21Love The Way You Lie
I Write The Songs. CONTEST ENTRY
TITLE: Love The Way You Lie (by Eminem and Rihanna)
CHARACTERS: Sookie, Bill, Eric. Mentions of Sam, Alcide, Debbie, Quinn, Selah, Portia, Lorena.
DISCLAIMER: : I do not own the characters or anything else from the SVM/TB-universe. The same, I don't own anything from 'Love the way you lie' song. Nor can I lay claim to the Sun, the Moon, or the Stars.
PEN NAME: Kira Kiralina
BETA NAME: Scattered21
VIRGIN WRITER : No
TEASER: What if Sookie runs from the truth as easily as she runs from confrontation? Where would it lead? Perhaps to her bed, beside her a certain dark haired vampire tied in silver. Sun will cleanse the lies, burning everything and them in the process. Rated T.
A/N: I wrote it before knowing there was another story inspired by the same song, but even if I knew I would. I just had to write it, to take it out of me. As strange at it might appear, that there are two similar stories, makes sense because this is such a powerful hit. More author note at the end.
I lie quietly in my lover's embrace, my eyelids struggling to remain open against the pull of invisible lead weights.
~o~
Just gonna stand there
And watch me burn
But that's alright
Because I like
The way it hurts
Just gonna stand there
And hear me cry
But that's alright
Because I love
The way you lie
I love the way you lie
Night. Darkness. The black blanket embraces all, my only shelter from a harsh reality that both covers and protects me. The blanket's not much more than a flimsy barrier against the known terrors that await me when I open my eyes in the sunlight.
No longer worshiping the sun, I am ready for the moon. He will give it to me. He promised.
But he has lied. I could see in his dark eyes.
I desperately need those lies. His heartless lies.
~o~
I blink, shielding my face as light slowly creeps over the horizon, pushing away the darkness. Streaks of gold permeate the night, lightening the sky. They threaten to wash away the darkness in me, tugging insistently at a long lost memory… Of who I was, who I used to be. Before him, before it all went down.
I faintly remember a girl in the sun, a proud, stubborn, independent girl. She's foreign to me now. Almost an alien being, and no longer me.
No longer do I worship the sun. No longer can I face the harsh truth. I'm no longer me. I am 'his.'
Relentless now, the sun is pushing away the night. It is an almighty fire. Of truth, and a truth I don't want any more.
Light enters my house, the life-and-death giving energy flooding the windows. The same windows he once threatened to destroy, along with the walls they are encased in. Once threatened to level my entire house, until there was no house to keep him away, keep him from me. That was a long time ago, when I still considered denying him.
Now I lie next to him, and I watch the skin on his arms engulfed in flames, igniting my rumpled bed, taking me with him into the white-hot heat. The burning fire. It is a fire I hold in my hands.
I remember yesterday. I remember the hurt. The threatening, the shouting, and the eventual revelation of his truth: his desire to leave me. He wants to leave ME! That can't be. I am nothing alone, I am nothing without him. That is what he used to say. And I believed him. Even if it was a lie.
I need him. I need his lies.
He says he needs a break. After breaking me into a million pieces? No, no. HELL NO!
He says that 'I'm no longer a challenge.' He is 'bored' with us! What the fuck?
That was yesterday. Yesterday is over. It's a different day today. No longer the day when he leaves me. Leaving me alone with his lie. Today it's a day for the sun's burning eye, a benevolent, cleansing fire. Our first, last day together.
Yielding, I lie still and silent on the bed, watching as the flames swallow me, him, us, and all of the lies between us.
He's watching me also, his eyes more incendiary than the scorching flames.
Hooded eyes following the licking, curling fingers of harsh, unyielding light as his lies turn my insides to ash.
Is this the end, the end of lies, the end of illusions?
My biggest desire has always been to stand with him in the sun. This morning, desire becomes reality.
Unwavering now, he is watching me, dark brown eyes boring into me from behind the wall of flames the sun ignited. Bedding on fire; house consumed by fire. I too am on fire, inside and out.
And I love him. I loved him all the way. I loved all of the sugary, Southern phrases that ever escaped his now slowly blackening lips.
I reach out with my hand to cup his cheek, despite my own pain. I only have eyes for the growing pain in his smoldering eyes.
I will love him forever. I will love him as long as wrong feels right.
I'm both high on this love and drunk from my hatred.
I hate him, and yet I love him. I suffer for my love. I suffocate in the grip of my love.
My life is on fire.
Fire of hatred. Fire of lust. Fire of loathing, and pain, false love and lie. Lies!
I took him back at first. I always took him back. A continuous loop: a fucking Vampire on a relationship rubber band. Until he decides he is ready to finally drift away. Thinking to leave me alone, with my own lies. Not gonna happen. NO!
I've tried to leave him too, and failed. I hate myself too much to go far away.
I should have left him long ago. But I can't. I love him too fucking much. Love his lies.
I should have left him after the first lie, or the second, or the third one. But I love the way he lies. I love the way he begs for my forgiveness. In his subjugation is my power. I love to see him crawling at my feet. And begging.
