IV. Placebo – When it works…

Centuries ago when we were l'Cie on the run, Fang and I grew close pretty quickly. She had a different way of going about life: without fear, without anything standing in her way. She didn't sweat over small details the way I did. "What if" didn't seem like a phrase that existed to her. She never doubted herself. At least, it seemed like she didn't. I knew better than to put her up on a pedestal. Fang was just as human as I was, despite our l'Cie brands and the different ways we grew up. Every time I asked her about her fears, her regrets, or anything that made her feel vulnerable, she changed the subject. It made me keep a certain distance from her. I didn't want to talk as much because of how limited I felt around her.

Eventually, things changed between us. The less I was around, the more Fang tried to keep my attention. I didn't understand why. I knew if I asked her about it, she wouldn't give me a straight answer. That pissed me off even more. Not once did she stop me to ask what the problem was. She acted like my mood had nothing to do with her. It forced me to not take her seriously. I still cared about her as a friend. I went out of my way to cover her in battle. I thought about her all the time, no matter how angry I was. But her inattentiveness and refusal to talk about what mattered…it didn't sit well with me.

By the time we made it to Taejin's Tower, I'd shut everyone out completely—especially Fang. On our way up through the labyrinth made of jade stone, they all took turns asking me what was wrong. Snow first, then Hope, Sazh and Vanille. I ignored all of them. I was mad at myself for caring so much about someone who didn't care about the same things I did. It wasn't like me to want to know what made someone tick. There was something about Fang that made me want to dig deeper beneath her surface. I'd given up trying to figure out what it was.

I only wanted to have an open conversation with her, without the fear that she'd brush me off. Conversation already wasn't my strong suit. Having to deal with any kind of rejection made it worse.

About halfway up the tower, Fang wandered off on her own. Vanille asked me to go look for her, so I did. I heard Fang laughing before I found her. She was perched on top of a protruding stone above my head. I scowled up at her, folding my arms. This wasn't the time to be fooling around, and she knew it. Once again, she seemed amused by how annoyed I was.

"So, you came lookin' for me after all," she pointed out. "I was startin' to think you wouldn't bother! You've been pissed off at me for ages now. Thought you stopped carin' about me."

"Is this some kind of game?" I asked. "Did you and Vanille have a bet going to see if I would find you?"

Fang waved her hand. "Nah, nothin' like that," she claimed. "It's hard to get through to you sometimes. It's worse in front of the others. I want you to myself for a while. We can catch up with everyone else later—after we talk."

I felt my scowl soften. "You wanna talk here? Now?"

"Not here, but yeah, I do want us to chat," replied Fang. "First, I gotta jump down. Catch me."

Fang didn't wait for me to hold out my arms. She jumped right away. I caught her as best as I could. She hooked her arms around my neck, keeping her eyes to the elevator nearby. I went inside with her. Fang used her leg to push the lever. Wind chimes sounded as the machine took us down to the ground floor. Fang kept her eyes on mine. I stared at her, confused. She'd spent all this time ignoring how mad I was, and now she wanted to talk alone?

After the elevator ride, she had me carry her back outside to the arid valley between Taejin's Tower and Sulyya Springs. I sat down with her near the edge of a cliff. We'd taken care of all the monsters in the area earlier. The sunset warmed my face as I waited for Fang to say something—anything. Even if she didn't want to talk about what was on my mind, I was glad to have this moment. This moment where I remembered how much she affected me. I felt nerves settling in my stomach as I wondered what she had to say. No matter how much she drove me up a wall, I knew she had this power over me. With but one summon from her, I'd find her again, hoping that she'd assuage me with her presence alone.

"Light," she said at last. "You've been real short with me these days. I've no idea why. You gotta understand that it ain't easy to approach you, let alone for somethin' like this. I don't know you as well as I pretend to. I wanna know what's wrong."

"I don't understand why you care now," I told her. "This has gone on for weeks."

