Disclaimer: Not mine. Lyrics - quoted spastically and out of order - are from "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal," by of Montreal, off the Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? album. Check it out They play of Montreal in heaven.

A/N: If this doesn't make sense the first time, read it again. I promise you there's a point. I actually thought about this one, instead of just writing shit and hoping it makes sense to someone, somehow. Also, see my profile for random other updates.

You've lived so brightly, you've altered everything
And nothing can defeat you
No death, no ugly world

I've explored you with the detachment of an analyst
But most nights we've raided the same kingdoms
And none of our secrets are physical now

Sometimes, when the dreams are particularly bad, he slides from their shared bed (she turns and presses herself into the warm hollow he leaves behind) and climbs to the roof, just to breathe clean again.

The worst dreams are the ones without narrative, disparate flashes of sensation and fractured memory blurring with the impossible present. The roles shift madly, spinning: one moment he's twisted and torn, the next he watches impassive as she screams under the knife.

Sometimes, when the spiderwebs rot his mind, he looks at the horizon (she frowns and shudders slightly without waking) and thinks about leaving, just in case.

He isn't good for her. He wants her to need him, encourages her to depend on him because he needs focus and every time she runs a hand through her long dark hair and blows a bang away, frustrated, he feels a little thrill that soon she'll ask him to do something for her, to save her some minor trouble. It's pathetic; his past rails against the sin.

Sometimes, when she slides a thin hand to rest carefully on his waist in the aftermath of their lovemaking (he's never more desperate than when he drowns in her) and murmurs that she loves him, he wonders how much she knows.

It's alright, though, he tells himself, because he would never ask anything of her. Not even that she need him. One day – he braces himself for anguish – one day when she asks him to leave, he will not fight. He will only sleep.

Sometimes, when she teases and grins brilliantly (he'd die to see her smile and it doesn't frighten him at all) and fakes indignation when he responds appropriately, he wonders how long it can last.

"Vincent?" She calls from the porch, blinking sleep from her eyes and he can smell coffee from the open kitchen. "How long have you been up?"

"Not long." Since dawn, actually.

"There's coffee. We're taking Marlene to the zoo today, remember?"

He jumps lightly off the roof and lands behind her on cat-feet, snaking an arm around her waist and jostling the cup so a little splashes on the wood and drips off her hand. It isn't scalding – it never is – and she would glare if she wasn't pinned with her back against his chest. He plucks the mug from her hands.

"Terrible stuff, coffee. Stunts your growth." A sip. "Too sweet."

"Then give it back, you oaf." He holds it just out of reach instead and presses his mouth to where her jawline melds gracefully with her neck. She smells of cut grass and summer rain and Tifa, and she always puts at least four sugars in her coffee.

Marlene is an exhausted, sticky lump in his lap, cotton candy traces still clinging to her mouth. Along with ice cream, and chocolate, and… well, almost every sugary thing that took her fancy. He rarely sees her now that her father's life has settled down, and the urge to spoil the sweet child is hard to resist. Not that he tries very hard. He's always been at the mercy of the women in his life.

"Barret's going to give you hell, you know." Tifa's acquired a habit of petting him and her fingers running lightly across his scalp make him feel as languid as the sleeping child in his arms.

"You'll protect me, right?"

She wrinkles her nose adorably and he wants to kiss it, but he'd wake Marlene. "Nope. You're on your own. Unless," she leans in close, husky and bedroom-dark, "you plan to make it worth my while, Mr. Valentine."

He does kiss her then, light and sweet, and everything said and not said swirls between them before the doorbell rings and the moment ends.

She makes a disgusted face when he eats a slice of raw onion while making dinner and he chases her around the kitchen table, cornering her breathless and laughing and kissing her senseless, onion and all.
He likes to lie with his head on her shoulder and his arm across her body, legs tangled together, because he can hear her heartbeat steady and slow as she drifts off to sleep. Tonight, though, sleep doesn't come easy, and eventually he stirs and asks what's wrong.

A sleepy, contented sigh. "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"I want the moment to last, that's all."

"Do you worry it will end?"

"Not so much."

His fingers stroke her hip. "I won't leave, you know." Not until you ask me to echoes silently, certain in its fatalism. She slides down the bed so they're eye to eye and cups his chin in her hand.

"You do know I love you, right?"

A nod and for now whispers in the back of his mind.

"And you love me." Did her voice waver slightly and dip into a question or was he half-asleep and dreaming? His hand wraps around hers and presses her fingers to his chest, just above three bullet scars.

"Yours."

"Then why are you still afraid, sometimes?" Her eyes are guarded. "It's… I can see when you hold back. I'm not made of glass. Is it because of…" her voice trails off and stifles in the ghosts between them.

He's too fierce in his response, his hoarse denial and the way he presses his face into her neck, whispers that they're nothing alike and she smiles, sad and never broken, and holds him close.

