So, this is an extra to Deserved, but it can be read without reading Deserved. Blatant Shaycole/ Niclin, whatever I'm supposed to call it. Either way, it's an OTP of mine.
"Celestial"
Nicole had always liked the moon, even as a human. It was her way of reminding herself that she was never alone, just thinking about how many other people like her were there, staring up at the moon, knowing they were just stars, some more visible than others.
As a child, she'd been alone a lot, her rich father not bothering to do anything but mail a monthly cheque to her and her drug-addled mother. Nicole always used to imagine that one of those stars up there was her, and she was going to keep right on shining. She could imagine all the people looking up at her star, and imagine that they needed her. Her mother left one night, never came back, but she'd imagined that wherever she was, her mother could see her star, so she hadn't really left. She'd clung to that illusion for two weeks more. Then she'd been Marked, and her mom had been found. Now, she knew, wherever her mom had gone after life, she was in no position to look at Nicole's star.
Right now, she was sitting on the lawn, staring up at the sky. The sad thing about stars was how close they seemed, while being lifetimes away. Half of the stars we saw were ghosts, the stars were long dead, but we didn't even see, we just assumed they were alright because we still saw the light. We weren't close enough to see that they had died, become a fraction of what they were. Something marvelous had been reduced to a spinning piece of burned-out ash, but no one could see.
It was like dying and coming back. You're just a burned out star, but you didn't look a hell of a lot different. No one's close enough to you to see that you're really just a spinning fragment of ash. They just assume you're another star, not realizing you're a ghost, a shadow of yourself. But the earth keeps turning, leaving you behind. The moon keeps shining, and some of us stars find it. Others find solace the void, the new moon, where everything is gone, because it hurts to pretend to be complete. Nicole, as much as she hated to admit it, found her solace in the darkness, where she didn't have to pretend she could still shine.
Some stars were reborn, the gases making a new star around the ashes. That was why she'd hated Stevie Rae. Stevie Rae had become a new star, while she was barely scraping by as a spinning rock, a spinning ash. Half of them were just spinning rocks, hardened ach, but then there had to be Stevie Rae and her wonderkind. That was all Nicole had held against her.
Then, one day, it just all shifted. She'd been outside, ignoring Dallas, because they had two settings to their relationship: fuck and ignore. She'd been looking up at the full moon, lamenting about stars and ghosts and all that, and realized which she was. She was a caricature of who she was. She'd always assumed Neferet—her new moon was right, but she felt, in that moment, like nothing had been further from the truth.
The full moon shining on her, reminding her of who she was, she decided that was who she would be, and she fought to be herself again. She had to fight to remember who that was, but some things were black and white. Did the Nicole she wanted to be kill? No. Did she date a sleazy asshole who only liked her because she put out? No, in fact, she had mixed feelings on the whole dating thing to begin with. Other things were harder, like the decision to go help the Nerd Herd. But she made her choices, and they felt good, like her ash was getting back some of the burning gas, becoming a white dwarf, one of those little stars that burns hot from the sheer desire not to disappear.
If it hadn't been for Shaylin, she would have stayed in that state. Stevie Rae did eventually take her back, but it was Shaylin who stood up for her. She wasn't sure how she deserved Shaylin standing up for her, but it was like suddenly, she had a purpose, a galaxy, and it revolved around a bright little star that made sure she was seen. She fell fast, and hard, like the atoms that slammed together, fuelling her star had started to fuse, hydrogen making helium. It was like whoever she was had suddenly taken charge, and owed it all to Shaylin.
She wondered if stars orbited, or if it meant they were some beautiful little two-star constellation. Naturally, when she saw Shaylin crying, it hurt her in a way she could barely remember being able to feel. Only in her other life had she felt this tied to someone. She'd assumed she'd always be a far off star, in an entirely separate galaxy, because she'd died. She wasn't as far off as she'd assumed, Shaylin could see she was struggling, not even yet a main-sequence star, let alone anything spectacular. But it was like, through the constellation lines, she felt Shaylin's pain.
When they kissed, she knew this was either going to send her back to a spinning piece of ash, or let her come full circle, make her back into a normal star, main sequence, like the sun. Like where she'd started. She pulled away, seeing the shock on Shaylin's face, feeling it like a slap across her face. She tried to save face, so maybe she could keep a tiny bit of her star, maybe not entirely break the constellation lines entirely.
But then Shaylin had spoken and like that, she felt new again, like not even a main-sequence star, but something bigger, brighter. She had slept entangled with her, feeling like she used to, so whole, so right. And she knew Shaylin could see what this meant to her. In fact, Shaylin could probably see everything she'd felt that night. Shaylin knew her, almost better than she knew herself, or the herself she'd been so long separate from. The constellation lines were drawn thick on the map, nothing separating them as her glowing star drifted back to its home galaxy, where it could be less far.
And now, barely twenty four hours later, she'd come here to reflect, to make her amends with the moon, Nyx. She heard a rustle beside her and noticed Shaylin, so close to her. The moonlight really did make Shaylin glow, her pale skin practically reflecting the silvery rays as she sat down. "Stargazing?" she asked, resting her head on Nicole's shoulder.
Nicole stroked the hair out of Shaylin's face, looking down at her. This was beautiful, her little thing for stars becoming something she could share. She kissed Shaylin's forehead, just over her mark, "now I am," she said softly, looking at the reflections of the moonlight on Shaylin, making her look like her own little star.
Yep, this goes to show how much I ship these two. So much it hurts. There is another Deserved chapter in the works, just to let any of the amazing readers who read that too know.