The cold rain made your skin burn as you lay on your back, facing the veil of dark clouds, and waited for his huge hand to reach out for you once again.

It was strange, but Baldur was awfully enchanted by the curse that haunted you since birth. Every now and then he let his fingers run over your arms and legs, applying enough pressure to leave marks on the (S/C) skin, but not enough to make blood pour. It didn't seem like he wished to cause harm, but longed for the reactions towards the pain.

Whenever you flinched, he looked up to examine your face, to take in every single detail that changed and mimicked it with his own.

When you hissed, he hissed too. When you pulled away and rubbed a painful bruise, he tried to hurt himself in the same spot to copy your gestures.

But every time he hurt himself, worse than he hurt you, the wounds twisted and turned before a thin layer of blue light appeared to wipe them away. Every time his skin returned to its spotless, untouched state.

Frowning, you wondered how the tattoos still existed despite his body's obvious displeasure to every slight change.

"You pity me.", he suddenly said.

Torn from your thoughts, you looked up to him. Your limbs were already stiff from the wet cold while every inch was itching.

"I envy you.", you said with empty eyes.

In that moment it felt like you were staring right through him, through the eyes, through the back of his head and into the distance behind him.

"Why would you want to be a coward like me?"

You huffed.

"Why would you want to be a glass container like me?"

He frowned, trying to catch the attention of your gaze. He acted as if your attention was something he was desperately longing for. He wanted you to look at him.

And he wanted you to show him how it felt when his hands hurt you.

"Because I've forgotten how it feels like to be like you.", he leaned over you, his face covering the sky, so you were forced to meet his eyes. "Or any normal person."

Chuckling softly, you raised your hands and grabbed his face with such strength that your nails left deep, dark traces in his cheeks.

He didn't flinch. His breath didn't hitch. He just stared at you while the scratchy hair of his beard tickled the tip of your nose.

"I'm not normal...", you mumbled. "I'm miserable."

"That we are."

"Tell me, Baldur, if you would be so kind."

"Tell you what?"

"How long have you been cursed? Do you... remember a time before this?", demonstratively, you let your nails scratch over his face, so harsh and powerful, that thin trails of red poured out of the cuts.

Again, he didn't react.

A soft gasp escaped you. Only the sight was enough to make you jealous. Deep down inside, the desire to swap places with him awoke.

He got to feel nothing, no suffering, no cold that cut into his flesh, nor the biting heat that made your skin crack and bleed. He was just able to do whatever he wanted without suffering any consequences.

How much you wished to be like him. How much you longed for the possibility to never feel the painful aftermath of a decision that was as simple and mandatory as breathing air.

With his eyes still watching you, he raised his hand to wipe the blood away.

"I remember a time before.", he said in a soft, almost melancholic voice. "But the memories fade with each day. Each day I wake up and realise that the clearest memory in my mind is the one of that day. Each day I forget how I felt before and only remember how I felt while it happened."

The expression on his face was a hateful one, one that held back so much cold blooded fury. But the shimmer in those bright blue eyes of his gave away how much this realisation tortured him. He was slowly loosing himself inside this curse.

"Tell me about it.", you asked and turned your head to the side to pick a flower. "I don't have much to offer except the pain that haunts me. But if that's enough for you... I would like to hear about a life that is different from the ones we know. I want to know if... if it's worth it."

With a hopeful smile, you raised the flower to his nose so he could take in the sweet scent that the rain strengthened.
But he grabbed it, closed his fingers and threw it away.

"I don't feel any of this.", he growled, suddenly so angry. "I don't smell any of this. I don't remember how it was."

A soft gasp escaped you.

"What do you remember then?", you asked.

For a second, he froze.

"My mother.", he pulled a bitter face. "I remember her voice, begging and yet so sure of herself. I remember how she tried to explain herself. She convinced me it was good. For one hundred years she managed to make a fool of me."

His hands clenched into fists, so hard, that his own nails dug into the palm of his hand. Veins pressed against the pale skin, looking like blue snakes underneath a thin layer of satin.

His shoulder started trembling as he tried to restrain the anger that made his blood boil.

Carefully, you reached out to comfort him. But as your fingers stroked his naked chest, he didn't even seem to notice.

Surprised, your eyebrows rose.

"Baldur...", you mumbled, shivering because of the cold that was already making you turn into a stature of weak flesh and fragile bones. "I'm... touching you."

Torn from his anger, Baldur's eyes wandered down to rest on your hand. A soft breath escaped him. He seemed stunned.

As his hand rose in an attempt to lay on yours, you pulled away. Somehow, you could already tell that he would squeeze so hard it would make your fingers snap.

"I don't feel it.", he said and locked eyes with you. "I can't feel anything. No pain. No warmth. No pleasure. I can't taste. I can't die. How many times until you listen?"

"Nothing?"

"No."

"Not even the good?"

"No. There's just... numbness."