In the tender blue darkness he watched the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed beside him, asleep, in his bed. It was a surreal stretch of seconds for him, unsure of whether he could touch her, move closer, maybe even rest a hand on her shoulder. Gratifyingly the curtains in his room were thin and old – he suspected by a few holes and tears even moth-eaten – so he could see her still quite clearly, still count the frail little lines of pulled flesh on her lips, still make out the faint bruise on her bare upper arm, still notice the psycho-twitching of her facial muscles. He was getting cold, and so the argument to move closer was stronger, because now for some reason she was constantly warm.
He had forgotten that despite being thinner than ever, she was also wider than ever, and so her whole body, when turned on its side, crushed and sagged and swallowed the whole mattress – he had no room at all and so had slid in next to her, braced on the edge, clinging to the under sheet.
"Pris?" he hissed into her face.
She didn't wake.
"Oi, can you like – oi! Pris, wake up. Move!" He whispered, prodding her thigh with his three fingers.
She muttered, "What?"
"I need some room."
"It's called a floor," she said, suddenly very loud, and then her eyes popped open. She turned to him, "I didn't think we'd be sharin' a bed, y'know."
She smelt so nice, he found himself nervously wiggling his toes, accidently scraping at her skin, concentrating to stop. Her eyes looked huge at this angle, and full of water and movement, a heavenly kind of blue.
"I just – I thought it'd be nice."
"I bet you did, you fuckin' pervert."
"I wasn't gonna do anything!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she cackled, and then flicked him on the tip of his nose, her ragged fingernails scratching. "You know we can't have sex, right?"
He frantically wanted to pine at her why?! but instead reeled his head back and squished up his face, telling her harshly, "I don't wanna do that."
"Right, I'll just forget how desperate you were to sling it up me last time, baby-love," she sniggered, and then she shuffled up a little until she was pressed against the wall. "Just shut up and go to sleep, anyway."
"I wasn't desperate!" he said defensively, kicking her under the duvet and accidently yanking it up into his open mouth in the process. He spat it out and huffed, "I clearly wasn't that bothered."
Pris chortled, "Oh, Pris, mmm Pris, I want you, Pris, mmm!"
"I didn't actually say that."
"Words to the effect."
"Look, that was one time, and I regret it, alright? I do. I didn't – we were both just in a weird place," he spoke quickly, the incredible conflict between the head (of his dick, most likely) and the heart making him ache in a mysterious way, as if in remission of a sexual dream. He found himself biting in a disciplinary way at the gooey, knobbly flesh of his inner cheek, telling himself he deserved it.
"You're so bad at being a liar," she retorted.
"What makes you think I'm lying?" he demanded, and she smirked in that way of hers that was sweet as the sugar-coating on a street-bought pill.
"The fuckin' boner in your pants."
"I haven't got a boner," he insisted.
"Yes, you have."
"Look, it's a biological reaction. I'm near a female's arse, I can't help myself."
"Well, can you at least not jab me with it? Learn some fuckin' manners."
Murdoc sighed and rolled in the opposite direction, closing his eyes and trying to relish in the darkness, imagine something bland and cold, something so completely under-stimulating it bored him to sleep (not to tears, though he couldn't deny her rejection made him want to cry). He tried to picture something revolting to intensify the effect, and so he imagined the warm, sticky feathers of a squashed blackbird thrown to the side of the road by a van-driver, and he imagined the little trickle of organy pink through the split stomach, and he imagined the warped shape of its beak and the brownish maroon liquid getting hotter and hotter and steaming in its rich, irony scent, but it did nothing, because he could just hear her breathing. It sounded like moving wings. It bought things to life. He was sure of it.
"You know," he spoke softly now, because he was suddenly feeling completely enchanted, all of the dark, boozy blues coating the walls and their faces amorously, the sweat drying like jewels, pieces of silver, precious little stones on her throat, her lips pressed against the blackness, her hair splayed out over the pillow like the strong vines of a passion fruit plant growing up, up, from its root at her chest. "I'll never get what you meant when you said what you said."
"What, 'get your dick off me'? Is it that difficult?"
"No," he snapped, "I mean what you said before all this, the baby, everything."
"What did I say?"
"You said you could love me."
She was silent, perfectly still, although her inflated abdomen seemed to be blubbing crazily. When she was clearly too confused, or afraid, or annoyed to reply, he continued.
"Does that mean, you love me, but you won't say? Does it mean you want to but can't? Does it mean you do but don't want to?"
She did not speak, only exhaled carefully, shakily, and closed her eyes.
"I don't forget the frickin' stuff you say, it just sticks in my fuckin' head. And now what, you're telling me you've forgotten?"
"No, I didn't forget."
He looked up at the ceiling, and then shook his head, smiling bitterly. "Then you don't want to remember it, anyway. That's worse, you idiot."
"I just – this is more complicated than you're picturing."
"What is complicated about me liking you?" he growled, "I don't ask for much."
She snarled, "Look, I'm goin' to be the woman to make you an uncle. Not a father, Murdoc."
He could hardly stand to hear it, because even now Hannibal was still here, sucking her into the empty, limitless void between his arms. "I don't wanna be a father, but Hannibal won't bother us if we just get out of here. Why don't you just let us go? Why are you all, 'no we should stay'? What is there to stay for, another bloody eye burnt to shit? Another kid? A shot-gun wedding?"
