Edge of Glory

. . .

Her frame could have been referred to as skeletal on a good day. As it was now, sitting beside an arched window of broken glass, the dim glare of far off street lamps his only reference, Subaru could not suppress a shiver at the sight of the ravaged body before him. He had seen much in his truly few years, but the sad woman before him went beyond destitution, beyond what even the light reflecting through windows strangled beneath years of grime could hide. Her upturned mouth, what he supposed was a smile rather than a grimace, still beckoned him forward.

"Do you mind if I light a candle?" he murmured softly, simultaneously worried that either his tone or his actions might offend her.

"Only if you light one for me too baby." The wink caught him off guard more-so than the seductive tone, or maybe it was his reactive blush. In the din of the wintry, broken down room before her beaten body, Subaru was surprised to find any warmth. Yet even before the light erupted from the first match, then the second, and both candles added their glow to the dim, Subaru realized he felt a certain ease despite the ghosts emaciated appearance. He had to wonder at her…who she had been, if anyone else had felt and appreciated this warmth.

"You're shivering," she observed. Subaru imagined that when she had been alive, and healthy, her dark, deeply set eyes could have conveyed the joke they smiled about sadly now.

"It's Christmas Eve," he said, as if to answer why anyone might shiver.

"Is it?" She glanced out the broken panes, and shrugged a bit as she turned back to him. "Time doesn't mean much to me," she confessed with a toss of her hair. "I have a whole mantra about that."

Subaru wanted to ask if that was because she was dead, but guessed her meaning to be more linked with her life. He himself didn't find it particularly strange to find that days, sometimes weeks, had passed without him realizing the loss of time. If Hokuto hadn't shrieked that he would be away for Christmas when he told her about this job, he probably would have still thought it was November.

"You don't talk much, do you?" the woman queried, an eyebrow quirking in what Subaru thought she meant as an enticing way.

In his line of work, Subaru often found that he didn't need to speak a great deal (which suited him excellently, he thought –Hokuto was a thousand times more outgoing than he could ever be). Often, what needed to be spoken came from a voice other than his. What spirits had bottled in life needed to be released after death, and a listening ear could give them more relief than any chant or subjugation he might speak.

"English isn't my first language," he confessed, watching her expression change into one of knowing.

"America," she said with exasperation, apparently piling him into an already well-established club of misfortune with that single word. "And New York city, center of its universe. What brought you to this land of opportunity?" she asked with a smile. Subaru realized she didn't honestly expect him to answer.

She stretched her long limbs out in front of her, eyeing them as she spoke. "I wanted to be a dancer," she informed her hands before she shook her head, then turned back to Subaru again. "Who am I kidding, I wanted to be anywhere but where I was. I didn't really care what I did to get there." She turned back to watch her fingers lace together as she redrew her legs to her chest. "And the shining lights of the city beckoned. Bars, clubs, neon, spandex…I think I thought I was good enough to make it as a dancer though," she shamefully admitted. "Naïve, right?" She didn't look back to Subaru for confirmation. "I wonder if I'd been warned about the hell I was jumping into whether I'd have stayed in the hell I was born in instead…" After a moment's musing thought, she turned her dark gaze back to Subaru with a well-worn grin. "I think I chose the better of the two anyway. I got dancing with my disease and death. And hell never looked so good in spandex."

Subaru would have eyed her mournfully if she sounded the least bit discouraged about her fate. But truthfully, he found himself cheered along with her by this admission. It took him a moment to remember that dancing was a terrible trade off for the other two.

"And there was love…" she continued dreamily. "Well, lots of lust anyway. Too many good things to waste caution on."

"You would like my sister, I think." Subaru surprised himself with his admission, yet at once realized how deeply true the statement was. He could imagine how much fun Hokuto would have with this girl, two blazing personalities taking on this one poor, defenseless city…and in all likelihood, wearing well-coordinated neon-bright spandex as well.

"I usually only swing that way for an incentive," she responded with another wink.

Subaru flushed when he realized her meaning, stuttering a defense at her laughing gaze. "I didn't mean- not like-"

"You wouldn't survive a week here," she interrupted apologetically, clearly stifling a bit of a laugh as she tossed her ratty curls left and right with a shake of her head. "Or maybe you could," she revised, eyeing him through her locks with a sudden scrutiny. "You'd have to want it. You'd have to have dreamed it for years and years and years. And even then…" she trailed off, and Subaru saw the first hint of that defined sadness he felt emanating from the entire building. "Even then, things have a way of getting really muddy. Complicated. Suddenly you've got baggage you didn't realize you'd be dragging, and what was so open and free before has you claustrophobic…"

She looked back out the broken window longingly, pausing for a long moment. "He's terrible with baggage," she admitted, then sighed. "And I'm terrible at being patient."

"Are you waiting for him?" Subaru asked.

"Not exactly. At first, I thought I just wanted to watch and make sure he moved on once I died. Then I realized, two dead girlfriends was a bit much to ask a guy to skip merrily away from. And Roger has this thing about moodily analyzing his past… He does moody really well. He uses it for his music, but I think he gets it from spending way too much time with Mark. They both see life a bit too cinematically." She smiled a bit despite her words. "Roger won't be satisfied unless he has the soundtrack to go with it too, to top it off. But I thought even he couldn't write two death songs for the same lover." Here Subaru saw the smile grow a bit more, despite the ghostly tears misting her eyes. "I guess I underestimated that baggage issue a bit."

Subaru nodded, understanding as far as he could manage. She described what he imagined he could possibly live. If he loved someone, and that person died, of course he would continue living. But life probably wouldn't keep moving for him…

"So!" she exclaimed, surprising Subaru a bit with the force. "I'm waiting to make sure he doesn't spend eternity writing Baggage the Musical. I don't plan to rush him on or anything, I just feel like…" her tones became softer again, something she seemed to do when emotion seeped into her words. "He spent enough time reliving and rehashing. I think I gave him a bit of a reprieve, with the laughing and the love…I hope I did, anyway. Maybe I can do it again." She shrugged her shoulders, a motion Subaru saw as something to deflect away from how much she truly, deeply wanted to make a difference to this man again. It had kept her there, after all.

. . .