okay it's time for some apv drabbles.... with thumper!!!! thinking about it i am gonna do drabbles and whatnot set during apv time that offer up alt povs or scenes :)
so this oneshot is set sometime around chapter 14 and follows thumper and vinegar!
enjoy!
-
The Warren's bar was busy that night, the mood buoyant in a way that Thumper couldn't remember it being for a long time now. The people on bar duty that night had even cracked open one of the casks that contained authentic Rubiconian ale, salvaged from one of the few underground storage cellars in some nearby town or other. Or, remnants of a town, she should say.
Thumper didn't begrudge the their joy, though. The haul that had been brought back contained so many vital things they had desperately needed: medicine, food, basic equipment and supplies... of course, it'd take a few days for all of that to go to where it was needed, after being aggressively audited and marked down, but the Liberation Front was hungry for uncomplicated victories. It made sense to celebrate this stroke of fortune.
The woman of the hour was, of course, Ziyi, who was regalling a throng of eager young recruits about how they had "taken those corporate dogs by surprise and smashed them to bits!" Ziyi was a boisterous storyteller, and her energy made it easy to get caught up in the moment - and, tellingly, she didn't embellish overly much, either. She weighted the credit accordingly towards Rokumonsen and Rusty, who had done the lion's share of offensive combat.
Speaking of Rokumonsen, Thumper had only just finished dealing with before slithering her exhausted body here. The doc had taken care of him technically - a sharp-tongued military doctor that had been enlisted in Rubicon's militia back when Uncle had been born - but Thumper had dotted the i's and crossed the t's when it came to annotating the medical equipment used and confirming that yup, Rokumonsen sure was concussed and nursing one hell of a bruised ribcage.
He was actually talking like a normal human being, with not a single haiku uttered the whole time in the infirmary. Guy's brains were definitely scrambled.
But it left Thumper in a bit of a grumpy and exhausted mood, and the only reason she was here was because she wanted a slice of that rare Rubiconian ale pie, damn it. She got her cup of it and lurked in the fringes of the party, half-watching Ziyi hold court and half-brooding over the other problem she was finding herself feeling responsible for, even if it technically wasn't:
Raven.
You know, there were so many stories about that guy. Both bad and good, but everyone agreed that he was a neutral party in all of this, really. Raven was a creature they all somewhat understood the motivations of, and thus could manipulate if their coin purses were deep enough, and as a Gen Four, everyone assumed him to be some grizzled old vet that'd make Uncle look like a fresh-faced young man, bursting with deadly experience and jaded to hell.
A whole mythos had been built around him, whispers of "I heard Raven destroyed ten corporate MTs with only five bullets" or "I heard he took on all of the Redguns and the Vespers at once without taking a single hit" or "I heard even V.I Freud checks under his bed for Raven!"
All nonsense, of course. Yet, Thumper had kind of bought into it, anyways. Like, obviously he wasn't backflipping across the battlefield in that AC of his and karate-chopping corporate dogs in half like some of the recruits gushed about, but he was obviously good. Terribly skilled, and terribly neutral, a literal force of nature that just meandered across the horizon, running roughshod over anyone stupid enough to stand in his way. In the mental picture Thumper had unconsciously built up of him, she thought he'd be bigger than life, confident in a quiet and stoic sort of way, and grizzled. Very grizzled. Incredibly grizzled, like some stereotypical gunslinging merc from Tau Ceti.
Instead, Raven was small and slight - Thumper was certain she had twice his muscle mass - and so pathetically and tragically vulnerable looking. His eyes were always just shy of too wide, almost vacant looking with how they simply looked through things, fixed on corners, on the floor, always lowered, never looking someone in the eyes - a kicked dog, she couldn't help but think. A dog that's been kicked and kicked and kicked until it was perpetually cowering, tail tucked in, ribs sticking out, quivering in place and unable to comprehend a kind hand extended out to it.
It made her uneasy in a way she couldn't really pin down. Raven was a broken man, and now the Liberation Front was holding his leash. She knew he'd obey Uncle. He'd probably obey him as unfailingly as he obeyed that handler of his - and it- she didn't really like it. It stuck in her throat something fierce. But she couldn't put into exact words what about it made her skin crawl.
"Thoughts?"
"Huh?" Thumper jolted at the unexpected voice, nearly sloshing her drink, and turned irritably to see- "Vinegar? The hell're ya doin' 'ere?"
"Celebrating," Vinegar murmured. Much like Raven, Vinegar was a slight and slender, but unlike Raven they looked less like some half-starved waif that had been locked up in an attic for ten years and more like a very well-toned gymnast, with buzzcut short hair and heavy-lidded eyes that made them look perpetually sleepy.
"Oh yeah? Celebratin', huh? Looks like yer jus' skulkin' in the shadows and creepin' up on innocent young girls like me," Thumper scoffed, but let it slide. "Well, m'not thinkin' much. Just some dumb shit."
"It's never dumb shit with you."
Thumper blew out a breath. Her and Vinegar went way back - came from the same settlement, waaaay down south of the ice fields, though they had gone into vastly different professions. Vinegar, for all of their soft-spoken and unhurried nature, really loved their big fuck off cannon MTs and blowing shit up, while Thumper liked sticking people back together and having an organised pantry. Still, they stayed close despite their diverging career paths, and Vinegar had functioned as a sympathetic ear on more than one occasion.
"Well, eh... it's about Raven." Thumper pulled a face. "I mean, when's it not, right? Guy's been hauntin' our convos since he blew up half our guys on the Wall..."
Vinegar said nothing, but their silence had a sort of expectant air to it. Thumper took the hint.
"'Ave you seen 'im? Weighs forty kilos soakin' wet and has arms like spaghetti noodles." Thumper waved her wrist in Vinegar's face pointedly. "My wrists're thicker than his biceps! How fucked is that?"
