How he would laugh if he could hear all of the things she thinks of him.
How much he has fooled her over the years.
He is not strong, or good, or brave.
He is weak, selfish, cowardly.
All the things she thinks he is not is what beats painfully in his chest, and it’s what makes his throat tighten when he looks at her—knowing that one day he will have to answer for his sins. One day she will find out everything that he has kept from her. The truth of what made him collapse into sleep and the source of the magic that he now promises her—the things that he could use to save her that damn him.
“I could make you a body,” he insists, his golden eyes overbright. “I could make you anything that you want to be,” a promise he feels certain that he could keep, even if he is also certain of what it might cost him. How he feels salvation slip further and further from him every time he uses this demonic magic. At a certain point, will he lose his entire soul? Is there really anything there for him to salvage at this point?
But she keeps talking and his frown grows deeper, pulling at the corners and darkening his golden eyes. “I won’t let you die. Stop talking like that.” It’s harsher than he intends but there is panic blossoming in his chest. He can’t sit by and let her die. He can’t just let her wither away when there is a chance that he could help, that he could save her from this decaying dreamworld. “Thank me then,” he holds her a little closer, affection painfully spreading in him—the kind that aches, the kind that could kill if he let it.
“Please, Iri,” his voice is softer now, barely a whisper. “At least let me try.”
so as our grief falls flat and hollow upon a billion blooded seas
all our worst ideas are borrowed (you do and don't belong to me)
@iridian