A/N: Prompt from K.I.T.T. RIDER, who once told me these words of wisdom: "Screw Attack on Titan, I want more AccidentShipping!" So yeah, here ya go:)
18
Thorns
IV has always seemed untouchable.
He has never been within range, never allowed himself to be reeled in, just inches away. He is a tangible being, a peculiar one. He preaches of fanservice, holds himself on a higher anarchy, yet in reality, he finds his own existence revolting.
His heart is wrapped in thorns.
His skin is thick and prickly and no one is allowed to drag their finger along it, no one is allowed to feel what is actually delicate and broken. His words are sharp and they scratch, leave scars, even on his own body. His blood-caked nails are spurs that harm and make white, faded marks. His hair is spiked and his facial cut is spiny and his eyes are like darts that hide the barbed-wire fence that protects his humanity. His deck is the quills on his back and his disk is the thistles down his spine and his past is the arrow that pierced his chest and murdered the person he once was.
IV is an anatomy made of invisible biers and prongs and snags, and that is what makes him so very untouchable.
And it may be out of her league to say, narcissistic even, conceited to desire this, but Rio wants to be his rose.
She wants to be the blossom that blooms above his dangerous stems and rigged leaves and bring out his color, his goodness, the part of him that was destroyed oh so long ago. She wants to be his flower, his petals, his bud that opens and reveals the real IV. So she tries, she reaches out, attempts to place her hand on his shoulder, her palm on his abdomen, her cheek against his neck. She dodges his needles and maneuvers through his twisted, intertwined, knitted vines.
His defenses go up, they bristle, the guilt that pricked his soul and nicked his instincts flaring.
But Rio simply plucks his thorns, one by one, and hopes it's enough to someday be that rose.
~Finish~