Whatever she would give him, he would take. Whatever she needed, he would do his best to give.
He had never considered himself a martyr, and neither did he then. He didn't do it so he could use it against her, all the things I did for you—he did it for her, here and now, and he'd leave it at that. He did it, because at the time, it felt like his one ticket to potential forgiveness. Selfishness mixed with his care for her, until he could no longer tell them apart. Where one ended the other had already begun.
The first touch of teeth against him was followed by another, and another, and another.
Pale fangs flashed in the moonlight. They struck over and over, sometimes leaving no visible mark, sometimes leaving pale rents filling up with red blood, and sometimes pulling out white hairs.
And though they would leave no lasting marks, barely even scars, he would remember them: each strike branded into his heart, each flare of pain emphasized by the way it cut him deep in his soul. No matter how logical, no matter how expected, each second blending into the next minute of the assault hammered something deeper and deeper without a care for bones and veins. It hurt because—because after all this time, he had still returned. After all these years he had missed her—them—without knowing why, and he had made it back. For the first time in his life, he took a beating without protest, without barely a flicker of anger. Always one for fairness, the most he had ever done had been to take some lashings in spring, before slipping off.
Now, he let her do whatever she wished, her teeth striking in a parody of intimacy, force and anger bleeding into something more frenzied, more frayed, as if she, too, was coming apart at the seams—for he was. No matter how determined, no matter how stubborn, each blow she landed hurt, nerves screaming. He still did not whine. He still did not move. He still made no attempt to stop her, but within, he was shaking.
She relented. Her snarls grew quieter and quieter, and one of Ice's ears hesitantly peeked forward—only to narrowly miss being bitten. Then those ceased, too, and his world shifted dramatically again, oceans rising and mountains punching through the earthen floor.
His heart stopped in his chest for a moment.
He didn't know what he had expected anymore. Past this point, he hadn't been able to gauge anything—the anger, the cold, unyielding mercilessness of a woman abandoned one too many times.. he had feared them, but he had known them to come. The violence, too. But.. but this... His mind had been whispering this is the end, after this, she'll simply turn around and leave, because it's all you deserve— but instead, she buried her head in his neck, and his heart broke again. His head pressed against her neck, his heart weeping in his chest, and he did his best to hold her against him. He—he wasn't very good at this. He didn't know.. if this was all his doing, or if there was something else, something more, another river to pull her from. His eyes pressed shut and he filled his memory up with her scent.
He wanted to stay there forever, a snatched moment he wasn't sure he was supposed to have—a little ray of hope, a glint of something more, just the barest taste of forgiveness, that.. somewhere, in that wild heart of hers, there beat something that didn't think of him only as worthless and rotten. He did not think—hoped her not—capable of such cruelty that she would pull away and say it would all have been a lie, just a taste of his own medicine as she vanished into the snowy silver night.
These moments, they could not last forever. His tongue formed her name, but it got stuck behind his teeth, a question he thought might be best unasked. He was afraid of losing her, too fast and too deep. He was afraid this brittle, fragile peace would come apart like hoarfrost.
So he still said nothing, just stood there with his head and neck aching, and held her as tight and for as long as she would let him—whether it be seconds, minutes, hours, or years.
Sex: Female
