Private Before I Leave Your Eyes

[Arcturus Dinn]

Beholder came upon Vixen while the latter's inhabitant slumbered.​

​

Arcturus disembarked quietly as he could, hoping to maintain the still which had come over the crystalline ship, able only to make such work due to his more intimate experience with the vessel in the past. He knew the codes, he knew the frequencies, he knew how to slide up beside it and forge a path between airlocks. He knew all of this because he knew the girl aboard it.​

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When last he'd walked its halls they had been two people united, their wills entwined and their hearts as one. It had been a long time since then, yet he found himself remembering his way through it all the same. He walked fleet of foot, forcing down the frustrations which had led him to this point, and approached the main cabin. Her cabin.​

​

Leviathan was still moving ahead of Vixen on the hyperlane they unintentionally shared. Unintentionally in so far as he was concerned, at least, for her it was no doubt a planned venture. He'd left Tamiko there to deal with the matter at hand, to deal with the matter he'd been neglecting for some time now. ​

​

Ishani had gotten out of hand. Traversing the Nether, following any and all leads as to his whereabouts, he would not stand for it. Not with all that she stood to lose in the process. But letting that bubble up before he was ready would only serve to warn her of his approach.​

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He did not want her warned.​

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The door opened quietly, enough that she would not be roused, and for a time - a far longer time than he ever intended to afford himself - he stood there and watched her. She tossed and turned in the bed, and though there was barely any light cast upon her he could trace every single curve of her face, of her body, as though she were illuminated by the brightest of stars. It was a peaceful, painful moment that he waited...​

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Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

Romantic as it all was, Ishani was sleeping weirdly. She had somehow wound up lying diagonally across the bed, her body twisted in a way that did not look comfortable. Completely exhausted after her encounter with Firrerreo, she simply fell into bed and passed out. Well, not immediately—a datapad lay on the bed near her limp hand. The screen had gone dark, so it would not reveal its secrets unless reactivated. She’d been looking at pictures of home.

She eventually squirmed into a less compromising position, tangled up in the bedsheets. Her eyelids twitched, lost in a dream. Or she thought it was a dream…

Her eyes opened in the dark. Someone was there.

In her haste to get to her feet, she failed to free herself from the sheets. A coil of cloth caught around her leg, pinned down by her knee, delaying her rise. She froze, and for a long time she didn't speak.

“...Arc?”

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

What was she thinking?​

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That was the first thought which drifted through his mind as he watched her lying there, tangled up as she was, in an awkward position on the bed. He had half a mind to move her, but he didn't. Why couldn't she just leave well enough alone? One night. That's what they'd agreed upon.​

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She'd broken those terms. Or at least she'd been attempting to break them.​

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Why wasn't she thinking about the kids? About what was best for them?​

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He exhaled a quiet breath to keep himself calm. No spiked emotions... He wasn't ready to face her yet.​

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And yet even so she began to stir all the same, twisting into an even worse state in the blanket, and then an eye opened and he stepped back into whatever shadow he could find. Her reaction spoke volumes all the same, as she tried and failed to rise up in her surprise at finding someone there in her room. A room aboard an otherwise empty ship no less.​

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He made to move back toward the door, to retrace his steps back to his ship before she could realize who it was, but then her voice cut through the air and he faltered.​

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Turned.​

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Stared at her. Softly at first, as he waved a hand and tried to unknot her from within the blanket with the Force. Only when she was free did that softness harden, eyes narrowing toward her.​

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"What are you doing, Ishani?"​

​

That was the first question out of his mouth, accompanied by one step forward toward her, back into whatever dim light there even was. A firm frown set over his expression, jaw tightening as he finally let his frustration bubble up to the surface.​

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"Why are you here? Why have you been following me?"​

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Ishani Dinn​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

He’d turned his back to leave when she spoke his name, a whisper in the dark. That halted him, and he looked at her with a softness that she hadn’t seen in… well, a long time.

