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I know I dreamed you
A sin and a lie
I have my freedom
But I don't have much time
Faith has been broken
Tears must be cried
Let's do some living
After we die
Wild horses
Couldn't drag me away
Wild, wild horses
We'll ride them some day
The cool breeze of the night pushes in against her damp skin, between all the wild strands of her hair. The pulse of the crowd vibrates into her body, rattling through the pieces of her shattering heart. The drugs are wearing off now, her steady buzz slowing down to a flatline.
There’s a brutal realness settling in there, sprawling out in front of her. An endless road of unknowingness ahead, a reality that she had always tried to hide from. But there’s nowhere left to run. She can’t turn back now, she can’t escape or drown it out. She can only move forward and face the destruction that she helped create.
She builds the courage to glance up from the microphone, out towards the large crowd. Swallowing the thickness that's forming in her throat. Like her body knows that even the right thing to do, is so utterly wrong. Her eyes close once more, just briefly. Just enough to breathe through the permanent ache that’s now stuck there in her chest.
And then, she dares to look over at him.
And he looks back, that dragging pull never failing to help their gazes lock together.
His eyes are red and glassy, hung with unshed tears. His curls pulled wild and loose from her greedy hands. There’s glitter covering his exposed chest, his face, his neck. Lips still swollen and pink from where they were stitched together with her own under the neon blue light. Marked only with her, by her. Like she has any right to claim him at all. But Daisy was always good at taking what didn’t belong to her, she was a lonely child after all.
His lip quivers in devastation and she feels her’s do the same, like an instinct. Like her body was made to only mimic the workings of his own.
She looks him in the eye and finds the same insurmountable grief that she feels. That same consuming loss, written there between the strands of green and grey. Knows that she could only hold the same crestfallen expression that he’s showing to her now.
A mirror coupled with its reflection.
“This is a love song.”
The glass shatters. Breaking down and falling apart into a million little pieces, all together, all at once.
They both know the end is here.
Her throat feels raw, but she sings anyway. Because if she’s going to give him her all, if she’s saying goodbye, then she’s going to give it to him in the way only they both understand with each other.
She tells him to go anyway, even if extinguishes something inside of her that she’ll never be able to spark again.
She watches him disappear anyway, even if it leaves her entirely barren and gutted.
And she forgets how to breathe for a second, all while simultaneously learning all over again, what it’s like to live in a world without the only person that ever truly knew her.
⁎⁎⁎
Her bare feet drag along the sepia colored carpet in what feels like slow motion. Her eyes tracing the woven patterns as she moves down the silent hall, her red toes standing out against the blandness. She had pulled her boots off at some point during the show, she just doesn't quite remember when. Absently, she wonders if someone had picked them up and will try to figure out how to return them to her. Or if they’ll just end up disappearing into the abyss of dear things that she’s loved and lost over the years through another drunken haze.
The hotel floor is empty and quiet, desolate in its warm glow. It’s late, but not the kind of late that would make her start to feel sick with dread.
It took thirty minutes of crying and thirty minutes of pleading, before Simone had let her retreat back to her room on her own. Only letting her go when Daisy reminded her that she still needed to pack up her shit. That a shower and a few hours of sleep would do her some good, before being shipped off to some foreign rehab facility all by herself for the next several months.
As she lifts the keys to the knob, she feels the weight of the night flood over her. Feels it all, the high highs, and the deep lows. Unable to fathom how both could exist in one single night, in such a short stretch of time.
She can still feel his lips searing on her mouth, the way his tongue demanded entrance and taste. How his hands gripped and squeezed and molded to every little dip and curve that she had to offer. Can still feel the violent tug of fingers through her hair that left her burning. A physical chemistry that was always there bubbling under the surface, just waiting to explode. Waiting to be experienced and felt.
The hurt still lingers there too, deep in her chest and unrelenting.
“Let’s just be broken together.”
She winces at the memory, still raw and fresh against her tormented heart. His messy slur of a voice still rattling around through her ears. Daisy always loved his voice, but not like this. Not when the clarity of it was pushed out and replaced with something that reminded her too much of herself.
She wonders how long she will carry this pain now too, this lasting memory. Reminds herself of the fact that she’s truly never let anything that’s happened to her go.
And with that last thought, all at once, her body feels entirely too heavy to be her own. Feels like she could fall to the floor in a heap of white pleated chiffon and tears. Like a shimmering angel fallen from its heavenly pedestal to the cold Earth. But she’s sober enough now to push the keys through the lock and wait for collapse to take hold against a bed and behind a closed door.
Just as she’s about to step inside, Daisy hears a soft click across from her own room and a few doors down. The rush of opening and the gentleness of closing. And she doesn't even have to look to know that it’s him, she can just feel it. That incessant tug that's entirely unexplainable, but always present whenever they’re in the same vicinity.
