let's conspire to ignite

Trent took heavier puffs now, willing for the poison to eat him up. He was upset, and he blamed it on what he had assumed the girl had said, although the reason was a much bigger one that was not that. He trained his eyes on the empty wall in front of him, although his ears became super sensitive to the girl's movements. When she got out of the bed to walk to the bathroom, his eyes tried to spy on her, wondering what she was up to. When she lifted her jeans, Trent felt sure that she wanted to leave the house. If she did, he was sure to chase after her. Thankfully, she merely took something and walked back to where he was at. Seeing that Millie had now returned, Trent returned to feigning indifference.

The click from a camera sounded, and Trent turned to look at the floor, only to see some strange stones. His scowl faded to curiosity, but he watched Millie silently, puzzled at what she was up to. He did not want to ask, since anger did not permit him to do anything but smoke his cigarette. Millie soon threw the stones onto the bed, and Trent tried to see what they were while trying not to appear too eager. The stones began to form a message that he could understand. Trent felt his eyebrows suddenly raise on their own, before he let them fall back down. And then Millie began to talk to him again. He turned to look at her, but the speed at which he was choking himself on the cigarette smoke with got to him, and a sudden violent cough hit him as he choked on it.

Seeing that the cigarette could be considered done, Trent reached for the ashtray and stubbed his cigarette, as he continued to cough for the discomfort at his throat. As soon as it got less violent, he made an audible sound of heavy inhale, before he turned to look at Millie again. This time, he managed to look straight at her eyes. He thought he spied it being a little more watery than he was accustomed to, and his stomach felt an invisible punch. Trent shifted his body so that he was facing her now with his legs stretched out and down to reach the floor.

Thankfully, Trent had long arms, and he reached his right one up to cup the girl's chin. It was an awkward touch, and he withdrew his hand, only to shift himself backwards to make space for the girl to sit on the bed again. He was hoping that she understood the gesture, which she did. Words needed to be spoken, or at least Trent thought they needed to be. "Mills," he began, and then he felt the words disperse when he opened his mouth to say that. Trent brought his face closer to the girl's. He did not launch himself towards her, and that was new. The girls who slept in his bed were all done hastily, with more lust than thought or feeling. He really did not want Millie in the same league.

Trent paused when he was almost an inch away from the girl's face. He merely looked into her eyes, and felt that he should have realised his feelings earlier, since they were all swarming to him, bombarding him with their intensity for the moment. When his lips touched her, it did not meet her lips. It went for the left eye, where it looked as if a tear was threatening to fall. Trent planted a kiss next to the girl's eye and then allowed his lips to linger on it. He closed his eyes and took in the smell of her, before returning to look into her eyes, not sure what he should do next. He had a lot of options, most a little raunchier than the others, but he would pick the less raunchy ones. It was Millie.

With the hacking cough that wracked him for a few moments came a familiar voice in the young Gryffindor’s mind, her brother’s voice to be exact, depicting exactly what the poisons did and why they were poison. Millie wanted to get him something to wash away the irritation in his throat but her feet were stuck to the carpet; as if a sticking charm was keeping her there, making it impossible for her to move even though she desperately wanted to. Something was telling her not to, to stay where she was for fear of his anger. But there was really no reason to fear was there because like she did, he blew hot and cold - at extremes - and when his fingers grazed her chin, she lifted her eyes to meet his. Millie brought her hand up and hesitantly touched his arm, her fingers grazing his as he let his hand fall from her face.

Slowly, Millie lowered herself back down onto the bed. She blinked at Trent when he murmured her name. Millie opened her mouth but the words died in her throat before they’d even been formed so she licked her bottom lip and brought her lips back together again. Millie kept her eyes on Trent’s as he moved closer to her. When his lips touched her skin, she brought her hands up and hesitantly touched them down on his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” She whispered. Millie brought her hand up to his neck and began to caress the skin, her fingers gliding across his skin like her whispered words, barely touching but most assuredly there.

Millie tipped her head forward and pressed her forehead against Trent’s. Her lips quirked a little at the sides and she brought her hand around to his cheek. She cupped his jaw and rubbed her thumb over his cheek bone, her eyes slowly drying and deciding against the tears that wanted so desperately to fall. Millie leaned forward and placed a small kiss to the side of his mouth, as she had done earlier. “Do you know what Emil Ludwig said? ‘The decision to kiss for the first time is the most crucial in any love story. It changes the relationship of two people much more strongly than even the final surrender; because this kiss already has within it that surrender.’ I suppose he was right. Perhaps that’s why it isn’t right, in case the change is too great...”

Everything seemed to move to slowly, as if they were calculated before they manifested. Trent began to think that Millie was being just as careful as he was. It was certainly not an easy step, to bring what he had thought to be a friendship close enough to resemble kinship, to extract it out of the familial realm, and to edge it towards something more romantic than expected. The head would spell out more risks than pleasure, if it still had some sanity in it.

