#veniials

  ❝   have you been following me? ❞      she could’ve sworn she’s been hearing footsteps trailing her for miles now. she couldn’t tell if that had been him, or her imagination. though, it was rare to see anyone else out in the middle of the forest so late at night. Usually humans don’t get this deep into the wilderness, but this guy gave off the aura of being more than human.

    Nothing BIG, she knew how to respect his personal space, which he thanked God, but it was good to wake up on his desk, but with a blanket around him, the casual meals she left him at his desk, or just the company she made while sitting in his lab with him in silence. 

    Maybe that’s why he liked her so much.

     Sometimes, they bonded over silence, others, over the most poetic conversations. She was a hell of a woman - he wasn’t hesitant to compliment her mind, that, although damaged, was a gorgeous and intriguing one. 

     ❝ — I... Thank you, Alice, dear. Really. ❞

      ...But they never talked about THE SCARECROW. It was something he merely didn’t mention, avoided the name, called it work that kept him awake, and quite honestly, he thought she would too. But the ACCEPTANCE that came from her words was almost uncanny. Someone understood his hard work.

     ❝ — I didn’t want to startle you, that’s all. I can be quite intimidating sometimes.❞

     He can make people yell in fear with his own mere words, but the only thing he could find to define himself was intimidating. But now, a small glint of madness in his eyes as he slowly looks away, but still focusing his attention on Alice.

     ❝ — Talk to me, more about that part of your life. Only if you want to, of course.❞

Puppy-dog is a title that’s never cursed Vega with shame, simply because her presence is so often rare and fleeting that the name never sticks for too long. She doesn’t mean this, never intends to find the same ruined woman more than once, but she knows that there are plenty of things that she can’t control. Maybe they’re looking for the same thing and maybe she wants to steal the dark-eyed woman’s ship and never look back. Maybe she just wants to talk. Maybe that’s bullshit, too. 

Gaston is a challenge in and of himself. Guarded, handsome, vain, damaged. Both very much the same boy she had loved so many years ago and, a completely different man. She wants to fix him. To mend his soul and give him happy memories to cover his darker ones.

And now, even just a glimpse of his smile can make her feel like she’s getting somewhere.

“You don’t need your eyes to catch them,” She replies softly, her own head tipped back. Eyes closed tightly against the snow. “You just need to be patient and they’ll come to you.”

Seeing him move makes her pause in her own endeavor and his attempt makes her laugh out loud, straightening as her legs sway a little. Dizzy from having had her head tipped and the sudden jerking motion of her laughter. She shakes her head now, twisting to face him.

But the fact that he’s trying means more than words can express.

    It was like routine now, going to Josh’s on the nights she knew he would be alone. It had gotten to a point where she would feel     STRANGE     when she hadn’t seen Josh, even if she had been in contact with him. Always checking in, always wanting to be a present in his life, always needing him to know that she was     THERE     if she needed him.

    She never pressured him to talk, she knew he was seeing a doctor for that but she was there when he wanted to talk. She listened, she     hoped     she was being helpful but most importantly, she was there, wasn’t that what mattered most? She was there for him, there for him in the way that she hadn’t been for Hannah and Beth. 

    Most nights when he fell asleep, she often didn’t want to move. Sometimes, she physically couldn’t if he had fallen asleep against her. But most nights, she stayed, sleeping beside him, curled up with him so he knew she was there. On the nights, she did leave, she always     PROMISED     to come back. Even if he didn’t ask, she promised and he knew her for long enough to know how serious she took promises. 

    It wasn’t like this night had been any different from their usually ones, they were just watching films, eating pizza, drinking soda and     LAUGHING     . She couldn’t remember the last time they had actually been laughing together and she couldn’t deny that it was a feeling that made her feel those familiar butterflies in her stomach, made her heart beat a little faster and she was smiling a lot. 

    Josh had always had an unique effect on her, one that no one else ever had. She had always caught herself looking at him, thinking that there was no one else like him. He was beautiful, a word that she never used lightly, usually only saving for breathtaking views when climbing. But Josh Washington? He was so     BEAUTIFUL     to her, she had never really looked at anyone else because he was always the     only thing     she ever saw. Something about tonight, whether it was the fact that she knew he was as     LONELY     as she was, or the fact that they had been laughing together, or that his hand had been on hers for a while now or that she had caught him looking at her in a way that she knew she looked at him. But she finally said it, finally gave him permission to     KISS     her.

    She was nervous, this was a boundary they had tiptoed around but never had actually crossed, yet she was tired of holding things back. If she had learnt anything from the twins disappearance was that she had to stop holding back, allow herself to actually have the things or people she wanted because . . . she may     NOT     get a second chance. 

    Hazel eyes meet his eyes, aware of how close they were to each other and it was a moment that she had been waiting for so long. Eyes fluttered closed, a soft sigh leaving her lips as his hand cups her face, leaning in a little towards him and she felt like she had stopped breathing in the anticipation. A smile pulls at her lips slightly as his nose moves against hers, feeling his warm breath against her lips before he kisses her.

Perhaps the weight of judgement does not hold him prisoner. Youthful trauma beheld demons far too preoccupied with the makings of weapons, and so the intricacies of the heart were never important. Khan reminds himself that not everyone is him– not everyone is above the ground instead of in it. There’s sympathy, even when it becomes too heavy a burden to gift.

He’s simply content with the admission of anything that kindles beneath the surface in the first place.

    “You cling too tightly to ghosts,” is all he says on the matter, knowing that complicating oration will only create thistles of dread. Truly, he longs for the ability to eradicate all that troubles Gaston with the brush of his lips or the caress of his fingers, but nothing is so simple. Life is like that, cruel and enigmatic, a lock without a key.

Fingers curl around the other man’s hand automatically, interlocking, the manifestation of a bond beyond flesh and fancy. He’s a king, he walks like one, and he’ll burn down the world before letting it or a hideous phantom of the past tear Gaston away.

     “And ghosts should not have so much power, mera pyaar.”

“a trained observer misses nothing, each imperfection is a trail. it's not a question of ‘if’ or ‘where’ but when the guilty party goes to jail.”

               there’s a pause before she finally gives the smallest of sheepish shrugs.