“Huh,” Darrian said as he and his cousin continued slowly chasing—if walking at a sedate rate could be considered chasing—after their younger relatives.
Leerin stopped and glanced back at him. While they’d still been moving slowly, she’d beco increasingly intent to track down their cousins and tell them to just give up chasing the trio around the level, because eventually, the groups was going to lose their patience. The kids couldn’t be physically hurt—not too badly, anyways—but that didn’t an their egos wouldn’t be hard.
Leerin didn’t want their egos hurt. Darrian didn’t give a shit.
The brats were annoying, most of the leaning into prejudice more and more each ti they were forced to see them. As if their shitty views and personalities weren’t bad enough, so one in their family had the sense to tell them to stop being little fucks about anything, and he doubted anything the trio would do could too badly affect them. He really wished it would. One day, the lack of discipline their cousins were being given would catch up with them. Sothing terrible would happen, and it would be their parents’ fault for never being proper parents. Not that his or Leerin’s parents were any better.
“Apparently, the ssage wasn’t a mistake,” he told Leerin, reading over Emilia’s ssage again, his lips quirking when a picture of her hanging off soone’s arm, lips pulled into a pout, popped up behind it. “She sent a picture. She looks good,” he added, letting his cousin take a peek at the picture.
“Boyfriend?”
“Who knows. If it is, hopefully he’s better than the colonel,” he said, imdiately regretting his words—not because they weren’t true, but because it was a touchy subject between them.
His cousin sighed, long and pained. For a mont, they glared at each other—one person who had never liked Colonel McIntyre to one who had never had anything bad to say about him. He’d been dead over twenty years, and yet, when it ca to whether he’d been a good person, good boss, good boyfriend, energy and anger still crackled between them. They’d fought about it before—one of the few things they’d ever fought about, really. When the asshole had been alive, when he died and Emilia had gone back to bed hopping too quickly—in Leerin’s opinion—in the decades since. If they let it co up now, they’d fight about it again.
Darrian didn’t want to fight, not when it was already them alone against their cousins—against this stupid wedding and their increasingly intolerable family.
Stepping forward, he wrapped his hand around his cousin’s, pulling her forward as he instead switched to talking about the rest of Emilia’s ssage—about how she’d apparently needed so reward from the raid, but didn’t raid enough to need all the stuff she was trying to get rid of.
“It’s pretty good stuff,” he noted, actually going through the list this ti, composing a list of things he’d gladly take off her hands— “Huh.”
“What now?”
“A bunch more stuff was added to the list.” It was all good stuff as well—aweso stuff, really.
“You should keep ssaging her,” Leerin said softly, tugging his distracted self out of the way as their cousins forged forward yet again, completely ignoring her attempts to make them stop harassing the trio.
Seriously, how had they not given up yet? Every ti they ran past, their group grew, and yet they hadn’t even managed to land a hit on the trio. So of the heroes with them were older now, as well, a few of them clearly veterans in the way they moved, in the way the ssages now exploding through their too large team ssages read. Maybe, with their cousins so distracted, they could slip away. They might not even notice if they left the team, if they tid it so the notification would be lost in the middle of a post-defeat discussion.
“Seriously, Darrie. Keep ssaging her. Maybe she’ll ignore you, but maybe she won’t. Who knows when the next chance to talk to her will co around.” Leerin peered up at him, and he could see the desperation and conflict both written in her expression. She missed Emilia, the sa are he did, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly what he’d do if Emilia were suddenly there, smiling up at him and asking what was wrong, and so did his cousin. Emilia would ask, he would spill his guts, then their lives would change.
In the end, he would be happy—free. His cousin would be… he didn’t know what she would be. Unhappy, alone, trapped in a life she wouldn’t have chosen for herself, and angry with him for taking it away? Happy for him, for finally putting himself first?
They were trapped, and they both knew it. Happiness for one of them at the expense of the other. Not that Leerin was happy with her current life either. Sotis, unhappiness you know is better than unhappiness you don’t, he supposed.
