Burn Me to Ashes and Put Me Back Where I Belong
They watch the fire burn with the kind of intensity that is reserved solely for those who want to burn with it.
They're all that's left.
He licks his dry lips and wonders about all the things that men and vampires alike ponder when they're drunk and depressed.
What will it be like when his corpse, which should have rotted over a century ago, finally catches up with time? He already knows what it's like to die, but what is it like to not come back? What will he be thinking and feeling when his body is being reduced to nothing but crisps and black ashes?
Because he's accepted by now that he'll be killed by way of flames. After three too-close encounters with fire and it's friends, he knows that God is just a pyromaniac waiting for his luck to run out. Waiting for her to stop being there to save him. Waiting for the moment that he'll give up fighting and give in to the flames instead.
He wonders if he's this insightful every time he gets drunk, or if it's because her presence is more intoxicating than the alcohol.
It is odd for her. It doesn't seem right, to be staring at a fire beside him instead of trying to pull him out of it, but she doesn't dwell on it because the alcohol has clouded her ability to think clearly. She is sober enough to know that that means it's doing it's job, at least.
She doesn't have any hope for the small building. It's almost completely engulfed by the consuming orange and red already, and the fire department hasn't even arrived. She thinks she can hear sirens in the distance, but that could just be the wind again. She's been mistaking the wind for a lot of things lately. Since he left.
Except that he didn't "leave" at all. None of them did.
There is hardly anyone around yet. It would be so easy to just cross the street, crawl in through the broken window on the right side of the door and let her ashes blow away in the wind she's grown to love and hate so much.
But he'd never let her. Because they were all that's left, and they need to carry on.
He notices her concentration on the building as it beings to fall to pieces, and knows exactly what's going through her head. She wouldn't do it though – she'd never leave him like that. She doesn't have it in her, and he's unbelievably grateful for that. He's unbelievably grateful for her.
Of everyone, he's glad that she's the one who made it. He knew she was a fighter all along, but he pegged her for the 'save everyone or die with them' type. Apparently not, because when it became clear that she could do nothing for any of them, she booked it.
Or at least, that's how he likes to remember it. He likes to think that the reason that they are the only ones who made it is purely chance – but that isn't really it at all, is it?
She shudders when the memories infiltrate, and she feels annoyance build up in the pit of her stomach beneath all the horror and heartbreak because she thought she was passed this nonsense. She's been working so hard to push it out of her thoughts that when it suddenly makes its appearance after such an abnormally long absence – how long has it been? three, four hours? - it nearly knocks the breath out of her.
She recalls holding Jenna's body in her lap, feeling empty and overwhelmed at the same time, and intending to go down with the ship when she sees him appear in the doorway. He made it, she thinks. Someone made it. And then her instincts kick in and she knows that she can't die there when she still has at least one reason to live. And even though the reasons she had to not live outnumbered it, she's always been a fighter, hasn't she?
She's alive because of him – not because he saved her, but because he didn't die.
She tries not to think of it that way, though. Sometimes, she is able to contort the memory until all she can remember is him pulling her away from the bodies of the people she actually loved, and away from the opportunity to die with them.
It makes it so much easier to hate him.
Her lips twitches, which means she's thinking about it, and he grimaces in response.
No, they did not both survive by chance. She lived because she saw him, because with less than a second to contemplate her entire existence, she decided that his presence was enough. She decided that living with him was worth all the hurt and pain she'd have to deal with from losing them.
He pretends he doesn't know that she regrets that decision every day. That she'd give the world to go back. He pretends that he's not the reason that she's tortured everyday, plagued by nightmares when both awake and asleep. He pretends that it's not his fault that she didn't take the easy way out, with her family, with her friends, with the love of her life.
He wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her against him because it always feels good to know that someone else is living through the same fucked up mess that you are.
In the beginning, she hated when he'd touch her. It'd just be a pat on the arm to get her attention, or an accidental brushing of their shoulders – but she hated it. Now she doesn't mind so much – she doesn't mind it at all – not because she cares for him, but because they're the only ones left, and what else is there to do?
She presses into his side and his arm tightens around her and it helps her forget.
Crowds of people are starting to form and an ambulance is turning the corner that they're standing on, and it's exciting in all the wrong ways. She thinks that it's time to go, to get away from the scene that has the fire that she wants to burn in, and the world that has the memories that she doesn't want to carry on her shoulders.
But then he's kissing her, roughly and determinedly, and it's just as good of a distraction as actually leaving the area. She knows that if he really cared about her like she thought he did all those months ago, then they would never be here and they would never do this, because he would understand that she is broken and vulnerable.
But he doesn't care, and she's so glad for that, because she just wants to kiss him and not think and not live. She's aware that it's not about him and it's not about her and it's not about who they are – it's just that they're that only ones left.
