the last drop of snow
(or, christmas lights)
by wen
just a tiny little christmas holiday watercolor in shades of white, msr,
melts on the tongue like a snowflake. my first little swirl of almost color
as a completely converted shipper rather than being a
masochistic-pseudo-noromo-twisted-sometimes-kinda-shipper. intended as
really more of a mind-painting than a piece of writing.
dedicated to my friend asrana
~*~
This is the symmetry of light. This is the last tall beautiful streak
against the sky, this is the last star, this is the last every little drop
of every little every little free to come, and she knows that this is
beautiful. She knows that this is.
She knows this is the month of snow, she knows how free and loose and fine
and free it can be all through and through and through every pliant thread
of light, she knows that if she even moved her head once she could let loose
a cacophony of notes and glow shards of snow and ice into the thin fluted
bones of his fingers, and this haunts her.
This is the trace of every day that ever died, and this is the symmetry of
light. She can hear the snow falling slowly beyond the car window, beyond
her eyes, and in this everything slows. Her eyes light very soft places in
the sky.
This is the turning, this is the way that things dance their way open. This
is the way one person dies and another lives, this is the way that demons
crack her broken shell. She sweeps butterflies through her hands, thin
threads of glass and shimmer, sweeps them up through her stomach and out
through the veins of her throat, burst open and screaming for light, and she
crumbles.
Snow drifts through the windshield, and everything slows again. Everything
slides smooth empty under frozen hands, freezing the blood dripping inside
her fingers. This is when the day melts, warm brushstroked circles in the
sky, bursts of slashed lines of fade. She has a memory of being crushed
against the sky, oh, and her mouth is torn open by the tremble of each
little thing, trembling and falling, her eyes burning shut like broken
branches, her hands ripped and shrugged away by the dancing, this little
everything of everything.
Everywhere, branches stretch taut, skinned bare to filaments of dark aching
bones, and again her lip trembles, and maybe tears spill from her spun shut
face, and her mouth opens, and opens, and opens, and opens, and opens, and
shuts, and she blinks those tears away from the soft dance of light and
snow, and tries to rub feeling into her cold fingers while clutching the
steering wheel.
White swept high and soft into blue. Each cloud finds a way to heaven.
And on the radio so softly someone wails have yourself a merry little
christmas.
She wants to hang her star upon the highest bough, she wants to hang, she
wants to be so much more than this. to be everything she should or could be,
anything to make them approve of her. to see her mother smile again, to
remember a time when she didn't have to scream at her family or cry and hide
away under the lull of days when Christmas was something magical.
anything to wipe away the memories like so much dust.
There is nothing beautiful about the sound of windshield wipers, but she
listens to them swish back, then forth, then back again, a hard dry sound
scraping snow from her senses, and she shivers.
She wants so desperately, she wants.
She wants.
She ignores the toy stores, and she can't look at all the little girls.
And this haunts her, this crumbles her heart like a screwed shut drop of
snow.
This is the beauty of the days, this longing. This is the way she screws her
heart shut again, and again, and again, and again.
When she turns the key again the engine fades and slows and dies, and she
opens the door, a click against the stars. She steps out and clutches the
coat around her, but doesn't feel frail. She feels almost empty again.
She walks with her head upwards, eyes open to the snow, and from here, they
look nothing like tears. She feels cut away from time, from her mother, from
her family, and shuts her eyes like shuttered frames flickering in the
light. She opens her hand and catches snowflakes in the lines and
fingerprints, and watches their soft intricacies melt into emptiness.
When she reaches the stairs she climbs one step at a time, letting her
fingers trace the achingly lonely glass of the door as she opens it.
The elevator slides open like a tree blowing its leaves away in the wind,
and she clutches tight to the branches until the soft tiny 'ding' rips her
open, rips the door open, opens that hallway to her again.
Past the ghosts of every them she's seen in this hallway, she sees the
window. Through the window there's snow falling, there's days falling,
there's snow kissing sky, and she's sad that she's never noticed this
before.
She walks and feels the last notes of Christmas bells against her throat
clawing their way out. She stops at the door, places her hand against it,
feels that it's as cold as she is, and she leans her forehead against it
very briefly before calling his name.
