#fantober2020

Everyone had a name scrawled across their wrist, one that belonged to the person with the other half of their soul or so the myth told, in a color that somehow represented that person. The name appeared on a person’s arm when they turned eighteen, whether or not the other person was even born yet. Granted, such cases were rare, but it’d still been recorded to happen. It was old news, something that everyone and their dog knew. 

What was strange was the name that appeared on your wrist when you came of age. ‘Aleksander Morozova’. Such an odd name for someone. Especially when one considered the fabled Morozova’s stag. As far as you or anyone around you knew, no one had had that last name since the famous grisha, Ilya, died. Whenever anyone caught sight of the harsh black lettering of the odd name, it never failed to give you grief. Some were simply curious, after all no one you had ever heard of had a name in stark black. Some demanded answers you simply didn’t have, such as the location of that mythical stag. Others got oddly violent, though you never knew why. So you learned to wear a bracelet or sleeves to hide the name.

All of that changed when the grisha testers came, though. It was pretty obvious that you were an Inferni. You’d known it for years, but you hadn’t wanted to leave your family so you kept quiet about it. Still, you didn’t hide your gifts. Nor did you hide the name when it came to the whole ‘joining the second army’ thing. It was standard protocol for them to record everyone’s soulmate’s names in case a match showed up.

You, however, seemed to be a special case. Instead of being housed with the older grisha, you found yourself being led to a more secluded area of the Little Palace. A darker area. One that exuded opulence of a different nature than that of the Grand Palace.

“Where are we going?” you asked the servant that was carrying what few things you still had.

The skittish looking woman merely shook her head. Before long, you found yourself ushered into what looked to be a common area in these dark, strange chambers and quickly abandoned to wait alone.

It took several minutes, but eventually a cool, male voice broke the suffocating quiet, “I’ve been waiting a long time for you, Y/N.”

You could feel the fire licking at your fingertips as you started, head whipping to the side to see who had managed to sneak up on you. “Who’s there?” you demanded of the shadows at the edges of the room that hid whatever figure was speaking to you.

“An Inferni,” he mused, still hidden away. “I suppose that is fitting considering everything.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“And with a personality to match.” A chuckle rumbled around you. “Nevertheless, you can relax, dearheart.” Your heart just about stopped when the Darkling himself casually waved a pale hand to dismiss the veil of darkness that’d been rendering him invisible. “You’ll never be in any danger from me.”

“Sir,” you greeted stiffly with an awkward little nod. You’d never been one for bowing, anyway, no reason to start now. “I didn’t realize it was you; I apologize for my tone. But I must ask: Why am I here?”

“That, at least, is simple.” He paused in order to pull off a leather cuff that was fastened to his wrist. Once it was gone, it was only the simple matter of tipping his hand up that sent his billowing sleeve up to his elbow and exposed the red, familiar script of your own name.

“Aleksander . . .” you breathed, eyes slowly dragging back up to meet his grey ones.

“No one has called me that in a very long time,” he murmured, stepping closer to you.

You were forced to tilt your head back in order to keep eye contact. “That’s what happens when you forge a position called the Darkling, I suppose.”

“And that’s just what I managed to do on my own.” A terrible, almost feral smile spread across his face much like the shadows that writhed around the two of you. “Imagine what we could do together.”

She lies next to the slumbering warmth of him for long minutes, cozy under the covers.  He has not stolen the duvet in his sleep, or thrown a possessively oppressive arm over her.  Just his hand is pressed to her shoulder, and when she shifts, he nestles further into the covers.  She eases out of bed and wraps herself in her robe, not bothering to put any clothes on.  This is, for the time being, her Eden.  She will let herself be innocent and unashamed.  

In the bathroom, she tries to flush quietly.  She brushes her teeth and splashes a little water on her face.  Her own eyes look bright.  The crease between her brows has smoothed away.  She goes to the kitchen and puts the kettle on.  While the water boils, she measures coffee into a pour over filter.  Her mother always made pour over coffee for her father, when he came back from the sea.  Sometimes he would let her have a sip.  It tasted richer than the drip coffee they usually made, more like the sun and the earth that had made it.  She saves it for special occasions.  She only has one filter, but she can make two cups of coffee, for the two of them.  Or maybe she’ll make one, and they can pass it back and forth between them, just something to sustain them before they pull themselves together and go out to face the world.  She’d like a big plate of eggs and hash browns, a rare craving.

The kettle begins to whistle and she pulls it off the heat before it can scream and wake him.  She pours the water in a careful stream over the grounds.  The steam rises, curling the wisps of hair around her face.  The scent of the coffee wafts up, smelling like devotion and faraway lands.  She inhales deeply and smiles.  She sets the kettle back on the stove and pulls a second mug out of the cupboard.  Her eyes pass over the box of teabags on the counter and a cold uncertainty grips the back of her neck.  She’s had coffee with Mulder many Saturday mornings, but never after moaning his name in the middle of the night as he swore, over and over, that he loved her, that he needed her, that he’d been waiting all his life to be in her arms.  What if he prefers tea, the morning after he makes passionate love to someone?  What if it’s a taste he cultivated in England, in Oxford, in an old building on a misty morning with a lithe brunette stirring lemon into her own cup?  She hesitates, retrieves a bag of English Breakfast from the box (surely Earl Grey is too trite, Constant Comment too tea party-ish), and sets it on the counter.  There.  Her bases are covered.  

Mulder pads into the kitchen and wraps his arms around her from behind, setting his chin on her shoulder as if they’ve been doing this for years, waking up together in cozy domesticity.  He sniffs exaggeratedly, nuzzling into her hair, and it’s all so perfectly normal, and yet still perfectly delightful.  

“Coffee?” he says in a raspy voice.  “I knew I loved you.”

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted tea,” she says.  

“The coffee smells amazing,” he says.  “Special blend?”

“No,” she says.  “Just pour over instead of drip.  My mother used to make it this way, sometimes.”

“Pour over coffee and thee,” he says softly, still holding her.  “Scully...do you want to go eat hash browns with me?”