post-desolations of devils acre cuz i just finished rereading it and yes i cried at the part where enoch gets hurt because i am overly attached to a fictional boy. shut up about it
this is me spreading my evan-peters-as-enoch-o'connor agenda, of course
there r an insane amount of poetry/literature references in this so shoutout to you if u know them
based on kissing lessons by lucy dacus + school friends by now,now /
" We are unusual and tragic and alive."
Give me lip gloss, and a hair toss, and after school:
Y/N hadn't decided what they thought of Wales yet.
Cairnholm was pretty, sure. With its rocky beaches, quiet neighbors, and overgrown forests, they found they didn't entirely hate the place. "The Battle at Devil's Acre", as Miss Peregrine and Miss Cuckoo were calling it, had left them riddled with nightmares of tree-armed beasts and papillae coated tounges wrapping tight around their throat.
Twice now, they had woken up screaming. In the month Y/N had spent on this dreary island, they had yet to get a full night of sleep.
Horace had been an irreplacable help. He knew all the best teas to help them get to sleep again, all the most effective distractions, all the grimey little meanings behind the ghosts in their mind.
" It'll get easier," he assured them after a particularly bad night, " You just need to give yourself enough time. Even Noor has nightmares."
Noor, the light-eater with a giddy smile and a quiet nature, had come close to Y/N's newest best friend. She was surprisingly easy to get along with, and endlessly assured in her abilities, especially after her victory in the legendary Library of Souls.
Y/N still didn't know exactly what had gone down there, after Noor and the others had disappeared. They had gone through the panloopticon with the other ninety-four refugees, after all, and had hardly spared the missing peculiars a second thought until they returned with a stolen car and ash-coated hair.
They had been helping one Enoch O'Connor.
They liked him, terribly. For someone with such a venom-lined tongue, he was a remarkably pretty boy, and they found his endless sarcasm charming. Endearing, even. He was a notably isolated boy, and he went bright red when they mentioned his talent at sculpting, and he laughed when they described one of the countless gruesome things they had seen before living at the academy.
Of course, it was completly improper for Y/N to fancy a boy like him.
After all, he was one of Miss Peregrine's famed wards, a hero of peculiardom, and they were one of Miss Peregrine's and Miss Cuckoo's students. They were to be a ymbryne.
And ymbrynes do not fantasize about stubborn blond boys with chewed lips and scarred hands, they do not daydream about how his hair curls in the slight September humidity or how his voice is rough first thing in the morning, they do not spare a second thought to his snide remarks or his muffled smiles or the way his dark eyes catch the dying light of the sun so perfectly every evening without fail.
No, ymbrynes-in-training do not think such things at all.
Yet Enoch had such a captivating way of handling himself, and Y/N found him nestled in all the corners of their mind.
It was irritating. It was infuriating! It was distracting, and overwhelming, and made their typically steady hands shake like leaves in the wind.
Which is why, the night Enoch O'Connor stormed into their dorm room, they were positively sure they'd be expelled for homicide.
" You can't be in here." Y/N said in that stern voice of theirs, practiced to the point of perfection. They had jumped up from their seat at their desk, almost slamming their hand in the thick handbook they were reading.
" What's the fuss, birdie?" Enoch had muttered in response, falling back onto their bed— their nice, neat, clean bed— whilst fiddling with another one of his nasty contraptions. " I thought we were right old pals."
" Well, we're not—"
" Oh," Enoch pouted, " That's no fair. You were so sickeningly sweet before you had to go and get wings. It's annoying, honestly."
Y/N stiffened, clasping their trembling hands together in a desperate attempt to gain some composure. " I'm sorry you feel that way, but ymbrynes are necessary for the continued survival—"
" Continued survival of peculiardom, yack, yack, yack, yadda, yadda, yadda," Enoch batted his hand in the air absentmindedly, as if swatting at a fly, " I've heard the lecture before. Can't I just hang out with a friend for an hour or so without having to hear my own headmistress's voice through your lips?"
" I—"
" See? Comfortable silence."
Y/N frowned. It wouldn't be so terrible to have some company while they studied, after all, and at least it was someone they didn't entirely hate...
" You're insufferable." they eventually said, to Enoch's apparent amusement, and they sat back down and opened the thick handbook.
There was silence, for a short amount of time. Then Enoch began humming, and apparently became so bored with his clay figure that he took it apart on their nightstand and reformed it into a small hummingbird. He sent it fluttering at the back of Y/N's head, plucking at their shirt and sticking its beak into their ear.
They batted it away, and when that was ultimately unsuccessful, they grabbed the clay bird in their fist, shoved it inside the closest drawer, and slammed it shut.
" Oi!" Enoch cried, " I worked hard on that!"
" And I'm working hard on this," Y/n said without looking up, tapping hard on their handbook, " And I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd stop harassing me."
Enoch soured. " You were more fun before you became Miss Hummingbird."
" It's Redpoll."
" Excuse me?"
" It'll be Miss Redpoll, if I pass my exams. Miss Hummingbird will be Elana, assuming she passes, but we all know the girl hasn't got a single working brain cell in that thick skull of hers."
Enoch barked a laugh. " Okay, Redpoll. How about you study something else for a little bit, huh?"
Y/N heaved a sigh, then turned in their seat to face him properly. Enoch was leaning forward on their bed, his hands digging into the sheets. His hair was ruffled, and the thin scars that criss-crossed his cheek were dull in the foggy light. The top buttons of his shirt were undone, and they could see the still-raw flesh of his chest.
