The hand beneath Isaac's doesn't move first; it's the other that lifts to meet it, two fingers reaching between hand and cloth to draw out that glowing bit of glass, lower it to tuck back into a pocket. Defining a positive with a negative. Not this.
(The first time he'd let anyone else touch him, it'd been like trying to scrape off his own skin, raking other people's hands over every bit of him that had learned to want just one, as if the only way to disentangle himself was to shed what he'd been before. Become something new.)
(He doesn't feel disentangled now. He feels like the thing doing the entangling, vines reaching for bricks to twist into against the wind. That's probably not important.)
Isaac doesn't need directions, but Ilias's eyes light at the prospect of giving them, curious in turn what exactly he expects. Shyness? Politeness? Fingers beneath fingers lead up to the collar of his robes, always so tightly buttoned, and unfasten the clasp at the very top -- and the next, and the next, a shaky breath pulled in or released between each, until there's room to slide his hand in around ribs, skin against skin.
(There's a scar, thin white and too clean from the hollow of his throat down, that he tries not to touch at all.) ]
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The hand beneath Isaac's doesn't move first; it's the other that lifts to meet it, two fingers reaching between hand and cloth to draw out that glowing bit of glass, lower it to tuck back into a pocket. Defining a positive with a negative. Not this.
(The first time he'd let anyone else touch him, it'd been like trying to scrape off his own skin, raking other people's hands over every bit of him that had learned to want just one, as if the only way to disentangle himself was to shed what he'd been before. Become something new.)
(He doesn't feel disentangled now. He feels like the thing doing the entangling, vines reaching for bricks to twist into against the wind. That's probably not important.)
Isaac doesn't need directions, but Ilias's eyes light at the prospect of giving them, curious in turn what exactly he expects. Shyness? Politeness? Fingers beneath fingers lead up to the collar of his robes, always so tightly buttoned, and unfasten the clasp at the very top -- and the next, and the next, a shaky breath pulled in or released between each, until there's room to slide his hand in around ribs, skin against skin.
(There's a scar, thin white and too clean from the hollow of his throat down, that he tries not to touch at all.) ]