Androphobia

xv. feather touches

Floating (feat. Khalid) - Alina Baraz

THEA'S POV:

There was quiet as Synn processed my words. It was only after they had left my lips that I registered their meaning and I parted my lips to speak, but my mouth grew dry at his ice blue eyes. They were staring back at me, so intense and powerful. Dark threads scattered through his irises, replacing the caramel flecks near his pupils; I couldn't fathom what he was thinking.

"You want to... touch me."

I shifted on the bed. "I, um, I don't mean that in a weird way or anything! I was just wondering what it would feel like to touch a guy because I haven't done that before, with my fear and everything. And since we're getting more comfortable, as-as friends, I thought it would be okay to... poke you or something? Is that weird?"

"You can do more than poke me, Thea," he said in his wonderful, deep voice.

He raised one of his hands, palm facing upwards. No matter how many times I'd seen them, I was hypnotised by his ringed and tattooed hands. They were large and inviting, a sea of skin and valleys for me to explore. Unlike the rest of his body, his palms were void of ink and I found my fingers hesitantly drifting over to his; they had always wondered what such a beautiful person would taste like.

And then, our hands were grazing.

We were touching.

I waited for some reaction, some explosion, for him to grasp my wrist in threat and draw me forcibly closer like a man was supposed to, but I was met with no such thing. Instead, his calloused fingers kissed mine like a lover. They were rough, rougher than I'd imagined, but incredibly warm. As my fingers carefully pressed his skin, they reached his palm and traced the lines which travelled the lengths of his hand.

"Is... that okay?" I asked. My cheeks heated and I cautiously glanced up at Synn, only to find him already looking at me.

"That's okay," he replied.

Releasing a careful breath, I returned to the warmth of his skin. My fingers dove deeper into the heat of him and met his wrist where the tattoos began. I turned his hand over.

I had always considered myself a fan of art, drinking in the colours of every painting and savouring every sweeping line of a graphite pencil, but I had never witnessed an artwork such as this. Black petals fluttered across the back of Synn's hands like butterflies. The colour had drained deep into his soul, leaving skeletons of nature to draw roots in his skin and breathe the remnants of life into flowers, flowers I couldn't come to name. Almost fearfully, I traced the dark ink.

They were never ending, slipping beneath his black sleeves.

"Your tattoos are so beautiful," I said in awe and looked up again. "Is there a reason you have so many?"

Synn slowly clenched his fingers in my hand, then unclenched them. "I can't say. I had them done when I was young, fifteen, sixteen. For some reason... I found comfort in them."

"Comfort," I repeated softly to myself. Passively, I fiddled with the ring on his index finger, spinning it round and round. "Comfort in the pain?"

He was quiet, brooding for a moment. "They make me feel different to the person I was before."

"Who was he?"

His eyes were fixed on our connected hands, watching me twiddle with his rings like toys. The more I looked at him, the more solemnity seemed to settle in his features, as if something grave were missing. Black, tousled curls fell about his perfect face and his ethereal beauty grew tenfold at the sadness in his eyes, water sloshing about in contemplation of memories I couldn't see myself.