It irks me when I get burned
And I realize, I don't get hurt
And always, it seems I've lost my way
When I feel you, it's not enough
And I need you to shun my touch
I notice the season's ripe for change
She closes her eyes, curling up in the bathroom. The tile floor is tilting and cold underneath of her, but she keeps her legs tucked underneath of her, steadying herself. She leans her head back against the wall, pulling up one sleeve of her sweater. She flicks her light with her other hand, the bright flame illuminating her delicate features. Without looking at what she was doing she brought the flame to her arm. It licked across her wrists, joining the plethora of burn scars that had come before it.
Slowly, she pries open her deep purple eyes, focusing on the flame on her skin. She should feel something. She should feel the heat of the fire; the pains of her burning flesh. But there is nothing. She can't feel a thing. She hasn't felt a thing in six long months and she misses it. She misses the emotions and she misses him; he who caused her to fly to her emotional highs, heart singing the entire time.
There is a knock at the bathroom door. She pulls down her sleeve, concealing the lighter in her palm. "Yes?" She calls to the intruder of her quiet time, her time to sit and try to move on.
"Vi, Dad says we need to leave. He wants to get there early to make sure we get a good seat."
Her throat closes at her brother's words. The trial. She doesn't want to go to the trial but she has to. It's expected of her.
Woodenly, she stands, stumbling to the door, tracing Dash's footsteps to the car.
(-.-)
She's well aware that she's not allowed to be here. She's also aware that, if the agency knew that someone could slip past their defenses, get into see one of the prisoners, they would probably lose their minds. The agency is supposed to be airtight; untouchable. And it would be . . . but not to one of their own. She knew the ins and outs of the guards, the locks on the cells, the safety measures. She knew how to bypass all of them, her powers being designed for slipping past unnoticed.
She's quiet. The guards don't notice her. Security doesn't notice her. And even when she's inside of his cell – wall to wall metal that he can't escape from – he doesn't notice her right away. She stops, pausing for a beat, to take him in. It has been so long since she was in his presence (six months, six months without him, without loving him, without him loving her, six months without his touch, his grace, she needs him and to have him in front of her is mind blowing) that she cannot think. He is leaning against the far wall – one hand out in front of him for balance as he is on an angle. His other hand is on his forehead, rubbing his temples. He is half bent at the waist, his fiery hair almost brushing the metal. He looks near broken, not the confident man she loves.
She becomes visible, the air rippling and shimmering around her. He notices that he is not alone then, straightening and stiffening. He is expecting guards. He is expecting to be marched into the courtroom and found guilty. He is expecting to turn around and face the sentence that is surely coming: execution. What he is not expecting when he turns around is the reason he found himself captured in the first place: the girl he fell in love with.
But here she is.
He meets her eyes and she melts on the inside. How she has craved those eyes, that breathtaking face, this meeting again! In the dead of night when all was supposed to be whispered and quiet, she'd been burning from the inside out with her need to be near him. She'd been crying for him from somewhere deep inside her mind and it had been white-hot; desperate.
She knew that it wasn't supposed to be like this: she wasn't supposed to love him or need him. She'd been a victim of his; a kidnapping. They didn't know that she had run away with him. How could she have explained that to her family: a super was running away with a villain; a seventeen-year-old girl was running away with a man who was closer to thirty than he was twenty; their little girl was running away with someone who had once tried to hurt her in the worst way possible. Nothing would have worked but she had loved him long before she had left with him and it was something that no one else but the two of them could have understood.
She had been lost before she fell for him; he had found her. Being with him for that year, when it was just the two of them and the entire world was right, she knew that she had found her place in the universe. She belonged in his arms and he belonged in hers and nothing could tear him away from that, nothing at all. Until her parents had barged in, being the heroes they were, yelling and shouting about how he kidnapped their daughter, how he should be arrested, and bellowing proof of all the evil that he had committed over his lifetime. She had hid behind him, curling into a ball and trying to pretend it wasn't happening. He wasn't in cuffs and she wasn't losing him. This was a nightmare. She would wake up.
She was still waiting to wake up.
"Violet." He breathes, her name as sweet as honey on his lips.
"Buddy," she whispers in return, the name dripping from her tongue like a rare diamond; a treasured jewel she was tired of hoarding to herself.
