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 Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:45 pm
Backdated to May 2015
There were times when Chris wondered if he was getting in over his head. He was only twenty-two, just barely out of college, already married with babies on the way, and a new, potentially prosperous career. But there was more to it than that. He was also a Knight of Jupiter. His wife was a Senshi. They both risked their lives more often than not to try to help those in a city that was probably too corrupted to save.
As it was, Paris was out that night. A meeting of some sort with people who were like her. People who had glowing marks and emitted a purer energy than the rest. There were only a few that Chris himself knew of, and he knew that meeting as many of these people as possible would only help Paris to further understand what was happening to her and the changes it was causing for her world.
He worried. How could he not? He didn’t know how things could happen. No one did. All he could do was hope for the best and pray that she made it home safely. He had to trust her to be able to do this on her own, and she had to know she could do this, too.
It was well past midnight by the time he heard the door to their bedroom quietly open. She probably didn’t want to wake him up, but he was never able to sleep without knowing she was safe. There were times he would fall asleep while waiting up for her, but at least that night he was able to reach up and turn on the lamp next to their bed, hoping to give her a little more light by which to navigate.
“Hey, how was it…?” he asked groggily before clearing his throat and pushing himself up to rest against the headboard. “You okay…?” He didn’t bother wearing a shirt to bed. There was no need.
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:47 pm
Oopsie doopsie. Never posed this. Takes place after this RP from forever ago. Paris returned home with a sense of relief. It was never comfortable for her these days to go out on her own, nor had she any fondness for larger meetings that could easily be ambushed. She wondered if this was something she would ever get over, or if she would be stuck with the feelings of discomfort such situations elicited within her for the rest of her life.
She sighed as she stepped into the bedroom she shared with Chris, using her phone as a flashlight until he turned on a lamp on one of the bedside tables. Indeed, she’s not expected him to be sleeping. Paris knew she wouldn’t have been able to sleep had their positions been reversed.
“It was… fine…” she said, and she meant it despite the hesitance in her voice. Nothing had happened to cause concern, but she also didn’t think they were any closer to understanding what had happened to them than they’d been before the meeting.
“I’m alright. Babylon was there,” she added as an afterthought. “Acted kind of distant. Like we were never friends or whatever. I’d blame you for it, but he’s just as immature about this whole thing between the two of you, so… whatever…”
Paris shrugged and tried not to look hurt. She walked further into the room, setting her phone onto the bedside table on her side of the bed. Then she leaned over the take off her shoes, leaving them where they fell for now.
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:47 pm
Chris winced guiltily when Paris basically called him immature and part of the reason as to Babylon’s distance. “I’m sorry…” he mumbled, although he knew that wasn’t going to make up for the fact that he was probably the reason why Paris was being given a hard time. Although, over the years… from the time they’d helped each other out at Camp Lakespur, through their interactions at the Surrounding, and then moving on… It wasn’t that he hated the guy. He was just loud, and naive.
As if he wasn’t, himself. He knew he was just as much to blame for the distance and negative thoughts and feelings, but he swore to himself he would make things right if Babylon would let him.
“Baby…” he called softly to her, trying to get her attention. He opened his mouth to probably apologize again, but realized there was no point and instead asked, “Did you find out anything you didn’t already know…?” There was bound to be others who had some kind of an idea, wasn’t there? Or maybe Ganymede really was the first of this kind of senshi and knights.
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:48 pm
Paris shook her head at the apology. It was all too little too late at this point. Besides, she wasn’t the one the apology should be made to, was she? Valhalla and Babylon had to work out whatever crap they had between them on their own. Paris only understood a certain extent of it. The rest she didn’t feel was any of her business.
She looked up at Chris when he called to her, sighing heavily as she began to undo her clothing, pulling her shirt over her head and tossing it onto a nearby chair, before she worked on shimmying her skirt down her legs.
“Not really,” she answered. “It seems like the process was different for everyone, so there’s no way of knowing why it happened or how it might happen for someone else.”
