#one day this will go on ao3 but probably post onyx storm so it can get attention

[widebrimmedhatsblog]

I wish you would write a fic where Xaden accidently confesses his love to Violet in a casual conversation

Sure, anon! Have a 1k fic!

(some housekeeping: I don't know what "casual conversation" means, and I wrote this on my phone at midnight, so any typos...you don't see them. Set during the latter half of Fourth Wing, post sex scene #1. I don't actually know what else you're supposed to put with fics on tumblr, but!! here she is! Full fic below the cut)

When Xaden Riorson knocks on your door and tells you he’s taking somewhere, you listen. 

At least, Violet listens. She looks at it like doing a favor to the wing: no one likes a grumpy wingleader, and by hanging out with him while he gets tipsy in Chantarra, she’s avoiding just that perilous situation. 

He’s definitely not grumpy now. Not as he sits, whiskey in hand, eyes on Violet’s throwing stance. Not earlier, either, as he’d covered her in his cloak and coaxed her down Basgiath’s halls. It wasn’t even a Chantarra weekend for the upperclassmen who were allowed to go. Violet had zero reason to be here, in this Chantarra pub with Xaden Riorson. Xaden had his own reasons, but he was keeping them close to his chest, like everything else. 

She cocks her hand back, then throws the dart at the board. A perfect bullseye, nestled between her four other throws. 

She appraises her own work with a smile, though she takes care to keep it slight. She doesn’t need to get braggy now. Still, her cheeks are already pink, and they only grow more so when she hears slow clapping coming from Xaden’s seat at the closest table. 

“Excellent work, Violence,” he tells her, somehow sounding smug on her behalf. Under his breath, he continues, “Excellent.” 

He swirls his whiskey. The amber catches the low pub light. Violet’s eyes track his hands as they stretch around the glass, the veins shifting while he raises it to his lips, the bobbing of his throat that signifies his swallow. 

His glass clanks against the table. It’s rickety and sticky and she can’t believe he’s sitting there. The cheap wood doesn’t look right with him beside it. 

“Go on,” he says. “Give me another show.” 

She scoffs, but even as she does so, her feet march towards the board. 

“You’re ridiculous,” she insists, plucking her darts free. “It’s now a show for you.” 

She spins on her heel and backs up from the board once more. Doing so means she catches a glimpse of Xaden’s face, the upturn of his lips. 

“Can’t I enjoy myself?” 

His voice is rich. He doesn’t slur his words, but something in their quality makes it clear to Violet that the alcohol is making him be more honest, even if only slightly. 

She averts her eyes to the board. Heart racing, she throws her first dart. Just shy of a bullseye. 

“This can’t be your idea of an enjoyable night, Riorson.” 

He shuffles in his seat. She shouldn’t look at him—she should keep her eyes glued to the board. She should perfectly plot her next throw. 

She finds him staring at her, brows raised. He’d been awaiting her attention. 

“Can’t I?” 

She scoffs, refocusing on the board. Her next throw is better, but she’s still setting herself up to encircle the bullseye instead of truly hitting it. 

“You can do whatever you want.” Another throw, this one closer. “I just didn’t think you’d like to sit around and watch me play darts.”

Her next throw is her best. With every second, she gets better. Closer. Her heart has not calmed even a fraction.

“If I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t have invited you.” He drums his fingers on the table Slowly, her eyes seek out the source of the sound, but Xaden makes a tsk-sound. “Finish your game, Violence. Let me see what you can do.” 

Her cheeks feel flushed beyond pink, and she hadn’t even had a sip to drink tonight. Xaden had offered—egregiously and at length—but she didn’t have a cent to her name, and she didn’t want to give the barkeep a good look at her hair. 

She throws her final two darts without further commentary. Finally, she gets her bullseye. 

She expects to hear Xaden’s voice. If not his voice, his applause, his raucous, ridiculous encouragement. But he’s silent, and because of that silence, she’s forced to look at him. 

He’s grinning, grinning at her. 

Her heart begins to seize in her chest. She feels it thrashing against her breast bone—it’s the only part of her that moves, that reacts in any discernible way. The rest of her is frozen.

Has she ever seen him grin? 

And suddenly, to top it all off, a chuckle slips through his lips. Her jaw drops, and he shakes his head, just as baffled as she is, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t stop laughing, and he doesn’t stop grinning. 

“What?” she demands “What is it?” 

“Nothing, Violence,” he insists, but she can hear the laughter in his voice, and the evidence is irrefutable. It can’t have been nothing. Not even close. “Go again. Let me watch.” 

She doesn’t go again. She approaches him, head held high, and orders him, “Tell me now.” 

His lips twist, but they stay upturned. She wants to glue her eyes to them, if not her own lips. She still remembers the searing burn of his kiss, how delicious that heat had been 

“I don’t think so, Violence.” He looks around at the pub behind her, the few patrons that line the stools. “Not really the time.” 

Fine, Violet thinks. She’ll make it the right time. 

She pulls out one of her knives from the sheaths at her ribs. A knife Xaden got her. Poetic justice, really. 

She slams it into the table, in the sliver of space between Xaden’s thumb and pointer finger. The blade sinks into the wood, splitting it. 

“You’ll tell me now.” 

Xaden only grins wider. His face practically glows with it, this foreign happiness. 

“You’re going to threaten me into telling you that I lo-”

His unfinished word hangs between them. Violet waits for those final two letters to come. She wants them out in the open so she can snatch at them, swallow them. 

He doesn’t give them to her. He stares at her face, lips parted. Xaden Riorson, who never makes a mistake. 

Of course, if he thinks that was a mistake, he’s completely and utterly wrong. 

Violet pounces on him. She bolsters herself with her dagger, but she doesn’t have to support herself for long. Her lips find Xaden’s and his arms find her waist, slotting her into the space between his legs. They kiss and kiss and kiss. She tastes his whiskey. He must taste her victory. 

When they part, it is only so that Violet can pant, “I am going to threaten you, actually.”  

She feels his laughter against her lips.

[clansayeed]

Bound by Destiny II, part 1 ― Chapter 5: The Bloodkeeper

PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Destiny II, part 1 ⥽

While struggling with nightmares of lives she’s never lived, a shadow from the past looming over her city, and the proposed idea that her life may just be a little bit too weird to handle alone, Nadya makes sure to tell herself that everything is perfect just the way it is. If only. When the self-proclaimed King of Vampires (and Maker of her sometimes-girlfriend and always-boss, can’t forget that little tidbit) Gaius Augustine returns intent on claiming Manhattan as the throne that was promised, she and her friends find themselves forced into the task of saving the world. But with millennia-old vampires and an Order of hunters on their heels as well as allies hiding catastrophic secrets at their backs… it won’t be an easy task. Too bad destiny didn’t exactly ask for her input.

Bound by Destiny II and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the Bloodbound series and spin-off, Nightbound. Find out more [HERE].

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Destiny II tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

Gaius is free. Jameson is a traitor. Kamilah is vengeful. And Nadya is a Bloodkeeper.

[READ IT ON AO3]

“He’s back.”

Part of her is angry they don’t believe her at first. But when Nadya puts herself in their shoes — and she can now, like changing coats or doing something different with her hair, the ease of it frightens her — she isn’t entirely certain she wouldn’t react the same way. Which was easier to trust; the word of a fragile girl one loud noise away from a post-traumatic breakdown, or their own memories?

Only now they’re her memories, too.

So it makes sense when they go to check. Kamilah and Adrian leaving the penthouse so quickly they may as well have jumped from the roof. It’s hard but she tries not to take it personally. It’s not like they’re avoiding Nadya. This is important. This is life or death.

This is survival or slaughter.

They aren’t stupid enough to leave her on her own again, though. Nadya’s burned all those bridges — and herself in the process. Lily comforts her because she’s scared, because Lily knows she’s scared, but comfort, in this case, is another word for ‘keeps her under constant surveillance.’

“Did you know being unconscious isn’t the same as sleeping?”

Lily looks down at her strangely. But keeps Nadya close, tucked under her arm with a grip that’s meant to ground her but also makes her feel kind of grounded? “Weird talk to fill the silence.”

“The opposite, actually.”

“What d’you mean?”

What does she mean? Or how best can she describe the noise all around her; all the voices with their cheers and screams and laughter and weeping? Lily’s the vampire — she’s supposed to be the one with the super hearing.

Well… technically she is. Since all of the things Nadya hears aren’t really there. They already happened a long time ago.

She waits too long to respond, gets lost in her own (not really) thoughts. So Lily squeezes her arm — unknowingly right on top of a not-yet-bloomed bruise from her tussle with the Trinity. And the pain anchors her to the present. Careful, some part of her warns, don’t make a habit of it.

“Nadi’.”

“I think that’s been my problem, lately,” she continues; not like it explains anything, “I’ve spent too much time hoping to just… knock out, y’know?”

“No… I don’t.”

“How did I get here?”

Lily tenses with worry and holds Nadya back at arms’ length. She probably hopes that will keep her from knowing how truly and utterly freaked out her best friend is. It doesn’t.

“You’re scaring me, Nadya.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t — it’s not something to apologize for. But… can you just… try to explain?”

She nods. She tries.

