( the sear of her hand takes him aback, crying out to the scent of his own burning flesh in the air, this fantastic expulsion of alina's frenetic energy the closes that circuit running through him. electricity licks the insides of his veins — but it's more like sunbeams, like radiation, dragging him back to that bitter point of relife, the meeting between suffering and ecstasy. his body hurts to the point of shaking, but his soul feels elated — alina's burns like a mother's cradle, a rocking symphony, a welcome home, little star, come nest in my arms. paul thinks he might be sick with the clashing intensities of want inside him: to get away, to burn up, to die, to let alina have him. ultimately, he stumbles out of her reach and breaks the burn, clutching at the stinging sore of his bubbled flesh, too new and too strange for something as simple as pain.
what he isn't too strange for is alina herself. if he doesn't know anything, he knows his duty to her — their promises are more than just ingrained on his mind, now. they're woven in between the threads of his existence, sewn in like a secret pocket in the breast of a jacket. alina is his. he is alina's. she mustn't be allowed to kill herself for the alluring heights of power — this is something paul knows so painfully well that it hurts more than anything else, seeing the repeating pathways of decisions they've made in both their lives, mirrored images of inevitable pain. he won't let her. he won't let her. )
No!
( he snaps it back, wobbly legs forcing him to throw himself on her, hands wrapping around the her little birdboned wrists and not minding if that sears him too — he clenches tight, unyielding, ready for the blow out. )
Get it together! You're a soldier, Atreides-Starkov, now act like it. ( it's a growl, purposely rough — she doesn't need her little mouse right now. she needs reality. ) You don't get another option. There is no other choice. You are strong enough to stop this, and you will, because you must. Now, Alina. Stop!
( some soldier she is — alina's throat spasms in dry-heaving spurts as if she's still a green at the gills rookie, falling from omnipotent god to helpless girl between one second to the next. at her fingertips, her power sparks and flickers into nothingness, a dying lightbulb, an off switch in the scar tissue lining her knobby wrists, where paul's thumb presses and presses and presses.strong, paul had called her, what everyone calls her now — alina proves it wrong as she sags under the pinning weight of his body, exsanguinated of any fight. ever the perfect sacrifice, waiting for the knife to bleed her out, always meant for a violent end. this is a reminder, fate tells her: saints were never meant to die quickly and quietly. )
Let go.
( through the blurry field of her tears, paul's dark curls are indistinguishable from danny johnson's, the outline of a wraith in the dark, the bite of his fingertips indistinct from the loving kiss of a knife sinking into the soft give of her flesh. twisting in his grasp only sparks the same rope burn in her wrists, his strung-up effigy, wrapped up in his spider-webbed weaving. unable to move. unable to run. the endless feedback of pain and rabbit-hearted panic only worsens it, sensing the supernova-burn in her chest as if it were her own, a sickness that's his and hers and theirs. alina retches on spit alone and tastes copper instead, kicking out weakly. her foot bumps up against his kneecap with the same, ineffective struggle of a trapped animal, unable to accept its inevitable death. )
Let go. Let go, let go.
( more the mantra of a terrified plea than command, now, choking on it like a final breath. gasping at lungfuls of air doesn't help — every inhale is smothered by the smell of charred flesh and the sweet decay of death in the air. rotten, like bruised fruit waiting to drop on the vine. like the night air of the maze, thick with the stench of her blood. martyrs don't beg, at the end of their short lives — because death tastes just like freedom, alina's learned, right up until the point you make the mistake of having too much to live for. )
( he lets go. would've anyway with the dulling of her powers, but now he does it almost robotically, almost compelled. the moment of high intensity passes and paul steps back with it, falling back into the rhythms of life with a few stumbling steps backwards, bracing on the opposite wall. he has to focus for awhile, force himself to remember — the sure feeling of protectiveness over alina, the knife in his brain, the decaying muscles of his body powering forward with one solid intention protect her, protect her, protect her. a humiliation of death. inconsequential, disgraceful, and yet — not so inconsequential. here he is, alive, the magic of alina's merzost pumping through his body like blood in his veins. it's all significant.
