Soundtrack: "Heart's A Mess" - Gotye

"Let me in, where only your thoughts have been. Let me occupy your mind, as you do mine..."

You're getting there, to that sweet spot. With the hand isn't busy grasping a flask, your press your palm up against your lips and nose. The numbness makes you giggle, so you press your hand harder to stifle the noise. When your runaway laughter begins to die down, you slide the tip of the flask under the hand covering your mouth. The whiskey burned, once upon a time. But now it's blessedly numb. Numb like your lips. Numb like the tip of your nose and the ends of your fingers. As numb as you wish your heart could be.

You stumble through the dark room. A shirt catches your foot and you pitch forward. Your knees strike the hardwood. "Fuck," you hiss. You rip the offending shirt from under you and throw it as hard as you can. It lands a few feet away. Your hand slips in the whiskey that spilt during your fall. "Fucking fuck," you curse the shirt again and stumble to your feet. Knees bruised. Maybe your dignity too, if you had any left.

Your hand finds the square of the door frame and you pause. The wood is old and dry, you can feel it splintering beneath your wandering fingers. The paint chips and cracks beneath your nails. What a familiar feeling, each piece brittle and crumbling. A feeling you've felt more and more as the years have gone by, day by day your soul becomes more faded and brittle. But it's never felt quite this poignant before.

You trace the decorative molding and let your eyes sweep up the stairs. Darkness keeps you from seeing past the first few, but you've been this way before. Squaring your shoulders you throw the last few drops from your flask against the back of your throat. You drop the empty flask on the floor. The metal is a hollow clang on the floor. The stairs are steep. Your steps are unsteady. But you know it's worth it. So worth it. You've felt the forces of a thousand years of fae. You've felt the surge and fall of armies at your will. But you've never felt anything like the inescapable force that pulls you up those stairs.

You blink into the mirror. The sink is yellow. The cracks in the wall swim across your vision. Shaking your head to clear your vision causes your hair, dirty again, to brush against your face. At some point you put your hair in a bun, but slowly, slowly, it's come undone. Like everything in your life lately has come undone. You sweep the loose strands behind your ears, but it doesn't make much of a difference. You grip either side of the porcelain sink and lean forward. Your eyes have faded to grey. Faded with your strength. Faded with your power. All you had left was your resolve. Then she came along and all that faded too.

Yes. The succubus. The unaligned. You knew of her before you actually knew her. Just the rumors of her made your heart beat harder. For eons the cycle turned. Some powerful being pointed and you chased. And oh, the chase. Sometimes you would crush them swiftly. Other times you'd let them love you first. And oh, how they loved you. In the times of great poets you drank from opiate laced wine while they fell over themselves for you. You ate from suckling pig and freshly picked grapes. You made love for days and when you were spent you laughed as they descended into madness. Their fear and doubt and loathing set you on fire and you burned brighter than any star in the sky.

Again and again the powers-that-be commissioned you. Again and again you accepted and felt alive.

Then he came, more powerful than them all and promised you everything. You were young. You were hungry. You agreed. Before she had set foot on this earth he whispered of her to you. But back then she was just an idea. She was just a rumor. And soon you forgot her name and she was nothing.

Time passed.

He had faded into the beyond. You had taken up with the Morrigan and then lo and behold, that forgotten whisper became a shout. A brunette, human-loving, indecisive shout. A baby fae who didn't even know herself, much less the scope of her power. And you decided this couldn't be the one. And you dismissed her.

You tried to dismiss her. But every time she was in the room, your eyes prickled toward her. You wanted her to be a phony. A criminal. So you tried to pin the kills on her. You watched her and saw her, but you didn't understand her. It was curiosity at first.

Who knew how fast curiosity could become obsession?

It's even darker here, next to her bed, but you can still see her dark hair against the whiteness of her bare shoulder. You pick up the discarded shirt next to the bed and bury your face in her essence. The smell of her sends a shadow of a spark through your dulled senses.

You let her feed from you, and even as black rimmed your vision you felt alive. Her brown eyes faded into blue. Blue like water. Blue like ice. And for those few moments assuaged the fire that was burning up your life. The fire you once craved had which had turned on you and began to consume you. But her eyes were blue and like breaking through thin ice, for a moment you came alive again.

You let the silk of her shirt fall against your chest and you rub it across your cheeks and lips. The material is cool and it feels soothing against the heated numbness of your skin. Your eyes flutter shut and you lurch forward. You throw your hands out for balance and the shirt falls on the bed. The sleeve brushes her bare back, but she doesn't wake. You stare down at her. Shouldn't she have woken the moment you entered? When she enters a room a hundred thousand bells shake inside you until her eyes meet yours. But she can't feel you. She can't feel it when your fingers ghost across her hair. She can't feel it as you slide your hands under her pillow searching for the knife you know she has hidden there.

To you, she is a white hot light, burning into your mind, but to her you're just a breath during the deepest sleep; not even a conscious thought. A reflex at best.

You grasp the wooden handle and slowly pull the knife out. It's a good blade. Sharp. You test it on your finger, but your fine motor skills aren't quite up to par at the moment and you draw more blood than you'd intended. You let the few drops of blood fall onto the bed next to her. Maybe she'll dream of you. Probably not. Her mind is so occupied with the wolf boy and the human doctor. But in the scheme of things, neither of them matters. Nothing matters.

He came back. He came back to collect on the promise you made.

You twirl the knife in your hand. It would probably be better this way. To just end it all now. She would thank you for the momentary inconvenience of a knife through her heart. If you did it slowly, she would wake. She might even try to feed off you. Sucking away at your life while you jab away at hers. You'd like to say killing her this way would be the selfless thing. You know something of the horrors she's bound to face at his hands.

But the truth is, you just want her to climb inside your mind again. You want to bare everything. Lay out every inch of yourself until she covers every sigh, every secret, every lie. You'd let her rake apart all the memories of every awful thing you've done if it meant you could just feel her burrowing into you, like you have so thoroughly burrowed into her. No secret is too dark, no part of your past too remote to overshadow your desire.

The wooden handle leaves an imprint in your hand and you grip it tighter. How can she just lie there, oblivious? Her being pulsates beneath you. You think the air around her quivers at the feeling of her skin.

It would only take a moment. To end it all. And she'd have no choice but to remember you, her dying vision, for all eternity. Temptation tickles your spine. All she'd know for eternity was you. You don't have much time left, and perhaps you could feel some comfort in the fact that she'd died with your name on her lips.

Or maybe you'd just slide the knife along that soft expanse of skin, not too far, just enough to let her blood mingle with the open cut on your thumb. That small shock of cells could overtake you, slip right into your mind, make you blind to everything outside of her and her desires.

Not that you weren't already.

But at least then you'd have an excuse.

You twist the knife in your hand one more time and the room twists around you. Maybe it's the ungodly amount of alcohol you consumed. More likely it's the woman sleeping in front of you. Your knees buckle in fear. You can't do it. You've sunk so far down into the well of inadequacy, you'd be better off waiting for the water to pour in and drown you. So you do. You wait. You slink off, feeling the grime of cowardice coat the inside of your mouth.

You're down the stairs, out the door, and crawling back into the cab of your truck, where you usually end up passing out now, with the whisper of her name over and over again like a pulse.

In her bed, Bo shifts, causing the knife you left on the edge to clatter to the floor. She bolts upright, looking around, bare and fierce, like the warriors of old. Heart racing, she sinks back into bed. A tickle against her shoulder, and she pulls a long light blonde hair from the sheets.

Her thoughts wander.