wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me; offspring

[Offspring]

something has been taken from deep inside of me;
the secret I've kept locked away no one can ever see.

 Hardened with resolve, his piercing red eyes are the only source of color as the starless night falls, staring out across the seemingly endless sea – where harsh, wavering saltwater presses along the seamless line of the distant horizon, melding with it – swallowing it effortlessly. The firm, rigid muscle that lay beneath his skin is wrought with tension, as his mind is lost within the dark shadow of dusk, with nothing but the faint silhouette of a hollowed-out moon to accompany him.

  He could still remember the way frost so gently encased his heavily muscled body, or the way it seemed to branch out from the very depths of his cracking, fragmented soul, filling every void and crevice within him with ice and snow. It was a sensation he longed to feel again, but fate had dealt him a cruel hand - where ice had once lingered, he only burned - his flesh tingling from the simmering heat that threatened to burst from within. 

  Though it had only just begun to seep back into the sordid filth of his veins, and though he had never wielded its power, the flames continued to flicker inside, warming what had once been so frigid. The contrast of hot versus cold agitates his nerves, which dance wildly within the descending darkness, evoking a grunt of frustration from the pit of his chest.

  It is beneath the blanket of darkness that he cannot ward off the nightmares. Each one more bittersweet than the last, he can only hide away the darkest of his secrets for so long before fatigue and weariness force him to yield to sleep. Every time his heavy lids close, the fire burns again, scalding him, reminding him of the way his own searing flesh had bubbled and melted away from the sinewy tendons and hardened bones of his body. Each dream draws forth the image of the Cerberus, and the way he had so unceremoniously torn it apart, tasting its acrid, metallic blood on his tongue, leaving carnage in his wake. 

  The soft lull of the distant roar of the sea water pounding against the shore; the only rein that held him tightly within any semblance of reality. The weight of his thoughts is heavy – a burden that lay between the taut, knotted muscles of his shoulders, anchoring him to the world that had betrayed him time and time again.

  The image of his closest friend, frail and whittled down to nothing but skin and bone, crumpled up against sand and stone, is burned within his mind. The sound of the briny sea rising and falling against the jagged igneous rock that lines the shore is a stark reminder of what he has lost, and he can feel the delicate thread of his sanity being pulled out to sea, unraveling slowly with the steady ebb and flow of the tide.

  He is roused, finally, by movement in the corner of his eye – a glimpse of dark indigo against the blackened night, and his breath is caught within his throat, as his name briefly touches her lips. A shuddering anguish settles within the tight confinement of his chest, and he is rendered breathless as she quietly moves to his side, her mouth pressed along the stiff and unyielding line of his jaw. His eyes, a festering, brewing storm, close then, as his cheek is turned towards her, finding solace in the warmth of her breath and the softness of her words.

  Three times, her confession comes, I was taken three times, and his heart lurches beneath his breast. The torment that had so easily burrowed into the marrow of his own bones had enveloped him after only once; he could not imagine a second – or third, and slowly his eyelids peel away from his piercing crimson eyes, observing the tension within her face and the anguish lining the vibrant green of her irises. I thought I must be losing my mind, and then, it is his own lips pressing against the length of her neck, as his cheek brushes lightly across her skin, tasting the salt of the ocean that lingers there.

  ”I feel like I am losing my mind most of the time,” he murmurs roughly against her skin; his rich baritone ragged from disuse and with emotion. ”I can barely remember a time that these nightmares did not plague me.” Her mouth is traveling, tasting the sulfur and sweat that lay across hard muscle and tight, puckered scarring, that lay across the darkness of his flesh, and he savors it – the comfort of her words; the soothing feel of her teeth and lips pressed against him.

  A quivering of guilt tugs at his heartstrings, knowing that there is only one that he should give the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind to, knowing that there is only one that can hold his heart. I should have been here for you, she breathes apologetically, broken and beautiful, and a longing ache he did not know existed urges his guilt away, if only for a while.

  ”You’re here now,” he says softly, quietly, a soft confession of needing her, needing this - whatever it was - etched into his words. A longing for something to tether him to the world that had spurned him, scorned him – a yearning for someone to make him feel like more than a flickering ember; a wayward flame in an unruly hurricane. ”Tell me it was real,” he pleads of her, pressing his cheek to her own, his dark mouth pressed along the crease of her jawline and neck as his voice reverberates against her throat, a simmering heat stirring somewhere within him. ”I don’t know what is and what is not anymore.”

  Then, softly, his mouth touches hers, the burning ruby of his eyes meeting with the endless emerald of her own, his breath mingling with hers – soft and sweet. ”Real or not real?”

wounds so deep they never show; they never go away.
like moving pictures in my head, for years and years they've played.

Offspring