Leerin gave his arm a squeeze, softly telling him to at least consider it before racing off. She didn’t go far—not at first, anyways—just around a corner, seeking out so hero to take her frustration out on, but far enough that she couldn’t see him—couldn’t try to read him, figure out what he was going to do.
Put her broken happiness first, just like he had since they were children.
Put himself first, for once.
Do what was best for him, at the expense of her; do the exact sa fucking thing for her because he knew Leerin would be happier with the outco of Emilia’s interference in their lives, even if it would take a while for his cousin to get there, to understand that the things she was putting up with, trying to force happiness into her life, were slowly destroying her.
[Darrie:A real-world reward, I assu?]
There. That was… acceptable. Nothing too personal. Nothing Emilia should care much about hiding—she’d been the one to bring up the rewards, after all. Still, it was a little opening for more conversation, if she wanted it. A single word answer—a bland yes—and he’d step back, leave his friend to whatever life she’d built for herself. Sothing more, and—
[Em:its a whole… this]
[Em:but yes, real world reward]
[Em:gone on a mission]
[Em:ah… with sammie]
[Darrie:You’re the one she went on vacation with?]
[Em:yeah]
[Em:well]
[Em:i needed black knot approval for all this]
[Em:i doubt itll be much of a vacation]
Smiling, Darrian chased after his cousin, tracking her dot as it swerved through the raid. For soone who didn’t like raids, she sure could move. Clearly, as much as she’d been denying it, Leerin had been training on the side.
“Mm, a mission does not a vacation make,” he replied, wondering how much Emilia would tell him about what they were doing. If it was sothing that needed Black Knot approval—and even after a decade gone, he was sure Emilia could get away without their permission for most things—then it must be bad.
If he asked, would she let him ditch this ship and co help?
[Darrie:Leerie and I are on vacation, too. It also isn’t likely to be much of a vacation.]
A bigger opening. She could say sothing simple, sothing about how that sucked, and she had to go. She could ask why, open the conversation to sothing more—to sothing that would result in her learning exactly where he was. It wasn’t like his friend could do anything with that information, but having Emilia know exactly where he was…
[Em:no?]
[Em:are you on a terrible mission to take down a terrorist purist as well?]
That… definitely hadn’t been what he’d been expecting. Yet, at the sa ti, this was Emilia and Samina. The shit those two used to get up to, his stupid ass chasing after them, pretending he could possibly keep up with their chaos-filled, low-dev asses…
Yeah, there was just sothing right about Emilia coming back into their lives—although who knew if Samina had actually been telling the truth all those tis she’d told everyone she had no contact with Emilia—over sothing as ridiculous—as serious—as taking out a terrorist.
[Darrie:No, well…]
A sense of amusent and concern vibrating along their conversation—a gentle tug to tell her more, and Darrian wanted to cry. He had friends—they all did—but the war had taken so many of those friendships, old and new, from them. Then Emilia, strange, connecting piece of their lives, had disappeared. Olivier and Helix in particular worked hard to keep them all connected, but it wasn’t the sa without Emilia—without the other mbers of their team who were missing or acting like hermits, as well—and they all knew it.
This—talking to his friend again, feeling the love and concern for him even through the aethernet… He had missed this so, so much. Stopping, Darrian rubbed a stray tear from his cheek, wondering if Emilia could feel the ache of his heart. He hadn’t intentionally sent anything to her, but sotis, strong emotions just slipped through.
[Em:do you… want to talk about it?]
“With you? Always.” The ssage slipped out before Darrian actually thought about it, his heart seizing as he realized what he’d just said—the implications, the desperation behind those few words.
Fuck. He’d been trying so hard to not fuck things up, too. He’d been succeeding, and then—
A skill ruptured through the aether, Darrian falling out of the way just in the nick of ti.
“Fuck~” a man’s voice sighed, lilting in the way Free Colonier voices did, if they’d learned Baalphorian early in the war. “I knew we should have let ourselves get killshotted, if only to tweak my skills.”
