"J-Jade-"

I make a soft noise of silence, shushing Tori's trembling lips, edged with gold from the light that spills underneath her door. My lips press where the light slices over her jaw, pattering over the golden skin until it dips into darkness again, the flesh of her throat hot and pulsing. I have to remind my teeth to bare themselves, to sink into her soft, sweet smelling skin, stained with some perfume that has a French name, and just a picture on the bottle. Something subdued, but light. Something that makes me sick.

I bite down hard, Tori whimpering, her hips trembling up against me, and I think for a moment what it is I'm doing. I'm not fucking her. I'm kissing her. My fingers are slipping over her heaving ribs, are skimming over her collarbones, her breasts, her cheek. They're lingering as if they don't know where to go, as if they haven't done this before. As if this were real. They're acting like nervous butterflies, feather light on her body, and it takes a conscious effort to rip away her clothes and dig my nails in. To remind myself that she's not some precious portrait, framed and hung. She's coarse clay to shape and mould and tear apart. She's not art yet, she's whatever I make her. And I want to make her into something broken, something crude.

I want this to be hard and fast, to be full of snapshots and panting and pain. I want it to be like the other times, when I held her down and pushed her back and forced her into pleasure. But this is a slow zoom, a lingering shot, and the pants are short and soft, and the pain is tacked on, an afterthought. Maybe it'd be easier if the room was brighter, if I couldn't forget even for a moment that this was Tori. But darkness makes it too easy to forget, too easy to throw sheets over that deep burning anger, that smouldering hatred, and starve it of oxygen.

I let out a low grunt, mouth pulling away from where it sucks at her collarbone, traces the hard, long ridge of bone, the material of her bra scratchy against me, some lacy thing that's still tasteful, but so fucking feminine. It's something I'd almost consider buying myself, if it wasn't on her. I swallow thickly, hating this taste of my heart. Hating everything. And it doesn't satisfy me like my hate usually does. It doesn't amuse me like I want it to. This hatred is forced, it's vomit thrown up on an empty stomach; just bitter bile and blood. I'm hating because it's the easiest thing to do, but it's getting harder and harder.

I force Tori's thighs apart brusquely, fingertips rough over her panties in their passage, eliciting a gasp.

"Jade-"

"Stop it." The words dribble from my mouth, barely a whisper, in croaking tones. I want her to stop saying my name. To stop me from remembering that I'm me and she's her, and that we're doing something I don't want to do. Something that I need to do.

My fingers bruise her thighs as I slip down between them, breath shivering out over Tori's black panties, a swathe of shadow cutting her blue-tinged skin into segments. And down here, legs are just legs, her skin is just skin. It's not her lips and her voice, and herfingers gripping at me. It's just a body, and I slip the panties down to make it just a little more. At least here I can close my eyes. It's just me, and I'm dreaming, and I can blame my loss of control on that; the flaws in my logic. It's just a dream, and I can wake up and have it disintegrate into sodden pieces that bleed out the text, that turn the pictures into mush.

She tastes sweet. And it's an odd kind of sweating sweetness that melts on my tongue, that feels too familiar and completely foreign at the same time, that shakes hands with my spit and settles in under my tongue. She tastes like a mistake I keep making.

Her thighs tense and shiver under my hands, coiled fingers in my hair making me grunt as they twist tight, and it annoys me to find her still in charge. Because I'm the one on my knees, not her. And this need to keep my hatred strong is making me weak, and that perfect balance I had is drunk on conflict, shoved every which way until it stumbles and falls, clothes reeking, quietly weeping.

My fingernails sink into her toned thighs, planes of muscles slipping underneath the skin. My tongue flicks harder, longer, faster, as many complicated ways as I can think of, because the more I sink into this, the less I have to think about what it is I'm actually doing.

My name cuts her lips as it slices out, a lash on my back that makes me wince. My name. In her voice. My nails sink in deeper, breath burning in my nose, eyes shut tight. Tori tenses, muscles rippling under my hands, her hips starting to shake and tremor, back arching off the bed. I follow her shakily, mouth sparking broken contact with her until I draw back, gasping, Tori thick on my breath and smeared on my cheeks.

"J-Jade..." She pants, a hand held to her forehead, striped with gold.

Stop. Stop saying my name like I'm yours.

The words hiss in my head, gritted teeth and sprayed spittle, and it's only her, thick on tongue, that stoppers them. That keeps them held, a growl in my throat. I don't know what I expected from this, what I expected to feel. I must have had expectations, because I'm disappointed. I feel sick, and coiled, and ready to snap. I acted under some false logic that the third time would be the charm, best of three, the finishing stroke. Like this was some game of cat and mouse we were playing. But you know what happens at the end? The mouse dies. This isn't a game anymore. It hasn't been since she slipped her hand into my pants, since she had me panting her name. I've been acting like this thing we have has rules, but just saying them doesn't make them true. I've closed my eyes in the dark, and pretended it was my choice that there's no light.

