Chapter 35: Kevlar Skin.
'Cause underneath this kevlar skin
I'm waiting for you to uncover me.
And in this armored prison cell
I'm hiding my scars.
Something had to be said for the fact that today had easily been the most headway he'd made with his investigation.
Darius wasn't quite sure exactly what, though.
It was the thrice-be-damned Bullheads he'd sunk into the harbor's waters, along with all souls aboard. Following a thorough combing through the video feeds and the intercepted RFID data from the harbor's monitoring equipment with Intel the transports have been conclusively identified to belong to a minor logistics company that was more of a front for a local syndicate than anything else. The odd thing out: both downed Bullheads (as well as the surviving third one, for that matter) were listed as decommissioned more than half a year ago, and certainly neither of the three were certified for chassis armament emplacements.
The latest report caught up with him the moment he stepped out of the trial: whether through oversight or simply driven to panic by tonight's events, all three airships have been flagged for emergency maintenance at a facility linked to a subsidiary of the very same syndicate. It was only for a brief instance, an opportunity that would have gone to waste if the agents didn't know which exact identification numbers to look for, but they now had conclusive evidence of the White Fang cooperating with local organized criminal elements. Armed with that knowledge and the fact that none of the three Bullheads' IDs tripped up within the municipal databases logging outbound flights, meaning that, in all likelihood, none of the stolen Dust left the city by air, the list of possible locations where one could discreetly store such amounts of illicit merchandize narrowed down to a number Darius could count on one hand. A single lucky break had put him within striking distance of his targets… all for a low, low price of something just south of a hundred lives.
He blinked, brow furrowed as he ran his eyes over the plaque overlooking one of an intersection's corridors that read 'to the infirmary ward'. The winding pathways of the Order's headquarters have led him multiple times through this intersection today as he debriefed the Operations department with an amount of paperwork that approached the sum total of all writing he'd done this semester, called his own trial and coordinated with Intel and their agents in the city to capitalize on the new information. Yet the inscrutable pathways of his own mind traveled further still, all the way to the bulkhead at the end of the corridor, taking an immediate left and the second right to the cell closest to the clinic's administrative quarters, or, more specifically, to the patient resting within. It was not a proud realisation that he'd made that journey a great deal more often than he'd physically walked this intersection.
He shook his head, rubbing at his temple with his thumb and covering his eyes with the palm, but that was the one moment of respite he'd allow himself. Turning away, he made to stride towards yet another matter that required resolution, yet his gait broke before he'd made a single step as his mind scrolled all the way to the bottom of his to-do list… and came up empty. All legal ramifications from the Order's side have been accounted for and taken care of, city-side agents were busy collating information about the suspected storage locations, his prepared report to Ozpin and Qrow has been received, and even the question of equipment has been resolved, with his gear cleaned and shined and a replacement chestpiece currently seated firmly upon his torso. Replacing the mask was a somewhat more delicate matter, but even that couldn't take longer than a week. A realisation set in that at the current junction, nothing was stopping him from just… making the trip to the ward and finally taking Blake back to Beacon. Away from the mess he'd embroiled her in. It was equal parts exhilarating and chilling.
He turned around once more, his gaze now cast down the hallway, a tremor rumbling deep within his chest that couldn't be mistaken for anything other than his own heart pounding like a jackhammer against his ribs. A body that could storm through a marathon in full combat gear and come out only slightly winded, reduced to struggling against a suffocating tightness in his lungs as his mind reckoned with a simple truth.
He wasn't ready. All the preparations made today, every legal loophole invoked and laid out; none of it would amount to anything without him taking the one step left to walk and laying out before Blake exactly what options were available to her. The one step he'd been far too consumed by the more urgent matters to even consider preparing for, and one he suspected he wouldn't be ready for if he had all the time until the sun above Remnant went dark. Darius knew better than to claim absolute certainty in any subject, much less the workings of another's mind, but the part of him that jabbed at the back of his mind with uncomfortable questions ever since he awoke from the decidedly unpleasant discussion with himself had a fairly solid idea of where Blake leaned.
Darius wasn't sure what he dreaded more: the premise of it being wrong, or the consequences of it being right.
He knew for sure, however, that milling about at this intersection wasn't going to help him in any way, shape, or form. Given the choice between getting a hold of his mind or his body, the latter seemed by far the easier choice. Thus, with gritted teeth and clenched fists, he steadied his breathing and made his way to Blake's cell, memories of the moments the two shared both within his trance and without assaulting his mind like harpies. It worked… to a point. If nothing else, it got him all the way to her doorstep. It was there that his strategy backfired, a memory spearing him like a bolt of lightning as he reached for the doorknob.
He stumbled a couple steps to the side, grasping at his head and having to lean against the wall just to keep himself upright, powerless to resist the deluge of sensations. He remembered the softness of her arms as they wound around him, so vivid he could all but feel the scorching heat radiating off her body. He remembered her pulse thrumming against his neck as she spoke to him in breathless whispers, and how right it felt to press her form closer against his. He remembered how, for a scant few seconds that stretched to an extent that should have been impossible by every conceivable law of time and space, the many fetters, chains, and bindings that weighed upon him that he wasn't even aware of seemed to just… melt away. It was a feeling tantamount to taking off the blinds for the very first time in one's life: an acute understanding of how the world truly was, how it was meant to be, and his place in it. A euphoria he had felt only once before, under circumstances much more grim.
'I don't think you're at fault for what happened to you.'
You hope that she's wrong, do you not? Rather throw your life away in penance nobody demands than accept that you've wasted a few years in a tragic overthinking accident.
All to spite yourself.
Darius winced, tightening the grasp upon his head as reality set back in, thoughts that barely felt like his own reverberating with a hollow ache every time one rebounded inside his skull. He could almost hear his own scolding voice as though that damnable apparition stood right beside him, lips creased in a mix of contempt and pity as its eyes bored through to the very center of his soul. But, of course, as his eyelids parted once more, he was the only one standing in the hallway.
He sighed.
"If tonight was any indication, there'll be plenty to atone for by the time I'm done, whether or not she remains involved," he rebuked, his voice just barely audible. He held no illusions just what it looked like from the side, and he couldn't help but feel that at least some microscopic part of his psyche that yet maintained a grasp on reality had to be fucking hysterical from the absurdity of the situation. But with his own mind feeling like it hardly even belonged to him, he had to take the battle elsewhere.
Please. Even she couldn't pretend she wouldn't have murked them in your place.
