starfish and hope (twillight-edward/alice, pg, "this darkened stree you go to hide...")laundryloveOctober 8 2008, 02:00:31 UTC
He tastes like hope.
“If I can just remember,” she murmurs to him, spreading her hands across the silky bed sheets like pale white starfish, “jut for a second, a millisecond… you could catch it right?”
“Of course,” he answers, because he knows it true and he also knows that she won’t remember. He won’t say it to her face, won’t say that she is a black hole, dropped from the sky, where did you come from? Instead he’ll brush her hips and touch her throat and pretend that he can help her.
--
“You were beautiful,” he tells her, auburn hair falling on her collarbone. “Long hair and blue eyes and pink lips. You were beautiful.”
He lies to save her, but she’s already dead.
--
Sometimes she can picture herself from his descriptions, barely, murky watercolors with faded paint: dark braid, light eyes, long limbs, graceful step.
He slides down her body, into it, and instead of seeing another man in her mind’s eye she sees herself, soft and breakable beneath him, writhing and arching until she can’t think about anything anymore.
--
“You made it up, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
She doesn’t expect him to be so blunt, but she latches at it, snarling. “I didn’t have blue eyes, did I?”
“You might have.”
For the first time she can remember (which isn’t a lot of time, she hisses to herself, resentment that even Jasper has never tried to touch ebbing to the surface), she feels the urge to howl in frustration.
“You’re a liar.”
He doesn’t move.
“I wanted you to be happy.”
Rosalie had lent her some lipstick, dark crimson, and she steps into him one last time. Their final kiss smears above his dead pulse-point.
--
It looks like blood, and he sees a scene play for a half-moment in her mind, old black-and-white recording:
Mary Alice, don’t let him hurt you. He wants your blood.
“If I can just remember,” she murmurs to him, spreading her hands across the silky bed sheets like pale white starfish, “jut for a second, a millisecond… you could catch it right?”
“Of course,” he answers, because he knows it true and he also knows that she won’t remember. He won’t say it to her face, won’t say that she is a black hole, dropped from the sky, where did you come from? Instead he’ll brush her hips and touch her throat and pretend that he can help her.
--
“You were beautiful,” he tells her, auburn hair falling on her collarbone. “Long hair and blue eyes and pink lips. You were beautiful.”
He lies to save her, but she’s already dead.
--
Sometimes she can picture herself from his descriptions, barely, murky watercolors with faded paint: dark braid, light eyes, long limbs, graceful step.
He slides down her body, into it, and instead of seeing another man in her mind’s eye she sees herself, soft and breakable beneath him, writhing and arching until she can’t think about anything anymore.
--
“You made it up, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
She doesn’t expect him to be so blunt, but she latches at it, snarling. “I didn’t have blue eyes, did I?”
“You might have.”
For the first time she can remember (which isn’t a lot of time, she hisses to herself, resentment that even Jasper has never tried to touch ebbing to the surface), she feels the urge to howl in frustration.
“You’re a liar.”
He doesn’t move.
“I wanted you to be happy.”
Rosalie had lent her some lipstick, dark crimson, and she steps into him one last time. Their final kiss smears above his dead pulse-point.
--
It looks like blood, and he sees a scene play for a half-moment in her mind, old black-and-white recording:
Mary Alice, don’t let him hurt you. He wants your blood.
--
He never tells her, and she never asks.
There isn’t hope with them anymore.
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