Chapter 5: Heal

"But when worlds collide

And all that I have

Is all that I want

The words seem to flow

And the thoughts

They keep running.

And all that I have is yours

All that I am is yours."

-Mae

If you've been keeping up with me, if you've been listening to all that I've said ever since I died, then you'll have some form of understanding of the reason why I've been pacing around the empty Valmont residence for hours now. Rita had been surprised to realize that I'd moved out of that disgusting hell hole, and for good reason. I was Sebastian Valmont, I didn't go through all this just to live there.

Everything in my house was deathly silent, there were no servants, the furniture was covered with a layer of dust, and it smelled of old leather and wine. The only lights that were on were the ones in my room and in the library, where I'd spent the entire time trying to read so I could control the anxiety that was overcoming this still strange body. The ticking clock read past twelve, but she was still not here. Out of sentimentality, I visited her old room… The chamber of the most complicated woman to have ever lived, and the fact that it was now empty and there were no things in there that would have signified Kathryn made me sad. Calyx Damian's body was light enough to move around in, but there were times wherein I would miscalculate the number of steps. He was taller than me, the strides longer, and his arms decidedly more weak than mine had been. While I now had no trouble reaching for the topmost part of my cherished book collection, I amusingly found that my arms ached from clutching two or three hardbound first editions.

I was tired. I could tell that Calyx wasn't used to parties, but he was most definitely used to the alcohol. I longed to sleep, I wanted my wrist to heal because the feeling of my open skin freaked me out.

Where was she? I had been so assured that she would come. She did say my name, right? My gaze flickered disinterestedly over the opened books that had tried to get my attention and I was about to give up when I heard that voice again.

"Should I be frightened of you?" she stood almost hesitantly in front of me, still wearing that soft, green dress that brought out the flecks of gold in her eyes. "You know about my stepbrother, you live in his house, ask me to meet you in his room, and read all his favorite books."

I laughed gently, staring at her. In my mind, I was painting her with Cal's talent, taking photographs of her looking so uncharacteristically vulnerable with mine, and loving her with my two lives. I beckoned her to come closer, "You, frightened? You're not afraid of anything, Kathryn."

"Then who the fuck are you?"

"Calyx Damian, an artist."

She wasn't buying it, and neither was I.

"Who are you?"

I paused, finally saying the name we both wanted me to say.

"Sebastian Valmont."

It took two words to incite another shocked reaction from her. Once again, she looked like the Kathryn I knew, the same one capable of fucking you up thoroughly if you made so much as a wrong move. Her eyes narrowed in thin slits, her threatening glare a million sharp shiny knives stabbing me under the harshness of her anger. What could I possibly tell her as she stood shaking in front of me, completely losing the control she'd held as a weapon against me?

She looked torn between wanting to hurt me for mentioning the guilty secret that had been gnawing at her and turning to flee from this blond haired madman who might have somehow known about her stepbrother and wanted to screw with her head. I approached her quickly, grabbing her arm and forcing her to look at me.

"Leave me alone! Sebastian's dead!"

I wanted to scratch at this foreign body I'd inhabited, pull out the wrong shade of blond hair I had and claw out the unfamiliar eyes that couldn't stop watching my frightened stepsister backing away, her face drained of blood.

"It's me." I answered, hating how different my voice sounded. "It's Sebastian, Kathryn. Let me explain, I promise I won't hurt you."

She grabbed the marble sculpture and swung it at me, the outstretched hand of the frozen goddess Aphrodite bringing a blinding pain against my temple as I collapsed to the floor, clutching my bleeding head and yelling a string of profanities while she ran for the door.

"When I died, I came to your room! I saw you seated alone, you were staring out the window with a thoughtful stare in your eyes." I screamed out in one last attempt to get her to stop. She did, and she remained as still as that statue she'd used to hit me while she studied the bleeding man on the floor. I took this as a sign to continue, "Ronald came in and he told you, Kathryn. He told you what had happened to me and you took it so well. There wasn't a trace of sadness in your eyes and you just asked him to leave. I hated you for that, and when I was about to leave, you said 'Damn you, Sebastian.' and you fell apart. You cried and you hurt yourself and everything in sight."

