Val☀️ 花樣年華 |XXIV

SylusMC text posts part 3??? (1/2/3)

Fixed his face a little bit from sketch to look more like griffith haha.

sylus likes you like this: blissed out and pliant under his touch; all your reluctance in letting him spoil you gone. the weight of your legs over his shoulders and the heat of your body under him as you are pressed against his. he traces the curse breaker mark on your ribcage and delight in the way you shiver — amused and challenged at your silence still.

he’s used to the way you are silent in the bedroom, savors the barely there whimpers and gasps that you don’t swallow down in time. but not tonight. not after the stunt you pulled, putting your life on the line when he told you to stay back. his thumb brushes the mark again, too deliberate for it to be an accident causing you to wiggle out of his grasp.

“sy—, ah”, your voice breaks, instinctively turning away from his touch. he can’t have that; you trying to move away. “that— that tickles.” your voice pitched higher than normal, the telltale sign of you falling into a headspace both of you never acknowledge. 

he’s being strategic — cheating, you’d chastise him if you knew his intentions — he knows the mark is one of your sensitive places. but the warmth of you isn’t enough to convince him you’re still here, that he had got to you in time and you’re still breathing with him. alive and real.

you had put up your body as a shield to miss hunter’s bullet.

if it wasn’t for his quick reflexes & his evol, he’d have felt your blood on his skin.

alas, he had smirked for his audience of one as he pushed you aside, the bullet pulverized in thin air. “finally learned to pull the trigger, did you?” 

he had watched you retreat to where luke and kieran is in the shadows, as he tried to resonate with miss hunter. but later, after the failed attempts, after he had brushed the imaginary lint from his shoulder to leave her alone, the twins had told him you’ve gone to your room. 

no one under his care dies on his watch. he presses a kiss to your neck, and opens his mouth to taste the salt of your skin. maybe if he gives you his mark right now, you’d remember that. 

———

you’re a curse breaker. in this world and the next, you see lines connecting people. you discern stories from what you see. once, sylus asks you what it’s like and you tell him it’s a hindrance to watching a movie in the theatre — all glowing and bright; the lights might not as well be dimmed. 

that week he rents an entire movie theatre and asks you to watch a recent release you’ve been wanting to watch in a while. when you point out that both of you could have stayed at the base with his home theater, he shrugsand says, “you wanted to watch one in a theater, no?”

in that dark room with only his tapestry of red glowing at the corner of your eye, you tell him, “it’s probably like your eye. you see people’s desires; i see people’s hatred in neon colors all the time.”

but not all curses are born out of hate. sometimes the cruelest ones are born out of love. it’s why the energy to create the linkage is strong enough to withstand efforts to break it.

the more you love someone, the worse the betrayal. 

you never tell him about the black line sprouting from his chest. you suspect he already knows. 

———

when you come to, you’re tucked under his arms, his hand rubbing mindless circles on your shoulder. the occasional kiss or two to the top of your head. you catalogue the fresh sheets under you, the tender but clean flesh of your body, rid of sweat and fluids, knowing he had cleaned you up, and sink into the warmth of his body heat.

he hums a nonsensical tune. the vibration of his voice grounds you more than the sound itself. you still feel a bit floaty, hazy; the world a bit softer on the edges and a need to be cocooned in warmth. a feeling of vulnerability you can’t quite place that arises after being with him so you seek his other hand, the one holding a book for him to read and thread your fingers together instead.

“someone’s feeling greedy,” he teases without heat, even if he relinquishes the book back to the bedside table without you asking. still you squeeze his hand hard in retaliation because as much as you’d like to pinch him,you don’t want to lose any contact you have with him right now. “and a need to stretch out their claws,” he adds in amusement. 

both of you never talk about it — the person you become under him and the person that emerges after — and you trust him to take care of you because he always do. indulges you with quiet moments like this as if business doesn’t knock on his doors, like you both have forever in the confines of his room. 

“what time is it?” your words still slur a bit, voice so timid in any other time you hate how small you sound.

