posted on 25-Dec-2001 2:32:14 AM by blurry venus
First, I must say, I apologize for not having any new material to post. This is SO old and I wish I could rework it, but some things are better left alone I suppose. This series became my baby and I still have NOT finished it...I think I've gotten up to part 6. So if everyone likes, me posty the rest*happy*

Title: "Lost Out in the Desert"
Author: blurry venus (formerly VenusDNico)
Email: venus.in.the.desert⊕ritesofpassage.net
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Max and Liz find themselves stuck in a
dreamworld where they're the only people who can save
each other...
SPOILERS: only season one incidents apply. This takes place at the end of their summer apart.
Lyrics: Anggun - "Snow on the Sahara"


-----
"Lost Out in the Desert" Part 1
Read this part from the perspective of: Liz
-----
Only tell me that you still want me here
When you wander off out there
To those hills of dust and hard winds that blow
In that dry white ocean alone
Lost out in the desert
You are lost out in the desert
But to stand with you in a ring of fire
I'll forget the days gone by
I'll protect your body and guard your soul
From mirages in your sight
Lost out in the desert
You are lost out in the desert
If your hopes scatter like the dust across your track
I'll be the moon that shines on your path
The sun may blind our eyes, I'll pray the skies above
For snow to fall on the Sahara
-----
The sun was pulsing into my bare shoulders, burning
them. At least it should have been. I was standing
facing away from the sun, looking aimlessly down at
the ground. The sun was so bright I didn't think I
could stand to look at it. But my shoulders weren't
burning like they should have been. When I turned to
face the sun, I found myself able to look straight
into it. For the first time in my life I was looking
straight into the blinding light of the sun and I
could see things clearer than I ever had before in my
life. And I knew then, it was guiding me. To him.
So I followed it…blindly.

I walked…forever it seemed like. On a flat lay of
land, just sand, cracks, rocks and dust dancing around
my bare feet. The amazing thing about this is,
nothing seemed to affect me. Everything my body came
in contact with was soothing, comforting. I was in a
perfect world where nothing could hurt me, only
comfort me. I felt so protected, shielded by
something I couldn't see, but trusted. And I let it
lead me wherever it was I was going.

I reveled in the pink that the sun was tinting on my
cheeks and shoulders. Everything around me was
undisturbed, natural. Like I was the first person to
have even been in this undiscovered place. Like this
place was mine, only mine…and his. But I still had to
find him, tell him that it was ours together.

I looked down at my body. White silk flapped fluidly
around me. It looked tight, but it held me in
comfortably. And when I turned away from the sun, the
silk turned black. I liked the sun, it's intensity.
And I liked the white, so I turned around again,
making my wrap its original color.

The land that I hadn't been able to recognize before
became immediately familiar when I lifted my head
upward again. There was the cliff that I had seen…in
a vision…in a vision I had once a while ago. And
then, I don't know how it happened, but the sun…it
just exploded all around me…made me see things under
the blackness of my closed eyelids. I didn't know it
was possible to have visions *in* a dream, but I was
having one. It was of Maria and Michael, then Isabel
and Alex immediately after…lying together on the
extreme tip of a cliff. Holding each other like they
had nothing else to cling to but their bodies. And
then…god, then I saw *him*…and every ounce of security
and comfort that I had trusted in this dream left me.
It left me when I saw him…Max…standing at the very
same edge that I had just seen in the vision. Except
now, my eyes were open. And in my dream, I was
standing at the foot of this enormous rock formation,
with him, standing over the ground and the earth,
looking over the edge of the cliff aimlessly. He was
wearing silk too, but black. It ripped against him in
the harsh winds of his altitude but he didn't seem to
notice. As far away as I was, I could see him with
such clarity I doubted if I was sleeping. He was
standing at the very edge, his back turned from a
cave…with a huge boulder in front of it…with his
handprint still illuminated on the front. And I then
realized his erratic breathing. His dusty feet. He
had tried to close the cave, but couldn't…he couldn't
close that part of himself off…no matter how much he
wanted to.

