Remnants of the Earth

   When Cinnamon stated that he would die before he hurt Soba, Soba genuinely believed it. He didn’t often believe people; it was his job not to believe people, to poke and pick and prod until he got beneath the truth beneath the truth to the real truth. But when Cinna said it, when Cinnamon said anything, Soba believed it.

   Dark blue eyes darkened further as Cinna sank into him, the Inquisitor lifting his legs and hooking his ankles behind Cinna’s back as he was filled. He couldn’t help a low moan, head falling back against the covers as their hips met again and again, the fire in his chest spreading to every last inch of him, leaving him tingling and light-headed and utterly delighted.

   A perfectly rosy color, literally and figuratively, and Soba bit down on his lower lip as Cinna’s teeth grazed against his throat, against his roses, up to his ear and leaving little tingling fires in his wake. The Inquisitor reached up, gripping onto the strong shoulders of the Kulshedra Pilot above him as he rolled his own hips upwards to meet every snapping thrust. It was impossible to hold onto his breath; Soba was panting, gasping for breath only to let it out again in sharp cries and shuddering moans every time Cinna slammed back into him and set off little fireworks in his skull.

   Soba could feel it building, the heat in his abdomen raising to a fever pitch, thighs tensing as the familiar crescendo of impending release gripped him. His own member twitched between them, slick and dripping and so very desperate, and Soba mewled every time Cinna moved just so and rubbed against him while slamming at just the right spot to make Soba’s vision go white.

   “Cinna—” Soba gasped, blunt human nails digging into flushed, scaled shoulders as words failed him with every mewling breath. The sounds Cinnamon was making weren’t helping— or were, depending on how you looked at it. And right then, Soba could only look into those predator-eyes, watch how his mouth moved and his teeth gleamed in the light, could only hear how Cinna’s breath rattled in his throat, the vibration passing between them as Soba returned the kiss with vigor.

   “I love you, I love you, too,” Soba said by some miracle, the words rushed out with harsh pants for breath. Everything was so hot, his skin burning as he fought to maintain his grip on his lover, his Cinnamon Rook, his perfect shade of blood-red rose. “I’m so close, Cinna—”

   Soba shivered, his words stolen from him as Cinna moved against him, their hips slapping against one another and making it hard to even remember to breathe, let along remember what words were and how they strung together. He blinked, at first not understanding what Cinna was asking of him, of what he meant by watching, and only after a few more addled seconds did Soba comprehend. He licked his lips, grinned through another moan, and shifted his legs just enough to hoist his hips up, all but slamming himself onto Cinna’s cock and crying out each time.

   “Yours— nnh, fuck, Cinna, I’m—” he was babbling now, but he couldn’t hold back, not so soon after his previous orgasm, and eventually it all just became too much. Whatever rhythm they’d established became frantic and sporadic as Soba bucked beneath the Kulshedra— his Kulshedra— his thigh muscles twitching in time with his spasms as he came for the second time that night. Even so, he didn’t stop moving, gasping for breath as he rode through the tidal wave of sensation, making even more of a mess between them and desperate to see Cinna come as far undone as he felt.

   Somehow, the human mustered at some manner of reserves, and shifted, rolling with Cinna still inside of him until the other Pilot was on his back. Soba’s hair stuck to his throat and collarbones, skin flushed and soaked in sweat, made all the more so from the sheer effort it took to keep his thighs moving, raising himself up only to rock back down on Cinna’s cock.

   “Mine,” he breathed, voice low and raspy from overuse, eyes hooded and near pitch from how wide his pupils were as he looked down at his His. “Mine.”

Voice gone. But home now.

-A

   It was always too late. By Fortune or fate or whatever streak of dumb, awful terrible luck that ruled the timeline of his life, it was always too late. It was too late to keep his brothers alive. It was too late to keep his Commander alive. It was too late to keep Adal in the game and it was too late to keep Raz from getting hurt and it was too late—

   There was nothing that could have been done about it. And that was the background radiation of his life, wasn’t it? Even if he’d known, even if he’d been there, even if all the dice rolled seven, and all the coins had fallen right side up, there was nothing that could have been done about it. Yavul wasn’t a fleet commander with a hundred space ships. He wasn’t some kind of mage. He wasn’t capable of twisting the fabric of time, he wasn’t capable of reaching up into the sky itself and pulling it all down.

