Regan Atlas

He pressed his forehead against the window, relishing the glass against his skin. A single tear crawled down the straight bridge of his nose to dangle itself precariously off the end. 

The cold was comforting, just sharp enough to cut through the mess in his mind. The gentle patter of rain against the window was a tympanic roll to the rising crescendo of his thoughts; every memory replaying, overlaying, rewinding and repeating, always returning to her. The way her eyes twinkled when she smiled. How her arms had wrapped around him so tightly, setting him aflame. 

The desire to hold her, to touch her, to protect her… 

A hollow ache bloomed in his chest, wrenching him back to the present. A gasp cracked through his lips, misting the glass. He lifted his hand to run a finger through the condensation, poised to mar the pristine canvas when he paused, inspecting the chip in the manicured line of his nail. 

You’ll never know how many dreams I’ve dreamed of y–

A soft knock at the door split the silence. His heart tripped, a slight rap of knuckles against his ribs. 

Straightening, he thumbed at the tracks on his nose, removing the evidence – she couldn’t see him like this. He swiped his hand through the imprint of his breath upon the window, gathering the essence in the crease of his palm, mixing it with the trace dirt left behind from hours earlier in his clenched fist. 

The expectant silence on the other side of the door was deafening. He glanced over, seeing the shift of a shadow dance in the light that snuck through the gap. 

She was waiting, always waiting for him. 

Standing here so close to me. There’s so much I feel that I should say.

“Yes,” he called, wiping his palm hastily against his side as he crossed the room. The whining springs of his bed accompanied the click of the latch. He affected a casual pose with nonchalance he didn’t feel. A facade of ease: silk over shattered glass. 

“Can I come in?” Her pretty blue eyes surveyed the room, before finally coming to rest on him. 

“Of course.” He chuckled. “You never need to ask.” Always accommodating her. 

She slid in around the door, her body curving gracefully as she pirouetted to close it. 

“Ta-da!” She turned back with a look of triumph. “I’m here!” She winked. His breath caught on a wave of desire that washed over him, choking his throat. The hole in his chest where his heart should sit, filled to the brim, threatening to spill over with the secrets he held so tightly. 

“I can see,” he said instead, biting past the acidic taste on his tongue to indulge her.

She puffed at the lock of hair that fell into her eyes, a manic hint in her smile. “I always keep my word.” Her performance loosened her top’s grasp over her collarbones, a taunting tease. His throat went dry, his mind under siege from images of his mouth around her clavicle, the delicate feel of the bone under her skin. 

She smiled breezily at him. So free. So gentle. 

“To what do I owe the honour of your visit?” He ensnared his bottom lip between his teeth, running his tongue across the abused flesh. Cold. Cracked. 

“Do I need a reason?” she said. Her eyes flashed in quicksilver mirth. 

“I still maintain hope that  after all this time you’ll eventually  act with purpose,” he said, a weary sigh covering the husk of his tone. Her peal of laughter twinkled like morning dew on snowdrops. 

“Just because you generally disagree with my reasoning doesn’t mean it’s not sound.” She arched a brow in a playful challenge, a kitten swiping its paws. 

Old warmth pushed through his veins, a familiar poison tracing tired tracks. He felt his face mould into the usual mockery of a smile, enough to appease her. It was the not knowing that was torture. Not knowing if she felt the same pull he did. Not knowing if she felt the same urge to reach out and consume. 

She stilled, her brow furrowing, the playfulness faltering, her warm brown eyes flitting over his face in search of something. 

“Are you feeling ok?”she asked, drawing closer with uncharacteristic precision. He watched in abject horror as she took the seat beside him – close enough to touch. 

“I’m fine,” he replied with a steadiness that surprised him. Her brow twitched, a faint acknowledgement he’d spoken, before she raised her delicate hand to his forehead. Time slowed, seconds stretching into eternity as tentative warmth skimmed his cheek, leaving pin-pricks of yearning in their wake. 

Involuntarily, his eyes fluttered closed – relief or anguish, he wasn’t sure which.

“Have you eaten today?” 

