Glass
by intodust
Disclaimer: Dark Angel is the property of 20th Century Fox and Cameron/Eglee Productions; that is, it's not mine.
- - -
Blue shadows flicker as clouds move across the moon, drowning diamond stars. He could find a light, the small flame of a candle, but he doesn't mind the darkness, the sensation of water and ice, of harsh and gentle lines, the lack of flame and ash. The lack of destruction and artifice is soothing.
When she steps from the shadows, when they shift around her like graceful ghosts, beads of water glisten in her hair, white against smooth dark, and her skin is bleached pale. The light is wrong, he thinks. Cold. It drains her of life and turns her to ice, and he wonders why she is here.
This isn't the first time, of course, that she's come. It's not the first time that she's found him, that he's seen movement out of the corner of his eyes, and seen her smile at him like she's been here all along, like this is where she belongs. Streamlined decadence, she plays the part well.
He does wonder why she comes, sometimes. When she's gone, afterward, and he's almost afraid to linger himself, because he can't really believe she's not still there, just as he can't really believe she was there at all. He wonders why she's not out with her friends, smoke and warmth and laughter. He can feel cold air stealing inside around the windowpane, but maybe that's just his imagination.
She breathes lightly and he can imagine the lights, the storm, mirrored in black eyes, cloth bitter with the remnants of snow, of wild. She was a phantom, he thinks, or a dream. Not quite real. She still isn't; he can sense bits of intangibility, of lies, in the air around her, in the air she breaths. But it's progress, it's something; if he touched her arm now, it would not be to grasp air.
He won't, though. He's sure.
And maybe it's better for that; real is the strain of hours and stale coffee, blood on concrete, numbness and voids. It won't last forever, he thinks, but he won't rush the end.
He doesn't have to make her real, and she doesn't have to let him. But it's begun, now, and it's too late, and the snow falls against the window like soft death-knells, like prayer. The winter will be harsher for this, he thinks, and he turns to her.
- - -
The End.
Feedback, as always, is most appreciated.
by intodust
Disclaimer: Dark Angel is the property of 20th Century Fox and Cameron/Eglee Productions; that is, it's not mine.
- - -
Blue shadows flicker as clouds move across the moon, drowning diamond stars. He could find a light, the small flame of a candle, but he doesn't mind the darkness, the sensation of water and ice, of harsh and gentle lines, the lack of flame and ash. The lack of destruction and artifice is soothing.
When she steps from the shadows, when they shift around her like graceful ghosts, beads of water glisten in her hair, white against smooth dark, and her skin is bleached pale. The light is wrong, he thinks. Cold. It drains her of life and turns her to ice, and he wonders why she is here.
This isn't the first time, of course, that she's come. It's not the first time that she's found him, that he's seen movement out of the corner of his eyes, and seen her smile at him like she's been here all along, like this is where she belongs. Streamlined decadence, she plays the part well.
He does wonder why she comes, sometimes. When she's gone, afterward, and he's almost afraid to linger himself, because he can't really believe she's not still there, just as he can't really believe she was there at all. He wonders why she's not out with her friends, smoke and warmth and laughter. He can feel cold air stealing inside around the windowpane, but maybe that's just his imagination.
She breathes lightly and he can imagine the lights, the storm, mirrored in black eyes, cloth bitter with the remnants of snow, of wild. She was a phantom, he thinks, or a dream. Not quite real. She still isn't; he can sense bits of intangibility, of lies, in the air around her, in the air she breaths. But it's progress, it's something; if he touched her arm now, it would not be to grasp air.
He won't, though. He's sure.
And maybe it's better for that; real is the strain of hours and stale coffee, blood on concrete, numbness and voids. It won't last forever, he thinks, but he won't rush the end.
He doesn't have to make her real, and she doesn't have to let him. But it's begun, now, and it's too late, and the snow falls against the window like soft death-knells, like prayer. The winter will be harsher for this, he thinks, and he turns to her.
- - -
The End.
Feedback, as always, is most appreciated.