05-26-2020, 11:36 PM
all i want is to flip a switch
before something breaks that cannot be fixed
before something breaks that cannot be fixed
Everything in him sharpens like a blade at those four simple words. Looks can be deceiving. He does not realize that she is thinking of herself when she says that, he is too busy registering the underlying threat in that truth. The risk that she might somehow know his thoughts or past, or worse, that she might know the shade of the dark inside his chest. His burnished gold eyes harden, and he is glad that his face is hidden from her when they stand close like this. He feels like a snake, feels that predator thrill as the beast in him lifts its slumbering head to examine her with new eyes. To notice the flutter of the pulse at her throat, or the way those angel wings just ask to be flayed apart. His mouth moves to her skin to taste her, and it is only by the grace of whatever God she believes in that she says what she says next.
Well, hopefully I never have to see that hostile side of you.
He stiffens, or maybe it is just that creature inside him, that living dark he will never be free of. But he freezes and closes his jaw tight, his gaze hard and flat as something like bile rises in the back of his throat - as the boy who would’ve grown up to love a woman like this is faced once more with this alternative future, with a self more beast than man, and in no way worthwhile.
But there is good in him, because it is a battle to stay here by her side. To soften again and leave a trail of sensation with the soft of his whiskered lips over the hollow of her small back and around the base of such snowy wings. The good in him loses, of course, but she won’t ever know it because this curious new affection will seem like the good. These lips that trace the lines of old scars like they’re paths he wants to travel. Because if the good in him had won, he would’ve left to keep her safe, to protect her from whatever it is she makes rise in him.
“You mean to tell me you came all this way and you don’t intend to stay?” There is an almost rumble of amusement as he turns his head to look back at her face, struck again by those dark, gentle eyes. “You said you ended up here by accident. Are you still in Tephra?” He is careful to ignore that feeling of wanting her to say yes, that even when she is gone from here (and him) she will still be close by. He pretends that if he ignores it, it is like it never existed at all. But it settles like a weight in his chest until she steps closer and reaches out to touch him, and something in him comes undone.
Nothing should matter this much, but when she deliberately shifts into him as though the frost on his skin doesn’t bother her, his entire body softens with a silent exhale of something very much like relief. Like how a bone might feel after it has been broken and returned to wherever it is meant to be, still fractured and hurting but able to heal. Is that how she makes him feel? Is that what he finds when his eyes meet hers?
The dark inside him laughs.
But for once he can ignore it because her lips are still in his mane and against his neck, and all he wants to do is lose himself in this. In whatever it is she thinks she sees in him, whatever it was she thinks she missed. Because at some point she will realize her mistake and he will be alone with the dark again, and there will be no angel eyes to keep him tethered here, no soft lips against his neck. So he bows his head against her side for a moment, closing his eyes and feeling lulled by the way she touches him, by the sound of her smiling voice and her name whispered against the pulse of his throat.
He could lose himself to a life like this, to gentle lips and gentle eyes, the face of a goddamned angel. To the kind of dark he’s caught glimpses of when she looks back up at him from behind the pale fringe of a spider-silk forelock. A dark that feeds his even as her light tries to gentle him.
But this wanting makes him sinister.
It ruins him for things he will never be able to have.
“Ryatah, angel.”His voice is so carefully light, almost laughing when he lifts his brow from the white of her shoulder and turns to look at her again with eyes so dark they are almost pupiless now as the shadow spills from him. It spills from his skin like dust until it thickens and coalesces around them like a web of deep, starless night, until it consumes the trees and every last one of their branches, until it fills the empty spaces so there is no sky. Nothing but an angel and the devil, and the shadow that presses in to touch her beautiful glowing skin.
