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revasserium · 21 days

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loving you was red

sylus; 4,627 words; fluff, banter, no "y/n", mild spoilers for sylus's main storyline, subtle but not so subtle flirting, nicknames (kitten, little crow), kinda enemies to lovers

summary: the beginning of everything, all in shades of red

a/n: this was supposed to be fun lil drabble; alas, that's not what it turned out to be, but i hope you guys enjoy it nonetheless. i had fun with the banter in this one u__u

001. fire and brimstone

The city below is a shatter of broken stars, and from up this high, none of it seems real. You cannot reconcile the sight of all those scattered, pinpoints of light with the lives you know shine behind them. You cannot imagine sitting in your living room, scrolling through your news-feed, waiting for the water to boil for late night ramen.

“Trouble sleeping?”

You congratulate yourself on not wincing, on keeping perfectly still.

Sylus joins you by the window, his arms looped lazily in front of his chest, his dark silk robe falling open to reveal his chest. You keep your eyes resolutely on the technicolored skyline.

“Yeah,” you say, feigning a yawn, “just something about being held captive against my will that just… messes with my circadian rhythm, y’know?”

Sylus chuckles, the sound rumbling through him, low enough to make you shiver.

“Don’t tell a girl like you still needs someone to sing her to sleep.” He’s teasing. You know he is, and yet you can’t keep the heat from clawing up the back of your neck. You scowl, chewing on the insides of your cheeks.

“What gives you that idea?” you ask, still in your flailing attempt to seem calm, seem collected.

"Nothing in particular… just… the twins found a shocking number of plushies in your room so —”

"You had them go through my stuff?” you round on him, glaring, your fingers clenched into fists.

Sylus shrugs, peering at you out the corner of his eye, an amused grin ticking at his mouth.

“Feisty little kitten, aren’t you? Though for what it’s worth — they didn’t find much on how your Evol works.”

You huff, turning back to the floor to ceiling windows, knitting your arms tightly across your chest.

“You heard the shopkeeper — we have to — to…” you trail off, the words caught in the back of your throat like peach pits, hard and large and impossible to stomach. You flush, biting down on your lips.

“To what, hm?” Sylus sounds amused, and it’s this more than anything that spurs you onwards.

You turn to glare at him, “To not hate each other!”

Sylus cocks a single, arched brow.

“So, do you?”

You blink, feeling the ever-present heat prickling into your cheeks as you stare resolutely at the skyline outside. From this distance, Linkon City could be any other city, with it’s towering skyscrapers and twinkling lights.

“Do I what?” you ask, your voice softer as you try to pinpoint the exact location of where you used to live.

“Hate me.”

You turn; in the dimness, all you can see of Sylus is his firebrand eyes and his stone-cut features. The dark curve of his mouth and the sharp jut of his nose. When he turns to meet your gaze, you can barely stifle your gasp — his eyes are so red, so deep and strange.

“Brimstone…” you say, without really thinking about it.

Confusion flickers across his vulturine features.

“Hm?”

You lick your lips, feeling the dryness that had since collected there.

“Brimstone,” you say again, shaking your head and averting your eyes, only for Sylus to catch your chin in his fingers and force you to look back at him, to be swallowed up by his gaze, “it’s… something from… the ancient religions. It’s — back when they believed in gods and monsters, people would use the word brimstone to signify divine wrath…”

His finger slacken on your chin and you let your head fall as he takes half a step away.

He lets out a mirthless laugh, his eyes faraway as he stares out at Linkon City, laid out before his feet.

“I can’t say I know much about gods, but… monsters?”

You swallow, feeling the imprint of his fingers on your skin.

He turns back to look at you, his gaze soft, but no less startling. You feel an unnamable fire frisson up your spine and skitter back down again.

“Monsters are very, very real,” he leans in, closing gap between your body and his, till he has you nearly caged against the cool glass of the penthouse windows. He shifts to brush away a strand of hair, tucking it behind your ear with too-gentle fingers. His next words are whispered, his voice in a register so low it almost sounds like the shadow of sound — he leans in, his lips brushing by your cheek till you can feel the heat of his breath right next to your ear —

“And they look just like you and me.”

002. lipstick

“So at the auction —”

“Just do as I say, and you’ll get what you want.”

You narrow your eyes in the mirror, staring at the reflection of Sylus fastening a pair of ornate silver cufflinks to his impeccably tailored suit.

“Give me one reason to trust you,” you say.

