Caffeine Challenge #26
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Prompts:
1) Song prompt: Mississippi Swells by Nana Grizol’s
2) Dialogue prompt: “What does it mean to be immortal? A long time ago, I was fool enough to think the answer my mission.”
3) Image prompt:
1) Song prompt: Mississippi Swells by Nana Grizol’s
2) Dialogue prompt: “What does it mean to be immortal? A long time ago, I was fool enough to think the answer my mission.”
3) Image prompt:
“Why did you cheat on me?”
He sighed, flopping back awkwardly onto his wings. “I had never wanted to. I truly thought it was you dragging me back here after too many drinks and I hadn’t seen you all month and you had been smelling good and looking good all evening….”
“Certainly you would have noticed the lack of magic.”
He shook his head, expression twisting up in pain and guilt. “I hadn’t. I truly hadn’t and I know that I should have realized it but I didn’t and I still don’t know why.”
Silence bounced around the room only interrupted by the wind that drifted in giggling, whispering about the people outside and how it kept their words private despite the open window.
“You’ve always been able to tell no matter how drunk you got.”
Salto’s words were carefully picked one by one and he could hear the tentative choices Salto was using. It almost sounded like he was trying to piece something together and Lennix sat up, searching the other’s expression for what he heard on the wind.
Salto wasn’t looking at him. Instead, the man was glaring at the corner of the bed in an expression Lennix hadn’t realized he had missed. The man was piecing something together, something that was important. He had seen it a few times as they clashed during their few skirmishes as hero and villain but never had he equated it to being Salto’s expression. He felt his heart twist in his chest.
Damn. He hadn’t gotten over Salto, had he?
Salto’s eyes came up to meet his after a moment, words falling from the man’s lips in a thought process Lennix did not understand. “What do you remember?”
Lennix frowned as he dredged up what remained of that murky night. “I remember the costume party, how I had joked that there were several there dressed as you. You making the offhanded bet that I would be unable to find you among the doppelgangers.” His frowned deepened. “But I had assured you, proved to you time and time again that night that I could and would find you in among the doppelgangers.” He laughed, a smile breaking across his face. “Well, except for the one time that I did it knowingly. You were so pissed, I had to chase you to the backyard and assure you I had been teasing.”
A blush colored Salto’s cheeks and Lennix gripped at the sheets to keep from trying to make that blush spread in such delightful ways. Damn it! He was not supposed to be thinking that right now!
“It hadn’t been funny,” Salto snapped, defensive. He deflated some, curling in on himself, and Lennix felt horrible for even mentioning it. “Five years of loyalty and I still expected you to find someone better.”
There was a flurry of wings and feathers as Lennix moved. Salto sucked in a breath, straightening as Lennix’s hands cupped the man’s face, body curled forward over the man as he hovered his face inches from the other, wings encompassing them both. “You were and still are all that I have ever needed. There will never be someone better than you. No one can match how your magic sings to me like the wind does, thrumming around you as if its bursting to be released, how it courses under your skin in such an intoxicating way. I could never find someone to replace what I’ve become addicted to. You haunt my dreams even after all these years.” Lennix caught sight of Salto’s throat bob as the man swallowed even as his half lidded gaze never left the others. “Even after finding out you were Canis Major this whole time, I felt sorrow instead of anger, grief instead of hatred. I regretted every mark I’ve surely left on your body and your mind. And no matter how much I wish I could course correct us knowing where we are now, there’s nothing I can do to erase what has already happened.”
“Lennix,” Salto breathed but there seemed to be a catch on the word and no more followed.
Lennix gave in and rested his forehead against Salto’s, closing his eyes. “A few short months after I was forced into the ranks of heroes, Kingsman pulled me aside. His words still echo in my ears even to this day.” He opened his eyes and met Salto’s searching gaze steadily. “He told me, ‘What does it mean to be immortal? A long time ago, I was fool enough to think the answer my mission. But the more I searched for the answer, the more I realized that to be immortal is to accept mortality, to live as if the next day will never come and to cherish those you hold dear.’ His words are why I have loved you even when we broke up after my stupid mistake, after the mistakes we both made.” He closed his eyes again, withdrawing enough to shake his head. “I wish I had fought the recruitment, fought becoming a hero. I wish I had thought it through enough to know I needed to resist,” his words stalled and he met Salto’s gaze again even as his heart clenched in his chest, “enough so that I had heard you and the fear you had spoken those words in that quaked the air in a way that makes me fear for you.”
