So your mouth tastes like sunshine,
Baby but your eyes are all cool,
Buried in my arms,
And the breeze takes us deeper and further into,
The heart of the moment that is gone,
And the scent of your heartache,
Baby and the taste of your blood,

Forever

It is nothing like the movies. The only time her voice ever echoes in his head is when she is yelling at him or muttering insults in his mind. There are no sparks other than those of irritation. Her smile, though rare, is just a smile not the rising of the sun. In fact her default expression is a scowl which carves ugly lines into her forehead. Her eyes aren't the most beautiful things that he's ever seen. And she's not the most beautiful woman in the world, too muscled and foul mouthed.

But she is his Bata, his sister. And he loves her.

When they kiss, there aren't any butterflies or fireworks, merely a sense of familiarity. When they have sex, it doesn't feel oh-so-good like it does in all the stupid romance novels that she won't ever admit to having read. It's convenient, though. It's good, but too far from perfect to be special. It's all just skin on skin contact and if it feels a bit like home neither of them mention the fact.

When she is screaming and yelling, using her rage to hide the pain and sorrow, he just nods. He doesn't know how to comfort her, because she doesn't want to be consoled. She just wants to rip something to pieces, to use claw and fang to make the world bleed, so no one can see the tears she will never acknowledge. So he lets her scream it out of her system and pretends not to listen to the sobs she can't quite stop. Then he will pull her into his arms and tell her he loves her the only way he can.

"Will you stay with me?" He asks her late at night while they are lying in his bed that is far too short for their unnaturally long frames.

A tangle of limbs and a combined body temperature so high that it makes bedcovers un-necessary. She hadn't wanted him, not to start with, he had simply been the better of two evils, a way to get Sam out of her head. And so he keeps asking even though they both know the answer. It's like the broken record that they keep on playing, keep on listening to because they can't ask anything else.

Her face is blank while she contemplates the question as if it's the first time she's ever heard him ask it. If he could he'd stare into her eyes while she thought about the answer, but her eyes are on the ceiling and she can't even be bothered to look at him. But it doesn't really matter because he knows that she'll say yes. She always dose, that's what love is after all.

For her, too, there was only ever one answer. Even at the start there was only one answer, which was why she idiotically jumped into the path of a charging newborn.

"Yes."

Yes, not because she would have missed him too much. Not because she couldn't have born to live without him. Simply because she loved him, and that's what people in love do. She couldn't have left him now, even if she had wanted to. Besides, if they didn't love each other, then who in their right mind would? The bitter and twisted harpy and the wolf alpha with the half vampire imprint.

They were the perfect match, weren't they? All that chemistry. The explosion that was always just waiting for the spark to set it off. All that fire, all that heat. All that hate, all that need. She needed someone to need, he just needed someone to need him. So they joined themselves together these two broken things that didn't work, that didn't belong anywhere. The unwilling alpha and the female oddity, and they called it love.

"You shouldn't." He didn't have to think about his reply and she didn't have to ask why. They both know why. In the end he will leave her even though he doesn't want to, the call of an imprint, too strong to ignore. He doesn't want to leave her, to hurt her; he doesn't want to be like Sam.

"I love you." It's the simple truth.

So when the time comes and he leaves her for another she will still stay with him, because that's who they are. She will love him and forgive him and be best man at his wedding to his imprint if that's what he wants. Because even if they can't be together, they won't ever be apart, too tightly bound to one another to be separated.

These were the little things they played out every night. Rituals, really. Because they were what people in love would say, what people in love would do. And they loved each other.

If they didn't love each other, who would? Not her boyfriends, not his imprint. Defiantly not themselves. They were Alpha and Bata and therefore destined to be joined together, even if the universe had given him to someone else and gave her nothing at all. But still theirs was the only permanent relationship. So really, if they didn't love each other, who would?

"Forever," she said her voice the same as ever, the tone even and cool, almost uncaring. "I'll stay with you forever."

"Forever." He repeated, staring into her empty black eyes. Every day is the same for them. All their passion a blazing fire that constantly burns them both, consuming everything until there is nothing left.

But still there is always forever, because isn't that what people in love are meant to promise each other?

(A/N) Just because I love Blackwater and I want to be able to say that I wrote at least one piece of fanfiction for them.

Lamanth xx