I was a poor boy; you were a bright light
I was a sinner and you were a snake
It was not lost on him, the humor of their situation. How often they had clashed from the very first moment and now they are carved from the antithesis of each other. How he wishes he could go back to that first meeting; how he would have warned that angry boy that he would only grow angrier. That she would erupt in flames and he would bury himself in ice and they would always—always—end up further apart than when they had started. They would never know peace in one another’s presence.
But the humor, for all of his knowing, does not make its way to his head, let alone his face.
He does not laugh. Does not share some spark of wit as he finds her looking at him. Instead he feels the keen edge of a pain he cannot name and he swallows hard, fighting against the emotions that so desperately press against him—demanding, always demanding, that he feels that which he’d ignore.
“Brinly,” her name is a razor blade on his tongue and it is a miracle he does not bleed out for saying it. Even acknowledging her is pain, he thinks, and he is not sure that he is brave enough to go another round with her. He cannot bear to watch her strip back his defenses so ruthlessly. To stand and feel her strike the points of him that are the most vulnerable. A muscle jumps in his jaw, a precursor to what is to come.
His stormy eyes sweep over her, taking in each new element of fire that coats her and when his gaze goes back to hers, he does not try to hide the distance that now gapes open between them.
“You look burnt,” he deadpans, finally, an uninspired response from an uninspired mouth. He strikes first, a viper backed into a corner although he is prey to his very core—easier to revert back to poisoned words than examine why she always makes him feel so vulnerable in the first place.
shook like some old souls when our bones broke
swallowed the sickness, a fever, a flame
