゚ 〢 ✕ // ⸻ ⌜ @desperatous ⌟ asked :
fingers catch his wrist, dirt stained and snaring. her movements are purposeful, no hesitation as she slides between the horses flanking them and presses him back a little against the still equine. around them, chaos. the nervous hymn of troops ready to battle, but she's tacked her horse next to his on purpose, to give this fleeting, silent moment. "i don't need to say it," but she's going to. optimism is not a strength of hers, but she feigns a light smile. "be careful, levi ... i love you."
how did he think it would feel , to have the weighted heaviness anchoring down at his chest , for once ? that dreadful nightingale’s song, hanging in the echoes of the night. but its beats are jagged in rhythmic freedom. grave & uneven beneath the screams & chaos that surround him. the wind blows in another long, tragic hiss and he fears that creeping, careful hesitation ; that magnetic pull . the jinx of tragedy that simmers in his blood. how did it feel ? filling / whole. earthy. dry. enough to lose sense of why else his chest would be beating this way. forgetting his old panic. enduring this one in its stead .
death had taught levi how to spot the fissures in those around him. to predict how long it would take before their skin is nothing but cracks. frankie had been filled with fractures since the moment they met. and now she’s somehow here . diamond - green eyes as resolute as the invasive species she’s proven to be. hiding nothing under the frenzy of laughter & lascivious desire. those words fill him deep and he grabs her in that same frenzy. frenzy not met by the usual sting of his shoulder blades. he breaks around her in nonverbal response of the weight she’s swallowed in him. ‘ i love you ’ / against a wall / teeth grazing your lower lip, ‘ i love you ’ / against my skin / fingers wrapped / around your hair. ‘ be careful ’ / in the gentle breath / that softens slowed movement, brushing sweet down to her neck, eyes locked in hers.
he doesn’t need to say it . she didn’t need to, either. he didn’t need to accept her advances and she didn’t need to give them to him. what good could it do , he asks. it’s a death trap , he thinks. there’s no point , but , ❛ . . . i love you too , ❜ he tells her, and hates how his steps stutter drawing back.