I could have let him die; in fact, I should have let him die. Hell, I should have fucking killed him when I could, a very long time ago.
Instead I run back to him, and it's me begging him, now. Begging for more hurt, for even more lies.
"I love the way you lie, mostly when you say you love me," I tell him, as sweetly as he has lied to me in the past. "I love your apologies, especially when they flow so smoothly from your lips."
He can't respond; his lips are now nothing more than a faint, black reminder of what lips might be… The stench is awful.
"I hate you." I'm so insane; I am enjoying this!
I should have chosen Eric over him. But he won't lie to me, not like Bill does. And I crave his genteel, softly spoken Southern lies.
"I should have chosen Eric over you," I tell him. It is the paramount truth. Now his eyes are blazing in hatred. Truth finally shines from his face now. My humorless grin is beginning to strain the muscles in my face.
"I should have chosen Alcide over you." More truths I share. But the real truth is that Alcide loved Debbie's lies too much to ever really consider me.
"I should have chosen Sam over you." Another lie this time, it feels so good to tell them. But Sam was never my choice. Sam is a pathetic wimp, a feeble excuse for a man, and incapable of ever hurting me like Bill still does.
I should have chosen Quinn over you." And I would have, except Quinn wouldn't choose me over his kin. Although he was pretty damn good with the lying. Yes, he was a definite contender for my heart.
I laugh bitterly, and nearly choke on the bile rising in my throat. My voice is raspy now from inhaling the smoke from the Vampire's boiling, melting frame. I cough, and it's a deep, painful one. For a moment, I can't breathe, and I begin to panic.
I tried few times to get out, break this hold he has over me. I really did try. But he shoved Selah in my face, and then Portia, and oh ... Lorena...
He taunted me, always smelling of countless whores and his undead beauties, always professing his undying love in syrupy tones. And I cracked under his pressure. Because I love his lies, I need his lies. And I am nothing without him.
I love him so much, it seems like I'm always gasping for more air to fill my lungs around him. He doesn't require air, isn't dependent on it like I am. It still rattles me, sometimes. "Please pretend you are breathing. Do it for me," I plead. I need this last little lie from him, too. It comforts me.
He doesn't need these little white lies, like I do. "Lie to me some more, Bill. Make the hurt go away, for a while."
Silence reigns.
"Say you love me. Say there is no one else. Say there is no other reason to be here with me. Say it, and I will believe you. I always do. I need you; I need you to say it to me, now."
But my words are rhetorical; I am too much of a coward to remove the silver brooch I used like a makeshift gag, seated in the gaping, twisted hole that was once his mouth.
"I used to want a husband and children. So let's just share a lie for a moment. Say to me that you are my mate, say we are normal, say you are a third grade teacher, and I am a real estate agent. Say our daughter waits for us in the backyard, playing in the sun, not lying undead in some coffin. Say supper is steaming on the table, not bleeding on the bed. Just lie to me already, damn it! "
I desperately need his lies as I watch the fire consume him.
"I'm tired of being a freak. I'm tired of being alone, unwanted. Just pretend you want me for 'myself.' Say you love me! Please!"
He has sworn he will never hurt me, again and again. I can forget the rape; I have even forgiven the many bruises he's left on me. I can even dismiss the sensation of his fangs tearing open my veins, almost draining me dry, again and again. I chose to forgive it all, simply because he keeps saying 'I love you.'
He faithfully promises me the next time he would not fail me, but he always fails, unthinkingly taking me with him in his failure.
Cupping his hot cheek now, I search these staring, helpless eyes for a new, fresh lie. His eyes are deep pools of hatred now; I yearn to drown myself in them.
"Just say those three little words again." I'm damned for wanting to hear something he can no speak.
He watches me cry. He hears me cry. He sees my burns. Why can't I hear him screaming?
I feel so ashamed. I finally snap, slapping his face with the flat of my hand, and his lipless smile goes wider. I spit my venom. I yank at his burning hair. I want to scratch at his dark, fathomless eyes. So I do.
But I'm missing the honey of his lies. The only way to enjoy it is to remove his gag, but I'm reluctant to do so. For if I did, he just might tell the truth. For once.
He might say that I was only a mission to him. He might say he knowingly let the Ratrays beat me to within an inch of my life. He might say he only cared to share in the bounty of my life-giving fairy blood. And in my telepathy. And in the taking of my virginity. That he never truly cared enough to protect me. That he knew it was me in the trunk when he mindlessly raped and drained me. That I was just a thing, a toy, or a possession to him. That I am nothing but his doll, like my uncle used to call me. That I am little more than a huge joke to him. Just a brief speck drifting past in his eternal life.
And worse, he might even say that he loved Lorena.
He might reveal that he never loved me. And I can't have that.
I need him. I need his rough, forceful sex, like in the trunk of that car, all over again. I need his patronizing ways. I need the way he makes me feel like dirt. The dirt he dragged me down on to when we reunited our bodies in the cemetery after the first time he left me.
For in fact, I love the way he forces me to brush my teeth twice after every meal, the way he makes me feel like my mouth is less-than-dirt until I add the freshness of the mint paste.
