#parabatha : kazheir asghar

[halothief]

- ̗̀ five times prompts! ̖́ -    ╱     accepting (specify muse).    @parabathai​ — five times kaz almost asks ava about her scars and the one time they do.

— i —

there’s a certain purity in simplicity, and a playful game of spoons is never a remiss. so what if kaz isn’t aware she’s playing this particular brand of annoying. that’s half of the fun, isn’t it?

the spoon meets the wooden bench. ava dives for it, nimble and sharp. yet somehow, he still catches her by the wrist. 

his fingers linger on the thenar of her palm; on the knick she doesn’t like to look at, for all the bad memories she has of the time before.

ava drops the spoon.

ava pulls away like she’s been burned.

— ii —

sometimes, when she’s in the training room belting the hell out of the makeshift dummies, she feels those familiar silver eyes trailing up her spine. her body lights up like a livewire, and she wonders when she turned into a total loser at the simple feeling of a certain stare. 

ava knows when he reaches the divot between her shoulder blades. that gaze always seems to catch on the perfect ring. she thinks about it — about how all the warrior nuns before her were fully conscious as the halo ripped into their flesh. she shudders, and for the first time in her life, feels relieved she was dead.

— iii —

ava learns there’s a certain rawness to the way kaz approaches things, as if he’s lived a whole life being someone else and is done with it. ava learns they really doesn’t like it when she goes ghost — the way their hits never meet their mark, no matter how hard he tries. she watches him, watches the way the sweat drips down that lovely tan throat, and oooh boy is she thirsty.

in all the stupidity of his distraction, a hit lands. ava’s here one second, gone the next, floored on her back with a groan. 

     ‘ jesus christ, you hit like a winery tour. ’

kaz grins, holding out their hand to pull her back to her feet. she hops in place, but something draws those silver eyes again, this close up. a thumb presses to the faded scar above her brow, and she knows they’re curious — can see it in the way they look at her like she’s some kind of bizarre conundrum.

ava shrinks back, faux bravado firmly fixed in the smile that doesn’t meet her eyes.

     ‘ best of three? ’

— iv —

those hands — they’re everywhere — her hips, her thighs, her spine. kaz catches their fingers in her messy hair, the sharp tug enough to turn her eyes pitch black, her body a pile of overstimulated nerves. she kisses him, because why the hell wouldn’t she when his mouth is right there and free for the taking. 

with his body trapped beneath her bracketed thighs, shirts long-abandoned on the wayside, she feels powerful. she feels divine. she feels like nothing could bring her down from the high. everything’s fever hot and a long time coming.

— until those clever fingers touch the mottled skin just above her navel, a little bit to the right. 

three things happen in quick succession: 

ava freezes, goes limp as if struck by a quick blow to the head; 

kaz catches her and her thousand yard stare;

she comes back into her body, only for her body to go — through the mattress, the floor, the kitchen bench — all the way to her final destination, the cellar.

finding her way back to kaz’s bedroom brings new meaning to the walk of shame.

— v —

kazheir asghar is decidedly too much; too pretty, too clever, too good with a sword, and too much of everything ava silva wants. she looks at them, and thinks about what things might be like when all of this is over — when the false angel is dead, when the halo is no longer needed, when she’s just an ordinary person with a second chance at life.

will kaz still be around?

they grab her hips and pull her close, and ava wonders when things became so tactile. their thumb brushes the scar above her brow, and ava wonders when that became okay too.

+ the one time they do

     ‘ you can ask me about it. ’

there’s a bed. there’s moonlight. there’s skin. ava’s half drunk on love and the aftershock of pleasure, and can feel the way kazheir’s hand catches on the long thin stripe along her spine. those warm hands stop in their path at her words, withdrawn only to be replaced by a warmer set of lips. he kisses down along the horrible thing — the scar that ended her life just below the one that started it again. 

ava wonders if god’s a poetic symmetry kind of guy. it’s textbook symbolism. flagrant and flamboyant.

     ‘ what happened? ’     kazheir finally asks, mouth still a mark upon her skin.

     ‘ there was an accident, ’     she begins. it’s the first time she’s told this story, the story of her mother’s life and her body’s death.

[...]

they stay up until the sunrise, kazheir’s hand pressed to the divot between her shoulders. 

right in the middle of the halo. 

right where it belongs.

[halothief]

` ☆ @parabathai feat. kaz for ava : kissing prompts.

there’s something different about him, which sounds like a total cliché because her entire life these days is filled with different, but still — there’s something different about him. like seriously, who walks into a room full of badass nuns who spend their entire lives learning how to deck people and acts like it’s another day at the office? yet here he is, kazheir asghar, making himself right at home in one of the quieter training rooms. ava has a funny thought for a second that if god were more heavy-handed with his subjects, he would probably be just as unhappy about kaz standing in a church as he'd be about her acquiring the halo.

or maybe not? things were sort of working out for the best, weren’t they? who knows. this shit was crazy and defied all reason. that, and fate’s a messy word to throw around when you lived more than half your life trapped in a shitty cot bed.

which brings her back to the present, and wow, she didn’t know she could get winded like that with just one punch. a sharp giggle is pulled out of her as she finds herself flat on her back. kaz is looming close, and she’s pinned, and oh, he’s kind of cute, isn’t he? not that it’s the first time she’s had this thought, but it’s certainly the first time they’ve been in close proximity when she’s had this thought. 

hand gripping hand, she’s pulled to her feet, grin fixed and eyes bright from the workout. the hand lingers. her bottom lip sneaks between her teeth.

     ‘ so... are you strictly business, mr darkside? ’     ava rocks on her heels as she looks up at him, all mischief and mayhem as her motormouth lack-of-filter thing does its usual job.     ‘ — or is pleasure okay too? ’

( what? they’re pretty. can’t blame a girl for trying. sue her. )

kiss me and you'll find out, @parabathai​ says with a smirk.

oooh, isn’t that fun? they’re totally flirting with her! and he doesn’t subscribe to the jedi code of purity? awesome.

     ‘ sure. why not? ’

a cute person offers to kiss her? as if she’ll pass that up. carpe diem, live-laugh-love, second chances at life, and all that. ava stands on her tippy-toes, amused by their height difference as she pulls them closer by the collar of their vest. her lips meet his, and wow he has a lovely mouth. hallelujah, praise be to god. is that a choir singing?

when she withdraws, ava taps a hand against his chest, palm flat and eyebrows wiggling. they’re totally into me.

     ‘ i suppose i could keep you around outside of business hours. ’