She can’t resist the turn of her head.
Daisy glances over her shoulder and finds Billy standing there in the middle of the hall, his brown leather duffle slung there over his shoulder.
He’s wide-eyed, staring at her like she’s already turned into a phantom of someone that he once knew. Like he figured he’d never see her again after he exited the stage. That she’s just stuck here now, haunting the halls and waiting to haunt his memories too.
And it hurts, but she can’t even blame him after the way they unraveled together that night, only a few hours ago. After everything.
She swallows, her mouth suddenly dry. For once, unsure of what to say, unsure if anything even needs to be said at all.
But Daisy was born as a challenge, at least that’s what her mother used to say. And she wouldn't be her if she didn't try to push his buttons at least one last time. Even if it maimed them both in the aftermath.
She steps inside, just halfway through the door, before she glances back, and meets his eyes again. Like some sort of twisted dare.
She doesn't even need to use her words, she knows that he understands what she’s offering through her questioning gaze.
He looks at her like she just told him that she killed someone and needs help hiding the body. And it makes her smile, just a bit. Only for a moment, before the glaring realization that they don’t get to have this silly, little game of cat and mouse anymore. That their friendship or whatever the fuck they were, has turned to dust and can never be resurrected. It sinks in deep, and she feels terribly sad again. Empty, even.
She doesn't wait for him to respond or make a choice. If she did, she thinks that she’d be waiting there forever. Daisy just walks into her suite and leaves him behind to simmer in the heavy, lingering heat that she’s left him with.
But she leaves the door ajar, just in case.
⁎⁎⁎
His hands twitch at his sides as he watches her disappear into the dark room. She’s all flashes of gold-white and blurred, glimmering realness. She’s temptation in the best way, a drowning that feels like release.
Billy knows that he should stick to his plan and go find Graham’s room. Should get on the phone and call Teddy so that he can start straightening his shit back out again.
He knows that he can find the strength to walk past her open door and stay on the path that he chose. Stay connected to the life that he once committed himself to.
But the thought of this being how it ends rips through him violently. The casualty of it all is almost worse than her gut wrenching, barely whispered go. And if things have already combusted into the worst version that they could be, then he can’t imagine that picking apart at the final pieces will do much damage in the long run.
He figures that he might as well take down the whole structure before he begins to rebuild it. One final night can’t hurt. Even if he loses himself entirely.
But it doesn't feel like loss. It feels like a breakthrough, like freedom.
And in the end, it would only be left as a memory that’s sacred for them to hold and no one else.
Suddenly, he’s glancing around to make sure that he’s truly alone there in that hallway. Then his feet are moving, and he’s pushing the door fully open and walking into the now dimly lit room.
It’s the same layout as his own, which seems a bit excessive considering he was sharing his with two other people and Daisy is entirely alone. However, it displays an explosion of her larger than life self and then it all makes sense.
Empty or half drunken bottles sit upon the armoire, along with the dusty remnants of blow. Her clothes are hung on door knobs and scattered across chairs. Jewelry, and oddly enough, photographs litter the coffee table and nightstands and she’s got a shoe pile in the corner with her suitcases half haphazardly open in the center of the room. The suite is a hurricane of Daisy and you’d think that she had been there for weeks.
It smells like cigarettes and champagne and a sweet summer day that only she could beckon out from all of the other destructive chaos. The kind of tainted sweetness that reminds him of when he’d whisk Graham away from the violence of their father, taking him down the street to buy ice cream with quarters collected from the side of the road.
He watches as she kneels on the floor below the loveseat that’s built into the window. Eyeing something pure and stark white spread out across the glass table in perfect, little lines. Her baby blues flit up to meet him as he steps into her line of vision.
Billy lets his bag fall to the floor, the door shutting behind him with the kick of his heel. He grabs the one unopened bottle of whiskey that sits with the rest, before he joins her there on the floor against the beige carpet.
The long windows above the loveseat are open, exposing the clear sky and bright stars. The cool October breeze blows in, making the curtains sway and scatter moonlight across her face. It would almost be romantic, if they were anyone else under any other circumstance.
He eyes the lines that are laid out, leftover from before the show, he assumes. The same ones that she’s eyeing too.
It would be so easy, falling into it. Letting that rush take over and hit them almost instantly. Continuing down that path of destruction together.
Daisy understands him in a way that no one else does. And though it would be entirely awful to continue to give in and spiral out of control, it doesn't scare him as much when she’s by his side. She knows how ugly he gets, because she’s been there too. She can get there too.
He begins to crack open the new bottle, but Daisy stops him with a gentle hand before he can open it fully.
