we're alone, just like you said, aureus

[aureus]

Aureus

oh, these wings, they flicker and my feathers stir
'til I'm an ancient soul in a cascade world

He had always been a kind boy—even in his youth. He had been perhaps too soft for this world, but he had been gentle. Sweet and good mannered. He had been the kind of boy who would have gladly grown up to fall in love with someone just like her. Someone who was equally as good. Someone that he could nurture and whisper kind things to at night. Who he could cherish and hold close.

And yet—

And yet, there was something deep within him that prevented that.

Something dark that lurked in his shyness. Something that had grown from his fear and then hardened from Hourglass’ rejection. Something cowardly and fearful that grew as the days went on. Something that would overtake him, if he was not careful, and something that he had no idea how to fight off.

He listens intently to her story and that softens him again, enough that he nearly reaches for her to comfort her, to ask why she had been living apart, but her question catches him off-guard. He stiffens and his deep purple gaze grows a little colder. Everything about him shifting into a more protective stance.

“What if the something wrong is with me?” he questions, his voice a little tighter. “How could I possibly explain to you how I am the something wrong?” The words are filled with self-loathing, but the way that he speaks them is cruel enough to sound like an insult to her, sharp enough to hold her at bay.

“How could I expect you to understand all the ways that I am wrong?”

and I'm quick with the bullet when it comes undone
I got a head like a turret with a mouth for a gun

@[basilica]