59: Listless.

On Livejournal, I'm doing the 100 Moods writing challenge. Basically, I've got as long as I want to write one hundred fics about Greek Mythological characters. (You can view my list here - but be warned that things there can be anything from PG to 18.)

This fic is mood #59, and is about a character from the Greek Myths called Narcissus.

*

I cannot move anymore, and I am uncertain if I want to or not. The pool spreads out around me, glittering and sparkling as hazy daylight descends upon it – but it is the figure in the pool that has brought me to my knees, leaning so close to the water that I could touch it (if my limbs would still work, if my mind could still order them about, if I still cared).

He is lovely. Broken shafts of sunlight flit across his black hair, and golden light stirs in his blue, blue eyes. But he is as exhausted as I am, for we have been reaching to each other for weeks; his eyes are sunken, his full lips thin, and his cheeks are gaunt and hollow. I want to touch him, but my body does not; my body cannot anymore.

I will die soon. I know it, and he knows it. He gazes at me with tears in his eyes, but they are tears that do not fall, and my own prickle and burn with such. At first, I’d have touched his face, cupped his cheek in my hand, but for the water barring us, distorting him and making my heart fall and my hand stop short. And now I am dying, and I do not have the will to move through the water.

Unless…

No. I cannot.

Yes. I can.

I close my eyes (and he closes his; for he always knows what I am thinking, what I am feeling, and he is eager to copy) and slowly move my muscles. I flinch – my body screams out. My stomach rages and roars, and my lungs constrict. It becomes hard to breathe (as if my body is trying to stop me, as if nature wants me to remain alive), and I gasp and almost choke on my own eager, parting lips.

But I have a plan, a final goal, a dream. If I am to die, I will die with his lips upon mine, and with our hearts singing in our chests. I will not die before I achieve this; of that I am certain.

I slowly plant my hands on either side of me, and lean forward. He leans forward also, and we kiss – water laps at our faces, blurs our eyes and tricks our senses, but we are kissing!

Someone—something?—laughs, and I try to draw back – but can’t. My eyes are blurred by tears and pool-water, and my lips ache for more, pulling me closer even as I try to get back. No, no, I don’t want to die! I have kissed his lips, I have almost tasted absolute perfection. I need more!

The laughter comes again, and I feel clammy hands wrap around my throat. My hands try to shoot up, to rub at my eyes, but something is pinning them to the ground; a pair of thin, pale, blurred hands. I’m being pulled slowly to the water – and then my face is beneath it, under it… it is all around me!

I kick out, but hit nothing. Again comes the laughter; and now I can see, I can see the pool full of grinning naked women with the smiles of sharks – sea-goddesses, nymphs perhaps.

“Narcissus,” one whispers, cackling (do not ask how I can hear it all so clearly; I do not know, I do not know). They repeat the word, laughing coldly, but far above, far behind, I hear my name echoed with such passion, such fervour, that even beneath the water my tears fall.

A pair of clammy hands stroke my neck, and another my face, as it becomes hard to see – and to live. I would buck and twist, but my starved body cannot. Oh, gods! I am a fool; and now I shall die, and be a fool evermore.