Which bothered her, because she wanted so much for Chris to find some way to rise to this state, if only so his starseed could be safe. She didn’t really care if he was ever as deeply attached to his wonder as she was to her homeworld, she just wanted his starseed protected.
It hadn’t been in her dreams of the future. She remembered seeing it crushed before her very eyes, Chris’s life snuffed out in a matter of seconds.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, and headed to the bathroom in her undergarments.
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:48 pm
Chris let out a sigh as Paris moved away from the bed to head towards the bathroom. He silently cursed Babylon for taking out his frustrations with him on Paris. There was no need for that. Paris deserved better than that, especially for everything she’d gone through to make things right between the two, obviously immature young men.
He was tempted to get up and follow her, but figured she needed some time to herself. At least satisfied that she was home, he reached over to turn on the light on his phone, and turned off the lamp next to the bed. Paris was probably exhausted and was looking forward to sleep, but there was something… off…
Settling back down under the sheets, Chris waited for Paris to come back to bed, but was careful not to be obviously waiting for her. He didn’t want to rush her in any way, and didn’t want her to think she was keeping him up.
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:49 pm
Paris went to the bathroom to work on her nightly skincare routine. She pulled her hair into as much of a ponytail as she could manage as she cleansed her face and washed all traces of make-up away, taking a cotton ball soaked with eye make-up remover to her eyes. She used an exfoliating scrub meant to take some of the redness from her skin; then she slathered lotion onto her face. Once she was done with that, she quickly brushed her teeth.
She made her way tiredly back into the room once she was done, scrouging around in the dim lighting for her pajama shirt, but when it didn’t immediately present itself to her searching hands she gave up, took her bra off, and slipped into bed in nothing but her underwear.
With another tired sigh, Paris snuggled close to Chris, putting her head onto his shoulder and sidled up beside him.
“I love you,” she said.
She didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t really want to talk much about the meeting. On the one hand, it’d been good to see just how many other Knights and Senshi like her there were; on the other hand, she thought they still had more questions than actual answers and situations like that always bothered her.
“Sorry if I woke you,” she said instead. “I didn’t think I’d be back so late.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:49 pm
He’d closed his eyes, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to properly fall asleep until Paris had made her way to bed. It was always like that, though. Even if it had nothing to do with patrolling or being out and powered up. If he was away for work or if she was staying out late because of a performance, he never managed to fall asleep as easily as he did when she was around. He didn’t know if it was bad that he was dependant on her for things as simple as sleep, but then again, it could be worse.
“I love you, too,” he mumbled and shifted so she would hopefully be more comfortable against him. She was warm and smelled nice. Her soap and lotion and perfume always had such a pleasing combination that he couldn’t help but want to breathe it in. He pressed his face to her hair as she rested against his shoulder, his free arm reaching to rest over top of her hip.
“You didn’t wake me,” he promised, hating that she sounded so sad. He wanted to ask her more about what happened or what she’d learned, but he knew from years of experience now that Paris would tell him if she felt like telling him. When she was ready she would let him know what was on her mind.
“There’s an away game next weekend…” he reminded her, for she already had his schedule in her planner, but sometimes he just wanted to bring it up. “Will you be staying here? Maybe you should go to your mom’s… or my parents’ house…?” He didn’t like the idea of her being alone. He never had...
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:50 pm
Paris was quiet for a little while as she settled against Chris, letting herself grow comfortable. He was warm and smelled of soap, and his face was scratchy and unshaven that evening. She lifted one of her hands to his cheek to gently caress his face.
“I’ll have to stay,” she said, though she didn’t sound pleased by the fact that she couldn’t go with him. If it wasn’t for dance, she’d travel with him every time he went away. “We have such awful schedules,” she added. “Why do we do this to ourselves?”
It was a rhetorical question, one she already knew they answer to. They did it because they both loved their jobs. Chris wouldn’t be Chris if he couldn’t play ball, and Paris had danced her whole life. She wouldn’t know what else to do with herself.
But it meant long days and even longer nights and less time to spend with her husband. Their time off didn’t even align with one another. Chris’s was in the winter, arguably Paris’s busiest season, and hers was in the summer when Chris was in the midst of his own hectic scheduling.