“Lennix,” Salto spoke again with so many emotions, Lennix couldn’t even fathom what Salto was feeling, and the man reached up, gripping Lennix’s wrists in painfully tight holds. He wasn’t pushed away.
“I’m sorry I was such a coward,” Lennix urged. “I didn’t fight for us. I didn’t fight the demons I had seen on your doorstep, and it left me open to a stupid attack.”
Salto shook his head between Lennix’s hands. “You were never responsible for my fights.” The smirk he sent had a watery edge to it. “And I should have sucked it up and let you explain instead of throwing you away and shutting you out. Maybe then we could have avoided all of the pain we had caused each other.” Salto released one of Lennix’s wrists to run careful fingers over a ragged scar on the side of his neck barely hidden by the collar of his jacket. Salto’s fingers traced it, knowing how it cut across Lennix’s skin from having been the cause of it. “I have harmed you more than you have harmed me. Why you still take full responsibility for all the bullshit is beyond me.”
Lennix laughed as an endearing smile graced Salto’s face. “Old habits die hard, it would seem.”
Salto gave a breathy chuckle at that, meeting his gaze again. That hand tracing the scar moved to his cheek. For a moment, Lennix watched Salto’s gaze track his own thumb rubbing against Lennix’s cheek. He shifted closer, gaining Salto’s attention once more.
“Can we try again?” he asked in a breath, lips a breath away from Salto’s.
He felt Salto recoil but the man did not move in his touch. “There will be hell to pay from the factions. Besides, we’ve changed so much. How could we go back to how things were?”
“I don’t want to go back to the beginning,” Lennix confessed. He felt Salto suck in the breath as the other’s eyes grew wide. “I want to start over, start with who we are now and see if we are still as madly in love as we had been the first time we started out.”
Salto gave a wry chuckle. “I wouldn’t have called that 'madly in love’. More of pitiful endearment.”
Lennix grinned. “Potatoes, tomatoes.”
Salto’s face screwed up in disgust at that. “That is not even-”
Lennix brought their lips together, his hold barely on the other so that he was not trapping Salto there. As much as he wanted to try again, to learn about this man all over again, he didn’t have it in him to force the other to try again too.
A breath, a moment for the brain to register what was going on, and suddenly Salto was pressed against him, taking over the kiss and eradicating any thought that Lennix had. When they finally pulled apart, they were sharing chaste kisses with Lennix’s back against the mattress and Salto’s weight against him. His fingers traced unfamiliar lines under clothing, a part of him mourning the years he had missed with this man.
“Are you sure you want to try dating a supervillain?” Salto uttered against his neck.
Lennix wrapped his arms around the other, pressing his face into the side of Salto’s neck. “I may attempt to sway your ways.”
Salto chuckled at that but it lacked any luster to it. “I can’t make any promises it’ll work.” There was a lull in Salto’s words and it weighted on Lennix. “I’m in too deep now to turn things around.”
“Alone, probably, but you’re not alone now and won’t be for as long as you’ll put up with me again.”
Salto pushed himself up enough to look down at him and Lennix met his gaze without hesitation. “You do realize this will be a fight that we can’t win, right?”
Lennix smiled. “No more a fight than the one we faced as gifted children.” He cupped Salto’s face. “We’ll make it through this with a few more scars but we’ll live through it one way or the other.”
Something chirruped, cutting through the moment. Salto shifted about as Lennix assumed it was the man’s phone. He didn’t have any sort of chime for any of his notifications, superhero or otherwise.
“Shit,” the man hissed, getting up.
