FIRE WATER
Disclaimer: Not mine, no matter how much I beg.
Notes: Infinite thanks to cuttingrmflr for the beta, you're a doll.
Normally he was a lager man; German and mid-priced, a nice frosty bottle on a hot day.
Sometimes scotch was his medicine - a couple of fingers with Jim or Doc Robbins. A mans drink, shared with men as they tried to scorch out the taste that tough cases left in the back of their throats.
The bottle he fingered now was not expensive; it burnt his throat and dimmed his vision.
Tonight he needed the strong stuff.
Zizhennia vodka – water of life.
Colourless, odourless, tasteless; it left no trace.
It was fitting.
His steps echoed in the now empty rooms of his townhouse. No matter their contents they would always be empty, always be lonely.
He raised a toast with solemn dignity and threw it back, letting the fire it set in his chest cleanse him.
The rug he lay in front of his fireplace that they had first made love on.
The bedding he first lay her down on.
The throw from his couch she used to wrap herself in.
A butterfly display she had once admired in an off-hand remark.
In some illogical emotional way they had become the pieces of his home that he associated most with her, had used shamelessly to feel close to her when she was gone.
And now they were all arranged as ceremoniously as a funeral pyre in the lot behind his house.
She would never use them again, never care for them again, had cast them – him – aside.
Their worth little, their value nil.
The flame alcohol burns is a pure vapour blue, strong and fierce and he watched with morbid attention as it cut through his possessions; warped wood, melted fabrics, cracked glass.
By the time the flame caught hold of his possessions proper it had sparked to a brilliant orange, too bright to look directly at; crackling and spitting with its own violent life and he thought of the ancient rituals that used fire to purify.
He thought of Prometheus, Icarus, and the Phoenix.
Swigging right from the bottle he watched the flames die and the ashes settle.
He raised his glass.
One for him, one for his dreams.