@saintsinstatic / continued from here
Loux had never been so poetic as Nastka - he thought things through differently. Sometimes, perhaps the same, but...most times, quite differently. Maybe, maybe it had always been the same way rooted in differently similar circumstances. Loux cared very much for detail, paid close attention, squeezed out every last drop of what made a man a man just to see how strong the spirit, how persevering the mind, how resilient the body. Observational in his mischief, instinctively.
There was something reverent to the sigh of Nastka's voice, another just as cutting. He found comfort in it besides, found the affection marching in lockstep with a flurry of sensations and emotions best left kept secret.
He wanted those, too. But they were not for monsters like him, a monster somehow worse and than what humanity had to offer. Power was relative - it didn't matter how much one possessed. Using it to bring harm to others had always been and would always be a cardinal sin, if not the. Not even the love of money held a candle to it, and that was certainly saying something. At least, among nightfolk. Some might argue that humans were far worse on the basis that their lives were often shorter, or cut short, and were naturally predisposed, but Loux thought differently. Everything, everywhere, was relative--but even so, a monster would always be a monster. And, even so, he would still bask in the vague traces of favor given to him by the man he'd been most afeared.
A strange thing, to be a vile creature capable of great cruelties - no washing of the blood from his hands; So fearsome a distillation of ether and universal will, no matter his mischievous softness for the only blade that could cut his throat, a knife collector, the willing who knelt before the headsman's axe-- So perplexing, to be the champion of natural life in all its respects as well as its undoing, and to be loved and hated in reductive terms by perhaps the only person that could understand him. Explain the inexplicable, never bother to predict the unpredictable, all drenched in cold bath water. Merely listen, observe, understand. Partake, experience, yet never once covet nor collar when it might've been the operative choice. It was easy enough to tame the devil.
Loux noticed every quiet breath fanning against his wrist where fingers had been, every lazy, slow drip of the tub faucet, every roll of Nastka's thumb.
Following a thread, plucking it up but never quite pulling it...
Not until words had been whispered into hidden scars, spidering veins damaged long by sunfire flame, the impossible burned into his flesh. Too close, yet not close enough. Something that should be sewn in alongside it, alien to him no matter how he yearned for it all the same.
Warmth caught in the swelling tides of war, and he most often forgot who was meant to play who.
The fox did not pull away. He did what he always did - dove in when the space between them had grown too pitifully great, leaning forward, his tome abandoned, until those world-weary sighs met the unfiltered heat of his breath. Nose to nose, like a snake toiling over its own image as though an enemy, seeking refuge in the cruel piper's basket to escape a lie. He didn't know what he felt, but he knew it was adjacent to affection, in the moments of calm and quiet in the clinical cool of the bathroom.
Touching where his dirty hands ought not be permitted, fixing slowly drying darker hair, glancing over ages old scars and expression lines belying a truth belonging only to Nastka. Everything Loux held as close as he could that he'd allow it to carve him out, search desperately for excuses to incur it, because although Nastka had granted him a terror most privately theirs, there was comfort in the agreed upon. Peace, in a private understanding.
He brushed noses with the man, no matter how wet and cold his skin, tome clattering to the floor.
"Ne'er wanted ye t' do any pretendin', ma cherie... Always wanted ye t' be th' man I know ye t' be, e'erything, e'erything that ye are at yer core."
And he retreated, though not quickly, slowly enough that his arms seemed to drag as he pulled back, down to his fingertips.
"Ye sow pain like yer a regular gardener. But it exists fer many purposes, not only just as somethin' t' be inflicted. Experienced, rather. More a reminder fer th' fools tha' need it, than....maybe the punishment it sometimes should be. Yes, I level cities an' make heads explode, but ye... Ye remind me how I got there, an' ain't that somethin'?"
He leaned back in his seat beside the tub, stormy gaze pinning Nastka lazily, allowing him lingering possession of his wrist. His finger, however, stretched idly beneath Nastka's chin.
Nastka had done more for Loux than he was rightly willing to verbalize.
All Loux had done was take. It hadn't much mattered the context.
And that was that. For the moment.
Loux shifted, shrugged free of his haori, letting it hang loosely over the back of his chair, peeling his arm free of Nastka's grasp. Holding his wrist out expectantly once he'd finished, inching closer in time - a place for every thing, and for every thing its place. The old bath water soon began to warm. His wrist wasn't stolen a second time, so he reached once more into Nastka's hair, touching him as gently as any, catching stray drops of bathwater stubbornly clinging to him.
He tilted his head, ears flicking to and fro.
Too many questions floating to the surface, the pond scum of his mind.
"Why d'ye do this wit me, ma cherie? When does amazement an' awe in artistry turn into babysittin' a fool? What happens when it's all jus a lil more complicated than that?"
His eyes softened, and he fashioned some strands into place, mimicking Nastka's usual style if only poorly.
"Ye could do anythin' t' me ye wanted, an' ye'd be well within yer rights. I wouldn't stop ye either, I don' think... Instead, ye offer me--whatever this is, an' th' beatin' I deserve when time's right. Penance, and comfort."
He paused, at first unwilling to ask the question then...deciding he had little to lose but a few hours' sleep.
What am I to give you for the kindnesses you grant, however cruelly they're presented? Do I even have anything worth giving?
"I mean... surely ye've got better company than lil ol' me," he covered himself, leaning in too close again. So close. Enough to share breath, enough to do more, ever and always piercing the veil between himself and others. "I ain't th' only one likes readin'. I like listenin' too. Though I guess ye an' I both know m' favorite'll always be feelin', fer better an' fer worse."
An airy chuckle, a presence in Nastka's space that could not be easily pacified or shooed away - benign, all the same.
"Confusin'... I ne'er know how t' feel wit ye. All's I know is, I don' wanna stop a lotta th' time, e'en now when it feels like ye could strike me at any moment."
