A/N: Written as Christmas present for Vicky (incandescent dreams), a little bit belated, but nevertheless it's here. Also for the Prompts, oh, Prompts thread at the NGFs, for the 1st November set. There I got the pairing, the prompts [queen; feather; blind; tug], and the quote, which is from "Just A Kiss" by Lady Antebellum.
And many thanks to my wonderful beta, mew-tsubaki.
A Caustic Love
Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight, just a touch of the fire burning so bright.
His heart beats too hard and he doesn't want to hear it any longer. He wants quiet and peace and darkness, but she's leaning over him with dazzling lightness and shouting and screaming. She hits him across his face and it doesn't even hurt, because he knows that as soon as she's left, everything will come to rest.
"I can't believe you're blaming me!" she yells, and her voice is cutting his insides and she isn't pretty at all. She shines too much for his eyes.
"Who should I blame?" he asks nevertheless. Who knows, she might have something interesting to say. Not that it will make any difference for his decision, but still. It feels good to speak; he hasn't heard his voice in so long, and it somehow soothes him.
"Yourself, perhaps," she cries out where she's standing. Teddy sits on the floor; he has since she pushed him away from her earlier and he couldn't keep his balance so he stumbled down in a mess of hold-back-the-tears and don't-hit-her-Teddy.
"Me?" he asks, and his voice is soft, and it feels as though the sound of it is flying through the air like a feather dropped from the top of a mountain, and—and—can she just leave already?
She shakes her head, and he thinks that she has never resembled a queen more. Once upon a time he told her that, when she lay with her head on his stomach and he wrote "I love you" with his fingertips on her arm, that she was his queen.
Now, with her hair in a tight knot and her eyes stained with "goodbye" and her mouth quirked in a "I hate you," she looks like a thief. And isn't she? She stole his happily-ever-after, jumped on it until it broke, and rubbed the shards in his face. A thief, nothing less. Soon a murderer.
"Victoire, just go," he says at last, and he stands up. She jolts the slightest when he approaches her and looks at him with narrowed eyes and that look that clearly says "Hey, wait, what are you doing?"
"Teddy, you can't just…," she begins, but Teddy takes one step closer and she stops speaking.
"Kiss me. Just one more time, okay, and then leave," he says quietly, because he needs it, he needs it so much, and if she just can give it to him, then it'll be enough, and then she can leave, and then—then—all will be quiet at last.
She looks at him, and she opens her eyes wider, and then it is as if she understands him, but she can't, not really, because then she would say something. But she kisses him, and Teddy can feel how his heart smiles contently, telling him it is okay now, I have all that I need.
Her lips burn against his and that's all. She looks at him, one final time, and he can't help but wonder how much she knows when she walks out of there with her head held high and her eyes staring, unseeing, away from him. But she would have done something about it, so she can't possibly know one single thing about what he's planning.
He watches her figure wander down the street and disappear into the mist. A part of him wants to run out there, beg her to come back, tug at her arm until she turns around, but that part is so tiny that it's hardly noticeable among all of the thoughts of she's gone, at last, finally I can do it, I'm alone, come on, do it!
He smiles to himself and leans his forehead against the cold windowpane for a few seconds. His breath creates fog on the surface and he watches it grow. He raises a finger to it and paints in it, writing "goodbye" over and over.
He is alone now, and he's always going to be alone from now.
He turns around, the smile still on his lips as if it has been sewn on there with some sort of thread that cannot, never ever, burst. It feels so easy, everything, the air is easier to breathe, the noises from the road are easier to shut out, and when he walks up the stairs, he's sort of floating up them.
In the wardrobe—the one in which he and Victoire once had sat for three hours as a pile of arms and legs and not knowing which limb belonged to whom and speaking about everything and nothing and writing "we two forever" on her legs with his fingertips and she accusing him of tickling her—in there, he finds the little can with a tag on it that he can't read all of a sudden.
He realizes that his eyes have become blurred, but he can't understand why, so he rubs them, and feels something wet on his hands. He feels like laughing out loud. Crying? What kind of a man is he? He tries to laugh at himself, but he can't quite hear it; he feels deaf, so he goes for opening the small container instead.
It opens up easily, and the pills are there, small and white. He takes a deep breath, tasting the air more than he ever has before. Air—what a simple thing, really. And yet, it can taste so much beyond its simplicity—life, salt, and something…something burning on his tongue saying no, you won't miss it.
And he won't. So he shakes the can and empties it in his hand.
Then he smiles again and lifts his hand to his mouth.
:::
It took three days until someone found him. It was Victoire who did, and it was as if she already knew it, because she didn't scream, she didn't run away—she hardly reacted. She put her hand on his cheek where he laid, watched the smile on his lips, and closed his eyes.
Then she walked out of there, blind to everything, because the picture of him was buzzing in her head, flashing between his open eyes and his cracked smile, and his white hands. And the feeling of his dry skin compared to his burning lips only three, three short days ago.
Four hours later, the sight of him actually hit her—and she screamed.