#mingebump

If Earth was only ever meant to be a mission, it did not feel like it.

Your heart was overwhelmingly filled with love. Life on Earth felt like nothing you had ever experienced before, and it felt like a gift each day to watch the sunrise above the horizon’s mountains, to watch the ocean’s waves and to hold the hands of the family you loved. You did not think of the past, because all you could remember was stars and void, and the implications of that were far more concerning than you cared to dwell on. How lovely and terrible it was to have something to call your own - a family. It was an indisputable fact. The Eternals were your family. From the warmth of Gilgamesh’s hugs, to the stunningly bright smiles of Makkari, to the glowing pride of Thena. Fighting against the Deviants was a noble cause, and you would not trade it for anything in the world. You shared the same sentiment as Sersi, a love for humans and their natural creativity and ingenuity.

At your side was Druig. Throughout every battle fought protecting the sanctuary of Babylon, almost every moment you spent aiding the humans with your own abilities, and during those quiet contemplative moments in private, he was there. Your connection was always there. Love didn’t blossom overnight, it was simply another fact of your cosmic existence. It was not something to dwell on overnight, or to worry yourself over. You loved your family and you loved Druig, and he loved his family and he loved you. Druig, however, was always an overthinker. His touches always faltered, his gaze turning away at the last minute, his mind clocking in overtime as he worried over the possibilities of what it meant to be together or of how it could end badly. Not out of distaste or of not loving you, but because he loved you more than anything else in the world. Ever the pacifist, Druig would rather stay silent forever than upset you with his words or actions. At the back of his mind, Druig would imagine the worst case scenarios; you denying him, or leaving him. He didn’t want to push you into anything, but you hushed his intrusive thoughts with such casual affection that made his chest ache. It was destiny.

With Ikarus and Sersi, their love was public and celebrated by all. Their marriage was devastatingly sweet, their public displays of affection further cementing them as the couple of the group. 

With Druig, the urge for people to know was simply not there. It didn’t matter what the others thought, you would always be together throughout history, and you were both content with that. The memories flooded your senses. Nights spent by the fire with your head on his shoulder and his hands stroking your hair, watching Sprite’s vivid display of beautiful illusions and stories. When you’d walk the ocean’s shore, he’d kiss you deeply with a hand on your jaw and your arms around his shoulders, and taste the sea salt on his lips. From the side, he’d watch with a softness in his eyes as you sang for the humans to bring calm after a night of violent attacks. You were someone he’d live and die for a thousand times. 

And the others weren’t blind to this fact. It was a beautiful thing to witness, and their teasing was relentless. You held in a laugh as Sprite made kissy faces behind Druig’s back. Ajak, always such a mother hen, tucked your hair behind your ears and thanked you for finally softening Druig up. Even Ikarus gave a small chuckle and elbowed Druig as he caught him staring at you from across the way. 

Oh, and those humans. Such mischievous, creative little things, and oh so observant. The story of you, of your other Eternals, lasted for centuries throughout human history. To them, you were gods, myths, legends.

The story of Orpheus and Eurydice was your legacy. A tale of tragic love. 

In the stories, Orpheus and his charms and perfect voice (what you later realized was what they interpreted Druig’s control over people as), lost his beautiful wife Eurydice to a snake bite. After her death, he ventured into Hades’ realm and convinced him to let her come back. Hades told Orpheus that he could take Eurydice back with him but under one condition: she would have to follow behind him while walking out from the caves of the underworld, and he could not turn to look at her as they walked.

He lost you not once but twice.

For you, however, the details were...blurry.

The harbingers of chaos, the Deviants had arrived in masses and clawed their way to fight against you. The fight was long and brutal, not only because of them, but because of Mother Nature itself fighting back. As you soared through the sky, you could feel the rush of heat rise up from the ground. In that one distracted moment, a Deviant struck you out of the sky and buried it’s teeth in your side. And you fell, and fell, and fell, until crashing into the surface of blackened earth.

