Title: Walking Wounded Part: 1 Author: Elizabeth Email: Not Known Disclaimer: I don't own the characters Summary: None Category: Michael/Maria Rating: R Author's Note: This is actually the first Roswell fic I ever wrote-I wrote it in mid-December, after visiting Courtney's site for the first time, and before I even ever watched the show. (Obviously a sign of the obsession that was to develop, eh?) Thank you Miri, for reminding me that this little piece was sitting around.
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It had all come to this. He'd known it from the first time he'd kissed her.
Tonight?
It wasn't a special night or anything like that. It was just a night like any other. He'd run into her, they'd argued. He'd kissed her and they'd ended up at her house.
And he'd ignored everything and gone upstairs with her. To her room, to her bed. He'd kissed her, she'd kissed him, over and over till he had finally, for once, stopped thinking. He'd touched her--the soft skin he's thought about so often. He'd fallen with her onto her narrow bed, fumbled with her clothes--stared at her, at what he's thought about for so long,--and pushed his way inside her.
He was hurting her. He could barely move, she was so tight around him. It made his teeth clench, his back arch. It felt that good. But beneath him, under him, he could hear her, the little noises she made, a keening that made the hair on his arms rise even as he felt the urge to push inside her again and again and again.
He never should have done this. He knew it, he's always known it. He'd tried, hadn't he? Tried to stay away from her? Yes. He told himself that, even as he called himself a liar, knew that he'd pushed her, himself to this. He'd wanted this, and she had too.
It was agony not to move. He wondered if he was dying. He looked down again, watched her face, which had colored, taken on a hue he'd never seen before on anyone. A pinkish shade--a glow, almost. It was beautiful, her pain.
It was shame that finally moved him. Was he as bad as he'd always feared, as unlovable as he knew he was? He muttered "I'm sorry" as he moved back, starting to slide out of her body. It was inadequate, he knew it. But what else did he have to offer? Hadn't he always known that his body, as human as it was on the outside, was nothing even close to human on the inside?
Her face eased a little as he moved, a shifting of her features. He wanted to weep with frustration. The thought angered him. He never should have done this, he knew it was a mistake. Hadn't he looked at Max and Liz with a knowing eye, a smirk in his gaze? Fools, reaching for something that will never work.
And yet, here-he'd done more, more in a single moment, more in less than thirty minutes even, than Max and Liz had ever done. All because of the void inside him, the need he felt when he saw her, touched her. Maria.
Her name wasn't even pretty. It wasn't lyrical, it didn't sing. She was just a girl, like any of the other hundred of millions that lived on the planet. But he wanted her. And after all the barbs he'd thrown her, after all the hurtful things he'd said to her, she still wanted him.
It terrified him. The way she would stare at him-her gaze hot and cold at the same time-like she knew his thoughts and didn't care. The way she opened her mouth to his, the noises she made when he touched her. Now he wanted-he wants-nothing more than this. Her. He's always wanted more, he's always wanted the unattainable-but now, now he thinks he would die, gladly, if he could only sink into her and forget for just a little while.
He props himself up on his elbows, breathing hard. He should say something cutting and cold. Something to wound her the way she has wounded him.
But she is looking at him with tears in her eyes. "Why did you stop?"
You were boring me. I have better things to do. Lies, all lies. "I was hurting you" he finally whispers.
"Yes" she tells him, her gaze steady.
There's a howling inside him, and he fears that he-Michael Guerin-the master of all that is cool in his universe-will lose it. He thought he'd been hurt before, in the past, but it's nothing, only a shadow to what he feels now.
He leaves her bed, leaves her, and stands up quickly, moving away from her. It's cold, he didn't realize how warm she was till just now. He fumbles for his clothes, gathering them up off the floor. She sits up and stares at him, watching him, just looking at him. He can feel who he is, what he is, all over. Not normal. Not human.
There are reddish blotches on her thighs. He doesn't think anything of them until the scent, a faint coppery smell, reaches him. Then it hits him, makes him stagger a little as he fumbles with his shirt. She is bleeding. He hurt her. The best thing he has ever felt has bought her nothing but pain.
He reaches down without thinking, his finger sliding over her thigh. The soft skin, the sticky sensation of his fingers gliding over the small streaks. "I'm sorry" he says, and he means it. Sorry he met her, sorry he hurt her, sorry that he is who he is.
She smiles at him then, a tremulous smile that brings a stinging sensation to his eyes. "I think it's supposed to hurt. But you didn't have to stop. Don't you want me?"
The answer: Yes, more than anything-it terrifies him. More than the thinking about her, more than the wanting her. He can see himself, another self, going to her, taking her in his arms. Easing away the hurt, finishing what they have started. Drowning in her. Losing himself.
He draws back, finishes putting on his shirt. All he has is himself. It's all he's ever known. He can't lose it, himself, not now. If he falls, if he brings her with him-who knows what would happen?
"No" he tells her, hearing the words, wondering if she will know he is lying. "You're not worth it." And he leaves her, leaves her room, not looking back. As he wanders down the streets of Roswell -wounded and yet still walking-he wonders if anyone out there, in the vast expanse that is the universe,can hear him screaming.