Sylus looks up, a hand still on his cuffs as he meets your gaze in the mirror, unflinching.

“Since when have I ever asked you to trust me?”

Over on the dresser, Mephisto lets out a soft caw that sounds almost mocking. You swirl to glare at him and he has the decency to flap his mechanical wings, shuffling until he’s hidden from view behind Sylus’s shadow.

Sylus laughs, “Alright — settle down, little crow.”

You frown, “Little crow? What happened to kitten?”

Sylus shrugs, “Changed my mind. Figured little crow fits you a bit better. You know — loud, defiant…” he smirks as his voice trails off.

You don’t try to hide your consternation, “Often associated with murder?”

Behind him, Mephisto lets out an indignant ca-caw.

You try to sidestep Sylus, only to find yourself trapped against the mirror by his strong arms. He grins down at you, his canines flashing over his lower lip as he cocks his head.

“Like I said, fits better, no?” he asks.

You stare up at him, trying to make out what he’s thinking behind those firelight eyes of his.

“Let me go — I still need to finish my makeup,” you say, pressing a palm to his chest. You try not to think about the firmness of his muscles beneath your touch, or the heat of his skin, even through all these layers of clothing.

“What else is there?” he asks, his eyes flickering over your features; you shiver, feeling the weight of his gaze as it sweeps over your face like a sudden flare of heat, “you look pretty finished to me.”

You lick your lips, and feel a strange, savage satisfaction at the tick of his eyes down to your mouth, at the way his pupils dilate, at how they track the slow progress of your tongue as it laves across your bottom lip before disappearing back into your mouth.

“Lipstick,” you say, trying not to sound too smug.

Sylus puffs out a laugh before reaching over to the low dressing table and grabbing a tube of lipstick. He uncaps it with a finger, and twists out the color without once breaking your gaze. Vaguely, you feel your stomach tense, and you ponder the unfairness of this one, single act — how could he look so stupidly attractive doing all this when he’s got you trapped here? Like some sort of exotic songbird in a golden cage.

“T-that’s not the color I wanted —” you say, but even to your own ears, you don’t sound convincing.

Sylus’s smile slackens into a lopsided smirk as he tilts your chin up to press the cream of the lipstick to your lips, dragging it delicately across one way, then back the other.

“Press your lips,” he says, his voice softer and gentler than you’ve ever heard it before.

You do, feeling a stifling thump-thump-thump rise up to beat against the back of your throat as his eyes flick down to watch you.

“Mm… as I thought, this color looks great on you,” he says, pulling back to admire his handiwork.

You feel the air rush back into your lungs in a single, searing breath, caught between the urge to brace your arms against your knees and heave, or to drag your hand across your mouth to rid yourself of the lipstick.

You do neither though, because at that moment, the twins call from outside the door —

“Auction’s about to start!” says Luke.

“Hope you’re both ready!” says Kieran.

Sylus straightens, capping the lipstick with a sharp click. You force yourself to calm down, to focus on your breathing — four counts in, seven counts out.

“Are you ready?” Sylus asks, his tone once more whiskey-smooth and just as potent.

You roll back your shoulders and give a quick nod, speaking to yourself just as much as you’re speaking to him —

“Sure. Let’s get this over with.”

003. blood and roses

There’s blood on your hands and blood on the pavement. The world shimmers around you in wildfire and smoke.

“… so… so much blood…”

“You can’t die here —” Sylus’s voice cuts through the memory like a struck chord, resonating inside you till it’s the only thing you can hear, “that life you owe me? It’s not your time to pay it back yet!”

You reach for him, and the moment you feel your palms connect, a bead of heat pulses out from the center of your clasping hands. Your skin is slick with sweat and blood, but his hand beneath you is oddly cool and smooth.

The charred ashes of the beaten Wanderer fall around you like flakes of misbegotten snow; you wave your free hand to keep the pieces from falling into your eyes. A river of light seeps from the Deepspace Tunnel into the center of your chest, glowing brighter and brighter until it coalesces into a familiar gem-like shape.

It comes to a rest between your fingers seconds before it cracks, the light flickering once along the seam before going out.

“It — the Aether Core —!”

“It’s power is yours now. Why’re you so surprised?” Sylus doesn’t let go of your hand, but realizing this, you pull away first, and he makes no move to stop you.

“D-did you know?” you ask, unable to keep the accusation from seeping into your voice.

“Does it make a difference?”

