H
e was her, once: stumbling blindly, using only the eyes on his heart and not the ones in his head. Everything is rose colored when all there is to see is your own blood, pumping. Everything else is music when all you can hear is your own voice, bouncing around on the walls of your chest.He was her, once: scar tissue too thick to keep breaking the skin, all leather and steel instead of cool spring water and soft summer grass. He loved a girl like him, with soft white hair and ocean eyes. He loved a girl who leaves, who was petty and jealous and short-tempered and so incredibly, impossibly broken that he could not even hold out hope that he'd find all her pieces, let alone put them together.
Michael tells himself that he will not be like her.
Won't you? Moira asks, less of a question and more of a plea. Michael shakes his head just as well as he can, leaned against the bed. It squeaks quietly when he moves, and the blankets bunch up at his chin, but he can't see any of it because he is looking at her, and her, and her, until time spins away to its end.
Won't you, Moira asks, and Michael wonders how to say 'no' in a way she'll believe. He loves her. He loves her. He loves her. "If you send me away," he says, smiling, "otherwise no."
Time is a funny thing. It goes so slow until it is moving too fast. One moment he is following her to her room, watching guards look at him with either pity or vague awe or confusion-- then before he's ready the night gets so incredibly late and he gets so incredibly tired, blinking heavy-lidded at her from her side.
Time will take everything, as she says. Time will take him, sooner rather than later in the grand scheme of things. She does not say this but she means it. Michael tries not to miss his old self. Michael tries not to wish for a few extra decades to spend watching her become what she will. He is still smiling when she finishes.
"I'm not," Michael says, "I promise I'm not."
He blinks back a yawn. "No one is. You don't need me-- but I'm thankful that you want me."
She kisses him, kisses his cheek, his eyelids, his forehead, and he looks at her like a drowning man come to the surface-- breathless.
I am soft again.
There is water and it surrounds me.
There is feeling and I can feel it.
There is water and it surrounds me.
There is feeling and I can feel it.
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