#but i'll probably do more snapshots like this for cecil's life in the near future

[aurealmaster-a]

“ && I wish I knew how long we’ll have,    It’s like you blink && so much time has passed,    At the end when my heart beats it’s last,    I will still w a n t you    Who can say what tomorrow holds?    Where I’ll end up if I take this road?    People come && people go,    I love you && that’s all I know. “ 

    He lays down first in bed alone, but the sheets are too cold-  the room too quiet and bed too big.  The empty space and sound eats away at his heart, threatens to carve in and hollow him out.  His anxieties poke and prod, play at his heartstrings and will not let him rest.  He sits up in the dark and feels numb.  Is that it?  A feeling of being unfulfilled, incomplete.  A fear.  Tomorrow is the harbinger of true ending; are his affairs in order?  Has he said all he has to say?  All he needs too?  ( An immediate answer of thought:  NO. ) 

   He rises from bed, bare feet on cold hardwood floor and pads quietly into the adjacent living area-- No sign of Láeg at first, of course, not yet.  Cecil is sure he’ll rematerialize once he realizes his Master has stirred.  For now, the cold && hollow home only further serves to drive the point home:  After tomorrow he will dead, or he will be alone. 

   He does not call out to the Rider, does not summon him forth from silence of cold to keep him company.  He seeks instead the company of the stars, drawing back the curtains across the huge wall of windows in the living area-- It is moments like this that Cecil is wildly thankful he lives so far from the city-- From this window is an expanse of clear and cloudless sky-- Here is the solace and distant warmth he seeks:  the stars.  Each is a cold, years away spot of light-- It doesn’t ease his sleepless heart at all.  Leaning against the window pane, the chill of autumn creeps through glass and cloth until it reaches skin, and then through bone, threatens to turn his soul cold under the touch of it.  Cold, cold, cold.  He’s been left staring out the window a few solid minutes-- Something in his soul feels RAW, miles away-- and true to his initial study, there is an iridescent shimmer of color and light. Láeg stands close by and only watches quietly for a breath, before he breaks the silence. 

  “Tomorrow will require all of your strength, Cecil.  You ought to be resting n-” Ah, but when Cecil faces him the words die away.  He could be called unearthly beneath the galactic and glacier glow, painted in hues of starlight and silver falls, lambent and ethereal--  These rivers of moonlight wash over them, fill the room with that graceful, chilling light.  And those aureate eyes of amber are glued to him, dazzling novas of emotion. Láeg’s breath hitches in his chest, it feels like, for a moment, there is a chasm between them too wide and yawning for Láeg to breach-- and just as swiftly gone when Cecil’s voice calls to him.  “Rider.”  ( A hush, a whisper, a prayer.  How could a word sound like a prayer, and steal all of his attention with no fuss that it was better to call it a command? ) 

  “Are you unable to sleep, Cecil?”  

  “Yes.”  He says, he does not say that the silent apartment breaks his heart, that the bed is too cold without his arms.  “I just...can’t stop thinking about tomorrow.”  

  && Láeg is swift to assuage and greet his expression ready resolve and support-- “Don’t worry, I won’t let you get hurt.  I won’t let anything happen to you.”  But Cecil is silent again, arms coming to cross his chest, hugging himself.  No answer is given in the shape of words, but rather, Cecil crosses the space between them and wraps his arms around Láeg ‘s middle without pretense-- presses his face into his chest and hides.  From here, only when he feels warm arms secure around his shoulders, safe, does he voice with a trembling sound:  

  “I’m afraid.  Not of war or death, but of returning to life without you.  How can I sleep tonight, clear headed and dreaming while I should be taking in every second I have left with you?  I don’t want to sleep-- I want to lay in the dark and listen to your heartbeat.  I want your fingers burning against my skin and I want you to kiss me until I’m certain I’ll never forget what it feels like, what you taste like-- I want...” He shakes, shoulders first and those arms tighten around him. Láeg presses his face into his hair, breaths the comfortable scent that Cecil carries, vanilla and sandalwood.  Home.  “I just want you.  Until tomorrow is worlds away in my mind-- Until I...Until I could almost forget...” That I’m losing you.  Raw, so raw, his heart and soul are crying-- He could nearly call it unfair.  What had he ever done to fate to deserve a thing so cruel as to meet your soulmate, worlds and eons away?  To know they are all you could ever want, know they could love you in return and still lose them?  No, It’s cruel, even if he isn’t bitter.  Even if he doesn’t have a single regret, even if he wouldn’t change a single moment of their time.  

  Láeg pulls back and holds his face, hands warm, and kisses him-- a thing of passion without fear.  Of love and fire. “Tá mo chroí istigh ionat.” It isn’t a sentence Cecil knows, but there are some sentiments which can be understood wordlessly, can be conveyed in heart and soul, in the eyes-- and his eyes are exactly where Cecil finds his translation.  “And not even death or fate may change that.  Not even death or fate may take that from you.”  ( && he says it with such confidence Cecil’s heart leaps in his chest. ) 

  “I’m not sad, I’m not--”  He speaks against lips, hands that wander over familiar scars, down his chest-- “Not really.  I cannot be angry over what I was granted.  the very chance to know and love and adore you--”  That hand continues, strokes muscle and scar and Cecil leans up and kisses him again, licks at his lips.  “No matter how short.”  And it seems his desires has caught on, or that perhaps his Rider has shared the same thought all along, holding back for uncertaintly as he is wont to do, because Cecil is suddenly backed against the window and the heat of a body presses in-- It’s his touch alone that chases out the empty cold and fills him.  Makes the apartment feel inviting again-- More like home and less like a beast waiting to swallow him whole.  Cecil brings his arms up to drape and wrap around Láeg’s shoulders.

 ( And like this, the stars swim around them.  That visage of mercurial light is now obscured by drifting clouds, sweeping in and out of the view of a full moon.  It halos around Cecil’s head, and bathes the room when present with it’s company. ) 

 “ If this is it, the last night I have with you, I want to remember it for the rest of my days.”  He wonders if it sounds silly, if it sounds selfish, if Láeg is just as afraid as he is.  Cecil kisses slow down his throat, relishes the pulse that leaps and jumps beneath his lips before he sinks to his knees.  The intent is clearly carnal, and those eyes never leave Láeg’s, looking up at him through dark lashes-- despite the late hour, despite the pressing day to come, Cecil takes his time, moves with such languid desire one might think they had all the time in the world.  That's precisely what he wants.  MORE TIME.  If he cannot have it, then he will make do with pretending they already do.  

           // @dilseacht