You clamp down hard on your bottom lip, weighing the answers. It isn’t until you reach up to absently card your hand through your hair that you notice — your wrist and his, linked together by a tangible string of red, pulsing power.

You gasp, “W-what —?”

“Tch.”

You wave your wrist, watching as Sylus’s hand follows the movement. Your cheeks darken as he looks away, sighing audibly.

“If you planned this —!” but your words are cut short by a sudden wave of vertigo — the world spins around you and for a second, all you can see is the pinwheeling stars above you, the bright, pulsating edges of the Deepspace Tunnel, and then — everything fades to a sweet, merciful darkness.

You wake up to the smell of roses, and a warm body next to yours. Groaning, you try to shield your eyes from the light filtering through the massive windows.

It takes you a second to orient yourself, and to realize why your wrist seems so heavy as you try to lift a hand and rub at your eyes.

“Looks like you’re up early, though Mephisto still has you beat.”

You blink blearily up at Sylus, sitting next to you in bed, his back propped up on a fortress of pillows, a tablet in one hand, the other still linked to your wrist, half-raised to your face.

You squeak, ducking down to hide beneath the covers, hurriedly wiping at your eyes and your mouth, a mix of horror and embarrassment mounting in your stomach as you realized you must have been drooling in your sleep.

“What did you do to me?!” you demand, pulling back the covers when you’re somewhat certain that you don’t still have drool-marks at the corners of your mouth.

Sylus, for his part, looks only mildly ruffled by your sudden stint back to wakefulness. He takes his time setting down the tablet with his free hand and picking up the steaming mug of black coffee.

“You fainted,” he says, as if that explains everything, “after the resonance worked. Though it makes sense you would — after finally getting the Aether Core and all —”

“No! I mean —” you gesture desperately between you, the pristine linen sheets twisting around you both like waves on a white-sand beach, “how did I — we — get here? Who changed me?” you ask, your cheeks flaring up even as Sylus sips at his coffee, seemingly content to watch you sputter yourself dry.

“Really? After all that, the first question you have is who changed your clothes?” Sylus asks, a distinct tone of mockery clear in his every word.

“Shut up! You know what I mean!”

“Do I? I don’t think I do — you’re going to have to be a bit more specific.” He grins, all splitting lips and too-white teeth. You stare, dumbfounded at his nonchalant expression before huffing and slumping back into your own pile of pillows. You blink, throwing up your free hand to shield yourself from the too-bright light of sunrise, shining straight into your eyes.

Wordlessly, Sylus taps a few buttons on his tablet and the windows darken, filtering out the harsh morning light, leaving the pair of you in a dim, yet luminous shadow.

“I just —” you cut yourself off before you can ask yet another mundane question, and finally, after a few minutes of mulling over what exactly it is you want to ask, you settle on, “what now?”

Sylus shrugs, casting his eyes back down at his tablet, setting his half-drunk cup of coffee on the bedside table.

“Now, we do whatever we want. You have your Aether Core and I have mine,” he lifts up his wrist, shaking yours in the process, “and we try to figure out how to manage this.”

“And if we don’t?” you ask dryly.

Sylus chuckles, “Then, we figure out a way to live with it.”

You roll your eyes involuntarily, “Ugh. Of all the people to be stuck to…” you mutter to yourself. And though you’d said it quiet enough for it to be an afterthought, both of you knew Sylus had been too close not to hear.

He scoffs, pulling you close, tipping you off balance so that you topple face-first into his chest.

“Wake up, little crow,” he says, his tone caught halfway between mocking and maleficence, twisting your face till you’re forced to stare out of the window at the dulled-out skyline below.

“You think you’re so great, being a Hunter and getting rid of Wanderers,” he says, a sharp venom seeping into his words as he speaks, and slowly, he punches a button the tablet that makes the windows un-tint themselves.

You watch as the sunrise bleeds itself dry over Linkon City, the harsh, morning light slicking the entire city in a vapid, orange glow.

“The brighter the light, the darker the shadow — do you really think that just because you and your little Hunter friends are out there killing Wanderers and saving the world, that there isn’t the a need for people like us?” Sylus pushes you away from him. It’s not a harsh move, but it’s not exactly gentle either.

And again, you can’t help feeling the imprint of his fingers, almost as if burned into your skin as your rub at your jaw.

It’s when you turn to glare at him that you meet his gaze and find him staring at you with a look that’s much more haunting than ghost. Much more longing than loathe.

“Well… you’re one of us now. And newsflash, little crow — sometimes, the world just doesn’t want to be saved.”

