under the apple trees — [malachi one-shots].

Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Aug 30, 2019 23:44:52 GMT -5

MALACHI

LE ROUX

i'm not in love so
don't forget it
don't get me wrong,
don't think you've got it made

Sometimes, in between the bone-rattling explosions and the sharp scent of gunpowder, there would come a moment of reprieve, a brief armistice, a warm interval, a time when the sun glistened softly like bright hope, and the air was perfumed with the scent of toasted bread and raw berries. The world was quiet and sleeping, aside from birdsong and the wind snaking through the apple trees in graceful rivulets, untainted by the breath of firearms, the sweetness of the fruit engraved in its scent.

On such occasions when their bones weren’t as tense as they should be, his jagged ones met the smooth ones of Parriot Clayne’s arms, all sinew and fine gristle, spurring as an apple tree’s arms would.

“Dear Malachi,” he said, laughter delicately tucked in beneath each word, “you grow weaker each day.”

Parriot’s leg outstretches in a spin, becomes entangled with his ankle, and Malachi’s footing was immediately shattered, leading to a harsh descent to the grass below. He bit back a sound and sprang back onto his two feet, eyes crackling auburn-gold, each muscle bared and armed for combat as if he was nothing but the tooth of a sword, but the dark mouth of a gun making way for the silver bullet to soar through., but the sharp of a lion’s claw. Parriot, on the other hand, was as unbridled and rampant as the wind that raked through each of their brown strands, a willowy frame, as nimble as a shaft of light. He could sail through the entire world, over oceans, past wheat fields, effortlessly.

“No,” Malachi drew his eyes away from the patch of sun-darkened skin he could see near the worn edge of his shirt as the other boy stretched his arms in a way a feline would. They, instead, settled on the scars littered all over his arms and wrists, some age-worn and faintly-white, some gruesomely fresh and blood-edged.

“It’s called holdin’ back, Parriot,” he said.

“Can you truly hold back if there is nothing to hold back?” he retorted, the tone he’d uttered the words in enough to smear truth over anything. If Parriot told him that rose thorns could not prick through skin, or fire did not burn, a part of him would, somehow, digest the words as truth. He wondered how one boy, one frail and slender frame, could house so much magic and wonder.

His hands tossed themselves at Parriot, like stones, because Malachi did not want these thoughts to flower even more in his head. He knew he’d taken the other by surprise when his knuckles grazed an arm, but Parriot moved before a bone could be broken, with dancer-grace. The slap his hand made on Malachi’s head, however, landed and he kissed the dirt once more, growling because Malachi Le Roux hated being tossed around – in spars, anyways.

He envisaged Parriot’s smooth arms, forming a cage around his own body as though they were ribs and Malachi was the blood-red heart he desired to protect. He stood up with his back given to Parriot, because he could feel the warmth growing beneath his cheeks.

        “Fuck you,”

he hissed, with as much false ire as he could muster.

But, the heart was the most truthful organ in a body—it could never tell a lie—and his was a sweet crescendo, loudening the longer his eyes remained on Parriot.

The sun-dark skin over the waistband of his trousers, the scars over his arms coming together to form a rickety constellation, the scent of apple trees in the air,

        it was all too overwhelming.

But, they did not compare to the moment when Parriot was suddenly near him, footsteps soundless because he was nothing but a gentle waft of apple-scented air, but something gossamer, arms around Malachi, breath warm on his face. The world faded, and so did the atrocities it was brimmed with, so did the rebellion and the risk of death at any given moment. Only Parriot and the graceful curve of his lips, and the fire in his eyes that mirrored Malachi’s, remained.

“I am not in love,” he said, although he’d thought of his tongue as frozen. His heart rose back to his throat, and so did many other things, a maelstrom in his chest. “I can’t fall in love with you,” Malachi repeated, stronger this time, as Parriot took a step closer to him.

“Why?” he asked, gently, words tinged with a sadness Malachi wanted to kiss away. But, he would not. The line of his teeth clenched together, an ivory fortress built in front of his mouth. Parriot would not kiss him, and he would not even kiss Parriot, no matter how much each muscle and tendon in his being ached to do so.

“Because,” Malachi’s mouth, for a moment, had forgotten how to coalesce words in its warmth. He stammered, and then recovered. “Because, we’re already losing on uphill battle, Parriot, and I don’t wish to lose another.” Dryness prickled his throat; breaths became wedged in the intervals of his rib-bones. He felt dangerously hot, flushed almost. “We’re men of war and love is merely a spoil.” The world either was so quiet around him, or his heart was a clarion song. “Falling in love is staring down the barrel of a gun, Parriot.” A beautiful, delicately made gun, he mused. 

“So, let me g—” and they were kissing, his mouth agape over Malachi’s, hands clawing at each other’s skin.

He smelled of apples and bread and every other sweet thing he could name and for a second, as his breath trickled into Parriot’s mouth, Malachi felt strangely victorious, triumph flooding his bones.

       But, it was only a hollow victory;

       and he would  learn that,  later. 

i keep your picture up on the wall
it hides a nasty stain
that's lying there
so don't you ask me to give it back




lyrics: kelsey lu — i'm not in love

ooc: calla sent me this pic and ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ the rest is history.