She leans into the feel of his lips against her jaw, the way his nose settles against her cheek so she can feel the heat of his breath so warm against the damp copper of her skin. It feels dangerous to like this so much. The cedar smell of his skin, the rough and careful way he gives himself permission to memorize her face with more than just his eyes. It feels treacherous to trust him so immediately, so readily, but he has already given her more to believe in than anyone else she has ever come across. She doesn’t even remember to worry about how much more violent the loneliness will be when he finally goes until he steps away from her and the cold sweeps in to kiss her tingling skin.
“Nightlock?” His name is a jagged murmur, a worried sound even despite the way she tries to soften out those brittle edges. She knows it is better not to be so vulnerable, and more than she has to be with her bones outside her skin and bleeding all her beauty away. But she doesn’t understand why he is leaving so suddenly, not even when those dark, beautiful eyes settle with such weight against the tides of pale teal in her own.
She takes exactly one step towards him before she freezes again, hides the bruises that surface in her eyes before he can see them in the dwindling light of dusk. For a moment her nose extends to him, hangs between them like a question until he is finally gone. Then she fades a little, shadows shuttering the warmth from her eyes as she tucks her chin to her chest and tries to understand what went wrong.
The minutes pass in stumbling clusters, but all she feels aware of are the ones already long gone. The ones with the rumble of his words pressed to the soft, ragged wounds of her skin. The ones where he stood so close that she left little smudges of rust outlines against his grey dapples. He hadn’t seemed to mind, but then what does she know of anything.
She turns where she stands, looking out across the ocean as the final strands of gold light disappear on the furthest waves as though the day has been washed clean from the world. There is only black ocean and black sky and black shadows in-between. Except for the moon and the stars when they blink into view, all soft and milky white.
And her, of course.
Red and white and red some more, glowing like star plucked from the sky, and just as cold and lonely.
But then there is a sound, and though it is not the same as before, her heart is stumbling as she turns to look for him. She is certain no one else would come, no one else would know to find her here. But the shape that emerges into the milky glow of night is not one she immediately recognizes. This creature is nearly the embodiment of all her pain and strangeness, all bone and dark and stained with blood. And it is him, she would have known even if he hadn’t spoken, but the voice is the same. More hollow, maybe, the sound more free without lips to force them into their shapes. But still him.
An ear flicks back uncertainly, but then she’s moving forward to press gently against him again, ducking her nose to the spring of his ribs as she traces the shape with lips as soft as moth wings. “You’re like me.” She whispers, accepting this in an instant after only a beat of surprise, and it makes her realize how afraid she is of him in this form, how fragile he seems and how desperately she wants to keep him safe. It seems like the wind could kick up and sweep him aside, especially the littlest bones of those clattering wings.
She shifts backwards again, turning to trace her lips along the notches of his neck, dropping to the curve of his jaw with a gentleness that is almost moth-like. “Does it hurt you?” She wonders softly, tasting the metallic tang of his blood on her lips as she drops her face to rest cheek to cheek with him. It unsettles her to look at his face now - and it has nothing to do with the stained bone structure angled in her direction, it has been a long time since bone unsettled her - it is that, without those dark eyes and the play of muscles at his mouth, it is so hard to know what he is thinking when she whispers, “You scared me when you left like that.”
i am brambles but i am tangled in your love