rage is not beautiful.
it is the ugly head of a rabid animal
foaming at the mouth,
worms in its heart.
it is the ugly head of a rabid animal
foaming at the mouth,
worms in its heart.
Pilate clenches his jaw hard enough that Andras sees the muscles tense and does not realize that he’s doing the same until much later. He is so stubborn, the Warden thinks. He is so stubborn and selfish and beautiful and if I do not touch him or kiss him or kill him surely I will die instead.
Here is the difference between them: Andras is haunted. His life is measured in moments of confusing and all-consuming need punctuated by extended periods of droning monotony. In the library’s great hall, in the streets of the Court, in a corner shop selling candles and incense and dyed parchment, there are spots he cannot cross without going hot and then desperately, desperately cold.
He is not a stranger to being ruled by the quick beat of his heart. He cannot tell grief from joy but he knows it like he knows the crown of sparkling, earthen scales on Pilate’s forehead, or the carefully, carefully curated line of his mouth--just tucked up in the corners, so still that it’s maddening, and tighter than the knot in Andras’ stomach.
That’s easy, Pilate says, hoarse, like he has to cough to get it out at all. Andras smiles again, and again, and again, the sort of toothy grin typical of him, a halfway predatory thing that does not quite convey just how hungry he feels. He sees now that he is not hungry, he’s starving. I can’t help it.
Andras presses his tongue to the back of his teeth to stifle a chuckle.
You are so stubborn, he thinks. And selfish. And beautiful.
And if I do not touch you, or kiss you, or kill you, surely I will die instead.
”Are you trying?” he asks, hoarse himself. The act of opening his mouth at all rims the words with that aborted laughter. ”To help it?”
Then he leans in, one motion that is quick but so painfully slow to eat up the space left between them. Andras’ heart is so loud in his ears he thinks he might go deaf. Every part of him is so tense that it hurts, it aches, and that ache does not go away when the soft skin of his nose leans against Pilate’s shoulder, or when he feels his own teeth against the back of his lips.
And it does not go away, either, when Andras thinks Oriens help me, and says, little more than a low hum against the deafening sound of his blood, rushing, ”I’m obsessed, I think.”
Here is the difference between them: Andras is haunted. His life is measured in moments of confusing and all-consuming need punctuated by extended periods of droning monotony. In the library’s great hall, in the streets of the Court, in a corner shop selling candles and incense and dyed parchment, there are spots he cannot cross without going hot and then desperately, desperately cold.
He is not a stranger to being ruled by the quick beat of his heart. He cannot tell grief from joy but he knows it like he knows the crown of sparkling, earthen scales on Pilate’s forehead, or the carefully, carefully curated line of his mouth--just tucked up in the corners, so still that it’s maddening, and tighter than the knot in Andras’ stomach.
That’s easy, Pilate says, hoarse, like he has to cough to get it out at all. Andras smiles again, and again, and again, the sort of toothy grin typical of him, a halfway predatory thing that does not quite convey just how hungry he feels. He sees now that he is not hungry, he’s starving. I can’t help it.
Andras presses his tongue to the back of his teeth to stifle a chuckle.
You are so stubborn, he thinks. And selfish. And beautiful.
And if I do not touch you, or kiss you, or kill you, surely I will die instead.
”Are you trying?” he asks, hoarse himself. The act of opening his mouth at all rims the words with that aborted laughter. ”To help it?”
Then he leans in, one motion that is quick but so painfully slow to eat up the space left between them. Andras’ heart is so loud in his ears he thinks he might go deaf. Every part of him is so tense that it hurts, it aches, and that ache does not go away when the soft skin of his nose leans against Pilate’s shoulder, or when he feels his own teeth against the back of his lips.
And it does not go away, either, when Andras thinks Oriens help me, and says, little more than a low hum against the deafening sound of his blood, rushing, ”I’m obsessed, I think.”
@
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
