ON A GATHERING STORM COMES A TALL HANDSOME MAN

I’ve been watching altered carbon so I would love to do a verse with that if anyone’s game.

Watching as Kuro SHIFTED to face him whilst hearing  the sound of his voice (  his,  untainted  &  natural ),  Harold’s heart nearly lurched  from his chest.  He wasn’t entirely sure if the FONDNESS he heard,  the softness,  was something more real or if it was heightened by the slowly fading sedatives.  

Regardless,  his eyes were still partially lidded,  HEAVY,  &  he appeared relaxed,  at ease.  It was a welcome relief as well as almost ENTICING ;  Harold found himself unable to resist leaning in closer,  only slightly,  whilst tilting head  &  shoulders.   A smile  still tugged at the right corner of his mouth,  again BRIEFLY expanding in response to Kuro’s greeting,  before again shrinking somewhat whilst his gaze flickered DOWNWARD,  only for a moment,  before lifting to find hazel eyes.  That tenderness  still churned within his own blue.

 ❝ Three days, ❞

Harold answered EASILY,  fondness beginning to gradually seep further  into his tone.

❝  We kept you in the FARADAY CAGE in the subway.  Miss Groves  &  I spent the time working on a protective  JAMMER for your system to keep out anything   unauthorized—–which you have full control over.   It WON’T disrupt the nanites,  or  our mesh network,  of course.  Samaritan WON’T get to you again.  ❞

The sound of REGRET,  remorse,  could be heard within his last sentence,  as a quiet  undercurrent.  Gaze flickering downward again  &  to his right,  Harold added,

 ❝ I’m sorry  that our ORIGINAL plan didn’t work out quite  like we’d HOPED it would, ❞

After a moment of pause,  he glanced upward,  his eyes briefly hardening like imperturbable STEEL  as he allowed the fury  of Samaritan’s actions WASH over him.  Kuro had become someone Harold cared about,  deeply,  &  his underestimation of Samaritan had lead to it almost CONSUMING him whole.  As he neared the end of creating the jammer,  this underlying FURY elicited Harold to include something (  he hoped  ) that would be FULL PROOF,  so that Samaritan’s human operatives  couldn’t bypass it.

 ❝ However …. if ANYONE unauthorized,  at your  discretion,  attempts to manually connect to the direct ports,  they’ll receive an ELECTRIC SHOCK for their trouble.   Non-lethal  …. but considerably painful. ❞

A quiet,  but intense  undertone of PROTECTIVENESS colored Harold’s words.

Half scarred lips parted slightly, something like surprise coloring the soft lines of Kuro’s features; he had expected to be out for months, maybe even years. Not a mere three days. Suddenly, relief was flooding his systems. He raised a hand to rub at his eyes as he collected his thoughts.

Emotions felt like they were flooding him, too; even the sedation couldn’t temper it for long. The fondness came first, shining through the haze like a beacon. Then he felt a tight curl of anxiety under his ribs, something he was far from accustomed to feeling. He wasn’t accustomed to being the one being protected, either—especially not after spending more than a decade in hiding. Few people had ever cared enough to.

“They threatened to use my body, my system, to hunt you down. I didn’t—“ he hesitated, hazel eyes sweeping downwards with something like shame, like this was a weakness that had been exploited, used against him, that had nearly cost him everything. But—“I didn’t have a choice but to let them. I tried to fight them. Even when it was in control.”

Then he was reaching for Harold; there was the faintest tremble in his hand as his hand found Harold’s arm, something probably still obvious even when his fingers curled around him. It suddenly felt like the world had dropped out from under Kuro, like the ground had ruptured and he was freefalling in emotions he had never been taught how to handle.

“Thank you,” he said, quietly, the words ghost like, in response to the information about his manual port. His grip tightened just a little—but never enough to hurt.

Gently but no less desperate, Kuro tugged, his other hand coming up to grip Harold’s lapel. All he knew in that moment was that he wanted—needed—Harold closer, as close as he could get him. He needed to touch, and to be touched.

Something had busted, abruptly, under the hood, and Kuro had pulled over to the side of the road. It was freezing out, and getting colder as the sun was starting to set. Kuro was wrapped up tightly as he leaned under the hood of the faded, green truck—the problem was that he was just learning about how to work on these, and he had no idea what was wrong here to even begin to fix it himself.

He hadn’t heard the other vehicle pull over, only noticing when he man came up by the side of the car. Hazel eyes looked up in surprise and he straightened up a little as he watched him. Off beside his feet, sitting near the grass off at the side of the road, well away from the road itself, was a white german shepherd with a half-eaten bowl of food. The dog looked up, let out a quiet woof! at seeing the stranger, and then turned his attention back to his bowl of food.

Harold tugged his tie, and Kuro came willingly, climbing up to straddle Harold’s lap on the couch. They had been spending a decent amount of time at Kuro’s place, alternating between it and the safehouse Harold preferred, and that’s where they were tonight. Kuro has still been dressed in his suit—something he had come to wear more and more after having met the team, having found a liking for that style of clothing.

Kuro’s hands found fistfuls of Harold’s suit as his weight settled onto the couch. As he got comfortable, he leaned into to press a kiss against Harold’s lips, all intensity behind scarred features and soft lines. He used Harold’s suit to leverage himself closer, pulling himself up against him as he pressed to deepen the kiss almost desperately.

Black wings were folded up tight against his back, and he wanted desperately to spread them out around them, but he was too busy with Harold to even begin to free them. Instead his hands found Harold’s tie, and he began loosening it a little.