“early enough for you to rest,” he commands, planting it to the top of your head. “so rest.” 

and you want to. god, you want to. to believe this moment is yours to hold and stretch and bind to your soul. but you know it’s just you. a side effect of waking up from the haze of intimacy: lengthening everything in a rose-tinted lens.

because sylus likes to lie and you endure it.

pretty, beautiful, sweetheart — echoes of compliments you wish he could take back because it’s all a lie. you want to tell him to stop because it’s cruel to ply you with sweet nothings he’s just saying for the act of it, but maybe for tonight, you can soak it in, believe maybe a part of him means it because the only time his reverence doesn’t sting is the one time your brain stops thinking what ifs.

it must be why you can’t stop the words from tumbling out, why you call out his name and when he answers with a hum, it would be your greatest regret to continue. “why don’t we run away?”

his chuckle is a beat late. you know the answer even if he refuses to say it, choosing to entertain you instead. “where to?”

“anywhere,” you reply though your heart isn’t in it anymore. when you look back to this moment in the future, you’ll feel the prickle of humiliation at how desperate you must sound. the only thing you did right was feigning sleep after and not holding him from leaving the bed when a call comes through his phone. 

————-

some curses are hereditary or ancient — a passed down line that turns paler with each generation when the original emotion has been weathered down with time; some are shimmery and translucent reds they look more pale pinks than anything else when it’s inflicted halfheartedly like jokes between friends or harmful intent that comes to pass once the other person forgives the other. the latter will usually fade with time. 

no one knows what the curse is from looking at the colors, only the severity of it. the deeper the red, the more harmful it is, and if it’s black, well there’s a reason poison labels are that color.

when the twins brought miss hunter to the base, you saw the black line that tethered them together. a caster and its captor and a gun. your lack of hesitation to throw yourself in front of its trajectory selfishly. you only know you don’t want to watch him die.

you heard sylus talk once about not being able to die, not until his beloved kills him, over the surveillance feed in the control room, where you were stationed for a mission he wanted you to tag along for to evaluate some artifacts for any lingering residual resentment on them while giving him and the twins a heads-up should someone sneakily come up to them. cursed objects with protocores tend to be more volatile and unpredictable after all.

you remember his mocking tone right before he disintegrates the captive and their weapon into dust. the cynical, self-assured voice tethered with grief and anger. you never want to hear it again. 

————-

“what’s wrong?” you set aside the popcorn and pause the movie the minute you notice a shift in the air. you’re on your weekly (well, weekly is a bit of a stretch given both of your schedules) movie night when his pager beeps. the twins. if the mission was a success, they should be en route home by now.

instead of answering, he grabs his jacket draped on the next seat and pulls up his terminal on his phone, typing away as he turns to leave. mephisto’s footage coming into view on the screen. “keep watching the movie,” he says, dismissively.

you suppress a sigh as you stand, scurrying after him. “for someone who claims to be above everything, you’re a terrible liar.”

he frowns. “what are you doing?”

“going with you, of course,” you move past him to the secret compartment on the wall next to the vase and grab your favorite weapon. there are plenty around the house. you and the twins made a game out of who can find the most in one night which you suppose is n109’s version of scavenger hunts. sylus had given all of you his version of the stink eye because now everything had to be put back and cleaned. no one slept a wink that night and for all his surliness, he had given everyone an impromptu workshop on how to clean weapons properly. his patience when the twins mess up, the slightest hint of shyness peaking through when he’s about to go on a tangent over which bore brush, which oil works best for which gun when one of you asked, probably, maybe won you over as much as you can be won. it was a side of him that was novel to you, a softer contrast to when you had first met him: self-assured, confident, a glowing red eye that makes you think ah, he’s as greedy to take in the world as you are.

that night in the living room with your hands grimy with oil after a clumsy spill, him concentrating on his current weapon, and the twins flitting around him like hummingbirds. you envied him as much as you were intrigued by him at first sight with the number of red lines attached to him where not even the most controversialpublic figure had that many. because what terrible things had he committed to garner such wrath many times over? how could he stand so tall even with hatred surrounding him and still let love in? you had wished to own that self-assuredness for yourself to face the world, to still let light in, and next to luke and kieran, he’s kind, he’s loved, and you added another ounce of your envy for him: that he had remained gentle through cruelty, and then you decided, when he had looked at kieran with barely restrained pride, you wanted to protect him, this version of him, in whatever way you could. 

and that means, the twins back to safety in the present. at his silence, you add, “what? you promised you’ll watch the entire before sunrise trilogy with me. ’m not letting you skip that.”

you grab the keys for the jeep on the drawer for good measure and throw it for him to catch. the forecast mentioned rain earlier and it’s the one you’re sure has first aid replenished from a recent run. “come on. you’re driving as always.”

he chuckles as he catches up to you. “has anyone ever told you how demanding you are?”

