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I pull on my boots and stand up, much too fast. My breath is still quickly rocking my chest, dizzying my head further. I need a drink.
I make a few unsteady steps towards the table where there’s an open bottle next to a corked one. The wine and the cup find their way into my hands, but the blasted thing slips out of my shaky fingers and falls to the floor, rolling away under it. I curse under my breath and try not to let it break me. I need a drink now.
My throat tightens and my pallet rises, tears welling up in my eyes. I place the bottle back on the table and fall to my knees, my hands blindly searching for the stupid, stupid silver cup. Relief I feel forces a tear out of my eye when my fingers stumble on the cold, uncaring metal. I wipe the tear with a wrist and stand up, only I’m still under the table.
Thud.
I hiss and crouch down again. My forehead almost touches the cold floor as my hand grabs the back of my head. Fuck. I sob and hear the open bottle wobble above, toppling down, pouring wine over the edge and down onto my back. It’s cold and disgusting. It pools around me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. All I wanted was to drink quickly to forget it. Now I’m under the table soaked in wine, crying like a pathetic wretch. I sob again and let my forehead touch the cold floor, my eyes shutting and my mind brining my dream back to the foreground where I can see it perfectly fucking clear.
Fire opens his chest, his ribs spreading wide like a blooming flower. His silver hair singes at the tips, smoke rising from each lock of hair. His eyes melt in their sockets, green coals remaining. Sickly flame, weak and wrong, eats his flesh off his bones. He keeps smiling at me, wide, honest. He wanted this. He brought this. He laughs, all that remains of him – his blackened bones and pale green coals for eyes. His teeth fall out from the jaws, one by one, raining down into the ash that was once his healthy flesh. I look down and blood tears stream down my face, dropping into the ash, soaking into it, coloring it dark red.
I rush to stand up to escape it, a hand covering my mouth from the horror of the vision I never asked for, only I forget that I am still under the table.
Thud.
Fuck. When will I learn?
I crawl out from under the hard wood, glaring at the emptied bottle like it insulted me personally. The edge of the table helps me pull myself up, then I grab the bottle and send it to the floor with an angry flick of my wrist. It crashes, the sound somehow comforting. I grab the other bottle and sink my teeth into the cork. I spit it out and take the fucking drink.
Wine pours down my throat, a trickle of it descending down along my neck but I barely notice. I need this. I need it to reach my head, and fast. My stomach growls at the acid that now fills it alone, and I put a sympathetic hand over my abdomen but otherwise do nothing to fix it. I fucking drink.
I place the almost-empty bottle back on the table. I grab a handkerchief and wipe my chin with it, and then my eyes with the edge of my sleeve. Fuck. Crying like that… I should really be used enough to this not to cry anymore. I’ve seen so many people die at night whilst I slept. Mother. Father. Myself. Strangers of the past. Strangers in the future.
But when I dreamt of him, I couldn’t help but feel the whole ground get pulled out from under me. My heart bled for him. That stupid, stupid boy. That violent, cruel, self-centered man. I need to see him, and now.
I walk though the dark hallways of the castle like a ghoul. A shell of a man. Someone whose entire being is made of something not meant for his body.
When I am with him, though… I really do feel like a real, corporeal, wanted man. Like I am where I am meant to be. He looks at me like I am… something. Like I’m Daeron.
He knows me so well. Every vice, ever sin. Every hopeless wail and every smitten sigh. The weakness of my body. The further weakness of my soul. The fragility of my mind. He knows it all, entirely, for I hide nothing from him – what would be the point?
He knows it all, and yet… he claims to love me. The stupid thing. The beautiful, stupid thing that he is.
Step after step, I reach close to the dark stables, only a single light inside shimmering in the night. I hear a thud as I approach – Aerion’s fist, surely. Hitting a post to scare the stable boy, or hitting the stable boy only because it amused him? I care not which, as long as the boy was gone leaving us in each other’s company only.
Cold night air gets replaced with warmth of horses’ large bodies and their breath, the quiet of night – with deep animal sighs. The stable boy is gone if he was ever there. Only he remains. My brother. My blood. My heart.
He’s not melting away. He’s not bursting with flame. It’s hard not to see his naked bones through the muscles still healthily attached to him, but… There he is. Perfectly alive. Perfectly Aerion. Perfectly bloody lovely.
My younger brother whom I am meant to mentor and protect. The cruel man that needs protection from no one – except those that he’d wronged, and those are many. My brother that used to beg me to come fish with him. My brother that killed my canary right in front of me. My brother who held my hand on his much-awaited name day but two years ago, and confessed to me that he wanted naught from me except my lips.
I step closer just as he turns around. We’re facing each other. I can see breath catch in his throat as sees me. I can see a spark in his eyes, too – that of admiration, of familiarity, of heat. Finally, my feet are drawn right next to his, my face tilted down, his – up. He looks at me, his brow furrowed, his mouth tense. A corner of his lips twitches in a smirk. My heart burns at the sight.
A sudden noise outside. We both look back. My heart thunders in my chest, a bitter-sweet excitement stuck in my throat. I dart my eyes over to him before I ever turn my face, he looks outside still. We wait. No further noise comes. We are alone.
I turn my face. I look at him. His eyes are drawn to me, his chest rising and falling in breaths that speed up. Our eyes meet. Purple on purple.
What would father think?
My eyes well up again as I rise a hand to grab the side of his face. There he is, real, right beneath my palm. He scowls wildly and brings both his hands onto my sides, sliding them upwards as if I was his own to touch. He cares not for the wine stench surrounding me like a shroud, nor for the circles under my eyes that betray my worry. He only cares that I am here, and that he can call me his. This is what I wanted. Then why do I hesitate?
I tilt my head and shut my eyes, my entire spine stricken with tension. His hands slide upwards, bringing me closer. His neck bends, his chin draws up. His breath breaks against my mouth before I feel his lips against my own.
I part my lips. It can’t all be sweet. I need it to burn, too. I slide my tongue inside, and he grunts as I do so. He makes space for it inside his mouth, his torso falling against mine. I taste him, richly, deeply, thoroughly, like only blood can taste blood. I hum, as well, and he sighs and relaxes. This is what he wanted, too.
With my other hand, I reach his chest and push against him – as if I couldn’t otherwise find the strength to leave him. I know I couldn’t. I’d stay here and push him into one of the empty stalls meant for horses if I was free to do as I wished. If I wasn’t so guilt-ridden and relief-filled to be kissing him at all. I shouldn’t. Just before we fully part, just as our lips share our last breath, I whisper:
“Come find me in my rooms.”
He smirks, sharp and salacious. Totally shameless and fearless. Not a hint of guilt in his eyes – not a hint of sickly green, either. Only beautiful deep purple. Just like mother’s.
“Maybe I will,” he says, but his eyes are more determined. Aerion hates being commanded. He hates being away from me, too, I know it.
My hand slips off his face, my other – off his chest. I step away. I hold his gaze as I try not to trip over some hay and make myself a bigger fool than I am. My head spins, wine numbing my fingers and my mind, the dream slipping away from my memory not to return until I dream of it again. I’d rather this returned. His hands. His lips. That wanting gaze. Will I remember this?
I hope I will.