He could only grunt his reply, a scratching noise on the back of his tongue, trapped in his teeth. He forced himself to breathe evenly through the devastation wrought in his chest. So close and yet an eternity between them. 

“You need to eat,” she said, tapping a finger against the line of his jaw, turning his veins to poison. “I’ll go ge–”

“I’m not hungry.” He opened his eyes and tried to smile. “I’m fine.” 

He swallowed, covering the wince as his voice betrayed him. He knew it fell short of believable – too forced, too concise. Too sharp in tone, cutting her concern where he usually was so careful with her. At least in part he’d been honest for once: he’d consumed plenty today – that was the problem. 

She sat back, her hand dropped limply in her lap. He focused on a tree out of the window, trying to reign in his feelings. It wasn’t his place to be emotional. Come rain or shine, he was in control over the roles he played. He was a thespian, the performer who entertained the audience with his many guises, all of his characters curated to perfection. 

Until she entered the scene. Then she took great delight in stealing his mask and holding a mirror up to his face.

He hated her. 

He stole a glance and his heart stopped. She was in the same position, but her features were soft, her eyes  closed in repose, her long lashes skimming the top of her cheeks. A lone tear travelled the gentle slope of her nose to poise on the tip. 

“Wh-” He reached up, unthinking, and wiped away the tear with his thumb. “What?” Panic ignited, suffocating him. “I can eat again. I’m starving,” he finished weakly. He had done this, he wasn’t sure how, but he knew he was to blame for her pain even when he hadn’t meant to be. 

She remained still – emotionless. A perfect picture, he thought venomously. No, he needed to regain control over the situation again. He couldn’t allow her to continue with whatever whim she had harmed herself with.

With more restraint than he thought himself capable of, he swept the stray strand of hair from her face. Her stare snapped to him, freeing more tears from their confines. 

But words can wait until some other day.

His pulse lurched, constricting. 

“Talk to me,” he said, his tone low. It wasn’t a request. He resented being this close to her. He could see his reflection in her eyes, see the raw image of him stripped bare before her. 

But he couldn’t pull away either. Trapped by her will. 

“No,” she whispered. 

He reared back, stricken, his mind a muted mess turning over the last few minutes. Where had he gone wrong?

“Beg your pardon?” 

She raised her chin, her gaze cold in the grey light. “Why should I, when you don’t give me the same consideration?” 

He sucked his teeth, a momentary hiss of distaste. “Where is this coming from?”

He hated that he knew the answer already. Hated that she was willing to wield it. He put his fingers around her jaw, conscious of the dried dirt in his prints against her skin, and angled it out of her challenge, forcefully softening her gaze.

“I’ve run out of patience,” she said, despite his grip on her. “I try. Every time I try to reach out to you, every time I close the distance, you pull back. You won’t look at me. We are a team, we have to work together and every time I try with you, you look like… well, like you did then. Like you hate me.”

Fire burned through him, lancing his nerves. “I don’t.” The lie was quick to his tongue. 

“What changed?” she pressed, tears flowing freely, blending with the dirt on the pads of fingers. “You’re all I have. I know how others look at me, how they think I’m frivolous. Like I’m some silly little girl who has no idea what’s going on.” 

She raised a hand between them, palm up, and savagely clicked her fingers. Commanding, beckoning, forcing a tendril of a stem to curl from her palm, desperate for light. 

“I’m not a little girl,” she said, her green gaze unyielding. She snatched her chin from his grip and straightened, curling her fingers into a tight fist around the sapling, destroying the life she’d created without another thought. “Don’t shut me out.” She wiped her hand, brushing away the remnants. “Now tell me, and be honest for once – what’s wrong?” 

He watched the ash fall from her palm and drift to the floor, white noise deafening him. A thousand denials danced on his tongue, each one tried and tested over their years together. All of them stale.  

He met her eyes, biting back the flinch at his own reflection in the blue. 

The rain softly drummed its own rhythm against the window. 

“It’s not you –” 

“Don’t be a cliché,” she cut in with a bitter smile.