"Well, she wasn't, now was she? I was in my place! I wouldn't have needed to kill them in the first place if I just didn't involve her!"
Pure conjecture, we've been over this.
But if you really are in the mood for hypothetical situations, then ponder this: had tonight gone without a hitch, would you still be agonizing about your decision like this?
His breath caught, balance faltering. There was an irresistible urge to just cover his ears, but even in this addled state Darius was aware enough to understand exactly how little that would amount to.
It's not even the decision you're regretting: you're just sour it didn't go how you planned! Things happened that you didn't account for and you had to share a little too much a little too fast!
"I just-"
And now you'd brush aside everything that is being offered to you, freely, rather than admit what you've known all along!
"Darius?"
Reality snapped into focus, the delirious haze that pervaded his consciousness gone in less than a second as his eyes flung open in the direction of the sound, memory catching up within a few neuronal pulses. He let out the breath he'd been holding, likely preparing to launch some fevered rebuttal that would have destroyed his last pretenses to sanity, and his hand braced him against the wall to push himself mostly upright, as opposed to 'barely'. Most of that, however, was done on autopilot, as his gaze and attention alike were drawn wholly to the burning amber in Blake's eyes, who was leaning out from the doorframe. She was sporting her combat raiment once again, which did her no favors in terms of concealing body language, but he suspected that was way low on her priority list, as both her voice and the look in her eyes radiated worry.
...As did her ears. A fact he first noted offhandedly, yet which attracted progressively more of his attention as he absorbed every detail on pure reflex. After months of careful observation spent learning the hidden tells and ticks of every member of his team as his training bade him, this facet of Blake's anatomy, now on full display, seemed both like a treasure trove of information… and like an invalidation of months of work. Where noticing the slight twitches of her 'bow' required both foreknowledge of what to look for and close attention, when unbound, they couldn't seem to stop moving for a second, and their current posture - turned to the side and inclined slightly - painted the same picture.
It occurred to him that he was staring, and that, perhaps, a reply was warranted. He took those observations in stride, seeing in them a sign that, by some miracle, his faculties may be returning to him. Clearly not up to the usual standard, though: a hundred potential answers rifled through within the time it took him to blink once, and none of them satisfactory or even halfway passable. He sighed, settling on the most basic one:
"Hey, Blake."
He noted with a kind of dejected horror how he didn't even have the wherewithal to at least try and mask the exhaustion in his voice. Not that it would have held up against her anyway, he suspected. Her eyes shifted to look briefly within her cell as she spoke to an unseen third:
"Give me a minute, okay, Erin?"
Ah. That makes sense. I-
If there ever was some mental tangent he was about to go off on, it was cut short the instance Blake's arms wrapped around him in a brief yet powerful hug, catching him completely off-guard and even sending him stumbling a couple steps back to compensate. It was a far cry from yesterday with his armor in between them, but more than enough to send a familiar rush of warmth through his heart. Even his own traitorous consciousness seemed to relent at that, pangs of guilt retreating somewhere too deep to register, letting him simply enjoy the moment as it went.
Blake pulled away shortly after, but not far enough to take her hand off his left shoulder, eyes looking up at him in a tentative inquiry. For his part, Darius still felt too numb for an actual reaction. Swallowing the lump in his throat, the only response he managed to muster was a choked:
"...Why?"
The Faunus' feline ears twitched slightly, swiveling around their axes.
"Since when did this need a reason? You looked like you could use one," her response came with a quirked eyebrow and a small lopsided grin. "Is everything all right?"
Just a few moments ago, this exact question would probably have him convulsing on the floor in a fit of hysterical laughter as the absurdity of it all boiled over the threshold that he could reasonably tolerate, endure, or resist. Even now, he felt the urge. A chain reaction of collapsing dignity, restraint, even common sense, all set off by simply asking 'is everything all right?' of someone in the middle of arguing aloud with himself, foaming and bubbling all the way to the surface-
-only to fizzle out into nothing once it reached it. Maybe he was just too tired for that kind of energy expenditure. Or maybe the embrace they shared, however brief, was enough of a stabilizing influence to keep his sanity and dignity intact for one more instance. Either way, a weary smile from him was the only reflection of the turmoil that came and went.
"I… think we established pretty firmly the other day that there's plenty wrong with me, Blake," Darius said. With another glance at the hand upon his shoulder, his left rose to take hold of it instead and gave it a light squeeze, allowing himself just one more brief moment to close his eyes and focus on its gentle warmth. But no longer. "But I'm better than I was a minute ago. You were right, I did need this. Thank you."
He wouldn't have believed it if he didn't see it, but he could swear that Blake's smile turned bashful for a split-second, gaze stumped as her own digits wrapped around his grip.
"You thanking me every time I treat you like a human being is going to get stale one day," she chided him, but in full contradiction to the words coming out of her mouth, her ears relaxed considerably, returning to what Darius had to assume was their resting state: perked up and facing forward. "But I guess I'll give you a pass this one time."
Her expression turned somber.
"But seriously, Darius, you look terrible. I saw the timestamp on your message. Did you even get any sleep?"
"Please, Blake. I've stayed up longer helping Ruby and Yang cram for exams just earlier this week," he attempted simply brushing the question off, but his heart just wasn't in it. He sighed. "But... no. I've been running on aura for most of the day."
"And unless you've really been holding out on me, I don't remember you having a breakdown the night before that," she remonstrated him, wholly ignoring his attempt at humor.
"I think Weiss is the only one who takes her studies this seriously."
"Then you haven't seen Ruby when she had to retake the Electrical Engineering exam," came a clipped reply, and the tone in which it was conveyed brooked no argument. "And we're not continuing this argument in the middle of a hallway."
Darius eyed their current location.
"That's fair."
"Will you… are you going to be alright around Erin? I know you need to keep up appearances and all-"
"I should be able to hold it together long enough to tell him he's free for the day," he reassured her. "Probably best if we let go for that part, though."
His fingers rapped lightly against the back of her hand as he briefly glanced down.
"...Probably."
The two unclasped hands. Darius could only hazard a guess as to his own expression, despite his attempts to keep it neutral, but Blake didn't even bother masking her disappointment. The degree to which it resonated with him alarmed him greatly, but did not surprise.
The cell greeted him in a state almost identical to the one he left it in, save perhaps for one very awkward Erin standing not quite at attention, but far from relaxed. It would appear the boy began feeling like a third wheel before he ever entered. The situation clearly required mending.
Darius grinned slightly, nodding to his fellow servant.
