We're all rotten, buried and forgotten,

Living it up underground

Both beings stood, neither one of them unwilling to move. It would have been so easy to put distance to the source of all that irrational turmoil. He could have done the same, and yet. Here they stood, with Harley lashing her wicked tongue with that scalpel-sharp peak. She couldn't help but let all that unchecked rage wash over him. She is a natural disaster who only leaves wreckage and abandoned buildings, he taught her that. It was best that no one drew too near. All but three people who meant something to her managed the task, they were vital pieces she had grown to rely on all but left her anyway. Amor who left, Isolt who left, and Sterling who she left.

A question that surfaces oddly through her head, one she couldn't quite place exactly where it formed or why. What was it that he wanted? If he had all the power in the world what would he have created for himself? After all, here he still stood and there were no cages or shackles to chain him here. Would she be there? In a future of his own creation, would she even be human? Was his selfish desire to keep her such a weak and fragile human so desperate? But what gathered her from her various thoughts was when her violet eyes bore into his glacial eyes as though the violet flame stood a chance to melt those ice shards But what she finds there within his gaze startles her.

Oh shit, she saw that familiar glint in his eye and knew it would all crumble down like her resolve. It was like deja vu all over again. Only this time she was smarter and knew better. He was trying to scare her to once again show him that she was weak and he liked it that way. He liked how he could play with her like putty, to throw her around like she was a ragdoll underneath his skilled hands. He wanted that sweet taste of fear that only her heartbeat would betray, she knew it. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that he would be gone once again when the monster had his very fill of her. What a vicious and volatile cycle it was. Yet some form of cruel destiny had to entwine them once more. Why couldn't they bring themselves to simply reject the torture? Why were they such a sucker for the insurmountable pain they caused one another? Why couldn't for one god damn moment life be simple?

He snapped, not even a second after she uttered the last syllable of that word. He moved so damn fast she had no time to react until her body collided with a thud against the wall within that alley they stood beside. Her fingers entwined with his shirt grabbing it like she could gain back power in doing so. She is helpless as she all but dangles there. Her toes kissed the concrete floor below, just barely but she is sandwiched against that wall with his relentless physique. His form is pressed right against hers so suddenly, her body begins to scream, every nerve ending shattered by him. There he goes that calling her pet again, it enrages her and yet the pang of nostalgia rang clear. He was trying to get underneath her skin. Well, he was already there like he lived there. She scowled at him, despite her body that argued with her.

She could see his eyes now, no longer are they cool and calculating but dancing blue flames. She could see the madness of his rage alight. The glint of his fangs peered ominously at her through his parted mouth as he spoke. She knows it's useless to fight against him.

The real question underneath the weight of his sadistic stare and close proximity of his body pressed against hers, was she truly ready for what he finally offered her? She had mused of no longer being weak, to kiss that frailty that only being human could provide. She didn't want to be a walking blood bag unable to fight back, it was not in her nature to feel so weak. But reality often did not match up with one's perception. It wasn't only Amor who made her feel this way it was how vulnerable he was when he left her behind. Ryker scraped her up and stole her away and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. It took a while to sink in, that those delusions that she could be stronger than vampires by her mere fierce will alone. She was once so very misguided, young and wrong. The only way to beat a monster is to become one.

But if she plunged into the darkest depths to fall in love with a beast, could it really be all that bad to become one?

All these thoughts she hadn't thought of in years came rolling back unforgivingly.

Amor continued to speak, mentioning eternal agony. She lets her hand trace the edge of his shirt, her fingers needing something to do. Well, she already had that eternal agony covered, all on her own; she was nothing but a shell of an aimless soul. But then he chuckled and she could feel it within her and it beckoned desire. He already had left her to rot. "Don't you forget, you already accomplished that part?" She admitted wryly but her voice is strangled with emotion as her rage flickers as if leaning into the unbearable hurt she felt. He already left her to rot when he disappeared without a trace. He might have thought he was saving her, but she would have rather died by Risque's hand than experience what he had managed to do. She was slipping. But then he opened his mouth again and that rage slid right back into place. What she really wanted?? He had no damn clue of what she wanted; he couldn't or wouldn't give her that. Yet years later, here he stood willing to turn her at a mere bat of an eye.

With his mouth so close to her neck, her heart cannot contain itself. It beats so frantically slamming against the inside of her ribcage in sync with a rabbit that was being hunted. She felt his breath and his lips trickle down the side of her face, how could he render her useless once again? After all the time and the wreckage that he left behind. She hated him. Or so she trained herself to believe, that she loathed him with every fibre of her being. With a thunderous roar of that tumultuous sky, it seems to scream its fury at them, as though they did so by shattering the thin layer of glass between them. That loud piercing echo of the lightning licked ominously across the sky, as though Zeus himself threatened to zap them from existence. She could feel the familiar prick of a razor-sharp fang at her throat, hovering so close to her jugular like a juice box being nearly stabbed with a straw. Her body quivers like a dead leaf on a tree in this raging storm. When suddenly the heavens weep, unleash their tears upon the world below. She felt the rain pelt against her skin, her breath trembling. She had to speak or that whimper would escape her and all would be lost.

"There you go pissing off the cosmic forces of nature again. If you're going to bite me, just do it." She hisses sarcastically over that vicious rain that soaked the clothing against her flesh, a perfect little frown forming on her face. But inside a war is raging, was she truly ready for this? She still had a bucket list still scrawled messily across a pad of paper at home, next to a snoozing Ace. Could she help him if she were undead? She swallowed a lump in her throat and it hurt to do so. "You don't get to pretend to know what I really wanted, I don't have a choice." She conflicted by him, by this choice. She can't seem to think straight with his body pressed up against hers and that hand at her jaw. She can't seem to bring up that knee with such force to crash him so hard in the balls that he would see starlight.

".. wait.." She uttered that strangled sound softly before she even realised she was stopping him. "I need a little bit of time... I er.. have a bucket list.." She muttered lamely. She thought she was ready to sign her life away without a second thought and yet here she was seconding guessing herself.

Harlequin Ray Westward