Chapter 45 - Secret

Iris

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She was scared.
Eyes black as velvet nothing, almost pretty. Like Valkyre's hair, like his wings.
Not so pretty.
She leaned over, touched him, held on, eyebrows drawn together in pain. Iris remained still, slumped like a doll.
It hurt. Angel, angel, singing in him, at him. He felt black like something other than Valkyre, like something much much worse than black-winged purple-white angels rising in him, bubbling.
Dark and seething, coiling and stringing itself out along his body, his blood.
Hold it back, hold everything in. Just like Valkyre does.
She's so scared.
Her face is confused, torn, still smeared with blue-black-brown-red blood. He did not reach up to wipe it away.
Soft, soft crooning. And yet it hurt, and yet she held on.
Iris looked away, tilted his head where the soft, tangled white hair covered him, twining along his cheek and making his own hair look dusty, dark and grimy.
All around, there was nothing more than one broken machine after another. Wires still spat out tiny fireballs of lightning, crackling. Soft glows breathed out green, blue, red shades onto the black, onto the crumbling floor and walls and ceiling and wires and room...
Screams were still echoing, even if everything in here was long since dead. Valkyre would not have heard them. But he did, and so did Eire, and so did Rheis...
Where were all the men? Where were the bright white lights, shining down on him, turning him translucent, ghostly ghastly, ready to fade away into nothingness, into preternatural silence, always held back by steel and cement and plastic?
Such quiet.
She was still crooning, eyes vacant, empty. Shuddering breath, swirling letharically through the air. No hurry. Hurry.
Where was Valkyre??
Make it stop. Make it go away. Leave him, don't come looking.
Don't die.
Soft footsteps, silence breathing.
Rheis stared down at him, jet-black eyes behind the jet-black hair cold and hard.
But not so empty.
He was full, he was clashing, he was crushed, broken.
So lost. So confused.
Both of them.
But he was different. Eire was different.
What now? No commands, no clean white starch and flowing lightning.
No orders.
No existence, no reason.
Rheis' gaze shifted to the other, black eyes narrowing in discontent, lips turning down into a scowl. His pale, pale hands were curled up into fists, clenched, trembling. Smoldering.
"...Do something," he hissed suddenly, sharp teeth glinting in the light, glinting like pretty white wings and steel and bloodsplatter. So demon. How Iris wanted to reach out and touch that, feel it resonate, forget he was angel, forget he was anything at all. Forget he was everything.
Rheis snarled, whirling around, pacing the floor, arms crossed over his chest in a rather familiar gesture, scowling.
So lost. So confused.
Like rebirth, like a child.
"Think, will you??" he spat out suddenly again, black eyes still centered on Eire, furious, tone fiery. "Do something! Speak!! Prove to me you're even alive!!"
Eire only chuckled, humming, under her breath, and held Iris closer against herself. Still waiting for the white and the lights and the commands that would never come.
Rheis snarled loudly, eyes flashing, then turned and vanished.
Iris knew that he would not be coming back. He'd seen it in that last glance of black, pitless eye. No coming back. No home here. Little broken chords scattered, spitting out their little tiny fires, bubbling and fizzing as they turned cold on the ground.
Rebirth was so beautiful.
And then Eire was laughing under her breath, reaching out, almost tenderly caressing the boy's dry, flawless skin. Iris didn't respond, though he shivered, feeling the fingers on his cheeks.
"I know," she whispered, in more a singing voice than in actual tones, "I know your secret. I know what you're for... I won't tell him. He forgot."
She was smiling, fingering the gray, dulled hair.
"Would you like to know?" she whispered against the boy's ear, feeling Iris shiver, this time at the words than at the touch, at the breath of cool nothingness against his hair and skin.
And then the small, thin-fingered hand reached up, curled around her neck, dragging her down under his own gentle, light, light pressure. Gentle, porcelain, but nevertheless demanding, pulling, pulling her down, closer, close. Tiny balled fist, fingernails digging into skin.
"Tell me," Iris breathed. "Tell me... why."
The boy was smiling, gray eyes distant, settling past the other's face, past the waves of her blood-dribbled hair, past her laughter and her black black empty eyes, behind her. A little spider was crawled along the wall.
Eire smiled then, laughing, and leaned close, and whispered into his ear.

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AN: Okay. I am now officially multi-tasking. I officially hate November.
And I can now officially be deemed insane. :D
1. I promise to get SOMEWHERE in Iris by the anniversary. I do.
2. I promise to get a special GIFT for DD_DM (and possibly lump it into one that includes all my wonderful readers/reviewers >;
THANK YOU ALL~ Kissu~~~ =3=

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