#vyke kicking rocks after this like 'wish i could kiss someone rn without making their mouth go up in flames'

[lrdvyke]

a desperate kiss as if they are convinced they’ll slip through each other’s fingers ( you know who )

Something in him speaks of a dream. Warns him. A dream in which he has not woken up from. A dream that if he did and did so soon, he would find himself below the earth once more with only a circular hole in the sky for dim light set within a snowdrift. Dark shadows would have prevailed, bringing its horrors of hindsight with them. A small space with no room to walk, nor stretch, nor run; only leaving once someone so foolishly opens the sky to let him out. Their blood upon his shaking hands, dripping from a sullied spear, staining his melted helm. Their ambitions put to rest, fools just like he. It is all but a dream that is a nightmare returned. A nightmare in which he scrambles away from desperately, even within his waking thoughts.

Thus when he sees D. Truly sees him. No gold and silver armor, no helmet with its impassive face, just him, Vyke surges forth. He knows he should have asked. He knows he should have kept it a question, to not think of it as anything more than just a pleasant dream he may yet wake from soon. But he does not want this to fall through his trembling fingers, fearing to look over his shoulder lest he see the cold stone wall of the evergoal ( or worse ). He does not want this to become all but naught in his desperate, frenzied mind. Nothing can ever be real for it, but just this once, can it not be this?

His fingers may have clutched Darian too hard in pulling him close. His kiss may have been too rough as his mouth covers the other's, opening and melding, leaving nothing to be questioned of just how he feels. Breathing through his nose, shivering at the familiar taste of a friend he has held within his heart for decades. If this were a dream as his mind desires him to think it as, would he be able to feel this, to feel Darian's lips against his own, curving and opening just for him? Is this not proof enough, as his fingers tense upon the flesh worn by years, almost unblemished due to the coverings of his mask? Let it be enough. Let it, then he will say nothing more upon the topic, quelling a rabid mind in its wake because of this kiss.

Perhaps even still, in a dream the kiss would have continued on without break nor issue. That is what a fevered mind would desire, would it not? Instead, Vyke feels a push against him and he relents. Darian draws back, concern upon his features, and Vyke looks at him in question. Within the small haze, he does not realize. Not yet. It is only when it does, an eye grows wide as another horror grasps him then. It is not a kiss he should be worried for. Madness transfers oh so easily by design, with something as simple as an ingestion or even a look. Vyke should have known. The empty eye socket and the plucked eye that still weighs heavily within the dirty, cloth bag he left it in, its purpose to be eaten, to grow inside another to hold onto the flame, tells him that much.

Vyke panics, it is hard not to when emotions are far more difficult to regulate now. ❛ I'm sorry—I should have known. ❜ Would it be worse than an eye? He does not wish to find out, thus he scrambles back, grabbing for the second bag upon his discarded sword belt. ❛ I wasn't thinking straight. I just thought—I just thought ... ❜ His trembling fingers pluck a clarifying bolus from the depths of the bag. The dusted, yellow ball holds firm within his grip as he presses it towards the other in his urgency. ❛ I will not do that again, now that I know. ❜ But the anger of knowing, the grief of it, the embarrassment, to the very guilt, Vyke knows not what to feel first, but it all rises within him. He swallows thickly. ❛ I'm sorry, Darian. ❜

@luredeep !