“I–”  Thoughts furiously flashed through his mind, scrambling for something believable, something that accounted for his reticence and distance – anything but the truth. 

The hole in his chest deepened, filling with despair and fear. The need to answer her, to solve her problem, was instinctive – except she asked too much of him. He was her problem. The truth was forbidden, a cancer to their delicate alliance, a disease to the thin strands of his hold on her. 

The answer was her freedom – a price too high for him to pay. 

“I haven’t been well.” The lie was limp, hanging between them for a second before falling to join the ash on the floor. Anger danced across her features before she donned her preferred mask of practised calm. 

“Do I make you unwell?”

“It’s not you, I swear,” he whispered. Hatred seared through him. How dare she put him in this position of weakness, how dare she make him explain himself when all he did was protect her. “I haven’t been feeling well, I promise you –”

“You’re a terrible liar.” Malice laced her quiet hush. 

“Please…” What was he asking for? Forgiveness? Mercy?

Kiss me once, then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again.

He could silence her. Take her accusations and preserve them behind her pouty lips. He shook his head, loosening the clutch of desire creeping over him. He walked back to the window, welcoming the cold once again. 

“Please…” The corner of his mouth ticked up as the fog of his breath reappeared on the pane. Proof of life in this hostage situation.  

“I’m not leaving until you tell me why.” Her voice cracked on the last word. His smile stretched at her imperfection. 

“You didn’t come here for this,” he reminded her. 

“No,” she agreed, “but I won’t leave without the truth. I’ve run out of patience.”

And he knew she meant it. 

It’s been a long, long time.

He turned, placing his back to the window, shivering as the cold slunk through his shirt. She looked up at him, her resolve an act, her challenge a play. 

So naive, always so shortsighted.  

He sharpened his bladed words. “How much do you want to know? How much are you prepared to lose?” 

The whites of her eyes were stark against the shadows. He’d never taken that tone with her: always so gentle and forgiving. A tender cage for a hummingbird – yet another useless creation of hers. 

“Everything?” He was sure she hadn’t meant to add the question to her statement.

“Everything?” She flinched at the mimicry. Darkness slipped through his lips, a poisonous chuckle wrenching itself free. 

Haven’t felt like this, my dear, Since I can’t remember when

“Love.” The word hitched, a catch of a smoker’s breath. He could feel the vice grip of his thoughts unclenching, releasing the jackals for the hunt.

“What about it?” she all but whispered. Her uncertainty was a delicious fragility in the wake of her anger. 

“It really amazes me that after all this time, you’re still clueless.” He paused, examining her face; sadness and fear captured in timeless beauty. A delicacy of innocence.

It’s been a long, long time

He looked down at his hand, picking at the chip in his nail again, if only to catch his breath. He hadn’t changed out of his ripped clothes, and dirt marked where he’d landed badly during a particularly difficult job.

“You’ve never seen…” He licked his lips, his heart was racing, the truth dancing wickedly on his tongue. “I have loved you since my first breath.” 

You’ll never know how many dreams I’ve dreamed about you.

“At first, I just loved you like a friend.” He huffed bitterly. “I wanted to protect you, never wanted to leave your side.” He clicked his fingers to point a mocking wink at her. “But that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it.” 

Her lips parted in a silent ‘O’ – her ignorance a sprinkle of salt in his festering wound. 

“Over time,” – he laughed to himself, too derisive to be sincere about the concept – “I came to realise that it didn’t matter. You only show your latest creation, your latest ‘project’, care and attention. They’re the only things worthy of your love.” His sneer was vicious, a well-aimed sweeping scythe. “And I would sit there listening to you, helpless but to hear your voice, completely absorbed in what you said just because it was you who said it, regardless of the fact you never showed me the same adoration.” 

He paused, slightly calmer now. His breath came easier, free of the binding restraints of hope. 

Or just how empty they all seemed without you

“When you walk amongst your creations, your…” That wouldn’t do. He licked his lips, shaking his head, sorting through the onslaught of memories tumbling over one another. “As I – No, as we got older, my feelings for you grew. At first I thought it was something infantile like your little creatures get. A mere fanciful whim.” 

