Tale As Old As Time

[Its Smiley]

Mayah Playah

"I've been alone for almost my entire life..."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Following the flashlight's ray to the door, Dragon's expression grew solemn. Maybe... Maybe this time they wouldn't disappear like the others?
How many times has he clung to that thought?
Remembering dinner, Dragon looked down at his hands and frowned when he saw the dried blood on him. "I... I think I'll go take another bath, if you don't mind." he said while remaining focused on and touching his bloodied fingers.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"... So why does it still hurt so much?"

 

[Mayah Playah]

☯ φɦѳɛʙɛ ɖɛɪяɗяɛ ☯
♬ : . : ✎ : . : ✐ : . : ♬

I always win at hide-and-seek.


His Theme

Take a photograph,
It'll be the last,
Not a dollar or a crowd could ever keep me here

The man nodded. "Let me take you to your quarters." Quietly, the monster left the art gallery and walked further down the hall, soon being in front of Dragon's door in little to no time. "I had the maids bring you some more comfortable clothes earlier. Feel free to wear them. If you'll excuse me, I have a few more papers to sign." With a brief, but mostly polite nod, he then turned away and started back down the hall.

Rain, rain go away,
Come again another day,
All the world is waiting for the sun.

Awesome nerd

 

[Its Smiley]

Mayah Playah

"I've been alone for almost my entire life..."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Left alone to bathe, Dragon turned his frost blue eyes away from Phoebe to look at the glorious bathroom. This was really something! The floors were marble, the walls were pearl, and the bathtub was bigger than a jacuzzi! He was intimidated, of course, but he'd rather not stay covered in dried blood any longer.
Dragon waited patiently (and awkwardly) for the butlers to ready the tub. He was grateful, though, because, after all, it wasn't like he could figure out how to work it. Smiling his thanks at them as they left, he peeled off his clothes and sank into the warm water. A relaxed sigh escaped him as his tense muscles were eased by the warmth, and within seconds he found himself in bliss. He could fall asleep right there, maybe even drown from doing so, and he wouldn't mind. The warmth matched that of a spa's, the scents mixed into the water was overwhelmingly nice, and the silence was peaceful. If he just lived in this one room - in this bathtub! - he wouldn't mind.
It was after a while that Dragon reanimated. He opened his dirt brown eyes, having caught himself from sleeping, and looked down at his body to see if the blood was gone. Dried blood was chipping off of his mouth from the steam, but the rest had left his arms. Dragon's eyes slowly drifted from the freshly cleaned hands to his forearm, where a tribal tattoo stayed. Well, a tattoo was what he called it, but he was sure anyone familiar with curses would recognize a seal mark when they saw one. A black design that showed vines stretching out on one end, and flames on the other, altogether taking about a third of his forearm. This. He didn't know what it sealed, but he remembered the pain of getting it. It wasn't a physical pain, either. He had met his first step-father, a man named Hiro, and quickly learned to like him. He was so nice and caring. He put the mark on his arm as an act of goodwill, and though Dragon saw something that could've resembled fear in Hiro's eyes, he trusted him too much to think about that. But in the end, all that kindness was just a ruse to get closer to his mother, and familiar 'father figures' followed. Metallic eyes narrowing, Dragon clenched his jaw and dunked his hand back into the water, causing his chest to be splashed. He wiped away stray drops while trying to ignore the second seal mark on his body. Just having memories attached to these two was a curse enough.
"It'd be really nice to have someone to talk to who understands."
Dragon hesitated. Phoebe. They had just met, though Dragon felt comfortable around him. Maybe it was because they both sympathized with each other, or maybe because he was too trusting. Sighing, he submerged himself into the bath, allowing the warm water to wash his face and comb through his dark brown hair. It really would be nice to have someone to talk to, but that would only make it more painful when they leave him.

