By Mickey M.
© May 2003
Now when you die your life goes on
It doesn't end here when you're gone
Every soul is filled with light
It never ends and if I'm right
Our love can even reach across eternity
-- I believe, Diamond Rio
You don't exist any more. You're nothing more than thoughts, memories; flashes of pain, laughter, tears and joy rolled into mental pictures. You remember being there, being held, touched with reverence, with love. You remember his fingertips tracing your face.
You remember the pain etched into his features, saw his tears hit skin that couldn't feel any longer.
"Breathe, Chris, c'mon, please—" Frantic whisper.
You watched abstractly as the rain mingled with your blood, muting the color. Erasing you.
You watched your back arch when they zapped you, trying to restart your heart.
You hope he believes in ghosts.
~~~~~
"Are you real?" He asks, touching your face carefully. You smile, if only because you don't know what you are or aren't, any more.
"I'm as real as you need me to be."
He frowns, skates his thumb across your mouth. "That's not an answer."
"It's all I know." You kiss the fleshy pad resting against your lower lip and your mind supplies the memory of sweet skin, just slightly salty. "I'm here, now, JC."
His brow furrows. "But I—for how long, Chris?"
"As long as you need me here."
"Forever, then," he whispers, leaning in to kiss you.
~~~~~
"You don't age," he says quietly one night, fingers touching his own hair, now more silver than not. His hand shivers with the palsy of age. You shake your head. "No one else sees you." You shake your head again. No one else could. "Why?"
Forever, then, is what he said to you…hours, days, years ago. Time has no meaning for you; hasn't since the night it stopped for you. It is and you aren't, and you're content – happy – with things as they are.
"I'm here for you," you say finally, something you've repeated to him over and over, before pulling him close against you. "Only you. Always you."
"I'm glad," he whispers against your neck, his breath warm, moist, a gentle caress.
You'd thought you'd never feel it again, that you would pass forever as a memory recalling other memories, but at some point memory became recognition became awareness. Awareness of JC's body pressed against you, moving against you, then inward, heat driving deep and steady into you. Awareness gave way to sensation and you remember that night, arching upward and crying out, JC's name caught on your lips. You cried afterward, pale, sparkly drops of something that crystallized into starlight before fading away. Cried because you were thankful, grateful, so many things.
JC tried to hold onto one of your tears; cried his own when yours faded. You held him closer than ever that night, his hands clenching at the fabric of your shirt.
"I wish they could've seen you," he mutters softly, recalling you to now, to him, curving himself into you. "Just once more."
You do, too. Or did. You see Lance sometimes, now…and you know you'll see the others, eventually. Time has no meaning where you are. Always and forever mean exactly that.
"Sleep, baby," you say softly, petting silvery-grey hair. He sighs softly and relaxes against you, eyes already closed.
Night slips past almost silently, dark black and purple muting the pinpricks of light that shine and twinkle. You watch the shadows crawl slowly, lengthen then shorten, listening for the quiet, peaceful sounds, like the way the wind blows softer, the sounds of JC's breath, slow and easy, the chirp of crickets from somewhere outside the house.
~~~~~
Morning sun slides across the room slowly, like a lover's caress. You shifted apart in the night, him in sleep, you in restlessness. But now—he moves beside you, touches your shoulder, and when you turn, you smile at the young man grinning back at you, blue eyes crinkled up with happiness, hair sleek and glossy brown, curls touching his shoulders.
"Forever?" He asks softly, moving closer. You touch his face in wonderment and your smile widens.
"And always."
~fin~