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There’s a door.
It seems like there’s always a door, these days. Pale yellow, worn and familiar. There’s a pull to it that still sets his teeth on edge but it isn’t as bad as it used to be. The pull or the tension, really. Some instincts start to give up when one ignores them enough, for better or for worse.
It knocks, a polite rapping of too many knuckles on something that almost rings like wood. Coy. But it’s all part of the rhythm they’ve fallen into.
It will knock, sometimes he opens it, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes it pulls him in, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes he walks in all on his own. Time spent in its hallways is always hazy, the impression of a memory left like a film on his tongue. He tries not to worry about it overmuch.
Today he does not open the door but it creaks open all the same. A dance just as familiar unfolds from there: Its owner will step through, all joints and wild curls, piercing in its ambience. The door will close but remain; the pull never goes away, just twists tight enough to ignore. It will bring him a smile that turns his stomach and sometimes he will even offer one in return. And then it will make a nuisance of itself.
Nowadays, its visits rarely comes with the promise of harm but it pesters all the same and he has learned there is nothing to be done but humor it. Some part of him welcomes the distraction, the way it seems to cut through the hold of the Eye. In its presence his Knowing struggles to reach, pull and pool knowledge whether he wants it or not. The relief in its absence is a tangible thing, even as the cutting pressure of what shouldn’t be takes its place but there is a comfort in that too though he would hate to inflate its ego any further with such a confession.
Instead his task is put aside, tea is offered and made, and they find themselves seated on his floor. The tea isn’t very good, it never is, and it has taken to reshaping its mug, the contents melding with the now malleable ceramic. It twists and wraps in on itself, building layer upon layer upon impossible layer and all he can wonder is if the tea is still hot, whether it burns the tips of its fingers to shape it so. The sight of it hurts, prickles at the back of his nose. He mourns the mug and nurses his own in the mostly comfortable silence.
Sometimes they talk, though mostly about nothing. Not quite small talk but anything more is difficult to achieve. It taunts him about this and that, speaking in riddles all the while. He questions just enough to keep it satisfied, amused but knows better than to expect much in the way of answers.
It’s a wonder, the way he’s settled into this companionship, the compromises he’s made. And the way it has settled, too. The ease at which they come together now, sharing a space and finding comfort in simple words exchanged, the brush of limbs, a hand taken in hand.
It folds against him, almost, curled with its knees pulled in, arms tucked against its chest. Slouched so that its head may rest against his shoulder. The shape of it hurts, its body yielding only to perception and that still carries its own harm. He weathers it nonetheless, taking in the feel of it; where its arm might press against his, were it an arm, where his hand might rest against its thigh, were it a thigh, where its hair might tickle his cheek, were it hair. A wave of not-sensation.
It’s like... It’s like what touching television static should feel like. What it would be like if he could push his fingers through and into that dense buzzing, feel each particle tingle and scratch and numb and cut into his skin. It makes his hair stand on end, a shiver travel down his spine with the rise of gooseflesh.
It’s like every piece has its own gravity to it, pulling and pulling until he is held so secure, so sharp and warm. It shifts around him, undulating and writhing and sliding into itself, pieces trying to settle as if it doesn’t know what to do with wanting to settle at all. It is left off-kilter, though it certainly couldn’t say what it means to be righted, and is quick to blame him for his poor influence. A thought expressed with no real malice, at least. The words, even as they push and strain and hurt, drip with something like affection.
There is still fear in the trail of his fingers over not-skin, the way it twists over and around not-muscle, not-bone but it is the reverent kind, all awe. Something almost like love. And perhaps it tries to lean into that touch, tries to be... Something. Something solid that holds form with the right weight behind it. He finds he is moved by the effort.
It is a spectacle and he tells it as much. In response he gets a laugh that aches down to his teeth and a soft, piercing, constricting warmth all around him. Their knees touch, maybe, in some sense. It is present, certainly. There is pressure, so much pressure and he feels truly held. But even as it knows stillness it struggles to maintain it beside him, too antsy and agitated by what he has made of it. It is not what it is and there was no before, there is no now, and there will be no after but there is change coming yet.
For now it struggles to be passive as its heavy hand is taken to rest in his. The effort leaves his skin tender, alight with the sensation of cat scratches and paper cuts, though it no longer deters him as it once did. A thicker skin grown to behold its mock-physicality.
He wonders, if he saw inside it, would it be hollow, a shell for the ever-changing nothing? Or is it more substantial underneath, the lies extending to the pretend-necessity, pretend-functionality of an impossible something. Could he reach into its not-gut, feel not-intestine slither and coil around his hands?
