Suicide Romance

 In this thin grey night, he was hesitant. There was something about the formless shapes of the clouds that drew his eye and drew up doubt in his heart like poison being lanced from a wound. Not such an old wound this, but Cougar Redfern was never quite sure if it was trivial or if one day he would find all his hope and lifeblood had seeped from it, leaving him empty.

 It hadn't worked: he was used to that. His relationships toppled in his mind like a row of dominos, reduced to a flat and lonely path. It never seemed to work: he was too arrogant, too sharp, too selfish, and no matter how gently the words were said, it was always a knife.

 In a way, he preferred it to end in anger: in the storm of words and accusations, rage blazed across every other emotion, destroying that horrible feeling of vulnerability. Some of his relationships had ended that way, and more often than not, friendship could be salvaged from the wreckage.

 Others had ended in soft platitudes and regret, and those were etched most deeply on his heart.

 And one had ended with nothing more than an absence; a hollow where love should have been, a farewell that was not even spoken, only implied, and in the vast vault of silence, only his guilt remained. Sometimes, he suspected that relationship had dealt him more damage than all the others, even though he told himself it had meant less.

~*~

 She had lived with fear all her life, and now was no different. Sometimes, she thought that if she could find just one thing in this world she did not fear, she would be content.

 Once, Ria Lutinne thought that her soulmate could bring her contentment and cast out her demons into the neverwhere. More often than not, she brooded on the tumultuous beginnings of their relationship. She remembered words of love, spoken too soon. She had so desperately wanted love to come and wash away her troubles in rainbow glitter and butterflies that she imagined it where there was none.

 Once, she had thought him selfish and stubborn and full of rage: too distracted by his own problems to solve hers. Now, she thought that he had been afraid too.

 It was truly terrifying to have your very soul bared to someone else: more intimate than being stripped naked in front of a stranger, to see them assessing all you were and passing judgement. There could be few secrets with your soulmate: whatever miserable privacy you managed to retain was always in danger of being lost under the irresistible tug of the connection.

 She had wrapped up all her hopes and fears and handed them to Cougar, and prayed he would not destroy them. And it had never occurred to her that he couldn't bear the burden - that beneath that arrogant mask, he knew no more of love and loving than she.

 She had expected so much: he had expected so little.

 And inevitably, the differences had begun to divide them.

 He was a vampire: the mere beat of her heart could sustain him, and once, he had asked her in a terribly soft voice. But her fear had ruled her, and she had refused.

 Beneath that angel's face, strong fine lines and sullen mouth, eyes like the lights of heaven, there was a dark creature. One that saw little difference between blood and desire, even if he didn't admit it. Her refusal had hurt him, she knew that, yet she couldn't bring herself to expose her veins to him, to say: my life, my death, they lie beneath your lips, beneath your bloody kiss, and I know which you will choose.

 She hadn't known. Too often, she had seen the anger tightening his elegant features; too often they had swapped harsh words in the empty evenings. Him loud and ferocious; she timid but none the less venomous. When she recalled those arguments, she could not let him near her.

 Her fear of him had been a knife in his back. Love could not survive beneath it: it was a carrion crow whose shadow darkened their relationship. Eventually, inevitably, her fear butchered his affection.

~*~

 His soulmate, for Christ's sake! His own bloody soulmate, and still he couldn't make it work.

 It wasn't that they were especially different: no more so than Jepar and Tali, or Aspen and Tam. But her fragility had made him tentative. He could break her, he sensed, he could wound her beyond repair with dreadful ease, and that frightened him.

 There was an ugliness in him he had never denied; a bitter poison that was as much a part of his personality as his extravagance. It surfaced most often in his foul temper. His friends took it in their stride - they understood that the shouting and the screaming drained that toxin safely. But Ria...no, she could never understand that words were just sounds he threw about until he was calm again.

 Once, he had reached to stroke her hair, and she had flinched back. They spent the rest of the day in silence. He had searched for the words to explain, but somehow, they wouldn't pass his lips, and when he did make one clumsy attempt, she didn't understand.

 She'd thought love would solve everything. He already knew it solved nothing. Ring yourself with friends and lovers, but the bills will still need paying and the rain will still soak you through and your enemies will not forget you. It was as if...Ria had expected that when love came, she would be beautiful and shining and no longer shy; as if it would transform her from her from the duckling to the swan.

 No, sweetheart, he'd wanted to say a thousand times over. You have to do that yourself.

 I already saw the swan, but you never could.

 Now, I wonder which of us was right.

~*~

 It was always at night that she thought of him. Maybe the two were linked in her mind. He always seemed most alive at night: to him, the shadowy roads of Ryars Valley were places for adventure and risk. For her, they were death-traps.

 Where are you now? she wondered, looking out onto the neon-striated streets. Thousand of miles away, but even when there was nothing but air between us, you were part of some other world. The night is in your blood, in all of you.

 Not just him, but the rest of the Circle too. No matter how kind Jepar was, she would see him arch his hands and feet just like the cheetah he was, and in those eyes would be the longing for the savannah, a feral gleam. Chatoya was a witch like her, but she wielded her magic with a merry heart, frying breakfast on a ball of flame for no reason other than practice. Lisa might have a sensible streak a mile wide, but her poise and  age set her apart from everyone else.

 With company like that, how could I ever hope to make an impact on you? They're so hungry for life, so unafraid of what it has to offer. Alisha - she fitted right in, because she's tough and bold and determined. But me...no, I knew you all for years and never knew you at all. I feared you, all of you, but especially...

 Yes, especially you.

 Cougar, I loved you for years, and never loved you at all.

~*~

 He walked for something to do, head down, watching the pavement.

 By the end, you'd hardly let me touch you. I saw what was in your eyes when you looked at me. Do you know how many times I've seen people look at Blue that way? Are we truly so alike, he and I?

 Oh, there were reunions, brief things, until my lips were too near your neck or I got mad and snapped at you. I've spent so much of my life longing for someone who would trust me implicitly, for someone who could look at me and be proud that I was theirs...but it wasn't you.

 It wasn't my soulmate. You saw my soul and quailed.

 And then...and then, I realised that the people around me had already seen every shameful, hideous piece of me, and they never even thought about turning away, not for one minute. Yeah, they argue and they call me on it when I'm wrong and stupid - the two go together, usually - and sometimes, they're even afraid of me...

 But they face me, and even though they don't tell me they love me, I know they do. And they don't need to know I love them either - they don't have to hear it a hundred times a day to be sure it's true.

 They're my family. I'd die for them. I think maybe I have, once or twice, even if they didn't notice. I wonder what they've lost for my sake, and I'll never ask. I don't need to - we don't keep score.

 Are you happy, out there? I hope so. I don't think you knew how to love us...and we're a package deal, these days, like it or loathe it. Maybe we didn't know how to love you, but god knows we tried.

 I tried. God, how I tried. And I'm sorry it didn't work. Maybe if I'd said sorry more often, we'd have had a better chance.

 He breathed in cold air, breathed out fog.

 I wanted to love you, really I did. But wanting wasn't enough.

 And now I love someone I want. And loving isn't enough.

 What a mess. What a crazy, painful, blissful mess. But you know...I wouldn't change any of it.

 And that's craziest of all.