#docurios

“Who says you have me?” They tease, slipping away from his grasp as if they were made of water. And as they rest their back against the tree, biting their lip to hide a smile, there is both a kind of performance to their playfulness and an unintended sharpness. The same old rehearsed play, repeating itself even in the safety of their shared intimacy. The performer in them wants to attract, lure, be pleasant, something pretty that won’t get hurt, that will never be abandoned. While the sharpness resents even the idea of belonging to someone, it wants to say they’ll be with whoever they damn please, no matter that their eyes are unable to look away from them. No matter they can’t even see the world outside Daemos, outside the pull of them— and that too is terrifying, infuriating. They want to claw at him to push him away and dig their claws in so he’ll never leave them. 

But whatever this is between them still remains unspoken. It hangs in the uncertainty of longing stares and the pauses in between words, out there outside their reach, making them dizzy every time their mind dares to wander anywhere near its borders. What even lies beyond its uncharted trails? Worse yet— does it have an end, a limit? Is there an edge they might fall over? Find themselves alone at the end of all of it? They wouldn’t survive it. How could they?

They manage to compose a practiced smile, but their features are a canvas exposing every brushstroke left behind by a fleeting thought, every splash of emotion. Are you mine? is what they want to say, but it sounds too raw, too pathetic. Instead they cross their arms, looking anywhere but at Daemos.

Bella snorts a soft laugh. Both at his indignance, and the way she kind of agrees.

The camp is steeped in dissent tonight - Lae'zel and Shadowheart particularly loudly. And though Bella won't lie and say it doesn't grate her nerves, after being all but ignored for several hundred years, any interaction is good interaction.

Anyway. Her attention returns to Daemos.

within  the  lens  of  auspex  ,  mordú  sees.  slaughter  clings  to  the  marrow  of  him—  a  divinity  draped  in  offal.  the  asakku  has  ever  seen  it's  fair  share  of  visitors  ,  be  they  mortal  ,  kindred  or  other  beings  evading  the  lens  of  detection  ,  wrapped  in  myth.  mordú  is  won't  to  keep  his  nose  to  the  ground  within  the  boundaries  of  his  own  domain  ,  careful  not  to  disturb  like  a  slowly  growing  fungus.  but  it  seems  whatever  else  is  lurking  has  found  him  ,  and  he  finds  his  senses  awash  in  sanguine  perfume  ,  addled.

SILENTLY AND VERY FAST by catherynne m. valente. (actually a short story within THE MELANCHOLY OF MECHAGIRL) a story about a sentient ai named elefsis that has grown from from a house into a kind of inheritance within a family. the story takes place within the journey they and their current carer neva make to escape some unknown danger. i just really love how it feels so incorporeal, no one has a body, they just exist as a conciousness. it's very magical and is very interestingly narrated from elefsis perspective as they think back on their own past, how they are seen, what they are what it means to be sentient, to love and to grieve.

THE BLOODY CHAMBER AND OTHER STORIES by angela carter. gothic retelling of fairy tales like bluebeard's wife and the beauty and the beast, the earl king among others. it's just written in a very pleasing "purple prose" that for my taste is not really purple prose it's just poetic writing. i chew on her writing style.

THE GONE WORLD by tom sweterlitsch. is it cheating if it's also a sci fi? the book rec of this book said something like true detective meets sm sm sci fi and they nailed it. I went in completely blind and it was the best experience. the first chapter immediately has you hooked and then you're scrambling to figure out what is happening. think murder investigation but where time is constantly manipulated, shifted. i won't say more because its a TRIP but i really loved that book and the writing style and also i love weird trippy books. 

DRIVE by james sallis. not really a thriller but honorary mention because i love that novella so much. driven is also good but not as good. I could recite whole scenes by heart of how much i've read drive over the years. it's not superior writing by any means but idk what about it is so dear to me, the way it's written in a non-linear way like a stream of consciousness and how this one incident in his childhood and the memory of his mother keeps haunting the narrative of what should be a very straight forward hard boiled action car chaces kinda book. I LOVE DRIVE (i scream from the top of every building).

Quiet clings to them like a sheet within the intimacy of late night, of hushed talks by the fire while everyone else sleeps. It is the non-time, the liminal space before the first light of dawn where they can allow themselves to whisper the things they deny to themselves in the harsh light of the waking world, once the comfort of shadows passes and life exists again. Tentatively, carefully, tiptoeing around a minefield of forbidden words and emotions. This, teethers over the edge of that uncharted path that seems to lead down the unfamiliar land of things they do not speak of. The steady drumming of their heart as they watch Daemos' profile in the fire light, the dark pools of his eyes watching them, always watching them, observing. They never know what they see, they are too scared to ask.  

It is their turn to watch now, chin resting on their arm, fire reflected in the storm of their eyes. So loud and so quiet at the same time. Their emotions, a contrasting cacophony against the sudden muteness of their lips. Words shape and reshape themselves in their mind, but escape their fingers like water the moment they try to grab them.

They never saw themselves as a protector, a caregiver. All they have ever been good for is to destroy things, bleed them out slowly or cut them violently. They feel as if they should deny Daemos words out of principle alone, and still want to hold them like a stolen treasure.

“ not long, ” daniel lies, shifting his weight as he snaps a heavy book shut. the dust tickles his nose and sticks to the back of his throat; it makes him suppress a cough. he looks up from the text, slumped in the doorframe; the curls of his hair have gone wild and stick to skin gone pale under the glow of moonlight. he hadn't been creeping on them intentionally. if there was anyone awake in the world, through that longest stretch of night, daniel figured it would be daemos.