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"Dave. I would request your presence."
That was what you wanted to say, really. Instead, what came out sounded like a pathetic attempt at licking each side of every one of your own teeth, simultaneously. But despite your unintentional linguistic acrobatics, he saunters over with a grace you maybe once had. Now you would be lucky to make it from one corner of a room to the opposite corner without running into a wall along the way.
"What do you need, Rose?" he asks smoothly. Everything about him is smooth.
You try to gather all of the poise you have in your body, and it lifts your head an inch or two. "I think Kanaya hates me." Congratulations, you managed to say her name properly despite your inebriation for once.
"I'm pretty sure that isn't the case," Dave mutters, but you don't want anything to do with what he's saying. He's probably right, but you just know that she actually does hate you.
If she didn't hate you, she would be around you.
Your head is shaking of its own accord, and you agree with it. Dave must be wrong. He's really smart, probably much smarter than you since he didn't get himself addicted to alcohol on this trip. What were you thinking, going down that path? But despite being smart, he's really dumb.
"No," you insist for a few seconds. "She hates me. She doesn't want to be with me anymore." Frankly, you're amazed that Dave can even understand you. The words you're saying don't sound like a formal language even to your own ears.
"Did she break up with you or something?"
"No," you bemoan. If she had, then maybe you would be miserable enough to fix something. Being alone was always what was best for you. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe people like you aren't meant to be surrounded by people who care about you.
The only good that ever came out of being around someone else was when you were alone with Dave.
Dave, the brother you never really had. Dave, the one person stubborn enough and stupid enough and caring enough and brave enough to go with you to certain doom. Dave, the only person you could trust to keep you safe, or at least to stay with you and to face the danger right by your side.
Around anyone else, you were less than yourself. Around him, you were more.
Before you are aware of making the decision, your feet are carrying you toward him. He's watching you, shoulders strong and tense, always ready, but his hands are soft, open, and ready to catch you if you fall.
You remember from some other time, some other place, some other reality, being in love with him. Spending months with only him beside you. Mourning the rest of the people you ever knew, but secretly celebrating that he was still there with you. Talking to you in that low, calm, casual way of his. His voice older than he was.
You remember loving him with all your heart.
What happened to you?
You reach up, balancing precariously on ballet-shoe-covered feet that might as well be bamboo stilts, and you kiss him.
He pushes you away, his hands staying on your shoulders so you won't fall.
It's far too late for that.
"Rose, what the hell?" He doesn't sound angry. You see red tinge the tip of his nose and the tops of his ears, peeking out from under his stylistically messy hair. He is red. He's always been red. Red of passion, danger, sacrifice, anger, power.
"Dave, I need you," you whimper. Please, for the love of creation, just let this come out right. "I've always needed you. I thought I was strong, but I'm not. Not without you. Please, Dave, you're the only one who takes care of me. I need help."
"Yeah, you do need help." He's watching you, and even though you can't see his eyes in this dingy gray room, you can feel his gaze, burning you all over. Your bones are glowing, your tissues sizzling.
Red of fire.
"Please, Dave. Don't leave me. Don't... push me away... I..."
"Rose, look," he says, and then he swallows. His neck is strong cords framing a tender voice. "I'm flattered... I think. But you're wasted. This isn't what you really want."
He blurs, and you blink and he returns. You blink again and he is a swath of red. Red of beauty. He is truly beautiful, in ways you could never be able to tell him. His hands find your face and he brushes your tears away.
Red of love.
"Dave, please." You can't tell how loud your own voice is, or if he can even hear you. "I need you." You've waited so long to say this, pretending it was just pretend, and now all you can do is repeat the same words over and over like a pitiable parrot.
"...Rose, you have a problem."
"But you can fix it. Dave, you can fix me. You've always fixed me. You don't remember, but I do. You saved me, Dave... Dave, Dave, please Dave... Please."
Red.
He sighs, red of warmth, and he pulls you closer. His breath fills the valley between your neck and shoulder, caresses across your cheek and gets trapped in the swirls of your ear, lingers on lips cracked and dried and quivering.
He kisses you.
He pulls away.
"Rose..."
"Dave...?"
"This isn't right... You're..."
You expect him to complain about the supposed familial relations you've never cared about, that you're sure he never put any credence into.
"You're someone else's," he says instead.
You shake your head. You were never sure what you were to Kanaya, but you are sure it won't last, especially not now. Either way, you're doomed. Dave is the only one that has ever stayed by your side, even when your entire world was falling apart.
You kiss him again, hands eventually finding his jaw, his cheek. Off-balanced, your entire world shifting around him, he is the axis that you use to stay upright. He is the gyroscope that keeps you from falling.
You've always been falling.
His arms surround you, and you're encircled by red. When you close your eyes with Kanaya, you see red. You open your eyes with Dave and see red.
