So… Yes. Hello.

I'm sure you're all rolling your eyes, and/or rather confused. Doesn't Vamp already have a massive project that she should be working on? Well, yes. I do. I really should be working on Life is Beautiful, but I can't seem to squeeze any ideas out onto paper as of late, so I've put it on hold. Not really a hiatus, but just paused for a bit while I gather my thoughts.

Plus, I am also currently working on another piece that's going to be even more massive, so my creative energy is mostly being expended on that right now.

Anyways, about this piece: I've had the idea in my head for a while, but I only got around to actually starting on it now, because I randomly had a brainwave and thought it would be a good place to start. This will be multi-chaptered, but will always be marked as complete, because each chapter is a one-shot and will have no connection to the ones afterwards or previous (aside from the characters included, anyways). I created this just to have something I can work on without stressing out, something I can write on and off and has no particular structure.

So, without further ado, here is the chapter!

Think Of These Thoughts

She knew he loved her.

Anyone who didn't know him would have told her that she was crazy for thinking so, that someone like him could never love anyone, let alone someone (something) like her…

But she knew better, you see.

She knew.

She saw it in the turn of his head, in the faintest trace of pink that flitted across his cheeks when she smiled a cheeky smile that was so faint nobody would have noticed it but him. She saw his lingering looks, the way his eyes caught hers and stuck there, especially when he thought she wasn't looking (there was always something dark and dangerous in the most anguished way possible that stirred in his gaze when he did that, so she never said a word). She felt the shivers that went down both their spines whenever he looked straight through her, and she almost felt sorry when he would wrap his arms around himself subconsciously, as if to protect himself from the power they both knew she had over him.

She almost felt sorry, but she didn't, not really (not really, not anymore; she's spent enough of her life feeling sorry, she takes what's hers, now).

She was in love with him too, after all.

She might have been ashamed if she still apologized like she used to, but now there was no one to apologize to but him, and he certainly didn't resent her for it. In fact, if anything, he clung to her even more, eyes breaking and shattering and dying with stark, cold fear for no more than a split second whenever she swept off down the long, winding hallways, like he was afraid she was going to leave, or fade away, or maybe both. But she didn't, and there was such tragic, heartbreaking wonder, such terrible, painful surprise on his face every time she came back, as if he couldn't quite believe that she wasn't gone.

She never asked for forgiveness, never wasted her time feeling guilty; she knew she wasn't the (only) reason he was broken, so she merely held him as best she could when he was left alone too long, left alone to think, held him when he finally snapped, and he dissolved into tears and screams and constant, burning agony. She held him until he was quiet, then whispered to him, murmured into his ear until he stopped shaking, until he could force the façade of humor and wide, manic grins back into place, until he was strong enough to bear the entire universe on his shoulders again, if only for a little while. She wasn't sure if this made him love her more or hate himself with a fierce, fiery passion, but still, still she held onto him as if he was her lifeline, and not the other way around (it's scathingly ironic, either way), because if that was all she could do for him, she would (and sometimes it's better, that she can only do these little things, that she can't properly do anything for him aside from offer those comforting, aching silences).

It was almost a shame, really, that their story was a constant slow dance of pain and loneliness, that they couldn't have met like normal people and fallen in love that way too (but as he says, normal is just so, so boring).

Almost.

But then, if it were really a shame, they would say so much more about it. He was always so very, very vocal when he thought something was wrong (but not when he was hurting), and the fact that he never said anything at all about their twisted, awful-wonderful relationship must have said something about his character (or about hers). Besides, if he'd known her when she was… Well. If he had known her back then, things would have been so very, very different that she sometimes wept a bit just thinking about it.

Sometimes she didn't even know why (but it was worse when she did).

So… It wasn't a shame – not really, not to them – because they knew how they worked, they knew how they leaned on each other (him more than her, if she's being honest, and he almost never is), and they had learned to accept it, growing fond of their strange dynamic and of the person (although neither of them were really people) they shared it with. Maybe they weren't happy all the time – Hell, maybe they weren't happy at all – but it was the closest thing either of them would ever get to serenity, so it wasn't really a shame at all.

Except it was.

If anyone on the outside ever looked in (and they seldom did, there wasn't much to see, especially on her end), they might just burst into tears from the sheer tragedy that their tale expressed, the raw, unutterable pain that roiled inside both of them just beneath the surface – him because he had lost everything and it was his fault, and her because she'd had everything and then lost it to someone else's cruelty in a flash of blood and metal. If someone saw how their lives worked, they might just go mad from the sight of such ugly, jagged edges, edges where everything stopped and nothing began.

But they didn't see it that way (that's what they told each other, what they told themselves, but they could both see the bitterness, the horrible, world-shattering irony). They saw two individuals who were stuck in a vicious cycle of pain and loss and agony, two individuals who somehow found comfort in one another despite both thinking themselves to be the very last being in the universe worthy of such trust. They were both in states of mutually assured destruction, and they were both too absorbed in the whirl of blinding lights and alien numerals that was constantly spiraling around them to reject self-destructing in something so close to ecstasy.

She loved him with every inch of her being (or what was left of it, if anything), and she loved him even more when he didn't stop her from thinking in such a poetic way. There was really nothing about their relationship that was poetic – plot-of-a-Shakespearean-play-esque or not – but he let her make believe that there was, let her promise things like forever without protesting her notion in the slightest, merely smiling and trying (and failing) to hug her tight.

But it was the smile that was always too tight, and she knew he didn't believe her for a second, that his fantasies didn't stretch that wide, and all he knew was unhappy endings.

She didn't blame him for that one, really.

No boy can love a ghost and expect it to end well, after all.

So, yeah, this pretty much came out of nowhere. I just had the thought yesterday and decided to write it. I thought I did alright, what do you guys think?