There's muck and oil all over her arms, unequal streaks of it that give no hint of their origin and maybe he should ask her how she acquired them, grab the cloth by the basin on the right side of the bed and clean her, but they are both painfully aware that it would break the routine they have created and would lead to questions they are not prepared to answer, to thoughts none of them know how to handle and how to get rid of. So he ends up giving her a hard look, turning around on his heels and letting his robes whoosh around him before disappearing in his private chambers and leaving her alone in the hallways of the kingdom he has sacrificed everything and everyone dear to him to maintain pristine only to end up being the only one standing.
Maybe she should mind his lack of interest, speak up about his lack of hospitality, talk about how he should at least express his gratitude towards her staying by her side and not allowing the silence and insanity looming around the corridors and hiding in the cracks in the walls to get to him and corrupt him to the last fiber in his body, but she has no voice, no will and no intention of breaking all that she has been struggling so hard and for so long to build just for the sake of a moment's anger at his lovelorn figure. She ends up casting one last longing gaze at he closed doors of his rooms, turning around herself and walking to the end of the seemingly endless hallway and slipping into her own chamber, closing the door behind her silently in one swift move, his name like acid in her mouth, demanding to be dripping in big droplets on her heart to make her ache. She denies it.
Raphaelis takes off her battered dress, stepping out of it carefully once the cloth hits the floor and upon her reflection in the mirror she stares, eyes narrowed as they take in each scar, each damaged tissue leaving white spots spread all over the entirety of her skin. Her imperfections almost hurt her eyes, so blinding they are. Shaking her head, she turns her back to the cursed thing and walk into her personal bathroom, gently taking the sponge in one of her hands after having added a certain lavender essence to it and rubbing it all over her arms, over the spots just recently acquired that she wishes would have drawn enough of the lost king's attention to make him speak up to her. The silence, although comfortable at times, is beginning to deafen her.
/
The diner is awkward, but not that much so to make it completely unbearable. Raphaelis rationalizes this within by telling herself that she has endure far more terrible times alongside the king to be able to survive this. Thranduil isn't staring at her and if he is, he is goddamn good being inconspicuous, at hiding his trails and leaving her with another dozen questions to be kept awaken by at night. It's not like he is actually at fault for that, she knows that, but the way he expects her to have everything he does already figured out before his next move is made is preposterous even for him with all the royal blood flowing through his veins and all.
Not that the royal blood flowing through her very veins isn't just as cursed and flawed as he is. It's just that, from a very objective point of view, she is doing a far better job at controlling her reactions to the impulses and triggers all around them and doesn't make it her mission to make the other squirm in her presence, very much like he has been doing for a good while now. Raphaelis tells herself that she should've expected this, that coming back after all these years she has left him alone isn't going to end on a good note for her, that it's a suicide to step into his realm with the expectation of a lukewarm welcome from the man she knows as Winter, man whom she compares to the harshest of the North Winds and has absolutely no remorse while doing so. She should've seen it coming, prepared herself for this mistreatment better and not be this affected by his lack of affection or interest in her persona. While he did allow her to be his companion and reside in his castle, to be by his side and witness how centuries of greatness, of loss and gain and everything in between crumbles at the feet of the very thing that has protected it for so long, she knows that if he wasn't so pressured by the absence of any other being, he would have had her thrown in the enemy's arms for the treason she had committed when they were still fairly young and beautiful and with hope shimmering in their eyes while they talked about a future that has never quite materialized.
The wine is too sweet on her tongue, too metallic, too much like the spilled blood the both have their hands tainted by after the wars have ended and she just doesn't slam the cup down on the table before standing up, bowing slightly and walking fast out of the room, fingers working steadily on the ribbons holding her corset together, her lungs demanding freedom and her minds swirling with all the unnecessary thoughts she's having, all triggered by the presence of the man she has always thought of as her equal, her friend, her what-if, her could-have-been, her might-still-be.
The halls are empty, almost as empty as her hollow chest, heart long since severed and thrown into a chest Thranduil keeps under his chest and pretends to caress it from time to time, as a sort of unsaid deal between the two. She gives him her company and unyielding loyalty and he pretends he can offer her what she most desires. In all the years she has been, she has never thought she'd shed her crown for somebody like Thranduil, get her hair tangled in the mud to kiss the scars on his body just so he could have his eyes on her even for a second, but then again, never has Thranduil ever thought he'd bow so hard his back might break to envelop another being thoroughly in his shadow and consume her until there's nothing left but a sour reminder of what should have been.