   Lucky him, though. The sky was already falling, anyway.

   ”Look the red dot just north by northwest of Amristah, Coyote Man, that’s where you’ll find me. Don’t worry. I’m going up just for a few. I’ll be back before you know it.”

   Yavul looked up from where he stood on Valhalla’s roof, panting hard against the tightness in his chest, blinking hard against the burning in his eyes as his vision swam, making it harder and harder to keep north by northwest in his sights. Seeing a red dot in all of that was a futility. Keeping the burning in his eyes from overflowing was a futility. Each breath came out harder, harsher, more ragged than the last, and no matter how much he tried, Yavul couldn’t keep the sobs from coming.

   It was always too late.

   Whatever fleeting peace Yavul was afforded was always paid for in miles of Too Late, and he’d had it so, so good for too, too long. He should have known better than to expect it to last. Should have known better than to think what happened to Neeko would be the worst of it. Should have known better than to think the winds had finally stopped pushing the sand dunes higher and higher over his head. He’d gotten cocky. He’d gotten happy. He’d gotten hopeful. He’d genuinely believed that Luck had finally decided to show a little mercy, that Fortune had decided to make a little allowance on his behalf, and that maybe he’d paid enough dues to warrant not having to face the rest of what fate had in store alone.

   ”Don’t worry. I’m going up just for a few. I’ll be back before you know it.”

   Except he wouldn’t. It had taken days for the news to even reach Yavul. Distantly, he remembered the string of texts he’d sent Grisham between now and when he left Solarta. How they’d started off the usual way and then grew more and more unsure the longer silence hung between them. It was laughable, really, how quickly self doubt had snuck in. Yavul blinked hard, sniffed harder, and pulled his comm from his pocket just in time to push the icon denoting Bluebell’s name to the left, ignoring the call and instead pulling up his message history.

   

   Sunday 21:34 Miss you already darlin
   Sunday 21:36 Gonna be hittin th hay soon. Can’t imagine why I’d be this worn out LOL. I love you, I’ll talk t you tomorrow.
   Monday 09:56 You’re probably all suited up an ready t go but wishin you some Luck anyway. I’ll keep an eye on that red dot a yours til you get back again
   Monday 17:09 One hell of a mission were it?
   Monday 20:24 Hope you’re gettin some proper rest in, can’t both of us be shamblin messes now. LOL Night, Dyna. <3
   Tuesday 09:17 Y’all ain’t still up there are you? We’re gonna be hittin th sands for a little critter control, figure I can at least send up some scorpion steaks for you for dinner if you like. We’re headin out top a th hour so let me know before then if you want any.
   Tuesday 10:00 Goin silent. Be back later.
   Tuesday 18:26 Swear t both th gods if I’m sendin this shit wrong an some poor bastard is pickin up all these messages instead I’m just gonna swear off tech forever an farm mud.
   Tuesday 21:34 Did I do somethin t make you angry? Was it th brandy? Whatever I done t upset you, I swear I never meant to. Talk to me? Please?
   

   To think Fortune would be so simple as to have it all be over brandy. That had been a genuine fear, too. That somehow trying to keep up with a stupid bet had somehow insulted Grisham and that Grisham was somehow petty enough to give him the cold shoulder over it. It was shameful, really, and now that Yavul knew the truth of it, he felt even more ashamed.

   ‘The truth of it.’

   The truth of it was, Grisham had never gotten those texts. The truth of it was, Grisham probably never would. The tightness in Yavul’s chest turned to a vice, and his blood felt chilled even in the hot afternoon air. One last time, he tried to look up to the sky, beyond the shielding glass of the dome and beyond north by northwest, beyond that red dot and daring to hope one last time that he might see anything other than brown, smogging emptiness.

   The truth of it was, there was nothing there to see.

