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

[aegean]

Aegean

I should have loved a thunderbird instead
at least when spring comes they roar back again

Aegean isn’t sure he understands Pteron—the idea of making it up to him. His sorrow had been a living thing, but there had been no one to bear the guilt of it. Instead it had manifested in his very marrow from the fabric of life, a response to the tides and the winds as much as any conscious decision. It had never occurred to him that he could assign responsibility to Pteron or make him bear the weight of it. That the other boy would perhaps be at fault for the heaviness in his lungs, the stone settled in his chest.

There is a flicker of that confusion across his face, but the ripples ease just as quickly.

Should Pteron want to try, then he would not stop him.

Instead, he loses himself in the gentleness of the moment—the way that the heat between them seems to fade into a whisper, although it makes it no less potent. It is a lingering feeling, something that demands it be felt in the quiet and in the lull. It isn’t a wildfire that overtakes them and razes everything in its path. It is not the destructiveness of a hurricane. It is the blooming of a spring flower. It is the gentle drizzle of a spring storm. It is constant and inevitable and perfect in every moment, in every breath, in everything.

“I have no desire to rid myself of you,” Aegean breathes as his lips trace Pteron’s face, finding the nooks and the crannies, memorizing the angles and the curves. Each piece is a new thing to discover and a new thing to learn—something to tuck away for later and indulge in now simultaneously. “I would gladly drink of these waters for the rest of my life. I would gladly spend all of my days right here, with you.”

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead
(I think I made you up inside my head.)