"Mulder?"
She can hear the soft low static thrum of the TV through his door, and
knocks harder than she intends to, and it frightens her. She can feel him
moving.
The door opens and she feels it flood against her, she feels something
inside her collapse and fall open.
He smiles.
Something inside of her cracks open. The top of her face trembles. Something
disappears, something is chased away, something is chased and banished, and
she smiles back, not unwillingly.
"Hey," he says, "You're back early."
He reaches his arm out for her, drawing her inside.
Each little everything melts for him.
He shrugs her coat from her shoulders, the memory of snow brushing off of it
from the movement, and his hands are warm. He sits down on the couch and
pulls her after him.
"How was your family?" he asks, pulling her against him, warming her
shoulders. She curls up to him immediately, spooning her hip against his,
letting something or everything pour against him. How warm and soft and him
he is. She wants to bury herself inside of him, then admonishes herself,
then lets herself go again. She snuggles against him. It's Christmas, and
too late for regrets.
"They're... them," she says, putting her head against his shoulder, rubbing
her hand against his side. The tremor aches and pushes against him, and he
can feel its current. He moves his hand to the remote control, turns off the
TV, wraps his arms around her, holds her. Just holds her. Rocks back and
forth very very softly so that she melts into him.
Life smoothes and frails in the warm twist of his throat.
"Please come with me next time," she whispers.
She can feel his heartbeat through his sweater changing beneath her warming
fingers.
"Ok," he says. "Why? Wait.. don't tell me. Getting to watch your brother
beat the crap out of me is your Christmas present next year."
"Shut up, Mulder."
She raises her forehead to his and watches him watching her. She looks so
deeply into him that she forgets which part of him is her, or which part of
her is him, but it makes her feel safe, it makes her feel fluted in his
hands.
And in his eyes she sees the depths they have between them, the fragile
folds and lines, and the dilute haunts of light. This blows away the cracked
open demons inside of her like dust and broken leaves, and her mouth opens,
and opens, and opens, and opens, and opens, and closes as he kisses her very
very softly.
He breathes life into her, he pushes butterflies through her hands and
throat and mouth and touches their wings, imbues her with light. Her eyes
twist shut again, and her heart opens, and opens, and opens, and opens...
When he lets go he strays only a fraction away from her skin, grazing the
very bottom of her lip with his again and again and again and again with
that pinned aura of longing until she sighs, breathes life back into him.
This is the subtle way of touch, the pulsing undercurrent of light beneath
their skin. This is the way that they need no words. This is the way she
knows he can chase the broken shards of glass beneath her skin away with
just a touch of his hand.
"I felt empty..." she whispers.
"I won't let you," he whispers back.
Their hands weave together like warmed twists of snow, and she feels the
days falter. Everything slows and falls down around them, and this is the
beauty.
This is the beauty.
She glows and twists like the Christmas lights outside his window.
"You're still cold," he whispers.
"No, I'm not," she whispers back. He picks her up like he's carrying her
through snow, and she feels the warmth of him all over her skin, her eyes
spinning shut like glimmering stars.
"Put me down, Mulder. I'm a big girl. Just because I just spent seven hours
on a plane doesn't mean I forgot how to walk," she mumbles, but relaxes into
his grip. Outside the whiteness stops drifting for just one instant, then
tightens and falls like angels burning in the sky. She ignores it and tucks
herself into him.
This is the beauty.
The soft kiss of his blankets and the way he folds around her. The
languidity and longing of his mouth scraping against hers. She brings her
hands up to the curve of his neck and pulls him down.
"Why'd you come back early?" he whispers against her lips. She kisses him
again, longer.
"Maybe I missed you, Agent Mulder," she murmurs.
"Maybe," he whispers back.
A little gust of wind tears at the window.
She shatters him to pieces and flows him back together, delicates the rush
of wind outside his window and kisses him, lets him come in on a wing and a
prayer. Each word so small and loose and fine and free and loose and fine
and free, each movement breaking and reforming and dancing in soft swirls of
open color, and her mouth opens, and opens, and opens, and opens, and breaks
into a million pieces again, and again, and again.
This is nothing and everything, and she hangs her star upon the highest
bough.
