Fleeting Beauty
-The stars are far away and hold such beauty, but he shouldnt be here.
not now at least.
read on ao3 here
Prompt fill : ‘Do you
want me to leave?’
It was
sudden the way he awoke, one moment he was consumed in the darkness moments and
words from the past echoing around him, bouncing around him, drowning him in
the sea of darkness as it consumed him, dragging him down into its darkest depths.
And then he
was awake. Eyes open wide and unfocused as his heart decreased in rate and he
resettled back into the cold reality before him.
He was on
his side facing the window, the view familiar but wrong. The pressure at his
hip as a hand rested their, the pressure of a leg hooked over his own, a breath
on the back of his throat, all wrong. Wanted and craved, but wrong.
He shouldn’t
be here.
At least he shouldn’t
be here still.
But he didn’t
move, didn’t shift or try to escape to amend the sense of wrong, he just laid
still breathing in and out in sync with the breath behind him warm and wet
against his neck.
He continued
to stare at the stars and returned to past thoughts about them, waiting for
pressure around him to cease when the other awoke.
He would
enjoy this while he could, moments like these were always so fleeting.
-
Hours passed
before the body behind Rhys joined him in waking. The arm clutched tighter the
breath seemed to exhale in a sigh and the leg shifted higher as if jack himself
was trying to save the fleeting moment before them both. Before they both
amended the wrong they had created in the first place when they could not stand
a lover’s embrace, each consumed and haunted by their own past and present transgressions.
Rhys would
be lying if he said he didn’t miss the times where this wrongness had felt right
and the moments they had didn’t need to be cherished before the other pulled
away, allowing the cold to embrace them as they would recreate the space
between them tearing at the wound they weren’t successful in closing.
But for now,
they didn’t move, barely breathed and clutched what they could staring ahead.
Had the
stars always looked so lonely.
Many times, jack’s
breath had hitched, many times Rhys had heard him inhale deeply as if bracing
himself for what they knew was to come next once either broke their silence.
No word left
his mouths only a sigh as he buried his head into Rhys back, intertwining his
hand with Rhys own. Rhys couldn’t help but notice the absent pressure in their
left hands as he squeezed back. The pressure had been gone for some time,
muscle memory long forgotten.
-
Eventually it
was Rhys who was the one to break their silence.
He too
breathed in, and for once in hours he closed his eyes against the stars as they
burned brightly at him.
He breathed
out and opened them again staring at the glass instead of the stars. He saw
them in the glass, a mockery of a reflection. Blanket barely covering them to
the hips, still intertwined in a lover embrace and eyes staring back.
Jack stared
at him through the reflection and he stared back, absorbing what he could committing
the site to memory as he had done so many times before.
He wondered
how many times where left.
The never
knew, jack didn’t care. Rhys never dared to wonder.
‘Do you want
me to leave?’
The words
echoed into the silence as they word left Rhys mouth, familiar to the tongue
but a stranger to his mind and heart as he spoke them, as his heart clenched
and his mind screamed for him not to repeat the pattern to change it, to allow
himself to stay.
He couldn’t.
But he couldn’t
leave, he knew this. Jack knew this.
The words
that left jack mouth, barely a whisper against his skin as he turned into Rhys
back hiding his face into the hair line his arm and leg drawing Rhys closer
melding them together as the cold left the space between them.
‘no’
Rhys had to
shut his eyes, his breath stuck in his throat as he returned the gesture in
kind, his hand gripping jacks closer and his face turning in to the pillow.
This wasn’t a
mercy.
He came to
expect little else. For jack mercy was very rarely an option, but for Rhys it
was his option, forgiving those who deserved to be forgiven. Rhys didn’t think
he could forgive jack for this.
Even still
he allowed the hands to maneuverer him, pulling his face from the pillows with
a gentle hand as he was turned on to his back jack shifting ever so slightly
above him.
Rhys couldn’t
see the stars anymore.
The sight
before him was far more beautiful.
Perhaps it
was why jack was so untouchable, just like the stars. A beauty to behold but so
far way never tethered to one place or a person.
Jack was
silent as his mismatched eyes stared deeply into Rhys own, his face and unguarded
and bare for his to see. Emotions no longer hidden behind cold plastic but laid
bare before Rhys.
Jack looked
so human above him in these moments, he often forgot there was a monster laying
under the skin, unrelenting in its actions to get what it sought.
‘your cruel’
was all Rhys could muster ad he laid below jack, breath relaxed as he stared
into the depths before him.
Jack smile
was full of sadness and never reached his eyes as he closed them leaning his
forehead to Rhys in a moment of tenderness many couldn’t believe the man capable
of.
‘I know’ was
the whisper against his lips as the grazed one another, jack settling his
weight just above him.
Rhys brought
his hand up the rest on the face before him, thumb grazing the scar embedded
into once flawless skin traveling upwards so that it rested in the mess of
brown locks streaked grey adorning jacks head as jack moved lower, breath back
at his neck.
Rhys sighed
eyes looking to the ceiling as jack continued his antics.
He would
stay.
He would
stay because these moments where fleeting and jack was a dead man walking.
And it tore
him apart inside as he turned back to the stars.
The most beautiful
things to behold but too far away to reach.
Too far way
to make them stay.
this is part 1 of a 100 Prompt challenge.
prompt: ‘do you want me to leave?’
my plan is to try and not make these all angst. 'try’ is the key word ;)
i hope you enjoy this is my first borderlands piece i have written in preparation for a long fic series i want to write for the rhack ship.
Thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed it.
feel free to tell me what you think of it.
OldSephtis x