before the dawn - nine x marina
Extra Notes: I thought of this while reading a Rachel/Youngdo fanfiction called 'a Forecast of Snow'. Has a sexual implication, at the end. I'm accepting prompts on my Marina rp tumblr, loricseaqueen dot tumblr dot com, so please drop one into my ask box. I accept for all ships, aside from Nix and Nine/Ella. Yeah, sorry. In my headcanon Nine belongs to Marina XD. I'll always answer, no matter how long it takes, so...PLEASE DROP ME PROOOMPPPTTTSSS.
Marina finds Nine at the motel's bar, drowning his sorrows in alcohol.
"They know how to swim," she immediately says, and Nine's head whips around to face her. Marina answers the unspoken question that dances in his eyes as she walks up to sit on the bar stool beside him. "Your sorrows, I mean. Drowning them won't work."
Nine's eyes follow her, his hand clenching the beer bottle. "You here to tell me to stop drinking? Did John send you?"
Marina smiles - a bitter, cynical smile that is almost nothing like her old one. Whilst Eight's death has turned Nine into an alcoholic, it's turned her into a complete ice princess. "Of course not. I came here to join you."
She swipes the bottle out of his hand, startling him, and takes a swig. He watches as the bottle comes away from her lips, and her arm lifts up to wipe them. "This stuff tastes like crap," she tells him, before proceeding to gulp down the rest of the bottle.
"Yes, Marina," he says sarcastically. "You can have some of my painstakingly-earned beer."
"Stop overexaggerating." She throws the bottle, and there's a tinkling sound as it shatters in the rust-eaten metal bin half way across the room. "How long have you been down here?"
"About an hour," he replies. He woke up early and decided to come down for a drink. He's drunk at least ten bottles, and he's still not even tipsy. Maybe it's the fact that he's an alien, or maybe it's just the fact that his immunity has built up so high, but this beer isn't doing shit for him.
"We need another one!" Nine calls to the bartender, who's standing at the other side of the counter and wiping glasses.
"You two better be leaving soon," she demands, as she obtains another bottle and slams it down onto the counter. "Closing time is in an hour."
"Just wash your stupid cups, and shut your mouth," Nine snaps. "I'm a fucking alien!"
Okay, so maybe he is starting to get a little drunk.
"Crazy asses," the lady mutters, as she walks away.
Marina pulls the cork and takes a swig. "This is seriously the crappiest beer I've ever tasted."
"I didn't know you've tasted beer, before," he replies, taking the bottle from her and downing a few gulps of his own.
"After the marsh," she simply says, and Nine can't help the twitch in his eye and the clench of his fist. He sucks in a breath. "It was only once."
She takes the bottle back, and Nine watches her throat bob as she ingests more beer. He thinks about how much one death can change someone. Marina used to be the doting mother hen, the glue that held the team together. Now, he supposes, she's more like the ice that holds them together.
Nine decides, for the fiftieth time since they fled the marshlands, that he will kill Five when they meet again.
Well, unless Marina kills him first. He shivers slightly, remembering her parting words with Five.
"It wasn't your fault, you know," Marina says, looking at him. Her voice is cold, but her eyes are sincere. "At first, I guess I wanted to blame you, because, well, you really can't shut your mouth for shit, but, Five is the one who killed Eight."
His mouth opens, maybe to tell her that he was effected by Eight too, or how much he wants to kill Five as well, or that there is no use because nothing anyone says will ever convince him that it was not his fault, but he simply says, "Pass the bottle."
And so, she does. Nine finishes it off, before yelling at the bartender for another one. She glares at them as the bottle clinks against the counter, and Nine makes a face at her.
Surprisingly, Marina laughs when the lady turns away, and takes another drink. "That bitch hates us," she mutters to Nine, handing the bottle to him.
"No kidding," he tells her. Their fingers brush, just that slightest touch, and Nine's heart speeds up. No, Nine, he scolds himself. Now is so not the time. He looks at the clock.
4:50 AM. The bar is closing soon.
"Sometimes, I wonder," he tells her.
Marina takes a swig. "What do you wonder about?"
He could say that he wonders about a lot of things, and then just end it there. But, he's spent too much time avoiding things, and he's tired of it. He avoided his death when Eight teleported, he avoided his sorrow when he came down here to get drunk (only to find that Marina is right, and that sorrows know how to swim), and he avoided telling Marina about their shared pain a few minutes ago.
"I wonder if I was the one that died," he says, and pauses for a moment, "would everyone be as effected?"
Marina stares at him, eyes searching and melancholic, before she answers. Her voice is warm, surprisingly so, and it gives Nine a sense of nostalgia. He hasn't heard her speak like that for ages. "Of course we would, Nine," she tells him, and a strange kind of happiness shoots through him. "You're as important a member as everyone else...and the most powerful out of all of us."
He thinks about the way her telekinesis is starting to grow stronger than his, and how, with just a flick of her wrist, she can impale someone with an icicle, or freeze them from the inside out (he's seen her do it with a mog, once. It was truly terrifying as fuck). He may be the strongest among them now, but that doesn't mean he'll stay like that forever. Marina is beginning to catch up with him.
Nine puts the bottle to his lips, and throws his head back, not saying a thing, and she takes the bottle from him and takes her own round. Everything is silent.
4:56 AM. The bar is closing in four minutes - exactly an hour before dawn. Summer is on its way, and the sun is rising earlier.
Maybe it's the alcohol that's loosened his tongue, or maybe he's just in the mood to ask these questions, or maybe it's just that he actually wants to know. He supposes that it doesn't really matter that much, because, later on, when he is thinking back on this event, all that will matter is what happens next.
"What about you, Marina?" he asks, and his voice is husky, catching on almost every syllable.
"What about me?" She questions, not looking at him.
"Would you mourn like this, if it were me?"
His heart is beating, hammering hard in his chest and stealing his breath. His hand goes for the bottle, but misses completely and grabs hers instead. Her skin is hot to the touch, and fire pulses through his veins from it.
Marina looks up at him, eyes wide, and Nine launches himself forward, the metal step of the bar stool digging into his soles as he practically tackles her against the back of the seat.
The kiss is really kind of one sided, and Nine is practically lying on top of her, one hand grasping the back of her seat in a knuckle-whitening grip while the other clenches over hers, and over the bottle. It must be a strange sight to see. It's the beer, he tells himself, it's just the damn beer
But he knows that he's sober, because this beer isn't doing shit for him.
When Nine draws away, still leaning over her and not letting go of the stool or her hand, he expects her to slap him, to push him. He expects a blast of frost to course through his veins and freeze him from the inside out.
He sure as hell didn't expect her to kiss him.
"Yes," she whispers, just before their lips touch. Her voice is soft, smooth as silk. Not even the tinkle of glass as they both let go of the beer bottle and it falls to the floor is enough to wake him from the kiss.
He's not sure if she's kissing him back because she's actually drunk, or if it's just because she's rebounding, or even if it's the fact that she's taking pity on him. He doesn't really care, and neither does she.
Nine's lips taste like beer - and it's the best beer she's ever tasted.
(Tomorrow, when they wake up in the same bed, naked, they'll think about the consequences. Right now, all Nine can think about is the fire that pulses through him from the spot where their hearts are beating against each other)