“I don’t think we should…”
And he must admit, on the other hand, something about getting fucked up with her feels entirely wrong. Like they were only ever meant to be good for one another, to do good together. And especially as he thinks back to how she was holding him together backstage, when he held her together on that shower floor. He’s certainly no stranger to the harm that this could bring to them both, the danger of flying too close to the sun. That feeling of being invincible, of not caring to find out if it’s true or not. But things are so shattered, so blurred, that wrong and right don’t even seem to register to him anymore. That one more time couldn't possibly be the end of the world.
“Isn’t this what you invited me in for?” It’s a weak response, but for some reason he finds himself still pretending, still hiding.
“No,” she says candidly. “And I don’t think it’s the reason why you decided to come inside either, but you can keep pretending like it is if it makes you feel any better about it.”
Like she’s in his goddamn mind.
Billy keeps his eyes locked in on hers, the tension between them thicker than honey. Her brows raise just slightly, her chin jutting up a bit.
Her face is streaked with makeup stained tears and there’s a terrible sadness still stuck there in her deep eyes. Because of course there is. How could there not be? He feels it too, but he certainly doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want to remember or recognize the agony that she’s feeling because he knows he played a part in creating it.
So Billy lets his hand continue to move, listens to the screw top snap off, and stares at the bottle between his hands. “I don’t want…that can’t be the way things end. That can’t be my last memory of you,” he breathes. And it’s finally something honest.
“Then don’t let it be.” She says it like it’s simple. And maybe it is.
Maybe, just for tonight, the rules don’t count and everything can be simple. Can be exactly how he wants it to be.
Billy tips the bottle back against his mouth and lets that burning warmth pull him under as she watches in what feels like concern. But he knows her well enough that it’s laced with some sort of intrigue. Some sort of wanting.
“No point in holding back, Dais. Not anymore, not now,” he breathes, passing the bottle her way.
She regards him for a moment, something dark flashing there between her eyes, before she takes the bottle from him, her fingertips brushing his in the process.
Her eyes never leave his as he watches her swallow, imagining the dark liquid kissing its way down her throat and filling her insides with something warm and pleasant. And then, he’s hit with the heavy realization that they are all alone again, truly alone. Behind a closed door alone. So he refocuses back on the table, still hiding from what’s screaming right there in front of him.
“Go ahead,” she rasps. “I mean, if we’re gonna be terrible together, might as well make it worthwhile.”
But she goes in first, sniffing up that first line against the glass. He licks his lips in anticipation, for what exactly, he’s not sure. Then he follows her lead with the next, letting the rush hit him like a truck.
“So,” she hums, sipping against the bottle again before passing it back his way. “What happened?”
She sounds jittery. The way he remembered her during when they were still writing Aurora together. It used to scare him, reminding him of what he once was. But now, as he feels that same high-strung energy coarse through his body, as the whiskey dulls his inhibitions, he can’t seem to remember what was so upsetting about it in the first place.
Even though he really should.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that whatever fucked up, tattered cloth that she’s cut from, he was cut from the same. And that during the time when he was so concerned about reverting back into who he once was, he never stopped to consider that, that part of him never truly went away and it never would.
It was just who he was.
He had spent a considerable amount of time weaving together a false narrative. Painting on top of all the ugly with something much brighter, something that was easier to stomach for everyone else. But Billy knows that with Daisy, he can peel back all the ugly layers, present her with the most rotten parts of himself, and she’d still treat him like he was gold. It makes him sick to think that he ever took advantage of that.
Billy takes another drink, letting the amber liquid burn his lungs. He settles back against the couch across from the table. “She kicked me out. I…I told her that I’d work for it.”
Daisy scuffs, lighting up a cigarette from a crushed pack that’s on the table. “How very noble of you,” she sneers. “So romantic, really.”
He thinks that the comment should probably upset him, make him angry and pick the fight that she’s prodding at. Normally it would, because her disdain is warranted and it usually pisses him off when she’s right about the way he falsely lives his life. But truthfully, how many times can something that’s been broken from the very start be worked on?
He thinks that she has no right to be bitter, but then again, maybe she does. He could tell her that she knew what this was going to be from the very start, that he was married when they met and there was no possible way that this was ever going to end well for either of them. But it would be another lie because he felt it too. That spark that burned impossibly bright between them. Felt how their dynamic shifted and morphed into something unexplainable, something that couldn't be named or defined.
And the last thing she deserves now is another goddamn lie.
So instead, Billy chuckles. Playfully swiping the cigarette away from her, their fingers brushing once again. “I am known for my romance,” he muses, taking a drag.
