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Gentle Night
by Spyke Raven
Email: (spyke_raven@yahoo.com)
Summary: Vignette, Lindsey and Darla talk. Blood is involved in a non-stereotypically feminist way.
Improv: Sepia wish memory revenge
Rating: R.
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine.
Warning: Dictionary definition of a vignette is 'a brief incident or scene (as in a play or movie)'. I saw this. I wrote this. You have been warned.
Possible over use of ellipses and metaphors.
Oh, and don't forget the blood.
Notes: For some reason I cannot get Lindsey and Darla out of my head. This is a sort of sequel to 'Situating the Self' and therefore is also set in the interim between 'To Shanshu...' and 'Judgement'.
Phrases within brackets are in parantheses. Ooh, tautology. More notes after story.
**********
Rain-scented twilight, and the man walking home.
(Tears bleeding from the sky...)
He shook his head in self-mockery at this unusual lapse from prose.
Yet soft it fell, warm and wet, running slickly over exposed skin. He closed his eyes and tilted his head slightly, allowing coalescing droplets to find their way into his mouth. Gasped at the first shocking taste of bland iron.
(Bland iron. Is that how it would - taste? To her?)
Carefully he swallowed, letting scent diffuse. It felt like
(perfume... her perfume is rain-scent. Or twilight. Or tears)
Unwillingly, the ache built in him, pleasantly uncomfortable in its demands.
(Here, it could be safe to want. Here, it could be safe to need. )
Someone hurried past, knocking him out of his reverie. He swayed with the impact, eyes opening at once to the grey silence of buildings and the occasional pedestrian. Reminding him where he was. Standing. And why.
(Here. Just outside. Bleed it out, keep it safe. Just don't let it free.)
Rain dripped on him casually, arrogantly trickling memories down his skin.
(The yearning buried so low as to be almost intangible... visceral but vanishing even when acknowledged)
Mildly ashamed of this, he completed the walk home.
Wondering about tonight.
**
Steam fogged the room and misted his hair, leaving it a little uncomfortable on his scalp. He towelled it carefully while stepping out of the bath. Made certain it was dry before opening the door just a crack.
He winced at the sudden inrush of cold air, and adjusted his robe.
She was still asleep, as he'd left her. He hadn't actually expected her to be awake.
(Hadn't wanted her to be awake?)
Biting down hard on these and other thoughts, he cleaned the tub and ran a bath. When the water was warm and fragrant with the scent of lilies, he roused her gently and helped her undress.
**
Some nights she slept naked, leaving the bedroom door wide open. Those were diamond nights, brilliant and hard, when she pushed at him, invaded his territory and dared him to give in. Used words and hints and all the power of those damned eyes to press every advantage she had with him.
And she'd have won except he'd always known. From the first, he'd known and told her too that he'd be no match for her, fighting on her terms.
He'd surrendered to her. Unequivocally. And she'd reciprocated instantly.
Giving him nights. Gentle nights.
Which in truth only bound him closer to her.
**
She held her hands up to him like a child, trusting totally as he slipped the loose clothes from her shoulders. His hands didn't linger, except to gently direct her into the water.
As she sank in, he reached for the sponge. She never once looked at him or asked him to stop. Still he convinced himself to be impersonal as he reacquainted himself with her body.
(Hello arm)
He lifted it from the water and soaped it carefully.
There was a slow-healing burn on her elbow, where she'd hurt herself while cooking. Four years ago it would have healed instantly. And left no mark at all.
He remembered the look of astonishment on her face as he'd applied menthol cream.
Some scars were new, he realised, as fingers trailed lightly over the backs of her palms. Bruised capillaries and strangled veins rebelled beneath the surface, straining to release the clots from their passage. Barely raising the skin, but subdued and threatening... he understood and was tender as he wiped the pain away.
Tooth marks made perfect circles on her hands, turning from sepia to indigo-purple. In another time, in another life, she'd been able to hear the blood flow. It would have spoken to her fluently, signalling life, and death and hope and torment.
Now the cells moved silently, repressed by the limits of her all too human flesh.
