Extreme Makeover: Home Episodes

[Aver Brand]

Desperately, oh so desperately, Aver wanted to shout ‘I don’t care!’. It would let loose the choking pressure of anger in her chest, give it voice and flesh to bite in. She could almost taste the blood already, rich and warm on her tongue.

But it would be a lie. An easy way out.

The thought alone brought bile to the back of her throat. She wanted to rip it out of her head and crush it under her heel until it was eradicated for good. The weak gave into impulses.

She closed her eyes.

Ygdris Val was not weak.

When she opened them again, her stare was a haunted shade of blue.

I don’t know what I want.

 

[Quietus]

The thoughts exploding through Aver's head couldn't be missed. There was a very brief moment where Qui's mind went back to the restaurant and all the things she wanted to do to the woman standing before her. Considered telling Aver to do it, to lash out at her, to vent her pain and anger.

I can take it.

But she wasn't convinced that was the right thing to do. That wasn't her part in Aver's life - that had been his. Aver's anger needed an outlet and she couldn't be it. Not this time. Not in this place.

Aver didn't need her to be him. She couldn't be him. They both knew that. Aver needed her to be ... her.

That's fine.

The briefest touch upon her mate's thoughts, a passing mental nuzzle of contentment with the unknown. Quietus turned from the woman and meandered over to the snoozing beast on the floor where she settled down at its belly and leaned back to rest her head along Shai's scale-covered ribs.

I'll be here when you figure it out.

She needed a nap anyways. Hadn't slept much on the flight over.

 

[Aver Brand]

With the physical came the mental distance, and Aver appreciated the silence. Even if it lent strength to the echo of his absence. Especially because of it.

An outstretched hand summoned the armor she’d shed before – years ago it seemed – and donned the plates again with swift, practiced motions.

She was out the door and off to the Cruelest Cut before Qui had even fully settled against the beast.

Space.

Then flesh on flesh; fists on flesh.

Bruises were the kisses of a stronger lover; the spray of blood a warm prelude to lovemaking. And she did; make love, that is, to the skin and bones of her foes, many times over and often too long.

They dragged them one by one out of the ring until there was no-one left out there to join her. Enough red to give her apartment a whole new coat of paint, and it still wasn’t enough. She screamed herself hoarse taunting new challengers into the arena, but they had seen the way her strikes crumpled noghri and Mandalorians alike, and were none too eager to join the ranks of the broken in the backrooms.

A chill draft cooled the last of her heat on the way back; quelled the burning fury down to its eternal restive flame.

She skipped the creaking steps with a knowing stride and slipped back in to a sight that had her stop dead in her tracks. Shai was sprawled over the hardwood floor, and Des was sprawled over her in turn.

They were both snoring.

 

[Quietus]

Aver had spent enough time on Thral with Qui to know of her unusual sleeping habits. There were times she did not sleep at all. For days. Especially if the moon was full and the skies were clear. Then there were times they had left Treehome to hunt or explore. A large treebranch high off the ground where the night stalkers hunted often made a comfortable perch. Vines tangled together to craft a makeshift hammock were also common.

On more than one occasion she'd snuggled up with Shai or her winged bastard.

This particular instance was a mixture of tree branch and Puppy cuddles. Shai flat out on her side, breathing deeply, snoring loudly, gurgling and growling in her sleep. Clawed digits twitched across the floor. The length of her tail swept side to side every so often.

Over top the hulking beast? Qui sprawled belly-down over the rhythmic rise and fall of Shai's ribs, legs slunk over either side, feet lifted to hook at the ankles, face buried in crossed arms, golden braids splayed down one side.

Over the top of the snoozing ex-Beastia? Aver's vong helmet snuggled on Qui's back.

Neither one of the former pair stirred at the Merc's quiet entry.

 

[Aver Brand]

Together they made for quite the slumbering cacophony – Shai snoring, Dhal clicking, Qui… well, Qui wasn’t making any sounds, necessarily. Not physically, anyway. Instead a sleepy warmth radiated from her sprawled form, a uniquely feline contentment in having found the coziest spot in the house.

Aver stepped past the pile with more care than she’d intended, stripping off with quiet, brisk motions. This time her attire fell silent on the unoccupied bed before she padded barefoot over to the shower, to wash away the blood and sweat of a fight well won.

The steaming water hit her shoulders with punishing heat, dragging forth every bruise and scrape she’d earned over the past few hours. Even as she scrubbed at the grime the water slowly washed away all of her violence, swirling red down the drain until but the glint of silver remained.

 

[Quietus]

I don't share my violence with you.

And I like that.

The swimming vision of Aver, golden skin speckled by sweat visible only by the flicker of torches in the nest. It was a ghosted image, colors faded. A memory. A dream.

I like that you let me.

Let you what?

