Dedicated, as always, to my best friend, Valerie

Summary: Love is not some tame thing to come or go as we will it to. It is a fierce thing, a cry to heaven, pain and pleasure in our lives. So I learned on that night, the night my soul's completion shattered it forever…. (Malik/Isis) {flame if you want, but read first}

***WARNINGS*** Mild angst, and incest. A little kissing and touching, and emotional stuff of course. Nothing more. Don't worry.

Now, begins, I'm just going to say I warned you. There is Malik/Isis in here, folks; Marik/Ishizu. A.K.A., INCEST. So if you have a problem with that, leave NOW. Or at least don't say I didn't warn you.

Author's Note: The reason I have Isis talk occasionally about sin and damnation, and that kind of stuff was because I believe she grew up in a household that was likely very focused on such things, being preservers of the ancient scriptures, and also living in a part of the world that has for thousands of years been obsessed with theology and various religious stuff. Just thought I'd explain that to ya now ^^;;

Cry to Heaven

Love is not the soft, crooning thing they sing of in songs. It is a fierce thing, a cry to heaven, a pain and a pleasure, a heaven and a hell, a fire we can never touch but forever feel.

It is both a weakness and an infallible strength. A strength because you are not alone anymore; you have given your heart into another's keeping, and they given theirs into yours, and so neither of you are forced to face the world alone any longer - you have your faith, your trust; you have each other.

It is a weakness because of the same. Because complete and total surrender - and that's what love is - leaves you completely and totally vulnerable.

It is not a choice, not a conscious decision. It is not some tame thing that comes and goes when we will it to, or when it should or is welcome. Therein lies its terror and its final beauty.

Look at us, him and I. We didn't choose it. It came to us, took us as the wind takes earth from the hillside; drew us as the moon draws the ocean tides - drew us to each other.

It was never my choice, but yes, I loved him. Malik. My brother.

So curse me, despise me, but that is the truth of it. I loved him, and I forever will. I admit it freely now, not out of bravery, but out of the weariness of denying it so long....

~*~

I don't remember when it first began. It came subtly, as all such things do, slowly intensifying over the years, becoming so much a part of me that I did not for a long time realize it for what it truly was. It is as if I have always loved him.

I did not lust for him, but I hungered for his touch, the brush of his skin against mine - not because it brought sexual gratification, but because it brought a closeness to him, both physical and emotional.

And closeness brought what I dreaded and desired most - confirmation. Confirmation that this was all not just some wild illusion; that he was here, and he loved me. And that was what I wished for and feared, above all; being loved in return. Because I knew what it would bring.

Sigh. I make no sense, do I? But then, perhaps that's as it should be. The whole of it made no sense.

I feared it. I cannot tell you how much I did. I feared the retribution of heaven for this sin I could not ever atone for. I feared it and wished only to be free of it.

I tried to disregard it, forget it, ignore it. I pushed it down and locked it away. I denied myself it, for I knew how it would end.

But such things, I think, are never really in our hands. They are predetermined, by destiny or genetics, or some power we cannot even begin to imagine. And so it was with this. And so it remained in me still. Still it remained, and still I hungered.

Nights were the worst. I would lie awake, staring off into the darkness, for I feared the dreams that would come with sleep. Because, you see, my unconscious mind was not so chaste in its love for him, and it frightened me.

But wakefulness was little better. Always, always thoughts of him would creep into my mind, and I would find myself caught in them, their darkness and their dazzling light, lost in what I felt and feared, and what I knew, even then, of what the end would be.

And so would I lie there, afraid to stay awake and even more afraid to fall asleep, as all my dreads and desires ran circles 'round my head, and midnight wrapped like a winding sheet around me, whispering of a love that could never be.

And that night. Ah yes, that night. The night my soul's completion shattered it forever. Yes, I remember it. I could not forget it, even if I wanted to. And believe you me, I do sometimes.

I lay in the darkness that night as I had on a thousand others, wrapped in my shroud of shadows, staring off into oblivion - eyes closed, eyes open, it didn't matter; the darkness was there all the same - alone. Always alone....

And, through my desire and my despair, I heard it.

