Prompt 91 - Rusting - "Love Dorothy"- spikespetslayer

[dedra.livejournal.com]

Title: Love Dorothy
Fandom: Wizard Of Oz, 1939 (MGM Version)
Warnings: Hints of unnatural attraction, inappropriate love--but nothing overtly mentioned.
Rating: T (because of the warning)
Disclaimer: No fictional characters of any indeterminite age were harmed in any way. They are not real characters.

Summary: All he wanted was a heart.




The woods seem dark and ominous, closing in around me in a protective cocoon that is neither warm nor welcoming. No, they seem grasping and menacing as I look from tree to tree, wishing for a familiar face and finding none.

I don’t remember the woods looking this…dark before. I don’t remember much from the past, to be fair, but this darkness, this tension I’m sure I would have remembered. It hangs thick and heavy, pressing against my soul in a delicate parody of a—no parody about it, I guess. It wants to become part of me and there are times that I’m willing to let it happen and just close my eyes and give in.

Then her face paints itself in my mind and I push it all away to bask in the glory of love for just one second.

You know, it’s strange—one minute I’m frozen in this same forest, unable to move because of past disasters. The next minute I’m moving down the road with companions that became my closest friends. Irony is twisting my guts, what little I have. The one thing that I never expected, never wanted, was dancing in front of me just out of arms’ reach.

I didn’t expect to find anything attractive about her, but how could you not? Peaches and cream cheeks that were touched with the slightest tinge of pink when she was puffing from all that damn skipping down the road. Eyes so blue the sky cried out of jealousy and cute little braids that she twisted in her fingertips. Such soft fingertips. They felt so good against the skin…

I shouldn’t think these things. It’s sick and twisted, but no more twisted than what I know about our other compatriots. They feel the same as I, no matter how depraved it is. One falls apart at her smile and the other twists on his body and blushes like a schoolgirl.

So we all follow her and yearn for her smile, her kind word, her look of love that seems to outshine the sun, at least for me.

And now she is gone.

I thought that I knew what hollow felt like until she clicked the heels of those red shoes and cast the spell that would carry her back to her place and time. I thought that I had no heart to break and bleed, but I did. I found it rusting in the deepest bottom of my stomach as it throbbed with palpable pain, beating for the first time in ages. It had forgotten how and so I had forgotten about it.

Really, I wasted my request with the old man. I should have wished for her to stay always. I should have asked that he hold her here with magic, keep her until she grew up a little and I didn’t feel like such a pervert. I know that the others do too.

I came back here to my woods to see if I could restart my life again, but it has changed. I used to love the clean dark smell that permeated the trees and the crisp bite of the axe echoing inside my head.

Not now. Maybe never again. Now I yearn for the sun. The woods are too full of memories after all that I’ve been through. The heartbreak seems to color everything in a dingy tone that I don’t think anyone could scrub away.

I hooked my oilcan over the belt around my waist, mindful of what she said—“Always within reach so it never happens again.” There’s no can that can reach my heart, though. No way to keep it beating now that she’s out of reach forever. Still, I wonder—if a heart rusted from being unused for so long, can a broken one ever mend? So many weak spots and stresses in the metal—it may be easier to have it removed and recast.

Or never use it again.

Comments

[smwright.livejournal.com]

Such fine lines we draw where one moment all is as it should be, light and laughter, and the next, all is dank and dark.

Beautifully rendered, love.

I hope the coming week improves for you. *hugs*

[dedra.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your sweet review!

Things are settling down now, so perhaps I can get back into the swing of things. :D I'm very glad that you enjoyed the story.

[smwright.livejournal.com]

I hope things are settling down. I know how hard that can be. Perseverance... that's the hard road, surely. Hang in there. You can do it.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

This is a fantastic piece!

[dedra.livejournal.com]

Thank you ever so much! :D