Aver seemed to struggle with herself, the intensity of putting emotions and thoughts into words visible in the lines of her expression, the drawing chord of tendons in her hand between them.

Most people don't...

Most people don't know me like this, yeah?

They see me like that and think it's all I am.

A cool breeze billowed in through the open slatted sides of the Nest. In the sounds of the rain beyond she thought she could make out the noise of a city. Was that the rumbling echoes of beasts in the skies or speeder engines? The Nest shifted, she could feel footsteps in her bones but her body remained relaxed as Aver's scent and presence filled her senses.

If that is all they have seen ... how would they know anything different? Their perception of you is controlled by your actions and your willingness to show them other facets.

Surely there are others you confide in? Your other mates, no?

I bleed it out.

She could smell blood, but it did not alarm her. It wasn't Aver's.

And... not many left, besides you.

I don't care that they don't know different. I care that you bothered to find out.

That moment should have told her that something was wrong on Aver's home front. She was too self-centered to see it.

I have no regrets, Ygdris.

Thank you, sevgi.


Quiet, murky green jungles met the darkness of the apartment, slowly rising and falling like a calm sea. Her ear was filled with the rhythmic rushing sound of massive lungs expanding and contracting, the rumble of a snoring beast filling the tempo inbetween, reverberating deep within her own chest like thunder on the horizon. She shifted just slightly, pulling her head out from folded arms to rest it overtop, peripherally aware that Aver had returned.

Her other ear told her she was in the shower, but it was difficult to decipher between Shai's breathing and the sound of Nadir beyond the confines of the home. Sleep lingered heavily on her mind, as did the dream.

Absently, as she tended to do in greeting to the woman whenever she returned to Treehome on Thral, Quietus reached out to her mind to briefly brush a welcome warmth through her thoughts. However Aver chose to respond would set the tone for the rest of her stay.

 

[Aver Brand]

Couldn’t hear her over the hum of the shower, but she could well feel her presence stirring in the other room. Aver closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the cool tiles. She turned off the water, content to feel every droplet crawl its way down her scarred back.

And then she listened.

The brilliant, unbridled chaos of her home came first. (Always came first.) It pulsed and roared all around her like a great buckling beast, and she at its very heart. But beyond the din of life being snuffed and reborn every second; beyond the report of gunfire in the streets; beyond the haggling of friends and enemies and merchants all; beyond it were the quiet sounds of her companions, and where Nadir set her spirit aflame, they were the absolution of water.

Change.

The natural order was that of constant mutation. Stand still and be left behind. Stagnation was death. She had seen it on every level; had spurned it, abandoned the bloated corpses of beached whales.

But then she’d never loved the carcass.

Only a dead man walking.

She let out something between a chuckle and a snort, and turned over so her back was against the wall. The mirror opposite shattered her reflection into a million pieces as it filtered through the bulletproof glass of the cabin.

Join me?

 

[Quietus]

She was slow to respond to the request if for no other reason than the comfort within which she currently reposed. The Queen of the Jungles stirred once more, shifting with the steady pace of a glacier moving through water to the sound of a gurgling Shai and a clicking Dhaladii. The former flicked a posthumous ear in her direction, the latter clung to the back of her leather cuirass as she pushed herself up and off the tuk'ata.

Dhal's trills ratcheted through the quiet of the room and for all her animal magnetism and empathy Qui couldn't tell if the vong creature was upset or excited. A hand reached back to gently scoop the helmet off, depositing it on the bed next to the gleam of metal armor. In the corners of the room, lurking in the shadows, she sensed the stirrings of the other vong pieces. Curious, perhaps, to the change in atmosphere of the apartment.

Clothing departed her figure piece by piece, forming a pile on a chair off to the side of the bed. Bronzed skin, faded tattoos, and ghosted scars greeted the steam of the bathroom in silence. Upon stepping in to join her mate, Quietus wasted no time in affording the woman a proper hello with her lips, hands clasped at either side of her jaw and neck.

Perhaps her concern for having to leave Aver in such a state was bleeding through.

 

[Aver Brand]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3rFeXVZVis​

On her tongue, in her mind, in the space behind her ribs; naught but the silence of the universe.

Her hands slid up corded forearms to lock calloused fingers against silver skin, pressing hard enough to bruise, hard enough to burn. She said nothing. All her words had bled onto the sand of the ring, beaten out with heavy fists until nothing but the soothing void remained.

Aver revelled in the quietus.

Her lips traced litanies across the flesh of her lover; from the column of the neck to a scarred shoulder, over the ridge of the clavicle and then down down down, to the dip of the hip. Cold arced up her spine as her knees hit the tile. Warmth bloomed in her limbs where skin touched skin, where fingers met, where her forehead pressed against a bronze stomach.

Cession to cessation.