She felt a tickle by her ankle as he manipulated the Force, untangling her from the blankets. The touch seemed to free her from the paralyzed stupor she had fallen into, and at once she was on her feet, the cool of the floor against her bare soles a reminder that she was awake. This was not a dream.

He took one step toward her. She took several, crossing the room to him in moments. Upon hearing the stern tone of his voice, she stopped short of embracing him, her arms dropping to her sides.

“I’m… you…” Her body had moved faster than her groggy mind could think. She swallowed to wet her dry throat. “I’ve been looking for you.”

His next questions were related to why. The answer was so painfully obvious, she almost didn’t care to voice it. She wanted to just grab him and hold on for dear life.

Instead, she clapped her hands together once, triggering the lights. “I wanted to see you,” she said softly, as the room lit up to reveal them both.

“How did you find me?” A sensible question, given the circumstances.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

She had rushed forward upon being untangled, and it seemed as though she would have run right to him if not for the words he'd uttered. Arcturus was grateful that there remained some space between them, there was only so far he could back up before he touched the crystalline wall after all. Grateful that he didn't have to push her away physically.​

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He didn't respond to her first answer, since that was a given, but her next? And her question?​

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Arcturus shook his head.​

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"You have been following me for parsecs," he retorted sharply, though his voice remained dangerously quiet despite this edge. "Do you think I didn't notice?"​

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The lights came on, and he found himself physically shaking in an attempt to stave off the worst of his rage. Doing his best to remain under control. He made the mistake of inhaling through his nose, inhaling her scent, and that did make him step back. This time for fear of what lay within his gut.​

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"I told you to stay away from me. Why don't you ever listen?"​

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The urge to wince rose up within him, but he squashed it back down. Now wasn't the time to play nice and worry about feelings. Now was the time to set her back on the right path.​

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"Stay with the children, Ishani. Forget about me already."​

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Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

"You have been following me for parsecs. Do you think I didn't notice?"

"I thought I hid my tracks well enough." She shrugged. "You haven't done a very good job of hiding, you know."

He took a step back, away from her. She could still sense him, still read him quite well, but his emotions seemed strange. Was he afraid of her?

... Nah. Never in a million years.

"I told you to stay away from me. Why don't you ever listen?"

"I did listen," she replied. "You leaving didn't make sense."

Here he was, repeating himself. The same bullshit. Maybe her state of mind wasn't so good after having fireballs lobbed at her, or spending the evening staring at photos of her children (their children, goddamn it), or being suddenly awoken from sleep. But her hands balled into fists, and she didn't bother to keep the frustration and pain out of her voice.

"Is this really all about them? You didn't even stay long enough to learn their names. If you don't want to be saddled with them, fine. We made a mistake. I... I made a mistake." Despite her resolve, she was beginning to falter, her voice breaking. "I just wish you would come out and admit it, rather than spouting all this crap about how you can't be with us because you're toxic—what the feth does that even mean?"

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

"I wasn't TRYING to hide!" The rage bubbled up and exploded from his mouth before he could do all that much to stop it, and in the aftermath he was left panting. "Force, Ishani, I didn't think you'd be so stupid as to try and hunt me down!"​

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She reeled off something back, about how he didn't know who the kids were, and how he just had to admit he didn't care about them, or want them, or whatever, speaking about mistakes, and he took the steps forward needed to close the gap between them and took her by the shoulders. Stared right into her eyes.​

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"Shut up. Just shut up, Ishani. Do you even hear what you're saying? Mistakes? You're looking at them as mistakes? What the feth? Do you hear yourself?" If he'd been shaking before, now he really was. He wasn't sure how tight his grip on her shoulders was, he just held her there and continued to talk with an exasperated tone.​

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"It's always been about them! Corruption spreads, or didn't you ever learn that? You were lucky enough to avoid it all together! So why are you doing this? Do you want to be corrupted too, Ishani? Do you want them to be corrupted to? Or are you so unaware of what the Darkside truly is that you think this is all just some excuse to avoid responsibility? Feth me, you can't be that stupid Ish. I know you're not that stupid."​

