#daylighter

whatever is in the bowl is a mystery to him; it looks like some bizarre european concoction with enough tomatoes or beetroots to turn it appetisingly red; mysterious chunks seem to be plaguing it, too — misshapen victims drowning in all that liquid, all assorted shapes and shades of undercooked potato yellow. he thinks he sees a lone sprig of rosemary surface for a second before sinking to its useless death at the bottom.

he looks at the equally bizarre european across the table from him, watching him, threatening him wordlessly to eat the damn soup before he, too, ends up floating in among the unhappy vegetable bits.

"you're going to make someone a very menacing wife one day," he tells ken, taking a hesitant and distrusting spoonful of the murder slop; it tastes like tomatoes and salt, a little sour. could do with some pepper, or another two hours on the stove. mmm. beetroot? almonds?

hold on. almonds?

the morning creeps towards noon and so does the sun shining in through the window. not thirty minutes ago, v/yke had shot up from his side of the bed, convinced he had already missed a summon. only when gentle hands coaxed him back into the retained warmth of the quilt, had he realized that today is his day of rest. through a yawn, he was moved. tugged closer until his cheek found its position on kenneth's chest and arms folded around and under his love. a sigh, long and deep had then deflated him, as a hand had begun to rub gentle circles between his shoulderblades.

there is a slight grumble in his throat, just behind his tongue, as kenneth speaks. it's the weight of sleep, the press of staying in bed for just five more minutes. nevertheless, he pays attention through closed eyes. ❛ i cannot recall you ever telling me. ❜ the words come squished, as is his cheek against kenneth's chest. he doesn't remember ever learning the meaning. what he does remember, however, is how many times it has been said. a tug at his attention, a pull on his heart in sweet and warm moments.

silence overtakes the moment again and v/yke moves his head. not far, not quickly, just enough to raise his cheek from kenneth's sternum and replace it with his chin. he looks up, meets his love's gaze. ❛ i do remember when you first said it. ❜ when they stood before the erdtree. when it was clear that the next dawn would paint one of them the lord victor. kenneth had asked him then, to kiss. a farewell between comrades that might never see eachother again & he remembers the pace at which his heart had gone. loud in his ears, warm in his hands. he remembers how something in his chest was fighting to crawl out of its bone cage and into kenneth. there wasn't a question for meaning. they were words he heared but didn't understand. they were words he'd remember for years afterwards.

& he remembers the following morning, then. a dawn true and untainted by the resentful glow of the erdtree. v/yke had sat awake, then, waiting for their giantblood companion to rouse. when she did, a new kind of storm brewed. frantic in her worry, questioning his apathy to the situation, when in reality his grief had taken a hold of him all night. first waking to kenneth collecting his bearings, he had asked then but recieved no verbal answer. he knew that he would be abandoned under the glow of a new age, so he sat. all night, quietly. he also remembers leaving. the pang of a delusion far kinder than the reality of a sacred love slain.

it's not a thought that demans frequent visitations & even if, v/yke would not grant it this kindness. squished fingers flex in order, from index to pinky. it's not a hard press, it's a thoughtful one. grey eyes close for but a moment. there is an attempt at recreation. ❛ mir milithriel . . . ❜ the repetition is flawed in pronounciation. the words rest on his tongue and they feel warm. ❛ what does it mean, then ? ❜ the feeling of knowing is faint, but present. from context sown over their many years of courtship. it would be an easy conclusion to make, if any more thoughts were spent on it, but it is much sweeter to hear it said. an admittance of affection.

he was a catastrophic interruption, and a challenge to her standards. some walls beyond them laid artifacts she'd spent hundreds of years looking for and horns from her kind, those murdered and sold like objects on fairs like these by humans, elfs and beyond. how selfish of her, how truly evil, to stand in this room with her backside against a forgotten mahogony desk with his tight parting her legs, making her tunic fall as a purple waterfall against the earthy tones of the deposit. her hands against melted gold, pulling him closer as if starved, as if she hadn't eaten in weeks, like a foolish woman too excited to make a decision. maleficent was anything but foolish; she was cunning, prone to certain black moralities and not beyond curses and violence, revenge. what time was there left for this? for moans and tongues against each other so feverishly?

neil tries to blink away the dark spots crowding his vision, pain and fear blending together until he forgets which is which.  he keeps his hand curled around his knee, but he sits up, reaches out to that flash of blond hair that's painfully familiar to him  (wrong boy, though). shaking his head, he swallows the lump of panic clogging his throat — he can't stay there on the floor, not knowing if he's able to put weight on his knee, waiting miserably for the nurse to breach court jupiter's doors.

'' don't— ''   he has to take a few steading breaths before he can continue, fingers tangled around kenneth's shirt sleeve in the tightest grip he can manage.  there must be something ugly on his face, white knuckled despair showing through the cracks, blowing his eyes wide.   '' help me get up. i have to get up. ''

STILL, A GREAT DEAL OF LIGHT FALLS ON EVERYTHING—, van gogh wrote, a quiet rumination lettered to his brother upon the persistent nature of light , that deceiving softness, brief but unflinching in its lasting hours. the very first time sunlight filtered through, brushed against him in the shape of a man, he'd recoiled, curled away like a paper singed away through flames. still, . . . . a great deal of light . . falls on everything. he crushes the paper in left hand, a half-written letter, thumb smearing into the dark-stained blots of ink, all a torn blur through the margins. that's what love does. makes you stupid, but in a good way. it's better than damn opioids, makes you forget that there's a boot right over your throat. diondra had once said, he could smell the perfume on her neck. white-peaches, grapefruit, and something like crushed jasmines. and so it must have— or it did, he'd forgotten that very thing, the boot over his throat, he'd forgotten twice, and twice was far too much for father to excuse. first, diondra, and now. . . .

the museum was quiet in the hours of twilight, and there he stood, a foot and a half away from the portrait of a dutch painter, a crushed letter in one hand and a pen half-way deep in his pocket. never the eloquent, collie, collie. diondra's voice remained, mocking, yet unreachable like a lone star drowning somewhere in the distance. makes you stupid.

the tiles echoed behind him, and he spins just in time, meets violence with violence, palm of his hand to the edge of an elbow. breath halts, the old fury climbs in his throat, thoughts piercing to senlac, another agent sent to hunt down the failure. a flash of gold catches the corner line of his vision, and he releases his breath. half in relief, half in irritation. " why are you here- " the words spit out darkly but falls downwards, barely out past his breath before the pain bites, sharply and heavily, the fist collided to just beneath his diaphragm without forgiveness. he could feel the deep wetness of blood spreading, wound unfurling past its stitches as the night loosened above him, the ceiling drifting before ken's face fell apart past his vision. " fuck you, my knife wound. . . " one hand to his shoulder, he feels his heart rattling as he tilts forward, eyes closing as a rush of cold pulled him into silence.