You grieve for Kanaya, for the ways you misled her. But you always loved Dave, didn't you. You always needed red. She had some, but not enough.
He leads you to a desk and lifts you onto it by your thighs. His hands are hot through your leggings, his red seeping into you. Red of seduction. Red of alarm. His fingers linger, and you're so, so warm. You rest your head on his shoulder, breathing heavily and loudly. His color is taking you over.
He lifts your chin with one hand, and you gasp. He touches his forehead to yours.
"Are you okay?"
You nod against him, and the entire world shakes with the motion. You close your eyes, and all you can feel is the cold desk through your clothing and him in all his red.
You feel him kiss you again, red of sacrifice, red of blood, and you kiss him back. He is what you needed. What you need.
"Dave, please," you whisper into his mouth, panting raggedly.
He's silent, still, burning before you.
You reach back and try to lie down, but he stops you with a strong hand.
"Damn, Rose, there's stuff on there. It has to be moved or you'll get yourself hurt."
He leans in closer and reaches past you, and you wrap your arms around his chest, burying your face in his hair, kissing his ear. He makes a soft sound and you hear it as red, barely audible and so very warming.
Something crashes to the floor behind you, and you don't even bother to look. You just lie down and tug Dave closer. He doesn't move with you, but he soon climbs onto the table all the same. He puts his hands by your shoulders, his knees by your thighs. He is a cage, and you know that this is where you belong. This is where you are safe.
You grab him by the collar and lift yourself into his lips, kissing him and moaning. He moves one hand to just behind your head, cradling you like a bird, shaking and terrified in his palm but safe and cared for. He lowers you down to the table, his fingers pillowing your head, and he lowers his hips.
Red of arousal.
Your hands find his waist, hips, still lower, back more. You drag your hands up, stealing warmth from his bared, muscled back, feeling the soft drag of his cape against your knuckles. You dig your fingertips into his skin, clinging like you're afraid he will somehow suddenly vanish.
You are afraid he'll vanish.
You open your legs slightly, and they're trapped by his. You whine and curl your hands into fists. He hisses, and you freeze. He pulls away and sighs.
"Watch the nails, okay?" he says softly.
You're mortified. "I'm sorry...!"
He shakes his head. "No, no... Just... not as quick."
He wants it.
Does he want you?
He kisses you again and lowers his hips, trapping you against the table. You shift helplessly, feeling him against you. You claw weakly at his warm, strong back, and he moans.
You're red. He's made you red, just like he is. Heat, passion, love, beauty, happiness.
You're terrified of losing this. Of losing him.
He sets your head down gently on the table, and he sits up, straddling your waist. He doffs the cape, and it plays with his hair on the way. He bunches it up and pushes it under your head. Then he strips himself of his shirts, and you see him, see the red just under the skin, shining through.
You lift your legs until you can feel your thighs against his lower back, and you try to shift your hips.
"Rose, this is fucked up..."
"Why?" You're too red. You're going to melt.
"You're drunk."
"I want you. I know that. Please..." It isn't because you're drunk. You just don't know how to explain that to him.
He sighs. "Can you at least stop me if I'm going too far?"
You nod.
He sighs again, and it turns into a laugh. "If Hell exists, I have a pass to the front of the line."
He leans in and kisses you again, one hand supporting him, the other wandering languidly all over you. When he finally grazes your breasts, you can't breathe. He pulls away and watches you writhe in pleasure, watching you watching him.
He sits over your legs again, knees holding your hips securely, and his hands find the tops of the side splits in your long orange dress. His hands scorch your legs, hips, sides as he slowly and carefully pulls your dress up and up and up. His fingertips glide over and across the shallow hills and valleys of your ribs, hidden beneath your skin as it burns to nothing from each of his touches, both actual and almost.
His hands slide around toward your shoulder blades and continue up, lifting your dress and removing it carefully. He leaves it bunched up around his cape, giving you a golden halo.
He smiles slightly and slides the hair band from your silken tresses. His fingertips bury into your hair, sinking through slowly like heat from a fireplace on a cold night.
Then he removes his shades and places them off to the side, looking down at you. His eyes never leave your face as he tells you that you are beautiful, despite the fact that all you are now wearing are your leggings and shoes. He doesn't look at your body. He looks at you.
He gently cups your chin with his warm hand and you stare into his eyes, as red as the rest of him. Fire and passion and voiceless warnings.
You brace your feet against the tabletop and lift your hips up into his, though you can't move him much.
"Sorry," he says. "The table's cold, isn't it."
You close your eyes, and you aren't quite sure if you nod or shake your head, but either way, he's drawing you up against him and picking up his hooded cape. He drapes it across your shoulders and guides you back down onto the table, and then moves his knees to between yours so he can pull it down below your hips as well.
You watch him attentively, trying to focus on his eyes despite how your vision fades in and out of focus and the apparent direction of down keeps changing.
When he looks back up at you, you smile. Then you lift your legs and wrap them around his waist.