“How did I get back to Kamilah’s?” Eyes quickly roaming over the familiar furniture, doorways, displayed antiques she’s come to know so well; “I don’t remember.”

Lily inhales deep; still doesn’t quite shake such human habits as breathing. “Adrian brought you here, sweetie. You don’t remember that?”

“Where did Adrian find me?”

“In his office…” And the silence is imploring, desperate despite the calmness of her. So Lily keeps going; “You were missing for three whole days. I couldn’t track your phone, you weren’t on any camera. We tore the city up and down trying to find you but it was like… like you’d vanished into thin air.

“Then you were just back. I pinged your phone at Raines Corp. and you were there sleeping on his couch like you’d pulled an all-nighter or something. None of it made sense — still doesn’t, mind you. But I’m the one who should be asking you about all this. Not the other way around.”

Nadya’s face scrunches up while she listens; and tries to remember. Anything; a drive, a train ride, walking on her own two feet. Only there’s nothing to remember because it’s gone; swept clean. Like someone took an eraser to the white board of her life and just wiped it carelessly across. Half-words and fractured sentences left in the wake.

Something falls into her eye and it stings — makes Nadya recoil and Lily hold her tighter because Kamilah probably warned her about Nadya being a danger to herself but when are they going to understand she’s a danger to everyone else, too?

It’s sweat, she realizes in the most anticlimactic fashion. A shower would be nice — but Nadya highly doubts she’s allowed to do such an ‘alone’ activity right now. As it is she practically has to pry her best friend’s hand away so she can give herself some space. One of them still needs breathing room, after all.

“Why aren’t you asking me, then? About… all this.”

The young vampire chews her bottom lip.

“Figured we should probably wait until Adrian and Kamilah get back. You remember where they went, right?”

Oh, she remembers. She remembers that particular change of atmosphere with a clarity as striking as it is opposite of the rest of her muddled thoughts.

“I just wanna sleep, Lil’.” Nadya sighs; and the fragility of it scares her. Forces her to face the reality that she didn’t know she could be so… broken.

“So sleep. They could be gone for hours.” Lily means well — Nadya knows that. But there’s absolutely no freakin’ way that’s happening.

Lily kicks off her boots and starts to stretch out along the length of the couch. Nadya’s body agrees; an instinct forged in friendship’s fire, and scoots herself down until they’re in an all-too-familiar position. Head-meets-toes. A little uneasy and a lot cramped, and it’s no sleeping bag slumber party. Yet somehow it’s the exact balance of physical comfort and personal space she needs. Even if Lily’s ankle bumps against her temple  a few times.

They both close their eyes. Neither one sleeps.

Which is just as well, because when the Council members return to the penthouse they do so with voices raised and only rising higher.

The door slams shut with a THUD. Too loud for Nadya and Lily not to sit up far too alert to have been asleep. They know it — but don’t get the time to mention it before the fight is brought to them.

“He’s your Clan, Kamilah! You’re telling me you never suspected a thing?!”

“You were victim to Jameson’s psychic interference just as much as I!”

Adrian scoffs at the excuse. “Why didn’t you have any safeguards in place?”

“He was bound in blessed iron and witchfire! I seem to recall you agreeing with me that further measures were unnecessary!”

“You spent more time with him than anyone. You really didn’t consider he might have a way out?”

Kamilah rounds on Adrian in a whirl of dark hair and darker eyes. Her hand hovers just shy of his throat, nails like claws so familiar with that particular form of violence but not Adrian, never Adrian so she stays her wrath. For now.

“Watch what you find yourself implying, Adrian.” She snarls.

And he does — his frustration falters in the set of his brow before coming back in a different way. “You know I don’t mean that. I could never. I just…”

“Like I’ve been saying since we left —” Jax doesn’t have to shout to be heard over them; the growl deep-set in his curled upper lip is more than enough, “— neither of you are thinking straight. Yelling louder doesn’t make either one of you more right. On the contrary — you’re both very very much at fault.”

He stares them down; their bond, their years and experience trying to push him into submission but Jax doesn’t let it happen. He stands resolute and damn the rest.

“I take it the vampire Don Corleone wasn’t safe and sound where you left him last, huh?” asks Lily, and if she hoped to serve as a human (you get the point) crowbar intent on prying them apart… well its the thought that counts.

Even Adrian looks at her with a strangely scolding reproach. “I know you mean well, Lily, but if you fully understood the seriousness of the situation, you’d know now isn’t the time for jokes.”

“Yeah, well, maybe if you guys would share with the class instead of storming off I’d understand the seriousness of the situation.”

Nadya reaches out a hand to Lily’s arm; tries to stop her before she says something that actually does some damage. Her best friend gives her a look of “what, you know I’m right,” but it’s not about who is right and who is wrong.

Not against him.

She chances a look to Kamilah, oddly silent compared to moments ago. And just as she feared — Kamilah’s looking right back at her. Surveying her; trying to find something wrong with her. If only Nadya could express just how much of the woman’s self-doubt she feels as her own.

“He wasn’t there, was he. Gaius wasn’t in the Onyx Sarcophagus.” It’s not a question because she knows the answer. After all, it kidnapped her and fed her fancy wine and food and split her skull in two with a psychic jackhammer.

Kamilah purses her lips. “No. And you knew we would not find him.”

“I… yes. I knew.”

At Kamilah’s side, Adrian runs his hand over his face. Paler than she’s ever seen him, even when he was starving, beaten, and facing the executioner’s sword… or sunrise.

“How do you even know about him, Nadya,” desperation bleeding through his voice, “let alone where he… where we…”

All that he’s feeling and Nadya sees that he’s still holding himself back. Like if he feels it, or lets himself feel all of it, that makes everything worse. Somehow accepting those emotions makes everything Adrian’s fault.

But it’s not. It’s not your fault Adrian, it’s not.

“He showed me. He… he led me to it.”

“Who? Jameson?”

Kamilah scoffs. “Don’t be such a fool, Adrian. You know very well who.”

“But that shouldn’t have been possible.”

“What does that matter?” Jax kicks off from the wall and braces against the back of the couch. “It happened. Can’t change it. The only thing looking back at the past is good for is figuring out your mistakes so you don’t repeat them.”

“We didn’t make any mistakes.”

“Yes, we did.”

All eyes on Kamilah as she raises herself to a height Nadya didn’t know she was hiding. It’s a stature — a kind of weight on her shoulders she’s so far only seen worn by the Trinity. Two thousand years accepted and owned in one fluid motion.

She’s terrifying, and she’s beautiful, and she’s… she’s Kamilah.

“We underestimated him. I underestimated him. We allowed ourselves to believe Gaius could be chained and held prisoner. That he would accept the punishment we had agreed upon; that he should be forced to stare into the abyss of eternity alone, in the dark, and thought that he may face his actions and understand the consequences.”

She turns to Adrian vulnerable; raw in a way she can’t quite control. She carries the weight of her years but not without struggle. “Our mistakes were not physical, Adrian. But the day we took our victory and believed the matter put to rest with him was the day we blinded ourselves to the truth. Because… it was easier that way.

“We should have killed him.”

The look in his eyes — he agrees even if he won’t say it out loud. A gathering storm of guilt and responsibility and taking the consequences on his shoulders and seeing the both of them like that… it breaks her heart in a way Nadya didn’t even know could be felt. Until now.

“Fine,” he spits out the word in a bitter pill, “but none of that explains how Nadya is involved.”

Nadya hopes her smile is a reassuring one — but something tells her she’s too exhausted and it just looks weary. The way his face falls only hits it home. “I thought the same thing. Until he explained it to me.”

“He what?”

She can feel his panic itching under her skin like an ugly sweater she can’t pull over her head. Kamilah’s, too, though she hides it better and takes a knee in front of Nadya where she sits. She rests a cool palm on her thigh; tries and succeeds to keep the tsunami of emotions she’s feeling out of her face but Nadya doesn’t need to see them to feel them there.

“Nadya,” she rasps, “what did he explain?”

“My visions.”

“How did he know —” But the question dies on her lips; what’s the use in asking when they both know the answer?

He’s Gaius.

“Start from the beginning.”

It’s not a request.

LINEHERE

“You know, Bloodkeeper sounds like an epic R-P-G title.”

Though the moment she says it Lily looks over way out of the corner of her eye — like she isn’t sure if it’s okay to be making light of the whole business just yet.

Nadya’s smile is weak, but there. “I wish. Then I could return it and get my money back.”

“Store credit and you know it.”

She shrugs in a touché kind of way; looks back to Kamilah in hopes she might say something, anything — even if it’s just to scold them for not “taking things seriously.”

But the vampiress is as silent as she has been from the moment Nadya began recounting the events of… well, a couple nights ago now.

And saying nothing is sucky sure — but that Kamilah won’t even meet Nadya’s eyes is what really punches her in the gut.

Suddenly Adrian leans forward in his chair, elbows-on-knees, and buries his face in his hands.

“Adrian…?” She calls hesitantly — wanting so badly to go over there and comfort him. But if he rejected her now Nadya isn’t so sure she’d survive it. Not in one piece.

Kamilah distracts her with a touch. “Do you remember where you were taken?”

She has to dig… really deep and down and she has a feeling she shouldn’t remember where but it was too terrible a betrayal not to find the pain of it lingering in her chest.

