♢ — @bogachs said: kissing your lover to show you forgive them + biting their lip amidst a kiss, drawing blood + a bruising kiss full of desperation and urgency (post dottore coming back from death as we discussed hehe) EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESS: KISS & TELL PROMPTS
Dottore is intricately familiar with the CRUELTY OF WINTER'S ENDLESS REIGN after so many centuries in the heartland ; of temperatures so cold even his modified body is left shivering in an futile effort to warm itself ; of wind that felt like blades across the skin. He has trudged through endless pits of snow and ice under clouds and night alike. He has heard its howls that carry through ravines and chase the citizens deep into their homes where fire offers its shelter under burning flames. ( Feed and you will survive. ) Thus it is with resounding confidence that the doctor can say that the harshest of winter days in Snezhnaya pales compared to the coldness of Pantalone's fury. The silence is agonizing, yet even Dottore knows better than to press his fingers in and rupture what delicate healing has been made in the wake of his cruelest act. It is not he who wields authority over the situation ; it is not he who gets to announce when healing has reached a satifactory level. HE DOES NOT HAVE THE RIGHT. That rests solely within Pantalone's claws and it will not be pried or forced out.
Relief comes in the small signs ; that some color has returned to the banker ; that the signs of sleep deprivation had not continued their march with his return. IT DOES NOT SIT WELL IN HIS STOMACH TO KNOW OF THAT. Had he not done better to forewarn? He thought it significant he had learned from the Sumeru incident to include the other in a thorough discussion of his plan and it vexes him like a thorn under the skin to see it had made little difference. It does not change the reality that his plan was cruel. ( Nor does it change the fact that silver- tongued pleas would not have worked even if they had ever been uttered. NOT WITH DOTTORE. To ask would be to deny who he is and his ambitions that burn brighter than the flames around him. ) It does not change that there had been no guarantee of success of his return. Dottore does not know how to amend, other than to try what he can think of to appeal to the other, to place blasphemous claws upon slippery ice and see what is permitted and what is not with the threat of a crevasse growing. He does not ask for funding. If not trying to amend, then the doctor's presence is scarce. Is it better to give space or presence? He does not know. He has no reference to call upon. HE IS IN THE EXPOSED WILDERNESS UNPREPARED. His lack of skills in such matters were rarely something that bothered him, but in this moment, he finds his lackluster skills rather infuriating.
It is a familiar scolding that reminds Dottore of the mask on his face, to pry it off even when he simply places finished paperwork upon the desk. HE DOES NOT EXPECT ANYTHING OF THIS - just as he has not expected anything in the face of his attempts thus far. But this time Pantalone moves. The chair glides back and Dottore stills, tracking his movements with keen eyes. Somehow he still does not register the movement to stand in front of him, of the force driving him back into the wall when lips collide with his.
For a moment, everything fades into intangible nothing. AND THEN IT CRASHES. Dottore has never been so relieved to crash.
Dottore surges into the act to meet the FRANTIC, APOPLECTIC KISS in equal fervor. It's nowhere near enough. It doesn't even come close. His hands flutter ; tugging Pantalone closer even when there is nowhere else to go, then flitting up along the luxurious coat, up further to cradle his face. His mask forgotten, abandoned with indifference to the luxury of one rug or another. HE'S BURNING AGAIN. Only these flames feel like SALVATION rather than damnation. Pantalone's grip is renitent steel ; strong enough that it feels like nothing and no one could tear Dottore from his hands even if it the universe itself should by audacious enough to try. As if Pantalone could covet his bones and all that he is with how they kiss and grasp at one another. ITS STILL NOT ENOUGH. There's a dam breaking ; the skies torn apart and desperation rages. It feeds like fire exposed the oxygen ; HUNGRY MOUTHS AND FRENZIED HANDS. He needs this.
An ardent noise reverberates within his throat as he sinks into the ocean of sensation that engulfs him now with each press of their lips. He needs this more than he needs oxygen ; to part from Pantalone now to breathe would be to drown. They kiss like its the end of the world instead of a reunion. SUDDENLY, DOTTORE HAS THE TERRIFYING QUESTION OF IF THAT IS WHAT THIS SCENARIO IS. A dying mind's last desperate attempt for bliss and peace in its fading finale. Maybe something changes in what he does ; maybe Pantalone knows him well enough to know when his mind is infiltrated with unpleasant thoughts, knows where Dottore's mind might wander. Blood spills when Pantalone bites into Dottore's lips, harsh and delightfully unapologetic. HIS NERVES SING WITH RELIEVED PAIN SIGNALS: this is real. Relief spills out like blood from the jugular. More, more. He wants to swallow it all, or lose himself into this moment. What a terrifying thought that is. HOW UTTERLY HUMAN OF HIM. But that was Pantalone for him. Pulling out the shards of humanity from the disgusting tar of his existence, making Dottore some degree of human again despite how long forgotten and abandoned his so-called humanity was. How Dottore sneered at it when he shed himself of his humanity to wear monster like a badge of pride. PANTALONE WAS HIS SOLE EXCEPTION.
Lips part from his and the absence feels like freefalling ; like divinity stripped from bones only this time it's something he cares more for than divinity. Dottore's eyes flutter open, sickeningly sweet delight trilling at lips stained in his blood upon Pantalone's lips. There's a faint sting when his tongue darts out over his own lips for a moment but it does not register.
" Vincent. " Guttural, raw ; pretenses striped away for this OUTRÉ MOMENT to lay bare the truth underneath. His fingers curl, the desperate fever of his kissing seconds prior an odd contrast to the delicate grip of his hands. Hands capable of so much violence and cruelty cradling with purposeful, delicate care around another just as dangerous in his own right.
DOTTORE DOES NOT APOLOGIZE FOR HIS ACTIONS. It is not the actions that stir anything but rather the unfavorable consequences that have tormented the other. But he can offer this instead. This moment of dropped acts for raw truth like bared muscles below flayed skin. The want - not of desire, but of GENUINE WANT in the grander meaning - exposed and left out in the open with how red eyes take in every familiar detail he's been denied of. He closes the gap again, pressing desperate kisses to his lips, to the corner of his mouth, each one only reigniting the frenzied flame beneath his skin. The need writhes, grows, spills into his action; to feel and have him close again instead of on the other side of a winter's fury. He's finally been allowed to stumble through to the other side.
His own gifted tongue sems to fail him now on what more to say. Red eyes conceal themselves once more whilst he drags Pantalone into another desperate, drowning kiss that he can pour all of what isn't said into. A gentle hand slides up, into silken hair to caress locks and cradle the back of his head. I'm sorry for leaving you. ( He is. ) I won't do it again. ( Not so willingly. ) I'm here. ( And he doesn't intend to go. ) It still isn't enough, BUT IT'S A START. They have time now.
