* UNLEARNED !!

        ‘   I appreciate the thought.   But you ought to recognize when your help isn’t required and is more likely to put another person at risk,   ‘   he says plainly,   flipping the weapon around to hold the handle towards him.   ‘   By that I mean to watch your aim.  ‘

Simon fully expects Alistair to say something filthy, so when he does it’s easy enough to keep a straight face. He gives the man a cold stare, lips pulling into a tight lipped grimace. “It would be most wise to keep going. The empire isn’t going to rest—” & then Alistair is walking forward, swaying his hips in a display that Simon can only describe as tempting. He clears his throat.

The real killer is when Alistair touches him. Damn the fact that Simon Levy is a touch starved man. Damn the fact that he likes being touched by this privileged, prissy bastard. “Am I cold?” He pauses and gently grabs Alistair’s hand with his prosthetic one. It’s a shame he cannot feel with his prosthetic—no doubt Alistair’s hand is warm. He laces their fingers together. “I don’t mean to be.” He gives Alistair’s hand a gentle squeeze.

“You took care of me even though you didn’t have to. I know you were one of the council members that said I should be retrieved, not abandoned to Niflheim. I owe you my life.” It’s perhaps the warmest Simon has ever been to Alistair, or at the very least the softest he’s ever been. “I want to take care of you now. If you need rest, we can rest, but it will only be long enough for the sun to come back up. You’re capable enough, but I don’t think you’re ready to fight daemons yet.” 

      “  you already saved my life. you owe me nothing more, but i appreciate the sentiment.  ”  what goes unsaid  --  ‘  i wouldn’t make it out here without you.  ’  alistair knows he needs simon. it is not a much of a curse as he thought it would be. he actually likes teasing and the fighting, most of the time, and then  .  .  .  there are these moments, little times like this, when alistair thinks simon could be sunshine personified, where alistair forgets about all their arguments and feels something warm in his chest. 

You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast.

You are going to break your promise. I understand.

You’re lonely too.

It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be.

I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable.

I am your servant.

I crawl at your feet; for before your love, your kisses, I am debased.

For you alone I will be weak.

I belong here, and you will not deny me.

I say these things, and the world listens.

I do not tolerate a world emptied of you. I have tried.

In the dark, I have pored over the loss of you like pale gold.

I will not let her speak because I love her, and when you love someone, you do not make them tell war stories.

I moved the earth and the water for you.

You will always run away with her.

You will always lose her.

You will always be a fool.

You will always be dead, in a city of ice, snow falling into your ear.

You have already done all of this and will do it again.

No one should be judged for loving more than they ought, only for loving not enough.

We look terrible to you, and severe, and you see our blood flying.

What we carry between us is hard-won, and we made it just as we wished it to be, just the color, just the shape.

There need never be any rules between us.

Let us be greedy together; let us hoard.

Do not leave me, swear that you will never leave me.

I am selfish. I am cruel. My mate cannot be less than I.

Sleep with fists closed and shoot straight.

I can’t abide a poor liar.

You look like a winter’s night. I could sleep inside the cold of you.

Oh, quit that. Blushing is for virgins and Christians.

Scold me; deny me. Tell me you want what you want and damn me forever. But don’t leave me.

Bad luck relies on absolutely perfect timing.

In his own country, Death can be kind.

What is the world but a boxing ring where fools and devils put up their fists?

Men die. It’s practically what they’re for.

I am no one; I am nothing.

Nothing in me was not made by you.

A revelation is always the end of something. It might even be cause for grief.

Just tell yourself a story that’ll satisfy you and pretend he told it.

Forever isn’t bright; it isn’t like that. Forever is cold and hard and final.

I savor bitterness - it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived.

If you want to kill yourself, do not use us as your knife.

What did I do wrong? Was I boring? Did I ignore you?

Don’t you dare speak to me like that.

I have worn nothing but blood and death for years.

I have fought all your battles for you, just as you asked me.

I have learned not to cry when I strangle a man.

I have learned to watch everything die.

I am not a little girl anymore, dazzled by your magic. It is my magic, now, too.

Are we not devils?

No one is now what they were before the war.

I have not seen you without your skin on.

Close up your head; your brain is getting loose.

We obsess. It’s in our nature.

I’ve a devil of a habit for being right.

In war you must always choose sides.

If you try to be a bridge laid down between them, they will tear you in half.

We are all dead. All equal. Broken and aimless and believing we are alive.

My old bones will follow yours soon enough.

It is better to be strong and cruel than to be fair.

I will see him with his skin off before I agree to fall in love.

After love, no one is what they were before.

I have survived, but I have not been spared.

In the space of one heartbeat to another I loved you and I was lost to you.

Frighten me, make me cry, only come back.

It’s not so bad, my darling. Being dead. It’s like being alive, only colder.

You’ll think it’s love, while he dines on your heart.

You will be so beautiful when you are old.

I cannot keep you and I cannot let you go.

You will live as you live in any world…with difficulty, and grief.

I look at you and it is like my throat being cut.

She said you’d come and I swore to eat your heart.

I still want to kiss you.

My heart is being cut in two. I cannot bear it.

What happens to anything beautiful?