Day 2: A Picture
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Winter
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"Who are you?" England's eyes narrowed, hand reaching out to grab and finding no purchase. Head turns and he's looking into eyes as blue as the summer sky. So long, it had been, that the colour was almost alien - his world was grey and white, wrapped in clinging cold.
"Don't you know?" Lips curled into a sweet smile, and he could almost put his finger on it. Almost. The name slid across his lips and never touched. Fingers brushed against his cheek, tracing the curve of his jaw before skirting upward, grabbing, gripping at something unfamiliar.
Antlers rose above his head in an elegant sweep, he could feel them like his own skin - deeper. The touch sent shivers through his body, a gasp wrung from him. Lips brush the corner of his mouth, trailing kisses and he stutters. Hands on his chest, where his clothing had gone somewhere, disappeared when he wasn't looking. He didn't need to know, not as his lips found those others, tasting earthy and somehow sweet. His own hands stroked down the curve of a naked back, gripping, squeezing, dragging.
Laughter against him as he growled low, vibrations against the bared expanse of throat.
He wasn't England anymore.
He wasn't even Arthur anymore.
And then they were falling, him on top, legs hiked up and around his hips. The brush of teeth against his earlobe.
Yes. This.
Rain against his bare skin... warm. The snow beneath giving way first to earth, then to clinging mud. It didn't matter, none of it mattered but the act. There was warmth building, suffusing him. It felt like something bigger than himself, pushing outward against his skin and his head tipped upward, a noise that no human throat could form as he pushed. Fingers stroked at the nape of his neck, his eyes snapping open in that moment, looking down into eyes that were unfamiliar and yet he knew them.
Life, sparked in fire, cradled in earth, fed with water. He was part of it. The cycle.
Birth. Life. Death. Birth.
Unending.
He breathed a name.
When he came back, he was lying on his side. One hand flew up to his head, brushed nothing but the shaggy strands of his hair and he groaned, pushed himself upright. Blinked.
Stared at the sight of green amongst the barren brown earth, still peppered with snow. His fingers brushed the tiny leaf of a new shoot sprouting where he'd lain. He let out a breath that didn't fog in the air any longer, got to feet that were no longer encased in that relentless, icy grip. It was warm. He'd almost forgotten what it was like...
England closed his eyes and bowed his head, a smile touching the corner of his lips - gratitude.
Then he stood to greet the new spring, leaving a scattering of seedlings in his wake, surrounding the shallow imprints of a pair of cloven hooves.
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Notes: Umm... yeah. Well... this was based on a picture. Hmm... and England has stolen my creativeness for this meme once again. What's up with that? Another entry tomorrow.