“why, did you hear something?” you quip, letting him open the door as you walk past him. 

in the car later where the twins are patched up and safe and dozing away their medication, you think of the twins’ relief at seeing sylus and start drafting plans of how to make sure he lives despite that death curse should he and his beloved one day cross paths. books to track, people to visit. the car rolls to a stop under a red light and you jerk out of your stupor at the touch of his hand on your cheek.

dried blood you didn’t even realize was there linger on his fingers and the moment breaks when the light turnsand the car moves, but at a different intersection, as the lights whizz past you, he says, “thank you.”

the words are clumsy and quiet compared to luke’s steady snoring in the background. his knuckles tense on the steering wheel, for what you don’t understand. the lingering anxiety and anger, maybe, from saving the twinsand paying back the ones who hurt them. a slow drizzle starts splattering the windshield matching the beat of your heart. “mm,” you hum, “don’t mention it.” n109’s roads are as bright as ever with its various led screens. a commercial on the latest tablet is playing and blurring into splotches of watercolor before the wipers swipe it into clarity again. something inside of you is buzzing. you drum it into something slower on the button that willroll down your windows. maybe the rain can cool you down with how warm you feel but you don’t want to get wet. “we’re rewatching the trilogy from the first one by the way.”

sensing his complaint, you add, “it’s called a marathon. not a start and pause.”

he shakes his head and presses the pedal. “you’re unbelievable.” 

————-

curse-breaking is a lost art. no one really does it by trade. some might sell their services online, but at most, it’s a parody and a scam. true cases you’ve seen require either the caster to retract it, or a payment equivalent to fulfill the curse. like a vessel that’ll absorb the curse that you purposefully redirect it to so the balance in the universe is still upheld. even then, it doesn’t guarantee it would break such is the finicky thread of human emotions. 

still, you’ve enjoyed reading stories about curses, historical accounts of curse breaking you can find amusement in at its inaccuracy to pass the time perhaps because life has marked you as one who can break it.

you’ve never done it nor study it. in a modern time, where most people think curses don’t actually exist, no one really has a need to learn the ancient arts. it’s a dying breed, but you know of a shop that trades knick-knacks fronting as a place for curse-breakers to apprentice. your mark burns sharper as you get closer to the shop, like some sort of twisted pied piper’s song for curse-breakers to be lured into which was how you found the shop years ago.

the sting dissipates when you step into the shop. truly, you grumble, what kind of wickedness do curse-breakers inherently possess?

no one is in the counter to your left spanning the length of the shop. you step in further, taking note of the rows and rows of jewels, pendants, amulets, signet rings on the display case, and the locked wooden drawers making up the wall behind it. you notice none of the objects in the shop emit a faint glow nor are there lines running throughout the shop. it’s blissfully clean. apprentice work, probably. you’ve never actually looked around the first time you stumbled into the shop and a woman with black hair had looked at you knowingly right before you turned tail and ran back into the night, your mark a dull pain on your ribs.

the door in the back of the shop with a frosted glass pane cracks open as you admire a magnifying glass, and a woman with white hair in a long gown walks out. 

“she bet you would come back,” the white-haired woman says as she approaches you. instinctively, you take a step backwards. you’ve never cared about this power of yours, not when it seemed futile to care when people are careless with words and intentions when their emotions run high. it’s a sisyphean cycle with no reward to break curses that will eventually form the minute you look away over petty disagreements. you have no tolerance for it, but now, maybe, maybe it’s worth tapping into and in this shop, you can sense it means something to them. this power. 

“would you be able to help me?” you force yourself to look into her eyes, black as the night outside. 

a smile slants her face. “only if you can pay the price.”

————-

“tell me again,” sylus says. the movie drags on, the technicolor lights mapping the shadow of his face. truthfully, you’ve checked out from the movie five scenes ago when the characters start brawling in plain daylight. you have no tolerance to view plain hostility like that. the last movie you watched about wrestlers, you asked sylus if they were accurate in hopes to avoid looking at flying fists, and he had said to come to his boxing match to judge for yourself. you did and it solved nothing, and he had laughed when you told him about your observation, which is really stellar of him and much preferable than the version of him sitting next to you. “what is it like?”

the red lines around him are uncountable that it becomes its own canvas of red, but the black thread stands out just the same. you can dismiss it as a trick of the light, but it’s lighter in shade today, more maroon than outright black and you swallow your questions away. “you see people’s desires; i see people’s hatred in neon colors all the time.”

he looks at you then, one eye glowing and you let him read you even the parts you don’t understand yourself. a moment passes, the scene on the screen changes as the light flickering in his face dims. “take what you need,” he says. 

maybe it’s what you both need after a close call of almost losing each other if luke and kieran were a split second too late to the extraction point. it’s mostly just the need to know the other is alive, you’re sure, nothing more and nothing less. you think about crossing the line and weigh it against your own need to know he is still alive against your own hands, how his way of offering comfort is also his way of asking for his own. you’ll let him consume you, you think, anything. “only if you do the same.”

