firing across the sky [OPEN]

a s h e Ashe’s eyes dipped shut with his fingers moving through her damp hair, her limbs feeling heavy as she shifted enough for her hands to rest over his chest. She could hear his heartbeat thrum with the rain, thunder punctuating the rhythm as she settled further into him. Instinct maybe, or an overall lack of will to strangle down her the hunger for touch that wasn’t meant to hurt. Depriving herself of company was taking a worse toll than she thought, as she couldn’t stop the shudder at such a familiar and normal thing like someone holding her. Kalt holding her. Fire blue eyes blinked open as his voice rolled from his chest, soft and rumbling, and she watched the rain against the warped glass of the window. Since he was twelve… years before she ever even got to the Guild. She breathed carefully around the tingling pulses in her blood, sending everything around her into a spin with every beat of her heart. She shut her eyes briefly, and it seemed it was more instinct than anything for her to turn her head against him for the shortest of moments. Breathing him in.. After some particularly bad punishments. They both bore the deep scars of what defiance in the Guild earned. Her eyes pulled open as she felt him shift slightly, and she looked up in time to meet the crystalline stare he leveled down at her, just as his hand brushed her cheek. She was caught, hardly able to quite process what it was that clenched painfully in her chest with this. She understood he held her, that he hadn’t ever betrayed her. Right then, a little drunk and the storm crashing outsight the temple, she didn’t particularly want to think beyond the warmth holding her or the words he said. He told me to save you. Ashe couldn’t move, suddenly. Couldn’t breathe. She’d known the Guild didn’t have a healer when she’d first been sold to their Master. She’d always assumed he brought a healer in, likely eliminated them after, had nothing considered he sourced her healing internally. Never considered Kalt. She was entirely frozen as she considered it, what he said. Hadn’t she just been wondering how much better the world would have been if she had just frozen to death in that snowdrift, if her father had just been a little bit too late in finding her? Thunder rolled after a flash, and Ashe shivered as she broke her wide eyes away from him. She felt it, something overwhelming swelling in her chest and filling her gaze, blurring her vision. The assassin caved in on herself from where she sat against Kalt, but she could not resist the gentle easing of his fingers through her hair. Her eyes flickered shut again, and maybe it was the alcohol, but she let out a long and shaking breath as she curled further into him. She near melted with the gentle kiss to her head. Everything was heavy, and when she opened her eyes the ceiling and rafters were wobbling and tilting around her. She certainly couldn’t deny her mother made good wine. ”The only reason I know kindness, joy...love...is because you showed me.” Ashe sucked in a sharp breath as something powerful cracked in her chest, and she swore it drowned out the lightning and thunder that crashed outside the temple. Her eyes opened, brows pulling together, and gods she couldn’t even think. Joy. Love. Her lip trembled and she shook her head, and she ended up biting down on a numb bottom lip until she tasted hot blood spilling onto her tongue, keeping the flood from her eyes at bay. She turned her face into him despite herself, taking a shuddering breath. She wasn’t sure if she was too drunk or not drunk enough. ”You’re wrong,” she said in a broken whisper, voice thick with unshed tears. ”I betrayed you, why don’t you fucking hate me?” Her hand curled into a fist over his chest and she squeezed her eyes shut. ”Why can’t everyone just fucking hate me? Then I could go and no one would be hurt, no one would have to be hurt by me anymore if they’d all just hate me, and I could just end -” Ashe cut herself off sharply with her eyes opening, staring out at the rain with misted, fractured eyes. ”There’s no light in me.”