“You being called in?” Lennix asked, sitting up as Salto pulled an object from an inner pocket. He could see it well enough to recognize the old gift. It warmed his heart to see Salto still utilizing the trinket after all these years.
“Unfortunately,” Salto confirmed, pouring magic into the trinket. It behaved as any wand would, guiding and directing Salto’s burning magic into the purpose Salto urged it to become and his entire attire changed to the familiar outfit of Canis Major. It sent a thrill of unease and worry through him. Salto looked at him, an uneasy expression on the other’s face. “I can drop you off at your home, if you want. This may not be the safest thing for you to come to.”
Lennix got up, shaking his head. “I’m not letting you go into this alone, villains be damned.”
Salto chuckled. Lennix shuddered under the touch of the other’s magic, a thrill racing down his spine at the familiar sensation. Even after so many years, Salto’s magic still felt the same. “That will at least make it less likely anyone will call you Swallow.”
He opened his eyes, taking in Salto’s pleased expression before bringing his wings about to look at them. They didn’t feel or behave differently but they certainly looked different. He realized the only thing Salto had truly changed was the coloring and the only visual change on the smaller feathers seemed to be an illusion. He crossed to the bathroom as Salto’s words followed him.
“It should be enough that no one asks any questions.”
The mirror revealed that Salto had even changed his attire into an outfit that spoke neither of superhero or -villain. The mask that he barely even noticed obscured the majority of his face and hid all of his hair beneath a veil of feathers the same color as his newly recolored wings. No one would be able to tell it was him under it.
“I changed your hair as well, just in case.” He looked to Salto, finding the man leaning against the doorframe in a show of ease. The way the words tumbled in the air spoke of how it was a charade. “As much as it goes against my 'villain’ nature, I don’t want you to be found out.”
Lennix smiled gently and crossed over to Salto. He gave the man a soft kiss, offering against the other’s lips, “I trust you.” He pulled away enough to take in Salto’s full expression. “Let’s go.”
Salto nodded and stepped away. He crossed to the front door and held the trinket up to the door. it flashed as the man’s office door had and Lennix followed him through without hesitation as Salto let magic make his hair dance like fire on his head.
They stepped out into an area Lennix did not recognize. It was foggy and the only real significant thing about the brown landscape was the stick of a tree with a curved trunk and a branch that looked broken.
He sighed, flopping back awkwardly onto his wings. “I had never wanted to. I truly thought it was you dragging me back here after too many drinks and I hadn’t seen you all month and you had been smelling good and looking good all evening….”
“Certainly you would have noticed the lack of magic.”
He shook his head, expression twisting up in pain and guilt. “I hadn’t. I truly hadn’t and I know that I should have realized it but I didn’t and I still don’t know why.”
Silence bounced around the room only interrupted by the wind that drifted in giggling, whispering about the people outside and how it kept their words private despite the open window.
“You’ve always been able to tell no matter how drunk you got.”
Salto’s words were carefully picked one by one and he could hear the tentative choices Salto was using. It almost sounded like he was trying to piece something together and Lennix sat up, searching the other’s expression for what he heard on the wind.
Salto wasn’t looking at him. Instead, the man was glaring at the corner of the bed in an expression Lennix hadn’t realized he had missed. The man was piecing something together, something that was important. He had seen it a few times as they clashed during their few skirmishes as hero and villain but never had he equated it to being Salto’s expression. He felt his heart twist in his chest.
Damn. He hadn’t gotten over Salto, had he?
Salto’s eyes came up to meet his after a moment, words falling from the man’s lips in a thought process Lennix did not understand. “What do you remember?”
Lennix frowned as he dredged up what remained of that murky night. “I remember the costume party, how I had joked that there were several there dressed as you. You making the offhanded bet that I would be unable to find you among the doppelgangers.” His frowned deepened. “But I had assured you, proved to you time and time again that night that I could and would find you in among the doppelgangers.” He laughed, a smile breaking across his face. “Well, except for the one time that I did it knowingly. You were so pissed, I had to chase you to the backyard and assure you I had been teasing.”
