August DWC 2025
Day 3: Twitterpated/Primal
It had gone beyond a crush now, beyond infatuation or even desire. It was decidedly in the realm of irrevocable, woven into the tatters of his soul in a way that almost made him forget how ruined it had been before he'd arrived. In a way that made him wonder if this was what whole felt like. There was not a place left inside the man - the monster - that the Hunter's love hadn't touched and made better.
He'd thought he had known love before, but it had been an easy lie to tell himself. A box that he'd needed to break to fit into, convincing himself that it was just a different way to love. But it had been just another dagger that he had twisted inside of himself and called affection. Sometimes it had been a literal blade in the hand of the man who had told him he'd loved him, even as he tried to carve that love out with steel and claws and teeth.
It had to hurt, he thought, those were the rules. People who loved you had to hurt you in order for it to stick. And it had taken him hundreds of years alone to recognize that it was not love when they hurt you purposefully. It was not love when the price you paid was your happiness and safety and sanity.
Vael had never made him question if he was safe with him, had never made him guess as to whether or not he was happy with him - because he told him he was. Often. He'd never brought Lukel to the edge of insanity just to see what he would do, but had been a solid and comforting presence when the sounds of the world became too much, when the strings were too loud for him to focus.
They'd flirted at the Ball, he'd perhaps gotten to one knee…to fix the strap on Vael's boot, but also to see what reaction it would have garnered. And it hadn't been bad. It had, in fact, led to a conversation that he was still turning over in his head days later. One he would likely be contemplating for days to come. Because while he certainly knew that a lifetime was what he wanted with the other, he also couldn't deny that he wanted all of them.
@daily-writing-challenge mentions of @vaelsnipe
