Welcome back my darlings! This is a chapter that I have been so excited to write since about chapter 27. I've had it planned for a while, and I'm so happy we're finally at this point in the story! This is going to switch back to being very Red/Purple centric, because we have basically tied up most of the Pem ends of this fic. Thanks for holding on through our wild ride and I hope you all enjoy!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR READER AND MY GOOD FRIEND KNOCK! LOVE YOU DARLING AND I HOPE YOU HAD AT LEAST A GOOD BIRTHDAY EVEN THOUGH THIS IS LATE EVERYONE WISH KNOCK HAPPY BIRTHDAY IN THE COMMENTS SHE DESERVES IT!
Also, a shoutout to x-Chappy-x! They are so sweet and kind and I wanted to remind them that they are loved and appreciated! Thank you for liking my work, my darling, and I really appreciate you always coming back! :)
Chapter rated M for heavy drug use, obvious allusions to overdose, brief heavy language, suggestive themes, and general adult themes. Don't do drugs kids. They're not worth it.
"Sir? U-Um…Sir? Mr. Purple?"
Purple shot up, yelping in pain when he smacked his head on the grimy open hull of the Inquisitorian Stinger he had lost himself to, wincing at the dull sting in his antennae as he groaned. He clamped a gloved hand over his aching forehead before turning with a frown to eye his tiny assistant, Len Tarf, where he stood apprehensively with a list of clients requesting tune-ups on their ships and waiting for a response to a question Purple obviously hadn't heard in his depressed fugue. Had he let his mind wander again? He turned away in embarrassment, digging his oil slicked hands back into the perforated plasma core to dig out bits of debris the unfortunate pilot had come in contact with during an accidental flyover of a meteor shower on the outskirts of the Meekrobian star system. He flicked tiny pebbles over his shoulder with a grumble, only adding to the incredible mess of soot and cosmic fragments littering the unwashed bay around them.
Len Tarf repeated his question, carefully moving forward to hold up the list with a swallow when Purple shucked his goggles forlornly and tossed them thoughtlessly to the side. "Mr. Purple? I have a client in the office who's asking if you'd be willing to perform radiation and static checks on the core of his I-14 Irken Spittle Runner." He explained, sighing when Purple threw his elbows up on the hull of the ship and plastered his gooey hands over his eyelids, smearing thick globs of petroleum over his face. "Sir, I have to tell them something."
"Just tell them…dammit, I don't know. Sure. Ask them if Thursday is ok." Purple mumbled from between his fingers, spitting when the acidic taste of Meekrobian dust gritted between his teeth. "Thursday is the only opening I have."
"Don't you mean Wednesday?"
"What?"
"Wednesday, sir. You're booked all day for Thursday to put a fresh coat of, um," Len Tarf hastily flipped through the notes clasped in his clipboard for the agreement, "looks like ash grey paint on a Vortian Scorpion for Mrs. Palla Kar."
Purple let his hands fall away in exasperation, irritated with himself for carelessly forgetting so much dire information and cringing internally at the overwhelming amount of work he had somehow found himself in this early on after the weekend and his unfortunately botched honeymoon. It was Monday, his least favorite day of the work week and already he had been swamped by a proverbial tidal wave of fervent clients wanting him to run his expert eyes over shot spark plugs and rattling plasma cores in preparation to make the long flight to the town of Taymorc to watch the Vortian High Court subpoena King Lard Nar I for his supposed crimes against his own Empire and administration. Everyone was overly excitable and jittery in the streets, a palpable buzz hanging in the air as images of the terrorist Pem Goor's tear-streaked, muzzled face hung over every transmission screen and glittering electronic billboard for thousands of languid miles, reminding everyone of the horrors he had almost wrought against their then dying planet. Lard Nar had been taken into protective custody when the Irken population of the planet had begun to riot, moving him into a holding chamber five miles beneath the capitol of Hatalca to wait out his subpoena in regal comfort while Pem had been ripped away from his grasp to be forcibly gagged and shoved heatedly into an unclean, frigid prison cell in Taymorc until the official, incredibly depressing trial on Friday. It was strange, the Irken public claiming Lard Nar had betrayed their image and their safety by cloning the worst terrorist in the history of the now completely crumbling and defunct Irken Empire, while the Vortian half of the planet secretly looked upon Pem's face as something of a backwards revolutionary. Purple had accidentally overheard hundreds of hushed whispers as he trudged forlornly along the rain dampened sidewalks of the towering city, all calling for the release of esteemed King Lard Nar and his now bright-eyed consort from prison and somehow recognizing Pem as the single force that opened up the dastardly wave of Irken-IRM conflict that had paved the way for Vort to finally heal. Purple didn't know what to think, his tired, overworked mind swimming with possibilities and awful images of his blood brother standing before massive DNA recreation technology as he pleaded with him and his husband to hear out his side of the story. It was bruising to the soul, sickening to the stomach, aching to the head. He had known that Lard Nar was a bit unstable and constantly on the dangerous edge, remembering their earlier talks about his terrified love confession he couldn't seem to spill from his dry tongue as they reclined leisurely against Sledhob's flagship together and attempted to grasp hold of some semblance of normalcy together as their psyches unraveled in tandem. But this…this was against nature. This was an appalling abomination, a blasphemous sin shuddering through their rebuilding society and digging its long, jagged nails into the delicate hearts of millions to split their meticulously formed civilization in two uneven halves.
His brother…his friend…his family was committing the worst sin imaginable and Purple didn't know how to feel. Did he feel anything at all? Did he even have an opinion? Should he have listened to his brother's reasoning instead of going after his irate husband and trying to get him to see the light? Why? Why was Lard Nar doing this? It was like an itch that Purple couldn't scratch, prickling over his sensitive, messy complexion and making his skin crawl with a nauseating mixture of heated anger and hopeless regret for not being there when Lard Nar needed him most. Pem had shot him through the ribcage and given him the most unimaginable, white hot agony he had ever experienced, the very memory of stitches pulling ruthlessly through his delicate, once virgin skin drawing Purple towards the edge of a war flashback as he struggled to maintain his fleeting composure. He quickly shook it away and took a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut and gripping lightly at the edge of the internal radiator of the Runner he was attempting to halfheartedly repair, willing himself to artificial tranquility as Len Tarf stood stagnant and watched with a look of concern twisting his thin mouth into a frown.
