He is so careful with her, and she tries not to notice for the way it stirs something so bright and fragile within the cage of her chest. But her skin comes alive beneath his gentle caress, and for once it is pleasure that flares someplace just below the surface, tiny electric jolts that gather in her eyes when they turn against his face with such soft fire burning inside. She inhales sharply, holds that breath for more years than she’s been alive, just watching him touch her like she’s someone worth knowing. Like he wants to touch her as much as she wants to be touched by him.
She can’t blink, can’t breathe, can’t move at all for fear that this moment will shatter and he’ll realize her strangeness. That he’ll look at her and wonder why she isn’t more like him, why there is still flesh beneath her bones and blood in the veins keeping her tied together. She is something in-between.
But then he’s stepping closer and pressed against her, and there is a sob trapped in her chest because he doesn’t seem to care that she is all wrong. Doesn’t seem to notice the way her blood stains his bones, the way she is not just soft and warm against him. That she is bone and bare and a tangle of antler along her armored brow. But she can tell that he does not see what she sees when he looks at her. That, by his gentleness, he might even think her to be something so soft and lovely. She wonders if she would see something different now, if when she wades back into the safe-haven of lapping waves, the face looking back up at her will be changed in some visible way.
He apologizes, and she is so distracted by the feel of his lips at her throat that the only acknowledgement she can give him is a hum of sound that vibrates beneath his wandering mouth. It makes her feel dizzy, feel hazy at the edges as she finally remembers how to make her body listen to the cacophony of her mind. “Don’t be sorry.” She says, and the words are so soft and so fragile and falling like snow from lips that tremble against the cold of them. For a heartbeat she wishes he were more than bone in this moment, wishes she could tuck against him and steal his warmth, could borrow touches from his lips while she explored the valleys and ridges of his soft, warm skin. “Can you feel me?” She wonders suddenly, those pale beautiful eyes flicking up to the ivory of his bare face, tracing the curve of each bone with a growing softness in her gentle expression.
He is truly so beautiful, all long slender ivory and a presence that is easy enough to read from the bearing of his bones. He is something that should be so fragile and vulnerable, but the longer she stands pressed against him, the more certain she feels that she must be wrong.
“Is it your choice?” She wonders in a murmur, recalling how he had gone from her and come back changed, how he had said he wanted to spare her that. It’s such a small thing, but his concern births warmth inside her chest and she is careful to duck her head against him gently so that he won’t see that affectionate smile that climbs across her lips. It’s too soon, too fast, too strange for her to feel so bonded to him, but everything inside her clamors to keep him close. But all she says so softly is, “I think I’d rather see everything than see you disappear again. It won’t change what I think of you.” A promise born too early and held uncertain between trembling hands.
i am brambles but i am tangled in your love