"It's good to see you, Erin," he said with complete sincerity. Being able to address somebody he didn't have to either report to, bear testimony to, coordinate with, or order about for the first - second, if only technically - time today was a great relief. He even allowed himself a spot of humor, smile widening ever so slightly. "I trust Blake was on her best behavior?"
The indignant look he got from Blake amused him greatly, as did Erin's glassy-eyed expression as he attempted to formulate an answer that wasn't going to earn him his charge's deserved ire. Darius could almost see the gears grinding against each other. In the end, the boy just gave up with a shrug.
"Which answer lets me walk out alive?"
"This one will do," he responded with a laugh. "All your duties for the day have been relegated, as promised. Master Wilhelm says it was high time he gave you some time to unwind anyway."
"And that's his idea?!"
The boy sighed, shaking his head. When he looked up to Blake, Darius couldn't help but take note of the uncertainty in his gaze.
"I'll be going, then, ma'am?.."
"I'll tell him everything, Erin," his friend nodded.
What might that be about?..
"I'm glad I got to know you," Blake continued, giving him a small smile. "I… I hope the next time we meet will be under better circumstances."
"Feeling's mutual, ma'am… Blake," the young servant corrected himself after a short pause. He perked up as an idea seemed to spring up in his head. "Maybe next time you'll tell me how Hunters do things!"
Blake chuckled.
"That'd be appropriate."
"If possibly life-threatening, given the potential context of that meeting," Darius supplied, approaching Erin and extending his hand. Looking more than a little nonplussed, the boy nonetheless accepted the proffered limb and shook it vigorously.
"Thank you for agreeing to this," he said. "You've helped put my mind at ease a great deal during today. I owe you dearly."
Erin nodded, albeit reluctantly.
"I guess peace of mind is hard to come by for everyone nowadays. Just hope I never need to actually cash it in."
"Much rather just hold it over my head in perpetuity, then?" Darius needled him a little, letting go of his hand. "Go with Her blessing, Erin. Our path shall be revealed to us yet."
"In Her veiled decree, no shadows will bind us."
He made for the door, only to stop in the doorframe, pondering something briefly.
"Though it looks to me like you're in need of one more than anyone else here."
...
I can't imagine one arriving any time soon.
"Just gonna leave it at that?" As the two were left to their own devices once more, Blake voiced another inquiry, her brow lightly quirked, yet the look in her eyes lacked the amusement that her phrasing suggested. Darius simply shrugged.
"I have been blessed. Just can't seem to stop squandering it," he took a deep breath, resummoning what remained of his resolve after the day. It wasn't over yet. "No matter. I gather there's something I need to know about?"
That earned him yet another prolonged look, amber eyes scrutinizing seemingly every square centimeter of his face. He couldn't imagine a universe where he wasn't found wanting.
"There is," she nodded, strolling over to her bed and lowering herself to sit on the edge with effortless grace. "I'll tell you everything once I'm reasonably sure you won't just keel over and die."
With a slight nod, she indicated a spot nearby her.
"Sit down for a moment."
Darius' first instinct was to scoff at the notion; to reason that he'd already kept the team waiting long enough and that he didn't want to waste any more time than he already had. The immediate and obvious counterarguments from Blake's side that popped up in his head persuaded him to exercise patience. The uncompromising mask of an expression upon Blake's face that served to cover deep concern that flooded her eyes and that her ears just couldn't help reflecting further cemented his understanding that arguing this was moot, especially with the appallingly small amount of fervor he could muster.
With a small nod of his own, he made his way to the eastern end of the room and sat down beside the young woman.
"That bad?" he sighed.
"You've popped a blood vessel twice during this conversation," a slender hand shot out from beyond his field of view, grasping at his jaw and almost wrenching his head to face Blake. With the two left alone, there were no valid reasons for her to subdue her emotions, it would seem, if the thick anxiety in her tone was any indication. "I'm not even sure how that's possible at the rate you're healing! Is the Avatar not allowed to take breaks or something?"
It caught Darius completely off-guard how much the idea of someone like Master Lin or even Master Wilhelm screaming passages from hallowed scriptures mixed with obscenities at him in an effort to get him off his behind and back to work tickled at his funny bone until the image flashed in his mind for a fraction of a second, sending him spiraling into a fit of laughter. It wasn't the draining kind of laughter that the mind unable to cope with the absurdity of its surroundings forced upon the body, either; rather, he actually felt somewhat reinvigorated as the grim purpose of his being here completely slipped his thoughts for a few moments. As much as it pained him to admit, his inhibitions around Blake took a nosedive, and that was putting it mildly.
At the very least, Blake's worries seemed to be somewhat assuaged by this undignified display, he noted, who now looked more sour for not being clued in on the joke than anything.
"Please excuse me, I don't know what came over me," raising one hand to forestall any objections, Darius wiped a bit of moisture from the corner of his eyes, still chuckling lightly. "I don't know of any such rulings. Would love to see someone try and enforce it, though."
"If they ever catch you away from work," Blake shook her head in apparent disapproval, yet the way the corners of her lips stretched in a faint smile told him otherwise.
"Things need doing!" he protested. Breathing out the last of his levity, he shook his head, assuming a more somber expression. "But on a serious note, though: a lot of work needed to get done, fast, to make sure that yesterday's incident didn't ruin months of work. We've made good progress, but… Well, everyone here is fully aware of their limitations. And that there are times when one must go beyond them."
He couldn't help but lower his eyes.
"But… I'm sorry if I made you worry."
He froze solid the next moment, muscles locking up like rusted joints, as Blake traced a finger up his neck, cupping the side of his chin as he followed the motion until his eyes met hers once more. Darius wasn't sure which distressed him more: how he couldn't seem to find a smidgen of judgement in her gaze, or how, despite everything, the warmth of her touch radiated deep contentment directly into his brain, it felt like. He found it increasingly difficult to keep his vision focused, and the complex patterns of her yellow irises blurred together until all he could see were a pair of embers glowing with a calm light.
"You know I'm not angry with you," she told him, craning her neck a little bit to keep level as Darius unknowingly leaned into her hand, hardly even cognizant of the fact. "If you say so, I believe you. But are you sure you couldn't have even taken five minutes to get a breather?"
You can't pretend that you're still not sure what her answer is going to be. Just get this drama over with.
After all, this is exactly what you want, no?
It felt like he'd imagine having an icicle jammed directly up his neck and through the base of the skull would. Everything snapped into sharp focus as the breath inside his lungs lodged halfway through his windpipe. He managed, if only barely, to keep from making sudden movements, but he was certain Blake would take notice of his start. With a sigh, he took her hand and brought it down, correcting his posture.
