Reflections Of Angels

Trying

"You have no idea how happy it makes me to see you really trying with her." He confessed as they crept out of the baby's room- Grizelda having gone out like a light the moment they'd put her down on the mattress- his arm snaking around her shoulders as they walked across the landing.

Nyx frowned. "I've been trying since the beginning."

"Sure." He said neutrally.

"Hey!" She hissed, turned to give him an irate look. "Don't you imply that her problems are because I'm just not trying. Most babies don't require you to cross dress just to be able to stand you!"

No they did not, and there was something very distracting about the sight of her in his shirt; the fabric so black against her pale skin, the collar hanging loose, exposing a swathe of flesh from her clavicle down to the suggested swell of her breast. He'd kissed her there once- he could kiss her there again.

"See, it's really difficult when you're not around, because really, she likes you." Nyx went on, oblivious to where his train of thought had wandered.

"My work is important." He replied simply, pushing open her bedroom door.

She took the opportunity to step in front of him, hands around the back of his neck. "I don't even know what you're doing."

"It's... difficult." He replied smoothly; distractedly running his finger up and down her arm as he thought. Then, without warning, he reached for her and kissed her; searing hot, with the desperation of a man drowning, gasping for air, his fingers buried in her hair. It was like the sight of her with the child- their child, it should have been really, by all rights- had broken the dam within him, and now everything had come rushing out.

Nyx was the first to break the kiss, reluctantly; both breathing hard. "Does this mean you're staying tonight?"
He answered her by kissing her again, kicking closed the door behind them.

Picking her up, he tossed her on her back on the bed, peeling off her shoes, socks and jeans before climbing onto the mattress with her, running his fingers down the soft skin of her legs. Hiking up her knee, he placed a kiss on the inside of her thigh, before lunging forward to recapture her mouth. Nyx gasped as he wrapped her legs around his waist, giggled joyously as he traced kisses down to her collar, moaned as his teeth nipped her skin.

And then he stopped. Just froze, every steely muscle suddenly going tense, like he was preparing to fight or flee.

His head gone from her throat, Nyx looked up; to see his gaze held somewhere just behind her out of her eyeline that she couldn't see. Pushing herself up on her elbows, she looked; his gaze was fixed, unblinking, on her window. But there was nothing there she could see.

But something evil was whispering to him.

Slowly, he sat back on his haunches; his voice cracked as he spoke in a hoarse whisper. "I can't do this."

"What? Why? What's going on?" Nyx asked, sitting up with him. Now she was concerned; something strange was going on- stranger than usual. His gaze still distant, he seemed to look right past her, almost through her, like she wasn't even there. Whatever these strange episodes were, she didn't like them.
Carefully, she reached for his hands, holding them softly in her own, trying to affirm to him a reassuring presence. When nothing changed, she drifted her fingers up his forearm a little, her gaze focused on his face, trying to make sense of his vague expression- and she felt something strange on his arm, like a tiny patch of rough, raised skin.
Turning his arm over, she looked at what it was; there, on the inside of his arm, was a series of small, raised puncture wounds.
"What have you been doing to yourself?"

Comment your thoughts! Also, I love this song- not sure it's the most fitting here, but I wanted to incorporate it.