“Marcel’s. I—I recognized the gardens. But I didn’t see him — maybe he…” And what kind of a world are they living in now where the idea of Marcel being held captive is a better one than him being complicit?

Any hope is dashed, though, when Kamilah shakes her head. “No; while I’m saddened to hear it I can’t say it surprises me. Marcel adored Gaius, and I think he held a soft spot for the boy as well. Enough that he valued Marcel’s innocence and kept him from knowing the more gruesome aspects of his plans. It took him many years to forgive Adrian and I for our turning against him.”

Jax’s face twists in disgust. “This kid, what, wanted Gaius’ crazy plan to happen?”

“He wished for a world where we no longer had to hide,” Kamilah replies in measure, “and I will not begrudge him that. But I have to hope the glamour of his return will soon fade and Marcel will… make the right choice.”

Glamour. Against her will, when Nadya inhales she smells death and rot. Behind her closed eyelids she can still see his opaque eyes…

“And you really believe all of this, Nadya?” asks Jax instead; he’s gotten good at changing the subject when they all know it’ll end in argument. Hanging her head counts as a nod, right?

“I do.”

“Even knowing how crazy manipulative this guy apparently is.”

“He could explain everything.”

Jax scoffs. “Yeah, and that’s wrapped up a little too neat and tidy for me.”

“While skepticism is a healthy trait to have when Gaius is involved, Matsuo, he gains nothing from lying.” Kamilah stands so suddenly Nadya gets secondhand vertigo. “As it is — I can confirm his claims.”

They all watch as she practically vanishes — gone in one blink and back in the next. She returns clutching a small book bound in old leather greyed and sagging with age. Nadya can see the echoes of its former splendor in her mind’s eye. Something from the library in her office, probably.

Kamilah flips hastily through the worn parchment pages; finds something near the end that makes her expression fall the barest flicker. “The myth of the Bloodkeeper.”

Part of Nadya wants to wrench the book from her hands. Another wants to chuck it from the building roof. “Please tell me that’s some kind of encyclopedia.”

“Nothing so concrete.”

Beside her, Lily’s practically jumping out of her own body. “Lore loot… that’s some high-level shit.”

“Lil’.”

“Actually, given I’m understanding the context correctly, she’s nearly accurate.” Which makes Lily pound her fist into the air and hold it out to Kamilah — but hell hasn’t frozen over just yet.

“For the first thousand years or so, Gaius kept me close at hand. Only once did I leave his side and it was at his own behest. He tasked me to find a book; a journal of some sort. With the scarcest of leads I scoured the vast city of Pataliputra for a decade. Until I found it coveted by an old madwoman.”

Nadya shivers against a breeze that isn’t there.

“And?”

“And she knew who I was. Never had we so much as toed the Empire’s borders and she knew me. My name, my birthplace, my deeds… ones no mortal could have shared — ones with no survivors.”

Kamilah goes eerily silent; lost in her own memory. God forbid Nadya be lost in it too. “Kamilah.”

Twice she blinks, lets her eyes lose their glaze of the past. “I told him I had found the book, and with a few pages to prove it’s existence. As well as a pile of ashes.”

Adrian snaps to attention and the movement makes Nadya jump. He’d been so quiet, so still… more a grave than a man.

“You lied to Gaius?”

“It was my small act of youthful rebellion.”

“I just can’t believe he bought it.”

“You’d be surprised just how much trust he had in me. Even in the beginning.”

Lily raises her hand but doesn’t wait to get called on. “Uhm, can we get back to the mad old lady trope?”

Only she doesn’t have to. Nadya reaches out for the journal and when Kamilah lays it gently in her open palm it feels… familiar. Like it’s been in her hand before — each word from her own thoughts onto the page.

“She was a Bloodkeeper.”

Kamilah nods. The hairs on the back of Nadya’s neck stand up; all four vampires watch her flip through thin pages with anticipation. Do they expect her to suddenly pull an Exorcist and start screaming memories in a demonic rage?

“The word is mentioned nearest the end. She describes a relief at naming herself; she feels unburdened by it. And the way she describes learning it is as though it came to her in a… a dream.”

She falters — Nadya doesn’t look away from the entries written in a language she can’t even read. She doesn’t have to.

Kamilah’s never sounded less certain of, well, anything in her life. “I see the signs, now. The mere potential of that knowledge was… I wanted to forget it, Nadya. I did — even in your hour of need.”

There’s not much use in trying to read it; when Nadya hands Kamilah back the book she makes a point of touching the back of her hand. “I believe you. You don’t need to be sorry.”

“I promised you I would find a way to ease your suffering.”

“And you did.” The journal falls abandoned on the rug between them, they might as well be completely alone. In fact Nadya would rather they were. “You did, Kamilah.”

“A-hem—” Coughs Jax into his fist with all the tact of, well, Nadya. “Let’s skip to the part where he let you go. Anyone else find that interesting?”

“He’s right,” Adrian agrees, “Gaius isn’t the type to let go of things—people—he claims belong to him.”

He is right. Nadya knows it too. But when she scrunches up her nose and thinks really really hard? It’s easier to remember her eighth birthday party.

“I can’t remember.”

“Well isn’t that ironic.” Lily teases dryly.

“More like convenient…” Adrian trails off — finds Jax giving him a hard eye.

“What did I say? Too neat and tidy.”

Kamilah reaches out to stroke her fingertips along Nadya’s arm; a caress even while literally holding herself at arms’ length. “Jameson’s doing, I’m sure.”

Jameson.

“Nadya?”

She looks down to see she’s gone rigid under the woman’s touch. Not that she relaxes. The Council members had been arguing about Jameson when they returned. And Valdas… hadn’t Valdas said he was the one who had messed with her head — influenced her, he’d called it.

“He took it.”

“Took what?”

Jameson who deceived them all. Jameson who forced her to take on memories she wasn’t ready for. Jameson who poured the wine and served the dinner and all the while loathed that he didn’t have a seat at the table.

“My head… he… he…”

Jameson who offered her water.

Before he took hold of her head and dug psychic spears into her mind over and over until he found what he was looking for.

What Gaius was looking for.

Nadya groans; knocks her glasses aside in her haste to somehow stop the pain. She presses the heels of her palms against her eyes and kind of hopes they’ll pop into her skull to dull the pain.

“Nadya!” comes Adrian’s voice, suddenly too close, and she throws out a hand to try and keep him at a distance. “What — what’s wrong?”

“Give her space, Adrian,” comes Kamilah’s voice, hypocritically closer but far less panicked; instead she’s a cool drink of water through the burning pain where Jameson had singed a hole into her memory.

“Keep going, Nadya. Whatever Jameson has taken is in your power to retrieve.”

Encouraging words from a woman not feeling like her head is a matchstick alight. “N-Not… it’s like a wound. It hurts…”

Lily squeezes her shoulder. “Come on, Nadi’. You’re literally the only one who can.”

Blindly Nadya reaches out over her shoulder, grasps at the void with uncertainty, but it doesn’t last long.

“I’m right here Nadya,” whispers Adrian in her ear, voice thick and unsure but none of that matters because his grip is the exact opposite, “we all are.”

“Even Jax,” Lily chimes in.

“I can support her without the group hug.”

It makes Nadya laugh; a spluttering thing wet with tears and spots in her eyes and everything sharp nipping at her head trying to take a chunk out of her. And somehow in the midst of it all… something snaps back into place.

“TheAmuletofNero!” The words tumble from Nadya and leave her heaving for breath. Adrian’s disembodied hand holds a glass of water in front of her and she doesn’t hesitate to gulp it down. Could give absolutely one hundred percent less of a care if she spills half of it down her chin — which she does.

She comes up from drowning in the cup, coughs on the water sloshing around in her lungs, and tries again.

“The… The Amulet of Nero. That’s what he wanted. He… he needed to remember where it was hidden.”

“Because he’s, what, going senile in his old age?” Lily asks, rightfully skeptical.

Gasp. “He —” —gulp, gasp— “— he didn’t hide it. Someoneelse… and he didn’tknow…” And just when she thinks she’s got only air in her lungs Nadya’s body throws her into another fit.

Adrian returns with a second glass; before she can take it he holds it out of reach with a warning, “slowly, this time,” and waits until she nods to give it to her. “‘The Amulet of Nero?’ I’ve never heard of it.”

Everyone looks at Kamilah for an answer, then. How is it possible that just when she’s certain the woman can’t possibly look any more worried, she manages all too well?

“That’s because Gaius had hidden it away long ago by then. And for good reason.”

Nadya sips her water — with every cool taste the psychic pain receding further and further into nothing. The sight makes Kamilah’s lips quirk upward and brings her hand to the human’s fevered brow. But her eyes are too sad for it to be a smile.

“If Gaius is looking for the Amulet then things are far worse than I imagined.”

[sushigirlali]

94: “ We can’t go in there… ” + Reylo

Prompt: “We can’t go in there…”

Pairing: Rey x Kylo Ren/Ben Solo [Reylo][ReyBen]

Continuity: Post TLJ

Rating: T

A/N: This one-shot is dedicated to mywifey grlie-girl ❤️💙 I actually wrote the ending first as a short drabble andwasn’t intending to do more, but then a fic bug got into my head and here weare XD Enjoy!

