Twilight -- Love Lost [Edward/Rosalie]
Title: Love Lost
Author: Mariusgirl
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing: Edward/Rosalie
Word Count: 1,511
Rating: PG-13
Summary: He will save her, or she will break him.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
They’re just pieces - indecipherable fragments of tattered souls and broken hearts - lost and alone.
Two souls which touch without mingling. Fingers which brush but never intertwine. Two hearts that feel but never connect.
She is a rare beauty - a superficial socialite who spent more time remembering to sit up straight and smile politely than learning about the trials and tribulations of life outside the luxuries of her pedigree. Born and bred a princess, she never got to be the queen.
He is a gentleman - educated books brimming with decadent ideas and dinner parties where he was expected to be nothing less than the idea suitor. He overanalyzes everything, losing the beauty of life somewhere in his meticulous translations.
Two souls, saved by love, can’t find it in themselves to love in return. A glance, a shrug, a twitch in the others direction.
Sad eyes and sad hearts watch in dismay as they dance around each other - neither wanting to be the one to make the first move.
He will save her. Or she will break him. They’ve rewritten their story so many times by now that neither remembers how they lost each other along the way.
-------
Her first winter in death and he finds her staring forlornly out the window. Her knees tucked up tightly under her chin, she looks more like a half-grown child than a woman. Her eyes, brimmed with tears that will never fall, stare sadly at the perfectly formed flakes as they drift carelessly to the ground.
He joins her on the window seat, bristling slightly as her thoughts turn cold.
She fidgets with a bracelet on her arm, pretending that he isn’t there, but soon loses interest in the game. As she always does.
“What do you want,” she asked huskily, the intonation of her voice giving away her irritation.
The corners of his mouth - perpetually turned downward in an unbecoming frown - quirk slightly in solemn amusement. He’s still not sure he likes this addition to their family.
He doesn’t respond immediately, doesn’t say what’s on his mind. Her thoughts are consumed with bitter rage and seething disappointment. This is not the life she was meant to lead.
“It gets better,” he says, his words are measured and even. Then he waits for her explosive reaction. Her biting anger at the injustice of what has happened to her, her rejection of his attempt at comfort, and the exhausted, tearless cry that always leaves him feeling guilty for something that isn’t his fault.
But it doesn’t come. Not this time. Instead, the dance takes on a new twist and he’s suddenly upside down and six feet under.
Her eyes are wide as she wheels to glare at him, but the anger that usually accompanies such a tantrum is strangely absent. Warm butterscotch, deep, unfathomable pools of liquid desire bore straight into his and he feels his breath catch awkwardly in his throat.
“How?”
It’s a question he does not know the answer to, he just knows it does. Either you learn to live with the monster, or it learns to live with you. There is no middle ground to being a vampire.
Shaking his head, he reaches out to touch her hand. For the first time since they met, she doesn’t recoil.
“It just does.”
He knows his answer is inadequate, but it’s all he has. It's a question he once asked himself, but even now, years after the horror of his first kill and the stain of dried blood on his hands has been washed away, he still has no answer that might bring her solace.
She nods anyway - a flurry of bobbing blonde framed by the golden rays of a dying sun - and he feels his chest tighten. He's ready to congratulate himself, thinking foolishly that he’s made progress with her, but her thoughts take a well traveled turn towards blood and death, and he knows he’s outstayed his welcome.
-------
She kept a journal in life as a record of parties, birthdays, and shining social events which brought her closer to realizing her dreams. Her hopes and fears were poured out onto pristine white pages, blistering it with scandals and fanciful dreams which would never come to pass.
In death, her journal is a bit different. The dates no longer matter as time is no longer an issue, but the feelings are the same. And they are what keep her coming back, time and again, to the solitude of a lonely pen scratching searchingly across paper as she tries to force a small amount meaning back into her existence.
Eight months and the journal is ripped to shreds on a stormy night. Thunder crashes in the distance, echoing her dissident disposition. A thousand tiny fragments - metaphorical leafs of her heart - rain like so much discolored and bleeding confetti around the room in a blanket of memories that are no longer her own. The spontaneous overflow of such powerful emotion draws another to the shadows in the hall.
He watches, but does not comment. The agitated furrow of his brow and the tight line of his lips say more than empty words ever could.
She hates him for it. Hates the way he looks at her, so much pity shining in his eyes, without even the slightest attempt to hide it or feel ashamed at being caught.
The slamming of doors has become a natural occurrence in their house and tonight is no different.
-------
The first snowfall of the season blows in with twilight, and by morning a baby fine powder has hardened into a blanket of immutable tundra.
Her second winter in death is only marginally better than the first.
He still finds her in the window seat, lost and as cold as the snow beyond the glass.
Taking up his usual spot, he tentatively lifts his arm and places it around her shoulders. For once, she doesn’t shrug it off, doesn't comment on how much she loaths his touch nearly as much as his attempts at company.
It isn't much, but it’s a start.
-------
He doesn’t remember how it happens; only that he doesn’t ever want it to stop.
The slamming of the door isn’t in anger, but it grates across his nerves nonetheless. He sits up, fully intent on rebuking her for her intrusion, but before he can speak she’s straddling his lap, her lips crashing down on his in desperation - a wild hunger that he knows to well racing like fire through her veins.
“I’m tired of being lonely.”
Whispered words ghost at his ear, but it’s all the invitation he needs.
Cold hands raking across marble flesh, a chorus of matching moans, and a steady stream of shred clothing are the only things that matter in such a moment.
She wants to feel alive, wants the aching void of her heart to be filled with something other than bitter memories and empty lies. But the heat between them is as ephemeral as it is nonexistent, an aching reminder of what she is, and what she isn’t.
-------
When it’s good, it’s good. But when it’s bad, it’s epic.
-------
The hardest thing for him to do is to watch the one he loves love another.
A glance, a shrug, a twitch in each others direction - it’s betrayal at its finest.
Sometimes he still catches her staring at him, her eyes full of an old recognizable emotion that he no longer chooses to acknowledge - is no longer capable of - and he wonders what verdurous gloom their ill-fated relationship is headed for next.
He forces himself to confront her face-to-face, needing to know where he stands, needing to hear it instead of reading it in her mind.
“Do you love him?”
“Always.”
“Do you love me?”
“No.” But she can’t stop him from hearing her thoughts. Sometimes.
“You can’t have it both ways,” he informs her, his mouth curving downward, back into the perpetual frown she’s come to despise.
Her words are barely audible but carry so much uncertainty. “Why?”
He can think of a million reasons why but none of them matter as much as her kisses, her pale fingers wound so tightly in his hair that it almost hurts.
-------
Again and again they fall, each time surfacing with a fresh scar to add to their burgeoning collection.
But they keep reverting back. Harsh words and hate filled glances don’t carry as much weight in the dark. Walking away would be too easy and neither wants to admit defeat.
And so they dance, watching the mistakes they make pile up on top of the lies to hide them. Hearts growing heavy with the passage of time that touches, changes, and renews everything but them.
Dusk and dawn.
Darkness and daylight.
Rosalie and Edward.
They’re writing their own tragedy. And just as surely as the dawn follows the dark, they’ll keep writing it, each new chapter bringing them closer to the finish line. Absolution or undoing - the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.