He's frozen and so is she. She wants to reach out to him, to hold his strong body in her arms and curl against him like nothing has changed. She can't. She doesn't know if he hates her – they both know it's her fault he's here. She doesn't know if he still aches for her like she aches to him. It has been so long since she has been with him that she has forgotten the subtle nuances of their relationship: the way his breath curled when he wanted to say something and couldn't find the words; the way his eyes would dart from over her head, to her eyes, to her lips when he wanted her to come closer to him; the way he would talk in his sleep, low and fast like a cassette being played backwards but how she collected every word; how his limbs stretch out when he takes a seat, finding it necessary to take all the space he can. She wants for him to make the first move, to reteach her the steps of a dance she should have dedicated herself to knowing.
He has words stuck in his throat, words he spits on the ground, dirty and ugly. "Are you testifying against me?"
She's horrified he asks and so is he but he needs to know. Is she here for her goodbye? Her 'I'm sorry but it wasn't real'? She shakes her head quickly, black-blue-purple strands flying about before settling back against her head.
"No," she assures him, the words bubbling and grating against her vocal cords. "I pretended as though I forgot everything. They said I had repressed it due to trauma. They said they had enough on you without me." She pauses. "I would have stood up for you."
"They would have thought that was my fault too; psychological abuse."
"It wasn't abuse!" She cries, suddenly angry at this line of thought. He never would have abused her. He treated her like a porcelain doll; too beautiful and too fragile. "I loved you. I still love you."
"I've always loved you," he added, his eyes boring into hers.
And, suddenly, there's no more space between them. His hands are hot and heavy on her waist; his mouth a volcano against hers. There's roaring in her ears, louder than the ocean, as he pulls her flush against his body. His body which is all hard muscle and hollow bones; which is more familiar to her than her own is still as she remembers. It's still the same scars and the same freckled flesh that she had admired in the sunrise hours as the golden light turned him into a god. And yet, it's not enough. It's not enough to have him with her physically for this moment in time before the trial starts and he's torn away forever.
She needs them to be as they were before. She needs to hold his heart in her hands, feel his soul between her ribs as she breathed, her own vital organs with him as he slept next to her. She wants him to push her away; as much as she loves him she's got this warped sense of justice and she knows that she needs to be punished for what she has done to him. He doesn't deserve a prison cell; doesn't deserve to be sentenced to death (for what else would the agency do with him? He's much too dangerous to live; much too clever for life in prison. They have no other move, if they do anything else, he wins and they can't have that). She wants him to push her away, tell her that she's hurt him because she's been doing nothing but hurting over him. She needs the pain to suddenly become real; to fully feel it. She needs him to push her away so she can balance the scales, so that her rescue plan for him is a path to forgiveness. (She cannot believe that he has forgiven her already because she hasn't forgiven herself).
He's breathing hard as he drops his head onto her shoulder, eyelashes fluttering against her pulse point.
"I'm going to die," he admits to her, only her, the truth in his bones. "Thank you for coming to see me one last time."
"It's not one last time," she says sternly, grasping his forearms with such strength that he almost doesn't believe it's his delicate girl. "We're getting out."
"I'm not asking you to do this for me," he pulls away from her. If she gets caught, she'll be in the same place he's in now and he would rather suffer a thousand eternities in hell than have her in prison for one day; to know that he was the reason she was going to be executed; to know that he has hurt her.
She reaches up, cradling his strong jawbone in the cup of her hand, her fingernails lightly scratching his cheek as he leans into her.
"It's not just for you," her voice is barely audible as she speaks her selfish facts aloud for the first time, "I'm doing this for me."
Her eyes are shiny and wet as she studies his face, heart breaking with his beauty.
"I love you and I need you and I can't exist without you in my life. I need you safe and happy but it's for my sake too."
He offers her his hand and she gladly takes it, hooking herself to her lifeline. Slowly, she extends her powers over the both of them. They're encased and she's glad for his sure footedness, his survival skills, his ability to know exactly when to follow her lead. They walk out. They walk past the guards that are supposed to be monitoring him. They walk past the lawyers and agency officials that are waiting to sentence him – to kill him. They walk past those gathered, like her family, to make sure he pays for his crimes. They walk past the media, hyped for this case.
They walk onto the street. He starts leading her. He has hidden bunkers all over the world. He can take of care her – has been doing so for so long. Though still invisible to the world, she's incredibly seen by him. He wraps his arms around her shoulders and kisses her temple. Their life won't be easy – they'll be on the run until they die – but it will be worth it to spend every night next to him. She's lived the majority of her life in black and white but now there are many more colours; the colours of him.
She wants to explore them all.
I don't own anything recognizable. Thanks to my glorious beta: Noble6. The song is Eyes Of The Devil by Seether.
~TLL~