Algid (#TronnorAU)

Chapter 29: "You do care"

He was moving constantly, fretting under the grazing breeze on his skin. He couldn't find comfort in his wake, and the heat of the room, the dim lights and the silence... all of it was driving him mad. He felt his chest moving up and down and the drops of sweat traveled down his forehead and his spine. The only noise he could hear was a loud, distant pounding, located far in the background of the blackness.

Boom... Boom... Boom...

How had he gotten here? He didn't know, but there was no going back now.

The skin on skin contact made his arm hairs shudder, sending a tingling sensation all across his body. He wasn't sure how he was able to breathe, let alone stay conscious. Every feeling, every sensation that his body experimented felt too surreal, too out of this world. And her beating heart right across from his sent a pulsing wave that made him feel alive.

Her lips were rosy and full, glistening under a light that didn't exist. Inside that pitch black void that the two of them were at there was no light, no glow and no exits. And yet she managed to burn bright anyway. He could swear both her eyes and her hair were shining, alive with the color of roses, blood and sunsets.

She was so close to him, so, so close... Just inches away and they were already breathing into one another's cheeks. Connor gulped down the lump on his throat. How could he breathe? How could he stay still?

"... I thought we had rules...", he tried to say, but couldn't mutter. Not even a whisper would leave his lips. Still, he had the feeling—no, he knew that she could tell what he was thinking anyway.

"No kissing. That was your rule. You promised no kissing..."

She smirked, as if his thoughts were an open book for her to read. With her left hand she took a hold of Connor's right arm, sending something fire through his body, like she always knew how to do. Her naked body against his own wasn't enticing like usual, and he didn't feel the need to take her, like they always did. Instead, she was in control. And she had other intents.

"You'd break your own rules?", he thought desperately, "Why?"

He was able to open his mouth, but her index finger placed on top of it prevented him from trying to speak at all.

"Shhhh...", Red shushed, "Rules can be broken, bad boy..."

Her eyes were dominant and strong. They shone gold, and her mane flowed in midair as if submerged underwater. It made her look like a human torch, both beautiful and terrifying. Connor took a small eternity to take in her manifestation before him, and then, before he could muster another word or process another thought, she leaned in, close enough to make his heart stop and his breathing disappear.

Suddenly there was no noise in the world anymore.

The loud pounding was gone, and the heat on his body gone with it.

The floor he had been standing on and the wall behind his back were black matter, and even though she was right there with him, he was all alone.

The void was naked just as him, and swallowing him whole.

However, it wasn't going anywhere. Connor realized that, in that moment of complete stillness, she wasn't kissing him; she was so close, just instants away from his lips, but she wasn't touching them. He was being led on by an illusion. He didn't understand, but he feared it. He feared it so. And she seemed to notice, because a sly smirk boasting mischief displayed across her face, with her eyelashes fluttering seductively.

"... Hehehe... You're so cute when you're scared."

Connor didn't care that it was Red, or that he was at his most vulnerable. He could feel a certain rush through his body, one he was all too familiar with. A type of strength that always went at his side. He knew then he had been mistaken, and that the fire before him wasn't but a mirage.