As he shut the door, Angus felt the wrongness of the place. This was their home. It was theirs. But now half of them was gone, and it was only his. No one had bothered to tell that to the apartment, though.
It was immediately an assault on fried nerves. He'd been so numb through the funeral, but the anaesthetic was gone now. This was his new reality. Every day he would wake up in this place and it would remind him of every way he'd come up short. He had not been enough to beat the cancer that ravaged Bennett. He had not been enough to figure out how to solve that ancient and unsolvable puzzle. And now, he wasn't enough to fill this space.
When he was still making the funeral arrangements, he'd thought maybe taking the photos down would make this easier. Bennett's face wouldn't be smiling at him as he arranged a cremation. It seemed respectful.
Now the walls seem to impose the absence front and center. "Remember, we know the truth," they seemed to say. "We saw the life lived here and even if you take those pictures down, we will remind you of each moment. You are less, now."
So he painstakingly hung the photos back where they'd hung for years. And he was forced to relive those times, the laughter and the joy. And then to sharply remember that was in the past.
An hour and a lifetime later, he collapsed on the couch, the bed feeling too far away and too familiar. He thought he cried. He wasn't sure anymore, assuming that his eyes would permanently be bloodshot and tears would stain his cheeks like tattoos.
"This is the beginning of the rest of your life," he thought. "This is who are now. Angus, the widower. Angus, who was Bennett's husband. Angus, alone."
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bronx, 2015. the moment when mareshah decided to leave @thcmpscn.
“preston, get the fuck away from me!” mareshah shouted at him as he tried to follow her into their bedroom.
he’d finally admitted what she’d known was true for this entire argument. she whirled around to face him, using the door frame to steady herself as he continued to try to brush this one away like it never happened. like the past three girls had never happened.
cookie they didn’t mean shit to me.
“oh really? then what do i mean? because if you’re willin’ to risk me for some hoes that don’t mean shit to you then i must really not be shit to you.”
he was snaking his arms around her waist, pressing kisses against anywhere he could reach despite her struggling against him. c’mon mare, i was just foolin’ around with those hoes. you know it’s me and you.
“you got me fucked up,” mareshah growled, pushing back against him with a little roughness just to make her point. “you got me out here lookin’ stupid, havin’ other people tellin’ me where the fuck my man’s at and who my man’s screwin’! then you got the nerve t’be like ‘baby why you always trippin’?’ ‘baby why you so uptight?’ ‘damn baby, can’t i have friends?’ ---” she mocked his voice.
to make it worse, this time the girl was somebody that mareshah trusted. that was what made this time worse than the last two. when she didn’t know the girls, it was a one time mistake ... obviously she wasn’t happy. but this? this was betrayal. this was both of them lying to her face for however long it had been going on. trina was actually becoming a close friend of hers prior to this, and now she just felt stupid and emptied out, like a pot of tea that’s just been steaming the last remnants of water for hours on high heat.
in her head she wasn’t hearing any of his protesting, his soothing, his promises. no, she was just hearing her mom and her dad, memories of eerily similar arguments.
“who the fuck is that bitch, marcus?” “the bitch is whoever i want her to be, woman. you ain’t leavin’ me so why donchu just keep quiet?”
and her mother, having four kids with him already, never left. she was still there dealing with her disrespectful ass cheatin’ ass gangbanger daddy.
one of mareshah’s biggest fears was ending up the same way, with a man who treated her like she was nothing. she’d watched the life drain out of her mother for years and could already see preston doing the same thing to her. nothing was as tiring as loving someone that didn’t know how to love you back, and forgetting you thought you knew about what love was. feeling like maybe it doesn’t even exist.
“i really tried with you, boo-bear, i really did.” her voice was soft, of course she loved him or she wouldn’t have been with him for the past seven years. but she wasn’t sure she knew what real love felt like anymore. “i need to be alone, mkay?” she backed up into their bedroom, beginning to close the door to create a barrier between them as she finished speaking, “do what the fuck you want. sleep out here, sleep at your lil girlfriend’s, i don’t care anymore-” she shut the door and locked it, letting out a big breath and feeling tears sting her eyes.
her phone dinged, notifying her that she had an email. “fuck that,” she hissed, throwing the phone down onto their bed. his voice was still outside, his not-so-calm promptings to open the door. her eyes settled on their bed and suddenly she wondered if they had done it here. in her bed.
in a blind rage she went over, ripping all of the sheets and blankets off of the bed. she gathered it all in her arms, her phone falling out of them and onto the ground. she then walked over to their fire escape, using her knee to open the window and tossing it all out the window. her eyes settled, watching it all plummet toward the street.
what the fuck are you doin’ in there, mareshah?!
a small grin spread over her lips. it was obvious that she was doing something from the noises, shuffling, grunting, window opening, heavy angry breathing. she didn’t answer him though, just sank down to sit on the ground with her back against the bed. she finally grabbed her phone and opened the email.
