THE KISS OF DEATH — an abyssal fic.
1,968 words // Demian x Sol
I finally finished my gift for @itsbluesaint of their MC for the abyssal and Sol. As usual, the abyssal is an IF written by @theabyssal. I've been writing this since July aaaaaaa because of adhd and college.
Peace was rare for a God and so was silence. Demian accepted that fact a time too long ago to remember. All he knew was the ever present feeling of melancholy and fleeting moments of intimacy. All he ever really knew was deafening silence.
Even now, as he sat alone on a lush hill, surrounded by flowers and life that he could only dream of creating, it was silent. Nature is rarely ever silent. The world wasn’t made for silence, Vaal once told him. It was made for the ever changing complexity of life. It was chaotic in an organized, streamlined order.
Demian yearned to be surrounded by the messiness of life but he was perpetually surrounded by still silence. Again, nature was never silent. It was only silent when there was a predator, a dangerous creature walking its grounds. The God of Death is always surrounded by silence. As though Hylaria itself was holding its breath in his presence.
There was only one piece of Hylaria that was never scared of him, that looks him straight in the eyes and continues to exist in front of his face. Only the sun can do that. Only the sun can make the god of Death himself squint in annoyance one second and mesmerized the next.
Only the sun can treat death like everyone else and burn him so shamelessly. Only the sun could love the moon enough to let him borrow his light.
There was only one piece of Hylaria that loved him without condition, that looks him straight in the eyes and love him so boldly, so brightly, so painfully. Only Sol can do that.
Demian couldn’t force himself to bask in the warmth of sunset, so instead, he quietly looks over the field of golden roses that surround him instead. Little pocket sunlights, little love—little paradise that could fit in the palm of his cold hands.
It was terrifying, what he felt. Death wasn’t allowed to love, death took what you love. Death wasn’t allowed to be happy, death took what made you happy.
It burns, dear Creator, he burns.
Peace was rare for a God and so was joy. Sol didn’t want to accept that fact. Sol wanted to feel the salt water against his skin, he wanted to feel the gentle kiss of fireflies on his cheeks, and the overwhelming pressure of air in his lungs. Sol wanted to feel alive.
That’s why he found himself a comfortable, almost perfect position next to Death.
Because what makes you feel more alive than to love? Isn’t that looming knowledge of love doomed so very sweet on the tongue of a God who could have anything he asks for?
Isn’t that the very sign that he is as human as the mortals he shaped from his very own palms? Isn’t complication and yearning and heartbreak such integral to one’s existence?
Now, in the presence of gods, who basically represented two opposing forces, Hylaria was in a weird, almost unstable state. It wanted to rot, degrade, fold over onto itself, but it also wanted to flourish, bloom, and grow. Hylaria wanted to destroy itself in the most beautiful but terrifying ways possible.
Damien grimaced as he became hyperaware of what was happening. He couldn’t stay. No, he couldn’t let himself ruin something that Sol worked so hard on. He couldn’t let himself stain such a holy creation.
And as he moved to get up—run away from the warmth of the sun, warmer hands moved up to keep him where he sat.
“And where are you going, sunshine?” Sol’s voice lacked the humor a question like that usually held. There was anxiety, though. An overwhelming sense of uncertainty. Knowledge that this was the first time things might not go in his favor. Was love usually this painful?
Was devotion usually this brutal?
Damien felt his throat run dry and his jaw tighten.
“I’m…” Death was quiet, he was soft, and he was afraid.
Molten gold eyes stared up at him, waiting patiently for an answer. He was always so patient. Even through the numbing nights and unbearable winters, Sol was always there to reach out, to caress Demian’s cheeks. To catch him.
“Stay, my love,” Sol mumbled.
“Stay?” Demian questioned him. “… my love?”
There hasn’t been a single soul who exists, who has existed, and will exist who ever wanted him to stay. No one ever wants Death to stay. No one ever wants to just sit down with him and hear his stories, his thoughts, and listen to the prayers he has no other God to whisper to but himself.
Such are the woes of being an omnipotent being—you cannot depend on another mythical existence to fix your problems for you. He was the mythical existence that fixed problems, maybe in less favorable ways than most mortals preferred.
“Stay,” Sol’s gently guided him back to his side and no matter how much Death’s body wanted to refuse, it was as though his still, unbeating heart was trying to fight for a place.
“Can you do that for me?” the question was simple, but Demian knew what it meant.
The dark-haired God glanced over to where their hands connected.
“Okay,” his answer was quiet, barely above a whisper—but the winds heard it, the world heard it, and most importantly, Sol heard it.
Sitting next to him felt like everything right and wrong at the same time. Sitting next to him felt like blasphemy—a right he could never bring himself to claim was his. It would be so easy to act selfish for a moment, for a second, for just a heartbeat, but could he risk that?
“Darling, do you see all of those roses?” Sol grinned.
