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Lune grabs the sides of his collar and pulls him to her.
This woman—this beautiful, powerful, inquisitive, force of nature of a woman—his ally, though he's her enemy—alive, alive, alive still for at least today, heartbeat fast through the skin of her throat where he lays his fingers, breath hot inside his mouth, muscles wanting as she pulls him into her, voice catching against his ear, tattoos golden and singing against his chest, awakening an ache inside his bones that he doesn't know how to sate.
He cries, after, as he curls away from her, shame and guilt a pit of acid in his stomach, shoulders as still as he can make them so she doesn't feel, so she doesn't see—an exercise in futility. Lune says nothing. But her fingers find the nape of his neck, the scalp under his matted strands, move steadily back and forth throughout his hair, slowly unknotting the tangled mess.
He is a coward. So he lets her.
Then, her lips against his back, her arms firm around his midsection, and though he tries to stop himself, his fingers find hers, his breath trembles out of his chest.
She feels so real, a crescent moon curling warm and tight against his broken husk—she feels like flesh and blood, her breath raising goosebumps on his skin. And if she is... then he must be too, mustn't he? For a moment, at least. At least part of him can believe it.
Verso turns around, palms meeting the sides of her face, thumbs against her steady pulse point, her eyes too perceptive for him to allow them a gaze into his.
"Why?" he asks.
A pause. The barest hint of a sad smile. "It gets scary."
He does understand that, on a certain level. Death feels scary to him too—not his, but everyone else's. For him, though, Sciel's words could well ring true. Death is an old friend, and if he can finally lift the curse of his immortality, She will one day welcome him home.
Perhaps he and Verso will finally be one. Or perhaps they can finally be two.
Lune's eyes finally catch his, and he cannot lie to himself any longer. He's scared, too. He's scared of her pulse stilling under his hands. Of her shape vanishing inside his arms.
And yet there is no way around it. She must die. They all must.
Forgive me, he pleads silently, though he knows that she can't, and she won't.
But the usual resolve in her stare, and the curve of her mouth, wobble after her confession; so despite guilt and shame tracing wet lines down the sides of his face... he closes his traitor eyes, and kisses her.