a hand protectively curls around the solder of her handprint on his chest. paul halves himself and turns away, as if to protect her from the sight of it, reaching up his spare hand to map out the length of the scar at the back of his neck. cataloging everything new and strange and different with his body, for a moment so disconnected from its oddity that he doesn't even recognize himself, that it doesn't feel real. his fingertips are cool on the knobbly back of his spine, unearthly so. it's notable enough that even through the fog of resurrection paul spares the time to hold his fingertips aloft in the air, staring at them.
milk dipped, they look like. stained with the purest of white. it doesn't hurt. when he rubs his fingertips together they clink and squeal — not flesh, but something more solid. something unfeeling, something dead.
it's too much to think about, now. again, he turns his attention to alina, not compelled to stay his distance and so he doesn't, stepping forward, his hands curled into fists to block out the stark whiteness of his fingers. )
Alina?
( paul doesn't reach to touch her, too worried his fingers will hurt her somehow. so, a little regally, he sticks out his naked elbow in silent offering, trying to remember anything about the merzost. she'll be tired, probably. above and beyond. she'll need rest before he grills her for information. )
( alina's eyelashes blink in rapid flutters, cleaning the film of moisture over her eyes like — a fond memory of watching paul wipe dust from coating old pages, little speckles flying off into the air. he's clear to read, once she can bring herself to look with new eyes. the outstretched bracket of his elbow, the tightened parentheses of his fists. it's not paul's invitation so much as it's alina's impulse that has her fingers skim the bone of his forearm, a child struggling to sound out the word in front of them, hoping the feel of him under her hands will make him more comprehensible. make her believe what his pulse writes, under her fingertips: paul is here. paul is alive.
with shaking fingertips, she cups his face between her palms, forcing herself to swallow the acidic sting of her rising bile when she touches cold, cold, cold skin. a ripple of nausea has her flinching back, animal skittish, before she rights herself. stubbornly molds her hand to the line of his jaw, searching his eyes for proof of existence. starry and bright with life, and not — the glassy-eyed stare of something already gone, gripping her with dead hands. like she might replace it with her last final look at his husk of a body, where the image is seared into the backs of her eyelids. )
You're cold.
( a small detail, but so significant that alina's voice splinters, miserable from the realization. it isn't fair — to be cold in death, and cold in life. suddenly, it doesn't matter that she has no excess energy to tap into. faint sparks putter at her fingertips, a flash of heat lit by alina's good intentions — before her summoning gives out, a candle smothered beneath the thickness of merzost clogging up her veins, no matter how she claws for it. punishment, then, for what she's toiled with. icarus flying too close to the sun, and paying the price with ruined wings.
unhelpfully, panic hitches her next inhale, guides the desperate need behind her touch — fingertips sliding over his browbone, his chin, his mouth. her own autopsy of paul atreides, to at least rid herself of one pressing fear, proof that her fall from grace has not been for nothing: )
Is this — real? Did I dream you again? ( pained, ) You've been haunting me since you left.
Edited (writing dead instead of death im a dumb bitch) 2024-11-02 14:20 (UTC)
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no subject
what he isn't too strange for is alina herself. if he doesn't know anything, he knows his duty to her — their promises are more than just ingrained on his mind, now. they're woven in between the threads of his existence, sewn in like a secret pocket in the breast of a jacket. alina is his. he is alina's. she mustn't be allowed to kill herself for the alluring heights of power — this is something paul knows so painfully well that it hurts more than anything else, seeing the repeating pathways of decisions they've made in both their lives, mirrored images of inevitable pain. he won't let her. he won't let her. )
No!