Turning, Darrian t the deep purple eyes of his assailant, his heart stuttering. The Free Colonier—probably a mber of the trio his cousins were obsessed with—was beautiful, even with the vicious smile ripped across his face. Adorable, lithe, distracting if he didn’t get his libido under control.
The guy was also oddly calm for soone who had just missed their killshot—not to ntion admitted that enough of their skills needed tuning that they’d considered letting themself be killed to tweak them in the middle of a raid. He made no attempt to fire another shot, instead just examining Darrian with a critical—maybe appreciative as well, although that could have just been wishful thinking on Darrian’s part—eye before his smile stretched larger, an edge of insanity entering his eyes.
“This is gonna be fun,” he said, energy beginning to vibrate out of him, so powerful it seed to bend the aether stretched over his skin. “I’m glad the little syn sent to you. I wonder what sort of things they saw of our future?”
A syn? This man clearly wasn’t from the Northern Tribes, yet he was travelling with soone who—
Darrian surged back as {Lancette} broke through the aether, attempting to killshot him or contain him—whatever worked. He wasn’t going to be fast enough to escape it, whatever had caused the Free Colonier’s last attack’s timing to be off not affecting this one. It was going to snap around him—leave him at the rcy of this man, leave him to be killshotted and taken away.
It was stupid, but Darrian wasn’t ready to be taken away from this man, sothing about him intoxicating, pulling at his attention in a way that he didn’t experience often.
His Censor cut off the defensive skill it had been attempting to activate—it wouldn’t have worked anyways—shifting into a spark. Landing behind the Free Colonier, but too far away—his Censor would never spark him sowhere unsafe, but with the short ti fra and moving vessel his aim had been a bit off—he fired off a volley of {TinCan: Aim}, dozens of aether needles fracturing through the air and flying for the man’s back.
Energy exploded out of the man, tendrils of black and purple snapping out to destroy each needle so perfectly it was srizing.
He truly was beautiful, his black skin shining with a thin film of sweat from however long he and the rest of his group had been wandering the level. When he turned, still wearing that cruel, heartbreaking smile, his purple eyes sparking with energy because that wasn’t a fucking skill he’d just used—or, if it was, it was one that pulled directly from his core.
Fuck. No wonder his cousins had been unable to lay a scratch on this guy if he had soone capable of programming skills that could interface with his core behind him—behind all three of them, perhaps. Soone with that sort of skill hacking… Darrian knew several people like that—each of them fucking monsters—but while he didn’t assu he knew every one of their friends, soone like this—so feral man from the Free Colonies, vibrating with power that could probably strike him dead with barely any effort?
Yeah, he kinda assud his hacker friends would have warned them all about this man.
Except… what had his cousins and the random heroes they’d picked up said, the last ti they ran by? Sothing about a silverstrain being part of the trio?
Emilia, on vacation sowhere. Here?
His brain whirred as the Free Colonier stared at him, waiting for him to make the next move, or perhaps waiting for him to focus—not that there was much chance of that, when his Censor was informing him that Ship’o Stars regularly ran raids with tickets as the reward.
Ship’o Stars, which was the location of a wedding where most of the guests had purist ties.
Darrian didn’t get the chance to contemplate what the chances were that the reward Emilia had been earning herself had brought her onto the sa ship as him—what the implications were, within the context of her comnt about a purist terrorist. One mont, the Free Colonier was several feet in front of him, the next he was right there, peering up at him, their chests almost touching. He was short—at least a foot shorter than himself. Small and delicate, despite the chaotic energy seeping out of him, those tendrils of energy wrapping around them but not touching.
“Hello,” the man breathed out, his eyes crinkling with amusent. “Wanna help test so skills out?”
Darrian sparked out of the circle of the man’s energy barely in ti to avoid it surging into him—apparently it was a skill, then. Landing a few feet away, he bolted down the hall, trusting that the man would follow—the Free Colonier didn’t seem the sort to let anyone escape their grasp.
Indeed, laughter followed him, along with soft footsteps. “That isn’t a no,” the man called after him, and no—no it wasn’t.
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