Tori leans over me, long fingers tickling under my chin, her lips soft on my jaw, and her skin is warm and soft, and so easy to mould. But who's really the artist here? Who's left their mark carved in who?

"Jade." Tori breathes the word in my ear, fingers splayed on my chest, and it strikes a violent chord in my head, shaking loose that stopper that blocked my throat, that held this boiling acid in my lungs.

"Get off me." The words are low, whispered, barely a strummed string of a vocal chord. It's enough to make her hesitate though.

"Jade?"

I wince as if the word is a slap, rattling my skull and sending it throbbing. "Get the fuck off me Vega." My voice is flat, almost bored, and I'm sure it stings her as much as she stung me.

Her hands slide away, knees drawing up to cover her nakedness, to make her smaller, as if my words could miss her if only she made a tiny enough target. The teasing tone I've always had with her is gone. The fun from this game is gone. She's broken all the rules, and I've gotten sick of it and taken my ball home. It was a stupid game anyway.

"What's wrong?" Her voice is cautious, words murmured from held lips, her eyes shadowed with heavy brows, as if she could hide her feelings in her own facial features.

It's almost enough to make me laugh. As if there's one thing to pinpoint in this situation. "That's not how this goes, Tori."

Her eyebrows almost meet over the bridge of her nose, eyes shadowed in darkness as I raise myself to my feet. "So how does this go?" Her arms cross over her drawn up knees, skin bruised black by the dark, and maybe this is just a game after all, but Tori doesn't know the rules either.

"You don't get to touch me." The words slip from my mouth, lips held tight, and if I'm a puppet, than all my strings all pulled tight, and I can't move.

Tori runs a tired hand through her messy hair, lips dipping out of the light, tightening. "Why are you doing this?" She shakes her head a little, shoulders jumping gracefully, a dip of shadow in her collarbone. "Do you hate me? Do you love me? What do you want, Jade? Why are you doing this to me?" There's a note of hopeless pleading, like she already knows I'm not going to tell her. But what she doesn't know is it's because I can't tell her. I don't even know myself. All the reasons I held for the first time, all the explanations that made so much sense, are all dust now. It was only ever supposed to be once, just so I could know. So I could make myself hate her, and make her hate me back. It was only ever supposed to be once, but I can't stop. I haven't found what I'm looking for, I don't know, and every 'logical' step my mind took was bullshit.

"Because I can, Vega." I spit the words out, still dripping with her taste.

"That's not an answer." The words slide out from gritted teeth, and I can almost hear them crumble. "Jade, just... just tell me why. Please?"

If she could just stay hard, then I could spark off her, could set the fire in my gut burning, could sear all these spiderwebs of conflict that line my insides. But she melts before me every time, and my flame just steams and obscures things even more. "I don't-" Granite slides from my tongue, scraping my lips, and I finish the heavy sentence in my head, feeling the words weigh me down. I don't hate you. I lick my lips, taste sweet, and say something easier. "I shouldn't have come here."

"No." It's a whisper, delivered to her huddled knees, slipped into the darkness like a sigh. "You shouldn't have."

And I'm angry at her for giving in to this, for being so pliable. If she'd just fight me back, if she'd just demand a goddamn answer, then maybe we could burn together, and turn to ash. Maybe we could scorch each other until we were burned to skeletal husks, and there was nothing left. Maybe things could be finished, clearcut and clean. But she keeps giving, and giving. She makes herself my sacrifice, because she can't stand to burn. And I can't bring myself to deliver a killing blow to this cowering mess. I can't bring myself to hate her like I should, like I want to.

"I just... I just thought..."

"What? What did you think Tori?" I throw my hands out, gesturing to some invisible audience, sick of her slow, almost apologetic tone.

She turns her gaze to me, eyes narrowed, a curl in her lip. "I thought this time would be different."

If I expected hate to result from this, maybe she be expected love, but be were both looking for an end. A resolution to this twisting tale, that grows more and more convoluted with every moment that passes.

I stoop down and pick up the crumpled dark pile that's my t-shirt, taking a shuddered breath as it masks my face. It feels wrong, like it doesn't fit, like Tori's hands have reshaped my body into something else, something twisted, and I wonder again who's the artist here. "I thought it would be too." A whisper, tinkling and fragile, edged with a melancholy hope that never should've escaped me.

Tori's head jerks towards me, eyebrows arrowed.

I button my jeans, throwing my shoulders back. "This is over, Tori. I don't love you, and I'm sick of this." My voice possesses it's usual strident tone, that finely honed edge that cuts so easily, Tori wincing under it's slash. "Don't call me, Vega."

I don't expect her to chase after me as I leave. And she doesn't. I don't expect my hands to shake as they open my car door, handle slick with dew. But they do. I don't expect to feel nothing as I drive home, gaze ahead on the wanly lit roads. But I don't. I don't expect to break down as I pull into my driveway, shivering in the driver's seat. But I do.

I don't expect her to call me. But she does.

/

A/N: You know what's great? What's worth like, two kittens and a stick of butter?

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