My comfort was destroyed. I was hit with the burden
of not being able to love him anymore. But it was all
still so…surreal. Obviously because it wasn't really
happening. But my heart heaved with a tight ache that
I seem to get whenever I'm around him…because I love
him so much. I turned around, not thinking I was
emotionally stable enough to even approach him in my
dreams. And when I did, my silk turned black
immediately. And the wind, it started violently
whipping my hair around my face, blinding my
path…pushing me in the opposite direction. Pushing me
back to him. Making my dress clean and white. And
when I succumbed to this *force* that was urging me,
my hair…it just fell back into place. The sun hit me
like a million warm memories and my chest clenched
again as I looked at him. I didn't understand how I
could feel such a desperate need to be held by him,
and at the same time, painfully afraid of what would
happen if I let him touch me, even if it was just a
dream. Because if he touched me…I would lose it all
again. Everything. Everything that I had spent our
time apart healing. And the solitary sight of him
tore all of that down around me, and formed into a
path up the cliff. So I followed it.

The climb…my heart wasn't constricting because of the
lack of oxygen or being tired. My body was incapable
of being physically hurt in this new plane of
existence. But it clenched tighter as his figure
became closer. As his scent that was so vivid…too
vivid for a dream, slid down on the shoulders of warm
desert wind and hit me with a strong remembrance of
reality. No matter what I did, where my mind took me,
he remained the one real thing constantly.

I reached the top. The sun so close I felt as if I
could reach my hand out and wrap my fingers around it.
So close to the galaxy and infinite expansive spaces
in my dream it was unreal. I could feel tears but
ignored them. Sound just…disappeared around me. I
couldn't hear anything. I slowly…timidly, extended my
bare arm and hand toward his back that was clad with
black silk, so dark it hurt like looking at the sun
hurts.

My fingers and expanded palm were inches, centimeters
away from him. Heat was radiating off of his body,
coursing gently into my fingertips.
But that wasn't close enough. I walked up, until I
was right behind him. I leaned my entire body into
his back, my palm cupping his tender spot right below
his ribcage, my face warming on the curve of his
shoulder blades, legs flush against his. Small beads
of perspiration from his back…from the sun beating
down on his back, soaked through his shirt and touched
my cheek. I reveled in being in contact with him so
intimately. He was so soft…so soft and beautiful.

In that instant when I touched him, I could hear
again…the blood flowing through his veins, his breath
escaping through his lungs, his heart pounding madly
in his eardrums. I felt his entire body tremble, his
lungs exhale a long-held breath, his muscles relax
under my body. He knew it was me.

t.b.c.
-blurry
posted on 25-Dec-2001 2:10:17 PM by blurry venus
Merry Christmas, all! I don't mind about getting feedback so much, I hope everyone just enjoys it even though it's kinda a weird-o fanfic*happy*

-----
"Lost Out In the Desert" Part 2
Read this part from the perspective of: Max
-----
Just a wish and I will cover your shoulders
With veils of silk and gold
When the shadows come and darken your heart
Leaving you with regrets so cold
Lost out in the desert
You are lost out in the desert
If your hopes scatter like the dust across your track
I'll be the moon that shines on your path
The sun may blind our eyes, I'll pray the skies above
For snow to fall on the Sahara
If that's the only place where you can leave your
doubts
I'll hold you up and be your way out
And if we burn away, I'll pray the skies above
For snow to fall on the Sahara
-----

I felt her presence before I saw her, before I felt
her…or rather, before she felt me. It struck me hard
and fast, sending my mind into a tailspin of emotion.
Her beauty…her pure existence in the realm of my dream
made me feel like I was 8 again. Stepping off of that
bus and seeing her for the first time. And loving her
instantaneously. She was the most real person I knew.
Flesh and bone and beauty and love, God, love for
*me*…it was so real I thought it could all just kill
me with emotion. 'But this is a dream, Max…a
*dream*…' I told myself a million times. Over and
over. It wasn't real, it wasn't really happening.

