Work Text:
"When you scare me, I feel as if my scars open and my back bleeds from a thousand blades. You don't mean it, you never do, it should be you who feels this way. I killed you, I ran a blade across your neck and then wept, wept as you didn't get up as if it had all been just a childish joke. It should be you who is scared of me, justice, the killer, but perhaps it was me who died that day.
I saved you, I brought you back from the brink of death and you brought the burning flame of life with you. We burn bright and leave marks on one another. We fuel each other and fill the night with shades of orange and yellow, but never red. I am not scared of your flame.
I am scared for you, when you leave me to burn alone, when our flames neither fuel each other nor fight for the brightest light. If you died I would not weep, but when you leave me I fix my eyes on the door. I wait and I wait and I wait, and you come back and come back and come back. You come back with the scars of the world and I give you the scars of home.
We can not be apart nor can we not coexist. I scare you and you scare me. I'm in terror and you're in disbelief. "
Blanche looked up from the text Régis had sheepishly handed to her. He was currently fiddling with his thumbs, letting his nervousness show. "It's good", Blanche nodded, handing the paper back to Régis, who folded it in half after grabbing it. "Thank you." "Are you going to publish it?" Régis laughed dryly. "That'd be awful, stuff like this is way too personal for that." "You have shared your soul before, though", Blanche pointed out. She had already made her way to the kitchen, scouring through the fridge for ingredients for today's dinner. "You're different."
It was quiet except for the rattling of the pan Blanche was pulling out of a cabinet. "I mean, we're really close anyway, I couldn't hide myself from you if I wanted to." "You don't have to explain, I already knew that." Régis turned his head away, grabbing a piece of paper and folding it in a familiar pattern. They never had to speak of anything. They had seen it all together, a distance away or close up, but they could tell when something had happened to the other, and no secret stayed a secret between them. The faint smell of vegetables filled the air.
"If you had died I wouldn't be alive." He could feel Blanche glancing at him. "You felt my heartbeat stop and you didn't die, you'd be fine." "I would be just a shell without you." Blanche laughed, ernest. "I watched you save me at the cost of your life, I thought you were dead for months, then years. I did not die, but I did not fully live, either. I know what you mean." She was repeating things Régis already knew to be true. He was doing the same.
"Maybe I should show my soul to someone else, other than you", Régis mumbled, watching the little paper star in his hand. Blanche agreed. "It grants you a second life", she said, wisely, but Régis was put off by this. He hadn't heard her say such a thing before. "We already grant each other second lives, no?" "Not truly, you said it yourself, a thousand times again, we would die without each other. Really we grant each other one full life, whileas alone we'd be only half of ourselves." "That's something they'd say on the tv to their lovers, not to a sibling", Régis told her bluntly, even though he had said the same exact thing just moments before. They ran in circles, chasing each other, always ahead, yet constantly on the same path. But Blanche had stopped and begun walking away.
She turned her head and grinned. "Does it matter what kind of relationship two people hold? If they're close they share their souls nonetheless." Régis dropped the paper star. He stood up abruptly and made his way to the door. It was cold outside. "Where are you going?" "Where are you going?" They stared at each other. Blanches eyes grew distant. Régis reached for the door.
"You've changed", he spoke. "You've changed and you're walking away from me." Blanche's face melted. Her face used to never melt, she was stern and her smile was a smirk, not a soft and gentle one. "You stand in front of a gap, too afraid to jump. We always share the same sky", she responded. He was not afraid, he would tell himself, but he knew he was, and she knew too. "When we drift apart, we do it the same, when we hate each other we hate the same, why is this different?" "Because we've hated and loved and drifted the same already. Time moves and people change, it's not a circle, it's a line. You're waiting for the circle to close and start again, but that time will never come."
Régis stood outside in the rain. The water dripped down his nose onto his shoes, making him unbearably uncomfortable. Change. Not going back inside the house that shone its yellow light onto his face. Régis turned and walked away, he had to, because in the rain somewhere was another house, a house where the tiling wasn't coming off and the pipes weren't bleeding into the walls.