"..."
"Yeah, and- and like, I spent some time with 'im, at Uncle's request, and it was like dealin' with some kinda small animal sufferin' from neurosis. Twitches like crazy and tense as hell! He's just... so..."
Thumper made a helpless gesture, trying to think of the appropriate word to describe the wide-eyed, helpless wet cat that was also Rubicon's most notorious mercenary. "So pathetic."
"He's a Gen Four," Vinegar said, like that explained everything.
"So? That other Gen Four's a fuckin' asshole and ain't afraid to make everyone aware of it!" Thumper huffed. "Fuckin' Iguana prick. Raven's sweet-tempered compared to 'im."
"I mean, Gen Fours aren't considered human. Legally."
"So?"
"So..." Vinegar cut themself off with a sigh, a hint of disaste crossing their face. They hated talking long sentences. "Um, well. Raven's handler has a reputation. His Hounds... they're literally hounds. They're his- not pets, but, like what an attack dog would fill, legally. That. Raven was probably that."
Thumper grimaced. She understood what Vinegar was saying, but at the same time... she really didn't. Because acknowledging, well, that, would mean that Raven didn't sit in the comfortable lines of "hyena come to pillage Rubicon". It meant he would sit in a far more grey-area of "slave soldier sent to die for his bastard master's self-interests". Not blameless in his actions at all but... mitigating factors, at least.
And, since majority of Gen Fours were Rubiconians... there was always the possibility that Raven was, well... coming home, in a way...
Slowly, she started to understand what it was that made her so unnerved about Raven. It wasn't just how reality hadn't matched up to heavily embellished rumours, or Raven's worrying lack of agency, it was that this whole thing wasn't really different to how those hyenas acted: stealing augmented humans as assets to be deployed for their interests, press-ganging what was essentially a slave soldier into service...
It was necessary, she knew that. Raven was too valuable of a piece to not make use of when his leash fell handily into the Liberation Front's hand, but at the same time... it made her feel greasy, doing something those corporations would've done without blinking an eye. Even the reassurance that they were at least treating Raven nicely just felt like a hollow excuse.
"M'not sure I like thinkin' of him as some literal dog we've rescued out of the gutter," Thumper muttered, and took a sip of her drink. "But the comparison fits, huh."
"I think it's okay to do something bad if it's to do something good later," Vinegar said. They were never eloquent, but sometimes simplicity is the way to go, Thumper thought wryly. "Uncle will use Raven, but he'll try to assimilate him too, be kind to him and, um, include him."
"Uncle's all, like, ten layers deep in some 4D chess bullshit, though." Thumper could never make heads or tails of Uncle's various parallel schemes. Guy would make ordering breakfast convoluted if given the chance. "Probably has ten million plans all hingin' on Raven or summin'."
"In the end, he's a hyena," Vinegar pointed out. "You shouldn't really care too much."
"Ziyi was a hyena once." Thumper's gaze drifted over to her. Ziyi was laughing amongst her fellows, her cheeks flushed from alcohol and her expression bright. "Now she's the little sister of the Warrens."
"But she was a baby when she came."
"Rokumonsen too," Thumper continued. "He's a freak, but he's our freak, y'know? And a bunch of others from off planet... him bein' a hyena ain't a problem."
She paused thoughtfully.
"Anyway, he might be Rubiconian, y'know." Thumper downed the rest of her drink and coughed. "Like ya said, he's Gen Four, ain't he? Probably was augmented by the Institute back in the day."
"...maybe."
Vinegar seemed disquieted at the thought. It prompted Thumper to continue.
"And, hyena or not, he didn't come 'ere by choice. He ain't legally human, ya said. He's just some attack dog that probs can't even take a piss without his master tellin' 'im too. I dunno. I guess it's hard to put 'im in the same box as all the independent mercs and corpo-fucks that come 'ere, ya know?"
"Yeah." Vinegar nodded slowly. "It's kind of a grey area."
"It's Uncle's problem, I suppose," Thumper mumbled, even though her mind was furiously thinking of ways to "humanely" integrate Raven into the Liberation Front. Can't just plonk him in a strange organisation and tell him to be a human being when he probably spent god knows how many decades crawling around like a dog. She just kept thinking about how he hadn't moved an inch when she told him to stay put. Who the hell did that?
Bastard might starve because no one told him to go eat if they're not careful about it. Or something equally pathetic and deranged. Thumper rubbed her forehead. Aurgh, this was why she became a medic, wasn't it? She cared too much about idiots whose pains and misfortune was mostly their own damn fault...
"I'll figure summin' out," she decided. "Probs take me a few days but... fuck, we ain't the corpos. We're not press-gangin' some slave soldier into service like those hyenas do. We'll integrate 'im like we did Rokumonsen. We'll integrate 'im so hard he'll be singin' the Rubiconian national anthem by month's end!"
"You make it sound like you're going to put him through re-education."
"You wash yer damn mouth," Thumper harrumphed. "Re-education. Pah! I'm gonna use my charms. My... guile, you can say. Provided that dumbass Rusty doesn't ruin it... fucker keeps pantin' over Raven like some bitch in heat. S'embarrassin'."
Vinegar nodded solemnly. By this point Rusty's crush on Raven was something of a joke, except not really.
"Yer helpin' me," Thumper said. "Operation, er... fuck, um. Raven- Raven Tamin'!"
"Lame."
"Shaddup, ya condiment." Thumper sniffed. "Anyway, let's go."
"...? To where?"
"My room! We're gonna scheme!"
"But, my celebration..."
"C'mon, Vinegar!"
"..."