"I've always cared. I cared from the second you started shuttin' me out. Stupid me thought you were just in a mood and it'd pass soon enough. It's still here. It ain't goin' nowhere until we talk."

I couldn't look away from Fang while she was in my arms. I wanted to. "We aren't interested in the same things," I explained. "You want to keep our conversations at a certain level. As long as it has nothing to do with you personally, you'll talk about anything under the sun. If I ask you about the nightmares you have, or why it is you don't trust anyone other than Vanille and me, you put up a stone wall. Meanwhile, you get annoyed if I don't tell you why I wanted a melon for breakfast. It isn't fair."

Fang sighed in defeat. "Oh, that," she said, like I'd crushed her expectations. She confirmed it when she whispered, "I thought it was somethin' else…"

"Like what?" I asked.

"Nothin'…"

"Fang," I growled, "This is exactly what I don't want from you! How can we be best friends if you want to have this double-standard? I have to keep my distance if this is the case. It's stressing me out."

"What is?" she wondered, sounding sad. "What exactly is stressin' you out?"

"That I want more from you than you're willing to give."

Fang held me tighter around my neck. "Sunshine, you don't know the start of it," she muttered. A moment passed with Fang resting her head over my shoulder, lost in thought. It felt like she and I were on completely different planets. "Why do you think I wanted us to come out here? Why do you think I wanted us to be alone? Why do you think I make a fool out of myself just to get your attention?"

"I have no idea," I said, frowning.

"And that's exactly why I'll never answer your questions about me."

I wanted to argue back. Something told me to keep my mouth shut—to really think about what she said. Out here, in the middle of the sunset… She obviously didn't want anyone eavesdropping on our conversation. I couldn't figure out why she did these things to get me alone. My thoughts were all over the place, trying to decipher her meaning.

"This is irritating," I told her. "Why can't you be direct with me? I feel like you expect me to read your mind, only it's impossible. Yet you're somehow punishing me for it anyway."

"Have you ever had female friends, Light? Girlfriends? Your sister don't count."

"No," I replied. "Back in school, all of my friends were guys."

Fang rolled her eyes. "No wonder," she mumbled.

"What!?"

"You're clueless when it comes to women," she went on. I scowled at her. Where the hell did that come from? "I get it now. When this is all over, we're gonna go find you a nice man to settle down with. I won't allow it if he's anything like Snow. Then again, I can't see you datin' a bonehead. He's gotta walk the walk, yeah? Only the best for you!"

"I'm not interested," I said.

Fang raised her eyebrow. "Not interested in havin' a boyfriend?" she asked. "I hear guys are real simple. Easy to figure out—right up your alley, in fact. No shade."

"I said I'm not interested…"

"Hm? Why not?" she asked, blasé. "I'm sure there's some man out there who'd love to make you his. Think about it—you're gorgeous, you've got a great rack, and you can cook! That's all a man needs in a trophy wife. You'd make a great one. You could stay at home all day and watch that shoppin' network thing. The greatest adventure you'd ever have would be goin' to the kitchen to make him dinner—"

"Damnit, Fang, I'm gay!" I yelled. Her eyes glinted. "I'm sick of you controlling the conversation! What are you talking about?!"

Fang kissed my cheek. "Relax, Light," she said. "It's only the oldest trick in the book. You fell right for it."

"What trick?" I asked, well-aware of my face burning.

"I wanted you to say it out loud."

"Say what?"

"That you're gay," answered Fang.

"So you're allowed to be mysterious and passive-aggressive, and I have to be direct? I'm supposed to read you to find out what the hell you want, and I have to be the one to say the words? It's like you want me to do all the work to figure you out. I have to be an open book for you to read whenever you want. Do you get off on me doing what you want—especially when you don't say what it is?"

Fang smirked. "That sounds about right," she replied. "I dunno about passive-aggressive. Replace that with bitchy and we can call it a day." I couldn't justify any of that with a response. "Now you've gone all quiet on me. What for? We made a lot of progress today!"