You let his words sit with you, like river stones, hard and smooth, feeling them sink slowly down the length of your throat to settle somewhere in the wide basin on your stomach. You avert your eyes, and it’s only then that you notice the bouquet of flowers sitting on your bedside table.

“What are the roses for?” you ask, reaching out your free hand to run a thumb along a single, velvet petal. It comes off at your touch, and you watch it fall against the unmarred white marble of the table top.

“A little present,” Sylus says, waving you away, “a thank you - for a job well done last night.”

“You don’t need to thank me,” you say, unable to keep the bitterness from your tone, “it’s not like I had much of a choice.”

“You did,” Sylus says, “you could’ve killed me. And you didn’t.

“I could still kill you now,” you say, though there’s no conviction in your voice at all. Instead, you reach out to tug at another dark red petal. It comes off just as easily as the one before.

“You could. But you haven’t. And don’t you think that warrants a reward?”

004. dawn

“I’ve never hated you, you know.”

You frown, squinting against the early-morning light.

It’s not the first time you’ve found yourself waking up next to him, and you think it won’t be the last. You flip onto your side to face him, feeling a familiar rush of heat crest into your chest as you come nearly nose to nose with him.

Sylus barely even flinches, cocking an eyebrow before reaching out to tug a stray piece of hair from your face.

“What?” you ask, even though you know full well what he’d said. So maybe, you just wanted to hear it again — is that so terrible?

“Hn,” Sylus grins, rolling onto his back to cast his eyes up at the ceiling, “I said you’re getting drool on my pillows.”

You squeak, fumbling to wipe at your face before the realization hits, and you jerk up, pouting.

“That’s not what you said!”

“Then you did hear,” Sylus casts you an amused glance.

You lick your lips, the soft cotton of sleep still muffling the world such that everything except him feels strangely out of focus.

“I — I heard… a word here and there —”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a terrible liar?”

You scowl, whipping around to pin him with a stare, “Where I come from, that’s not a bad thing.”

Sylus’s eyes tick towards you, his expression amused as he appraises you, and not for the first time, you feel yourself go warm beneath the solar-storm fixation of his attention. Like this, you can feel the air between you blistering, as oil to a lit fuse, as his eyes travel over the planes of your face, the curve of your shoulder, the thin silk strap that had since slipped to cling to your upper arm.

“No? I suppose not,” he concedes, pushing himself up, reaching over the bedside table to push at a small button on the far side. Somewhere else in the penthouse, you can hear an alarm bell ring.

“What’s that?” you ask, pointing.

“Coffee,” he answers, and you fall silent again, turning your face away from him to look back at the heartbreak city, carved in shadows against dawn’s liquid light. It’d only been — what — a week? A bit more? And yet you can’t bring yourself to see the city the same.

Nothing has changed — not really.

But everything’s different, you think, as the door on the far side of the bedroom cracks open and Luke peers in with a smug smile and two steaming cups of coffee.

“Black for the boss, and milk and sugar and all the trimmings for the little crow.”

Sylus tsks, a frown digging itself into the space between his eyebrows, his eyes flashing as he takes the two cups. Luke, to his credit, jerks back, dancing out of Sylus’s reach.

“Ah — sorry, sorry — didn’t know that was a special nickname,” he says, making a show of stooping to apologize, though neither of you miss the jesting crow beneath his voice.

“Out.” Sylus orders, and Luke doesn’t waste time scurrying from the room, cackling beneath his breath like a gleeful child.

You take your cup from his hand and give it a dainty sip, adjusting yourself against the pile of pillows.

“What? I thought that nickname was your idea.”

“It is,” Sylus says, relaxing back. The tether between your wrists sits slack and nearly invisible on the sheets between you. He stares down at the dark liquid surface of his own cup before turning to smirk at you, “doesn’t mean it was meant to be shared.”

You clamp down on another wash of heat, threatening your cheeks as you sink a bit deeper into the luxurious bedding. You wonder if you’ll ever be able to sleep on sheets this nice again once you figure out how to break the tether between you and you’re finally allowed to go home.

“Why say it where other people can hear if you didn’t want them to pick it up?” you shoot back, determined to get the last say, at least in this.

Sylus sets down his cup, cocking his head to look at you, “It’s not a joke if there’s no one around to hear the punchline.”

You level him with a glare, “Is that all I am to you? A joke?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem if I’m just your captor, right?”