7 notes
·
View notes
Bound by Choice ― V.i. Men Who March Away
PAIRING: OC x OC x OC (Valdas x Isseya x Cynbel)
RATING: Mature (reader discretion advised)
⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽
⥼ Bound by Choice ⥽
Before there were Clans and Councils, before the fate of the world rested in certain hands, before the rise and fall of a Shadow King ― there was the Trinity. Three souls intertwined in the early hands of the universe who came to define the concept of eternity together. Because that was how they began and how they hoped to end; together. For over 2,000 years Valdas, Cynbel, and Isseya have walked through histories both mortal and supernatural. But in the early years of the 20th century something happened―something terrible. Their story has a beginning, and this is the end.
Bound by Choice and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the Bloodbound series. Find out more [HERE].
Note: Choice is the only book in the series not based on an existing Choices story. It is set in the Bloodbound universe and features many canon characters.
*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Choice/series tag list!
⥼ PART V ⥽
— Belgium, 1918. She made him promise to bring their love home. This was not their first war, it would not be their last—or so they thought. Cynbel's demons have finally caught up with him as a familiar face plays judge, jury, and executioner.
⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽
“Just this one,” he promises them, “and I’ll have my fix of war for a long time to come.”
[READ IT ON AO3]
They kept him from the War as long as they possibly could.
They punished him for it to be sure. Physically, emotionally; he skirted along the very edges of his promises to them and worse he knew what he was doing. When he plotted and planned and incited a War to span continents, nations, and history.
And they know there is no altruism in the way he begs them to let him go off to the battlefield. “I deserve this as punishment,” he says but doesn’t really mean it, “what kind of man would I be if I watched others die for the conflict I started?”
“An alive one.” She had said. And he had agreed. They nearly didn’t let him because they knew forcing him to miss the entirety of his love letter to the twentieth century would be the final punishment to force him to get his act together.
But he shines so bright; their Golden love. And this time, like many times before, they are blinded.
They kept him from the War as long as they possibly could.
But it just wasn’t enough.
Belgium, 1918
They are supposed to be his regiment but they are strangers like any other. Food, cannon fodder; he’s called them so many things over the years and none of them pretty but they haven’t gotten any prettier so why should his words?
The poets say absence makes the heart grow fonder but the eyes a mite weaker. The poets can choke on their own tongues. As if he would not recognize a piece of his soul; even if he’s caked in layers of dirt so thick he can’t see a face.
But Valdas isn’t caked in dirt. The journey — and only by night as it’s been — shows in grime on his face but it’s so very clearly him that the noise he lets out is nothing at all like he planned.
Men who served together and have the incredible luck to have survived yet embrace as companions; as brothers. That’s what makes it all the more difficult for Cynbel to restrain himself as he runs towards the truck.
Aren’t you proud of me? Because he stands before Valdemaras towering over him like he always has but also so very different, so very changed. He’s been working on himself so they don’t regret letting him come to the front lines. Do you see what I do and all of it for you?
They cannot kiss here — and perhaps the older Cynbel would and just have peeled the eyes of the witnesses out for his trouble. So how they kiss it is with hands clasped together, soil from the leagues they have traveled apart folding into the lines on their palms. Heart line and fate line and all the other bullshit that has never kept them away from one another before. It certainly will not now.
Cynbel’s eyes flutter closed in euphoria. The hum of approval is low but Valdas knows he can hear it.
“When I got your letter…”
“You’ve taken too many hits, my love, if you think I would not come for you.”
Then those fingers are running through his hair — make him want to drop to his knees and pray as he has prayed every fucking day and every fucking night. Prayers old and righteous and to his God, his Valdemaras.
Who else to champion a battlefield if not the divinity of death?
When he opens his eyes it’s to the sight of his lover in strange reverence. “I joke of how war has changed you,” he answers of Cynbel’s unasked question, “but you have changed, Cynbel.”
It makes him hesitant. “Does it suit you still?”
“It makes me wish we’d shipped you off sooner.”
Just like that. Like no time has passed at all. Cynbel grins.
The War could end right there and neither of them might notice. Cynbel wants to reach up, to touch him; wipe the tears from his Lord’s cheeks even if it dirties him further because nothing else matters.
And judging by the misting in Valdas’ eyes he feels very much the same way.
“Oi, Claude!”
The jagged French accent jars them both out of the world of Him they had nearly been swallowed by. Cynbel is two thousand years old — he has the force of will to stop himself from shedding a damned tear, and thank the Made-God for that.
They don’t—won’t, physically can’t, they cannot please cruel world do not demand it of them they would rather lose those hands if they remained together still—break away even as Cynbel turns to the source of the voice.
Fucking Frenchmen. No doubt even miles away Isseya’s still having a laugh that the French were the only army they could forge him into.
“Have you got your new orders yet?” He’s been suffering the language for seven months now, and each month more he’ll torture his darling girl so divine.
Another jerks his thumb to the back of the supply truck steadily filling up with eager alcoholics. “A couple of us were going for drinks, Claude — should we save you a seat?”
He doesn’t miss Valdas’ stifled laughter behind him. “Later, maybe.”
“Oh come now, Claude,” purrs his lover’s voice low and decadent in his ear, “I could use a drink. All this travel has left me famished.” Of course he follows; as if he could deny his Divinity’s first request in months. And Valdas knows it.
They fall into familiar step. A quick glance is all it takes — has Cynbel reaching out the barest whisper of a touch to the inside of Valdas’ wrist. A touch he receives in kind.
He leans in to whisper low. “I would warn you of how much you’ll come to regret this but you’ll see it yourself soon enough.”
“Good to know you haven’t changed utterly.”
“You think I’m kidding.”
“I think you’re a touch dramatic.”
They are the last to step on and sit across the aisle facing one another. Valdas takes his opportunity when the truck’s heavy engine roars to life and fills the already acrid air with the choking perfume of industry; “I seem to recall a vehement hatred of the name Claude. Didn’t Iss’ set you up as Philip, or Percy? Something with a ‘P.’”
Cynbel nods reluctantly. “Yes, but when I got here I was… already missing the pair of you so much. You know I half thought about turning around and running back to the train?”
