[L stares for a moment at the hand at his very center, resting on his heart's bony shield. For a moment it looks odd and alien, but perhaps only in the context of anything at all being so near him, so willing and even intimate in its engagement. For many, "platonic" would mean an inoculation forever against intimacy... but such a person must not know that intimacy isn't only reserved for lovers.
Such a person must not know much at all.
He swallows the thickness in his throat, meeting Paul's overbright radiation eyes with his own that are still slate, still liquid dark in in the cloudy desert and so very tired. The only light inside of them at all comes from Paul, those flecks of mesmerizing, fatal blue.
He blinks, feeling seen, again, in the way that makes heat creep into his already scorched cheeks. The trick, he wants to say, is telling yourself often that you need nothing at all, and want nothing at all, until you believe that it's true, because something that's starved long enough is never hungry again.
He doesn't say it, but it lives restlessly in his liquid-dark eyes, shrinking from the blue light and curling up where there are no stars.
Already wide eyes stretch rounder at Paul's question. Oh, he means it so mercifully, doesn't he?]
Paul...
[The storm, for all the nourishment and quenching it promises this parched land, was always a perilous thing, and now, that roaring has found them.
L stands and tries to haul Paul to his feet alongside him. Higher ground will be a must, shortly; the downpour is coming down so dense and thick that it's actually a challenge to stand and remain upright.]
Come on!
[I don't dream of rain, because drowning always came too easily to me, and loving what would sink and silence me. That's why; that's why.]
no subject
Such a person must not know much at all.
He swallows the thickness in his throat, meeting Paul's overbright radiation eyes with his own that are still slate, still liquid dark in in the cloudy desert and so very tired. The only light inside of them at all comes from Paul, those flecks of mesmerizing, fatal blue.
He blinks, feeling seen, again, in the way that makes heat creep into his already scorched cheeks. The trick, he wants to say, is telling yourself often that you need nothing at all, and want nothing at all, until you believe that it's true, because something that's starved long enough is never hungry again.
He doesn't say it, but it lives restlessly in his liquid-dark eyes, shrinking from the blue light and curling up where there are no stars.
Already wide eyes stretch rounder at Paul's question. Oh, he means it so mercifully, doesn't he?]
Paul...
[The storm, for all the nourishment and quenching it promises this parched land, was always a perilous thing, and now, that roaring has found them.
L stands and tries to haul Paul to his feet alongside him. Higher ground will be a must, shortly; the downpour is coming down so dense and thick that it's actually a challenge to stand and remain upright.]
Come on!
[I don't dream of rain, because drowning always came too easily to me, and loving what would sink and silence me. That's why; that's why.]
You have to!