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 Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2020 7:41 am
“What the ******** do I even need the promotion for?”
They were several stories up on the roof of a building near work, powered up for a night of whatever Jet decided was more important than going home, waiting for the sun to finish setting in the hopes that the darkness would do more to mask the strangeness of their uniforms from whatever parts of the general population might still be out. The sun was slowly sinking behind the mountains in the distance, throwing blazing orange light over the city.
A few gray clouds stretched across the sky, though none of them looked significant enough to pose a threat. Maybe they’d be caught out in a light drizzle later, but a storm seemed out of the question. At least there was a breeze this high up. It offered the occasional respite from the summer heat, and sent Jet’s cape snapping about in a way that might have looked impressive if Jet were of a more impressive stature.
Aquamarine leaned against the cement barrier currently protecting them from tumbling down to the street below, arms propped along the ledge as he gazed down at the people scurrying to and fro. They looked tiny and insignificant from up here, nothing more than insubstantial specks.
“I thought we had a good thing going,” he complained. “You get to be the big, bad General. I pretend to do your bidding, and sometimes actually do it when I’m feeling helpful. You cover for me when I’m lazy and tell everyone I’m a good little Captain. I keep you out of trouble when you let me...”
Aquamarine paused to throw a glare in Jet’s direction. Naturally, Jet had to make keeping him out of trouble difficult. He still went out on his own more than Aquamarine cared for, still put himself in danger because he was dumb or got off on the thrill of it. Aquamarine was never sure which applied more. Even now Jet had a fading bruise along his jaw from a fight Aquamarine was not present for, plus several other scrapes and contusions hidden by his uniform.
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Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2020 2:19 pm
Jet really didn’t want to have this argument. Aquamarine was stubborn as it was, but anything to do with the Negaverse made him practically impossible to deal with.
Which was why he didn’t bother telling Aquamarine when he went out on patrol by himself.
“You’ve been a Captain for years now, and I think you’d made a good General,” Jet scowled at nothing in particular. Jet himself had been a General for a good four years now, although he sometimes questioned if his promotion was given when he was too young to really understand what it meant.
“You get a better weapon. And you can boss more people around. That’s what you like to do, isn’t it?” he asked as he dug the toe of his boot into the roof.
“I don’t know why you’re so against it. Other Generals won’t be able to tell you what to do. Isn’t that good enough?”
Probably not. Not with Aquamarine. Sometimes Jet wondered why he even tried to convince him of anything. He simply had to wait until Aquamarine came up with his own ideas.
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Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2020 8:16 am
“Is that really the bullshit you’re going with?” Aquamarine asked with a roll of his eyes. “An appeal to my ego and my nonexistent lust for power?”
A better weapon would be nice, he had to admit. He could only do so much with a dagger, but it wasn’t like he had any particular penchant for violence and there was always a chance an upgraded weapon would prove to be a disappointment. Going from a toy sword to a dagger was an impressive leap. Going from a dagger to something barely more than a dagger would be a huge letdown.
“I don’t care about this war,” he continued, lowering his chin onto his folded arms to stare moodily out over the city. “I didn’t join for power or glory or revenge, or whatever bullshit anyone has to say about the greater good. I joined because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it was either follow you, whether I came willingly or not, or they’d kill me. You know they would have. I knew too much after what I saw. No one was going to let me walk away.”
Aquamarine turned his head to peer at Jet again, mouth quirked into a sad little smirk. “Back then, I think you would have let them kill me. Maybe you would have helped them do it, if it meant I couldn’t ruin your chance for revenge.”
Another gust of wind blew Aquamarine’s hair into his face, recently cut back into mid-length waves that framed his cheeks and cupped his jaw. He brushed it back with his hand, huffing out a sigh as he did so.
He couldn’t argue effectively when he was in this sort of mood — tired and wary, defeated almost, though nothing had happened to put him in this frame of mind, just the same old bullshit they’d been muddling through for the last six years, made more difficult by the fact that they meant a bit more to one another than they had at the start.
