[private] ive never fallen from quite this high | aegean

[Pteron]

and since you’re the only one that matters,----------------
----------------tell me: who do i run to?

His heartbeat grows louder with each step Aegean takes. By the time he is close enough to touch, the sound of it drowns out everything else. It quiets – the whole world does – when their lips meet. Always before, Pteron has been the bold one, taking caresses that he thought asked for only later. This time, he accepts only what he is given.

“I do not think I can make it up to you,” Pteron breathes against the coolness of Aegean’s neck. “But if you will let me, I will try.”

The how of that trying is somehow a blurry thing for all that he means it. Pteron has been taught to be careful with his words, knows of the danger that a promise can hold in a world of magic. He knows, but he also knows that anything Aegean requested he would do without question. He can see Aegean even with his eyes closed, Pteron finds, the everglow of his coat bright even against closed eyelids. He smiles, his mouth curling upward. This close, Aegean smells of creeks and meadows and autumn leaves, like everywhere and nowhere all at once.

He knows that the antlered creature calls no place his home, though Pteron cannot help but think of him as from Silver Cove, where he’d first made eye contact with the boy across the beach. His antlers had been smaller than, Pteron thinks, and amends with a smile his earlier thought Aeagean hadn’t changed. He had – the span of his antlers is far more impressive. Pteron reaches up closer to them at the thought. Will he lose them in the winter, Pteron wonders? Does he shed them each year like the deer and regrow them afresh? Their days together in the past had been spaced so far apart that he’s never even thought of it. He will know soon, Pteron thinks, he will be there to see.

“But even if you won’t, you will find that I am very hard to get rid of. I do not plan on letting you out of my sight again.”

-- pteron --

@[aegean]