Good to know he can still surprise his beloved after all this time. “No, I… really? And after all the moaning and begging you did to get here in the first place?”
“What can I say? I stepped one foot in Paris and was filled with nostalgia.”
Valdas leans back on his side of the bench. Conversation in various regional French all about them and now with human ears more at ease with the rumbling of their vehicle towards town. They trade looks, certainly they don’t need words.
When his God answers it’s in a familiar albeit old tongue. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this has changed you more than our beloved or I could have thought possible.”
“You’re being vague on purpose. My question remains the same.” Please still want me. All of this — for you.
Their boots meet toe-to-toe on the plank floor. Another kiss only they share.
“Long gone, I think, are the days where change frightened me. I’m just glad to see they are gone from you as well.”
When he laughs Cynbel lets his head fall back against one of the canopy supports. That fear of progress did not go quietly; as they both well know. But of course he would if it would bring him back to them.
Preferably with spoils like the wars of old.
His regiment is familiar enough with the pub by now (though were there any word for something smaller they would readily give it such) that they have claimed seats. Which leaves very little option for the men now dissolved into their company — Valdas included.
“Best you find somewhere else to sit.” Cynbel’s hand falls heavy on a burly man’s shoulder beside his usual seat. From the meat of his muscle and the deep way his frown settles familiar in his features the man isn’t used to being the one asked to move.
His chair scrapes against the floor as he stands. A screeching noise that silences the rest of the company and leaves them waiting a little too eagerly for men who have their daily helping of violence.
But Cynbel is immobile, his smile unwavering and unnerving as he continues to look down. The burly man’s mistake isn’t new to him — and the entire room lets out a sigh of relief when the seat is given up without needing to come to blows.
Valdas gives him a chiding look as they settle in, but the Golden Son refuses to feel shame for it. “If I changed too much you wouldn’t recognize me.”
“Well your head makes it a challenge.”
Cynbel finds himself running his fingers through his close-cropped hair; grown out from the time gone but nothing like his lovers used to prefer.
By the time they get their drinks the pair have yet again found their own secret methods of intimacy. Lucky that the chairs are small but the tables are smaller. It makes the press of their legs from hip to toe reasonable — if excessive.
But they would risk everything for this.
Cynbel takes a long drink of the swill and watches carefully as Valdas does the same without hesitation. Only… he’s gotten used to the piss-water taste of the stuff. Forced his memories of finer liquors down in order to get through the ordeal of stomaching it. Valdas hasn’t.
He watches with no small amount of amusement; takes in the disgust as readily as he does the affection. And has the decency to wait until his Maker is finished choking on air he doesn’t need to ask the inevitable question.
“So… how is she?”
The Made-God is slow to answer and isn’t that enough to jump-start Cynbel’s long-stilled heart.
“She misses you.”
“As I miss her — as I’ve missed you both.” He does it without looking, without drawing attention. The creep of his hand over the sticky wooden surface to rest their littlest fingers together. Their smiles both wistful, wanting. “How have things been? I mean — the others get scarce letters from home and with such varied accounts of what the world is thinking, doing. Some are bleak, others hopeful.”
Valdas nods. “Sounds about right. The world is split down the middle. The more politicians and commanders-at-arms tout their new strategies and plans for a final confrontation the more foolhardy they sound.”
“You’ve both kept safe, though.”
“Safety is relative. Perhaps it has escaped your notice, darling, but the world is at war with itself.” With a scoff Cynbel shoves him by the shoulder; reaches out just as quickly to make sure the man doesn’t fall. This filthy floor could never be worthy of Him.
“We moved on about a month into your tour,” he continues, “to Zürich. The plan was to find a change of scenery in the Americas — somewhere near the equator, somewhere the nights were warm and calm. But we could not stomach the thought of such distance from you.”
Of course he feels as they do. Even the shadow of the thought—of a sea between them—ignites a jealous spark; selfishness. But it’s just that; selfish. And they didn’t. Valdas is right here. Isseya is closer now than she was in Tuscany.
“Cynbel,” Valdas risks more than he knows when he coaxes Cynbel’s chin up with a two-fingered touch; but he could care less, “You were right. The country becomes her.”
“And is she practicing?”
“She tries where she can. But most doctors still see only a woman—a nurse.”
“Isseya is to a nurse as a nurse is to a butcher!” exclaims Cynbel, bewildered. Valdas finally dares to gamble with his life and a second sip of his drink. It goes down about just as easy as the first.
They trade stories well through the night. Cynbel can’t help but wonder if Valdas, too, finds it incredible and strange just how much there is for them to share. What are mere months compared to the rest of their lives? What makes these more or less than any other?
He’s had ample opportunity in the trenches to think about this very thing, and has come to the conclusion that it must be how fast the world is turning now. Well, not literally, though there were now words, definitions, numbers for that sort of thing. But his eyes—their eyes—have seen much of human history and to deny it would be foolish.
Industry, innovation; mankind is using a new kind of imagination the likes of which their old blood has never seen.
The palm that cups his cheek is warm. The waning candlestick that once was on the other end of the bar now rests dangerously close to Valdas’ sleeve. He pushes it away with an absent finger but soaks in the unfamiliar feeling graciously.
“I travel all this way and you are still so far from me.” The longing drags out in his voice like a single note from a violin. Cynbel dares to hold that hand exactly where it is. He catches himself in a smile as the tips of Valdas’ nails tickle at what they can reach of his earring.
“I think I owe the two of you an apology.”
“Likely,” two fingers tug at Cynbel’s earlobe now and such a simple intimate touch thrills him utterly, “but what for this time?”
“It’s different this time —” —how can he put the feelings into words, he would have more luck composing them of raindrops or the miasma of death that lingers at every soldier’s back— “— or perhaps I’m the one who’s different.”
