Hellfire ✞ a.f.i.

12: confrontations

Sometimes I sleep, sometimes it's not for days,
The people I meet always go their separate ways,
Sometimes you tell the day by the bottle that you drink,
At times when you're alone, well, all you do is think.

Wanted Dead or Alive; Bon Jovi

Ever since Eden was dragged into a boozy unconsciousness, her sleep has been anything but restful. That damn flaming banner is haunting her dreams once again, closer, the flames growing ever hotter, and now it's dripping blood.

While she remains asleep, she whines and kicks and attempts to flee from the burning maze of concrete building that she finds herself trapped in. Her feet are as heavy as lead. Unfamiliar silhouettes of men surround her, the same emblems burning where their faces are meant to be. The hot ashes from the banner melt and cling to her skin and burn away at her hair as the exit continues to move away from her desperate efforts to escape. The figures close in.

This nightmare slowly, and agonizingly, fades as she succumbs to the many sweltering hands of the shadowy men. For a moment, her body relaxes, drifting, perhaps swimming along in an endless black expanse she is barely cognizant of. Ashton's navy sheets crumple between her legs and her fingers as her grip on them begins to soften, her eyes remaining closed in a deep sleep.

Some of the darkness begins to fade and, in her dream, materializes Ashton. They are in his room, the only light sources emitting from the moon and what appears to be a few candles on his dresser. Her view is blurry, like an out-of-date contact prescription. He is the only object in focus.

The room faintly smells like musk, like sex, like them.

Eden, still dreaming, blinks in disbelief. Ashton hovers over her, his eyes inches from hers, the snake permanently marked on his arm gently pulsating as he brushes her hair away from her face and cups the back of her neck in his hand.

Eden silently looks up at him, feeling like the pillow beneath her has become quicksand, becoming lost in the striking hazel of his eyes. Her chest inflates and deflates slowly as her breaths become caught in her lungs. His fingers weave through her soft hair at the nape of her neck. Without a single word, he gently pulls her upwards towards him; their noses touch together for the briefest of moments. Her arms remain behind her, propping her up, holding her steady despite how uncertain and breathless she feels, seeing him this close to her in the night, in the dark, wrapped up in blankets, staring into her very soul.

"Eden, baby," Ashton's husky, sleep-deprived voice slightly warbles, like beautiful windchimes one hears somewhere off in the distance, or like someone trying to speak through water, his lips lightly brushing against hers as he says her name in the way only he can.

She closes her eyes, succumbing to the temptation, almost begging to rekindle what took place in reality hours before. The dream mirror image of Ashton obliges, pressing his lips to hers, his hand trailing across her vulnerable neck, pressing, tightening; this kiss a mere ghost of the time before.