CONGRATULATIONS! you have been accepted to model for BLK BUTY. please confirm your participation in our winter show in berlin, germany.
she damn near dropped the phone, her head falling back to look at the ceiling. “wow.” she whispered.
-҉-҉-҉-҉ The sun was shining and it was a good day. Somewhere in the mid 1900′s, Ra, going by the name of peter, sat on a small square somewhere in Paris. He opened the box that he carried with him and retrieved the beautiful white violin. The strings reflecting the light like they were silver like his own eyes and hair.
Now, Peter was not just a player, he had been playing the violin for over a hundred years, the way he played it was near perfection. If something like that even existed in music, Peter thought no- he would always try to be better, try to create something more, try to get more magical melodies from his fiddle.
The open case was placed in front of him and he, feeling a tad like a cheater, placed some coins in there to make people more willing to pay for his music, before marked hands picked up the instrument and the bow as he started playing.
“The captain has ordered us to venture deeper into the Hinter system. I think it is a mistake but I will not speak up against his judgement where all the other officers are. Jamie agrees with me, I can see it in the way he looks at me in the corridors but I have avoided him for now. I first need to speak to our captain alone.”
Stardate 556830.96
“We are at the point of no return. We are so deep in the Hinter system that the only way out is pushing through. Not even the mighty Ixtab can withstand a fleet of unknown alien forces. The captain is still continuing on without a change of heart or strategy. I have improved our weapon systems and we have been able to take out two ships; a minor accomplishment viewed in the larger view on things.”
Stardate 556831.03
“The ship’s systems are on 62 percent. Life support is failing on five decks and I had to evacuate two decks at the last impact. The captain has locked himself in his room. I wish he would let me in, I worry. But there is a crew that needs to be taken care of. And the ship. Today I will work on the weaponry again, enhancing the warheads with nuclear and biological components. If we can infect the enemy with a virus, they will have to back down. The Ixtab will prevail.”
Zitao stretched as he got up and looked in the mirror, the darkened lines underneath his eyes looked even more pronounced than usual and his long hair was bundled in a knot on the back of his head. Messy and filthy with oil and dirt. There was no time for personal hygiene right now, maybe he would permit himself a quick sonic shower later tonight, if the energy allowed him to do so.
The second in command made his way to the hallway, closing his corridors behind him and taking the tubes, rather than the turbo lifts, down to deck six where the weapon chambers were. The man worked right there in the middle of all weapons on the improved warheads. No time wasted by moving them around from here to some lab. Safety was secondary, victory their primary goal. As he knelt down next to the torpedo his hands were shaking a little, he had not slept in four days. The last time he ate something- it was hazy, all hazy. Focus, Zitao. There is no time for personal failure. We must be victorious.
It was a mixture for disaster, he could have known. As he leaned forward and tried to insert the hot liquid into the torpedo’s systems he made a mistake. A simple tremor in his hands that caused the burning red fluids to get onto his hands instead of in the designated tubes. He screamed, closing his eyes as he fell back onto the ground and tried to get it off. But there was no use, he needed-
Instead of hailing the medical bay he activated his combadge and contacted the only man that he trusted, next to the captain, on the ship. “Officer Jamie-” His pained voice sounded. “Your assistance...” Loud wheezing, the sound of burning flesh. “is needed in weaponry five.”
The metal plates underneath his leather boots made loud noises as the commander walked through the corridors of the IGF Mooncrusher. He was furious, beyond himself in anger as he shoved a cadet aside that wanted to ask him something about weapon calibrations. "Not now." He spat at him, making the poor young Ixtab forever terrified of the second in command of the ship. His long black locks danced after him as he pulled it free from the silk ribbon and he stepped into the elevator. Barking the command to go to the sixth deck where the lab's were. Even the piece of technology seemed scared as it emitted a soft beep and went down.
