[seasonal event] to find a soul somewhere

Deimos The Reaper had never been entirely adverse to change, but it always took him the longest. The world had to erode beneath his feet before he dared move a muscle in either direction, subtle, too busy calculating, meticulous in his endeavors, to see effects and alterations. Sometimes he balked and strayed, stubborn, because he preferred his ideals of containment and reserve, where the realms couldn’t see his vulnerabilities, where kingdoms couldn’t come crashing down around his head, where adversaries couldn’t pick him apart, strand by strand. He’d had his moments where the mask slipped away, where detachment fell apart, but only just so; never enough for anyone to know, for anyone to care, for anyone to give a damn. The instances where affection won out had been so fleeting, so rare, that they were tucked into his mind like poignant, haunting things, overshadowed by loss and forbearance (when he’d surrendered, when he’d stripped down to his core, when he’d touched and loved, then lost it all). They were ghosts and wraiths, phantoms and specters, when they shouldn’t have been tainted at all, drowned in the murk and mire of ineptitude, of uselessness, of events he couldn’t control. After and after and after, he dragged his carcass, his vessel, through hell and presumed he’d stay there until his last breath was cast – fiendish and wicked, brittle and broken, content to brood his way to an early grave. Wild and bereft, alone and discarded, was a much easier way to live than to go through the pain, the torment, and the agony all over again. But then, here he was, entangled in suns and luminous beams, carved and sculpted once more – unbeknownst to him, a gradual sensation, when curiosity and intrigue molded and cast new wares upon his skin. Valor hung there now, bright, vivid, and stark, embedded in his ribcage. Stalwart conviction settled into his skull, when it’d been previously abandoned, sullied into irreverence and sedition, a spread of insurrection, a balm of antipathy and ruin. Love, love, love had somehow woven itself so precariously on the depths of his heart that he’d been stunned to find it there – and then returned. He was a beast. He was a fiend. He was a ghoulish, grim thing settled upon the dirt, sod, ash, and dust to enact vengeance, justice, and violence, vehemence was his king, vitriol was his maker, but somewhere in between he’d stumbled on another path, traced a trail he hadn’t embarked upon before. Then he kept going, going, going, sketching the foundation with his feet and fingers, drawing a sword, then putting it back; no danger, no treachery, no disaster on the other side. He’d seen galaxies and stars, heavens and light. It was devotion, affection, and acceptance, pressing in on his chest, on his bones, on his heart, and he’d struggled to understand. But he took it too – held it aloft for his piercing eyes to witness, to watch, to comprehend – savored and relished and revered as best he could. Is it enough? he’d wondered, he’d pondered, he’d waited, patient, composed again while he smoldered and wanted underneath; so strange, so bizarre, for him to yearn for anything other than bloodshed and ruin, devastation and annihilation. Am I enough for her? The air was charged and electric, tension looming, and his eyes skimmed back over to her, brow arched, simply watching, waiting, letting her come to him. It was anticipation, it was suspense, it was the great, gaping unknown, voracity holding them together, breathless and tender. It was need, it was want, it was desire, it was the inferno incited, coiled, and contorted within all of them, but he was still, he was silent, he was a part of the molten earth. Her eyes seemed hypnotized and spellbound, as if he was the alluring, beguiling thing now, instead of the other way around – and he allowed her to see, every inch of the follies, the mishaps, the scars, and the flesh they sit upon, raw and human and mortal, real and complex and contradictory surfaces; her breath hitched, and he clenched his jaw. The Reaper was the epitome of control, but only just so now, because he could have easily reached and skimmed over the rush of her skin, the smooth conjectures of her collar bone, tongue and teeth at her neck or mouth on hers, then everywhere else. He was fire too, he remembered, as it surged along his blood, in his ichor, threading through every damned armament. The ice was not returning, not here, not now, not in these feral, wild, untamed, savage little moments; he eased a breath but wasn’t sure how, taut, rigid, bound. His fingers inclined over her wet tunic, something he presumed was happenstance, nothing fortuitous, and it could be draped along stones so it’d be dry by the time they left. Instead, a panicked no scraped and lashed its way through the tension, through the sultry ether, and his hands resisted, pulled away, feet backing along the shoreline as if he’d been bit. One brow arched, ready to ask, inquire, or ignore; he wasn’t sure what was occurring, muddled, bewildered, something he’d missed while drenched in lustful thoughts. She used it as a shield, like armor, and he didn’t know where he’d erred – Then her face was at his chest, in all its marred glory, cheeks blushing, flushed, eyes raking down his form once more. The titan stood there, a readied canvas and portrait of crusade tales, magnificent glories, and barbaric, twisted disasters, waiting, waiting, waiting, forgetting to breathe. Oblivious most of the time to attention, since he usually avoided it, he was not quite used to the notion of another treating him as anything other than flawed; but her eyes, when she finally turned upwards, were reverent, sable depictions: avaricious, hungry, ravenous lines and hues. He wondered why they both starved themselves. Her breath billowed and fanned against his form, and it was a mercy he didn’t groan right then and there, remaining perfectly upright and immobile, despite every nuance, every thought battering against his brain. He wanted to reach out, expose, cherish, take, caress, love, sully; the contradictions kept him collected, but only just. One word, one needy, permissive statement, and he’d be gone, straight over the precipice – But there was an echo there, a reverberation behind the unholy, sizzling, smoldering demands, and he laughed, broke over the silence with a warm chuckle. “I have been in a lot of battles.” What did she want then – to trace them, light fingers ghosting on skin? To know their backgrounds? To justify their means and measures? Out of sight and out of mind Make everything alright So let the sky and sea collide Just not in our lifetime