He runs his tongue over her lips like he did to his own only minutes ago, and she moans into his mouth. They do this because they need this and they want this and there's nothing else to do besides get drunk and watch the world burn, but they've already done those tonight.
He pushes her up against the wall of a building that he didn't even know existed until this second, and he briefly wonders what city they're in at the moment. New York? San Francisco? Are they even in the U.S.?
And then none of that matters anymore because she's gripping the collar of his leather jacket and twisting her other hand into his hair, and it's hard to focus on anything else.
They're making their way hastily through the lobby of the hotel they've been staying in for the last week or so, and make it just in time to grab the elevator. People look up from what their doing to watch the young couple plow through everyone else, and try to remember what it was like to be that happy and in love.
The door slams behind them, and they've done this so many times that it's easy to go on autopilot. Their clothes are scattered and cover more of the floor than the carpet, and the sheets are sticking to the sweat on their bodies, and she's either flying or falling, but either way, she doesn't want to stop now.
She remembers that they aren't the lucky ones. She remembers that he once told her that, and that if she wasn't going to suck it up, she might as well just end it all right then. If he cared about her, he would've told her everything was going to be alright, and that the pain would fade in time. That they would get through it together.
But now they're here, together but not getting through anything. They live separate lives side-by-side. She likes it that way. And when things get too hard, she sucks them up.
When they wake up in the morning, she gives him no affection. And he doesn't mind, because he never really cared in the first place.
He asks her where she wants to go next, and she tells him wherever the next plane is heading. But what she really means is I don't care or wherever you want or nowhere at all. It used to be depressing, every time they got on a plane or train or boat, because going somewhere new always reminded them that they don't have a home to go back to. Now, though, it's the only thing they look forward to.
They just can't wait to leave everything behind.
They're pushing through the crowd to get to their gate, and she accidentally bumps shoulders with a middle-aged man that smells like old vodka and cigarettes. He curses obscenely, drunkenly, and a insults her manners. She glances at the vampire who's been walking beside her, who she remembers used to have a temper and fierce need to protect her from everything, but he's not paying attention.
Her seat on the plane is next to the rude man, and she asks for one of his cigarettes.
He places her single, small bag on the bed next his own, and then drops down beside it. The mattress creaks under his weight, and he knows that'll get annoying by their third night here. He almost wants to get switched to a different room, just so they'll have that small victory.
She walks into the room a minute later and barely spares him a glance as she heads for the sliding glass door leading to an ugly balcony. She closes it behind her and then digs around in her coat pocket for something, and he finds himself wrapped up in the simple movement. It's too normal.
Then she pulls out a single cigarette and a lights it carefully. He doesn't remember her ever smoking before, and he can think of a few people who wouldn't approve… but they don't really matter, do they? Because she and him, they're all that's left.
He's lying on the bed with his eyes closed, and even though she knows he's not sleeping, she quietly opens the door to their room as if not to wake him. As she makes her way down the dark, empty hallway of whatever place they're staying at this week, she tries to remember where she saw that convenient store when they were on their way here. About a block away, she thinks. Convenient indeed.
The store turns out to be much more than a block away, but she doesn't really mind the walk. She smokes seven cigarettes from her new pack on the way back.
Her lips taste like ash, but he can't quite bring himself to be bothered by it, so they carry on as usual. Kiss, bite, lick, suck, it's a new song but it's the same dance. Except this time, it's not the same at all.
He stops breathing every time she laughs.
And she laughs every time the bed creaks.
It's a week or maybe a month later, and they're in Philadelphia or maybe Phoenix when she finally breaks down and cries for them all. She lets him hold her and stroke her hair and wipe away her tears because it's sweet and reminds her of the one she really wants.
He watches her eyelids flutter open, and sees something different there. His thumbs brush over her cheeks and he looks into her eyes and he wonders if maybe there is such a thing as healing.
She slowly wrenches her eyelids open and tries to focus on who's touching her. For a second she thinks it's… but it's not.
His thumbs brush over her cheeks and he looks into her eyes and she wonders who he's thinking of.
She loses the picture, the only one she had left, and he can tell it's tearing her to pieces. When he catches her flipping open and snapping shut a pocket knife, he reminds her that she'll never lose him, that he'll stay with her forever, even if he's the only thing she has left.
She hands him the knife.
He doesn't know that she just plans on stealing it back again someday.
He tells her he loves her one night, when he thinks she's asleep. She wishes she hadn't heard the words, wishes that he didn't mean them or that she didn't believe them, but things don't quite work out her way these days.
So she surprises him by saying them back, not because she loves him, but because maybe things can work out for him, at least.
She opens her eyes when he kisses her and suppresses a sigh. She's all he has left and it's exhausting.