The outburst is sudden, as jarring as the sudden strike to his face, as the sensation of his lip breaking through his own skin. He can barely register the hurt of it when he is so busy itemizing the hurt in the things that Rufus is saying.
It isn't that it never occurred to him; he would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to not understand what it is between them, even if it's been kept largely unspecific. And he isn't without guilt, though the shock staved that off until the morning after, when he realized on that cliff what a daze he had been in when he'd done all the things that precluded his temporary demise. But it has been a long time since he's hurt Rufus, who knows how long on Rufus's end of things, and the language of it has changed.
How troubling it is, to feel sorry and unrepentant all at once.
His first strike is far more gentle than it ought to be. Rufus is the only person he knows that he's never lifted a hand against; he changes that with a swift blow to his stomach, to pour the breath from him, to leave him reeling. His legs entangle with his lover's and cast him on to his back once more. They roll, and he's careful to snatch Rufus's deadened hand away from where it might be crushed beneath them. His fingers feel Rufus's skin and they forgot the force behind them, all they know of him is care.
His words are what brings it back, ringing in his ears like a siren. Tseng clasps his jaw tight, digs it into the mattress. The wrist that struck him is easily dislocated; Tseng puts weight on it, there is a soft sound, and that is that.
"You should have been proud," he says, and snaps at Rufus's bloodied lip and then devours it, his mouth opening to silence him with a kiss that is too hard to be endearing. His weight drops solidly atop him, between his thighs, immovable.
no subject
It isn't that it never occurred to him; he would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to not understand what it is between them, even if it's been kept largely unspecific. And he isn't without guilt, though the shock staved that off until the morning after, when he realized on that cliff what a daze he had been in when he'd done all the things that precluded his temporary demise. But it has been a long time since he's hurt Rufus, who knows how long on Rufus's end of things, and the language of it has changed.
How troubling it is, to feel sorry and unrepentant all at once.
His first strike is far more gentle than it ought to be. Rufus is the only person he knows that he's never lifted a hand against; he changes that with a swift blow to his stomach, to pour the breath from him, to leave him reeling. His legs entangle with his lover's and cast him on to his back once more. They roll, and he's careful to snatch Rufus's deadened hand away from where it might be crushed beneath them. His fingers feel Rufus's skin and they forgot the force behind them, all they know of him is care.
His words are what brings it back, ringing in his ears like a siren. Tseng clasps his jaw tight, digs it into the mattress. The wrist that struck him is easily dislocated; Tseng puts weight on it, there is a soft sound, and that is that.
"You should have been proud," he says, and snaps at Rufus's bloodied lip and then devours it, his mouth opening to silence him with a kiss that is too hard to be endearing. His weight drops solidly atop him, between his thighs, immovable.