[warning: abuse, strangling, blood, violence, death, touch phobia] death angels: three stories

[avia]

These stories are difficult, but, I'm happy with them, very happy. I hope they speak to other people, too.

unblind

He can take off the blind, now that they're alone.

It's the only thing he takes off. He never undresses her: he doesn't need to. Having her blind in his hands is more vulnerable than any other naked state, and she shivers as he strokes the fabric across her face, brushes his fingers over her closed eyes.

She doesn't need to, but always keeps her eyes closed around him, in an understanding they share but never speak about.

He wraps the blind around his fingers, sliding it over his hands like he was sliding his hand over her cheek, and even though she can't see it, she has the sense of it from him, and she bites her lip. Knowing that he plays with it so casually... it makes her chest feel heavy and strange, like time is frozen, stretched out into one, golden moment while everything she has and everything she is twists and turns in his hands.

She knows he would never take it away, she knows he would never lose her on purpose, but she can't help the way her heart jumps.

Even though she knows what happens next.

She feels his hand, the hand covered in silk and stitched red cranes, touch her face again, and travel down. Down to her throat, and then, his other hand is on the back of her neck and pulling the cloth tight.

She cries, like she always does, because it feels like some magical code has been violated, and something is being fulfilled, both at the same time, and her heart can't take it. She might be a monster, she might be a killer, but she feels, and she doesn't know how to hold the feelings inside, they're too strong, too much, they want to tear out because something so wrong can't exist in the same space as something so beautiful.

But, her whole life is this way.

To hurt so much, from the thing that keeps her most safe...

In the blind that twists around her neck, she sees an echo of her and him.

His hands, keeping her safe, gently covering her eyes, giving her the blessed darkness. His hands, grabbing her throat, pressing hard, harder until she has to make noise because it's the only way he'll give up, exactly because he knows she doesn't want to. His hands, guiding her through the world when she can't see. His hands, pulling hair, breaking bones, punching her stomach, scratching her skin.

His hands, bringing the tears, and wiping them away.

Keeping her safe.

Keeping her.

She calls, with fluttering breath, the word she knows he wants to hear, and feels those hands wipe away the tears again, even before it actually leaves her mouth.

The touch is almost as wrong as the pain.

~

unblind, 2

That one, he says, and there's a sharp edge in his feelings that make her suddenly afraid. But, no, it's nothing to worry about. He's always like that. And even if something was wrong, he's her keeper. She has to listen.

They move as one person, his hands moving on the knot of her blind as she flows out of it, a strange alien liquid dance that reminds her of ballet. He, the shadow, always watching from just behind, and she, stepping up to the centre stage, ready to perform, ready to leap.

Her eyes, stunned in the first moment by the light of day, see only stars, stars that become shapes that might be people, laughing and joking, talking on their cell phones. She closes her eyes before she can really see them, but she saw enough to know where she is. She's in a university ground.

Dangerous, she tells him, her hands fluttering in front of her like in a broken sign language. Too many, they might....

No, he says, his hand turning her head just a little bit, gentle, so gentle. It's okay. Look.

She's so afraid, but she opens her eyes, and sees the other girl, turning the corner into her alley, looks into her eyes. Eyes that will never be like hers, human eyes that always carried the light of hope. Eyes that will still shine with light, right up to the end.

She remembers those eyes, from so long in the past.

She remembers watching her, understanding for the first time the longing for touch, something she never ever longed for, but this....

But it doesn't matter, because her death is what matters, because her mouth is already moving to tear the other girl's neck.

The life tastes so good, the soul flickering and dying between her lips. She drinks and drinks like a vampire, whimpering, then dips her hands in the blood, rubbing it over her face, over her closed eyes. So good. So good, she cries to him, knowing he is the only one who will accept her need, accept her for everything she is.

He doesn't try to stop her. He never does.

When the darkness of the blind comes over her, it's timed with a dizzy rush, and she believes, for a moment, that she's passing out. But she's not, she's still thinking, still feeling, and she feels a slight flash of a strange hot feeling cross her mind, tangled in a smile.

She tilts her head in a question. It's wasn't her, right? She's wasn't meant to die. You just wanted to.

The reply is only that same feeling of a smile.

It's not the first time.

I don't... care, you know, she says as they walk on. There's not a point in doing this. I don't care if they die, the ones I knew. She wonders for a moment if it's true, because it feels like that should be wrong, but, it really does feel true. It's not that she doesn't like them, it's just that she doesn't understand the point to being upset about it. It's the way of life. Predator and prey. Or, psychopomp and lost soul. It's a service, in some ways. It's bringing them home.

No, he says, resting a hand on her shoulder. She can feel the possession, echoing through the bond between them. But you care if I want to hurt you, even if it doesn't come true.

She has not an answer to that.

~


touch/pain

She liked not being real.

A lot of them don't like it. A lot of them hate it. They ache to touch, to hold the physical world. But, not her. Never her. Even before she was able to feel it, she knew she wasn't going to like it.

She was right.

She liked the softer world that was her first home, that seemed less bright, noisy, painful. She liked that she could move invisible through the crowds of the physical world, watching but never being part, just a shadow, just a dream. She liked seeing them and not being seen. It was not a want to spy, but, simply that she was so curious, but she didn't want those curious eyes on her. It felt wrong in some way, wrong to be looked at, wrong to exist.

She liked not existing.

But then she was dragged into the world of existing, forced to live as blood and flesh. To feel her heart pound, and to feel touch.

She still hates touch, except when it's a killing touch. Dead people can't hurt you. And there is something that makes her feel safe, about being able to touch them, without them touching her.

She hates his touch.

But she loves it, too.