AVALON

Chapter 68 - Monsters

His eyes green eyes flick down in my direction and widen like he's wondering what the hell I'm doing down there. I get myself comfortable like I meant to have just plopped down to get comfy to listen, that falling down like a huge freaked out dork at the sound of this voice was totally not what happened.

I smile up at him, encouragingly. I hope my eagerness to hear his voice again isn't like a flashing billboard on my forehead.

He doesn't smile back at me. His face is grim and stark. Focused. Angry. It's everything but friendly.

After a few minutes my eyes leave his face to wander over his body again, it's curves and angles highlighted in all good ways by the flickering flames. I wonder about the stories written there on his skin if only I could get a grip on the starting one, maybe I would have a chance to unravel them. Unravel
him.

Did I imagine his voice? Did I imagine the Mooves, the truck, the roses? Because how he is right now, wherever he is right now, those thoughts would never have been able to blossom. Well, I'm pretty sure there's no flowers in hell unless they were carnivorous. 

Suddenly, he rubs his hands over his face repeatedly, then turns to look at me. His fists clench and relax, clench and relax.

"This is all your fault you know?" he huffs. His tone is not hostile like his body, it's more exasperated. Overwhelmed. Lost.

"What part is my fault? That I'm apparently really stalkable, that my conversations are so insanely interesting that you had to eavesdrop on them in the dark or due to my photography and petal placement skills that you have an now obtained an unnatural obsession for naked older ladies and were actually loitering to catch a glimpse of some bosom? Just which one am I responsible for?" I cross my arms and raise my eyesbrows at him. I've never been particularly adept at accepting fault but most of all I just want to knock him from this foreboding path he's on.

He mimics my body language but tilts his head to the side with this look that Frank would be jealous of. I'm jealous of it.

"No! That I realised I don't have a goddamn fear, that I'm bloody riddled with them," he growls at last and kicks the sand with his foot, reminding me of Nathan when he goes agro after a discovery about himself that takes a while to sit well inside of him. These discoveries I have found are generally only hideous to the owner, like they instantly brand us a mutant that will never be loved or accepted. Like before when I told my fear I wondered why it sounded so terrible before I said it, but now it doesn't seem so bad anymore. Well it does but it doesnt, if I'm really honest I'm a bit raw but healing. Like a soggy sore drying up in the sun.

"Well, where's my thank you banner then?" I stand up tall showing him that I'm not intimidated by the hostility radiating out yet again from his tense body. "It should say 'Thank you to Avalon Smith, for showing me I am a human YAY'. If you need a hint that is and it should be in sparkly letters too and about twenty foot long. I'd be happy with that." I grin at him because he wavered slightly but...
Noah is not in a playful mood, not in a bantering mood, not in a good mood at all. Which is fine, I was a bit narky before I finally aired my 'laundry'.

Something dark is puslating within him, poisioning him. He needs to lance it. He's got ten seconds to start or I will start pestering it until it pops. He stares at me, that something growing bigger by the second.

"You got the bra on sister, you only get to take it off when you burn it with your fear," I smirk, pushing his buttons. I've seen people at these moments. They are pivotal. Hell, I've been at them. One voice inside wants you to do it, another is whispering not to and all the reasons why. If he walks away he will never do it, that second voice will win and he will hate himself and regret this moment for the rest of his life. Plus I want to know.