Author's Note: Just a drabble about the scene where Illsaide kisses Falan in Volume 10. This one's dedicated to a thousand winds, my favorite Vampire Game writer, reviewer and correspondent (and because she's got two of my works on her Favorites list, though I can't figure out why), because she's said there isn't enough IllsaidexFalan work out there. Myself, I prefer FalanxVord, so here we have both of them.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o We can love, but what we lose 0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
He wishes he hadn't kissed her.
Her face is the silly, stunned expression of a prankster's victim. He remembers a month ago, a lifetime ago, when he kissed her in this same place, in this same manner. How well he recalls the trembling that came over her body, the pining gleam that filmed over her eyes until they were fresh and faceted as polished emeralds. Though she cringed away from him then too, she moved closer even as she edged away, and every inch of her being shivered with wanting to go to him.
Now too she shakes, but covet is not the cause. He may have well as struck her, to see the numb betrayal that freezes her features into place. Wispy fingers (such delicate hands. They'd always seemed to him as though they were blown from glass, and might shatter at a brush of the wrong texture) flit over the seashell-curved lips that are still wet from his own. But the horror does not leave her eyes (was that a flicker of fear that roved across their depths just a moment ago? No. It must be shock. If he has become brother enough for this action to make her afraid of him…it must be shock.), and his forbidden-lover ensemble peels away within his mind, leaving him suddenly cast in the role of the villain.
He never asked for this.
"Illsaide!" It is a stuttering cry, wavering and weaving, wavering and becoming firm. Shock thinks to include curiosity, then knows better. But the diamond tip of the dagger, swift and sure as any he's come across on blood-scarred battlefields, is the kindness that is the cry's make-up. The kindness that assures she will forgive him. Forgive.
He doesn't want there to be anything in the action that needs forgiveness. And she is still looking up at him, looking up at him with equally unbearable measures of bewilderment and kindness, and he can't do this anymore.
"Falan? What's wrong?" Not him. Not now, now of all times…
But it is. It is. A drawl of movement, and suddenly he is beside her, great shambling body twisted to peer into her face with leering, beady eyes. Luggish hands hover in the air above her shoulders, just barely constrained from moving the final inch to take their ill-masked lechery. No. He is lying. He is always lying. The golden eyes swirl with the question of what he can do to aid her, what is it that troubles she. There is not even a slight touch to her shoulder, but there is a tenderness of not touching.
But worse, far worse is that she does not merely tolerate his presence, does not veil her lingering shock and send him away with a smile and a merciful laugh. Though she does not move, she is suddenly, just faintly tilted towards him, and she allows him to view her hurt. He knows she will not tell him what has passed between them, but the faint blink of doubt that comes before this knowledge is far more terrible than actual betrayal. The idea that she might.
Her gentle silver laughter follows him down the hallway, pittering around his ears like a curse.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o What is gone is gone 0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o