And then there was Red.
His husband wasn't taking the news of Lard Nar's "betrayal" well, first smashing their cheap glassware on the cobbles of the street in their neighborhood outside and having the authorities called on him more than once as he screamed at the top of his lungs about how everything he had known felt like it was ripped forcibly away from him. He had shredded through blankets with his sharp claws, perforated their mattress and tore away whole handfuls of stuffing to litter about their bedroom like an animal, and broken down to pathetically cry twice in the safety of the cleansing room as Purple tried to soothingly talk him down through the locked hatch. Purple hadn't seen Red this horrendously worked up since his dogfight with deceased general Hoc Nulol after the Massive was blown to bits by Pem's improvised explosives, feeling every inch of his profoundly world-shattering, blinding pain radiating up through the joint connection in their PAKs after their marriage and choking on every blubbering syllable Red had feebly cried into the nape of his neck over the hours of lost sleep they had collected together in the past three days. He and Lard Nar were incredibly close, sharing a mysterious bond of friendship that Purple had never expected in a million cycles, laughing together into all hours of the morning over old war stories, comparing past sexual conquests and snickering at the idiocy of the other when they messed up their cooking or took automated calls over their transmitters and pretended to be someone absurd. In a way, they really were brothers, or perhaps closer, welded by the philosophical blood letting of Yult'nab and the harsh toils of fighting alongside one another to save their collective planets from utter destruction. Their sanctity of brotherhood had been stained and Red's carefully managed foundations had been treacherously shaken. Eventually, he had simmered down from his irate, seething fury to sit up in bed at night and stare at the far wall as he thought, Purple desperately trying to whisper loving, sweet nothings against his drooping antennae and trace away the emotionless agony with his warm palms grazing over his jawline. Red had reassured him many times in the past three days with a false, sad smile that he would eventually come around, but Purple wasn't so sure, watching as his husband struggled greatly to find happiness in the simple things he had once enjoyed as he rapidly slipped into another round of depression he hadn't felt in cycles. He hadn't cooked dinner for them, hadn't spritzed himself with the deliciously spiced cologne Purple loved to drown in, hadn't put on his favorite classical songs for them to dance to in the privacy of their room, and hadn't flown his supply routes since the arrest, sending out his team to work in his absence as the local neighborhood Vortlings and smeets tried to figure out what had happened to their favorite pilot. Purple was overwhelmingly worried about the safety and wellbeing of his once stoic partner turned icy and disoriented, running his comforting touch over Red's shoulders that morning before trying to drag him from where he had holed himself up in their bed with the blinds drawn and a thin pillow stamped over his antennae to drown out the news broadcast detailing the future trial that week Teem had been listening to in the communal room. He had pulled away his fabric shield to look him in his dull eyes, manually switching over to feel his lover's racing heartbeat thrumming deep through his PAK as Red stared back through the gloom and flashed him another forced beam before sitting up to kiss him lightly on the cheek.
Don't look at me like that, Pur. I'm fine.
Fine.
Purple swallowed at the mere thought of the disgusting word, scolding himself for thinking something so bizarre and strenuous at a time like this and trying to remind himself that his husband was a strong, formidable force and would be alright if he returned to work for one day. Still, he couldn't shake the awful feeling that something was terribly wrong. He could feel it in his bones, feel it creeping up over every fanning nerve buzzing through his body. Lard Nar and Pem had plunged his other half into a deep, spiraling hole Purple hadn't been prepared for but was desperate to fix.
Red wasn't fine.
Purple returned to his tedious screws and bolts, thoroughly numbed to the bitter core as Len Tarf waited for an answer and finally gave up with a low, dejected sigh, settling on a time for Wednesday to see their next client and bopping off to the immaculate office in the front of the shop to relay the news as jovially as he could. Purple clutched at sparking wires and pulled them away in clumps, wincing at the miniscule jolts of familiar electricity rocketing through his gloved fingertips and grounding at his toes. He tried to focus, reminding himself to breathe every time he switched his hardware over to evaluate Red's pulse and feeling him bounce between a sickening high and a swelling, drooping low. Their future was uncertain with Lard Nar gone for the time being and unable to pay their rent with his opulent lifestyle, their family relying on Teem's self-defense classes and Purple's garage to scrap together enough money to keep them afloat as Red searched for a second job in a business that wasn't non-profit to work alongside his duties as a relief pilot and Kez quit her day job as Lard Nar's assistant to try and find something in the communications field. Purple couldn't let himself slip, holding it together for the sake of his miserable husband and his two sweet sisters as he nodded to himself and continued on with a bit more speed. They needed him, and he was determined to provide for them and keep them all afloat in the dastardly, nauseating shift in alliance they were all thrown into.
"Mr. Purple?" Len Tarf called across the bay, peeking curiously around the hatch leading to the main office as he held up a gleaming transmitter. "You have a call."
Purple frowned, annoyed that his renewed pace had been shattered once more. "Can't you take it? I'm elbow deep in grease right now!" He scolded, turning back and freezing when his little assistant's straight horns twitched back in unease.
"I'm sorry, Sir, but I think it's urgent." He said slowly, glancing to the side and holding out the device as Purple turned back with growing suspicion and shucked his gloves. "It's Mrs. Kez. She says she needs to talk to you."
Purple felt his breath hitch as a petrified lump formed in his throat, hurriedly moving to toss his stained gloves on the clear surface of his work bench and hastily stride across the short, messy bay to snatch for the transmitter and motion his faithful assistant on before closing the door behind him. He glanced down at the glowing screen, feeling his spooch lurch when he locked eyes with petite Kez and her pink, unnerved orbs glaring back at him.
