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 Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2017 7:09 pm
(Backdated to Aug 2016)
Doing construction on a house was far more difficult than Fiona liked to admit. She had lost track of how many blueprints had been devised and looked over or how many contractors she had spoken to. It was frustrating because, well, she practically did this type of work for a living but it was a different story completely when it was a project for herself.
The woman wasn’t capable of separating herself from the project as seamlessly as she could professionally.
Stupid personal projects.
But it was exactly what had led her to be sitting at her kitchen table with her knee pressed against the table and her foot propped up against the edge of her stool. In her hand was a cup of coffee and her long ginger locks were tossed up in a very messy bun. She wore a too big t-shirt and a pair of shorts that barely skirted her mid-thighs.
It was mid-day, but Fiona had been up for hours pouring over designs and invoices and cost sheets when her phone lit up, buzzing against the wood. Absent mindedly, she set her mug down and plucked it from it’s resting spot, mismatched eyes scanning the caller id.
Immediately her lips pursed and brow furrowed. It didn’t take another second for her to slide accept, pressing the phone against her ear. “Kam?” Her ex-boyfriend only called if something happened and he needed help. “What did you do?”
xxx.
The first sound that greeted her was a dry, gravelly laugh.
It was never a surprise that Fiona knew exactly what he was doing or thinking, though sometimes that knowledge hit much too close to home. He didn't want to be so predictable that she knew he was only calling because he's ******** up. Hell, he didn't want to be a ******** up at all. He supposed that was kind of the point of all this, though.
The laugh died with a sigh as Kam leaned one elbow on his knees and ducked his torso over them in a slump with a hanging head. Not that she could see him, but the defeat was clear in his voice when he finally spoke up.
“Things I can't even begin to explain over the phone, Fi.”
There was a pause as he stared down at the floor between his bare feet and his brow knit over words that stormed inside of him. This wasn't going to be the hardest person to convince, not by a long shot, but it was the hardest confession to make. He didn't want to have to disappoint her again. But he would, and he shame was part of his punishment, no doubt.
“Do you think we could meet up later? I'll grab dinner, if you want, even.”
A little bribery and groveling meant things were probably a lot worse than even she could imagine.
xxx.
The laugh didn’t surprise her because it didn’t matter how many years had past, Fiona still knew Kam best. In response she sighed, a slow exhale of breath with her eyes fluttering closed. Her unoccupied hand grasped at the edge of her table, nails tapping softly against the wood. It was tempting to say his name again, to make sure he was in fact on the other end of the line, but she didn’t.
Kam would answer eventually.
And he did and it took more effort than she thought it would to keep from sighing again. “That’s awful cryptic Kam,” she said after a beat, eyes opening slowly and shifting until both elbows rested on the surface of her table, palm pressing against her forehead and pushing her bangs back.
Whatever was wrong, it was serious if he wouldn’t talk over the phone.
Blue and green eyes flickered over the pages scattered in front of her. There was still so much work to be done but -
Kam wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t serious.
“Okay.” The word came out in a slow exhale. “Come over in fifteen, I need to finish something.”
xxx.
Well, that was fast. He must have sounded more defeated than even he thought if she was dropping whatever she was doing to see him right then. Fiona was always busy, he thought she might have a panic attack if she ever had nothing to do.
“Okay. Is there anything you want for lunch then?”
There was the sound of shuffling from his end of the line as he stood and headed for his room on the second story of his condo, intent on putting on something a bit more respectable than his gym shorts. Maybe something that would hide how much weight he's lost during the internment in Mars. Then again, maybe she would take it easy on him if she could see the evidence of his punishment thus far. Groveling or pride? His dark lips pursed before he finally grabbed a pair of tattered jeans and his favorite Marc Anthony pullover. It was soft and light, despite the long sleeves.
Pride. He didn't like being weak, or showing it.
xxx.
