The flicker of pain that passed over his face was agonizing and fleeting. He knew it shouldn’t have bothered him, that love was a word better shown that spoken; syllables were simple for the lips to form and yet hands crafting symbols of emotions were so much more difficult to find. But those explanations, those little phrases, that tale…He could have laughed, some bitter twisted thing.
But he didn’t. Couldn’t bring himself to.
“I’m a shogi piece to move around your board. A bargaining chip for my brother. A bribe.” The words were ash in his mouth, dry and cloying. “To stop our curse. Tell me, am I rotten from the inside out, too?”
Which, he knew he was, literally so. A home for worms and roots to go, laid to waste, dust in the earth. He was rotten. He was dead. But would he agree on the other side, the other way? Was he as cursed as the rest of them? He didn’t feel cursed, other than with the knowledge that he was bound to a man who had made him suffer and used him even now.
Tobirama… He was taller now. Older. But the face he knew well, had spent heady nights dreaming about when he was alone, when he was so foolishly in love. Blind to it all, to him, to his machinations. Being this close, he wanted to simultaneously kiss him and strangle him, wanted to feel that Adam’s Apple explode beneath his fingers while he tasted his mouth once more.
He hazarded a glance down, saw those hands twisted in his pants, curled there, before he trailed his eyes back up. The motion was misread; pain colored so much.
“Are you afraid of me, Tobirama?” he asked, almost purred, almost laughed. “Afraid of your own twisted creation? Afraid I will kill you like you killed me?”
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branchandroot
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Date: 2015-09-10 02:19 am (UTC)The flicker of pain that passed over his face was agonizing and fleeting. He knew it shouldn’t have bothered him, that love was a word better shown that spoken; syllables were simple for the lips to form and yet hands crafting symbols of emotions were so much more difficult to find. But those explanations, those little phrases, that tale…He could have laughed, some bitter twisted thing.
But he didn’t. Couldn’t bring himself to.
“I’m a shogi piece to move around your board. A bargaining chip for my brother. A bribe.” The words were ash in his mouth, dry and cloying. “To stop our curse. Tell me, am I rotten from the inside out, too?”
Which, he knew he was, literally so. A home for worms and roots to go, laid to waste, dust in the earth. He was rotten. He was dead. But would he agree on the other side, the other way? Was he as cursed as the rest of them? He didn’t feel cursed, other than with the knowledge that he was bound to a man who had made him suffer and used him even now.
Tobirama… He was taller now. Older. But the face he knew well, had spent heady nights dreaming about when he was alone, when he was so foolishly in love. Blind to it all, to him, to his machinations. Being this close, he wanted to simultaneously kiss him and strangle him, wanted to feel that Adam’s Apple explode beneath his fingers while he tasted his mouth once more.
He hazarded a glance down, saw those hands twisted in his pants, curled there, before he trailed his eyes back up. The motion was misread; pain colored so much.
“Are you afraid of me, Tobirama?” he asked, almost purred, almost laughed. “Afraid of your own twisted creation? Afraid I will kill you like you killed me?”