Work Text:
My feet sink in the sand as I trudge across the beach. It's cold, damp; but bright – not like the dark mass of water playing the boundless skyline. The waves blur on the shore, silent almost, losing the power of the seemingly unbridled momentum.
My hands have become numb, half-consciously clenched in fists in the pockets of my warm black hoodie; the baggy hood protects my head from the biting cold. I chew on my lip absentmindedly, blind to the world around me. A crooked, lunar smile sheds frozen light; though it could be no light, it wouldn't make a difference.
I don't know what has brought me here. But I followed it, trusting as always. Curious. I sink into my memory and my memory drowns in the unspilled emotions.
Maybe it's a call from inside me; from something that's whining from thirst, writhing on the icy desert...
Maybe it's a hologram of me, a flash, a prophecy, the clouds parting so that I could see...
"Ahh," the sound suddenly opens my lips, a soft hiss, when I almost stumble over something sharp, covered by soft sand.
Of course. Fucking branch.
As if a spell has hit me, as if someone has grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me, I gasp, suddenly realizing.
I recognize this place. This particular part of the beach. My wide-open eyes are drawn to a small hollow in the ubiquitous beige. Bathed in the night, it stands out slightly.
Why is it still here? How is this possible?
I'd rather not see.
I'd rather not remember.
Is this some sort of punishment? A devilish joke?
Or maybe... maybe it's a different place... Maybe paranoia has overwhelmed my logic, maybe I've soaked with my memories too much... To the point of irreversible.
My lungs squeeze in themselves. A familiar prickling gathers under my eyelids; I shut them tight, fighting the inevitable. Although I don't want to allow it, although I don't want to let it float to the surface... I know it. The depth of me knows it.
This is not the first time I'm asking myself: am I two persons trapped in one body?
But then, always, I know it couldn't be the case because I'm not even half a person anymore. I don't know who I am; I don't want to know.
I don't want to remember; please, never again;
unless...
...that would return to reality and become true. But it will never happen; you have made it clear; yes, I can not be blind to signs, even despite the fear about my personal comfort.
Once... when we were both in those priceless teen years, everything was wonderful, fabulous, like in the most beautiful, unrealistic fairy tale.
Every day I would open my eyes with my heart beating jauntily, because I knew that I'd get to spend it with you.
I was happy. I think, still, that you were too.
And then, out of the blue, you disappeared. As if you never existed. I found your home empty; and that's how it stayed. I began to think that I had lost my mind and that day was an awakening. That you were just another imaginary friend whom I unconsciously materialized in some mysterious way.
That you never really existed.
But where, then, would the wounds on my heart, body and mind be from? Where would it all be from? Is the illusion so realistically tangible a something that the universe does have a place for, after all?
I don't want to believe it. I don't believe that. It's absurd.
I still remember... of course I still do. Of course I do. How could I forget?
I want; I don't know; I want; I don't know. I don't want to. But I know.
"I promise, Scor. Someday... not now, but someday, it will all be our life."
I wait, watching sleepily, how your eyes cloud. I inwardly curse my shaky breath.
You can be quiet, modest and unreadable, like a journal written in an invisible ink. If there was someone who could warm this parchment and read the hidden...
If I could be that someone ...
"You're throwing words to the wind. Be careful, cause someone will catch them and use them against you."
Honesty dressed in bitter tone; I did not mean to say that, I don't even have a clue what evoked those words. Your presence triggers foreign mechanisms in me.
Your lack, even more so.
"No, Scor," you reply softly. "I'm sorry you think so." You turn your face towards me, and despite the bizarre, almost satirical drama of this moment, your eyes are green like never before. "But these are not just ordinary, empty words. No. I promise you..."
You grab my hand in yours, clench your fingers over my chilled skin and look at me so earnestly as if you just wanted to warm me up from the inside and out.
"...I promise that it will be like this someday. And nothing will say "no" to us. I wouldn't let... We wouldn't... yeah?"
My clenched throat almost prevents me from swallowing; dry lips, furrowed eyebrows... that's all the answer I can give you, because my face is frozen, like under hypnosis.
If you've been fettering me with some fancy charms... I don't want you to stop.
