demons with a familiar face
pairing: al-haitham and zale
insert: zale (genshin)
word count: 1569
their demons are surprisingly similar, considering the circumstances.
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Her pulse thudded in her ears with a resounding roar. Her vision was fuzzy, the whites of her eyes no doubt dyed red with all the blood that dripped from her face and smeared her hands and clothes. The stench of iron was all she could smell, the scent overtaking all of her other senses and dulling her thoughts.
The ache of her body was secondary to the growing pile of bodies occupying the small room she was trapped in. She had no idea how long it had been or how she had come to be in it. The dream was always the same, likely spurred on in part by the god residue and Abyssal energy that poisoned her body, so she had learned to stop asking questions.
The door creaked, and with a wince she readied her spear once more. The waves of enemies, wearing the faces of those she had lost and those she had forced someone else to lose, would not cease in their assault until she managed to wake in the early hours of the morning. This would drag on as long as it could until then.
“Oh, my…”
Zale lunged before she could even think. She was like a wild animal, trapped and scared and desperate to just get it over with and end her near nightly torture.
To her surprise, her weapon sliced through nothing as the tiny god before her looked at her with pity. “I am not here to fight you, Zale. I’m just here for a visit. To think it was this grim in your dreams…”
Kusanali’s gaze drifted over to the bloody pile of flesh in the corner, recognition sparking in her eyes at the sight of faces familiar to her. “I see…no wonder I was contacted for this.”
“What…how…?” Zale sputtered, still nervously searching for her next opponent.
“A normally light sleeper being trapped in dreams is something that is perfect for me to investigate,” the small god answered plainly. “Even I had no idea it was like this…”
“Investigate?”
“Yes. And soothe. I came to see what was keeping you locked in nightmares, and now that I understand I can report to the person who asked me to check in. For now, though, I’m simply going to wake you up.”
“Can you at least explain?” Zale pleaded, her dream self trembling from her perceived exertion.
Kusanali just smiled gently. “I don’t think I’ll need to.”
She woke gasping into fabric, hands trembling and face embarrassingly wet.
“Thank the Archons it worked,” Al-Haitham mumbled, gently smoothing sweat-slicked hair from her forehead. “Deep breaths. You’re in Sumeru City, in my house. You’ve been here for almost three days.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she slowly came to realize where she was, the sick feeling in her stomach ebbing as the smell of teakwood and spices kicked her olfactory memory into overdrive.
Home. She was home.
Without an ounce of her usual hesitance, she gripped her lover—her home—like a lifeline, openly sobbing into his chest as she let herself dissolve into the sheets. Fontaine had been unspeakably hard for her, and she was due to move on to Natlan with her demons once again hot on her heels, but for now she was home.
She wished she could stay. All she wanted was to stay, stay with the person that was the first to make her feel human. The nightmares only got worse on the road, and the feeling of dread that had taken up residence in her very bones strengthened with every step she took towards the end of her journey with the Traveler, who seemed to attract trouble at every turn.
This was her punishment, she supposed, for her years of servitude under the Tsaritsa.
“Hey,” Al-Haitham murmured, cupping her cheeks in his hands, “you’re drowning in your own mind again. Get out of there and talk to me.”
She wasn’t sure she could talk to him through the tears, but with a hard swallow she tried to steady herself enough to force the words out. “I just wish I could stay. I guess continuing all of this is just repenting for the past and accepting the consequences.”
“Maybe, but you also want knowledge,” he said in rebuttal. “Remember what you told me in those letters you sent back? About everything you learned in Fontaine and how despite wanting to come home there were things you just needed to know first?”
“Yeah. I’m crazy.”
He smiled, bumping his nose with hers. “And it perhaps takes a bit of lunacy to nurture a truly sharp mind.”
“I wish you could come with me,” she choked, voice thick with tears. “I realize now you got Lesser Lord Kusanali to check on me in my dreams, but…it would have subsided naturally just getting to sleep next to you more. It used to always be like this before I met you.”
“I may not be able to go with you, but you will always have a place to come back to. You need to get the last of your past behind you, and then I think you’ll be able to settle down without remorse eating away at you,” he said. “To me, at least, the fact that it hurts you so much to leave says that you’re starting to heal. But, the fact that you still feel you must means you haven’t done what you set out to do.”
She nodded silently, settling back into his arms. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”
They sat in silence for a long while, and she almost thought he had drifted back to sleep until he spoke once more, voice uncharacteristically quiet. “I love you. I’m sorry I can’t come with you. I can take paid leave, but not for that long.”
“Please don’t apologize for that,” she sighed, petting his hair. “It wasn’t a rational ask. It’s more just…an irrational want.”
“There is nothing irrational about seeking the frequent company of those you cherish most.” His voice somehow dropped even more, warm in a way that few ever heard. “You are human, no matter what anyone else tells you and no matter what carcasses you’ve consumed. Emotion is a crucial part of how people function in their day to day lives. To disregard that is the far more illogical train of thought.”