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Finally he released her, turned from her, stared out of the crystalline wall. "I know their names. Of course I know their fethin' names. I know their names, I know what they look like, I know he's got a dimple in his cheek same as you do. Marcus and Eloise. You think I left you all alone that day on Coruscant? You think I wouldn't find some way to ensure their safety, your safety?"​

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He turned back around to face her, then made a gesture with one hand. Out from under some surface or another, Nostremous scurried and made his way up his leg and into his outstretched palm.​

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"I've seen it all, Ishani," Well, minus the times he was out of his head, but she didn't need to know about that. "You need to stop this foolishness, for them. For their future, their sanity, their innocence. You are not a lost cause, but you are missing out on raising them."​

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Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

She had never seen him truly angry before—or at least, his anger had never been directed at her. The strange feelings she’d been picking up from him were overtaken by rage, and for the first time, she was afraid of him.

His grip on her shoulders was painfully tight, but she didn’t cry out. She didn’t make a sound. He shouted at her, railed against her, rebuked her actions. Some part of her knew that he was right. Even if he wasn’t lost, even if there was hope, her pursuit of him was fundamentally irrational.

But she didn’t care.

“How could you have stayed corrupted… if you were with me?” she finally said, her voice so small and soft it might have been that of a mouse. “What could you have done as a father… and as a husband… that would’ve kept that stain on you, whatever it was? There would’ve been no Sith… no battles… no places to conquer… no masters. Just a home, and a family… How could I not think you must have not wanted that?”

Her eyes overflowed, so she closed them. He knew everything, he said. He’d been watching, without her knowing. She heard him utter the names she had picked out in hopes he would like them, and almost wanted her heart to simply stop beating. To die, here and now, before she was humiliated and torn apart any more than she already had been these past few weeks.

“It was a mistake to think I could raise them on my own,” she gasped out. “Arc, you don’t understand. Even before you came back, I was leaving them with my parents, or with nannies. I was never around, even though I wanted to be… Force, I almost put them up for adoption when they were born, but I wanted… I wanted them because they were all I had left of you…”

Her throat closed up so that she couldn’t speak anymore, her head falling forward and her hair screening her face from view as she trembled in his grasp.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Arcturus found himself faltering as she spoke of families and homes and things he knew nothing about.​

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Was that really something he could have had?​

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"You think it's so easy to walk away?" he asked, quietly this time. That edge in his voice was gone; she was crying. This time she was crying because of him. Not because of something that had happened to him, or because of something else... Because of him. "You didn't submerge yourself, Ish, you didn't have a Master breathing down your throat, telling you what to do, how to behave. You think he'll just let me walk away?"​

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That was an excuse he was building in the aftermath though, wasn't it? He sort of just stared at her in that moment, unsure of how to proceed, of what to say or what to do. Had it really been an option for him? Would the corruption have been so negligible that it could wane like that with time?​

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Had he messed up?​

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It wasn't that simple now, was it? Not with all he had done since... That option was gone for him, and the reality seemed to break him in that moment. He sank down, dropping to his knees as his brows furrowed and his face creased into a thousand different lines. What had he done?​

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"A home?" he echoed. He couldn't even bring himself to say the other word.​

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But she had her work still, and he had his work, and no matter what he did that work would always have a corrupting influence over him, even without the gutbeast. He couldn't cast aside all he had worked towards. He couldn't have it all.​

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"Don't cry," he whispered, devolving back into who had been once before. He reached out toward her but never actually established a physical touch, afraid that she'd pull away from him. "You're strong Ishani, stronger than you realize, strong enough for the both of them. It wasn't a mistake... You can change all of that, you can go and be with them. You're the only one in your way, Ish..."​

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He was slipping, he knew. He'd come here to put a stop to all of this once and for all but she was intoxicating as ever, the idea of it all was so intoxicating.​

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"But I can't have that life, Ish. Not anymore. I... I'm not who I was back on Coruscant." She wasn't going to believe him, so he took her hand though he was still afraid she'd pull away and he settled it over his chest. Pushed his presence free to meet with her. The corruption ran much deeper now, where previously it had been just a speck now it truly seemed to have its hooks in him. "Losing you made me reckless. I... I didn't know any of this was an option for me, Ishani. Home... F... Family... I don't have a basis for reference. I didn't, I.. I didn't think..."​

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No that was the problem wasn't it. He didn't think.​

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And now he'd fucked it all up.​

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Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

The mention of Maliphant made her grind her teeth. Her head rose, her face an ugly mess of tears and fury.