   Something flickered beyond his blurred vision, and the fingers in Yavul’s flesh hand twitched and spasmed. The muscles tensed with every little jolt of energetic pain, but such was the severity of the rest of it Yavul didn’t even notice. Everything hurt, what was one more? He sucked in air that refused to fill his lungs, and shuddered in horror to think this was how Grisham felt. Panicked and breathless and far lost in the emptiness of everything. Yavul’s shoulders shook as the spasms rocketed up his arms, arcing between metal and flesh and stinging in places as every last bit of control was robbed of him.

   It was always too late. And there was always nothing he could have done. All that was ever left was the moments after, and where any other point in time Yavul had managed to bite down on his grief and carry on, this…

   This was too much. The thought that Grisham would never come home, the thought that he’d never get to speak to him again, see him again, watch him get grumpy-grunty over being pranked again, never get in another mud fight and never—

   This was too much. Yavul sucked in another breath, dropped to his knees, and this time didn’t try to hold it back as the breath left. His throat burned, his chest ached, but every breath in left in a scream— long, howling agonies yelled to the dometop as the arcing between his hands sparked out of control and thundered skywards. The hot white lines of lightning cracked uselessly against the glass, wild and rageful against the still spring air. Yavul shut his eyes tight— even if he wanted to keep them open, even if he wanted to face the blinding thunderstorm of his own generation, the tears were in full force now and no manner of willpower could keep them from spilling over.

   Yavul had spent all of his willpower getting up to the roof, after all, and now it was all he could do not to get caught up in his own storm. It was all he could do to convince himself not to let himself get caught up in it. Something sparked and popped and exploded close by, and his flesh hand spasmed again, though something else kept his hand from moving quite the way it wanted to.

   It would only be after he had no spark left to expel that he’d realize his comm had exploded in his hand, and the something that had prevented his hand from moving was a piece of shrapnel in his palm. But even then, he wondered if he really even cared. Blood pooled against the fabric of his uniform pants, staining the thigh a deep, darkening burgundy. He really needed to get up, to get to medical, to take care of this mess before it got worse. He knew he needed to, and yet no manner of knowing made his muscles respond. What did it really matter, anyhow? He wouldn’t die from this— he’d taken far worse and had little more than scars to show for it. This would just be yet another one in a long line of injuries, as Fortune had decreed, and he’d just march along bloodsoaked and battered the same as always.

   So what was the harm? What did it matter? The crackling energy gave one final blue-white arc between his metal fingers before finally fizzling out, the mechanical limb clicking in warning that he was, indeed, out of ammo. Down to reserve batteries, the little potato clock that was the human body, and nothing else. No lightning. No screaming. No tears.

   There was just nothing left.

   Jak didn’t know where he kept going wrong.

   It wasn’t like he tried to piss Gray off. But no matter what he did he seemed to screw things up. It had been going well, too! Or, at least it had been going well for a little while. It had taken a long time and a lot of fish, but Gray had seemed to be warming up, and then…

   And then Jak didn’t know what. It just seemed to all run hot and cold every other day. One day Gray would be friendly, and then the next day would barely acknowledge him beyond what was needed for work. At first Jakael had chalked it up to stress— between Deacon’s illness and all that, it had been understandable. And Jakael didn’t exactly know any of them well enough to offer anything other than… well. He didn’t know. A stuffed animal fish.

   Gods none, that had been lame. Was that it? Just lame piled on top of lame until Gray just couldn’t stand it? Jak thought of the moments where they almost got on and inwardly cringed. Had Gray just been playing nice? Had they just been trying to make this assignment work? Had all of that finally boiled over to where even playing nice wasn’t an option? Did they just straight up hate him now?

   Zero for two, then. The elf’s shoulders slumped even as he carried on the walkway, hands jammed into his pockets and boots barely making it off the ground. It was really only by virtue of his considerable height that he was making any headway at all. Not that he really had any destination in mind. He’d mentioned getting lunch, but the thought of eating anything at all just left him with an ashy taste in his mouth.