Large, uncertain leaf green eyes stared at the doors that neighbored the ones leading to his room. If he remembered what Benson said right, this was Phoebe's room. Dragon bit his lip nervously and shifted his weight from one leg to another. He was dressed in casual jeans and an equally casual white shirt, both of which fit him better than the suit. But that wasn't the problem. The problem was that he had no idea why he was here! Was it to talk more about each others' pasts? Maybe to give him an answer about whether or not to stay here? He wasn't sure. In all honestly... he just wanted to see Phoebe again. He guessed the sight of someone around was just... heartwarming.
Before he could realize what he was even doing, his hands pressed on the doors and opened them.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"... So why does it still hurt so much?"

 

[Mayah Playah]

☯ φɦѳɛʙɛ ɖɛɪяɗяɛ ☯
♬ : . : ✎ : . : ✐ : . : ♬

I always win at hide-and-seek.


His Theme

Take a photograph,
It'll be the last,
Not a dollar or a crowd could ever keep me here

The scene Dragon entered in one was one of peace, although the painting on the canvas wasn't too peaceful, and the room was not Phoebe's bedroom, but an art studio. The tall monster stood in front of what he'd created, a stool carelessly discarded behind him and the walls lit by candles everywhere, bringing a mysterious, and possibly romantic, vibe to the studio. The room was large, with white walls splattered in random drawings and musings probably created by the host in his boredom, his scent of sweet mint and lavender with a small hint of jasmine filling the room. The creature stood tall, one arm folded across his belly, holding a paintbrush, and the other hand on his hip. His shirt, a mostly open denim button-up, was covered in paint stains, old and new, his blue jeans and bare feet the same. Black coarse hair was tugged back into a ponytail, a bandanna keeping his bangs from obscuring his view. But most of this was overshadowed by the stunning work he'd created.
It looked like a woman, gaze directed downward, but the sadness still visible. Phoebe had created her on a whim, and he absently reached for a still burning cigarette on an ashtray. He brought it to thin lips, inhaling the nicotine and breathing out the smoke before snuffing out the lit stick and shakilg breathing out once more. It was then that he realized that the doors were open, and turning around and silently drinking in the sight of his visitor. When it finally dawned on him what was happening, the man scurried to redo the buttons on his shirt out of reflex, picking up the stool and sitting on it after he put back down the paintbrush. "I'm sorry," he said, deep voice throaty from lack of use ever since he'd last seen the boy. His face was now in Dragon's view, and he had paint on random places on his skin. He didn't notice them, too caught up in, well, being caught. "Seeing a freaky paintbrush splattering on a canvas was probably the last thing you wanted to see during a storm." He reached up to adjust his bandanna, then smiled at Dragon, embarrassed. "Do you need anything?"

Rain, rain go away,
Come again another day,
All the world is waiting for the sun.

Awesome nerd

 

[Its Smiley]

Mayah Playah

"I've been alone for almost my entire life..."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Dragon was more distracted by the painting than Phoebe's state-of-being. He looked up only when he was spoken to and smiled bashfully at him. "Oh no, i-it's okay." he said until he heard the question. Oh... He was hoping he would have figured something out by then, but the painting... "I-I, umm... I just wanted to... thank you for letting me stay here." he drawled, plucking out one of the first thoughts in his mind. "I-I'm really grateful. I don't think I would've made it to that barn in time if I stayed outside." he said as he made his was to the host's side. He smiled shyly at Phoebe - but his nose wrinkled when he smelled the nicotine - and starlight eyes went to the painting in front of them. "Did you make this?" he asked while gazing deeply at it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"... So why does it still hurt so much?"

 

[Mayah Playah]

☯ φɦѳɛʙɛ ɖɛɪяɗяɛ ☯
♬ : . : ✎ : . : ✐ : . : ♬

I always win at hide-and-seek.