The sky opened up with hellfire and soot above the heads of the Eternals. The volcano had been dormant up until now, but they had felt it far too late to evacuate the masses. Deviants ran across the lava rock and magma, forgoing their own pain to attack you and your family. Pure white flashed across your eyes as you landed, leaving a trail of blood in your wake. All the while, the earth underneath your feet cracked violently. It was too much at once, and the deep rooted pain that ran throughout your body bled out from the wounds on your side. Amidst the smoke and the chaos, you could see Druig’s face stricken with fear, and his hand desperately reached out for yours.

The Earth opened up cruelly, and you fell in.

He descended into the mouth of hell to save you. Hand in hand, he pulled you out, wincing from the sheer heat of his descent. You stumbled on your feet but ran with him, trying to escape in time as the volcano erupted in full force. All the while, the Deviants persisted. It felt like the end of times, running through the battlefield as your family fought tooth and nail as the humans fled. He couldn’t turn back to look at you, he had to keep you both moving, but the feeling of needing to know you were there, the knowledge that you were toeing the line of life and death, overwhelmed him.

He looked back. You smiled at him before your eyes widened. The Deviants descended on the two of you, and your hand slipped from his.

-

The others thought you were dead, but Druig was never convinced.

It took a monumental effort to hold him down before he threw himself back into the heart of the Earth to look for you, to bring you home. He was relentless, Gilgamesh holding him tight as Phastus built a metal cage to restrain him, and Ikarus carried him back to safety as the land around them was lost to the volcanic eruption. They had never had to deal with the death of another Eternal, but the collective pain they shared was nothing in comparison to the depth of Druig’s grief. 

Their family felt shattered. Sersi laid her head on Ajak’s chest and openly wept, not only for the massive loss of human lives, or for the injuries they sustained, but for the true first feeling of loss. 

It wasn’t long until they all separated. The love and connection they all had for one another was strong, but things felt different. As Druig stood at the top of the temple in Tenochtitlan, the faces of the humans below turned to look at him, calm under his control. In that moment after such a heated argument, with worries that perhaps Thena would be their next loss, he knew he couldn’t stay. He couldn’t protect you, but at least he could protect them. 

Druig’s loss drove him to a new cause, one that he dove into headfirst, and remained focused on for the decades to come. No longer could he stand to the side and let human conflict continue; in his eyes, remaining neutral in the face of the oppressor did not make them heroes. He would not allow such atrocities and genocides to continue.

For him, home eventually was deep in the Amazon forest. Humans had become greedy, and the beauties of nature were being torn apart for lumber mills and to take land for capitalistic desires. Of course, his methods weren’t favorable or ethical, there was no excuse for completely controlling the actions of innocent people, making them work for his any whim or desire. But his heart was in the right place, in a way.

The years passed by. Druig rarely emerged from his secluded home.

Until one day, he did. Milling through the streets of Pucallpa, a city in eastern Peru bordering the edge of the Amazon forest, he had found himself dreadfully bored. What was his existence now? A soldier without a cause, mission long over. He and the other Eternals shared the same sentiment; they felt abandoned and forgotten on Earth by their creator. If the Deviants were supposedly gone, what was left for them? There were times where he could consider himself human. The pain he felt, the ego he had, was all too reminiscent of human emotion. But as he walked through the streets, chewing on skewered meat (they called it anticuchos, and he had to admit, humans made some delicious food), Druig couldn’t deny that he felt very much alone. Othered. Separate. There was just so much in the vastness of Earth, sometimes his actions towards saving the Amazon felt miniscule in comparison to other issues. He was no Atlas; he could not bear the weight of the world’s problems solely on his shoulders, even when he tried.

The man stopped at a food cart on the street corner, examining the man’s wares with an aloof gaze. It amazed him sometimes just how many little treats that people had invented. He gave a polite nod to the vendor, asked for a cold soda, and dropped a few soles into his hand. When Druig turned to walk away, a small ringtone chimed from the vendor’s pocket. The Eternal thought nothing of it, until a voice called out after him.

