[se] between two lungs

Deimos

we are all b r o k e n
that's how the l i g h t gets in

Wholly absorbed and engrossed; thrones of dust and ash, crowns of starlight and tomes, he had no need to play the absorbed, distracted king – it was a role without pretenses, sincere, heartfelt. He was riveted and captivated, spellbound, tasting the heavens on his tongue, behind his eyes, while she etched and sketched along the canals of his heart, inch by inch, moment by moment. Perhaps it was intimidating and paralyzing, one of those instances sure to strike him down, but he maneuvered in her hold, carved and whittled again by her touch, by her strokes, by her caresses. He conceded to every one of her ministrations, welcomed them with fire in his blood and ice in his soul, allowing the sun to encroach upon the darker shards of his life, embody, infuse, stoke the coals, the embers, the inferno. The beast followed the heartlines and the illumination, prospered under its tantalizing, savoring entities, forgoing and forgetting iniquity for the shortest of occasions, not pondering how they’d come to be here, why he’d been driven to anger, to rage, to promises and oaths; taken and taken and taken again, flesh and bone corresponding with the celestial. He shouldn’t have, but she didn’t refuse him, didn’t tell him to leave, didn’t flee, didn’t evade, didn’t escape, mutual enthrallment – though he’d always wonder what made her linger in his presence, when there were so many far better, far brighter, far greater.

The Reaper breathed in her essence and stoked the coals in his ribs, felt them pervade with his pulse, reached and reached, hands tangling their way into her gilded tresses, silk on scars and callouses. Some movements were pure desperation, those unsaid anthems and fears blending into cradled heads, striving to bring her ever closer, ensure she was still there; no dreams, no nightmares, no illusions, alive and tangible and whole. It was a hungry, wanton thing, filling in his lungs, exploiting and exploding in his heart, a wild, incandescent rhythm to the insistent, imploring organ, thrumming so loudly he was certain the entire world heard its echoes, its reverberations, its sorrows and anguishes, its harmony and exultation. He take and he gave, the monster and the man, the warrior and the heathen, the fiend and the blackguard; drawing back only so he could behold and stare, sighing, breathless, laughter on his tongue, on his lips. Her touch lingered, a cadence, a crescendo, notching its way into his skin, a constant enticement he didn’t bother to deny; reaching for her fingers as they linger and thread their way over his mouth, curl and coil over his neck and shoulders, allowing him to catch a quick inhale.

When they ghost away, flickering back into the void of books and text, the beast regretted their immediate absence, fingers gliding along her hands again, bringing them to his lips as he listened to the playful tone, as the poignancy lifted its haunting tune towards his ears.

I will come save you.

“You already have,” he laughed, but tucked her promise into his imploring, piercing, penetrating gaze – haunted in the air of her veracity, because no one had ever granted him such a pledge. Sometimes he’d been the savior – striving, trying, so desperately to snag his kin back from the shadows, battle his way through steel and resolve, forge himself into iron and will so no one else ever had to. And when he fell, there hadn’t been anything there – hollow, empty, without anyone or anything; and it’s startling now, even in its comfort, even in its repose and ease, an exhilarating bite to his skin, to his heart. He thought about lowering his gaze, afraid to face a number of things clambering around his skull, but instead, left himself there, vulnerable and open along the threshold of soot and earth, coming completely undone in the wonder, in the potency, in the potential for something real and beatific. “I will do the same.”

keep the ones who
h e a r d y o u
when you never said a word