“I suppose things are different now,” he said.
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2020 5:28 am
“I wouldn’t have killed you,” Jet muttered under his breath, not wanting to think back to that day, but knowing it was the catalyst for his, Lovely, and Jericho’s lives being turned upside down. “I’d just lost my brother, why would I want to kill one of my only friends?”
He’d been selfish, he knew. Having seen what they saw, and Soren meaning the world to him, knowing that his brother had been in the Negaverse had to mean it wasn’t a horrible place. Soren wasn’t an evil person, and he certainly made a lot of sacrifices for Ilian after their parents died.
A small bitter laugh escaped, “I’m older than him now.” Jet hadn’t thought about it until just then, but it now hit harder than he would have liked. Vengeance had been the drive to joining the Negaverse, but now it was hardly the case. There was more to it. A sense of purpose in Jet’s life that hadn’t been there before.
He had the power to protect those he wanted to protect. And he didn’t want to give that up.
“I don’t want you to die.”
His brother had been a Captain when he’d been killed. Maybe if he’d been a General, he would have had the power needed to win.
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:30 am
Because he was your brother, Aquamarine wanted to say in answer to Jet’s question. Because, back then, avenging him meant more to you than I did.
He wondered if that still held true. Sometimes he thought it might. When Jet went off on his own, when he kept his activities a secret, when he didn’t seem to care that their fates were practically intertwined, Aquamarine couldn’t help but assume that Jet hadn’t changed much in six years, that revenge for Soren’s death still mattered more than whatever they had. Most days, Aquamarine couldn’t really blame him, though he certainly took any and every opportunity to rant and argue about it.
They weren’t exactly the most affectionate pair.
“Wow,” Aquamarine said. Any genuine surprise he might have felt was lost beneath the lilt of sarcasm. “I think that might have been the most honest thing you’ve said tonight.”
Jet rarely made declarations like that, which, under different circumstances, perhaps with a different audience, would make the statement questionable. But Aquamarine knew Jet. He knew the things he was most afraid of. He knew things about him that Jet had never voiced, things they might never talk about. He knew Jet still had nightmares on occasion, after large scale events or particularly stressful nights, and he knew those nightmares occasionally involved Aquamarine himself.
“And you think a promotion is going to protect me?” he asked, shifting to the side a little, just enough for their arms to casually touch. He could have been teasing Jet with his proximity, but it could just as easily be Aquamarine’s way of offering a shred of comfort. “You think that power’s going to save me? Even Generals have limits. You still get your a** kicked enough to know that.”
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2020 2:43 pm
“Shut up,” Jet grumbled as he turned his head from Aquamarine, but didn’t move away from the touch against his arm. No, they weren’t exactly affectionate, but Jet could at least tell when Aquamarine was trying to offer some form of comfort. Even if he would be more comforted by Aqua’s agreement to take the promotion.
“Why do you have to be like this? Purposefully making things difficult for me? You might not care, but I do. You’ve at least got a family to go back to if anything happens to me. But what am I supposed to do? Jer- Seraphinite had his own family and problems to deal with. I don’t have anyone but you two and the Negaverse. They’ve at least let me make my own choices instead of sticking me in some s**t home.”
It had been one of his biggest fears after Soren had died - what would happen to him? He’d been too young to live on his own at the time, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted to go back into foster care. Jericho had his own new family, and Lovely’s brother didn’t exactly make things comfortable for him whenever he did stay over.
“So what if I get my a** kicked? At least I’m doing something. I’m at least trying to prove my worth, even if you try to sabotage me with your pissy attitude towards my recruits all the time. And no, I don’t think a promotion is going to protect you, but it’ll be better than what you’ve got now.”
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Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:59 am
Aquamarine didn’t shut up because Jet told him to. He shut up because he didn’t have anything to say that wasn’t more of the same. He frowned out at the city again and almost pulled his arm away, but held himself still and let Jet rant as much as he wanted to.