“Oye, joven! Hay alguien llamando por ti! Eres Druig?” Hey, kid! There’s someone calling about you. Are you Druig?

Druig stood stunned in the middle of the crosswalk, and it wasn’t until the moto-taxis and cars waiting to cross the intersection honked at him that he did a little jog back to the food cart.

He gave the man a curious stare. “Seguro que no estás equivocado?” Are you sure you’re not mistaken?

“No, no, contestalo.” No, no, answer. The man held out his phone, and the cracked phone screen displayed an international phone number that he vaguely recognized. Druig held the phone and cautiously answered. “Hello?”

“Dude, it’s the twenty-first century. Get a phone!” A shrill childish voice yelled in his ear, and his shoulders relaxed a tad. It had been so long since he heard Sprite’s voice, the feeling of home warmed his chest and he couldn’t help but smile a bit.

“You could always send a letter, you know. Wait- how do you even know where I am right now, Sprite? What’s going on?” He replied snarkily, but a pang of worry immediately hit his chest. The other Eternals only ever tried to contact him when something was wrong.

A beat of silence passed, and Sprite sighed. “Listen. Don’t freak out yet, but get in touch with Phastus. He’s living in the States, and he thinks.... He thinks he saw her.”

For once, his emotions betrayed him and the disbelief washed over his face. Druig stayed silent for a beat too long, and soon Sprite spoke again. “Just get on the next flight, okay? I’m with Sersi right now in London, we’re already heading over there.”

“Okay.” Druig replied, and the call ended. And there he stood as people walked by, so used to the world continuing on without him. He looked up at the sky in his stunned state, before the vendor awkwardly cleared his throat.

“Oh, sorry- gracias.” He thanked him sheepishly, handed him the phone, and strode down the street with a new purpose.

A tiny spark of hope in his chest whispered to him. Maybe I was right. 

-

He wasn’t much of a hugger. Even after so many years, his family knew him too well. Yet when they finally reconnected in some large urban city of the U.S., Sersi embraced him gently and he found that in that moment he truly didn’t mind it. Sprite, on the other hand, gave a small affectionate punch to his arm and tried to keep her typical annoyed look. It faltered when he ruffled her strawberry blonde hair. No matter how much he liked his solitude, loneliness could be painful. He truly missed them.

“So, where are we going? Where did Phastus see her? What did he say, exactly?” Druig started, eyebrows furrowed. “I came at the drop of a hat, yet you’ve barely given me any details.” Sersi held up a hand as they strode down a bustling street, the setting sun casting sharp beams of golden light throughout the brutalist buildings around them. In the sun, her eyes were molten gold. “One at a time, alright?” “You always ask a million questions.” Sprite chirped, and he glared at her unhelpfulness.

Sersi sighed and continued. “Phastus explained that he was here for a business trip with his husband, and it was as if something told him to turn around. When he did, apparently she was crossing the street here.” At that, the woman paused and gestured to the large intersection before them. People milled about, waiting for the crossing light to flash green. “But he said there were lots of people, and he could’ve been mistaken because they were in a rush.” 

Druig let out a long breath and stared hard at the intersection, as if it would give him answers. 

“Did… did he say anything about how she looks now?”

From below, Sprite snorted. “He actually did mention that, he said it was weird because she was in modern clothes, of course, but he’d never seen her in these times.” The man nodded. Across the way, the light flashed green for go, and the trio crossed with the tidal wave of people. In their hurried walk, though, Druig spoke up again. “Wait, you didn’t answer my first question, Sersi. Where are we going?”

Always a peaceful and kind woman, Sersi was hesitant to give more details. They could very well be wrong, following a false trail to a woman who just happened to look like you. None of them could bear the heartbreak once more, especially Druig. But he had a right to know. If she didn’t say a word, his curiosity was insatiable, and he would have gone on to search for answers himself. 

“Well,” the brunette said after a moment of contemplation, “Kingo helped me do some research, called a few connections, you know how popular he is these days. There’s a woman using what looks like a false identity here in the city, who apparently owns a nightclub that she sings at some nights.” Sersi guided them towards the subway entrance, and they stepped into the damp darkness of the underground. “If there’s a possibility, then we have to see it through.”