Master list –> AO3 | ff.net | Tumblr 

——————

For: @grlie-girl

Love: sushigirlali

LuminousBeings Are We

——————

“Rey, we can’t go in there…”

“Why not?”

“Because we have no ideawhat kind of condition the Empire left the temple in,” Finn said pointedly. “Weshould do some recon first, make sure it’s safe. I bet Rose could rig the Falcon’ssensors to check for explosives. Knowing her, it would only take a few hours.”

“Finn, I grew up takingImperial technology apart, surely—”

“Scavenging wreckedstarships isn’t the same thing and you know it,” he admonished. “Luke said mostof the Jedi temples were booby-trapped after the purge to eliminate any strayslooking for sanctuary.”

“I know what MasterSkywalker said, but that was over fifty years ago!” she challenged.

“We should still becareful,” he reiterated.

Rey blew out a breath.“Are you really going to try and stop me?”

“Are you really going to ignoreeverything I’ve just said?”

“It’s not that I don’t understandwhere you’re coming from, Finn, I do, but we’re running out of time. We stillhaven’t found a way to shield against hyperspace tracking, so the First Ordercould catch up with us any minute,” Rey reasoned. “You know B—Kylo isn’t goingto stop until he gets what he wants.”

The determination on Finn’s facegradually faded as he realized that she wasn’t going to budge. “At least let BBrun a scan on the entrance,” he implored. “Do that and I’ll stop nagging you.”

“Promise?” she grinned, liftingher communicator to her mouth. “BB-8? I need your help.” 

——————

Once the rocky outcrop was deemed safe,Rey moved past Finn and the droid to inspect the intricately carved entryway.There didn’t appear to be a locking mechanism of any kind, but then the ancientJedi probably hadn’t needed one. What wasthat like, I wonder? To be so sure of your superiority that you didn’t evenbother to lock the front door?

“That’s not fair, Rey,” Lukechided as he blinked into existence beside her. “Whatever their faults, theJedi were guardians of peace and justice for over a thousand generations. Theydeserve your respect.”

Rey glanced at the faint blueoutline of her master. “Weren’t you the one who said they were hypocritical failures?”

“Did I? Well, nobody’s perfect,”he shrugged.

You’dknow, shethought, rolling her eyes.

Whateverhappened to respecting your elders? Luke sighed. Padawans thesedays…

“Stay out of my head,” she glared.

“Stop leaving yourself open,” hecountered. “You need to be mindful of your thoughts, Rey, especially now. I wouldn’tbe surprised if Ben—”

“Don’t say his name,” she cut himoff, stiffly turning away to scrutinize the symbols stamped into the massive stonedoor. It would take a while to decipher them even with Luke’s assistance, butRey was feeling reckless. “I think all we have to do is push, Finn. Care togive me a hand?”

“Is, uh, that what Luke said weshould do?” Finn asked, skirting around the spot she’d been staring at.

“I didn’t ask him,” Rey saidabsently, bracing her shoulder against the left side of the door. “Push onthree.”

“Hey, wait!” Finn scrambled to getin position.

“Ready? One, two, three!” The doorgave easily under their weight, creaking open to reveal a long marble hallway. Theivory walls contrasted sharply with the onyx floor and ceiling, making it seemlike the hallway went on forever before tapering off into shadow.

“Whoa!” Finn exclaimed, lookingboth fascinated and fearful. “Do you think it’s safe?”

What laid beyond the eerie passagewas anyone’s guess, but she wasn’t afraid. “Only one way to find out.” Reyflipped on the penlight attached to her mask and stepped over the threshold. Achorus of voices called out her name in protest, but she ignored them, moving forwarduntil her slight form was swallowed by darkness.

——————

Ten minutes later, Rey regrettedstorming into the temple without consulting her friends first. With only asliver of light to lead the way, it was impossible to see more than a few feetin front of her, forcing her to measure her pace. I’m sure Rose would’ve lent me some gear if I’d bothered to ask, butthe moment Luke mentioned Ben, I just…

The memory of his face, pale andpleading, had haunted her dreams over the last twelve months. Refusing hisoutstretched hand had been the most difficult decision of her life, but he’dleft her few alternatives. It wasn’t fairof him to ask me to choose, but then, I suppose I could say the same of myself.

Still, for a few precious moments,Rey had thought that she’d finally found theone. Someone who understood her, whotrusted her, who…loved her. Not just for her mystical abilities or practicalskills, but for her, for Rey, the lonely scavenger from Jakku.

“This is not going to go the wayyou think,” Luke had warned her, but she’d been so sure of her vision thatBen’s ultimatum had completely…

Oh! Ican see light ahead! Shakingoff her sorrow, Rey shot towards the end of the hall. The shape of a dooremerged a few steps later, outlined by a soft white glow. Every path has an end, she mused, remembering the cave on Ahch-To. Thank the stars.

Skidding to a halt in front of theplain wooden door, she carefully clutched the dull silver nob and twisted itopen. “Oh!” To her surprise, the small circular space was drab and nearly empty;the only thing of note being a raised stone dais in the center of the room.

Hmm,what’s that? Some kind of artifact? Cautiously moving inside, Rey eyed the dark gray granite boxsitting atop the pulpit. Interestingly, the lid was imprinted with the mark ofthe Jedi. “Finn?” she spoke into her communicator.

“Rey! Are you alright?” heresponded at once.

She smiled at his concern. “I’mfine.”

“Are you sure, I can—”

“I found something,” sheinterjected, heading him off.

“A crystal?” he said excitedly.

“I think so. I found a smallcontainer embossed with the Jedi crest. I haven’t opened it yet, though.”

“Do you think it’s safe?”

Goodquestion. Reyclosed her eyes, reaching out to the Force as she focused on the box before her.There was definitely something inside, something powerful, but she didn’t getthe impression that the item was dangerous. “Seems safe,” she relayed, tryingto sound certain for her friend’s sake. “I’m going to leave my com open. Wishme luck.”

“Rey…”

Gingerly touching the top of thebox, she was thrilled when it didn’t immediately explode in her hands. Okay. So far so good. Now, finish it.Taking a deep breath, Rey slowly lifted the heavy lid away. “Finn, you’re notgoing to believe this,” she said, sagging in relief when a large colorlesscrystal came into view.

“We hit another dead end?” he saidtentatively.

“No, dummy!” Rey shouted intriumph. “We did it!”

“We did?!” he laughed at herenthusiasm. “That’s amazing! Now get back here! We’re running out of time,remember?”

“You got it,” she promised, settingthe cover aside. “I’m just going to check it out and then—”

“Stop! Don’t move!”

Rey froze, startled by the roughcommand. “Ben?” she gaped. It had been over a year, but she’d recognize hisdeep voice anywhere.

“Where are you?” Ben Solo demanded,sliding into focus before her.

“N—none of your business!” she stammered,taking in his haggard appearance. Oh, Ben,you look terrible.

“You’re in danger,” he saidfrankly, “of course it’s my business.”

“Since when?!” Rey battled back.“I’ve been in worse situations than this since the last time we met and younever—”

“Ah, Rey?” Finn piped up. “What’sgoing on? Who are you talking to?”

Oh,shit. Reymotioned for Ben to be quiet. “Uh, nothing, Finn! Just talking to myself.” Rey scowledat as Ben’s lips twitched in amusement, slamming the cover back on the box. “I’mcoming back now.”

“Okay, Rey,” Finn replied, lettingher off the hook for now. “See you soon.”

Turning off her communicator, Rey placeda possessive hand on top of the stone box. “Are you here to stop me from takingthis kyber crystal?” she inquired suspiciously. “Because you’re a little late.And incorporeal.”

“I don’t care about the crystal,”Ben said dismissively.

“Then why?”

“I already told you,” he said,coming closer, “I’m here because you’re in danger.”

“How would you know?” she hissed,not backing down. “After all this time, you’ve got some nerve trying to—oh!”

She quieted as he hesitantlyreached out and caressed the brown leather armband encircling her right bicep.“You covered it.”

“Well, I…” she flushed. “I didn’twant anyone asking questions.”

“You didn’t want a reminder, youmean.” Ben looked away, absently touching his own scar. His expression made herheart clench.

“Stop it! You can’t—you can’t justshow up out of the blue and try to make me feel guilty for—”

“That’s not why I’m here,” hereiterated, dropping his hand. “I’m only trying to protect you. Leave the boxand go.”

“I knew it!” Rey cried. “You dowant the crystal for yourself!”

“No, I do not!” he denied. “I’mtelling you, something doesn’t feel right about—Rey, no!”

But she wasn’t listening. I’ve searched too far for too long. I’m notgiving this up. Snatching the rare resource off the pedestal, she was inthe process of shoving it into her bag when the floor suddenly gave way.“Ahhhhh! Ben!” she screamed, falling several stories into a dark pit hidden belowthe chamber.

“Rey!” he yelled, jumping throughthe hole after her. He landed heavily at her side, thrown off balance by thethirty-foot drop. “Rey, are you—oh, Force!”

“Ben!” she gasped, lying flat onher back and buried up to the neck in rubble. “Help…Ben…hit my head…goingto…pass out…Ben…”

“Rey? Rey!”

