With feather light touches, thick fingers touch the padded metal and push, sliding it upwards.
The full lips move, soft, unintelligible sounds escaping from between them. The hand pauses, waits until stillness falls again.
Another push and it slides past dark auburn hair and onto the pillow.
Pale skin uncovered, paler than the rest, unused to any light. Even in the dimness of the room, the other squints with closed eyes and rolls over, away from the door.
He chuckles low, and a flailing arm nearly collects him around the face. He catches the hand and holds it, the skin cool against his own.
It's his addiction. Forbidden, probably unhealthy, but he isn't interested in breaking it. Not so long as he can keep coming in here and feeding it with no consequence.
Dark lashes lay heavy against the curve of the cheekbone, angular, maybe not strictly attractive to many, but well suited to the face. He ghosts his fingers over them, so close he can almost feel the skin under his own.
His gaze moves lower, over the battered skin of the chest. A name put to every scar, when, where, how, why, he knows all of them. He saw most of them put there.
The last one, lowest down, nestled just above sharp hipbones and the low riding sheet is the most vivid in his mind. He can still feel the blood on his hands as he carves the skin open, hearing the blood curling scream of pain.
Unbidden, his hand is hovering over it, as though to give his own ability to the other, to make his scars disappear under the rush of accelerated healing.
He draws back, looking up at the still face. Another soft movement of lips, another turn and his face is cast into the light again, bright highlights and dark shadows.
He shifts up again, kneeling by the headboard, studying the uncovered face with an intensity few ever see him use. Not calculating, not predatory, just intense observation and wistful longing.
He wonders if tonight he'll take that leap into dangerous territory. Hesitantly, he leans in until his lips are a scant inch from the other's, feeling warm breath, smelling the mint of toothpaste still lingering.
Would he taste mint if he dared to move in that inch?
His eyes half close as he leans in and he can feel the heat of the skin and movement of soft murmurs.
He back pedals, rolling back and onto all fours, watching from the safety of the doorway, drawing the door shut over him.
Not tonight.