The embrace was a paradox. His skin, as pale and smooth as polished marble, was unnervingly cold against my drenched wetsuit, a stark contrast to the sudden rush of heat that flooded my face and neck. The chill seeped into my pores, raising goosebumps even as my internal temperature soared. He cooed, a soft, purring sound that vibrated against my ear as his cold face nestled into the curve of my neck, his breath, if he even had breath, a frozen wisp.
"This is… hard…" I mumbled, the words barely audible, my mind a jumble of alarm bells and an utterly bewildering sense of… something else. Butterflies, yes, but not the nervous flutter of anticipation; more like trapped moths beating frantically against the walls of my stomach, disoriented and desperate. How could I feel this when David, my friend, was just a few feet away, lying unconscious and drained because of this very thing? How could I be flustered by a monster, a parasite, that had hijacked the body of my brother-in-all-but-blood?
His low hum deepened, a resonance that seemed to settle in my bones. His arms, impossibly strong, tightened around me, pressing our bodies flush together. The cold felt less like a threat and more like an anchor, grounding me in the surreal reality of the moment.
"Hard?" he repeated, his voice a low, curious rumble that tickled my ear. "No. This is… potent." His head tilted slightly, and I felt the brush of his impossibly soft, jet-black hair against my temple. "The fire… it burns brighter now. Is this what it is to be… flustered?"
He drew back slightly, just enough to look into my eyes, his own deep blue pools reflecting the dim light of the cavern. The perfect, blood-red lips curved again, not into a smile, but into an expression of pure, unadulterated curiosity. He wasn't mocking me; he was genuinely studying me, dissecting my reaction as if it were a fascinating specimen.
"You glow," he observed, his thumb, cold and delicate, tracing the line of my jaw where my skin was flushed. "A fascinating byproduct of… emotion. Tell me, human. Is this the 'more' you promised?"
My mind scrambled. He was so close, so beautiful, so utterly alien. The promise! The actual promise was to take him to the Source. This… this wasn't what I'd meant. This was an unforeseen, terrifyingly intimate side effect.
"No!" I choked out, my voice thick with a confusing blend of dread and something akin to a blush. "No, that's… that's not the promise. The promise was… to take you back. To the Source. With the Triton."
His eyes narrowed slightly, the blue deepening to an almost black. "Ah, yes. The vessel. My return. You speak of it with… conviction. But this," his gaze dropped to my racing heart, which I could feel thudding against his cold chest, "this is… immediate gratification. A taste of what is to come, perhaps?"
He didn't wait for an answer. His cold fingers threaded into my wet hair, tilting my head back slightly. The pure, aesthetic perfection of his face blurred as he leaned in, those blood-red lips, the ones that had just spoken with David's voice, then its own alien cadence, now poised directly over mine.
This was it. The final act of the trade. The moment I had dreaded and somehow, sickeningly, found myself drawn into. There was no escape, no fight left. As his lips, shockingly soft and yet still impossibly cold, finally pressed against mine, a jolt coursed through me unlike anything I'd ever known. It wasn't just a kiss; it was an invasion.
A searing cold spread from my mouth, down my throat, and into my chest. It felt like liquid nitrogen pouring through my veins, an excruciating inversion of my own warmth. My body seized, muscles locking, breath catching in my lungs. I was aware of everything at once: the chill on my lips, the solid, unyielding pressure of his body, the distant, rattling snores of David, the echoing water in the cavern.
And then, clarity shattered. Not a physical sensation, but a mental one. A rush of thoughts, images, memories that weren't my own. Vast, silent oceans, deeper than anything known to man. Pressure beyond comprehension. The slow, inexorable drift of aeons. And a profound, aching loneliness.
This wasn't just a parasite taking over; it was a being of immense, ancient consciousness, flooding into my very core. My "fire," my essence, was being absorbed, certainly, but also… shared. I felt the sharp edges of my own identity begin to blur, dissolving into something infinitely larger, colder, and immeasurably old.
The kiss deepened, strangely i melted with a terrifying hunger. I could feel fragments of myself flaking away, like ice crystals sublimating into the vastness of his being. My name, my past, my hopes, my fears – they were still there, but muted, distant, as if viewed through thick, distorted glass.
I stumbled back, gasping for air, my lungs burning. The shared consciousness receded slightly, but a chilling echo of his thoughts remained, a low hum beneath the surface of my own mind.
"wait" i pulled away but he was reluctant in being in my mouth again
"Wait?" he echoed, his voice laced with something akin to petulance. "But… why? The exchange is… beneficial. You feel it, yes? The… expansion." He reached for me again, his cold fingers brushing my cheek. I flinched away.
"Beneficial for you!" I spat, my voice rough and unsteady. "I'm… I'm being erased!"
His head tilted, a flicker of what might have been understanding crossing his perfect features. "Erased? No. Integrated. You become… more. A part of something… greater."
"Greater for you!" I repeated, my panic rising. David. I had to get to David. I had to stop this. But how? He was too strong, too… pervasive.
I forced myself to meet his gaze, trying to find some trace of the person I knew, the brother I loved. But there was nothing there. Only that unsettling, alien intelligence, coldly assessing me.
"David wouldn't want this" I forced myself to say.
A peculiar expression flitted across his face, too quick to fully decipher. Was it… pain? "David…" he murmured, the name sounding foreign and distorted on his lips. "He is… weak. Limited. But… useful."
My stomach churned. "He's not useful! He's… he's my friend. He's my family!"
He studied me for a long moment, his blue eyes piercing. "Family. An… illogical attachment. You prioritize these… connections… over the… power."
I swallowed hard. "Yes," I said, my voice trembling. "I do."
