@noahxashford || ❣: my muse says ILY to yours for the first time.
His fingernails dig into his scalp, and by now they’re blunt from the continuous scratching he provokes. Broken from the amount of times his hands curled to fists and beat away at a wall, at a man, at a biter – the victim is a trivial thing. His nails no longer cut, just sting, and somehow she knows that he wishes that would change. He hopes for claws, the kind potent enough to pierce through his skull and prick at that part of his brain that causes these episodes. He’s tired, exhausted, and all she can do for him is sit and wait; whisper pointless words. “It’s going to be okay, Noah. I promise.”
It’s a lie, they both know that, and Piper’s sick of these nothings she mutters to the dark. These words he hears but never acknowledges. Perhaps he thought she’d be the cure. He thought her an angel. She’s just a mere mortal. It bothers him, she knows, that she cannot fix him. That he cannot fix himself. All she can do for him is sit and wait; watch as he self destructs. “Please, stop,” she begs him, trying to pry those violent hands away from his hair, “you’re going to be okay.”
There’s a hurricane and it lives inside his chest. Gusts of sharp wind twirl in the air, sucking obstacles into the unknown, cold void that makes up more than half of his being. Noah Ashford is not a simple man; for every crack there’s a knife, each one sharper than the last. His edges have a tendency cut away at her skin, slippery and urgent. As if purging is the only way he feels at home. He’s unafraid in his anger: words drip from his lips like poison and sink into her system. “I’m not not and you fucking know it, so stop saying that,” he seethes. As much as it hurts, she doesn’t flinch. Never. Not once. Meanwhile she sits and waits; prays for the storm to pass. She’s aware that part of him prays with her.
“Go away,” he mutters, baring sharp teeth at her and ripping away from her grip. The ring of his voice is crude, cruel, he’s trapped in limbo and will take her down with him. She knows this. She doesn’t care. She sits and waits. “Leave.” Piper doesn’t. “Fuck off.” Nothing. A rip in the fabric of her shirtsleeve seems far more interesting than his attempts to scare her off.
He screams. Howls. Something in the room shatters – glass, perhaps –, and when she wills her eyes to look his away again she finds him standing, exasperated and lethal, over a coffee table no one cares for. The items that once lay on top of its wooden surface are shattered by his feet – fine china. Noah stares at her, waits for her to run. Noah doesn’t understand.
“Why?” He asks, though to her it seems like the reasons for her staying have been obvious for months now. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Noah’s shoulders sag, beaten. Bloody hands with raw knuckles dangle at his sides. She thinks he’s beautiful in ways nothing broken should ever be and when their eyes meet she knows he sees the answer, clear as day.
“You’re wrong,” he mumbles and there’s a melancholy to him that tells her the storm in him is dispersing, and that he wishes his words to be true. He’s a shape-shifter; chameleon boy. Both the peace and the war. His smiles are cotton-candy sweet, but his fangs are bloodstained, and when he’s upset she can almost hear the rain. A hungry wolf. A frightened rabbit. A living contradiction. “You’re just lonely.”
“No.” There’s no sitting to do now. No waiting. Piper stands and although she’s no taller than his tired shoulders, she pretends to be strong. She pretends his dismissal of her feelings doesn’t hurt. “You’re wrong,” her voice is soft – sweet cherry balm on cracked lips. Her feet step towards him as his bright blues narrow; his violence doesn’t scare her. “You know it’s true.” Piper’s hand slips up to cup his cheek and he leans in slightly, despite himself. Her lips part, she sucks in a shuddering breath and musters the courage to whisper the words that have been plaguing her heart. “I-.”
Noah grips her wrist, pulls her away again; tucks it back to her side. “Don’t say it,” forceful is his tone – urgent. He’s pleading and she knows it. Knows that those words will break him, knows that after they’re spoken the choice of leaving he’s been giving her will have expired.
Problem with that is, there is no going back. Never had been. Not since that first time he made butterflies tickle her stomach. Her hand moves to his and her fingertips graze his reddened, beaten knuckles. He knows it’s coming, that’s why his limbs are stiff. “I love you.” He flinches as if slapped and she can see the horror in his eyes, witness the war inside him.
“Don’t,” he tells her, one last pathetic attempt to save her. They both know that’s the only reason he holds back. He thinks her weak. He thinks she won’t survive him. He has no idea. She’s lived through tornadoes and tsunamis and volcanoes. Hurricanes don’t intimidate her.
“Don’t,” his lips say, but those big blues betray him.
Do, they tell her, please do.