She must have bitten down repeatedly, ignoring the pain. Again, and again, to release the blood.
It hadn't broken skin. (Not with teeth this blunt)
Lost in thought, he may have squeezed a bit too tightly.
Her hand tensed and she pulled away. He waited before taking it up again, vowing this time to be more careful. But
"Stop," she said, and he only hesitated a second before leaving.
Outside the rain still fell, undemanding in its consistency.
**
It felt strange, almost surreal to have her here, peacefully wrapped in his robe and on his couch. Secure and rain-proof as he fed her soup and watched her eat.
Unconsciously his fingers tracked the scars. It must have been painful to touch; she inhaled sharply.
He asked forgiveness with a look before raising her palm to his lips.
With the first hint of contact he felt the night fade into
(a memory. a wish. a dream.)
Each cell seemed to be hypersensitive, signalling frantically. Constantly reminding him of the difference in their skins.
(We inhabit separate bodies )
and the tenuous link broke.
As he raised his head, he could almost believe he saw the kiss flutter atop her scars. Gently thrumming in time to the blood beneath her skin.
(We can't have it flying away)
and dizzily he pressed it down, imprinting the memory of his lips on her hand. Trying to erase her wounds with his touch -
"It won't work," he heard her say, but disbelieving he tried again.
"No," she said, not quite pulling her hand away.
He traced the roseate on one hand, mildly distressed. "Why?"
"You made me human" and he searched for the words within the words.
Found them instantly and understood
How she gave him truth on these gentle nights, and it never set him free.
**
She tried to tell him of other nights, when the moon rose high and the trees were wet with leaves, when she felt her body yearning for synchronicity...
"Sometimes I wanted. Just to feel - again."
They would slip away from the men and their world, to the place in the moonlight where the old ways still ruled. And if the tides that swirled the oceans had no effect on her, or the course of her life, in revenge she'd learned to cut her hands in pagan symbols, and raise bloody dripping palms in celebration to the moon. She'd learned and she'd taught her Drusilla too. And if an Actaeon surprised them, why he was the blessed sacrifice - (he winced as she smiled in the memory of thirst) - torn apart in thanksgiving, his blood purified by falling with theirs.
They'd used teeth to carve new rites in place of old; that their blood would still fall, despite everything. Even in this way to be shed upon the earth was their mockery and grief for life.
"I didn't know it then." She did now. And the advent of pain had resurrected memory, forcing her teeth upon her own flesh.
And it would not go through.
"The pain... uncontrollable. I'd forgotten how pain..."
His hands stilled over hers, stopped their soothing motions.
He thought (Children)
and spoke it aloud. Stupidly.
Suddenly, achingly, they found they needed to breathe.
**
"Do you hate me?" he felt compelled to ask.
She shrugged. Her reply was truthful as always. "Sometimes. Now. Today, at least."
"We didn't think," and the magnitude of that statement struck him.
She only nodded, watching him, waiting for the next plea.
"I would never -"
"This isn't about you."
And he ceded that, head sinking down on his chest.
"I can't help wondering..."
He heard the words wisp softly away as though ashamed to be heard.
He looked up and their eyes met. Held for a very long time.
After a while she gently pulled her hands away.
He didn't lean forward to follow with a kiss.
**
It was a gentle night. She slept alone.
He told himself that she always would. Until
(if ever)
She asked him in.
Somehow he doubted it would happen
(either way)
(no point dreaming)
But he followed her in his dreams. Imagined
Two lithe forms dancing gracefully in the moonlight
Feet bare on grass
Curlicued hands reaching upwards
Accepting
Bending
Transforming life to death in a perfect dichotomy.
He wasn't supposed to be there
So he met their eyes and surrendered to them
They were gentle to him
At the last
He remembered that they were gentle.
**
He woke with moonlight in his eyes and a hand resting on his forehead.
His heart skipped two beats, before he realised it was his own.
She wouldn't come to him
(tonight)
(or ever?)
He wouldn't go to her
(tonight)
(or ever?)
He covered his eyes with a pillow and tried to sleep.
After all it was a gentle night.
~ End.
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