The sudden realm of possibilities flooded his thoughts, and Druig simply nodded and stayed silent as they waited for the train. He had no words, a rarity, but in his mind he mulled over what could happen when they arrived at their destination. Disappointment was likely, that was something he had to be prepared for. But hope was a warm thing, a little drop of concentrated sunlight that spread the warmth of maybes and what ifs through his body, electrifying his fingertips. Sersi had said it well: he had to see it through. When they sat on the grimy seats of the train, Druig folded his hands in his lap, seated right in between the two women. The words escaped his lips before he could even think. “Thank you,” he blurted out, and his lips pressed into a thin line in embarrassment when they both quickly turned to look at him. “You really didn’t have to do this, you know.”

Sersi laid a soft hand on his shoulder, smiling with understanding. Words weren’t needed. However, their smaller companion wasn’t as emotionally intelligent. “Don’t be stupid, it doesn’t suit you. We’re family.” Sprite stated with a matter-of-factness, and looped her arm through his for the rest of the train ride. 

-

The sun had dipped well below the horizon by the time they reached the club. A vintage-style neon sign reflected bright colors off of the wet pavement, illuminating their path to the entrance. The sign read The Answer in bold red, and more neon pointed an arrow down, leading attendees to the door at the bottom of a stone stairway. A line of people waited outside, chatting loudly as they were eager to enter, and it was clear why. From a block away the trio could feel the music; a heavy bass beat thrummed down to the bone.

“You know what to do, Sprite.” Sersi told her, and it took a moment for Druig to process what she meant. When he turned to look at them, Sprite’s illusion magic changed her appearance from that of a preteen to an adult version of herself. If he was being honest, which he usually was, it was very weird to see. She noticed his perturbed glance, and shrugged, as if reading his thoughts. “Weird, right?”

“Kind of.” He grimaced. Sersi urged them to hurry, and they picked up the pace. By the time they reached the entrance, the line was nearly at the point of reaching around the block’s corner. That warm hope from earlier that reached his fingertips was now nervous energy; he was definitely not waiting in line. “I’ve got this.”

Before Sersi could object, he approached the bouncer and gave a smirk and a nod. “We’re close friends of the owner.” Druig said, eyes flashing in the dim light. The bouncer’s eyes flashed, almost as an answer, and he let them in without question. Behind them they could hear the jeers of the folks waiting in line, but he paid them no mind as the three descended down the steps and into the nightclub.

There was something in his chest that urged him to enter the fray. The club was bigger on the inside, halfway underground with an aphotic effect. Dark walls, dark countertops and tables on the perimeter, and a dim bar illuminated by a blue underglow. There was a stage for performers that was empty for the time being. In a small area to the side, currently the DJ stood at his booth and spun music for the masses. It was absolutely packed, the dance floor filled with moving bodies. Above their heads, they could see a large room upstairs with glass separating them from the rest of the club. Likely the VIP area, as it looked like there were people inside, but the reflections of neon against the glass obscured the view. Whatever was guiding him, he had no clue. The red string of fate was taut with anticipation.

“So what’s the plan?” Sprite had to yell over the music. Glancing around the room, Sersi seemed determined but a bit lost, out of her depth. “Let’s try not to be obvious or weird, okay? We can split up, look around a bit, ask a few questions that don’t seem too weird. In thirty minutes, we’ll rendezvous near the bar.” She answered, and the three nodded at the same time before breaking off into different directions.

In the moment that it took for them to separate, Druig looked over his shoulder to see Sprite quickly shift disguises and approach the VIP lounge entrance with the appearance of the bouncer. The other security let her upstairs without a second thought. She had beat him to the punch, as that was his first thought as well. Sersi, on the other hand, made her way through the crowd just to be sure, as thorough as ever.