——————

“Ouch…” Rey gradually lifted herthrobbing head, feeling sluggish and disoriented. “What—where? Ben?”

“Lie still,” he demanded roughly,cradling her battered body to his chest.

“You’re alright,” she sighed,rubbing her cheek against the soft fabric of his shirt. They were sitting onthe hard ground under a rocky overhang, protecting them from the harsh middaysun. Ben’s black cloak is going to getfilthy, she thought idly.

“I’m—? Of course, I’m alright!”Ben said incredulously. “You’re the one who nearly broke your neck!”

“Hey!” she slapped his arm. “Notso loud.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, smoothing hersoft sable hair away from her bruised cheek, “but you scared the hell out ofme.”

“I did?” Rey gazed up at himcuriously. “I can’t quite remember…”

“You were inside a Jedi temple,searching for a kyber crystal to replace the one that we…well, when you grabbedit, the floor collapsed and you fell.” He paused, appearing anguished. “Ithought you were dead for a moment there, but you’d only fainted.”

“You saved me, didn’t you, Ben?”she smiled, eyes bright. “You pulled me out somehow.”

“Well…yes,” he said gently. “I’mnot exactly sure how our bond works, but I was able to—”

“Hey, Rey? Excuse me. Hi. What’sgoing on here, exactly?” Finn cut in.

Rey peered around, only justrealizing that her friends were crowded nearby. They must think I’m crazy, talking to myself like this. “I, uh, hadan accident inside the temple, so I’m feeling pretty dizzy. In fact, I’m noteven sure what I’m saying right now, so, um…feel free to ignore everything Ijust said!”

“Really, Rey?” Poe slanted her alook.

“What?” she said nervously. “Nothing…weirdhappened, or anything. Just an accident, I swear!”

“Care to explain why you’resitting in Kylo Ren’s lap, then?” Poe said pointedly.

Her eyebrows shot up. “Wait, areyou saying you can see him?! How—owww!” Rey held her aching skull between herhands. “Can we do this later?” she said weakly. “I think I might have aconcussion.”

“But what about him?” Poe saidindigently. “We can’t just allow him to—”

“Leave her alone,” Ben growled.“She’s hurt, or can’t you see that.”

“And how do we know that you’renot the cause of it?” Poe charged. “Are we supposed to just take your word forit, Supreme Leader Ren?”

“Oh, come on, Poe, look at her,”Rose intreated. “Does she look afraid of him?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean—”

“Poe, that’s enough,” Finn saidseriously. “You gave me a chance when you had every reason not to. We at leastowe Rey that much. If she wants him here, he stays.”

“Ah, hell, why do you always haveto ruin my fun?” Poe grinned. “But you’re the one who’s going to have to keepan eye on him, okay? We don’t even know if he’s ship-trained yet.”

“I’m not a pet, Dameron,” Bendeadpanned.

“No?” Poe glanced between him andRey. “You sure about that?”

Ben glowered at the commander, butdidn’t contradict him.

“Stop playing with him, Poe,” Reysaid sleepily. “Ben’s staying.”

A dozen emotions flew across Ben’swane face at her words, the most prominent of which was fear.

“You are staying, right?” she said,suddenly more alert. “Ben?”

“I…yes, I’m staying,” he promisedat last.

“Well, there you have it!” Roselinked her arms through Finn and Poe’s. “Come on, laserbrains, we need to getthe Captain’s quarters ready for Rey—Poe don’t give me that look—so she has somewherequiet to recover.” Rose turned to Ben. “Carry her to the Falcon, will you? I want to make sure nothing’s broken.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he answeredautomatically.

“Ma’am, huh?” Rose whistled,dragging the boys with her. “I think I like him already.”

——————

Once they were alone, Rey ran herfingertips over the scar adorning his pale cheek. “Are you really here? Or am Idreaming?”

“I’m here,” Ben confirmed, meltinginto her touch. “I had to set you down for a moment to explain what happened toyour friends and they could see me even then.”

“And they didn’t try to attackyou?”

“No, they did,” he smirked, “butnone of them are Force-sensitive, so it wasn’t really a fair fight.”

“Ben, what’d you do?!”

“Nothing,” he assured her. “Justlocked them in place so that I could explain myself.”

“And the crystal?”

“I grabbed it for you.”

“Thank you, Ben.” Rey twirled asilky lock of his dark hair around her finger, overcome with emotion. “How isthis possible?” she wondered.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe I could be of someassistance?” Luke said, materializing close by.

“Uncle,” Ben acknowledged stonily.

“Nephew,” Luke smiled slightly.“You look like hell.”

“So do you, old man,” Ben repliedwithout heat.

“Rey has a way of keeping me on mytoes, even in this form.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Have we finally found some commonground, then?” Luke said hopefully.

Ben’s shoulders slumped as if agreat weight had been lifted off them. “I suppose we have.” He indicated forLuke to join them.

The legendary Jedi Master satcross-legged across from them, his ghostly figure making no impact on the dustyground. “I believe your bond is responsible for this miracle. When Ben felt thedanger you were courting, he immediately projected himself to your location.But unlike previous connections, he was driven by the desire to protect you morethan mere curiosity.”

“Does that make a difference?” Reyasked.

“Yes. As with anything, intentionis everything,” Luke said sagely. “Courage, fear, love, hate…the feelings behindyour actions always matter. And when a Force-user feels something powerfullyenough, anything is possible.”

“So the fact that he’s here now,in the flesh…” Rey looked at Ben with her heart in her eyes.

“It means that I love you,” Benwhispered.

“Even after all thistime?”

“Yes,” he admitted, asawed by the revelation as Rey.

“You balance each other, and byextension the Force, I can see that now,” Luke said wistfully. “The two of you,together, united…you can bring the galaxy back from the brink.”

“Is that so?” Rey pressed herforehead to her equal’s. “What do you say, Ben? Want to save the galaxy withme?”

“Not really, no.” He chuckled when sheslapped his arm again. “Truth be told, I’d rather run away with you than fightany more battles, but I have a feeling you’ll be able to talk me into it.”

And she did.

——————

Five years later…

——————

“Rey, we can’t go in there…”

“Why not?”

“Because we’ve been inseveral times already and promised to let Finn and Rose figure it out,” Bensaid simply.

“What if they need ourhelp?” Rey said worriedly.

“They don’t,” he assuredher.

“How do you know?” shefrowned. “Rose is really small; she could get hurt.”

“Is she? It’s hard to tellwhenever she starts waving that vicious stun baton around,” he laughed. “Trustme, sweetheart, Rose has got this handled.”

“Well, what about Finn?”

“He fought me andsurvived,” Ben reminded her, tone tinted with respect, “so I think he canhandle giving Grey a bath.”

“But, still…” she said,wincing in discomfort.

Feeling the twinge throughtheir bond, Ben lifted a wide palm to massage the back of his wife’s neck. “Rey,if we’re ever going to take that honeymoon, we need to give our friends thebenefit of the doubt during this trial run. If we can’t trust them to watch ourson for two days, I don’t really see how we could leave him for two weeks.”

“I know, you’re right,”Rey sighed, leaning into his touch, “I’m just being ridiculous.”

“You’re not beingridiculous,” he chided, curling his free arm around her slim waist. “We’re bothnovices here, okay? We’ll figure it out together. All of us.”

“Alright,” she conceded, turningin his hold and pressing her cheek against his heart. “I love you, Ben.”

“I love you too,” hereturned, staring bemusedly at the closed door behind her; Finn and Rose hadstarted speaking in the silliest of baby voices. “Besides, what are the oddsthat Grey figures out how to tap into the Force while we’re gone anyway?”

“Oh, Ben!” Rey stiffened.“I hadn’t even thought of—Mmm!”

Anticipating her reaction,Ben captured her lips in a searing kiss. Don’tthink, just feel.

Rey sank into his warmembrace without protest. No fair, shegroaned, merging her mind with his, allowing his unwavering belief in theirfamily to relieve her baseless fears and bring balance to her errant emotions. But don’t you dare stop.

Never, sweetheart.

Light. Darkness. Abalance. The Force hummed contentedly between them, knowing that the future ofthe galaxy had been secured at last. 

-FIN-

——————

A/N: I wanted to tap intothat period of time in your early 20s where everyone around you keeps treatingyou like a kid despite the fact that you’re legally an adult. As a result, Reyended up kinda moody in the beginning of this fic XD But I’m satisfied when howit turned out! Please review!

[theolddarkmachine]

tell me (i’m ten feet down)

A reason, a continuation, and a reunion.

The first time Shiro’s drunken thoughts find Keith’s name at the bottom of a bottle, he’s twenty-four, and they’re in the middle of a war.

AO3

Rated: M

Tags: Canon compliant, Post S8, 3+1 Format, Mentions of background character but this is 100% Sheith, Angst with a happy ending

A/N: I won’t lie you guys, I am really proud of this. Who woulda thunk that all this craziness woulda been the inspiration I needed to get out of my writing rut. That being said, Curtis does show up in this but much like canon, he is but mere background. 

**************************

The first time Shiro’s drunken thoughts find Keith’s name at the bottom of a bottle, he’s twenty-four, and they’re in the middle of a war.

