#redris

New Joint - Kissing Dragons

New Joint - Kissing Dragons 

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Choose 5 OTP’s without looking at the questions in the "Read More", then tag some friends!

I tag: thatoneunluckygirl, latkesofaseamonster, zothough, colonel-sebbmoran, grandenchanterfiona.

1. Red Hawke/Fenris, Dragon Age 2

2. Abel Trevelyan/Cullen Rutherford, Dragon Age: Inquisition

3. Sebastian Moran/James Moriarty, Sherlock

4. Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham, Hannibal

5. Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes, MCU

“He can help us.”

“The only person he can help is himself, Onna. I hate to tell you this.” 

“We need all the help we can get. Vorago has cash. Connections. Hell if anyone’s gonna get off this fucking moon, it’s him. We’ve got nothing.”

Girk flexed, looking annoyed. The grayish jumper strained around his bicep. He looked at me, then back at Onna.

“What does he know?”

“Enough to off us. At this point we don’t have much of a fucking choice.”

Girk ran a thick hand over his hairless scalp. “It’s your call. It doesn’t matter to me.” He smiled with his mouth and looked at me with melancholy eyes. “I have to get back to work.”

I wiggled on the worn metal bench, looking away.

“Jesus.”

“What’s Jesus?”

“Nevermind.” Onna put her head in her bony hands, shaking her head. “We need him on board.”

The soup in front of me steamed, burning my tongue when I brought it to my mouth. It tasted rancid, like vomit. The chunks didn’t help.

“He said you can choose. He didn’t say anything about ditching us.” I picked something stringy out from my teeth. “He wouldn’t do that anyway; he likes you.”

“He likes you too.”

“It’s not the same, Onna.” I poured the rest of my soup in the dirt and sent her a look. She left me then too, limping. Probably going after Girk to talk to him some more. As usual they would discuss things and forget to tell me, or whisper quietly enough that I struggled to hear. Onna would tell me later that the plan is ridiculous or that something is impossible. She would pace around the room, throwing things, drawing out plans then scrapping them. When I ask what’s going on, she would shake her head and keep working, too distracted to fill me in. She and Girk must take me for dumb. 

From what I knew of the plan, there had to be a distraction initially. Something to set everything in motion. Chaos to disguise our escape. Not the most original plan, but effective. I hoped we could pull it all off.

—

They looked at me, at my preteen body. “Ready?”

I nodded. “Okay. This might pinch.” One of them took my wrist, gently inserting an IV and clipping a plastic bit on the tip of my index finger. Someone sprayed a vaguely floral fragrance over my face.The cool drops settled on my skin. 

The room became fuzzy. 

“Now, how are you feeling?”

I must have grinned or something. 

“Can you hear me, Redris?”

Something came from my slurring mouth. More nods, more indecipherable speech. Their voices came in garbled whispers and if they said anything more, I wouldn’t have understood them, but I could see. They liked it that way. It was cheaper or something.

I watched them cover my body in blue sheets, a squarish hole over my abdomen. They could do this seamlessly, they told me. It would leave no scars. But when I saw them cut into the skin there, I wasn’t sure. It looked deep, thick. Not bloody, as if my blood had congealed beforehand. There were clips and knives and wires and it felt nice. I was surely smiling. The room was warm and the chair was comfortable and I could have fallen asleep, but I didn’t. It was very interesting to see my body split open like it was. 

One of them saw me watching and put a cool rag over my face. Apparently that was a liability. Everything was a liability. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it sounded important, so I didn’t ask any questions. 

I could feel their hands in me but it felt like a massage. At that point, I drifted to sleep. 

When I woke, I was in a chair, wheeling down a long hallway. There were no windows, nothing to tell me where or when I was. 

“What time is it?”

“Middle of the night. How are you feeling?” 

Always the same questions. “A little dizzy actually. Why so late?” I yawned.

“Your surgery was successful, Redris. Don’t worry too much, you’ll strain yourself.”

I moved a floppy hand to lift my gown to where the incision was made. A wide bandage covered my side. 

