He loves flying.
He loves soaring blissfully through azure skies, barrelling through pensive gray storm-clouds, the wind whipping through his messy hair and scouring his cheeks red.
He loves running.
He loves the lightness when he begins, the way it feels like he could almost take off, even the comforting ache in his muscles and the burning in his chest because that means he's doing it right.
He loves the outside.
He loves wide open skies and being able to see for miles and miles and knowing he can go anywhere he pleases. He especially loves when he's not himself, when he's canine and clumsy and utterly elated. He gets drunk on fresh air, intoxicated on the power to go anywhere and see anything, more desperate to drink it all in the more of it he experiences.
He loves to be free, and that's why it's so hard to tie himself down like this. If he didn't know better he'd say he was afraid.
He isn't scared of anything.
He isn't scared of heights or spiders.
He isn't scared of the dark
Or pain
Or even death.
He's scared of pleading eyes and a trusting smile and the power to hurt someone that he didn't want or need or ask for but that he suddenly has.
He's scared of this.
He's scared, so he tries to distance himself, tries to run, but as far as he flies away guilt and obligation drag him back, like a chain around his heart.
He's scared he can't get away, so he asks how he can and looks for answers at the bottom of a tall glass full of amber liquid that somehow doesn't make the problem any better.
He has another couple, just in case.
Then maybe it's the liquid or the night or the vivid full moon about his head but he wanders through dark corridors that echo in the silence and when he comes across someone, Someone with greasy dark hair and ebony eyes and spiteful taunts spilling from thin lips, he doesn't turn and walk away.
He gets drawn into conversation and he's angry and spiteful right back and then he says something that he really didn't mean to say but it's too late.
He's sorry.
He's sorry he said it and he's sorry it was true and he runs, because it's almost too late, but the Someone has run too and he's sure he can run faster but he takes a wrong turn along a route he's known for years and he's moving so slowly because it's too late already, really, and he knows it.
Then he's sprinting across dewy green grass that sparkles like it's threaded through with diamonds and he's almost flying and any other night it would be wonderful, but now his heart is thundering in his throat and he feels more trapped than he ever has.
He reaches the tree just a little too late and ducks under petrified branches, frozen stiff in their flailing poses, racing down the dirt tunnel and he sees light up ahead and bursts into the room, and stops.
The Someone is just ahead and he pulls him back, his own hand dark on the boy's white shirt, and it's too late because he's seen the wolf,
He's seen the wolf,
And none of it matters now but he pulls the Someone out of the tunnel and out to the grass and his friend is following him and furious and his friend is arching his fist back and the darkness, when it comes, is almost a relief.
He is lying on the dusty floor, and the sunlight is streaming through jagged glass where there should be windows. The wolf is a boy and the boy is lying on the dusty bed, and he thinks he might be crying.
He stands and it hurts, but it should probably hurt more, because he probably deserves it to hurt more, because... Because.
The wolf-boy is crying, and his face is pale and he's bleeding, and the crimson slash across his cheek clashes horribly with his brilliant amber eyes. He wants to say he's sorry, he wants to say
'I'm so sorry' and
'Forgive me' and
'Please stop crying',
But the wolf-boy speaks first and he isn't sure he would have found the courage to say anything anyway.
"He saw me, didn't he?"
The wolf-boy says, and his voice is deeper than normal and sharp with fear and rough with exhaustion, and he nods three times, and he feels numb and stupid because he didn't do something better even though he can't think of anything that he could have done.
Then the wolf who is really a boy closes his eyes, looking so broken that he panics for a moment because it reminds him of being seven and staring at the fragments of his mother's antique mirror and wondering how on earth he can put it back together when he doesn't know which piece to start with.
The boy who's a wolf sobs his name and his stomach clenches and he sits on the bed with him, wrapping his arms around him tentatively and it feels awkward and he thinks he might be doing this wrong because the wolf-boy is still crying into his shirt.
He finds his voice now and he whispers, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry, it was my fault, I'm so sorry." And he doesn't ask for forgiveness and he doesn't ask that the boy stops crying because he doesn't deserve it and he thinks he's the one that made the boy cry in the first place, and the boy whispers something he can't hear.
His wand is still in his pocket, he notices as he shifts, pressing against his hip and he snatches it and presses the wand to the biggest cut on the boy's face and whispers charms that he didn't really focus on learning because he thought he's never need them, but they work,
Thank Merlin,
They work and the bleeding slows and he realises that he's crying as well and now they're both crying, just for a moment, clutching each other and crying and it feels right now, somehow, it feels right, and the boy who isn't a wolf and didn't deserve this smiles up at him. One of his eyes is blackened, and he has three freckles in the middle on his forehead up beside his hairline, and his lower lip is trembling as he whispers, "It's alright, you didn't mean to."
He shakes his head because it shouldn't be that easy but all he can say is the same old thing, just "I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Again and again and again and again until his voice is raw but not as raw as the wolf-boy's.
The boy with the amber eyes lies down again and pulls him down beside him and he holds him too tight, running his hands though the boy's hair, and he wipes his tears away and keeps crying himself because he has no idea how he's ever going to make this right. He chokes on another sob as he realises just how desperately he needs to fix this or make it better, or make the wolf-boy better, and how he wishes it had never happened and how he'd do anything to change it and how he'd do anything for the boy in his arms, all the thoughts tumbling out like an ocean through a kettle spout, too fast and too strong and simply breathtaking.
Then the boy is asking what's wrong, and his eyes are concerned and wide, and he means to say 'Nothing' but he says "I love you." Instead, stunned and guilty and far too late, and the boy smiles sadly and looks so broken, so destroyed, and it suddenly hits him that he destroyed the wolf-boy where no-one else could when the boy says "No you don't."
And he passes a shaking hand across his eyes because he does, and he's never loved anyone but he's absolutely certain that he does, and he has for a long time but he's only just realised and they've done things before but he's never let their lips touch because that would be just Too Much,
That would be too intimate and too binding and if he did that he'd be letting himself get hurt do badly, but the wolf-boy wouldn't hurt him and he won't hurt him but he's already hurt the boy...
He presses their lips together, and tastes blood, and he's pretty sure it's his own, and their cheeks are wet and it's sloppy and ugly and it's fantastic, it's amazing, it feels like nothing else and he's never felt so safe or so loved or so scared and the boy is shaking like a leaf in a windstorm. He goes to stroke his hair, to touch his face, to do anything to stop the shaking but then he realises that he can't because he's shaking harder and he moves his lips instead, turning his head a little, gentle because he shouldn't be able to hurt the boy more than he already has but he isn't going to risk it. He kisses the boy's lower lip and then the right side of his cheek, right where a scar was, and he kisses the upturned tip of his nose and the sore, swollen skin around his right eye and the quivering curve of his left eyelid and each of those three freckles and then his lips again, and he realises that the boy's stopped crying.
"I love you."
He says, and he means, and the boy is still shaking but his eyes are warm and trusting and he can't believe that he earned that trust back and he's not scared of it anymore, just protective, just scared that he might ever lose it again, and he whispers, and he says,
"I'm sorry," and
"You're so bloody beautiful," and
"I love you."
And the boy smiles at him and says,
"I love you too. Consider it forgiven."
And it may be forgiven but it won't be forgotten, shouldn't be forgotten, and he'll fix this, he will, he'll make sure the wolf-boy isn't broken any more, but he's so tired and the bed is so warm and the boy is safe for now, and this isn't the end but it's a start.
It's a start.
Feedback would be great, as this piece was an experiment and I'm really not sure how well it went! Was it clear who the characters were?
Love Live x