He remained silent for a beat, locked in some internal calculation. Then, he sighed, a sound like wind whistling through a frozen cavern.
"Very well," he said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. "If these… constraints… are so important to you. I will yield… for now."
"but....for now, make me feel something, something that'll make me feel your heat more...in detail"
".....pft..detail? that's a weird way to say, if that'll shut you up" i turned red again, i pressed my lips against his tasting inside his mouth.
"ngh~'' i moaned in pleasure, i dont know why
His low hum vibrated against my skin, a counterpoint to the frantic beat of my own heart. He didn't pull away, even as I felt the fabric of my clothes tear under his touch, revealing skin flushed crimson against the alabaster of his own. Each rip was a small shock, a further loosening of the moorings to reality, to sanity.
The contrast was dizzying. My body, now exposed and feverish, pressed against his still-chilled form, created localized pockets of steam. Where our skin met, it felt like tectonic plates grinding together, creating a volatile, unpredictable energy. My touch, once hesitant, now became desperate, tracing the sharp lines of his jaw, the cool expanse of his chest, the taut muscles of his arms.
And with each touch, he reacted. Not with the burning response I felt within myself, but with a subtle, almost imperceptible flinch, a tightening of his already sculpted features. It was as if my ordinary, human heat was anathema to him, a foreign element disrupting the delicate balance of his being.
Yet, he didn't stop. He continued to hold me, continued to deepen the kiss, continued to allow my frenzied exploration. It was a strange, silent agreement, a pact made in the language of touch and breath and the overwhelming power that surged between us. He was enduring, perhaps even exploring, this alien sensation, this…humanity.
My hands fumbled at the clasp of his cloak, desperate to break down the final barrier between us. It fell away, revealing a torso sculpted from ice and moonlight. His skin wasn't warm, it wasn't even neutral. It was cold, achingly, impossibly cold, yet as my hands skimmed over it, I felt no pain, only a jarring, electrifying sensation that mirrored the chaos within.
He drew a sharp, almost pained breath as my fingertips traced the intricate patterns etched upon his skin, patterns that shifted and shimmered like constellations on a clear night. I realized, with a jolt of understanding, that they weren't merely markings; they were conduits, pathways for the immense energy that flowed through him.
My human heat, the very essence he'd been drawing from me, was causing a disruption within those pathways. It was a foreign element, a contaminant, yet he allowed it, welcomed it, even as it caused him visible discomfort.
Driven by a desperate urge to understand, to connect, I pressed my lips against one of the glowing patterns on his chest. The jolt was immediate and intense, a wave of pure energy that threatened to overwhelm me. My vision blurred, and a high-pitched whine filled my ears.
His grip tightened, his other hand cupping the back of my head, holding me firmly against him. He was controlling the influx, moderating the torrent of power, protecting me from its full force.
"ngh~..." a moan escaped his lips, it surprised me and himself "?!"
The moan, a raw and untamed sound, shattered the delicate equilibrium we'd somehow managed to establish. It was a sound of pure sensation, of pleasure mingled with a profound, almost agonizing discomfort. It was a sound that spoke volumes about the internal battle raging within him, a battle between his inherent nature and the unsettling allure of my touch.
His surprise was palpable, a flicker of something akin to shock that momentarily disrupted the glacial calm of his features. He pulled back slightly, his eyes, usually pools of shimmering silver, now clouded with a turbulent emotion I couldn't quite decipher. Confusion? Fear? Or perhaps…something closer to wonder?
"What…what was that?" The words were barely a whisper, rasped out as if he were unaccustomed to using his voice in such a way. It was a sound divorced from the cool, calculated tone I had previously associated with him. It was raw, vulnerable, and utterly captivating.
He looked down at me, his gaze searching, almost pleading. I was no longer sure who was leading whom, who was in control of this strange, forbidden dance. He, the powerful being of ice and starlight, seemed suddenly…lost.
Driven by a surge of protectiveness, I reached up, my hand trembling as I touched his cheek. His skin was still impossibly cold, but beneath the chill, I could feel the faintest tremor. "I…I don't know," I confessed, my voice equally unsteady. "But…it was real. You felt something."
He closed his eyes, a deep breath shuddering through his body. When he opened them again, the silver was brighter, clearer, as if the internal storm had momentarily subsided. "I…felt…disruption," he said, his voice regaining some of its former control, though the undercurrent of raw sensation still lingered. "A…distortion of the natural order."
He paused, his gaze dropping to the glowing patterns on his chest, the very pathways I had so recklessly touched. "And…something else," he added, almost reluctantly. "Something…unaccounted for. Something…disturbing."
His words were clinical, detached, yet I could still sense the underlying turmoil. He was trying to analyze it, to categorize it, to understand it through the lens of his own being. But this…this was something beyond logic, beyond reason. This was something inherently human.
"Maybe," I whispered, "maybe it's not a distortion. Maybe it's…connection."
He frowned, the lines etched deeper on his forehead. "Connection? You mean…with you?"
I nodded, my heart pounding against my ribs. "Yes. Maybe…maybe you're not as different as you think."
The silence that followed was heavy, thick with unspoken questions and unspoken fears. He stared at me, his gaze unwavering, as if trying to unravel the very fabric of my soul. It was an intense, almost unbearable scrutiny, but I held his gaze, refusing to look away.
Finally, he spoke, his voice barely audible. "Show me."
The words hung in the air, a challenge and an invitation, a plea and a demand. He was an alien prince, accustomed to command, but in this moment, he was a student, eager to learn, desperate to understand the mysteries of humanity, the mysteries of connection, the mysteries of…me.
And I, a simple mortal, was about to become his teacher.