"I want to throw you off this cliff, that's why. I don't understand you. Nothing was accomplished."

"I beg to differ, Sunshine," she argued. "I just told you everything you needed to know about me. If you really give a damn, you'll fill in the blanks. If you don't…you won't, and I'll know where I stand with you. Simple as that."

.

It's time to wake up…

Darkness of the room washed over me. Steel shutters had blocked the windows overnight, keeping any light out. I had no idea what time it was. I lay in bed, with Fang in my arms, thinking about the dream I'd had. That wasn't the first time I'd dreamt about one of our conversations. What struck me about it was how clear it had been—almost photographic, like someone had pulled it directly from the timeline itself. Then I noticed how warm it was in the room. My T-shirt was drenched with Fang's sweat. I shifted to get a better look at her. She had sweat pouring down from her face. Her breathing sounded pained.

I moved her onto her back. "Fang, what's the matter?" I asked. She writhed around with her eyes shut. I pressed my hand to her forehead. "You're burning up! Why didn't you wake me? You need to take something for this—"

Fang grabbed my shoulders. "I'll be fine," she hissed. "Stay here."

"No, you have a fever!" I bit back. "There has to be some kind of medicine in here. You'll need to eat before that. Let me take care of you."

"You can take care of me well enough if you stay in bed."

"Will you hold on? I'll be right back," I said, heading to the bathroom. I searched through the medicine cabinet. "Laxatives… Antihistamines… Where is the ibuprofen? No aspirin, either? Goddamnit!" I hurried over to the terminal next to the door. "Hey!" I yelled, slamming my fist against it. "Someone answer me! Fang has a fever and there's nothing here for her to take!"

"L-Light?" asked Hope. "Oh… I thought she might catch one. Our analysis so far suggests that she may have a minor infection from Elysium's chaos. The possibility of that infection spreading was what had PSICOM and the Guardian Corps up in arms. It's nothing to worry about. Her body should be able to handle it with proper care and plenty of fluids. Unfortunately, we didn't leave any fever medicine in the cabinets."

"If you thought she might get a fever, why the hell did you do that?!"

"One of the tests we administered let us know that Fang is immune to antipyretic drugs. That means fever drugs. Gran Pulse's environment is entirely different to Cocoon's. It's to be expected that she can't use the same medicine as us. They won't do her any good."

"Fine," I relented. "That doesn't explain why you didn't leave a backup. Isn't there anything that can help?"

"Um…yes, there is. I needed to run it through the proper channels for approval first. I'm sending it through the chute now…"

I heard a sudden noise coming from the small door underneath the terminal. I opened it and pulled out the plastic bottle. It was filled with some kind of clear, thick liquid with air bubbles. There wasn't any label on the front because it had clearly been torn off. I turned the bottle over. Someone had blacked out the writing there with a permanent marker. I opened the bottle and winced at the smell.

"Hope, what is this stuff?" I asked. "This doesn't look like something she should drink. It smells like cocoa massage oil. How is this supposed to do anything for a fever?"

"You, uh…have to rub her down with it. Not in a bath. Keep her in bed. It's actually a bottle of acetaminophen with medicinal—err, curative properties…" He mumbled the rest, trying to make it sound like some complicated scientific jargon that I wouldn't understand. I cut him off before he could embarrass himself any more.

"Thanks, Hope," I soured, shutting off the communicator. "Fang, I'm going to make you something to eat. Stay put. I'll come get you when it's finished." Bane trotted over to me as I got started on breakfast. I smiled down at him. "Where did he come from? I thought you left him with Vanille."

"My summoning stone," replied Fang. Bane pawed at my ankle. He stopped himself from gnawing at me. He whimpered instead. "There's a pork chop bone in some foil in the refrigerator. Give it to him. He's teethin' right now. The bone should keep him entertained for a long time. He won't bug you."

