[ It's so small. How can her heart jump at something so small as the press of his nose in her hair? But it does, and she pulls his hand to bring his arm tighter around her waist. ]
You will not speak offhand affection to me when I go so far as to demand it of you, my Byerly. Nor do you take more of what I would so readily offer you than you can hold.
I do not think you could allow yourself to weave pretty twisting falsehoods to trap me, and if I left, I think you would too easily let me go.
[ The soft stir of his breath like this draws so much of her attention that she could not tell him where they were, if he were to ask her now. ]
I am no limed bird, because you can see no other reason I should choose to stay.
I want you - so powerfully, Lexie. The thought of not being near you is agony. The knowledge that that's how it will be someday - Maker forgive me, but it makes me want to lose this fucking war, sabotage our every effort so that this will go on forever.
[ He swallows unsteadily. ]
If I would do that to Riftwatch, to the South, what would I do to you?
It hits her low, that roughness. Would have made her breath shudder without words like those, but with them—
Sometimes it is warm, when she wants him, and she is coy, or sweet, or playful. Sometimes it feels vast, and deep, and bigger than her body and she has to be careful how she looks at him lest it be too much. And then sometimes it is like this: a flashfire through the dry brush of her, the sudden heat of it sucking the air from her lungs.
In the time before they were lovers again she would grit her teeth and tense herself around it, trying to starve it until it burnt itself out and left her to repair the char. Now that she is allowed to touch him, her speed is such that her wings streak the air when she flies, hands darting from their places to turn and hold his face. It is not elegant, when she surges to kiss him— her nose is pushed too close against his, her fingers grip rather than caress. Both kiss and the sound she makes before she smothers it against him are things of raw passion. The kind of feeling that would make her wonder how much of herself she truly owns, if she could wonder anything at all. ]
[ He's taken aback by that. By her clear passion. Maker, it's - It's not something good, it's not something romantic, it's - It is awful. It is a confession that for all his protestations that all he wants is her happiness, he'd willingly throw it aside for his own. That he would hurt her for his own benefit, like his great-great-granduncle, Iohann Rutyer, who'd fucking immured his wife when she'd threatened to leave him. Within him is that blood, that evil, that taints love into something evil...
He kisses her back. How could he not? When she's so passionate, so rough, so raw. He can't resist it. No sane man could. But after a moment, he breaks off, turns his face away, breathing hard, panting - ]
[ For once, there is no sound of protest when he breaks from her like this. No further grasping demand, no cut-string collapse of despair. Instead, her breath like his, she lets one hand fall from his face so she can lean her forehead against his cheek and the press of her other hand turns gentle.
It was not a thing of romance or goodness, but it was true. It was true, and finally she knows they match. That she is not alone in the sometime violence of her want of him that has made her helpless and despairing. It makes the scream that lives in her fall silent. ]
Why. Because there is a beast in you that starves?
[ She breathes there against him, listens to it slowly even. ]
When I asked you for your story I wanted to listen. To think only of you, to help hold the things you carry that still wound, to be kind, and instead when you spoke of the woman who betrayed you I wanted to kill her with bare hands so I could feel it. Not because she had betrayed you, but because she had touched you.
I would not do it. I would not do it any more than you would work to lose this war. But there is blood in the way I want you, and I have been so ashamed.
[ He struggles a moment, pressing his eyes shut. What does he want? For her to be afraid? Because she says there's blood in the way I want you, but he's seen what her viciousness looks like. She can be cruel, and can be evil; yes. But she doesn't do true violence by her hand. Even in that dream, where she was at her worst, she sent an assassin who failed in her task. That was, he expects, hardly an accident.
He, on the other hand. ]
There's madness in my blood. My sole legacy. Indulgence is - not safe.
[ Words like that are hands flexing on hilts, make her feel like a stolen birthright with a usurper on the throne. His like a home he cannot go back to.
