Lips touch lips and he tries to put flavors to scents to images; all his senses blur into a euphoric frenzy and suddenly orange is a kiss of dry dirt and herbs, and flesh, warm and salted with tears and sweat, is a symphony in his brain. His hands skate over hers and he pulls her closer, but she is Irathient to be sure and there's more power in her slender hands - quick with blades and guns and snakes, slow with trust - than he could ever bring himself to exert over her. Instead, his fingertips, rough and calloused from work, graze the white scars at her wrists, lingering over her one vulnerability.
Back meets bars and then the floor. The ground of the Lawkeeper's Office is cold tile and reprimands him for his actions, like the angel resting on his shoulder or the mother harping over the back of it. What would she say to him now? Now? Now. Now is not the time for thought. He holds her tightly and she allows it. Their lips meet again and there's magic in his brain; it makes him fly far, far away. She gives him wings this one time - and she keeps him pinned to the ground, trapped beneath the heat of her angular body. The tiles aren't cold anymore. Nothing is cold anymore.
She collapses on top of him and lies there, out of breath. He wraps one arm around her.
Glows like she's radioactive and kills him slowly the same way.
This wasn't how it was supposed to happen.
The tips of his fingers graze her cheek as he brushes back her hair. Irisa leans into the touch (or he imagines she does) and something deep inside, where the Tin Man was hollow and Tommy is weak, begins to ache, pulse and pine.
This was how it happened.
