(SE) when the nighttime comes, say yes

SUNJATA

i'm drowning in all these voices in the sea
and meeting all my vices in the ring

She faces him fully, and he pauses, falters and stops like a pillar – watching as she raises her chin to draw the line between them, and he finds that shade within his heart, within his mind, the dark recesses that helped keep him wearing the mask he had when she’d stumbled upon him. But she knows too much now, knows the darkness that swarms around his heart – not all of it, never quite all of it – but enough that she could use it in one way.

Like everyone had, in some way.

And it hurts, in his weakness, in letting her grow close enough to feel the curves of her willowy body against his muscled one, that kept him talking despite knowing when it was time to keep his mouth shut. Perhaps he was the monster that everyone told him he was, the Flood that’s returned but under the darker swaths and shades of a raging river. Sinking deeper and deeper like an anchor, swept away and forgotten long after his use was fulfilled.

He doesn’t know what he wants her to say, but he wants her to say something, to give him something to work with if he can’t touch her, can’t hold her again. His mouth opens to say something when she moves to the shade of a tree, but before he can get a word out, the feather reaches the back of his throat and he turns from her half way as his exhaustion and overexertion catch up, causing that deep sound of a serious of coughs to leave him.

When he’s recovered enough, he runs another hand through his hair and looks back at her, rasping for breath. “Anything.” He admits, voice equally as haunted as his gaze where not long ago she had lit them up.

so step inside, i ain't afraid to bleed
there ain't a casket strong enough for me