Lyrics: Razorlight, Wire to Wire

What is love but the strangest of feelings?
A sin you swallow for the rest of your life?

I've never loved anyone. I've never fallen in love with anyone. Does that sound sad? Pitiful? As if I'm missing something? It isn't really. How could you miss something you've never experienced before? And why would I miss such a thing, such an emotion that can cause so much trouble, so much pain, and so much hatred. Why would I miss the feeling of needing someone else, of being jealous and envious, of being dependent on another human being, not for my body's but my mind's sake? That's illogical.

You've been looking for someone to believe in
To love you, until your eyes run dry

She cries a lot. I can't count how many times I've seen her cry since the first time I met her at a funeral. Not the funeral, but one among numerous. And yet, although she'd seen so many dead, so many people dying already, just like me, she didn't seem to get used to it. Must be painful. So, regardless of her fighting strength and her caring, lovely attitude, she still often cries. Usually, this girl doesn't want others to see, doesn't want others to know that she feels weak for not having been able to protect and safe every last one around her. But I know. Even if the others are lulled by her smiles, her laughter, her seeming natural and alright – my eye detects the faint traices of tears on her cheeks, the fading red in the corners of her eyes. Sometimes, when she's close to me, I can even smell the dried tears.

She lives by disillusuion's glow

I guess, by now, she knows the ugly truth of this world. And that there are countless different truths and every living person has their own and clashes it against the strangers's. Yet, she doesn't seem to like the thought of acknowledging that because she still looks out for the one thing I can't but detest. Love. How unnecessary. How false. How illusional. You don't need love to care for a person, you don't need love to father children, you neither need love for caresses nor sex. You don't need such an emotion in order to enjoy yourself. So why bother? It only comes with the disadvantages of being in need of another person, of being vulnerable to your foes, of wasting your time by thinking unnecessary thoughts and being confused by your hormones. Pretty pathetic, isn't it.

We go where the wild blood flows

I always know when she cried. By now, I can sense it without having to be close to her to notice the, at least for me and Bookman, and maybe even for her brother, obvious signs. But sometimes, I can taste it, too.

She breathes out, her dark eyes closed, as my lips touch her skin ever so lightly. Her cheeks are a tad salty. Despite my efforts, I can't stop my heart from beating just a little faster, can't stop my blood from pumping faster through my veins, even if it's really only a little. She runs her delicate hands over my bare arm, light as a feather over my neck and then up my face. Goosebumps follow her traices, although it's not cold in here. Slowly, without opening her eyes, she leans back against the pillows of her bed, still holding my face in her hands, so I follow carefully. Pressed against each other, I can feel her body's warmth even through our layers of clothes. It's a wonderful, somehow comforting warmth, though I wouldn't know why I needed any comfort anyway. Nevertheless, it makes me feel safe in a way I can't remember I've ever felt before, because I have never actually been safe my whole life. It was always a question of surviving, no matter where Jiji and I went, it was always us against whoever tried to take our lives or anything else from us. Even worse before I met Jiji and became his apprentice. Even more so, since we joined the Black Order and had to take a side in this war in order to be able to do our job.
So I can't understand where this feeling of being safe originates.

On our bodies we share the same scar

Her dark eyes look at me through black eyelashes, her cheeks are rosy, her lips fuller than usually and just as soft. Her fingers caress the right side of my face, stroke gently around the eye-patch whilst her other hand runs through my red hair which, without the bandana I wear most of the time, falls tousled down to my cheeks. With every fallen layer no longer keeping us distant, her warmth fondles my skin more. My presumption proves true; I learn that her slender body bears many scars, some of which are more obvious than others. She's managed to avoid serious slashes until now, though. And I'm somewhat relieved since I can tell by the place and depth of a scar how much it must have hurt. No point in not wanting her to be in pain because she's an Exorcist, just like me for the moment, and Exorcists fight in a war and get beaten up, bruised, slashed, mutilated and scarred. As long as they do survive, of course.
I didn't notice that I closed my left green eye but amidst the few flickering candles and torch-light, it seems too difficult to open it again, so I pull her even tighter to my own scarred body and, burying my face into the soft nook above her collarbone, inhale her fragrance.

Love me, wherever you are

Skin against skin, we breathe in the engulfing silence whilst the candles burn down one after another and the darkness draws nearer around us. Her hands rest on my back, her fingers waver for a moment above my skin and then, tentatively, trace the reminders of previous fights carved into my skin and bones and memory. It doesn't hurt. Yet, I shudder involunatarily and writhe, suddenly feeling uneasy as dim flood lights pass by my mind. She hesitates, her breathing stops for a second before she strokes a wisp of hair out of my eyes and whispers.
'I'm sorry.'
You don't have to be.
You don't have to be.
I kiss her small breast, her collarbone, her neck and run my own hand over her forehead, temple and through her black hair. Our eyes meet, so I also carefully kiss her eyelids closed and concentrate on her heart beating against my torso and on the warmth she gives me. The comfort I don't comprehend but still appreciate. Have I really become such a hypocrite?

'Lavi.'
The name she calls me, with a voice so low I almost missed it, echoes faintly in my ears and for a second I wonder whom she spoke to. But that second passes, like all the endless before it did, as well, and I smile when I feel her lips on my forehead, on my nose, on my own mouth. After sharing our air again, breathing fieriness and ardour into each other, tasting each other, she calls me again, sounding a wee bit breathless.
'Lavi.'
'Hmm?'
She hesitates.
'… I think I love you.'