He was never going to be like Jet, who took his role in the Negaverse seriously, who worked hard to earn his rank even if he wasn’t always the most skilled or the most fortunate in combat, who stuck around through all the crazy s**t even when revenge still seemed like a far off goal. Maybe it wasn’t even about revenge anymore. Maybe he’d discovered some deeper purpose in the Negaverse and he kept going because the war actually meant something to him. Most days, Aquamarine didn’t care what the distinction was between their first days in the Negaverse and now. The Negaverse and their roles within it was a subject they would likely never agree on.
“I’m not trying to sabotage you,” Aquamarine grumbled, because he didn’t want to argue about the rest of it.
If anything happened to Jet, he might be able to go back to his family, but he’d still be stuck in the middle of the war. The Negaverse wouldn’t just let him go, and purification was not an option he’d be willing to explore even in the event that Jet died. That s**t ******** people up, changed their lives and made them forget things; he wouldn’t be able to go back to his family if he didn’t even remember who the ******** his family was.
Aquamarine sighed heavily. He hated thinking about this s**t. It meant thinking about his family, which he liked to avoid, and thinking about Jet dying, which was the one thing he made an effort to prevent, and thinking about the war, which he was never going to support.
“Isn’t it your job to protect me?” he asked, tipping his head to bat his lashes at Jet so it came across as a joke. “You might not have recruited me personally, but I thought we established I’m still more important than the rest of them.”
Which certainly explained why Jet was pushing so hard for him to take the damned promotion instead of riding someone else’s a** about it.
Aquamarine dropped the playfulness with a groan. Honestly, he knew how this conversation was going to end before it even started.
“If I accept, can we make a deal?” he asked. “It’ll still be us against everyone else? I’ll still be your partner in crime or your righthand man or whatever the ******** anyone wants to call me, and what I say and think will still matter more than anyone else? You’ll actually tell me s**t like when you’re going to go out and you’ll stop sneaking off when I’m asleep? You want me to take the promotion because you think being a General is going to offer me more protection than being a Captain, but has it ever sunk into your thick ******** head that the only thing I care about in all of this is protecting you?”
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Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2020 5:32 pm
Jet let out a huff when Aquamarine said he wasn't trying to sabotage him. It sure didn't seem that way sometimes. He was always trying to embarrass him or draw his attention when it came to the Negaverse. It probably didn't help that Jet knew how little Aquamarine cared for the war to begin with.
Even Jet wasn't that big of an idiot to think he did much protecting. If anything, he was more often protected by Aquamarine and Seraphinite and his recruits than he protected them. Not that he didn't at least try to protect them, he just usually ended up in situations where he was the one needing saving.
"Why would I want to wake you up if you're already asleep just to tell you?" Jet mumbled petulantly. It was better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?
Still, Jet did his bet to hold back the grimace wanting to make his way to his expression, knowing, historically, that he was the one getting himself into s**t more often than not, and that Aquamarine had almost died more than once to save his a**.
"Only if you never call me daddy again," he grumbled. "No, it's not funny," he shot Aquamarine a glare before he could counter, but the sourness in his expression faded, finding it difficult not to feel pleased that he was being listened to, finally.
"Yeah, you're stuck with me, anyway. You signed the paper," Jet reminded him, giving the arm still touching his own a gentle shove.
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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2020 8:13 am
Aquamarine shoved back, a little less gentle than Jet, but he was trying to make a point. His expression twisted with vague disgust at the paper comment, unwilling to discuss the subject unless it was on his own terms.
“Hey, I’ve only ever called you that once,” he said, latching onto the daddy bit because it pissed Jet off or made him uncomfortable, or both, and that was better for Aquamarine than awkward papers and gross relationship stuff. “And it was well over a year ago, so the fact that you’re still hung up on it leads me to believe you secretly liked it, which is a little too weird for me, sorry to say. My daddy issues don’t run that deep.”
