so i just got 9 reviews! HOLY COW! thank you thank you thank you so so so so much! anyway, here is the next chapter, since i'm really into this! I hope you guys are just as into it as me ;)
i own only the typos.
He meets October with March in the deepest desert of New Mexico.
It's in the middle of the night, or so it seems, but the sky is alight with beautiful cosmic stars, bursting like flowers and releasing pollen in the shades of glorious pinks and purples and yellows and greens. Peter doesn't understand why they are standing there, eyes locked to the sky and unmoving, and he feels unnerved, ridiculously uncomfortable.
"What are we doing here?"
"We are watching."
"For what?" He rolled his eyes to watch them.
"Watching."
Peter grinds his teeth together. What is he watching for? He should not be here, he should be back, back to an apartment that was to be his, back to being her phantom lover, a man that will never be seen but will forever love her. Sighing, he turns his face to the sky, his green eyes searching, looking. Instead he finds that before his eyes, memories unfold, paths he's learned that are ones he never made. He doesn't understand why they appear to him, if he no longer appears to her, but the moments are enjoyable and he watches them patiently.
"I don't understand what I'm seeing," Peter says and both October and March turn to him.
"Do you not see her?"
"Who?"
"Your lover."
Peter stumbles back, his jacket opening just a bit and swaying in the wind. He looks over at them, their expressions calm and collected as if they just said the most casual sentence in the whole world. His brow contracts, furrowing under his hat and he watches them watch him.
"What do you mean?"
"You have been with her, watching. She has not left your mind yet."
"She will never."
"Because you are flawed."
"I was human. Real."
"We all were."
More confused than ever, Peter turns to face them, the memories that swirl in his mind and behind his eye fading. The questions replaced them, blossoming in the rolling hills behind his painted eyes.
"You are defect."
"I am not you."
"For now."
"Never," he answers sternly, "I am different."
"Yes. You are special."
Peter feels an immense surge of annoyance for the cryptic, contradicting, conspiring souls that call themselves the observers-or rather what he used to call them when he existed. He's not sure what they call themselves now, obviously they do not consider themselves observers. Perhaps they do. Dear God he was starting to sound like them. He shook his head and stared at them.
"I'm leaving."
"Go ahead. You will be back, when we call."
"Maybe not."
"Perhaps."
Peter grinds his teeth together before heading to the edge of the desert, briefcase in hand. He leaves both March and October behind him, staring at the stars with their calculating soulless eyes. He wishes with all his being that he will not be them, that he will not become soulless and impersonal. But he can already feel it seeping in, his mind functioning different, calculating choice different, muscles stiffening, turning, changing into different. He only hopes it is not too late for him.
She is sound asleep when he enters the place again, darkened and cool but he knows the way to her bedroom. He knows she isn't asleep even though her breathing is steady. She still doesn't sleep and he knows the exact remedy for that, his warm arms around her, shoulders caving in against her skin, breath soothing against her neck, across her cheek. And even though it's been 3 months since he's held her and a universe since she's know him, he still finds himself unable to stop watching her.
He looms over the bed, a phantom lover, a shadow man in her room. He rests his hat on the night stand near her lamp and places the briefcase at his feet. The bed does not dip when he puts his weight on it and he rolls over to snuggle up behind her, his suit clad arms draping over her body, hands running over her arms to soothe her- soothe him. Three months this had been his nightly ritual, three months he spends watching her try to sleep, watching her turn uncomfortably in his ghostly grasp, unable to soothe her.
He was helpless.
He pressed a kiss to her neck, trying to soothe her as she lay awake. He can see her eyes, open and wide in the reflection of glass as he lay with her. The lights of The Bridge twinkle outside her window and he knows she's watching it. Part of him wants to pick her brain, but he's unsure how to do that just yet, and if he were, who would he be greeted with? He lays back, close to her body, cradling her in his grasp as he feels his face grow moist. It's not the first time he's cried with her in his grasp. It's painful and perfect and brilliant, so much so that he hurts all over. He presses his forehead against her back, between her shoulders and lets out just a slightly strangled sob. She's almost asleep in his false grasp and he won't sleep again.
"I miss you so much Liv," he whispers against her shoulders. It's not the first time he's whispered to her, into her skin and it's not the first time he's cried against her.
Sometimes he'll sit on the sink in the bathroom while she showers behind the curtain and he'll hold a conversation with himself, murmur moments he's seen into the air. Sometimes he'll tell her how she died in the future he saw, other moments include his tribe of Bishops and her smile. Then there are the moments where she is alone and he can't save her and how much he misses her.
Other times are like tonight, watching her cook or watching her watch T.V. He'll watch her drink after a long day, wishing that those boot clad feet were his to rub, that those golden silky strands were his brush, to braid, to soothe away with his fingers. He'll want to carry her to bed when she falls asleep on the couch or push her eyelids down when she looks like she about ready to drop over her files. What he used to do, he can't anymore. She hasn't noticed and she won't noticed. It's the order of the universe. He does not exist.
So thats why it surprises him when he hears her low hum in the back of her throat. She shifts in her halfway state to dream land, almost as if she were nuzzling up into his arms.
"I miss you too," she murmurs into the air so quietly he isn't sure she had said it. "I love you."
"I love you too Liv."
soooo, how was it? :) why can she only remember him briefly? does she remember him or is she sleep talking? reviews, theories, answers to those questions and criticism are all welcome! love you guys :)