Day 12: I Think I've Broken Something
Prompts Used: Broken Trust
(( as much as it hurts, this arc was literally perfect for the prompt-
this one's more angsty than whumpy, but still counting it since Xaerez is emotionally vulnerable rather than physically ))
Spoilers For: Crisis on Umbara/traitor arc
Warnings: None
Ship: Imperial Agent/Theron Shan
Characters: Rediaex'aere'zortiea (Cipher Nine - Chiss), Theron Shan (mentioned only)
Xaerez hadn't seen the signs.
Now, he was kicking himself for it. They'd been there. They'd been obvious if he'd just paid attention. The way Theron would avert his eyes when anything went wrong? It just wasn't like him.
Xaerez had never believed love could blind.
Clearly, it could.
With a deep breath, he closed his eyes as he leaned heavily against the desk. A week already. No leads. Nothing. Xaerez…he still didn't want to accept it. Maybe that made him a fool. He was a spy himself, for crying out loud. He'd done his fair share of playing with other's emotions to get what he wanted. But what they had…
Another breath. In, out, as he reached blindly for his mask where it lay at the edge of the desk.
Head high, voice even, he told himself. No one needs to know how it's affecting you. They don't need to know that you've barely slept since it happened.
Hearing implants adjusted (yeah, maybe he'd tuned Lana out when she was outside his door earlier, pretended to sleep instead of hearing whatever she had to say about Theron), mask on. He lifted his head, looked at his reflection in the monitor at his desk.
He saw the graying hair at his temples Theron would tease him about. He saw the way his shoulders slouched with exhaustion and hurt and confusion—he straightened them, but it was like trying to do so while weights were hanging off of them. Saw the mask, still with a cracked lens from jumping out of the train on Umbara. Usually, he would have replaced it by now.
At least the mask would hide the bags under his eyes and the tremble in his lip.