( he snaps it back, wobbly legs forcing him to throw himself on her, hands wrapping around the her little birdboned wrists and not minding if that sears him too — he clenches tight, unyielding, ready for the blow out. )
Get it together! You're a soldier, Atreides-Starkov, now act like it. ( it's a growl, purposely rough — she doesn't need her little mouse right now. she needs reality. ) You don't get another option. There is no other choice. You are strong enough to stop this, and you will, because you must. Now, Alina. Stop!
cw: ptsd 😔 references 2 gore also i guess
Let go.
( through the blurry field of her tears, paul's dark curls are indistinguishable from danny johnson's, the outline of a wraith in the dark, the bite of his fingertips indistinct from the loving kiss of a knife sinking into the soft give of her flesh. twisting in his grasp only sparks the same rope burn in her wrists, his strung-up effigy, wrapped up in his spider-webbed weaving. unable to move. unable to run. the endless feedback of pain and rabbit-hearted panic only worsens it, sensing the supernova-burn in her chest as if it were her own, a sickness that's his and hers and theirs. alina retches on spit alone and tastes copper instead, kicking out weakly. her foot bumps up against his kneecap with the same, ineffective struggle of a trapped animal, unable to accept its inevitable death. )
Let go. Let go, let go.
( more the mantra of a terrified plea than command, now, choking on it like a final breath. gasping at lungfuls of air doesn't help — every inhale is smothered by the smell of charred flesh and the sweet decay of death in the air. rotten, like bruised fruit waiting to drop on the vine. like the night air of the maze, thick with the stench of her blood. martyrs don't beg, at the end of their short lives — because death tastes just like freedom, alina's learned, right up until the point you make the mistake of having too much to live for. )
no subject
a hand protectively curls around the solder of her handprint on his chest. paul halves himself and turns away, as if to protect her from the sight of it, reaching up his spare hand to map out the length of the scar at the back of his neck. cataloging everything new and strange and different with his body, for a moment so disconnected from its oddity that he doesn't even recognize himself, that it doesn't feel real. his fingertips are cool on the knobbly back of his spine, unearthly so. it's notable enough that even through the fog of resurrection paul spares the time to hold his fingertips aloft in the air, staring at them.
milk dipped, they look like. stained with the purest of white. it doesn't hurt. when he rubs his fingertips together they clink and squeal — not flesh, but something more solid. something unfeeling, something dead.
it's too much to think about, now. again, he turns his attention to alina, not compelled to stay his distance and so he doesn't, stepping forward, his hands curled into fists to block out the stark whiteness of his fingers. )
Alina?
( paul doesn't reach to touch her, too worried his fingers will hurt her somehow. so, a little regally, he sticks out his naked elbow in silent offering, trying to remember anything about the merzost. she'll be tired, probably. above and beyond. she'll need rest before he grills her for information. )
Lets lay down. I feel a little off.
no subject
with shaking fingertips, she cups his face between her palms, forcing herself to swallow the acidic sting of her rising bile when she touches cold, cold, cold skin. a ripple of nausea has her flinching back, animal skittish, before she rights herself. stubbornly molds her hand to the line of his jaw, searching his eyes for proof of existence. starry and bright with life, and not — the glassy-eyed stare of something already gone, gripping her with dead hands. like she might replace it with her last final look at his husk of a body, where the image is seared into the backs of her eyelids. )
You're cold.
( a small detail, but so significant that alina's voice splinters, miserable from the realization. it isn't fair — to be cold in death, and cold in life. suddenly, it doesn't matter that she has no excess energy to tap into. faint sparks putter at her fingertips, a flash of heat lit by alina's good intentions — before her summoning gives out, a candle smothered beneath the thickness of merzost clogging up her veins, no matter how she claws for it. punishment, then, for what she's toiled with. icarus flying too close to the sun, and paying the price with ruined wings.
unhelpfully, panic hitches her next inhale, guides the desperate need behind her touch — fingertips sliding over his browbone, his chin, his mouth. her own autopsy of paul atreides, to at least rid herself of one pressing fear, proof that her fall from grace has not been for nothing: )
Is this — real? Did I dream you again? ( pained, ) You've been haunting me since you left.