"Purple, you need to come home, now!" She demanded before he could speak, cutting him off and opening up a mind-bending rant of unnerving realism he wasn't ready to deal with and making his head spin with a mixture of horrendous concern and disgusting detestation. "So, Teem and I were doing a puzzle on the couch because we got bored with the job search, right? And I was trying to help her feel for the pieces and we heard this weird music coming from your room, so I yelled for Red and said that I was happy he was playing his favorite songs again. Well, I didn't get any response, so I went over to check on him and he locked the door." She took a deep breath, silencing Purple once more when he tried to ask a frantic question and scrambled around to try and find his jacket through her story. "I knocked a few times and he's still not saying anything and the song on his Voyager is skipping and he hasn't fixed it so I'm getting really worried that he's done something that…t-that…oh, Vort, Purple! S-Should I call the emergency line?" She burst into tears as Purple slammed the transmitter down on his desk and fumbled to pull on his bomber before scooping it back up and tearing out across the bay.
"Wait until I get there! Len, I have to go now! Watch the shop!" He shouted, not waiting for a response before running out into the cold mist of the late morning, yelping and dodging a group of Inquisitorian students on their way to the Hatalca University down the block.
He almost didn't register that Kez had moved back to the door to terrifyingly knock again, trying not to cry against the heavily sinking pit in his stomach when he heard the telltale, disturbing skip of Red's favorite song on an alarming, droning loop playing in the background of the stifling, chocking air as Vortians of all ages tried to wave their cheery greetings to him before he sprinted around street corners and forced himself to keep going against the pop in his heaving lungs. He passed Torc's icecream shop, scanning the distance and interlacing his way through innocent passersby as they shouted in astonishment and yelled in frustration when he accidentally knocked heavy parcels and packages from their unsuspecting hands as he chillingly raced his way across the bustling city and broke into the semi-rural outskirts to the long cobbled path he had traveled thousands of times, noticing the soft, young tree line peak against the horizon.
Red was unstable.
Red was hurting.
This…this was a bad mix. He shouldn't have gone to work; he should have stayed and made his partner something to eat or cheered him up with corny jokes as they lazed through the afternoon.
Please.
Please be ok.
Purple scrunched up his face as he cut across yards and whole farms of shaggy beasts, feeling the first hot fringes of heartbreaking emotion sting at his frostbitten cheeks in the knife-like autumn air, clicking off the transmitter on impulse as Kez began to call out his beloved husband's name and resorting to rooting through his PAK for any reassurance that Red hadn't done the damming, body razing act he knew was already happening. He swallowed and clamped his trembling free hand over his mouth as he began to sob, ignoring the shocked questions pouring out of the pastry stands he and his partner frequented and forcing himself on despite the slow, uneven pulse bouncing back and piercing him through the spooch like another sizzling gunshot.
He…he…had Lard Nar's betrayal really pushed his partner to do something like this again? Did he feel so low that he felt he had to try and mask all feeling at all? Was he…oh, Vort no.
He could feel his husband in his PAK; cold, sluggish, disoriented.
Emotionless.
Expressionless.
Catatonic.
Purple neared the home stretch, blinded to the intense burn in his calves as he fumbled into his deep jacket pocket for his keycard, dropping the transmitter and hearing the thin screen shatter on the slick cobbles as he continued on against his better judgement.
Please.
Please.
Please.
He scrambled with the security system over the hatch to their home, frantically wiping away his tears as he scanned his identification card and leaned into the searing light of the retinal scanner eating away at his eye color before the hatch dinged out in approval and allowed him to frantically throw it open. He clambered through the archway, losing himself to his own mind-numbing fear and terror as Kez immediately bounded around a corner to grab up at his hand and force him deeper into their home. Teem had been feeling about the lock on the door, sightlessly running her skilled, shaking hands over the internal mechanisms she had managed to pop off as she picked and prodded at them with a thin wire Kez had found. Purple refused to acknowledge them through his frantic crying, yanking away from his tiny sister's light grip on his hand and pounding on the still locked tight hatch against the nauseating, soul-crushing sound of the beautiful song they had danced to at their wedding ringing over his overstimulated antennae like a haunting death sentence.
"H-Honey?" He whimpered through the frozen metal, urging Teem to work faster and squeezing his eyes shut as another horrendous, spine-breaking sob wracked his body and forced him further into the titanium as he tried again. "Please, Red, if you're holding out you have to say something! I-I'm never gonna judge you, baby, you know that and I'm always going to be here for you! Whatever you did we can figure it out together but please, just say something so I know you're ok!"
Silence.
"Red?! Please, answer me! Answer me right now you asshole!"
Nothing.
Purple felt something inside his horrified mind kick into overdrive at the lack of the comforting voice he needed so desperately, a deep seated, feral need to protect his partner washing over him and overriding his instinct to break down and cry. He gingerly reached out, taking Teem by the shoulders and ushering her away from the hatch before she could retort hotly in bewildered confusion, backing up and narrowing his eyes as he braced himself against the floor.
"Purple, you dumbass, what are you-" Teem yelped when she felt an intense rush of air kiss at her face as Purple growled out his violent willpower, lunching forward and slamming the whole of his bodyweight against the door. "Hey, hey! Stop! That's titanium and you're gonna hurt yourself!"