   Maybe just a drink, then. Given, it was barely into the afternoon, but who was counting? He was already an embarrassment to be around, a chore to be attached to, so why not act like it? Jak looked up, trying to place where exactly he’d wandered off to and where the nearest source of alcohol was in relation to that information. Inadvertently, he caught sight of himself in the shop window beside him and made a face at it. Touched his hair and made another face again.

   Well, there was embarrassment number one if he ever saw it. Or so he’d been told. He’d kind of liked it, but so far he’d been the only one. And no matter how much Jakael had tried to be okay with being ‘the only one’, it was hard work. And lonely. And he was just so tired of it.

   Maybe a haircut and then a drink, then. A little something new. It was only a matter of time before Gray walked in to work to serve him a notice of transfer, anyway. Why not just make a whole event of it? New hair (again), new partner (again), go to work (again), get drunk (again), and find someone who could stand to be with him for a couple hours before they ran off  and he was alone(again).

   An hour or so later had Jak leaving the barber’s, touching at the bare nape of his neck and telling himself this was for the best. He’d be fine. He’d always been fine. His one and only in the world hadn’t wanted him, and that was fine. His friends dropped off the face of the station one by one, and that was fine. And his new partner— cute and prickly and a fiend for sushi and mischievous and feisty and so, so funny— Gray would finally have enough and go on their way with someone they could actually bond with and trust and… that was fine.

   Jakael was a good interim jockey. Someone to fill the gap. Jak was good at that. He could be fine with that. He could. He had to.

   He had to. What else could he do?

   Besides get drunk. Right. That was something that definitely needed to happen. Or at least, that had been the plan right up until he turned a corner and bumped full-body into someone much smaller than him. Much, much smaller and much, much fluffier.

   Gray.

   Shit.

   Jak cleared his throat, and moved to help steady the mage before thinking better of it. What if that was one of the things they couldn’t stand about him? He was always the touchy feely sort, what if that had been part of the problem. His fingers twitched, and the jockey found a decent middle ground in pulling his arms to his chest, pretending to brace against the chill air-conditioned ventilation of the station.

   “Shit. Sorry. Hi.” Jak said, lamely, one word after the other and each worse than the last. Hi. Really, Jak? Really? No wonder they couldn’t wait to get rid of him.

I have no gods to scream to and yet here I am, screaming.

You are a maniacal menace and I love you, even if I'm presently attempting the first case of spontaneous elf combustion.

In the event I fail, or in the event I succeed but reform from the ashes like a phoenix, sushi would be amazing. I've not had the appetite for it in so long.

That being said, I will seriously cover your room with open faced sandwiches if I ever hear the term pumpernickel from you again, I mean it. I'm just going to live in the darkest space beneath my bed now, thank you.

See you when you get home.
-Ren

   There was no denying it.

   Deacon was running out of time.

   It was a fact. A fact Eit hated, but a fact nonetheless. The tiredness in Deacon’s voice spoke volumes more than the shouting from minutes earlier ever could, and for a moment Eit was stunned by the sheer wash of emotion that hit him square in the chest.

   His resonance was running out of time, and there wasn’t a single thing any of them could do about it. Even if Deacon caved to treatment, what time would that really buy them? A couple years, panicked and worried that it would resurface again, full of the lingering threat that Deacon could relapse at any moment, at any time?

   Even if the cancer was beaten back into nonexistence, even if they did everything right and even if there was no chance of illness or injury ever happening to Deacon— he was still mortal. He was still (mostly) human. There would still come a day, a sudden, quiet day, where Deacon’s body would simply give out from old age because that’s what human bodies did.

   His resonance was running out of time; his resonance would always be running out of time.

   The thought made Eit’s chest twist, caused the center to throb in anguish, and Eit took in a shocked, shaking breath as the full weight of everything crashed around his shoulders all at once. He was going to lose Deacon, this way that way or another way, and he was going to lose him fast.

   Especially if they kept arguing like this. Eit scrubbed at his face, where the prickle of deep blue stubble signaled he should really trim his beard again, where the tenderness beneath his eyes signaled he really needed to get more sleep.

   Now if only he wasn’t too tired to shave. Or too scared to sleep. He took another shaking breath and looked over at Deacon, thinking of some way to apologize, to assure him that it wasn’t that he thought his partner was stupid, or that he had a death wish or… anything else.

