A/N: Would you believe me if I said the first draft was written in 2005? September 23 to be exact. (lol!)

A SPIDER'S WISH

In my mindstorm I did carry you

Through the briars of disbelief, through the woods of lethargy

Through a groaning dark so deep - I thought I died.

(Sarah Slean)

And he comes to her at night.

Running a hand through black hair, he touches his pale face, fingers pressing close against the skin and closes his eyes in the processes. She sleeps peacefully, her hair fanning around her on the pillow as the thin sheets rise and fall with the rhythm of her breath.

The night is complete when there is a full moon overhead. Pale light drifts through the open windows and casts its shadow upon her. Her fingers brush her hair lovingly, the shine settles over her body like a sheer, gossamer sheet of silver upon gold in dreamlike intimacy. The same light floats over him; the moon does not fear the monster, and neither does she.

He whispers to her, and an imaginary finger strokes her cheek.

There is a golden light in you, which I wish you would give me.

He cannot sleep tonight, something has resurfaced. There is a quickening in his mind that will not rest; it ticks like a pocket watch and tocks when he opens the coffin. The memories are everywhere now.

The pain is dulled with time, but when refreshed, it rips the old seams apart and the blood flows thick and dark, like old molasses. He can lick the wounds clean, but the taste lingers on his tongue, if only for a short while. It is sweet in its blackness, swallowing all illumination whole. It is cold and lacks the warmth of a human body.

He finds himself at walking past her bedroom door.

Parts of the past are heavy and full of his tears, and their resurgence drowns him like a spider in a bathtub. They crisscross each other and entangle themselves with the present, until he realizes he has created an arachnid of his life; black with a red underbelly to match his many peeping eyes.

They are handsome, sad creatures - spiders. They spin webs above her pillows, trapping good dreams along with the bad, permitting her to slumber under their protection. And he wants to be that spider, to descend into her mind with a thread upon his pale lips. A red thread for her. He wants to know what she is thinking, wants to know what she feels. He is constantly around her.

And the sadness almost overwhelms him.

She stirs in her sleep and turns over to her side, slipping one hand under the pillow.

The flash of her bare wrist fascinates him.

There is strength in her hands, voice and mind. He can see her now, her index finger poised to pull the trigger. Gazing upon her face is like looking down the barrel of her gun, a beautifully handcrafted gun. She blinds him with her mortality, flashes her anger at him - like the silver bullets she keeps in the barrel and the golden cross she wears around her neck. She is steadfast.

He doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

And so he dances for her, dances like a flaming hell in red boots. He catches, breaks, and eats everything in sight. His gluttony is evident by the stretching of his gut, always hungry, always remaking his web for fresh blood. He roars with laughter and his stomach expands like a sac. He will gorge himself on human flesh, he will kill human soldiers on her command, he will do anything for the mere reason that she wants him to.

There is lust, there has always been lust – and then there is something more. A deep sigh of longing settles at the bottom of his throat, his insides suddenly collapse within him, and he deflates.

He wants to melt into her, to touch her soul completely with his in a place where there are no bodies, no words, no clothing to prevent the wholeness of their union. And it shall be dark and monstrous, and it will consume him whole like the fire that smolders in his vampiric eyes, the eyes that leer at her in the blackness of her bedroom, wondering what his master is dreaming of tonight.

He wants her completely. He wants the entirety of her and nothing less.

(Blood. Spindle.

Spider. Web.

Everything that you love is dead.)

Daddy's love did not protect her from death. Daddy's love did not save her from the dark. Death is everywhere; it flutters against the window like a night time moth, its dusty wings beating softly against the panes. He courts her like a gentleman, keeping the wheel turning with foot on the pedal, spinning a line of golden promises, offering them to her without reservation. Why should he? Everything is absolute with him. It always has been.

He thinks that he should weep over her living body. Mourn for her soul. Defy. Perhaps weave a spell with his fingers and suspend this moment in time.

It is a slow, lethargic kind of love that creeps into him now. It forms in the centre of his chest and dissipates outward. His body is humming with restlessness and his mind is whirring with foolish possibilities. He projects them towards her, her blue eyes fluttering in REM sleep, her natural lips parting slowly to drink in the breath of life. He brings a finger to his lips, his teeth biting lightly on the glove.

Blood drips from his pricked finger.

Eventually, she will grow old; she will age and fade away until her memory is preserved only through handwritten letters, a mansion and a portrait in the hall.

She sighs in her sleep. She sighs as if it would be her last.

Swiftly he descends onto her, so close that his lips hover above hers. The desire – the want – to draw the breath from her body, to encapsulate everything of her that makes him who he is – he moans in lust and very nearly reaches between her legs to wonder if she feels the same way he does. Parting his moistened lips, his tongue thick with anticipation, he leans in for one small kiss.

We make bliss to end all bliss and all time.

He inhales her smell and his eyes close in sensory delight. Black hair sways and he rocks his head side to side, his mind thrumming in delight over their proximity. If he wishes, he could slip his gloved hand underneath her night shirt and feel her skin, slide his fingers along her stomach, up her ribcage, and cup one of her breasts.

If he wishes, he could lie on top of her, his knees on either side of her knees, bend his head and tangle his hands into her glorious hair. He could nestle his face into the crook of her neck, drink in the smell of her blood, beating surely underneath her skin, and lose his head with the overflow of blood and cigars like one who has drunk too much in one night.

He could make love to her in her sleep. He would sleep another hundred years for this.

But she would feel it. She would know and then she would wake, and then this spell - his illusion will end.

So he recoils back, sliding partly into the shadows. His hands play over her body, an inch or two above her form, and lets the moonlight play upon his fingers.

There are days he wishes that she would come to him. What he has instead are nights of wordless wanting. He does not want to take her up in his arms like a child hiding from the dark. He wants the woman: bold in colour and full in his hands.

Like a gardener watching a hybrid tea rose grow, he tends to the petals, grabs the stem, and bleeds on her thorns. There is pain, frustration and satisfaction watching the pink bud unfurl. It is that same sensation he feels right now, the unfolding of himself unto her, opening himself and submitting his utter being into her hands. He almost dissolves at the thought.

Uncertainty is the name of the future. He wants to entangle Death in his web, prevent him from beating his moth-like wings onto her face, brushing her lips with a kiss of his own. She will not live forever, she is not afraid of his kind of rest; she might even look forward to it. The shadow of a smile rises to his feral lips, and he almost feels like sobbing over the futility of it all.

(Sleeping Beauty is resting now.

Sleeping Beauty is crying in her sleep.)

NOTES:

(1) "There is a golden light in you, which I wish you would give me." (D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love)

(2) I heard Beauty crying in her sleep / So I bent for one more kiss / All our tears will turn and twist / We make bliss to end all bliss / And all time (Sarah Slean, Your Wish is My Wish)

(3) "For what they all seem to seek is to wage war, and endless desperate, blood-stained, struggles. Things quite close to crying loudly. I don't think they desire those things at all. On the contrary: all of this is their way of shouting and begging for death." (Hellsing, Chapter 72)