Sweet the Sting (Alex/Roger)
It is always a struggle, Alex thinks. He watches, lying on the bed, the remaining tiny flames jump about the glowing embers in the fireplace and throw their huge dark shadows along the wall.
At times like this he wants nothing more badly than a solitary grey dawn on the practice court with a sword in his hand, and the feeling of being as centered and perfect in himself as it is possible to be. In that moment he is as purposeful and sharply-defined as his blade; mind in control of his body, and at the same time outside it and more.
Yet sometimes even then the desire creeps up on him and he longs for this: dark red nights and the feeling of falling away, addictive and terrifying; the container of his body dissolving and everything that makes him Alex bleeding into nothingness.
Existing with both states, Alex is not happy. The thought of living with neither makes him equally unhappy. The logical answer would then be to keep only one or the other. Yet somehow Alex cannot bring himself to believe in this solution.
It is a paradox.
"Will you be returning and joining me any time soon?"
The voice is rich with amusement, assured and smooth. Warm breath gusts over the drying sweat on the nape of his neck, making him want to shiver. There is a long body against his back, an arm casually draped over his ribs, and a broad, well-tended hand resting lightly over the muscles of his abdomen.
If Alex has learned one thing, it is that the sharper the sting, the greater the sweetness will be in contrast when it does come. Maybe it has something to do with the same reason that half the Yamani poetry he has read is about small, peaceful, fleeting moments of pure beauty—a perfect white blossom, a reflection in a still pond, the yearning for the unknowable—and the other half is the tearing red of spilled blood and broken loves, and the harsh black of abrupt and brutal endings. To know only one and not the other would be to have incomplete understanding.
Also, Alex is weak.
So he turns over, feet tangling in the sheets, mouth seeking, already feeling the sting where it burns, deep underneath his skin.