“Okay.”

—

“What are you gonna do after all this?” Onna stood on a folded mattress, poking her head out the window. 

“Like, if we escape?”

“No. When. When we escape.”

The question hurt a little. “I don’t know.”

She turned to me, hopping off the soiled mattress. Her hair flopped in a black shadow over her face. “You think you’re gonna go home?”

“Not likely.”

She nodded slowly, hands on her hips. Her hands were always on those bony hips.

“I bet they want you back.”

“Maybe I don’t want to go back.”

“Fair enough. You do what you want kid.” She smiled and came closer, squatting in front of me. “I like your eyebrows like that.”

I rolled my eyes. I hadn’t gotten a decent look at my face in months. I didn’t want to think about how I looked.

“Right.”

“Seriously though. Looks good.” She stood. wiping off her hands, and walked over to her own bed. The cell was too small for Onna. She was always pacing, climbing on things, doing pull-ups on the barred ceiling. At this point, she was a caged animal in a thin, bruised, Bruwysian body. 

“What about you?”

“Me? Well.” She laughed tiredly. “First I’m going to get drunk. Really fucking drunk. Then I’m going to hunt down the fuckers who busted my ship.” The light from the moon was hitting her shoulders, obscuring her face in shadows. “And I’m going to get you somewhere safe. I swear it.”

“You don’t need to do that.” I covered my face with my arm. 

“Won’t be able to rest until I do, babe.”

“I’m not weak, Onna. I can handle myself.”

She lowered herself onto her bed, sitting, facing me. Her voice was soft. “I’m getting you home, Red. Wherever that is.” 

Glaring at the wall, I suddenly hated myself; an unfamiliar feeling. Hated myself for never learning to hold a gun or pilot a ship, for not knowing the topography of the stars. I made a fist and could clearly see the weakness in it. I would never be able to hurt anyone with my hands, and I knew next to nothing about self defense. So really, I couldn’t handle myself. I was weak. I just didn’t like to think I was.

Beyond that, I was loathe to imagine Bruwys as home. The people there were as close to family as the prison guards on Thruss were. I imagined the compound was as close to home as I’d be getting for a while.

—

Sand had risen from the west and swept over the land in thick, sharp waves. Work for the day had halted, and the prisoners were huddled against the walls of the compound fence to protect their faces. 

At first it was bright, tinting the landscape a hot red colors. Those who had eyes or ears immediately covered them, running for shelter. Onna had pulled her shirt over her face, running to me. Girk wasn’t far behind. We all ran to a narrow alley between the mess hall and one of the cell blocks where we could be alone and protected from the wind. The whole process of running and hiding from sand had become a banal, yet welcome distraction from work. I didn’t mind crouching in the dirt if it meant not working.

Girk was the last one to enter the narrow space, his shoulders almost touching both walls. Onna and I were grateful of that. 

“We could almost do it now,” Onna yelled over the noise. 

In the deep shadows of the space, I saw Girk laugh bitterly. “We don’t have a plan yet, Onna.”

“I know. But we could use this. The storms happen often enough.” 

The noise settled down a bit, but the sand was thicker, the landscape behind Girk dark like dusk. Girk brought his voice down. “Too unpredictable. We need something bigger. Something we can control.”

“True.”

“But not a bad idea. We just need something we can use to our advantage. This —” he motioned to the storm, “this is not an advantage.” 

“What do you think, then?”

Girk looked tired. He shrugged. “Red? What do you think?”

Both of them looked at me and I was surprised. They usually didn’t ask for my opinion on things. 

“Well, we could do something in the compound? Like instead of waiting for the weather to mess things up, we could start something ourselves, like you were saying. I don’t know, maybe a fight? Girk, you could start a fight.”

The two of them exchanged glances. Onna looked at me. “We could leave during the fight, you mean. Not bad.”

Girk nodded, considering. “Has Vorago said anything more to you?”

“He’s in.”

“Then a fight it is. We just have to get to the hangar, then we can fly out of here.”