"Rose..." he warns. Red.
"I want it, Dave. I do. I want you."
He sighs, closes his eyes for a few seconds, and before you can start worrying that he is going to leave he lies down on top of you again. His soft red pants rub against your tight golden leggings, and you moan. He wants. And you want. And he is such a bright red, casting a warm light all over you and turning you red, too.
He kisses you, deeper than before. He touches you, bolder than before. He moves against you, and the world stops. All you see, all you know, all you feel and taste and breathe is him. All is red.
His hands find the small of your back and trail downward, hooking the top of your leggings on the way. He breaks the kiss to strip you, paying close attention to every single inch of skin that is bared. He pulls them off along with your shoes and kisses the top of one of your feet. You shiver from the heat. The love. Red.
He lets your legs come to rest on his shoulders, and he moves down, down, down to where you're the warmest, the most aware, the most afraid, the most red, and he kisses you.
He kisses you with his lips and tongue and breath and nose and chin. He kisses you like he knows everything he needs to do and like he has no idea how to do it. And he kisses you better and better with every second.
You whine and moan, each sound you make sounding red to your own ears, full of alarm and passion and love and energy. The red only gets brighter and brighter, until eventually it is blinding.
The red dims, but never leaves. You look down at him and his eyes are so alive, so warm, so loving, so red. He is smiling just slightly, disheveled. He kisses the top of your thigh, just below your hip, and then matches the action on the other leg.
"Dave," you whisper, and he looks up at you. "Let me..."
He lifts his head a little so he can look at you easier. "Let you what," he mutters warmly, his voice radiating red.
You don't have the words for it, so you hook your hands under his shoulders and drag him up higher, closer to you. You try to pull his pants down with your feet, but manage to only caress his lower back with your bare heels.
Eventually he gives in and tugs his own pants down. He leaves them around his knees.
He doesn't look at you. He stares downward. You follow his gaze and smile.
"Dave, do you want me...?"
He finally looks at you, nose tinted red, and nods slowly. He doesn't say anything.
You link your ankles behind the small of his back and lift your hips. He lowers himself slightly and you can feel him press against you. He exhales shakily and bows his head, so you can just barely see his shoulder blades sticking up behind his hair.
He pushes you down fully onto the table and shifts slightly. He handles himself, trying to do what he wants to do, and trying to do it right. He guides, pushes, slides slowly forward.
Slowly, slowly, time stretching into infinity. He holds his breath and you pant quicker.
He comes to rest deep inside you, and you can feel him shaking against you, you can feel his heartbeat racing your own. He lifts his eyes, looks into yours... and he moves. Slowly.
You're both red, brightness ebbing and growing, rocking backward and forward, deeper and deeper. You're him and he's you.
Danger and passion and love and heat.
Brighter and brighter, faster and deeper, and now his mouth is on your neck and your hands are in his hair, biting and tugging, licking and smoothing, hotter and hotter.
"Rose, this isn't gonna last much longer," he whispers after an infinite wait, after you've scarcely taken a single breath.
You kiss him and hold him closer, eyes clenched shut against the red that would blind you, sweating and trembling from the inferno that surrounds you. Danger, warmth, sensuality.
He stills, save for the shaking that seems to be vibrating his very bones, and he pulls you over the edge with him, tumbling through nothing, into the mouth of the volcano, into the warmth and safety of a thousand thick blankets, into the emptiness of absolutely nothing but a single color.
He holds you as you both recover your breath, and eventually you open your eyes and the dull gray ceiling of the room you're in momentarily bewilders you.
He lifts himself up into your field of vision and the red in his eyes comforts you far more than it has any right to.
"Are you okay?" he asks.
You nod, closing your eyes briefly. "Are you?"
He sighs, long and low. "Depends. Is this?"
You open your eyes. "I don't know," you admit.
"Well, that helps." He shifts, drawing away from you, leaving you colder. Taking the red away from you.
"I want it to be," you say, willing him to return. You watch him pull his pants back into place, efficient as an engine.
He sits in a chair beside the table and takes your hand in both of his own. "We'll talk about it when you're sober, okay?"
You had forgotten. You can't tell how comprehensible you are right now.
"Okay," you accede.
He looks at you, and you feel the red spread through you, like the very blood in your veins.
He kisses you again and smoothes your hair down and lifts you by the shoulders, conducting you toward the edge of the table where he is, your legs on either side of his chest, your feet on his red-clad thighs.
"I wish you would go back to how you used to be," he mutters, looking at your lips or maybe your neck.
And then you realize that maybe you can fix something without needing to be miserable.
Maybe with him, you can fix yourself.
You make him a silent promise. You make it to yourself as well. The promise is as red as he is, as red as he makes you feel. You promise to bring yourself back to life.
From now on, you will be red. You kiss him again, basking in the red light. For him, for yourself, you'll become red.