and let me crawl inside your veins. I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain.

She has avoided Pangea, and him, since she was last here.

Other than the brief glimpse of him in the war-torn shadows and smoke of Tephra, she has not seen him, and she has not dared to consider seeking him out. She was not ignorant to the strange emotions that had been stirred to the surface last time, but she has chosen to bury them. And bury them she did. She buried them beneath the worry for Ophanim’s injuries, she buried them beneath the distraction of raising her son, and she buried them beneath the brewing disagreement between Loess and Sylva. It was ridiculous to even think on it, and thankfully, she was well versed in the art of suppressing anything that ventured beyond surface-lust or mere entertainment purposes. She would stay away, until whatever she had dared to begin to feel faded away.

And so when she enters Pangea, her face is already one of carefully crafted detachment. The surface of her cobalt-blue eyes remain cool and still, hardly bothering to glance at her surroundings. She is not entirely sure what has driven her here, today in particular. She just knows that she has been quiet for far too long. When she had awoken this morning there had been that familiar feeling of unrest; something that she had not felt in a long while. She had ignored it most of the day, ignored the way it settled like lead in her gut. It simmered just beneath the surface, threatening to boil over the brim, until she decided she could not deny her need to get out of Loess any longer.

Darkness had not quite fallen, and the constellations that decorated her sides glowed dimly in the fading light. She does not call for him, and does not actively look for him. There is something eerily hushed in the way that she slips through the flickering light and stretching shadows, and when her gaze finally does settle on his familiar face, it is only a clandestine smile that flirts across the curve of her silver mouth. “Litotes,” is all she says to him, the gap between them continuing to shrink, although she offers nothing else beyond his name.

starsin

it’s not like me to be so mean. you’re all I wanted.
( just let me hold you Like a hostage. )

and let me crawl inside your veins. I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain.

Her entire life she has always felt like either not enough, or too much. Not enough softness, not enough kindness; too intense, too brash. She has fooled herself into thinking she doesn’t care, that no one else mattered. She could be alone, she could leave behind anything and anyone, and she would be fine. She didn’t need Ophanim, she tells herself, a useless chant that she tries desperately to carve into her heart where forgiveness had once been written. He had them; he had so many of them. And all she had was herself, just as it should have been, just as she should have kept it.

And little by little she can feel parts of that foolhardy strength beginning to wear away. Every time she is wronged, every time her already fragile trust in someone is cast carelessly aside, she loses a little bit more of her resolve. But she doesn’t know how to completely fall apart. She only knows how to steel herself, and how to dig deep beneath the hurt and the sorrow and pull all her anger and cruelty to the surface.

She feels betrayed over all of Ophanim’s countless children when she had explicitly voiced how it made her feel; she feels humiliated for believing that he loved her more than anyone else. Almost losing him had briefly overshadowed all her hurt and insecurity, but it had only lasted for so long.

She was still livid over what had taken place in Sylva with Vadar, but if she had learned anything from the situation it was to not expect anything genuine from anyone ever again, and revenge was best kept as just revenge. 

She doesn’t know how she expects coming to Pangea to fix it.
Or maybe she comes just to see how fast she can burn herself to the ground.

It catches her off guard when his chest is against hers, and something in her masked persona almost falters when it makes her skin flush hot. She hears it, that fleeting want in his head, just like last time, but this time she is ready for it. When he steps back she follows, almost predator like when she is pressed against him again, her soft lips hovering near his skin when she says, “We both know it’s not a secret.” 

The way her mouth finds his neck leaves no question to why she is here, and she ignores every warning that tried to remind her what happened last time she had tread down this dangerous path. Her manipulations had been spun and twisted on her,  and she had been left feeling used and filled with all regret and no satisfaction.  She can’t promise herself that when morning breaks that she won’t regret this either, but knows there is only one way to find out. 

starsin

it’s not like me to be so mean. you’re all I wanted.
( just let me hold you Like a hostage. )

and let me crawl inside your veins. I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain.

To say that she has always known they would eventually be in this position, in this spot, in this moment, would mean admitting to something she wasn’t ready to admit. She loved Ophanim more than she could ever love anyone or anything, but Litotes had worked his way under her skin from the first time they had met. He had sparked something in her that she had not been expecting, and it made her usual cons and tricks nearly useless. He saw through her guise, beyond her frigid exterior and seemingly into the core of her. There was something so inexplicably easy in knowing that she didn’t have to pretend to be anything other than what she was with him; he didn’t chastise her for her mean streak, he didn’t find her fake when she was kind. It had made their friendship both incredibly effortless, and simultaneously impossible. Impossible to not want to see what was there, if she were to just take it a small step further.

That small step, but it was more like stumbling off a ledge.

