do you know what it is to be unmade? oh, stark does. he’s felt the terrible weight of reversal clamping around his chest — life trying to turn you backwards with a vice grip. he’s felt the blinding agony of backwards creation; he’s felt every kind of suffering a man can take. it doesn’t cross his mind that @herrage might not realize the enormity of that — how unafraid it makes a person. how pain is secondary to experience, and all else, and how tawdry, how pitiful pain is beside want.
he’s seen into dark corners he’s completely unafraid of now and he would do it all again. this is a hero in truth and in fact — blinky flickers quicker and a deep flush of pure pink blasts across that freckled face of his. his grin is boyish, borders shy, contorts metal around the heavy square of his jaw.
“life is pain, highness. anyone who tells you different is selling something.”
pop culture bereft, usually, but a touch of romance is lent to him. his eyes flutter shut the second that kiss is bestowed, and it’s instinctive — his palm reaches to his own chest, shadows that bright flicker, tries to muffle it.
“bitte sehr, jederzeit. very much my pleasure.”
every dress shirt is too tight, stark is well-aware. if physicians could bother with him they’d be constantly admonishing — mottled flesh beneath is expansively roughened pink and tender, crimson and violet and all alabaster at once. he’s given up every inch of himself to the world and he’ll keep doing it; he isn’t afraid. he’s all thin muscle and sinew straining ever so against crème linen.
“you’re incredibly pretty.”
he isn’t self-conscious enough to feel stupid — that comes a few seconds later.