A blush colored Salto’s cheeks and Lennix gripped at the sheets to keep from trying to make that blush spread in such delightful ways. Damn it! He was not supposed to be thinking that right now!
“It hadn’t been funny,” Salto snapped, defensive. He deflated some, curling in on himself, and Lennix felt horrible for even mentioning it. “Five years of loyalty and I still expected you to find someone better.”
There was a flurry of wings and feathers as Lennix moved. Salto sucked in a breath, straightening as Lennix’s hands cupped the man’s face, body curled forward over the man as he hovered his face inches from the other, wings encompassing them both. “You were and still are all that I have ever needed. There will never be someone better than you. No one can match how your magic sings to me like the wind does, thrumming around you as if its bursting to be released, how it courses under your skin in such an intoxicating way. I could never find someone to replace what I’ve become addicted to. You haunt my dreams even after all these years.” Lennix caught sight of Salto’s throat bob as the man swallowed even as his half lidded gaze never left the others. “Even after finding out you were Canis Major this whole time, I felt sorrow instead of anger, grief instead of hatred. I regretted every mark I’ve surely left on your body and your mind. And no matter how much I wish I could course correct us knowing where we are now, there’s nothing I can do to erase what has already happened.”
“Lennix,” Salto breathed but there seemed to be a catch on the word and no more followed.
Lennix gave in and rested his forehead against Salto’s, closing his eyes. “A few short months after I was forced into the ranks of heroes, Kingsman pulled me aside. His words still echo in my ears even to this day.” He opened his eyes and met Salto’s searching gaze steadily. “He told me, ‘What does it mean to be immortal? A long time ago, I was fool enough to think the answer my mission. But the more I searched for the answer, the more I realized that to be immortal is to accept mortality, to live as if the next day will never come and to cherish those you hold dear.’ His words are why I have loved you even when we broke up after my stupid mistake, after the mistakes we both made.” He closed his eyes again, withdrawing enough to shake his head. “I wish I had fought the recruitment, fought becoming a hero. I wish I had thought it through enough to know I needed to resist,” his words stalled and he met Salto’s gaze again even as his heart clenched in his chest, “enough so that I had heard you and the fear you had spoken those words in that quaked the air in a way that makes me fear for you.”
“Lennix,” Salto spoke again with so many emotions, Lennix couldn’t even fathom what Salto was feeling, and the man reached up, gripping Lennix’s wrists in painfully tight holds. He wasn’t pushed away.
“I’m sorry I was such a coward,” Lennix urged. “I didn’t fight for us. I didn’t fight the demons I had seen on your doorstep, and it left me open to a stupid attack.”
Salto shook his head between Lennix’s hands. “You were never responsible for my fights.” The smirk he sent had a watery edge to it. “And I should have sucked it up and let you explain instead of throwing you away and shutting you out. Maybe then we could have avoided all of the pain we had caused each other.” Salto released one of Lennix’s wrists to run careful fingers over a ragged scar on the side of his neck barely hidden by the collar of his jacket. Salto’s fingers traced it, knowing how it cut across Lennix’s skin from having been the cause of it. “I have harmed you more than you have harmed me. Why you still take full responsibility for all the bullshit is beyond me.”
Lennix laughed as an endearing smile graced Salto’s face. “Old habits die hard, it would seem.”
Salto gave a breathy chuckle at that, meeting his gaze again. That hand tracing the scar moved to his cheek. For a moment, Lennix watched Salto’s gaze track his own thumb rubbing against Lennix’s cheek. He shifted closer, gaining Salto’s attention once more.
“Can we try again?” he asked in a breath, lips a breath away from Salto’s.
He felt Salto recoil but the man did not move in his touch. “There will be hell to pay from the factions. Besides, we’ve changed so much. How could we go back to how things were?”
“I don’t want to go back to the beginning,” Lennix confessed. He felt Salto suck in the breath as the other’s eyes grew wide. “I want to start over, start with who we are now and see if we are still as madly in love as we had been the first time we started out.”
