Author: Lady Starblade - [email protected]
Rating: Strong PG-13
Pairing: Take your pick
Category: Angst, Angst, Angst, and oh, did I mention Angst?
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Very dark and rambling thoughts
Archive: EntSlash; anyone else, ya want it, you got it, just tell me where.
Feedback: File that one under the "duh" category
Disclaimer: I own none of the Enterprise characters. Paramount does. And someone's making a lot of money, but not me, and not with this fic. The song does not belong to me either.
Author's Note: Decided to take a short, sudden dark turn....not quite sure why, aside from the fact I haven't slept in 36 hours. Quite possibly the oddest thing I've written so far. I did have a particular pairing in mind, but I think this could work for several other pairings too.
Summary: "Sometimes I wish I was anywhere but here, feeling someone else's blues...." --Sister Seven
**
The water feels like red-hot needles piercing him. He stands underneath the burning spray, head bowed as if he were accepting a deserved punishment. Hands hanging limply at his sides, he stares at the water swirling around the drain. It's a fitting metaphor.
He tells himself he can make it through this. He'll just pick himself back up and keep moving on. He'll be all right.
His lips move silently as he repeats the words, but he isn't listening. He doesn't care. He knows he's lying, and he's not interested in anything he has to say. Not anymore.
He can't hate him. Maybe it would be easier if he could. But that kind of innocence can't be faked. He really doesn't know what he's done. He doesn't understand the damage he's inflicted. It didn't mean the same to him, and they both were blind to how the other truly felt. Assumptions and assignations had taken the place of reality, and this is the result.
He snaps off the water with a vicious jerk of a hand. Without bothering to cover himself, he walks out into the other room, shivering as the evaporating water chills him. He drops to his knees next to the bed and tightly clasps his hands together. He hasn't prayed in so long he's forgotten how. But he's lost and confused enough to try.
The stars streak by his sightless eyes. He had wanted those stars for so long, and when he had finally grasped one, it had burned him, consumed him, and now left him a shadow of himself. He doesn't want to be here. He'd rather be anywhere but here. Yes, it would mean leaving behind everything that meant anything to him, but he could leave the pain and anguish too. Anything had to be better than this.
*If I can make it through this one.* He didn't know if he could. He didn't know if he was strong enough. But who could he turn to? Who would want to help him now? There were people who cared for him, those who would try to help him, but did he have the right?
Shaking now with cold, he stands back up and scrubs away the last of the damp before shrugging into a uniform. A few small adjustments, and the man who looks back from the mirror looks the same as always. They will never know, not unless he wants them to.
**
And as he lies in another's arms that night, he clings to that shelter, all the while desperately repeating to himself, "If I can make it through this one...."
But he isn't listening.
**
"I can take a punch as good as anyone, but this one's gonna leave a bruise..." --"This One," Sister Seven
**
END