Work Text:
“Come back to bed,”
disembodied words wrap around you like the silk robe around your shoulders.
If you turn, then you will see him staring at you with that aquamarine gaze that appears to look straight through you. Alas, you do not turn, instead you step onto the ledge of his windowsill and peer down. How easily it would be to fall from this height -- perhaps you’d finally know what it is like to f l y. Freedom had always been something your bones ached for, now that you have been given a taste of what lays on the other side, you wish to be in control of that type of power.
“Something w i c k e d this way comes,” you say in return.
Your tongue clicks the roof of your mouth as your crimson gaze watches the clock’s hands countdown.
Three hours.
He has no clue what you mean, so he turns over in bed. The blanket is thrown haphazardly across the sharpness of his hips and he looks at home with the look of puzzlement he is wearing. It is you that he cannot figure you out, but you rather the curtain be kept shut for now. You don’t want to spoil the fun that is waiting for him (two hours and fifty -seven minutes). “Byakuya,” his name feels foreign on your tongue; affection feels tiresome. Every bone in your body aches. “If I come back to bed then you won’t be able to keep your hands to yourself, silly boy.”
From his position, he hums.
If he had a cigarette, he’d look just like his father.
But y o u are his ashes; you are the smoke he inhales. Even you know this to be true. “Come here anyway.”
You were never one for taking commands. When you kick a foot out, you lose your balance and are surprised when you don’t immediately topple over. Instead, you throw your gaze to Togami, who is gritting his teeth. “S t u p i d girl,” he hisses. “Do what I say before you get yourself killed.” His gaze has been affected so thoroughly by the fear rushing through his veins at her miscalculation. A smile graces her lips as she lowers herself down until she’s seated on the windowsill. This time she’s facing him.
“So impolite to your queen,” she clucks her tongue again.
“You should be p u n i s h e d.”
The silk slides against your skin like his hands had and you crave to be within his embrace, but you hold yourself back from him. Temptation does not drive you as it will soon (two hours forty-nine minutes). His gaze only holds yours for a moment before he rolls his eyes and slips his glasses on before sitting up. Now you are sitting across from one another with too much space between that needs to be filled. The blanket still lays covering his lap, but you withhold yourself from welcoming his embrace. You look off to the side, then back towards him. “You have something you want to say, aside from the sickening comments you make.”
A moment of weakness.
He tilts his head in earnest to listen to your words.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper.
“I can’t spoil the ending, but I wanted these last moments with you.”
(I am going to d i e.)
“Don’t you demean me for having feelings for you, Byakuya. This has been going on for too long to be just a lie.”
(but you are the q u e e n of lies.)
[[ r e d e m p t i o n ]]
[[ you want to be honest in your last hours. ]]
“Celestia,”
he says and it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
“Taeko,”
you correct and it feels ugly rolling off your tongue.
He blinks, “Taeko?”
“My name,” you reply in earnest.
“Byakuya, you mean the w o r l d to me."
(but I hate you.)
(you ruin me.)
Something in the atmosphere changes and he is unable to react so readily to such a statement. You wish to capture this moment to replay it during your finale, but alas your memory will betray you. Togami Byakuya looks shipwrecked currently and you are the anchor that has caught unexpectedly. Everything about these meetings change. Now his lips purse with interest instead of intent. There is an indecipherable emotion in his eyes that you want to decode. “Celes--, Taeko,”his voice quivers, “you can’t just s a y that.”
In a grand gesture, he takes his glasses off and tosses them to the side.
Then he places his head in his hands. Aquamarine vision blurs the surroundings.
Within moments your feet are trodding across the wooden flooring until you're bowed at his feet; your hands reach to cup his as you slide your nose against his. “Byakuya, I want you to know that I loved you as fully as I could love a person. I’ve been broken for awhile now.” The admittance pains you to speak aloud, but it is a needed exhale. Your touch on his skin is thin, almost nonexistent. You treat him like porcelain, just how he is supposed to be treated. It annoys him to see you so fragile, but he doesn’t stop you when you fervently press your lips against his.
Needy, open-mouthed kisses are placed upon his lips, then trail down across his jawline.
I’m never going to do this again.
I’ll never get to kiss him again.
I always will lose this game.
“I love you,” one of you say.
Time feels as though is halts completely.
“You love me?” The other replies.
“Completely.”
Inhales catch exhales until you are breathing the same air as Togami Byakuya and the clock is just background noise by now. You have time still (two hours unknown minutes); you still have time to give to Byakuya and his soft caress that undoes you completely. Both of you get lost within his embrace as you hold one another in desperation, but you are unable to pick yourself up from the floor. His lips are guided to yours as he kisses you carefully and with emotion that you don’t recognize spilling from his lips as they move against your own.
His tongue skids across your bottom lip, and your crimson eyes open to drink him.
I want to remember this.
I want to kiss him into eternity.
You want to be sitting across from him at your kitchen table while he talks stocks and bonds and his work that he enjoys because he bosses everyone else around. He looks at you and knows that you are a set of constellations carefully constructed in such fragility that you could b r e a k, but instead you s h i n e. You want to be able to live a life of complacency and masked normalcy, but you know what the truth is, but you cannot spoil this ending.
You can’t tell him he lives without you.
That he lives without a shred of a memory of you -- of t h i s.
Unspoken words spill from your lips as you kiss him without restraint.
When he pulls away there are unfallen tears in your eyes and you move too quickly for him to catch them. Two steps, then two more and you are back in the windowsill with that wistful look in your eyes as you give him a soft smile. Your lips are bruised, probably, and he is all you can taste and all you want to taste.
He moves too slowly for you.
You f r e e - f a l l.
The wind licks at your feet.
The flames lick at your feet.
You hold your breath in a pirouette.
You hold your breath and your head high.
Time seems to halt.
Time seems to speed up.
And you f a l l
with blood covering the canvas.
There are screams of horror.
There are no tears shed for you.
You wish you could have flew.
You knew you were doomed from the start.
Either way
Togami Byakuya watches your descent
with that indescribable emotion in his gaze.