HORNS (BoyXBoy)

Chapter 173

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Three

Black.

Everything was black. 

There was no dead ocean next to a desert devoid of life. There were no stars to hover over me. There was no universe, no light, no existence whatsoever. I was alone in the dark, drifting aimlessly, without purpose... and yet, weirdly, I wasn't afraid. It felt familiar to me somehow, being in this void without warmth or life. It was soothing, like being home after a stressful day.

I had no eyes, no physical form, but I was aware.

I could see in every direction, every corner of the infinite black, and I could feel the emptiness the way one might feel the ripples of a stone being thrown into a pristine lake while underwater. I knew, in some small part of my mind, that I should have been terrified to the bone.

I knew that this blackness should have intimidated me.

It didn't.

It was so sweet and calming and lacking in the turbulence that had overtaken me so frequently the last few weeks that I was glad to be drifting around. Only, something disturbed the dark after a time, a sensation of warmth that encompassed my existence from one specific side.

A dim glow slowly appeared in the black, green and hot, flowering with vibrations. The light lit up the black void and connected to me in strands that wove around my consciousness like bioluminescent vines, holding me tight, seeping warmth into me, banishing the ice.

I quivered under the heat of the love that bled into my soul.

I trembled as the green glow grew blinding, slowly taking the shape of a horned man, forming out of nothing and uncurling as if being born fully grown into this place. Hands made of sheer, raw, thrumming light reached out to me, wrapping around every part of my pitiful existence.

'You're safe now.'

It wasn't speech that bled into me through the contact, more like a feeling that I instinctively knew the meaning of without needing to put words to it. I understood and tentatively extended my own tendrils back to the heat, like a battered plant reaching for the sun, seeking help.

I was welcomed with open arms. Locked in an embrace that finally, for the first time, sparked life back into the black and lit up the emptiness of what I'd become. Gentle caresses against my hair, my horns, warmed by strong, capable arms, protected from the black... from the hurt--

I startled awake, breath hitching.

I kept my eyes closed, too tired to really figure out what was going on, but mentally I tried to figure out what had woken me. I lay still, breathing slowly as the sensation of long fingers gently and repetitively threading through my hair made itself known. I inhaled deeply.

It was only when the scent of musky fur and bluebells filled my nose that recognition hit.

Soft, warm blankets lay over me. I was partially lying on Luka's chest, left ear smushed between my cheek and his pectoral with one arm draped across his stomach and the other thrown down at my side. One arm was tucked under his head, and the other was being used to pet my hair.

There was more movement near my waist, and I catalogued another hand rubbing my side.

Thin fingers, small palm... Sasha.

"Sweetleaf....?" my brother suddenly rasped, quiet and incredibly hushed.

"Hm?" Sasha softly hummed. "What is it, Dearest?"