flash union [atlas/diorite; blitz]

[kousei ♚]

I once took solace in a sky blessed by lunar light.

The temporary death of the sun meant the temporary shattering of this mask of magnificence I let bleed over into the fabrics of my personality, a flash flood and the weight of the world just shifts for a split second. I could shrug off golden chains and weights shackled to my ankles and look in the mirror and see myself as more than just a pair of hollow shoulders built to withstand the weight of this toppling equilibrium. And perhaps that's because worlds would slur along with words and I would lose sense or perhaps that's just because I seek out nothing but static flood in the form of a woman just needing a good time and I would get to forget who I was for just one night.

I throw the sheets from my body and scream.

Composure spirals down the drain and I am falling, my burdens and all. There is no light to break through the blinds and pry my conscience back to rational reality, nor is there Aedan to crack the palm of her hand against my cheek and break me from hollow fantasies. There is just me and there is just Atlas and my lungs ache.

I tremble at the sky blessed by lunar light this time.

There is no hop in my step, no eagerness for adventure and no wanderlust in my eyes to drive my rusted movements. I force myself forwards, muscles popping and lungs coated by the ashen grey blackness that comes with a violent re-attachment to reality in the dead of the night. I think I might have woken someone.

I stop, pause, listen - movement through the door. My movement is automatic when I throw open door but freeze, Diorite in the frame. And when I slowly regain composure I realize I've invaded into her personal space. "Sorry, didn't mean to barge in," I look around, blood boiling and skin burning. "Didn't mean to wake you, I just- I just-"

Justification dies in my throat.

[Gryphon]

d i o r i t e   f r a y

I wasn't under the stars tonight.

In my room, I might as well be swallowing blackness because it's consuming me outside as it does inside, when the world I've made for myself is not on my mind; when I'm not hungering for everything that will never be real.

What a mistake.

My position shifts constantly, try as sleep might but I'm failing to be lulled. This is uncomfortable, the dark is uncomfortable, the night without the stars is uncomfortable and

learning how tributes act when they know it is but don't see them is uncomfortable--

I hear screaming and my eyes are wide open, I sit up and pull off the covers. Feet move to the cold floor, my hair is like the tall grass I hope for and my gaze still sparkles like the galaxy because it's all I want right now.

But who was that?

They sounded so close to me.

I slowly step towards the door, light and fears back and forth instead of dreams and reality and just when I'm close enough I'm

bathed in gold with his silhouette in-between.

His light hair and his light skin, but instead of a sweet smile and a look of multiple whites his breaths are shallow and his eyes are wandering.

Oh, Atlas.

Was it him? Why is he here, what could he want from me?

"Sorry, didn't mean to barge in,"

He's already right in front of me but yet I take another step.

"Didn't mean to wake you, I just- I just-"

One more until our bodies brush, I move a hand to feel the beat of his heart. I look up at him, face vacant but inspection shining.

"...Are you alright?"

What's made the weight on his shoulders heavier tonight?

table made by lance <3333

[kousei ♚]

When my heart dares to beat it feels as though I am sinning.

Whenever I dared cry or crawl into a corner and beg for everything to stop it was a transgression that transcended even the most heinous crimes that would lead me to the hangman's noose, to offer myself in the eyes of vulnerability and proclaim to the world that I was not truly strong - ('do you know why we decided to name you 'Atlas', son?') it was a transgression worth a tally scratched across an impressionable surface upon a windowsill. It was living proof that when my skin split I would bleed red, not the gold we allowed to guide our fantasies.

And I keep doing it, adding another tally to my ever growing list of transgressions that involve placing my heart in the hand of vulnerability, in the eyes of the enemy; despite the fact she's just a girl who cares too much, the match she lights against my skin can never coexist with him. Not while she stands here in the Capitol with me and she bears the flag of Fray even though it's just a bloodline.

It's always been a sin to let the enemy sense your heart, but when she holds the palm of her hand to my rapid beating heart I don't pull away and snarl at her not to touch me, I just let it. "...Are you alright?"

My words flow like a broken scripture of lies. "I'm- I am now, it's nothing, but thank you," I want to be, I swear I am. "I'm just being... stupid." And I empower fiction with the same wash and dry rehearsed chuckle and smile.

I'm fine, I swear it.

And yet instead of turning around and drawing a line in the sand I just stand there with her hand against my quickening heart.

[Gryphon]

d i o r i t e   f r a y

He is a mystery.

Atlas Lumiere.

He is a mystery and he does not want to be solved, he is of stone and he doesn't want to crack; he is a runway and he does not want to be found.

Why not?

His heart is hard at work when my hand is placed upon it, and after it's kept there I hear the beats hasten.

What is worth hiding?

A guy who cares too much that he keeps everything within, he lets the weight pile on even if at times it proves too much for him. He lets it all stay there, in his earth.

I don't understand Atlas Lumiere, but I want to.

He just has to let me.

He chuckles and smiles like back on the train, but we're not under the superstar sun who has since retired for the night. We're on the border that separates black and gold, the air is not light and calm but uneasy yet intimate.

"I'm- I am now, it's nothing, but thank you. I'm just being... stupid."

I look to my hand and the touch curls, softening. Silence fills the room as we stand still in this way, my thoughts like a gently rolling galaxy sea.

What's it going to take for Atlas Lumiere to not let himself feel so alone?

Starry eyes turn back towards him, a pale pleading for him to not lie because he has no reason to to a girl who only knows how to care.

"Over what? It's alright to talk about your feelings. We're drowning a lot of the time, but that's because we need to breathe above the darkness and we constantly don't let ourselves do that. This is one of those times where you need to, even if you don't want to.

...So what is it?"

table made by lance <3333

[kousei ♚]

We freeze underneath the sleeping stars and I am weightless.

Her hand softens and a sharp inhale from aching deludes me into thinking it will all be okay (I am fine, I promise) but her hand feels like a long lost warmth against the freezing gale of a tundra and dispels the whispers of doubt that come with the frosted wind.

I am blank; for a moment I forget the dangers that come with allowing the enemy to see behind the veil that hides my heart, even if it is to an enemy who cares too much about my well-being. And with this intimate air that ignites a candle in the space between in spontaneous combustion there is paranoia and distrust gnawing at the back of my brain.

But when she turns back to me her eyes burn like the unseen constellations dotted along a black sky and she touches her finger against the trigger of truth and knowledge - as if she's seen a supernova at face value and left me to wallow in speculation.

"Over what? It's alright to talk about your feelings. We're drowning a lot of the time, but that's because we need to breathe above the darkness and we constantly don't let ourselves do that. This is one of those times where you need to, even if you don't want to. So what is it?"

Atlas Lumiere; lost and waiting to be found by anyone but Diorite Fray, I would be content to remain in my corner of this infinite timeline and let the weight of the world crush me - it would be so much easier than this.

My mind is as blank as the night sky when I lift hand to hers -the hand that knows too much- and let her fingers wrap between mine. "Sometimes I just look for a distraction but forget it can't be anything more than a temporary exit route," I look down at her pale hand and a shiver passes down my spine and the lights return to my darkened mind. "Why do you care so much, Diorite?"

It's a sin to show my heart to my enemy, even if she reminds me of what it's like to walk without my bones creaking underneath immeasurable weights.