"Stop it." she answered hoarsely. "You can't be him. My stepbrother's gone."

"You'd have nightmares of yellow cars and blond hair stained with blood, and I'd come and lie down beside you to tell you stories. Sometimes you fall asleep and you dream of better times, times I put in to make you happy even for a couple of minutes."

"I'm going insane, aren't I?" she demanded, "I'm hallucinating. I'm not really here, this isn't my old house, this isn't-you're not—"

I stood up shakily, noticing that the stitches from my wrist had loosened and the bandage now stained. Wincing at the sight of blood flowing once again from my body, will it ever stop coming out? I placed my hand on my bleeding head, trying as best I could to appear calm before her. "I'll show you."

She was slowly letting herself believe, letting herself indulge this madness that might bring the broken legacy of Sebastian Valmont and Kathryn Merteuil intact after years of being extinct. The statue dropped to the floor with a loud clatter and I wiped my hand to my stained shirt, squinting to keep my eye from seeing liquid red. Will the blood flow out of my body continuously? When she allowed me to come closer, I ran a finger down her shoulder and she relaxed, tilting her head as I kissed her. She was warm and familiar, an old home, if not the only one, I'd greatly missed. The contact increased in its ferocity, her mouth on mine both searching and yearning, and it was when I chose a memory of us, my favorite one at best. I spoke of having the ability to make her see past experiences in her dreams, and while our bodies chafed against each other's, I smiled through the kiss, my eyes closed and my experienced soul channeling every bit of knowledge I had. There was a sudden gust of wind, and in Kathryn's mind, she felt as though she was slipping into an empty black abyss of voices and spinning visuals.

My heart pounded as it always had whenever I fed a memory to her, but when my lips broke from hers; the look on her face was worth it.

We were fifteen again, seated inside my car. It was when she first kissed me. When she felt me leave, her dark green eyes slowly fluttered open and she found herself looking at a dark blond curly haired boy with piercing blue eyes and a swollen red mouth. She gasped and I merely grinned, shrugging nonchalantly.

"You think I look better like this?" I remarked casually, quite enjoying the sight of the impassive Kathryn Merteuil utterly shocked.

She wordlessly grabbed the collar of my dark suit, its tie loosened earlier and pulled me again, not even asking how the fuck I could do that. I wrapped my arms around her small waist, her younger version not at all surpassing the beauty she would grow deeper into over the years. We were making out inside, a mixture of relief and inward bliss and years and years of pent up guilt and regret and every emotion in between. It was then at I knew, as I had known so many times in different instances that I love this girl, this fierce vixen of soft hair and sad eyes, the most mischievous fifteen year old to ever kiss me with her champagne flavored lips…

"It's very unbecoming of a lady to be so forward." I commented while her small hands fumbled to get my coat off.

"Fuck you, Sebastian."

I nibbled on her neck, gently biting teasingly. In the small confinement of the Porsche, her lithe body had somehow managed to entwine itself with mine and I realized that this was the first time we'd ever breached that line of teasing. So this was what I'd missed. I had missed out on a lot, to say the least.

"Say it again."

"Say what?" she responded breathlessly while I devoured her in a fifteen year old body that bore the immense lust and passion of an older man.

"My name. I've missed hearing it."

"Sebastian, Sebastian…" she moaned when I lifted her dress up, my hands grazing her inner thigh. I had to control myself, to pace this intense state of hunger and love for Kathryn. I closed my eyes and brought us to another place, a bittersweet memory that still served as a sore spot for the two of us.

We were at our parents' wedding.

She looked momentarily disoriented before she realized where we were. She blinked slowly, looking bewildered at the reason why I would bring her here, of all places.

"Why the fuck did you bring me here?" her tone was sharp and angry, "I don't like this, Sebastian."

I didn't speak, keeping my attention on our parents who were oblivious.

"Do you, Edward Valmont, take Tiffany Merteuil to be your lawfully wedded wife…?"

Finally, I smiled at her, my eyes roguish.

"I love you, you awful bitch."

