A/N A short re-entry to the JizabelxCassian Invasion. I usually write things a lot, lot longer than this but this is just a vaguely abstract oneshot I wanted to get down. It won't become a trend. XD Thanks to anyone who reads after my long absence. I'll reply to any reviews with love, gratitude and virtual teacakes.
—x—
I used to follow the doctor through the streets paved with gold.
Of course, the streets themselves were rarely paved at all but if you were to empty the pockets of the myriad shoppers the metaphor would hold true. We would walk in the shadow of the buildings, pretending to look into shop windows and admire the decadent displays but always, always facing away, looking towards the shops beyond the bustling ribbon of coaches and horses.
Because he was there. Or I should say, they were there.
Cain Hargreaves. Riff Raffit. Little Mary Weather, too. Shopping, usually, or just browsing. Confident in the belief that they were enjoying their idyllic, metropolitan afternoon unobserved. Mirroring them from afar, the doctor and I would follow them carefully, never speaking, never making any move towards them and never drawing attention to ourselves. The purpose of this activity? There's no use in asking me. He never wrote down notes or reported to anyone and I never had the courage to ask him what it was he was doing.
I have a good idea, though. Self-mutilation. That's what it was. And by following him I was just encouraging him. I wish I hadn't, now. I wish I had known that the sad, twisted but stable state of affairs wouldn't last forever.
He called it 'surveillance' but that was just an excuse, a word to explain why he was making himself miserable. He has always been good at finding new and subtle ways in which to harm himself. I can't stop all of them, no matter how hard I try.
I could see it, though. The way his eyes hardened whenever they would smile at one another. The way his hand would twitch slightly whenever they touched. After only a few excursions, I had to start keeping my hands in my pockets so that I wouldn't reach out to him and complete that half-formed motion.
He wanted someone to react. He must have done, even if he didn't know it.
They weren't pleasant, those surveillance trips. Of course, I had much worse tasks set for me but none of them affected me in quite the same way. While following him, I would occasionally be glared at or knocked by the upper class, looking so calmly down their noses at me from high above. I would have appeared nothing more than a ragged, hungry street urchin and therefore deserving of such scorn.
It didn't matter, though. Not after a while. It didn't matter because one glance from the doctor would send them on their way with quick steps. His nobility, however much it was smothered in Delilah, has always been easy to see. For all they knew, he could have been a foreign prince, escorted through this strange land with his young and trusted servant boy.
Yes. Yes, I like that image.
—x—
Some nights, his silver hair spilt across his papers like silk as he slept.
No one was allowed into his study or his quarters without his express permission and, usually, it wasn't a problem. After all, who wants to wake and disturb Death?
I didn't bother knocking when I went in, notes held in one hand and my thin blanket in the other. I would leave the notes beside him, knowing he'd just yell at me if they weren't there in the morning whether I was meant to be in his room delivering them or not. The blanket, I'd tuck around him and his chair.
I didn't really know the meaning of the word 'gentle' until the first time I found him sleeping. It was something I've never forgotten.
—x—
Cassandra's smile was pyrite, Fool's Gold.
I was no fool.
The Head Priest made my skin crawl. At first, I had no idea what he was up to behind closed doors but the way he looked at me when the doctor wasn't around was sinful in itself. No one had ever looked at me like that before, not even the ringmaster's woman when she was pretending to love me. I had always wanted that sort of attention; I couldn't help it. But coming from that man, it made me feel dirtier than ever, worse than the blood often staining my hands.
The doctor has always been a fool, whatever he thinks.
I wanted to kill Cassandra that day. For the first time, I had broken my silence and watched as the doctor's perfect mask finally crumbled. And then there was a boot pressed against my skull and before I knew it, I was outside.
I went back to headquarters, raging. It was a mistake. I knew it then and I feel it every day.
—x—
My heart turned to glass.
Are you a homosexual?
They had no better word for it. I couldn't blame them. It was weird for a trump card to be so attached to someone of a higher rank and I was already an outcast from the group. They kept asking me, that day, and the few days afterwards. I told them I wasn't, spun some story about my growth defect meaning I had no sexual desires. Almost true.
Do you love him?
They never asked me that. If they had, I'm wouldn't have said yes but I couldn't have brought myself to say no. I used to ask myself, when I was alone at night. That, at least, hasn't changed.
—x—
Liquid rubies fell from my fingertips and streamed from the hole in my back.
I had never realised the human body was so fragile.
As I wrenched Cassandra's sword out of my flesh and spun around, feet sliding in my own blood, I was sure I was going to die. I wasn't angry. As my vision started to fade, all I could focus on was my own bloody handprint on his cheek. I had wanted to speak and call him by his name, the name only the Cardmaster spoke in his venomous tongue.
I faded without saying a word.
—x—
I opened my eyes to a world made from steel and cotton.
Few people visited during those long, painful days. I swam in and out of delirium and often woke screaming as I stared down at a body not my own. Tests and procedures made up most of my waking moments and I felt as if I was made of paper, as if I was a canvas who could be redesigned at any moment.
The doctor visited me once while I was conscious although I'd like to believe he visited more. He left a note on my bedside. I shall unlock the door and leave it open at midnightin five days. It brought hot tears to the eyes that weren't my own but I understood.
He was saving me. Again. I wanted to stay but denying this kindness would have been a crime worse than any I had previously committed.
I tore the note into pieces and swallowed them before someone else would witness his deceit. Another secret shared between us. This thought stopped the sticking dryness in my throat as I destroyed the evidence.
—x—
Do you love him?
He stood alone on the platform.
As I boarded the train and his figure was smothered in steam, the answer was crystal.
—x—
Since I left London, I have slept under a velvet sky, an infinite jeweller's display studded with diamonds that watch me almost as intently as I watch them.
I'm not sure where I am but it's quiet. Delilah will not search for me here, if they search at all. I'll give it time. If the doctor thought it safest for me to leave in the dead of night then there has to be some danger.
I'll go back to the city eventually. I have to. Living elsewhere will be hollow and cast in shades of grey if I don't. Better to die for his sake than live for my own. I swore to myself that I would save him. I need to stay alive long enough so that I can promise him as well.
As I lie here, under the pearly moonlight, I see nothing with my eyes. I look inward, picturing him. Where is he now? In which world has he lived today?
The golden facade of the city streets? The glass palace of deception? The steel box of the laboratory? Or is it in the deep ruby cage of punishment and pain?
I'll take him away from all of those worlds. I want him to walk under sapphire skies on a field of emerald, studded with amber petals. I want to hold his marble hand in mine and break the distance between us. I'll show him I'm not afraid to fall into the cold amethyst of his eyes and I'll wait until he's ready to hear the words I am not ready to say.
I close my eyes and imagine him lying beside me. I reach out and comb my fingers through his hair until he falls asleep. Over and over I repeat the motion, the one forbidden to me and the one that has waited inside my heart since before I was aware.
His hair is soft. My dreams are softer.
—x—
I dream in silver.