Author: Delilah Draken
E-Mail: delilahsdarkness(at)yahoo.de
Website: www.delilahsdarkness.de.vu Rating: PG-13
Fandom: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Pairing(s): Rodney Skinner/Henry Jekyll (Edward Hyde)
Sequel/Series: n/a (for now)
Status: Finished
Started: February 10, 2005 - 10:01 hrs
Finished: February 10, 2005 - 11:22 hrs
Disclaimer: The stories are mine. All the rest - characters and locations you've heard of in TV shows, movies, books etc - belong to their respective owners. I am just borrowing them.
Summary: Even those who are invisible want to be seen.
Warnings: Suicide attempt
Author's Note: I'm deeply sorry if my view of Skinner is too out of character. I just see him that way in the movie, though I admit I'll probably change that view after I got my hands on the comic.
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by
Delilah Draken
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He'll never play with matches again. That he knows with all his heart, feels the wisdom of the words in the blackened remnants of his soul. Remembers the pain, the agony of burning skin. No, never again.
He has many scars. So many that sometimes he wonders why there remains an ability to move, why he didn't become the cripple on the outside that he is inside. Why can't they see, he screams some days. Screams for hours hidden away in his silent rooms only to remember that of course, they can't see. He is nothing but a whisper in the wind, ghosting over heated skin. Nothing but a lost dream in his own mind. Nothing.
And so it seems that what he intends to do, what even his damned soul condemns as wrong, is the only way out. Yes, the only way. Let them wonder where he is. Let them search and search for days, weeks without end. Let them see.
Let them finally see.
He feels the cut, learns the sound of gushing blood. But there is no stain on the blade, no dripping blemish to tell what was done. Nothing but the knowledge that there should be a growing pool of life on the floor to see. There should be. It should be right. In the end it should be right. In the end.
He awakes to someone talking to him, telling him what has to be done, what is being done to him at this moment. Stinging sensation of someone sewing his skin back together. Tiny, even stitches that probably won't leave a scar on skin not hidden from light. So, why the effort? Why? It's not as if he can see himself.
"You don't need another scar." is the answer he gets, the only answer. After that, silence. A silken hand touching his face, following the line of the bone.
"You don't need another scar." The hand leaves him. Alone. Always alone. He hears a door creak. Opens his eyes to watch a shadow entering the light, standing there on the threshold. Waiting. For what he can't imagine. "Even I can see that."
For a long time he looks at the closed door. Tries to keep his eyes open till they hurt. But in the end he succumbs to darkness, sweet bliss of the Dream Lord's realm, a smile on his lips.
He will never again play with matches. Never again.
But maybe, just maybe, he will play with fire.