jamie
from the destruction, out of the flame
He is so rarely surprised, Jamie.
But she surprises him.
Were he capable of expression, perhaps it would register on his face. But it is only darkness as he peers back at her just as plainly as she looks at him. There is nothing flirtatious in the way she says it. Nothing coy about the look she wears when she says it.
And yet.
And yet something dark coils itself neatly into the pit of his gut.
He is no monster. (Or, at least, this is what he tries to tell himself).
But he looks like a monster. And, in that moment, he feels like one, too.
It is just as empowering for him to think it as it is for her. The thought of someone being addicted to him. And he’d said it himself, hadn’t he? The shadows cannot exist without the light. He had meant it quite literally. Shadows could not be created without sunlight. But perhaps there is more to it than that.
He studies her a long moment before he sinks closer. All that rattling in his lungs, the wheezing in his throat when he reaches for her. There is some foolish hope that she will dissolve when he touches her, too. But he is the only one who goes soft at the edges when he skims his mouth across her shoulder. He is vapor and she is solid.
He comes away disappointed.
Blinks at her and then tilts his peculiar head.
“The pain is a part of me,” he sighs. “I don’t know what I’d be without it.”
you need a villain, give me a name
