For Never

For Never
I have been waiting for you,
Biding as you taught me to.
I have come to relieve you,
Of life and love.
AFI

He meets her for the first time as one world dies and another rises from the ashes.

He knows he loves her as soon as he sees her.

He is older than the concept of God. He is older than the concept of the Devil.

She is not. She names him such.

“I love you,” he tells her. “I will love you forever.”

“I will never love you,” she says back. “Never.”

“Never is a long time.”

There is only hate in her eyes. “I am patient.”

He smiles back.

“So am I.”

She runs.

He gives chase.

He tells himself not to.

He knows that if he bides his time then she will grow complacent. She will be easy to catch.

He can’t stop himself. He’s a man in love.

When he finally catches up to her there are rough men waiting. They nail him to a cross and burn him alive.

“I still love you,” he tells her. “Forever.”

“Never,” she says.

She lights the crucifix herself.

They play this game for years.

She runs. He hunts. It ends the same every time.

He dies. He dies a thousand ways. She is inventive and he is something wicked.

He dies by sunlight. He dies by knives and blades.

He dies in fire and he dies in ice.

He dies hated.

He is immortal. He comes back every time and he always tells her the same thing.

“I will love you forever.”

One world is dying and another is rising over a watery horizon when she lets him catch her.

He braces his arms against the railings on either side of her.

She smells of flowers and salt water.

“I love you.” He ducks his head. His lips brush her neck and she is cold. “Forever.”

She looks over her shoulder at him. Her eyes are just as icy.

“I will never love you.”

He kisses her.

She lets him.

He believes she loves him.

He tells her that is what he feels for her. She tells him “never” every time.

He doesn’t believe her. He doesn’t believe it because she doesn’t run from him anymore.

He believes it because when he kisses her she kisses him back.

He believes it because she moans when he fucks her.

He believes it because he wants to.

She buries a knife in his heart.

He lies underneath her on his bed and she is naked on top of him. He no longer believed she’d do it.

“Why?” he asks. There is blood on his teeth when he does.

She smiles. She leans down.

Her lips brush his ear.

“Because I’ll never, ever love you.”

Then she leaves him.

The hunt begins again.

He looks for her. He does so more desperately than he did before.

He still believes she loves him. That is what he tells himself.

When he finds her again she smiles.

“I still love you,” he says.

She just laughs.

“I’ll never love you.”

She goes home with him even so.

She smells like sex.

It isn’t with him.

He wonders if he has made her cruel.

“I think you love me,” he tells her.

She laughs. He doesn’t like it because it never reaches her eyes.

“Is that so?”

“Yes.” His hand cradles her face. “Why else would you keep coming back to me? Why else would you submit?”

She smiles. It is one of the warmest he has seen from her.

Then she twines her fingers in his and brings his hand to her breast.

“You feel this?” she says. “This is just flesh. It’s nothing to you and it’s nothing to me. And nothing is all you get.”

He frowns. He pulls her into the circle of his arms and he shakes his head. “I don’t believe you.”

“I hate you. I hate you enough to constantly show you what you can never, ever have.”

He swallows hard because he is in pain. “Never is a long time.”

She grins and it is cruelty incarnate.

“I am patient.”

She wins.

He tells her that the day he leaves.

There is still a knife in his heart.

He thinks it has been there forever.

He meets her for the last time as another world dies in flame and ash.

He is in a bar somewhere on the edge of time. He doesn’t know how she finds him.

“I think I love you,” she says. The words are not what he expected.

She has lied to him before. He doesn’t believe her.

“I’ll never love you again,” he answers.

She smiles. Her eyes are sad.

“Never is a long time.”

He nods his head and tips his glass at her. There is a smile on his face but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I am patient.”

She slides into the seat next to him. Her hand settles on his arm.

“So am I.”