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She was a dying rose.
Sunset dancing across her face.
A porcelain doll, cracked open.
Red in a pool of satin.
Her clothes lay discarded on the floor. As if she’d been in a hurry, as if she’d struggled, then ripped them off, setting her body free and unbound. The blood must have gushed, crimson and thick, staining the hardwood and tainting the sheets. Ripped stitches and cuts, and an armada of bruises; littering inch after inch of her skin; trespassing.
He was afraid.
Of her.
For her.
Terrified to peel the hair from her cheek for fear it be blood.
“-tasha-”
Helpless, choked-up whisper. His fingers slipping along her jaw. Both of them still as the world outside of her window went on.
He’d never seen her this small, never prayed with such vigour for a sinner’s damned soul. Letting his tears merge with the stain on her bed, begging ‘oh god, please don’t be dead’.
“Ow.”
A word so indescribably small for her pain. Anything more though, anything more would’ve broken him. So he sealed that one in on her lips. And it felt like rebirth.
He should’ve noticed the mad haze in her eyes before dropping her off, the feral hunger for release. He claimed to know her, yet it’d escaped him once more how destructive she could be, how little regard she had for the one he loved most. The thought plagued his brain as his hands worked on removing her bra, the leftover indents cutting too deep for his liking.
Her wound stared him down, this torn pale abyss of her flesh that he’d just managed to tame taunting to spill even more of her out.
“I’ll stitch you back up when you’re out,” his eyes shot to the bathtub, now steaming and full, and waiting for her.
He was staring intently at eyes that were glazed over, at the streaks of mascara she’d never bothered to wipe. It was divine, in the way hell probably was, to see tears as tangible rivers of sorrow and curse himself for eternity he hadn’t been there to stop them.
But he was here now. Clutching her hand as he lowered her in, holding on tight as her cuts hit the water.
“I know,” she was quietly wailing and it tore him apart; but they couldn’t both be in shambles “I know. I’m sorry.”
He began with her face, one swipe after the other, unearthing her. Reliving all of the mornings he’d spent counting her freckles and tracing her brows. Her features burned in his memory and he had to restrain himself from pressing too hard, from speeding the process of getting her back.
“You’re mad,” her lips parted ever so slightly.
“Very observant of you.”
She let out a hum, low and almost inaudible, eyes lazily following the movement of his hand across her face.
“Why?”
“Playing dumb doesn’t suit you, Natasha.”
Her body shifted under him then, splashing the water around as she rose, hand cold and wet over his when she grabbed him.
“This,” she paused, eyes boring into his “is my life. I get to decide what happens to me.”
Looking at her was seeing red. Red was the knotted hair gathered at her shoulders, red was the surge of blood rising to her cheeks. Red was the anger clouding his vision and his judgement.
“Well, you are my life. And I can’t let you ruin it,” stillness “Now lie back down.”
Touching her felt different now, more loaded, more important. He’d long learned to see beyond the flesh, beyond the nooks and crevices and curves her body offered up to him so freely. There was a time and place for him to worship her, to show and prove to her she held his world in those astonishing green eyes. But here and now, he needed to be level-headed, to care without divulging.
“Close your eyes for me,” he whispered, perhaps a tad too close; he saw the shiver travel down her neck, and trembled at the flutter of her lashes. The rosemary of her shampoo flooded his senses whilst he massaged the suds into her scalp, careful not to pull at all the knots that mercilessly weaved around his knuckles.
“Your hair’s grown longer.”
“Mmm.”
He rolled the length of it back down, gently tracing along her spine. She tied it up when they made love, the heat of it impossible for either one to handle. Perhaps she’d let him have at it for once though, and preferably soon, his mind stuck in the loop of tugging at it with the tame ferocity he would only reserve for her.
“Tilt back, please.”
And she did, without hesitation. She trusted him, to dunk her head under the water but never drown her, brushing a hand over her eyes to shield her from it all instead. And the ease of such trust was elating, every time. For as destructive as she was towards herself, she reveled in his touch much more.
He looked at her from up above now, with passion of a different sort.
“Do you feel safe here?” An answer wasn’t what he was looking for. No, he waited for that sparkle in her eyes, the one that came after ‘I love you’. She couldn’t hide from him. He wondered if she wanted to.
“Where is here?”
He cupped her face then, and it felt right even upside down.
“Right here.”
Between his palms. With him. Best part of his life.
“Then yes,” she barely breathed out “you make everywhere feel safe.”
The detonation of his heart was silent.
Her bare mattress felt cool to the touch. He was standing in the room, holding onto the bloody satin bedwear with a question mark across his face. She’d bled through it all.
“Toss them.”
Flat tone, steel expression.
“And the mattress?”
“Help me flip it.”
“Nat-”
“I assume you’re staying, no? It’ll have to do for tonight.”
He feared she’d rip her stitches again; it had already taken everything from him to watch the needle pierce her skin, to feel the flinch she was so desperately trying to suppress surge through her body and escape her lips. He should’ve numbed his mind the way he did the area of the wound, with alcohol and promises, and holding of her hand.
“You can crash at my place,” he laid down next to her, just staring at the ceiling “until you get the new one in.”
“Your dog snores.”
“We all have our faults.”
There was no clock inside her room; and just as time was free to move unbothered by any mortal constraints, so were they.
Laced fingers; a heavy drunken nonsense of sleep-deprived slurred words; his lips on hers, thirsty and eager to explore. He’d brought the life inside of her once more tonight, kissing her burning cheeks, inviting her to rest onto his chest.
“I’d like to brush your hair,” he tucked a singular red stray behind her ear, drawing that circle across her back over and over; not sure if he were calming her or just himself.
“Bottom drawer.”
‘I love you,’ he’d whisper with every knot that came undone.
‘I love you,’ for every fiber of her being.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”