   All Eit really wanted to do was drop to his knees and confess, to let go of the weight of his own carefully kept secret and let it be free. It was all ending soon, why hold it back? But where could he even begin with any of that? Where could he even begin to tell Deacon that it wasn’t that he had been asked to worry, and that it wasn’t that he didn’t think Deacon capable of making his own choices.

   Where did he even begin to tell the other Duo that Eit simply wasn’t ready to live in a universe without him?

   The words caught in Eit’s throat, burned behind his eyes and made breathing all the more difficult. So much so that he didn’t even stop Deacon as he moved past him, towards the bedroom door. The only thing that sprung Eit to action was the sudden loud thud, and he whirled, eyes overbright and terrified to see Deacon on the floor.

   Stupid, stupid. Fighting had been stupid, waking Deacon up like he had had been stupid; the mage had needed all his strength, had needed to be kept stress free as much as possible, and what had Eit gone and done? Stressed him out in five minutes flat. Trying not to think of how weirdly light Deacon felt, Eit scooped him up off the floor and carried him to the bedroom, grunting with the effort of settling his partner down onto the bed and easing him out of the evening’s clothes and shoving the spare pillows beneath Deacon’s legs.

   His own pain didn’t matter right then. What mattered was making sure Deacon was all right, and that whatever came next Eit would be there to witness it. The elf settled beside the bed, legs tucked beneath himself as he knelt by Deacon’s side, eyes on the other Duo’s chest and following the gentle rise and fall of each little breath.

   Did I die?

   There had been many, many times where Wil had feared that very same thing. That somehow This Would Be The Day and Glover would have opened his mouth at the wrong people and taken a bullet or twenty for his trouble. That he’d finally done something stupid enough that his considerable luck couldn’t cancel out. That this would be the day that Wil would have to deal with the fact that Glover Daniels had finally left them far, far behind.

   And that was a part of it, wasn’t it? Wil had tried to make it about Sevrin, about the things Glover had done, but another part of them had been terrified of sticking around to see just when that day would genuinely come. And then all Wil would have left was the remnants of themselves, the parts they hadn’t traded up for just one more day, the parts they hadn’t made allowances for and the parts they hadn’t sold just to ease the call of their own guilty conscience.

   But hearing Glover himself say it, ask if he had died, that was… something altogether new. And Wil was not prepared for it. Glover had always been quick to brush off his misdemeanors, to say his black eye wasn’t that bad, or to assure Wil that it had only been a bum fight and nothing genuinely serious. To hear Glover taking it serious, and even more so— Glover had sounded so glad of it. He had sounded relieved at the concept of his own death, and no matter what Wil had tried to save themself from, it didn’t save them from the frozen feeling they had right then.

   “Wil is that really you? Did I die?”

   Wil took a breath, pulled the cigarette from their lips, and reached over to snuff the smoke out in the ashtray on their bedside table. Partly because Wil didn’t want Glover to see how badly they were shaking. Partly because Wil also didn’t want Glover begging for a puff, because Wil wasn’t entirely sure they’d be able to say no.

   They’d had a hard time telling Glover “no” since they’d been assigned as partners, after all. Glover Daniels with his gorgeous eyes and his charming, shit-eating grin and his complete lack of any fucks to be given had Wilhelmina Lambert wrapped firmly around his little finger. And probably didn’t even know it, the idiot.

   “Don’t move so much. You’ve been baking in the sun for half the day, you’re lucky you’re alive at all.” They said in a clipped, stern tone, trying to keep their voice from wavering as badly as their hands.

   “Just what the hell were you even thinking?” They continued, pushing past their own horror at Glover’s resignation to death and replacing it with some wild, primal anger. They hated hearing him sound so hopeful about so terrible a thing, they hated the idea that they might have had a hand in causing it, and they hated how no matter what else they’d said or written, they were so, so wonderfully painfully happy to see him again. And all of that translated into bristling heated anger. Not even entirely directed at Glover, though he was indeed a target. “You could have died! Did you seriously just waltz out of Tynova with a jacket and nothing else? For fuck’s sake Glover, what if no one found you?”

