synflux | [closed] we shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us

[ friendly. do you want her to touch your cheek again big boy. ]

So? No one's born an artist. Come on, it'll be fun! Unless you wanna let me show you how colorful the world can be another way?

[No fucking comment.]

And what would be another way.

I could do what I've been wanting to do since you stepped in.

[ ... ]

...

[doing the]

[math lady meme what could this mean. bothering him? already doing that. touching his face? maybe touching? tttttttttttttttouching?]

[can he stop thinking about touching? fucking Hell]

What would that be...?

Something that isn't so bad.

[ yes, touching. his hands mostly... she's taking them. ]

I think you'd make something beautiful with these, if you wanted to.

[Ah.]

[So it was touching.]

[Her hands are small compared to his. His are grizzled, with the weight of time etched so drastically into his skin.]

[His fingertips curl only a fraction around hers, feeling an odd sort of warm feeling in his throat.]

...I tried, once. [He says, quietly.] But I've given up on such endeavors.

You can always try again.

[ there's nothing wrong with that, gaze turning down to their hands. she traces the scars and lines, time making its mark in the roughness of stone. it feels delightful, and she turns his hand over to lay against hers in invitation. ]

You can always try again, and again, and again until it sticks, until you make it stick. I know it sounds stupid, but something's only over once you give up on it.

[His hand has prominent veins - they shift only slightly under the sallow skin as she moves his hand, and he keeps it there, his thumb gently shifting against the side of hers.]

[The warm feeling falls like a stone into his stomach, though, that familiar, nauseous sense of despair welling up inside of him.]

[His gaze falls.]

I can't. I can't, Malkuth.

[ it feels nice, it reminds her of the gentle brush against her wrist, and she glances at him. he looks miserable and smaller than normal, to her. ]

Why not, Vergilius? And give me a real reason, not repetition. Honesty for honesty.

...

[He wants to bury his face in his own hands, but the hands she has feel like they're kept there, caged to her grip. He's powerful. And yet why does this make him feel so weak?]

[He heaves a sigh. His heart flutters in his chest, like a restless bird.]

I've lost...too much.

And you don't want to risk losing more.

[ a gentle squeeze. not that he will lose it, but the risk is above the reward.

... it is one thing she can't say she fully understands the aftermath of, since there was always a second path to go to the same end, but... now, here, she does get it. it's why she doesn't spend time with yesod and netzach. it's why she's keeping mum to all but two of the people she knows. it hurts, and it's lonely, but it's better this way.

it is. it has to be. ]

I won't force you. [ she knows you can't. ] But will you enjoy yourself a little bit in the moment? It doesn't have to be anything serious, but... I do like this.

[ touching him. talking to him. the back of her neck warming, eyes glancing down again. ]

[...]

[He does like this too, and that's the whole damn problem. Every time he tries his best to step away. Every time he takes his sword to try to snip away the connections, keep distant, be the good Fixer who has learned his lesson.]

[He hates this.]

[He loves this.]

[He's never wanted to pull out his own humanity so badly, because its devastating, how many times he falters. He always will. His eternal weakness, his forever bleeding heart.]

[He murmurs under his breath, feeling sick.]

Why does this heart not work like I want it to...?

[Why....why.....why?]

[He settles back in reality for a moment. Her hands in his. He squeezes them...gently, gently.]

It feels like...I shouldn't. But I...

[A start, stop. A start again. The words crack, hoarsely, like the stairs in an abandoned home.]

I do...like it. Too.

[ it's a slow sort of thing, uneasy in the way he seems to tread it, and she keeps her words close -- because even the most damaged heart wants more, or at least wants to deserve more even if that "more" is violent -- and lets him go, step by creaking step, down the stairs of his abandoned desires.

she'll meet him at the door. ]

... I thought you might.

[ from the way he's been delicate, how he can't help but be with her. how it wasn't bad. someone who didn't like it might be rougher, might pull away. he hasn't. ]

I remembered dancing with you. [ finally. she clears her throat, their hands are literally so interesting. ] It was, um. Nice. Being held like that.

You remember that, huh.

[Which is a bit of a surprise, given what states of inebriation they were in, but he thinks even if he was drunk, it would burn into the recesses of his mind like candlelight at the back of a cave.]

[He's been sitting in the darkness for too long. He thinks he deserves to be there.]

[He asks, his voice almost a whisper.]

Would you want it again?

[He can't ask for it for himself. Like a vampire, he must wait for someone to invite him in.]

[He can't do anything for himself.]

[He's been too selfish. What a nasty worm it is. Even if he can't love himself, he still wants that light more than he can handle.]

If you're willing to give it.

[ only if he wants to, too. her invitation, cheeks beginning to burn like the back of her neck, heart flipping as much as her stomach does. ]

[He retracts his hands slowly.]

[And then, slowly, with the subtle tremor of a bomb defuser trying to remember the feeling of old tools in his hands, reaches forward. He's careful. He's so careful. As if he will be burned by this firefly, this tainted angel.]

[He slides them across her waist, then to her back. And solidly pulls her into an embrace.]

[He remembers this happiness.]

[He remembers this despair.]

[Both wound him more than any weapon could.]

