Could've Followed My Fears All The Way Down

Author's Note: This holiday season, I got to engage in a mini-exchange with some of my Moonie friends, and had the privilege of writing a short piece for Antigone2! She requested angst and either SilMil or Crystal Tokyo. These things are a bit outside my usual wheelhouse, but I hope I did them justice! As is Antigone's preference, I borrowed the title from a Taylor Swift song, in this case 'this is me trying.'

Enormous thanks to FloraOne, as always, for her unfailing support – normally I opt not to have these shorts beta'd, but because this was a gift she very kindly offered to look over it for me (and made it better, because that's what she does).

Antigone, I really hope you enjoy this!

Prompt: Angst in the Silver Millennium

Word Count: 742 words

Rating: T/PG-13


Poised. Collected. Together.

That was how she'd been raised, and she'd never felt it less than in this moment.

Silken skirts sweeping behind her, she blew down the palace halls and past her guardians, throwing open the doors of her bedroom to reveal the man in armor seated on her bed, fingers steepled together beneath his bowed head.

"...You stayed." The words tasted of ash on her tongue.

"Where else would I go?" He folded his fingers together, golden band winking in the candle light as he dropped his hands to his lap and looked up at her.

She shook her head. "It's not too late. Go back and… and tell them it was my doing. Say that I bewitched you. Something. Anything."

Even as she spoke, he shook his head and rose to his feet. He towered over her, but despite this, he wrapped his fingers in silver-blonde streamers, traced a thumb along the soft patch of skin between her ear and cheekbone, his sole focus on soothing her.

"It is too late," he said in a low voice. "Beryl is out for blood, and yours will suit if she can't have mine. This wasn't you alone, and I will not see you sacrificed to save my own skin."

"What about your people? Surely they're worth the death of one alien tyrant."

His shoulders held steady, his posture unflinching.

"You're my wife, not a tyrant."

His quiet certainty brought tears to her eyes and she blinked them away, hoping he would mistake their telltale glimmer as the refractions of candlelight.

"Beryl is angry," he continued in that same firm tone. "Not insane. She wouldn't massacre an entire populace as retribution for a broken betrothal."

"No," she countered, her finely honed veneer of diplomacy finally slipping and revealing the panic pounding beneath her breastbone. "She'll just murder you before my eyes, as if that's somehow better."

His mouth pulled into a smirk, the same expression that had set her heart fluttering that first day in the rose gardens. "See, my love," he whispered, warm fingers digging into the exposed skin of her shoulders. "That's why I could never leave you."

The swell of emotion overflowed her body with nowhere to spill but onto him, and she shoved her hands against his shoulders, pushed him down onto the white of her bed so she could climb atop him, straddle him and pin him beneath her, real and solid and steady.

Her fingers tangled briefly in the leather straps of his armor as she ripped it from his torso. Their teeth clinked together in desperation as she did her best to crawl into him, to join with him so wholly that no one would ever dare to separate them.

His knowing hands traced the familiar curves of her body and set every inch of her – her back, her cheeks, her breasts – alight with all-consuming fire. A sharp, painful ache of longing bloomed on her skin whenever his fingers had the gall to venture away.

Even given lifetimes, she would never be able to love this man enough.

"Let's run away." The words spilled into the dip of his collarbone as she curled around him, possessive nails digging into the muscles of his back. "If she only wants us…"

But when she met his eyes, their haunted look stopped her, making her throat go dry and her heart palpitate a chill into her bloodstream.

"...She doesn't," she realized, sitting up braced against his naked chest; the gossamer sheets shifted beneath his hips as she clambored to her knees. "How could you?" But the accusation lacked bite, its attempted bile unable to mask the salt left behind on her tongue, a tang that she'd known deep down wasn't just sweat.

Her tears began in earnest, and he gathered her to him, pressing a kiss to her forehead and gently brushing the liquid from her cheeks with his thumbs.

"Where should we go?" he whispered into her trembling mouth, and she hiccupped.

He had let her pretend for a little while longer she could return the favor.

"I've always w-wanted to see Coronis. Mau. We can r-run forever."

He nodded, pulling her tight to the planes of his chest with a shuddering exhale, and she clung to him, both knowing that despite their brave words, they wouldn't live long enough to ever again see the earth rise over the spires of the lunar palace.