Purple didn't listen, feeling the hinges give a bit under the bruising, capillary-breaking throb in his shoulder as his joint ruthlessly popped. He didn't care; he had to get to his partner. He shouted another fervent war cry before racing forward and pounding against the doorframe, scrambling down with it when it rocketed off its hinges and dragged him to the floor with a deafening thud. He groaned, rolling over to stare up at the ceiling and collect himself as Kez screamed in blood-curdling panic and rushed around him to throw herself against the sedative high, pale body of his partner resting facedown against the floorboards in a pool of his own thick saliva. Purple rolled over onto his side and forced himself up as the world fell away, his terrified, broken gaze landing on the half-empty sedative vial discarded carelessly to the floor from within his partner's PAK. Everything seemed to move in slow motion when Kez hysterically moved Red onto his side as she bawled uncontrollably and palmed at his face as he mumbled something in an inebriated fog under his breath and attempted to open his eyes, letting them flutter shut when the light pouring into his stiflingly dark room pierced his now insipid eye color and nearly made him sick. He reached up with a shaky hand and tried to shield his face from the glare, muttering incoherent syllables in fragmented Irken as he slurred through his own disturbed, rambling cognition before chuckling weakly at something he thought he saw hanging in the air and reaching for it with trembling, frigid fingers. Purple let himself cry freely, flying forward to snatch at his husband's icy hands and stumbling over the door to pull him up into his lap as he drifted in and out of reality and threatened to pass out again. His entire body was limp and freezing, oozing through Purple's terrified grip like smooth bromine when he tried to keep his grasp over his shoulders and draw Red in to his chest in an attempt to warm him back to normal temperatures as he buried his face in his lover's neck and screamed in rasping, primitive frustration.
Red had done it.
He'd used sedatives again.
Purple hadn't been here to stop him.
Lard Nar's betrayal had pushed Red too far over the edge he had always dangerously walked since they had known each other, callously throwing him into the pit of inebriated, demonic misalignment he had fallen victim to so long ago. He had been beautifully clean for over two decades, painstakingly masking the microscopic pinprick of impulse hidden away and wonderfully cemented over by Purple's intense, blistering love and care. They had talked at length about his sedative addiction the closer their romantic relationship had become in the beginning, Purple learning that no matter how hard Red had tried to outrun his own fate, his sickening, dark addiction had always followed him like a gooey, viscous shadow of liquid agony. It hung over him every time he didn't get his way, every time he found himself at the mercy of violent war flashbacks, and every time his innermost depression crept to the forefront and ate him like a delicious, tall morsel.
"C-Call someone! Call someone!" Purple frantically pleaded, making sure Kez scrambled in the other direction as he dug into his partner's shoulders and attempted to hoist him up to his feet, only falling back down against the hard corner of their bedframe when Red rag dolled in his arms. "No, no, no, shit, Red, why did you do this? Why did you do this? Oh, Vort, please, baby, please. How much did you take? H-How much did you take?!" He whimpered on a wretched, feeble loop. He turned his partner's blue cheeks to face him, searching him for a long while and trying to see through the thin string of saliva dripping down his chin. "Sweetheart, can you hear me? I-I need to know how much you took!"
Red's answer wasn't articulate, a smeared out mixture of incomprehensible low Vortian songs he had picked up on the radio and hitching Irken speeches oozing up through his PAK memories from their past as Tallest as Purple let go of his jaw and winced in terror when his partner's cheek collided hard with his collarbone. He reached out and grabbed for the tiny medical vial on the floor, holding it up to the vivid light as Teem stood in dumbfounded shock in the doorway, hands outstretched and waiting for someone, anyone, to guide her on to a stable rationality as her wife called the emergency services in a fervent panic.
Red had swallowed down just over half of the gooey, sweet liquid before he collapsed in his own tears and self-loathing, taking fifteen times the allotted dose needed to soothingly removed aches and pains from the body in the event of harm, rendering him completely fried to the world and searing his biological braincells to dust as he lolled against his sobbing partner's petroleum stained chest. Piercing, intense sirens sounded in the distance as Purple planted a tear streaked kiss between Red's antennae for his own comfort, trying frantically to get his drug-laden stalks to perk from the limp tangle they had become as the emergency crews neared.
"Oh, fuck, Red, what have you done?!"
An undefinable amount of time in the distant past;
"There you are. Come here, you." Purple purred out teasingly, grabbing his partner by the shoulders and spinning him around where he had been reading in the Inquisitorian royal library, slamming his book down hard on the table and earning a frustrated growl from his partner's lips before it melted into something soft and sweet at the sensation of a deep, loving kiss taking him through the darkness. "It's four in the morning, Red. Are you going to come to bed or do I have to sleep by myself again because of your dorky reading habits?"
Red sneered mockingly when his partner lowered himself down into the adjacent seat, leaning forward on his elbow against the firm wood of the table and flashing him a wide, cheesy grin. "Shut up, idiot. They're not dorky." He mumbled, reaching back out for his book and feeling his frown deepen when he noticed Purple had carelessly bent the pages.
Purple snorted through a tiny laugh, blinking in the warm orange glow of the blistering fire sweltering in the massive fireplace further into the chamber. "Please, they totally are. You're such an old man." He reached out and poked Red lightly in the ribs through his silk cerulean gown, giggling when his lover batted him away and turned his back to him in his seat to resume his interesting tale. "Ugh, pay attention to me! I don't wanna sleep by myself! I want my tall, handsome man there to keep me company!" He leaned forward and ran an evocative touch over Red's arm, pouting when he shrugged away.
"Pur, this is a library." Red hissed in exasperation over his shoulder, gripping at the gilded cover of his book. "Don't you know how to be quiet? Let me finish reading this and then I'll come to bed with you, geez."
Purple narrowed his eyes challengingly, standing and grabbing for his chair before immaturely raking it across the floor to reverberate obnoxiously through the whole of the wide room. Someone else on the other side of the library grumbled out in irritated Inquisitorian, forcing Red to rake a humiliated hand up over his eyes and flatten his antennae in mortification, shutting his book and standing.
"Why do you have to do that?" He mumbled, terrified that the other reader huddled in the far corner would hear them again as he extended a hand for his smug, childish partner and rolling his eyes when he took it with a victory smile.
Purple led them on, entwining his fingers with Red's as they pushed through the massive, jewel encrusted door leading out of Sledhob's royal library and into the dark, dimly lit hallway of his mansion. "Do what? I was being polite and pushing my chair in." He winked when Red groaned, knowing he had won when a tiny, almost unseen smile flashed across his partner's weary face and laced his ocular lenses with amusement. "Let's go the long way. I wanna see the moons over the lake."
