[private] I'm quick with the bullet when it comes undone; hourglass

[aureus]

Aureus

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

It hurts to look at her like this. To see her in her wholeness and know that all of his most foolish daydreams had been just that: dreams. To see that she would always be beyond his touch and to know that it was the cold look in her eye, the condemning tone in her voice that would haunt him for the rest of his life. It burrows under his skin and he cannot shake it. It cracks him apart every night and very rarely does he piece himself back together in the morning—because he knew it was true. All of it. Every word.

He swallows hard when she turns to see him, and he closes his eyes for a second.

His breath shaking, if only slightly.

When his eyes open again, she is closer and as beautiful as ever—as rare, as precious. Her voice is softer this time and he thinks for a moment he could perhaps pretend that the last meeting had never happened at all—that this was the young girl he had met all of those years ago. But she is more subdued than that girl and the reality of it curls in his belly, souring in his mouth as he realizes that he had not dreamt it.

“Hi,” he manages, not able to force himself to say her name. Would he whisper it? He might give away his tenderness, the way he still longs in the way young men do—and he could not bear to be so vulnerable before her. Not after she had shown herself to know his weakest spots. Would he spit it out? He could not imagine being so cruel, not even after she’d buried her knife to the hilt in his chest—but he doesn’t know.

So he limits his words, biting his own tongue.

“I have been—” and that’s when he notices it happening. The sky changing. The darkness crawling toward them. The sun peeling behind something strange. It feels cold, empty, and altogether wrong.

His brow furrows and his throat tightens, something like fear snaking through him.

And without thinking he steps toward her—his voice strangely disconnected, hollow, cold.

“We have to go.”

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

I decided to add a little...spice.

@[The Monsters] - his self-healing is up for grabs. have at it.