I don't know whether to laugh or cry or curse happily at the shock in her gaze while she looked around and realized that nobody else heard me talk. It was a memory, and we could do what we wanted to without being ridiculed or mocked or looked down at. Nothing could hurt us then, and nothing ever would now…

Or so I thought at that point.

I crossed the threshold of the Merteuil-Valmont union and used my cold hands to run through her dark hair, frowning when I saw two drops travel her porcelain skinned cheeks.

"Are you crying on me, Ms. Merteuil?"

"You wish."

How glad I was to be inside my original self, because everything else seemed to fit better with Kathryn when I was the blue eyed arrogant asshole she loved and hated and the same time. I opened her mouth with mine, our tongues pink and touching, her hands wandering to the growing need in my pants.

It was scandalous, to say the least. The stepsiblings mauling each other in front of everyone at their parents' wedding. But this was merely an illusion, a form of alternate reality wherein we were both who we really wanted to be and did what we both wanted to do. I took her hand and led her inside to my room, our faces warm and flushed. As I closed the door, I felt her touch my face, cupping my cheeks and bringing her face closer to mine so she could look at me intently, this was a dream she'd wanted to have, but I had these dreams. I've had them even before I died and she just didn't know it.

"I want to see you before you left." She said quietly, and I nodded in understanding. As I kissed her eyelids close, I brought her to how we were, the arrogant, hardheaded pair that everybody secretly loved and hated. It was after I broke up with Annette, and I angrily wiped the tears from my eyes. Her dark green eyes were filled with a profound poignancy and I felt her quiver in my arms.

"I think that's the saddest thing I've ever heard." She whispered, echoing the same hurtful thing she'd said to push me away. Her fingers ran through the curly tufts of dark blond hair, our expressions intent and stripped of arrogance.

"I think you're the saddest girl I've ever seen." I told her quietly, letting her gaze memorize the features of my face. In her dreams I was always bloody and disfigured except for the ones I put in, but even then, her nightmares would find their way back and what was happy would turn black, blue and red.

She had never cried since the day I died, preferring to keep it inside. As the years progressed, the tears unshed hardened and became sharper until she was slowly being impaled within herself and she didn't know what else to do except try to numb the pain through drugs and the occasional sex with her husband. There were instances of a few drops, but Kathryn had never let everything out. She couldn't. It wasn't in her nature as it had never been in mine.

Her hands still continued to touch my skin, my lips, my eyes… The feeling was arousing me more than any kind of sexual innuendo ever could, and it seemed as though it was all she wanted to do. Strangely enough, I was okay with it. I continued holding her while she touched me, marveling at how I alive and real I felt. My fingers caressed her back before resting on her lower back. It was one of my favorite parts of her body; it had a slight curve that exactly fit my torso whenever she'd try to tease by lying on top with her back against me.

"Are you done with my face now?" I tried to break the tension, afraid that she'd cry and I didn't want to make her cry. She was done with the pain.

A small smile brightened her beautiful face and I found myself nearly delirious when she kissed me again.

God, I'm sorry, Sebastian. I didn't… I never wanted… I need you.

Stunned, I instinctively pushed her away. Were those her thoughts? The things she never could say? She stood there, slightly flushed, mouth open and now tinged a dark pink. When I brought her to me again, she didn't feel as surprised as I would have pegged her to be when I'd pulled back.

I killed you… I'm sorry… I'm so fucking sorry…

There it was again. Her voice, fragile and scared, speaking within the depths of her tortured being…

You're back… I can't… I'll never do it again, I promise… Do it gently… But I want you so badly… I've missed you… Make love to me… We're beyond games… That feels so good…

Perhaps I should have told her that there were times when I could hear her speak to me even though she never said anything, but I was afraid that she'd lie even within herself, and it scared me. If she buried the truth more and more, she might lose the vestiges of honesty she had left. It was an occurrence so bad I wish it to no one… For what will we become if we lie even to ourselves? I gently unzipped her dress and the soft green material fell to the floor silently, like a dream dissolving as a person wakes up. Kathryn is poetry. Her body a white canvas waiting to be touched and loved, her kiss death and life, heaven, hell, and that place in between, the softness of her skin comparable to the gentle crashing of the waves as the sun set upon an empty beach… Soothing to the senses… She was the monster, the instigator of my death and the same reason why I fought so hard to live again, she is innocence lost but never ever losing her beauty in the midst of it all. My mouth found her neck and she gasped, tearing my shirt open and laughing as the buttons hit the floor in small clatters.