“How do you mean?”
“I’m still determined to see this through.”
“I should hope so.”
“But I think… had Iss’ come with you — had the pair of you arrived together… I may very well have thrown it all aside and deserted with your hands in mine.”
Running is such a cowardly thing. And the Golden Son is no coward. So it’s completely understandable that he leaves the Made-God speechless at his confession. There’s a fragment of Cynbel that can’t quite believe it himself.
“Those are strong words from you, Cynbel,” Valdas admits, and at least one of them is steady enough to speak, “and I won’t say I’m not glad to hear them. She would be too. We’ve both long believed your eyes were bigger than your stomach when you set all this into motion.”
They share a laugh between them; not enough for two but they make do. They always have. Having something wholly to himself feels too gluttonous now.
“How many years do you think she’ll hold that over my head?”
Lips so very familiar curl into a smirk. “What, that we were right? Oh — the full century at least.” Anything less would be an insult. “But you deserve it.”
“Yeah, I do.”
They pull away slow at first; the magnetism of their hearts resisting the sanity of their heads. But the separation ends all at once to the grinding chair legs and rising steps uneven with drink and the headiest of drugs called respite.
Cynbel catches one by the arm before he can stumble out of reach. “So eager to return to the trenches?”
The soldier shakes his head. “Non, Claude. Patrick says he was solicited not five days ago. We’re gonna go see if we can find them.” The Frenchman drags his eyes to Valdas with great effort; focuses on him through the drink and it is suspicion, yes, but not the kind that worries him. He’s grown too used to humans and their funny notions.
“You two want to join us?”
“I don’t think my friend’s fiancée would like that very much.” Though she would wholeheartedly approve of the sharp kick Valdas gives to his shin.
But this is just another part of the ruse and Cynbel’s had months to build it well. Soldiers would always be soldiers would always find themselves wary of brothers-in-arms who don’t join them.
“Mother of Christ,” comes the hiccoughed reply, “another pious one?”
But Valdas takes his answer for his own; though his usual French eloquence is beset with a strange accent — makes it difficult for drunken ears to hear him proper. “Not at all. Unless you count my devotion to her inheritance as religion.”
The vampires watch the tiny wheels turn with shared amusement. Cynbel’s not altogether sure the slurred laughter and “Atta man!” of praise isn’t just to fill the space and carry on.
And there it is; that expectant look and single dark brow raised with it. Cynbel’s sigh is weary on the subject but, of course, his Maker can never be denied.
“I had to tell them something,” he fishes a handful of coins from the breast pocket of his coat and leaves them as payment, “since soldiers are as they’ve always been. They treat fidelity like social treason and only scrape together respect for those they’ve deemed surrogates for their own lack of faith.”
The Made-God and his firstborn walk out of the dingy building with arms linked. Most of the others are either gone or distracted with one another now and the lovers are more than happy for the chance. Even a second is better than not at all.
Though apparently Valdas doesn’t have an opinion on his unorthodox means of staying faithful to them — which, no, that’s utter bollocks; when has he never not had an opinion on anything — “Don’t give me that face. Technically I didn’t lie when I said I was given to my God. They just assumed their God and mine were one in the same; their fault, not mine.”
“I said nothing against it, beloved.”
“Your silence speaks volumes.”
“Good to know you can still listen.”
Listen, indeed. He can listen quite well as his Maker — his lover well knows. And though the warmth of the candle’s flame has left Valdas’ hand Cynbel still takes it in his own because he’s never needed warmth.
All he’s ever needed is the weight of them. Heat can linger but weight is proof something is present; that it exists.
“And it makes me feel like I exist for the first time in months.”
The dark-haired man realizes quickly that Cynbel hadn’t meant to speak his thoughts. Still he takes them just as hungry, just as craven, and refuses even a letter of them back.
That same weight tightens and they’ve moved; beheld to his Holy One’s will. Out of the open and near-abandoned cobbled streets and away from the gas-lit lamps and into a place darker than the night itself.
The brick catches, clings to his uniform. He couldn’t give less of a damn. Valdas could rip the fabric to shreds (and that’s quite the idea and visual that comes with it but practicality wins out) because he’s there. In person.
The weight of him is a sermon and prayer.
“Our darling girl sends her love.” Valdas’ breath croons wet against his ear — with the close-cut of his hair he feels it more. “She sends me.”
That weight shifts to a firmly pressed thumb on his hip. “What a perfect gift, belated from the Dark Solstice maybe?”
“There was a delay with the post —” he falls to his knees (and in that action all other gods, faiths, prophets are banished by the radiance of His humility) as he speaks; the mere sight leaves Cynbel breathless, “— It may have escaped your notice but there’s a war on.”
He throws his head back hard enough for the brick behind to crack. Stifling their laughter is a near-impossible task but somehow they manage. “I… I…”
It seems Valdas has had his fill of Cynbel’s words, though, and his appetite is left wanting.
But only for about as long as it takes for him to undo his progeny’s belt.
The rest of the world may weep for the events of the twentieth century but Cynbel simply cannot remember the last time he felt so much zest for life.
“And she really agreed to it? Surely she’ll miss you.”
Valdas huffs, certainly unamused. “You make me sound like an object to which you’ve shared custody.”
“You know what I mean.” Cynbel knocks their boots together against the aisle. Unlike the rest of the men they don’t need to shout to one another as the truck takes its sweet time trekking them out of town. “Just as you know I would rather you be with her safe and out of harms way.”
“She would rather I here in it — holding tight to that leash of yours.”
“You brought the leash?” Cynbel’s eyes immediately alight almost boyish and giddy. A sight that gladdens his Maker but definitely earns him a long-suffering sigh.
“The leash of your recklessness. Of course I’ll be staying by your side until this War is seen done. All the more swiftly we can get back to her. Oh, and Cynbel, watch your tongue, I won’t say it twice.”
