a/n: Rather blah drabble. Slightly creepy, I guess, in a subtle way. I felt I needed to add something, however feeble, to the CarrionxCandy C2. Hence this barely 500-word beast. Anyway. The grammar went right out the window; I like to say that it's for artistic effect. :feels dissatisfied:

Perhaps

I.

He loved her even when the worms twisted their ugly ways out of her empty eye sockets.

He loved her even when her mouth was full of dirt.

But it was too late.

II.

Tonight, the other one told her. They were dancing gracefully and stiffly beneath the sparkle of many candles and mirrors. Something will happen tonight.

She smiled and nodded and pressed her body nearer. And the band played on and both were joyful. Later, they became moist with love by the fountains in the garden—they were full of it, saturated with it—drunk with love.

She couldn't help but smile whenever she looked at him. The other one held her close with his big smoky hands and he loved her. He ate up her light and made it his own by the fountains spurting opaque happiness into the air.

III.

Tonight, he whispered to himself as he watched. Something will happen tonight. He felt pale and frail beneath his clothes and she looked so full and warm and glowing, even from fifty yards away up three flights of stairs through a French window.

He willed her to love him but of course it didn't work. He couldn't change anything by force. But why should she love anybody if she couldn't somehow make herself love him? His thoughts boiled under his skin, leaving scars.

A little while passed and he had everything arranged, and he still loved her even though now it was too late. She rotted alone.

IV.

And then there was another love and another chance, and still she hated him but this time she had an air of very human sympathy. So maybe he could love her? The other one loved her right away. Why couldn't he? Because his first love's warmth haunted him, that warmth he had felt even from far away. Now he was cold and alone.

He didn't mind loving the new one as long as she didn't end up with worms in her perfect bones and dirt in her mouth. He felt that everything he tried to touch ended up broken.

V.

And perhaps this story has a storybook ending, where after a few years of brief contact—brief, and she sees enough of him in that time to understand some crucial things about his past, and he discovers her light—brief contact, and long thoughts, and changes—after these few years, she finds that his soul is not as ugly as his skin, and he finds that she does not hate him. Perhaps on one summer night they even draw near enough to each other to feel that shock like lightning that occurs, of course, in only fairy tales. Perhaps now something new happens. Perhaps he does not end up cold and she does not end up under the ground with the smell of sweet rot in her dead nostrils.

Perhaps this story has a storybook ending. Perhaps.