“I’ll probably stay with my mom this time,” she decided. “I think me staying with your parents so much makes her feel bad. Maybe I’ll drag Rhiannon out for some company, or do some shopping with Olivia. I figure I should start doing some serious work on the nursery now that we’re close to the halfway point. You’re fine with the nautical theme, right? I figure it’s cute, and something we can easily adapt depending on if we have boys or girls.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:50 pm
He wished she could go with him, but knew that was not an option. They were lucky they even had any time to spend together. Chris knew very well that he could have been signed for a team on the other side of the county. Depending where it was, he could have refused, but that meant he would have spent even more time another state, regardless.
“I think she’d like that,” he nodded in agreement, moving back just enough so Paris would reach his face a little easier. He knew she liked the stubble even if he didn’t. “I’m sure my mom will show up eventually, anyway. I wonder if your mom ever gets annoyed that mine wants to hang out all the time…” he said with a sigh, but it wasn’t as though his mom was hurting anything. She was probably just lonely. Even with his father home and retired, she still was more of a social person than not.
Chris snorted softly at the mention of the nautical theme, shaking his head. “I said you could choose, didn’t I? Yeah, I’m okay with it. It’ll look nice. Let me know if I need to help put anything together before I leave for the weekend,” he offered, figuring it was the least he could do to help.
“Did you know Serge made watches and little gadgets?” he asked randomly, thoughts that suddenly came to mind. “Like, he designed the little gears, too… I don’t know where he learned that from…”
It was probably a weird thing to bring up, but… in his tired state, it was easier to talk about.
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:51 pm
“I think Mom just kind of rolls with it at this point,” Paris said.
She felt a little guilty for her mother. She didn’t spend nearly as much time with her as she did with Chris’s mother, and she knew it hurt her. It hurt Paris a little bit, too, to think that she wasn’t as close to her own mother as she used to be. But things had changed when her mother had gone away, and even though she was back now, it was difficult for Paris to fall back into her old habits. She loved her mother, but they worked best when they weren’t constantly in each other’s hair.
At Chris’s agreement, Paris’s mind was immediately swept up in ideas for the nursery. She’d wait until she knew the genders to buy the cribs and most of the decorations. She was pleased with how things were turning out with it. The walls were already painted, one wall covered in pale wood to look like the inside of an old ship.
“I’ll just need help with the cribs whenever we get them,” she said. “Your dad’s working on the built-ins, so unless he wants help with that there shouldn’t be too much for you to worry about.”
She paused and grew quiet, listening as he spoke of Serge. There was a long moment of silence after that in which Paris waited to see if Chris might say more. When he didn’t, she pushed herself up onto her elbow to look at his face. Her hand was still caressing over his stubble.
“Maybe it’s something he picked up over time,” she suggested. “How does that make you feel about him? That he could do things like that. He must have put in a lot of hard work to be able to develop a skill like that.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:51 pm
“I don’t know,” was a typical answer from Chris in regards to the man his soul once belonged to. There was so much about the man that he did not want anything to do with, and yet… There were also things that surprised him. The gentleness with which he treated Liesel when they were alone, or these little skills that he had.
“I just thought it was strange. No one else seems to focus on that… trinkets and things, I mean. They made maps, I think. I’m still not too sure if they had any exports or things for trading, aside from… you know, fighters.” He didn’t like the idea that Valhalla was a fortress of people trained to kill, or so he figured as he had yet to see much more than that.
“I think he liked being alone. He wasn’t good in social settings unless he was giving orders. But even then he only told a few people and they would pass on the word,” he continued, not realizing that he was slipping from present to past tense and back. Some of the memories seemed so real that it was difficult not to think of them as happening at that moment.
“And,” he said softly, shrugging as if he didn’t quite believe it himself, “I don’t think it was always as stormy as it is now… I mean, yeah, there were storms, but… I don’t know. I think the weather has gotten worse over the centuries…”
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:52 pm
Paris was patient and quiet as she listened to Chris talk about the things he’d seen and discovered on Valhalla, not wanting to interrupt and potentially put him in a bad mood with a question that might derail his curiosity. She liked that he’d been spending a little more time getting to know his wonder in recent weeks.