Fiona hated how quickly she caved to Kam, mostly because of the implications it wrought. Plus, it made her wonder why she surrounded herself with such desolate boys and why she couldn’t turn them away either. But he wouldn’t ask to see her if he didn’t need her, or her help at least, and Fi couldn’t turn away someone who needed her.
“I don’t care.” Her response was curt, more so than she intended and she groaned at herself. “Uh, something light please. Salad, sandwich….It doesn’t really matter.” Right now, food was the furthest thing from her mind at the moment. Too many possible scenarios were flashing through her mind.
“We’ll talk when you get here, I know but - “ she paused, pressed her lips together and tipped her head back. “I want to know how life or death this is, so I can brace myself.” She’d need all the time it took for him to get to her flat to prepare herself, probably.
xxx.
There was silence on the line for a breath, unlike Kam’s usual inclination towards reading tension with laughter. He wanted to make a joke, he truly did, but there was nothing in him that could joke right at that moment. Maybe if she hadn't been so serious, or so good at figuring him out, but lightening the mood felt a lot like lying to her.
“It's hard to say if it's life or death, I'm not entirely sure. It's definitely serious, Fi. Like cosmic level serious.”
The keys to his Jeep were snatched easily from the top of his dresser before he shoved both feet into a pair of loosely laced, beaten leather boots. He didn't want to say any more over the phone and simply decided to end it so they could both prepare mentally for the hurdle they were about to jump.
“I’ll see you soon, okay? Don't worry about me yet.”
One thumb pressed the end button on his cell and then he was down the stairs and out of the door. By the time he arrived at Fi’s home it had definitely been longer than fifteen minutes - he had stopped a small cafe they often got lunch at as teens. It had been busier than he remembered but it was also one of the only places he was sure she liked. It had been a long time since he'd been thoughtful enough to bring her food.
With the brown bag clutched tightly in one fist and his sunken eyes squinting against the sun, he paused in her doorstep. His free hand rose to knock his knuckles against the door, though he suddenly found himself filled with an uneasiness that explained why Fi hadn't cared about food at all. He didn't really, either, in that moment. He just couldn't afford to skip another meal.
xxx.
It took her at least twelve minutes to reorganize her papers and to tuck them away into neatly arranged and color coordinated manilla folders. They sat in a stack on her table, carefully placed so that they were out of the way. Fiona had debated moving them but, depending on the severity and nature of Kam’s problem, she hadn’t wanted to put them away quite yet.
She thought about changing too, she hardly looked presentable with her lazily thrown up hair and clothing that made her look more like she was ready for bed than for dealing with people. In the end, she didn’t change but she did wash her face and apply light mascara. All in all, Fiona probably looked more vulnerable than Kam would have seen in some time, but that was the point.
If she wanted him to be upfront, honest, and vulnerable with her, then she wanted to look a little more vulnerable too.
There was a knock on her door and so the ginger slid from her seat and padded over to the door, sucking in a deep breath before unlocking it and pulling it open slightly. She smiled weakly at the man on the other side before her stomach twisted with a realization.
“What the hell Kam? You look like you’re in worse shape than last time.” He hadn’t been taking care of himself back then, clearly, but this - this was different. She shook her head, pushing aside all questions so she could creak the door open further, motioned for him to come inside. “The - This way.” She shut the door behind him and headed for the kitchen.
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Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2017 7:10 pm
A weak smile pulled the corners of his lips upward, but it didn’t reach his sunken eyes and did nothing to distract from the dark circles rimming them. Normally he’d have a joke for her - something self deprecating but quippy. He had nothing in his arsenal this time, not a single thing that would make light of what he felt, deep inside the part of him always dimly aware of Gehenna, was wrong.
“Yeah, I know.”
Kam was still a tall, wide man, though his muscles had wasted and his clothes were just a little too baggy on his form. He lumbered after Fiona like a man used to weight, much more than he had, and settled at the table she had just vacated with the bag before him. He was careful not to touch anything she had stacked - though he did cast the folder a curious glance. It was no surprise that she had paperwork lying about, really, since she seemed a woman much more accustomed to working hard than he could ever have claimed of himself. Without much more thought on the subject, one dark palm shoved into the bag and pulled free with a grilled sandwich for himself. The wrapped handheld was set calmly on the table before he used the back of his hand to shove the bag toward her, though he didn’t bother getting started on his food.
