[PSL] in this sense the open jaws of wild beasts will appear no less pleasing than their prototypes

[katabasis]

The bread that is over-baked so that it cracks and bursts asunder hath not the form desired by the baker; yet none the less it hath a beauty of its own, and is most tempting to the palate. Figs bursting in their ripeness, olives near even unto decay, have yet in their broken ripeness a distinctive beauty.

Comments

[katabasis]

It's not that the heat drains out of him. But given time - a moment of Thomas's head bowed between them and his cheek under the rough callouses of his fingertips -, it can be folded over itself and take some different shape than the one made to minimize the number of people standing between them and the gate to this place. Thomas's long fingers and his breathing and the unflagging pulse of his love even here in the dark with James's anger held in check by bared teeth tempers in the way of steel. There's a fundamental quality to it. It's the reverse of being unmade. It's the antithesis to the thing that was created by two people's grief as they fled from London to Nassau.

What was done to Thomas? How has he been changed? It matters, but not here. They can't touch or alter this fundamental unmovable part. Rational creatures exist for one another, and to endure is a part of justice.

James exhales. The sound is harsh in the dark, the loudest thing between them in hours, and with it he sheds the wire taut adrenaline so he can lean his forehead against Thomas's shoulder without trembling like a horse poorly paced. He can touch his face and his side without feverishness and be quiet at last for the continuity of this. Eventually he can turn his face and murmur against Thomas's cheek too: "Come to bed with me."

It's late. There's work to be done in the morning.

[aletheian]

What must it have been like, to go mad with the desire for vengeance, to hold the broken pieces of what they had but be unable to put them back together? How must it have felt to hear the lies and have to believe it for lack of ability to prove otherwise? Thomas can only imagine; yes, James and Miranda had each other, but they had been lost in a storm of unanswered questions, tormented, unable to progress. Thomas was simply apart. No one ever came and told him lies about his wife or his lover, no one tried to force him to live thinking about their deaths.

Thomas presses a kiss against the side of James's mouth. Come to bed with me. It sounds like they're real people.

He stands slowly, one of the other man's hands held captive still. Even in his sleep, he doesn't let go.