I handed him the bone. Bane plucked it from me and dragged it to a corner of the suite. He wrestled with the bone and chewed on it, off in his own little world. I glanced at him from time to time while I cooked. Vanille hadn't elaborated about Fang's spirit animal. I wondered if it meant that Fang was just like him, deep down. That would explain why she was so stubborn. I'd have to ask her about the rest later, assuming she decided to tell me. I hadn't forgotten my dream.

After we ate, Fang turned all of the lights back off and returned to bed. Bane had tired himself out, taking a nap in the same corner. I followed her with that bottle of oil in my hand and a glass of juice in the other. She'd insisted on pink lemonade for some reason. I set them both on the nightstand next to the bed. I stared at the oil. I really doubted it would help Fang at all. Then I remembered the out-of-place thoughts I'd had last night. I wanted to say something about them. I wasn't sure how Fang would react to the whole thing. She'd want to know why I thought about that in the first place. I wouldn't have had an answer for her.

Fang regarded me with hazy eyes. She held my wrist, easing me into bed with her. "Light, we need to talk," she said. I sat up against the headboard. She lay her head in my lap, thinking for a while. "I don't want you usin' that stuff on me. Well, I do, but that ain't the point. I know why Hope told you to use it. He's got the right idea. He don't know how much this is torturin' me. Any more of it and I'll lose my head."

"Any more of what…?"

"Look at the bottle again," she told me.

I grabbed it from the nightstand. I turned it over and got a better look at the blacked out letters.

"This is only…a placebo. It isn't supposed to do anything."

Fang turned away from me. "That means they know," she muttered into her pillow. "They all fucking know! Then you're gonna know, and I won't have anywhere to stand. I should've been over this by now! The hell's wrong with me?"

"What are you talking about—?"

"Goddamn, Lightning, you're bloody hopeless!" she cried. Fang straddled me and grabbed my shoulders, enraged all of a sudden. "For once in your life, can't you use your fucking intuition and figure it out? I don't want to say the words! 'Cause if I do, that's the end of me! No more pride, no more barriers, no more terrible secrets… I'm sick of you bein' so damn thick when it comes to me! How did you get this dense? Shouldn't you know by now?"

I stared at her, feeling at a loss. Red rose up from Fang's neck to her face. Her eyes watered. She grit her teeth and leered at me. When I didn't answer her, she held me tightly around my shoulders. She dug her nails into my scalp. She muffled her frustration against my head, whispering words I couldn't make out. From over her shoulder, I saw her demon sitting at the foot of the bed, smirking at me. She pointed to Fang's waist and raised her eyebrows. Then I heard her voice in my head:

"It'll drive her wild. Go on and touch her there. I bet she'll surprise you."

Without thinking, I brushed my fingers along Fang's shorts, up to her bare skin. Fang grabbed my wrists and pulled them away. "Just what d'you think you're doin'?!" she yelled, out of breath. She started sweating again, looking flustered. "Don't you put your hands wherever, like it don't mean anything…"

"Slam her down on her back and shut her up."

Disjointed sensations I'd felt over the centuries all came flooding back—together this time. My neck stung with the memory of that bite I suffered. From that sting, all those sensations mounted tenfold: so much energy I had to let out. I pushed Fang off of me and onto her back. She grabbed at me to gain leverage. I pinned her down by her shoulders. She kicked at me to lift me up. I kept my knees planted between her legs. Fang struggled and struggled beneath me. By the softening look in her eyes, she was distracted by something. She eventually gave up and lay still beneath me, heaving for breath. I smoothed my hands beneath her thighs, lifting them. Fang wrapped her legs around my hips, gripping. I hovered over her, feeling my pulse rock me from my head all the way down. The smell of her fear and uncertainty mixed well with how wet she was against me.

