A/N the product of illness and too little sleep so probably a bad idea.

Oneshot. Sometime in the future after Bo has turned and returned from being dark.

Sometimes when I'm with you I forget. I forget that there was anything before the warmth, security and comfort found in the crook of your neck. No sound has ever existed but the hypnotic rhythm of your heart and almost silent whisper of your breath against my ear. There has never been any other hand but that stroking soothing absent patterns across my back. No hair but the soft gold tresses tickling my neck, no eyes but the chocolate brown hidden under heavy lids, no scent but this unique mixture of citrus and warm skin. Sometimes, for what seem eternal moments, nothing exists outside of the cocoon of flesh and sheets and love.

But this is not a fairy tale and love cannot erase the past. Sometimes I forget but sometimes… Sometimes your arms wrap too tight around me, your breath is too hot on my face. Your heartbeat is deafening and your scent overwhelming. All too soon a cacophony of voices all struggle to be heard.

"You're not good enough for her…"

"Why would she want someone like you?"

"You'll break her heart…"

Your arms are not yours they're his, trapping me in place. Your breath is hers, harsh and rasping. I am frozen, sweating and silent, my lungs refusing to fill, every fiber of my being straining with a will to beat the rising panic. I know it's not real. But it feels real, looks and sounds and smells real. His weight presses down, her taunting words ring clear and true. Lifeless unseeing eyes. Gruesomely serene grins. And laughter, haunting, trilling laughter. Everything that the world has ever thrown at me, everything I have ever done, every feed, every kill, every lover that wasn't you. All that I did when the darkness took hold. Every reason I can give for you not to love me, twists and swirls and compounds into one awful roar in my ears.

Sometimes I forget, but sometimes all that came before plays out time and time again in glorious High definition 3D and surround sound.

You're calling to me. Your voice is all at once soft and loud, obscured by, yet rising above, those other screaming, shouting things in my head. At first it is just a hum at the edge of my consciousness. I grope in the darkness of my mind trying to remember why it is so important to find this thing I need to hold on to.

We've done this before, you know the dance. You've learnt to time your actions well, learnt the exact tone of voice, the precise amount of pressure to put into the first touch so as to not be alarming but comforting. You know the words that are safe to utter and how painstakingly slow to move. These are lessons learnt over countless encounters with my past. Lessons I am loathed to teach.

When we are alone again, when there is only me and you and the visions have died down back into memories and it is just us on the floor of our darkened bedroom, you pull me into your arms, whisper nonsense into my hair. It breaks my heart more than anything to have inflicted this upon you, again. I'll never understand why you don't listen to me in those moments, when I am at my worst and you are at your best, why you can't see that I am not the catch you were hoping for why you stay.

I'll tell you to go but you'll only wipe at my tears. I'll try to push you away but you'll pull me closer. I'll repeat a thousand times into your shoulder how sorry I am, and a thousand times you'll answer with a chaste kiss to my hair, to my temple, to my cheek.

Gone on, tell me what you think.