You open your mouth to retort, only to find your voice stolen by the sight of him, kissed gold by the rising sun. You’ve never been one to obsess over beauty but even you can’t pretend to be unaffected.

Like this, he looks hewn from marble, a statue at the loving hands of a besotted sculptor — a lazy god rendered into silk and stone. He is smooth skin and burning eyes and a jawline that might’ve been turned on a diamond cutter’s lathe. There’s a base carnality in the way he looks at you (and looks at you) — his gaze so penetrating that somehow, you don’t think you’ve ever been seen this way before.

There’s a damnable elegance to him, even as his lips twitch up into a tell-tale smirk.

“What?” he asks, leaning forward just an inch, but the distance feels exaggerated by your closeness, such that suddenly, you’ve got to lean back to look into his face. He licks his own lips languorously, and you feel your chest tighten on a torque, caught in the turn of his smile.

“Kitten got your tongue?” he asks.

You shake yourself, shifting back slightly, “You’re mixing your metaphors,” you say, trying to keep your eyes from straying back to his face.

“They’re my metaphors to do with as I wish. So. Aren’t you going to answer?”

“Answer what?”

“What you think you heard me say, right before you woke up.”

You cup your palms around your coffee mug, feeling its heat seep steadily into your skin. There’s a familiar tingle at the tips of your ears and you know you’re already blushing.

Stupid coffee, you think, trying hard to school your expression into a frown, stupid Sylus, you add to yourself, taking a long sip and biting back your sigh of relief at the mundane magic of caffeine and sugar.

“Does it matter what I think?” you sidestep the question.

Sylus doesn’t miss a beat, “If it didn’t, would I have asked?”

The torniquet in your chest twists tight enough to make your stomach flip as well. You chew on your bottom lip, mulling over your answer.

“I never hated you…” you say, finally, your voice barely more than a whisper or a breath. And even as the words fall from you like so many rose petals, you’re unsure if you’re repeating his words back at him or making an admission of your own.

Sylus only shifts back to his side of the bed, leaning against his pile of pillows. Your wrists sit atop the sheets, inches apart, and yet you can’t deny the dull pull of gravity between you, as if something beneath your skin is itching to be close to his.

You turn to face him, twisting your fingers in your lap.

The quiet softens around you both, settling until you let out another long breath.

“So…” you drag out the word as Sylus glances up at you, expectant. His eyes flicker with the fire of the rising dawn behind you, and in them, you can see the shadow of yourself, painted in darkness against the light.

“What’s for breakfast?” you ask.

Sylus chuckles, his head listing sideways as he studies you.

“Whatever you’d like.”

“Hm…” you make a show of swinging your legs out of the bed, shivering slightly as your feet come into contact with the cool marble floors, “are there pancakes?”

Sylus stretches his arms over his head, letting out a soft groan that evokes something inside you that you’d rather not examine at the moment. You keep yourself turned resolutely away from him even as you hear the distinct sounds of him getting out of bed as well.

“No, but there can be — you only need ask.”

“Fine, I want pancakes,” you say, finally turning around, only to find him standing right behind you, his silk robe discarded on the floor by the bed, his chest broad and entirely bare. Your breath catches in your throat as he cocks an eyebrow.

“Is that asking?”

You crinkle your nose, forcing air back into your lungs.

“Okay, okay — can we have pancakes?”

Amusement dances behind his eyes as he bends over you, propping a hand casually on the dresser behind you to limit your movements.

“And the magic word?”

You narrow your eyes, “Nevermind!”

“Mm — wrong. Two more tries.”

You try to duck under his arm but he catches you easily, spinning you back around to face him, nearly sweeping Mephisto from his perch on the dresser. The crow lets out an offended caw and flaps off towards the far end of the room, coming to a disgruntled rest on the back of a satin loveseat.

“Let me go!”

“Wrong again — last chance.”

You sink your nails into the skin of his forearm, trying not to think of the taut muscles corded there. He doesn’t even wince, though for a second, the tether between your wrists flares up like a fanned flame.

“Fine! Please!”

Sylus straightens with a satisfied smirk, turning around to make for the bedroom door. Your chest is heaving, and the sudden space between you make your head spin. You blink at his retreating form, and it isn’t till he reaches the door that he turns to glance at you over his shoulder.

“Hope you like raspberry jam.”

You level your breathing and hurry to catch up, clutching your own sleeping robe tighter around your chest as you fall into step next to him.

“I thought you didn’t like sweet things.”

He opens the door and steps aside for you to walk through first.

“I never said it was for me.”

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