After all these years, I'd been so focused on other things. Our Focus, protecting Etro, and then saving all of Nova Chrysalia… I hadn't been able to stop and look at Fang like this. Not for any true amount of time. Not for any reasons that I understood. These sudden thoughts I had—they felt like they'd sprung from my neck instead of my head. I wanted to know her body. I wanted her to be my first. I wanted to own her if that was what she desired most. If she'd only said the words, Light, take me, then I would have without hesitation. My eyes darkened; I dug my nails into Fang's thighs, trying to remember myself. This wasn't anything like me. I had to stop. I should have by now…

Fang curled her hands around my shoulders. "Light," she breathed. "What are you doin' to me…?" Her touch shook me to my core. Everything kept building, building and building: mounting pressure from my pulsing neck, screaming all over me. She sighed against my jaw. Her lips lingered against me, short of kissing. "…Etro help me if you're only fucking around. I can't see why you would."

I reached for the oil on the nightstand. I needed an excuse to keep touching her. If she started asking questions—or, worse, expected this to go somewhere, I wouldn't know what to do. My so-called confidence waxed and waned with her eyes on me. Her sweat dripped down my face. Her demon laughed softly in my head. I massaged the oil into Fang's shoulders, working out all the knots I could find. I should have known this was a death wish. Fang looked up at me, so innocent, moving in-time with my touch. I moved down to hold her arm in both of my hands. She parted her lips, breathing in short bursts. Feral want smashed against the cage of my self-control, trying to get out. I wouldn't let it. I tempted it all the same with my hands over Fang's toned stomach, moving up, gently, and harder the closer I got to the black stretch-fabric of her top.

"This is in my way," I told her. "Take it off."

Fang crossed her arms over her chest, like she was about to do what I said. I leaned back to work the oil into her legs, one at a time. I kept my eyes to hers. Waiting. She stared back at me, breathing harder. She breathed hardest when I inched my hands over her inner thighs. Thick, wet trails of Fang's want wrapped around my fingers. I wanted to know how it tasted. I moved my head down between her. Just as I was about to taste, she held my head in place.

"No," she said, firm. "No… Light, you can't. You can't just…do that to me! You've got no idea. No clue whatsoever about what this means to me!" My intuition muddled her words. I didn't know if no meant that she did want it, only not right that second. I breathed her in—she smelled like the freedom of the skies. Fang shivered. "Don't. You. Dare. Don't even start…" She freed herself from my hold and scrambled out of bed. "I'm gonna hit the shower. This never happened. You got that?" I bored my eyes into her. As if she really thought I'd go along with that. Fang groaned into her hands. "Fuck. You're not gonna let this go, are you?"

I licked my fingers clean as I replied, "I'm not."

Fang's breath shuddered. "I don't recognize this woman in front of me," she muttered, backing away. "I don't know who you are…what you are… You're a fantasy—that's plain as day."

"If you want me, you shouldn't run away," I explained. Fang took large sips of her pink lemonade. "I finally get what you've been trying to tell me. Ever since we first met, you've been dancing around something, refusing to say it out loud. This is it, isn't it? You want us to have sex—"

"For fuck's sake, Light, where have you gone?!" she shouted. If I didn't know any better, I'd say her voice sounded a little high-pitched. "Since when did you lose your I'm-too-serious-for-sex attitude and start boundin' off like this? Is it because there's nothin' goin' on other than me losin' the screws in my head? We don't got a Focus or anything else standin' in our way, so now you notice me? Is that it?"

I got up and walked over to her. "Fang, I've always noticed you," I assured her. She backed away in the direction of the bathroom. I pointed to my patched-up neck. "You see this?"

"Yeah…my demon bit you."

"And all her venom is eating away at my control," I went on. Fang gasped when I grabbed her shoulders. I looked her right in the eye. "You put this in me. So now what? So now what?"

Before I could say anything else, Fang slammed the bathroom door in my face. She locked it right away. I listened to her press her body against the surface, sliding down. Her demon appeared behind me, sitting on the ceiling somehow. When the shower water turned on, she clapped her hands. I got down on the floor and forced myself to do push-ups. Anything to vent this excess energy. Anything to give the illusion that Fang was underneath me again.

