after fury
what do you do
His expectations lurked and crawled in the denizens of something he could snag, rip, and tear apart – his common practice, to move and maneuver and motion through tides of anarchy and vehemence, to fold and lacerate his way through violence, a ritual, a routine. Action upon action, rippling muscles and flayed sinew, brought down to earth on the feral intake of their last breath, shuddering, quaking, quivering, until eyes held nothing, empty in their vastness. The Reaper and the Sword knew how to deal with those things accordingly, could haunt shadows and blend into the earth’s munitions in his sleep; often did, really, along those drifting anomalies of nightmares and reality. Even as her warmth guided into their expanse, the razor edges pricked upon the edges, the boundaries, thought to growl, thought to seethe, thought to raise his hackles at the darkness contorting beyond ports, into the tempestuous storms, eternally seeking upheaval as a means to an end. What he received was a step into the unknown – where he had no control, no dominion, no slashing, piercing blades, no lacerations in the maelstrom. While she spoke, the monolith sought to curl his fingers around hers, quiet and supportive and completely out of his element, listening to the shards that pressed in amongst her, listening to the wounds always fissuring, always demanding, no way to mend and assuage them back into formation. They were scars unseen, inward and exact, pinpointed and segmented like knives and daggers, pondering how and why it’d all begun – no fixing, no repairing, a fair warning to his mind to cease the notions immediately. It was all he’d done his entire life, and to face the sentiments, the reeling conflagration, of her hurts and bruises and inadequacies, mauled his own efforts.
But Deimos knew about being overwhelmed, about heavy shoulders and burdens, weights one had to lift even when everything threatened to topple and break. He knew about ineptitude, ineffectual efforts, had committed to their deeds time and time again – protection deluded, discarded, not worth a damn, beings fallen before his eyes, too little, too late, striving to gain his own liberation and freedom, locked in cages and prison walls, racing on ahead, ahead, ahead, attempting to change the world before it came too close to his frozen domain. He’d been defeated. He’d been conquered.
Shouldn’t feel this way was swallowed, consumed, devoured in his own stead. He had no answers. All he’d ever done was move forward, stifle and suppress the formations of failure down into his chest, into his soul, where they could rampage against one another, where he could ignore them or return to their pain, their agony, later – always later. The beast didn’t have time to fall apart.
She pulled away, and on instinct he reached back for her, empty space and air in the flickering of the fire’s glow, her form escaping, evading, immersed upon the bed, turned away; he didn’t wince at the blow, but it still stung, still crackled, still blistered. The beast was just as lost and adrift; no enemies to slay, no adversaries to condemn. Just feelings, feelings, feelings, drenched and soaked and saturated, waves upon waves of sorrow she shouldn’t have had, but did just the same. So he followed, arms and hands intending to wrap around, to hold, to proffer strength wherever she needed it placed. His head lingered somewhere between her neck and shoulders, not putting any more weight on their burdened existence, but willing to take some of the pressure, whatever she would allow him to carry. “You have never let me down,” was a whisper, a promise, and a conviction, something to proffer when he wasn’t sure what else to give.
with the remains?
DEIMOS
