This is a Paul/Suze oneshot written to the song 'Snow White Queen', which I thought fit their relationship perfectly. I don't ship Paul/Suze, but this was begging to be written, so I did. Since songfics aren't allowed, I have taken out the lyrics to the song and put in nice little barriers so you all know where sections end and begin. If you want to read it with the lyrics in, say so in your review and I'll email/PM it to you. This is my first Mediator story in over a year, so be nice and review!

Disclaimer: As much as I would love to say that I was Meg Cabot, I'm not, so I don't own this. Duh.


Stoplight lock the door

Suze shut the door behind her quickly, locking it before slumping to the floor, completely defeated. Her life-If you could call it that-had hit rock bottom. It couldn't have gotten any worse.

Paul had gone back on his promise and murdered Jesse in his sleep, and ensured that he couldn't be brought back a second time by making some kind of twisted deal with whoever was in charge of all this. The bargain? Jesse's soul would be trapped beyond the gates of the dead, unable to move on or be resurrected, trapped in lingo between the worlds of the living and the dead. In return, Paul had to pick two souls to stay in the Shadowland permanently, to live on the spectral plain until the last day, until the worlds ended, unable to leave, caught between life and death.

He had taken her, brought her with him to his twisted world of fog and unending sky not of this earth. To Suze, a true hell.

After a few minutes of crying softly, Suze stood, wiping off her tears before hastily removing her clothes and changing into more suitable sleep-ware (Sweats and a t-shirt. She wouldn't wear the clothes Paul had picked for her.).

After climbing into her small bed, Suze pulled the thin sheet over her head, trying to hide from the inescapable reality that she was trapped here, forever. The coverlet was her only protection from Paul and the tendrils of mist that seemed to follow him, touching her with their icy-cold fingers.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes, Paul would just talk to her, speaking about the most obscure things, not really having a point, merely wanting to hear the sound of his own voice. She preferred the ramblings of someone who was clearly a madman to other things, to his claims that he had outwitted death and at the same time saved her, how she owed her soul to him for his sacrifice, how he owned Suze, body, mind, and soul.

His words hung over her, cloaking her with dread and fear. Everything he said haunted her, not unlike the way ghosts once did, never leaving her or giving her blessed peace, even in her sleep.

The things he wanted her to do to him were beyond disgusting and barbaric. He wanted her to kiss him, touch him, want him, need him, love him. Paul wouldn't-Couldn't- grasp that she didn't love him and never would, no matter how many times he screamed her name when he came, no matter how many times he professed his love and caressed her gently, lovingly.

Paul would have loved nothing more than her love and friendship, neither of which Suze had any intention of giving. He knew everything a person could possibly know about her- Her favorite color, her favorite food, her favorite animal, even. Yet at the same time, he knew nothing about her. And she didn't know him. They were the most intimate of strangers.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Susannah Simon was Paul Slater's property; She belonged to him. Even by the ancient laws of the shifters, she was his. Her soul belonged to him, but he knew, deep down, no matter how many times her body was given to him, her mind would never be his.

Suze always looked beautiful in her sleep, in the bed that he wanted them to share that she only slept in if forced to, with chocolate-brown hair spread over a white pillow. Their clothes were white, the house they lived in was white, the night sky was white, even the fog that licked their ankles at all times was white. The only things that weren't white were Suze's perfect brown hair and green eyes, now closed. Her skin had become pale in the five years they had lived in the Shadowland, even though neither of them showed any other signs of aging. She was angelic; a snow-white queen. His snow-white queen.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rarely, very rarely, Suze's dreamless sleep was broken by a dream, a dream of her old life. The dreams were always amazing, wonderful fantasies about what her life would have been like had Paul let her live it. College, a career, marriage with Jesse, children, grandchildren, the perfect life. It was perfect, amazing, spectacular. A brief escape from her hellish existence.

And just like that, it would be shattered.

She'd be brought back to reality, Paul looming over her, filling her vision, his cold hands and the finger-like strands of fog all over her, touching her, dragging her back.

And the worst part? Her screams were always frozen in her mouth, her terror so great that even the most desperate of shrieks could not voice it.

