Archive of Our Own ^beta

It doesn’t burn.

Viking reaches out, sunrays glancing harmlessly off, solid, squishy skin. It doesn’t hurt, for once it doesn’t hurt. But this light is pale and colourless, lacking the radiant golds and brilliant scarlets and wondrous oranges that held his gaze even as it seared into his retinas with every curious glance.

These skies are empty, this sun a pretty lie that burns him with the absence of pain. This is not his sun, not his world.

There is no guiding light, no scorching glares, no warm laughter or friendly smiles. No sun to guide him home… Now, sunless and alone Viking has found there are many ways to be cold.

The hate that used to fester like a fever beneath translucent skin has turned to a lump of ice caught between his ribs where his heart should be. His sun could thaw him, break the ice and make him blister and seethe just like he used to, but his sun is gone, out of his reach, and Viking is cold.

This cold isn’t numbing, this cold burns. Not simply the absence of warmth but the echo of having known true heat. The kind that sets your heart ablaze and threatens to burn you out from within.

He stands in the sunlight, every day he stands out in the sun, but it might as well be midnight.

Or perhaps it's just the black spots that dance before his eyes whenever he thinks he catches a smile or a laugh or the littlest glint of gold. He spent so long staring at the sun with pleading eyes and furious scowls that he's forgotten how to see without the familiar glare.

Viking reaches out to touch the sun, to feel it burn, but you can’t touch what’s not there.

The sky is empty, and Viking is cold.