Authors notes: hi guys! I apologise as only a few of you will know this song ("no room to bleed" by Ben Lee), maybe I'll just apologise in advance for everything below, except the song, the song is unreal – but then again I didn't write that. Mega-ultra thanks to Kahlia for the read thru and the sniffle! :)

Disclaimer: CI is 100% not mine, therefore I own none of the below characters. And not suing is most appreciated.  I also don't own the lyrics, which are the property of one Ben Lee, or some dude who owns his record label. I need to lie down.

 Please please please R&R!  And dig up the song I you can, I duly recommend

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Caught in the deep

Wait for a sign

I couldn't keep the flowers on my pillow

Alive

He sits, he ponders, yet he's not surprised. Not shocked. He watches stir in her sleep, and its an aftertaste that burns him. It was always going to end up this way. She wanted something he couldn't give her; she didn't have to beg for it, her desire was transparent.  Her hands would run the edges of his cheeks, her eyes bright, her smile half hidden by sincerity she had always eluded. She keeps reminding him that it cannot become serious – she's so pure to think it won't.

Falling asleep

With half open eyes

I want to see the lights of San Francisco

At night

He's tired, he's stressed and this feeling of immersion is eating away at him. It's not helping, she's not helping. Occasionally she sees this, his vice, he was sure of it. He had believed that the Alex of old would return to his side, and pull him back onto the security of his feet. And the significance of his day won't lie in her bed, but at her side, as it used to be.

Wait but I won't say that I'm sorry

Watch as I burn my bridges down

And all the time I kept it inside

You leave me no room to bleed

The first time – when insecurity was hazy, and his nature was drifting. His daze as she twisted her fingers through his hands, securing him, trapping him. He was tired, lonely and suddenly dissolute; but only for her.  He would do so much for her, and the obscurity of breaking the rules for her was only a pebble against the touchstone. An ivory smile, suggestive of so much, and sad elusive eyes that would never assimilate. She blew a sentence into his ear, 'Lets get out of here.' And so it commenced. 

Close to the chest and near to the ground

It's for the best of all the flood gates around me

Lie down

If all that you see has left you unchanged

What did you mean when you said that I was bleeding

In vain

He hated to dread the day when her interest faded, and he realised she had used him – though mutual. Not in malice, or greed, but for a sincere comfort that she imagined him to need, yet dispensable as it may. She always considered it to carry no weight than that purely physical. He held a trustable identity in her mind, and a routine of comfort in its consistency. But a trap, baited with amiability instead hostility, but still a trap, with an aim to snare.

Wait, and I'm moving underwater

Watch while I burn my bridges down

The words that I say and the hurt goes away

You leave me no room to bleed

Finish it now or that day would come, at her hands. She would apologise repeatedly and ask if they could cool it for a while. And he couldn't deny her that; he wouldn't deny her happiness - yet his own remained fair game. He knew she didn't love him, he was the eternal friend that would never dismiss her, but he was never anything more. She could trust him with her heart; he would never steal it from her.

But somewhere inside I'm still on the line

You leave me no room to bleed

 

Wait on the landscape that I'm breaking

Watch as I burn my bridges down

And I've tried to run but now I'm all done

You leave me no room to bleed

You leave me no room to bleed

He touches her hand, and slips from her sheets. Her eyes are tired and she sits up, taking balance from her wrists. Tilting her head, she takes in his words, she doesn't blink. And she lowers her head slightly, morning the death of whatever lay between them, but her eyes watch him. He never stole anything from her and he will apologise for nothing, and while he will never tell her - she's a thief.

***