live in.
"You're
hurt." Brittle, frightened words
in the air.
You
give me a watery searching look that I can feel and that chokes emotion in my
throat, "I'm getting better."
"That's
not what I meant."
You
already know that. Knew that when
the silence took your song and your words and left us staring.
Knew that you could make me believe you didn't need the echoes and that
maybe this would be enough for me and that maybe it would be enough for you.
I wish it were.
I
want so badly to give this to you.
But
you don't kiss me again, because it isn't.
I lie down against you like something lost. The bandages are soft on my cheek – I didn't expect that.
Your
words are quiet into my hair, almost lost in the dark strands, "It's her
favorite."
I
don't know why I suddenly on your frequency – maybe its just a part of this
sad little fantasy – but I know what you're talking about.
The song our definition almost forgot.
And it's important, more than that fictitious moment that was a breath
ago and never happened. When we
were something and you looked to now.
You're
fixated on the past. It's
something I never knew before tonight. I've
been blind.
"She
says she hears it when she's happy. I
hear it when I'm close to killing, to making her sad. I don't like irony."
I shiver and your arms tighten around me.
This is what you need, not me. I
bite my lip, closing my eyes to listen like a child to a fairytale.
The image makes me a little sick.
"I
didn't hear it . . ." Dead
words. You don't want to say
that, words that hurt because they can't be dark images or little sounds of
blood seeping and crying. They're
so much less that they don't even exist to you.
Like a lot of things.
Like
me.
"We're not different." I
don't like hearing you so cold, so numb.
But my hands can't warm your voice.
"When we were crashing, I only wanted her.
They could all die, everyone, all the ships.
I just wanted her."
You shudder. The outside
warmth is only skin-deep. Inside,
you're freezing to death.
"But
it was okay. I could see her in
them – everyone –so she wasn't dead and I wasn't like him and I saw
her.
"I can't see her anymore." Tears
sting my eyes. And I blink them
away because they'd make you cold.
So
maybe that's what I'm pretending. That
I can hurt you or help you or make you not broken. That there's hope?
That
your innocence isn't as dangerous as your gun.
That you'll believe again and that your brother isn't plotting
something melodramatic and vicious.
That
things will be alright.
You're
quiet again, drawing me up for another kiss.
This déjà vu is unsettling.
Against
your lips, "You're hurt."
Something
flickers in your eyes, maybe her song. Your
breath is something sweet, "I'm getting better."
Let's
pretend.
---------------
note: Sorry about the
disjointedness. This is the melding of two ideas, one that I've had for a
while, so it's probably pretty strange. Plus, it was written very late at
night (er, early in the morning), but I really shouldn't use that as an
excuse. But it's an explanation of the Rem/Meryl comparison that I rather
like (I actually think this is the one I believe now) with a healthy dose of
Meryl-angst and Vash-angst. How can you not love that?
Easily. I know. Ah, well.
Trigun is copyright (c) Yasuhiro
Nightow and Young King Ours.
