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helpmeimblorboing · 8 months ago

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Just listened to Chappell Roan’s Good Luck Babe (great song btw) and this idea popped into my head.

The characters depicted are from my upcoming story Crimson Redux, and its eventual unnamed prequel book. This story, however, is non-canonical, though it shares some elements with the canon

Harry Jones bit back a sigh, lifting up one of his hands to shade himself from the burning hot sun - and wasn’t that a rarity, this deep into England Of the Stormy Skies ? God must have special-ordered it solely to piss his most-devout sinner off

He flinched slightly at the sting of pain that runs through him - his back was no longer what it once was - as he leans back to reorient himself, preparing to lift with his legs, as his dad always told him to, before… well… before that had irreversibly fractured their relationship

It was one thing to know your father doesn’t actually love you, and another to see it in action

For a moment, he pauses, memories washing over him with enough force to drown, to batter, to beat to death for who he was. In the distance, Lisa shouts at him to hurry the fuck up

That jolts him back to his senses, and he spares her an answering shout that was perhaps a touch more vitriolic than strictly necessary, before returning to what he had been doing prior to his little trip down Painful Memory Lane - staring at the pile of boxes stacked up on his doorstep and wondering how anyone, let alone a man gracelessly approaching his forties, was supposed to be able to move them

Before he could communicate that to his wife, however, he is suddenly acutely aware of a presence at his side, before a painfully familiar voice sounds out, so close that Harry could hear the almost painful lack of recognition in them, “You need some help with that ?”

His breath catches in his throat, and all of a sudden, bile wells up inside of him, burning the edges of his being like paper being held over a candlestick. He turns away, desperate to avoid his gaze, but it’s too late

He feels the other man stiffen beside him, hears the sharp intake of his breath (he still gasped the same way. The only difference was that now, there was no love in his throat. Not for the man who betrayed him), and then, perhaps most painfully of all, hears the fear as the other man asks, tentatively, like he was praying to be proven wrong, “Harry ?”

He turns around, resigned to this conversation, to this humiliation, only to reel back as if struck. That was him. Intellectually, Harry had already known that. But that was him.

Beautiful as the day Harry met him. As the day he last saw him, shouting obscenities at him through his door, face twisted up with rage and yet still so, so beautiful

“San…”, he swallowed, his throat suddenly dry as a desert. Santiago’s expression shuttered, eyes going cold and hard as he evidently remembered why, exactly, they had lost contact, “…Santiago?”

“It’s Serenity now, actually”, his voice was hard and cold, his gaze sharp as a knife. A pause, and then his upper lip curls in silent judgment, his voice venomous as he speaks, “You’re looking well”

“Thanks”, Harry breathes out, suddenly feeling like a butterfly pinned to a child’s science exhibition, left to slowly starve to death, alone and cold, “…I… you too…”

“Mhm”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but before he could, Lisa, apparently well and truly fed up with the delay, once again tells him to hurry the fuck up before she dies of old age out here, you ancient prick

He shouts something right back, his mind too preoccupied with the demon from his past impossibly standing right before him to pay much heed to what words were spilling from his lips

When he turned back, Serenity was staring at him, an unreadable expression in his eyes, an amused smile playing at his lips, “Who’s that ?”

“That…ah…”, he flinches as shame burns through him, razor-sharp and searing hot, “That’s my wife”

Abruptly, Serenity’s expression seems to distort with rage, eyes going wide and fiery. But it passes as quickly as it came, his features settling into the kind of placid neutrality that meant that someone was trying to keep themselves from shouting, “Ah”, he said, somehow managing to make the syllable sound like a litany of curses, all of them deserved, “You’re… straight ?”

He sucks in a shape breath at that, pressing his eyes shut. A beat, and then another, the awkward silence growing tense and painful. He prepares to tell Serenity that that was none of his business, but Serenity takes it upon himself to shatter the tension before he could

“Don’t tell me”, he hums, and he sounds… almost amused, “You’re not, aren’t you ? You’re gay as the day is long”

The unspoken I told you so lingers between them, existent as a flashing neon sign, painful as a cattle brand.

Harry tried to speak, but the words caught in his throat. No matter. Serenity seemed intent on speaking on both their behalves, the smile playing at his lips almost cruel now

“Well now, isn’t that interesting ?”, he hissed, amused spite coloring his tone, “That’s almost exactly what I told you, all those years ago. Curious”

It wasn’t I told you so, exactly, but it was close enough to hurt

Serenity hummed, before going silent, as if contemplating something.

