01-28-2017, 09:02 PM
She is quiet beside him, fighting the way her bruised eyes always seem to drift back to that dark, handsome face. Her chest is in turmoil, humming and thrumming and aching for a closeness that seems only just barely out of reach each time he brings his nose to rest just above the mottled blue, and then suddenly eons further when he shifts away again and she is left with only an echo of confusion and loneliness. She is quick to blame it on homesickness, quick to blame it on the fact that she should be home and tucked against the warmth of her parents instead of out in this strange night.
It does not even matter to her that she can barely believe her own lie.
He does it once more, and she cannot help but glance up at him with soft, wounded eyes because he must know, he must know how easily he is unraveling that treacherous heart in her chest. He’s so close and she can feel the velvet of his whiskers tickling at the blue of her dark and delicate skin. It trembles without her permission, a hundred invisible ripples as though he has tossed a stone into the ocean of her dark and bottomless blue. She had looked away again, flushing, relieved by the little space between them and the coolness of the night, but when he pulls away again, she is drawn back and left wondering why.
He is silent and still for a long moment, and in this moment she watches his face darken and close off to her – if only a little, and she wonders at that, too. She is about to call him back to her, to pull him from the depths of his thoughts with a nudge to his neck when the stillness breaks and he returns to her again. A wicked witch plucked me from home, he says, and for a moment she is wholly disoriented by the strangeness of the confession. At first, and for a long, tremulous moment, she wonders if he is teasing her, pushing her back with a wall safely between them to protect him from her gentle prying. For some reason this notion crushes her, and when she eases back and looks up at him, it is with quiet and dark and bruised eyes filled with endless apologies.
Except-
The smile on his lips, oh that smile, it isn’t cruel and it isn’t sharp and there is no mocking anywhere to be found. “Stillwater?” She asks, easing closer again, her brow furrowed so deeply that those dark eyes are nearly hidden beneath it. But he continues a second later, and chuckles, and she finds that somehow this impossible story feels like truth.
Her eyes drop instantly from his face, horrified, to trace the smooth links of silver wound like starlight around his leg. Without thinking, without considering anything beyond the ache in her chest and the terrible certainty in his low voice, she closes the distance between them. Her nose might’ve brushed against his shoulder or his chest, she doesn’t notice if it does, but it certainly touches the dark skin of his ankle when she takes the chain between her teeth and tests its strength. For how completely delicate it sits against his skin, soft and supple like woven spider-silk, she finds there is no give between her teeth, no frailty when she tugs against it.
When she releases it, dismayed, she is of course standing so close now that as she lifts her face back to him, her nose bumps the strong curve of a dark and heavy jaw. She should have apologized, should have fallen away from the closeness the moment her heart started racing in her chest, but when she lifted her eyes just a few inches higher to find the dark blue-grey of his, she found herself totally and completely immobile. So instead of skittering away to give him back his distance, she finds solace in the heat of his dark neck, shifting to rest her chin in the hollow above the line of his shoulder. “That is a terrible secret to tell a stranger.” She says finally, wincing at the heaviness of her heart where it sits like stones in the pit of that delicate blue chest. “I don’t understand, why would she do this to you?” There is, admittedly, still a part of her mind that is slowly trying to believe this storybook truth, but between the impervious chain and the weight of his dark, she believes he is being honest. Then, in a voice that is equal parts sad and indignant, she says, “Of course you would just go back home, who wouldn’t?”
Even despite the closeness, despite the way she stands tucked almost possessively against the dark of his shoulder, her heart still roars in her chest. She doesn’t understand why anyone would have bound him somewhere, how they could chain him to this dark and let the softness rot from his face beneath endless nights of starless skies. Sighing, and it is a sad sound, a broken sound, she pushes off from his shoulder, pausing only briefly to touch her nose to the hollow at the corner of his mouth, and then continues up the beach for a few strides. She feels suddenly restless, suddenly unhappy, and she cannot stand to look at that chain gleaming around his leg any longer. She would sever it with a blade if only she thought her light could touch it!
Turning back to face him (even now, already, she does not like how it feels to be away from him) her eyes settle on his face, still dark, still bruised, but the hints of anger are new in them. “It isn’t right.” She says finally, and she isn’t sure why because he knows this perhaps the best out of anyone. She takes a few steps back towards him until there is once more only a foot of dark distance between them. She feels suddenly tired – though the only sign is the soft droop of her ears and the firefly stars that flicker out quietly one by one until only a third still remain.
But when he turns from her, when his eyes disappear out in the rippling black of the lake, the words that spill from his lips sooth the thrumming in her chest, and she is soft for him once more. Does that make me crazy, Luster? There is a smile on her mouth now, soft and supple and the light of it soothes the tension from every dip and hollow in that dark, stormy blue. Maybe it is her weariness the emboldens her, or the weight of the terrible truth shared between them, but she reaches out across the dark to him to touch the pale of her tremulous pink lips to the dark of his curving jaw. “You are almost definitely crazy,” she tells him in a whisper, still smiling that impossibly soft smile, “but it’s okay because I think I must be, too.”
