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And, of course, it is sweet and adorable when you simultaneously raise your hands to protect each other. Your wrists clash like the swords of sworn enemies, it makes you both smile and forget about the danger for a bit. In the evenings -- or, rather, what counts as evenings, -- he tells you all these scary stories. He goes on and on about earth opening up right under everyone he cared at least a little about, leaving him crying, lonely and unwanted. He prays not for you, but at you, as if you were a saint. "Don't die, don't leave me here, I don't want to lose you too, I will be anyone if it saves you." You're not blind. You see that prayer all across every single one of his green eyes on his tired face. He usually has the decency not to say it out loud.
And, of course, it feels good when the demigod of the godless land calls to his benefactor, grinning and frowning, over and over, to find you. You! Not even your own mother wanted to find you, and there he is -- eyes ablaze, dark hair streaked with gray is in dramatic motion. You're almost loved. God has almost forgiven you.
Did you love him more when he was a detached academic with a professional haircut, almost a carbon copy of the one who ruined your lives? When he picked up a stack of books in the library, not even bothering to look at you, while you were studying his young gray streaks? It's hard to say. No, probably not.
But one day he jumped onto the chair with a yelp, noticing a spider under his desk in the library. He was holding a black pen in his hands. He was aiming. And then you entered the stage with a plastic cup, gently letting "this disgusting thing" into the window. It was enough to make him smile with relief for a brief second (before he realised he dropped the act of a cold cynic) and remember your name for a few days.
Or, perhaps, you liked him more with his tape recorder in hands and his habit of lecturing you after every single mistake? Now that's unlikely. He once confessed that he slept at the cot in a vast archive, hidden in the maze of shelves. That one cot, which isn't even meant for one person size-wise and creaks softly whenever you turn around in your sleep. These files are more protected than you ever were. He considers your safety as important as theirs. You were hearing him firmly scold the one who ruined your lives for not wanting to protect his employees better. Lights in the small window in the door have been switched off.
Don't you even reminisce with a warm smile of that day when he selflessly offered you to gouge your eyes out with this earnest desparation smeared on his face? Aren't you wondering how it might've turned out if you had actually agreed to that? How many seconds it would've taken you to start hitting his cold body, abandoned to the whims of the closest thing this universe has to Fate, on the cheeks, stained with blood from his eyesockets? It's like everyone knew he wouldn't survive that separation. Everyone but him.
The apocalypse gifted the demigod of the godless land an infinite pack of cigarettes. It was hardly the strangest thing that could've happened, so he smokes, lighting them up with his silver web lighter. It makes him look good as much as three of his bright green eyes, open on his neck, do. It's beautiful, it is, but there's clearly something unhealthy about that. Something showing that he could do better. The demigod of the godless land smiles at you, exhaling a cloud of smoke, but never meeting your eye. He did promise not to rummage in your thoughts. And he does try his best, doesn't he? For you! Not even your parents would ever try this much for you.
So you cling to that. You catch all of his smiles, every kiss you steal on this weird endless first date without cafes or movie theaters, like you've been starved on years.
He doubts every feeling he has, lets his guilt eat him alive, so as not to surrender to any other desires of his newfound personality. But he never doubts that he loves you. He loves you the way your eyes are grayish-blue.
He loves you like it's self-evident. You lack the nerve to tell him that it's a terrible idea. The words of one of the dozen poets you used to choke back your yearning of that exact moment are cold in your throat. "You try to warn him, you tell him you will want to get inside him, and ruin him, but he doesn't listen," you roll these lines on your tongue while trying to carefully imagine him being dissapointed with you, so that when he actually is, it wouldn't hurt as much.
You lack the nerve to remind him of the days when he wouldn't even look at you, too. Because now he's firmly holding your hand. Because his hair is beautifully fluttering in the pink-red apocalyptic air. And, perhaps, even because now he will never leave you. You even believe him.
"Hm? What are you looking at? Did I get smeared in another 'breakfast' of mine or something?"
And when he laughs, not covering his sharp teeth, and his fingers bend into air-quotes, you suddenly understand what were these pointless religious wars you never cared to understand at History classes all about. For a demigod like that, clothed in an old flowing trouser-skirt and some boots with has-been yellow stitching, you wouldn't mind dying either.
"Yeah, you have tape all over your face," you also laugh, carefully touching his cheekbone. "Let me wipe that."
And when the great Eye dissects you, as it will everyone in this apocalyptic landscape, it will find inside only your infinite and undying love. (Nothing of true nutrient, that is).