It’s her turn to look at him in wide-eyed bewilderment, but the edges of her lips are curling into an easy smile. “Leave it to you to finally turn funny now, of all fucking times,” she teases, taking the cigarette back from between his lips.
He grins, leaning forward again, somehow ending up closer to her side. “You always used to laugh at my jokes.”
Daisy smiles at him, a full, real smile. But there’s something foreign hidden in it, a sweet sort of shyness that he’s not used to from her. He tries to not focus on the fact that he won’t get to see it again. That he won’t get the time to learn all of her different smiles and hidden expressions. Instead, he focuses on the way it warms his chest. How everything is starting to feel delightfully fuzzy around the edges.
He looks back at the table. The hotel had placed a beautiful arrangement of flowers in the middle for her, but it sits out of place against all of the other chaos. There’s still a line and some residue left, a full ashtray and a lighter. He counts two mismatched earrings and one ring, a stray pill at the corner. And then there’s these photographs of what he thinks is her as a child.
His brows pull together, as he picks one up. She’s young, maybe seven or eight. It’s black and white, but he can tell that she’s in some sort of plaid dress with a large under shirt. There’s a headband pushing back her uncharacteristically straight and tamed hair. And she’s posed with the posture that only a model mother could have instilled in her. Despite being almost entirely unrecognizable, the one thing that stands out is that damn beautiful smile.
Billy can’t help his own from creeping in, she just looks too cute. “This you?”
“No,” she drawls, eyes rolling as she takes another sip. “That’s Margaret.”
“Now who’s funny?” He jokes.
She tries to take the picture away, but he pulls it from her reach, still studying it. She huffs, giving up, and moves the bottle away from his prying hand in retaliation when he goes for it.
Billy chuckles and tosses the photo back to the table. However, he replaces it with another, this one in color. She’s in a different plaid dress, the same hairstyle, but this time she’s sat at a piano gazing up towards the camera. Her eyes are wide and curious, chin propped up in her hand. He can’t put his finger on it, maybe it’s the piano or the pose, but there’s something so much more fundamentally Daisy about this one.
“That's where it all started, you know,” she says distantly. Sad, almost.
Billy glances up, looking at her. “What?”
Daisy leans forward so that they’re shoulder to shoulder now, her face almost pressing into the side of his arm. “The brokenness.”
Her eyes lift up to his and she can see the regret written there in them. Can tell that he couldn't decipher if what he had said to her was real or something that he had made up, probably hoping for the latter.
“I mean, she was such a scared, helpless little girl who just let others take and push until there was nothing left,” Daisy rasps, her gaze falling back on the photo. “Broken. I guess that’s what I took with me when I became Daisy.”
Billy sets the picture down on the table and turns more fully towards her. “Dais. I didn't…I shouldn’t of–”
“But you did and you were right. Like always…” She trails off, her eyes landing at his bag by the door. “Where’s your guitar?”
He’s caught off guard by her sudden change of pace and subject. Though he thinks that he should be used to it by now. “What?”
“Your guitar. Did you leave it behind?”
Billy winces, remembering how he smashed it in his room earlier that day. “It’s…gone,” he replies. The reason why flooding back in. That memory of betrayal suffocating him. Knowing that he didn't really deserve to feel it either way.
“It’s gone? What do you mean it’s–”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Daisy,” he snaps. “Do you want that?” Billy gestures towards the last line.
Daisy stares at him blankly, blinking before she turns, and takes it without another word.
It’s her coke, her damn room, but he’s almost annoyed by it. Like a kid would be when the other isn't sharing their toys in the sandbox.
Almost.
But then, she's crawling into his lap, one hand steadying herself on his shoulder. Long limbs and billowing fabric straddling all around him and suddenly he doesn't know any other feeling except desire.
Billy watches as Daisy sucks two fingers into her mouth slowly, before she drags them across the table behind her. Swirling through whatever powder is left there. She brings them to his mouth and watches as he obediently opens for her without any instruction or hesitation, taking them inside, and letting her drag the leftover powder against his gums.
He lets his mouth close around her fingers for longer than he should. Sucking hard until the bitterness of the drug fades away and he’s only left with the faint, remaining dregs of her lotion and something metallic. Until her eyes are nearly black with need.
When they fall from his mouth with a pop, Daisy swears that she’s never seen anyone hungrier than Billy is in that moment. Staring up at her like she’s the most divine thing that he’s ever seen.
She lets her fingers linger there, dragging them across the plump swell of his bottom lip, over his chin, down the column of his neck, and towards the exposed expanse of his chest.
She leans in closer, letting her charged, hot breath hit against his ear. “We should dance,” she breathes out in a rush, before bounding up from her position and over towards the record player across the room.
