Long past dawn

There were no faults in his exterior, no wounds cut into his skin derived from disappointment. He wished she hadn’t feared for him in such a way, he hadn’t been an egg that would crack and yet he saw the hesitation flash within her eyes. The worry that she had expressed solely for him and not for herself, not for the one who was truly suffering. His brows pulled together in response, but all he did was look at her. See her. Accept her. Before he had spoken the words themselves he hadn’t expected her to create a list of plausible scenarios that might ought to help. He wouldn’t have turned her down should she have, but it simply wasn’t what he expected. Nothing set that deeply was merciful. Once the beast had secured its claws within its victim, there wasn’t much anyone could do to dislodge it. That was a matter of truth he had been well acquainted with.

Instead, he only nodded. A soft understanding unfolding across his face. A distraction he sensed she needed, he pressed on, his lips tracing the line of her jaw, moving lower and lower on their slow trails. His words had been quiet, and if not for the fact they were so close together, she would have never heard him. “There’s one other thing I was thinking about.” He moved slowly, allowing her to push him away if she had wished. He could have been overstepping his boundaries, could have been reading her wrong. If she didn't want this, then she had only to say the word and he would stop. As his lips moved further down, he could feel the rise and fall of her chest, his eyes glancing upwards to search her own. What he was looking for exactly, he didn’t know. Beck continued his descent, the words barely audible against the hills of her fur. “… how badly I want to kiss you.”

Without doing just that, as if the words themselves were enough, he pulled her impossibly closer and tucked her body to his. Nestled there before his chest, she fit perfectly into the hollow of his neck, a piece of a puzzle that had gone missing eventually settling snugly into its place. For a moment he thought about placing his head down upon her back, but changed his mind to rest it down on his own extended paws. Cozying himself in the security of their interlocking embrace, a long exhale departed him in a hazy fluttering cloud of contentment.

He thought about asking her if she would feel safer if he left. If those demons she knew would visit her the very moment she let her lids slip shut would remain at bay a little longer, if the battle would not turn to ash that second if she had been alone instead. Beck kept his mouth shut, telling himself it was better for her not to stumble back into the darkness of those thoughts, but there was also his perhaps selfish unwillingness to part from her.

@Kaida
the staff team luvs u

There were no words the woman could utter that could accommodate the relief she felt, the gratitude weighing heavy on her heart as he remained silent. No questions, no remarks, but instead just the warmth of his stare and the tightening of his arms around her. It's what she needed, the distraction she was letting herself have—a white light burning its way through the monsters lurking in the corners of her mind. He was everything bright in the darkness of her mind and it sent a trickling fear down her spine.

“Beck...” She murmured, that fear shifting to something molten and cooing for his attention. Her smile turned soft—thoughtful. “What have I done to warrant such acts?” The words were a whisper, breathless as she lifted her chin to allow the prolonging of his sensual kiss. She welcomed the lightness of the distraction, the haze it sent across her mind that effectively cleared it of any and all terrors creeping along the edge. He was silencing them with his gentle touch, exploring her as her heart lulled him by, motion after motion.

And then he'd hauled her into him, tucking her close and cradling her like a babe. The woman felt at ease then, tucking her head against the groove of his neck with a hum against his skin. There were no words for her to say, no teases she felt compelled to bestow; not anymore. Exhausted and mentally battered, she lay limp against his chest. She was utterly confused, piecing together the pieces of their interaction with caution as if putting the wrong pieces together would make it crumble completely.

She didn't know how they got so familiar so fast, if it was temporary, or if they'd leave each other the moment dawn came. Shame crept into her actions; her grasp on him loosened and her eyes pinched shut. Here she was clinging to the pelt of a stranger she'd just met hours prior, letting him shower her with physical affection as if they'd belonged together, were together. Her heartbeat quickened. They were nothing more than strangers, strangers clinging to one another to ward off the coldness of their minds and their environments. The woman's lips thinned. Beck was a dream, more than that, but he'd never be hers.

And that fact—the woman pulled back to set a paw against his cheek—well, that fact broke her heart. She offered him a small, candid smile before shifting so her body rested on the cool, stone floor instead. Her eyes closed as its chill quelled the heat in her cheeks, in her mind, before they opened again—half-lidded and staring up at him.

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She hummed sweet words against his skin, breathless coos that escaped her while she angled her body into him and allowed the perusal of those soft warm places. He was only a man, he couldn’t extinguish her demons. No matter all the ways he could have tried, he knew better. Never one to delight in another’s agony but never a stranger to his own, he would have to accept that he could not heal others in the ways he wanted. An embrace would not lift the woes and thoughts that played her feelings like the chords of a violin. A sweet word would not cause her to forget whatever it was that tormented her with invisible knives. He knew better, but that didn’t seem to matter. It didn’t matter because the present moment was theirs. No monsters had come to pry their fangs into his sinew or lick his blood from their claws. He felt warm, he felt appreciated, he felt trusted. He felt things he hadn’t known he ever would in those small moments with her, with a woman plagued by devils but content to be swaddled in his arms just the same.

Until she wasn’t.

