Haven: Through the Glass
Prompt fill for the Haven fic meme on LiveJournal. RazielOmega requested: Jordan/Nathan, "I don't love you, but I always will." Lyrics come from Poison and Wine by The Civil Wars. What an agonizingly beautiful song!
Oh, your hands can heal, your hands can bruise
I don't have a choice but I'd still choose you
Poison and Wine – The Civil Wars
Despite being a member of the Guard and a bartender at the Gun and Rose Diner, Jordan McKee still lives in isolation.
Nightmares plague her continuously, with relentless force. Nightmares of inflicting pain on others.
Although she's built up a hardened exterior over the years, whenever she inflicts physical pain on another person, a part of her withers away.
She spends many nights staring into the mirror, the whispering echo of her inner soul crying out (usually she ignores it). Her eyes seem to pierce the reflective glass and sometimes she wonders if her own willpower will be strong enough to shatter it.
Through the glass, there's another woman. There's another woman on the other side, a woman whose touch can be felt emotionally and physically by many. A woman whose touch heals rather than causes insufferable, excruciating pain.
She wishes she could be this other woman for him.
The stoic, monosyllabic Nathan Wuornos. A man who can't feel anything (except for a particular blonde).
She is the yin to his yang. A woman living in a shell of isolation because her touch can hurt and even kill. Her touch does unspeakable things.
When her eyes flutter closed at night, she dreams.
She dreams about kissing him, the tall, stoic man who smells of sweat and aftershave. The man who gently places his hands against her neck, whose fingers curl into her dark hair.
His eyes speak before his mouth, hands pulling her toward him in a protective, firm embrace before kissing her passionately with reckless abandon.
A part of her, the small child in her, her young teenage self tells her she doesn't deserve this moment. Doesn't deserve happiness. The luxury of touch. Sensations pulsating wildly when skin meets skin.
When physical contact occurs.
Touch she never thought she'd ever be able to feel again.
In her dreams, she goes to this place. This moment.
When she isn't having nightmares, another dream takes its place.
This dream, however, differs from its predecessor.
Raw.
Almost violent in nature.
Kissing no longer becomes pleasurable, but necessary.
Feeling his fingernails rake across her back, angry, red marks making indentations on her skin as his hands reach up and grab fistfuls of her hair.
The sensation augments, guttural moans of pleasure escaping from her lips when he finally buries himself inside of her.
She wants this.
Craves him.
Waking from the dream, sweat-drenched sheets pooled around her chest, her heart races ferociously.
She tries to breathe, calm the frenzied nature of her erratic breathing.
Seconds pass, then minutes.
Hands still clenching the sheets, she screams.
But he's too far from her reach now. Reserved only for her sacred dreamscape.
She wakes to the realization that his eyes have always been averted in another direction, always observing the beautiful blonde woman whom he can feel.
In the morning, when her eyes gaze into the mirror, she's reminded of the other side. She's reminded of the other woman, her reflective opposite.
A woman whose touch doesn't cause anyone any pain. A woman who is free to be with the man she loves.
Through the glass.
A life she can never have.
Fin