She leaves him behind half hard, heart thundering against his chest, and fully shell-shocked. Billy watches as Daisy thumbs for a record through the small selection in the room. He thinks it's going to be something fast paced, something electric like the livewire that's burning under their skin. But to his surprise, it's some slow, sensual jazz record.
He watches her sway to the lilts of the saxophone, her sweet voice cutting through in soft hums. Like she can’t help it, her own music being charmed out of her at the sound of some other.
Billy can see the outline of her body under the sheer cape that she still wears, it’s been teasing him all night long. Blowing in the wind, lifting with her movements, showing off glimpses and peaks of what’s hidden underneath; a tight dress that clings to her figure and holds almost nothing to the imagination.
“Daisy,” he calls, his mouth dry as she continues to sway. He feels almost hypnotized by her, by the easy movements of her body. But it’s not a new feeling, so he doesn't let himself get lost in it. Not yet anyway.
Her movements become more prominent, more pointed in all the right places when she’s certain that he’s watching. She spins, the fabric flitting all around her figure as she does.
“Dais,” he says again. Quieter now, rougher and more strained. But still with a hint of command.
She ignores him again, letting the music guide her through the room, and it snaps something inside of him.
She’s the embodiment of freedom, she’s everything that he wants and shouldn't.
But he does want. Wants so desperately and deeply. And not only just for her, he longs for the way that she is. Her authenticity, and how she floats through the world like she owns it. Like it was made and tailored to her.
And he wants that for himself too. She awakens something inside of him, something that stirs restless and alive. Something that perhaps has always been there, hiding dormant.
Billy stands, crossing the room swiftly and without another thought, he pulls her into him roughly by the hair, just as he did when they stumbled backstage together.
And finally, he tastes her again. Lips crashing together in a beautiful, violent meeting.
The action rewards him with a soft sound from the back of her throat, the same one that she offered him earlier that night and he swallows it down like a man starving.
She melts into him, their lips fight for dominance, fighting to claim and be claimed. Tongues dancing against each other. Tasting, learning, and relearning. Her hands grip his shoulders, his hair, his neck, anything that she can find for purchase as they stumble along in place.
She pulls back briefly, staring at him with wild, excited eyes and a heaving chest.
“Fucking finally.” She barely gets the words panted out before he’s back on her, kissing her so hard that she’s almost bending over backwards.
Billy can’t seem to figure out where he wants his hands either, making sure that he gets to touch all of the spots that he once could only dream of feeling. They move from her hair, to her waist, to her hips, and then finally, settling to the curve of her ass. She whines into him when he squeezes hard, grinning as she lets out a delighted yelp when he smacks it.
Their bodies stumble back into the armoire with a loud clang, and he only pulls back to make sure that she’s okay. But she’s smiling, feral and heated. So he grins back, his head diving in again, but somewhere else this time.
His lips settle into the spot behind her ear, and the working of his tongue there has her breathing out all in one, quick rush. Then, he's undoing the clasp of her cape, letting it fall in heap underneath them. And he’s licking and nipping down the column of her neck, dragging out loud moans from her parted lips. Surely leaving behind claiming marks that he doesn’t deserve to paint her with. But the possession of it all fuels his fire onward.
Billy slowly starts to pull their meshed form away from the vanity, coaxing their tangled bodies off towards the bed. As he pulls her from the edge, he catches a glimpse of them in the mirror. Her back is to it and he can just make out the perfect outline of her body in her tight, sheer dress. It's abundantly clear that she’s got absolutely nothing on underneath it except a tiny pair of panties and it makes him groan, sinking his teeth in hard to her bare shoulder. She hisses in pleasure and it leaves him aching.
“You should fucking see yourself,” he breathes out, ragged and heavy. Fingers tracing through the dip of her spine over her dress, before reclaiming her mouth.
They stumble across the room and he folds against her until she’s pressed deep into the mattress. And there’s nothing slow or soft about any of it. It’s desperate and rough, each movement full of eager need.
Billy manages to kick off one shoe before her hungry hands are pulling him down by the collar, somehow finding the sense to pop open the remaining buttons of his shirt as their lips come together over and over again. He pulls one arm out, but forgets the other entirely. Far too impatient and focused at pulling her own straps away and down her chest.
Once she’s exposed there, his mouth falls to work immediately. Taking one nipple between his lips, his hand reaching up to tease at the other. As he circles his tongue, slow and measured, his eyes drift up to find her there, but her head is thrown back in ecstasy as she leans against her elbows. Eyes shut tight and mouth hung open with pretty little sounds spilling out from it.
He could listen and watch her like this all night long, forever even. He wants to spend the rest of his life kissing and touching her body, learning what song belongs to each part. Learning every perfect sound that she can make for him, learning what feels good for her. He wants to take his time, to strip her bare excruciatingly slow, to drag that pleasure out of her with so much intricacy, that it has her damn near crying, begging for sweet release.
