"I had a dream about a burning house

You were stuck inside, I couldn't get you out

I lay beside you and pulled you close

And the two of us went up in smoke"

Burning House - Cam

Burning House

My eyes fly open as I shoot straight up in the bed with a gasp. My breaths are coming out as ragged panting, and the sheet is stuck to my sweat slicked body. I glance around the room frantically, trying to find an escape route as I reach out blindly for the body next to me. Only… There are no flames. There is only the first dull shafts of early morning sunlight filtering through the window hangings. I breathe in deeply through my nose. There's no smell of smoke. There's only the rich scent of the coffee brewing down the hall, whose timer is set to turn the pot on at five o'clock every morning.

I breathe out shakily through my mouth, trying to calm my racing heart. It was just a dream. A horribly fucking vivid dream - I can still feel the flames licking at my back - but a dream nonetheless. I look down at the man lying beside me. He'd stirred a bit when I'd flailed around the bed, causing the sheet that had been haphazardly thrown over his waist to slip halfway down his thighs, but he sleeps on soundly, so I take the opportunity to study him. Looking at him has a way of calming me even while it drives me into a frenzy. He has a way of dousing one fire raging within me by lighting another, but still, the sight of him centers me.

At least, it usually does. Right now though, his hips are littered with impressions of my own fingernails, each filled with dried blood. The entirety of both of his hips are bruised a sickly mix of yellow and blue. There are love bites in several places on his neck, though to call them "love bites" is almost laughable. It looks more like a vampire snuck in during the middle of the night and fed from him. I don't even want to imagine the damage to his arse.

Nausea roils in my gut. I went too far. I really hurt him. Again. I reach out and lightly trail my fingertips across the abused flesh, down his thigh and back up again. "I don't think we know how not to destroy each other," I'd said, and it's true. It always goes too far. I always go too far.

There is a darkness inside of me. Of course there is. There always has been, I suppose, but now it seems it's all consuming. He says there's darkness in him as well, and I guess that's probably true. Yet the only time I catch even a glimpse of the light is when I'm with him. It's doused quickly, of course. Everything I touch turns to blackened ash, but I can't help myself. I'm weak. I crave that glimmer of hope that hangs before me when he's near.

I'd think myself selfish if I didn't know his need to destroy me as well. Not with his hands or his words. No, what he needs is to be someone's light. He craves validation that there is something good inside of him, that someone can see it, that someone needs it. And so he lets me take it, knowing that even as I consume him I just destroy myself a little further. In my quest for the light, I surrender further to the darkness.

We're trapped together in a burning house.

He rolls over in his sleep, trying to get comfortable, and his face screws up in pain, though he still doesn't wake. His hand smoothes along the bed, and I realize he's reaching for me. With a lump in my throat, I lay back down beside him. His searching hand finds my abdomen, and the furrow between his brows relaxes. Gently, I slide an arm under him and pull him close to my chest, holding him tightly against me. I bury my face in his hair and close my stinging eyes. We should have walked away from one another long ago, but it's too late for that now. It seems we're destined to go up in smoke together.

"Maybe we can figure it out," I'd said. I didn't believe it when I'd said it, and I don't think he really did either. But I have to try. I have to do something, because the thought of the fire consuming him along with me is unbearable.

I can't be the reason he burns.

"I've been sleepwalking, been wandering all night

Trying to take what's lost and broke and make it right

I've been sleepwalking too close to the fire

But it's the only place that I can hold you tight

In this burning house"