But to say it is unlikely that any of the (very drunk, very boisterous) soldiers riding with them might recognize their tongue last put to print in Alexandria and last spoken on stranger’s tongues a century before that — well that’s giving the French far too much credit and that Cynbel will simply not abide.
He casts a look out into the darkness of the trees and sparse land. Can’t help himself in either his smirk or his wicked thoughts. “Glad I did not ask the same of you, my deliciously talented Divinity.” He braces himself for a blow that never comes — but if Valdas wishes to pretend he’s hiding his smile slowly growing, then pretend they both shall.
It’s such a rare and beautiful moment. Fleeting like youth and innocence but there’s always the potential of it. And Cynbel has missed that smile so much more than he ever thought he would, has taken the distance between them so much harder.
So he dares to allow himself a dangerous thought. Dangerous because the size of it eclipses everything else; the soldiers, the engine, the entire war around them.
I deserve this, Cynbel thinks.
And the war takes up the mantle and reminds him otherwise.
The first shell lands just shy of them; the boom so loud that Cynbel’s ears are ringing far too much for him to hear the cries of enemy soldiers, the firing of enemy guns. And now that they have gotten a decent measure of the distance the second shell doesn’t dare miss.
The first sends dirt and rocks raining down on them with the shots. Cynbel watches with a growing concern as suddenly Valdas is… lower than him? Then his side of the truck falls back to the earth and everything evens out. Until the metal stands on and looses its last legs in the same breath and sends the tire rolling into the dark oblivion of the night.
On the second Cynbel can’t tell if the blood that tacks up dirt on his face is a Frenchman’s or his own and he frankly doesn’t care. All he cares about is Valdas. Reaching for Valdas clawing for him sinking his grasp deep into bone if he must to keep him close and keep him safe.
To his horror there’s nothing on the other end of his hand. Just flesh packed tight under his nails and a blood-smeared palm.
“VALDAS!”
A blinding light suddenly pierces the darkness. A third shell lands lucky on the truck now tipped over. Sends shrapnel and shells and bone and dirt and blood flying out into the smoke-choked air.
Then the engine catches fire.
“VALDAS!”
There are no trenches here. They aren’t safe. And fuck if he will allow cowardly mortals who wait for the cover of midnight to attack.
One brave idiot fires at his back; drives the bullet through his body and makes the honorable sacrifice of being the sustenance he needs to close the hole it leaves. Cynbel isn’t so gracious in the holes he leaves. Another kicks one of the Frenchmen from the end of his bayonet and swings it so wild and unpracticed—amateur—that he feels a little bit like a bully when he shatters the metal in a single fist and shows him how to properly stab a man.
The next one has a brass pair; well he must — grabbing the Golden Son’s shoulder hard and desperate. Cynbel turns with fangs bared, the rest of the jagged bayonet in hand, and thank the fucking Made-God he stops himself before dragging it across Valdas’ throat.
Frozen they stand, each man holding a lover at arms’ length with the same frenzy and fear in his eyes. He feels the tentative touch of Valdas’ fingertips at his brow and sees them come back sticky with blood. Not his own. Cynbel brushes his thumb over a cut in his Maker’s lip and watches it heal before his eyes.
They are fed. They are alive. They are together.
And how many times has one or more or all of those things not been true? What the fuck were the doing out here exposed and in the line of fire — it didn’t matter what they wanted to do. Not when the reality was going to leave Isseya widowed and with no fucking word.
Cynbel grabs his lover and kisses him hard. Feels resistance only for a moment and only because they leave themselves vulnerable like this but the very thought of a quick peck of lips in a dirty Belgian alley being their last settles inside him about as well as acid.
Are Valdas’ ears still ringing? Cynbel’s are. His eardrums not yet healed and giving him cause to shout. Though perhaps he would have shouted it anyway. Perhaps it was just as much a proclamation to the world that would never stop trying to tear them apart as much as it is for his Lord and Light, his Divinity; his Valdas.
“I want to go home.”
He already had the face the idea of an existence without the man and for the sake of what little sanity he clings to Cynbel will never do so again. End this here and now. Before there is nothing left of us to love.
Valdas grips his hair until it hurts and further still. “As if I could ever deny you. My Golden Son.”
On a midnight much like this so very very far away — though not such in distance but in time — where locusts gave their choir to the air and to see the universe one need only look up to the heavens… Cynbel had found himself accosted by a peddler urchin boy.
“Domine so powerful and strong, but does he know his future?” And Cynbel had only humored him because his mind was not with his body or the starving hand that urged him along but in that very future he spoke of. His world ripped out from under him because his Made-God had not made himself at all, but had one he called Maker too. “My sister will know his future. Three sestertius, three sestertius Domine.”
If he’d known then what would come of it he might have commissioned the boy’s likeness in golden effigy.
He could smell death clinging to Nona from the moment they exchanged hellos. He did not feel pity or sympathy or affection at her. She was only as valuable to him as she was useful.
From her sickly bed Nona peddled her seer’s tricks. Things Cynbel had seen long ago in the shamans and envoys of the old tribes. Nothing so concrete as meeting true divinity and knowing it with intimacy.
“Enough of your sleights and suggestions,” he had snapped; because if he had been dragged all this way off the beaten path he would have expected something interesting from it at the least, “you cannot even fathom how little of my time you waste here yet still I am left feeling robbed from it!”
They needed his coin for bread. He didn’t care. Yet still she tried to grab him — one last chance to beg, perhaps — and that’s all it took.
“You slept under an apple tree. You did not know he watched you; the sunlight of you. You only knew the life you had carved into your bones. Some part of you knew he admired you from afar… it woke you — it destined you and he to meet. You asked for him. And like a long-time lover he came to you. Beheld you with his eyes and body even as they blistered for you.
