The rough edges of his healing scar scrape your lips as you pull away. Feather soft as you try to be, you can still feel all the ridges, the topography of the tears and scabs, the long, unbroken line where his skin has split. It’s so warm, radiating heat from somewhere deep inside him like lava seeping through a crack in the earth. And it must be tender.
You pull back from where his head rests in your lap, his eyes following you all the way up. He says nothing, just flits his gaze all over your face, like he’s trying to memorize it.
“Does it hurt?” you ask, gently brushing a strand of hair out of his eyes and running your fingers through the sea of his shining black waves. His eyes flutter closed just for a moment at the touch, as if he almost, for one passing second, is finally giving in to rest.
But he opens them again, eyes locking right to yours. He shakes his head the tiniest bit, a ghost of a contented smile playing at his lips.
You believe him, of course. He has no reason to lie. Not here, not with you, not in the one place he’s let himself feel safe since his mother was reading him to sleep so many years ago. But still, he’s spent so long fighting. Years and years of days spent growing stronger and nights spent pacing through painful memories. Adding layers and layers of armor and masks until even his voice was imperceptible. Hunting down weakness and snuffing it out, sacrificing himself and everyone he once loved as casualties.
You wouldn’t blame him if he was still afraid to admit it hurt. It all hurt.
And there’s nothing you can do in this moment to make it all go away. There’s no spell you can cast, no wish you can make to settle his scalding soul down into glowing embers. But you can at least make sure you don’t fan the flames.
You lean down again and press another kiss, somehow even softer, just to the left of his scar. Where the skin is still smooth and cool. Where he still has that freckle you spotted in the one baby photo he kept.
You cross over to the right side and leave another kiss there, and then back over to the left, weaving back and forth as you follow the line down to his jaw, along his neck, even pulling back his collar to reach the very end. In your mind, you’re sewing secret stitches, healing him back together with an invisible thread, and no inch can go unannointed.
And you hope something inside him is cooling into obsidian, a shimmering dark beauty that’s only a memory of what used to burn.
Not all of him, of course. Some of him will surely stay aflame forever. But when it does, as he must know by now, you’ll be here to share in its warmth.
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