[mature] i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria

[Pteron]

finger trips across my cheek----------------
----------------kiss me until i can't speak

Part of Pteron’s heart lies shattered on the slopes of Hyaline, but the rest still beats in his chest in Ischia, and it beats all the more rapidly as Aquaria skin shivers beneath his touch. She makes it so easy to forget, even without trying, and he lets himself sink – for just a moment – farther into the fantasy that she so easily creates. She loves him, Pteron thinks, and to love her back would be far from a hardship. A life spent here in paradise, sand in his hair and laughter in his chest, waking up each morning to her pretty face. He could bury that broken part of him and let the waves wash him clean.

He could so easily live that life, and without a single regret.

Except the one regret, he thinks. That one hard knot in his chest that whispers that Aquaria deserves better. She deserves more than a man to whom she is a consolation prize (he thinks this, scathingly, even though he mostly knows it is not true). When she pulls away, he keeps that knot close, a second shield between them, a reminder that though her scent is thicker and sweeter than the hibiscus they leave behind, that she deserves better.

And then it becomes easier, for he has never before seen anything like this. It is real, gloriously so, and his curious nose confirms that when it comes away drenched in seawater after prodding too closely at the wall. He laughs at himself – and at the way the orange fish had darted away – and though the sound fades his smile never does. There is far more color here below the sea than he might ever have imagined. Fish flit through the air like bids through the sky, an entire world that he could never have even dreamed. It is beautiful, and it is the perfect place for Aquaria.

“I don’t know how you ever come to the surface,” Pteron says, his world bright with wonder. His olive gaze turns upward, to where the sunlight streams down through the shimmering water. Too bright, he finds, closing his eyes for a moment to readjust his eyes. He does not want to miss a moment, and there is still a glow to the edges of his vision when he opens his eyes again to find Aquaria looking back at him. She looks like an angel, he thinks, an angel of the sea. Her hesitant question elicits an immediate answer, even though he does not take his eyes from her to answer.

“It’s incredible. More than I ever even tho…” The words trail off as she nestles against him, and he forces himself to remember. He’s just promised, he thinks, just apologized; what would she think of him if he broke his word so soon? She deserves better, and he forces the words out as though they might help. “It’s better than I could have…”

They cut off abruptly as her teeth scrape against the tender skin beneath his ear, and he takes in a single shuddering breath before speaking again. “Aquaria,” he says, low and soft and pleading. “Please. I can’t. I ca-” And then he does, because she is soft and tastes so sweet and the struggle to not kiss the delicate skin where her pulse beats is a battle that he doesn’t really want to fight. 

“Do you want this?” Pteron asks between kisses, each placed tenderly along the base of the shimmering fin that makes up her mane. “Because I do. God help me, I want this. I want you.”

@[Aquaria]

-- pteron --