When he touches her back, when his mouth caresses against her star-studded skin and along the arch of her neck, it’s all that it takes to send her over. The rush of his thoughts – want and lust and the twisted, tangle of everything else – combined with the intense desire that his touch elicits causes a shudder to travel the length of her spine, and her lips find his shoulder. Somewhere in the back of her mind she thinks of Ophanim, and how sleeping with someone else will not make up for all the times he has done the same, that it will not make his other children disappear, and it will not make her feel any less betrayed. But the back of her mind is cloaked in shadow, and when she caves into her own selfish wants, there is nothing but her and Lie tonight.

Her dark blue eyes close at the sound of his voice in her ear, and any arrogant remark that she would have normally made completely dies before it ever has the chance to be a coherent thought. She can tell herself over and over that this is part of the game; she can carve it across her heart until she falsely believes it, but she knows – they both know – that it would be a lie. She knows that there is nothing that she can say in response, and so she says nothing, but instead just leans into him when his mouth trails down her face. When she tilts her head, just barely, it is only so her lips can caress the silver snowflakes that lace the side of his mouth, and when she breaks contact for just a moment she whispers, “We only have tonight.” Not a threat, and not a warning, but rather an understanding between the two of them that this was the only chance they would ever get.

starsin

it’s not like me to be so mean. you’re all I wanted.
( just let me hold you Like a hostage. )

and let me crawl inside your veins. I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain.

She can hear every broken thought he has, and each one is like a barb wedging its way inside of her chest, because there’s nothing she can say to him. She doesn’t understand how they came to this, but it had never been her intention. It would have been so much easier, for both of them, if they never would have let those first seedlings of real feelings to be planted. She had starved and neglected hers, waiting for them to shrivel and wilt and die, but they never did. And so what she was left with is some half-grown thing that liked to flare up whenever she saw him; sometimes all it took was a passing thought in his head, other times it was a glance that they shared. Whatever it was, it was there, and no matter how far she buried it down, it always clawed its way back to the surface.

She tells herself this is a mistake, but that part of her heart that calls to his refuses to believe it.

He twists himself around her, and she lets him, until they are a tangle of pale gold and glowing stars. His touch trails across every inch, and she can feel her breath catching in her throat, can feel her heart beating erratically in her chest. But the sweetness behind them is what catches her off guard the most; she knew they wanted each other, she wasn’t blind to the sexual tension that had been building between since they had met. But apart of her thinks how much easier it would have been to detach herself from him after this if she couldn’t feel how genuine each kiss that he laid against her was; if she couldn’t hear every promise he made. Piece by piece, she could feel herself splintering apart.

Her body shudders when she presses into him, her teeth and lips finding his skin – his neck and shoulder, her touch sweet but insistent, with breathy moans fanning across him as his touch ventures further past her hip. Her silver lips slide down the curve of his flank, so close to the underside of his barrel, before his question drags her back to a semi-reality. She presses her forehead against his side, her dark blue eyes closing as she confesses in a voice so soft it almost doesn’t sound like her – she is stripped and bare before him, so much of her fierceness having fallen and faded until she was just the girl that was so desperate to feel like someone loved her, because she is still so sure Ophanim does not. “You,” is all she says at first, her eyes still closed as her heart pounds in her chest, before whispering, “I just want you.”

starsin

it’s not like me to be so mean. you’re all I wanted.
( just let me hold you Like a hostage. )

and let me crawl inside your veins. I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain.

She has learned to play many roles in her life, but being herself had always been what she struggled with the most. Somehow, she had given up her charades with Lie long ago, and even though it was nothing new for her to not feel like she needed to play a part around him, there was still this strange sensation that this was the most naked she has ever been. Maybe because they are, finally, no longer pretending that they don’t want each other; maybe because she is no longer pulling away at the smallest sign that things were about to go too far, because as he kisses the back of her leg, she knows they are already there.

He breathes her name and something about the sound sends a shiver racing up her back, and the feel of his shadows coiling around her throat causes her heart to jump. She can feel her breath quickening when he touches her, and a combination of his touch and the shadows tightening around her neck thickens the light-headed fog that she was already lost in. “Lie,” she manages to gasp, pressing herself into him. Her body begins to quiver uncontrollably, her breathless moans becoming more urgent, and she can feel herself getting so, so close, until he suddenly stops.

Knees weak and trembling, she doesn’t resist when he drags her closer, his teeth scraping her skin and forcing something like a cry and a moan from her mouth. She wishes, for once, that he could read her mind. That he could read how desperately she wants him, that he could hear the way she is pleading in all the ways her body and voice can’t. But even without it, she knows that he can read her, plain as day. Her star-studded body is still pressing needily back into his, her skin is quivering everywhere his teeth and lips land, and her voice is tremulous and breathless when she says, “Yes,” just one word at first, but it is filled with a wanting ache. “I need you…” Her voice trails off for a moment, trying to keep the desperation at bay, but with a tilt of her silver head her intense blue eyes find his, and there is a plea so clearly written there when she says, “I need you to show me you’ve been wanting me as badly as I’ve wanted you.”

starsin

it’s not like me to be so mean. you’re all I wanted.
( just let me hold you Like a hostage. )