Edited 2024-04-09 21:22 (UTC)

[ the slowness makes her impatience worse. her hands itch, want to hurry him along, restless as she feels for it-- but she forces herself to still, her bitten grin the barest evidence of her eagerness and delight, and it's only once she's pulled close that she lets herself do the same.

slow, careful, just as he had, his larger hands leaving little fabric untouched in their wake compared to her own, she wraps her arms around his waist and rests against him with a soft exhale. solid and warmer than he'd ever like to believe.

comforting and easing the loneliness of her heart, distracted more by the way his arms swallow her whole.

a different kind of hug than kaito's desperate bid, and one asked for -- not heat of the moment, paired with a smile that fumbles her words. malkuth leans her head on him, closing her eyes. yeah, it's just like then. except she'd struggled to reach up over his shoulders, he'd... leaned down, voice so low the thought of it (though the words escape her, the volume does not) sends a shiver through her and she hums.

content. that's a good word for this, contrast to vergilius's own hateful discomfort of himself. ]

[How many people had embraced him like this? And how many had he failed? Likely the same number.]

[He lays her head against him. His heart beats furtively under the surface, as if its ticking out a melody for her, and her alone. Look, it tells her. Even this monster has a heart.]

[Things would be so much easier if he didn't. Why was he born with this curse? He was made to bring suffering and suffer for it. Even so, he keeps making the same mistakes. He can never escape himself.]

[He lets out a sigh, shivering from the core of warmth she holds against him, and like a creature who only knew the cold he shifts in even more. His hand trails along her back, up her spine, over the nape of her neck.]

[He has the image of a fox nestling against a wolf and putting its head within its jaws.]

[It would be easy to bite.]

[But he doesn't.]

Edited 2024-04-09 23:22 (UTC)

[ she'd probably deserve it for letting her guard down so easily around him so often, even knowing he has an issue with her workplace. but that's that, and this is this; at least he seems to understand that better than others.

still, the hand that trails up marks with it a path she won't soon forget, heart stuttering and arms squeezing tighter around him. ]

Do that again. It felt good.

[ indulge her more... ]

[That is that, this is this. Roland, who worked for the Library after that blood-filled night. Gebura, who he thought long dead. A woman in charge of it all. The sorrow that came in the form of a snake-like woman in purple and her monstrous companion.]

[He wishes he hated Malkuth for her association with all that. Truly hated her.]

[But he can't.]

[Even Nanseul, after what he had done...he couldn't.]

[This so-called cold machine of a Fixer, and all he has done is let people be themselves, run him over, use him, and he's allowed it. He deserves it. This misery (this happiness, he's happy, he's so happy) now, he deserves it, too, right?]

[She squeezes him, asks for more. He concedes to her, and does it again, dropping it down before rubbing upwards, letting his gnarled fingers brush up and over her scalp, petting through her hair.]

[He whispers once more.]

Is it good...?

Mmm... Mmhmm.

[ different than march playing with her hair. it has more intent, makes her tilt up into it not unlike the small animal he'd pegged her as today. ]

I've never had anyone touch me like this before, so it's... really good.

[ a little bit of a sigh, there. ]

Never...?

[And yet...she is asking this from him? The man who's killed so many?]

[He leans in a little - his heart feels like a motor, unable to stop its pace - to place his chin against the top of her head. She can probably hear the sigh through his lungs as his fingers scrape up to behind her ear.]

Not in a single life?

[ -- oh, that feels... she understands what march means when she calls things intimate and the like; where malkuth can hear the sigh flow through his body, his heart as constant as a motor, vergilius can feel the warmth beneath his hand as she shakes her head. half a nuzzle because of it, clearing her throat in hopes it unleadens her tongue.

how her head can feel so light and the rest of her not is beyond her. but that's certainly the case, pulse quick just below her jaw and hands tightening into the fabric of vergilius's clothes. they've been tight, she realizes -- she doesn't know when they started to clench, but now she's aware of it. ]

N-No... not a one. I was... too busy with studying and stuff in my first, and... the person I liked looked past me then, too.

[ and vergilius had wondered who ever could, though malkuth didn't know he had wondered that at all. ]

It wasn't on my mind in my second one. [ she couldn't have enjoyed it anyway. ] And... in this one, I'm close with my coworkers-- but not like this.

[ though she could imagine that hod would like to play with her hair, the way march did. malkuth wished she had her friend's hair, too. ]

[Not like this, she says. People (or rather, a person) looked her over.]

[In the arms of a Color, seeking more.]

[She's so close to him now, to his chest, that he almost feels they could melt together for a second. He had written her off in the beginning, but after their drunken nights and further talked, in some ways they were too different and too similar. Moving forward, following the flow.]

[Is this his flow?]

[It reminds him of the voice. It felt like an embrace. Like she had known him intimately, every thought, every decision. He was so small compared to here.]

[He doesn't know how big he should feel, here. His own head moved, his chin brushing into her head.]

Are you uncomfortable?

[He remembers her flying away, then. The touch of her hands lingering on his cheeks.]

[Maybe this is too far, for both of them.]

No.

[ it's the total opposite, really. malkuth looks up, propping her chin on his chest with a small, sheepish smile. she swallows hard, shaking her head again. ]

I'm really not. It's... um, embarrassing actually, but it's kind of thrilling.

[ hushed, like a secret. being held close and caressed like this. it's something she... shouldn't have a right to, really. or didn't think she would have a right to. just like architecture, just like building something that would shape the people of the City -- dreams and fantasies, spoken of like they could be reality when really, really, they never would be.

that's sort of what this feels like, except it's tangible and allowed.

for some reason, he's allowed it. it's almost like catching the edge of a ship in a storm. ]

Are... you uncomfortable? We can stop. I'm being selfish anyway.

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