Aquamarine smirked and turned against the cement barrier, putting his back to it and tipping his head in Jet’s direction. Some of his hair fell into his face in the process, but he let it be for the moment.
“It’s not like anyone took me seriously anyway, because no one takes me seriously, so, yes, it is funny, and before you think you can keep distracting me with this bullshit, I’ll have you know that it hasn’t escaped my attention that you haven’t agreed to my terms.”
Jet might not be the type to relent so easily, but neither was Aquamarine. They were both stubborn as hell. It was simply a matter of who could out stubborn the other. In this instance, Aquamarine was fairly certain he would win.
He put a hand on Jet’s arm this time, not so tight as to completely restrain him, but with a firm enough grip to let Jet know he wasn’t about to let him stalk away.
“Say you agree and I’ll accept the promotion,” Aquamarine said. His smirk slipped away, replaced with a determined frown. “I want to hear the words coming out of your mouth, because apparently a couple of rings and the ******** paper isn’t enough to make the point for you. Say, ‘of course, Aqua, you’ll still be the most important to me, more important than all of my stupid a** recruits,’ and you can’t drop the ‘stupid a**’ bit.”
The look in his eyes sharpened, watching Jet’s face for any sign that he would try to wiggle his way out of this.
“Say, ‘You’re my partner in crime and my right hand man and the person I file my taxes with, and everything you say and think matters more than anyone else in the Negaverse.’ Say, ‘I promise I’ll tell you s**t and I’ll stop keeping secrets and I’ll let you know when I’m going out, even if it means I have to be heartless and wake you up to do it,’ but let’s be real, if you’re being honest with me from the start, you won’t have to wake me up in the middle of the night, because you only go out that late when you’re sneaking off and you hope I won’t find out about it, but if I already know then you won’t have to do any sneaking at all.”
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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2020 2:58 pm
"Absolutely not. Why the ******** would I want to be called something that is so obviously not who I am?" Jet scowled as he was shoved back and Aquamarine needled him about the one-time nickname that was absolutely not funny.
He continued to scowl as Aquamarine turned the conversation back to how he wanted Jet to promise to do a bunch of bullshit, his sour mood quickly returning because of course Aquamarine would be stubborn and ridiculous about wanting him to repeat his nonsense.
Jet had half the mind to yank his arm away and leave, but he didn't. Not yet at least.
"I am going to drop the 'stupid a**' bit because I'm not going to say that at all. Why do I have to say it out loud? Do you think hearing it is going to be any more binding than not saying it? If I do what you're asking it will be regardless if I say it out loud or not."
Personally, he didn't feel like he should repeat everything because he was obviously going to listen as best he could if Aquamarine was going to take the promotion he was trying to push him towards.
"I'll try to be better about telling you when I'm going out, but I don't need a ******** babysitter. Do you want to put a tracker on me, too? And no offense, but you're not exactly my partner in crime if I'm the one doing all the work all the time," Jet growled as he finally did yank his arm away, feeling his face heating with both anger and embarrassment.
Did Aquamarine really feel the need to know everything he did? Was he so helpless that he couldn't be trusted to use his best judgment? Or was he just not trusted to begin with?
"Whatever. Don't take the promotion, I don't ******** care. I don't need you, or Sera, to follow me around like I'm a child. ******** you."
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Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2020 6:42 am
Aquamarine rolled his eyes so hard they nearly rolled right out of his head. He closed them against the sudden throbbing in his temples, clenching his jaw and curling his fingers into fists in an attempt to stop himself from snapping back and shouting at Jet for being stupid about everything.
There was a lot he wanted to say — like how he might do more work if he actually felt like he was being included and then maybe they could be on more equal footing; or that Jet should leave Sera out of the conversation when the two situations were so totally different — but he kept his mouth shut to let Jet finish his rant, ignoring the first few responses that popped into his head for the sake of forestalling the argument. Which was no easy feat, considering it was in Aquamarine’s nature to be argumentative, especially when it came to a subject he actually gave a damn about.
