Warning/Spoiler: Dominic/Anemone. There are so many spoilers, it's not even funny. You basically have to watch 48 through 50 to get any of this. In fact, I recommend doing so before reading.
Morphine
Morphine: (noun) An analgesic and narcotic drug obtained from opium and used medicinally to relieve pain.
I.
(knock me out
every time they touch me)
He's not sure why he did what he did.
Yes, it was his orders, to come in and give her the drugs that prepare her to fly, the drugs that bring out her killer instincts and cold-blooded ruthlessness.
It's what his superior (well, not really, any more) wanted, and in the military, you always do what your superior wants.
So he would go into the large, cold expanse of a room, and find her, whether she was wrapped in a blanket or slumped on the bed or still near theEND, one of the two things she feels affection for. And then, once he knew where she was, he'd fill up the needle and pump the drugs into her neck.
It often came at the price of a bruised face, or a bloody nose. She wanted—wants—to pilot, but she would rarely let him do his job without a fight.
He rubs the small pockmark of a scar on his neck, where she bit him, and looks around the small cabin without really seeing.
So he wonders why he kept on coming. After all, she didn't care about him. The only things she ever cared about were theEND and her fat pet, which was currently laying there and staring at him on his bed.
But he cared about her. He, for some reason even he doesn't really know, cared about her and all that came with, from the violent mood swings to the obsessive devotion to the quirky hyperactivity that came with her good moods and the senseless rages that came with the bad.
He stares blankly at the cold, grey wall, and for a minute, he sees her there, like she was when he last saw her, in a white dress and her pink hair twisted up, her purple eyes half-smiling.
She's like morphine.
She's addictive and dangerous, a person he shouldn't care about, but does anyways. He always feels a little detached around her, lightheaded and a little off balance and not quite in focus. He's never quite like how he is around others when he's with her. So he goes and sees her, and then she'll hit him and bite him and yell and scream, but he always comes back to her, always comes back to the high, arcing windows and aching loneliness of her room.
He knows that she will never care, never reciprocate anything he feels about her, but he still comes and cares and hopes that maybe today, she just might love him.
He always will come back to her, because it's hard for him to even think of being without her.
II.
('cause I've waited for all my life
to be here with you tonight)
Her life is full of regrets.
She goes over everything she should have done as she flies through the inky night. She should have tried more food, gone shopping, seen places without having to kill the people there. As she turns over her list in her mind, she tries, as resolutely as she possibly can, not to think of her greatest regret of all.
So she thinks of her "home", with its huge window and small bed right in the middle of the cold floor. She could see theEND from there, and pet Gulliver, and eat jelly, and look at the anemone he gave her—
A tear leaks out and runs down her face, and she turns her mind to other things. Lifting might have been fun, to fly around with the wind whipping in your face. So she imagines it, soaring through the sky, the crowd cheering, him smiling at her—
Or cooking. She might have been a good cook, making sweet things and chocolate. She could have served to people, a famous chef, with people lining up to wolf down her delicacies. But the best ones would always be for him—
The tears were running faster, sliding down her nose and dripping into the cockpit. So instead of imagining, she decided to ask herself about other things, instead of what she should—could—have done.
So her traitorous mind asks herself—was there someone special? Someone worth paying attention to, no matter what they did?
Someone she loved?
She blinks. She had tried to avoid thinking about it, but there it—he—was, staring at her in the face, the greatest thing she regretted; the real reason why she wanted to live as death waited, imminent.
There was someone.
He was medium height, and had brown hair that stuck out a bit, and grey eyes that were cool, not cold, that looked like pretty glass pieces. He was always wearing a uniform, and stood up straight, like the soldier he was. Her someone was occasionally a little tongue-tied and sometimes had a pink blush spreading across his face. Even when she had hit him or bit him, he didn't yell out like the others had. He always had taken it and had then waited for her to be done yelling and screaming and throwing punches towards his face.
She didn't deserve him, and she hadn't realized how precious he was until he was gone, and she couldn't reach him, couldn't talk to him, couldn't tell him how…
Maybe if she had truly seen him for what he was to her, she could have gotten him to stay with her, keep her from feeling this aching loneliness. Maybe if she hadn't been so stupid and caught up in all the lies that were told to her, she could have realized it earlier.
Maybe if she had had some more self-esteem, she could have told him that she loved him.
But it's too late now. She's about to die, and even though she wants to live badly, she knows that the end of her life isn't far.
Her face is tear-streaked as she dives down into the heart of the Coral.
If she had another life that she could live, she'd buy a little mirror. It would be round, just enough to see a reflection of her face, and she would practice smiling in it, a real smile, the kind that had crinkly eyelids and turned up corners and that glow of happiness.
She would practice every day, trying to get that crinkly-eyed smile, and it would be for him.
It would always be for him.
III.
(I want a girl with
lips like morphine)
It's been the end of the world, and they're still there.
He saved her. She saved him back. They had agreed, after he had snapped off the ring around her neck, that they were even.
They prefer it that way.
So they sit at the beach (a place she told him she had always wanted to see), dangling their feet in the ocean as they stare up at the starry sky, gazing at the imprint left on the moon. His motorcycle is behind them, and her fat pet is slumped on their laps, fast asleep.
They aren't quite sure what they're going to do. theEND is gone, and he will never return to the military. For now, they are trying to find their place in a world that has been turned upside-down once again.
She looks at him. So what will we do next?
He shrugs. I don't know, not yet.
She plays with the fabric of her dress, running it through her finger and thumb. Then she bursts out—Please don't leave me behind.
He shakes his head with a slight smile, and tucks a flower (an anemone, to be truly exact) behind her ear. Don't worry, I won't.
She smiles. He smiles back. And in a moment of spontaneous instinct and rightness, she kisses him.
Her fat pet barely squeezes itself out from between them, and watches them with a look of melancholy resignation, as if it was an old geezer shaking it's head. Kids.
And as they break apart, he smiles slightly. Don't worry. We'll be together, wherever we go.
Promise?
Promise.
And so they sit beneath the sky, watching the moon and the stars and the universe spin, caring and living and loving together, always with each other, always for each other.
They wouldn't have it any other way.
(just kiss my face and then
knock me out again)
FIN
A/N: Whoop. Dominic/Anemone is awesomeness. Hot awesomeness. Yosh. … I just realized I got through the entire fic without once saying their names. That is skill. (Plus, the whole scar thing? I thought Dominic deserved a scar.)
Song: Lips Like Morphine by Kill Hannah (I apologize to all Hannah's in the world. I don't want you to die).
Review, or I'll set Gulliver on you. Rawr.