"Bravo," she said. "I gotta hand it to you, Lightning. I didn't think you'd pull it off. D'you feel better?"

"No," I growled. "What is this all for? Have you possessed me?!"

She laughed. "Now why would I do that?" she asked. "I'm sittin' right here in case you forgot. Besides, if I did possess you, a certain someone would have some not-so-nice things to say about me."

"Like who?"

Lumina appeared out of nowhere. "Like me!" she cried. "I already don't like you as it is! Lightning is my territory. You can't infiltrate her thoughts like this!"

I stopped my push-ups. "Territory?" I echoed, sitting on the floor. "I'm not a piece of land, Lumina."

"You know what I mean!" she snapped back. "And you! What are we supposed to call you, anyway? I need a name to put to that face only a mother could love." I frowned. "Oh. You, too. I guess. If you ever fall in love with that thing, I'll have to disown you. She's bad news!"

"And you're not?" I asked.

"They call me Vritra back where I come from," said Fang's demon. "It's an old Pulsian word for despair. So let's put 'em both together. Vespair. You can call me Vespair. Easy enough to remember, right? It's got a nice flair to it."

"Fine, Vespair," said Lumina. "What do you think you're doing in this dimension? Didn't anyone teach you to stay out of other peoples' business?" I rolled my eyes at her. Lumina had gotten in my way at every opportunity back on Nova Chrysalia. Not that it mattered now. "Is there something you want?"

"Sure there is," replied Vespair. "I ain't tellin' you about it. That'd ruin all the fun."

"If it has anything to do with me," I spoke up, "You need to stop right now. I never asked you to invade my private thoughts like this. Fang's already freaking out on me."

Vespair waved her hand. "Oh, please," she scoffed. "You were gonna hit it eventually. I did you a favor! Besides, I've got other plans. If you really want me to let you figure Fang out all by your lonesome, I can. Don't come cryin' to me when she won't act the way you want her to."

"Wait," I said. "That isn't what I meant…" Lumina raised her eyebrow at me. "I just… I don't want you to change me. If you don't mean to hurt us, that's fine. I don't know what you did to my neck. As long as I don't wake up with some weird side-effects…"

Vespair smiled. "So you do need my help!" she boasted.

"I wouldn't say that… It's more like I want to know why you're helping now."

"Fair enough," answered Vespair. The shower water turned off. She gestured her head toward the bathroom and whispered, "I'll help you figure it out later. We've gotta go." Lumina pouted and left with her through a vortex of chaos. As they went, three fragments of chaos fell in their wake. They looked like the one of Fang's thoughts I'd listened to. I put them away with the one Vanille had given me.

Even though Fang had finished her shower, she didn't come out of the bathroom for hours. I sat on the floor the whole time, thinking about her and how she must've been feeling. This wasn't only about sex for her. Fang wanted more than that, but she wouldn't say the words. If she was afraid of rejection, or something else, I could understand that—to a point. Except now our friendship had changed. I knew that Fang wasn't going to give me answers on a silver platter. I had to figure out what else she needed.

Unlike before, I actually liked having to figure this out. I got to see a different, unspoken side of her. Something told me that this wasn't as simple as Fang being too shy. Maybe there was so much that she wanted, and she was afraid of pushing me away. Or maybe she didn't believe that I wanted her for anything more than sex. It could have been all of those things combined, too. I always knew Fang to be an all-or-nothing type of person. If I really wanted her, then I had to be the same.

.

After PSICOM's scientists let us out of the room, they brought Fang in for the final analysis. I was allowed to sit in the room that time. They put together their findings from Fang's tests and a few others. Several fragments of memories were missing from her mind. They'd scattered throughout the world. The scientists showed us an X-ray of a healthy mind compared to one that had decayed and rotted from so many lost fragments. They warned that that would happen to Fang if she didn't find enough fragments on a regular basis. Thankfully, it was like Serah had said—the fragments would come to Fang as she did the things she enjoyed. But, because she was a special case, she also needed to find special catalysts to build the fragments back into a crystal she could use.

