It's time we danced with the truth - Sober by Lorde
Mare
Maven's touch flares anew after Iris exits, gentle, warm, and rancid. I scrub my flesh, but he never leaves. His hands ghost over my skin, everywhere a tentative kiss, a hesitant nip. His sadness spills into me and onto the floor, and I'll never forget the look in his eyes as he begged me to stay.
Traitor.
Filthy traitor.
I sit in the shower an hour more. Steam my nostrils. Lather my skin. He's in my head, and he's never coming out. I scrub my arm until it bleeds.
The healer doesn't ask how I hurt it.
There's a new tension to our nightly sessions. Maven stays later and later, never asking, always lingering longer than he should. He knows it's a bad idea. He knows he's picking at a wound. It doesn't stop him.
He looks like a corpse. Acts like one. He stumbles through the day on less and less sleep, to my delight and Iris's dismay. She comes when he does not, pacing, ranting, thankful to be with the one other person who can get away with insulting him. So many mistakes for her to undo.
He keeps coming.
Maven slumps on my desk, breathing softly. Moonlight washes out the cruelty from his face, Merandus eyes hidden from view. Dark lashes nestle in the crook of his cheek. If I didn't know better, I'd think him gentle.
I used to.
My eyes flicker towards him despite myself. His arms can't make a comfortable pillow, especially not against hard wood. He'll wake with as many aches and pains as I do.
That night, I kissed those lids. I bade him lie as he does now and kissed away his tears, destroyed them until he had no more left to cry. But grief can always dig a new well.
I don't wanna see this.
He wakes under a blanket, surrendered from my newly-bare bed. His eyes flicker from it to me. "I'm never cold. You shouldn't have."
"I don't mind."
"You must have been freezing." Maven tugs the blanket from his frame, shoving it my direction. "Take it. Please."
"Keep it."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I don't want it anymore," I snap. "You've touched it."
He stills. I can't read the emotions in his eyes, the memories I have stirred. I don't want to. His eyes linger on the floor. "I've touched you."
Neither of us speak as he exits.
_
I find them folded atop my bed, nestled beneath a note and a misshapen bottle. Hand sanitizer, a label tells me, along with instructions for use. In case I touch you again.
The substance stinks as I lather my fingers, but I don't care. I don't care how painful the words must have been to write. I don't care how soft the new blankets are, tightly woven with fleece and silk worth several years' wages.
His hands finally leave. The rest of him does not.
_
My ribs hurt when I wake. The Skonos that attends me now is not as skilled as Wren, though even she had trouble erasing all my aches and creaks. I've aged 50 years in six months, and the morning threatens to add another ten.
If I must die, I'm taking him with me.
Summerton is aflutter today, servants whispering amongst each other in the halls. My Arvens will not let me close enough to listen, so I content myself with the glimpses I catch through my window. A victory? A defeat? A betrayal?
Maven visits me at nightfall, darkness clinging to his frame. The Shadow Prince, he once called himself, and the title is fitting. None are as wasted, as haunted, as desperate to attach and never let go.
None but me.
"Make it quick. You're cutting into my sleep." I huddle under my blankets, scowling. "Am I allowed sleep? Are you claiming it as yours now?"
He settles at the foot of my bed, unfazed. "My cousin has returned. And he was thoughtful enough to bring a gift."
"I don't want any gifts."
"How self-centered." He shakes his head. "The gift was for me, Mare."
"'Me, Mare.'" My voice is high and mocking. "You're stealing my name too?"
Maven ignores me. "It was in very good taste. Samson is interrogating him as we speak." He chuckles. "There must not have been time on the journey."
I stiffen.
"I'm deciding on a date for his execution. It's a delicate window. Time enough to stir excitement, but not so long to risk escape." He strokes his chin. "And of course, time enough to torture him with dread."
My blanket is poor protection from him and his horrible words. I tug it over my head, smothering my ears with the pillow. Don't say his name. Don't say his name.
Fingers poke between the fabric, and my nerves stand on end. They never reach me, but they linger on the outskirts, taunting, teasing. He won't touch me. He's too much of a coward, scared what he might discover.
He should be scared.
Maven lifts the blanket enough to peer inside, eyes blue, hollow, and dark as whirlpools. "You weren't friends. You didn't trust each other. You never confided in him, never acknowledged his pain. Why should Cal mean anything to you?" He softens. "I know you far better."