She was Paul's silent prisoner in this place, his only companion this place he wanted her to call home.

Suze was like Persephone, dragged to a living grave, unwilling to accept her fate as the darkness' slave.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paul was everywhere, whether she liked it or not, he was her world. She smelled like him, the only voice she knew was his, his blue eyes and brown hair were the only color besides white she saw, even the very air she breathed was tainted by him. There was no escaping him, he was her existence. He treated her like she was his princess, called her his angel, his queen.

At some point during her captivity, Paul had developed the ability to invade her sleep, and did so as often as possible. Whenever he sensed she was having a good dream, he would enter it, and destroy it.

Suze had attempted to solve by this problem by refusing to let herself fall asleep. On this plain, normal human functions-Breathing, drinking, sleeping, eating-were optional. She didn't need to sleep, it was just a way to cling to some semblance of humanity. She knew it was futile, because eventually, the primal urge to slip away to Xanadu would take over, and she would fall asleep. But she could delay the horror for as long as possible, force herself to stay awake in a state of deliberate insomnia.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was nowhere to go. Even if Paul had wanted to free her, he couldn't, because by living on the spectral plain for so long, both were bound to it. Things could be so much better if she just accepted that there was no way out for either of them, that they were going to be together forever.

All Suze needed was to realize something, that they were the similar, no, the same, two shifters in a world filled with weak humans who knew nothing of the power dancing just beyond their reach. He and Suze were perfect for each other; They completed each other. She was just like him, and they were one in the same. She could be-Would be- happy if she gave herself up to him. All she needed to do was surrender to him, to the inevitable.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Any good that Paul had once possessed was lost, Suze realized, as the gleaming silver knife sliced into her belly, crimson blood sliding down the pale skin. Paul watched it for a moment, then leaned forward and licked up the liquid, drinking it up like the most delicious elixir. It hurt, but within seconds the skin had regenerated itself, healing completely. Growling with frustration, Paul cut her again and again, trying to drink as much blood as he could.

They both knew that no matter how much he cut her, the wounds wouldn't last and it wouldn't kill her, but he did it anyway. This had started shortly after Paul had realized that he had no blood; He could cut himself, but nothing would pour from the wound. It frustrated him, because they both knew that they were both slowly losing their humanity, and the loss of blood showed that Paul was falling away faster than her. So he had come up with a way to punish her, to rob her of the one thing he could not permanently take.

When she had first gotten here, she had tried to save him, to help him. Suze had talked to him, tried so hard to find out what was wrong and to help him, but it had all been a failure. Nothing had come of it, and if anything, her attempts to rescue him only made things worse. There was no hope for either of them now, all they could do was wait until the end time.

No one could save them, not even themselves.

In the first few months that she had been here, Suze remembered being scared of going insane. Now she could hardly remember a time when she was sane. It made sense that she would be crazy, anyway. Torn from her family and all that she knew, dragged to a place where life was obsolete, trapped with a person who she hated with all her heart, it was only logical that sanity by among the things that slipped away from her.

Paul knew about this, too. He knew that she wasn't the person he had fallen 'in love' with, but he didn't care. Paul didn't care about her and her well-being, both emotional and physical, as long as he got to keep her.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suze's screams rang through their home as she threw herself repeatedly against the door of their bedroom, shattering the eerie silence that hung over the Shadowland. It annoyed Paul when she did this, annoyed him so, so much. Didn't Suze get it? He could have had-Hell, already did have- the perfect life back on Earth. Good lucks, intelligence, money, charisma, brains, adoring hordes of females had been among the things Paul Slater had within his reach.

He had a dream life, one that many people would have killed for.

But he had given it all up, for her. He had given up his perfect life for one where he was neither alive nor dead, trapped with a person who hated him.

All he wanted was her, her love and friendship. That was all he needed. He had given it all up for her, and all he needed in return was her.

Paul's fingers were icy-cold-As was the rest of his body- while he undid the buttons on Suze's blouse, but he knew that soon, very soon, he would be warm.


So...was it any good? Review!

O.G.