“You blinded the Made-God and it made you weep. You offered yourself to him, pure hands that had spilled blood. And you have been his ever since. From that moment on — to now — to farther than I will ever see.”
At first he kept her company for the feeling of memories hazy with the passage of time. Of his death-into-rebirth; of Isseya’s too when the time came. He did not understand the like of her but there would always be things new and unknown to him. That was what made life worth living eternally.
Then long-ago memories became that which had passed a day before, or that very evening. Surely that, too, would progress. And it did.
And at first the idea of the future thrilled him. No one—not even the mighty Godmaker—could have imagined what civilization, culture, humanity would eventually become but he was so young and wide-eyed and had already seen so much that the Cynbel of that idyllic time was certain there could not have been anything greater than that moment.
And maybe there wasn’t.
“He Made you, named you, claimed you. And you gave—give—everything. But it isn’t enough. It won’t be enough.” She was frail, feeble; human. And he was terrified of her.
“It’ll be the death of you.”
Night after night he drilled her, dug into her, begged with tears in his eyes for the answer. “Why would my love kill me? When? How? Please, Nona, please. I beg of you. You promised. You promised.” But he never did get his answer. Not when Augustine happened, when Sayeed happened, when he had to sacrifice his only chance at knowing why his Beloved God was going to kill him to a bunch of fae folk masquerading as priestesses. Time kept urging them forward, backward; he hoped that if he loved them enough he could prove her wrong.
“Just once,” she said, “I hope I’m wrong just once. All it will take is once.”
So Cynbel finds it pretty fucking hilarious that only now — two thousand years, countless empires and nations, corpses they made high enough to drown in later — does it occur to him that Nona had never said Valdas would kill him. Not word for word. He just wouldn’t be enough.
It’s him. It’s Cynbel… Cynbel wouldn’t be enough.
Based on the uniforms that decorate the body count it’s unlikely that any of his regiment will survive the night. Cynbel intends to make himself among the dead — but that takes a little more these days than leaving a faceless body in his own bed.
“You said you would take me home.”
“Trust me, Cynbel my love. Trust me now more than you have ever trusted me in all our lives and all our years. Please… do that and I vow I will see us both home and whole with her again.”
That’s what had done it — sent him spiraling into all sorts of thoughts on old seers long dead and visions to which he was never given full understanding.
“Do you trust me?”
When a God is made vulnerable the very foundations of their faith are shaken. It shows in his hands and the glassy fear in his eyes and every muscle tense uncertain; unsure. Why does the Golden Son hesitate, asked in every tremor, what has changed?
He needed only see the question to know the answer.
“I’ve always trusted you. Now, and all our years remaining.”
Such silly creatures they were kissing in the middle of a massacre. Not the first time for the likes of them… and though normally Cynbel might find his thoughts wandering automatically to the next time it would be such he can’t say he would mind if it were not for a lifetime or more.
He trusts the Made-God. He trusts his Maker. He trusts Valdas. He trusts one of the pieces of his own soul that just happened to live in a different body.
They flee the ambush in opposite directions. I trust him. Valdas towards the town and supplies and Cynbel back to his station. Not for sentiments or material things but for stripes and colors; what little recognition he’s put effort for in seven months hiding in holes. I trust him.
But it was not that their enemy was lurking on the roads waiting for a truck of soldiers made complacent and easily picked-off.
Their station is burning. Alight with flames that seek to meet one another around corners and bends. Scattered remnants of shells, shots, bodies both together and pulled apart by the explosions and when he slows down in the spaces between leaping fires he can hear the wails of the ones unfortunate not to have died on impact.
He pities them only in that torture is only made enjoyable when there is someone there to enjoy it. But the enemy has moved on by now. This is their warning.
One fallen innocent is a message.
A slaughtered horde—that’s a warning.
Where has he heard that before? Those words sound uncannily familiar.
“They are familiar because you spoke them. Or wrote them, rather, in a letter of intent that should be known better as a declaration of war.”
Ah, yes. Now that strikes up his memory like the tolling bells of Notre Dame. Cynbel forces the recollection upon himself because that voice—too familiar—could not possibly be there with him now. In the middle of a trench station in Belgium where the only living are the souls not yet dead.
“I think I wrote it drunk,” yes, yes he’d definitely been hammered — it was the only way he’d humor the idea, “since we’d always preferred our fists to our words, mine enemy and me. The Order of the Dawn, the Holy Sacred Knights of the Rising Dawn, the Mars Tributa, and whatever other nonsense they called themselves… something-Ares. Funny to find something from before even my time.
“But it was the age of chivalry re-imagined wasn’t it? Frock coats and bogged-down brocades and fucking dainty little gloves and duels of honor. I wrote my letter and when I did not receive a swift and gentlemanly reply… I took matters into my own hands.”
Tumultuous; a good word to describe the evening. Isseya would be proud to hear him use it. She’s been nagging him since the turn of the century to try and be a little less… crass.
But the figure across the smoke, that takes up arms against him? Even in a tumultuous night Cynbel can’t say he expected this.
“I led them to the catacombs,” he continues; bats carelessly to smother any spark the embers hovering around the air might think to start, “I made sure they would feel their deluded righteousness and bring the best fight they could because I was bored of waiting around for their next big front. That night was my version of a gentlemen’s glove thrown down.
“And as I seem to recall, Mademoiselle Dupont, I saved your life. You’re welcome, by the way.”
In the middle of a trench station in Belgium, Cynbel wants so badly to be anywhere else. In front of a hearth in Zürich with his fingers tangled in Isseya’s hair. Hidden away in a dirty Belgian alley clinging desperately to Valdas’ coat. Because that Cynbel; he’s enough. But the one here, now?
He isn’t.
And it will be the death of him.
note: each of the titles of Part V is taken from a poem written about WWI
read Men Who March Away by Thomas Hardy
5 notes
·
View notes
Becca Playlist.