Because of Etro's blessing, I was the only one with the power to make the crystals for her. I had to go with her in search of every catalyst. Not that I minded. Then again, Fang still wasn't speaking to me. I didn't know how this was going to work if she didn't want us to talk.

Sazh flew us to our first destination—the Sunleth Waterscape. Fang had always wanted to go there. If the fragments were rooted in her desires, the catalysts to make the crystals must have been the same. On the way there, I sat in the back seat of the small airship, staring out the window. Fang sat in the front with her feet propped up along the console. She and Sazh talked about all the bureaucratic mess she had to go through for the Gran Pulse Relocation Project. The government wouldn't even let her think about getting her regular driver's license without finding more fragments of memories. She was well enough to not be an enemy of the state anymore. There was always something else in the way.

"It's such bullshit, y'know?" complained Fang. "I come back home, and the first thing they wanna do is lock me up in some lab! Then they tell me I've gotta be mentally stable enough to make decisions about Gran Pulse of all places. Vanille's gonna be way ahead of me by the time I find more of these damned things. They didn't even tell me how many I had to find!"

Sazh shook his head. "Yep, they really are full of it," he agreed. "The Gestalt—that's what they're callin' the government these days—feels like they've gotta prove themselves. Puttin' you away and telling all of us they've got it under control… That's the only way they can feel like they've accomplished somethin'. Feels like not much has changed since the Sanctum was in charge."

While they kept talking, I pulled out one of the chaos fragments of Fang's thoughts. I turned it over in the light of the afternoon, staring at the violet gleam. Fang wouldn't let me get anywhere with her—not with words. I had to get inside of her head if I had any chance of figuring her out. I knew she was afraid of that possibility. That was why she'd made Vespair break those crystals in her mind in the first place. I'd had a taste of her forbidden boundaries yesterday. I didn't want to turn back now. I couldn't.

"Back when Vanille and I grew up, I had this image in my head… Every day, I'd go out and hunt, and train, and get stronger to protect the village from the Vipers. Some days, I got caught up with that image: the one of me forgettin' about all of that and takin' a break. For once, lettin' someone else influence me to slow down. For her to say to me that she'd tear down the sky if it'd save me, too. And not just mean it in a friendly way like I do with Vanille…

"I want this woman, whoever she is, to hold me down. To always, always be there for me, no matter what. I lose it at the thought of someone wantin' me as I am. It's easy for people to want me the way I pretend to be—like I don't give a damn about most things. Those girls never amounted to nothin'. I learned that the hard way. I don't want a repeat of that. I think…that's why I'm so fucking scared. I'm terrified of sayin' a word to Light about this. If she knew, right this second, that I wanted her to dig deep beneath my skin and fuck me there, she'd run away from me. If she knew how much I wanted her to know every damn detail about me, and to love it all, whether it was half passion and half love-hate, she'd never speak to me again. Any time I try to tell her, whether it's with a look or the way I keep my body close to her, Light acts like I'm wastin' her time.

"She's too serious for love. That seriousness is what keeps me stuck on her. If this were a perfect world, and I wasn't scared out of my mind, I'd let her see me for me. In that perfect world, she'd stick by me. She's got that quality about her. I know she does. But everyone's got their limits, don't they? Light's so naïve, almost like a little girl. She ain't never kissed anyone; never did more than that. But when we're in the middle of a fight, I see the signs. How aggressive and in-control she gets. Such a balance—she could go either way, and I want her to rule over me… I don't think I'll ever get over this fear. Not unless she made a move first. And after that? Who the hell knows…? It'd all depend on if it felt right or not. And if it did…no matter how hard I fought against her, I'd never want her to let me go."