The Tearsmith

To The Bone

You can scratch love, you can renounce it,

you can wrench it from your heart,

but it will always know where to find you.

Everything was burning around him.

It was a soft, boiling prison.

Where was he? He couldn't hear anything. He could only make out a diffused pain, it was almost as if the fever had melted the bones under his muscles.

And yet, even in that dense, unnatural sleep, she came to him like a dream.

Nica's outline was so blurry that no one else would have been able to tell it was her. He only could because he knew every glimmering corner of her by heart.

Even feverish and disorientated, he could picture her perfectly. It seemed like she really was there, close to him, radiating warmth.

Oh, how wondrous were dreams...

There was no terror, no limits. He didn't have to restrain himself, hide away, hold himself back. In his dreams, he could touch her, feel her, be with her without having to explain a thing. Rigel might have been able to love this unreal world, if he didn't always wake from this fleeting happiness with such deep scars on his heart.

Nica's absence burned him. It dug furrows in him as tenderly as she caressed him in his dreams, and he felt each and every one of these cuts when he woke up in the morning in his empty bed, without her.

But in that moment...

It almost seemed as if he could touch her. Circle her narrow waist with his hands and hold her until he felt complete.

He managed to move. Despite being delirious, he felt conscious. But was he? No, it was impossible. It was only in his dreams that he found her next to him.

But she was so real...He held her and buried his face in her hair, as he did every single night.

He wanted to burn in the smell of her. He wanted the eternally bittersweet comfort of Nica not running away from him, but cradling him in her arms and promising to never let him go.

It was as if...oh, it was as if...as if her tiny body really was breathing near him, quivering against him...

Something tickled my chin.

I moved my head, burying my face into the cool pillow.

Outside, the birds were singing and the world was waking up. I waited a few moments before opening my eyes.

Narrow beams of light blurred my vision. I blinked sleepily and reality slowly took shape around me. As my eyes were focusing, I became aware of the strange position I was lying in. It was very warm. Why couldn't I move? And why wasn't I in my own room?

Something black filled my eyes.

It was hair.

Hair?

My eyes flew wide open.

Rigel was pressed against me.

His chest was a burning wall of flesh and muscle. I was nestled against his broad shoulders and his arms were wrapped loosely around my waist. I couldn't see his face, it was tucked deep in the hollow of my neck. I could feel his warm breath fluttering against my skin.

Our legs were entangled and at some point the covers must have been kicked off the bed and onto the floor. For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

Suffocating, I noticed that one of my arms was under his neck, the other was softly draped over his head.