It seemed whatever was on his mind had dampened his appetite for the moment.
“So..”
It began, before he paused immediately. The dark eyes that had been staring at his food shifted to look up and out of the nearby window, watching the sun and the sky beyond it like a man who had seen relatively little of either recently. It had been nice to feel the heat on his skin, knowing that it was a life sustaining sun and not the hell-like, smothering heat of a fiery pit of doom.
“Do you know much about Knight wonders?”
He brought the dark eyes back to look at her, calm despite everything he was about to tell her.
xxx.
When Fiona had first run into Kam after he’d returned to Destiny City, looking at him had been difficult because it’d brought about too many good memories and then a whole slew of bad ones. It also brought back too many questions and a fury that had been seething within her since the day she found out he’d left town.
Looking at Kam now hurt in a way she hadn’t expected.
It didn’t hurt because she was upset at him, because he’d left her heartbroken but because he was so clearly devastated by something she knew nothing of. That was what hurt, because it reminded her that despite everything, there was still so much of his life now she knew nothing about.
And yet -
He still chose to come to her, so perhaps feeling sorry for herself in any capacity was foolish. He pushed the bag towards her and carefully she extracted her own food and busied her hands with careful folding of the brown bag. Fiona only looked up when he spoke, carefully examining his face as she did so while simultaneously pushing away thoughts of, what did you do and how can I fix this for you..
A sharp intake and a shake of her head, fingers toying with the wrapping of her meal. “Hardly anything, yet.” Fiona thought she might be able to convince Fritz to allow her to accompany him to Celsus. “I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about knights at all. Except your code piece is a giant a*****e.”
xxx.
Kam did laugh, then. An honest, open laugh that bellowed in his chest and bubbled from his lips like he couldn’t stop it. Both dark eyes shut and his head even tilted back, just a fraction, lost on the mirth she had roused with such a simple statement.
Except your code piece is a giant a*****e.
Was that what was responsible for his nightmare Tanais? He hadn’t even considered it but he’d heard enough of the odd things code pieces were capable of and with Fiona’s rather apt description, he was hard put to believe that they were not one and the same.
As the laughter died, his lips faded to a weak smile, and finally ended with a sad, weary expression as he stared down at the sandwich he had bought but yet to touch. The plaid wax paper wrapping was as familiar as ever and yet, it hardly gave him the feeling of nostalgia and comfort he once would have found in it. He’d lost the comfort he found in food and alcohol - maybe in most things. There was no doubt in his mind that he was circling the drain of depression but there was one thing that seemed to drive him, if by fear alone.
“I went to mine, drunk, a couple of weeks ago. It was a dumb thing to do, really. I don’t know if I pissed it off by doing that or if it was just waiting there for me, biding its time.”
The large man slumped in the kitchen chair he had taken residence in, so that he was slouched and his legs bowed beneath the table. Both of his arms hung rather limply at his sides and he stared lazily at her from his dark eyes, the picture of defeat. It wasn’t just his typical self loathing - something had definitely been shamed within him. There was guilt written in his gaze.
“It locked me up, Fi. I don’t even know how long, in the end. A whole week, maybe? No food, no water, just these ******** visions the whole damn time..” the deep, gravelly voice trailed off as he recalled it and that defeated expression broke with pain as both eyebrows knit above his sunken eyes. They had fallen again to stare blankly at the floor at her feet as his mind saw other things, other faces and other times that had been printed so clearly in his thoughts that he thought he might remember them more clearly than some of his own, true memories. “I saw my life, I saw my wife and my children, I saw friends live and die and bleed.”
There was a pause, then, as he made himself look at her again with that same pained expression - right in her delicate, dual eyes.
“And then it showed me your face, yours and two others, and started making demands.”
xxx.