“There’s no fuckin way.”

“I know. It’s going to work.”

“It has to.” 

Girk lurched forward as a man hit the square of his back with the blunt of a gun. “Starm’s over fockers. Gat back ta’work.” What I assumed to be a man grabbed a fistful of hair and dragged me back into the yard, followed by Onna and Girk. We grabbed our shovels and ropes and joined the lines back into the quarry, tying fabric to cover our noses. 

Girk and Onna had joined their separate lines, and I waited in mine. It stretched for about a half mile down the rocky abyss. It may as well have been hell.

— 

It was dark outside and Onna and I were on equip duty. Our job was to clean the gear while no one was using it. It was more of a punishment than a chore.

“Can I ask you something?” I bit my lip, watching a shiny black beetle crawl over my shoe.

She looked up from scraping dried mud from a shovel and raised an eyebrow. “Shoot.”

“Did you have to have the operation before you boarded Avie?”

“Operation. No. What operation?”

I shook my head, looking at the low hills on the horizon, where they met the sand-dulled stars. “It was mandatory for the runway team. I just wasn’t sure if you had to have it.”

“What operation, Red?” She looked intently at me now, but tears threatened to betray my cool. My painfully constructed cool.

I shook my head again, not sure where to start. “It was a lot of things, mostly health stuff, pre-takeoff prep. But,” I took a deep breath, steadying myself. My voice was calm. “They gave us trackers. Right here.” I pointed to my left forearm.

Onna didn’t say anything for a minute. “Why are you telling me now?”

“They were going to come and get me, Onna. They said I would be safe. They lied to me.”

She looked at me, then back to the racks of dirty equipment. “They lied about a lot of things, Red. I’m really sorry.”

I was sorry, too. I thought that maybe, if I got lucky, they would come to save us and I could help Onna. That, this time, she could thank me, rather than the other way around. I could be of use somehow.

But no one was coming to get me. They said I was important and they lied. I wondered if anyone ever really cared.

In the early hours of the morning, the entire slave population of the compound stood to attention in the courtyard outside, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. Boxed in by the ugly, mismatched buildings of the pirate fort they stood, skin in a variety of colors, races of different sizes and shapes, gender and intelligence. And yet they were still linked as one by the desperation and despair that glinted dully in their eyes, by the angry red of wrists chaffed by cold manacles. Most were still blinking sleep from their eyes, dragging bony hands across heavy eyelids in an attempt to dislodge exhaustion. The ones that stood still-- hands limp at their sides, fingers twitching slightly-- most likely hadn’t slept at all.

Girk felt for them. He understood it, the hot breath of demons and past mistakes breathing down one’s neck, keeping the mind active and the eyes wide open. He saw himself in the slump of their shoulders, in the way their chins rested against their thin chests like their heads were too heavy to hold. He knew the feeling and the gritty taste it left behind, knew what it was like to stare in the mirror and have haunted eyes and a grim mouth he didn’t recognize stare back.

The worst was the girl standing to his right, if she even was a girl. Sometimes he thought she was, and he referred to her as one, but really, she was rather androgynous. The poor thing hardly slept, that he did know. Apparently on her planet, reproduction was an asexual thing, because when she was under stress she…split. Girk could hear her at night sometimes when sleep eluded him, whimpering softly, crooning broken lullabies to children that would be torn from her in the morning. Her eyes were shadowed, and her petite body shook lightly, her shoulder bumping into his. Gently, he took her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze, even as Vorago on the other side of him gripped his upper arm tightly.

Vorago was nearly as bad as her, though not because he was tired or miserable. It was the damned fireweed. Vorago rolled the leaves into makeshift cigarettes and smoked them at night when a bout of insomnia hit him. If he wasn’t smoking it, he was chewing it, grinding the plant between his teeth. The thick spicy scent hung around him, clinging to his clothes and invading Girk’s space.