I look down; my eyes inexorably land on our joined hands. For some reason, it was always a magnetic sight; it makes me aware that the world actually pays attention, that it doesn't just engage in constant mockery... that I am not alone.
My long, pale fingers protrude from yours, persevering in a firm grip that I have known so well for so long. Words are boiling in my overwrought mind, forming into sappy responses, knocking on the door that my pursed lips have closed.
I take a deep breath at the same time when your quiet "Can I?" fills the electrified space between us. I look up, the question echoes in your eyes as one of your warm hands moves upwards, to my face. You cup my cheek. Yet you do nothing else.
I nod, not trusting my vocal cords.
The inhaled air escapes me in a sigh, mixing with yours. Your lifeful, sincere presence begins to overpower me; I automatically close my eyes.
I would never want to not believe you, Al. And when you touch me like you are now – gently, with intent, almost cautiously, as if you were afraid that I will evaporate before your eyes in a mist – I can't even stop the unconditional trust that is being born in me inevitably.
I am naive; maybe. Maybe I'm just as much of a dream to you as you used to be to me.
Because what's left for me now, here, as I'm standing alone on the cold beach, trying not to remember how much yours I've become that day?
How much did you take from me?... How much did you leave in me?... Is this an equation or an inequality? Which scale is heavier?
Are there even any sides at all? Or is it all just an illusion, which I cannot deny, refuse?
I'm a coward because I'm too afraid of answers to let the illusions go. Maybe the truth lies at my fingertips; served on a silver tray,
mocking me from that day, when I showed you everything I always kept hidden, which I would never be able to let anyone else see.
I have been marked by you, each and every moment of my life since that day has been scarred by you, and even now, after a few long years, still, the depths of me remember and believe and want.
Although reason has long since lost its childlike innocence.
And my soul is still singing, whispering, murmuring with hope... If something has brought me here, there must be a greater sense in it. There must be.
With stammering heart, I realize that I'm now kneeling on the sand. I don't know what I'm doing, but my body is laying itself down in the hollow in the sand, led by a subconscious order. My back meets the cold ground; a shiver runs through my spine. I spread my arms, close my eyes and breathe. I'm breathing... I'm breathing... Salty scent mixes with earthy smell. Breeze wraps my nostrils in the gentle brush of the perfume from my hoodie. Tears flow, wetting my hair, dripping to the ground; warm against the cold.
I let them. I'm done.
The concept of time escapes me, like sand pouring through fingers, like water in hands; I don't know how much of it has passed. The infinity of the stars-interlaced darkness mocks me, trying to remind me how little I mean.
It doesn't need to. I remember every day.
I breathe. Every breath is my second.
Inhale... exhale...
inhale... exhale...
inhale.. exhale...
I sniff. In the buzzing noise of the sea waves the sound would fade, barely audible; now, however, the sea only hums and splashes gently.
My eyes caught themselves up somewhere in the unreachable distance of the sky. My eyelids feel like dropping, closing and never opening again.
If I fell asleep in this place, it would be a wonderful irony...
I slowly stop feeling. And at the same time, I feel so much more than normal. It's terrifyingly close to how... how it was then; back then with you. I feel each grain of the powdery sand forming the hard ground beneath me, each small pebble that would dig into my skin if it not for my clothing, each breath of the space around me, each passing second... each single breath and how they all combine into a fluid, finite breath, each heartbeat in which my body supplies itself in oxygen. In life.
If it stopped... what would happen?
I don't mean anything anyway. Nobody would mind it. Nobody would notice. Nobody would remember...
For sure.
Rarely anyone wanders here anyway. It's a lonely place.
And maybe you would come back here one day; just like I've done today. And you would find me.
I don't know what would happen then. I think I'd like you to remember your promise. For you to feel something. Anything.
I don't know who you are now; I only know the you from the past. I can barely make naive guesses, create wishful answers to my unanswered questions: why have you disappeared, where are you, do you exist... and why you don't drop a line. Why? You know how insanely I need your presence. How much I crave warmth from those who were able to give it to me unconditionally. How strongly I attach.
I wish I could kick that part of me unconscious, throw it from somewhere high and watch it splash on the hard, cold ground, into a bloody pulp.
I hate it; I hate it, but I can't stop it.
I can't...
