Title: Ashes to Ashes 1/1
Rating: PG
Timeline: Takes place during Vaughn's 6 months in France.
Summary: What if Vaughn's hallucinations of Sydney weren't hallucinations?
Written for the July/Aug. Challenge.
1. Both a kiss and a slap to the face between the same two characters.
2. A mustard stain.
2. A character using an alias
4. A heat wave.
After you died, I used to talk to you... like you were still around. Literally, outloud, whole conversations about... about nothing. The weather. Should I get a new car? Should I have another drink? Then one day, you started answering. I mean, I could hear you in my head... like you were right next to me, Sydney. And although rationally I knew I was a guy who... stayed up nights drinking - talking to his dead girlfriend... still, I couldn't stop. - Vaughn
You don't know why you're torturing yourself like this. You know that you shouldn't be doing this. The mere action of standing in front of this door is endangering both of your lives. You're selfish. You're selfish because you can't stand the thought of not seeing him. Or maybe you're just human.
You tuck a strand of your blonde hair behind your ear. Julia would never do that. But Sydney would.
You're about to knock on the door but when your fist connects with the door, it pushes the door open. You peer inside and that's when you see him. He's up against the bathroom door, oblivious to your presence. He hasn't shaven in days and there are bottles of every kind of alcohol imaginable scattered about. Your first instinct is to help him into the bed, get him some water and maybe an aspirin and to throw away all these bottles. But you can't do that. You can't leave any proof that you were ever here. In a way, you hope that he's drunk enough to think that he made it all up in the morning. But then you don't, because you don't want to see him like this, the shell of Michael Vaughn.
The door creaks as you step into the hotel room. It's filthy. One of those hole-in-the-wall places with carpet the color of seaweed and matresses that smell of cigarettes and cheap sex.
He finally looks up and you know that you weren't prepared to look into his eyes and see the loneliness that lies in them. He stares at you, or maybe around you or through you. You're not sure he sees you at all.
"Syd," he breathes. His voice is hoarse and raspy, like he hasn't spoken in a while.
You close the door behind you and make your way to him. You move a vodka bottle and sit beside him. "Hey," you say and attempt a smile.
He smiles too, as if he's trying to mimick yours. But when he smiles, there's a sadness in the curve of his lips. You recognize it because it's the same sadness that you know is on your face.
"I knew it," he says. "I knew you weren't dead. They said, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." But you're not ashes."
You notice that even in his state, his words don't slur. You shake your head slowly. "No, I'm not ashes."
"It's hot outside," he says.
You think it's an odd thing to say, but answer him nontheless. Hell, you'd talk about the phone book if it would keep you here longer.
"Hell of a heat wave," you say.
"Hell of a heat wave," he repeats.
He suddenly looks down at his shirt. It's wrinkled and it looks like he's been wearing it for days. But he doesn't see that. What he sees is a small stain.
"Mustard," he says.
You smile. "So, you've been eating then?" As you ask this, you feel like his mother, not his thought-to-be-dead girlfriend.
"Sometimes."
"Good."
"I should have given you a reason to stay."
"What?"
"When you...left. It's because you didn't have a reason to stay. I should have given you one."
You're suddenly angry at him for thinking that, for thinking that you had any choice in leaving, that you did it on purpose. And while you know that it's probably the vodka talking, you also know that he might actually think that.
Before you can comprehend what you're doing, you slap him across the face.
He says nothing.
"Oh," you say. You rub his cheek and kiss him lightly. He hungrily responds but you pull away. You know that if you give in now, you won't be able to leave when you need to.
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to leave. They...they took me."
"I was going to the bathroom to shave, in case you came by, because I know how when I don't shave, it irritates your skin. But then I saw this lonely bottle over here," he fingers a bottle next to him. "And I decided to keep him company."
As he brings it up to his lips, you take it away from him. Instead, you quickly drink what's left in the bottle.
Your heart breaks as you see him like this. And you think that maybe if things had been different, if you had been the one left behind, that you would be the one keeping a bottle of vodka company.
"I love you," you say, as you bring his hand up to your lips and kiss it.
"I've always loved you," he says. "From the first moment I saw you, I knew that there was a possibility of loving you."
He pulls you to him and you let him. You lean your head on his shoulder and for the first time, he notices your hair.
He runs his hand through it. "Your hair," he says.
You laugh through the sobs that are threatening to escape from your mouth. "I thought it was time for a change."
"Yeah, me too," he says as he rolls a bottle to the other side of the room with his foot.
You fear that maybe the alcohol is wearing off and if you stay here much longer, you don't think he'll be able to convince himself that you were just a figment of his drunken imagination. Little do you know that in the morning, as he decides to empty all of the bottles and to shave and actually change his clothes, he will find one bottle with lipstick smeared on it and think that maybe the vodka from the night before hasn't quite worn off yet.
You untangle yourself from his arms. "I have to go now."
Now, as you look into his eyes, you don't see the loneliness that you saw before. You see fear. A fear that is mirrored in your eyes as well. The fear that maybe you won't ever see each other again.
But then, you think, with a certainty you can't quite explain, We'll find each other. We'll always find each other.