The unspoken weight hung between them for a second, two, three. But still the silence didn’t end. Harry finally chanced another glance at his face, before flinching back as if struck

The look in his eyes wasn’t cruel anymore. It wasn’t even amused. It was just… pitying. Like Harry was a man dying of an incurable disease (even the thought of incurable diseases made him flinch, a reminder of who he was, of the fear that had made him hurt the one person who truly cared about him so badly) and Serenity was a doctor who knew there was nothing he could do for him

The silence stretches on, but Harry didn’t have the strength to break it. In the background, Lisa seemed to have given up on getting her husband to pay attention to her, and was now leaning against the hood of their car, scrolling through something on her phone

Harry’s lips part, as he tries to muster up the strength to say something, but once again, Serenity beats him to the chase, “You are… so small, Harry Jones”

There was no resentment in his voice. No pain, no amusement, nothing. Just a cold, empty truth, a fact as axiomatic and immutable as the sky is blue

Somehow that was worse. Resentment would mean that some part of Serenity still cared, that there was something resembling a chance. But there wasn’t, was there ? This bridge was well-and-truly burnt, the river it had arched over dried up, its ashes already washed away.

He should know. He had set the fire himself

Before he could say something, Serenity simply smirks - not a malicious expression, just the small, secret smirk of someone hearing a joke that was funny, but not enough to openly laugh at - and shakes his head, saying, his voice low, “Well, then. I suppose that’s it”

He leaned back, his eyes drifting over to Lisa, before flickering back to Harry. His crooked smirk seemed to double in size, “Good luck, babe”

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helpmeimblorboing · 11 months ago

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Sneak Peek of a chapter from my story that probably won't make it's way into the final draft of either version - Crimson or Crimson Redux (feat : Tumblr's shitty formatting)

The next day, Riptide found himself shuffling uneasily inside a local bus, shooting wary glances at anyone wearing anything even slightly resembling the Deathbringer’s threefold cross... or, for that matter, anything that seemed just a bit too white to be wearing on a public bus, no matter how clean the interior was

A long pause, and then he pulled out his phone, scrolling down to the last text Serenity had sent him, about ten minutes ago, in that awkward, clipped way of someone clearly uncomfortable with texting, who was making a valiant attempt at trying anyways

Serenity (6:46 PM): Got us a booth 🎉

Serenity (6:47 PM): Restaurant’s p cool. You should see it

Right. The restaurant they were going to. Because they were going there. On a date. Riptide sucked in a sharp breath through pursed lips at the thought, feeling his heart hammer in his chest, as his fingers pulled up the keyboard, tapping out a rapid response

Riptide (6:57 PM): I still don’t know why we have to go at different times -_-

Riptide (6:57 PM): I mean, we live in the same hotel suite...

Serenity (6:58 PM): It’s about the vibes, Riptide

Riptide bit back a faint huff of laughter at that, looking at it for a second, imagining the way the skin at the corner of his lips folded when he smiled, the sparkle that glinted in the depths of his eyes when he laughed, like a new winter’s frost

Riptide (6:59 PM): Vibes ?

Serenity (7:00 PM): If we’re doing this, we’re doing this properly

Riptide bit back a smile, chewing slightly at the inside of his cheek as he tries to think up a response. Before he can, however, a new message pings into the chat

Serenity (7:01 PM): ❤️

Even if he’s getting used to this, to the way Serenity peppers his messages with heart emojis , it still makes his heart pound. Makes his belly twist. Especially the red one. It felt like an... official declaration, or something – you are my boyfriend. I love you

And that ? That made his breath speed up

Riptide (7:03 PM): ❤️

After a few long seconds of silence, Serenity messages him his location in the restaurant – a Cheesecake Factory, apparently one of the very few brands of the old, pre-parahuman world, to remain extant without collapsing in on itself or expanding outwards into a global empire – and asks him his drink choice so he can go ahead and order it for him

“Sorry if I eat all the bread before you get here”, Riptide receives as the bus rattles to a halt in front of the glass-and-steel facade of a boutique that stood within walking distance of the Cheesecake Factory, both of them set a ways away from the majority of the city, overlooking it’s jagged skyscrapers and glinting glass-and-steel monoliths