His Theme

Take a photograph,
It'll be the last,
Not a dollar or a crowd could ever keep me here

The man blinked in confusion, having to make himself remember that he was host to the boy. His smile never faltered, somehow becoming ever kinder. "You're welcome," he nodded. "It's no trouble, really." He reached over for a glass of water, bringing to his lips and frowning at the paint streaks his fingers left. With a light chuckle at his own disdain, Phoebe looked over to the painting that Dragon was looking at and nodded slowly. "Yes, I did. I made most of the paintings here." He gestured around the room to various paintings, some like the woman, some not.
There was a beautiful landscape of a seashore during a storm, then another with a man half-sitting on a stool, holding his head with both hands and screaming. Phoebe was talented, his creations well-made and echoing his character, the lovely landscapes his kinder side, and the chaotic ones his monstrous side. He put the glass of water down on the side table, still sitting and glancing at Dragon every now and then. "I always loved art, but I didn't really start painting until my curse. Now, it's all that keeps me sane. Have you painted before?"

Rain, rain go away,
Come again another day,
All the world is waiting for the sun.

Awesome nerd

 

[Its Smiley]

Mayah Playah

"I've been alone for almost my entire life..."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"They're really nice." Dragon commented as he stared at the paintings. They were so nice, yet so... so sad. The beauty was haunting, so melancholic and enchanting at the same time. When asked about his own hobbies, Dragon looked back at Phoebe and shook his head. "Oh no, I'm not good at things like that. Oh, you've got paint on your face." he noted. He took a step closer to the older male and lifted the tail of his shirt with one hand. Licked the cloth, he rubbed it against Phoebe's cheek and - as he tried to ignore the blush that formed from how close they were - cleaned off the paint smears. Smiling feebly when it was done, Dragon backed away and let his hands fall to his side. Still feeling the blush heat his face, he awkwardly laced his fingers together in front of him and fidgeted with his thumbs. Ah... Maybe he shouldn't have done that. He must have made Phoebe feel uncomfortable. Shoot, he felt uncomfortable because of that!
"Umm... I, uh... I'd better go to sleep. Th-Thanks again for letting me stay." he said and timidly began walking away, mentally scolding himself for doing that.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"... So why does it still hurt so much?"

 

[Mayah Playah]

☯ φɦѳɛʙɛ ɖɛɪяɗяɛ ☯
♬ : . : ✎ : . : ✐ : . : ♬

I always win at hide-and-seek.


His Theme

Take a photograph,
It'll be the last,
Not a dollar or a crowd could ever keep me here

Phoebe was close to preparing a suggestion in teaching Dragon to paint, when he heard that sentence that sent a chill through his veins, freezing him completely. Wide eyes stared at the boy who was suddenly so close and cleaning his face. The touch... It felt so wonderful. No one had touched his cursed face in years, had been this close to him without a shudder at his hideousness. He barely registered the blush on the other male's cheeks, only breathing again when Dragon began to walk away. "Wait!" He got up quickly, the stool clattering to the ground as he strode closer and wrapped his fingers around Dragon's wrist, trying to stop him. "Y-you... You can see me?" he asked, voice and body shaking.

Rain, rain go away,
Come again another day,
All the world is waiting for the sun.

Awesome nerd

 

[Its Smiley]

Mayah Playah

"I've been alone for almost my entire life..."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Feeling the hand stop him from moving further, Dragon turned his head to look at the host. "Oh... Uh, y-yes, actually." he nodded and turned to face the other man, hesitated when he noticed the trembling. Was he not supposed to be able to see him? Did he ruin some kind of secret? "I-I, umm, I've been able to see you ever since I entered the mansion. I-I'm sorry, am I not supposed to see you?" he asked.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"... So why does it still hurt so much?"

 

[Mayah Playah]

☯ φɦѳɛʙɛ ɖɛɪяɗяɛ ☯
♬ : . : ✎ : . : ✐ : . : ♬

I always win at hide-and-seek.