As he arrived at the room where the laboratories were he went straight for the largest and most ridiculously up-to-date lab present and slammed open the door as he walked over to Jamie and slammed the pad on his table. Right on top of a sample of the alien planet they had visited a few weeks before. "Can you believe this?!" he wheezed, eyeing the door behind him closing and he narrowed his eyes "Can you believe this?" He repeated prodding the pad in front of Jamie, there were strategy notes on it, ridiculous ones if you asked Zitao. "He completely ignored my suggestions about the weapons, and now that mindboggling asshat ignored my strategy I typed out all night for the away mission today. People are going to get killed and only because that good for nothing one-eyed ixtab snollbug thinks he is a better strategist than I am." Zitao had used a snollbug as insult, which was new because they found the slimy creature on that same away mission a few weeks ago. Purple, slimy and useless.
The commander didn't even wait for Jamie to reply as he groaned in frustration and snatched the pad away again. "I am going to wrap those poor soldiers up in all the armor I can find or they will all die. I swear to the engines on this ship Jamie, one day I will-" He didn't finish his sentence as he wiped the pad clean on an abandoned labcoat and then walked right out of the lab again, leaving Jamie and the crushed sample behind.
--
That night Zitao found himself going into jamie's smaller officer's room. His face was pale, large bags of exhaustion were under his eyes and he sat down next to Jamie in silence. There was blood on his hands and his uniform. All he managed to mumble was "Fifteen of twenty-one dead. But Captain says it was worth it, we have the valuable metals."
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The soles touched the barren ground, two hands clad in black fabrics stretched as the brown eyes of the man danced around the surroundings. An ancient civilization had left ruins here. What once had been an impressive city filled with, what Zitao assumed, to be humanoids was now nothing less than a ghost town. Abandoned buildings, crumbling down under the two suns that rendered the planet inhabitable for a long period of time and destroyed by the forces of nature. The scans had shown that there was a big chance on thunderstorms on the planet, every four hours they hit the surface and Zitao should be back on the IGF Mooncrusher. He let out a sigh as he slid off the protective helmet, clicking on te button and rendering it into a small metal box that he could slip easily in his pocket.
He was not here simply to observe how the heat of two suns had destroyed the life of an entire race, nor was he here for his usual explosion tests. The weapon specialist was here on a mission for himself. One of the cadets on the bridge had picked up a transmission from some alien ship who had spoken about a great treasure being hidden here. Zitao had taken it upon himself to go down to the planet's surface to find this treasure and take it with him for the benefit of the Ixtab alliance (or for his own benefit if that was the case).
Firm steps lead him to a large building that seemed to be part of a complex, some kind of religious place of worship he gathered from the large stone figures that were guarding the grand doors. His scanner told him he had to be here and he stepped forward, the off-white marble under his feet whining as pressure was rested upon it and Zitao quickly stepped higher up on the staircase until he pushed open the door. Only to be faced with a large chamber scattered with broken furniture and skeletons. He grimaced, unhappy with the large presence of death. While being part of the mighty Ixtab, a race capable of interstellar travel and widely known for their arrogance towards other races. Zitao was not as at easy with death as most of his comrades, he thought it was too much of a reminder of his own mortality. And that of his friends (two friends on a ship of over a thousand, but who was counting). As he continued his way, trying not to step on skulls or lost keybones he heard something behind him. Turning around on his heels he narrowed his eyes. "Who is there?"
The war had been going on for nearly two weeks now, Kibum had observed both sides from his lazy chair, violets darting over from the north to the south where the camps were. On the north the high elves fought, high forms of magic emerged from the side of those that had magic literally flowing through every fibre of their being. They fought with much more charm than the south. They used enchantments making mechanical creatures live. Steambots marched to their enemies. Yet the South had other magic, the elemental fire power was overwhelming (and the heat a little offputting if you asked the merchant). He sighed as he stirred the bowl of fruit tea, leaning back in the throne he had brought with him.
Behind him was a large tent that held the most important enchantments, powerful magical weapons, indestructable armor and other wares that were important for all those that fought. Yet Kibum was not someone that wanted to do good, or chose a side, instead he just sold to who ever could pay the price. And that was not everyone. His staff was placed in the middle of his camp, a forcefield protecting him and his wares from any attacks. He would only have to worry for veela's but if those even came close he would freeze their eyeballs out of their bodies before they could blink at them. Only one rule; no veela's in his store.
