Not You
by Mish
mish_rose@yahoo.com
Rating: NC-17
Category: M/O, episode fic for Season 2 ep "3"
Archive: By permission, please.
Summary: Distance is the painless way.



It's not you.

Keep telling yourself that, just like you told her
moments ago.

It's not you.

It's not you with your tongue so deep in her mouth
you taste the metal of old dental work.  Or is that
the tang of blood?

Doesn't matter, because it's not you.

Despite your weak warnings about disease, all
thought of death - your own - flies from your
brain.

Because...

It... isn't... you.

Running your wet hands over black silk.  Grunting
with impatience when she slips a bit from your
pushing.  It isn't you who hasn't slept in days, or
weeks or months.  Who hasn't fucked a woman in
longer than that.

Who never will fuck the right woman.

It isn't you.  Not you.

You aren't the one who forces her hands down.  It
isn't you who refuses to allow her touch, who
shoves the robe down to trap her arms.  Who
swallows down the sudden nausea at the sight of her
feral, satisfied smile.

The voice rumbling from your chest is foreign, your
command to 'close your fucking eyes' - those dark,
night eyes you used to admire in younger days - is
not you.  Feeling your dick surge with pleasure
because your belt buckle pinches her bare thigh and
she gasps... is that you?  No, can't be.  Isn't.

The normal you - the one you used to be, before
California, before the horror of bloodstained
fingertips, before Sky Mountain - would never let
sexual power overcome sanity.  Before they took
away crystal clear eyes and skin made white from
purity, not haunting dives like Club Tepes...
before all this, you were normal.  You still are,
deep down.  Where she lives still.  In a small
corner of your frozen heart, the walls have yet to
reach.

No, you tell yourself.  You can't be normal, just
like you told her.  Because this you isn't really
you.

That small part of your heart dies the moment you
shove your fingers into her.  She's slick, almost
too slick.  When she laughs, you draw back and
look.

Red.  Dull, but you know it even if you can't see
the color.  Blood.  She's tainted, just as you
would be if it were really you.

"For you," she whispers, her tongue darting out to
taste.

You should recoil, but you don't.  The smell of her
drifts into your head the moment she licks your
skin.  It's heady, it's full of sin and guilt and
it would be... you ... if you let it.

You do.  In a heartbeat, it's you.  In the time it
takes to open your pants and push the only part of
you in her that actually has real feeling at the
moment.

A dim word resonates in your head, a soft reminder
of safety.  She laughs, feeling your momentary
hesitance.  If this were really you, you'd draw
back and insist on a condom.  But there's no reason
in this madness.  Only raw misery.  Besides, you
can't die.  Neither of you.  Now that it's done,
now that you've become the one who isn't you, you
don't care.

"I wish I could die."

You give her the words she gave you as you begin to
fuck her.  You wonder if it's so easy because she's
so well-used, or if somehow, she's easy to fuck
because there's blood everywhere now.

On your hands, in your mind, covering your skin
with guilt and your soul with ice.  It's so painful
yet so good.  A warmth that freezes as it burns.

Blissfully blank now, your mind shuts down as your
eyes close.  In, out, in out.  You hear her moan,
feel her thrash around you, knowing she's close. 
So are you, though you deny yourself release as
some sort of punishment.

When it all comes flooding back, you realize your
mistake.  A body overcome with sexual desire has no
discipline.  Feeling the onset of orgasm tighten
your groin, you grimace.

And it comes.  Vivid flashes of a smile, a soft
word of encouragement, a steadfast presence you
remember as you would an amputated limb.  There
with ghostly tingling, but truly gone forever.

As you keep pushing and panting, memories crowd
your consciousness.  Of her, of you both.  Of what
the other you had.  Of how it slipped away in an
instant of carelessness, leaving behind a simple,
pure trail of blood.

You see your fingers stained with that blood, see
them reaching out to comfort a mother, sensing the
blasphemy of it all.  A sob constricts your chest
as the one beneath you convulses.  Your eyes open
with the burn of tears and you know now why it
isn't you.

Because it isn't her.

It isn't her writhing with pleasure under your
hands.  No matter what you thought you could find
in this coupling, no matter what grief you sought
to assuage, what remorse you sought to lose, it can
never be what you want.

Because her skin isn't the perfect bloom of pink. 
Her hair isn't the beacon that draws you across a
sea of doubt and self-recrimination.  Her eyes
aren't filled with respect and - dare you dream it?
- love.

This is an abomination.  Sudden loathing brings the
other you back with a vengeance.  You pull away
from the dying throes of her orgasm, flesh still
hard and bloodstained.  Your hands curl into fists
as you step away, head hanging as you cry.

She follows, all soft murmurs and gentle touches. 
But you will have none of it, turning your head in
dismissal, wishing her gone.  She finally leaves
after a few moments, a seductive, satisfied smile
on her face.  She has stolen what should have been
yours to give to another.

In the bright lights above the mirror you see
yourself clearly at last.  One who hasn't slept or
ate, one who weeps with exhaustion.  A disheveled,
bloodless wraith who has betrayed one held most
dear.  A powerless man who slowly cleans the
residue of another from his body.

This is the real you.  Water cannot wash away the
stain of human weakness.

You wait until you hear nothing from the bedroom
beyond before you emerge.  Shadows cloak the bed in
darkness where she sleeps.  The chair beckons; you
collapse into it, your hand reaching for the one
thing you know gives strength.

The golden cross fills your palm with familiar
warmth.  All is forgotten for the moment, all is
forgiven.  You sense it from her, wherever she is.

Too bad you will never forgive yourself.


END