The patter of footsteps soft against the dusted stone, coming closer; and a light growing against the darkness, a light come to push that darkness back from my heart, my soul.

And as the light fell soft upon them, my eyes opened to it, as the world opens itself to day. Opened, and saw him standing there before me. Malik.

How beautiful he looked in the light of the single candle he held, soft features gilded with that light, eyes alive with it, pools of violet aurora.

An angel he was in the shadows, a creature of beauty and light caught in this world of stone and darkness, caught like a butterfly in a spider's web. Caught like me.

Yes, I thought, looking at him, feeling the love for him rise in my heart. Yes, for we are each other's only companion in this world of tunnels that we are fated to, but cannot ever be a part of; this life that has marked you and claimed you. But I cannot see it as your fate to live ruled by it, as so many others have. I know this as I know you, as I know my own soul - for you are as a part of me, the warrior in me; and if you are free of this life, then my soul will be also.

But these truths are secret, these words spoken only in silence. It can be no other way.

Oblivious, Malik shifts his weight from foot to foot and casts his gaze down shyly. In his soft child's voice, sweet and clear as light or water falling, he asks, "Sister...can I lie down with you tonight?"

No explanation given, for none was needed. There seemed nothing strange about it to me then; Malik had always had nightmares often, and more so now after Father marked him. And always, time out of mind he came to me for reassurance.

Nothing out of the ordinary about it. Nothing more than platonic caring. None of the intimacy my heart so hungered for.

Gently I smile, and for a moment it feels almost natural. I nod to him.

His face lights up with joy, and he smiles, unabashedly, unashamedly, as only a child can. His robe rustling softly around him, he sets the candle on the small table next to my bed, and leaps into the nest of blankets beside me, snuggling into the curve of my body and resting his head against my chest.

I close my eyes, and for once the darkness seems at peace. And for all my emptiness, I had never felt so fulfilled.

And yet, even as he settles in close to me, I feel the tension in his body, keenly as if it were in my own - the humming tension in a harpstring, just before it plays its sweetest note, or snaps from the strain of it; the breathless tension in the hush of morning just before the sun breaks the horizon.

And I knew then that he and I both stood on the edge of something great and terrible.

And when finally it seemed neither of us could bear it any longer, he drew himself up to a sitting position and turned his face to mine.

So hopeful...so agonizingly hopeful, trembling between fear and faith, like a young bird ready to cast off into the winds and try to fly.

Hope suspended for a moment over the void, shaking ever so slightly, his eyes bright with...what?

"Isis..." he whispers, shimmering, trembling against the silence, and it seemed to me then that all the urgency and agony and hope of his soul lay in that single word.

Then his voice deserted him, and he found he could say no more.

But it didn't matter, because he looked into my eyes, into my soul, and I saw what lay within his own.

I saw in him the mirror of my own desire.

I saw the hunger, the fear, the longing...and the love, same as the love I had so long felt for him.

So long had it haunted him that he cared not for the consequences anymore, cared not for the reproachments of his own conscience - it would be worth them to finally reveal this that he had hidden so long, worth all the world, even if he was denied, to at last be fear of the secret and the fear.

For yes, it had been fear that had held us apart so long, hadn't it? Ignorance and fear - fear not of what the consequences would be for our actions, but fear of confirming what those actions meant...what we knew already, somewhere deep inside: it was love, and it had come to stay.

But all that does not matter, no longer. Innocent (or ignorant; both equally true) of humanity's fall from grace, and past caring about it even if we weren't - for then we were past caring about consequences, about taboos, about truth, about all but each other.

For love is a flame that burns inside us, a fire in our veins that heats the heart and lights the soul, and burns away all discretion and common sense. Primal as the flame of life, for they are, in the end, one and the same.

And drawn we were like moths to that flame, drawn to each other.

Yet as my arms wrap around him, my fingers find the wounds carved into his back. Touch them, touch the raw red brutality of them...touch the suffering of my brother, the pain unspeakable he has endured.

And I felt in myself pain much the same, for love of the one who suffered it, and tears in my heart that would never be shed.