I want even more of the ways he has made me no longer able to speak for myself. I'm not allowed to do so in his presence. There is no longer a self for me anymore; only his needs and wants for me to consider.
I cough, I hack. I want to hack his head off. But I'm too fucking tired to rise from the burning bed, in search of some fucking hatchet. Instead I must be content with watching his hair turning into dancing flames.
From my bed, I expect I am going straight to hell. Or maybe I already am in hell. With my dark, beautiful devil by my side.
I've always known he says things he doesn't mean. Beautiful things that were naught but lying sentiments. And we fall back into the same patterns, same routines. Feed and fuck. But his temper is getting worse. I can handle his lies. He is the one who can't handle them anymore.
'Bill Compton, will you please come in?' I used to say again and again. How can I deny him? But what I am actually saying is: 'Please come back, I need your lies. I love them too much to drive you away.'
It is not only his fault. I am guilty as well. He only reflects what is rotten in me. He is the distorted mirror, a soulless being.
Maybe our relationship isn't as crazy as it seems. I'm crazy, crazy Sookie; perhaps what we had is fitting.
"I love you," I lie.
I am blind, because I intentionally close my eyes. Close them so I won't have to face the lies.
And I'm tired of all manner of lies. Still, I'm also too afraid of the truth.
Even though I know he is nothing but lies, I'm tired of games. I just want him back. Even if only for one last lie.
And the truth is that there will be no next time. There will be no new Lorena, or any other woman with whom to taunt me. Today ends that possibility. Today, there is only me and him, and our death.
So I just tied him on the bed, waiting beside him for the house to catch fire. Locked into our own tomb of light.
"It's useless now," I tell him. It would be so easy to leave him here, alone and burning. But I don't want to leave. He has bound me to him, through our blood, just as I bind him to this bed.
That was yesterday. Yesterday is over. It's a new day today.
Again I say, "I love you."
And I think about our past together, about how he always promised me the world. Until today. For today, I reject those empty promises and fulfill one of my own: I give you the blinding truths revealed by the sun. Today, in the warming rays of the golden orb, we shall die together, my deceitful undead love and I.
I close my eyelids. No more lies! No more half-truths! Ever.
Pin 'em
So lost in the moments
When you're in 'em
It's the rage that took over
It controls you both
So they say it's best
To go your separate ways
Guess that they don't know ya
Cause today
That was yesterday
Yesterday is over
It's a different day
~o~
"Wake up!"
I'm afraid to open my eyes. My eyes hurt. My body aches. My soul is bleeding.
A cold embrace envelops me. He escaped! He fucking escaped! He's free to run! My throat is too sore to cry.
"Lover, come back." A pleading voice. Not his.
I feel my insides relax, in my true lover's embrace. His closeness fills me up with happiness. Or is it just the bond?
"It was just another bad dream, Sookie." He soothes me, hugging me tight. He cares... Oh God! I start to cry. Again.
"Fucking fairies." I barely register his muttered words.
How I wish his blood would heal my mind too, the way it perfectly healed my body. Maybe the fairies did poison me after all. Or maybe not.
Some days, I am certain I am going insane.
"I love you," he mouths against the shell of my ear. I pull away and search his blue eyes; is he being truthful? But I'm too chicken to own the disappointment I imagine I find there. Or perhaps he has become too skilled at hiding his emotions over the last millennium. Some essential truth is missing from his gaze. Maybe he is lying to himself.
How I wish for another glimpse inside his mind.
"I love you too." I'm not lying, I hope.
After what I've dreamed of doing, I just can't profess to love even myself. Yet.
~o~
A/N
I poured into this story all my frustrations with Sookie's turning a blind eye to Bill's deceptions and over the lack of insight in Eric's mind in TB and SVM. However, I didn't have the heart to go all the way, even if I can do without Bill, so it was all just a nightmare. A nightmare that might be caused by the fairy poisoning in her system.
Also, as I learned from my readings, abused women tend to accept a whole lot more before they snap. And when they do they act more cowardly, killing their abuser in his sleep or, I think, poisoning their partner.
If you feel this story of victims and tormentor may resonate with somebody you know, perhaps s/he could benefit from some professional help. I'm no expert, but I encourage everyone to reach out to victims of abuse. Domestic violence is a worldwide epidemic. Studies show that between one quarter and one half of all women in the world have been abused by intimate partners. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that in forty-eight surveys from around the world, 10-69% of women stated that they had been physically assaulted by an intimate partner at some point in their lives.
Worldwide, 40-70% of all female murder victims are killed by an intimate partner. While as many as 90% of the women in jail today for killing men have been battered by those men. Most of these acts were desperate acts of self-defense.
My thanks to Northwoman and Northman Maille for creating this contest. Great idea! Also to my ever gracious betas Scattered21 for putting up with all my errors. Special thanks to Peppermintyrose for guiding me into the the psychology of abused women.
Link to the contest: community/I_Write_the_Songs_Contest/84413/99/0/1/
Please share your opinions over this with me.