He tastes copper between his teeth and snarls, a low, rumbling sound that starts in his chest, his feet unsteady on the sands beneath them -- he stumbles easily beneath the full weight of his lover, has to catch himself to keep from falling, but still he stands with an arched neck and fire gleaming in his eye, muted as it may be. Small sparks tingle along his spine when Sam’s teeth scrape across the pulse point where he can’t see him, dancing in the blind spot offered by his missing eye, and his head twists so that he can grab at Sam’s mane and tug, just gentle enough not to rip out the hair, still enough to sting -- and when the topic of his mother is brought up, he falls still beneath his lover’s weight. “I ripped her throat out,” He affirms, and he chokes on the words, on the remembered taste of her blood -- the way it had curdled in his mouth, the crunch of her trachea between her teeth, the way she had gasped wetly for oxygen before she had finally fallen silent and still at his feet. “She -- I had to. It was the only way to stop her.” His voice breaks on his explanation, accompanied by a violent toss of his head as thought it might shake away the memories that haunted him, his gaze blank and staring into the distant past. He had burned down Zion, had probably killed countless civilians in the fires, but he had never taken a life by his own hand before he had ripped her throat out, had embraced the monster she had made him into, and his skin crawls every time he remembers. He had never wanted this, had never wanted to become her weapon, and as Sam reads off the litany of his sins, he wonders if he will ever be anything else. He shudders under the gentle touch, but for the first time in his life, he does not shy away from tenderness -- he leans into the touches like a man starved for affection, skin-hungry and aching for the absolution of Sam’s touch, wondering how the wolf can touch him so gently when he is the aftermath of violence; he is the bullet casing left behind on the floor, he is the hole punched into the wall, he is bloody knuckles and broken jaws-- And he is so goddamn tired of all of it, of living with rage breathing in his chest, of letting the wounds in his heart grow infected and rotten -- when his teeth brush the heart on Sam’s forehead, they are careful not to catch flesh, unsure of how to be gentle. “Teach me,” His voice is hoarse, trembling, but still the plea falls from his lips as his forehead presses against that dark heart, his eye closing and his body shaking. “If you would be my monster, if you would watch the bridges burn and hold the matches with me -- then teach me how not to be one. “ Above him, the vulture screams out in dissatisfaction. Around them, the world keeps turning, but he feels as though it has stopped. “I’m so tired of being the monster, Sam. Will you teach me how to be gentle, instead?” Teach me how to love you, his heart whispers, and isn’t sure whether his next breath is a laugh or a sob, muffled as it is in the curve of Sam’s neck. Teach me how to be worthy of you. |
@Jetsam