————-

the price, it turns out, is just a lot of money and time. to research, to track an object, to be discreet and plan everything between your missions with sylus or the twins. it’s a pet project, of course, to find out how to break his curse. he never expressed it and you’ve never pushed; none of your conversations ever address his curse and eye or if you have tried breaking a curse instead of just seeing them. but if one day he wanted it gone, at least you’d have an option ready in the first place. something you can brush away as a birthday gift, if he ever asked, courtesy of a curse-breaker.

the shop had told you about the existence of a jade dagger, one carved millenniums ago, said to be auctioned where you currently are tonight helping out miss hunter and sylus’ joined mission. you’re not privy to the details of what they are looking for, but you set it aside to look for the dagger on the second floor of the auction halls after doing a sweep of the place. this has been a reoccuring theme – sylus and miss hunter going on missions – a tentative partnership, he had assured you when you ask if it was a wise decision to let the hunter’s association know about his whereabouts. you had taken it in stride because you know to not ask, and so you have thrown yourself instead to tracking the dagger down and doing your own research about the curse.

and it had led you here, placing the highest bid on the jade dagger strapped under your dress. nobody had to know you strayed a bit from your mission. he had only told you to stand by and do your normal sweep of assessing what might be worth buying and you’ve added his name to the list of bids you think would be worth acquiring.

you check in with luke and kieran, amd quickly, move towards the first floor where both of them were last seen. the orchestra plays something lively. the dance has started then and the auction is winding down to a close.

you first met sylus at an auction, not much different than the one you’re currently viewing. at that time, you had stopped at a painting in display – a medieval looking one of a dragon with a sword sticking out of his chest, and a princess on the other end of it. the plaque reads: “a fiend’s doomsday” credited to unknown. it sits in the west wing next to the organ where he’d only play one song every time. you haven’t heard him play in a while. every time you gaze at the painting listening to him play, melancholy eats at you and the painting comes alive in your head like a scene out from a movie, not much different than what is in front of you now: miss hunter and sylus on the dance floor, her dress billowing behind her as he twirls her.

you slow to a stop at the bottom of the steps as the crowd parts around them. the jade digging slightly into the soft flesh of your thigh. they make a stunning pair and for a moment, you find yourself entranced as the music fades until you spot someone from the corner of your eye dashing somewhere and the rumble overhead feels ominous. you calculate where he should be and the time of possible impact. your eyes widen. “sy-” you shout, covers be damned, whipping your head around to pinpoint the flash of red. you stumble to stay upright through the impact reverberating as the ceiling crumbles. 

the screams fade to nothing. there’s a commotion around you as the power cuts. dust stings your eyes and you take in the faint reds of curses floating around you not dimmed by the light. multiple shoulders jostle past you so do streaks of red and white and pinks but you stay rooted, the last syllable of his name falling into ash in your mouth. 

there in the middle of the darkness is his aethercore glowing red. his red outline holding miss hunter close. the dark maroon line snaking down his chest to her wrist. invisible to everyone but you. 

the dagger shifts under your dress, the handle digging into your thigh like a brand. heavy and awful. a stone.

you get it now. the warnings from the sisters in the shop. love is the strongest curse there is. the hesitation on their faces. perhaps, they were right. perhaps, he doesn’t want to be saved. 

miss hunter screams at him something indignant, probably about how she can handle herself. you watch the emotions on his face, this look of amusement and assuredness. her ankle twists over something in the midst of backing away, the maroon line jerks and his arms like a puppet clasping her back to him. you tune everything out.

you follow the red threads of sylus’ and the many guests who did not make it out in time and the objects, most of which extends to outside the building, out of sight, to guide your way out the dark. you don’t remember the trek back home. 

————-

at the forest clearing, the twins who had begged to come with the both of you on your excursion to the north is befriending the herd of sheep native to the area. a couple of the sheep runs away from luke, who is chasing them with his mask on. maybe, terrorizing would be a better word.

you sigh into your drink as you lounge on the swing nearby. “you really should teach your kids some manners.”

