|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2018 5:43 pm
The apartment was dark as Porsha let herself in and closed the door behind her with a soft click. The thump of her suitcase on carpet followed a handful of seconds after, then the rustle of shoes being toed off and kicked beneath the closest table. Down the hall in the bedroom there was an answering impact of four dainty feet hitting the floor and the curiously upbeat meow of Lenore as she trotted out to investigate. Curiosity turned to demand when she realized it was Porsha that'd come home, instead of Slate, and the woman laughed as she dropped her backpack on the futon and bent to scoop the cat up into her arms as she wailed for attention. "You're ridiculous," she murmured, making her way down the hall with Lenore headbutting against her chin and purring up a storm. "I wasn't gone that long." Which was a lie, and she lay a kiss between pointed ears as an apology before setting the cat on the bed so she could strip off the clothes she'd been wearing since... A glance at the bedside clock made her groan. Lenore meowed insistently and Porsha glanced down at her and smiled, fingers sliding beneath her chin. What she wanted was a shower, but Porsha had only managed to strip off her pants before the appeal of the bed proved too strong a lure to ignore. Bowing to the inevitable proved instantaneously rewarding. The pillows were heaven beneath her cheek as she slid her arms beneath them, and bare legs whispered against the comforter as she stretched. A moment passed, tiredness clawing at frayed edges, and Porsha sighed as she shifted enough to grope in her jeans on the floor. The light of her phone seemed painfully bright as it lit up in the din, and she had to squint to see there was no new messages or calls. Wherever Slate was, he didn't have access to his phone. Oh well, he'd figure out she was back when he got home. Depositing the phone on the night stand, Po looped an arm around Lenore and nestled back into the pillows.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2018 6:21 pm
No other signs of Umber today. Just like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that…
As Ochre gave way to Slate, he mentally recounted all the times he tried for information and found that no one really had any to give. First there was Chrysocolla, who mostly just ranted about what an a*****e his brother was, then Haüyne, who had pretty much the same story, then Ashanite, who more or less liked his brother fine but he'd moved out forever ago, and then Faustite, who probably had his own stuff to deal with when he turned into a half-youma. Sylvite offered to help, having known Umber before, but even she had the same story — they connected, then he vanished. And looking around the city helped just as much as conducing interviews, which was to say it didn't help at all.
Physically and mentally tired, Slate started the short walk from the end of the street to the Negaverse apartment complex. He passed through the long parking lot, cut across the little courtyard area where the flowers were finally starting to bloom (and he really liked the smell of the new hydrangeas), then walked up the paved path where the front door sat sunken into the building. All the while he wondered who to contact next. There wasn't anyone else on the list, so the only thing he could think of was the one choice he'd kinda been putting off — he needed to ask some other general with more experience to head the operation. Generals would be good at finding generals, right?
He thought as much as he opened the heavy glass door. Up to the elevator he walked, passing the lobby without really looking at it. He touched the north-facing arrow and waited, wondering if he should butter up Sylvite some more or just go straight to Schörl, heard the ding, went inside. The doors closed, then they opened again, and he walked back out. Down the hall he went, counted the doors, questioned himself, nearly walked past his own apartment. Got out his keys, let himself inside, and sighed when Lenore saw no reason to come greet him. "No cuddles for me, huh?