"I could. But if I wasn't working, or thinking of work, I would start thinking of you. Of… what I'd have to do. Has Erin brought you up to speed?"
"Sure did." The slightly creased eyebrow that accompanied Darius' sudden shift in attitude relaxed immediately at the mention of the younger servant. "And I have to say, your talent at making friends is remarkable, Darius. I think you managed to befriend the only person in your organisation who isn't a total stiff."
There was a small scratching feeling at the back of his mind expressing some vague concern that he couldn't quite fully formulate, one that he eagerly suppressed.
"I… wish I could call it friendship. We have interacted exactly twice, me asking him this favor included. I had… very little opportunity to properly get in touch with the Order here."
He smiled.
"That said, I believe your view is slightly skewed since you've only really met me and Doctor Flynt."
Wait.
If Erin did bring her up to speed, there's no way she wouldn't know about the amnestic treatment she's supposed to undergo, and no way this wouldn't be her primary concern once he got out of the way.
Not unless!-
"You… weren't the only ones, Darius."
FUCKING
VIGGO
Only four other people know the verdict, and only one fits the description! Of course he'd go poking his nose around since you neglected to tell him to sit on his ass and stay the fuck away!
He tried to calm his raging mind with the one method that had never led him astray in the past: a tyrannical exercise of will over himself, a remorseless culling of every errant thought beyond those that were his sole prerogative as Avatar. Yet it felt like every thread leading to the rebellious doubts slipped out of, or even came undone right in his trembling arms, or worse, yanked away by a will that couldn't be anyone's but his own.
"I'm… not sure what you mean," he barely managed to rasp, forcing the words past his throat.
"We had a visitor," Blake said softly. "A man named Viggo. He said… he wanted to inform me of the details of your trial."
OF FUCKING COURSE HE DID!
"How much..." Darius gritted his teeth, viciously grasping at the remnants of his self-control. "How much did he tell you?"
"A lot," his friend replied, laying a hand on his knee in an attempt at reassurance. It shouldn't have been possible, but Darius could feel the heat of her hand scorch him even through his reinforced trousers. "About your charges, how they got accurate testimony, the verdict… and a great deal more. It… didn't seem like you two got along well."
So after he pokes around your head, this obstinate ghoul decides to go and brag about it!
Well, joke's on him, he just did your job for you! She's known all along! It's like you're being handed everything on a silver platter, and still you hesitate to just take it!
"Brother Viggo... he's a good man. And a better servant for it." Deep breathing seemed to help, if only marginally. "Better than myself, low as that bar might be. I'm certain that however unflattering his opinion of me was, everything he told you was true."
"He told me you used the ruling that you did because you expected I would actually agree to get my mind wiped!"
In an instance, the mounting pressure behind Darius' eyes as his own mind waged war on him shattered like a crystal ball dropped on the ground, leaving only a feeling of hollow, ringing emptiness inside as he gasped for breath, his heart beating a mile a minute. The presence tormenting him wasn't gone, of course. Far from it: he could all but see it in the corner of his peripheral vision, cruel grey eyes observing and relentlessly mocking his every move. But this decision, he sensed, was left to him and him alone.
Well?
Go ahead: tell the girl who was ready to put her own kinsmen down for you how you wanted to have your cake and eat it, too.
"Darius?"
Simply turning his head a few degrees to look Blake in the eyes felt like more strain on his body than the battering he'd received from the White Fang's Bullheads, only to be amplified tenfold by what he saw. Blake's eyes glistened with tears yet unshed, a mix of anger, disbelief and growing dread shining clearly through them, mirrored in her ears almost pressing down towards the floor and pointed away from him.
"Please, say something..."
It was more than he could stomach; breaking eye contact, keeping himself upright was all Darius could do, lest he break down with her.
"...I'm not proud of what I've done, Blake." Words came with great difficulty. Simply pushing the air through his lungs seemed to be a challenge as his heart refused to relent, every contraction rocking through him like a tremor. "Last night or today. I… can't make you remain a part of this if you don't want to."
"You can't be serious!" every ounce of emotions stirring within Blake converted directly into a fuming rage, it would appear, as the Faunus shot up from her bed. "You can't seriously believe this after everything that happened yesterday!"
Every sense in Darius' body screamed of danger as he watched her hand reach for the handle of the weapon at her back, yet acting on these warnings was, said plainly, impossible, as his body felt no more responsive than a slab of metal dangling on a single thread of fabric. He watched with empty eyes as Blake's katana left its sheath in a single blur of motion. It took less than a second, yet his perception grasped every detail as the woman approached him in one lurching step, a pair of unsteady hands pressing the slender blade against his throat as she bore down upon him, her own face hardly five centimeters away from his.
"Everything you showed me. Everything we told each other. The promise we made," she whispered, choking back a sob behind gritted teeth as tears trailed from her eyes. "Noone's taking it from me. If that's truly what you want, you'll have to make me."
Played her like a fiddle.
If you're truly craving the death you were denied so badly, you're not getting a better shot than this. Just lean a little bit, and, in true Avatar fashion, leave all your problems for everyone else to deal with.
She will certainly forgive you. As She does everyone. Maybe even bring you back in a century or three, when the name 'Silva' has faded even from paper.
But that's not what you want, is it?
Perhaps his body was finally giving out, he thought, if the burning in his eyes and the blurring vision was anything to go by. Only when the familiar sound of liquid splashing against metal reached him did Darius realize that the cause for both were his own tears welling up and splattering against the Gambol Shroud's blade.
I just… wish this happened differently…
By some miracle, it would seem he actually managed to vocalize that thought, if the sound of his own voice was any indication, even if it barely qualified as a whisper. He hadn't the strength to keep his eyes open anymore, much less remain upright, so Blake's reaction to his words eluded him. The sound of steel clattering against the floor, followed almost immediately by a pair of arms winding around him and a very familiar form pressing bodily against him laid that question to rest, however. Not a shred of mental fortitude was left to prevent him from reciprocating as he clung on for dear life. It felt familiar.
It felt like the only thing in the world that was right.
"Please, Darius... " he heard a whisper just to his right. "Please just tell me what's wrong. We promised to be there for each other. Please don't push me away like this."
Answering was something far beyond Darius' capabilities at the moment, grappling with a barrage of contradicting emotions within as he was. Really, all he could do was tighten his grip, perhaps in some vain hope that some answers might reach Blake through osmosis. It didn't work, clearly, but didn't seem to cause objections, either.
