TBTT 23. He didn't see this coming

[moonshadows]

 It is not until he blinks that she realizes she has been staring like - well, like a silly teenager brought face to face with her idol. Unfortunately, this realization does not bring verbal coherency with it, and he's giving her a puzzled look.

"I like your eyes," she blurts out, then blushes. Really, Tessa? That's the best you can do? Ohhh, he's going to think you're the lamest-

"...you do?" He's thrown so off-balance by this unexpected development that he forgets to grip the cloth anxiously, and it flutters unnoticed to the floor. "You are not...just saying that?"

"Oh yes," she breathes absently, once more lost in trying to memorize his face. "I wouldn't lie to you." With a mental shake, she forces herself to focus on him, not just his eyes. "They're not so different from Nathrezim eyes..." She trails off, once more staring intently, but without the idolization this time.

He blinks in confusion as she frowns thoughtfully at him, then lays one hand on his chest and goes on hoof-tip to get a better look. The fingers of her other hand lightly trace the skin around his eye. He is torn between outrage at such familiarity, and - well, he's refused to acknowledge such things in so long that he can't put a name to the emotions, but she's touching him, and there's no fear or disgust. Does he really want to discourage that?

"...How long have your eyes been like this?"

The question drags his attention away from her fingers against his skin. "Over ten thousand years."

"And you were starved for most of that," she says calmly, still inspecting his eye sockets.

He goes rigid beneath her hand. "How...could you tell?"

"Your eyes." She settles back on the floor, reluctantly removing her hand from his chest. His mind is still closed tight, and she hopes that there's not too much new damage in there. "They are Nathrezim eyes, but they're too small, like your soul can't support their full shape." She tries to smile at him, but it dies. "Like you haven't taken in enough energy in a long, long time."

The brief look of pain that flashes into being and is repressed makes her very, very glad that she reinforced those walls, and she can feel something inside her shifting. Like the day she fought him to exhaustion, she would do anything, anything to ease his pain. 

"I'd spent part of that imprisoned..." He closes his eyes, willing everything back behind its wall, and completely misses his pain being reflected on her face. "At any rate, where were we?"

She frantically beats her own reaction back, searching for a safe topic, and sees the black cloth lying forgotten on the floor. Reverently, she picks it up and smooths it out. "I'll understand if you're more comfortable wearing this," she says softly as he opens his eyes again, "but you don't have to hide them from me." Cheeks darkening in a furious blush, she holds the cloth out hesitantly and forces herself to look at his chest so as to not get lost in his eyes.

 For a long minute he just looks at her in baffled disbelief that she seems to actually like his utter lack of 'proper eyes'. Finally, he takes the cloth and ties it around his head again. She looks up at him as he does, not quite hiding a flash of disappointment. A tiny part of him feels bad that he's disappointing her, but the majority of what he feels once his eyes are again covered is relief. This is going to take a lot of time in the gym to sort out, he thinks, trying to figure out what the proper response in this situation is. If it were anyone else...but it's not.

She likes his eyes. Instead of turning from him in disgust, in horror, this has only strengthened the hero-worship he was sure would shatter beneath the weight of the unholy abominations lodged in his eye sockets. What could he say to that? What words could ever express the painful relief now wedged in his throat? Hope twitches weakly, buried as it is beneath a pile of its slain predecessors. She will not betray him. She does not see him as a monster. Maybe...

He lunges forward suddenly, surprise making her pull her wings in close against her back. His arms go around her almost without his conscious direction, wings and all, and she stands absolutely still in shock. As she slowly relaxes against him, one thought whispers pasts the iron will that is otherwise keeping his mind empty of all conscious thought.

 I won't let this turn to ashes in my claws.