When he was as calm as he was going to be, and level-headed enough to not start shouting immediately, Aquamarine opened his eyes again and glared in Jet’s direction.
“Do you remember when we were Lieutenants?” he asked. “I did make an effort for a while. I did my duty and followed orders, and you and I were almost a team even if we weren’t any good at it. Sometimes I even thought, ‘hey, this Negaveres thing isn’t so bad.’”
He kept his voice as low and even as possible, so Jet couldn’t accuse him of whining or complaining or ranting and raving like a lunatic. If his usual snark and sarcasm and forcefulness wasn’t enough to get through to Jet without inciting a tantrum, maybe the more serious tone would have more success. Aquamarine might be a flippant little b***h about a lot of things, but that didn’t mean he was incapable of being sincere.
“Then you were promoted to Captain, and it was okay for a while. Then I was promoted to Captain, and you were captured, and I left home, and suddenly everything was different. The Senshi attacked and Laurelite became Queen and you were promoted to General, and you and I—”
Aquamarine forced his mouth shut before he could say anything about what he and Jet did, or what they became, and what feelings may have evolved in the process. They’d gone years without openly discussing it, and he was happy to keep things that way. They were what they were, and it worked for them. They didn’t need terms or labels or anything more blatant than that.
“Everything I’ve done since I left home, I’ve done for you,” Aquamarine said when he could trust himself to speak again. “Can’t you just do this one thing for me? Act like you give a damn that I give a damn. I don’t even give a ******** if it’s true or not. Just say it. Lie to me if you want. Just make it sound real for once.
“You’re all I’ve got now,” he concluded, quieter than before, like he didn’t want to say it but felt like he had to anyway. “You’re all I want to have.”
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Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2020 6:29 pm
Jet had no idea why he was like this, why he was so emotional and on edge when it came to Aquamarine. He should be most comfortable around him, but instead it seemed like he was so quick to lose his cool.
He was going on twenty-one in less than a month, and he still behaved like a child when he got uncomfortable or upset.
And he was the General between the two of them? For four years, he'd been a General, and he still wasn't sure where he stood in the eyes of others.
Why did he even care what others thought? It wasn't as though he ever had anyone to try to impress before. Or maybe that was why he was so afraid of losing what little control he had - because he didn't want to be a disappointment.
Good job he was doing now.
Jet was glad it was dark, because he could feel the heat radiating from his face, and was sure even with his darker skin, the red would be obvious.
He knew he was acting like a child. And even though he didn't want to, he still did.
Somehow, Aquamarine didn't yell back at him, nor did he start throwing insults his way. Instead, he spoke as calmly as anyone could imagine Aquamarine to speak. Jet glanced away in shame, biting down so hard his jaw hurt.
Aquamarine wasn't exactly affectionate, so hearing him say how he gave a damn about Jet, and how Jet was all he wanted to have was… unsettling. Because it made Jet realize even more so how much of an a*****e he was being.
"Do you really mean that?" he asked after a few moments of silence between them, his voice quiet as he held back his emotion. He figured Aquamarine would come back at him with something along the lines of 'I said it didn't I? Of course I mean it' so Jet shook his head to try and beat Aqua to the pass.
"I wouldn't want anyone else by my side. Negaverse or not," Jet shrugged, hoping it would make Aqua feel a little less uncomfortable by being flippant about it. "I promise I'll tell you things, and I won't keep secrets from you," he said, keeping his eyes down because he didn't want to see the way he was being scrutinized.
"And I mean that. You don't have to take the promotion, but I do promise I'll be better. You're all I've got and all I want to have, too."