She wasn’t expecting Kam to laugh, not when it was bright and hearty instead of the sad, deprecating laughs he’d been giving her, but it made her smile softly. “I’ve heard nothing but terrible things about it,” she added, as though it was necessary. And she had, from her chronos knight friend whose confidence had been shaken by a faceless entity telling him he wasn’t good enough.
As her companion began explaining, face weary like she’d come to expect, Fiona carefully unwrapped her own sandwich and smoothed out the creases in the paper that reminded her of high school. Bittersweet, that’s all the memories were now. Her tongue ran along her teeth, pressed against her cheek as she fought back the instinctual retort when he mentioned doing knightly things drunk.
Lectures and scolding could wait until after.
Finally, in a very soft voice Fiona said, “were they visions or were they memories?” That would be the important distinction. There was a part of the woman who felt guilt curling around her heart. Hadn’t she insisted that he needed to go to his wonder and face his demons at one point?
Regardless, Fiona knew what it felt like to have an onslaught of horrible memories. Pricks of her own, from her own visits to the place that sang to her starseed, tickled her mind. Without hesitation she’d abandoned her sandwich and slid out of her seat, rounding the small table to stand beside the much larger man. Her arms opened and she coaxed him into them.
“What did it start demanding?”
They’d start there, though Fiona had half a mind to demand he take her to his wonder just so she could give that awful code a piece of her mind.
xxx.
There was no way to argue with Fiona as she rounded the table and gathered him into her arms, the wasted giant being coddled by his too-forgiving ex girlfriend. It was the start of a terrible teen romance tragedy and he was supposed to be the bad guy, not the antihero. He was the worthless, selfish man.
But he stole that small bit of comfort, for just a moment, and curled an arm weakly around her waist so that her smaller figure remained close to his own.
“Definitely memories, of a man much greater than I could even imagine.”
The words were mumbled against her shoulder, though he paused again before he could admit to what the root of all this really was. He knew the code piece didn't care about being drunk once - it cared about his whole last couple of years of his life and three awful failures in particular.
“It's a trial, Fi. I think it's going to take Gehenna away from my starseed if I can't be forgiven. Or if I can't get my s**t together. I don't know.. which.”
He pulled away from where he had leaned his weight onto her so that he could see her face above his, comforting for all that he knew she could turn into a mother hen at any moment. She probably would, any time now.
“It made me come to you, but there are two others. People I've hurt, one that I'm not even sure..” is alive? He stopped and dropped his gaze to her blouse where it covered her stomach and the arm around her tensed, as if he were suddenly uncertain he deserved to be so close to her.
“I did a really unforgivable thing, Fi.”
xxx.
Fiona was made of more compassion that most people deserved, but she expended it upon them regardless. It was difficult not to, especially for people like Kam and Fritz who self-depreciated until they were mere shreds of the people they’d once been. They were not without their faults, she knew, but they were more than them too.
“I get that,” she mumbled, more to herself than to the man curling into her. Her own ghost haunted her, made her feel like a lesser version of herself, but that was neither here nor there. Getting caught up in her own wallows was not the point of this. The point of this was Kam and whatever he’d done.
“Probably both,” she replied almost too easily. It was easy to see where some divine power might think that both were applicable. “You have a habit of running away from things,” she pointed out. “Which means, whatever you did, you ran from the responsibility and consequences of it.” Fiona was certain that Kam had reasons for whatever he’d done, but that didn’t mean they were excusable.
“It didn’t make you do anything,” she huffed, lips pursing as she looked at him. “It probably is a life or death situation but no one can really make you do anything. You have to own your decisions.” That was always the problem, wasn’t it?
Fiona felt a lump in her throat. “What - What did you do?”
xxx.
You have a habit of running away from things.
The understatement of the year and, given her huffiness and the bit of stern advice about not being forced into anything and having to own his decisions, he was sure that she was not going to take this whole betrayal thing kindly.