"That's okay, I guess." His keys hit the counter and he passed into the bedroom, hoping for a shower —
Until he saw someone lying on the bed. Someone with a very familiar purple faux hawk. Someone with a shoulder tattoo that he recognized in a heartbeat. Someone who Lenore cuddled around, totally snubbing him. "Porsha!" He exclaimed, or wanted to exclaim, and instead voiced in an excited whisper. She looked like she was already sleeping — she probably had a long flight back — and he wondered if it was a good idea to rouse her. Maybe not. She needed sleep, right? Hesitating a moment, Slate considered ducking back out to make her some tea and maybe a grapefruit or some other snack.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2018 6:50 pm
With how tired the woman was she should have been able to sleep through an earthquake, let alone a mostly whispered exclamation. Maybe she would have if he hadn't said her name, but whether it was the sound itself, or the weight of her name falling from his lips, something managed to pierce through the tired haze of exhaustion that'd settled like a weighted blanket over the purple haired fighter. Brows contracted a second before she opened her eyes enough to peer through the veil of her own lashes up at the figure standing beside the bed. And then smiled fondly, eyes closing once again as she unwound her arm from the sleeping cats body to reach out for the redhead that was waffling between the bed and the door. She was unsure how long she'd actually been a sleep for, and was jet lagged enough not to trust her own perception of time based on lingering exhaustion. Hazarding a guess though, she didn't think it'd been very long. He looked the same as the last time she'd seem him, or his silhouette did. It was dark, the light coming in from the hall behind him. It'd painted a blazing halo around his head but left his features to shadows. Slender fingers wiggled at him impatiently as she groped the air blindly between them, body shifting with a grunt as she stretched. She wanted to wrap herself around him and bury her face against his neck and chest. Breathing in the warmth and the familiar scent of flowers and spice. Of all the people Po had gathered into her life, Slate was home to her.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue May 01, 2018 7:10 pm
Once her hand came out, that was signal enough for him to go cuddle. Slate shuffled to the side of the bed to take her hand and give it a welcome squeeze. "Welcome back," he murmured. "I hope you don't mind that I, uh, haven't really moved anything around. I figured maybe it'd be better to keep it the same way so it's more like home when you got back? Um, anyway." The incessant tugs she gave him were clue enough to shut up and cuddle.
Not that he minded — Po was the glue that held the household together. Sure, he and Lenore could get along, maybe rattle around a bit in the apartment and have a good time, but it was just an apartment between the two of them. It was where they slept, where they ate. Porsha was the one who brought the charm, the fire, the friendliness, the spiciness, the excitement. And now that she was back, all the fragments of the household were beginning to find their way back into place. At least he'd feel like he was doing something more than just going through the motions again.
And maybe she'd have a few ideas about Umber.
So Slate toed the heels of his shoes, slipping them off, and sank down onto the cushioned bed next to Porsha. With some coaxing and rearranging, he wanted to hold her respectably light weight against his chest and feel the shift in her shoulders as she breathed. Maybe that was a little creepy, but it came to be one of his favorite aspects of sharing a bed with her. Even beyond that, just to smell her again and feel the warmth under her skin was more than he could ask for on a day like this.
"It's been a while, huh? Um, I dunno if you wanna talk about it, but how did your trip go?" His smile grew detectable in his speech. "We really, really missed you. Lenore wouldn't stop meowing and looking for you for like, the first two weeks after you left. She even meowed into the closets."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed May 02, 2018 3:48 pm
When he started moving she let her hand fall away so he could get his shoes off and take a seat on the edge of the bed. Undressing, maybe, but she didn't open her eyes this time to check. He was coming to bed, and that was really all Porsha had energy to care about in that moment. "I don't mind," she murmured, lips twitching up in a small smile that was lost to the dark and the pillow. "I wouldn't have minded if you rearranged things, either." He lived there as well, had been for quite a while now, so as far as Porsha was concerned this was his home as well. She could feel him moving, crawling around her on the bed until he could slid up against her back, and that made her smile, too. She'd missed the solid heat of him, the rise and fall of his chest and the weight of his arms. It was something she'd gotten used to, and though a few days away hadn't been hard, but as days had stretched into weeks his absence in her bed had been impossible to miss. For a number of reasons. Fingers resting lightly on one of his rests, she settled back against him more comfortably, shifting until he was spooned against her back from shoulders down through their knees. Lenore stretched, rolling to close the gap Porsha had just made. "She's a good girl." Poor thing, didn't have a clue why I was gone. How do you reason with a cat? It was hard enough to do it with other humans. "Hmm, the trip went well, but it was too long." A pause as she yawned, words stretched and altered. "It was nice being somewhere warm during winter. I didn't really miss the snow at all, but I did miss you and the rest of the team." Her thumb stroked the soft skin of his inner wrist. "How have things been here?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun May 06, 2018 4:57 pm
"Yeah," Slate agreed, laughing. "Way too long. Everybody missed you, you know? It wasn't just Lenore and me." Umber had missed her in his own way, and he was sure part of her team found her absence kinda miserable. Who liked to see their general disappear for months, anyway? Even if it was for an important trip that benefitted both the Negaverse and her personal life, it still sucked from time to time. Slate supposed he never realized how much he liked having her around until she wasn't around.
