09-12-2021, 03:34 PM
YOU'RE WALKING IN THE SHADOWS OF YOUR FEAR AND YOU'RE HEADED
FOR THE GALLOWS, SIN AROUND YOUR THROAT AND NO ONE'S NEAR
FOR THE GALLOWS, SIN AROUND YOUR THROAT AND NO ONE'S NEAR
“I am yours,” he confirms with his mouth again brushing along her neck, but saying the words twists the knife deeper into his gut. He cannot imagine a crueler fate than the one he has been dealt—to be cursed to love someone who is full of all the horrible things that he craves. To both simultaneously be drawn to her because she is brimming with sorrow but also wishing she never felt such things.
It makes him stare at her with a vulnerable kind of brokenness that so rarely managed to make it beyond the harsh red glare, a glimmer of the normal boy that had died for his family breaking through.
The boy that wants to break apart at hearing her say she never wanted to be happy, because he knows it is a lie.
The boy that knows all too well what a normal love looks like, and recognizes that he will never be able to give it to her.
He doesn’t say anything though, only closes his eyes against it. He does not argue with her, does not tell her that choosing to stay with him will condemn her to a lifetime of despair and heartbreak, which had to be worse than longing and wishing. The longing would go away eventually, he is sure of it. She would find someone else to fill up the space he left, which he doesn’t think would be hard, given all he is is just shadow and bone.
His glowing eyes snap back to hers when she offers her help, with such a sudden surge of agony that he tastes it again on his tongue. He shakes his head, a definitive no already prepared, but then she tells him that he must feel it—that he must feel all of the things that radiate from her, and he goes quiet. There, in the silence that stretches between them, he remembers the first time he met her. How even then she had been saturated in sorrow, that it filled her until it poured over. How almost immediately it sparked a fire in both parts of him; how he had thought himself lucky to find her when she was full of exactly what he needed, but also recognizing how twisted that was, to want someone to be broken.
“I know,” the two words are quiet and taut with unspoken emotions, wondering if he could ever even begin to explain it all to her. If he could ever possibly untangle how much she causes him to fight with himself, how it is a daily battle to not consume her. “I felt it all from the moment I met you, and it was why I stayed away from you at first.” He watches her carefully, searching her pretty face, afraid of how that honesty will injure her even though he had only done it to protect her. “The thought of using you for that has always been unbearable.”
He has stepped forward again now, still holding her gaze. In a painfully slow motion he reaches for her, gently brushing her forelock away from her face, and then letting his lips trail from her temple and following the curve to her throat. He lingers there, feeling her pulse beneath his touch, bright eyes closed as he rests his forehead against her neck.
It feels like hours that he waits there, debating, fighting, turning over the consequences in his mind.
When he does, at last, begin to slowly drain it from her he does it with his mouth caressing gently along her neck, her shoulder, the top of her back, as if that somehow will make it okay. He does not know what it feels like, has never really paid attention to how they react, though he has always been methodic and merciful. He does not think it hurts, because he has learned that he can drain them while staring them in the eye, and all that is there is a sudden emptiness, and that look of realization just before he disappears because they know he took something from them.
But he is all the more careful with her, mindful of what it does to her, and he cannot bring himself to take it all. He stops when his own sorrow and regret becomes too much, the guilt nearly overpowering as he suddenly rests his head against her side, right where he can hear her heartbeat inside of her ribs. “I’m sorry, Des,” his voice is quiet and hoarse with the shadows and the tangle of emotions he is grappling with, his breathing nearly ragged with remorse. “I’m sorry.”
It makes him stare at her with a vulnerable kind of brokenness that so rarely managed to make it beyond the harsh red glare, a glimmer of the normal boy that had died for his family breaking through.
The boy that wants to break apart at hearing her say she never wanted to be happy, because he knows it is a lie.
The boy that knows all too well what a normal love looks like, and recognizes that he will never be able to give it to her.
He doesn’t say anything though, only closes his eyes against it. He does not argue with her, does not tell her that choosing to stay with him will condemn her to a lifetime of despair and heartbreak, which had to be worse than longing and wishing. The longing would go away eventually, he is sure of it. She would find someone else to fill up the space he left, which he doesn’t think would be hard, given all he is is just shadow and bone.
His glowing eyes snap back to hers when she offers her help, with such a sudden surge of agony that he tastes it again on his tongue. He shakes his head, a definitive no already prepared, but then she tells him that he must feel it—that he must feel all of the things that radiate from her, and he goes quiet. There, in the silence that stretches between them, he remembers the first time he met her. How even then she had been saturated in sorrow, that it filled her until it poured over. How almost immediately it sparked a fire in both parts of him; how he had thought himself lucky to find her when she was full of exactly what he needed, but also recognizing how twisted that was, to want someone to be broken.
“I know,” the two words are quiet and taut with unspoken emotions, wondering if he could ever even begin to explain it all to her. If he could ever possibly untangle how much she causes him to fight with himself, how it is a daily battle to not consume her. “I felt it all from the moment I met you, and it was why I stayed away from you at first.” He watches her carefully, searching her pretty face, afraid of how that honesty will injure her even though he had only done it to protect her. “The thought of using you for that has always been unbearable.”
He has stepped forward again now, still holding her gaze. In a painfully slow motion he reaches for her, gently brushing her forelock away from her face, and then letting his lips trail from her temple and following the curve to her throat. He lingers there, feeling her pulse beneath his touch, bright eyes closed as he rests his forehead against her neck.
It feels like hours that he waits there, debating, fighting, turning over the consequences in his mind.
When he does, at last, begin to slowly drain it from her he does it with his mouth caressing gently along her neck, her shoulder, the top of her back, as if that somehow will make it okay. He does not know what it feels like, has never really paid attention to how they react, though he has always been methodic and merciful. He does not think it hurts, because he has learned that he can drain them while staring them in the eye, and all that is there is a sudden emptiness, and that look of realization just before he disappears because they know he took something from them.
But he is all the more careful with her, mindful of what it does to her, and he cannot bring himself to take it all. He stops when his own sorrow and regret becomes too much, the guilt nearly overpowering as he suddenly rests his head against her side, right where he can hear her heartbeat inside of her ribs. “I’m sorry, Des,” his voice is quiet and hoarse with the shadows and the tangle of emotions he is grappling with, his breathing nearly ragged with remorse. “I’m sorry.”
T O R R Y N
@despoina