“they have manners,” his voice amused behind you, where you have ordered him to stand so he can provide extra shade from the sun. not that there’s any with the canopy of the tree over you, but he had humored you anyway. a stray sheep approaches the both of you, bleeting once it deems itself a safe distance from you. you can feel his eyebrows raising. “unlike this one.”

you bite back a laugh. it wouldn’t do to choke on your drink. “don’t be mean, sy,” you reach out a hand to pet the sheep who is nuzzling your knees, its wool soft to the touch. “he’s harmless.” 

the sheep bleats in agreement. or maybe a call since some of his friends start trodding over.

“calling for reinforcements when we’ve both been harmless is not an ideal display of sportsmanship,” he tuts. 

“and since when do you have a stellar sportsmanship?” 

one of the sheep snorts in reply. 

you burst out laughing, slightly startling the few sheep that has gathered itself near the both of you. sylus’ slight frown makes you laugh harder. 

“here,” you take his hand and direct it to the baby sheep looking up at him. “why don’t you pet them so they know how strong you are and how you should not be messed with. restore your reputation.” 

“i wasn’t aware i had a reputation to restore,” sylus drawls, despite lowering himself to pet the sheep tentatively like he’s afraid it would run away the second his hands touch it. another sheep nudges the one he’s petting, waiting for a turn, and then another joins in crowding his hand.

“i think you need to work harder or else you’ll be known as a softie,” you tease, content with the lone one who decides to stand next to you. 

the quiet settles around both of you and you wonder if he’s as content as you are in this moment. if trying to give a world that make him happy, memories that are soft, would be enough to make him reconsider throwing his life away so recklessly each time he has a mission with miss hunter. you don’t own him, you know. whatever he chooses to do is beyond you, but still. “hey, sylus,” you say, the wind carrying your voice as you smile at him. “thanks for coming with me.” 

you remember him about to say something in reply until mephie flies in with a piercing caw, scattering all the sheep away including the one under your touch. he fluffs his feather on his perch on sylus’ shoulders, puffing his chest up and you snort at the silly bird’s jealousy. “or i guess your bird can win that fight for you.”

you’re not sure why it’s this memory intruding your thoughts while you take off your earrings and start prepping for bed. maybe because it was the first trip you had planned with the knowledge that the efficacy of breaking a death curse relies on the bearer to want to live or have enough happy memories to decrease the strain a death curse’s residual might have on the body. how you had stupidly, naively, believe that maybe if you can start making more happy memories for him, it can lighten the severity of the curse. you had a stray thought it was an ulterior motive of the shop sisters telling you she needed someone to go up north and take care of her sheep; an alternative, less destructive path than what breaking a death curse would usually entail.

birthdays, outings, small things like surprising him with his favorite record or knitting mephie silly clothes to wear that you both can laugh at, you’re not the most expressive person and all of this is foreign to you, but you try you suppose. nothing too out of the ordinary of the rhythm you’ve established, of course, you don’t have the heart to stomach it and you don’t think he’ll be receptive to it. and between how the n109 never sleeps, the pockets of time together are rare. and this all had happened months before he’d wind up on your bed, forever cementing your loyalty to him in more ways than one. months before you’ll watch from the sidelines as he throws himself in front of every danger meant for miss hunter, and perhaps it’s why you can let go and accept that he’d choose death for his beloved over any semblance of living with you. 

you wipe away the stray tear that comes unbidden. you don’t even know where it’s coming from when you had just finished your skin care. setting your skincare to the side, you’re about to call it a night when the door opens and sylus barges in, collar open and tie askew. “you left first.” 

“mm,” you fake a yawn and a stretch before getting into your bed, trying to get away from the smell of her perfume. “i was a bit tired.”

you did come to the auction by yourself while sylus arrived with miss hunter to maintain their cover and leaving at separate times isn’t new to how your joint-missions can be. you’re not sure why he’s bringing this up now when all you want is to sleep this weird day off.