“How can I not?” Demian mumbled and yet, a ghost of a smile played on his lips, dark eyes once again soaking in a sight he’s seen a million times. “Sometimes I think this field shines brighter than the stars in the skies.”
Quietly, softly, Sol reached out to pick one particularly golden rose, sweats of dew perfectly spread all over its petals.
“I made these for you,” though he tried handing the flowers to Demian, the God of Death refused.
“I destroy everything I touch, Sol,” he tried reminding him but he choked on those words. It hurt to admit out loud. Everything. Everything he’s ever loved, he has destroyed with the same two hands who only want to learn how to love.
“Please hold these for me, starlight,” Sol quietly pleaded, “can you do that for me?”
“Are you sure?” Demian’s voice trembled.
“Never have I ever before,” the sun God caressed his cheeks.
Hesitantly, Demian’s icy fingers wrapped around the flower’s delicate stem and he expected it to crumble in his hands, to disappear into ashes, to mock him with something he already knew. Not even Hylaria can love him back.
What he didn’t expect was for the flower to almost embrace his hands. It glowed bright and strong, as though assured in the safety that he, the god of death, brought it.
Pale eyes couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Hesitant to tear his gaze away from the rose, fearing that if he did, it would wilt just as everything else did, but he eventually looked back up at Sol, who was watching him intently, a wobbly smile on his lips.
“I told you,” his sun eventually spoke, “I made these for you.”
“Oh,”
That was all he could say. What could he say? What was there to say? What was he supposed to feel? All he wanted to do was to let his hand grip the stem tighter, tighter, tighter until the rose was crushed into nothing.
He couldn’t bring it in himself to do it, however. There really is a difference between being the god of death and being the god of death.
“What’s been going on with you lately, dove?” Sol brought Damien back to Hylaria, carefully brushing back long black strands from a blushing pale face.
“I’m always like this,” Demian chuckled dryly.
“But you’ve been acting different,”
“I don’t know anymore, Sol,” the god admitted. Was this defeat, then? To admit ignorance of the self?
He’s been questioning himself, Hylaria, and the creator lately. He’s been questioning his purpose, his right to exist, and his right to love.
Being strong was exhausting, he decided. Being the god of death was unfair.
“My existence is painful, but it is necessary and I feel like I can’t complain,” Demian continued. “The world is on fire and no one else but you can save me.”
A confession of insecurity and love. That’s what it was. Not even a god can handle such mundane problems.
A moment of silence permeated through Hylaria once more. The same silence the two gods have grown accustomed to. A silence Sol could’ve left alone, but he didn’t. As always, he didn’t.
A hand on the cheek and a heart breaking at the seams, Sol leaned forward, but he didn’t close the gap between their lips, yet.
Oh, this was happening. Oh creator, this was happening.
“May I?” Sol whispered.
“Please?” Sol begged.
“Please,” Demian closed his eyes.
Sol gladly closed the gap between them. That pesky, thread thin gap separating two bodies of the same soul.
Kissing Sol still felt like everything right and wrong at the same time. It still felt like blasphemy but creator, this was a sin. He would stay on his knees for forever. Even if in some way, the creator themself confirmed that he had no right to taste the sweetness of his lover’s tongue or how his name sounds like a sacred hymn sang by Sol’s voice, Demian would let himself face the consequences if it experiencing all of that all over again.
Demian already knew Sol’s lips were as soft as the inside of a rose but it still gave him goosebumps. Two familiar hands holding him closer, as close as their physical forms would allow.
Dear creator, it terrified him just how much he was willing to do—willing to sacrifice and poison—for Sol. Demian was ready to cause Hylaria’s downfall and revel in its ruins if it meant having keeping Sol’s heart forever.
Their lips danced a dance humans have taught them, a form of love unfamiliar to great beings. They could go on like this for forever if they wanted to. Breathing wasn’t a necessity for them, but they needed to part. To part was an acknowledgment, that there are things bigger than them, things that they needed to do for the sake of millions of lives.
Hesitating to pull themselves apart from each other, Sol kept their foreheads touching, gently grabbing the back of Demian’s neck to keep him where he sat.
“Life is incomplete without death as I am incomplete without you,” Sol mumbled—quiet enough for no one but Demian to hear. A promise. A reminder. A truth.
The god of death closed his eyes once more but when he could no longer feel Sol’s presence in front of him, warm breath fanning against his face, he tried opening them only to be met with darkness. A rising panic fills his chest.
No.
What was happening? What did he do? What—?
And Demian’s head was filled with that dreadful feeling once more. That feeling of his body being wrapped up like a snake squeezing their prey. His lungs were filled up with something other than fresh air. His hands bled. Creator, they won’t stop bleeding.
A nauseating vertigo hit Demian, and he could finally open his eyes once more.
Silence. Familiar silence.
The drip, drip, dripping of water greeted him once he woke up.
Welcome back to reality, god of death.