The man approached the bar and ordered a drink, winking at the bartender as she handed him a full glass with a flash in her eyes. He turned around and walked off without paying. Druig was so used to using his ability on others by now, it was second nature. Definitely a habit he needed to shake off, but he didn’t give it a second thought as he walked parallel to the walls. To be fair, Druig didn’t mean to look like a creep, but the effect was there anyways as he slowly circled the perimeter of the club. The patrons sitting in booths and small tables paid him no mind, and eventually he slid into an empty booth close to the bar to sit and finish his drink, unsure of what to do next. The entire time, his mind worked non stop imagining what scenarios would take place. If you were actually there, actually alive, what could he even say to you? How could he express centuries of mourning, of longing and hope? It was too big of a concept to condense into words. After a few minutes of frustrated loneliness, Sersi joined him, and Sprite appeared soon after. They all mulled in the shared feeling of disappointment, so familiar yet so unwelcomed. Words were unnecessary when they all thought the same thing, that maybe you really truly weren’t alive. They hadn’t noticed that the crowd seemed to begin to focus around the stage, and the music slowly calmed down.

Sprite shifted in her seat and spoke to fill the silence. “So far, nothing in the VIP area. From what I can tell, the owner hasn’t shown her face in a few days.” She offered.

“Well, if she’s not here then we can figure out where she lives.” Druig replied curtly, and Sersi raised an eyebrow.

“And if it isn’t her?” She replied, “We’d just be stalking some random woman and going to her house.”

“Wouldn’t you already call this stalking, casing out her place of business? If we’re searching, we might as well be thorough.” He hadn’t meant to snap at her, but his patience was beginning to wear thin. The buzzing energy inside the club, the booming music, the shitty liquor, it was all beginning to grate on his nerves with how overwhelming it was. The immortal enjoyed his solitude for a reason.

Sprite opened her mouth to argue, and the room went black.

“Ladies and gentlemen, turn your eyes and ears to the stage. Give a round of applause for our lil’ club’s lovely owner and songstress, Y/n!” The DJ’s voice boomed over the speakers, and the stage lit up with a deep red light. 

You stepped out onto the stage, basking in the attention of the crowd. In this modern age, there was not much left that you hadn’t seen or explored, and so you loved the entertainment industry. At the very least, it was actually, y’know, entertaining. The club was a point of pride for you, and the singing was just to fill in the empty moments in between owning a business. You were alive, you felt alive for the first time in eons, and you’d like to stay that way thank you very much. With a microphone in hand, you crooned into the night to a swaying crowd. 

Three jaws collectively dropped, but Sprite was quick to react as she grabbed the other two’s hands and made them disappear from sight the second you stepped onto the stage. Predictably, Druig was a mess. On the outside, a deer frozen in headlights, but that damned mind of his that always ran a mile a minute was in pure shambles. The last memory he had of you was nothing short of horrible, the image of you burnt and bloodied smiling at his concern before being ripped away, right out of his hands.

And here you were now. As beautiful as ever, soothing his troubled old heart with your voice. 

Somewhere in his thoughts, he vaguely agreed with Phastus. All memories of you were from ancient times, before fashionable clothing and stylish haircuts. It was a different world, and you were like a relic of the past coming to light for the first time.

He rubbed a tired hand over his brow as another thought occurred to him. If you had been alive all this time, why hadn’t you ever seeked them out? Why hadn’t you come home to him? There was so much to explore in that branch of thought, he had to swallow around the lump in his throat and ignore it with an intensity. For now, Druig let your saccharine sweet voice soothe the old pain in his chest. It was like a rush of breath after holding it for too long. The air found its way back home, tucked deep in his chest and behind his ribs. 

Minutes turned into an hour, and it felt as if you were gone from his sight in the blink of an eye. He had been utterly entranced during your short performance, and Sprite had to smack him in the chest just to make him pay attention to their words.

“Are you going to talk to her?” Sersi asked, apprehensive and excited and grief-stricken. Her throat was tight and her words came out clipped. It seemed he wasn’t the only one overwhelmed by emotion at the moment. 

