Gone
© 2004 Black Tangled Heart
Disclaimer: Moulin Rouge belongs to the amazing. Baz Luhrmann. The song used – "Dawn" - is property of Stabbing Westward.
Dedication: For Finding Beauty, for giving me the wonderful song lyrics and her wonderful friendship.
Note: This is the second time I have written this pairing and both times, the stories have centred around Stabbing Westward songs. Hm. I've also realized how much this story has come to mirror something that I have gone through. We write what we know, I suppose.
--
Funeral but nobody's died
Dressed in black and black inside
In the morning you'll be gone
The stranger that I'll never know
She sang her silent elegy as she danced; sang to her soul that withered. Their dance was not as it had been. She could see it in his eyes. Black and smouldering like the coals he'd once walked on. Their dance had now silently broken like the glass in his heels after the sound of its shattering had died. She stretched a smooth hand toward him, pressed a palm over his beating heart.
She would have to leave him. Leave the sound and the silence. Leave the movement, the stillness, the pauses between heartbeats, the slivers of breath inhaled. She loved him too much, so much it hurt. Ripped her insides to ribbons. She could not swallow love; it lay thick in her throat. Unchanging, unbreakable. Too much.
Her eyes didn't leave his. She could not form words with the polished mouth he had kissed so many times, but her eyes had always spoken so clearly to him. His arm encircled her waist, and when he pressed her against him, a flash of regret pressed her heart.
It was gone in a moment.
She would be in time.
Their shoes seemed noiseless on the floor, bodies moving in an unspoken ritual of parting. Sorrow in the grip of his hands, longing with the release of his breath. Promises cascading into nothingness, like the swiftness of her hair down her graceful back. They seemed weightless, spectral. She was smoke, glittering with sparks. He was the fire from which she emerged, thrown to the whim of wind to fade with a sigh, a brief smear across the moon.
He held her tighter; their movements quickened. She melted against him with fluid grace, like white candle wax beneath fire's kiss. He traced her shoulders, down the thread of her spine, the blades of her hips, the smooth thigh. Fingertips memorizing every curve. To hold her every moment he could, savour the last touches, tattoo them inside his flesh.
She closed her eyes, tilted her head, gently exposing her throat. The pressure of his lips upon her pulse sent the dance into a whirlwind, and for a moment she was solid, whole, hallowed in his arms. Love in his arms. Her spine curving, strong legs in a blur of motion. Hair in a stream of silk. Pale face brightened by limelight and passion both. She was his; love in his arms.
Love that consumed. Unchanging, unbreakable. Too much.
And so it was that their dance left the floor. She knew soon that she would leave his arms. Every dance must someday end; she knew that two would before dawn broke. For now, she was silent. Hallowed. Love in his arms, for their final moments. She tattooed them upon her heart.
They moved from the spotlight and into the shadow, never once breaking their cadence. He danced her to the gilded doors of the Moulin Rouge and out into a summer rain. The moon was huge and dirty in the sky like a tarnished coin. The cobblestones were slick beneath their feet, but neither fell. Rainwater streamed down her perfect face, hiding the tears that had slowly begun to fall. He searched her eyes without a sound and when he kissed her, he knew that rainwater was not only what lingered on her mouth. She gently pressed her forehead against his shoulder; he tangled his hand into her saturated hair.
"I love you."
"I love you."
--
They were frozen through when they finally danced their way into bed. Diamond tears caught in her lashes and her hair soaked his tattered pillows. Her kisses were cold, but she kissed him as hard as she could. She knew now that every rain would bring back the memory of him. Every moonlight-drenched night would be sleepless. She could not say she loved another because she would always love him. She would always wait for the forthcoming pain to heal, even if it never would.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on the moment, wanting to remember every touch. The roughness of his fingers peeling back her wet dress, tracing her fine collarbones. The words of Spanish in her ear; the weariness of his tone. How when she was naked it was he who shivered in her arms.
She undressed him slowly, kissing skin as it bared itself to her touch. His eyes were black and smouldering; she brushed her lips across each lid. Down his bronze cheeks like trails of tears. Across his throat, his shoulders. She kissed his chest, and spared a moment to look up into his face. He smiled faintly for a moment: the first true smile she had ever seen on his face. She laughed softly, kissed him softer, closed her eyes.
His remaining clothes joined hers in a sodden pile near the bed. Their unspoken ritual of parting recommenced, this time with dank cotton sheets and chilled skin. Her eyes gleamed with silver tears in the dark as they melted together. The sheets crinkled as she wrapped her legs around him; she exposed her throat once more and his mouth found the smooth slope. The gentle movement of their bodies seemed made her almost forget her intentions for later hours.
Almost.
The sound of his native language filled her ears. Spanish rolled off his tongue, intoxicating her. Apace with their motion were words of love. Pure love. Condemned love. She couldn't understand his words, but knew their meaning.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
She kissed him as hard as she could.
"I love you."
--
Outside their window glowered the huge, dirty moon. When they shuddered and sighed, their ritual of parting slowed, stilled. He slept deeply beside her. She lay curled on her side, shivering. She was in love, she knew.
Love that consumed. Unchanging, unbreakable. Too much.
She rose from the bed like a pale wraith and dressed herself with shaking hands. Rainwater still clung to the folds and seams of her dress. She wrapped her arms around herself to savour the last traces of heat left from the lovemaking. She could not kiss him, touch him. Could not turn back, because she knew she would crawl into the bed beside him, sodden clothes and all. Endure love. Pure love. Condemned love.
Damned love.
She left the sound and the silence. Left the movement, the stillness, the pauses between heartbeats, the slivers of breath inhaled. The only one that knew her pain was the moon, huge and dirty in the sky like her broken dirty heart.