I should have loved a thunderbird instead
at least when spring comes they roar back again
Something is wrong.
Aegean doesn’t have the word for it—can’t put a name to it—but he knows that something is amiss. There is something about the way that the boy is wrapping around him, the air shifting. It keeps that same electrical current, the same buzz underneath it all, but there’s something sadder, something darker, and it twinges at Aegean’s poet heart—leaves him confused and aching and wishing for some kind of answer.
He does not stop the way that he curls around Pteron.
Does not stop the way that he kisses him, the way that he exposes his throat so that the other’s greedy kisses can reach him, biting and nipping. It is rougher than he expected, but he does not cringe away from the touch. The edge of that violence feels right, somehow strikes at the flint of his heart.
But when Pteron speaks again, when his voice cracks on the word, Aegean cannot deny the anchor that has tied around him. That feeling that curls in his stomach like smoke, promising him that something is wrong, that something is broken, that he has somehow managed to fracture this beautiful thing.
“It’s okay,” he whispers, his voice smooth and calm and detached from whatever turbulence he may feel inside. “I don’t know either,” he smiles, pressing his head into Pteron’s neck and breathing deeply, letting that feel of spice and pine fill him and remind him, imprint on him so that he may always remember it.
The fog around them lightens just slightly, turning grey instead of the midnight black, but it remains opaque. It continues to hide them both away, pushes away the rest of the world. Gently, Aegean begins to fill the sky with stars, bringing them down low to them, twinkling and bright around them both.
They swim in it, the heavens manifesting in the air around and between them.
“We can go slow,” he closes his eyes and then presses his cheek to Pteron’s neck before pushing his chest against his and resting on the broad curve of his back. “We do not need to burn to ash tonight.”
I will wait eons for you, he thinks, holding him quietly. I will wait forever to burn.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead
(I think I made you up inside my head.)