   That part was the most horrifying of all. The idea that Glover Daniels would have met his end like that, lost and alone in the brutal Edani desert sun, left to the scavengers to pick clean and without anyone ever knowing he had been out there in the first place. Least of all Wil. Wil would have never known, would have gone their entire life believing Glover had respected their wishes and gone on to live his life as he saw fit. Wil never would have known Glover had died looking for them.

   The thought was too much to bear, and so they stood up a bit more forcefully than was probably necessary, moving around the small cabin to pull water into a tin and find a suitably clean ladle. They brought both back, and sat down again, full lips pressed into a thin line as they moved the ladle to Glover’s mouth.

   “Small sips. Drink.”

{NAME}
Jyoti Garner
{ALIASES}
“wyrd” online, “Jo”, “Jodie”

{AGE}
31. Don’t remind them.

{GENDER, SEXUALITY}
Genderfluid, uses “they/them” pronouns to refer to themselves, but any pronouns are acceptable.
Yes.

{SPECIES/ETHNICITY}
Mmmmoooostly human. They think. Except for a few key things. Their father was human, anyway.
Anyway, the most important thing is that they’re very, very Libran.

{HEIGHT/BUILD}
5’5”, slim but defined from years of military training.

{OCCUPATION}
Solo pilot

{RESIDENCE}
A little apartment on Libra station.



{PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION}

• Slim but strong; their frame is slight, and it’s clear that no matter what they might try to do about it, they’re never going to tack on any substantial muscle mass. Still, what little they do have is fairly defined, enough for them to be very proud of the little divots their shoulder and bicep makes. Don’t judge them, they worked hard on that. Otherwise, there’s nothing terribly remarkable, average height and average in build, also despite tons of effort put into things like daily jogs. They try.
• Not quite human; even by Libran standards, their eyes are unique, vibrantly purple and sporting vertical slitted pupils that give their resting bitch face an altogether threatening added vibe. Their teeth are also a little bit extra pointy in the canine region.
• Casual goth; outside of their uniform, they tend to favor dark colors, wearing black lace chokers and low-cut black shirts when feeling feminine, or the classic black jeans and tshirt combo for when they’re feeling more masculine, or some combination of both. The only real color they like using is a deep shimmery green nail polish, which is also the only makeup they wear. But even that’s kind of an uncommon event. It’s just too much to maintain in their very active profession.

{PERSONALITY}

• Wormwood; they are kind of a bitter little shit. It doesn’t take much to insult them, and if they feel slighted they’re sure to remember it for weeks after the fact and be a little ice princess the whole goddamn time. They also tend to assume the worst in people until proven otherwise. A real charmer, this one.
• Lonely; they do want human contact, and quite a lot. Probably pines away endlessly about having someone to cuddle at night. Still, not that you’d ever know it, considering they have the genuinely terrible habit of being caustic and assuming everyone’s an equal or greater asshole. Funny how that means no one really wants to hang out with you outside of work or the barest level of contact! Jo’s really an idiot.
• Passionate; They’re exceptionally expressive and vocal about the things they love. Being assured their interests aren’t just going to be laughed off is enough to have them drop several book or movie recommendations right in your lap, and they don’t even care if you never return the copies they give to you. They’re just happy to talk about them, and feel great when someone else is as excited as they are about something.
• Dry wit; They have a thorny kind of humor, and rely heavily on sarcasm when they feel they have nothing better to say about a subject. Given how terrible they are with people, they tend to be sarcastic a lot. Whomp whomp.

Fun Facts!:

• .
• Probably has a dating profile, and it probably reminds them why they hate people on a daily basis.
• Likes drawing horrible hybrid monster creatures in their spare time. Has a ton of sketchbooks lying around.
• Is into some fa-reaky shit, but that’s for their private book collection to know and no one to ever find out.

{SPECIAL ABILITIES}
Do the hereditary shapeshifting thing!: Like Jo’s mother, from whom they’ve also inherited their looks, they’re able to physically alter themselves at will, and typically use this ability to move from one gender to another as they feel like. It isn’t complete shapeshifting, though, as they’re only ever able to be slightly altered versions of themselves. And it never works on muscle mass… le siiigh.