He smiles and sends him a middle finger, before pocketing the phone

The restaurant, Riptide can’t help but notice when he finally gets there, is packed to the gills, people bustling about basically every single table, packed so close together that it’s difficult for him to maneuver past them. He does manage, somehow, but it’s still difficult

It’s fancy too, fancier than any restaurant Riptide’s ever been too – mostly because he never really went to restaurants. His mother wasn’t the “eating out” type. He’s got on something he threw together in about twenty minutes that afternoon, and even though everyone else is dressed in tourist shit, red-faced and sweaty from a day of sightseeing, he feels weirdly underdressed

It was called the Cheesecake Factory, for God’s sake. It’s interior should look like a local McDonalds, not the lobby of the Ritz, all dim and marble-y and orange

It takes him a moment to locate Serenity, seated in a two-person booth in one dark corner of the restaurant, idly poking at the basket of bread kept in the middle of his table, occasionally looking over to give the tall glass of something red beside it long, meandering looks. The shadows splayed about him were darker than usual – seems like he wasn’t the only one nervous about this date

He looks great, good enough that Riptide’s heart catches on his throat for a moment, dressed in dark wash jeans that clung sinfully to the lithe length of his legs, black dress shoes that looked ridiculously out of place on his feet, and a khaki green T-shirt that stretched over his chest tightly, leaving very little to the imagination. Black bands of cloth snaked their way up the curving lengths of his exposed arms, effectively hiding his wrists from view. Riptide just watches him for a few seconds, chewing at his bottom lip as he sees him reach forward to take a sip of the tall red glass, before setting it down and peering at it like it was a particularly enthralling puzzle

At last, he blows out a breath, shakes and flexes his hands to steel himself, and slowly makes his way over to the table

When he’s two booths away, Serenity looks up from the tall glass of red he’s examining intently, and spots him, his lips curling into a smile so beautiful that Riptide forgets how to breathe for a moment

“Hey”, he greets, standing up – and shreds of the shadows he had unconsciously summoned around him seemed to cling to his torso in thin, translucent flakes of sooty ash as he did, “You made it”

Riptide smiles back, leaning forward to press a kiss to the other man’s forehead, right in the furrow between his eyebrows, Serenity’s skin warm as a furnace under his lips, before finally breaking away and murmuring, “Course I did”

A long pause, and then Serenity reaches forward with one hand to pull Riptide into a quick hug, his face pressed into the smooth fabric of his T-shirt. The smell of men’s bodywash and some kind of flowery detergent fills Riptide’s nose, and there are strong arms wrapped around his torso, and he was fairly certain his heart was beating hard enough that everyone in the restaurant could hear it

He blows out a breath through his nose as Serenity finally releases him

“You smell good”, he says, sounding a twinge nervous, shuffling his feet idly. He looks up, and the orange lights of the Factory catch his face at just the right angle, glinting about his features like the halo of a saint, and Riptide just wants to grab his face and kiss the life out of him

But he doesn’t, much to his own dismay

He intead just raises his eyebrows at the other man in a meaningful gesture. Tilts his head slightly in a wordless acknowledgement, before shuffling awkwardly over to his seat to sit down

But just before he can, Serenity leans in and gives him a quick press of a kiss that’s probably meant for his lips but instead ends up landing on the space right under his nose. A flash of fire sears its way through the nerves of his face, and he feels the tops of his cheeks brighten with a scarlet blush, even as Serenity snickers his way out of the kiss, whatever mouthwash he had used that morning hitting Riptide in the face with the smell of spearmint gum

A moment later, they’re seated, both blushing like a couple of kids on a first date – which, Riptide supposed, they were – and Riptide reaches forward to poke at the bread basket, only to find it half-empty

He levels a look at Serenity, lifting his eyebrows, the corner of his mouth twitching into a crooked grin, “Really ?”

Serenity simply shrugged, lips curving into a ghost of a smile, sweet enough to give Riptide calories, “I did warn ya”

Another pause, and then Serenity awkwardly clears his throat into the silence, before waving at the glass of tall and red that had been set on his table, drops of condensation peppering the surface with a hazy translucence, “Is raspberry lemonade made of raspberry or lemon ?”

