knifedindunwall:
It’s impossible to miss the suggestion in the Outsider’s tone. He looks up at Daud through lowered eyelashes, waiting, pliant in his grip, and Daud feels himself burn with shame.
“So you wanted to be touched,” says Daud. He flexes his fingers on the Outsider’s throat before letting go. He expects to see marks there, but his skin remains smooth and perfect, the candlelight moving over him like gossamer. “And you allowed me to decide how.”
He should have known better. What was he expecting? An apology?
“Funny how you claim to hate Sokolov. The two of you have a lot in common. Everything’s an experiment.” He grabs a handful of the Outsider’s shirt and hauls him up. The ocean crashes against the walls, against the inside of his skull, a rising tide inside his head.
“Fuck you,” he says, and Daud kisses him, pulling him closer like a drowning man reaching for shore.
The Outsider still almost expects to feel Daud’s fingernails dig into his skin, carving bloody gouges into the lax muscle of his throat-- to feel his spine snap like candy brittle underneath the callouses of his fingers. It thrills him to think that Daud could do it. It thrills him that he doesn’t.
The words glance past him like the violet light off the glass around them, too refracted by the intensity buzzing underneath them for the Outsider to take offense. It takes him off guard when Daud wrenches him off his feet, with the fist in his shirt the only thing keeping him upright for a dizzying few seconds. It’s intimate. Vulnerable.
The Outsider’s eyes are wide and fearless as Daud crashes into him, mouth pressed against his own, wet and hot and startling. He’s watching a disaster unfold, he thinks; a ship dashing upon rocks, being swallowed up by the ocean.
One of his feet finds the ground, belatedly, and on tiptoe it’s enough for leverage. The Outsider is silk as he drapes over Daud’s chest, and lets himself fall into the kiss, like a body cast off at sea.