The snow elf was known as the merchant among the worlds of elves, fairies and demons. He didn't dabble with angels however, humans were usually not too rich and there were only so many times he could be in the proximity of an arachna before the eight-legged creatures creeped him out for another ten years or so (arachna poison was valuable though, so sometimes he set his personal bias aside and just went for it).
Today the war seemed to be quiet, yesterday a lot of fire had rained on his forcefield and the ground had burned. Steambots had fought bravely and murdered many night elves, the scent of death and burned flesh was in the air. The screams of elves from the North had told him that some of that fire rain had hit target however. The war was stupid in Kibum's opinion. But as a snow elf he did not have to pick sides often, neutral as he could be. He would trade with demons and the day after with some elven lord that hated the darkspawn. People knew this about the merchant however, making them even more willing to buy his stuff. Because if they didn't, they might just give it up for their enemies. A sound made the elf look up, a male stood outside of his forcefield.
With a flick of his hand he let the male in. "Who are you, what side do you fight for and what wares are you looking for?" he asked, standing up and putting the glass down. "And more importantly, do you have something for me to trade for?"
It was almost two weeks ago as Zitao had seen the message from HQ and he had smiled, his heartshaped lips curling into a satisfied smile as he send the message through to his captain who was probably overwhelmed by tasks at that moment and he had crossed off the task to find a reliable science officer.
❂
It was twelve days later now and Zitao found himself on the space station build by the Ixtab, his black boots hit the metal ground with every step and the sound was by now a familiar rhythm that soothed his mind. New reqruits were chirping around him and he couldn't help but look satisfied as he saw them look at him in the same way he had looked at Captain Joonmyun merely nine years ago. "I hear he is still really young yet he is already second in command on the IGF Mooncrusher." he overheard two female cadets and as he passed them they giggled. "At ease cadets." he said as they tried to look presentable, locking their arms behind their backs and standing up as he halted at their table in the shabby space cafe. "You should be more careful about talking in a public place like this, someone might overhear you." They both blushed but Zitao nodded and continued his way through the station. Observing the crew as he carried a responsibility for them. Captain was busy with other things as he was on the space station waiting for the various requested officers and scientists to arrive.
In the past week he had met many people, and it was a strain on him. While he was better with interactions he still didn't like most people. Ixtab were too harsh, too aggressive, too careless about life. And Zitao was, in the end, still someone that rather saved a life than ended it. He did not speak his opinion about this subject too often. he had a place of authority and his opinion could be seen as a weakness. Instead he just glared at people that tried to defy him. He stopped his crew in moments of cruelty as he scolded them 'wasting recources'. Why torture when there were so many other techniques to get information? He liked to tell them how 'unreliable torture was and do you want to dissappoint me and Captain Joonmyun?' it usually shut them up.
Today he had a special guest coming however, he felt a little nervous and as he walked over to the arrival ports he couldn't help but exhale as nervous butterflies flew through his stomach. Eyeying himself in the reflective metal of the wall next to him he checked his outfit. High black leather boots that stopped right under his knees. Black pants with pockets for his weapons and tablet. A tight fitting grey tanktop was hidden under the jacket of his uniform. His designation and name on his chest and his rank again on his shoulders. The jacket was only worn on off-ship missions. At the ship he wore a better fitting jacket that didn't said all the information since everyone was supposed to know anyway. And, as he looked up, his eyes that were showing his nervousness framed by black lines as he had adapted the habit of smearing kohl around his eyes every day. they made him look more dangerous (or so he told himself).
As the doors opened his eyes widened, a smile wanted to break through but he remained looking distant, only a glimmer in his eyes betrayed his excitement as he saw the blonde hair.
"Science officer 77191020." he said in a stern voice, lifting his chin a little as he noticed that the other male was still taller than him. "I am second in command of the Interstellar Galaxy fleet's mooncrusher, Zitao. I am here to check you in and make sure you are filed in the ship's medical database." He smirked a little now as he waited for the other's reaction. His own eyes scanning over the other's appearance and he wanted to hug the other, hold him tightly as he laughed. Instead he cleared his throat "You two are releaved, I will take over." he said to the cadets that had opened the gates. They left Jamie and Zitao alone and the latter stared at Jamie.