She lives by disillusion's glow
We go where our wild blood flows
On our bodies we share the same scar

No! You don't. You're fooled by your body, fooled by your great dream, fooled by your longing for something I could never truly give to anyone. You just mistook both our desire for the sign of an emotion you admire and I despise, an emotion you can't live without and I can't live with. So stop saying those things, I don't want to hear them. Because I know I shouldn't feel anything in response, and yet, I do. I'm disgusted by myself, by revealing to myself that in this case I'm a hypocrite, too. Just like so many others. Only facing this matter, I can't distance myself from some petty human.
Her gaze pierces through me and from her reaction I can tell that this isn't the face she wished for me to make. I know. That's the exact reason I'm making it. Her dark eyes widen, her hands on my shoulders clench slightly and I can see pain flooding her face. She swallows, her lips part but no sounds come out, so she bites on them and there's a hint of desperation creeping up on her.

You've been looking for someone you can trust
To love you, again and again

Lavi?, she seems to ask silently, just with her gaze.
You don't love me, I answer just as silently and straightly, blankly stare her down. And it's definitely not me you've been looking for. It's not me whom you wanted to give your heart to nor is it me who's able to give you the love and trust and safety you are craving for.

How do you love with a faith full of rust?
How do you turn what the savage take?

What if I'm just unable to feel love? That's the question hovering above all my thoughts, hovering saturnely over me whenever I'm faced with someone who expects me to return their meaningless 'love' or whatever they call their demands. It's suffocating. In the name of so-called love humans beat you bloody, tear your skin apart, tear your self apart and pant and laugh and snarl doing it. How could I ever believe in something like that.
'Lavi?'
You can't trust anyone.
And without trust, how could you possibly love someone? How could your unpredictable, yet to Jiji and me so predictable feelings gain the strength to evolve into love?
Sometimes, disappointment and experiencing cruelties is the only way for opening one's eyes to see and understand the ugliness of this world with all its walking and talking, beating and killing, raping and smugly laughing monsters called humans.
After being witness to any of that, anybody would shut down emotionally, wouldn't they? I'm not that exceptional, it's the only logic thing to do, isn't it? Everybody strives to protect their own skin. In general, humans are savages, abusing the ones smaller, weaker than themselves, not caring about any consequences, just bathing in the pain they inflict on others, in the agony, the screams, the pleas and tears. And the ground feels so cold and their skin is cold, though, nauseatingly hot and their voices rough and lewd and they are enjoying it.

How do you love in a house without feelings?
How do you turn what the savage take?

A wave of her calming fragrance washes over me as she impetuously pulls me close, our bodies even more firmly pressed against each other than before. Her arms are wrapped tigthly around me, it seems as if she wants to embrace me with her whole being, with everything she has to offer and even that wouldn't be enough for her.
'Lavi', she says, nearly whispers, but doesn't let go of me, doesn't move an inch, instead is keeping our warm skin together, keeping the distance away, keeping the growing darkness around us away. The last candle in her room flickers and dies down.
'Please, stop! Stop whatever you were doing just now', she beseeches me. 'I don't know what you were thinking about but it seemed to hurt so bad, you seemed so out of your mind that it frightened me! I've never seen you looking like that before.'
I don't know what to respond, yet, somehow, Lavi does. Returning the embrace, stroking her gently, he answers soothingly.
'Don't cry, you're imagining things.'
I hear her inhale deeply, can almost see her biting her lip for a second, can smell the salt. She caresses my neck, her lips brush over it, I can but close my left eye again.

I've been looking for someone to believe in
Love me, again and again

'I love you. Lavi, Bookman Junior.'
With a jolt, my arms push her back, it's a reaction so fast and instantaneous, I couldn't have prevented it even if I'd wanted. She's looking straight at me now, her gaze clear and a tad shimmery with last tears and unflinching, nonetheless.
'I heard you the first time...'
'You don't have to love me back, you know?'
That takes me by surprise. But I'm not naive enough to buy the bait, not even when it's coming from her. Or so I keep telling myself.

How do you love on a night without feelings?
She says love, I hear sound, I see fury

Her fingertips linger on my neck, stroke over my cheeks and through my red hair.
'We don't have to change anything', she says.
Your words change everything, my mind wants to tell her.
'I just wanted you to know.'
I didn't want to know.
'You are so precious and don't even acknowledge that yourself but keep putting yourself into unnecessary danger. But I'm telling you – you are precious to me and I wish to be there for you whenever you need someone. It's just an offer. Nothing more but also nothing less.'
I don't need anyone, I never have. That's how I survive, that's the easiest way for me to keep on going.
Her palm rests on my chest, right above my beating heart that so often I wish to be ripped out for good.
'Have you ever loved anyone? Lavi?'
No, I think. No, I want to tell her. Never. And I'm so afraid to start loving someone that I'd rather crush any attempt together with the person frightening and cornering me with their feelings.
But I can't crush you, I realise. Not anymore.

She says love's not a hostile condition
Love me, wherever you are

Her eyelashes partly hide her dark eyes now, as she lowers her glance. And against everything I've learned and internalised until today, against every hurting scar, against every painful, haunting memory, against every nightmare I've awoken from drenched in sweat – I cup her face between my hands, behold it on the spur of the moment, and kiss her, filled with emotions beyond my ken.

I don't care if this is love or not, these thoughts tangled with all kinds of well-grounded, reasonable worries and doubts rush through my head like a storm, but I'm in the eye of the storm and don't mind it. I don't care because all I've taken from being with you and sharing your warmth has been so good. And there is so little good and even less I can appreciate and understand, that I don't mind. I don't care what this is. Maybe I do love. Maybe it wasn't just you longing for someone holding you close, embracing you in the deepest way they can, but me, as well. Maybe I love you, too. How could I ever tell.

Love me, wherever you are
Love me, wherever you are
Love me, wherever you are
Wherever you are