One would expect that after all the heartbreak they have both gone through, all the times they have had to break their teeth and shatter they vocal cords not to let anybody see what truly underneath, they wouldn't run head-first into something so perfectly broken, sink themselves into a lake of despair. But they did and they have nobody to blame but their own weakness.
The halls are empty, eerily silent except for the furious sounds of steps coming from behind her, closer and closer with each breath she takes, with each touch of the expensive and lavish material of her dress as it wrinkles under her sweaty hands, eyes frantically looking for a door to slip through and escape the nightmare she has so willingly welcomed into her life although her feet wouldn't take her to it even if she did find it. And she knows that and so does he.
His hands aggressively claps on her forearm, spinning her around to face him, not wincing as her hair whips his hair almost as a rebellion against him. His stare is hard, chest heaving up and down with each breath he takes and he looks as if he's on the edge of insanity, just waiting for her to command him to be well and to jump in it, to relinquish in the euphoria that such act of lunacy brings only to its faithful followers and whether they want to admit it or not, they have both been converted to the religion of the other, worshiping the presence of their unnamed lover more than they worship their proclaimed gods.
Thranduil looks furious, searching her face for something she does not know, for the trace of the offense she has brought forth with such intensity she is sure he is dying to find it just to have a reason to punish her and once again remind them both that they have no place in this world out of these walls, that they will wither and will bleed and pain the walls so carefully crafted for eternity. She welcomes it with an almost obscene smile that simply does not belong here, the contras created standing out like a sore thumb.
Raphaelis is more than tempted to pervert herself enough to make him crawl away from her, to bring him to his knees as he asks for forgiveness and mercy only to have her ask him where his mercy was on when on a plate her heart she has given him just to have him eat it greedily, slurping at the protruding veins and arteries, maintaining eye contact and defying her without a fault. But before she can even form the sounds in her throat, he's already speaking, lips molding around each word with such grace and gentleness, she might have thought he was speaking to a lover, had she been deaf. She isn't and this is just another tragedy to write about.
"I have to say, my queen, one such as foolish as you, I have yet to see. So eager, so in love, so—terrible. Does your heart soar with my delight at the prospect of loving somebody because of your concepts and ideas about uniting with another being or does it soar with delight at the prospect of proving to itself that it still has some goodness inside of him?" The words flow from his mouth with tranquility, like arrows, rendering her incapable of making any moves and gaping like him in a stupid manner.
His outburst of emotions is much more of a surprise than his words. He has always been the calculated one out of them, the one who planned each move centuries before making them while she has always been the one to crash and burn without any holdbacks, always scrambling back home when things got a little too hard for her liking. It's an absolute miracle he has survived for so long without letting his tongue transform into that venomous snake she remembers it to be.
And just like it has always been, like Thranduil remembers it to be, her hands transform into a hammer, into a sword and into anger and has him stumbling back, the already bruised and battered flesh of his cheek adopting a taint of pink before turning into a glaring red as he stares at the ground, not in surprise as a chuckle vibrates and bounces of the walls surrounding her. Suddenly, her arms are around his neck and they're caught in a tango, bodies flush one against the other as they press against the wall, the coldness of the stones seeping into their bones, making them shudder in pleasure at the welcomed paradox born into their organs.
"You shine so brightly, everybody has run away from you in fear of getting turned to dust and forgotten. You have no mercy, no love, no nothing in and yet you offer yourself so willingly to me, my sun, my stars, my moon. You so blindly illuminate my sky, without minding that I am your eclipse, your doom and your demise. How sweet and—", he pauses, kissing the hallow place in her neck, breathing in her air and leaving her to gasp for forgiveness, "tragic"
And then, they are flashes of furious mouths trying to cover every patch of skin, to clash together to make the other groan in pain or in pleasure, never knowing for sure which of these two emotions it is, and reveling in the unknown factor of it, hands grabbing at their flesh and trying to push so hard against the other their bones will be able to do nothing but open and depart and let the other nestle in the other and be forever together, a liability to the other they do not have it in them to get rid of.
When this all comes to an end, they silently walk away, each in different directions as to not meet of fear they might say the unforgivable and confess their burning desires. It's like this each night, the food they just don't inhale quickly enough to get away from the presence of the other never fucking enough to satiate their hunger and they find themselves caught in an embrace theirs bodies wail for, incapable of moving.
They never mention what has happened in the safety of the darkness, nor what has been said, both painfully aware that it was only but the truth and in those moments of weakness when they give themselves to the other, they are trying to warn and to spare them of the fate that comes at a threatening and worrying pace towards them, looming over them like a rain cloud on a summer day.
It works, however, this thing they have going on, and they both aren't selfless enough, nor kind enough to let go of their own interests in the favour of their lover's wellbeing.