Notes: Look, I don't even know OK. Let's just forget this ever happened.
Dedicated to: Samia, on who you may blame everything, especially this fic. I certainly do.
A Kind of Killing Blow
She was what he needed, but he could never be what she wanted.
Her visions of the future were girly and idealistic, much like herself. He knew this because she seized every given opportunity to tell him about them. It didn't happen at random, but at regular, calculated intervals, and she wasn't really "telling", either. She was demanding.
Nobody would have believed him if he had said it out loud and yet Serenity Wheeler was a demanding woman.
No, wait.
That sounds wrong.
That sounds as though she was grown-up and dependent on his consent to those demands. She was not; she was a perfectly independent individual, if not fully edged out yet. She simply wasn't aware of it.
Although he didn't have to—he was Noah Kaiba, after all, he didn't have to do anything if he wished so—he constantly reminded her of that hidden strength. It was not out of pity or concern, not even out of courtesy. It was plain annoyance that triggered this dusty flash of humanity in him.
Yes, as expected, she was annoying to him. What else could it be? Repressed interest? Affection? No, most certainly not affection. That would be beneath him, his name alone implied as much. No, not affection. That would be too easy.
"Noah, have you ever been to the sea?"
"No." Not in real life, anyway.
"No? Really? What a shame! It's stunning. My brother took me there, once." She paused, lost in thought, in memories. Noah disliked those. Reflecting upon memories meant reflecting upon the past, as in, something that was already out of man's reach, including his.
Serenity made it seem different; made them appear to be touchable, took them all in one small hand and lined them up neatly. A neat row of sweet, long gone nothings.
She lived in her own world. And what a pathetic world it was.
Serenity's world was made of promises and hope. Neither had particular potential, and therefore never been of any use to him.
For example, she believed that she could change others if she tried hard enough. She promised them that soon change would come and then their pain would be eased. It was just part of her nature and up until Noah she had been good at it, too.
But he wasn't like anyone else. He couldn't be saved. There just wasn't anything left to save.
However, Serenity would not, could not, give up on him. If nothing else, the challenge that was his being irked her even more. And this, perhaps, was why he craved her.
"Stop it."
"What?"
"You know what I'm talking about."
She frowned. Indeed she did know.
Noah looked down onto the crisp, white covers of his bed. He could hear the trees rustle through the open window. He preferred it when it was closed. The air outside was a mixture consisting of many things too unholy to name. The air inside was clean and sharp and smooth, just like polished glass.
He listened to her footsteps, how she walked over to the window. He wished for her to shut it, aware that she was not going to. Not until she left.
"I don't get you," she said to the hospital's backyard. "You don't have to stay here, all secluded and sickly. You know, if you went out more, I'm sure you would be better in no time." Come with me and be what I want you to be.
He craved her out of almost the same motivation that kept her by his side. Yet, whereas she wanted him to change, he needed her to. To be and live what he could not.
It was a very futile sort of routine.
And so they continued to float.
But how do you float without a current? They didn't suffice as each other's current and there wasn't anyone else suitable, either. There were just the two of them, left behind as the sole lost causes.
Sometimes he felt like he was drowning, almost like he was dying. Sometimes that's what people do: they die. Except him. He did not die. It just felt the same.
Pushing a needle into your skin is easy. Swallowing pills is even easier.
"What did you take?" She was yelling. She was angry, not worried.
Noah laughed. It felt strange, nostalgic somehow. He hadn't done it in a while. "It were vitamins," he said and enjoyed the rage flushing into her cheeks. "D, I think."
It left a damp, unsatisfying taste on his lips.