to feel that we exist, even though in pain
♠︎ ♕ ♠︎
Later, when he thinks back on their encounter with a grin half-rueful and half-wanting, the thing that will make him pause (more than the butterflies, more than the way his heart had begun to beat like a drum on bonfire night, more than the smell of her, searing sun and melting gold and dust-and-bones) is the way she’d said his name. Supple with wonder and sincerity, silk sheet soft. How rare (he will think) to hear his name so spoken; how he wants to hear it again. That is the treasure he will take from this, then, one solitary piece of gold that leaves him like any gambler - desperate for more.
But that is later. Now they are still in the fairy-tale, or the god-dream, or whatever the island is. Now they are covered in butterflies that leave the dust of magic and color on their skin, the gold of them covered up in a rainbow of hues he’ll never see the like of. It tickles, it makes him want to laugh, it’s claustrophobic and strange, and he is glad he’s not alone.
And then he is. Or nearly is, anyway; when she steps back he looks at her for just a moment, and then shakes himself all over like a dog, big dumb loyal, and the butterflies scatter like water but not for long.
Don’t, she says, and before he can be contrary he shuts his mouth. Yet he does not nod, only stares at her (it should be ridiculous, to see her clothed in butterflies, but somehow it isn’t. No more ridiculous than a tryst between them would have been, here in the breathing jungle, all wet heat).
It’s still easy to smile, easy to say “Happy hunting.” Easy to watch her go, swallowed up by the impossible.
Harder to stand there alone, with a dumb boy’s grin crooked on his mouth, the world so quiet now he can hear the wings of his only companions beating and beating and beating but nothing at all like a heart.
@Bexley | <3