It is a reckless dangerous game with an ending that cannot be but vicious but oh, she wants to play so badly it makes her quiver, taut as a bowstring drawn and held, and she cannot stop her fingers from tensing again on his face, from curling the fabric of his shirt into a fist where her other hand had settled. ]
[ Her mouth is dry. She squeezes her eyes shut as she has to pause to swallow, hard and audible, and when she continues it comes out dark and low and heavy with desire. ]
[ His eyes fly open at that. When he speaks, his voice is fierce. ]
No. This isn't a game, or playacting the rogue, or some - Men in my family hurt women. [ And men. Women in his family hurt women and men. It's all just so fucking - ] Not in a romantic way, or a sensual way. They kill women. That's what's in my blood.
[ Maybe there is something wrong in her. Something broken, that she is not afraid.
When she had first seen Loki, it had been watching him kill with the elegance of a predator, and she had shuddered that night under his hands that carried death in them, waiting to be called. But even at the height of his rage, she had never been afraid he would call it for her. He belonged to her, the same way she belonged to him, their dark parts as much entwined as their bright.
But this doesn't belong here. The dark parts, they don't belong here. These are not things Byerly should know; Byerly who thinks she is something brighter, who makes her want to be something brighter. It's wrong, wrong, the way all this makes her want to do is make whatever madness lives in his blood submit because she is fiercer. Because, like the falcon towers over her tiercel, she is stronger.
But they should be laughter and stars and soft looks and held hands and sunshine mornings. It is not supposed to be like this between them. If it is, he will know, and he is supposed to believe she is better than she is so that she can believe it too. ]
And what of it. What will you do.
[ She is fierce now to match, her hand fisting tighter in his shirt. ]
You will push me away to save me? You will think wanting me like this will make you hurt me and think me foolish because I am not afraid of you? You will be wroth with me because I will not run from you?
[ For a few seconds she holds, and then the tense defensive fury that had risen in her breaks. It runs out of her body like water, leaves room for her to see better what was under the swell of it.
So ready. She is always so ready to believe she will be set aside. To know. And for the first time she thinks that this, this constant terror, is why it is she wants so badly to be wanted past control into something dangerous. He could not leave her, then.
And if it is not that, why would he stay?
She turns her face into his shoulder to hide it and her thoughts, and her shame, and then after a moment of quiet nods meekly. ]
[ She can do this, yes? Pull herself from the grip of her old fear to care for him in the grip of his own, when he needs kinder arms?
Discipline.
Slow, but steady, the wrap of her arms across his shoulders. The turn of her face to lightly kiss the side of his neck, corner of his jaw, cheek. The rest of her forehead against his temple.
She knows what it is she would want to hear, want to have from him. But while sometimes they are the same, more often they are so different.
[ But that's not true, is it? Not in the least. Because he needs quite a lot from her. He needs - ]
Vigilance. Perhaps. Mistrust. [ A breath out, and he confesses: ] It's all so tangled up between us, isn't it, that even when we love each other there's still some measure of hate as well. There always will be. And that's where cruelty creeps in, and madness. So I think I need to know that you'll not take any of it from me. That you won't endure it.
[ She wants to tell him she doesn’t have that measure of hate, but she does. For all that she feels she deserves whatever enmity he carries, for all that she feels she doesn’t deserve to hold any for him, she does.
I spurned him, says the part that wants his cruelty. Abandoned him.
But under it there is a small cry of her own, too. He left me. If he loved me as much as he says he did, why didn’t he come to me. Why didn’t he demand to know why.
She thinks perhaps it was because he never thought she was real. That he is as ready, as expectant, as she is to be thrown aside. It doesn’t matter to the little ghost, who is young and only cares that she is alone. ]
It will be hard for me, for I think that I deserve it.
[ She shakes her head a little. ]
More than that. Sometimes I wish for it, because I know how to be hated for what I have done. I do not know how to have done it and still be loved.