It does not even matter to her that she can barely believe her own lie.
He does it once more, and she cannot help but glance up at him with soft, wounded eyes because he must know, he must know how easily he is unraveling that treacherous heart in her chest. He’s so close and she can feel the velvet of his whiskers tickling at the blue of her dark and delicate skin. It trembles without her permission, a hundred invisible ripples as though he has tossed a stone into the ocean of her dark and bottomless blue. She had looked away again, flushing, relieved by the little space between them and the coolness of the night, but when he pulls away again, she is drawn back and left wondering why.
He is silent and still for a long moment, and in this moment she watches his face darken and close off to her – if only a little, and she wonders at that, too. She is about to call him back to her, to pull him from the depths of his thoughts with a nudge to his neck when the stillness breaks and he returns to her again. A wicked witch plucked me from home, he says, and for a moment she is wholly disoriented by the strangeness of the confession. At first, and for a long, tremulous moment, she wonders if he is teasing her, pushing her back with a wall safely between them to protect him from her gentle prying. For some reason this notion crushes her, and when she eases back and looks up at him, it is with quiet and dark and bruised eyes filled with endless apologies.
Except-
The smile on his lips, oh that smile, it isn’t cruel and it isn’t sharp and there is no mocking anywhere to be found. “Stillwater?” She asks, easing closer again, her brow furrowed so deeply that those dark eyes are nearly hidden beneath it. But he continues a second later, and chuckles, and she finds that somehow this impossible story feels like truth.
Her eyes drop instantly from his face, horrified, to trace the smooth links of silver wound like starlight around his leg. Without thinking, without considering anything beyond the ache in her chest and the terrible certainty in his low voice, she closes the distance between them. Her nose might’ve brushed against his shoulder or his chest, she doesn’t notice if it does, but it certainly touches the dark skin of his ankle when she takes the chain between her teeth and tests its strength. For how completely delicate it sits against his skin, soft and supple like woven spider-silk, she finds there is no give between her teeth, no frailty when she tugs against it.
When she releases it, dismayed, she is of course standing so close now that as she lifts her face back to him, her nose bumps the strong curve of a dark and heavy jaw. She should have apologized, should have fallen away from the closeness the moment her heart started racing in her chest, but when she lifted her eyes just a few inches higher to find the dark blue-grey of his, she found herself totally and completely immobile. So instead of skittering away to give him back his distance, she finds solace in the heat of his dark neck, shifting to rest her chin in the hollow above the line of his shoulder. “That is a terrible secret to tell a stranger.” She says finally, wincing at the heaviness of her heart where it sits like stones in the pit of that delicate blue chest. “I don’t understand, why would she do this to you?” There is, admittedly, still a part of her mind that is slowly trying to believe this storybook truth, but between the impervious chain and the weight of his dark, she believes he is being honest. Then, in a voice that is equal parts sad and indignant, she says, “Of course you would just go back home, who wouldn’t?”
Even despite the closeness, despite the way she stands tucked almost possessively against the dark of his shoulder, her heart still roars in her chest. She doesn’t understand why anyone would have bound him somewhere, how they could chain him to this dark and let the softness rot from his face beneath endless nights of starless skies. Sighing, and it is a sad sound, a broken sound, she pushes off from his shoulder, pausing only briefly to touch her nose to the hollow at the corner of his mouth, and then continues up the beach for a few strides. She feels suddenly restless, suddenly unhappy, and she cannot stand to look at that chain gleaming around his leg any longer. She would sever it with a blade if only she thought her light could touch it!
Turning back to face him (even now, already, she does not like how it feels to be away from him) her eyes settle on his face, still dark, still bruised, but the hints of anger are new in them. “It isn’t right.” She says finally, and she isn’t sure why because he knows this perhaps the best out of anyone. She takes a few steps back towards him until there is once more only a foot of dark distance between them. She feels suddenly tired – though the only sign is the soft droop of her ears and the firefly stars that flicker out quietly one by one until only a third still remain.
But when he turns from her, when his eyes disappear out in the rippling black of the lake, the words that spill from his lips sooth the thrumming in her chest, and she is soft for him once more. Does that make me crazy, Luster? There is a smile on her mouth now, soft and supple and the light of it soothes the tension from every dip and hollow in that dark, stormy blue. Maybe it is her weariness the emboldens her, or the weight of the terrible truth shared between them, but she reaches out across the dark to him to touch the pale of her tremulous pink lips to the dark of his curving jaw. “You are almost definitely crazy,” she tells him in a whisper, still smiling that impossibly soft smile, “but it’s okay because I think I must be, too.”