WatermarkHow delicate the tracery of her fine lines
Like the moonlight lacetops of the evening pinesWalking side by side in Shady Hill Cemetary, Buffy and Angel gently entwined their outstretched hands together, swinging them beside their sides, looking up at the dark moonlit sky overhead. A tumult of wispy fine clouds, black as ebony, was passing slowly over the still full moon as it hung in the sky, its gentle flickers of light dappling on the ground, spilling over their pale faces, making the trees seem dark and menacing and the ground cold and barren.
Turning to his love, Angel reached out a hand and gently caressed her cheek, wishing. Just wishing. Wishing for a chance for their relationship to work. Wishing it had worked out in the first place. Wishing they could be together...really together...for eternity. So that everyday he would wake up beside the small form of the woman he loved most in the world. So that he could feel his children kicking in her enlarged womb. So he could love as a man loves a woman.
But he wasn’t a man.
Not really.
He couldn’t even tell her he loved her.
Or how beautiful she was.
He traced the fine lines of her face, his touch remembering every crevice of her face, every dip, every dimple.
Like a song half-heard through a closed door
Like an old book when you cannot read the writing anymoreEverywhere they went, they were faced with yet another closed door. Now they were standing in a way too familiar small room, pressed up against each other, no room to breathe, no room to grow or even move.
He had spent many nights weeping for what could not be and he knew she had done the same but still...he hoped...and wished...and prayed to the god that had deserted him long ago.
How innocent her visage as my child lover lies
Pressed against the rainswept windy windows of my eyes
Like an antique etching glass design
That somehow turned out wrongThat’s all she is, a small child with a touch of innocence still left in her fearful apprehensive eyes, scared of the world that rejected her long ago even after all she has done for it. All he longed for was to take all the hurt and sorrow that weighed down her heart, cutting into her soul with a knife dipped in lemon juice, leaving behind scars that would never disappear.
I keep looking through old varnish
At my late lover’s body
Caught on ancient canvas
And decaying...disappearing
Even as I sing this songOh how he longed for that night. By day, he relived those memories in his fitful slumber; by night, they were permanently embedded in his mind, distracting him from his work and duties to save the world from what he had once been.
But the memories were starting to go. He could no longer remember that night in such fine detail, could no longer quite feel the silky smoothness of her small body against his, the heat of her skin against his cool flesh, the moans and sighs of her overwhelming pleasure that would so shortly be interrupted.
That was the worst part.
The memories would fade.
Like an ancient priceless painting, still there in all its glory, but not as magnificient as past times, the ancient colours seeping away leaving poor imitations beyond restoration.
How secretly and silently my sorrow disappears
You can’t see it with your eyes or hear it with your eyesKnow that was wrong, Buffy had always been able to know what he was thinking, feeling. He couldn’t hide anything from her, even when he tried. It was a amazing gift, but sometimes those emotions should be left private.
Sometimes, when they are exposed, emotions can do much more damage than if they are left alone.
Untouched.
Untried.
Unfulfilled.
It’s like a watermark that’s never there
And never really goneThat was all these moonlit escapes where now.
A distant memory of something much stronger.
A watermark.
~Fin~
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