The long way.
Purple always took them this way when he wanted to get close, to feel Red's calloused hands trailing his body and smoothing up over his generously concealed thighs under his robes. It had become some sort of a code between them as they walked leisurely by thousands of panes of thin, glittering glass and stared out hand in hand at the gorgeous expanses of high-tech Inquisitorian cities splaying thickly up into the deep green skies of their personal nebula swimming with cosmic hues of magenta and vibrant blue. Five moons dotted the impressive lightshow, shimmering down over the artificial lake of liquid hydrogen Prime Minister Sledhob had commissioned to surround his massive gardens, peaking Purple's attention as his antennae craned forward and pressed to the windowpane to admire the millions of tiny white flower buds blooming under the pale, glorious light. Red knew he'd always loved moonflowers, always stopping to drink in the scent when they waltzed by their tightly shut bulbs during the daytime.
"Hey," Purple began, reaching out with his free hand to renew Red's fluttering attention through the peaceful, serene light. "You wanna play with me? I mean, like, play a game?" He reaffirmed, watching as Red's face immediately turned a deeper blue on impact. He leaned in, brushing his soft, warm lips against his lover's before instantly pulling away with a muted sigh. "I wanna play with you this time. Let's go down to the gardens and if you can find me in the maze in five minutes, I'll let you have me."
"You really want me to chase you, huh?"
"It's not for me. I know the hunt gets you going." Purple's voice was a ghost of a whisper, barely there and incredibly evocative of something hovering just beneath the surface. "So…come hunt me."
Red let his eyes flutter shut with a wild grin, feeling his body set alight when his partner pulled away completely, fingertips lingering against his as he beamed, followed by the sound of posh black ankle boots clicking delicately over the expensive white marble and sashaying off into the distance like a siren's song that had Red begging for more. He followed the expensive, opulent noise of his beautiful partner meandering down abandoned hallways and carved marble staircases, finally passing through the unprotected, covered archway that lead out into Sledhob's prized gardens. The smell was overwhelmingly sweet and dizzyingly floral, fluttering up over Red's antennae from the myriad of exotic petals dancing in the soft breeze when he caught sight of Purple working off his luxurious soles at the hydrogen fountain glittering in the low light from beyond.
Beautiful.
Everything about him was just right; the way the glow gleamed off of the scaly kaftan he pulled away from his narrow shoulders in one fluid sweep, the curve of his PAK under his gently swaying Inquisitorian silks, every languid sweep of long, blithe limbs and thin fingers running expanses of skin to tease his partner into submission as he approached. He was a god, a dreamlike, otherworldly apparition of luscious splendor. He moved forward on bare toes through the tenderly waving grass as another gentle wind kissed their skin, meeting Red halfway and holding back when he went to sling his arms around his waist and bring their eager mouths together, flashing him a coy smile and pressing a claw to his lips.
"You can have me if you win, but you have to work for it." He whispered with delectable seduction, urging Red's ready hands away and purring when he held them out in irritated but fascinated curiosity as Purple let his palms trail up over his chest to give him a tiny sip of the delicious triumph hovering on his color-flushed skylines. "And you better win."
Red blinked, feeling the same dark shade return to his cheeks when Purple dug his toes into the spongy soil to prepare for his takeoff. "And why's that? It's not really a game if you want me to win." He muttered, sighing shakily when his diffident mate grazed his perfect teeth up over his neck.
Without warning, Purple ripped away, shoving Red back and spinning on his heel to take off into the unbearably colossal maze of magnificent flowers and pearlescent rivers of pure moonlight revealing itself in languid sweeps before them.
"Because I want you and I wanna feel like a prize!"
Red grinned and shook his head with a hearty chuckle, taking off after his eventual forever and quickly losing himself to the shadows. He listened intently, rounding corners and bounding through shrubbery as his animalistic instincts took hold of his spooch and caused his pulse to escalate in excitement. He could faintly hear Purple's muted footsteps against the path, his claws scraping on purposeful accident against twigs and leaves to entice his lover on into the fun immaturity of their childish game. It was erroneous, but incredibly electrifying, the aroma of blooming florals obscuring Red's keen senses as his antennae twitched through the rustle of fluttering wind and the honied smell of well-rounded vanilla his other half bathed in swirling and mixing with the intoxicating fragrance numbing his mind into submission.
Purple laughed affectionately from somewhere deep in the shrubbery, setting Red's form alight with a blinding need as a peculiar growl bubbled up in his throat and he kicked off his leather boots, leaving them behind in the dusty summer soil as he continued on and connected himself back to the natural beauty of the planet they had learned to call home. He wanted Purple, but he also wanted the chase. It awoke something primal in the pit of Red's logical soul, showing him the deeply ingrained instinct for companionship they all fought for in this world and reminding him why he had fallen so madly in sweet, wholesome love with Purple in the first place. He was silky soft under his touch with a mouth and mind unlike any other, spouting out hot curses and carefully tamed, liquid praise on a dime and completely captivating Red with his unique, boisterous voice. He danced sweetly and waltzed vibrantly with Red's acute senses to keep him on his light toes and capture his animalistic fervor, daring him with his sweltering eyes and beckoning hands as he only gave him just enough of a bite to have him craving desperately for more. He was the opulent spiced wine Red liked to pound back, the untamable flicker of blue plasma radiating from the booming blast of a pistol, and the epitome of everything it meant to be a soulmate.
Purple was his soulmate.
He felt it in every bone, every heaving tendon as he raked through twigs and scented the atmosphere with quivering stalks, shooting rigid and listening intently to every minute sound as his eyes flew wide to adjust to the low, luminous light. It was tender, affectionate warfare, chess even, Red taking a few carefully placed steps only to hear them mirrored skillfully by his beautiful partner deeper into the bright green maze swallowing them and giving way to their romantic toying. Every shiny leaf and breezy petal was a page turning him closer to the end of his prized story, inching him along to the flawless expanses of scrumptious milky skin he wanted to taste, to the infinitely profound words of undying love and adoration that would be whispered tenderly against his balmy parted lips, and towards the hands that would shock him awake like a mild defibrillator when his partner's amorous gestures would stop his pulse.
