[P] falling in love is hard on the knees

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends Gods bless her for how well she knew him, and how much they were the same; foolish and fearless and ready to fight. No small wonder, really, that they had nearly killed each other. They both had been born with kerosene instead of blood, and with matchstick hearts and tempers shorter than a fuse. It was not much of a stretch to look at Bexley Briar and picture her setting the city alight (again) on his behalf - and oh, Acton loved her for it. A shame that love had never been enough for anything. She knew him for a liar from their very first meeting (a summer night like this, bonfire-smudged, midnight-dark) and it is no surprise to him that she saw through him now. His show was more for others’ benefit, an audience whose eyes weren’t even on him but might turn, any moment, with a flash of blue. In the cacophony of the music and the dancing and the voices and the drink they are nothing, just two more bodies, disguised gold. Acton, even this close to her, does not note her terror - it has always looked so much like her rage or her want, and both of those things he knew well. He couldn’t help but smile when she spoke, even now. Even with pricks like a ruby necklace dried to scabs across his neck, with his sides scraped from a cold cave wall (the both of these disguised by his own illusion-magic). Acton even laughed, when she said when do we not. “So pragmatic,” he answered, light as though this was any other conversation. The scrape of her teeth grounded him; he pressed a shoulder against her chest, watched the way the candlelight glazed the edges of her bone mask in red. “It’s Raum,” he said, breathing the name out like a swear. And then a new worry blossoms like an inkstain in his heart (how can it hold so many? it isn’t made for it; surely it will burst) and he felt his spine tense, even as he fought to keep anything but pleasure from his face. “Is Apolonia here?” Surely Raum wouldn’t. Not when he was after bigger prizes, dearer blood. But the memory of the cave is still too close, and it is too easy to picture his body there, crumpled like cinders, dried ashes after the fire has been fed. @Bexley