Do the magic thing!: Jo is a mage, with a particular penchant for minor summoning and shadow magic. Sometimes a combination of the two, and sometimes that means some shadow creature trips you up in the middle of the hallway. It’s a combination of lack of combat applications and their own personality that’s kept them from ever becoming a part of a Duo.

{RELATIONSHIPS}
Mother, father, a couple of siblings and a couple nieces and nephews. They were the unremarkable middle child, and even though they’ve grown into a successful career as a Solo pilot, they’ve long since lost interest in wanting to put in the effort to get a little attention.

{HISTORY}
Idk probably full of them morphing into the tiny little espresso bean that they are.

   “He ain’t wrong,” Yavul said, giving a casual one-armed shrug even as he felt more like grabbing up the bottle of brandy and just cutting right to the chase. And then promptly gave into that compulsion and poured his glass full of the liquor, not even bothering with the mix before gulping it down, “savin’ me from a lifetime a’ shitty foil-wrapped dinners. Pretty sure it’d break some kinda Adstreian code t’ let me go on not eatin’ real food. An’ I ain’t rememberin’ th’ steaks bein’ anythin’ that much t’ write home over.”

   He probably needed to slow down on his intake this far away from dinner being ready, but the idea of being sober was just not something Yavul wanted to handle right then. His stomach twisted painfully, either because of the booze or something else, but Yavul was willing to pretend like he’d be fine after popping the last crumb of cheese into his mouth. Just a little something on his stomach, and nothing to do with just how goddamn useless he was. Scorpion steaks were just butter and fire, after all. The height of Solartan cuisine, it most certainly was not. More just an excuse to go out and shoot the shit out of nasty scuttling critters.

   ‘First boy that told ya he lurved ya’, Yavul’s ass. That’d have been… shit. That’d have been Ranea, wouldn’t it? Somehow the thought was hysterical. Not that Ranea was a terrible person— far too pristine, maybe, but not terrible— but shit if it didn’t say quite a bit that the only viable suitor proclaiming their love for Yavul was someone who didn’t know him at all. Somehow, that was even worse.

   “I don’t think they’d much like some ragtag bumpkin stormin’ up t’ Apcintoch every day. That’s… that’s thus far been th’ extent a’ them ‘plenty a sugah honey’ what’d do any kinda snatchin’.” he said with another swig of brandy, mouth twisting into a grin just to have something to do, the alternative being terribly close to trembling for Yavul’s taste. And that was the last thing he wanted to deal with when this was supposed to be a fun reunion with one of his oldest friends and a new, though infinitely dear one. “Dyna knows it plenty, he’s been th’ one saddled with me for it. Though casual destruction a’ property has been damn fun.”

   He was probably rambling at this point, but yet another glass of brandy made sure he didn’t care about anything he was saying. All that mattered was he was leaning against the island counter and had yet to hit the floor, and in the swirl of the room there was still the solid figure of Grisham near the sink, all strong back and long hair and Yavul was overwhelmed with the impulse to just stumble right over and latch onto the other Commander as best he could.

   It was probably for the best that Yavul had been drinking; it kept him from acting on any of those impulses, and the hiss of hot oil was clue enough that jostling into Grisham at that moment was wildly ill-advised. And so he focused down on the countertop, following the patterning in the marble with his eyes, emptying his next glass and trying terribly hard to understand the words being spoken to him and respond in kind.

   “Darry… yeah. Yeah. Still a Valkyrie. Commander, you can believe it. Didn’t know he knew. Didn’t even know where he was them last days. Weren’t long after gettin’ sent out into th’ thick of it.” He shook his head, hard, trying to ignore how the room spun and his stomach churned. Blinking rapidly and forcing another smile, he looked up at Blu with his best attempt at seeming normal and not completely sloppy. “Me an’ th’ kids visited a while back. Didn’t get pelted with nothin’ so I guess he still approves.”