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Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2020 10:15 am
Aquamarine almost pushed things further, almost forced the issue more; Jet might have made some of the concessions Aquamarine wanted, but he didn’t say everything. Jet was going to keep doing stupid s**t, but Aquamarine didn’t expect that would change even with a promise in place, so it seemed pointless to keep nagging. At least he got the main points, whether or not Jet actually intended to follow through. There was a chance nothing would change, just like before, but it felt different this time, like maybe Jet was taking his requests seriously for once.
Apparently being earnest and honest about things actually worked.
Who knew.
“I told you I’d accept the promotion,” Aquamarine said, forcing down all the instincts telling him to be cheeky or snide. The note of calm in his voice was strange even to his own ears, but if it kept things from devolving, it seemed worth it to try a little longer. “It’s probably time anyway. The longer I’m stuck at Captain, the more people are going to think I’m useless or not dedicated enough, and I don’t need anyone but you riding my a** about that s**t.”
He sighed again, shoving a hand through his hair to push it out of his face, trying to maintain his composure. Talking about their feelings, even in such abstract terms, was not something they did very often, particularly when those feelings involved one another. Aquamarine found it difficult to control his reactions. He tried not to flush, and hoped any color in his cheeks could be blamed on the summer heat.
“I don’t care about the Negaverse like you do, but I’ve still got your back. I thought I was making that obvious when I kept bitching at you about all the stupid, reckless s**t you do.”
Aquamarine turned his face away to stare at nothing in particular, hiding his expression when he said, “Where you go, I go. When you die, I die. That’s how it’s going to be.”
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Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2020 6:25 pm
Jet could honestly say he did not realize Aqua was trying to make a point that he had his back when he kept bitching at him. The revelation had him staring at his partner as if he didn't know him as well as he thought he did.
Did he think Aquamarine was going to betray him or abandon him? No, of course not. But he had not thought of the nagging as a product of concern or support.
He thought Aqua was just doing it to be a b***h.
No one is going to die, Jet wanted to say, but kept his mouth shut. Instead, he lifted a hand to scrub through his unkempt curls, before letting his arm fall back to his side.
"Let's just go home," he finally mumbled after some moments of silence. After all of this, he wasn't really in the mood to hunt down senshi. Not with all this talk of dying and whatever.
Jet wanted to tell Aqua that the feeling was mutual, that he really meant it when he said he would try harder to tell him when he did things, but the words wouldn't come, and he felt as though nothing he could say would really matter anyway. At least not until he backed it up with what he did.
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Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2020 10:52 am
Aquamarine rolled his eyes again, turning his head back in Jet’s direction so Jet could clearly see the look of annoyance on his face. Not that he expected it would accomplish much, since it never did before, but Aquamarine still wanted to make absolutely sure that Jet realized how frustrating he found these conversations.
Hopefully they wouldn’t have to have one like this again. If he got the promotion and put a little more effort into things and Jet actually did what he said, maybe there’d be less arguing and more teamwork.
Aquamarine almost complained. What the ******** was the point of coming out here at all if we’re just going to go home? But he didn’t have anything against going home otherwise, so he forced himself to keep his mouth shut incase Jet changed his mind. For a moment, Aquamarine considered refusing. No, let’s go hunt some Senshi so it’s not total bullshit when we both say I do my duty. Ultimately, he decided it wasn’t worth it tonight. It was rare when Jet suggested going home before Aquamarine did. It’d be a shame not to take advantage of it.
“Fine,” Aquamarine said. And then, to prove he was making an effort to take their duties seriously again, he added, “We can try again tomorrow.”
That was about as much sentimentality and serious bullshit as Aquamarine could handle for one evening, so before Jet could lead the way, Aquamarine stepped closer and unclasped Jet’s cape, flinging it around his own shoulders with a dramatic flourish as he began to prance away.
“I think the cape looks better on me, don’t you?” he taunted. “General Aquamarine doesn’t have a bad ring to it. You’d better hope you don’t regret this.”
Hopefully he wouldn’t regret it either.
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