Salto gave a wry chuckle. “I wouldn’t have called that 'madly in love’. More of pitiful endearment.”
Lennix grinned. “Potatoes, tomatoes.”
Salto’s face screwed up in disgust at that. “That is not even-”
Lennix brought their lips together, his hold barely on the other so that he was not trapping Salto there. As much as he wanted to try again, to learn about this man all over again, he didn’t have it in him to force the other to try again too.
A breath, a moment for the brain to register what was going on, and suddenly Salto was pressed against him, taking over the kiss and eradicating any thought that Lennix had. When they finally pulled apart, they were sharing chaste kisses with Lennix’s back against the mattress and Salto’s weight against him. His fingers traced unfamiliar lines under clothing, a part of him mourning the years he had missed with this man.
“Are you sure you want to try dating a supervillain?” Salto uttered against his neck.
Lennix wrapped his arms around the other, pressing his face into the side of Salto’s neck. “I may attempt to sway your ways.”
Salto chuckled at that but it lacked any luster to it. “I can’t make any promises it’ll work.” There was a lull in Salto’s words and it weighted on Lennix. “I’m in too deep now to turn things around.”
“Alone, probably, but you’re not alone now and won’t be for as long as you’ll put up with me again.”
Salto pushed himself up enough to look down at him and Lennix met his gaze without hesitation. “You do realize this will be a fight that we can’t win, right?”
Lennix smiled. “No more a fight than the one we faced as gifted children.” He cupped Salto’s face. “We’ll make it through this with a few more scars but we’ll live through it one way or the other.”
Something chirruped, cutting through the moment. Salto shifted about as Lennix assumed it was the man’s phone. He didn’t have any sort of chime for any of his notifications, superhero or otherwise.
“Shit,” the man hissed, getting up.
“You being called in?” Lennix asked, sitting up as Salto pulled an object from an inner pocket. He could see it well enough to recognize the old gift. It warmed his heart to see Salto still utilizing the trinket after all these years.
“Unfortunately,” Salto confirmed, pouring magic into the trinket. It behaved as any wand would, guiding and directing Salto’s burning magic into the purpose Salto urged it to become and his entire attire changed to the familiar outfit of Canis Major. It sent a thrill of unease and worry through him. Salto looked at him, an uneasy expression on the other’s face. “I can drop you off at your home, if you want. This may not be the safest thing for you to come to.”
Lennix got up, shaking his head. “I’m not letting you go into this alone, villains be damned.”
Salto chuckled. Lennix shuddered under the touch of the other’s magic, a thrill racing down his spine at the familiar sensation. Even after so many years, Salto’s magic still felt the same. “That will at least make it less likely anyone will call you Swallow.”
He opened his eyes, taking in Salto’s pleased expression before bringing his wings about to look at them. They didn’t feel or behave differently but they certainly looked different. He realized the only thing Salto had truly changed was the coloring and the only visual change on the smaller feathers seemed to be an illusion. He crossed to the bathroom as Salto’s words followed him.
“It should be enough that no one asks any questions.”
The mirror revealed that Salto had even changed his attire into an outfit that spoke neither of superhero or -villain. The mask that he barely even noticed obscured the majority of his face and hid all of his hair beneath a veil of feathers the same color as his newly recolored wings. No one would be able to tell it was him under it.
“I changed your hair as well, just in case.” He looked to Salto, finding the man leaning against the doorframe in a show of ease. The way the words tumbled in the air spoke of how it was a charade. “As much as it goes against my 'villain’ nature, I don’t want you to be found out.”
Lennix smiled gently and crossed over to Salto. He gave the man a soft kiss, offering against the other’s lips, “I trust you.” He pulled away enough to take in Salto’s full expression. “Let’s go.”
Salto nodded and stepped away. He crossed to the front door and held the trinket up to the door. it flashed as the man’s office door had and Lennix followed him through without hesitation as Salto let magic make his hair dance like fire on his head.
They stepped out into an area Lennix did not recognize. It was foggy and the only real significant thing about the brown landscape was the stick of a tree with a curved trunk and a branch that looked broken.