He was Thrussian, partly anyways, and the way he depended on the plant reminded Girk of Sorrel. Without it he was violently sick, and extremely bad tempered. The guards gave it to him, passed a thick packet of leaves through the bars twice a month. It used to be a mystery to Girk, how Vorago managed to convince them to smuggle the plant to him. When he finally found out Vorago’s method of persuasion, he wished he hadn’t.

Because now he couldn’t help but think about it. Bony, scowling Vorago, with his perfect teeth and soft grey eyes and quick, furious movements. Being pulled aside during the workday, dragged to dark places where no one would see, pinned to the ground and leaving bloody gouges in sweat-slicked skin with his fingernails.

Girk thanked every existing higher power that it wasn’t Sorrel. The thought of Sorrel being forced to sell his body, the thought of someone else’s lips against Sorrel’s tanned skin made his blood boil.

A shout startled him out of his thoughts, and he watched as one of the pirate captains began to stroll down the line, looking every prisoner in the eye, sun glinting off the brass buttons of his mismatched uniform. He stopped periodically, shouting orders to guards in a barking tone and dividing prisoners into groups—these to the kitchen, those to the laundry rooms, that group to Gun Manufacturing.

Close now. Another moment and Girk would get his day’s assignment. Usually, that meant quarry work, lifting work, hard and painful muscle work. Girk’s raw power and inability to feel pain or be affected by temperature was invaluable, and he knew that. He was a perfect draft horse, tough without the high cost of keeping.

The captain stopped in front of Vorago, mouth pulling into a lewd smirk as he eyed the Thrussian up and down, revealing yellowed, filed teeth. “You can jus’ take yerself to my cabin, sweetheart.”

Vorago’s hands were shaking as he bowed low and hurried on his way, still limping slightly from the week’s earlier “persuasions”. 

After spending a hungry moment watching Vorago leave, the captain faced Girk, black eyes shrewdly evaluating him. “You. 362677. You know anythin’ about healin’ or docterin’?”

“I know enough.”

“Well then congratulations, yer on hospital duty today. Get yerself down to the infirmary.”

Squaring his shoulders and setting his jaw, Girk looked the captain in the eye. “Captain, to do my job properly, I have need of an assistant.” Which wasn’t entirely true, but the captain didn’t know that. He placed his hand on the shoulder of the girl beside him, and tried to keep his voice indifferent.

The captain was silent for a long moment, and Girk thought he’d refuse and move down the line. But the captain nodded and gestured towards the girl. “Take this…thing…with you then.” Sneering at her, he continued on his way, shouting orders and gesturing at the prisoners.

The girl shuddered under his hand, and Girk slung his arm across both her shoulders and steered her towards the infirmary, away from the noise and the risk of splitting.

* * *

Girk had always liked the infirmary in the day, before the compound’s “medical officers” made their rounds. It was one of the few buildings in the compound that actually had windows, and light filtered gently through the yellowed glass, bathing the room in golden light. It was quiet during the day, quiet and surprisingly clean, floors mopped and worn, quilted bed sheets freshly washed. It was the one place Girk felt at peace, the one place Girk could think clearly and just relax.

And just as he hoped, it seemed to have the same effect on his companion.

He had guided her over to one of the empty beds and told her to lie down and rest. She’d looked at him wide eyed, surprised and fearful, until he assured her it wasn’t a trick. Relieved, she settled into the blankets, and had been curled there for the past half hour, breathing softly in sleep.

There weren’t many patients in the infirmary at this time, and for that Girk was thankful. He didn’t mind taking care of people—that was easy. It was the sight of people in pain, people suffering that really bothered him. He had a hard time understanding it himself—his body was unaffected by pain, and therefore he had never felt it. He bled like everyone else, but there was no sting or ache to accompany it. Just the realization of a wound and the sense to patch it up.

That’s why he hated the sight of people in pain. He couldn’t understand them, couldn’t relate, and that made him feel helpless, made him feel as if there was nothing he could do.

