Callum Knightly - Picture Frame Dreams ('Sequel' to Butterfly Kingdom-Completed)

Callum Knightly - Part One

A/N: Dedicated to Fade_Away, for her lovely comments on Butterfly Kingdom! :)

Soooo, this is Cal's chapter, as promised! It's going to be in two parts, because once I started writing, I kinda couldn't stop and there's another person I wanted to dedicate a chapter to, so yeh!

You don't have to have read Butterfly Kingdom for it to make sense, but it would kinda help, and no, I'm not saying that just to make you go read it - though it would be nice if you would? *hint, hint* ;D

Erm, yeh that's all I wanted to say really...I decided to publish it as a separate book, because I like making covers and I had a cool idea about a cover for this, and If I'm honest, I am kinda proud of this about the cover for this! ;D

Don't hate on me if I haven't got Cal's voice right, this was kinda a challenge for me! ^.^ So yeh, enough of me rambling, enjoy my pretties and remember to vote, cos it makes my day seeing them! :)

Callum Knightly - Part One

She calls me Cal. I hate that. No more than I hate Callum though. I’ve always hated my name, ever since my parents gave it me. I’ve wanted to change it, but I could never think of anything better.

   She hates my lip piercings as well. I take them out for her, but they always go back in when she’s not around, just so they don’t heal up. I used to think they were edgy, different, but now I’m not so sure. It hurts, every time I change the studs to rings, or the rings to studs. I’ve considered letting them heal up completely, but then I remember the stresses and the pain I went through to get them and I decide it’s worth it.

   I’m with her now, her with all her idiosyncrasies, her faults and her flaws. Sometimes I wonder whether she’s worth the bother of healing, but I just think back to the struggle I had to get her attention…and then everything is clear again.

   My mind often clouds over. It’s frustrating, but the more I fight it, the less I can see. Only when I’m totally relaxed, when I’m balanced on that precipice between sleep and awake can I think clearly. Even then, it’s a fight to remain in that state.

   We’re watching a movie. All the movies are ones I’ve seen before, but she never has. I like to watch how she follows the characters, the mind processes she goes through. She’s no actor. I can see it all in her face.

   I excuse myself and get a drink. It’s her house, but I know it better than my own. Mind you, my ‘house’ is barely even windproof.

   I go to the kitchen, but decide I’m not even thirsty. Looking back through to the longue, I see her curl in on herself and watch the fabric of her jeans strain over her bony knees. I wince and grab a packet of crisps out of the cupboard. Her eyes are a dull blue, the kind of colour I would imagine a mouse’s eyes to be and I watch them dart across the screen, completely engrossed. Her small ears peek inconspicuously out from under stray folds of hair.

   I feel very strange when I look at her. It is a feeling I am not accustomed to, one I can only describe as falling in love. It feels more like I am falling into a murky blackness though; that description would certainly be more apt. Her complexity is sometimes more than I can bear. It is a feeling I have not felt with this intensity since before my parents died, though I can barely remember their faces. Just the feeling.

   I take the crisps and go back to the living room, placing them down on the settee by her thigh. But I don’t sit down. I approach her from behind. She hasn’t noticed yet. Still standing, my arm wanders and my fingers feel her skin beneath them. She shivers as my hands circle her neck, feeling the breathing skin, the rapid pulse. I find her jugular vein, letting her pulse push against the tip of my finger. It soothes me and my own heart relaxes for the first time in such a long time. I kneel behind her, my hands still resting on her bare skin. I kiss the corner of her jaw and she exhales contentedly. She is mine. I could do anything. I could break her; crush her to ashes if I wanted to.

   I reach an arm down to circle her waist and accidently feel the bones protruding there, under her thin t-shirt. She settles into my strange embrace, still concentrating on the film.

   ‘Eat something,’ I murmur, glancing at the packet of crisps. She looks away from the TV and reaches for the packet. She turns it over in her hands, to the calorie content on the back. Impatient and frustrated, I lean over and open it for her, turning it back around, so she can’t count. I take a handful myself, but I’m not hungry. Even so, I eat, forcing it down my throat, just so she’ll follow suit.

   Reluctantly, she does. I watch her jaw move to chew the crisps and watch her throat float up and down as she swallows. Painfully, I think.

   I sighed and pushed the crisps out of the way. I clambered over the sofa and pulled her onto my lap, my arms sliding easily around her slim frame like a mould. I watched the movie distractedly, concentrating instead on the rise and fall of her chest against my arms. I leant my head in the crook of her neck and felt her pulse against my forehead, beating vividly.

   What would she do if I weren’t here? I mused. She certainly wouldn’t be eating. I’d often wondered what everyone else’s lives would be like if I weren’t here. If I simply disappeared, would anyone remember me? Had a made an impression on anyone? Often, so often, I would doubt.

   The thoughts would drag me down to a place I barely recognised, always when I was alone in my mobile home, always when the walls would shake with the passing winds. I could never stop the thoughts, I could never control them. They would drag and bite at my skin, pushing me down under the water. I would suffocate in their presence. But when I was with Fay, the thoughts would be mere musings, dismissed and forgotten in an instant.

   I enjoyed that state of idle bliss she induced. That someone so broken could tempt the utter opposite feeling in someone was overwhelming to think about. We were both broken, both bleeding, both left tattered and weakened. But somehow, we were stitching up each other’s wounds, giving them time to heal and we’d been holding the other above the waves while our lesions melted.

   I remember a time, on a few months ago. We’d sat out in her garden, watching the last remnants of summer slip away, feeling the soft tendrils of warmth run away with the falling sun. I’d brought a handful of gas lamps and I showed her how to light them, my hands over her bony fingers. I could see the reflection of the flame in her pupils. It was for a moment, as if her eyes were lighting up with the excitement she felt inside.

   That image always appears in my dreams. Increasingly, she’s there, higher and higher than anyone else. She dominates my dream world, shining out and blurring everything and everyone else. And she has the same spark in her eyes I saw that night; the same reflection of the gas flame, dancing in the depths of the gates to her soul. In the dreams, her body is perfect. I can feel her bones under my fingers, but I can’t see them. Her face is a lively pink, reflecting the blood that flows beneath her skin. She is perfect.

   But my dreams are nothing more than pictures in frames. Visions of a future I could have, visions of a woman I could keep and hold onto forever.

   When I see her at her house, she is becoming more and more like the woman in my dreams. It is almost too much to bear.

   While she heals completely, I seem to have stopped. My most stubborn wounds show no signs of healing and I can feel her slipping away. Slowly.

   Where she was once my cure, she is becoming my torture.

   Collateral damage was my forte. I was beginning to think I’d lost my touch. That night, I arrived home late, the memory of her glowing face imprinted on my mind. Her lips had touched mine and burnt me, branding me as her own.

   I stroked my lips thoughtfully, still able to imagine her drawing away from me, still able to smell her warm breath on my skin. I laughed.