They chewed the inside of their cheek.
" Like what?" Y/N eventually said.
Enoch shrugged, then looked to the window and back to them, rolling his tongue against the inside of his mouth all the while. They caught themself wondering how he would taste.
" What about me?"
Y/N blinked, startled. " Have you lost your mind?"
" Oh, come on, I'm not that bad." he smiled. " There's not even blood on this shirt, if you can believe it."
" I don't."
" You could stab me and it would sting less."
They frowned, clearly unimpressed.
" Come on, birdie. Just a couple minutes."
" You..." Y/N glanced back at their handbook, the black writing glaring at them like some awoken beast. " Are dreadfully convincing."
Then they slammed it shut and joined him on their bed. With their legs pulled up to their chest and their arms wrapped tightly around their calves, Y/N took a deep breath and met his eyes.
Enoch had slate-grey eyes, the kind that eerily resembled the sea before a storm. There were worlds, galaxies, universes behind his eyes, in the way there seemed to be nothing behind their own. He was beautiful. He was terrifying. He was the ocean, overjoyed to drown them. He was a warm blanket on a cold day, begging to embrace them.
" What exactly am I studying..?" Y/N asked after a long moment.
Enoch shrugged. " You decide."
" You've got very pretty eyes, Mr O'Connor."
" Do I now?" He titled his head slightly, wearing one of those trademark lopsided smiles he sported so well. " Usually I'm told I've got 'angry' ones."
" No, not at all. You've got the entire world behind your eyes. You've got rocky beaches and cloudy days and the smell of woodsmoke. ' You are cold and flame. You are the crimson of amaryllis, the silver of moon-touched magnolias.' You have poetry in your eyes, Enoch O'Connor."
By now, he was simmering red, the same mentioned crimson of amaryllis. But it was true, all of it. He really did have pretty eyes.
In a quiet, almost timid voice, he asked, " What else?"
Y/N smiled. " You've got a venomous tongue, and it's rather charming. ' I adore this pale moon, I adore this death mask.', it seems. Although you spit insults, you've got a golden heart in that chest of yours, and if only you could make it fit..." they shrugged. " Well, then, game over."
" Game over." Enoch whispered.
" You're full of this brimming silence you don't know how to break. That's in your eyes, too. The things you've seen left... ashes in your irises. Smoke in your brain. Like a veil of memories you can't quite shake, a curtain of past events that hover like a stubborn storm cloud. And..." Y/N paused, glancing down at his hands. " Everything you let go of has claw marks on it. Tell me... Your body: was it ever yours alone?"
" Whadda you mean by that?"
They reached over and jabbed his chest. " You are someone who didn't know when he should have died."
Enoch took their hand, brushing a kiss against their knuckles. " 'If pain can purify the heart, mine will be pure.'"
" Mary Shelly," Y/N noted with a sly smile. " You do know your literature."
" It's the one thing I ever actually liked studying. And was actually good at."
Their expression faded to something soft, muffled by the insecurity of their actions. They were a ymbryne-in-training, a brilliant time lord blessed with wings, and yet...
And yet.
" I have a stupid, absurd, absolutley insane question." Y/N said.
Enoch looked up at them through his hair, brushing his calloused thumb along their palm. " I might have a stupid, absurd, absolutley insane answer."
They took a deep breath and asked, " Can I kiss you?"
Enoch froze. When he didn't respond after a dreadful second, they launched into panicked explanations.
" It's just— I know we haven't known each other long, and Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I know it isn't proper, but there's no one else here so who gives a damn if it's proper or not? You're this stupidly pretty boy I'm stuck under the same roof of and you've got such a dreadful way of carrying yourself that I simply can't ignore you, and Lord help me, I've tried—"
" Y/N."
" It was a stupid, stupid question, and I know I've already said that, but Christ almighty, I should have held my bleeding tounge—"
" Y/N!"
" What?"
" Of course I'll kiss you. Or, you can kiss me, either or, who gives a damn?" Enoch laughed. Then he seemed to wither. "But..."
" But what?"
" You think I'm pretty?"
" I think you're gorgeous."
He reached over and cupped their cheek, his thumb brushing the skin beneath their eye. Y/N dropped their knees, one hand fluttering to his wrist. And he leaned in close, and—
Oh.
Oh.
He felt so old, so awfully old and worn, and so young all at once, raw as a wound. His lips were shockingly soft and just as cold, his venom-tipped tongue leeching all the warmth from his kiss and instead giving it to his scarred hands. Y/N leaned into him, unsure of themself, but his other hand was already at their waist and pulling them closer, and closer still, and their own hands found their way around his neck and into his hair.
Even if he slit their throat, they'd thank him for touching their skin.
It felt like heaven. They wanted to drink him in, to drown in his touch, to sink into this abyss and never pull away. He tasted like licorice and room-temperature tea and faintly vanilla, and the moment you finally find something you like, no, something you love. Something you adore to such a point that it consumes all of you, like the wide jaws of a waking dragon, the gaping cave in the deep sea.
He was the first breath of fall, the roar of blood in their ears, the wave of cold that came with his lips on theirs. He was utter destruction. He was what killed the dinosaurs.
Enoch O'Connor was a poison. He was an antidote.
And Y/N was completely and utterly infatuated with him.
A lesson in kissing.
" I kissed him passionately. I even wanted to bruise him, so that he would not be able to forget me."