He swallowed around a lump forming in his throat too and reached up, too gently, to put both hands at her hips. With the flat of his palm in place against the curve of her hips bones, familiar and different all at once, he pushed gently and moved her back so she wasn't embracing him. Part of him didn't have the heart to tell her his worst secrets when she was trying to comfort him - and another part just wanted space between them in case she reacted really, really poorly.
“The monster that has Khal, she’s been tracking me for years, Fi. It was only a matter of time before she realized I'm Gehenna. She must have been there when I didn't notice, or when I was being careless. You warned me, I know, but probably too late.”
The words were tumbling out on top of each other in a mumble, a string of thoughts half formed into words. He was rambling because he didn't want to say what had to be said but if she was going to stand at trial for him, it couldn't be a surprise.
“She threatened someone I cared about and it made me realize there are so many people she must know, so many of them she could hurt.” The way he avoided looking in her eyes now said that he must have realized his connection to her was also a risk - Ice had yelled at him for putting him in danger and made him realize the selfishness of not disclosing his personal demon. The guilt of remembering that fight made his fingers curl, flexing against her waist like she was a lifeline. He realized it immediately and dropped his hands, so that his arms swung dead and heavy back to his sides.
“She demanded a sacrifice, Fi, and I gave her up.” A her, not an it, he had stressed the word even on his hushed tone.
xxx.
She gave him space when he used hands on her hips to create it. Her own arms came to fold across her chest and she took a step back.
I told you was sitting on the tip of her tongue, ready to spill out and chastise Kam for his recklessness but somehow, Fiona suppressed the urge and swallowed the sentence down her throat. Her nails dug into her arms, leaving little crescent moons in her flesh.
Her jaw shifted, like she was working her tongue in her mouth to form words that weren’t coming. Fiona’s entire body stiffened and she stood a little straighter. It didn’t matter that Kam was virtually twice her size, Fiona had a way of making herself looking intimidating and it showed then.
“What.” The single word sentence came out as a hiss and if she were a cobra her warning signs would be flaring. It wasn’t a question but more of a harsh judgement. “You don’t give other people up Kam,” she snapped, but her voice was still soft even if there was a sharp edge of anger.
“Who. Who did you give up? Why are you - “ she inhaled sharply to calm herself. “Why are you only telling me now? This - this girl you gave up. I could have helped you save her.”
xxx.
The dark face pulled into a grimace instantly at the tone of Fiona's voice - it was no less guilt inducing now than it had ever been, even if he'd known to brace himself for it this time. He wanted to shrink away, or leave, or just run again.
This was the point, wasn't it? He had to face her and admit all of his wrong, something he had never done.
“You couldn't have saved her, Fi. You would have just been one more person for Alkaid to use as ammunition against me.” The large hands shifted to hang between his knees for a moment as he sat up, but then his leg began to twitch as he attempted to work out words, to explain something that had no real explanation. It was a series of ******** ups, mistakes and selfishness. At last he stood and turned his back to her, flexing his fingers as he paced through her kitchen.
“I ignored her and she burnt Ice’s apartment down, Fi. There was no time, no other option..”
Both of his hands raised and flexed, opened and closed, then curled so tight that the skin across his knuckles went white from the pressure by the time he finally turned back to look at her.
“Ida,” he said at last, voice hushed as he spoke her name. He could still remember how kind she looked when she thought she was helping him, the leer on Alkaid’s face as she revealed herself, “it's been months, Fi. The code thinks she's still alive.”
xxx.
Seething, that’s what Fiona was doing as Kam spoke. It took a lot of her self-restraint to keep from possibly blowing up at the man, but she’d always been aware of how words could be weaponized and the weight they carried. So she waited, even if it was taking every ounce of control to do so.
“You don’t know that.” There was no telling what Fiona could or couldn’t have done. “I’m capable of taking care of myself.” She’d been doing it for years now. “And there’s always another option.” She refused to believe anything was black or white. The world was made up of shades of gray and morality, choices, were blurred between them.
