"The world is full of suffering, suffering is caused by desire, suffering can be avoided through an extinguishing of desire..." ~one of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism

~*~

She smiles as she slides onto the barstool, all liquid grace and soft curves. They can't see the muscle beneath, but she can feel it pulling taut. Years of hard work have paid off in a body that men would die to touch and women would die to have. Literally.

It's not enough, though.

She doesn't crave the sex -- nameless, faceless men or women in backrooms and parking lots and alleys. That drive has been lost along with most of the others. But she doesn't say no, either. Not if it gets her more of what she wants.

The bartender puts the shot in front of her and she licks her lips. The first taste, acrid and smoky, the burn as the bourbon hits her chest and spreads its warmth.

Manna from heaven.

This is what she lives for now.

A second, third, fourth shot follow in quick succession, rolling the glass along her lower lip, reveling in its smooth coolness. But she doesn't feel the burn. All she feels now is happy. She can focus, concentrate, be *herself* now, away from the mansion, away from the sympathetic eyes and the helping hands.

They think they know, but they can't ever understand.

No past, no future. Just the ever-present, everlasting now, and God it used to only take two or three shots, but now she needs three quarters of a bottle before everything clicks into place and the world is right again. And that means it's tequila time.

Tonight is a good night. She gets up and dances on the bar, and the man who helps her when she stumbles is cute. He smells of leather and bourbon and smoke, and if she squints she can almost imagine--

But no.

That's what she's here to forget.

She lets him lead her to his car and she can't feel a thing now.

Funny how that works. She drinks to feel and then she drinks to stop feeling.

She hands him the condom and he slides inside her; it's over almost before she's had a chance to realize it was starting.

Disappointing.

He's a little too hasty, and she doesn't quite care enough to stop him when his thighs brush against the bare skin of hers. She closes her eyes against the muted swirl of his thoughts before she jumps away. He slumps down on the back seat and she leaves him there, even while she takes a piece of him with her, forever.

She pulls her skirt down over her ruined tights and as she heads back into the bar, she contemplates the numbness.

It's what she wants.

Numbness. Silence. The absence of want.

Nirvana, the Buddhists call it.

Sheer bloody impossible hell for her.

When she can't feel, she wants to, and when she can, she runs screaming back into the arms of sweet mother scotch.

But she always wants.

She is the pure essence of wanting, and that's why she can never turn her skin off, never be safe. Because the wanting never stops.

She would devour the world and everything in it and it still wouldn't be enough.

To quiet that craving, she drinks and fucks and fights her way through the FoH and the Brotherhood and anyone else who gets in her way.

She manages to get home somehow, her focus on the white line to her right and the steady stream of streetlights passing through her peripheral vision.

She stumbles up the stairs to their room and peels off her gloves. So easy, she thinks. He doesn't even need to know. It's routine now. He knows what she is, but he refuses to see it, refuses to believe it's not something he can fix. So, he pretends to fix it, and she lets him.

Denial works for him. For them. It always has.

He knows it's his fault. Blames himself as much as she does. It's why he stays. She never would have pegged him for a martyr all those years ago, but he wears the crown of thorns she's picked for him. Wears it like a badge. She's the ball and chain keeping him here; she takes a bitter pleasure in their mutual regret, the constant litany of "if-onlys" that permeates their whole acquaintance.

She weaves her way to the bed, muttering to herself that she's sorry, she's so sorry, but she has to, just this one more time. She reaches out and he's not there.

Not. There.

It takes a moment to penetrate, but when it does, she crashes into action. Drawers are jerked open, closet doors flung wide.

He hasn't left her. He can't leave her. He can't. She chants it over and over, reassuring herself that they're locked into this pact of mutually assured destruction. His clothes are still there, and she grabs one flannel shirt as she trips over the small step and tumbles to the floor of the bathroom.

Wrapping herself in his scent, she sobs until she falls asleep, there on the tile.

She wakes to the dim light of dawn filtering through the blinds, sees him towering over her.

"Rough night?" he asks.

She puts a hand to her pounding head, squints up at him. "Nah." He nods, leans over and grabs her hand to pull her up. "I'm just gonna--" She jerks her head at the shower and he nods again.

"Whatever you want, Rogue," he says, and it's her turn to nod.

All she knows now, all she is, is wanting, and he can never give her what she craves.

end