08-27-2018, 02:10 AM
Vulgaris
He wonders if she would be angry to know he was a father before he knew her. Are his sins any less if he swore she would be the last, though? Shame covers him like a cloak and he finds himself avoiding her eyes at the thought of how many children he’s senselessly fathered. Nothing ever filled up all that empty inside him and his heart is still as dark as they day he first killed. Still, there is a pinprick of light left in there for Leliana to tear wide open like curtains in an abandoned house. Every part of him wants her to kiss him like it’ll baptize him, like her love is going to wash him clean and make him whole again.
(How could he ever be whole when he’s given away so many pieces of himself?)
She says his name like a hymn and already he’s resting in the palm of her hand, hers to crush or keep as she pleases. Dreams of filth and infernal tongues flood his mind but he pushes them under for now. His angel (his, always and forever his) replies that she is alone. Vulgaris wants to coil around her warmth and keep it all for himself like the greedy monster he is. Her question almost startles him though and he looks her in the eyes now when he answers her.
“I’m always alone when you’re not near,” he says in a voice that is just breaths above a whisper. It isn’t clear whether or not he means it but he doesn’t hide from her gaze either. Lying is a second language for him that he slips in and out of so fluidly, after all.
His eyes, suddenly vibrant and alive, watch her wings change to mimic the scales across his face and torso. How could she possibly be drawn to something so vile as him? How could someone so divine every willingly carry his child? A slow sigh escapes from him as he steps closer to her before he reaches out to gently rest his lips on the side of her neck. Just beneath his kiss, he can feel her pulse softly racing through her veins. The hunger does not come. All is quiet within his mind as he breathes her in.
"Why am I so strong and so weak around you?"
He doesn’t quite admit his defeat aloud but he does resign himself to his fate as he leans further against her. Their chests press tight together so he can trace his lips over the places on her shoulder where he’d dragged his teeth across before. God, he'd tasted every inch of her she was willing to give. Vulgaris expected angry scabs and rough wounds to memorialize that night but he finds only more perfection beneath his eager lips. The four letter word surfaces in his mind but he crushes it before it can blossom in his heart. Not yet, not when she doesn’t know him for what he really is.
He knows that she’ll leave on that day. Leliana will turn and walk away from everything he has to offer and he’ll be left alone in that abandoned house once again.