I'm coming back to myself again; to the salty here and now. I'm lying on the sand, under the sky. Just as if I was asking it to show me my destiny, to throw that burden on me.
I could refuse.
But would that do anything? After all, everything is directed by something deeper, something the biggest, which nothing could resist. Nothing would want to.
I don't want to either. I just want to be here. And stay. And stop.
Forget, leave, move on.
I don't know where it will lead me, but if you are not at the end, I just pathetically don't care.
Perhaps if I knew where you are now, I would find you. Perhaps I would catch your trace and use all my strength... but would make it there. Maybe you would be happy, or maybe... you wouldn't even notice.
One has to believe in something. It can't possibly be any other way. Everything we know is hardly beliefs.
I don't know anything. But if there is something I believe in, it's us.
Fascinating, how contradictions dance in me, interweaving yet not stumbling. An unidentified rhythm is played by them: music from unspecified places.
And all that lives in me anyway. Only how deeply...
How deeply...
As if someone has tapped me on the shoulder and whispered an order into my ear, I get to my feet in a surprisingly unsluggish agility. I don't give myself time to think when my cold fingers unzip my hoodie. I throw it carelessly onto the sand and take off my pale-blue t-shirt unhurriedly. It lands on top of the hoodie, curled up in a ball. Soon, the remainder of my clothing joins them.
Goosebumps bloom on my body, but the greater part of me ignores the cold as I wade through the sand towards the sea of darkness. The moon hangs high in the sky.
I grit my teeth when my skin meets the first wave. The sea is not cold, although much less warm than during the day.
Slow steps lead me further; the water washes my naked body, taking away the heat, bringing inexplicable relief. Deep breaths fill my consciousness; I feel each one of them, fully. My hands are shaking, stroking the surface of the water; it rises and falls gently.
The infinite blackness in front of me frightens me and excites me at the same time. I want to throw myself into it, let myself get swallowed, surrender. Let everything go. Stop.
Find longed-for relief.
I close my eyes. Tears burn my cheeks, contrasting with the cold around me. It's amazing.
A stifled sob escapes my throat; I don't even know where it came from, why. It's just as if I'm entering myself, diving into my own, undiscovered depths, and reaching the abandoned, dark places.
I calm my breath, relax my muscles and immerse myself completely, diving into a wave. It takes away more tears.
I emerge after a few seconds, hungry for breath as I hadn't been for a while.
I'm cold. Wonderfully cold.
I release the tension and let the waves sway me gently. The instinctive heat that flows constantly through my body is almost unregisterable, dominated by iciness.
I see darkness. The stars. The moon, somewhere farther, farther away.
I'm in the throat of the world. In the mouth of the Earth.
Almost defenseless.
By my own will.
Whatever happens, I won't have much to say. Maybe I won't even fight.
I'm drifting. I'm breathing.
I close my eyes.
The ethereal volatility of existence stuns me. Consciousness is leaving me... sinking... sinking... It's almost as if I didn't exist.
The burden had disappeared, dissolved into the infinity.
But my heart is beating, stubbornly, loving life too much to stop. It's the only thing that keepe me. That keeps each one of us.
What if I let it go? Stopped loving.
You are my buoyant force, Albus. Without you, I would have gone down a long time ago.
I don't know what kind of magic makes me stick to you.
I sigh deeply, filling my lungs with air to the limits, grimacing when a sudden, burning pain pierces them. I release the air in a huff.
Water. Water is everywhere. I am water. I rise and fall. I undulate. I melt, evaporate and turn into ice.
We are so similar...
I arch into you and fall back onto the ground, moaning softly, feeling you with every cell of my body. Your own body undulates over me; you breathe against my neck, into my mouth. I shiver in your arms, with you, when you whisper my name as I have never heard it. Everything sharpens and blurs simultaneously, ceases to exist and only begins to when you bite my lip painfully, filling me in the most intimate possible way. I can barely catch my breath, surrendering to the overwhelming power that rips my ego to pieces.
And then, we lie together, absorbing each other, marked by the echo of the primal desire and something deeper, which has always been in us and which gave it a higher meaning.
Words with beautiful meaning don't have to exist, because everything we need, the whole truth, is here, exposed to our eyes, if only we want to look.
The truth, Albus, will defend itself. If your words were honest, we'll find each other.
Someday.