RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: Sark angst. Set sometime after "The Telling."
DISCLAIMER: Not my characters. I borrowed them from JJ Abrams, ABC, and Bad Robot.
THANKS: Dare. Beta. Nuff' said.
The Dreams Beneath
by Rebecca Carefoot
She doesn't belong to him.
He knows she never will.
She mingles her sweat with his, and meets his eyes as he buries himself inside her. She leaves her mark on his back. And kisses him so hard her lips swell. When she falls asleep, he holds her body next to his and touches her hair and presses his hand flat against her heart.
She lets him hold her. Touch her. Borrow her for a while.
But she doesn't belong to him.
Most of the time he doesn't mind. Most of the time, it's enough to feel her heartbeat under his fingertips, to cup the faint rhythm like a firefly. To feel it flutter like tiny wings. To feel the warmth of her spill through his fingers like light. Most of the time, he's satisfied with what she can give him. It's enough to be beside her. To feel her clench around him. To gasp her name and lose himself for a moment.
Most of the time she doesn't say his name. He's glad. Because when he hears his name in her mouth, the part of herself she loans him seems like not enough. He forgets when she says his name that she is not like him. That he doesn't need all of her.
Sometimes, not often, she touches his cheek with her thumb. Or smooths down an unruly lock of his hair. Sometimes, he is not satisfied. He wants more than he has. He wants more than a moment. More than knowing that when she's with him, she's thinking of someone else. Someone worthy of all of her. More than seeing the past she'll never stop mourning when he looks into her eyes. More than what she can give him.
There are only a few things he is sure of. The solid weight of a gun against his palm. The sharp edge of a knife. The amount of C-4 needed to bring down a building. The width of a bullet. The smell of blood.
He knows how it feels to look into someone's eyes and pull the trigger. It feels like nothing. Like blankness. Like static.
He doesn't know what love is.
He only knows that there is no other heartbeat he cares about. No other heartbeat he needs to hear beating. There is no other heartbeat he would give anything, even his own blood, to keep beating. Most of the time.
Sometimes he wants to close his hand over her heart and squeeze it. He wants that heartbeat so much. He'd squeeze it until it was his. Squeeze it until it stopped.
He doesn't sleep much.
Instead he watches her face. Watches the dreams beneath her eyelids. He kisses her shoulder, and feels her pressed against him. He holds her tight to him. Not too tight. Not as tight as he could. He doesn't trust himself not to crush the firefly in his hand.
She doesn't belong to him.
But he is hers.
He belongs to her. It's one thing he's sure of.
end
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