“I would have killed him if he tried to stop us. I would have wiped him out!”

But this wasn’t about Maliphant. It never really had been. Even now, she didn’t think Maliphant would have actually bothered them. If he truly cared for Arcturus, if he was really like a son to him, he would’ve left them alone.

Arc’s grip on her was loosening. He dropped to his knees, and as she saw the look on his face and felt him, she knew what had happened. He hadn’t stopped to think. He didn’t understand what she had offered him on Coruscant. How could he understand? He’d never had a home or a family.

He reached for her, tentatively, and she didn’t hesitate to throw herself into his arms. Her fingers were in his hair, her lips on his face, kissing him wherever she could. For a few moments, she dared to hope that this might be it. The chase would end. He would see the truth, and they could go home together. Even when he kept talking, babbling out an explanation, she wasn’t really listening.

Not until he showed her what had become of him in her absence.

Her hand against his chest felt as if it had been blasted by ice. Not literally—he was still as warm to the touch as any flesh and blood man. But in some sense beyond the physical, the impression was of cold. Cold, and endless hunger.

Instinctively, she wanted to shrink from it. She looked up at him, her eyes wide. But then she set her jaw and shook her head.

“There’s got to be a way to fix this.”

She wouldn’t accept any alternative. Neither fate nor the Force was going to fuck them over like this. She wouldn’t allow it.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

He knelt there as she threw herself against him and showered him with affection, something of a non-functioning participant. He couldn't bring himself to push her away, not immediately, to stop her, but he also refused to reciprocate. It was getting messy again, the lines were blurring, and it was too tempting to let it all go. To let her back in and pretend nothing was happening.

Thankfully the revelation of what was going on within him seemed to slow her back to inaction. She made to shy away, but then he saw something in her change. A set to her jaw. A desire to do more.

Ishani then stated she'd find a way to fix it, to which he shook his head. The ludicrousness of the words proved enough to set him back into action, and he gently pried her away from him and made to rise once more.

"It's a curse for a reason" he stated, plainly, as he found his feet. "There is no fixing it."

One step back, leaving her where she knelt on the ground. All of that hope, all of that uncertainty, the desire to see what might have happened if he'd never walked away, vanished from him in that moment, lost behind a wall of carefully crafted apathy. Even when he looked upon her he forced down all of the confusing emotions and just saw her for what she was. A girl who was trying too hard at make believe.

"Go home to our children, Ishani. Stop the hunt: you won't find me again. Not unless you're willing to set them aside in the process. Which you won't. Because you know I'd hate you for it."

And then he turned to leave, pausing only to deposit Nostremous back on a surface in the room before he did so.

Ishani Dinn​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“Oh, for feth’s sake.” She stood up and walked after him, unwilling to let him pull another dramatic fare-thee-well out of his ass.

“First it was the fething Netherworld, now you've got some kind of curse. Did you know that I figured out a way to keep myself tethered in Realspace, without losing time in the Nether? I used it to pay a visit to your old friend Kal. He saw what I’d made, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he never bothered to tell you. I even tried to send you a message through a Shadow in Masque named Wildfire—did you ever get it?”

He was walking out on her. That was… that was fine. But she wasn’t going to let him leave until she’d said everything she’d wanted to say. After all, wasn’t he the one who told her communication was key to any successful relationship?

Of course, he wasn't going to just take it quietly.

"Go home to our children, Ishani. Stop the hunt: you won't find me again. Not unless you're willing to set them aside in the process. Which you won't. Because you know I'd hate you for it."