It’s an errant thing, fuzzed at its edges, and saccharine, filled with all the same heat of warmed honey.

First, he chalks it up as a lingering thought. One that belonged to him, as if he was any different than Shiro was. Made up of the same blood and bone, their desires, their hopes, and their dreams all rang the same. The only difference was, he had never lied.

Not to himself.

Not when it’d counted.

I love you, the thought spirals, adding a new headiness to that of the sweet wine that has stained his lips. Keith had said that.

I love you.

Said it like a saving grace, reverent and feeling. He’d said it like last words. Shiro supposed, at the time, he had probably thought they were.

Now, those three words are circling his mind like the wisp of molten cabernet that has left him feeling pliant and his lips feeling loose, ready to sink ships.

He thinks about how he’d be in his room right now, just the opposite end of the hall from his own. It would take nothing more than a handful of strides, and a sharp rap of his knuckles against the door to see those burning eyes. To ask why.

I love you, he’d said.

The cool metal of a door against his skin wrenches him from his thoughts, surprised at where his feet have led him roiling low in his gut.

Seconds. It takes mere seconds before the door opens, and he’s there. Concerned, and bright, and there.

“Shiro?” Keith asks, voice smoke and tone liquid worry. His hair is rumpled, and his face soft with sleep.

A small yawn cracks his jaw.

“What’s wrong?”

Why? The question sticks to the roof of his mouth, dulled by the dry taste of the wine.

“Did you have a nightmare?” He continues, already moving out of the way to let him in. Behind him, Shiro sees Kosmo lift his head, tongue lolling and tail thumping in greeting.

For a brief, flashing moment, it feels like coming home.

“No,” Shiro manages, shaking his head as he crosses the threshold. He prays that Keith doesn’t miss the slight wobble of his step. A pleasant buzz rolls down to his toes, making them warm as he hears the door slide shut behind him.

“Can I stay here tonight?” He asks, words tumbling, stumbling from his lips before he can wrap them in a first thought.

Not, that he thinks it matters.

The thrum at the base of his skull tells him he would have asked anyway.

“Sure,” Keith answers, as if the sound of the locking mechanism wasn’t answer enough. It stokes a contented purr of heat to life in the center of his chest as Keith walks by him, silently inviting him to follow to the small bedroom through the door at the back of the living room.

It’s cozy.

It’s home, the wine whispers.

But it can’t be, Shiro bites back as he walks into the dark bedroom, lit only by the slices of  moonlight through the shades. We’re in the middle of a war.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Keith asks, nothing more than a darkened shadow as he watches him from the foot of the bed.

“Yeah,” Shiro breathes as he imagines the look that would be twisting his mouth down. “Just didn’t feel like being alone tonight.”

It’s not a lie, so much as a small version of the truth.

Quiet, heavy and thick, rolls between them like a Southern storm. Sticking to his skin, it raises the hair at the back of his neck as he sees the shape of Keith nod.

“Okay,” he says quietly, moving to the side of the bed with the comforter turned down.

“Okay,” Shiro echoes, mirroring the movement from the opposite side of the bed. With the cover turned down, it’s inviting and plush, almost like the weight of the stare on him.

Not looking up, he settles down into the warmth of Keith’s all too familiar scent, eyelids growing heavy almost as soon as his head finds the pillow.

I love you, the ghost of a voice whispers in the dark as the bed dips beneath Keith’s weight.

Why? He wants to ask.

But that one word never comes.

They’re in the middle of a war.

There will always be time after, he thinks as he drifts soundly into sleep.

***

It’s whiskey the second time, and it burns the words right out of his mouth as he sees Keith looking over him through the bottom of his emptied tumbler. The glass warps him, but he still knows the exact look he has fixed on him, if only because it’s one he’s grown to know so well.

Molded of softened galaxies, it questions, and it worries, almost as if Keith continues to fear that he’ll just disappear.

As if it’s something that he might still fear the most.

The thought, carried on the back of a wave of liquid heat, licks its way down his spine and makes him shudder as he drops the glass on the bar counter.

Ice clinks softly against its confines, jostled by the sudden drop. He returns the appraising look, brazen and courageous as his mind warms with his drink of choice.

It’d been a year since that last time he’d let himself slip like this.

Shiro’s twenty-five now, and the war is over, but the rebuilding has just begun.

And Keith? Keith is leaving in the morning.

“What?” He asks, leaning back slightly in his bar stool as he questions Shiro and the stare he has fixed on him.

He knows it must look as if he’s far gone, lost to the mire of swirling whiskey that slightly blurs his vision. Shiro relies on that, because what he’s doing isn’t allowed.

What he’s doing, is memorizing the strength of Keith’s jaw, and the shape of the lines that crease the corners of his eyes. He’s memorizing the exact shade of his onyx waves, and the obsidian flecked galaxies trapped in his gaze.

What Shiro is doing, is being greedy.

It’s a fault of his really. Has always been when it came to Keith. On most days, he can tamp it down.

But today? Today’s the last day, and he feels it burning like acid in his lungs.

“What?” Keith asks again with a bright smile that Shiro adds to his collection before he looks down at his old, worn leather jacket. “Do I have something on me?”

“No,” Shiro answers truthfully, shaking his head as he pushes his Altean arm toward Keith’s still half full beer and moves it away from him. He tries to ignore the way it weighs a bit heavier now.

“I do think I’m cutting you off, though.”

A scandalized gasp, just this side of too breathy, rips from Keith’s chest as he slaps his hand on it.

“Takashi!” He exclaims before laughing, the sound lifting a pink flush to his cheeks. Shiro wonders if it’s closer to crushed peonies or a peaceful sunrise when Keith continues, voice softer.

Intimate.

Like he’s sharing secrets.

“You’re my best friend, you know.”

I love you, that old, pesky memory shadowed, buzzing like an undercurrent to his words. Shaking his head with a breathy chuckle, Shiro stands, ignoring his own gentle stumble as he offers an arm out to Keith.

“You’re my best friend, too,” he says, hoping the edge of it doesn’t sound as wrong to Keith as it does to his own ears.

Don’t go, he wants to add.

“Let me get you home, buddy,” Shiro says instead as Keith throws an arm over his shoulders and sidles off the barstool. His hair tickles his chin as he leans into him.

That’s another thing that Shiro mentally files away as he easily takes on his weight.

He’s grown so much taller.

“You’ve got a big day tomorrow,” he adds as an after thought as he pulls them both to the door.

The walk back to the barracks feels like it goes too slowly, and yet all too quick, filled with the quiet of the late night and the rolling warmth of the alcohol through his veins. It’s volatile, and it mixes like gasoline with the flame of Keith’s skin.

Shiro wonders if it will etch itself into his own, an unseen brand to carry with him over his heart.

Don’t go, he wants to say when they find themselves in front of Keith’s door.

“Here we are,” he says instead, bracing Keith as he reaches for the lock pad at the edge of the door. There’s a smooth sound as it slides open and he steadies himself against the frame. It’s quiet again, but this time it bows beneath the weight of expectation as Keith clumsily turns, pressing his back into the wall as he looks up at him.

“Here we are,” he agrees, pulling his stare languidly down Shiro’s chest and he feels it like claws. They tear and pull at his skin, and he’s certain if he looks down, he’ll see the stain of blood on his shirt.

“Want to come in?” Keith asks once his gaze flicks back up to capture his own.

Yes, Shiro thinks, need pulling like a hook behind his belly button as he shakes his head.

“I shouldn’t. You—”

“Have a big day tomorrow,” Keith finishes, mimicking his voice as he smiles.

Shiro doesn’t miss the way it doesn’t reach his eyes.

Don’t go. It hangs on the tip of his tongue, weighted by the dangerous bite of whiskey. All he needs to do is say it.

Two words, with a world of meaning, and all he needs to do, is say them.

Reaching out, Shiro offers his open palm by way of the words.

“Take care, Keith,” he adds, all too aware of the deep indent that works itself between his eyebrows as he takes in the gesture.

Keith is his best friend, something more than, even, and all he can think to offer him is a handshake.

Mentally, he files away his look of disappointment.

“You too, Shiro,” Keith says quietly, hands balled at his sides. They stay there for one breath.

Two breathes.

Three—

Flames erupt through his chest as Keith’s arms wind around his neck, anchoring him to him in a crushing hug. It steals his breath, and several beats of his heart, before he wraps his own around his waist and keeps him close.

Char aches deep in his chest, turning his bone black and filling his lungs with smoke.

It’s an honorable death, he thinks quietly with a small squeeze.

And then, he’s gone.

Cool air cascades over him, shocking his senses as Keith offers him one last smile.

Don’t go, he wants to plead.

“Goodnight, Shiro,” he says, dipping his head before pushing through the threshold of his suite.

“Goodnight,” Shiro offers, helplessly.

Hopelessly.

It’s met with the soft hiss of the door sliding shut, and the artificial silence of the hall.

All he had to do was say it.

But it never quite felt like the right time.

Moving quickly down the hall, limbs sobered by the interaction, he finds himself in front of his door.

Standing there, he turns his attention back to the other of the hall, a small, distant hope that Keith will be standing there.

He isn’t.