Through their hands and throats and mouths there are butterflies bursting
open, coming free, and from beyond the beautiful pull of his skin against
hers, she can see them drifting slowly through the window, sparkling like
glows of glass-blown blue. She shuts her eyes against him and feels the days
fall free beneath his hands, beneath the branches.
Life tightens and flows, tightens and flows, tightens and flows, and the
last drop of snow melts on his tongue. Inside his kiss she can taste that
he's her only saving grace.
"I love you," he whispers.
Somewhere, there's an eye that's burst like shadows, moving and flowing and
bleeding blue, sweeping across the sky, cutting clouds like blades of grass.
Each cloud finds a way to heaven. Each eye finds a way to heaven, each hand,
each touch, each little kiss of light, each little bite of him beneath her
hands, beneath her branches.
Hello, are you open? Are you my twist of light? Are you that which is, which
is, which is?
He is.
Curled as safely as one flower stem into another, she tightens her arms
around him, nuzzles the scooped line of his jaw, and feels the sigh run down
her face. So warm, so close, so folded together. Mulder's leg draped over
her own, his arm around the curl of her waist, her sprawled evanescence over
him, her thumb stroking little circles into the soft pliant skin where his
throat stretches itself over bone. Next to the bed, a clock blinks ever so
sleepily 11:58, 11:58, 11:58.
Mulder kisses the soft open space above her eyebrow, a long sidesoft kiss
all open at the edges, and whispers, "I almost forgot. Merry Christmas,
Scully."
His hand squeezes and almost caresses the inside of her arm, the warm vigor
inside of her, wandering and tracing pale circles of memories of memories of
memories. She smiles, and pulls herself over him, the lines of her face
nestled against his under the rustle of warmed blankets. She lets herself be
in love, in love, in love with him, with his eyes blinking sleepy in the
darkness, in the curve of his smile and that little spark of adoration he
rubs beneath her skin, and somewhere in the night, she forgets the power
that the hollowness of a holy birth can leave in her. She doesn't realize
that she's been emptied and filled by time like a glass of water.
She sleeps instead, and remembers the soft power of a wing and a prayer.
In the morning, he holds her, and holds her, and just holds her, and they
watch the snow come down in drifts of light, tangling in the sheets together
and maybe laughing. She forgets about family screaming matches or memories
of little blond haired girls or dreams of days of other things.
(touched, but never held?)
Touched, but held only by him. Branches don't break in his arms.
This is the turning, this is the way that things dance their way open. This
is the way one person lives to breathe life into another.
This is the way she can feel cut open to the bone, layers of skin peeled
away by angry life, by angry memory, by angry family at her for growing so
distant. But this is the way that she finds herself, this is the way that
she finds *him*, this is the way that he heals her, putting layers back
together, sewing cuts up and wrapping bandages with soft hands. This is the
way that he holds her. This is the way that she smiles, a gentle rare burst
of light against the pale curves of her face, her blue eyes closing slowly.
This is the way she turns her head softly, leaning into him.
This is the way life slows and frails in the curve of his throat, the warmth
of their light, and this is the beauty.
This is the beauty.
Outside his window, the Christmas lights dance softly in the wind, and he
kisses her.
.finis._____________________________________________
'Dark into light, light into darkness, spin.
When all the birds have flown to some real haven,
We who find shelter in the warmth within,
Listen, and feel new cherished, new forgiven,
As the lost human voices speak through us and blend
Our complex love, our mourning without end."
-May Sarton, "All Souls"
asrana, asrana, asrana :) i love you dearly- thank you always for being such
a wonderful friend.
merci beaucoup: to my indispensable editor, loa, and to becca for speed!beta
reading :)
kate- my version of 'grace' ;) this is what happens when shipperydippery!wen
comes out to play ;)
suz- yay! something happy! well, kinda ;)
quothe ali: "We don't want none of your love crap around here, you cheeky
monkey!
Stop spreading it around, it might *kill* us!"
thank you to the reader for reading or watching or both.
didja like it? hate it?
noctu...@mailandnews.com
and to all you early christmas shoppers? please stop freaking me out. i'm
probably not even going to start to think about my xmas shopping until 11
pm, christmas eve.
(
geocities.com/xmas_files)