His Theme

Take a photograph,
It'll be the last,
Not a dollar or a crowd could ever keep me here

He shook his head no. "No, you're not," he answered, hands still shaking. "I-it's part of the curse. No one can see me until I assert myself and verbally command them to. I never have, because it'd only drive them further from me, and I'm alone enough as it is. Hell, I only wear clothes out of habit!" The man, looking down and noticing his quivering, quickly releasing Dragon's wrist and stumbled backwards into a table, knuckles white as he gripped the edge and stared at the boy. "I-I don't understand. N-no one c-can see me. Not even other cursed beings, I've tried it."

Rain, rain go away,
Come again another day,
All the world is waiting for the sun.

Awesome nerd

 

[Its Smiley]

Mayah Playah

"I've been alone for almost my entire life..."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"I-I don't know why I can see you! M-Maybe it's one my eyes' powers?" Dragon suggested. He inhaled sharply when Phoebe backed away. "H-Hey! Hey! Are you okay?" he asked and quickly moved towards him, setting his hands on his arms to steady him. "L-Look, f-forget everything I did! I'll pretend I can't see you if you want! Just please, calm down!" he begged, frantic eyes turning purple.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"... So why does it still hurt so much?"

 

[Mayah Playah]

☯ φɦѳɛʙɛ ɖɛɪяɗяɛ ☯
♬ : . : ✎ : . : ✐ : . : ♬

I always win at hide-and-seek.


His Theme

Take a photograph,
It'll be the last,
Not a dollar or a crowd could ever keep me here

"It's not that," he said, holding back a wince as he was touched again, eyes searching over Dragon for any sign of disgust at the sight of him. But he saw only concern, and that alone brought tears to the lonely man's eyes. "I'd just... I'd forgotten how it feels," whispered Phoebe as a tear fell down his scarred cheek. "How it feels... to be touched and seen." He bowed his head, voice growing smaller with disbelief. "To feel equal." It took a moment, but the man finally looked up, stunning deep blue eyes that were usually filled with agony and loneliness now touched with that one thing he'd long lost: hope.

Rain, rain go away,
Come again another day,
All the world is waiting for the sun.

Awesome nerd

 

[Its Smiley]

Mayah Playah

"I've been alone for almost my entire life..."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The younger male was stunned by the eyes that stared back into his. So pained and alone, yet now they held such happiness. A feeling of having someone by your side after so long, to know that you're not alone, not anymore. His worried expression melting into a tender smile, Dragon leaned in and hugged Phoebe. He didn't even realize what he was doing, and even if he had he wouldn't have stopped himself. He held the host close, making sure his hands didn't get in the wings' way. "I want to stay." he said softly. "After the storm. I'll stay here."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"... So why does it still hurt so much?"

 

[Mayah Playah]

☯ φɦѳɛʙɛ ɖɛɪяɗяɛ ☯
♬ : . : ✎ : . : ✐ : . : ♬

I always win at hide-and-seek.


His Theme

Take a photograph,
It'll be the last,
Not a dollar or a crowd could ever keep me here

It took a minute for Phoebe's arms to wrap themselves around the boy, but they eventually got there. His long, strong arms held Dragon to his chest, fitting him like a jigsaw piece. The blue eyes closed as he relished in this closeness he hadn't had in so long, his heart beating fast and breathing syncing with Dragon's. Hearing him say that he would stay was only the icing on this beautiful cake, and any tense muscles immediately relaxed. "I'm glad," he responded, smiling genuinely.

Rain, rain go away,
Come again another day,
All the world is waiting for the sun.

Awesome nerd

And instantly, I think of John Legend's All of Me.

 

[Its Smiley]

Mayah Playah

"I've been alone for almost my entire life..."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Dragon leaned away to look at the smile he put on the host's face, smiling himself in return. Even if Phoebe vanished like all the others, at least he was able to make him happy.
"I'd better get to bed." Dragon said as he moved out of Phoebe's grip. He smiled awkwardly and brushed some of his brown hair behind his ear. It was an awkward silence, but at the same time it was comfortable. "I'll see you tomorrow." he finally said and, with a half-wave, walked out of the room.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"... So why does it still hurt so much?"