"I'm so sorry, Blake." Eventually, words began to simply flow out of him, wholly outside of his control. "I just wish all of this happened differently. That it didn't take murdering a hundred of your people to realize how much you matter to me. That the same part of me that wanted to hear you say it so badly didn't also cheer me on when I tore them apart."
There was a small pause.
"Is… Was that who you were arguing with outside?"
If he had the strength for it, this would probably wring a chuckle out of him.
"I figured you had to have heard it."
"I heard you the moment you turned the corner. I think I could hear your heartbeat all the way through the wall. I… definitely can now."
He sighed.
"I think it has to do with the memory I showed you," Darius' voice was completely shot, but his thoughts seemed to clear, little by little, with every spoken sentence. "When I woke up… or thought I did, at least, that… apparition… the same one from my initiation, confronted me. It claimed that I wanted to kill them… the White Fang, that is, because they dared get their hands on you. It… was right."
"Darius, we've been over this!" without breaking their embrace, Blake lifted her head to face him. "I don't blame you any more than I would myself if I had to do it."
Darius attempted to think of a rebuttal, features involuntarily creasing into a frown as he attempted to formulate something resembling a proper stream of thought within his head. It failed utterly.
"Did it also want you to use your authority to keep the Order off me?"
His frown deepened.
"I..." It took some time and a great deal of struggling to put it in a way that made even the slightest bit of sense. The experience was best described as 'grueling'. "I made that decision all the way back in Vale. Some friction would have been inevitable. It… simply reminded me that this was the only way to walk the talk now, now that it backfired like this."
"So… You hoped I would agree to this… to spite it?"
He couldn't hide a pained groan, hand grasping at his head as Blake's words struck with all the force of a smithing hammer against it, triumphant cackling not heard, but rather felt, resonating inside with every painful pulse.
"I was so afraid you'd want nothing to do with me after I showed you the truth. That you'd hate me," he whispered, every word scratching viciously against his throat and reverberating in his skull. "But it'd make sense. Keep things straightforward. I'd deserve that. Your involvement would be a terrible mistake… but one I would be able to fix, by the grace of my brothers here. The lives of others… they could only be repaid with my own. Just the first of many."
He sucked in a ragged breath.
"Except then you didn't. It didn't make any sense, it still doesn't, I'm not even sure if that wasn't all just some kind of dream I'm about to w-"
"It wasn't," before his speech had the chance to completely deteriorate into incoherent babbling, a hand snaked up his neck from behind to press him against Blake's shoulder. "None of it. And I meant everything I said."
With her hand rhythmically combing through his hair, simply maintaining consciousness became a taller affair with every second, much less any sort of handle on his emotions. With his mind slipping into a downright intoxicating haze, every sorrow in his body seemed to depart directly through his eyes. It was far from a painless process; a feeling similar to wrenching loose a nut that sat immobile for years with every breath, yet by the same margin every consequent inhale and exhale felt just a little bit easier.
"Tell me something."
To his great, if somewhat detached, horror, he responded with a succinct, yet completely undignified:
"M-mgh?"
"If tonight never happened… Would there ever be a point where you'd show that memory to me willingly?"
Darius' first instinct was to laugh her in the face. That was a stupid, shameful impulse, and Blake deserved better. Pulling himself together, he considered his answer for a solid minute with as much impartiality as he could drum up, something he took for granted just yesterday.
It didn't exactly surprise him when he arrived at the same answer, but still.
"I can't imagine, Blake," as much as the idea of never moving another inch from his current position appealed to him, he nevertheless raised his head and looked at his… friend? Seems... insufficient. Consider later. The light slashed at his eyes, and having to visually process his surroundings again certainly didn't do his aching head any favors, but after a careful weighing of pros and cons, the sight of Blake's eyes, even as bloodshot as his own had to be, outweighed the physical discomforts by a colossal margin. "I thought… hoped, honestly, that that… aspect of me, was well and truly dead after I was given this second chance at life. I guess I didn't really have any reason to believe otherwise in Atlas, where my only company was Master Lin and Her own presence, and all I had to do was train and study."
He sighed.
"But… Vale has been wake-up call after wake-up call. Whispers in the back of my mind, questions I couldn't not ask myself. I knew how to suppress them well enough to function at any one moment, but..."
A shudder ran through his body, the very thought that he was about to voice feeling like treachery of the highest order.
"It feels like it got more insistent the more I got to know you. That should've tipped me off, I should have stopped right there and then, but I just… couldn't stop pushing. I knew the moment I decided to tell you about my past all the way back in Vale that this would invite questions from the Order, but I just… reasoned it away. Wasn't exactly hard, considering the situation." He swallowed. "I wish so dearly that this never happened… but I fear it always would, sooner or later, one way or another. Just one moment where I couldn't keep it under lock and key."
Having watched him unflinchingly the entire time, Blake briefly nodded, letting her eyes rest. When she looked at him again, Darius discovered, much to his mounting shock, a faint smile upon her lips, and solemn determination shining within the amber.
"Then we take what we got. And we live with what we have. I don't want to know anything less than the real you."
Unable to match the resolve in her eyes, Darius lowered his in shame.
"Why, Blake?" he sighed, feeling a bitter chuckle ripple through his chest. "I might be the first Avatar in history to have lost his mind, twice, before even beginning his duty for real. I feel so far beyond repair that 'damaged goods' would probably be a compliment at this point. Just… why?"
"Well, your sense of humor seems perfectly intact so the rest of you can't be too far away!"
The hand that laid upon the scruff of his neck this whole time turned into a vice as nails bit deeply into him. It wasn't exactly a pleasant sensation, but it certainly snapped him out of his self-loathing to instead fully focus on just what incited such a dramatic shift in Blake, and how he could potentially avoid ever repeating such a terrible mistake. With her ears contorted to face fully away from him and pointing up, gritted teeth, and eyes glistening again with moisture, her expression fumed with anger. Despite how shallowly she breathed, entire body wracked with small shudders, she nevertheless managed a horrible mix of hissing and growling when she continued:
"Never say these words again. Never."
"I- I'm so-"
With an exasperated groan, Blake simply pressed against him in an almost feverish motion, with enough force behind it to snap a regular human's clavicle like a twig with her forehead as she held onto him, still trembling. Operating only partly on his knowledge of dealing with these kinds of situations, one of Darius' arms wound around her, gripping her opposite shoulder, while the other buried under her mane of raven hair.