[ He says that passionately. But then, less passionately, more restrained, he admits: ]
I think that - I don't really know how to love. There's the love I've seen in fairy tales, all sweet and innocent, but we both learned the hard way that that love can't live long. And then there's easy love, where you flirt and laugh and screw, where it's all safe because neither of you tries to be all that romantic. [ What he has with Bastien. ] But to be earnest, and passionate - [ He shakes his head. ] I've never seen any version of that that doesn't turn cruel.
[ His family. All of his family. Even his parents - When his mother was still alert and engaged, and his father still gave a damn, he saw the way they cut at each other. A thousand tiny slices every day.
And then, a breath out through his nose: ]
Which makes me approximately the worst person for you to be in love with, doesn't it?
[ She breathes out through her nose too, although hers are the little puffs of air that are her silent chuckle. ]
Perhaps. Mais la vie est étrange, et les coeurs plus étrangers, so perhaps not.
Perhaps I will learn that there are other ways I can love besides losing myself, that it is not lesser to not push everything I have into another's hands.
[ She kisses his cheek again, and then pulls back so she can look at him and smile softly. ]
But I think you are wrong. I think you know how to love, if you will let yourself learn instead of thinking it must look like this, or it must look like that. I think there are as many kinds of love as there are lovers, and ours will be our own. We are the only two in the world with our story, yes?
[ There's the sound of a delicate chain moving, a quiet click as she takes up the locket again. ]
[ He's not quite ready to let it go yet. His hand comes out to cover her fingers. ]
But many types of love are cruel or destructive. There is love that tears its object to shreds. I - do not wish to love you in a way that hurts you. If it must be temporary, what's between us, then at least I want you to come out the other side better for it.
Even the kindest love hurts a little sometimes, if there is anything in us that might be hurt, living as it does in the most vulnerable parts of ourselves. Especially if those parts have been injured before, and especially if they have not healed.
[ She lifts her thumb so she can press some small part of his hand between it and her fingers. ]
I imagine there are people for whom love does not hurt, and I wish them all joy. I am not one of them. You must not think the fullness of my agonies are made by you because sometimes I will scream when you touch me. The gentlest touch on raw flesh sears, does it not?
[ A pause while she makes a tiny stroking motion with her thumb, and then she leans in again to set her cheek lightly against his. ]
Perhaps the time we will have together is not forever, but whilst I live I will love you, and I am already the better for it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[ He leans his head against her. Inhales the scent of her hair. ]
Deceived you. If you love me, then - I've misled you in some way, twisted you all around. A wicked thing to do.
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You will not speak offhand affection to me when I go so far as to demand it of you, my Byerly. Nor do you take more of what I would so readily offer you than you can hold.
I do not think you could allow yourself to weave pretty twisting falsehoods to trap me, and if I left, I think you would too easily let me go.
[ The soft stir of his breath like this draws so much of her attention that she could not tell him where they were, if he were to ask her now. ]
I am no limed bird, because you can see no other reason I should choose to stay.
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[ His voice is low and rough. ]
I want you - so powerfully, Lexie. The thought of not being near you is agony. The knowledge that that's how it will be someday - Maker forgive me, but it makes me want to lose this fucking war, sabotage our every effort so that this will go on forever.
[ He swallows unsteadily. ]
If I would do that to Riftwatch, to the South, what would I do to you?
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It hits her low, that roughness. Would have made her breath shudder without words like those, but with them—
Sometimes it is warm, when she wants him, and she is coy, or sweet, or playful. Sometimes it feels vast, and deep, and bigger than her body and she has to be careful how she looks at him lest it be too much. And then sometimes it is like this: a flashfire through the dry brush of her, the sudden heat of it sucking the air from her lungs.
In the time before they were lovers again she would grit her teeth and tense herself around it, trying to starve it until it burnt itself out and left her to repair the char. Now that she is allowed to touch him, her speed is such that her wings streak the air when she flies, hands darting from their places to turn and hold his face. It is not elegant, when she surges to kiss him— her nose is pushed too close against his, her fingers grip rather than caress. Both kiss and the sound she makes before she smothers it against him are things of raw passion. The kind of feeling that would make her wonder how much of herself she truly owns, if she could wonder anything at all. ]
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He kisses her back. How could he not? When she's so passionate, so rough, so raw. He can't resist it. No sane man could. But after a moment, he breaks off, turns his face away, breathing hard, panting - ]
You should be turning away from me.