Riptide blinked. That was... a terrible ice-breaker, so much so that he couldn’t keep the faint huff of laughter that welled up at the base of his heart off his lips. Reaching forward, he picks up a piece of bread – something fancy, white and hard-shelled- idly passing it from hand to hand, even as he looks up to shoot Serenity a look that was no doubt unbearably fond, “Both, I think”

Serenity leans back, turning to give the glass of raspberry lemonade a wondering look, peering into its redness like it held the secrets of the universe, his lips parted in an “O” of surprise. The light reflecting off of his face ignites it’s sharp lines into shades so striking that Riptide was half-certain he was going insane

After a moment, Serenity seems to catch onto the fact that Riptide was staring, shooting him a smirk that sent a rush of fire blazing an ashy trail down the skin of his torso. Adrenaline rips through him at the sight, and his lips are moving before he can even comprehend it fully

“Can I kiss you ?”, his voice is breathless. Fragile and reverent, like a prayer in a temple

“You can do anything you want to me”, Serenity’s response is more neutral, even as he rises from his seat in one fluid motion, walking over to Riptide and dipping down. It’s a good thing he’s already seated, because he’s fairly certain his legs were too weak to support his body weight at the moment

Riptide is a bit too eager and lifts his face forward too much. Their foreheads knock together and he lets out a hiss at the sting. They readjust and their lips finally meet. Serenity giggles against his mouth and Riptide lets the sound fill up the hollow of his chest. Wants to hold it there, like a shrine houses the divine, and keep it safe forever.

He wonders vaguely if they should be doing this somewhere more private, feels the searing pulse of hundreds of eyes on them both, but that only serves to send more adrenalin through his veins – Serenity isn’t ashamed of me. Serenity’s willing to do this in front of an audience of this size. The thought is gone completely when Serenity’s lips opens up under this, replaced with a searing buzz at the meeting of hot tongues. It sets something in his stomach alight.

Serenity lifts a knee between Riptide’s thighs to press their bodies closer. The kiss deepens and Riptide feels nothing in the world except all the points their two bodies are connected. Heat and desire rip through his flushed skin like a forest fire.

And then it’s over, and Serenity gently, slowly, breaks away, shooting Riptide a phantom half-grin, before turning to stalk back over to his own seat, lounging carelessly in it, a smug grin pulling at his lips as he glances up at Riptide’s expression, dizzy from the ecstasy he’s just now beginning to come down off

“So”, he begins in a low drawl, and Riptide notices his lips, flushed-red and swollen with the remnants of their kiss, “what do you want to order ?”

Riptide pauses his buzzing, leachy thoughts. Stares at him. His lips part, “Oh my god, you asshole”

“What ?”, Serenity’s cheeks puff out in an indignant pout, and Riptide wants to reach across the table, grab him by the tantalizingly low V-neck of his shirt and kiss him until he’s a moaning mess, but he doesn’t – because enough people were levelling scandalized looks at them already without pouring twenty more cans of gasoline on the fire, “You liked it, didn’t you ?”

“That doesn’t – you can’t...”, Riptide sputters for a moment, cheeks lava-red, and lava-hot, “Fuck you”

“If you insist”, he shoots him a suggestive grin across the table and Riptide’s face was about to melt clean off, “Though I suspect you’d rather I don’t do it here, huh ?”

He reaches forward to playfully smack Serenity across the shoulder, only to falter and feel his breath catch painfully in his throat as the other man easily catches it, lacing their fingers together, something light and happy bursting across his face at the touch.

His stomach twists, that romance-twist that flushes his skin and makes him sweat, and as he looks down at their hands, he goes a little breathless, too, because he can’t believe that he’s holding a man’s hand in public.

He can’t believe that he’s holding his boyfriend’s hand in public.

He can’t believe that he has a boyfriend.

And from the stunned, breathy gasp that slips through Serenity’s lips, neither can he. A long pause, and then the other man’s thump rubs a small circle over the skin that stretched between his thumb and pointer, snapping him out of his thoughts

“Whatcha thinking about ?”, Serenity hummed, sounding a little breathless, a little excited. Riptide could relate

Riptide pauses. Thinks about saying “You”. Decides it’s too sappy to say in public. Remembers that they had made out in public not five seconds ago. Decides that hiding your emotions is for chumps, “You”

Serenity’s breath catches in his throat in a faint “hic” of noise, and he looks up with eyes so full of adorable surprise that Riptide desperately wants to kiss him again. A long second, and then the corners of his eyes go soft, so soft, so kind, “Is that... Is that good ?”

