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For all of the selfishness you have shown, it is the way that he quiets as your body tenses, stiffens against the ill-placed joke that you withdraw into quietness, refusing to allow him to see just how his words had put you on edge, how they had hurt you. You had already been unsure, already wanted to leave those walls that could protect you, could condemn you—wanted to leave those faces in your head that would be like strangers if they knew, if you told them, sought them out, wanted to leave the possibility of him finding you again (knowing your strength would fail, knowing just how vulnerable your heart remains). You had been ready to try to run from these things that you are not brave enough to face on your own. But that is the trouble of running from ghosts, a truth that you have been hiding from just as fervently as you had run since the day you found your brother’s broken body: it has only left you more alone. It is not any of this, however; not your fear of being found, not of becoming a pariah among those that you would have called family. It is that leaving, running, hiding, would mean losing him, too. “You haven’t.” A smile then, for once as unsure as you feel, stretched thin and bare despite the humor that you intended, though the words are all too heavy to entirely mask the truth, the tinge of something like bitterness, in them. He had not, not even when you had asked him to (he is the only one that you would not run from, in all of the things that you have tried to leave behind, the only one, the only one—).
‘Throwing me a double-edged sword, are you?’ He pulls you, tired and worn, from your thoughts, eyes blinking as the words process slowly. “No,” your brows knit together, a breath punctuating the silence that falls between the two of you then, heavy and waiting. “Not intentionally, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—“ But you did. You had asked to learn of what, if any, ties he has to you, if you are being a fool in keeping him so dangerously close to your heart crafted of glass. The words that come next tense your muscles, set your teeth to chewing nervously on the inside of your lips, your cheeks. ‘I would never take you—against your will—’ Your teeth clench down on flesh, wincing as pain floods your mouth, the taste of blood stark against your tongue, the dryness of your throat. You are frozen against him, however, too terrified of what is going on in his mind to even hazard a guess, too afraid that you have messed everything up, pushed him too far, asked for too much; you try your best to not listen as he inhales to speak— ‘I am a wanderer by nature, I suppose. I’ve pledged myself to a herd, but my heart’s wanderlust has proved far more of a temptress than I had thought.’ Does he forget that you know him? That you have seen the infinities traced within his jaded eyes, eyes that could swallow stars, galaxies, universes (what hope would you ever have?), the promise of the adventure of the unknown, the wildness that governs his heart, something that had always drawn you to him? Does he forget that, with merely a word, you would have fallen to the same whims, same dreams and thoughts and hopes, if only to know his world, him, more than his elusiveness would allow. Does he even know?
‘The Edge will be good for me though, I suppose.’ You shift against him as the but drips from his lips, your heart in knots and stomach in a whirl as what must be only seconds seems to stretch for eternity, your anxiety growing, growing until it feels like you may burst, wishing to speak but choking on your cowardice as you glance upwards towards that face, that face, that face that you have seen a hundred times and yet every time you look at it something new, something beautiful is there to take you by surprise. You nearly laugh as he says no, nearly fall back to the tears that have been gone and dry as he smiles, reaching to place a tender kiss upon the arch of his brow as something warm, something that you didn’t realize you needed creeps back in to your soul. For all of his hesitation, all of your fear, it is impossible to deny the relief as your lips move from his flesh, smile deepening. “Nor I you,” it is a whisper as you pull from him further, eyes lifting from beneath thick lashes to catch his gaze once more, unfaltering, unflinching.
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like punching in a dream, breathing life into a nightmare
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[P] you'll never be what is in your heart
