Paul Atreides (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
terriblepurpose) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
deercountry2022-05-30 05:17 pm
terriblepurpose) wrote in deercountry2022-05-30 05:17 pm
terriblepurpose) wrote in deercountry2022-05-30 05:17 pm
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It doesn't help anything to be angry, or to force conversations Kaworu doesn't want to have. He tells himself this so often it, too, became a backdrop.
The background bursts in a rupture of white-hot static behind his eyes, his body stilled in noise until Kaworu jerks away. He moves like that static, jumping from one point to another in a near-invisible transition, leaning forward to loop an arm behind Kaworu to catch him if he falls further back, his other hand flung out to brace against the piano with a dissonant crash of notes.
He doesn't say anything, at first. His heart shivers too quick and close, mimicking an alien hum. His eyes are fixed wide in a paroxysm of distress, blue shot through green like a afterimage of lightning.]
Kaworu.
[He does not know this voice, hollowed and horrified. He fights the urge to clutch Kaworu close, maintaining the slight but meaningful distance between them, even as he angles in protectively.]
I've got you. I'm here. [Warmer, better collected, pitched soothing and calm.] We're here. You're safe.
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He doesn't want to be delicate. Or fragile. Or invulnerable either. Too many people have deemed him to be one or the other.]
I know. Just a memory.
[One of those memories that doesn't hurt that much because it was so familiar. Now and then it might twinge, like an old injury that aches a little when it's cold. It's long lost all its edges, its ability to cut and cause pain, now it's just a discomfort.
He reaches out and gently grips Paul's shoulder as if he also needs to be drawn back into the waking world.]
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A memory.
[He leans in to touch their foreheads together, his slightly overlong curls falling just far enough to veil their eyes.]
A bad one.
[He says it almost calmly, the tremor in his voice a subdued one. It's stating the obvious, but - is it obvious?]
Do you want to talk about it?
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[There are worse ones. This one is something had that long faded into the background and became just another day.
He presses his forehead against Paul's letting messy curls tickle his nose and cheek. Paul is here. He won't let this memory hurt him. And Paul will protect him from himself.]
Do you want to ask about it?
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It doesn't mean he doesn't want to know. He can feel the lines of scars still through Kaworu's shirt.]
No. Yes.
[He shakes his head slightly, more of a rock, unwilling to break contact.]
I don't want to ask because I don't want to hurt you. I don't know how not to hurt you if I don't ask.
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[It's not exactly reassuring, but it feels more true. There can be pain caused by ignorance and pain from recalling painful things. There isn't a way to escape it.
But Paul's delicateness with it amuses him. To think of Paul turning his well being over in his head, like some sort of intricate object, trying to puzzle out the safest way to take it apart. It fills him with warmth to be handled with such care.]
You can ask now.
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He keeps his hands still. He doesn't pull away, couldn't bring himself to, but he does nothing more than that.]
Do I ever remind you of that? When I touch you.
[A series of tiny, subtle flinches plays out for him, in near-perfect memory. Things he's soothed Kaworu through, unspeaking, because this question has caught on his tongue every time he's tried to form it.]
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[He leans forward and presses a kiss to Paul's jaw, twisting his hand in the collar of his shirt to pull him closer.]
You... were the first person who ever touched me in a kind way. In a way that I had always longed for. You could never be like them. Don't say it.
[He presses his face into Paul's shoulder, eyes tearing up against his will, as he thinks about long skinny arms holding him in bloody surf and how desperately he had wanted to be able to move his arms to return the gesture.]
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I won't. [He runs his thumb along the curve of Kaworu's skull arcing down to his spine.] I won't say it.
[He knows he's not the first person to ever offer Kaworu kindness, but he also knows the distinction Kaworu means, even if he's no better at putting it into words himself. All he can think of is vulnerability, and there's a phantom ache in his side, his wrists, his arms, held down and butterflied open.]
I want to be careful with you. [Like the world should have been careful.] I need to be. So if I ever do anything that isn't - will you tell me? Please.
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[He knows Paul means kindness in being careful. To handle him delicately as though not to hurt him. Paul knows the kind of pain that Kaworu has been subjected to and Kaworu knows being careful, being gentle, is a way not to add to that pain.
Even if a little bit more pain is barely noticable to him now. Or so he thinks, unaware of how much an arrow hurts when fired by someone you love.]
Hey.
[He tugs on Paul's collar, a strange light in his eyes.]
What if we pretend we're made for each other?
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This is the other part, he realizes, even as it carves a clean line through him, because it's impossible for him to open his chest and let Kaworu see his hand curled around Paul's heart.]
Are you sure it'd be pretending?
[It would be. It is. Paul knows what he is made for. It has nothing to do with the soft tremor in him at the idea that he could be made for anything else.
(But what if he could be? What if a ten thousand year old chain could coil to nothing? If he could be gentle, if he could be careful. If he could be made for the time between storms, and not of them.)]
