DEIMOS
It would’ve always been her that broke him; just as with anything he dared to keep close, loved, and cherished. So few had ever managed to find their way into his armor, that he hadn’t noticed when the chinks in the chainmail, in the fortifications, had become wider, gaping. But he’d nearly lost himself each time she returned with some new injury, with some new threat, with a temple descending down and upon her – choked and gnarled and knotted his way to some strangling noose so she could be healed. He orbited around her sun, her light, her radiance, her reverence like some blackened hole, and tried to ward off anything and everything – failed miserably, just as he’d done so many times before – sword in hand, steel walls threatening to destroy, to discard, to unfurl. Perhaps she hadn’t realized the weight of her words, how much they bent and broke when everything else was already ground down into nothingness, when there were lives at stake and ruins to raise and so many other wretched nuances pounding down his spine. Deimos always fought: bleeding and scarred, malicious and discarded, did so even now, at the pounding of his wrecked heart and clawing lungs, as his spine contorted, not so rigid, not to taut and strong, to let him lean across the precipice and hide from the world.
Maybe that was what he should’ve done all along: gone right back to the Reaper schematics, where calculations ran rampart and seething vitriol were the only things that held him together. He could seek out revenge. He could destroy everything in his path. He could burn from the inside out, and no one would care. No one would give a damn when they took their last breath. He could stay within the shadows all over again, not a single emotion cast out of his forged shell: living, breathing weapon once more, Colossus with his blade, daring anyone, and everyone, until he finally succumbed, perished, back into flames and hell.
What was the point of doing anything now? When they were all wrecked and scarred (hadn’t he always been? What had changed?) Love might have been a whisper, a whimper, a ghost in his ear. He’d had it and chased it and followed it – her, her, her – sought it for eternity and struggled with being enough for her embrace, for her essence, for her presence. Even now, the fiend couldn’t withstand the storm, let it billow and pummel until he’d been dragged underneath its currents, permitting it to wash over, to drown him in its potency. Lost without her – head hung, eyes closed, not understanding where they’d gone or why their ventures seemed to end in destruction.
He didn’t expect her to follow. The damage done, the festering begun, the stony fixtures forced down and split apart. They all carried too much – and it slid down his shoulders, along his backbone, on the ridges of sinew and flesh meant to bear the strain. He’d borne the granules, the rubble, for so long that it seemed unnatural, weak, vulnerable to do it now – he almost clenched his jaw, retreated further into the fold of his own arms, away from the sun.
But he heard her, soft and light, and the dread, the apprehension curled along his marrow, beating a pulse in his frenetic veins. He waited for the bellow, the snap, the claws, some other avaricious anger to collide, and he thought about not looking up, about descending into his deserved oblivion, with its darkness, with its veils, with its shrouds, until her touch was on him, a cheek on his head, and he froze. An apology drifted to his ears, and he thought to shake his cranium, to ward off the acknowledgment he didn’t deserve. But then he was enveloped, embraced, surrounded, and his breathing eased, his heart quelled, eyes drifting closed, brimmed tears collected at the corner of his lids. What was he thinking? His throat was raw and rasping, a grumble in his chest, afraid to lift his skull, afraid if he looked for her, she’d disappear. “I do not know what else to do for you. I want to help.” Always had, always would: beyond just looking for some leaves or brandishing water in the moonlight. “But you spurn my efforts.” Hissing at goddesses, telling them it didn’t matter, offering her life (her life) for the sake of a temple that only needed to be rebuilt, repaired, watching as everything he tried to do splintered, fractured, into nothingness. “What do you need?”
Maybe that was what he should’ve done all along: gone right back to the Reaper schematics, where calculations ran rampart and seething vitriol were the only things that held him together. He could seek out revenge. He could destroy everything in his path. He could burn from the inside out, and no one would care. No one would give a damn when they took their last breath. He could stay within the shadows all over again, not a single emotion cast out of his forged shell: living, breathing weapon once more, Colossus with his blade, daring anyone, and everyone, until he finally succumbed, perished, back into flames and hell.
What was the point of doing anything now? When they were all wrecked and scarred (hadn’t he always been? What had changed?) Love might have been a whisper, a whimper, a ghost in his ear. He’d had it and chased it and followed it – her, her, her – sought it for eternity and struggled with being enough for her embrace, for her essence, for her presence. Even now, the fiend couldn’t withstand the storm, let it billow and pummel until he’d been dragged underneath its currents, permitting it to wash over, to drown him in its potency. Lost without her – head hung, eyes closed, not understanding where they’d gone or why their ventures seemed to end in destruction.
He didn’t expect her to follow. The damage done, the festering begun, the stony fixtures forced down and split apart. They all carried too much – and it slid down his shoulders, along his backbone, on the ridges of sinew and flesh meant to bear the strain. He’d borne the granules, the rubble, for so long that it seemed unnatural, weak, vulnerable to do it now – he almost clenched his jaw, retreated further into the fold of his own arms, away from the sun.
But he heard her, soft and light, and the dread, the apprehension curled along his marrow, beating a pulse in his frenetic veins. He waited for the bellow, the snap, the claws, some other avaricious anger to collide, and he thought about not looking up, about descending into his deserved oblivion, with its darkness, with its veils, with its shrouds, until her touch was on him, a cheek on his head, and he froze. An apology drifted to his ears, and he thought to shake his cranium, to ward off the acknowledgment he didn’t deserve. But then he was enveloped, embraced, surrounded, and his breathing eased, his heart quelled, eyes drifting closed, brimmed tears collected at the corner of his lids. What was he thinking? His throat was raw and rasping, a grumble in his chest, afraid to lift his skull, afraid if he looked for her, she’d disappear. “I do not know what else to do for you. I want to help.” Always had, always would: beyond just looking for some leaves or brandishing water in the moonlight. “But you spurn my efforts.” Hissing at goddesses, telling them it didn’t matter, offering her life (her life) for the sake of a temple that only needed to be rebuilt, repaired, watching as everything he tried to do splintered, fractured, into nothingness. “What do you need?”
i'm in the mood to dissolve in the sky