She tried to tell herself she had cried enough for the next year, but the sincere look in his eyes broke her once more, quiet sniffles muffled into his already soiled nightshirt as he brought her somehow closer still. For several minutes, the sounds of the crying she was so ashamed of mingled with the quiet kisses to her scalp and face, absolutely unrelenting until the tears finally stopped flowing.
“I’m only human myself, as you reminded me,” he managed to say, his own voice strained, “and the space where you’re supposed to be being empty when you’re gone feels as though it cuts a hole in my chest. I meant it when I said I have never felt this way about someone, and I am not ashamed of it. It’s like I’ve told you before. Happiness is of utmost importance, and you give it to me in spades, even when you might not be that happy yourself. There is no reason for me to be ashamed of wanting you here, and thus the inverse is true.”
After another moment of contemplative silence, gripping him tightly like she would lose him tomorrow, she spoke the only words she could. “I love you too.”
She kissed him this time, sparing no time and going straight for his lips. In the middle of the night, they always kissed gently and slowly, but this time there was a little urgency, some sort of need to prove that she would come back and they would share all the moments they wanted when her duty was done.
To her surprise, when she finally pulled away to thumb a little spit from the corner of his mouth, shiny tears of his own bubbled in his eyes as he looked at her, starting to spill over onto his cheeks.
“Oh, Haithami,” she murmured, cupping his cheeks and swiping the tears with her thumbs, “I’ll come back. I always do. I’m not that easy to kill. I know why it makes you worry, but you won’t lose me. I swear on everything I am that I’ll come back to you in one piece. I can’t promise it’ll be an unscathed piece, but everything should still be attached.”
That got a laugh out of him.
“I’m like you. I don’t make promises I don’t keep.”
Just as he had since they met, he trusted her.
It was funny, he thought as she squeezed his hand and curled up against him to go back to a much more peaceful sleep, how much they were alike despite their upbringings that couldn’t be more different. They had both lost everyone they had ever loved, but were slowly learning how to love once more through each other—in and of itself a chance meeting that had too many things against it happening to fathom.
It’s as I thought, he laughed to himself as he buried his face in her scalp and started to drift off. A bit of luck really is to thank for a lot of good things in life.
Also, I really need to thank Lesser Lord Kusanali in the morning.
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"comparing hand-sizes to hold their hand against the other's and then just holding hands" for Gabi and Farah please :) (no pressure!!!!)
PD!!! Thank you for the ask ^^
When seeing the prompt in the preview notification of this ask, my first thought was that I wanted to write this for Gabi and Farah, if there wouldn't be a pairing specified. And then you mentioned Gabi and Farah! That made me very happy haha!
Words: ~460
Rating: Teen and up
Relationship: Female detective/Farah Hauville
Warnings: None
Read on Ao3 or below
“... and then he tried to run, but I saw him sneak away and ran after him and of course I was faster, so I did this move and tackled him and— You should have seen it, it was so cool! But then...” Farah’s hands flutter through the air, flashes of neon pink nail polish catching the sunlight, as she tells about an old mission.
Farah rarely sits still, Gabi has observed, her face changing expressions faster than Gabi can keep track of, her feet tapping a rhythm, her entire body moving as if she’s spilling over with life itself. Most of all, it are her hands that tell a story: the small, fiddling motions of her fingers during a boring meeting, the focused, precise movements when she’s concentrated on a drawing, or the wide gesturing she just stopped doing.
Wait, she stopped?
Above the hands that are suspended mid-story and mid-air, golden eyes are staring at Gabi from across the table. The twin buns on top of Farah’s head tip sideways as she tilts her head.
“What are you thinking, Gabes?”
“Nothing, really.”
“Nothing? Really?” Leaning her elbows on the table, Farah balances her chair on the front two legs. “That would be the first time ever you’re not thinking about anything.”
Gabi pushes her hair away, only for it to fall right back across her forehead. Heat spreads up from her neck to her cheeks at being caught, at being known like this. “Alright, then, I was thinking about you. About your hands, if you want me to be specific.”
Farah holds one of her hands before her, lips pressed together in a pout as she considers it. Her nails are perfect, dazzling pink ovals against her dark skin. “You like this new colour? Morgan said it made her eyes burn.” The bright sound of her laughter fills the kitchen.
“Did she, now?” It’s all too easy to imagine Morgan responding like that, and Gabi shakes her head with a smile. “I like it, it suits you.” She leans forward on the table to take Farah’s hand, pressing hers against it. The last phalanx of each of her fingers sticks out above Farah’s, her own nails blunt and square, the nail beds shortened because of years of nail biting as a child. They’re a far cry from the elegant and neatly manicured hands of the vampire in front of her.
With a quick twist, Farah turns their hands and raises them to press a kiss against Gabi’s knuckles. “I like your hands too, babe.”
An echo of the touch of her lips lingers, warm and soft and leaving Gabi’s chest aflutter. The warmth turns into something hotter, something glowing and molten, when Farah winks and adds, “You’re very skilled with them.”
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