Riptide smiles, this stupidly gentle thing, and pulls the other man’s hand a little closer, causing him to lean forward, before he tilts down and pecks a kiss to Serenity’s warm, bony wrist--so quick, so soft, it’s almost like it never happened.

“Asshole”, he murmurs into the skin, in an almost reflex reaction to the kiss, and Serenity squeezes his hand, and Riptide chews his bottom lip and looks up at him with an expression that he thinks probably reveals all, if you know what you’re looking at

The service is slow, which isn’t surprising considering the restaurant’s so full.

The two of them play with each other’s fingers, even turning it into a thumb war once, as they talk about work and movies and music. Well, work. Mostly coded. Encrypted. Idly, Riptide wonders what the restaurant-full of people thought about their cousin Edna, who had apparently been through enough to put most veterans’ PTSD to shame

Even more idly, he wonders if they should come up with a better code name for Eagle

When the food comes – cake, because of course it is, it’s the fucking Cheesecake Factory, it was practically a capital offense to not order cake – they each give their connected hands a long mournful look

It was a single slice of Oreo Dream Extreme, which Riptide privately thought looked like a cookie drowned in frosting, but whatever, and the waitress brings two forks with it, giving them a fond look as she turns to leave. He wonders if she witnessed the kiss, too, or if they were just that obvious

Serenity looks at Riptide and plays with his fork, clearly thinking about how he’s having cake with his boyfriend, how the waitress had smiled at them like it was perfectly fine for him to have something like this. His eyes glisten slightly, and before Riptide is aware of it, he’s already reaching over the table to wipe away his tears

Serenity gives him a bashfully wide-eyed look, and it’s all Riptide can do to not stutter as he grumbles out, “Yeah, yeah, fuck off”

They eat the cake slice together, fucking around the whole time, battling forks, fighting over the Oreo on top, and debating who gets the mousse – it was Serenity for both, since Riptide was convinced he looked too thin to be in any way healthy.

“I’m just saying”, Riptide began, waving his frosting-dusted fork in a manner that could only be described as “pointed”, “you’re way too thin !! When’s the last time you ate properly ? 1995 ?”

“Oh my God”, Serenity let out a theatrical groan, stabbing disgruntedly at his share of the cake for a few seconds, before rolling his eyes and slicing off a miniscule triangle of mousse, shoving it in his mouth in one fluid motion, “There !! Happy ?”

Riptide smiles, a soft, curling thing, and he means it as he says, “Very”

They shuffle out of the Cheesecake Factory, stepping out into the cold night air. Evidently, it had started raining sometime earlier that night, a sprinkling, quick thing, for the ground is slick and shiny in the sun-yellow of the street lamps, and the earth is drenched in the sharp scent of coastal petrichor

The earth splashed below their feet as they walked, the wet, puddly stones reflecting the night sky above, peppered with the thin, pale pinpricks of the burning stars, the brilliant silver stamp of the moon, burning as a brand in the stillness of the night. Inky darkness pools in thick, viscous puddles all about them

They talk for a moment, but Serenity seems... different, somehow. Subdued, and distant, as if his mind were a thousand miles away, or years in the past. It takes only a few moments for the conversation to peter out into still silence, and Serenity barely seems to notice

So they remain in silence as they trudge down the street, broken only by the faint horns of cars on the expressway, laughter from far away. The distant noises of humanity

Nocturnal light spills down from the heavens, pouring over them both, all celestial and night-thin. It clings to the edges of Serenity’s form like the heavens themselves can’t help but worship this boy, the early-autumn-moon laying him in her silver silks and the stars kissing his hair, his long lashes.

Riptide’s breath catches in his throat and he averts his eyes. Looks back. Averts his eyes. Clenches his jaw

Serenity’s eyes are on him, and it’s almost unbearable. Riptide’s gaze skitters away, but he can still hear the gentle sawing of Serenity’s voice, as the raven-haired boy speaks, slow and shy, as if terrified of rejection – as if rejection, now, would shatter him irreversibly, “I...I wanted to show you something”

Riptide’s heart stutters in his chest at the soft plaintiveness in that melodious voice, and his eyes flick back upwards to alight on Serenity’s too-wide, too-eager ones. The other boy shapes starkly against the dark, all hard, bright edges. Starlight kisses his hair and the early-autumn moon lays him in silver. An otherworldly thing, he looks, a creature of sharped steel and sorrow. His hands are in his pockets.