But his mind is much more patient than his body, and he finds his hand moving from her chest to her dress. Hiking it up until it's bunched around her waist. And she must be just as desperate as he is because her hips are lifting to help him, hands working at the button and fly of his jeans. Both needing each other so desperately that they can’t even bother to remove their clothes all the way.
Billy shivers, teeth gritting along the side of her cheek as he feels her free him, kicking his pants down the best that he can. Just her simple touch could send him flying over the edge, but he holds on.
He lets a hand snake down her thigh, squeezing there briefly at the soft flesh, just to feel her squirm and whimper, before he slips a finger past her panties to feel how ready she is.
“God,” she whines, hips canting up against his hand. Her own clever hand palming at his length, thumb glazing over his leaking tip. “Please.”
There are a million reasons why he should stop. A million voices screaming in his mind about how wrong it is. And it will all flood back later, the guilt will haunt him into the grave, he’s certain. But there’s only one thing that trumps it all. One thing that silences everything else, that pushes the rest to the side and puts an end to any doubt.
This isn't some cheap hookup with a groupie who’s name he doesn't know. This isn't some dirty mess of drugs and lies and sin. This isn't a mask or some separate version of himself. Though, he’ll try to spin it that way later to help him sleep at night. To help him through the years.
This is Daisy. Bright, brilliant, and larger than life. This is the only single person in this fucked up world that’s ever seen him, known him, felt him. Really felt him. Daisy, the music and the light. His prayer and answer. His inspiration and teacher. Daisy, the woman that he loves, truly loves.
And yes, he loves her.
He fucking loves her.
And he knows that she loves him too. All the ugly and whatever good that she seems to dig out of him.
He doesn't know how he’s supposed to continue on in his life with that knowledge, with the knowledge that this too exists so divinely between them, and pretend that it doesn't.
But for now, he presses his mouth back to hers, breathes in what she pushes out. Helps pull her underwear down and lets her legs wrap around his hips like they were made to fit there, it certainly feels like they were. Let’s her hand guide him to her center, his body fully taking over all his other senses.
A dragging tease through her wet warmth, a kiss at the corner of her mouth, and then he’s sinking deep down into her. Her gasping cry sticking into the hollow of his left ear, a song he’ll never be able to forget.
There’s a brief pause for adjustment. For the pure, overwhelming sensation that spills there over them. Then he’s moving, building their rhythm faster than he should if he wants this to last. But by the way her nails dig across his back, her heel urging him on harder, he thinks that she doesn’t mind the pace that he’s taken.
They’re a tangled mess of crumbled clothes, heated skin, and heavy breathing. Reveling in the feeling of finally coming together in a way that they could have only ever dreamed of. Billy's hips are stuttering harshly into her own, his thumb finding her clit in perfect stokes, in perfect pressure and pace. And she didn’t even have to fucking ask. His lips ghost over her ear, spilling out the only kind of worship that she’s ever believed in; his praise.
Daisy’s eyes lock together with Billy just at the right moment, in a stare that’s so intense, it has her heart pounding. Beating so hard and fast that she thinks she might die, and she wouldn't really mind it if she did. If this was her final moment, staring up into his blown out pupils, full of desire, she wouldn’t complain.
It’s better than the drugs, which is saying a lot considering that she’s spent her whole life chasing a high that did it for her the way that cocaine first did. But it’s not just the sex, it’s not just the chemistry and attraction or the pure talent that they both ooze out together.
It’s him. It’s Billy.
It’s the way he’s the only person who’s ever gotten her. Who’s reflected back what she’s put out. The only one who’s ever taken the time to know her, to actually care for her. The only person who’s made her feel safe enough to let him inside her damaged, little world.
And it’s beautiful as it is heartbreaking. Because there’s too much loose ground there between their magnetic hearts. A maze of complications, however, too tangled to ever truly pull apart from one another.
It’s overwhelming, knowing that the closest they’ll ever be to one another, is also a moment intertwined with goodbye. That so much pleasure can also be the source of so much pain. That in this divine discovery, there is still inevitable loss too.
Daisy shuts her eyes, willing her newly formed tears back and away. She grips his hair and neck, holding onto him as close as she can get. Refocusing on the good, memorizing what she can; the warmth of his body on hers, the smell of sandalwood and mint, his sounds of praise whispered against her collarbone like a prayer, the way his fingers dance over her between their connected bodies.
But then he’s tilting her chin up towards his face, hovering just over her lips.
“Look at me,” he breathes. “Watch me.”