And though I knew I could never touch such suffering, I embraced him and held him to me, his heart to my heart, and I met him in his vulnerability with my own.

He tensed against me, and for a moment I feared he would pull away. But then...he gave a little soft sigh, and he relaxed against me, yielded to me. Gave himself to me as he had to no other in all his life, before that night or after it, without fear and without shame. Gave himself to me in his passion and his pain, his love and his loss.

His mouth pressed against my own, and my tongue delved into the sweet silky blackness. Our hand buried in each other's clothing, caressing the hidden, the exotic secrets.

Simply to feel his skin brush mine was to turn into pure shimmer, the dance of flames and light. And this...to feel this was to burn as the sun itself burns through all the darkness of the universe.

No longer alone, no longer separate, left unrequited and unanswered to hunger for a closeness that could never be. Body and mind, heart and soul, we were one.

And for the first time in all the long years of my life, I knew what it meant to be happy.

And should all my days go down into darkness, should I die in agony without ever knowing cessation of suffering, I will accept it with grace in my heart and courage. For at last I have known love.

Crack.

The sound ricocheted off the walls and echoed through the emptiness, pierced the silence like a dagger through the darkness.

What was it - Father, Rishid, some other haunted thing? - I never knew. Not that it ever really mattered, in the end.

In a flash, we leapt apart, Malik and I - and in that flash, in the sudden emptiness between us, revelation struck. The tinted glass of love was shattered - not by the noise, but by our reaction to it, and the knowledge that came with that reaction: This was filthy. This was wrong. This was taboo.

And yet we had done it.

To so love your own blood was sin. Throughout all the long ages it had been so. There were laws against it, laws of the darkest sort - not that there needed be. The soul, the very animal core of the human being, knew it for the sacrilege it was.

His eyes meet mine, and there is no love in them, only dread. We stand like strangers in this horror. So close, so close…and yet an infinity away.

This was never supposed to happen. This flesh, this blood, was never supposed to love its own.

I never wanted this to happen. I only found that I needed it to.

After a long, long time, he lay back down beneath the tangled sheets – what else was there for it? – lay as far away from me as possible, his body clenched as if against some great cold.

And in time, I, too, give into the weariness.

Curl up, close my eyes against the bitterness. I know now how it feels to wander in the desert, dying of my own thirst, and to stumble upon a clear sweet pool, taste a mouthful…only to realize it was all an illusion.

No. No, it was not illusion; it was truth, and confession in its purest form.

Perhaps. But it might as well be an illusion. It can never be anything more.

Tear against the silence. My heart, my soul, my very blood and bone, cry out for him, wild with desire and despair, cry for him though they have no voice and he no reply.

He is silent, but I know he is not asleep. And sometime in the long, cold, empty darkness of the night, I hear him quietly get up and leave. He takes the candle with him.

And then there is only darkness. No sin and no redemption, no love and no justice. Only darkness.

Nothing. Nothing to feel, nothing meant for you to feel. Nothing you ever should have felt.

I feel nothing. And I suffer from what I do not feel.

Yes, truly, love is a flame, a fire in the veins. And it had taken me, and consumed me, and left me as dust in the ashes of the lost. There is only cold now, where once there was warmth. There is only horror, where once there was joy unsurpassed.

What crueler fate could there ever be, what worse or more fitting punishment?

~*~

Why is it that I think of these things now, these times bitter and beautiful, as I face you here at the edge of desolation?

"You will not stand in my way, sister."

I look at him, into his eyes. Not pools of violet aurora, no more. Cold and untouched by the light, cold as the jewels in the tombs of the kings, cold as the rocks at the heart of the earth that never knew the sun. Cold as the stones of the tunnels that imprisoned us so long.

And the pools of black at their center, the well of the soul, cold and dark and cruel as the entrance to a tomb.

Windows to the soul. Windows to the hate and fury and darkness that you are or have become.

The Rod shimmers in his hands, gold struck by the light of the sun. An ancient thing, a beautiful thing. And how many lives has it already claimed?

"You would use your Millennium Rod on your own flesh and blood?!"

His hands close on it. "If you continue to defy me, sister, I will have no choice."

