This story's old but it goes on and on until we disappear,
Calm me and let me taste the salt you breathed while you were underneath,
I am the one who haunts your dreams of mountains sunk below the sea,
I spoke the words but never gave a thought to what they all could mean,
I know that this is what you want,
A funeral keeps both of us apart.
You know that you are not alone,
I need you like water in my lungs,
This is the end.

Brand New
Play Crack The Sky

She opened her eyes. The moonlight was bright through the curtains, but that wasn’t what had woken her. She could hear the water rushing in the sewers below the city, but that wasn’t what had woken her.

The man sitting on the end of her bed, that was what had woken her.

“Zoisite,” she said, not bothering to ask how he’d known where to find her. He shimmered but he was substantial.

“I’ve come to say goodbye,” he said.

“Goodbye?” Her heart jumped and began to pound. She sat up, staring at him. “Why?”

“Because he’s letting me go. Because it’s time that we tried again.”

“No.” She knew even as she said the word it was useless. She had no control over him, she had no right to tell him what to do, but it was hard to think logically when her heart was aching in her chest. “You can’t go.”

He reached out and took her hand. His fingers were cold but solid and she watched as he lifted her hand and took one of her fingers in his mouth, sucking it. “You taste of salt,” he said. “Like the sea.”

“I dream about you and the sea,” she said softly. “I see you under the waves and I try to pull you out, but every time I put my hands in the water, you disappear.”

“You can’t rescue me.” He sucked another finger and she closed her eyes, shivering. “I have to do this myself.”

“I don’t want you to go,” she said, her voice breaking.

“It couldn’t go on like this, you know that. You have a life. You have a body. You need to find someone else with those things.”

“I need someone who understands me. I need you.” She dropped her head. She’d never said these words before, though they’d been inside her for a long time.

“Mercury.” His cold hand touched her chin, tipping her face up to him. “Even if I’m not here, I’m with you. Remember? I told you that the first time.”

“Is this really what you want?” she asked, cupping his face between her hands, white and cold and so perfect that it hurt her.

“I want many things. At least this is something that is attainable,” he said, gently lifting her hands away. “Be happy for me.”

“How?” she whispered.

Instead of answering, he leaned forward and kissed her. His hands were cold, but his lips were oddly warm and she fell back with a soft sob, wrapping her arms around him, feeling his hips connect with hers, a touch that vibrated right through her body. She wrapped her legs around his hips, knowing this would be all she would ever get: her drowned lover returned for one brief, moonlit moment. He pushed against her — her body spasmed — she gasped — and then he was drawing away, leaving her dazed from what had just happened.

“Sayonara…”

“Not even ‘au revoir’?” she whispered, staring up at him.

“This is the end.”

And then he was gone, leaving her aching, unfulfilled. Ami put her hands over her face and shuddered. She’d always known that it would end this way but that didn’t dull the pain. She pulled open the drawer of her bedside table and took out the small bottle of sleeping pills that she’d put there in preparation for this day. Two ought to do it. She popped a couple in her mouth, gulped down some water, and waited for sleep to smooth away her sorrow. It came to her that at this moment she would rather die with him than live on. In the morning, it would all be different, of course. That’s all she had to do. Get to the morning.


DISCLAIMER: I own neither of these characters, they belong to Naoko Takeuchi. The song, of course, belongs to Brand New.