[t/w: self-harm.]

and iniquitous, fuelled with exorbitant desires and his knowing smiles know exactly what yearning thoughts she has.

He'll have girls cry for him all day, but this time he doesn't kiss their glossy lips he doesn't press his full luscious lips harshly down to their hips and whisper sweet nothings anymore. She can't tell what is on his bloodied and sullied mind, but to her he is the most beautiful sin there is. Oh, how she loved the meaningless lies, how she loves his unholy tongue, his sinful lips and his wretched soul.

She is his solace, his favourite kind of addiction and he loves the euphoric taste of her name on his tongue. He wraps his arm around her and she lays next to him, as he reads to her of the glories and divinity they can't get.

He is wicked, he never truly tells her anything. He is not who he was anymore and so she grabs onto the fragments of who he was in her memory.

He has changed.

She cried when she first found out about his wrists. She sat down on the floor with him and begged him to stop. She kissed his scars and cleaned his wounds. She told him she loved him. But perhaps she never knew, how her kisses and her I love you's bring some kind of assurance to his detrimental soul. He brushed it off, he said it was an accident, that he didn't mean to.

That night he told her about his past, about how his hypocritical father hated him and how his alcoholic mother was responsible for the scar on his forehead—"I was seven," he paused, as if he was remembering the moment. "She was angry because I was home a few minutes late and she...she hated being alone." Lavinia saw it, the scar on the left corner that still appeared to be raw and hurting as the day it was inflicted by a broken liquor bottle. He showed her his scars from over the years, one on his lower abdomen from a knife fight gone wrong—"Ricky that blind fucker"—his delighted chuckles were heard before he kissed her forehead.

He told her that when they met, she was his solace. She was his peace, his serenity then. He looked forward to seeing her everyday and in a way only she could understand him.

Did he?

Summer was here, yet this time it wasn't memorable. She remembered the first time they got into a bad fight,—he couldn't tell her where he disappeared to somedays—she screamed at him, asked him when she would be enough. He looked at her like he was sorry but he didn't say anything.

That night he didn't leave her side even for a second.

-

"Where did you go?" She places her hand above his and his fiery veins pulsate under her gentle touch.

It is midnight, and he has returned to her side as he always did. She notices his bloodshot eyes but she does not push him away.

"I missed you," he says as caresses her face gently. "You can't leave me."

"I won't," she promises.

He kisses her feverishly, and everytime she hits like ecstacy. She loves it when he kisses her—like how she wants to be kissed—like no man has ever kissed her, soft and slow but hot and breathy. He imprints art on her unblemished canvas in the dark as she drips of honey ichor on his tongue.

He is wicked, because he is never hers alone.

"Holly," he whispers in her ear and she goes still. "Holly," he repeats again, softly in a broken whisper. Her heart races suddenly and his touch feels scorching. She cannot see him in the dark but her instincts scream at her.

Holly?

"Why did you have to go?" she hears him say despite the screaming in her head. A single tear drops on her cheek and he falls on her, his own mind drifting into unconsciousness.

She lays like that for what seems the longest time as if she's trying to convince herself that she misheard it. But how could she?

He said her name twice.

She lays him down besides her, her own tears washing away his.

a/n: i wasn't sure about

updating this chapter

specifically but i wanted

to give you guys something

for the long wait.

—also double update :)