orphic scintilla
Pairing: aincest [arme/apos] WC: 837 Rating: T Category: hurt/comfort Notes: break out your dictionaries its lexicology with eso orphic; beyond one’s normal range of understanding/scintilla; a tiny trace or spark of a feeling
"Don't touch me!"
It's the first words in hours he'd managed to pull from the other celestial, and after the brief moment of shock, he comes to the conclusion that the silence had been much, much better. The raw emotion lining the simple words and the way he'd flinched away from his glowed fingers spoke volumes.
Arme might not have understood what the emotion had been, but it'd been there, and it still is; Apostasia looks at him with brows drawn together and unblinking, wide eyes. Even the eye lodged in his chest and the one floating nearby blink more often than Apos' real ones.
Arme heaves a sigh, releasing the tension gathered in his human form, and drops to his knees before the other, somehow as graceful as ever, his coat fluttering and spreading on the ground blemishlessly. If the other celestial doesn't wish to be touched, so be it. But there's an unmistakable scent and feeling of chaos blooming in the air.
No.
No, that's wrong. It had already bloomed, over the number of hours he'd been away and Apos had been here alone, boiling in his skin and feelings like that half demon's favorite stew.
"Why do you not want me to touch you?" Arme asks, back straight in comparison to Apos, whose back is hunched over and making him appear shorter than the blue haired celestial.
Apos seems to mull the question over, or maybe it just takes a while for his muddled mind to comprehend it, but Arme sits there impassively, watching the way Apos' darkened hand clench and unclench where they're fisting the soft fabric of his pants.
"It would burn," he says finally, his voice strained and raspy from the disuse.
Arme can't help but scoff. "Who do you take me for? You think I can't take your corruption anymore? You think I've sunk in my belief and would let it g-"
"No!"
Apos ends Arme's forming tirade, finally raising his head properly to look at him. Arme blinks, cocks his head to the side a little, as if waiting for an elaboration.
"I..." Apos takes a deep breath, his shoulders shaking a little. Arme settles back onto his legs. "I feel like my flesh is rotting."
Arme has to physically force himself not to say 'it is'. Instead he waits until Apos continues, until he somewhat gets a grasp on his words and feelings.
Absently, he wonders whether it wouldn't be better for Erblu to be the one in his position. He's better with emotions, understands them and could probably offer actual advice and help to their corrupted self. But Erblu isn't here, so he will have to do.
For now, at least.
"I feel..." Apos mutters and brings Arme's attention back to himself, "I feel like I'm crumbling, like tiny chunks of me are falling off wherever I go."
"They are not," Arme says decisively. Apos' gaze slides off where it'd been boring into his chest down to the floor between them.
"I know. I know, it just... feels like that! I don't feel like myself anymore, and it's like you'd burn me if you touched me."
Arme waits for a moment longer, but that seems to be everything Apos is going to offer as an explanation. Not much, then.
Arme still doesn't understand. The only time he'd felt something akin to what Apos had tried to describe had been in the heart of Feita's shrine, in the winding corridors that have succumbed to the demons' occupation. That still doesn't seem like the same emotion, though.
"You're still you," he says, tries his best to come up with something that could stop this... whatever it is. He rakes his mind for something that sounds like it could be said by Erblu. "Feelings are... temporary. This will pass and you will feel like yourself again. Until then, it is... It is alright if you don't. Because, hm... You are still you, in the end. Even drenched in corruption as you are, you are... you."
Apos stays quiet and Arme wonders if he had said something wrong, or maybe upset the other even more. He's pulled out of those thoughts by Apos' soft voice, quiet as the almost nonexistent breeze.
"Take off your glove?"
Arme doesn't think much of it, simply tugs the white fabric off and holds it in his other hand as he presents the now bare hand to the other.
Apos reaches out, fingers uncharacteristically timid as they curl a few inches away from Arme's skin. They clench into a fist and then unclench, surging forward and pressing palm to palm with Arme's.
"It burns," Apos comments, heaving a shaky sighs, fingers curling a little, slipping between Arme's.
"Let go, then."
"No, it's a good burn."
Arme shakes his head lightly, sending his hair left and right with the motion. "You're weird," he says, his voice not carrying any edge to it.
"I am," Apos agrees. "I'm sorry."
"As long as you're aware of it, I suppose."