“Yes, I mean- of course.” He stood up abruptly from the booth and looked around anxiously for another glimpse at you. Wherever you were, you had disappeared from sight, much to his chagrin. “Wait here if you want. I’ll go find her.”

Without another word, Druig strode off into the club as the music picked up again and people flooded out onto the dancefloor. You had appeared before them like a mirage. Paradise was so close in sight, but as soon as he reached out for you, the glamour disappeared in a haze. A desperate feeling clawed at his chest, an intense longing. Now that he had seen you, that he knew you were here, nothing in his path would stop his search.

When he spotted you in the crowd, Druig could only stop and stare. Images from his memories of you kept flashing in his mind’s eye, almost in comparison to how different it was seeing you now. He drank in the details like a man in a draught. The flush of your skin, the rolling of your hips, arms moving in a casual dance amidst a sea of strangers. When a man got closer, brushing a hand on your lower back, a flash of hot, angry possessiveness shot through him like lightning. 

The crowd around you stopped. It took a moment to process what was happening, and you stopped to look around in confusion. All at once, as if controlled by a hivemind, the partygoers turned to stare at you with a menacing glow in their eyes. “There you are.” They spoke, hundreds of voices at once filling up the room. There was some amusement at the display, but your surprise was evident. You turned in circles, eagerly looking for who you knew in your heart was the cause of this peculiarity, and the crowd parted a path for Druig to approach you.

“Here I am,” you replied in earnest, taking in the sight of him. He hadn’t changed, it seemed he had barely even switched up his damn haircut. A chill dragged its cold finger down your spine, filling you with anticipation from his intense gaze. His handsome face was a sight for sore eyes. You were the first to move, wrapping your arms around his waist and splaying your hands across the expanse of his back. A beat passed and Druig draped his arms around you, and felt your head lay on his chest, and the crowd began to move to the beat of the music again. You were rocks against the currents of people, isolated in your own little world. In your chest, the feeling of home returned at long last, and you held him tighter. -

Later into the night, you had found yourselves tucked away into the entrance of some tiny hallway meant for storage. Underneath a dim bulb, it was as if all was right in the world, destiny’s clock tick tick ticking back into position one minute at a time. Your place was in his arms, so warm and perfect and simply right. You didn’t need light to trace his skin, still having memorized each freckle and spot of his face, fingertips brushing against his cheek as you unabashedly stared up at him. He looked down at you in reverence, near disbelief.

The weight of your gaze was nearly too much to bear, and Druig pulled you closer to press his face into your hair, emotion threatening to overwhelm him once again. He thanked whatever creator in the cosmos that he could think of, grateful to destiny for allowing you to be safe again in his arms, to have placed you before him. A shaking breath filled his chest, and the soft sigh that followed stirred the locks of hair near his lips. “Oh darling, oh dearheart. How I’ve missed you so.” Saying the words out loud was like a relief, the way his breath hung off his words in one fell swoop. Muscled hands gripped your waist tighter when he spoke again. “For so long, I dreamt of this. For all I know, I could still be dreaming now.”

You pulled away to look up at him, and Druig nearly mourned the loss of your warmth before you slid both hands solidly against his jaw, forcing him to look at you.

“You’re not dreaming, alright? We found our way back to each other, just as we always have. I’m not going anywhere.” You told him resolutely, and you could feel the smile grow across his face before he turned to press a kiss into the palm of your hand. When Druig spoke again, the movement of his lips brushed against your skin. 

"My Eurydice, I should have never looked back. I'm so sorry."

A shuddering breath caught in your throat. Your chest tightened at his words, that tone of reverence now pained with a history of grief, a pang of hopelessness. He had mourned you, you realized. Without a second thought, you pulled him in and kissed him deeply, pouring your feelings into the affection. Druig didn’t need to read your mind to understand what you meant by it, but you pulled away anyways, barely enough to speak. He shivered at the feeling of your breath against his skin. “Don’t. Don’t apologize, my dearest, how could I ever fault you for that? I never have. Never.” You told him, voice dropped to a near whisper. He nodded once, absorbing your words. 

