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Title: Pictures of You
Author: Lizzie
E-mail: [email protected]
Rating: I�d say R, as is the vast majority of my fic these days! I swear one day I�ll manage another NC17. I�m just psyching myself up for it�
Content: Uh, some mention of violence and blood, some language. I don�t want to give away the plot by telling you any more, but if anything like this is going to upset you, you know you shouldn�t be reading it. Not that I�m saying it�s mega-bad, otherwise it wouldn�t be rated R, now would it!
Disclaimer: They're not mine, and unless I wake up one morning having mysteriously become Vince McMahon, I doubt they ever will be. Damn, that's a scary thought. And the title comes from the song �Pictures of You� by the Cure. I don�t own that, either!
Distribution: Not that you're likely to want it, but if you do, just tell me where.
Summary: I really don�t want to give it away by summarising it. But it�s Raven�s POV.
Notes: I�m in the middle of a series which I should�ve been writing while I was writing this, but my newly-acquired Raven-muse wouldn�t let up until I�d got this down on paper.

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Pictures of You
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There are pictures of you all over my house. In frames and out of frames, photographs and posters and clippings from magazines, just of you, of you and your friends, of you and me together, ones I took, ones from other. They�re strewn all over the tables and the worktops and the chairs and the floors and the nightstand and the bed we slept in together. They�re everywhere. There�s not a single room in this whole damn house that doesn�t have a picture of you in it, that�s not full of pictures of you. I�ve even had duplicates and reprints and fucking photocopies made so that your pictures fill this place. While you were with me I could never understand why I needed so many. Now you�re not here there aren�t nearly enough.

The ones I like the best I put in frames, but I keep changing my mind and finding others so the pictures in the frames are rarely the same from one day to the next. Then I can�t decide between two that are virtually the same where the only thing that�s different is you�ll be looking in a slightly different direction of maybe your hand�s in a different place and I�ll want to frame them both so I�ll go out and buy more frames. I�ll go out and spend fifty or sixty bucks on cheap plastic frames and I�ll start sobbing in the middle of the goddamn store because I�m framing you in ninety-nine cent yellow plastic trash that�s probably been recycled from fucking laundry baskets or those dime store sunglasses you always used to buy at the beach. Then the clerk and some of the customers start looking at me like I�m losing my mind so I charge it all to my credit card then practically fucking run back home.

You see, this is what you�ve done to me. I hope you�re happy, wherever the fuck you are.

***

This morning I went downstairs and when I set my bowl of Froot Loops down on the dining table I had to move a stack of pictures out of the way. I knocked it over and they all scattered all over the other pictures already lying there, and when I looked down there was this one picture that I couldn�t take my eyes off of. It was of the two of us, sitting on a blanket in the park. We�d grabbed some Doritos, a kite and the blanket we�d found in the trunk of my car and decided to spend the afternoon together before you had to fly home and I had to ship out to the next show, and you charmed a passer-by into snapping a picture of us on that damned Polaroid camera. So there we are, sitting in the park a few blocks down from my place, bathed in the warm afternoon sunlight and grinning up at a perfect stranger who was holding your camera.

It�s odd how happy we look, considering the fact that I�m more of a night person and a couple of the guys who were playing soccer over by the lake started to point and stare as you rested your head on my shoulder and I slipped my arms around you waist. Usually that shit got to you; you could never understand how anyone could be so cruel to two people in love. But not that day. You just pretended like they weren�t even there and pressed in closer to my chest with a small, contented smile on your lips.

And God you looked beautiful. Whenever we were together your smile would light up your eyes and you�d look perfect, but that day with the wind tousling your hair and the sunlight warming your skin, you were even more beautiful than ever. It was like you were glowing, so damn happy it must�ve been infectious because there I am holding you and grinning like an idiot as I do. You had that effect on my sometimes, usually when I�d least expect it. We look so happy. That�s the way I always want to remember our time together. With the way the light�s shining you almost can�t tell your face is bruised. And your bottom lip doesn�t look split at all.

Before I knew it my Froot Loops were soggy and I�d been staring at that picture for over an hour.

***

Of course, not all of the pictures are so happy. Some of them I took after you�d lost a match so you look understandably pissed. Some of them I took when we were kidding around and I�d managed to make you mad. Some of them you didn�t want me to take because you never liked being in a photograph if you didn�t look your best. And I guess I can understand that, because I don�t really like being photographed either. After you left, I burned most of the ones you took of me. And I know that no matter how many times I told you how pretty you looked with the cuts and the bruises, you didn�t like them to show up on film. I guess I can�t blame you for that � in the whole time we were together I don�t think there was ever a moment when you liked the way you looked. It was always up to me to tell you how beautiful you were, even if you�d never believe me.