“what’s this?”

on his hands, the jade dagger the shop sisters have warned you about owning – the consequences it can leave you with, which you think is a bit redundant considering you’re dealing with a death curse. of course, it’d have consequences. still, it doesn’t matter in the end. “a pet project,” you offer instead, which is not a lie technically, and you do occasionally have bouts of getting into something. back when you would frequent his bed and both of your routines were predictable enough to expect movie nights, he’d make a quip about your little projects he’d notice. embroidery, painting, cello, gardening, the list is endless. it should be believable enough he’d drop it. 

his gaze turns assessing to the open books on your desk. it’s nothing that will lead him to connect the dots; all the texts that mentioned the death curse you have returned to the shop after that night you had asked him if he’d run away with you out of desperation and stupidity. only a general book on artifacts are laid out, and a handful of scrolls in languages you know he’s not fluent in, which the shop sisters have taught you – curse-breaker language, they dub it. you watch him look back at the dagger on his hands, and hope he will leave your room soon. maybe you’ll hand the dagger to the shop as a gratitude gift since it no longer matters.

“i’m keeping this,” sylus declares, pocketing it into thin air, a smirk on his face.

“okay,” you agree, lying down on the bed and closing your eyes, tired and exhausted in ways you’re not sure why. it doesn’t matter. he can have it too.

you wait for his footsteps so maybe you can do something to ease the weird chasm on your chest. you’re not sure what would fix it either, this weird itch to excavate your heart outside of your body, but you know it’s not something you can do when he’s still here. you count your breaths, long enough for you to start drifting and wonder if maybe he’s left, only to feel the heat of his body covering the length of yours. his shadow falling over you. 

slowly, you open your eyes and meet his scarlet ones staring back. the scent of her perfume burns. “what do you want, sylus?” 

a dozen quips seems to flit his mind, searching for one to land, but in the end he says nothing to break the silence of the room.

you sigh as you reach out, unbuttoning the second button of his shirt, the next one, and the next. his gaze a weight you try to bear as you keep your hands steady, focusing on the expanse of skin revealed to you. he’s pliant to your touch, letting you peel his shirt off and fling it somewhere across the room. her scent gone with it, but not his gaze. you avert your eyes, mustering a smile, like this is an everyday occurrence, a dance you both know. “come sleep,” you blindly pat the space next to you. you think this will be the last time, where you let your longing flay you open. tomorrow, you’ll box all your feelings away and maybe do something to dislodge the weight in your chest. but right now, you wait and count the seconds before he sinks into his side of the bed, exhale the relief in your chest that you can still take his warmth for yourself one last time and sink into the warmth he cradles you in as you drift off to sleep. 

————-

a storm warning was issued for civilians to stay clear from the roads, cutting your eta by half. based on the text, luke and kieran is hiding in the trees a mile away from where you’re standing. a forest borders the clearing and it’s where they’ve been helping with long range shots. boss’ orders, they said, since he was supposedly meant to go alone. it wouldn’t do to lose the upper hand so you trek by foot the remaining miles after abandoning your car to one side of the road and pinging your arrival. hopefully the rain would cover any lingering engine sounds.

it’s a desolate rundown landscape ahead of you. a mountain in the backdrop as the only sign of life; everything else a wasteland turned muddy with the torrential downpour. wild grass up to your knees.

you stumble on one body, then two, then spot two hunter associations’ vehicle — one belonging to miss hunter who is standing next to her partner with silver hair who bears a resemblance to lumiere, and a transport van you suspect is loaded with weapons and gadgets meant to subdue sylus, if the electrical charge in the air isn’t proof enough. the air feels evol-dampening; a new device they’ve made like an emp but for evols covering a large enough radius to weaken an enemy at the cost of weakening yourself. the driver is slumped over like she’s sleeping. you suspect it’s the twins’ work tampering with the electrical signalling of her comms to subdue her a little with some neurotech they were excited about a few weeks ago.

there are bodies everywhere. at least, the hunter’s association was smart enough to send a team and not one person to subdue him. at least he had put up a fight, a traitorous thought swims in the back of your head. 

in the distance, you hear more siren sounds. reinforcements. you’re at a disadvantage due to the location since it doesn’t provide a lot of coverage. the only time you have an advantage to turn this around is if you finish this before the reinforcements are here, 15 minutes out you’d guess. you survey the scene using the van as cover:miss hunter’s partner stands behind sylus, two swords on his back, miss hunter in front of him. it would be simple, you bemoan in your head, if sylus is willing to fight one of the two who remains standing but knowing who is on the other side of it, you know he won’t. you aim for miss hunter’s neck with your tranquilizer dart, the twins’ newest invention where it sinks to a person’s skin seamlessly, only to get a sword embedded right next toyou in the next second. the metal sings near your ear and you tense at the close call.

at least, he has one weapon down, but you know the calmest ones in battle are the deadliest and his sword still earns him the advantage. on hand to hand, sylus and him would probably equal but with the sword, short range would be trickier. your cheek cuts open. what a fine blade, you think. the blood trickles your cheek. it’s better than getting pinned by your ear you suppose. miss hunter trains her gun to your direction.

it’s deja vu, how you slide into the scene from the shadows, facing the other end of miss hunter’s barrel, only this time you have your own trained at her too, even if it’s not as harmful as hers.