"That isn't going to happen."
"You don't know that, he'll find us here, this is the first place he'll go! Are you stupid as you look?" he wailed, and then slapped his hands over his eyes, moaning.
"Can't we just sleep and talk about this later?" she insisted, and then patted him clumsily on his shoulder, which was bare, and so he mewed happily at the sensation of her skin, thick, leathery, warm. "Baby-love, we can't just run away. You ain't even sixteen, and you're saying you're gonna help me take care of a kid?"
"I'll do anything you want," he said, hating himself for saying it, but now gazing up into the angelic blue of her eyes he could not deny it any longer. "I'm so happy you're back," he whispered, and this made her eyes widen, and her lower lip trembled childishly, sexily. "Please don't go again."
"I didn't ever want to go, y'know, I like you as well. But, for God's sake, it isn't as easy as you think."
He hated that love made him act this way, like a kid denied a gobstopper at a sweet shop by their mother. He did not care about the risk of choking, the damage to his teeth, the metal fillings he'd need – it was sweet for now, and it could last a long while if he allowed it.
"It's as easy as we make it, if you'd just let me. I mean how do you even know if it's his? What about what happened with us?"
"I couldn't have got pregnant from that."
So cruel she was, to be so facetious about it, when for hours after his tongue and jaw had been aching and locking painfully into awkward positions after the raw effort he had given. He licked his tongue to wet his lips, and then smacked and puckered them.
"I know you're not saying that because you believe it, Murdoc," she grumbled, "don't play games with me."
"I just want you to – I mean why are you making out like it didn't even 'appen?"
"It shouldn't have."
"Oh, fuck off. Yes it should," he grinned widely, brightly so his teeth flashed in the night-colours. "I think we all know you were very pleased with yourself. And – ah – myself."
"I was trying to stop you."
"And another lie!" he exclaimed, laughing sarcastically, shaking his head.
"It's your fault that there's a stupid fuckin' baby, if you hadn't have done that and sent your brother crazy I'd be fuckin' fine and dandy and not fuckin' pregnant," she sneered, apparently absolutely seething, one fat vein began to rise from within her flesh, so full it seemed to wriggle. "I was just trying to – I felt sorry for you. I just want to show you that."
"I just wanted to show you that I loved you."
She inhaled drunkenly, staring at him, her eyes spinning about the room madly, moonlit, dazzled. She closed them slowly, her head sinking down against the pillow.
He placed his hand on top of hers under the duvet, and she twitched, but did not move otherwise. He continued, "And, that I do love you. I know I fucked it all up, but – please. I didn't mean any harm. I just – you mean so much to me."
"You're too young to understand all of that," she answered, cold.
"I'm too young to understand that?" he barked, outraged, and then after a few seconds of biting his tongue he scoffed, "You're too old and broke to fuckin' open your eyes and embrace the bloody thing, you shrivelled old fuckin' prune. If you don't want it, then why the fuck, why the motherfuckin' fuck are you even fuckin' here?"
"Just calm down."
"Oh, and now, what? Now this is you, little Miss Pris with her stupid hair and her stupid face and her stupid everythin' takin' the moral fuckin' highground on me? What, when she's the one who came here, who called up, who asked for this? You ungrateful cunt, you asked me!" he spat, and then numbly began digging her fingernails into her shoulders, grinding them, leaving red grooves.
"I just don't want to get you mixed up in this as well. You can't get out if you do," she said quietly, eyes closed, chin tucked beneath her raised arm. She allowed him to claw at her for a little longer, until he let go, and leaned back to look at her properly. He noticed a shimmery edge of her skin and realised it was tears. They were running from her eyes, over her arms, and were translucent, vaguely reflecting white, and so frail – the last few drops of her innocence.
"I do sometimes think the way you do," she admitted, snuffling. "I'm just so tired, Murdoc."
He answered by placing his arm over her in a curious act of protection and affection, which was not reciprocated, or practiced with any conviction. She scrubbed the wet trails off her arms and then sighed, hacking her snot back into her mouth, swallowing, and then tranquilising.
"I just get pissed off when you keep trying to push me away," he explained.
Then the compulsion hit her, and she looped her arm under his neck and around his shoulders, lifting him into her.
"Can we?" she asked.
He made a guttural noise of animal, innocent pleasure and then coiled himself around her, ran a sly, loving finger over her collarbone. He despised her for doing this, for making his anger incoherency, for filling him with such thick feelings his words became clotted in the dark, syrupy miasma of first love.
"You're such a bad influence on me," he told her.
"Oh, shut it, now," she chuckled, still half in tears, and Murdoc nuzzled his nose against her smooth, white neck, the jugular beating hard against him. Surprisingly, she allowed him to do it, her hand cupping the back of his head."I'm not going to use it against you."
"You never do anything in my best interest," he said.
"I'm cuddling you, aren't I? I know you like that."
"Maybe I'm just humouring you," he grinned.
He felt her smirking. "You ain't that funny, Murdoc."
A/N: Another chapter done! Yes, a bit of filler-ish stuff, but this is important for later.
When Hannibal returns. ;)
Thank you to the perfection that is: SuperGazellian, Guest and Paralytic Dreeams for their lovely reviews, and to all the favouriters and alerters – it means the world!
I hope you enjoy, please let me know what you think.