The worse was Sorrel. He remembered both of Sorrel’s deaths vividly. He remembered the thin black blood that stained the Z’jarri’s chest the first time, and his chapped, frozen lips the second time. Sorrel’s eyes alternated between squeezed shut and wide open when he was in pain, pupils dilated to their limit. But what he remembered most was the fear, the feeling of his heart lodged in his throat. The inability to even know what Sorrel was feeling, what he was going through. The ineffectual grip of his hand around Sorrel’s, the promises Sorrel couldn’t hear that fell from his lips, stumbled out one after another.

Sighing, he sat down on the bad next to the girl that could split. He thought maybe he’d heard the name Karune tossed around before, but he wasn’t sure if it was hers or someone else’s. He ruffled her hair lightly, and pulled the blankets up to her chin. Poor thing. “I’m sorry you got mixed up in this, girlie.”

A voice across the room startled him. “It’s not a girl, you know.” The voice was rough and raspy, strained as if in pain.

Girk gave the girl—Karune?—a final pat on the shoulder, and stood. He crossed the room, slowly approached the cot by the window, and then stood in silent surprise at its occupant.

It appeared to be a girl, or what was left of one anyways. She had long dark hair, tangled and knotted and splayed in a messy fan across her pillow. Her skin was a pale, ashy grey, cheeks splotched with color, and a four fingered hand clutched the thin blanket that was draped over her body tightly. The number of fingers  and the color of her cheeks—a deep orange—was enough to tell Girk she was Bruwysian.

Aside from that, she looked nothing like the beautiful, feminine creatures Bruwysian women were usually portrayed as.

Her body was mangled, the legs being the worst of it. One leg was encased in a bulky, off-yellow cast, but the other had yet to undergo similar treatment. The leg was twisted at unnatural angles, the dull sheen of bone peaking shyly through the skin in several places. The woman’s back was arched slightly, and Girk could see the shine of a metal brace under it, meaning that there must have been some sort of fracture or chip. Through her thin, standard issue hospital gown, he could see colorful bruises and the dull red lines of lacerations. And the burns. Dark and extensive, stretching across her whole body.

She reminded him of Commander Liam, of the day of his accident when they brought him back nearly in pieces, hipbone shattered beyond repair and the leg attached to it all but dead. The surgery took days, and the whole of the SpaceBase had held its breath as the doctors attached the new leg—all shiny black metal and clicking mechanics, designed by Sorrel, of course.

Girk wondered if this girl would go the same way. If she would have to lose the leg and have a bionic one attached. He wished, for her sake, that it would heal on its own.

“Hey, did you hear me? It’s not a girl.”

Her eyes were fierce and pained and a little wet, and her mouth was a grim line, bottom lip bitten and bloody. A pang of something like pity jolted in Girk’s chest, and he gave her a gentle smile.

“I know she’s not. It’s just easier for me to think of her as one, and  I don’t think she really minds as long as you’re nice to her.” Girk pulled her medical report off from where it was taped to the bedpost and skimmed it over, eyes widening as he reached the end. “You have a name, miss?”

“Like I’d tell you.” Her eyes narrowed in distrust, she spat the sentence at him.

“I’m not a doctor, I’m just a prisoner here. Like you, see? I’m on your side.” He crossed back across the room and rummaged through the supply cabinets. After some searching, he found the little tube he was looking for and a clean syringe. He snapped the tube into the syringe and walked over to stand over the wounded girl, carefully positioning the sharp tip over her wrist.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

“Relax. It’s just a shot of morphine. A little more than the recommended dose, mind you, but then again, I don’t think the regular shot would help you much. Just hold still.” The tip of the syringe punched through the skin of the girl’s wrist easily, and Girk slowly pushed on the other end, driving the painkiller into her bloodstream.

The effect it had on her was immediate. She slumped against the cot in relief, a sigh escaping her lips. Girk pulled the needle from her skin, and rubbed the puncture wound soothingly with his thumb. He didn’t know from experience, but Sorrel used to complain about getting morphine shots and the dull ache they left behind.

“Onna.”

He looked up from her wrist, and met her eyes, soft and amber and lightly hazy with the administration of the drug. “What?”

