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It’s all over the news that a dangerous convict has escaped from the state prison. Television and radios alike warm the residents to stay indoors until authorities can locate and apprehend the criminal roaming the local neighborhoods. It just so happens to fall on a terrible evening to be stuck anywhere - the weather has taken a turn for the worse and thanks to a wayward falling branch, the power has gone out. Scratching and creaking around your doors and windows keeps you on high alert…could the nefarious individual be trying to get inside your residence?
As cliche as it was, it was a dark and stormy night.
The weather - which had started out not particularly good as it was, all gray skies and thickening clouds above their heads - was now even worse than before. The wind was screaming loudly outside of the windows of the old mansion, and the rain was coming down so hard that the glass had turned temporarily opaque, frosting over with the frigid air.
All in all, it was a terribly despondent night.
It was past bedtime, for the most part. Magiore tended to sleep like an old man, as Durumi sometimes laughingly put it, heading to sleep around nine or ten on nights he wasn't patrolling. Nearly midnight, it was his wife who was asleep now, curled up in their king sized bed in a simple silk nightgown, her pale hair spread out on the pillow behind her. The curve of her bare shoulder looked almost like marble in the moonlight; Magiore leaned over and pressed his lips to her skin, a soft and simple kiss, and she stirred sleepily, but did not wake, her mouth curving in a faint and sleep driven smile, breathing slow, deep and even.
She was beautiful, and she was his. It still felt strange to be able to say his wife, rather than his girlfriend, or his fiance, even. She was bound to him, and he was bound to her, as irrevocably and unfailingly devoted as he had been since the day he'd met her, regardless of how much and how long he had tried to deny it. She was everything in the world to him; his entire universe compacted down to a single individual, whose importance could not properly be put into any sort of words that would encompass just how much Sun Durumi meant to him.
Which was why he was awake now, Magiore sliding to the edge of the bed, the ground cold beneath his feet. He pulled himself up, stretching his arms and glanced at the half a dozen candles that stood around the room, basking the room in a swath of golden light that barely did anything for the oppressive darkness that seemed to creep in from all of the corners. The power had gone out about an hour earlier; both of them had still been awake, though admittedly in bed, as had Tatsuya, and Magiore had been enjoying a leisurely bout of warm and affectionate cuddling with his wife, interspersed with kisses before they had suddenly been doused in darkness. The candles had been on one of the shelves in the upstairs hallway; Magiore had lit several in his own bedroom before crossing the mansion to reach Tatsuya's room to leave some for the other man as well before returning to his room and his wife.
She had fallen asleep soon after, but Magiore had lain awake, staring at the ceiling. The news reports - of which he wasn't always aware of, but that he had watched that evening out of curiosity - had all indicated the presence of a murderer on the loose, which wasn't helpful. Durumi had tried her best to reassure him that things would be all right, but it did not stop Magiore from taking extra precautions. Until the man was caught, he was not going to let her be on her own.
There was a faint scratching noise at one of the windows. Magiore turned his head sharply, blue eyes narrowed, and felt a pulse of irritation and apprehension slide through him. He did not power up, though his fingers twitched, as if itching to summon the weapons he was most familiar with, the ones that made him feel secure in his own abilities, safe in his own skin. Instead, he picked up the metal baseball bat that he kept beneath the bed and stepped towards the window, peering out with narrowed eyes.
He could barely see anything. It was raining too hard, the wind too loud to see or hear much of anything except itself. Magiore gritted his teeth and then stepped back, feeling his pulse slow a little as he tried to relax.
He glanced back at his wife. Durumi was still asleep, soft and gentle, and he felt an ache in his chest at the sight of her. She was everything he could have wanted, everything he needed; he would not - would not let anything happen to her, even at the expense of his own life.
This house was his home, his sanctuary. Magiore stepped around, hearing more scratching, and checked the attached bathroom, peered out into the long, dark hallway, looked in the closets and the wardrobe, until at last he decided that there was no one within the house, even if he could not be certain that there was no one outside of the house.
He moved back to the bed, but did not lay in it. Instead, he pulled a chair up beside Durumi, on her side, and sat there, reaching out to stroke her pale hair, fingers caressing her cheek, the baseball bat across his lap.
In the morning, when the storm had died away and a weak sun was streaming in through the damp grass, Magiore would be found dozing, still in the armchair, his fingers loosely curled around Durumi's.