"Just shut up. You listen now."
It seemed to help, he noted. A little, at least.
"As long as you want."
He ran his hand through the length of her hair to test a hunch. The brief hitch in her breath, followed by her exhaling seemingly every ounce of strain in her body in a single contented sigh was a very telling answer.
"I knew someone in the White Fang," Blake spoke, never changing her pose. "Someone very dear to me. You two were… very similar in some respects. Skilled, driven… Very hurt in the past. And with more expectations weighing on you than anyone should bear. He cracked, too. It might have happened before I ever joined him. It might not. I was too starstruck to notice it when there was something I could have done. And when the changes became apparent to everyone, it was already too late. All I could do was run. I'm not letting this happen to you. I'm not."
He waited a little in case there was something else Blake had to say, but no follow-up came. Quite the opposite: forehead wedged between his neck and his shoulder, held securely in his arms as though she was no heavier than a feather - and really, to Darius, she wasn't - he had never seen her this content. He could certainly sympathize.
He hated to break this calm.
"When She spoke to me for the first time…" He craned his neck carefully, resting his own head on Blake's, but ready to pull away at the first objection. None followed. "Hers was the first voice inside my mind that didn't seep with hatred or blame or regret or…"
He frowned, breaking himself up.
"It was like getting yanked out of water for fresh air. And the moment I could think clearly, it all just seemed so… insignificant next to Her and what She required of me. But… if even She couldn't fix whatever's wrong with me… I'm not sure anything in this world can."
That incited some disgruntled stirring beneath him, but she didn't break away.
"Ignoring my opinion on the baseline assumption for now… You're not even going to let me try?"
He sighed.
"I hate that you even have to. It's not your responsibility to fix me-"
"But yours is, apparently?" ducking out from under him, Blake raised her eyes at him again, burning with indignation. "To fix me, the team, every wrongdoing within your line of sight, and everything wrong with this world in general?"
"Some would say my duties are… significantly more limited and directed."
"Some can fuck right off," Blake spat out, yet recollected herself shortly after, wearily shaking her head. "I wonder how much easier your job would be if the 'it's not my responsibility' spiel stopped being an acceptable excuse to wash our hands of people."
Wincing in discomfort, she wiped her eyes. When her hand remained there, covering them, it occurred to Darius that her sight had to be even more sensitive to light than his.
"I wonder what the world would look like if we stopped running from the evil in our lives."
As he called upon his powers, black smoke billowed from every shadow cast in the room, where it clumped around every source of the stark white light. It wasn't opaque enough to plunge the room into complete darkness, but anyone whose vision wasn't well outside human boundaries or downright supernatural would find it notably lacking.
What luck, then, that no such individuals were present.
It was too little, too late for Darius' taste, but as 'better' was the eternal enemy of 'good', so too would 'late' always triumph over 'never'. Something jabbed at the back of his mind about the relevance of both sayings to his current situation, but it was hardly a shadow of the baleful presence that wrought havoc upon him with his own methods.
Something had to be said, then, for the fact that he couldn't refute it still, even in such diminished capacity.
"Is that what this is about, then?" he asked, hand gently sliding down the arm with which Blake covered her face to take it at the wrist as he brought it down. The lines around her eyes deepened for a moment as she shut them tighter on reflex, but when no pain followed, they fluttered open, darting around briefly as she took in her new surroundings. It had to be a trick Darius' mind played on him, surely, but he could swear that in the now dim light, the amber in Blake's eyes glowed brighter still.
"You don't owe me anything for what I did. If anything, it's the other way around after tonight… or today."
"Must you view everything as some kind of debt?" she shot in return, a sulking frown on her face. She blinked, and another tear rolled down her cheek from her clearly irritated eyes. "I don't want to run anymore, Darius. Not after I saw things clearly for the first time in my life. Not from you."
'Surely you don't need reminding that you're really not in the position to make commitments like these?'
All the way back then, so recently in actuality yet feeling like a lifetime ago, in that sun-bathed cafeteria overlooking Vale's shoreline, even when seemingly 'dissuading' him from such a rash decision, that vicious, covetous part of him seemed to be taunting him, all but daring him to do it, appealing to his very understanding of the nature of his power and rank in a silent question 'exactly who do you think is going to stop you?' It grated at him to no end to accede to such manipulation, but to continue to pretend it held no sway over him was demonstrably folly. Indeed, this was not a commitment Darius could afford to make.
It was one he couldn't afford not to.
"Please don't cry for my sake, Blake. There are many things more deserving of your sorrow," he asked her softly. Harkening back to a little maneuver she seemed particularly approving of last night, his hand extended slowly until the very tips of his fingers brushed below her chin.
It led to a reaction quite similar to his own not so long ago, if he had to compare. To the same gesture, no less. As if jolted awake, her widened eyes locked with his, while her entire body froze like a salt pillar, as if afraid that the slightest twitch would break contact. A feeling Darius most certainly empathized with, even as he, equally slowly, further traced the contour of her jawline until his hand cupped the entire left half of her face, never breaking eye contact for a second. It brought back familiar allusions, too: living porcelain, scalding hot against his skin, softer than anything he'd ever laid hands on, and far too fragile to possibly endure contact with them. And yet for the third time now reality, plain and simple, rejected every notion that his senses warned him of, and as he wiped the trail of wetness from Blake's cheek with his thumb, there was no horrible shattering sound; rather, the skin simply yielded ever so slightly as she leaned into his hand, eyes slowly glazing over.
"Darius…"
It took every ounce of his willpower to prevent a shiver that ran up the entire length of his spine and burst into radio static at the base of his skull from spreading down his arm as well. There was exactly one instance when he'd heard Blake this faint of breath, speaking with such cadence. Unsurprisingly, that, too, happened yesterday night, when she implored for at least a shred of his sanity to return to him immediately after pulling an absolutely ludicrous feat of acrobatics that Darius, in all honesty, was still madly jealous of. Where yesterday her breathy whisper was caused by her losing her voice mid-sentence, however, pleas tinged richly with desperation and sadness, this…
He couldn't be quite certain what that feeling was. Make educated guesses… sure. But no more. Not without admitting that his own shortening of breath and climbing heart rate, one he could tell was set to synchronize with Blake's, were caused by the exact same feeling.
"I am a blessed man, Blake. Given far more than anyone deserves, much less someone like me." Keeping his tone level in the face of his heart trying its damndest to jump out of his gullet proved an increasingly difficult challenge, but he managed… for now. "Not one, not two, but three chances at life. Two more than most anyone gets. A family that will stand with me against the world, come fire, hail, or Grimm. A cause beyond all causes. You."
