Written for Zsazsa, for being such a wonderful person, and the most fabulous artist ;)

Simplicity is Overrated


Sometimes love is just another way to bleed.
-- Laurell K.Hamilton.

Miss Parker dreamt of Carthis. She dreamt in black and white and shades of grey. A monotone fire burned behind her as she sat on the hearth. Jarod approached, his grey eyes open and unguarded for the first time since they were children. They didn't talk in her dream, the just sat there in silence until Jarod reached his arm across her shoulders and she leaned into him and cried. His zombie-grey skin rubbed up and down her back gently soothing and whispering things to her.

Lying to her.

It will be okay, Miss Parker. I have a plan. We’ll be alright. I’m sorry.

Lies lies lies.

She knows this, it’s a lie. Just like everything else, but like everything with him it's also impossible to pin down. No single lie he has told stands out, because that’s what a lie is: truth until it is uncovered.

When she stopped crying he moved her gently so he could see her eyes; grey reflecting grey fire. The colour of nothing.

He wiped away her tears and smiled.

“You are so beautiful,” he said.

And then he kissed her, and he tasted like grey.

He tasted like nothing at all.


In the morning she woke up shaking in a cold sweat, fear still in her heart and felt the nightmare's details etch away.

Sydney wanted to know what happened on Carthis. She knew that he wanted to know. And he knew …

Miss Parker hadn’t really confined in Sydney since the revelation about her mother. How could she? He’d lied.

Again.

They met a few times but mostly he wanted to know how she felt about Mr Raines being her father. Make sure she wasn’t going to pull something strange and slit her wrists to get unclean blood from her veins.

Or something.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” he asked a few weeks later.

“I wasn’t planning to, no.”

He sighed in that way of his that said ‘I’m rather disappointed in you, you know that don’t you’, she hadn’t been given the Sigh for a while.

She snapped. “Dammit, Syd. What do you want me to say? I found out my family is even more screwed than I thought. My great-great grandfather killed his wife and children, and cursed our family. His daughter was called Angel or Miss Parker. Happy now?”

And then, because the bastard does know her too well: “you didn’t say anything about Jarod.”

“No. I didn’t.”

They left it at that.

They don’t have the calm in the storm; they don’t have a lull in the fighting. A storm implied that something beyond their control was tearing at them, bringing down their defences. A lull required a war and this wasn’t war.

In a way they didn’t have anything.

Though for all its nothing-ness they did have 'pauses'.

There was no specific place. No no-man’s-land because Jarod has no territory and the lines were too blurred for that.

They would start with a toast to the dead. One for each, and every time they met it was one more to add to the list.

A pause described what it was perfectly; it couldn’t have been a break. Even if the roles had become almost … jobs. A pause, almost an intermission, before the puppets were once again picked up and danced.

There were rules though; not that they ever spoke them.

Rule #1: don’t be happy no matter who has just died.

Rule #2: don’t say you’re sorry. Even if you are.

Rule #3: look but don’t touch.

He broke them all after Carthis.

“I’m sorry about your father, Miss Parker.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Well,” he said coyly, “I am sorry about Mr Raines being your father, but I’m not sorry about Mr Parker.”

“Then why say it?”

He shrugged. “Because it was something to say.”

And then he didn’t call the waiter over and order them their drinks (him paying, not her, they tracked her finances like the IRS) instead he leaned over and kissed her. It was exactly as she had imagined (dreamed?) it would be; different from the first time because he had only been young but still sweet, undemanding.

He drew back, and he didn’t say I’m sorry.

There was a pause.

A pause in a pause.

And she realised he only said I’m sorry when he wasn’t. Did that mean he lied?

“Jarod…”

“Miss Parker…”

He always called her ‘miss’; he would even if she asked him not to.

“…order us some drinks.”

In the middle of the night – she was not going to go to sleep, not going to see that nightmare again – she counted off the people who have lied to her. When she reached ten, she stopped. And did it in reverse.

How many people have never lied to her?

How many?

She couldn’t count Sydney, or any of her presumed fathers. She couldn’t count Lyle, even if he was the one she should be able to trust. Even her mother…

God, even her mother.

The final list was short, and that was depressing.

Thomas – no, he lied about Jarod. He knew Jarod. He met her father…

Angelo – he may or may not be capable of telling a lie.

Broots – he definitely wasn’t capable of telling a lie.

Ethan – but for how long? To save her or to help her, to save her from pain. A lie was a lie. How long before she didn’t even trust poor sweet Ethan? How long before she resented him for being born; her mother saving him, not her?

Jarod.

It always came back to Jarod.

She found him in an expensive hotel. He wasn’t surprised when she found him and neither was she. They probably should have been meeting in a warehouse rather than an upscale place. One with strange discoveries on the table rather than a welcome mint but …

She was tired of all that; tired of the truth.

The distance was crossed by both, the first kiss the same. Neither could say who started it; they didn’t start it anyway. The Centre did. So many years ago.

“Gun?”

“Didn’t bring it.”

(Later she’ll think about this, and how their idea of safe sex is “where’s the gun” but for now her hands running up his chest were enough to distract from his weapons check, poorly disguised as a reverent touch)

They moved to the bed, clothes discarded and strewn over the table with its welcome mint.

“Do you want this?”

It was her who said it and it took her moment to realise this.

He ran his tongue over her bottom lip and kissed her.

And then it was all a blur.

Jarod doesn’t lie.

Hands moved down her body, touching and exploring. His mouth followed them, kissing, sucking, licking where ever they touched.

Do you want this?

His hand on her breast, making her hiss as he grazed the nipple with his teeth.

Jarod doesn’t lie, he just…

Other hand drifted down between her thighs touching her, making her bite down hard on her lip.

He just…

Him inside her, moving inside her, making noises that might have been her name, mingled with her own noises that might have been his.

Doesn’t answer.

“Lie to me,” she said.

He kissed her bruised lips. “I love you.”


She smiled as he came, as he cried out (nothing, absolutely nothing) and collapsed on her.

“I love you too,” she whispered.

When they were children a kiss between them was just affection, when they were older, a kiss between them was just a tool.

Catch it like a wild animal, hissing and feral. Like a butterfly beating its wings helplessly against the glass jar, remembering the feel of wind under its wings, forever staring at the world outside, even after its dead.

Without having to speak, a kiss can be love.

People say they want truth, but they don’t. They want a lie never revealed. They want a white lie, even though they’ll damn it as the worst lie of all, if they catch it.