You look so pretty in my favourite picture. It�s the one I keep on the nightstand in this heavy wrought iron frame, the one I keep knocking off onto the floor and breaking the glass then spending an hour staring at wondering how it would feel if I jabbed the glass into my wrists. I keep having to take the glass from other frames to replace it � half the frames in the house have no glass in them anymore. I should probably find a sheet of shatter-resistant Perspex or something instead of wasting all that glass, but I never will because it just wouldn�t be the same. The light just doesn�t seem to pick out the blood on your face the same way when it�s shining through plastic.

You�re sitting on the bed � my bed, this bed, the one we shared for years � and you�re naked except for the white sheer that�s tangled around your waist. The fact that it�s white makes your skin look tanned even though I know it�s not � you were always so pale, so white and so fragile-looking, like you�d break if I dropped you. But you wouldn�t. We both knew better than that. It took a lot to break you. Back then you were probably the toughest person I knew, mentally and physically, even stronger than me. You took everything I had to give, and more. But you looked so delicate.

One of your arms is lying along the top of the iron headboard, hand up, fingers curling into your palm. The other�s crossed over your chest, hooked over your shoulder, your thumb resting on your collarbone. Your head�s tilted back away from me, resting against the wall, and it�s turned slightly to one side so I can see the vein throbbing in your neck. I remember wanting to kiss it, to feel the blood pumping underneath your skin, and after I�d taken the picture, I did. You tasted so good, so salty, with a metallic tinge. I guess that was from the blood.

Your lip and your chin were bleeding from where I�d hit you, and a thin line of blood had made its way down the side of your neck and was pooling in the hollow of your collarbone. The red of the blood accentuated the deep purple of the flesh there, where you�d hit the foot of the bed on your way to the floor. And there was a gash in your forehead just below your hairline; the blood from it tricked down the side of your face, past your ear, down your neck and onto your chest, staining your almost-white skin a sort of deep pinky-red. I licked you clean just before it could reach the sheet at your waist.

I don�t think I�ve ever seen you look more beautiful than you did that night. You were always so pretty when I hurt you, but that night you were beautiful. I don�t know if it was the way your blood glistened in the candlelight or the way you looked at me through bruised, half-lidded eyes, if it was the way you sat there peaceful and sated against the headboard, the happy, perfect smile on your lips, if it was your voice as you told me you loved me. Maybe it was everything. All I know is I loved you too and that night, as I put down the camera and lay down by your side, as I kissed you and made love to you, was the happiest night of my life. I�m so glad I have the picture here to help me remember.

***

You left me two months ago now. Two months ago yesterday. I remember the exact time. I�ve been dreaming the exact moment. I didn�t want you to go and deep down I don�t think you wanted to either. But you still left. Nothing I could say could stop you. I kept thinking that maybe if I said the right thing and if I knew the right words then you�d stay. But you didn�t.

Now all I have left of you are these pictures. The only things that matter to me anymore are these pictures of you. It�s so sad that I loved you for so long and I know you loved me back and yet all I have to show for it are photographs. The man I love�s not with me anymore. All I have left of him is his image printed on pieces of paper. They remind me of him but they�ll never mean what he meant to me. Sometimes, if I stare at them long enough, it�s like I�m staring back into the past and he�s really there and we�re really back together again, but it�s only for a moment of a minute or an hour before something jolts me back to the present and I feel almost like I�ve lost him all over again.

I never wanted this. I never wanted to be sitting alone, without you here with me. The only thing I ever wanted was you. I just wanted you, and if I had you then nothing else would matter. Everything else would be insignificant. I never wanted anything more. And I�ve wished so hard that I could have you back, but I know I can�t. I guess it�s my fault, too. I shouldn�t really blame you. I can�t blame you for leaving me. It�s not like you had a choice.

I didn�t want you to leave me. I loved you so much. I still do and I think I always will. I never knew I was capable of love like this until I met you. You always brought out the best in me and I don�t know what to do now you�ve left me. It�s not easy now you�re not here with me, now I�m sitting alone in this house that I used to share with the one thing, the one person in my life that�s ever really meant anything. Now all I have are pictures of you. All I have are moments from the only time in my life when I was happy, printed out on cheap paper and covering every surface I can see until I�m almost buried. Because I don�t have you anymore and I never can again.

You meant everything to me, Stevie. I never meant for any of this to happen. My whole world fell in when you left me. I swear to you, Stevie, this was never meant to happen. We were having fun and I just got carried away. I didn�t want this. You know that, right?

I swear to you, Stevie, when I threw you against that wall I didn�t know what was going to happen. You weren�t meant to hit your head like that. There wasn�t supposed to be that much blood. And I tried to wake you up. I screamed at you and I told you I loved you and you couldn�t leave me because I wouldn�t know what to do without you. I cried, but you left me anyway.

I swear to you, Stevie. I never meant to kill you.

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End
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