“move,” she says, hands steady. you hear her partner unsheating his other sword behind sylus. “i have no business with you.” 

“shouldn’t you be able to kill a civilian since your words mean nothing?” you tilt your head, gun trained at her,feigning innocence. it’s a low blow, but last time you checked they had an agreement to not out one another in their respective territories and now she decides no, her loyalty is to the association. your goal now is to drive her back so if she aims at sylus, her aim might have a higher chance of a miss. “i mean, you killing me or you killing him would be the same result. he writes my paycheck.” you jab a thumb towards sylus, cataloguing his state. smug bastard that he is offering no help, cockily putting his hands above his head like he’s happy to be hereinstead of recognizing a sword is under his throat.

“i should warn you. she does bite,” sylus says, unhelpfully. the sword biting into his neck. a red line of blood starting to flow like the one on your cheek. they won’t kill him, you realize, taking in miss hunter’s partner’s eyes flinting in disapproval or maybe the guy would have if he’s not under miss hunter’s watch. well, that’s an advantage. 

you take a step forward, notice miss hunter’s partner tensing in the corner ready to strike and dare another step anyway. sylus has defended himself in worse situations. you’re just cornering the unpredictable variable, the one you know he won’t hurt, but is arguably the easier target to subdue. it’s the only reason he didn’t finish this in one-go. subduing her partner would work if miss hunter doesn’t have a gun on either of you since they nullified sylus’ evol and no one’s bulletproof anymore. if you subdue her first though, sylus has a fighting chance to get out of the swordman’s hold. a risk, maybe, since sword guy would go rabid too to avenge her if she was hurt. you don’t envy her for holding two leashes. “go on, shoot me,” you cajole. “it’s not the first time either, is it?”

miss hunter’s partner’s attention flicks over to her for a slight second. his blue eyes narrowing. ah, he doesn’t know about her excursion does he? “at least you can argue i am armed this time so let’s make it count,” you add with another step, close enough to see the slight wavering of her form as she fights the first dose of drugs and close enough for a sleight of hand to embed another tranquilizer dose on her. the gun trained to her only for show. she slaps your non-holding gun hand away with her gun, causing the trigger to shoot one to the distance, and it kickstarts the skirmish. with her front open to you, you kick her in the chest, shoot your stun gun in her direction, and she stumbles back. something crunches behind you. the swing of a sword meeting flesh. the wet sound of it. sluggish as she is with the drugs in her system, she fights back when you aim to dislodge her gun and when it clatters, you turn to aim at her partner, whose nose is bleeding. the sickening crunch earlier must have been sylus headbutting him, who is also bleeding down his arm. she tries to subdue you with her remaining strength, but you shake her increasingly sluggish body away, leaving her to the ground as you watch how sylus had distanced himself from her partner, whose remaining sword is now missing. both their fists bloody. 

you move closer to the pair, keeping your aim at the swordsman, waiting for an opening. sylus turns his body slightly to avoid the jab towards him, his eyes meet yours, briefly widening, and you shoot your shot.

two shots ring out and your world tilts.

a wet cough and blood on the ground.

blood wet on your chest.

you hear rather than see miss hunter’s gun clattering behind you and numbly you shoot another one to her partner still fighting the drugs. they’re out cold for now.

sylus, though. sylus falls towards you. heavy and bleeding, and smiling stupidly. you let gravity take both of you down and cradle him as you frantically open his shirt to try to stop the bleeding. “someone’s feeling hasty,” he rasps.

“stop talking, you stupid oaf,” you focus on putting pressure on the wound, ignoring the wet feeling of his blood on your hands soaking through the fabric as you rip more of your clothing to add to it. distantly you hear luke and kieran finally making their way out of hiding, hotwiring the car of the hunter’s association. the storm rumbling overhead. 

sylus places his hand on top of yours, the one marred with his blood over his gasping chest, over the maroon thread tying him to another soul, and his usual warmth is non-existent, does not thaw the stone that is yourself. only my beloved can kill me. the splutters around a mouthful of blood, “run away with me.” 

he’s the cruelest person you’ve ever known. “anywhere,” you reply, voice tight as you watch his eyes close.

you help the twins lug his body to the car, not sure how to tell them you’re not sure if he’ll make it, if you had just said goodbye, and in the commotion, the jade dagger falls from his pocket and cracks on the wasteland.

