Let The Fire Burn The Ice

Present

Dawn came seeping down the mountainsides as he rose, rolling to his side, facing her bare back (as bare as a blank canvas, itching to have his fingers paint flames upon her skin) and wondering outloud. "Are you?" He questions half-complete but, she knows what he means. Afterall, he's been asking for a while now, she owes him some answers. She knows she does. However, he never does offer her much time to speak. "Are you?" He repeats, with more desperation and pleading in his tone. She looks through the window, beyond the horizon, searching for answers to questions that shouldn't even exist. His fingers latch on to her wrist, grasping tighter and tighter, harder and harder (enough to snap her bones, to break her skin - it would hurt less, she thinks; it's easier than burning him).

"Elena, say something."

She'd rather die.

"I don't know." She tells him, breathlessly. It's the same answer she's offered him countless times before. Elena looks over her shoulder, afraid to meet his broken gaze. He doesn't move an inch but, it's his eyes. They speak in endless volumes, questioning her without cease, and setting her mind on fire.

His motive remains unspoken.

Stay.

But, he knows that he must go as well. For his family awaits him, his family needs him. And she is no different.

I can't.

She too represses her true desires, clutching her fingers in to fists, biting down on her bottom lip, shutting her eyelids tightly (closed, she's always so closed).

I'm sorry.

She could say as she sees him and unfortunately, she can only describe him as a weightless man. As if he needed an anchor, someone to hold him there.

- for all the things I want, or wanted, or have been too afraid of wanting since.

Elijah is still not sure if he'll ever fully understand, either.

When they first began, he recalls it as merely 'simpler'. Of her hand in his, firm and strong. Her skin like fire and his like ice. He remembers tugging at her clothes, in a sinfully delicate way and the moment where she held her breath. When he pressed his lips to the corners of her limbs, marking her and looking at her tanned body enveloped by his white skin. He remembers twirling her around. And around. And around. And around.

Past

She lies beneath him, nails digging in to his shoulder, observing the way she leaves crescents on his skin, like fallen stars. He heals, erases her oh-so quickly, as if nothing had ever occurred between them. That's the worst part, she thinks, that they can't mark eachother.

Everything always fades away so quickly.

She can't help but wonder out loud. "You don't think of them?" He could leave at any second, he really could. He has duties to fulfill and he is honorable, of course.

"I do." It's his choice not to. She still seems ... lost. Elijah grabs her before rolling her over, sinking his hips against hers, momentarily distracting her from her usual wonderment.

Then, why do you stay?

She forgets to ask as he leaves open-mouthed kisses from the side of her neck, all the way down to her navel. She shudders when his fingers reach for the hot flesh of her inner thigh. Elena, once again, feels lost. But this time, she's lost in the way that he wants her to be lost. He wants her unfocused on any other task, to stop caring for everyone so much.