Trent appreciated the light touches he was getting from Millie. It was a sign that she could be on the same page as him, or at least, she did not find it too odd to be taking the strange move with him. He shook his head when she whispered. "Don't say it anymore," he muttered softly, puzzled at her apology now, wishing that she would stop doing it because every word of sorry made his heart ache. When Millie pressed her forehead against his, Trent watched her lips when she talked. He tried to understand what she was saying, but they were merely words that he could not fully comprehend, and he did not know why. He tried.

"Do you think that this isn't right?" He understood, though, that when and if he finally did go in for a kiss on the lips, things would change, like she said. But then Trent thought, were not things already changed now? Without waiting for Millie's reply, he leaned for a kiss on the tip of her nose, which was dangerously getting closer to where he has been putting off. And then he looked at Millie seriously again.

"Look, Mills. I don't know if I know what I'm doing. I don't mean that I don't want this. I just don't trust myself sometimes. I've been a disappointment to the two people who say they love me. I don't want you to regret ..." And then he shook his head. Why did he lump her with his parents? Who was he to think that she loved him? Trent felt embarrassed that he even said that. He moved an inch away from Millie's face. "I mean, just ... what if this happens only because you're in my bed?"

Trent bit his lower lip, knowing he did not use words that were exactly right. He wanted to ask if she thought it was just him and his lust, because he wanted her to discern. He felt as if he was not the right judge. Yet, a part of him knew that they were both impulsive people. What was happening was not something both knew how to handle. Trent merely wished that she knew.

"It's not that I don't like you. I just ..." He shrugged, "I don't know myself."

Apologies were never enough. They were just a cluster of misplaced words that were designed to mean something to someone, designed to make the other person forgive; to forget. Forgetfulness was the problem, as well as the underlying cloud of lust and the confusing, complicated emotions that neither Gryffindor wanted to explore for fear of finding something they hadn’t quite realised. Millie dropped her hand from Trent’s shoulder and took one of the Runes she’d left in her lap.

She lifted it up and pressed it into his palm before doing the same with a handful of others. She looked down between them and dropped her other hand to take his. She lifted and curled his fingers back so his hand was flat. Then slowly the Runes began to shuffle themselves into place, in tune with their owner’s wishes. Millie traced the golden indent of each rune before carefully folding Trent’s fingers around them. She traced the lines in his skin, the folds and the creases with the pad of her index finger. Her eyes lifted to his again and she swallowed.

“I would never...” Millie looked down for a second before carefully finishing her sentence. “I would never, ever let you down, Trent. Not intentionally. You’re...” Millie sighed. “I would never regret you or our actions. Sometimes it feels as if you’re my only friend...the only ears in a sea of voices, the only one willing to listen. I...I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want to lose you.” Millie laughed a little despite herself. “Perhaps we’re just too silly...too naive. In too deep to the point where we’re treading water we fear we’ll drown in. When we’re like this I can’t see us anymore. Like...when we’re relaxed and happy, even, I can see us in the future...older. But this, this...hesitance this animosity crackling amidst the anxiousness and the...I don’t know....it just goes black, as if there was nothing there before. And...and I hate that. I want to make us better but I don’t know how. I want it to come back...the picture. But it’s...it’s just gone right now.”

Millie bit her lip and brought her hand up to Trent’s face. She ran her fingers through his hair and let her hand slide back down so she could cup his cheek. “Isn’t it funny that you don’t trust yourself yet I trust you with my life?” Millie smiled bitterly. “Every scenario is running through my mind and I’m trying to grasp at whichever one won’t push you away from me and I’m wondering whether I should just do it so we can umm and ahh no longer. Is it wrong of me to want to keep you? Is it selfish? I suppose I could argue that it isn’t but I have a feeling it is...that I want to have both but I know either way one will destroy the other or itself.” Millie tapped her fingers against his cheek. “Maybe sleep...is the best option now. Sleep away the confuddlement. Though,” Millie’s lips spread into a smile. “I don’t think that’s a word.”

Trent watched and allowed Millie to do what she pleased with his hands. He did not understand the Runes, but it definitely looked like the girl knew more than she wanted to let up. He looked at the Runes that she placed in his palm and did what her hands directed him to do. Rather than trying to comprehend the action, Trent merely enjoyed the fact that the silent moment was not just a moment. There was a strange sort of bond pulling them together, and for once, sex was not the instrument for him. His eyes danced itself across her skin, and it was all the dancing that he felt he needed for the night. The climax was her eyes, and Trent allowed his to be mingled with hers, feeling all that he needed for what her eyes would tell him. Someone said that the eyes are the window to the soul, and Trent remembered it suddenly. Perhaps, now, he would not think that someone a nut for having said that.

When Millie began to speak, Trent swallowed and felt a part of him believing her. The other part of him was the part that was cynical about him. He had known expectations and conditions. For someone, even Millie, to hold so much promises in her words ... he wanted to believe her. He knew this could be different. But he could not believe her wholeheartedly. He wondered, too, what the girl saw about them in the future. Afraid of the unknowable, especially expecting it to turn out badly (seeing that the habit of poisons was really his way to hasten the date of his death) from the morbid part of his mind, Trent stopped himself from asking Millie about that. He lived day-by-day for instant gratifications, not for the future. There was nothing to look forward to in the future. He was going to be a failure, like his parents expected. Demelza littered her naggings with the idea, and the expressions of Dean told Trent that his father felt the same way. Even now, at the possibility of a future with Millie, Trent refused to see the light of it. It was probably going to be a failure anyhow. And he was determined to face these failures bravely, until the drugs kill him.

