Hinterland (PG)

[redwinter101]

Title: Hinterland
Author: redwinter101
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own Moonlight or any of its characters
Note: more than a drabble; less than a vignette. Set some time after B.C.

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--- Hinterland ---

She can never see, no matter how hard she pushes and prods and peels away the layers. They're there for a reason, callused and hardened, protecting us both. I guess they're like the rings of a tree - each one a collection of my seasons; of life, love, death, joy, pain. Each one a year of me. The tenderness of the man I was slowly hidden, deeper. Josef tells me to remember the good times but it's always the pain I can't forget and I guess that's what I hide. Open those wounds to her and they may never heal again.

Alone, I scratch and tear beneath the surface. Sometimes it's a face in a crowd that brings a flare of memory fighting to the surface. Sometimes, like tonight, it's a chance missed, a life unsaved, another regret. The boy's black blood creeps across my skin, a trick of shadow and half-light. I couldn't save him, just as I couldn't strangle the hunger surging inside at the bloom of his youth. He'll never have the chance to be scarred by life or love or grief and my envy for his finite death is pure and cold and hard. They came to me, his parents, in desperate trust and faith and I failed. I told them I'd bring him back safe and I failed. I told them they could count on me and I failed. So I'm here, standing at her window, soaked in self-pity, when I should be across town facing the consequences of a bad night's work. How can I tell them their child is gone as I savour the memory of his vibrant death?

I need a drink.

I need her to know I'm here.

I need her to need me.

I need her to touch me again, just for a moment.

I need her to forget me.

Fingers pressed to the glass, eyes closed, head bowed. Her world, warm and light, inside. Even solitary, she isn't alone, carrying her life in a gleam of curiosity and hope and futures yet unwritten. I can feel her through the glass, the transparent barrier that separates us now and forever. I can see her unstudied beauty. I can intrude on her thoughts and dreams. I can hear her breath, her laugh, her sigh. The memory of her too-fragile flesh beneath my fingers, warm, pulsing.

But I cannot pass.

I must not pass.

I will not pass.

[seamus3333]

Oh, Red, I love this magnificent creature so and you know him so well. My love is mixed with impatience and anger; why, Mick is everything your fault? Feel sorrow and loss but not guilt. Comfort is at hand, why do you refuse it?

If emotional response is the result of great writing, you never fail to evoke it.

[darkstarrising]

As Seamus said, you know Mick all too well. You show us man possessed by a passion to do what he can for others, consumed by guilt when he fails to deliver. A man, who is no longer a man, tormented by the knowledge that what he is separates him from the one who makes him feel alive again. Yet still, he can't let go of Beth. To do so would let go of hope. He can't. He won't.

Brilliant, red.

[redwinter101]

Thanks, Seamus - Mick wouldn't be Mick without guilt though, would he?

dsr, therein lies the rub - as so beautifully prtrayed in the scene in your banner. He thinks he knows what's right - but the pull of hope is too strong (thankfully!).

Red

[AussieJo]

He pushes himself so hard, too hard.
It can be very annoying. Instead of humbling himself, it often appears he is setting himself way above others, human and vamp alike.
He comes very close to thinking he's the only one who can save the world!
In Arrested Developement I wanted to scream at him when he told that girl's parent's that he would find her and bring her back safely to them.
He had no right to say that! GRRRR!
Mick, I love you dearly, but sometimes..........

As always my dear Red, well worth a read.

[wpgrace]

OK, now I'm missing Mick on screen again.
'Cause this is, of course, so very very very Mick. In voice-over mode, no less.
I see he's whispered to you again.

[aolver]

Beautiful....I miss Mick.

[allegrita]

This is lovely... and sad and a little frustrating... because he really does set himself up to fail by refusing to believe that he can't succeed. Failure is always a bitter defeat... and he goes to the source of all warmth for comfort, but he's stuck on the other side of the glass, again...

Thank you for this little glimpse into him. It's so moving.

[lorig]

I will just echo what everyone else has said. You know our boy well!! I loved it....

[redwinter101]

AussieJo, and YES, you are so right. There are times when you really want to give Mick a slap...

Grace and aolver, thank you both, and I miss Mick too... (surprise!!).

Thanks, alle - stuck on the other side of the glass indeed. BUT he shattered it once, in the cause of passion, now can he do it for love? (Eventually )

lorig, thank you, my sweet.

Red

[francis]

How can one man carry so much regret and shame and guilt over things he has no control over?
I love Mick deeply, but he's isolating himself so much. If only he could let Beth in. She's the spark that could help him to make his life warm.
You write him so well. As others stated, he whispers to you. I feel the need to watch the first episodes again.

And at first glimpse at the title I thought, you wrote something in German. What connotation does that word have in English? In German it means something like outback, vast landscape, the strip of land behind the battlefield where you can rescue yourself if things get rough, or where you can get supply. It has a strong military connotation.

[AussieJo]

Yes francis, that's basically what it means in English too.
I believe Red was describing Mick's own private hinterland.
Would that be close, Red?

[redwinter101]

Thank you, francis - this made me :

I feel the need to watch the first episodes again.

Go do it right now!!! (Okay so you're probably at work, but do it later, 'k?)

Re hinterland, yes, it does have that meaning. Here it's kind of the place behind the battle lines - literally and metaphorically - that Mick finds at Beth's window.

But it also has an emotional meaning - Mick has his own hinterland, his own back country. The places he retreats to hide and heal and brood. Jo is spot on - his own private hinterland.

Red

[Luxe de Luxe]

wow, everyone has made such incredible and insightful comments that I can only endorse. For me, the thought of being eternally locked out of having what one craves for while it is so within reach is just the most intense torment. I think this is one of the reasons why we all love Mick so, it is only his inner moral strength that keeps him apart. Wonderful stuff.

[redwinter101]

Thanks, Luxe, and I agree on all counts (especially on having such lovely readers).

Red