Not the brother I once knew, once loved. No. No more.

My Malik is gone forever.

No! No…he is…still there…this is not him, not the one that I once loved….

It was nothing more than an empty cry, half in pleading and half in denial, the ravings of disconsolation – or as much I thought. For my eyes locked with his then as they had on that night so long ago, and I looked into the very depths of his soul…

…And saw a demon looking back at me.

I knew what it was. How had I not recognized it right away?

It had a thousand names – hate, avarice, violence, cruelty, suffering – and it wore them under a thousand guises.

I saw it in the eye of the torturer, the tormentor. I saw it in the bloody maelstorm of the battlefield. I saw it in the darkness of my own closed eyes, for perhaps that is the true horror of it: In everything this darkness lies, in everything it threatens.

It hates the light for the light that it lost, and it seeks as ever it has to destroy it. And it uses my brother now as an instrument to that same end.

This darkness, born from and bound to him by his suffering and the hell my father put him through, has crept into his veins and consumed him, and it is this that controls him now, not his own free will.

I cry out against it, this creature of darkness. "THE PHAROAH'S POWER ISN'T YOURS!"

Its only reply is laughter. A shiver runs through me. The tears and rage of the darkness are terrible, for they haunt the heart and threaten the very soul itself, I think. But its laughter is infinitely worse, for there is nothing of humanity in it. Nothing but a cold, empty jeer.

A whirl of wind and ashes consumes both me and the creature, lashing my body, and when finally I clear my eyes, it – the demon and my brother both – is gone.

Gone. Gone, perhaps, forever.

I clench my fists, fall to my knees. My eyes burn, my vision cracks and blurs. Tears warm as blood or summer rain trace down the planes of my face.

I weep. For him…and for myself.

I could have turned then, gone into the city and began a new life there, forgotten the darkness of my past and the love I felt for him. Certainly I could find some man to take me in, as either wife or servant. And thus would I live out my life; raising a screaming, shrieking bunch of children, cooking and cleaning, weaving cloth and making clothes from it, my days blending together in an arc whose end was marked only by my death.

Often have I wondered what might have become of Malik and myself, had I chosen that path. Life would have been easier, certainly, and kinder, perhaps, for a life of ignorance always is. It is easy, and that is its only reward. To turn, to fight the darkness, means struggle and suffering. But pain is a price, the price of paradise. It is in damnation that salvation lies.

I made my choice. And over all the long years of my life, I have never regretted it.

I may be damned, cursed to hell for all eternity for the crime of loving him…but he is innocent. He is guiltless. And if this demon that infests his soul would have it otherwise, then by all the gods, I will drag or drive it from him, and I will free him of it!

I lift my eyes, bright still with tears, and turn my face to the east, to where I know he heads, even now.

I loved you once, Malik. And against all odds, I love you still. Nothing may ever come of it, for it was never meant to be, and can never be condoned or consummated. But it is still there. It will always be there. For this love is life, mine and yours, and life always finds a way.

~*FINIS*~

I know, of course, that everyone in the world wants to flame me now.

True enough, I said in the summary that if you read this, you could flame it. But do me a favor, please, and read this first off.

I knew this was going to be offensive to some people. That's partially why I wrote it :P No, the real reason was that my best friend, Valerie, wanted me to, and I wanted to myself, to see how it would come out, and if I had the talent to make of an incest fic a deep and touching love story.

So if you don't, flame me if you want. If you have suggestions that could be made on it (e.g., Too much sentimental stuff in the beginning), that's wonderful. I'll welcome it. I need more constructive criticism. But if you're just going to bitch at me (e.g. wHy dId u mAEK mARIKK a DiCk!!!!!!!!!!111111111), don't bother. And don't think you can make me stop writing what I choose to write by flaming me. I'm used to people degrading me. Don't think it'll accomplish anything. On the other hand, if you complement me, if you give me good criticism, I'll probably write more, and write better.

So, as I said in the intro to one of my fics long ago, "If you liked it, then thank you very much, and please review! ^_^;; If you didn't, then fuck you very much, and don't bother reviewing."