Shiro sighs lowly, lost to the way Keith’s heat is still burning against his skin in a way he’s sure will haunt him for the rest of the night.

It’s only meant to be a year.

There will always be time after, he thinks, as he unlocks his door.

***

Shiro’s twenty-eight, and alone in his study the third time.

It’s a hot sip of bourbon, and a rush of a thought, barely there and fleeting, but there all the same.

It’s a soft breath, and onyx waves that don’t match the brunette waiting for him in his bed.

With a quick shake of his head, he presses the half full glass to his desk, eyeing it as if it had any say to the intrusive thought.

The ever stray thoughts had been bound and stored in a hidden darkness at the back of his mind for two years now, leaving behind a ghost that follows Shiro everywhere he goes.

Even lost to the safety of a soft smile, and chocolate eyes, he still feels it like a weighted stare. All consuming, just like phantom he’d been trying to run from.

To compare the two would be an impossibility.

Keith had been a wildfire, filling his veins with smolder and soot, blackening his insides until there was nothing left, while Curtis was a soft ocean tide.

Cooling and calming, with the ability to pull him away from all the noise and settled a careful peace over his soul.

Exact opposites in near every way, it was easy to push down the pain of his forlorn thoughts and the wickedness of that voice at the back of his mind that licked around his thoughts like poison.

He’s not him, it used to hiss until Shiro had forced it down with a sheer determination.

He may not be him, but at least he’s here, he’d bitten back until the voice would recede back into the darkness.

Keith’s stay on Daibazaal, meant for just a year, had turned to two, and then three, with communications coming fewer and farer between.

Not that Shiro could even blame him for that. He was doing work alongside Krolia and Kolivan rebuilding the Galran empire, and rebuilding the Blades as a humanitarian force. Their breakthroughs had been revolutionary, and far beyond the scope of what any of the coalition had imagined for such a short amount of time.

Shiro understood, but it had left a distinct hole in his life that he hadn’t been able to fill with work, nor post-war efforts, nor burning liquor.

And then he’d met Curtis.

And then what had once been daily phone calls turned weekly phone calls, had become monthly phone calls, until Shiro couldn’t even remember the last time they’d spoken.

What had even been the last thing that Keith had said to him?

That’s right.

Congratulations.

Pressing his fist of papers down beside his glass, Shiro reaches for his holoscreen, life flickering across its surface as he started to search his contacts.

He could call him, he thinks.

Should call him.

Had he ever even been the one to call first, Shiro wonders, as he rolls through the alphabet before finding his mark.

Sucking the warmth of the bourbon from his teeth, his finger hovers over Keith’s name, a barely there space between his digit and the ‘K.’

It would be so easy to close the distance with a quick tap. Can already hear the tinkling chime of the holoscreen ringing and waiting to be answered. Shiro can even hear the soft sound of Keith saying his name.

A judgement weighs heavy on him with the imagined sound, wrapped around his left ring finger in the form of a shining silver band. Looking down at it, he can’t help but notice the way it winks at him with the soft light of his lamp, watching and waiting.

He deserves better, Shiro thinks with a sigh before switching the screen off.

Shiro doesn’t linger too long on the fact that even he doesn’t know which he he means.

Huffing a loud sigh, he pushes the screen away and rubs a hand over his eyes. It’s a futile attempt at scrubbing the bourbon laced thought from his mind.

Instead, he sees the flash of distant galaxies, and a pretty pink flush pressed against the backs of his eyelids.

“Enough,” Shiro growls suddenly, pushing his chair back and standing in one smooth motion. Snatching his glass off of his desk, he quietly pads down the hall to the dark kitchen.

There will always be time after, a small voice offers as he dumps the rest of his drink down the drain.

No, he chides, just a shade off bitter, as he sets the tumbler to the side. There won’t.

It’s the last drink he has.

***

Shiro is thirty the last time, and it didn’t take a drink at all.

They’d all met for the fifth anniversary of their loss, and the universe’s gain, and it’s the first time Shiro has seen Keith since the divorce. It’s a fact he becomes all too aware of when he sees the way Keith’s gaze flicks to his hand, and then back up, softening at their edges before he offers him a handshake.

The motion tugs at a distant memory as he finds his head spinning with the intensity of Keith’s amethyst eyes as he takes his open palm.

His stare burns like wildfire.

It always had.

Lingering with palms pressed flushed for a tick longer than strictly necessary, Shiro pulls away when he felt something a lot like lightning crack against his sternum.

I love you, the whisper tickles at his ear in the same way it had for far too long now.

And then, that was it.

Keith had nodded, expression resigned and all knowing as he walked towards where the others have their heads ducked together to look at something Hunk had pulled up on his holoscreen.

Shiro didn’t miss the way he’d pointedly chose a seat on the other end of the table from where he sat, or the way his tone had been diplomatically pleasant when they’d addressed each other. It had been easy to brush away beneath the conversation with their friends, but dinner didn’t last forever, and soon, they were parting ways once more.

More importantly, Keith was leaving once more.

“Let me walk you to your suite,” Shiro calls after him, stopping him before he can disappear into the night. Time folds around itself as he waits for a response, drawing lines across the back of the faded red leather of his jacket.

It’s a shade he’s only ever been able to associate with Keith.

Looking over his shoulder, Keith sizes him up with a dangerous flash in his eyes. Tension rocks down Shiro’s spine in the balanced moment before Keith’s eyes soften and he shrugs.

“Alright,” he throws over his shoulder as he starts to walk once more. The invitation stalls Shiro, roots him in place just long enough to paint real distance between them once more.

Jogging to catch up, he falls in line with Keith’s steps as they make their way towards the proud standing barracks.

It’s like a long lost memory as they move through the quiet night, side-by-side in a silence that they had never needed to be filled. Almost as if nothing had changed at all.

Electricity picks at his sternum as he tracks the path through a memory of a drunken night, a missed confession, and deep regret.

He wondered, if he truly picked through all of his thoughts, how many times he’d made this walk, only for it to come down to the same results.

And then, they’re standing in front of his door.

“Here we are,” Keith pushes through a smile, echoing what felt like a lifetime ago.

Here we are, Shiro had said last time.

“Can I come in?” He says this time.

Shiro feels the hesitation before he sees it in the way his smile disappears, replaced instead by an electric tension in Keith’s shoulders. It’s palpable, the way it’s roiling under his skin like a lightning storm looking for an escape.

The pause feels like a small eternity before he finally nods, turning away to press his palm to the lock pad. Keith never was good about not letting him in.

He aches with the fact that he’s undeserving of that too.

Not looking back, Keith steps over the threshold, flicking the light on to reveal the all too familiar layout. Dust and the thick scent of mustiness cling to it, but it’s still the same.

Shiro had never been able to let them reassign it.

The soft swish of the door closing behind him seals him into the dizzying feel of deja vu.

“What happened?” Keith asks, not turning to look at him as he speaks, dropping his jacket on the unused couch. Leather hitting the cushions is the only sound that stands between between. The air feels dangerous with the delicate quiet.

It’s just waiting to be shattered.

“What do you mean?” He asks, but he knows. Shiro can feel the absence of his ring like a loosened noose.

It doesn’t choke, but it’s there.

It’s the wrong thing to say, and he knows it as soon as the question drips from his lips. All the evidence he needs is the way Keith turns on his heel with a snarl twisting his lips.

“You know what I mean,” he growls, eyes flashing yellow and expression fierce. In that moment, Keith looks inhuman. Galran.

Beautiful, Shiro’s mind supplies.

The flash is a mere second before his face crumples and he pulls a deep breath between his teeth. Taking a step back, he levels Shiro with a look of composure before he repeats, “what happened?”

The truth of it is, nothing happened. Comfortable, and safe, their relationship was a tepid thing, ending in a mutual split. There hadn’t been any mess to it, which, almost made it worse.

You were never meant for this life, Takashi, Curtis had said before pressing a last kiss to his lips, and his ring to Shiro’s open palm. Shiro had heard the undercurrent of what he’d really meant.

You were never meant to be with me.

He’d tried denying it. To Curtis. To himself.

Shiro had loved him. He truly had. But love, as it turned out, wasn’t enough when you’d already been broken apart and rebuilt by the hands of someone else.

Keith’s mark had been left on him like a signature, like a brand, and no matter how he’d tried to hide it, it still bled through.

“Keith,” Shiro breathes, soft and low. It’s a plea for salvation. For repentance. For everything he’s done wrong. He’s done so much wrong.

They were supposed to have had time.

I was always meant to be with you, he wants to say.

“Shiro,” Keith counters, and it cuts like a warning, sounds like a curse.

“It didn’t work,” is all he manages. It comes out strangled, a wisp of a truth that barely brushes past his lips.

“It didn’t work,” he repeats, trying to put strength into his admission.

“Why?” Keith pushes, folding his arms over his chest defensively. The stance makes him look smaller, even if his gaze burns straight through him.

Shaking his head, Shiro begins to the the room as it begins to shrink around them. The weight of the walls crush into his shoulders, pressing the air from his lungs.

They were supposed to have had all that time.

I love you, Keith’s voice roars at his ear, as if it was from the Keith made of flesh and bone, and not that ghost that had clung to him for so long.

