#oughough i love them your honor

[coulson-is-an-avenger]

jade & Serena hugging 4?

Serenade hugging #4 - comforting hugs. AAAAAA TY FOR THIS ONE SAHAR THIS WAS A REALLY REALLY FUN PROMPT FOR THEM UWU🥺

Slight context for this snippet bc these are ocs lol: Jade and Serena are both anomalies (aka people with some sort of supernatural ability), who are currently living together with a couple other similar folks to avoid Discovery™️. Serena is basically an empath, and Jade can manipulate darkness (most relevantly; to hide herself). They’re also pining idiots pls enjoy

It isn’t that hard to find Jade once Serena knows how to look.

Maybe it’s practice, maybe instinct, or maybe it’s the humming power beneath Serena’s skin that broadcasts her peers’ emotions into her head like a broken radio, a skill that admittedly, makes it much easier to track down a woman wrapped in shadows.

Jade’s emotions in particular have always been a particularly interesting subject to Serena. As much as Jade excels in hiding her physical form when so desired, her emotions have never been difficult to access, and Serena has found that she always carries her feelings so tightly, so protectively, as if she can’t bear to let anyone else know how deeply they exist.

Jade thinks of herself as the leader of their little cell of outcasts, Serena knows, and as much as they all look up to her for it, it also makes her very anxious to appear too… affected. She can’t bear to slip up, and the perfectionism follows her, quite fittingly, like a shadow.

Serena’s grown to know the tug of it well, and, over time, she’s learned how to follow it. To trace the echo of Jade’s evergreen courage even after she disappears from sight, following the footprints of her isolation and her responsibility and her fortitude and her quiet pride. She follows it now, breathing in the lingering trace of her friend’s heart, and letting her feet follow.

She breathes in deeply as she comes to a stop before the panel leading up to the roof of the apartment, readying herself for the climb. She supposes this little escapade makes sense; Jade has always loved the stars.

Once she tugs herself up onto the rooftop, she looks around, feeling the echo much closer now, and yet still not seeing the woman she seeks. She does her best to focus, honing in on the sensations as they exist presently, and steps forward, approaching a section of the roof, tucked up right beside a protruding wall that houses another story of apartments.

The emotion in the air goes taught as she approaches, squeezing with fear, but then Serena whispers Jade’s name into the silence, her voice gentle as can be, and the anxiety dissipates like fog in the sunlight.

There’s a small chuckle, a warm exhale of sound, and then the shadows unwrap from around Jade’s shoulders, darkness falling away to reveal the shape of her, tucked in the corner. She wipes the lingering ink of the night from her hands and looks up, revealing a dark brown face and kind, weary eyes. Her eyes are always so dark, Serena notes, dark enough as to be nearly black, no matter the lighting. And oh, how those eyes always see her.

“Serena,” Jade says, holding her name like it’s precious, cupped in those kind palms.

Serena takes a seat next to the extraordinary woman on the tiles of the roof, and looks out at the sky.

“I thought you might be up here,” She says, quietly. “Stargazing?”

Jade looks at her for a long moment before her eyes dart away and she curls her knees up to her chest.

“Something like that. How do you always find me like this? That’s not something many people can do.” She’s trying to derail, to delay the inevitable, but Serena can’t help but answer her.

“Comes with the trade, I think. Feelings can be sort of like a beacon.” She shrugs slightly, drawing her own legs closer.

Jade nods, exhaling a snort. “Makes sense. Not even Blake knows how to keep up with me like this.”

Serena smiles. “Well, someone has to pick up his slack.”

Jade pffts and smiles, and the silence that falls over them is companionable while it lasts. For a moment there’s just the pair of them, shoulder to shoulder, sharing the autumn breeze.

Jade finally sighs and looks resolutely away.

“I was just… worried,” She admits, so quietly it’s almost hard to catch. “You can see the police and scientists from here, you know, the people who wanna pick apart our brains and- and blame all their problems on our gifts,” She looks down at her hands, holds them close to her. “I’m not worried for me, though. I’m good at escaping things like that, always have been, but there’s, there’s three of you now, and I don’t— what if I can’t—”

“Jade,” Serena lets the name fall like a prayer, interrupts Jade’s shuddering breath. “You aren’t responsible for us, you know that. We trust you, sure, I know I-” Her voice quiets without her permission. “I’d follow you anywhere, but you don’t have to carry that weight. None of us asked you to.”

Jade hugs her knees to her chest, shakes her head and rocks gently. “I know. But if I don’t…” She shakes her head, ventures on. “I’m so used to losing family. I don’t want to lose you too.”

Serena aches for her, feeling the pooling depth of loss that stretches down into the core of Jade’s history, the loss that has swallowed up so much of her life. Serena reaches out and takes her hand.

“You won’t lose us, Jade.” She smoothes her thumb over the woman’s knuckles, moving back and forth, brushing against her ace ring every now and then. “And you’re not alone. You won’t be.”

Jade turns her eyes on Serena with such a cautious reverence that it freezes Serena in place, and then strong arms are around her waist, and Serena’s sliding her hands over the gorgeous planes of Jade’s back, and Jade’s cheek is pressed against her own, breath hitching against her chest, and Serena closes her eyes and pours every bit of love she has into the embrace, squeezing the other woman and hoping she can feel just how loved she is for her vulnerability, not just her strength.

“Thank you,” Jade whispers into her hair, just a breath, before pulling back from the embrace and steadying herself on Serena’s shoulders. Serena frees a hand from behind Jade’s back to reach up and take one of her hands and press a careful kiss to it; meeting Jade’s eyes as she does so, her own expression reverential.

Serena fancies she can feel a flicker of affection in Jade’s heart as the woman blinks and then nods, bringing her kissed hand to her chest and holding it there, cupped against her heart.

“Not alone,” Jade says quietly, her words the echo of a promise she had given to Serena when they first met, and Serena is happy to gift the words back with open arms.

“Never alone.” She agrees.