Though they still knew very little about what had occurred to make her and Ida and the others the way they were now, their wonders and their homeworlds seemed to have a lot to do with it. Perhaps the longer Valhalla spent there…. the more time he spent learning about his past…
She didn’t want to force him into anything, but she wanted him safe. After the dreams of the future Paris had had, and the way those had ended… the protection of Chris’s starseed was a major concern of hers.
“Maybe it’s like how things were on Ganymede for a while,” she suggested. “It was never daylight and there wasn’t any weather, and then… when I went through that memory… the ceremony… everything changed and it was like things just… came alive. Now the sun shines, and it rains. It could be the storms have something to do with how long everything there has been dormant.”
Paris stopped herself before she could go any further. These were always dangerous conversations to have because of how Chris tended to react to them. She almost wanted to change the subject, but she also didn’t want to prevent Chris from talking if he was actually in the mood to discuss it.
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:52 pm
Chris wasn’t sure why he suddenly felt compelled to discuss something that, until just recently, he didn’t really have much of an interest in. Sure, he had been to his Wonder enough to learn some things, like how it seemed to react to his touch and presence, and then there was Valkyrie, who was definitely useful in sticky situations. He didn’t know much about what she was or if she was unique to him, but he was often curious to find out.
“Maybe,” he agreed, wondering why he had thought that in the first place. “I think they grew more plants there than I thought,” he explained, answering his own question. “There was this… place. It was inside, but it was huge… a giant dome entirely made of glass. There were these huge trees there. Inside… sort of like an atrium, but… I mean, not really. I don’t know if it was more like a sunroom or… solarium? Anyway… they grew plants there. I’m not sure what types, but Valkyrie apparently liked it there. I think that’s where Serge first met her. I saw them together. She didn’t seem as though she knew him very well, but… I don’t know, it just surprised me that he was really patient with her.”
He was used to seeing Serge so serious and angry looking… it always surprised him when he saw a more gentle side.
“What do you think Valkyrie is, anyway…? I haven’t seen many knights with animals or guardians or whatever she is…” he wondered tiredly, comfortable with the warmth of Paris’s hand against his face.
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:52 pm
Again, Paris was quiet and patient and spent more time listening than talking. Which was a bit out of character for her; usually it was the other way around, with her rambling and Chris listening. But she didn’t mind the reversal of roles. On the contrary, she liked listening to the sound of Chris’s voice. It was soothing after a long, tense night.
Paris relaxed against him, though she remained supported above him on her elbow.
“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “It doesn’t seem like the Senshi have anything like Valkyrie. I guess it might just be a Knight thing.”
But the fact that Chris had his bird made her hopeful. If he’d spent enough time at his wonder to gain the assistance of some sort of spirit animal, perhaps he’d learn and experience enough to gain protection over his starseed.
Eventually, Paris leaned in to press their lips together softly. Her hand stilled against Chris’s face, holding him there. When she pulled away, she had a small, contented smile on her face.
“See?” she said. “It’s not so bad, is it? Going to Valhalla. It’s not everything you assumed it to be. Just like Ganymede isn’t everything I assumed it to be. There’s so much just waiting there for us.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:53 pm
Chris didn’t argue when Paris leaned in to kiss him, and he sighed softly through his nose, looking up at her curiously when she pulled back. He knew it was rather weird for him to be talking about his experiences and memories on Valhalla. He’d never been one to really care about what had happened there. But something was drawing him towards it, as if it was calling to him. He doubted the pull was as strong as what Paris felt for Ganymede, but he could sense it, and that’s what mattered, right…?
“No, I guess not…” was better than his typical answer of ‘I don’t know’. “It’s just… I don’t understand why we have these memories. Is there something we’re supposed to be learning or something to discover? Something important about our pasts that will… I don’t know, help with the future?” he breathed softly and shook his head.
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