He paused to catch his breath. Her eyes, now as grey as the clouds outside, were wide. Beguiling pain and a thread of confusion that lanced him deep, but he couldn’t bear to look away in case he missed a second of her desolation. 

“I never knew,” she breathed.

He almost laughed. “You make me weak.” It was a sick joke. She made a mockery of him, time and time again. “Even though I did everything I could to try and avoid the inevitable, I admitted the truth to myself quite some time ago…” He softened, thinking back to that devastating day. “I had fallen in love with you.” 

She was silent. The tears dried leaving barren river beds on her cheeks. Dispassionate realisation smoothed her features, wiping every addictive trace of anguish.

“How long ago?” she asked hollowly.

He snorted, an ugly noise tearing at his throat. “You were only just beginning to play with your distractions.”

Her eyes flashed, turning a piercing green, a gemstone so sharp he flinched. 

“Is that all you think of them? Distractions?” she spat. 

He arched an eyebrow. “That’s the point you care about here?” 

Her lips thinned, her knuckles paled in their grip on the edge of the bed. “What more do you want?” 

“Anything!” He was wild, the jackal’s hunt raging free. “Nothing, everything.”

The silence was deafening – an answer in itself. 

It confirmed everything he’d wondered, killing every seedling of hope he’d nurtured. 

So kiss me once, then kiss me twice

“I’ve tried to stop myself, I swear.” He shrugged. “I’ve tried to hate you, be away from you, to ignore you, push you away… But you’re you. My jailer. I have no choice but to go back to square one and render myself yours every time the will takes you.” His breath skittered. It was all too inevitable, too constricting.  

“The thing is…” His shoulders sagged and he ran his hand through his tangled hair, pulling at the drying blood. “I know I’ll never be good enough – you’ve made that perfectly clear.” Saying the words out loud was liberating: a cursed key to his prison. “I know it’s a fool’s fancy. And so I’ve tried to be your friend to  still be close to you. I’ve always tried to be there for you, no matter the time, day, when you called to say you need me I have always been at your side, no matter what.” 

“And yet,” she said, her tone icy, “you see my creations as distractions.” 

“Well–” He frowned. “They are.” He laughed, shaking his head to the ceiling. “Even now, even after everything I’ve just told you, you still put them first.”

Then kiss me once again

She stood on silent feet, carrying herself with a precision she rarely performed. He eyed her, his partner, his friend, his adversary, his love. Of course she hadn’t seen anything. He’d never wanted her to, it was for her own good. 

“You are.” She took a careful step forward. 

He frowned, retracing their conversation for the connection. “I am what?” The cold window at his back was unforgiving as she took another step closer. “I’m not one of them.”

She tilted her head, analysing him. “What makes you think you’re different?”

“I’m loyal to you!” He closed the gap between them, giving in to the pull in his chest. He was giddy with the feel of her shoulders in his grasp. “I know you can’t help yourself. You just create blindly – selfishly! Whatever takes your fancy, you create with no thought as to how it affects the life you’re so proud of.”

She looked up at him, her eyes a pitchless shade of black now. He swiped a tender finger across her forehead, pushing a strand of diaphanous hair back. “I do what I do, because I love you.” 

He stilled at the feel of her hands on his body, a gentle wandering of questing fingers as they travelled up his torso. The hatred that burned his veins caramelised, oozing into something deeper, something sweeter, something that pulled at every nerve and licked at his skin. 

“I don’t like doing it,” he continued, gravel rough. “It hurts me too, to see your creations die. I’ve never told you because I didn’t want you to be upset. I didn’t want to hurt you.” He stroked a thumb over her cheek, revelling in the silky softness of her skin. “But I do it all for you, because I’m loyal to you. I’ll make that sacrifice every day, for you.”

He nearly collapsed at the feel of her fingers settling around his neck. He was sure she could feel the chaos of his pulse in his throat. 

It’s been a long, long tim– 

A tight-lipped smile slipped over her face. “No.” The crack of bone was broken staccato against the rumbling encore of rain. “You do so because that’s what I created you for, dearest Death.”