Would it accept him as he has accepted it? Would it be yielding, pliant in its curiosity?
His nails are blunt, torn but maybe it would let him push deep into not-skin that does not rip, but gives all the same. And their blood, does it bleed? It could mingle as he cuts himself on its edges and that would be a knowing they could both live with, he thinks. Enough to satisfy himself but never the Eye, and there is a smug satisfaction in that.
As if tasting the thought it laughs against his skin and the sound settles over him like condensation on glass. Every part of him feeling the sharp staccato slowing into sigh, maybe fond. It dissipates and crawls along the ways he’s begun to flush. Creeps along his neck, from the ringing in his ears, the pressure in his head. Claws across his chest, from the growing warmth, the prickle of sweat that beads and rolls towards a fixed point. Clumps his hair along with the tears. He feels it in his teeth and in the sour taste coating his tongue. It is acrid, ringing metal and it pushes, pushes, pulls. An irregular ebb and flow he will never make sense of.
It tells him he could certainly try, all soft amusement.
He doesn’t remember ever speaking but nods all the same, finding himself short of breath. A thought for later. For now his thumb works circles into the palm of its hand, the skin there numbing his own like carpet burn.
Their intimacy is surprisingly simple. Almost domestic. It comes easy now, no matter how much his body screams that it shouldn’t, it can’t, get away. But he knows there is a safety in these moments. Even if it gets... hazy, difficult to collect his thoughts. Even if he finds himself bloodied, the crust of it along his lip or the rim of his ear. Even if tears fall freely and he cannot recall why. There is fear, there will always be fear, but the familiarity of it is its own comfort.
There is something distinctly angelic in its horror, its impossibility. It’s a shallow comparison, he knows. Michael brings the thought of archangels and saints, of course. And there are times at which it shows a soft, violent beauty befitting more romantic depictions of such; hands that do not cut but still weigh heavy, curls that frame and fall as if to be a bright halo, lips that part and press prophecies, promises of retribution to skin. Indulgent, much less taxing on him but a terrible burden on it. Liar that it is, a rejector of self, it never wanted to be as it is. To be at all is rapturous but it became its own cage.
There are times it evokes the image of a cherub. Not the round-faced babe, the very picture of innocence, but the true cherub. A many-headed, winged thing of cloven hoof. When his hands do take, his fingers may push into the plush, cooling dew of grass, or shag carpet, almost fur. The slide of its skin is leathery, or plasticine, or of sandpaper. It is in its nature to be abrasive, damaging but that does not stop him from curling closer. Its hair curtains them both and in it he sees something like the coil of wire or hemp. It has its face, the features twisting and collapsing into each other. It has other faces too, not-faces of angles and fractals and impressions left behind tight-shut eyes. A refusal of focus, of Knowing, and as he finds comfort in that blindness his god digs at him for his complacency.
He wonders what they think, seeing their vessels, their pawns inspire such confidence, such love. Not in the fear but in their own right. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. His god is certainly a jealous god, the way it clings and tugs. Desperate to Watch but nothing to offer in return. Nothing to pull him from the comfort he finds elsewhere. Finds here, a monster at his side. It is not his, he is neither a fool or beholden to that kind of possession, but there is a belonging he relishes in.
Changed as he is, true companionship has been harder to come by. No, that’s not quite true. Hands still extend. He is not so cut off from those who loved and love him still. They offer him words of comfort but ask so much in return. Pushing and pulling and leaving him rattled in the wake of their expectations. It is more than fair, it is, he knows. More than ever he needs to be aware of himself. What he can do. What he has become. But he tires all the same.
It is no truer to say the companionship he has found is simpler. It is anything but. It comes easier, maybe, leaves his heart lighter. It is a respite. And it is cowardice.
It is fleeing to a creature who has long since shed its morality in favor of a freedom that appeals in ways he hates himself for, though there are times where he sees it hates itself for it too. He tells himself it serves a good reminder, a point from which to run parallel but never intersect. He wonders how much he really believes that.
For its part, it encourages as little as it discourages. His turmoil brings its own amusement but it has no interest in how he feeds the Eye, just that he does. In all its contempt for the Archives it would still hate to see him waste away and he is almost touched. Almost.
It does not escape him that this will always remain conditional, no matter how much he indulges. Contempt might win out, one day. It might grow bored. It might tire of him, though rarely does the reverse cross his mind. He tells himself he has understood this since the beginning, that it will not hurt when it comes. He wonders how much he really believes that, too.
But, in this moment there is peace, or something like it. There is something like comfort and something like love to be found in the something like a person at his side. And that can be enough.