Tomorrow, they'll start again.

I'm so touched by your goodness
You make me feel so criminal

But you know, no matter where we are
We're always touching by underground wires

Sometimes, in the night, he slides from their bed and leaves a coldness in the air where his body should be (he climbs to the roof and looks over the city) and it's all she can do not to weep.

The worst part is the way he doesn't talk to her when he shuts himself off. He speaks but he doesn't say anything, doesn't let her in, and she's so afraid to batter against the door.

Sometimes, when her tears are choking dry and bitter in her throat (he smells salt on the morning breeze), she tells herself that if she doesn't say anything, he'll stay.

She knows she's not good for him. She needs, she's always needed, and he's had so much taken from him already. She spends herself freely to make up for it but she can see the hesitation in his eyes. He should choose someone else – someone bright and peaceful, unbloodied – someone who doesn't see children dying in her dreams.

Sometimes, when he rests his hand over her, smiles slightly over their morning coffee (her breath always catches) and brushes his fingers lightly over her skin, she wonders when he'll have enough.

It can't go on forever, this needing and giving and taking and receiving. It's wrong of her to need him this much, and of course he can only give so much. One day – one day – he won't just up and leave, it's not in him, but he'll shut down forever and she'll be too much of a coward to let him go.

Sometimes, when he's wrestled down his demons and he's there with her, real and solid with a smile in his eyes just for her (she'd never thought anyone would look at her that way again) and they meet so perfectly in the space between, whispering love, she wonders how long it can last.

He's drawn the blinds so she'll sleep late this morning and she wakes to the smell of coffee and pancakes, padding silently into the kitchen to wrap her arms around his waist.

"Good morning." Her hands crawl up to slide between the buttons on his shirt. "Stop that. I'll burn your breakfast."

"Easily distracted." But she withdraws and stretches, idly looking over at the calendar and seeing a date circled in red. Counting quietly in her head, she realizes it's today. "Were we doing something today?"

"You don't remember?"

"…should I?" There's a trace of real hurt in his words.

"A year ago today…"

She can't remember, and for a dizzying moment she feels she has no past, only this moment, with this man. And then –

"Our anniversary! Oh, gods, Vincent, I'm sorry. I can't believe I forgot."

"It's alright." Reserved, withdrawn; he's retreating again, and when she moves to see his eyes she knows he doesn't really want to.

"I'm sorry," she says again, and wants to say It's not alright but can't find the words to break the spell.

The rock has just the right weight in her hand and she draws back with a calculating eye before letting go. One, two, three, four, five skips before it sinks, and he lets out an irritated breath besides her.

"Some gunman I am. Can't even skip a rock…"

"It just takes practice." Truthfully, she doesn't think he can. Skipping rocks is one of those things, like curling your tongue, that you either have a feel for or you don't, and it's just a bit charming to watch him fumble and mutter under his breath as each rock sinks pathetically below the ripples.

He's watching her again with that queer light in his scarlet eyes, a beat too long before he smiles wanly. "I love you even when you lie to make me feel better."

"I'm not lying!" She turns away in a huff, crossing her arms and half-knowing they're talking about something else.

"Little liar," he murmurs warmly, catching her around the waist, and now she knows this isn't about the rocks. "Delightful, warm, loving, little liar." He punctuates each adjective with a swift, hard kiss. She lets herself be lowered onto the blanket and only stops to murmur, once, that she's never lied, ever, and he has the grace to let them both believe.

A few hours later she's gone out shopping, alone, and a stranger, a woman, spits in her face and calls her a murderer. You killed my husband, she breathes, mad grief surging in her eyes. Your damn bombs. You killed him.

She wipes the spit from her face and doesn't tell him when she gets home.

She likes the moments after they've made love the most, when he's lying satiated and slightly goofy next to her, running a hand lazily along her curves. He looks young then, younger than he has any right to be, and carefree. In those moments she's just a woman and he's just a man, and she pretends they were never anything else.

"How am I supposed to sleep if you're staring at me?" she teases lightly, reclining on her stomach with her head in her folded arms.

"Mmm. You're beautiful in the moonlight. More so than usual, I mean."

"Flatterer."

"It's true."

"I'm sorry I forgot." A confused silence. "About today."

"I've decided to take it as a compliment." Wry and forgiving, and so terribly inlove.

"Oh?"

"Obviously you're so lovestruck you've lost all track of time."

"I see."

"Am I wrong?"

"Never." She rolls over and he nestles against her shoulder and mouths mine against her skin. Her hand finds his and presses his fingers above her breast, where her pulse beats slow and strong under her skin. "Yours," she whispers, and knows she could never lie to him.

In the morning, they'll start again.

We want our film to be beautiful, not realistic
Perceive me in the radiance of terror dreams
And you can betray me, but teach me something wonderful

Project your fears onto me, I need to view them
See, there's nothing to them, I promise you
There's nothing to them.