————-

you like to lie and sylus endures it.

“your funeral was a chore,” you pack his bags, back turned against him, grumbling all the while. “too many guests. honestly, who’s going to run this town after?”

the first time he met you was not by the painting, but by the poker table, where you reveal your royal flush as opposed to his full house. he knew you knew he was cursed because unlike the rest of the table who greets him warmly, scooting to make space for him to sit, or the fear and intimidation he is often on the receiving end of, his eye tells him you wanted to know who cursed him and curiosity becomes a two way street.

you are flippant in your loyalty. following him without question to save the twins and expecting nothing in return. you always say it doesn’t matter, but it’s the first time someone helped him carry the burden of protecting his hoard. you say you’ll take as much as he’s taking and yet you placed your heart on a jade dagger and said, it doesn’t matter. it’s a pet project. you’re the cruelest person he knows.

even now, with his bandage aroind his torso more for show than anything after his evol had returned to suture his own wounds just fine, you’re pushing him to rest, not letting him any say in all of this.

well, he smiles as he watches you root through his closet, it’s not like he can blame you. 

“what?” you turn around, finally facing him. “why are you smiling like that?” you frown further, rushing to his side.“is the dosage too high? or do you need more? i'll page kieran –”

he chuckles, opting to pull your wrist down to silence you until you flail on top of him. huffy and indignant. you restrain yourself from punching him, which is sweet, he supposes. “sylus,” you glare at him. “let me go. ‘s not good for you.” his torso aches slightly since he wasn’t able to heal it immediately with his evol and had to rely on modern medicine to do its job for the first half of it, so despite the scarring gone, even his flesh can feel painhe supposes. still, he wraps his arm around you, silencing your protest to leave. he’ll take discomfort if it means you’re next to him.

“ask me again,” he implores, his other hand cupping your face. anything to get your eyes to look at him so he can set it right. a lifetime ago, in this same bed, when you had asked that question, and he had been taken aback by the vulnerability he didn’t think you’ll ever let him see, even when he had offered you all of him to take months ago. you knew he was cursed and you never asked, and yet, you had given him acceptance in turn, and the moment had passed before he could make it right. something had splintered then, he knew, the slight distance you insist didn’t exist, you sneaking aorund, your door closed but the light under the door would burn warm when he got back later than anticipated. he noticed, of course, he did.

only he thought, he’d give you the space you clearly need. he knows better than most the armor you wear. he wears it too, after all, and perhaps it’s why this dance has went on much longer than he anticipated. he assumed you knew his loyalty is to you the way you offered yours to him, but clearly he needs to remediate that. “ask me again,” he repeats, softly.

your eyes flicker down to his chest. he does not know what you’re seeing. his curse line, maybe, whatever form it takes. he never asked, and you never offered to describe what his curses look like, but whenever he held you close you’d always place your hand in the same area. it burnt when he had taken that bullet for you, it burnt the first time he almost lost you for good and offered himself to you to take. it hummed when he picked up the jade dagger and he had understood then what you were hiding behind his back. it’s a dull ache now and even he can sense the ache feels more tender than a sharp pain of dissonance. maybe the curse shifted. he still doesn’t know what the jade dagger was supposed to do and maybe one day you’ll teach him about your world, about how you see it beyond what you’ve told him, but right now, you have no idea how the curse never mattered to him. he may be fated to carry it, but he chooses you if you’ll have him.

selfishly, he wants you to say it. selflessly, he wants you to ask it for yourself. take what you need.

you press your trembling hand over his heart. his heart aches. “sylus,” your eyes resolute when you meet his even if your voice wavers. you don’t know how much he wishes to ruin you. “would you run away with me?”

he threads his fingers with yours. you should know by now there is no love more purer than mine. but that will come later, he has all the time in the world to convince you of it. “always.”

———————————————————————

end notes:

happy birthday sylus. this was originally supposed to be angstier where one of them did not make it (yes two alternate endings) but since it's his birthday, i'll give them a kinder one.

I was instantly hooked, and worked out what sort of mixes works best for me. A year later I painted Bilbo again, as a commission for a friend.

It was a very fiddly portrait, but I love working with details, as you can see by this work in progress picture 😅