“Not all - “ she forced herself to breath, to loosen her grip on her arms. He’d shifted, turned her back to her and she swallowed whatever words she’d almost said. It wasn’t going to do her any good to lay accusations on him. “You need to be honest with me Kam, and so help me if you’re not - “ she shook her head, made sure that their eye contact was direct once he looked at her. “What exactly happened between you and this - whomever it is. What happened to Ida?”
xxx.
This time, Kam felt his own anger start to flare in response. He knew he'd done stupid things but he also knew that he couldn't have involved anyone else. He wasn't going to be responsible for one more person’s well being where Alkaid was concerned.
“She took her, I guess to wherever Negaverse scum go when they aren't in the city. No one has seen her since, someone put ******** missing posters up. She’s gone.”
The hulking figure, weakened though it was, turned halfway away from her again and stared out of the kitchen window. The set to his jaw gave away his frustration and he had to bring a hand up to rub the flat of his thick fingers into his temple. This was all too complicated for a man who hated complications - Tanais really was getting the last laugh since that cell was beginning to look pretty damn appealing now.
“I didn't really come for your help, Fi. I came because I'm going to trial as soon as I find her.” The boyish charm he normally tried to reserve for her had vanished and the set of his face was stormy at best. “The code wants you for the jury.”
In true Kam fashion, he was blowing off whatever help she wanted to offer beneath her chastising because the disappointment was too much. He would shoulder his responsibilities alone. He worked best that way.
xxx.
Fiona knew the signs of an angry Kam when she saw them, but it didn’t stop her from frowning deeper, nor did it shake her resolve. “I’ve seen the posters.” They were all over the city, of course she’d seen them but until that admission did she realize that the crudely drawn image had anything to do with the girl Kam gave up.
“Did you think about what it would mean when you gave her up? Who it would effect besides you?” And maybe the other people the mystery woman knew about.
It was hard not to snort when he turned away from her again. At least he wasn’t trying to leave. “See, asking me to be part of the jury is asking for my help.” She wasn’t going to budge on this, no matter how angry he got. “If you want my help then you better start explaining.”
She pushed the chair he’d been sitting in and stepped toward him, feet planted firmly as she waited. “You don’t get to keep pushing me away just because you screwed up. Your code is right, you need to get your s**t together and you can start by talking.”
xxx.
The stern tone in Fiona’s words fell over him like weights and with each bit of advice she so willingly gave him, he felt his jaw tighten just a bit more. His teeth ached as they ground together and a stiffness rose in his shoulders, pulling them taut along the line of his back beneath the loose t-shirt that draped it. The dark gaze lifted to her door and he thought long and hard about just walking out - she might have been mighty but she was still so very small as Fi.
Then the legs of his chair creaked as she pushed them across the floor and he turned, instinctively, back to her at the jarring sound. He hadn’t quite found his voice yet, but he turned back to face her completely anyway. What in the hell did she want him to talk about? The clenched jaw was accompanied by his own thick arms crossing over his chest, echoing the pose she held.
“What do you want to know, Fi? Alkaid is some corrupt senshi gone wrong - that’s all I could ever get Nemesis to tell me. I’ve got no idea how -” his words broke as he tried to say them but he only squared his shoulders against the unbidden feeling they sparked “ - how Khal is involved with this.”
Only that he was, without a doubt.
He had always hated the way she called him out on his mistakes with such accuracy. Not just because he hated to hear the criticism in the wake of failure but, too, because she always had a way of making him feel absolutely and utterly wrong. Maybe he was, though, maybe that was the joke here.
“I thought about the people already suffering and decided to trade one for many.” Because he didn’t care about the people that missed her, only the ones he would miss. He didn’t say it out loud but his selfish nature wasn’t hidden from her. “I’m not saying I made the right decision, just explaining that I made it. What else do you want an answer for?”
xxx.
Waiting for Kam to snap was like waiting for a caged animal to exit their prison; the signs were there, aggravated by Fiona’s spitfire and unwillingness to back down in any capacity. For so long she conceded, let go and forced herself to cool instead of simmer or boil and now - now she was tired of seeing him only when he needed to get his s**t together.