Don't leave, Sebastian. Don't leave again.

We made our way to the bed, our bodies never losing contact. We were hungry, this eternally beautiful woman and I… Hungry with lust and passion, hungry for a void to be filled, hungry for the power we'd both lost, for the pedestal we both fell from, for each other, for a smirk, a touch, an accidental graze of our skins that incited visions of bedrooms and entangled beautiful bodies lost in each other, something, anything that meant we could take back what had been stolen from us.

I'm sorry… God, I'm so sorry…

I'm sorry, too. For the journal, for hurting you like that. We hurt each other because we loved each other too much; I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm through with hurting you just as you're going to be through with feeling guilty about what happened.

She twisted and grabbed pieces of skin on my back, her fingernails leaving impressions and the sensation of finally being inside of her leaving a permanent glorious scar of bittersweet proportions to my heart.

It was as if we had both been waiting for this moment to come.

Kathryn Merteuil is a sad song heard only by the mournful. Her gasps and groans turning into the most exquisite of music I had ever heard, and as she said my name like a mantra to keep this dream from ending, I felt more and more like myself. I was not Calyx Damian in our illusion, I was Sebastian Valmont, blue eyed, red mouthed, curly haired. She met me halfway, grinding her hips and causing me to go deeper and deeper until I felt as though I would die another death if I kissed her one more time. Kathryn sucked on my mouth lightly, her hold loosening and grasping the back of my neck while another moan escaped my throat. It was truly the most erotic and fulfilling experience I'd ever had, and that's saying a lot.

When our lips parted for the briefest second, it stayed hovered above each other, mere millimeters apart as though we were both afraid to stay away for too long. I felt her breathe against me, her forehead perspiring slightly and her eyes looking at me. I stopped my ministrations for a moment and stayed inside of her while using the other hand to trace circles on her collar bone, taking advantage of the fact that my eyes were familiar to her by gazing back at her with all the emotions I dared to feel in front of the ice princess herself.

"I missed you everyday I was gone." I finally said, my tongue moving in my mouth slowly while I formed the words.

She was crying again, and I frowned at this. "Don't do that." I kissed her again and we kissed and touched and stared and made love until we could do nothing more than to try to not fall asleep because somehow she knew that when she woke up, I would not possess the blue eyes anymore. Afterwards, she placed her chin on my chest and pinched me when she noticed I was falling asleep.

"Ow!" I complained, wincing at her small fingers. "That hurt."

"Don't fucking sleep!"

I looked downwards, meeting her gaze and found her looking so serious. "We can always go back here, Kathryn." Using my hand, I touched her beautiful face and tried to get her to smile. "Now I know how much you reallywanted me."

"Just… stay awake for a few more hours… Or at least wait for me to fall asleep first."

"Why?" I asked curiously.

"Because I don't like seeing you with your eyes closed." She answered and I wrapped my arms around her tighter and tighter so that she would feel safe and I remember thinking that if I hold on longer, maybe the guilt would leave her body. She cuddled against me, usually deploring too much affection but finding that when it came to me, there were no rules to be followed. Her face felt warm against my neck and she pressed her mouth on it before finally letting herself rest quietly with the help of sleep.

---

It started with a flash. A word. A smile. Then that feeling that grew and grew until I woke up with a nervous palpitation in my heart that only seemed to grow more and more powerful at each second.

"No, please, don't! Don't, Uncle John! Don't!"

I closed my eyes tightly and saw a little girl with brown hair trying to wriggle out of a large man's grasp, her pretty dress now in tatters and her face terrified. Oh, God, no. Not this, I didn't want to see this. The pain was blinding now, and I stumbled out of the bed and out of the safety of Kathryn, half dragging myself to her room and hoping that the familiar blue walls would somehow relieve me of this thing… The consequence. I managed to lock the door before all the anger she felt tortured me, and I heard screams and shouts until I covered my ears and curled my body to try to make myself smaller.