And she can’t deny him a thing, never really could. Her eyes fly back open, locking in with his once again as he starts to move harder against her.
Billy presses his forehead into her own, his eyes still holding her stare. Holding it until that final stitch breaks loose, her whole body consumed in overwhelming ecstasy. She can hear the sound of her voice, broken words and sharp noises, that she doesn’t recognize as her own spilling out into the open space around them. His own ghosting against her lips.
Billy can feel the flutter of her all around him, the tightening and release. Hears the high cries that she so easily lets fall from her lungs, entirely unashamed. Feels her nails dragging across his back, pulling harshly against his curls.
He’s consumed by everything that’s Daisy and it’s the closest he’s ever felt to heaven, to peace and serenity.
But it’s the soft, breathy whisper of his name falling off her lips in her aftermath that takes him there too.
“Billy.”
⁎⁎⁎
She’s laid out naked on the white sheets, properly pulled apart and discarded all around them. Her fingers curl into them, furthering their destruction of the once made bed. His head is buried there deep between her thighs, taking his time with her for the second time that night. Moonlight spills in over them from the open window and she hums as he licks at her slowly.
After they finished that first time, he’d gone in for more almost immediately. Not yet sated, not even a little bit. Not liking the fear that surfaced so quickly in her eyes, like she expected him to flee at any given moment. He couldn't blame her, but he needed to prove her wrong anyway.
And he certainly did, by finally pulling their clothes away fully and kissing every inch of her exposed skin until he could feel that ache growing again between them both. Until he had her coming apart again. This time, on his tongue.
He’d given her some time to recover, to listen to the sound of her pounding heart and heavy breathing, before he made his way back down there again. She had laughed at his eager determination, but certainly didn't protest or cast any doubt on his abilities.
Now, she has one leg bent to the side, the other hung over his bare shoulder with his hands curling over her thighs, pulling her closer and closer into his relentless mouth. She grinds her hips against his tongue and soon, fingers. One hand pushing and pulling against his curls, the other gripping the at sheets.
She’s like a fucking work of art hung over him. Drenched there in the silver moonlight and shared sweat. Laid out on their altar with a body that was sculpted and made to be worshiped. And it’s only right that he’s there under her, doing the worship. Because he was made for that too.
“Fuck,” she whimpers, as she feels the waves start to roll through her. Violent and overwhelming, so intense that she thinks she could cry.
Billy watches her as she unravels, riding through it all over again. Submitting herself to the pleasure that he pulled out of her.
“You’re fucking magic,” he breathes, kissing her thigh and then slowly back up her body.
“I think you’re the magic one,” she laughs, voice lazy and eyes still closed. Her hand drifting back over her clit, still riding out through whatever’s left.
He has no intention of bothering her, wanting her to simmer there in the pleasure for as long as she can. Wondering if maybe she’ll let him do it again before the sunrises and he really does have to go.
But as soon as he reaches her mouth again, she’s quickly flipping them over, straddling his body, and catching his lips instead.
He can’t stop the groan that escapes him as she licks past the seam of his lips, her hand now drifting down his chest to his cock, already hard and ready for her. She strokes him slowly, holding his gaze as she does.
“Watch me,” she whispers, lightly mocking his command from earlier.
Then she’s sinking down low, her back arching and ass in the air, as she takes him into her mouth. Slowly rolling him past her wet lips and against her hot tongue.
He can’t stop his eyes from rolling back, his hand from finding her hair, intertwining with her other hand that lays against his chest.
“Christ,” he breathes, staring back into her dark eyes. “Baby.”
She moans all around him, like the pet name touches her in the same way that his hands do. The sensation shoots pleasure through him and he doesn't want to waste anymore time not being inside of her.
He pulls her by the hair, up his body, helping her settle back over him. Daisy doesn't need instruction, knows exactly what they both want. Her hips lift until his length is pressing into her heat. Until both of their cries are in sync with the rhythm of their hips.
Later, when they’re both spent and soaking up the last lingering of their shared bliss, Daisy finds herself pressed into his chest. His fingers dance up the bare skin of her spine and she tries to not think about how this doesn't get to be their forever.
The room is quiet, aside from the soft sounds of their breathing and the noise of night from the city outside below them.
Suddenly his body feels exhausted, feels that crash coming in as the high fades and time ticks away. The black of the night has shifted to that dark purple light and it makes his chest tighten. “I smashed my guitar,” he says abruptly.
Daisy lifts her head, looking up at Billy. Her gentle eyes meet him, coaxing out his confessions. Filling him with a safety that he rarely ever knew.
“I just feel…everything feels so out of my control all the damn time. And no matter how hard I try to get it back on track, nothing is ever good enough. I’m not good enough.”
