[For those seconds when those banded fingers tuck under his chin, he remembers how it feels to be a spawn; his heart shudders in its moors before it stops and stays unbeating, tense in a way it hasn't been since waking up, when nausea and discomfort ached in time with its swift, hard pulse.
His eyes shut. Both of them this time.
He doesn't breathe.
He only listens.
And then the patter of a wrung-out rag pulls him back into the present swath, bearing the brunt of his attention when he wipes his cheek across the corner of one sleeve to dry it (never mind that it smears his skin with red again, just there), uniquely docile in the next few beats when he holds up both his palms.]
....you're a dangerously generous thing for someone who's been through so much. [Knife's edge, those words. Balanced like a dagger on the tongue. I'm not a pet project some part of it implies, but it's less the rattling of a serpent's guarding tail and more the assertion of something well aware it's standing on its last legs. Only legs. Unsteady legs.
He needs the help. Hells, some part of him even wants it, winding willingly into the shadows of the firelight in a mirror to the slow reach of his hands.
That doesn't change the part of this he fears, so much so that he can't say it.]
no subject
His eyes shut. Both of them this time.
He doesn't breathe.
He only listens.
And then the patter of a wrung-out rag pulls him back into the present swath, bearing the brunt of his attention when he wipes his cheek across the corner of one sleeve to dry it (never mind that it smears his skin with red again, just there), uniquely docile in the next few beats when he holds up both his palms.]
....you're a dangerously generous thing for someone who's been through so much. [Knife's edge, those words. Balanced like a dagger on the tongue. I'm not a pet project some part of it implies, but it's less the rattling of a serpent's guarding tail and more the assertion of something well aware it's standing on its last legs. Only legs. Unsteady legs.
He needs the help. Hells, some part of him even wants it, winding willingly into the shadows of the firelight in a mirror to the slow reach of his hands.
That doesn't change the part of this he fears, so much so that he can't say it.]