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

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.

I don't think it's...embarrassing.

[Ugh. He doesn't know what to say. His words feel like lead. He's stuck in this quagmire. He wants more. He can't have more. The tug, the push and pull, like he's being stretched between two extremes.]

[He looks at her face, smiling so sweetly up at him, and feels weak.]

I...don't know. I don't...think I am.

[ ... but he doesn't seem to know, really, and malkuth wonders how she can help. maybe nothing. but it's her fault they're like this, he's like this, and she withdraws her hands to reach up around his neck, just like their "dance" proper. ]

You can do what you want, whatever it is. Even if it's stepping away, even if it's not. This isn't... it doesn't have to be a one day thing. I mean, it won't be.

[ which might sound more than it is, but, ]

I'd like to get used to this too, Vergilius. So... we can get used to it together.

[ there's no one better to ask than a similarly untouched individual after all, even if their circumstances are different as can be. ]

[Her hands wrap around his neck like that time on the dance floor, and he feels like they're liable to burn through his skin. She's lived many lives. He's nothing more than a ghost. She's saying such things that feel like the sweetest temptations. But he, the eternal sinner, what is this for?]

[What did he ever do?]

I don't....

[He starts, stops. The glimmer of his eyes looks a little watery, like a lantern at the bottom of a deep ocean.]

I don't. Deserve this.

Edited 2024-04-10 15:27 (UTC)

... And you think I do?

[ a little incredulously. she's lived many lives, and they'd all come to nothing good. there's a lot she's told him, and a lot more she hasn't. malkuth leaves one hand there as the other comes up to press into his cheek, wishing she could-- do something more, feeling like she's done too much. ]

We didn't manage anything in my first place. I spent my second killing those who hesitated, who weren't strong enough to face their job -- who couldn't handle being tormented, hurt, spending every day close to death -- and watching those who were suffer day after day after day from behind a screen, with a cheerful attitude and words of encouragement and advice on how best to disarm and dismember the ones that had rightfully gone mad. [ her voice, which had grown pained and rushed the more she spoke, as if impatient with herself, catches there and she bites her lip.

it's nothing she's proud of, but it is what happened. she won't shy from it. she speaks quieter. ] All the applicants were hopeful and desperate, just like I'd been. But they were just strings of numbers.

[ the ideal sephirah. how proud she'd been of that. ]

And now, in my third life, I'm still causing others to suffer. Even in the future, our actions continue to hurt the innocent. [ ishmael had made that clear enough. ] Do you think I deserve any of this either? Can't I want to anyway?

[He hears it. She talks about her sins. None of them are good people. He's known that about her in some sense, even if he's only got part of the story.]

[But just because she has her own blood-stained sea doesn't erase his own guilt. It's always been his failing. He lets himself be scarred, lets himself suffer, if that will even make an ounce up for the amount of wrong he's done.]

[No. Even as much as he insists, it still feels like his sins weigh greater on the scale. He failed those children. He failed his crew. She merely did the work of a corporation...]

You can. You can want and deserve it. I believe in...that. In you.

[He has no room to judge. He's not here to enact justice. Everyone does what they have to do in the City. But he...]

[He leans into that hand, almost involuntarily, but the sorrow in his eyes feels like an endless well.]

Then I can decide that you do too.

[ since he's out here deciding she can. she just wants to deserve it, wants to experience it, even if...

even if she really, really might not. ]

I believe you should. Even if you don't. Okay? You can't change my mind on that.

...

[He closes his eyes, with a sigh that betrays a sort of exhaustion he's built up for years.]

Why?

[Why do you believe I should?]

Because the City says otherwise.

[ simply that.

their group was a rebellion from the start. it continued to be. it grew into a tree no one could look away from, a stand against the vultures of the city, and while it hadn't struck the way it should have-- something changed, evident enough in the distortions, the e.g.o. that began to appear. they continued to rebel in their own way.

the methods weren't different in the end. use, kill, manipulate. but it wasn't aimed to keep people down the way the city does it. that, malkuth is certain of. ]

We aren't there, but it still tells us we can't. Isn't that unfair?

...It is unfair.

[If there's anything stronger than his feelings of self-hatred, it's how much he loathes the City. That place where not even innocent children can grow up without it pushing its darkness onto them. He wanted to uproot it. Part of him still wants it.]

[That horrible City, who makes people into monsters, in more ways than one...]

So this right now...it's an act of rebellion?

It is.

[ every bit is a form of it. if the city says they can't have something, doesn't deserve something, then doing the opposite is rebellion. even speaking up the way the blue reverberation had, violent as it was, by taking in the outcasts and desperate... was a kind of rebellion, even if she hates to admit it.

it went against the wishes of the city. that's all. so does the library. ]

Something like this isn't going to uproot that rotten City.

[He can't see it as rebellion. The Head isn't going to just drop dead from them embracing.]

Many people have sought this and died for it. In the end, the City takes it all away, Malkuth.

[Like that man in black, with tear-stained eyes behind a mask.]

[Is there even a point?]

Edited 2024-04-10 16:52 (UTC)

And is the City in the room with us right now?

[ it isn't. she strokes his cheek with her thumb. ]

It doesn't need to uproot it immediately. But it starts by uprooting ourselves. That's all I'm saying.

Malkuth....

[STOP STROKING HIS CHEEK HE'S TRYING TO DWELL ON HIS OWN TRAGEDY OF HUMANITY!!!!!!!!!!!]

I still don't see what it could do. Not like it could erase anything we've done.

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