A Breath Drawn in Unison

A/N: Coming out of the theatre on opening night, my friend asked me: "What do you think of Nuada/Nuala?"

I replied, "That's practically masturbation." Then this popped into my head...

Hellboy is the property of Mike Mignola and Dark Horse comics. "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" is the property of Mike Mignola, Guillermo Del Toro, and Universal Pictures. Likely, this story isn't what any of them had in mind.

*s separate POVs.

He wanted to see the stars.

Even in the dead of night, it was never truly dark. Wherever humans went, they surrounded themselves with halos of artificial illumination to barricade themselves against the night, and he grew so sickened by the gaudy lights and colours that he sometimes had to take himself away.

Tonight, he lay atop the tallest tower of the bridge spanning the east river – that one that humans called the Brooklyn – and he felt closer to the stars, almost as if he could reach out and touch them, burn his fingers with their pale fire.

The noise and the stench of the city’s constant traffic was distant. More distant still from him, his people crept in the bowels of the city below, through dark streets denied him by his own decree. He felt the loneliness of exile keenly tonight. He longed for faces wild and strange, and one face above all others…

He remembered, long ago, capturing the reflections of stars in a still pond, cupping his hands in clear water. I will give you the stars. He had made her smile, then, and laugh with delight. It had been so long since she had smiled for him.

He traced the shape of his own lips with one finger. Nuala…

She turned her head on the pillow and her eyes opened on the close darkness of her unlit chamber. She heard no sound. She couldn’t think what had awoken her but that she’d felt a touch as if on the edge of a dream like the gentle touch of a loved one.

Nobody touched her, now, and she felt starved of it. She had become fragile, brittle and hollow with age like the dried out shell of a robin’s egg so that she felt she might break apart at the slightest brush of a hand. She had forgotten gentleness. She had forgotten warmth. She could almost have said that she had forgotten him. Almost...

But she knew his touch.

Nuada… my brother…

He felt her recognition, her awareness like a spark and it warmed him. He shivered as he felt the long chill of his loneliness recede at her presence. His sister. Her mind-touch was languid, soft like silk warmed by a sleeping body. He could feel it under his hands, and only the cool night air on his face reminded him of where he was. He pulled open his collar, loosened the ties of his shirt to let it run freely over his skin, closing his eyes and seeing her on her bed of silk.

It felt like a cool breath blowing over her. Her skin prickled with sensation and she breathed a soft sigh. She felt the touch of hands, light as the wind, caressing her face, her delicate throat, her breasts. She closed her eyes and the night sky spread out above her, and she spread her arms, feeling like she could take flight.

He felt her exhilaration as he ran his fingers lightly over his chest. The chill air made tight buds of his nipples and he hissed softly as his nails caught on them. He felt/heard her echo him and feed the sensation back at him. He shivered at more than the cold. Anticipation, fear, hunger, longing, regret. He felt them tangle together and did not know which originated with him, but beneath it all, he tasted desire, and knew that it was shared.

She felt a tightness that did not belong to her body, hot and wanting, centered in the very core of her. This was how it was for him. She knew the moment he gave into it. Like phantom pain in a lost limb, she felt the first stirring of pleasure that had no analogy in her own flesh.

He stroked his own body and it was hers. He teased her as he teased himself, wanting what he could not have and knowing her secret shame: that she wanted it too. The body knew no morality. Her moans were on his lips.

When she broke, it was like a whiplash, excruciatingly sweet.

Her body arched. She stifled her cry with a desperate fist; she dared not call his name (she at once feared and craved that he would appear before her).

The sharp bite of her teeth was not enough to stem the tide of his release. They rushed forward together and over the brink, clinging to each other’s consciousness in a sea of sensation where they had no more barriers between them. Not even their own flesh.

They drew breath in unison and spoke on a sigh:

Nua-…

END