It is perhaps both his greatest curse and greatest asset in life, his inability to take anything too seriously. He has never been inclined to follow the arbitrary rulebook set out for them by generations past. It’s freeing in a way he has yet to realize. But dangerous too, from those disinclined to appreciate that freedom.
Of course, none of this is something he had ever taken into consideration before. Nor would today likely be the day he would.
Instead his darkly gleeful gaze remains on the other boy, dancing almost dangerously in his handsomely golden features. Perhaps he doesn’t pose any true threat as yet, but no doubt the day would come. He already tiptoes uncomfortably close to the edge.
“Hmmmm,” he hums in response to Elio’s disgruntled question, as though he were genuinely considering it. Of course, one glimpse of his openly amused face would dispel any such misinterpretation. “Who’s to say I want you to be afraid? I merely said it’s a good thing.”
As he speaks, a wicked grin curving his lips, a thin tendril of dark smoke curls around Elio’s neck, tightening briefly before falling away into shadowy ash. An unmistakable demonstration of Darkling’s meaning. Cruel, in a sense, but also a kindness. After all, he didn’t need to explain himself. One could hardly blame him if his actions had served to numb the boy to such a threat instead.
Shrugging, Darkling’s lid’s droop, shielding his impish gaze as he watches the other boy try to hide his inherent curiosity behind the question of why. Truthfully, he had no good reason. He never does. And his answer reflects that in every way that matters. “Why not?”
you're burning up the sky, you're a constellation
I think that I could die for this revelation