"Running out of time." Purple's voice was so unbearably close, Red spinning immediately on his heel in a cloud of bursting excitement and lunging forward only to get a face full of tiny sticks and rustling plants.
He coughed with an embarrassed grumble when his partner giggled, letting him know he was watching like an omnipotent, stunning phantom from the gloom as Red kept on and kicked up dirt as he went, irritated when he lost the scent of his lover's signature perfume. He was near, Red could almost sense it, stopping once again and letting his antennae give in to the hoots and whizzing of Inquisitorian ships in the distant bustling city as he went deeper, noticing the tiny pinpricks of motion from sluggish insects and creatures darting here and there. He swallowed with a frown, craning to go deeper still, picking up on a faint, halfway concealed sigh lilting down from the eerily haunting radiance splayed above them as Red smirked with a knowing smile.
Gotcha.
He spun and reached up to the top of the hedge, earning a surprised, wholly unanticipated squeak in return as he latched on to the cheating arm of his clever partner inching his way along the top of the carefully manicured rows as he tried to make his hasty escape. He put up a rowdy fight, growling and snarling through his teeth in between giggles and untamed laughs as Red wrangled him down from his leafy throne and yelped when Purple deviously complied, letting the whole of his bodyweight flop down on top of his partner and knocking him from his feet to the hard path below. Purple pushed up first to take off and salvage the two minutes they had left, yelling in sudden surprise when Red caught him by the ankle and ruthlessly tugged him back down before pouncing lightheartedly on his back and pinning him to the stony walkway beneath them, chuckling when his partner choked on a mouthful of spongy moss as he struggled and writhed to break free but found himself at the complete mercy of his mischievous lover. Red eased back a bit with a smug blink, rolling Purple onto his back as he grinned before plopping back down over his chest to straddle him and bristling in pride at the untamable victory he had been clever enough to bring himself to. Neither of them spoke, a mess of exhausted pants and eager grins glinting in the moonlight and daring the other to go further and touch places set ablaze with lust, prompting Red's heavy breathing to hitch and reach out for a creamy white, fragile flower from afar on impulse. Purple watched him with needy, half lidded eyes, reaching up with his free hand to graze at the seam of his partner's robes as he plucked the beautiful object of his affection from the shrubbery and leaned down, molding the long stem carefully around the base of his partner's antennae and only pulling back with a breathless sigh when Purple rolled his eyes.
"You know how you said you're dorky?" He whispered through the darkness, trying to blow a fat petal from his forehead as Red scraped his long, polished claws down his sides. "I take it back. You're soft. A total softie!"
Red laughed anxiously, snaking a careful palm up over the newly exposed flesh of his partner's thigh as a primal, untamed need took him over. "Geez, I'm not soft so don't laugh and don't tell anyone but," he paused, mulling over how to go about explaining what he wanted to say, "they remind me of you."
"What? The flowers?"
"Eh…yeah. They're pretty. And they smell nice."
"So, you're saying I'm pretty? Gross."
"It's not gross if it's true. You're beautiful and handsome at the same time and…I dunno. Everything, I guess? You're everything I want in my life so don't ever go anywhere. I want you here forever but if you ever feel like you don't want me then- "
Purple giggled and wiggled an arm free to press a tender finger to his partner's lips, overcome by the sticky, caramelized melodiousness pouring in long strings of buttery goodness off of his lover's lips as he tried an attempt at being flirtatious but drastically failed, succumbing almost immediately back to his usual grumpy irritation when he lost his train of thought.
"You don't have to worry about that, Red. I want you more than any man I've ever met, and I'll always be your moonflower."
A Private Room of the Hatalca Multi-Species Hospital;
Red let his raw eyelids flutter open with a long, low groan as he was shot with a needle of Narcan, immediately feeling the delicious numbness of his coveted, needed high flood away to be replaced by an awful, nauseating clarity that he wasn't prepared for and the deafening sound of medical boots clicking hastily on tile. He hissed in agony when a portly Vortian doctor forced his eye wide with skilled fingers and flashed a searing light against his sweltering eye color, checking the cones of his internal retinas before moving on to the other and repeating the same agonizing procedure. He growled again, long and low, and threatened to bite rearing back against the medical bed his previously limp body had been slung over before blinking in delirious uncertainty when trembling, soft fingers clamped around his and squeezed.
He tried to turn, swallowing against the acidic burn in his scratchy throat as his husband leaned forward to rest his chin against the sterile guardrail of the bed as kind nurses chattered behind them and prepared a cool cloth to drape over Red's sweat-slicked forehead as he groaned. Purple reached out with his free hand when his partner's grip faltered, massaging soothing circles over his deep shoulder scar in an attempt to give him some kind of rhythmic stability through the nausea and swimming disorientation hanging over him like a violent thunderstorm. He was so thirsty, trying to ask for something to drink but feeling his drug-swamped mind fail him when the gentle hands of a dutiful aid pressed a calming, soaked rag to his forehead and moved back, turning off the lights per Purple's hushed request before closing the door to monitor their patient's vitals from the station outside.
"Flo…wer….moon…" Red managed to slur out in his remaining heavy misunderstanding, blinking away the remnants of bright light from his eyes as he readjusted to the soothing darkness and coughed, feeling a horrid headache rip through the back of his throbbing skull.
"Moonflowers? Where did that come from? I wore those to our wedding." Purple whispered, keeping up his comforting motions as his husband writhed in discomfort against the stiff sheets stifling him into oblivion. He sniffed thickly, trying to keep it together for both their sakes as Red whined and flicked his wilted antennae forward into nothing before letting them fall back against his pillow and go completely limp. "You wore rubies and charcoal and were so handsome. I'm not gonna lie, you sorta blew my mind. A-And you swept me off my feet and danced with me in front of hundreds of people even though you looked like a dumbass with cake all over your face."
