## Preface

white, white leaves
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/40427541.

Rating:
  Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
  No Archive Warnings Apply
Category:
  F/F
Fandom:
  Babylon 5 (TV 1993)
Relationship:
  Susan Ivanova/Talia Winters
Character:
  Susan Ivanova
Additional Tags:
  Poetry, Inspired by Richard Siken, POV Second Person
Language:
  English
Collections:
  Allbingo
Stats:
  Published: 2022-07-20 Words: 925 Chapters: 1/1

# white, white leaves

by ToothpasteCheesecake

Summary

> I loved you, but you can’t have your wine glasses back. I have reduced them to powder and let them dig into our graves. Protection. There’s simply nothing left to remember you by.

> So, says her ghost. You loved me. What are you going to do about that?

> It depends on which side of the bed you’re sleeping on.

Notes

> inspired by straw house, straw dog by richard siken

> for my allbingo card, prompt: oleander, caution

## white, white leaves

1.

You watch space’s nebulous spiral unfold in front of you, beyond the observation deck and stretched even beyond the rim of reality and the last fingertip of reality’s hands. / You have a drink with her in the loneliness of your quarters, still your fingertips trying to grasp ahold of reality, still your fingertips brushing down your nightclothes, against the wine glass, against the sharp edges of her Psi Corps pin, against the fragments of discomfort. Glass has one purpose to its existence; to protect, to keep something in. Telepaths are like this, too; surrounded by an impenetrable field that you could almost see through, almost, if you didn’t know better. If you were just a bit more malleable. / You have two dreams where you are with her and you have two dreams where she is gone. In one of them, you are mirrored across the kaleidoscope of minds, connection like blood mixing into blood, like thought melting into thought into thought until there aren’t / any thoughts at all, or there is every thought at once, or her thoughts have become yours. In another dream, she never came to Babylon 5. In the final dream, Talia Winters has never existed at all.

Here you are, she says, in my mind, in our mind, in a mind that doesn’t truly belong to anyone. Here you are, feeding our collective delusions treats like violent dogs. My teeth gnawing through the bones of stability until they become dust, mere dust. Wouldn’t that be something? Wouldn’t it be kinder, wouldn’t it be beautiful, if we could all consume ourselves until we’ve become something else. No, she says, don’t talk about becoming. Don’t ever Become. Here you are, she says, on the wrong station touching the wrong person. You have one glass of wine and she gazes at you for too long before returning to her quarters. You have one glass of wine and she gazes at you like she’s trying to enter you, to Become you, to wear your skin because she is no longer comfortable in hers. You have one glass of wine and you have another glass of wine. You have two glasses of wine and you have four dreams that merge into one another, seamless and holistic. You have six dreams and you have zero glasses of wine because she drinks it all, blocking out even her own thoughts, deconstructing herself within the ruins of her trust. You don’t drink any wine, you have work soon. Surely, she does, too, but this does not stop her from sewing herself onto you, a pocket, a cocoon.

She wants to be watched, or perhaps she wants to be wanted. Here she is in your doorway, projecting into your mind a sole thought: save me, just save me.

2.

You have so many dreams and not enough space for them to blossom. Stop right there, put your hands up, we’re taking you in, we know. You want to invoke her name as the cuffs cut flesh but you know she won’t catch you because this violation has suffocated her and now you’re just dreaming. You crush the wine glass and swallow its remains and it doesn’t take you back to her, it only takes you back to the dream, the dwindling dream. Mind to mind. Destruction to destruction.

She is a scar that hasn’t yet learned how to heal, and everything is happening in that same spiral—everyone is destined for something, and every destiny is unfolding quickly. Again like the spiral. Again like space. It’s always like space, a lack of oxygen, a lack of mercy that paradoxically holds mercy trapped within its arms. Trying to escape, trying.

3.

You leave before she wakes up in the morning and you don’t want anything, can’t have anything anyway, can’t let her touch you in the one way she hasn’t already touched you. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone looks back. She looks back and you look back and you still cannot bring her back.

And you can’t move, can’t get your brain to fire itself up, and the armor around you is turning to puddles of silver against this heat. She’s still gone and somehow she’s still feeding on you, she’s cutting you in half to put her body onto yours like an old broken doll or a literary monster.

It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. Burn the station down along with Talia Winters. It doesn’t matter.

4.

You blame the Corps and you blame Talia but mostly you blame yourself, and no, you tell her memory, I loved you, but you can’t have your wine glasses back. I have reduced them to powder and let them dig into our graves. Protection. There’s simply nothing left to remember you by.

So, says her ghost. You loved me. What are you going to do about that?

It depends on which side of the bed you’re sleeping on. It depends on which side of the bed is empty. It depends on whether or not the suffering lingers. It just depends, damn it. It’s not something you can admit out loud.

5.

Here you are, with her, in the glassed over transparent grave. No way out, no way out, no way to recover from this. You’re going down together. It’s cold down here.

But thanks, you tell her, for giving me what you have given me, for being mine, for allowing me to believe. You can’t sleep now. You have an unlimited amount of dreams. You won’t ever be able to sleep again.

## Afterword

Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!