inspection/needs ( combo i cannot pick )
[ inspection ] sender holds receiver's face while inspecting an injury they got
[ needs ] sender asks receiver what they need
there's something in him that fucking burns.
part of him always thought it would go away with time, with just the right amount of something — like balancing scales, like robbing fire of oxygen by smothering it. alcohol, cigarettes, people. FIGHTS.
tonight has been a burning night, where the pyre in him roars so loud it drowns all common sense; where one taunt becomes ten, becomes twenty, and suddenly he's the eye of a maelstrom made of fists and fury, laughing into the sticky floor as he goes down again and again and again. still grinning as chas hauls him out the back door by the scruff of his coat and shoves him into the back of the cab, snarls at him to wipe that fucking smirk off your face as if a part of him didn't feel the rush, too. as if the things that burn in him don't sear up chas as well.
he knows it's meant to be punishment, bringing him to the house. to lilly. it's because he loves her, see. because chas knows he's always been shit-scared of showing the people he loves all the real worst parts of him, underneath the magic and the mayhem and the mystery. of course, he loves chas, too, but that's different. chas has always known these things about him. it's why they're friends. it's why chas sticks around.
she opens the door, and all there is is a sigh, slow and long, and her eyes are more tired than they are afraid or angry or sad, and . . . yeah. it's a punishment.
he's still burning later in the kitchen, seated on the counter with bruised fingers locked rigid around the edges of the tile, while she stands between his legs and presses wet cloth to every stinging place, every sun spot and solar flare. her other hand is gentle on his hip, but the line of her mouth is hard like diamond and he's close enough to see every time she bites the inside of her cheek, chewing something into silence. every instinct says to flay the secret out for the fire to eat, to make this HURT, to layer fresh hits over barely-old ones, but he knows it won't do any good; they're too intertwined, these days. so intricately bound that a fight would only draw them closer together in their attempts to fix it later — would only make the scars left by their sharp edges something to map in the dark, when it mattered a little less.
he's so lost in the inferno that he hardly notices when the cloth goes away and her fingers come back empty, pushing sweat-damp hair away from his forehead and carding all the way down to the nape of his neck, where they scratch, softly, like petting a cat. the sensation pools in his chest like a good stiff drink, sizzles along the surface of the blaze and cuts through the buzz still rattling along his back teeth; he has to close his eyes against the sudden, heady rush of stillness, chin bowing to his chest, her touch suffusing every limb. he is so heavy. how can she stand beneath the weight.
it could be days, or months, or years before her knuckles trail a path along his aching jaw and tip his chin back up, coaxing his gaze along with it. she still looks tired, tracing every new contusion and fresh abrasion, pressing light to test their depth and sending frissons of sharp and sore spidering through his skull like sickness. how long has it been since she left the house, lately? how long since she smiled at him and there wasn't something masked behind her eyes? the burning in him eats the meaning in little things, like time between and time apart, but he still remembers every one, and when it ought to matter more. remembers that they've been trying this for so, so long and they can never seem to get it right. he can never seem to get it right.
her fingers mold to the curve of his cheek and she's looking right into him, now, with understanding. she's been burning too, he knows, in ways he can't begin to fathom, and she still takes this time to try and save him from his pyre. does she know he'd steal the kindling out of hers, if he had the strength to carry it all? does she know he'd drink the petrol if the blaze would keep her warm? or does she only know he'd fail, in the end, to make any sort of difference at all, except in the degree to which he scorches her when she tries to keep him close?
' what do you need, john? ' half a question, half a platitude. like she doesn't think she'll ever like the answer. like she doesn't think he'll ever really know.
( there's something eating him up like a poison and he thinks it's his father. )
his head tips to trap her fingers between cheek and shoulder, bloody lip leaving smears where he kisses the fate line of her palm. the tendons flex, then still; he curls his fingers around her wrist, her pulse like a bird he's trapped, kisses his toxin off of every inch of skin and buries his face in the well of mercy that he is steadily filling up with red and raw and burning shame.
i'm sorry, i'm too old for this.
i'm sorry, i don't want to be this way.
i'm sorry, i don't mean to keep hurting you.
i'm sorry, i keep trying to get rid of it and it won't go away, i'm pulling him out of me shard by shard and it's not doing any good, i didn't think it would still ache this fucking badly, i'm sorry —
( please, please, please forgive me. keep forgiving me. just this once. just over and over again. )
' hold me. ' his voice splinters like fractal lines in crystal, and her fingers curl against his bruises with a scrape of nail on stubble that warns but doesn't retreat, and there are purple-blue-black universes warping his skin but none are so kind and so undeserved as her eyes.
@asteritm / NON-VERBAL ANGST PROMPTS ( always accepting )
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