dollºlattice (seisuko@subdimension.com)

[a set of drabble-length passages, all about denial....]

Never again.

It hurt like hell, he noticed. It was a distant realization, distracted as he was, but still an important one. It was another fault.

Bastard, he thought. You did this to me.

The indictment was decidedly triumphant.

+

It was growing fainter every day, no longer so prominent, such an obvious flaw induced by malice, and not nature. It was a slow process, but even the deepest scar must eventually yield under the weight of a hundred Curas, a thousand Curagas....

He was sure no one had even noticed it, yet. But he knew, and saw his reasons dissappearing with no one to answer for them. He couldn't let that happen.

+

He hadn't woken up knowing what he'd wanted that morning, yet as the day wore on it had become inexorable, the urge, the need to remind himself exactly where everything stood in the universe. Each had a place, and it wasn't that they were fixed where they were in his graces for good, but, once the fallout began, there was only one direction the relationship could continue in.

Down.

So he hoped Seifer didn't have any illusions about last night. It had changed nothing between them. Nothing.

+

Bloodstains on silver; he could taste it in his mouth. He traced the familiar grooves and edges with his tongue, scraped the inside of his cheek with the pointy end, and wondered how much it would hurt.

But it didn't matter, because it didn't mean the same thing. It wasn't÷well, he didn't think it was supposed to be like cutting. That would be a blind expenditure of energy, and this was an exorcism, a distillation of his convictions.

+

It caught on the puckered edge of the gouge, and he tested it to see if it would hold. It seemed precarious; he only wanted to have to do it once. He changed the angle slightly so he'd have to push, instead of pull, and dug it in for preparation.

It seemed good. He eyed himself in the mirror, checking the trajectory he had drawn out with eyeliner. It was black.

Oh.

It was red, now.

+

He had bought himself some more time.

He felt much better.