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It was not a thing of romance or goodness, but it was true. It was true, and finally she knows they match. That she is not alone in the sometime violence of her want of him that has made her helpless and despairing. It makes the scream that lives in her fall silent. ]
Why. Because there is a beast in you that starves?
[ She breathes there against him, listens to it slowly even. ]
When I asked you for your story I wanted to listen. To think only of you, to help hold the things you carry that still wound, to be kind, and instead when you spoke of the woman who betrayed you I wanted to kill her with bare hands so I could feel it. Not because she had betrayed you, but because she had touched you.
I would not do it. I would not do it any more than you would work to lose this war. But there is blood in the way I want you, and I have been so ashamed.
no subject
[ He struggles a moment, pressing his eyes shut. What does he want? For her to be afraid? Because she says there's blood in the way I want you, but he's seen what her viciousness looks like. She can be cruel, and can be evil; yes. But she doesn't do true violence by her hand. Even in that dream, where she was at her worst, she sent an assassin who failed in her task. That was, he expects, hardly an accident.
He, on the other hand. ]
There's madness in my blood. My sole legacy. Indulgence is - not safe.
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Indulgence in what.
[ For all her even and carefully enunciated clarity, she has the sound of a string that one more cadenza risks snapping. ]
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[ He presses his eyes even more firmly shut. It's a terrible note in her voice. It's easy to hear it as fear. ]
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It is a reckless dangerous game with an ending that cannot be but vicious but oh, she wants to play so badly it makes her quiver, taut as a bowstring drawn and held, and she cannot stop her fingers from tensing again on his face, from curling the fabric of his shirt into a fist where her other hand had settled. ]
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Say something. Please.
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[ Her mouth is dry. She squeezes her eyes shut as she has to pause to swallow, hard and audible, and when she continues it comes out dark and low and heavy with desire. ]
If you say it like that, I will go mad.
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No. This isn't a game, or playacting the rogue, or some - Men in my family hurt women. [ And men. Women in his family hurt women and men. It's all just so fucking - ] Not in a romantic way, or a sensual way. They kill women. That's what's in my blood.
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When she had first seen Loki, it had been watching him kill with the elegance of a predator, and she had shuddered that night under his hands that carried death in them, waiting to be called. But even at the height of his rage, she had never been afraid he would call it for her. He belonged to her, the same way she belonged to him, their dark parts as much entwined as their bright.
But this doesn't belong here. The dark parts, they don't belong here. These are not things Byerly should know; Byerly who thinks she is something brighter, who makes her want to be something brighter. It's wrong, wrong, the way all this makes her want to do is make whatever madness lives in his blood submit because she is fiercer. Because, like the falcon towers over her tiercel, she is stronger.
But they should be laughter and stars and soft looks and held hands and sunshine mornings. It is not supposed to be like this between them. If it is, he will know, and he is supposed to believe she is better than she is so that she can believe it too. ]
And what of it. What will you do.
[ She is fierce now to match, her hand fisting tighter in his shirt. ]
You will push me away to save me? You will think wanting me like this will make you hurt me and think me foolish because I am not afraid of you? You will be wroth with me because I will not run from you?
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No. I -
[ His hand rests atop hers, fingertips digging into her skin. Not hard. Not enough to cause any pain. Even now, he's cautious and gentle. ]
What I'll do is discipline it. Discipline myself. Root out any madness if it reveals itself. I must be cautious - do you see?
[ Do you see why I cannot be the wild, passionate creature you want me to be? Why I must shrink from all that fire you put in me? ]
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So ready. She is always so ready to believe she will be set aside. To know. And for the first time she thinks that this, this constant terror, is why it is she wants so badly to be wanted past control into something dangerous. He could not leave her, then.
And if it is not that, why would he stay?