He swallowed.
"I couldn't begin to think of making good on all that if I can't even keep a single promise, could I now?"
Something flashed within Blake's eyes. A kind of spark. It was different. It felt… hungry. The last and only time he'd seen such a spark his recently rallied sanity screamed alarm on every deck and pumped every brake available, making him stall for time and telling both himself and Blake to think it over till the next day. It still wasn't the wrong decision at the time of making it per se… but, well, a whole lot of good that did him.
Now, in the equally brief window of time, he simply braced his arm behind his back.
With her arms wound around his neck in less than a heartbeat, Blake all but lunged at him, pressing her lips against his.
Several thoughts unrelated to each other registered simultaneously within Darius' brain:
One: in the split-second that took place between Blake sitting idly and them entwining together, her eyes seemed to blaze brighter than the very stars.
Two: her lips tasted lightly of citrus. It made not even an inkling of logical sense. It didn't really need to.
Three: he messed up. He had underestimated the pivot angle substantially and put his arm too close to him.
Four: they were falling.
Instinct took over before his consciousness even began processing the second thought: right hand lowers and fixates waist position, left hand shoots up, grabs head and pulls to the left, fixating head position pressed against cheek, core and abdominals twist both ninety degrees to the right. Three movements, performed in close succession, totaling under two tenths of a second. Two more for the fall. One more second to process on a conscious level.
Another one.
Laugh hysterically.
The laughter took Blake at the same time it did him. Though his journey had been long, winding, and with a great deal of detours, he had arrived all the same at the promised plains of madness, although he had to admit that traveling with company made this a dramatically more pleasant affair as the two clung to each other for dear life as every lingering frustration, doubt, and fear fled them… but not before stirring up a proper ruckus and just completely wringing out what little strength remained in either. It was in their clinch that Darius realised that Blake's instincts had assumed control over their little fall as well: his own neck was secured tightly in a two-handed lock, and though he couldn't exactly look down, he was quite certain that her legs wrapped around his own waist mid-fall.
...Neither, it would appear, could untangle from the other even if they wanted to.
This is fine.
The hands clasped behind his neck came undone, and he, in turn, took his left off the side of Blake's head, sliding it down her shoulder and stopping just at the elbow. She simply let it droop right next to him, a pair of amber eyes burning with hardly a finger of distance between them. They reflected the same emotions he'd imagine his did: exhaustion grave enough that even simply moving said eyes around appeared impossible, but… also contentment. Peace, something he could never imagine seeing in another's eyes when they looked at him.
Not a mortal's eyes, certainly.
Your eyes… They burn so bright. To burn away inside them… into nothing.
An eyebrow quirked. A mocking half-smile.
"And what would that leave me with, exactly?"
For the second time today Darius realized he managed to blurt out something that was meant to be forever confined inside his cranium. It appeared he was developing a serious problem keeping his damn mouth shut around Blake.
Before he had the chance to ponder the dire implications, the cause of the problem leaned in to plant another kiss on his mouth, and every nascent thought flickered out of existence like it never even was there.
There was no inconveniently timed fall to save him this time, and so he drank in the full complement of emotions and sensations that came with the accompanying shotgun blast of a hormonal rush. The briefest burst of confusion, followed immediately by a numbing haze over his higher faculties that served no purpose here whatsoever. A strange kind of fascination by how alien, though decidedly pleasant, the texture of her lips felt on his. Pang of shame following the realization that his own probably felt notably less pleasant on hers. Taste of citrus on his tongue, again.
Happiness.
Sudden tightness in the chest as the two pulled away, breathing like they just ran at a dead sprint in full kit instead of holding a breath for ten seconds at best. Or was it fifteen? No more than twenty, surely.
"Regretting yet?" Mischievous smile on her lips, but no smile in her eyes. Ears a little flattened. Breath… well, still heavy, not much to read there.
No answer.
He pulled her closer, hoping that if words couldn't convey how he felt, then at least proximity would. It was a poor substitute, but functional enough. With his chestpiece covering practically all of his upper body but the neck, that was where Blake pressed hardest, rubbing up against him. Very regrettable, that. Still not good enough.
"I-" Darius stammered, his heart still pounding at a rate that left lesser men either in mad agitation or on death's door. "M-merciful Dark, Blake, I-"
"Figured you were only good for talking when it's something you know," she giggled, putting him out of his verbal misery. "Dumb stuff like 'duty' or 'debt' or what have you, no less. It's nice to see you can actually blush like regular people."
"It's-"
"Sh-h-h," came reassurance, along with a hand scratching lightly at the back of his head. "It's okay. Just breathe."
He tried his best to comply.
"It feels like your heart's about to jump straight out of your ribcage, right?" she talked slowly, in an almost dreamy haze. "And you're afraid to death that it actually might, but you're afraid even more that the moment's going to pass any second now, and that's it. Forever. Like nothing's going to matter nearly as much as this one moment did, and even the next one isn't gonna measure up to this?"
Darius swallowed a lump in his throat.
"It feels treacherous to even think about. It's such a terrible, selfish feeling-"
"Shut up, you idiot!" Blake laughed, not a hint of anger or malice to her words, but she did flick her finger quite loudly against his noggin. "It all passes. And the next one is just as good. Better, if you're smart about it."
"Talking from experience, I'm guessing?" he needled her a little. A noncommittal 'm-mgh' was his answer.
"I… haven't told you everything about myself."
"I gathered that much," he stretched his neck briefly, not long enough to throw Blake off it, and snuck his hand into her hair. "Can't… can't help but notice he wasn't your last."
"Real tactful," she snorted, but then gave a small sigh. "It's a team effort, Darius. You can put in everything you've got, and just stay where you are because the other doesn't reciprocate. Though… I can tell you right now we weren't having these kinds of talks, so at least you're off to a good start."
That did actually sound reassuring.
"But you're right. Wait long enough, and no amount of talking will help it."
He heard Blake sniff quietly, and shiver a little, ears following the body.
"It's so much worse when you realize what you've been taking for granted. When it hits you that you've got to keep half your team at arm's length, and another half even further. When there's nobody you can just… just ask to hold you when you're missing home really badly. I almost wanted to sneak out to Velvet one time, try my luck there."