   Room 832, with the most startling green eyes Ren had ever seen. He gave a little scoff— that was a mighty claim to make, even for Chakram. It was charming, in its own way, the little ego that shone through their mutual snark. Hell, it was more than charming. It was the level beyond charming that involved over half a day’s journey by rail on Ren’s part. Which said a lot.

   Ren held out his wrist at the desk, and let the receptionist there fumble for a moment in scanning his chip. A quick smile, and he headed for the elevators, thumbing the correct floor and waiting for the doors to slide shut again. Not for the first time, Ren wished that maybe the car wasn’t so empty. It’d have been nice to be distracted on the way up— something about hitting that particular button, heading for that particular room— something about that just had his hearts picking up a tic, and Ren couldn’t tell if it was nerves or excitement, or…

   Or, or, or.

   Ren took another steadying breath. If it was nerves (and he knew what that felt like, he based an entire career around what that felt like), he’d have slammed the buttons to stop at the very next floor and gone straight the hell home. Whatever it was that had his pulse going berserk like this, he’d just deal with it later. Maybe over a bottle of wine from the hotel minibar. Or maybe he’d just drink the wine and forget the whole “deal with it later” part.

   Still, the feeling didn’t go away, even after the elevator arrived on the eighth floor. If anything else, it just became stronger; the further Ren got down the hallway the more his insides felt like so many squirming fish, all flopping around and gasping for breath. And yet, it wasn’t unpleasant— the further Ren got, the more it felt like…

   Excitement.

   Something flitted out of the corner of his eye, and Ren paused just for half of a moment, turning at the mouth of another connecting hallway just in time to see tiny little paws disappear around the next corner. That couldn’t have been Rory, could it? Cabe wasn’t still here? Not that Ren knew what Cabe was even up to these days; it’d been forever since they’d last spoken and since then Ren had been so intent on trying to bury how awful he’d felt that he’d never thought to check in and ask how the man was doing.

   Some resonance Ren was. Pfft, maybe it was for the better, if that’s how he was going to behave. Ren sighed, and turned away from where he thought he’d seen Rory disappear off to. But still the feeling didn’t ebb— Ren half expected to feel even more guilty at the prospect of Cabe still being here, still hurt and still recovering while Ren met up with some online acquaintance. And yet, thankfully, the guilt never came. The feeling was still there but it wasn’t guilt, the fishy squirming increasing as he walked by nurses’ stations and past equally exhausted visitors.

   It was only when Ren got to room 832 that he realized what that feeling was. It had taken him quite a while to recognize it the first time he’d noticed it— the way the air around him changed, like how it felt when you pressed your hands to a set of speakers to feel the sound deep in your bones, down beneath your bones, to some unknowable part that defied all logic or medical reasoning. At the time, he’d thought it’d been the booze— too much too quick and not enough to eat— but a long night of being sick on the squad yacht had proven booze had nothing to do with it.

   Since then, the feeling had returned again and again, but he’d known that would happen. What he hadn’t expected was to feel it here on his way to meet a stranger. And yet, there it was. The unmistakable sound of one unmistakable person, the unmistakable feeling deep in Ren’s bones.

   If Ren believed in capricious gods, he’d be sitting back and having a laugh with them at the irony of it all. Of course this was how it ended up. Trying to move on, trying to get a handle on his life, trying to stop stumbling around like a drunk caught in an earthquake.

   Oh well. If he was going to stumble, might as well stumble forward in style. Ren rapped his knuckles against the doorframe before stepping inside. He’d known what to expect, of course, but it didn’t stop his hearts from skipping a beat anyway— a rapidfire staccato in the face of the most startling green eyes Ren had ever seen.

   It was only after a few more shuttering heartbeats that Ren remembered that normal people tended to respond to conversation, and slashed a sharp-toothed grin Cabal’s direction.

   “Erenys Dei. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr Vindstrom. Love the outfit.” He gave a little bow and flourish, waggling his brows right back before stepping over to the bed and setting down his ridiculously decorated giftbag.

   “One gift bag of smokes, as promised. They’re even dressed for the occasion. Though I couldn’t make ties tiny enough for the joints, so those just kinda have a ballgown thing going on.”