"It's probably black, and gone, because nothing will come out of it." He expressed out of his thoughts. When Millie began to touch him again, Trent almost purred against her touch. It was some comfort from his sad thoughts. What she said at the same time, now, comforted him too. It would seem, then, that she had some feelings of her own for him too. If only he could be brave, like he is most of the time, a little too bold to wonder about aftermaths. Trent frowned and tried to understand the choice that Millie was talking about. He did not. He merely understood that she said she wanted to keep him. He smiled.

"You'll keep me, alright. I don't know how you'll push me away, but I promise you'll get to keep me." I'll want it. Trent kept the last sentence to himself. It was best not to run away with the promises. He did not want to hurt Millie or make her regret trusting her life to him, like she said. He nodded to the girl's suggestion to sleep, hoping that his old friend of sleep would take some of the sadness away from him. It was too bad that he had ran out of drug supply. It was the best and the worst way of escaping anyway. Trent slowly laid himself down as he lifted the duvet, waiting for Millie to lay herself down too. She did so, and Trent let the covers down slowly, making sure it was sufficient for the girl.

And then, as if to make up for what could have happened, he reached for the girl's waist, brought himself closer to her, and settled himself into a comfortable embrace. Perhaps it was comfortable for him rather than her, since he pretty much just compressed her for a hug. Trent wanted to bury himself at her chest, to sleep like a child. But he wanted to feel like he was still a bit of a man, even if it did not feel like much. And so, he turned to lay on his back, and left arm stretched to offer Millie room to snuggle against him, like she did before at school when both merely saw it as a way of sleeping, without the romantic notions of it.

Black and gone, black and gone. Gone because nothing would come of it. The idea scared Millie more than she was willing to admit at that moment. There were some things that she just knew and she was used to that. She was used to seeing things and knowing that what she saw was fact and not fiction created by a wanton, desperate mind. In instances where things seemed to be at odds, instances like this one, everything darkened, like a film had been put in front of her eyes and stopped her from seeing all she wanted to see. She thought of Trent and got nought but darkness, an impenetrable, infinite abyss of darkness. When she dared turn her mind to herself there was something nearly just as dark but with a flicker of light, a flicker of chance that seemed absent from his. She was supposing it meant an option, a chance to get out of what she was assuming was the inevitable that the pair were hastening with the habits that, as many scenarios suggested, would become their lifeline despite being the road to death.

Tapping into that light wasn’t something she wanted to do either. It’s not something she wanted to find out about. She didn’t want that to be an answer to the abyss. When she looked at Trent now she didn’t see anything and that...that never happened. She tried to press further, further forward but the darkness was final. Turning back she saw things that were due to happen, purposely skirting over the beginning of the darkness. She couldn’t grin and bear death; especially not his death.

“Please don’t say that,” She begged him, running her fingers through his hair again. “Please don’t ever say that. We...we’re fine, aren’t we? We’re fine. There’s...there’s...everything is there. It has to be. I could...” Millie cupped his face with both of her hands and she peered into his eyes, searching for something, anything to reassure her that there was something that would make that darkness go away. “I could never imagine this world without you in it. I don’t want to have to live in a world without you in it, Trent. I...” Millie blinked back the tears that were once again trying to slip down onto her cheeks. She inhaled a shaky breath and smiled that little optimistic smile of hers, forgetting the words she’d left unspoken.

Somehow, the emotions that had overrun them had changed from anger, rejection and a muddled sense of affection to a sense of impending loss. It was almost as if they were realising, or at least she was, that by hastening the inevitable they weren’t just doing that, they were reaffirming the inevitable, making its possibility stronger.

Then it was sleep, neutral ground in the safety of the bed, in the safety of dreams. Millie swivelled her legs around and crawled into the bed. She curled her arms under one of the pillows and brought her head down onto it as Trent draped the duvet over them. Millie smiled sleepily, the fatigue having come from the overbearing current of emotions and not, oddly, from the day’s events. She let her eyelids fall shut and she sighed contentedly as she grew that slightest bit warmer under the covers. Millie gave a little sound of protest when Trent’s arm wound around her waist. She reopened her eyes and gave Trent a little half smile.

Millie moved across to him and threw her arm across his stomach. It was just like at school after a nightmare or if she was just feel particularly lonely and she’d sneak into the boy’s dormitory to crawl in with Trent. She rested her head against his shoulder, as she always did, and reached out for his hand. Millie laced her fingers with Trent’s and squeezed his hand. “Love you Trent,” She told him sleepily. “Lots and lots and lots and lots. Don’t let me lose you, okay? Don’t...don’t go anywhere.”