No time was wasted as his lips found their way to yours once more, a hand rested against your jaw as the other held onto your hip with a newfound desperation. Your hands moved from his face to drape across his shoulders, enjoying the feeling of his thick black hair against your fingertips. You had missed him, missed this so intensely, it was dreamlike to feel the drag of his teeth against your lips, asking for permission. You sighed contentedly as you opened your mouth against his, and he deepened the kiss without pause. A low groan rumbled from his throat, and whatever self control you had in the moment was thrown out the window. The only reminder of the outside world was the music that shook the walls of your club, but if anybody walked by in your own little secluded place, you couldn’t be bothered to care. At the drop of a pin, the moment had gone from heartfelt to sinful. The touch of his hands against your skin burned hot, and you couldn’t help but scrape your nails against the nape of his neck as he kissed you, licking his tongue into your mouth and nearly drinking you up.

When you pulled away, regrettably so only because you needed a breath, Druig chased your lips. “Love, I can’t breathe,” You breathed out, and the next breath caught in your throat when his eyes met yours again. “Then don’t.”

The nails that lightly scraped his skin now dug in harshly as he caught your lips again in a deep kiss, pulling at your hip to fix his thigh between your legs, and you swore you could see stars behind your eyelids. A breathy moan left you, choked off at the last minute in an attempt to be quiet, and Druig directed his attention from your lips to the sweet spot underneath your jaw. He wanted to hear more, needed more, overcome with the needy primal desire of feeling you against him. It had been too long, far too long. “Do you understand just what you do to me, my love?” He growled against your skin, and you felt teeth drag across the expanse of your throat. Open mouthed kisses left your skin searing to the touch in their wake, and you could only hold onto his shoulders as he worked his thigh against you, senses overwhelmed with pleasure and affection. 

He didn’t stop until the sound of a throat being cleared loudly and awkwardly reached your ears. You nearly jumped out of your skin but had no room to pull away. Druig, on the other hand, chuckled bitterly against your throat before standing up straight. His expression dropped at the sight of Sprite, and a hot red flush crept up his face and over his ears.

“I saw way too much!” Sprite said with a tone of comical disgust, hand clamped across her eyes. “Whenever you lovebirds are decent, Sersi wants to say hi.” And with that, she turned on her heel and high tailed it out of there.

The moment she was gone, the tension broke and the two of you couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. It was rare to see Druig throw his head back and truly laugh, and you loved it, you loved him so dearly.

“Let’s get a move on before I get kicked out of my own club. I can’t wait to see the others.” You told him with a smile, and he sighed before finally fully stepping back and letting you stand up by yourself. The two of you straightened out each other’s clothes, and his hands gently brushed your hair back into place, and you ventured back to the others hand in hand.

-

The family reunion was a week-long visit to Ajak’s ranch out in the plains of South Dakota. The lifestyle was decidedly very different from your own; you had found comfort in urban cities, you couldn’t help but enjoy the anonymity that came with it, but also the great potential for excitement. But at the moment, there was no place you would rather be.

Ajak welcomed you home with open arms and kissed your forehead, and you felt like a child in her presence. If asked, she’d say she considered you all her children in one way or another. Her aura was warm, comforting, motherly. You ate the food she cooked, sat around the dinner table with the rest of your family, and truly felt as if all was right in the world again. Mission be damned, you were here on this Earth for them. For him. Any time you looked up to see Druig across the dining table, it was like electricity connected you to each other. 

Later on in the evening, he drove her old truck further out into the plains, and the two of you laid a blanket out in the truck bed and stared up at the stars. Out there was your creation, where you had been made, but this was home. Home had a beating heart, two strong hands, and a sarcastic mouth. 

And when you got home, you both quietly went to your shared room and slipped under the covers to rest. Druig kissed at you, less desperate this time, more because he finally could do this again and indulge in it. He took his time to savor your kisses, the softness of your skin, the noises you made underneath him. And you did the same, reunited with the only person in the world who you would live and die for, and everything in between.

There was no more fighting, no war to be won. You could simply be. -