She turns her face into his shoulder to hide it and her thoughts, and her shame, and then after a moment of quiet nods meekly. ]
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[ He feels like there are embers in his chest, scorching him, like there's a beast ripping and tearing at his viscera. ]
Please don't feel ashamed, or chastised - This fault is mine, not yours. Please. Please don't.
[ Maker, why does she always talk too much when he's overwhelmed, and say nothing at all when he needs some sign? ]
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Discipline.
Slow, but steady, the wrap of her arms across his shoulders. The turn of her face to lightly kiss the side of his neck, corner of his jaw, cheek. The rest of her forehead against his temple.
She knows what it is she would want to hear, want to have from him. But while sometimes they are the same, more often they are so different.
Soft and gentle when she speaks: ]
Tell me what you need from me.
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[ But that's not true, is it? Not in the least. Because he needs quite a lot from her. He needs - ]
Vigilance. Perhaps. Mistrust. [ A breath out, and he confesses: ] It's all so tangled up between us, isn't it, that even when we love each other there's still some measure of hate as well. There always will be. And that's where cruelty creeps in, and madness. So I think I need to know that you'll not take any of it from me. That you won't endure it.
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I spurned him, says the part that wants his cruelty. Abandoned him.
But under it there is a small cry of her own, too. He left me. If he loved me as much as he says he did, why didn’t he come to me. Why didn’t he demand to know why.
She thinks perhaps it was because he never thought she was real. That he is as ready, as expectant, as she is to be thrown aside. It doesn’t matter to the little ghost, who is young and only cares that she is alone. ]
It will be hard for me, for I think that I deserve it.
[ She shakes her head a little. ]
More than that. Sometimes I wish for it, because I know how to be hated for what I have done. I do not know how to have done it and still be loved.
[ A pause for an unsteady breath, and then: ]
I want so much to still be loved.
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[ He says that passionately. But then, less passionately, more restrained, he admits: ]
I think that - I don't really know how to love. There's the love I've seen in fairy tales, all sweet and innocent, but we both learned the hard way that that love can't live long. And then there's easy love, where you flirt and laugh and screw, where it's all safe because neither of you tries to be all that romantic. [ What he has with Bastien. ] But to be earnest, and passionate - [ He shakes his head. ] I've never seen any version of that that doesn't turn cruel.
[ His family. All of his family. Even his parents - When his mother was still alert and engaged, and his father still gave a damn, he saw the way they cut at each other. A thousand tiny slices every day.
And then, a breath out through his nose: ]
Which makes me approximately the worst person for you to be in love with, doesn't it?
no subject
Perhaps. Mais la vie est étrange, et les coeurs plus étrangers, so perhaps not.
Perhaps I will learn that there are other ways I can love besides losing myself, that it is not lesser to not push everything I have into another's hands.
[ She kisses his cheek again, and then pulls back so she can look at him and smile softly. ]
But I think you are wrong. I think you know how to love, if you will let yourself learn instead of thinking it must look like this, or it must look like that. I think there are as many kinds of love as there are lovers, and ours will be our own. We are the only two in the world with our story, yes?
[ There's the sound of a delicate chain moving, a quiet click as she takes up the locket again. ]
Just as they are the only two with theirs.
no subject
But many types of love are cruel or destructive. There is love that tears its object to shreds. I - do not wish to love you in a way that hurts you. If it must be temporary, what's between us, then at least I want you to come out the other side better for it.
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[ She lifts her thumb so she can press some small part of his hand between it and her fingers. ]
I imagine there are people for whom love does not hurt, and I wish them all joy. I am not one of them. You must not think the fullness of my agonies are made by you because sometimes I will scream when you touch me. The gentlest touch on raw flesh sears, does it not?
[ A pause while she makes a tiny stroking motion with her thumb, and then she leans in again to set her cheek lightly against his. ]
Perhaps the time we will have together is not forever, but whilst I live I will love you, and I am already the better for it.
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I suppose that I've simply...never known anyone to become better or kinder due to pain. Pain only debases.
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