His breathing changes, an almost ragged movement to the rise and fall of his dark chest as he steps close again to press his chest against her shoulder and touch his hungry mouth to the opposite side of her neck, craving that warmth and that light and that gentle willingness. He is so gentle with her, despite the dark as dense as night around them, despite the way he holds her firm against his chest. He is everything wrong and broken, but he knows she is precious. His mouth wanders the path of her neck, and those faded gold eyes are so broken as he pauses to bury his nose in the silk of her mane. “Do you see why it is that I have a habit of disappearing? Some things are better off forgotten.” There is broken bitterness in every single part of him as he releases her and takes a step back, all the shadow around them thinning back to dust again.
Well, hopefully I never have to see that hostile side of you.
He stiffens, or maybe it is just that creature inside him, that living dark he will never be free of. But he freezes and closes his jaw tight, his gaze hard and flat as something like bile rises in the back of his throat - as the boy who would’ve grown up to love a woman like this is faced once more with this alternative future, with a self more beast than man, and in no way worthwhile.
But there is good in him, because it is a battle to stay here by her side. To soften again and leave a trail of sensation with the soft of his whiskered lips over the hollow of her small back and around the base of such snowy wings. The good in him loses, of course, but she won’t ever know it because this curious new affection will seem like the good. These lips that trace the lines of old scars like they’re paths he wants to travel. Because if the good in him had won, he would’ve left to keep her safe, to protect her from whatever it is she makes rise in him.
“You mean to tell me you came all this way and you don’t intend to stay?” There is an almost rumble of amusement as he turns his head to look back at her face, struck again by those dark, gentle eyes. “You said you ended up here by accident. Are you still in Tephra?” He is careful to ignore that feeling of wanting her to say yes, that even when she is gone from here (and him) she will still be close by. He pretends that if he ignores it, it is like it never existed at all. But it settles like a weight in his chest until she steps closer and reaches out to touch him, and something in him comes undone.
Nothing should matter this much, but when she deliberately shifts into him as though the frost on his skin doesn’t bother her, his entire body softens with a silent exhale of something very much like relief. Like how a bone might feel after it has been broken and returned to wherever it is meant to be, still fractured and hurting but able to heal. Is that how she makes him feel? Is that what he finds when his eyes meet hers?
The dark inside him laughs.
But for once he can ignore it because her lips are still in his mane and against his neck, and all he wants to do is lose himself in this. In whatever it is she thinks she sees in him, whatever it was she thinks she missed. Because at some point she will realize her mistake and he will be alone with the dark again, and there will be no angel eyes to keep him tethered here, no soft lips against his neck. So he bows his head against her side for a moment, closing his eyes and feeling lulled by the way she touches him, by the sound of her smiling voice and her name whispered against the pulse of his throat.
He could lose himself to a life like this, to gentle lips and gentle eyes, the face of a goddamned angel. To the kind of dark he’s caught glimpses of when she looks back up at him from behind the pale fringe of a spider-silk forelock. A dark that feeds his even as her light tries to gentle him.
But this wanting makes him sinister.
It ruins him for things he will never be able to have.
“Ryatah, angel.”His voice is so carefully light, almost laughing when he lifts his brow from the white of her shoulder and turns to look at her again with eyes so dark they are almost pupiless now as the shadow spills from him. It spills from his skin like dust until it thickens and coalesces around them like a web of deep, starless night, until it consumes the trees and every last one of their branches, until it fills the empty spaces so there is no sky. Nothing but an angel and the devil, and the shadow that presses in to touch her beautiful glowing skin.
His breathing changes, an almost ragged movement to the rise and fall of his dark chest as he steps close again to press his chest against her shoulder and touch his hungry mouth to the opposite side of her neck, craving that warmth and that light and that gentle willingness. He is so gentle with her, despite the dark as dense as night around them, despite the way he holds her firm against his chest. He is everything wrong and broken, but he knows she is precious. His mouth wanders the path of her neck, and those faded gold eyes are so broken as he pauses to bury his nose in the silk of her mane. “Do you see why it is that I have a habit of disappearing? Some things are better off forgotten.” There is broken bitterness in every single part of him as he releases her and takes a step back, all the shadow around them thinning back to dust again.
Illum