Her hand grazes against the side of his cheek. “Well, how do you feel right now?”
Billy brushes her long hair over her shoulder, watches as her eyes close. Goosebumps rising over her skin at his touch. “I feel whole. I feel stable, which is ironic considering how this night started," he laughs. "I know realistically, this way of living isn't sustainable for me, but I haven't felt this good...this free, in a long fucking time.”
Her eyes drift open slowly, a hand pushing a curl off from his forehead. “I think life is all about finding those moments where we feel whole and good…We hang onto them until we can get there again.” Her thumb strokes his cheek tenderly, her eyes glimmering. “I think that you'll get here again, Billy. Hopefully in a healthier way, but I believe in you." Her voice catches, just a bit at the end. "And I think you’re more than good enough. Now you just have to believe it for yourself.”
“You make me feel good enough,” he whispers.
Her lips find him again. Meshing together, sinking in deep. And he wants to get lost there with her all over again, but he would never forgive himself if he didn’t get to say what he needed to say first.
Billy pulls back, cradling her face in his hands. “I don’t think you’re broken.”
“Then why did you–”
Billy sighs, his rough thumb tracing over the apple of her cheek. “I don’t know, Daisy. I honestly think that I was just projecting my own bullshit onto you.”
She sighs, tracing patterns over his chest. Letting the confession hang there in the silence over them.
Then; “You wanna know what I think?”
“Hm?”
It’s her turn to hold his face. “I don’t think that we’re broken, I just think that we’re human. And that all our edges just seem to fit each other in a way only we can understand.”
Billy doesn't have a response. Doesn't know how to tell her that he thinks some part of her lives inside of his mind, inside of him. That they share something inhuman and unexplainable to anyone else. So he finds her mouth, and shows her exactly what she means to him. Shows her just how much he's going to miss her forever. Shows her how she holds the ability to lift him up and entirely tear him apart.
⁎⁎⁎
When the skyline turns lavender, she whispers that it’s probably time for him to go and he hums in agreement, reluctant all the same.
Daisy pulls on the hotel rob as she watches him dress, feeling nothing but a profound hollowness in her chest. A certainty, that she’s given something to him that will never come back. But wanting him to take it either way, knowing that she’ll be stuck there in him too. Knowing that he’s left something behind in her as well.
They linger there by the door, both unsure at how this is meant to end.
Suddenly, she’s flooded with that same guilt from when they were backstage together. She knows this has always been a part of him, but she can’t help but feel as though she was the trigger for his demise tonight. She certainly aided it forward. “Promise me you’ll call Teddy.” Her hands fly to his face, desperate for his eye. Pleading with her own as he meets her gaze. “Promise me,” she whispers out in a little, broken rasp.
“I promise,” Billy says, almost automatically. Like he could never say no to her. His voice is low and thick, cracking just at the end. He turns, his hand slowly lifting to find the knob.
He should walk out now and never look back. Should be plotting out each and every little step that he needs to take to fix his life back to normal.
Instead, he finds his mind wondering to how he was supposed to breathe without her. How he could move through the world now that him and Daisy were so intrinsically tethered to one another. He knew that they always would be all along, but the physical confirmation bound him to her forever. Just like he knew it would if they ever crossed that line. And here they were, lines not only crossed, but mangled together far beyond undoing.
He should walk out now and never look back.
But he turns around, a lump forming in his throat that won’t leave him for decades to come.
Billy studies her face, counts each freckle. Files away in the back of his mind that the one under her eye is a bit darker than the rest, that one side of her lip slants into something crooked and beautiful. Takes in her scent, sweet citrus and dark, ambery smoke. Like she’s both a summer day and a nighttime prowl. He lets her eyes imprint on the back of his skull. Accepting the deal that the devil proposes; that the deep blue sadness they hold will haunt him forever. He kisses her hard and unmoving, takes in her taste. Letting it be the only thing that satisfies him for as long as he continues to breathe.
He swallows down the thickness. Slices himself wide open, because if anyone deserves it from him, it’s her. Holding her newly tear-stained face in his hands he pleads, “Promise me that this isn’t the end, Daisy. Please,” he chokes out. “Promise me that I’ll see you again.”
She doesn't know what he means by it. Doesn't understand how this could be anything other than the end. Doesn’t know how to let her last words to him be a promise that she can’t keep. “I…”
“Please,” he begs, a single tear escaping the corner of his eye.
Daisy pulls his forehead into her own, needing him close one last time. Needing that connection, even as she decides to deceive him. “I promise,” she whispers, her voice catching at the end with grief. Because she doesn't have it in her to tell him otherwise.
She doesn’t know it yet, but it’s the first time that they’ll keep their promises to each other.
But it certainly won’t be the last.