Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of this work of fiction, and am not making a profit, monetary or otherwise, through writing this.
A/N: Happy New Year's, IreneClaire and Swifters, and everyone else.
Eyes cold with hatred stare back at him from the mirror.
"This isn't my face," he says, confused, angry, brain struggling to put a name to the face that's looking back at him.
It's clear upon closer inspection that the stranger staring at him from the other side of the mirror has been through some kind of hell. He's not sure if the man has made it back yet.
Hair, little more than stubble, covers a skull scarred with thick, ugly slashes, and the jagged zigzag remnants of a haphazard stitching job.
He thinks he remembers trying to patch a jacket by hand once. Sewing machines do a much better job. He knows that doctors and nurses could do a better patch up, even without the aid of a machine. Deft, sure fingers paired with hands that do not shake.
The apparation in the mirror shows evidence of starvation in gaunt, sallow cheeks, skin stretched taut over sharp bones. Starvation feels like a dog eating its own vomit, puking it up again and again.
Sunken eyes, dull blue in color, stare back at him, make him think of sleep deprivation. He knows what it's like to be tired and not able to sleep. Loud music set on repeat, blaring from unseen speakers. Babies crying. Grown men on their knees, begging, weeping, eyes dry and bulging.
Who is this man in the mirror?
He wants to put his fist through the mirror image, but some part of him knows that it would be foolish to do that. He'll just make himself bleed, and earn seven years of bad luck on top of that.
"Not worth it," he murmurs to himself, to the stranger in the mirror. The stranger mocks him, lips moving silently forming the very words he is.
"What's not worth it?"
Another face, stranger's hand on his shoulder, joins the one reflected to him in the mirror. This, too, is the face of a stranger. Eyes warm, concerned, fill with compassion as they assess the hard eyes of the other face, and the hand on the shoulder squeezes.
Claustrophobia. Fear of tight spaces. Fingers closing around a neck, constricting air. It's hard to breathe.
Shrugging, he closes his eyes, turns away from the mirror before he opens them again. It isn't telling him the truth. Won't tell him who he is, what he's doing here.
"Nothing," he says, voice cold and gruff. Not his voice. Not his face. Not him.
"Danny," the other stranger says, voice soft and sad. Hurt.
Knives, sharp and biting into flesh that simply gives way. Pain.
"Not Danny," he says in a rough voice that's not his own.
Rough like calloused hands skimming over raw skin, flaking, peeling, rubbing salt into wounds.
"Okay," the other says, face unreadable. "You remember my name?"
"No," he says.
Disappointment skitters across the other's face, but it's quickly followed by a smile.
Sad.
Hurt.
Alone.
A turtle on its back, struggling to right itself. Failing.
"Steve," the other says. "I'm Steve."
"Steve." The name tastes like copper on his tongue as he repeats it.
Blood stained teeth, lips. Choking. Cloying. He can't breathe. As he swallows, the copper taste of pennies glides down his throat and churns in his stomach like the steady beat of heavy metal music drumming in his ears.
"Yes," Steve says. "How about if we go out onto the lanai, watch the sunset?"
Nodding, he follows Steve out of the bathroom, down the stairs, out the backdoor.
Lanai.
Porch.
Backyard.
Barbecue.
The scent of burning flesh is rancid in his nostrils. He gags and chokes. He's a vegetarian.
Memory tickles the edges of his mind, teasing. He pushes the memory aside. It's giving him a headache. He can feel the sharp edge of a machete as it cuts into his skull, shearing him like a sheep.
Bleeding.
Copper.
Fire.
He doesn't want to burn again. Bile searing his esophagus on its way out of a stomach eating its own acid.
The ocean, a stone's throw away from Steve's backyard, glows orange in the sun's sinking rays. He watches. Waits. Counts backwards from a hundred. Burns the sun into his retinal memory, hoping it will draw out the truth of who he is, what he's doing here with Steve.
Afterimage.
Aftermath.
The sky bleeds while the sun sinks, swallowed by an ocean of stars, sputtering and dying on the horizon.
He was a bloated fish once. Washed up on shore. Drunk on briny water. Dead until life was breathed into his lungs. A lone starfish thrown back into churlish waters, he drowned again, and again, as a gnarled, scarred hand drew him out only to toss him back.
Steve sits beside him, toes curled in the cool, wet sand, arms hugging knees to chest, chin resting on a knobby knee. Eyes focused on the horizon, Steve shifts, body heat burning like wildfire through their connection - stranger to Steve, Steve to stranger.
They've done this before. He's as certain of it as he is of the fact that the face reflected back to him from Steve's eyes is not him.
"Not me," he says, voice rusty from disuse.
"Danny?" Steve's voice reflects the warmth of the fading sunlight, the shiny rosy pink that paints the water which laps at the shore in shimmering pastels.
"Not Danny," he says. "Not...me."
Words are as fleeting as the sun's light at dusk. Tricky. Difficult to grasp.
"I don't understand," Steve says, voice strained, brow furrowed.
Chest tight, he chases after the waning warmth of Steve's eyes, hoping, wanting, needing to remember something. Something other than razors, sharp as kitten's claws, puppy's teeth before they learn not to bite so hard.
"Skin and bones," he says, knowing the words will mean nothing to Steve. "Skin and bones. Not Danny. Not me." He thumps his chest with a fist, breath catching in his lungs as he fights through a blind, nameless panic.
"Skin and bones," Steve repeats, lifting his head, looking at the rising moon, releasing his knees and letting his feet dig deeper into the sand.
He was a hermit crab once. Digging deep, trying to hide himself in the sands of time. Of memory, fleeting.
Tall grass, green and bright.
Lawn.
A child's laughter, happy and unfettered.
Grace.
Charlie.
"Skin and bones," he says, nodding, watching the moon dip into the ocean of stars and paint a white path across the rippling waters.
A bride's veil.
A groom's white suit.
Golden bands of promises exchanged.
Second hand wedding vows.
A ceremony.
A kiss.
A hand exchanged for a life ripped away.
He is a bloated whale washed up on shore.
"Not skin and bones," Steve says, voice hoarse, jaw tense, hand reaching and touching, holding.
"Danny," Steve says, voice hard, determined. "Love of my life. Partner. My world."
He was a shadow once. Sinking into the darkness. Hiding. Hoping. Waiting. Wasting away to nothing but the sketch of a man.
"Come back to me," Steve says, begging, hand squeezing, thumb tracing a nasty scar that runs across the palm of the stranger's hand.
"Please." Steve's voice breaks, and something inside him moves.
He wants to return to Steve, to have what this Danny he keeps hearing about had.
Nodding, he squeezes Steve's hand, digs his toes in the sand — it's cool and doesn't make him think of harsh words or earsplitting sound waves splashed across nerves tight as a bowstring that's about to snap — and wonders if he can inhabit the same skin that Danny once did. If he can mimic Danny's life and jump in where Danny left off.
"I'll try," he whispers, heart hammering loud enough for the stars to hear if they should choose to listen.
