"The End"

By SkItZoFrEaK

Legal Disclaimers: I don't own anything you recognize.
Slightly Less Legal Disclaimers: I am not a crook.
Positively Illegal Disclaimers: There may be scenes unsuited for the squeamish. Squeamish people who are grossed out by any mention of blood, guts, or sensitive matters such as abuse, rape, and cruelty to broccoli.
Author's Petition: I have done my best to be true to the individual characters' personalities, and to be fair by developing each character and their various relationships/POVs/lifestyles/histories/etcetera equally. Please inform me of any indiscretions.
Author's Warning: Constructive criticism and praise is greatly appreciated, but all flames will be used for a weenie roast. Do not expect a response, because I refuse to wage a war of wits with an unarmed individual.

Thank you.

She came to him at night - she always did. He sat up late, fighting sleep, fighting his body, beating his mind away from the dangerous hopes and secret prayers that it so desperately wanted to follow. But at last, the exhaustion would sneak up on him, and his damnable weakness would welcome it when he wasn't looking. He would sleep, he would dream - and she would come.

Tonight, she reached out from the moonlight that surrounded her glowing body. Her fingers stretched toward him, into his shadows, and the darkness began to dissipate between them. He saw his outline begin to reflect her light - she smiled - and her beauty, inner and outer, was breathtaking. The shadows backed farther and farther away...and in a sudden panic, he threw away from her, back from her questing hands. She could not see him; he needed his shadows. Without them, he was bare, vulnerable, and filthy. Blood stained his hands and his soul; he could not wash it off.

Her face twisted as he jerked away, deeper into the darkness. A huge sorrow, a sense of loss as vast as the sea filled her eyes, and the music of her voice whispered his name...the hole in his chest ached with the desire to move forward again. He wanted desperately to touch her, to take away the loneliness and pain he knew he caused her.

But if he touched her - he'd drag her down with his weight - down down into the darkness. The brilliant light would go out forever.

He wouldn't allow it. He'd die first.