Which made him sound a little dumb for not recognizing it in the first place. But Slate, while not stupid wasn't exactly whip-smart in the theoretical department. His strengths lay in emotional intelligence and some of that communication stuff. He was pretty good at diffusing arguments, anyway, and Porsha was good at starting them.
"I hope you missed us." Slate's free arm found its way about Porsha's waist, resting on the ribs beneath the swell of her chest. He could almost feel her skin humming, like it was happy to meet him again.
"Things have been…" He breathed a sigh, half to catch the scent of Porsha's hair and half to fill the silence of his disappointment. "Weird. Not good, I guess. I mean, there have been some good things. Our cats finally got their own headquarters in the Citadel, which was really exciting. And they gave us these new-and-improved communicators. We don't talk into crystals anymore — we talk into these fancy tablet things. They look like pens and then you open them into this screen. So that was all nice.
"Plus there have been a bunch of new agents. I met this really quiet, nice Nega Senshi named Kamacite once. He seemed a little, um… Reserved. But there's a bunch of others I haven't met too.
"And I… Don't really know how to say this, but uh, Umber's missing. Like actually missing. Like he didn't just wander off into the woods for months like he normally does. And if he did, we can't find him. No one seems to know anything…"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 10, 2018 6:03 pm
Who knew if skin had the capacity to miss the touch of another person, but Porsha certainly did, and as Slate's arm snaked around her waist, fingers tracing along the lifts and falls of her ribs, she sighed with contentment. A measure of near overwhelming rightness chasing away the stress of travel for all over a moment before reality crept back in from the shadows. She felt the weight of that sigh against the back of her neck, and grey eyes opened in the gloom. She stilled as he answered her, smile slipping away as the familiar weight of responsibility and guilt settled back onto her shoulders. The last time she'd traveled to such extremes she'd come home to the beginnings of personal tragedy. A domino effect that she wasn't entirely sure hadn't been set off by her absence, and hadn't been halted by her return. In the end, she'd suffered a loss so profound it the ache of it was still sharp, even years later. Please, not again... Po gave his wrist a reassuring squeeze as he answered her, head tipping back until until they rested crown to crown. The good first like a soothing balm--and it was good. New agents, new communication tech, and a place for their cats. All good, but even stacked together on the scales, it didn't offset the burden of the bad, or Slate wouldn't have dwelled on it. So she said nothing until he could say it all, and silence stretched between them for a long handful of seconds as that news fell like stone in the pit of her stomach. Umber was missing. Drawing in a breath, the fighter held it for a moment before letting it out in a rush. Then she was turning carefully to lay on her back in the circle of his arms. Pale eyes searched his face, her hand lifting to cup warmth against his cheek before she drew him in close to lay a kiss on his cheek. "I'll help you find him." It wasn't speculation, but truth. The general was hers,and if there were answers to find, she would find them. "I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner, but I'm here now."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat May 26, 2018 8:53 pm
Slate didn't stymie his smile. Porsha would help. He knew she'd help — she broth the both of them into the Negaverse and never once left them to fend for themselves. Even if she took trips sometimes, or was gone for months at a time, they always had resources. They always had a team to turn to if they needed it. They always had her phone number if their lives went awry.
