to freeze or to thaw || roommates day 2 leisure

to freeze or to thaw || roommates day 2 leisure Oct 29, 2020 20:48:30 GMT -5

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Post by brad bradford ★ d5b [arx] on Oct 29, 2020 20:48:30 GMT -5

vallora seth.

My knees are refusing to hold me upright, but I don't let them give. I cough, tasting blood as I flinch away from the pain shooting through my back. I hope I only bit my tongue. But the hole in my back properly strangles me, hand tight around my throat as the weight I'd been carrying comes down on my chest, as if an anvil alone weren't enough to kill me.

'Stubbornness is going to get you killed.'

I wish I could curse at the memory, but there's only one thing I can remember about my sister through this pain—she's always fucking right.

I try as best I can to deepen my breaths, tossing my knife into the dirt and snow we'd managed to churn up in dusty piles. It scuttles away harmlessly. For all my frustration I still don't have enough strength to force the blade through a soft blanket of snow. Not that I had enough to begin with.

Darkness ebbs and flows at the edges of my vision, unconsciousness just another weakness my uncle believed could be fought off by sheer power of will. I hate that I have him to thank for the steady steps I take.

I'm rushing forward with more than my own body can take, wounds tearing and shifting with every step. My vision reveals nothing more to me than a pinhole by the time I reach him.

I suppose this is what is left of my adrenaline. I press a shaking palm to the gash across his chest, the numbness in my fingers suddenly coming alive in pins and needles as ice cold flesh meets fiery hot blood.

"Hey," I keep my gaze averted, force my voice not to waver. "You're alright?"

That's why we ask questions, isn't it? To reassure ourselves?

Yes. Heh, ha.

"My fucking hero."

It hurts to laugh, but I do it anyway, a smile joining it as I fail to control the annoying ache of panic and worry and relief and joy stirring up a storm in my heart.

"You're lucky my hands are busy or I'd-" I shake my head, laughter still holding tight to each word even as the panic and worry swell in tandem, forcing me to choke back the rest. "Idiot."

Brave, stupid, strong, selfless fucking idiot.

If this was what it felt like to have someone care about you I wasn't sure I was strong enough or brave enough to handle much more. Guess my uncle has always been right about me. I was never bound for greatness and I deserve none of the associated perks—I'm only a stepping stone for those strong enough to take what has always been meant for them.

Or was this- was this what it felt like to care about someone else?

I haven't riddled out the answer before the joy and relief replace the fear two-fold, winds surging to breakneck speeds and lifting my eyes to his with smile breaking apart chapped lips and light flooding my vision until I can see only him.

A storm isn't so scary when you're soaring so far above it.

"and you feared a lonely death, like a lake leaves you alone in her depths."

♪

to freeze or to thaw || roommates day 2 leisure Oct 29, 2020 21:53:44 GMT -5

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Post by maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte] on Oct 29, 2020 21:53:44 GMT -5

was i made from a broken mold?

I... killed it. Truth rings hollow, a bright flash of relief flooding me like oxygen singing waterlogged lungs. It goes limp with my blade half buried in it's skull, the force of it's fall guiding me into the ground with it. I realize then that I'm suffocating, releasing the knife in my hand like its hilt had burned me. Stumbling, clumsy steps prove unsustainable, both hands pressed to weeping skin as I fall to my knees just clear of the bloodied snow.

I'm sure I'm supposed to be feeling something, staring at the life I've taken. This moment has wrapped me within a steady embrace, too tight to be peaceful. Beneath a lake of ice, encased in frigid water, I'm suffocating gently accompanied only by apathy I've called home for so long. My heart thunders in my ears, every last nerve alight as instinct begs me to do something. Sirens lost over an unseen horizon.

I can't move. I can't breathe. Seconds fracture as I stare at the still mutt and wait to bleed out.

"Hey." It's not like waking up, more like realizing I'm caught in a dream. "You're alright?" I draw a languid gaze across her, fighting through the fog to tether myself to her. She's paler than usual, which I hadn't thought possible, the blood drying on her cheeks marring the freckles I've mapped across them a thousand times.

She's laughing, smiling; I do my best to mimic her gestures. If I could conjure up a placating lie I'm sure I would but it's taking more effort than it should to keep myself upright. The corner of my mouth twitches and I remember just how hard it was to smile before all this. Before life became luxury and not a game I was hellbent upon winning.

Don't worry, the irony isn't lost on me.

She sinks to my level and I almost recoil, the urge to self destruct causing shallow breaths to catch upon flames dancing in her bright gaze. Too bright. Blinding. Hero. She'd called me, I mouth the word slowly and find myself repulsed by the taste.

I hurt because I'm selfish, staring into the abyss full of stubborn defiance. I hurt as I run my fingers along the curve of her neck, wincing as they catch the trace of her own wounds. "I'm not a hero." I murmur, sounding so very unlike myself that I'm almost certain it's the first time I've ever spoken at all.

I'm not an altruist. Definitely not. Because, "I wouldn't have done this for anyone else." Her hands are pressed to my chest to stem the flow of blood and I can't help but think it's like trying to stop a hurricane.

There wasn't much to live for, back home. I loathe to even call it that, not when every idle thought of the cursed place is wreathed in shadow and starlight. It's not that there is nothing left for me in One, there was simply never anything there in the first place.

I don't know what sits in front of me, but it promises to be more. Even if I don't know quite what I'm seeing yet.

Life is a map of mistakes, every action so flawlessly crafted that I could sketch out an ending hours before it came. I felt safe living like that. I have never known what it is to bask in the other side of the sun.

She looks at me like I'm worth living for and I'm half intoxicated by the sensation and stupid enough to believe it.

"You, though?" In this land of ice and snow, I begin to thaw.

With my thumb resting on her chin and my lips pressed tight against hers. Seventeen long years and it's the first kiss I've ever had and the only I've ever wanted. "I think you saved me."

ALISTAIR GALE