She's standing a few feet away from him, trying not to stare because he's strong and he's blood and he's bone and he's everything she has always wanted and been too afraid to try.

He breathes and she shivers in her coat like he's just iced the air, but really it's just the smoke and the shame that skitter over her, ice cubes in the dark.

Slivers on the ground, silvers on the ground, moonlight or dreamlight or memories or pain. It could be all of them, everything, but she thinks it's the last rays of good lying dead on the floor, and then he raises his hand and there's a can of beer and he drinks and she watches his shadow and the shadow of the light battle and contrast until the light disappears.

He drinks and she wraps the heavy wool around her body; maybe this way nothing will get in, maybe this way, nothing will get *out*. And she hopes that he won't notice, maybe he won't see what she's doing, or trying to do, but he always does, because it's who he is.

His eyes glitter and for a moment she sees topaz and she sees hope and she wonders if he knows and if he sees it too, because suddenly his eyes darken and they flicker and they become obsidian.

And hope goes the way of the pale that had lain before her, and she watches it and does nothing to stop it, because sometimes it's better that way, sometimes death is the closest to life she thinks she'll ever be.

He reaches for her with one hand and much as she wants to evade, to step away and run away and hide in her room with the light on and a bible at the ready, she merely remains standing and allows him to pull her close.

His hands are hot as they push the coat from her, unbutton her sweater and when he grips her arms they burn her skin like blackened coals through paper.

Her blouse is long-sleeved and she's gloved and so she doesn't have to worry about his hands being bare, really, but she does. Because he isn't nearly careful enough and it frightens her and sometimes he slips and he swallows her up with his thoughts and she thinks she likes it, thinks sometimes that she *lives* for it, and that frightens her even more.

And so after he's come and she's come and they're both lying inside her room on the floor, she scrambles back from him and all of his exposed and dangerous flesh, back from the temptation and the risk and the possibility of discovery.

Because nobody knows.

And if they did know, they'd say it was wrong, that he was a bad influence and she was just a girl and he doesn't love her and he'd hurt her in the long run, maybe in the short run, too.

They'd be right, on all counts. Except that she isn't a girl, and she knows he has strong feelings for her. She knows he loves her, because he tells her when he's in her arms and when he's in her head and she knows it and wants to cry for it, because she loves him too, and she hates him, because she knows something else as well.

He isn't good for her, and he's hurting her, and he's corrupting her, and the hell of it is, he'd be devastated if he ever found out.

So she keeps her mouth shut and she says nothing, even when she sees the innocence she'd once had wash away in a tide of anger and hatred and blood-lust, because she can't blame him for that, not at the bottom of it all.

She'd practically begged for his touch, to be let back into his life, and perhaps it was partly to prove the nay-sayers wrong, but it was also to prove that she loves him, that he's worthy of love and that she believes in him, believes that his love won't irrevocably stain the white from her soul.

But... it has, and he has, and she still loves him and she thinks that that is perhaps the only reason, in the end, that she's with him.

Because maybe his stains will bleed into her and she'll make them her own and his nightmares will fade and her dreams will become tormented. And maybe one day he'll wake up and he'll be clean and then one day she'll be the defiler of innocence and she'll want to give him up before she contaminates him, but she'll no longer be good enough to do that.

And so she'll poison his soul as he'll have poisoned hers and then eventually, they'll be dark as each other and a perfect match.

And maybe then they won't be in love any more, because love, love is sacrifice and by then there won't be anything left.

~end~