But Slate hadn't called. Part of him wanted to prove to Porsha that he could handle himself. And more than that, he wanted to prove it to himself that he could still succeed on his own. Sometimes it worked — he made a few friends that way and possibly met a new subordinate — but other times, it didn't. Even if it was normal for Shale to disappear for a couple months, the onus to find him rested on Slate. But what he found was a jumble of dead ends.
Slate's arms slid, smooth but firm, over Porsha's sides. The rustle of fabric swept like a whisper between them. "So far, I've mostly just talked to people. There weren't a lot that he'd met before, but…" Slate rested his cheek against Porsha's, lowering his voice to compensate. "Um, Chrysocolla, Haüyne, Faustite, Sylvite, and Ashanite so far. Chrysocolla and Haüyne were corrupted by him, Faustite and Sylvite were brought into the Negaverse by him, and Ashanite was a roommate for a little while. Until he did the camping thing, anyway. But pretty much nobody's seen him in months or has any idea what happened. I'm just worried, you know?" I'm sure he'll come back eventually. If he didn't purify or something. But he wouldn't do that, right?
Just like how Porsha wouldn't leave us behind.
"Sorry for bringing down the homecoming, though. Really, I'm happy you're back. Lenore is too; she didn't really care for me much while you were gone. I think she likes you more." Slate drew another slow breath, catching the muted notes of Porsha's life on the air.
"Do you want me to make you some dinner?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2018 5:33 pm
He was camping when I left, has been missing this entire time? Her mind was already reeling with possibilities, each and every one more disheartening than the last. She could feel her chest tightening, stomach twisting, and as Slate lay the softness of his cheek against her own she closed her eyes. Don't spiral, it's not helpful. She couldn't afford to let herself think the worst, not yet. She was his rock, she was stability and sanctuary. Her hand slid back, fingers sinking into the thick warmth of his hair to run nails in a soothing spread across the back of his neck. "If Ashanite knows anything I have a hard time believing he wouldn't have contacted one of us." Especially her. "But I'll reach out to him in the morning, rule him out as a source of information." They'd work through this together, and they'd find him. The apology had her tipping her head against his, nosing at his cheek to get him to lift his head so she could look up at him, if even just an inch away. Enough to appreciate the line of his brow and the curve of his cheeks. Earnest, honest eyes that had nothing but affection for her. Soft, warm lips... He'd asked her a question but she didn't seem to hear him, attention so solidly settled on him. The flicker of a smile twitched at the corner of her lips, something soft and sweet, and then she was lifting her head to steal the warmth of a kiss.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2018 5:55 pm
Nails wrought delectable goosebumps over his neck and shoulders, and Slate smiled into the gesture. "I did, um, ask Ashanite. Don't worry about that. Actually…" His arms slid downward until ringed hands cusped her hips. "Let's not think about that for a while. You're home now, and life doesn't have to get all gloomy right away, you know?" She already spent her time traveling the world again; someday she'd slip right back out that door. As transient as Shale was, Porsha was the queen of unpredictability. He couldn't even assume how long she'd be gone.
There wasn't time for more questions with her hunting gaze, though, and he was fine with that. Ever his general, she led the household and the conversation and the charged air about them. Slate fell into step seamlessly with his thumbs hooking into her shorts. Her heat, her weight, her movement pressed him into the soft bed. She was present, finally — she was tangible and touchable and kissable again. She returned where his brother didn't.
No further words came. No talk of the Negaverse, of dinner, of Lenore, of the time passed apart, of the future left to plan. Now wasn't the time for thought. He knew it as surely as she did.
They knew how to pass the evening without a word. And they would, he was sure, because they each passed their months in bodily solitude. Slate waited for her, the seasons ticking by slowly, his body soon forgetting what it meant for skin to touch skin, for bodies to warm each other.
But that wait was over.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
