A/N: AH! Don't read, don't read! I wrote this for my creative writing class (we're finishing up The Great Gatsby) and I wrote it this morning right before first period. XD It's very, very, very bad. I was afraid of being too daring with the writing style (since I'm sure my English teacher's just waiting for an excuse to fail me), so it's pretty...simple. (To my eternal shame! ...Even though all of my writing is this bad) Okay, enough of my self-conscious crap. I just felt guilty for ignoring my fishnetz account, so here it is!
Disclaimer: The Great Gatsby was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and I do not claim any rights to the book or anything in it. (So, boo.)
-Deathless Song-
-
The sitting room exists in peaceful darkness as the sun continues its descent from the sky and the last splashes of pink retreat reluctantly into the night. Gatsby sees them off silently as they are swiftly replaced by the pale-yellow light of the moon. The light creeps in across the floor and the walls. Tentatively, delicately, it seeps into everything—drapery, bookshelves, chairs—leaving them transformed and glamorous. It even seeps into the people, and it is a privilege that Gatsby's house has become host to such a guest.
Gatsby's eyes follow the light's path and watch as Daisy becomes bathed in a golden glow. She turns her head to him and she is smiling. He can barely see her face, but what he can see seems so shockingly ordinary that it gives him pause.
An unpleasant feeling—invoked hours before by Daisy's appearance in Nick's living room and now painfully familiar—wells up in his chest, irritating his brow as it whispers to him preludes to the destruction of his dreams. He looks away from her and lets the simple melody of "The Love Nest" drown out his doubts.
The song issuing from the grand piano is not enough to captivate the entire room, he realizes. An eternity of silence stretches on in the wake of each fading note, and even the muffled sounds of falling rain outside fail to reach his ears. Daisy is quiet beside him, with no words or songs to offer, so the only thing left is thought. Some part of Gatsby—he suspects his heart—realizes that thinking is not good and he turns to Daisy with near desperate expectation. This time, she does not disappoint.
When she speaks, her voice causes the noise of the rain, the piano, and life on West Egg beyond their room to halt, waver abashedly, and then fizzle away into the night.
"Jay," she murmurs, "Your house...the music...everything is simply lovely." She breathes the last word into Gatsby and he feels like a man who's tasted air for the first time in half a decade without ever realizing he'd been drowning in the first place.
Gatsby looks at her again, and this time she is far from ordinary. Now, he can see the exquisite curve of her lips, the sophisticated slope of her neck, the ideal way her bangs fall into her eyes... He is so entranced that he cannot notice the subtle play of emotions on Daisy's face. Confusion, love, regret...
She speaks again and her voice is as raw as she can possibly allow. "We shouldn't be doing this."
Gatsby frowns but finds himself unnaturally at ease. "Shouldn't be doing what?" he asks casually. "We are merely enjoying each other's company."
They both know this is a lie. Gatsby does not know why he says it, or why he continues to play the part of the courteous host. Daisy, apparently, doesn't know either because her dainty eyebrows knot in confusion.
"You know perfectly well what I mean," she says, and then hesitates. "You...you know why I shouldn't be here...why I shouldn't be here with you-"
Gatsby is still calm because he believes he can see through her. He counters, "You say 'shouldn't' but not 'can't.'" She moves as if she is about to argue, but before she can make a sound, he says, "You are telling me that we should not be together, but do you also believe this-" he catches her hand deftly "-is wrong?"
Daisy stares at their hands and Gatsby watches. He is tempted to doubt again, to wonder if she might leave him again, and to imagine a world without her or without even the green light at the end of the bay...
The gold band on her finger winks at him in the moonlight.
When he hears it, Daisy's voice is quiet and almost falls into the obscurity of the piano and the rain.
"I..." she struggles, as if being physically restrained, "I- I do love you, Jay.…"
Gatsby finds that he is smiling, both out of love and out of triumph. He feels as if a bridge has been crossed and he does not intend on looking back, whether what lays beyond the other side turns out to be fair or foul. He decides not to think about it, but instead listens intently to the woman before him.
She whispers, "But, how could this ever- I mean, how could we possibly...?" The uncertainty and sweet pleading in her voice rise to a crescendo in Gatsby's ears, and for a moment, he forgets Klipspringer, the house, and the weather.
His pulse quickens and he is compelled by her voice to answer with intensity.
"Daisy," he intones meaningfully, "Say that you love me."
He watches carefully as her eyes widen a fraction and, if he looks hard enough, he can almost see the truth hidden there. But he does not want the truth, he wants the one answer that will spell happiness for them both; so he looks away from her pleading eyes and fixes his gaze on her hands. Her right is still safe within his own, and he rubs her fingers gently, simultaneously covering the wicked metallic glint. Daisy sighs softly and Gatsby leans in toward her. Miles away, Klipspringer stops playing.
Daisy bites her lip and Gatsby is suddenly reminded of a young girl's porch and dreaming in the silence. The feeling that strikes him is unexpected and startling, but still so very nostalgic. Suddenly, Daisy is extraordinary in different, conflicting ways, and Gatsby cannot decide what to feel because she is so close to him and it's too late to worry about that now.
"But- I'm a married woman!" Her voice is small, but still captivating. Gatsby does not know whether it is hypnotic or if he's just in love.
He kisses her anyway.
Daisy does not give in, but she does not resist, either. When they separate, Gatsby holds Daisy's face in his hands and murmurs her name. He watches only her eyes this time and, for a moment, he accidentally glimpses the truth—longing for a deathless song, an irresistible command in the sound of her name on his lips. An escape.
She pleads with her eyes, but then closes them, resigned and tired.
"Yes, I love you."
And she smiles. Gatsby knows, without lying to himself, that she means what she tells him and this is enough to banish the doubts from his irritated brow. It will work, he knows. They are in love.
In the silence, Gatsby tries to lose himself to the sound of Daisy's steady breathing.