Work Text:
He was a force of nature.
He used to be a storm; with grey clouds in his hair and lightening in his fingers, and his eyes were the centre of it. Calm, despite the chaos surrounding. Now, he's the cool air coming off the sea, with seaweed in his hair and moisture beading at his fingertips, his eyes deep, swirling pools of water – enticing, until they drown you.
But through it all, storms and seas and forests and long, dirt roads, he was the universe. He brushed galaxies out of his hair, because they were created in his eyes, and he painted constellations on your skin with a breath – a simple thought.
It's different, now, his galaxy. It's no longer tethered to you; it floats and attaches itself to others from time to time. But that's alright, you think; you were never strong enough to hold him close, anyway. Couldn't bear it for too long, lest you feel something good.
He always came back to you, though – his first star. His first love (though this isn't the time or place to think about love, when the world's gone to shit, you still do, late at night when he's fallen asleep next to you for the first time in months).
Every time he leaves, he comes back a little darker. You watch the cosmos in his eyes die out one by one until nothing's left, and there's a black hole in his head. His fingers destroy you with every touch, rip you apart and take away the stars he made for you. But that's okay, you think, because everything you have is his to take. It's not like you have anything other than him, anyway.
And when he's gone, you rebuild yourself. Your crumbling stone walls are patched up with memories of a past life, as you look through the things he's left behind and remember when he got them. There's a razor in the bathroom next to yours that he's used for years, and an extra blanket under the bed because his feet get cold at night.
You just wish he'd leave something meaningful, that you'd find a star under your pillow or a new universe in the sink. You're more likely to find a black hole in the bathtub, now. It's okay, though, you tell yourself; the darkness is better than nothing. That's hard to remember, though, when his fingers are deep in your stone walls. Corrupting them, loosening the bonds of stardust that hold it together.
Sometimes, you find yourself wishing he'd cut all his ties to you. Take his damn solar system with him and leave – just so long as he doesn't forget a stray planet in the cabinet, or a comet under the sink; you don't think you could bear it if any small thing was left. You feel ashamed, when you think that, but not so ashamed as when you say it.
You're in bed, one of the nights he's actually going to sleep with you through the night, and you say, “You can't stay here.” The words surprise you, pulled from your mouth by an unseen force, echoing one's you said so long ago.
You can feel from the way his chest moves under your cheek that you maybe have just burnt out the last of his galaxies. But you can't bring yourself to feel anything; you're just numb. He's bled you for your life, your hope, your love, your stars, too many times for you to feel anything at all anymore.
He gets out of bed and he leaves, without a word, and you wonder just what you've done. In the silence of the room with only darkness as your companion, you mourn the man who held the universe in the palm of his hand. He closed his fingers on it long ago.