They’re surrounded in street lamps, and not much else – a small outcropping in the sidewalk, jutting over the brink, thrusting out into the too-cold night air, the cityscape glimmering up at them from the bank of shadows at the base of the hill, shaded in warm contrasts, its popping colors glowing neon in the darkness. The noises of humanity are muted to almost nothingness here, rendered soft and silent ripples in the air

However, where they stand, lies only the slow, puddling smeariness of sodium vapor, and the trickling, inspid blue-silver of the stars. To his left stands Serenity, and darkness seems to puddle in great shadowy pools about his feet.

His lips part, colored a dried-rose pink in the soft light of the street lamps, yellow lamplight puddling in the sharp hollows of his face like liquid gold, “When I was young...”, he begins, in a soft, feathered voice, and Riptide’s breath catches in his throat again, “I was alone. Well, no... not..”, he drew in a rattling breath, before conceding, “...not entirely. Caz was there. Always there. But there was only so much she could do. Mostly ? I was alone. And so I... came up with this world. An endless sandy beach. Endless sun. Waves lapping at the seashore. And I escaped there... whenever”, the words clung to his throat like rotting flesh, “...everything... got too much”

A long momen, and then he chanced a glance upwards, eyes meeting Riptide’s confused gaze. His lips quirked further upwards, “Caz believed it was a... metaphorical thing. Psychological. Imaginary”, he shook his head, a slow, measured motion, “...she was wrong”

Riptide paused. Blinked, as a cool breeze wafted past their face, scented with salt and seaspray, fresh and sweet and warm, tinged with the heat of the sun. The sun, that was nowhere to be spotted in the sky. A moment, and his eyes blew wide, his lips curving into an “O” of surprise

He had heard of this before. A second trigger. When the host suffers such incredible, indescribable pain, that the universe itself seems to take pity on them, to grant them a secondary power. Riptide isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry

Serenity’s lips twisted wryly, his head dropping into an almost-miserable-looking smile, as his hands flex, before abruptly moving. His fingers rise and the street lamps bleed gold and yellow and white all over them. Shaded in their smeared glow, he looks like a burning thing

His voice is faint, but it carries, echoing through the crags and crevices of the hillside, off the concrete planes and sharp, cutting corners of the brutalist buildings that surround them. Somewhere in the distance, a phantom bell tolls, loud and resonant, “The sound of the Gion Shoja bells echo the truth that all life must end”

His fingers twist, thumbs and the very tips of his index fingers pressing together, the rest of his fingers splayed apart. The curving whorls inscribed into their soft-looking pads darken, leaking shadow down his arms in trickling threads of pale gray, fuzzy and hazy, like a build-up of dust, “The color of the sala flower reveals that to flourish is to fall”

His fingers press together, splaying out to make way for his palms. The threads of dusty gray seem to darken, somewhat, and Riptide catches a whiff of something cold and sweet in the air, ice water and strawberry rot, “The strong do not endure, a dream on the night of spring”

And finally, he pulls his hands apart, fingers of each hand stiff and rigid, pressed together like a Hamsa, the palms floating about five inches apart. His lips part, and a boundless darkness seemed to swirl inside his mouth, writhing shadows pressing against the backs of his teeth. At least, that’s what Riptide saw, before a hazy grayness seemed to envelop everything in a bank of thick, smokey fog. It obscured his vision, but still Riptide could make out the hard edges of Serenity’s figure through its hazy opaqueness. It dampened all noise, but still Riptide could hear the final line of the incantation, sharp and clear as if Serenity had spoken it directly into his ear, “The dauntless must wither, to become dust in the wind”

When the hazy grayness finally recedes, the first thing Riptide notices is the brightness that lay against Serenity’s skin – not the smeary glare of the street lamps, but something warmer, softer. Daylight, that puddled lazily against his form, ran down his sharp edges in trails of honey gold, highlighting him and flowing about his form like the halo of a saint

Serenity looks softer, in this cloudy lighting. It sands his sharp edges and dusts his colors into something more pastel. The black of his hair shades gray, and the striking edges of his features become less stark. Even the worried line of his frown looks soft like this. His lips are dried-rose pink.