“I’d hate myself more for not trying!” she shouted at his retreating back. “You keep running from your problems without trying to solve them, and now they’re piling up! Damn it, Arc, don’t be a coward!”

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Force, she wasn't ever going to stop was she?

No matter what he did or what he said she'd keep searching for him, to the detriment of the twins. Arcturus further squashed down any emotions which might momentarily blindside him, and he rounded on her all at once. This time it was a different kind of rage he exhibited, the quiet kind that simply seethed beneath the surface.

And this time it was wholly fixed upon her.

"Stop."

The word too was quiet, but it packed a mighty punch all the same. He spat it out at her, voice dangerously low in pitch. One, two, three steps closed any gap between them, and he towered over her, intentionally pulling himself up to his full height. No hunched shoulders, or smaller presence, no he put his all into seeming a more formidable and dominating being.

"This, thing, Ishani," he made a gesture around her as he said it, "It was cute back when we were kids in the Academy, without any real responsibilities, but it isn't cute now. It's pathetic. You're pathetic. You're not a child playing make-believe, this is the real world and you're the only one acting like you can choose your place within it. You can't. It was chosen for you the day you had the twins, and that's not going to suddenly change because you're shirking your duty to them. Force, were you always like this? You're selfish, Ishani. Go home and give your children the life they deserve or I'll take them from you and find someone who will. Even the Darkside is a better fate than an absent, narcissistic mother."

He jabbed his finger at her with those last three words, and then just as suddenly as he was upon her he was turning back toward the airlock.

Arcturus left her there, no matter what she did or said in the aftermath, and reboarded Beholder.

He waited until the spherecraft was well on its way back toward Leviathan before breaking down, rage and sorrow both so palpable and raw that not even the jellyfish could make wonders of his dreams when he eventually fell asleep in there. But, ultimately, what choice had she left him?

Ishani Dinn​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

Ishani said nothing. She didn’t move as he left aboard Beholder, listening in silence as the pistons fired, the umbilical severing from her ship. Arcturus closed himself off from her with it, his presence vanishing from her senses. It was like a waking dream—and for half a delirious moment, she thought maybe it had all been a vision.

She sank to the floor, utterly numb. For once, she didn’t cry. No tears touched the glass, cold against her flesh.

Poor Arc. Poor Marcus and Eloise. Her heart ached for them. And for herself…

He was right, wasn’t he? She was selfish, narcissistic, and pathetic. Every reason she'd told herself was only an excuse, a screen to hide her desperate desire to have him at the expense of everything else. He didn’t know how much she’d given up in her pursuit of him—that was probably for the best. She didn’t want to hurt him any more than she already had.

She’d spent so long thinking about how things could’ve been if he’d just come back… but what about how things could’ve gone if he hadn’t? She’d still be a puppet politician, the shrinking violet propped up by a rigged election, a stand-in to keep some vague future doom at bay. She’d still be a Mystic, begrudgingly submitting to the faith of her ancestors to please her family, the pupil of a cantankerous master. She’d still be a mother, struggling just to see her kids every evening at dinner, spending most of her time with them trying to keep them from killing each other, but a mother nonetheless. As unhappy as she had been, as used as she’d felt, her life had been remarkably stable, and it wasn’t without its joys.

But she had ruined it all on the off chance she might have Arcturus back. She was too stupid or too selfish to realized she'd been chasing a ghost—the ghost of what they’d had, before their world died around them.

Now her world had died again, but she had pulled the trigger. She had nothing left. As for the children, she was desperate to go home to them—and she didn’t trust herself to come anywhere near them anymore. Not while her thoughts were hot and crazed, and the nightmare-image of them smothered in their beds, the pillow still in her hand, was swimming before her waking eyes. Maybe Arc was right to want to take them from her.

Go back to sleep, a shred of rationality advised. You're exhausted and delirious, not thinking straight. You'll figure it out in the morning.

But there was no respite from this to be found. She lay there on the cold hard floor, feeling as if she would never sleep again.

Arcturus Dinn​