Purple bit his lip at his feeble attempts to rid himself of his own creeping flood of uncontrollable grief, bringing Red's fingers to his forehead when he couldn't hold back any longer, letting go a torrent of soul-crushing, wet agony against his flaccid arm as he nuzzled into his partner's feverish skin and cried.
"I'm sorry, I'm trying not to cry! I-I'm so happy you're alright!" He whimpered, hastily bringing his husband's confused fingers to his mouth and peppering his claws with tiny, frantic kisses. "You…you almost overdosed, Red. W-Why? Why did you do that?" He knew Red couldn't answer at the moment and tried to keep his voice low to the headache he was sure he was experiencing, stroking at every bit of exposed, ashen flesh he could find as he hovered close and let his puffy, teary eyes fall shut.
"I love you. I love you so much and it's all going to be ok now. We're going to get through this together." He took a deep, broken, shaky inhale when Red tried to renew his grip on his fingers, helping him with his other hand to clasp his claws in his. "I'm not going anywhere, I promise. Teem and Kez are guarding the door so no one else comes in without permission." He thought a moment, feeling another single, scalding tear scroll down his still oil-smeared features. "I know I wasn't there for you the first time this happened back when we were young, but I will never let that happen again. You're so loved, honey….so loved and we're gonna fight this together, you and I. Ok?"
He also realized it was the stress, the sheer heartbreak of losing someone so close and special to his heart that he could hardly stand the thought of dealing with his emotions in a healthy way through exploration and words. Red still wasn't good with his emotions or the processing of his own internalized trauma, hovering at a half empty mess of depressive thoughts and PTSD waiting to drain away to nothing and leave him without the gorgeous influence of serotonin to calm his battered thoughts. Purple was that, the happiness fluttering jovially through his partner's mind and keeping him stable and functioning, the anchor that consistently reminded him that he was more than his constantly simmering anger and his shady past; he was a devoted husband, a formidable pilot, a hilarious friend, and a warmhearted brother.
He was still Lard Nar's brother.
No matter how much Red denied it, no matter how much he had claimed he had brutally disowned his closest Vortian friend and forced his image miles from his hopeless thoughts, Purple knew the truth. He still loved and cared for Lard Nar deep down in his secretly sensitive soul and it was tearing his husband to thin, immeasurable shreds at the thought of someone so substantially needed, so brutally desired in his tangible reality that he had opted to pump his bloodstream full of sedatives rather than continue to think.
Purple didn't care about their gut-wrenching fight in the moment or the potential ramifications of what would happen with the whole deadly Pem debacle, he didn't even care that Lard Nar had ruined their first attempt at a sweet, amorous honeymoon.
They were family.
Family stuck together.
He, Red, Teem, Kez, and Lard Nar were all family. They had overcome adversity, slander, racism, homophobia, and entire administrations attempting to rake across the cosmos and annihilate everything they held dear. Purple didn't just have his own blood pumping warmly through his veins; he held the blood of his sisters, his brother, and his partner and that meant they were bonded to one another no matter if they were blind and raunchy, overly anxious and excitable, reanimating dead corpses for fanatical love interests, or pumping their system full of damaging, nerve-eating drugs. They were broken, disgusting, sickening individuals with enough combined mental issues to put them all in an insane asylum. But, they were broken together.
Together…they were all meant to be together.
Purple shushed Red when he continued to squirm restlessly through the woozy pain and throw high pitched moans through the dark when he tried not to pass out, reaching up and taking the now chilly cloth from his searing hot skin and running the cool liquid down his partner's flushed cheeks. He moved to his panting chest, leaning over the guardrail to plant a gentle kiss to the side of his mate's face when he began to feebly sob through the lucid feeling of weakened illness overtaking each of his exhausted extremities as his PAK hummed to rid his ailing body of the conquering amount of liquid sedative he had ingested.
"I-It…hurts…it hurts, Pur. I'm sorry…"
Purple lit up at the sound of his partner's raspy, unwell voice breaking the petrifying silence as he grappled with his excruciating comedown. Was this how it was last time when Red was still a commander in the Elite?
"Shut up. Don't be sorry for stuff like this, idiot." Purple kissed at his claws once more feeling his partner inch into the familiar sensation he craved in his liminal fear. "I'm here, Red, and I'm not gonna judge you. I-I just want you to get better for me."
Red struggled to form a coherent sentence, trying to mouth out a plead for the agony in his skull to stop as he shuddered and shivered violently under the blankets keeping him from freezing to death as he sweated out the noxious chemicals in his body.
Purple noticed, humming against his partner's trembling skin as he tried to hold back his own viscous emotion and not let them take him for his husband's sake. "Where does it hurt? Show me." He breathed tenderly, standing and wiping his cheeks when Red was able to halfway reach up and gesture to the base of his sore, excruciating neck before letting his feeble arms flop back at his side to squeeze his eyes shut and tense every muscle in his body.
Purple sang peaceful nonsense he made up as he went along, positioning himself behind the head of his panting partner's bed, letting his gentle fingers flutter down to rest against the quivering base of his antennae as he dug the pads of his amorous digits into specific pressure points and waited for a response. When he made it to the base of his skull he felt his partner groan in overwhelming relief, pressing back into his hands as if a pressure had just been lifted from his shoulders and neck to give him some semblance of tranquility and rest from the trauma he had endured. Purple kept up his impromptu massage for several minutes to pacify his mate's blistering migraine and smiled softly through the shadows as Red began to drift off, ceasing his wild writhing and agonizing whimpers and instead falling deadweight in his sympathetic hands as his breathing slowed to a manageable, less hectic inhale. He was still sweating profusely, soaking Purple's already filthy jacket sleeves as he watched the now gentle rise and fall of his chest and manually checked his pulse in his PAK hardware. Red's blood pressure was deathly low from the unwarranted shock to his system and his pulse skipped intermittently, something he was sure the nurses were carefully eyeing on their monitors outside.