The second thing he notices is the fact that there was sand beneath his feet, shifting as he shifted in place, as the hazy grayness of Serenity’s powers withdrew to linger at the corners of his vision in barely-visible splotches of feathered blurriness

As his eyes dropped, he noticed the stretch of sand that lay beneath his feet, shining like gold in the brilliant sun, curving off into the distance – a never-ending beach – dotted with palm trees that were almost certainly out-of-place here. To his right stood the lush greenery of an endless forest, colors rich and green, almost abnormally so

His powers told him that there was no water here, but to his left, an endless ocean lapped at the curving edge of the beach, surface held as smooth and polished as a mirror, gleaming sapphire in the golden sun, not even a ripple spreading across its surface. In fact, it looked like it was barely moving at all

But there was something off. The blue of the water was too bright, the yellow of the sand too pale, the green of the forest too smeared-together. And, as his eyes rise to where Serenity was pointedly looking away from him, a faint dusting of pink peppering the high tops of his cheeks, the sun was too smooth, less a burning star, and more a ball of molten gold hanging in the sky

The sun, that hung high in the sky, and yet poured down none of its burning fire. The sun, that at this time of the day should be coloring the sky a burning blue-raspberry, but instead was embedded into a sky as fleshy and pink as a sunrise

The whole thing looked like a child’s approximation of a beach. The whole thing looked like something a child, hurt and alone, would come up with as an escape from all his pain

This wasn’t a real beach, and this wasn’t a real world. This was something... inner. Almost like a....

His lips part, but Serenity beats him to the chase, “Make a Jujutsu Kaisen reference and I will kick you out”, he warns, and his voice is candy-soft and sweet. Riptide feels his heart warm at its sound

“Alright, alright”, he huffs out a quiet laugh, the sound echoing oddly in the not-real beach air, before shuffling slightly, feeling the imaginary sand shift around his feet, “Honestly, I’m surprised you don’t use...”, he gestures vaguely, “...this... as a Domain Expansion more often”

“Can’t”, Serenity muttered, refusing to meet Riptide’s eyes, his blush deepening into streaks of crimson, lying dark and gleaming against his pale skin, “Only people I.... t-trust”, his voice caught on that word, and Riptide felt his heart stutter slightly, “...can be brought in here”

Riptide stared wordlessly for a moment, his chest feeling tight and painful, before a single, choked-off sound slipped past his lips, “Oh”

“Yeah”, Serenity scratched sheepishly at the back of his head, and the air seemed to smear around his arm as he moved it, space distorting into blurry ripples of smeared graininess, like he were moving his arm through water, the colors of the backdrop running together like drips and trails of wet paint on a painting, greens melding with yellows with blues.

A moment later, the colors seemed to straighten out, the bleed petering out into nothing, ripples smoothing out like wrinkles in cloth, until finally, the undisturbed vista of the beach stared back at him once more

“I’ve”, his eyes flicker over to the other man, and Riptide can’t help but suck in a sharp breath at the sheer beauty of them. Here, in his own little world, the molten gold of his illusory sun glinted off the ice-blue of his irises, making them gleam, sharp and cold and brilliant, like the edge of shattered glass, like all the ocean, all at once, like the galaxy, but blue. His eyes are multilayered, made of reflections and refractions, fragmented shades of blue. Honed. Intense. Unlike every other part of him, his eyes are not softened in the cloudy lighting, they remain severe as ever, bright and sharp as the edge of shattered glass.

Because they reflected the truth of him – all that hurt and cold and pain he kept pressed down and hidden in his heart, like trying to hold back the flood. Because Serenity had always considered himself Atlas, trying to hold up the sky. But the sky was not a holdable thing

His lips part, dried-rose curves lifting into a faint ‘O’, delicate and fragile, “I’ve never brought anyone... here, before. Never been able to bring anyone here, before.Never... trusted anyone enough for it”. His eyes are fixed on Riptide, as if he still wasn’t entirely able to reconcile this – the sight of someone else, standing in the gates of his soul, submerged in the depths of his heart

Serenity looked away for a moment, staring out, across the boundless blue of his ocean, red peppering the high arches of his cheekbones, before finally turning back to him, “Yeah”, he said, after a long moment, “I...I... trust you. Riptide, I... I....”, his voice falters, before he seems to steel himself, “...I love you”

Something wet slicked against Riptide’s skin, and the ice-water strawberry-rot scent of the air took on a freezing quality. The cool touch of the water seems to snap Serenity out of his trance-like state, and one of his hand lifted to his face, coming away glistening wet, “...ah. It’s raining again”

Riptide blinked, trying his best to ignore the catch of his heart in the hollow his chest, the way it stuttered against the bars of his ribcage, beating out a staccato pulse of desire and love and longing, grateful for the distraction, “Rain ?”