“My name is Onna.”

“Oh. Well, hello Onna. I’m  sorry we couldn’t meet under more pleasant circumstances. I’m Girk, Girk Cassin.”

“Girk. Hmm.” She shifted, winced as the metal of the back brace dug into her spine, and then lay still again.

“Are you thirsty? I can get you some water if you’d like.” Girk watched her face closely, noticing the way her eyebrows still furrowed in discomfort, the way her hands hadn’t relaxed their grip on the sheets.

“Yeah. Please.”

One cup of water became three, became five, and Onna was looking much better. Girk helped her sit up, snagged an extra pillow off an empty cot and used it to prop her up comfortably. Her hands weren’t shaking like they were before, and her breathing had evened out, thanks to a second, much smaller dose of morphine.

Girk sat at the end of the bed, flipping through the medical reports of the current patients, the silence stretching between them, when Onna finally spoke again. “Have you…have you ever lost anyone? Important to you, I mean.”

Swallowing hard, Girk looked down at his hands. Wide palms covered with grey-blue skin, crisscrossed with scars both shallow and deep. Fingers thick and callused, tips bruised and battered by years spent in the pirates’ rock quarries. He could imagine it, the small dark tanned hand against his palm, slender fingers intertwining with his. A shy, soft smile, pale eyes glowing with something like love. The silver flash of his dog tag around a graceful neck, and the flash of pride the sight of it brought.

Sorrel.

“I have.” He turned and looked back at her. “Why? Have you?”

Onna closed her eyes and nodded, biting her lip. She released it with a shuddering sigh,” Yeah. You could say that.”

The silence started to nudge its way between them again, but Girk pushed it away. “Do you want to talk about them?”

“No. It’s…no, not really.” She opened her eyes again, and turned her head towards the window. “Tell me about your person.”

Girk blinked. It wasn’t a fair request, not in any way. He read her medical report—he knew about the crash she had miraculously survived—so he figured her loss had been recent, but still. It wasn’t fair of her to ask about Sorrel, to ask him to talk about Sorrel. After pining after him for six years, after dreaming about him every night, the pain was still fresh. As if he had lost Sorrel yesterday. But if it made Onna feel better…he might as well try, hard as it might be.

“He, uh…His name was Sorrel. He was a mechanic—engineer really, he was that talented—from Keani..”

“A Keani mechanic?” Onna laughed softly. “Funny. I had a Keani mechanic employed on my ship. Not the nicest guy, but he knew his way around a ship.”

“Hah, they’re all like that. Mean and smart and all tattooed up. Sorrel had a lot of tattoos, it’s like a cultural thing for them, I believe. At least, that’s what he told me.” The more he said, the easier it was to talk, the easier it was to explain to her what the Z’jarri had meant to him. “He wasn’t polite by any means, and like your mechanic, he wasn’t very nice. But he was sweet when it was just the two of us…He…” And just like that, talking got harder again.

“Girk? You don’t have to talk about it if it upsets you…I didn’t mean to bring up something…”Onna trailed off uncertainly, she looked back at him, eyes regretful.

“No, it’s fine.” He smiled at her, pupil-less grey eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’ve just never talked about him to someone before so it’s…difficult. I have a hard time finding the right words. It…it all sounds better in my head.” He shook his head.

“I think you sound alright.” She gave him what was meant to be an encouraging smile, there was no light in her eyes, and there was a tremor of barely disguised longing in her voice when she asked, “Were the two of you…was he your boyfriend?”

Ah, so that was it. She must have lost a significant other in that crash, most likely her own boyfriend. Her lips had lingered on the word, fingers twisting in the sheets. His heart ached from her. He knew what it was like, to lose the person who mattered the most in a flash of cannons and the explosion of a ship. He watched the BR3KK3R blow up every night in his dreams, woke up with a heaving chest and a constricted throat. He knew how she felt, he’d been there.

Except Sorrel wasn’t dead.

