TLC secret santa gift fic for darkdiangeloofhades.
~:~
falling is just like flying
Prompt: cheesiest pick up line
"Did it hurt?"
He remembers wind and ice slicing through his skin, can almost feel it here, now, years later. The fire melting his bones, carving through lungs and ribs, tearing through feathers, a thousand knives buried into his flesh. If he's silent enough he can feel the ghost of his wings weighing down on his back. If he closes his eyes, he can almost fly again.
"When you..." her voice melts into soft anxiety, hitching to a stop at the word fell. He turns just so to look at her: wide eyes that could swallow the rest of her if she lets them. Her fingers stop shy of his scar, tracing the air around the jagged crescents. She looks at them with such deep concentration—brows pulled together, lip caught between her teeth, as if she's trying to read some secret lost language there.
Yes, he wants to say. Like you can't imagine. It still hurts. It will always. Never less than the day it happened; he's damned to a forever of that single moment in time, experiencing it every waking moment. The scar burns under her scrutiny. It's always aching, always pulsing in the haunting of its loss.
"Nah," he says, and grins all lopsided, just the way that makes her blush. She steals a glance at him and he gasps when he feels the brush of her fingertips. It's only a sigh but that's all it takes for the knives carving into his spine to recede. A cool pulse replaces the fire licking at him, starting at the centre of her touch, which fades away just as quickly as her hand retreats back.
He turns oh so slowly, feeling dizzy and alert at the same time. She starts stepping back, starts apologising, mumbling, blushing.
Did it hurt did it hurtdidithurtdidithurt—
He hears the same roaring wind from years ago, feels the blaze between his shoulder blades, aching knives cutting under his skin, ash in his mouth.
But all he can concentrate on is that snowflake print of her finger pressed for just an eternal second under a crescent moon scar.
Did it hurt?
And he feels like he's falling all over again.
I have another one shot lined up. A soulmate AU because of course I was going to write a soulmate AU for Cresswell. It would be a crime not to. I'll be posting it tomorrow.