| "A Moment Passing" | ||
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Paige's Apartment May 20, 2008 0309 hours He waited for her. It seemed he always waited for her, to see what she would do next, the next look, smile, blink, the next breath. He waited now, for when she would stir, or wake up, when the moment would be lost only to remain captured in his mind as another tormenting memory. He watched her sleep in the darkness. He often did this, ignoring his own tiredness, because he loved to watch her sleep. He studied the way her hair fell across her shoulder and down her neck, the way her hand curled in a small half fist on his pillow. But mostly he studied her face, it was so relaxed, so peaceful, so unlike when she was awake, when it was drawn with tension, tension he thought, mostly because of him. He couldn't help himself earlier when they had run in the rain back to her apartment. He had to just...touch her. They were both soaking wet, cold, the power was out, it was something written in those romance novels he contemptuously eyed over at the grocery store. Except their relationship was anything but romantic. It did not consist of white horses, sappy soliloquies, or galaxy moving love making. No, their relationship was sex, built on mistrust, lies, and fear. He knew she feared him, what he represented, and deep down he believed she hated him. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could say to make her change her feelings for him. She would never give herself to him, not fully, and this he knew as sure as the sun would rise in a few hours. She would never think of him as anything more than an escape, a releaser of tension, a formidable ally with whom she must align herself with and stay on the good side of. He represented power over her and the realization made him sick to his stomach. He had thought that maybe something more could happen, but his suspicion was quickly put to rest when she searched out his lips by the door. He saw it in her eyes, written painfully clear, it was another exchange: sex for information, sex for control, sex for appeasement, sex to satisfy him, sex to stave off his anger. It was wrong, really, when he thought about it. What she felt she 'must' do instead of what she 'wanted' to do. She had been the aggressor, and he had taken it, taken her like that, when he should have stopped it. Should have stopped it right there and talked it out with her, told her she didn't have to do anything just because she felt she had to. But he didn't. His voice stood idly by letting her weave her web of self-destruction as he selfishly took everything she offered. He hated a lot of things in the world. He hated the look in her eyes as they fell over him sometimes, how the light within them changed from unbridled curiosity to something short of awe, or fear, or...something he couldn't quite define. He hated how that light burned into him like an ember, deep and scarring. He hated how the tension built up inside of him whenever she was near, how it frustrated him and raged like waters behind a dam that she was within his grasp yet out of his reach. He hated how he would go to any lengths to earn a glance from her, a smile, a touch, or just the smallest acknowledgement that he even existed. He hated his temper that went unchecked simply because there was no one that could check it. He hated himself and he hated the power she gave to him, and conversely, the power she held over him. He hated how he needed her, wanted her, how every fiber of his being ached for her, and how it was painful to simply draw in a breath around her. He hated how no matter how close or how tight he held her...he still felt like he was alone. He hated how he hung on every word she said and waited on every moment in her presence, just like he was doing now. Yeah, Joshua hated a lot of things in the world. She moved, murmured something, and another moment was lost. He moved closer to her, pulling her naked body gently next to his. She mumbled something else though he could not discern what it was through her sleepiness. Her hand that had rested on his pillow twined itself momentarily in his hair, the other came to rest on his chest. "Go back to sleep," he whispered kissing the top of her head. Her lips brushed his neck softly making his breath hitch quietly in his throat. Then she sighed, relaxing her body into his, drifting back off into the sleep he had disturbed. He felt every breath she took as if it were an eternity, listened to every heart beat as it echoed in his head like a scream and felt her warmth slowly flooding through him and filling the hollow emptiness of being alone for so many years. He bit back the urge to stretch her out and wake her up fully, opting just to hold her, to exist as he had done since the second he laid eyes on her, by waiting. Waiting for one moment to pass into the next, each increment another tortuous lesson from time, because that was the only way he could survive her. He thought he should be scared, or at least daunted by the depth of the creature in his arms and how he was drowning in her. But he was not a stupid man, they could never be more than they were now and he did not waste his time trying to convince himself otherwise. He would take these moments, one at a time, as long as they were his for the taking. He would, despite the turning in his stomach, or warnings in his mind, take everything and anything she offered to him freely or not. He would even take the control she gave to him without hesitation and he would hold on to it tightly as he had never held on to anything before, as if nothing else mattered, because nothing else did. Because that's the only thing he had with her - the controller and the controlled - and if that was the only way he could be near her, then so be it, because quite honestly, he didn't think he could live without her. Return |
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