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[What is reality, really? His reality used to be earth and now it's in this place. It used to be something that was tightly controlled and anything outside of it was a dream. Now the dream has become reality. Why not dream? Dreams only exist within reality, so maybe choosing to dream, determining your fate, is a reality in and of itself, and therefore longer pretend.
He reaches up to gently stroke Paul's face, feeling his soft skin, curls tickling the edges of his fingers as he explores stark features.
Yes, that could be so. Maybe he was made to meet Paul. And they were both made to meet Izuku, Gideon, Harrow, and so many others.]
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Of all the stars, we ended up under these ones.
[In this blood-soaked, turbulent world, with people unlike any he's ever met, who have transmuted him into someone he never would have imagined he'd be.]
Maybe that's what brought me here.
[Not to be a scourge on this world, or to be punished for what he would have been to another. Softly, he speaks into the warm curve of Kaworu's skin.]
I'm glad you found me.
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[He lets Paul kiss his hand, as though marking the lines on his skin like a map to ensure he can always return to what he found.
It's funny, how his feelings have shifted since they met, changing Paul from someone he was attracted to into someone he cared for. There's still passion, but there's always a warmth when he looks at Paul, something that kindled in a quiet tent on a cold beach.]
I'll always find you. I promise.
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He has so many things he wants to convey. He still doesn't have the words. (Or he does; he just doesn't know how to use them.)]
I believe you.
[He'd question almost anyone else. He'd hold himself back. But he does believe Kaworu, because he believes in Kaworu, like an inevitability.]
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And then we'd find Izuku. Together. As we were meant to be.
[He drops his head, resting it against Paul's cheekbone, letting the weight be carried by someone else, unafraid and confident in the shelter it provides.]
I love you.
[Three words. Three small words. Yet so big. Made complicated by all the ways humans use it. But to him... very simple. There's no confusion, no hidden meanings or suggestion in the word.
It is what it is.]
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It's not that he understands anything new. It's more like remembering something he already knew without knowing he knew it, or finding what had been balanced on the tip of his tongue. He sits in the warm lance of light that falls across them, and a thousand moments dance like the spinning illuminated dust before his wide open eyes.
He's never felt like he was falling, not in the worst days or the best ones. No matter how unsteady he was on his feet, there was no sudden stumble. He's come to this time and this place through his choices. To care, to connect, to reach out across unbridgeable distance towards hands reaching back to him.
He doesn't fall. He dives.]
I love you too.
[They aren't words he's said often to anyone. They come to him as easily as if this is the ten thousandth time he's said it, but still sanctified, an invocation, a blessing.]
I love both of you.
[He's always been happiest when solving a puzzle, slotting pieces together so completely it seems impossible they ever took another shape. Rightness closes around him like waves, and he drifts suspended in it.
Here he is. Here he remains.]
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[It's an odd question to ask in the face of the nights they've spent curled up together, seeking comfort in the tangle of their limbs and the lack of any barriers between hearts.
Humans put so many hopes and dreams into those words and maybe Kaworu does too, without even thinking about it. It was the only way to describe the warm sensation he feels being with Paul, how it's light and heavy at the same time, sweet and yet sticky enough to drown in, alluring and also terrifying.
And somehow... he never expected to hear those words spoken back or spoken to him at all. All he'd hoped for was a smile and embrace, maybe a shy laugh. He never expected the weight of the response and it leaves him frozen.
Is it always so heavy...?]
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Yes.
[He says, simply, because those remembered wounds still bleed on his arms and along his ribs, and he thinks he's begun to better understand.]
I love you.
[He tightens his arms around Kaworu like binding tethers, supporting and securing at the same time.]
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You are the first thing who I have ever loved. And who loved me. And so I always will. No matter what. Until the entire vacuum decay of all stars and all worlds. And even beyond then. I swear to you.
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But there's no more to take than everything, and there is a difference being taking and being given. He feels this too. He feels everything, a kaleidoscope whirl that dazzles and overwhelms.]
And I'll love you back. [He says, fiercely tender.] Through the last light of the last stars, into the dark, still places after them.
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[There's no call Paul doesn't answer. No faith that he would betray. Kaworu can trust Paul's words, as fierce and poetic as they are. It's strange to feel so at ease with another person. They may as well have no AT Fields at all.
He leans closer, breath ghosting on Paul's lips.]
Now you can take me all for yourself.
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Right here on the piano bench?
[Paul kisses him before Kaworu can get any ideas about how to answer, swift and merciless. He breaks away only after a thorough quieting, grin tilted.]
Let me take you upstairs first.
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He leans into it and then when they finally tear away he murmurs:]
You had trouble with that last time.
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[Paul brushes the tip of his nose against Kaworu's, smile no less pleased after that teasing reminder. He's getting stronger, and he thinks he could lift the smaller boy now, if he wanted to, but that's far from the point.
He adjusts his grip on Kaworu, bracing him for the assisted gliding lightness he anticipates.]
Ready when you are.