Her baby mouth wide open, another man's tongue inside of her… Exploring her when she was kicking and unwilling. There were bruises and burns on her little body, the skin welted red with hidden bruises from a love gone twisted. He was too big for her, and she was too weak for him at that point.

More yelling until his large hands covered half of her face and her screams grew muffled. There was a kick, and a thrust and a pool of blood came out of her, and she was angry… She was disgusted with herself…

What kind of torture was it to close your eyes to this scene and find that either way, you watch it…? Feel her helplessness… Her rage… Her tears on your cheeks as though you were crying for her.

"Don't… Don't…"

The violation of her innocence, her purity gone at the age of nine. The numbness and the pain, it intensified as she grew before my vision. Kathryn had kept too much of it inside and now I was feeling what she'd felt, like a beast inside her that had been unleashed and was now eating me alive with its evil and malice… Dying thousands of deaths… That's what it felt like? No, not this one. This one was more than thousands. This one was a preview of hell. This one was clawing at me, such sharp nails of rage and pain I felt my skin come off and my body bleeds and breaks into millions of pieces. I felt the pain I did when I died, only stronger, filled with untold emotions. I gritted my teeth and almost ground them to dust, my mouth was bleeding from accidentally biting my tongue. I cried tears I've never cried before when I felt everything she'd felt, accumulated through the years and attacking me with such ferocity that I almost forgot why I was even going through this in the first place. I wanted to die. I wanted to bang my head on the drawers to keep from watching her secretly get abused and raped, I pleaded for mercy, I pleaded to just be back in that place where I was before. It was unbearable, and I was supposed to go through this every night? I forgot what had happened with me and Kathryn as I felt like I was being submerged in acid, the gore making me want to heave and throw up this life I had been given. I suddenly understood why my mother had warned me against it, and as I lay there pathetically, my hands to my ears and wishing I had another pair to cover my eyes, I felt as though the happiness was being drained out of me. This went on for what seemed like eternity and I felt the blood trail from my tattered tongue, the floor filled with scratches from my desperation. I didn't want to see anymore, I didn't want to know everything about Kathryn. It was too hard, too difficult to love her and know her fully.

I wanted to pull of the bandage and reach into the wound on my wrist and just pull and tear and die.

Just like that, it was gone, and I was okay again. I still have nightmares of that, and I probably will from now on. Still, when I ran my fingers over the scratches, the only remnant of that awful circumstance for now, I felt myself entertain the thought of leaving. This was too much, too much pain, too much information, too much history…

Don't leave, Sebastian.

But before I could take something sharp to cut myself with, I swallowed thickly and crawled back to my room, where I found her asleep with the smallest trace of a smile on her face.

Kathryn had never slept like that before.

Funny how it took something as trivial as that for me to stand up shakily and come back to her. While she mumbled something in her sleep, she threw and arm around me and I closed my eyes, our fingers intertwining. I hoped she would keep her eyes closed…

I brought her back to that dream and it didn't matter if she was still asleep. I wanted our fingers to fit together seamlessly, I wanted to stay awake for as long as humanly possible and just stay there and hold off living as the painter. I wanted to lose myself in her and feel her hands on my skin and her mouth on mine and her gaze connecting with a man of blue eyes. I want to feel her cure me of these wicked thoughts of a hasty departure and for the ideas of suicide to disappear. The ache was too much… I felt so tired… But maybe if I do this, we will both heal. Me and her. We were the only ones who can hurt and mend each other.

A/N: This is my second favorite chapter. The first one's still in AIE. ;-) I honestly don't know what the fuck I'm doing with this but I was trying to update BGA and I couldn't. Besides, it's fun to see them so sad and beautiful like that. Fucking hiatus. I can't rest like this. My back hurts! (poor yx. Lol)

Katie: Here you go, at your request. Now can I rest? Lol (hey I'm a poet and I didn't even know it.) Yes, I'm interested in your insane thoughts so email me. Hahaha

Countdown to the next Bella Gerant Alii update (things are getting exciting aren't they?): About a week or so.