Disclaimer: yeah, like I own anything right? I don't.
TO CampionSayn, for Betaing for me! This is her GhoulXMelanie piece, sorry its so short. Warning this isn't Betaed however. The Title? Don't ask me, I have no idea.
The Ghost and The Spirit
Sometimes he wonders if in another life, where he was the one who chose to stay clean and she was the one who enjoyed the allure of enriching chaos, would they have still met? Still have fallen for each other? Would she still look past the marks on his face and see the ghoul inside or just a spoiled oppressed rich kid with no life and no spirit? Would he have seen the golden swan beneath the encrusted jewels and sly fingers and deceitful eyes?
He wonders and then thinks that it's pointless because she was too good for that and he was just too bad. He also thinks if he were less of a spoiled, selfish man he'd have walked out of her life after he discovered her passed as a Master Thief and the pain she felt in walking away from it.
But he isn't and she did and that was that.
Jokerz don't feel much regret for the things they take and break but Ghoul always holds her like she's made of glass.
"Do... do you ever wish you hadn't left? That you were still with them, your family? You had everything you could have wanted, a legitimate future – why would you throw that away?"
He thinks about it, togging with a long blonde lock between his grey fingers. "For the same reason you walked away from wealthy luxury, a legacy and family. It meant nothing, in the end." The hair, spun gold, is tight around his finger, "Because we both wanted something more, Melanie, something we couldn't live without."
"What?" Melanie smiles slowly, and it's the mischievously Master Criminal smiling back at him as her soft fingers robbed him. But here he has no riches for her to steal and she wasn't interested in it anyway.
"Life," he whispers in her ear, heart thumping in his chest. She laughs, turning to rest on top of him her curve body fitting against him.
Not love – no, never love. Life was far more than a dead act and empty vows.
"All the riches in the world aren't worth a penny," she whispers pale lashes brushing against her cheeks. Her eyes drop and for a second he knows he's not the man she's thinking off. A dark but kind, vengeful but gentle, poor but wealthy man. He swallowed. Ghoul was on the down, he'd given up everything for a mask and new name – but him, he gained an empire for a cowl and legacy. He couldn't compare.
"You miss him?"
She hesitated, "sometimes, others I think its good he walked away. But I know he still cares."
Ghoul knows why. He's a good man; Ghoul hasn't been in a long time.
She kissed him, "but you stayed. He was part of my old life and you're my new one."
He doesn't look at her. "He's part of my life, Melanie, all displeasure aside. He's not leaving soon – he'll drag you –"
"-no, he won't. Others might, he won't. Never." She kisses him again, a cold glint in the eyes. Of course he wouldn't, Melanie – whether Batz would accept or not- had taken something from him that he was too scared to face and didn't want back. His heart.
He swallowed a she traced her fingers over his chest, circling his heart absently as she bit her little rosy lips. A pretty little spirit who sometime had no idea what she did and at others, who was very far from a child and more befitting a princess of crime. Sometimes she just didn't know what she did to people. What she had done to him. What she was doing to Ghoul, every excruciatingly wonderful second.
Most of the time, she knew bloody well too well.
"I have a heist planned tonight," he starts in a randomly-wondering tone, airy and pointless. She hums under her breath. "It's a jewellers, I was thinking, maybe, a nice new diamond necklace –"
"No." She cuts him across.
"No, nothing stolen, nothing black market." She drops her head, like a little bird tucking her tired head under her white wings.
He tries not to feel disappointed, he wants to given her things, nice things, pretty things – a diamond necklace is pretty expensive if bought the legit way. "But-"
"No. No stolen money, no fenced gear – nothing, Ghoul." Her voice is heated and sharp, like a tigress stretching from a nap she sits up, back arching angrily. "I won't steal and I wouldn't take stolen goods, not anymore."
"You stole from me." The words slip out, he'd doesn't even realise he's said them until her eyes twinkle again. Her head tips to the side, her golden mane sliding over her throat as her lip press together, like she's about to purr. She stretches back over him and his heart nearly explodes half thrilled half terrified.
"No, not yet," she whispers.
To say the least, he doesn't make it the heist tonight. He doesn't care.
Whatdaya think?
