Title: Untitled
Notes: Recently reading Drawing Blood reminds me of how dearly I
adore Ghost and Steve, so here's a little random Ghost POV musing fic for my own
Steve, who I can assure you here and now means more to me than I could ever
dream of putting into words. She is my everything, and she deserves each and
every word I write.
Warnings: Possible Lost Souls spoiler indications.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, for the life of me and all the money I could
ever own, I don't own Ghost or Steve. They belong to Poppy Z. Brite, the lucky,
talented woman.
I'm not sure what really brought the two of us into each other's
company. I'm content without knowing. I'm content just knowing that we
are in each other's company now, in whatever way it may be. Travelling,
playing, drinking, sleeping, eating, joking, breathing. It doesn't
really matter, as long as we're near each other.
I'm sure some people don't understand why I stay around someone with
such a short temper, little patience, sharp-tongued and sometimes
outright rude and a possible jerk. But not to me. Never to me. Angry,
possibly. Bitchy, yes. Driven crazy by my very being, almost certainly.
But to me, I can't see those negative things as such, I never receive
the full amount of those kinds of feelings, those sharp comments and
never on the brunt of that anger. So perhaps I'm biased, but that is
simply what I come to know and understand. It's all I know.
Maybe, just once or twice, I've caught a look like he was going to slap
me. Through annoyance, memories, saying something unnaturally stupid.
You can see it in their eyes, in the way the muscles under the skin
twitch and slap out at something. But he never did. Not once. I hate to
say, I know he's hit her. But never me. Perhaps I feel more pride than
I should at knowing that, especially after what she meant to him, how
he couldn't get over her, how he longed for her, how I could never be
her or replace her in his mind. But despite that, he never struck me as
he might have done to her. I think what he had with her isn't like what
we have. It isn't as deep, it didn't sew their very souls together, it
didn't bind them to one another.
Not like us.
I can live with being mocked. "You damned hippy" or "Next time you
space out, you'll wake up in orbit" or the casual headlock, hair ruffle
and "Moron." Because it makes something inside me jump, squirm happily
and ooze warmth. I doubt he ever called her a stupid spaced out hippy
while laying in afterglow. Of course now, he never will either. I can
never tell if he got over her or not, if her death was some kind of
final closure to him. I can't do anything to figure him out in that
way, I can only be there. I can only put a hand over his when they're
clenched so tightly his knuckles go white and they shake. I can't do
anything but hold him when he jerks awake from the dreams he has, like
he does for me each and every time.
I wonder if he held her when she woke crying from nightmares like he
does me. Of course it's selfish and cruel to compare us to each other
in reference to what he did and didn't do, but Gods help me if I can't
help it.
I wonder if when she woke up in his arms he gave her the smile I've
seen him use, or drift out of dreams to the sound of casual
string-playing at the side of the room, or if he ever woke her himself
with a short "Get your scrawny ass outta bed."
I don't think I'll never know. I can't bring myself to ask him any of
this either. It's better this way, just us two. Me and him, just
travelling, playing, slumping against each other in a giggling, drunken
mass of arms and legs. If I wasn't so selfish, I would have stopped him
from drowning his sorrows in me with those intoxicated, messy kisses.
I wonder if she loved him as I do. I wonder if he knows that I'm
selfish for his time, his attention. I wonder if he knows I love him
like I do.
Stupidly, I sometimes wonder if he loves me too.