I wrote this for the 5sense challenge in LJ. I'm sorry, it's not beta-ed.
PhanxAru, yay!
Akari-chan

FIVE SENSES

.sight

Alviss isn't sure if he woke up. He can't tell exactly how long is been since he opened his eyes – or he didn't? By the time he notices his eyelids are wide open, he quietly agrees with himself that it's time to start panicking. He tries to focus his eyes, desperately trying to see something, anything, but there isn't anything else in the world. Only darkness.

Blinking in confusion, being hurt and tired, it takes his time to notice the thin black fabric covering his eyes, brushing softly against his skin, forbidding him to see the fading light of the moon. It's also impossible to notice the intense gaze that a tall, pale man, is giving to him, or that this man is smiling at him from the shadows.

Watching Alviss, Phantom laughs.

.sound

Phantom's laughter awakens Alviss from the dreams he isn't quite sure he's having (It's most of a nightmare, he muses, but he knows it isn't time for musing now). Of course he knows it's Phantom. When the knight laughs, all the world seems to break. It sounds like metal on metal in a fight, it sounds like a war cry, like bloodlust and illness and madness and death.

Alviss thought at first that it was hate, pure and simply some sort of loath for everything alive, but if it was that simple, Phantom wouldn't be so cruel. It was the lack of emotion that he realized shortly after meeting the Chess, because even humans hate, and Phantom isn't human enough to remember how hating feels like. But the black haired boy remembers very well, and when he opens his mouth to say angry words at Phantom, they are bitter and full of hate, and his lips tremble with fear. The knight can tell by Alviss' voice that the boy is wounded.

He smirks and looks very pleased with himself.

.smell

Alviss bits his lower lip as feels Phantom approaching. He knows the man's walking towards him, not quite because of the silent footsteps, but because there's something in the way the air moves around him. The boy stops his futile attempts to shout at Phantom (frustrated because, god, how his throat hurts and his mouth is dry) to feel his hearth beats increasing quickly and he just cannot move because he's immobilized with fear, even though he's too proud of himself to admit.

The knight stops in front of him and is not ashamed to kneel between his legs (Phantom knows very well that kneeling in front of someone won't mean anything if he doesn't want to, specially in a dungeon, in front of a boy who doesn't have the strength to get up from his sitting position, with the back leaned against the cold wall seeking support), and he knows it because the smell of blood is getting stronger.

.taste

Alviss' body tenses as Phantom breaths near him. He knows the knight could kill him with his bare hands now (they're so close now, that if Phantom put his hand around the boy's neck and squeezed just a little bit, he could…) but the realization that the other's lips aren't that far away from his is what makes he shiver and bit his tongue, raising his head, trying to look composed and not to show any sadness, shame or pain.

He fails miserably.

It's got something to do with the fact that a vulnerable boy of sixteen cannot show himself in another way, doesn't matter how many wars or deaths he has seen. Alviss believes he's strong, and he's.

He's simply not strong enough.

This thought alone is strong enough to make he forget the metallic taste of blood in his mouth.

.touch

The fingertips of Phantom's hand run across Alviss' cheek. His nails carve a trail in the pale flesh, red enough to be seen under a tear that Alviss pretends not to have cried. An imaginary tattoo is carved in his face with the man's fingers – he circles his eyes behind the blindfold, trace curls and circles in his cheeks, caress his mouth. It's how the tattoo will be, Alviss knows. And when the knight allows his hand to touch lower, under the boy's shirt, this time stroking the real red-tinted tattoo, Alviss sighs and pretend not to feel anymore.