My hands clasp around his wrists, pushing him to the nearest wall. His flamemakers chafe against my palms. Good. He won't be able to reach for them.
The blanket binds us together, and I press closer. His breathing comes in heady pants. Something pulsates like a spark catching fire, and I realize it's his heartbeat. "Do you think you know me, Maven?"
"I know what you've become."
"Do you?" My hands tangle his hair, forcing his head back and beneath mine. "Do you know what I'm capable of? Do you know--" He shivers. "How much I want to hurt you?"
His eyes glaze. "Pull harder."
"I don't take orders from you." I bite his neck savoring the hard bone beneath his supple flesh. If only his blood bruised as easily as mine.
"You should." A hand glides through my hair and rests at my waist. "Your life would be easier. Less painful."
"And you'd be happier." My voice is gentle as wisteria on a moonlit night, gentle as our breaths mixing as I brush my lips against his. "Fuck that. Burn for me."
His stare swallows me whole, and I'm drowning in him, all of him, the abused child, the monster, the shadow of the flame. His gentle hands. His bitter tears. His scathing tongue.
"As long as we burn together."
I rip his shirt open, each button a shield my wrath scorches away. There will be no more layers between us. He discards it, and before I know it, I'm lying underneath him. His fingers tease the hem of my blouse, rolling it upwards with tortuous slowness.
He wants me to watch. To know that however much I hurt him, he's taking from me too.
"I love it when you're angry."
"I'll love it when you're dead."
Maven chuckles. "You're a terrible liar."
I seize his hands, rolling until I'm on top. My shoulders are bare but for my bra straps, and I nibble at his ear. "I could kill you. I could wrap my hands around your pretty neck and squeeze until you burst." I unclasp his flamemakers. "Would you let me?"
He hesitates.
"That's what I thought." I glide a hand over his cheek. "Let me see your eyes."
Maven complies, nestling his fingers in my hair as he gives me a misty, half-lidded gaze. One designed to hurt.
"Close them."
He jolts. "What?"
"You heard me. Close your eyes, and keep them closed. I don't want you to see what I'm doing to you." I smirk. "If you like something, you better scream."
"So long as you close your mouth,"
I still. "I--"
"None of that," he murmurs against my lips. "If you agree, nod."
Maven enjoys me flustered and angry, and I refuse to give him the satisfaction. I guide his fingers past my remaining layers to my core, not flinching, not twitching, immovable as stone. Heat flares as he presses. "No talking. But moaning is appreciated." His forehead gleams with sweat. "Spread your legs for me, Mare."
I clench them shut.
Maven growls, pulling away. Our limbs entangle, snared in a web of our own making. I pin him down, and his eyelids flutter. "Close," I whisper.
He obeys.
My hips rock against his, rough and sudden. He swears, neck arching, straining to regain control. I press harder, but make no move to unzip. My fingers trace letters at his throat. B. E. G.
"No."
Beg. Teeth tear bruises on his cheeks to match those under his eyes. He's right. I do know his face better than Cal's. I will make it unrecognizable.
Maven pants, skin flushed with arousal, lips parted, squirming in a puddle of tangled limbs and sweat. His lashes slide open again, and my tongue caresses his ear. "I told you to scream if you like something."
"Mare." A whisper. "Mare, please. I--" A hitch. "I can't bear it any longer."
I nuzzle his throat. "Bear what?"
"Mare." Hands grip my cheeks, blood thrumming as he forces my gaze to his. "Fuck me."
I still.
"Fuck me." The words are breathless, surprised as I am. "Fuck me like you're all that tethers me to Earth. Fuck me like I'll shatter into painful glass shards. Fuck me like you can't stop until you consume me.
"Until I become yours."
Yours. Maven never asked to be that before. The brand smolders at my collarbone, and I trace the edges. "Do you want one?"
He opens his mouth, then blinks. "I don't know."
"You--" Nope. Not going there. "You have hands. Undress yourself."
They stray to my waist. "Shall I undress you too?"
Say no. He'll be angry, betrayed, but he'll pull away. We'll pick a new mind game to play, one we understand. I hadn't realized we would escalate so far.
"I will."
We toss our pants aside, sliding together in bliss and pain. Neither of us speak. Neither of us lie. Neither of us can unsee the emotions and desires we reveal in the dark.
By morning, he is gone.
I might be gone too.
A/N: Click the star if you liked!