“Something like that, yes.” Girk rubbed the back of his neck, and then latched on the first memory in his head.  “He couldn’t read, you know? He couldn’t read or write, and he adamantly refused to learn, so I had to read everything to him. Sometimes we’d lay there in bed and he’d curl against my side and rest his head on my chest and I’d read to him…He didn’t really care what I read, as long as it was me reading it.” But he left out the way Sorrel would sometimes fall asleep in his arms, breath soft and lashes brushing lightly against his cheekbones. He also left out the way Sorrel would get distracted, the way he’d trace the muscles and veins in Girk’s forearm with a slim finger and nuzzle Girk’s neck until Girk pressed him against the bed and kissed him senseless.

“That sounds nice.” Her voice was sleepy this time, and her eyes were closed when Girk turned to look at her. Her body had relaxed, heavy doses of morphine taking their toll on her. Her mouth had pulled into a soft smile, and Girk reached over her to pull the curtains behind her closed.

“Rest well, Onna. I hope your dreams are pleasant.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead, and turned to leave, to check on Karune.

“Girk?”

“Yes?”

“Check on Redris? She’s…the pretty one...”

“Of course.”

* * *

Girk collapsed onto the lumpy cot in his cell, the rusty metal bedframe creaking under his weight. The weak, unappetizing soup that had been served for “dinner” hadn’t quite been enough, and he rolled his eyes at the ceiling in irritation has his stomach growled at him angrily.

“You forget to fill up your gas tank, big guy?”

The voice startled him, and he jolted upright, last syllables of the low, hissed sentence echoing around the room. He eyed the corners of the small cell warily, seeing nothing. Vorago hadn’t limped back from the captain’s cabin yet, and probably wouldn’t for a while; he tended to get passed around the barracks at night.

He was, by all appearances, alone.

Exasperated, he sat back down on the bed, cradling his head in his hands. “I’m not in the mood for your games, Comatose.”

“What if I give you a ‘get out of jail free card?’” A soft snicker, and a weight on the end of the cot, as Comatose materialized next to him, squirming under Girk’s arms and draping himself across Girk’s lap.

Growling, Girk pushed him onto the ground roughly, and the creature sat up with an indignant huff. He was strange to look at, a bizarre combination of human and wolf and monster. Currently, he sat cross-legged  in the closet to human form he came, skin darkly tanned, body long and svelte like a cat. His eyes were devoid of pupils and white, and his unkempt hair was a thick, cascading mane of pale green.

Comatose had no lips, no proper mouth. Instead he had rows of sharp, interlocking canines, always visible and curved upwards in a permanent maniacal grin.

“Why is it you’re nice to girls you don’t know, but you won’t let your old, faithful friend of six years sit in your lap, hmmm?”  He stretched out on his stomach on the floor, resting his chin on his hands. Girk guessed that the horrible contorting of his face would have been a pout, if only those teeth would cooperate.

“You are not my friend, you are not faithful by any means, and you don’t belong in my lap. We’ve been over this.” Girk sighed like a long suffering parent.

“If I was Sorrel, would you let me sit in your lap?”

Girk stiffened. “Comatose.”

“You miss him, don’t you? Your skinny, pretty little Keani boy ehehehehe you miss your loverrrrrr.” Comatose rolled the r, delighting in the way Girk ground his teeth. “Oh, wait, I forgot, he wasn’t your lover, was he? You didn’t get the chance to fuck him because he blew up eheheheh!”

“Comatose, that’s enough.”

“Ehehehehe Sorrel was blown to bits blown to bits! Like a wonderful Keani firework he was, pieces of him floating and spiraling around in space! Just think Girk, he’s all toasty now, he won’t ever freeze to death again!”

“ENOUGH!” Girk surged to his feet and lashed out at the laughing creature, but Comatose vanished, laughing trailing behind him.

“Girk has lost his boy, lost his boy, lost his pretty lover boyyyy~”

Redris - This Time (Cover)

Love, love this cover... He's grown so much... He's learned his craft; control & power & range.