“You have to know,” Shiro all but whispers, dropping his stare long enough to catch his bearings before looking up through his lashes in time to see the way Keith falters.

I love you. Keith had unknowingly haunted his dreams with those three words that he’d never been able to return.

There was supposed to have been time.

I love you.

“I love you,” Shiro lets his words curl around the memory. They fall bluntly between them, landing flat and dull, before there’s a flash of movement and the sharp snap of his head against the door.

It triggers another memory that he can see flash in the yellow of Keith’s eyes.

They stay yellow this time.

“Why,” Keith bites out, snapping the syllable between his fangs. “Why now?”

Heat crushes against his windpipe as Keith presses into him with the flat of his forearm. The pressure catches his words in his throat, forcing him to shake his head against it as he tries to turn his gaze anywhere than the flames that threaten to turn him to ash.

There’s no good answer.

Not one that will make it better, anyway.

Keith leans further into his forearm.

“Always,” he chokes out. Tears catch at the corners of his eyes as his lungs start to burn with the lack of air, but he doesn’t struggle. Doesn’t try to pull away.

Shiro’s done that enough.

“I didn’t say it.” His voice is nothing but scraps beneath the choke of his arm. “Keith.”

There’s a tremble against his throat, then the squeeze of more pressure before Keith hisses and pushes away. Cool air falls on him, filling his lungs as he gasps in an attempt to drag as much of it as he can down into his chest. Anything to put out the wildfire that’s waging a war beneath his bone.

“You didn’t say it,” Keith agrees, eyeing him warily. His stance is animalistic, and ready to flee. “You didn’t say anything at all.”

A lick of thunder, palpable and crushing rolls between them.

“Keith,” Shiro tries once he’s caught his breath only to be cut off.

“I waited,” Keith says lowly, shifting his stare downward. “You needed time, and I waited.”

“And then you left.” He doesn’t mean to say it. It’s a knee-jerk reaction to an infinitesimal moment in a long list of cataclysmic events.

Keith had left once, but Shiro had left time and time again.

“And you let me!” He hurls back, heaving with the burden of his anger. “Then you got married.”

The last word is a sneer, and it buries itself in the middle of Shiro’s chest as he flicks his gaze past Keith’s shoulder and to the off white wall. He’d look anywhere to avoid the cutting edge of hurt that has turned Keith into a weapon of the strongest design.

“So was he the replacement,” he growls, “or am I?”

The blow is low, and aimed for the space between his ribs where it stabs through him like a heated knife. It rakes a gasp, hard and harsh, from deep in his throat as he looks up in time to see the way Keith bites into the meat of his bottom lip.

“Neither of you,” Shiro wraps the answer in a whisper that shatters something in the tension holding Keith’s shoulders so taught. Visibly deflating, he watches the way Keith’s knuckles pull white over bone as he clenches his fists, and then lets go.

A vague flicker of something a lot like hope licks at Shiro’s nerves when he steps forward, and Keith doesn’t move away.

“Why?” The word breaks around the sound of a half formed sob as the black curtain of his hair hangs in his face, covering his eyes.

Why now? Why me? Why?

Shiro hears every question trapped in the hitching breath as he takes another careful step forward.

“There was supposed to be time, and we—” he breathes, stalling at the word, because it never was we, was it?

“I never got it right.”

Liquid lines Keith’s eyes as he looks up, the watery look making him look younger. Untouched by the burdens of a war that had taken him across universes.

There’s a strange brightness there too. Of fear, or of hope.

Maybe they’re on in the same.

“I could never be right,” Shiro finally admits. And that had always been the problem, hadn’t it? It was never about time, or places, or other versions of himself, but him. He had never let himself be the right that Keith needed, because Keith deserved more than he could ever be.

They’d pushed each other to be better and better, until Keith had surpassed him, and Shiro had decided that he deserved the entire universe, and not just a man who had foolishly tried to hold it.

“Be right now.”

It’s a whisper, almost lost to the breadth of the space between them. For a moment, he thinks he imagines it until he sees the flicker of a gaze through Keith’s bangs.

They both move then, meeting with a cataclysmic clash that reverberates through Shiro’s entire being. It shakes him wholly, as he feels something snap within his chest, and then he’s on fire. Burning, his skin is blackening and peeling back from bone, exposing his nerves to the ache of unbridled starlight on his skin.

It tears him down, exposes him, as he feels arms around his neck and the scratch of nails at his nape.

Opening his lips to a heated gasp, they move against each other, lost to the act of discovery as they track searing lines across each others skin. Stumbling blindly together through the living room, they push past the door of Keith’s bedroom.

Shiro hasn’t been in this room in six years, but he can’t help but linger on the fact that he still remembers the exact number of steps.

A moan brushes across his lip as he slides his metallic palm across the small of Keith’s back and drags his other down the back of his thigh. Curling his fingers at the back of his knee, he pulls it up over his hip as he lowers Keith down onto the bed. He does it slowly, carefully, like he’s breakable.

Like he’s precious.

Like everything that he always had been.

Continuing his exploration, Shiro captures snapshots of moments as he lets his hands roam under Keith’s shirt.

Soft skin.

Softer moans.

The fluttering stutter of his breath, half formed around his name.

Pushing the fabric up towards Keith’s chest, he only pulls away long enough to draw it over his head.

“I’m sorry,” he says then.

It’s easier to say into the darkness of the night, but it doesn’t feel like it’s enough.

No, it isn’t enough.

It will never be enough, but it’s all he has to offer as he presses the words like small offerings into Keith’s skin.

He arches blissfully up into his mouth as he traces the expanse of his chest, revering the goosebumps and pink flush that spreads across it in his wake.

“I’m sorry,” Shiro breathes again, fingers brushing across the dark hair below his belly button before they start to make work of his belt. The metal of the buckle clinks loudly in the darkness, joined only by Keith’s escalating breaths as he nips as his hip.

Beautiful, he thinks. Or maybe he says, as Keith let’s out a small whine, his hips rolling upward as he pulls his dark pants away. Brushing his hand carefully against him, Shiro revels in the heavy heat that fills his palm as he licks a stipe along the underside of his length.

“Shiro,” Keith moans when he opens his lips around him, taking him carefully against his tongue. Fingers brush through his bangs as he rolls his tongue. They grip at them when he slowly starts to push closer, taking him further until his nose brushes against the soft skin of his stomach.

I’m sorry, he thinks, as he pushes and pulls, working Keith until he’s writhing with the forceful sounds of his gasping moans and pressing up into the heat of his mouth.

It’s a flurry of movement, burning heat, and the sharp tug at his scalp before Keith comes across the flat of his tongue with the softest of sounds.

Just a breath, like he’s finally letting go.

“Shiro,” he hushes, pulling him with the grip of his hair to crash their mouths together. Licking his own taste from his mouth, Keith moans his name like a quiet prayer, filling each syllable of it with new emotion.

Anger. Hate. Pain. Fear. Joy. Love.

“It’s okay,” Shiro breathes, moving his lips against Keith’s as he speaks. Running his knuckles up over the hardened muscle of his arms, Shiro tracks the path up over his shoulder until he can open his palm against his neck.

Pressed against it, he can feel the quick beat of his heart as he pulls him close, settling his back against the plain headboard of the Garrison issued bed and Keith against his chest. The darkness of the room crushed down upon them, weighted heavy and comfortable as he loses track of time to the slowing cadence of Keith’s breaths.

“I love you,” Shiro whispers after a stolen eternity. “I don’t deserve to, but I do.”

Keith’s hand stretches wide across his chest, pressed just above his heart as he starts to brush the pad of his thumb back and forth against the steady rhythm that it beats.

“Takashi,” Keith says low, brushing his name across his skin. He chases it with the soft press of his lips.

“I love you,” he echoes, voice dripping with the same sincerity that he’s treasured for so long.

It drifts through them, ebbing them slowly into a soft shadow of sleep, and Shiro thinks that maybe this is it. A love to fight for. A love to lose for. A love to cross universes, and lose universes for.

A love to force the fickle hand of time for.

The thought enraptures him as he turns it over and over, smoothing it like a stone until he’s lulled into the basking warmth of sleep.

This is it, he dreams, for hours, or maybe for minutes, until it’s shaken away by the bed shifting beneath Keith’s weight as he rolls away from him.

He does it quietly, stealthily, as if he hadn’t planned on waking Shiro at all.

There’s time, he thinks hazily as he reaches forward, capturing the fine bones of Keith’s wrist in his hand. There’s time now.

“Stay,” Shiro says.

No, he pleads.

“Stay.”

The night is quiet, but alive, writhing like a live wire with the force of his request. It clears the fog of sleep from his mind as he looks up into Keith’s eyes, lit by the sinking moon.

Stay. He should have said it then.

So Shiro says it now.

He knows it isn’t enough, but it’s an infinitesimal start to an eternity he’s all too willing to spend making it enough.

“Please,” he breathes when he feels the sudden tension of Keith’s hesitation. It starts as a moment, that stretches into a breath, and finally into a contained lifetime before he feels Keith turn back toward him.

“Okay,” he says into the night, dropping back into the mattress and leaning back into the burning, aching space of Shiro’s chest.

“Okay,” Shiro hums, as he holds him close once more.

***********