Exo - Can’t Bring Me Dow
Yeah, listen carefully now
I’ll reveal it all (Yeah)
The evil that’s hiding under a mask of good
I’ll use its ruins as a sacrifice on a big rock
I’ll break down everything today
You will never ever bring me down
ZICO - Okey Dokey
Live TV, events, fan signings, no such thing as free time
Where else can I release my talent?
Looked like a celebrity since I was a student
Don’t ask where I’m going, it’s too much for you to follow
You can’t be me, even if you keep trying
If you think my spoon looks like a gold spoon, go to the hospital
Even if you get LASIK, your vision will still be blurry
Bye bye
Hotshot - Watch out
Everyone go back, go back
Now I’ll show you the real me
I’m a little different, I’m a little different
Look, you’ll fall for me
You’ll fall for
my fatal charm oh baby
Everyone go back, go back
Now I’ll show you the real me
G-Dragon - One of a Kind
I’m there at just one phone call, number 1988-0818
Someone try to hold me back, I’m ranked number one
Because I’m different, because that’s me!
because no matter what I do, chaos ensues
because i make trend, because i change everything
This talent will never leave me
Ravi - DamnRa
I’ll be a lion
My big body is like a tree
Deeply rooted always in this place
I don’t repeat my mistakes
I’m perfect cuz I’m changing
I’ll wash away the scars
From people who can’t trust other people
I’ll make them smile
Warmly embrace them and fly
With more ecstasy
Ra to v.i, even this moment
I’m looking for a better me
B.A.P - Dystopia
Countless lies
Built on top of one lie
Ah yeah
(It’s not even funny now
I won’t be deceived any more)
In front of the faded line
Stop right there
Look at the stained illusion
Everything has broken down
Big Bang - Bang Bang Bang
Switch up this loser atmosphere
So they can’t hide this insanity
The dignity of men, the pretense of women
It’s interesting to see this kind of unknown confidence
As if I’m showing off,
I shamelessly dig into your body like an allergy
Swarming around in a strange mind
Today, this place is lawless
Blink-182 - She’s out of her Mind
I'm in deep with this girl but she's out of her mind
She said babe I'm sorry but I'm crazy tonight
She got a black shirt, black skirt and Bauhaus stuck in her head
I'm in deep with this girl but she's out of her mind
BTS - Save Me
Why is it so dark where you’re not here
It’s dangerous how wrecked I am
Save me because I can’t get a grip on myself
Listen to my heartbeat
It calls you whenever it wants to
Because within this pitch black darkness
You are shining so brightly
G-Dragon - Crooked
I scream and get dizzy
I vent out of boredom to other couples
I start fights for no reason like a town gangster
Sometimes, I purposely shake my leg, crookedly
The main characters of the movie called this world is you and me
A lonely island, lost and wandering
The empty streets are filled with those who are alone
Unlike my heart, the weather is so damn nice
Block B - Toy
I don’t want anything more from you
If i can see you filling with me
I can give it all to you, will you take it all from me
If love is a joke, then use me ruthlessly
Now you know, all you need is me
I’m your toy, I’m your toy, I’m your toy
If love is a joke, then use me ruthlessly
SF9 - Fanfare
My heart drops and races
My heart pump and bomb
Fanfare
You keep teasing me
You’d better quit
Hurry or you’ll miss me
Stop teasing, it’s no use anyway
Your heart pump and bomb
Fanfare rings out
24k - Super Fly
I don’t care but you
Even though people look at me with cold eyes
I’m sorry but I don’t know the rules
(We’re different like a puzzle)
I don’t care but you
Even though people look at me with cold eyes
Can you possess me who’s like this
NCT U - 7th Sense
It wraps around me, hate is on me
Each day repeats but it’s okay
I’m walking on top of a deep darkness
Look at what is real, that’s hidden over there
BTS - Young Forever
I stand on the middle of the hot, empty stage
And suddenly I feel so afraid of the void
These mixed feelings with my life on the line
I pretend to be careless
This isn’t the first time, I better get used to it
I try to hide it, but I can’t
When the heat of the show cools down
I leave the empty seats behind
BTS - 21st Century Girl
If anyone keeps insulting you (insulting you)
Tell em you’re my lady, go tell them (tell them)
Whatever other people say, whatever this world tells you
You’re the best to me just the way you are
Infinite - Bad
Even your lies are sweet,
your lips are like a warning, like a red
You whisper in my ears
Lose ma focus because of your spell
Things are getting erased one by one,
I can only see you
I’m not afraid of the tomorrow I’ll face
Now hurry and take me in this rough trembling
Exo - Monster
I’m creeping in your heart babe
I’ll flip you over, break you down and swallow you up
I’ll steal you and indulge in you
I’m gonna mess you up
I’m engraved in your heart
So even if I die, I’ll live forever
(Come here girl)
You call me monster
(You call me monster)
I’ll go into your heart
Monsta X - Gone Bad
You used to call me pathetic
But when you look at me again in the future
Let’s see how well you’re doing
So I don’t need your half-assed comfort, no thanks
You’re just laying there,
Are you crazy?
Yeah you left me here
Just watch, I’m a psycho that you created
BTS - No More Dream
I wanna big house, big cars & big rings
But actually, I don’t have any big dreams
Haha, I live quite comfortably
Even if I don’t dream, no one says anything
Everyone is thinking
the same way as me
I completely forgot about my childhood
when I had a lot of dreams
Don’t worry about college,
I’ll at least go to a school that’s far away
Ok mom, I’m going to the library right now
Again, sorry for the over dose of K Pop! I didn’t gave a back story to this one cause: I had no idea what to put and cause I’m falling asleep on my keyboard (I’m on my 5th cup of coffee no joke) So I hope you and all the Becca fans enjoy this Becca Playlist.
34 notes
·
View notes