Chandeliers made of glass that once hung in beautiful, sunny lit corridors now hurdled to the floor in darkness. Shattering pieces of crystal in a high pitched explosion as his every fear, doubt, worry, and scar tore open once more. How stupid could he have been? How far had he let the entirety of the situation spin out of his paws and run loose like it was a disorderly animal? She would never — He could never be — Hammering the thoughts he once believed could grow wings back to the floor, Beck’s blood turned to ice. He sucked in a short breath, but presented her with a soft smile as she looked back to him from behind those weighted lids.

And there he slammed his eyes shut tight, unwilling to allow her even a single thread, a whisper, a puff of smoke as to what was going on inside his mind as it bent and buckled against itself in self loathing. He could stretch, he could yawn, he could settle and play games of pretend that he was just fine, games he had played all his life and she would never have been the wiser. So he did just that. Wrapping his tail around himself, he relaxed into the ground, forcing his breathing to slow as he feigned the sweet beckoning of slumber. He wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t dream. Whatever he could possibly concoct in his own head would have never held a candle to her touch, to the way she quieted the turmoil that relentlessly bubbled up within him. He had dreamed the most brilliant dream already, a dream of peace, of happiness. And now that dream was over.

@Kaida
the staff team luvs u

She didn't know how much retracting from him would bring, how the onslaught of emotions poured over her in waves. Sadness, anger, envy, jealousy—they consumed her, body and soul. She knew him to have his own demons too, hidden beyond the waves of heat and desire he'd showcased mere moments before. And that selfishness of hers had risen again when that shame coiled at her spine. She was so enthralled by it, so utterly ashamed of herself, that she was unbeknownst to the turmoil her retracted touch would bring to the male.

She noticed it then while her cheek pressed into the cold surface beneath her. The brief tenses, the stiffening of his posture, of his jaw; in the few hours they'd spent together, she knew what it looked like to see him at ease. This, this wasn't anything like that. Anyone who didn't know him, who hadn't taken the time to memorize him like a painting she'd set to burn and never see again, wouldn't have noticed the differences. Hell, they wouldn't have cared to look beyond the feigned smiles and the stiff movements. But she would, she did.

Shame long forgotten, the woman shifted closer to the brute, her delicate arms pulling his head into her chest as she nestled her own atop his. A word, nothing more than a strained whisper, left her mouth a moment after. “Together.” She'd promised herself that, promised herself that she'd let herself help him, let him help her through whatever means her mind accepted. So she held him to her, eased her heart into a steady beat as she shifted the rest of her body closer. In a further attempt to keep the grasp of sleep at bay, she busied herself with licking at his old wounds, sliding her tongue across his scars, the center of his forehead—anything to keep him beside her, with her instead of the darkness that plagued his mind.

“Sleep, sweet Beck. Not of darkness, but of a bright future. Dream of the happiness I know you deserve.” She eased her body back to lick a stripe up his muzzle before settling again, her chin resting on the top of his head as she flicked her tongue across the base of his ears in languid strokes. She could feel the heavy thrall of sleep, feel it creep upon her as she lay content with Beck while she happily eased him into his own slumber.

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She was comforting him. He had seen her heart, noticed the way she weighed her words before speaking, wrestled with the notions that piqued her only to first debate them against his own presumed feelings. A preliminary cause and effect of her every action against his. She was more concerned with the anguish of another rather than that of her own feelings battering her chest. And he hated himself for it. For her to judge and censor herself in accordance to the inner workings of his mind was for her essence, the bright glimmer of her soul to be reduced to no more than a puppet on strings. And she was so much more.

A fire had burned within her. The kind that was unstoppable, inextinguishable. It may waver beneath a harsh gale and be reduced to almost nothing — Nothing but a gleaming ember, but it surely still burned. It burned so brightly that one could not help but be drawn to that flame and the warmth that exuded in a halo around it. A beckon that had called out to lost souls aplenty. What kind of a person would she be with the right kind of attendant to fuel that hearth? One that could cultivate that small flicker into the bright, smoldering inferno he knew it would be if only provided the chance.

But he was not that man.

No, it was she who was comforting him. She who sank to his aid because he was so badly broken and bent up inside that something as forgivable as a severed touch had collapsed some unspoken wall within him. Was he truly so feeble? So damaged? This was wrong. He should have been comforting her. He should have been the rock, the unshakable ground for her to stand on. A million expectations rained down upon him, expectations that he knew he would never be able to meet try as he may. For all the should haves that rang out in his mind, he had despised himself all the bit more. Even as that single word delicately floated from her lips as no more than a strained whisper, it tore through him with harsh reality. To her heels he would be a rock, not the kind for her to lean on, but one that pulled her further down all the while she tried to stay afloat.

The more he found reason to hate himself, the more her gentle tongue swept idle strokes across his fur and kissed away the dark clouds that gathered beneath. He leaned into her touch and sighed against those words, ears twitching against the maneuvers of her tongue all the while spiraling deeper into his mind. How could he tell her that he was undeserving of those things. Of her. That this was a fantasy he had allowed himself to get swept up in only to drag her down with him in the process.

// fade //

@Kaida
the staff team luvs u