“I know he’s your brother - “ she started, then stopped, pressing her hands against the smooth surface of the table as she stared him down. “I know you miss and you worry, don’t think I don’t know how that feels.” The accusation was there, it was always going to be there whenever Khal came up, because with Khal’s disappearance the unhealed wound of Kam’s rose to the surface.
“Maybe you need to let go.” Fiona wasn’t one to say give up but if Khal was mixed up at all with some freak senshi that she’d heard of but never seen…
She shook her head.
“That’s great. Trade someone else’s life because they don’t matter that much you. Cosmos Kam - I thought you were better than that.” But hadn’t Fiona always though Kam was a better man than he really was?
“What I want to know is what the hell are you going to do about it?”
Xxx.
Maybe you need to let go.
Kam wanted to give up, right then and there. Not on Khal, or Fiona, but on ever being capable of making a decision that would result in something other than complete and total disappointment. His entire life until this point had been him struggling to make sense of himself in a world that didn’t make sense at all. It was hard to believe but, somehow, his parents’ death had been the most mundane tragedy in his entire life. The broad, tense shoulders sagged beneath her accusation and he felt a sigh escape his lips, carrying with it all of his pent up aggression and anger.
Fiona didn’t deserve it, even when she was like this.
“I’m pretty sure he’s dead, Fi.”
The admission was an awful, growing weight that he had been shouldering alone and the truth of it hung between them now instead, flaring to life once he finally gave it a voice. There was no way that Khetal, Khaldun, whatever he had started calling himself before he disappeared, could still be alive - he was dead, or a monster as surely as Alkaid. He hadn’t told anyone before Fiona, not even Ariel, but then.. no one would ever understand his worry quite like Fiona did. The pain of the admission flitted across his face like a storm cloud, pulling his ever-stony expression to defeat, until he had to reach forward and brace both hands on the back of his chair to keep himself upright.
Everything he had ever done as Gehenna was in hopes of finding his brother and now, with no hope of ever finding him at all, he had to answer for every sin he had committed in the interim.
“If I had stopped looking a little sooner, maybe I wouldn’t have had to make a sacrifice, but I didn’t.” The dark, stormy eyes met hers despite every bone in his body screaming for him to leave. Leaving was easy, but
he needed Fiona and not just because his wackjob of a code piece said that he did. In his world of ugly truths, she was a constant pillar of support for the lost boy hiding deep down beneath all his muscle and sinew. He was suddenly 17 again, seeking her comfort.
“I made a choice to buy myself the time to figure this out but I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do, Fi.” His eyes were staring at the remnants of his sandwich where it lay sprawled among the checkered wrapping. “I need your help.”
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Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2017 1:36 pm
I'm pretty sure he's dead, Fi.
Kam's words hit her like a blow to the chest and she struggled with holding in the sharp exhale of breath as it was stolen from her. While the statement was likely true, Fiona didn't want to admit it any more than her oldest friend did. Half a dozen thoughts buzzed in her head but when she opened her mouth, she found that there was nothing she could say that wouldn't either be false hope or pretending to be comforting.
"He's your brother," she settled on finally, coming over to his side and gently laying her hand on his arm. If he needed to lean into her, she was going to let him. It didn't matter how mad or frustrated with him, Fiona was incapable of turning a hurting Kam away. "I don't blame you for not wanting to give up on him." Khaldun and Kam had been as close, if not closer than Fiona and Peter had been and the woman had no idea how to empathize with his grief.
"But, it's better to accept that as the likely truth and have a chance at maybe being pleasantly surprised one day." Her arm slid across his back and she pressed her lips to his temple. "If you need my help, you've got it Kam. You know I wouldn't leave you to deal with this on your own." Not even when she was frustrated with the idea of having to clean up his mess.
"We'll figure something out, okay? For both problems."felyn moved from gdocs to gaia, can probably wrap soon
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