It was agonizing to see...Red this unbearably sick.
Finally, he was able to soothe and lull his pained husband to some semblance of sleep, withdrawing his hands completely to dutifully preen at the feathered stalks of his antennae on impulse. He couldn't help himself, ancient instinct taking over as he ran his careful touch over each and every segment to devotedly smooth every individual hair into its proper place, glancing up to his partner's bare chest every so often to check his breathing and feeling his own terrifying, soul-crushing horror retreat back into his still anxious mind. He couldn't let Red get this bad again…couldn't see him comatose in his own saliva on the floor of the place that was supposed to herald in their domestic bliss. He would take off a few weeks from the shop and rely on Len Tarf and his capable hands to run things so he could stay home and monitor his husband's withdrawal and ensure he didn't relapse by peppering him with sweet kisses, affectionate holds, and delicious pastries. They would be ok…he had to keep telling himself that they would be ok.
As soon as they left the hospital, whenever that would be, Purple had to swallow his pride and set up a visitation with Lard Nar before his trial. He had to talk with him, had to tell him what had happened, and had to hear the side of his story he had so desperately tried to frantically yell and scream at the two before he was torn away from his love and shoved in a heavily armored ship for transport. Whatever the reason was, whatever sickness was bouncing through his tiny friend's skull, he had to talk with him.
He had to mend their family.
"Excuse me! I-I need to see Mr. Red and Mr. Purple, please!"
Purple blinked at the sound of a squeaky, tiny voice piping up nervously outside the closed hatch of Red's medical room, listening intently as Teem gently turned her down.
"Sorry, sweetie, but you'll have to stop by to see Commander Red when he's all better ok? He can't take you in his ship for a ride right now." Teem's voice was level and motherly, growing exasperated and overly hostile whenever whoever it was presumably tried to reach out for the handle and throw open the hatch. "Woah, kid! Beat it or I'm gonna have to beat you with my walking stick!"
Kez picked up the slack as Purple looked from his gently slumbering lover to the door, rolling his eyes in annoyance when the tiny voice caused his partner's antennae to twitch into the sweltering distress. "Oh, you tiny little thing! Mr. Red isn't feeling too well right now but you can come by the house when he's better to talk with him."
Purple grumbled to himself, quickly but quietly crossing the room when the wholly infuriating voice piped back up and made him want to punt whoever it was clear across the lobby for damaging the calm of his husband's much-needed, well deserved sleep.
"But I need to talk to Mr. Purple and Mr. Red! Please?"
Purple threw open the hatch and quickly shut it behind him with a soft click to avoid accidentally blinding Red to the light, letting his infuriated gaze trail down to the small blip of a nuisance holding a bundle of hand-picked flowers in her trembling hands. She was a wide-eyed Vortling, and a tiny one at that, with unformed nubs of horns poking gently from her smooth grey skin as she stared up in awe at the lanky Irken towering above her. Her deep blue eyes glistened with overwhelmed fright as she lifted a quivering arm up to present Purple with the shriveled, drooping flowers she had stumbled upon on her long trek to find them. He frowned in discomfort, stooping to her miniscule level and looking over the odd gift before taking the pathetic bundle and trying to figure out where he knew the terrified girl from. She didn't look familiar, with a thick splay of freckles tossed over her apple cheeks like stars and a creamy white dress uniform neatly pressed over her form and stained with black mud at the hem of her skirt. She was incredibly disheveled with bits of debris and dirt smeared over her face, reaching up with impulsively intrigued fingers to brush at his cheek and take away a thick glob of motor oil hanging along his jawline.
"Y-You're dirty." She said simply in a squeaky whimper, holding up her grimy finger for her to see as he straightened back up. She immediately panicked when he went to turn, throwing her arms in the air and bouncing for him to pay attention to her. "Mr. Purple! Mr. Purple! I want my Daddy!" She called in anguish, threatening to cry as Teem clicked her claws apathetically over her cane.
Purple huffed under his breath, not wanting to deal with something so trivial at such a daunting, troubling moment in his life. He stamped a false grin over his face and glared down, hoping to intimidate the little child into leaving and never returning. "Don't you have a mom to pester?" He mused sweetly, letting his improvised smile fall flat in confusion when the Vortling shook her head and grabbed uncomfortably at the front of her dress.
"I-I don't think I have a Mommy." Her lip quivered and Kez bounded forward, wrapping her in a tight embrace as she burst into a round of untamable wailing.
"Sweetie, what do you mean you don't have a mommy?" Kez whispered, running a loving touch over her horns as she sniffed and grabbed at her pink sweater. "Are you lost? What's your name?"
"N-No! I'm not lost! I looked up your house in the address book where I live and I-I came to find you because I saw on the news that…that you know my Daddy! I-I want my Daddy! Please!"
Purple wasn't following, picking at the limp petals in his hands and glancing over to where Teem had flattened her sensitive antennae to her head to try and inch away from the protruding, shrill nonsense unfolding disgustingly before them. "I'm sorry, I don't know you." Purple said slowly, wondering if he should try and call someone to come pick up the hysterical mess blubbering over the shoulder of his friend before his blood ran cold at her next statement.
"I-I heard stories from the guard that took me from Daddy that he was an en…en…en..gi..neer." She sounded out the word and rolled it through her mouth.
Purple swallowed, letting his expression fall flat in terror as his jaw went completely slack. What? That couldn't be. There was no conceivable way that was possible. He…she…no. No.
"How old are you?"
"I-I'm 35."
"And…what did you say your name was?"
"I-I'm Nea. Nea Gen."
Poor Red. We were mean to him this time. But, he's always recovering and I have faith that he'll be ok. I love you all and I hope you guys have a good evening, morning, or afternoon depending on where you are and what time you're reading this! Thank you angels!
Next Update: Wednesday, December 18, 2019 at 10:00 pm CDT (UTC -5)! See you then!