“This beach is an illusory realm”, Serenity said, his voice soft and faint, more water slicking soundlessly against his skin, his khaki-green T-shirt streaked with dark streaks of wet, “How permeable the barriers to it are depends almost entirely on what I want”

“And you... didn’t block out the rainfall ?”

“No”, he shook his head, a stuttery, faint motion, looking up to meet Riptide’s eyes, his voice catching for a moment, before continuing, “I... it seemed rather pointless. We’re only becase... well, because I wanted to... show you. My soul. My self. My heart. Because you... um... you showed me yours. Yesterday”

Riptide simply stares for a moment. His heart feels so full that he’s sure he’s seconds from drowning in it. The water trickling against his skin is cool and icy, a stark contrast to endless rose-pink of the perpetual sunset sky, the molten golden sphere of the sun

Serenity looks pointedly away, “Sorry, that’s... I guess that’s pretty cheesy, huh ? Igno-“

And then Riptide was moving forward, before Serenity could react, and his lips were dipping down to press against Serenity’s, soft and gentle, and Serenity tasted so good against his tongue, sweet like strawberry lip-balm, and the rich bite of the chocolate cake they had just had, and the other man’s lips were parting under his, and –

And there were flowers blooming at his feet, brushing against his ankles, impossibly pushing their green stems and brilliant petals through the golden sands, the rubied bleed of red rose, the golden gleam of ambrosia, the deep purple of aster, and a hundred feathered white silhouettes of balsam.

He draws back, breaking the kiss apart, much to his own dismay, “I love you too”, his heart catches in his throat. For a moment, Serenity looks stunned

All around them, the golden sands of the beach are dusted a faint rose-quartz in the perpetual sunset. Pink like dried rose. Pink like valentine’s hearts. Pink like the blush suffusing Serenity’s pale skin

And before Riptide could part his lips, could ask if Serenity was okay with that, his lips are on his, sweet and sharp and cold, “I love you like that too”, he says into the corner of Riptide’s lips, and he feels like crying, “I love you too”

And overhead, the fleshy pink of the sky splits apart, edges hazy and gray as it slowly separates into a receding dome to reveal the stormy sky beyond, rendered in patchy blacks and grays. The cold scent of rain grew stronger, but Riptide hardly cared. All that existed in the world was the softness of Serenity’s lips on his, his earthen scent, his soft skin. All that mattered was him

Overhead, a shower of glittering water dripped down onto them, slicking against their skin, though the sand at their feet remained as dry as ever, a curtain of glistening wetness, rendered in translucent rainbows from the molten gold sunlight passing through its thin surface

And in the distance, a thundercrack sounds, and white flashes of lightning fork through the black patchy clouds, spearing the final traces of the illusory beach, burning it up, as the sand beneath Riptide’s feet fades into wet, puddly stone, and suddenly they’re standing by the corner of the street once again, and Serenity’s lips are on Riptide’s and his back is pressing into the railing keeping them from falling of the cliff, the metal sharp and cold through the thin, wet fabric of his T-shirt

The rain building in the clouds begins to spill over. It’s no longer just a sprinkle. All around them, the asphalt tap-tap-taps with droplets. The sky isn’t a holdable thing, it’s liquid, it’s storms and rain. And if Serenity kept trying to hold him up, he would surely drown

But that was fine. His eyes closed, and he pressed hard into the kiss, tasting the iced strawberry taste of Serenity’s tongue against his, cool and sharp, sweet as chocolate. That was fine. His fist clenched, and the raindrops hammering against them froze in mid-air, hanging like crystal beads inches from their skin

That was fine, because Riptide was there, would always be there, to breathe air into his lungs, to protect him, like he protected so many

Axiomatic truths were things that were so sure, so true, so known, that they were the philosophical baseline. They were the things you could be sure of, when you were sure of nothing else. When the solid truths of your world – parents are meant to protect their kids, children are meant to be loved – start to fall away, you could always rely on them

Here are some of them, some of the truths that Riptide relies on. The sun will always rise. The tide will always fall. And Riptide will always love Serenity

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