Trying to pull Blake closer yet carried a real risk of cracking bones, so instead Darius' hand simply dug a little deeper into Blake's mane, stroking her scalp with his nails. That provoked an utterly guttural rumble within her throat as she pushed back against the hand. With a little consideration, he amped up the pressure just a notch.
"I suppose we can be selfish for one another's sake, then."
"Doesn't that… cancel out, or something?"
"...I'll get back to you on that."
"No! Don't go…" her voice actually faltered a little as her eyes snapped open, only to be met at point-blank range by his. Before the shock in them even wore off properly, he inclined his head, sealing whatever attempts at explanation or objection were coming.
Blake was right. The second time was just as good. Even better, arguably, with him being able to set the pace.
She broke from him with still wild, platter-sized eyes, but radiating some very different emotions from before, actually beaming with a smile at him… and still completely out of breath. Darius, for his part, was at least a little better off. Which allowed him a bit of his own mischief:
"You missed out on a truly awful bit of comedy when you first had me speechless," he quipped, lips drawing into a half-smile.
"And you've ruined the moment as soon as you mentioned it," as the realisation set in, the smile morphed almost immediately into a disdained pout, but yet again, the anger didn't reach her eyes. "The gratitude I get for being nice to the rookie. By the way, Darius… citrus?"
"Me, too, huh?" he frowned. "Must be the toothpaste here."
"It's not a bad taste. Could it be the orange juice they served at the canteen?"
The frown deepened.
"Definitely the toothpaste, then. I've been running on empty the whole day."
"You didn- Darius!"
"I'm sorry, okay?! I think we've established that I didn't exactly have the mental wherewithal to even stop and take five, much less stop, sit down, and eat!"
Blake just shook her head, slightly lifting up on her elbow:
"You know, I can't help but wonder exactly what your plan was if I did agree to that ridiculous proposal. Were you going to show up to the girls looking like you just murdered someone and try to explain just what kind of bender I went on to lose an entire day's worth of memory?"
As was common for Darius, thinking always - or, at least, more often than not - came before speaking. He considered, in particular, whether letting Blake know that Viggo had, on multiple occasions, fabricated entire lifetimes for their deepest undercover agents, at this current moment in time was relevant or useful information for the health and the pace of their conversation. It didn't look good for the infodump.
He decided to fill her in at another, better, time, making a mental note. Right underneath the one telling him to get a hold of a decent moisturizer.
"I would have come up with something," he sighed. "If only because I had to. This, however..."
His right hand, wedged all this time beneath Blake's weight and the bed and still wrapped firmly around her waist, actually felt perfectly fine - thanks, no doubt, to his aura. Darius was fully cognizant of his appendage, but Blake, it would appear, had grown complacent. Just brushing a little up her spine - as much as the hand's restricted mobility allowed, really - almost caused her to jump, bringing him a solid chuckle. And a great deal of goodwill towards the next one, seeing how even that didn't prompt her to untangle herself from him.
"This allows for a much more straightforward - and elegant - plan."
"You're in a good mood," Blake almost purred, narrowed eyes pulling away just before he had so much as a thought to act on it. "Except we also have much more to hide. How do we hide… us?"
She paused, with a much less certain follow-up:
"Do we?"
The atmosphere had grown a few degrees cooler, sharper edges of reality returning into view. Darius let them. This had been illuminating in more ways he could possibly imagine. What came now... was familiar. This was necessary so that the things that just happened could keep happening… for however long they would. This was work. Grim, deceitful work.
"Yes and no."
The two had come to an unspoken agreement that said work needed to be done, at the very minimum, while upright. With a single heave, Darius lifted both himself and Blake into a sitting position, even if she was still straddling his lap.
"Explain."
"We promised the team to be back by morning today, and we'll be returning in the late afternoon, Blake," he complied with a nod. "All without a word of notice. Looks are going to be given. The girls are going to draw their own conclusions. Yang, I'm certain, will make hers heard loudly and clearly. We let her."
Understanding lit up briefly in Blake's eyes, but it was a timid flame that needed kindling. Darius supplied:
"Trying to explicitly distance from each other would simply lead them to believe something went wrong. We don't spring it on them, but we don't really hide it. We let them see the small details, let them believe that this is our biggest deception for them and that they see right through us. In that moment of complacency, they will blind themselves to other possibilities."
A moment passed as Blake evaluated and considered the proposal.
"I forgot for a moment that you were actually trained to do this for a living."
"Master Lin would be absolutely furious with me if he looked at my handiwork thus far," he shook his head. "The first tenet of the infiltrator is to never forget the lie they're living. Boy oh boy did that one crash and burn."
"Darius…"
"I'm just sulking, Blake," just in case words alone weren't sufficient, he pressed briefly against her collarbone, hearing her anxiety vent in a single sigh. "I made my decision. I… I must live with it now. Come what may."
That seemed to put her mind to rest.
As moments turned to minutes, Darius couldn't help but take notice of a rather small, but significant hitch to the plan.
"Blake?"
No response came.
"...Blake?"
"M-mgh?"
"As much as it pains me to bring it up, executing the plan requires us to actually go to Beacon."
He craned his neck slightly to observe the tangle they had yet to actually break. With Blake's legs wrapped firmly around his waist and his hand pressing her against him, the proposition was… tenuous, at best.
"Certainly, I could carry you all the way there, but that would send a rather overt signal to anyone with a pair of eyes."
Glowing amber eyes rolled lazily within their sockets to assess the degree of their predicament themselves. If he had to guess, Blake agreed with him… in part.
"You've certainly wasted no time getting handsy," she purred right into his ear, sultry undertones sending a shiver up his spine. "No inbetween with you, is there?"
It was really a matter of perspective to Darius, who did, in fact, run this thought through a couple loops in the ol' noggin before. For a couple just coming to terms with their feelings for one another? Certainly a little adventurous, maybe even pushing into wishful thinking territory.
When compared to some of the more outlandish grapples and locks the two sometimes ended up in during hand-to-hand practice? This was downright chaste.
"Please, Blake," he shot right back, lowering his voice to the deepest register he could muster. "I've tied you into pretzels more suggestive than this on the mats."
"Oh, you-" even narrowed as her eyes were, there was no missing the hungry spark that flashed once more in them as a full-body shudder ran through her. "You'd best learn sign language by next time we're on those mats because that mouth of yours is never opening again."
Darius smirked. He very much knew sign language.
"There's not going to be a next time if we just sit here."
Blake laughed, voice ringing out like the chimes the priests at Providence used in their services and sermons. He hoped he would never forget this sound.
"Fine, Darius. Let's go home."