As if this dream already hadn't been hard enough. I
had struggled with that damn boulder for what seemed
like hours. Then even fiber of muscle in my body
became syrupy and leaded, unable to push the rock and
close off that chamber forever. I'd had that dream
every night since we were all in the cave together
last. And, since then, I had wanted nothing more than
to shut off and kill every event and word that
happened within those walls. So it seemed natural
that I had been "closing it off" in my dreams. But
never before had *she* been in this dream…other
dreams, sure, but this one was different.

Liz appeared in dreams where I was in a tux and she
was in an evening gown…sometimes a white gown and
veil, and I had my arm wrapped around her, lightly
kissing the ticklish spot by her ear, whispering
sweet-nothings as she smiled and stroked my hand.
Some dreams…they could be more…intense than others.
Where I'd be kissing her warm bare skin and no words
were ever spoken except for small gasps of our names
under low breaths.

This definitely wasn't one of those dreams. This was a
dream where I found myself battling with my previous
world and how I wanted nothing more than for it all to
go away and leave me be. Let me lay on my bed in the
middle of Roswell, New Mexico thinking nothing
catastrophic was going to happen if I saved the person
I'd loved my entire life. I guess I had always
subconsciously made sure Liz wasn't a part of a dream
that was difficult or upsetting. But she had come.
Just the presence of her had made me stop and turn
away from my battle at hand. I could do nothing more
than walk to the edge of this cliff and turn my back.
I didn't think I could handle letting her in. I could
control this dream. It was my dream. And I had spent
my entire summer forcing myself to black everything
out.

It was so hot up there, at the point of that rock. I
had on thin but heat-absorbent layers of
material…something amazingly soft and I was burning
up. Tension, fear, weariness. All of these emotions
too heightened for this to just be any dream. Dream
emotions, dream sights…they were duller, not as sharp.
But everything I was seeing and feeling sunk into me
with perfect clarity. I felt as if I was living that
moment.

I was divided in half. One half was willing her to go
away from me. For her to turn around and let me be
alone. And the other part of me was aching to touch
her, feel her, and be locked in her love again.
And I guess, because it was my dream, and dreams…they
give you what you need and want, she came to me.

Then sound ceased to exist. I couldn't hear anything
anymore. Not until she pressed her tender body
completely up against the back of my body. Then I
could hear everything. Everything that mattered. Her
heart beating, her blood rushing through her veins,
her breath rising and falling against my back and
expanding and contracting her lungs. The warmth of
her hand that cradled my soft spot on my side. The
feel of her face lying softly on my back. And her
open mouth warming small puffs of breath through the
thin material I was wearing.

I closed my eyes, letting every sensation she aroused
in me run rapidly through my body. How perfect
everything felt. How extremely it probed my heart,
making me feel for the first time how warm and
comforting the sun could be, and not the ability it
has to burn.

Should I say something to her? I know, I just *know*
this isn't a simple dream. Something more was going
on here. My words seemed to matter, like if I said
something, it would count in reality. God, the
prospect of speaking to her after it being so long,
and after what our last words had been…what could I
possibly say? But how could I not speak to her? We
were standing on the edge of our own private earth
together, her holding onto me for dear life. Me
loving her completely, regardless of what had happened
those 3 months ago.

"Thank you…for finding me." I spoke it so quietly I
wondered if she even heard me.
"It was just a matter of time Max, before we found
each other." The sound of my name coming from her
mouth, the feel of the vibration her voice gives off,
strummed a chord deep inside of me. I could feel
myself growing beyond previous pain in her arms. I
turned around to hold her more completely, but before
I could register what had happened, everything had
gone black and I could see absolutely nothing.

tbc
-blurry