Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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What She's Doing Now [Cira]

Corellia
Coronet
Before Everything

Anaya was gone, and Coryth had passed through the week before. A short list of past romantic entanglements; one physical, the other emotional. A short and entirely incomplete list. For all the jokes about his whorish ways, he'd really not done as much as people liked to think he did. Part of that came from his desire to avoid putting himself out there emotionally; a key component of any relationship.

And the exact reason why he and Cira would likely never be.

Just as he didn't, neither did she. A frown crossed his lips as he walked into his bedroom, pulling his shirt off and discarding it without a care onto the floor. Blinking some sleep away, he trod the well worn path to his own personal bathroom where he turned a light on to brush his teeth in a quick, hurried fashion. He was tired. Bone tired. The Protectorship was weighing heavily on him.

There was too much reliance on the isolationist natives of Kaeshana, and beyond them it seemed Naboo was the only other place where he could find people willing to work towards a future of any sort. But even then, the two never intersected. Everyone in their own corner. Everyone to their own drum.

How did he put them together? Being an NCO had been easy. You gave orders, you shouted, people listened. There was no grumbling, at least not openly. They understood it was for a greater good. He spit out his cleaner, cleaning off the brush. Turning to leave the bathroom, he paused in the doorway, an indiscernible shape clearly taking up the edge of his bed. No alarms had gone off.

This wasn't Anya. Or Coryth.

So whoever this was had snuck in here... to sleep in his bed... without setting off the alarms. He debated the merits of grabbing one of his many weapons, but something told him this was different. The only person who'd felt comfortable in his bed had been Mara, and even she had only felt comfortable in it when he was there. She'd not liked sleeping alone. Or sleeping, really.

But he could think of only one person who would ever be comfortable in his place and with the capability of avoiding alarms. Ayden. But as he shut off the light and went to wake up the man in the bed he couldn't help but realize how stupid that was. Ayden would never sleep in his bed.

Nor would he do so without warning. The man was a specter while Sarge was a wraith. Inhaling, he realized something.

It was a woman.

And he could almost feel the tears threatening to break out of his eyes. Breath hitching in his throat, he stripped down to his underwear and moved to the untaken side of the bed where he lowered himself down. Crawling under the covers, he laid there a few long moments, puzzled and caught between action and inaction. Did he do something? Or act like nothing was occurring?

Was it even [member="Cira"]?

He didn't know, but he rolled onto his side and curled up behind her, arm draped over her waist. A feeling of 'this isn't right' settled upon him, but he chalked it up to the fact it was, technically, a stranger for the moment. He wasn't capable of dealing with more conflict today. If it turned out this was some random woman, what did he care. Wouldn't be the first time he woke up holding a stranger.
 
I had to find you...
tell you I need you, tell you I'll set you apart.


Cira had some vague sense of a heavy weight and warmth that would blanket her. A small frown would draw over her forehead, shifting the length of dreadlocks that would flank her face.

Sleep held her tightly in its grasp. Genetics made her body hypersensitive to drugs, the effects often times hitting her harder at least twice over. It is why she abhorred hospitals. Doctors. Needles. It didn't help matters that she was highly claustrophobic.

She didn't take well to people touching her. Strangers either.

A slow twist and she'd turn around, finding something covering her shoulders and pulled it closer. A blanket. And it smelled…not at all like the sickly sweet scent of bacta, of medical sheets in the medbay she ran away from.

It was the scent of a male.

And there was something else, another smell…a dark musk with an evergreen spice.

Was this a dream?

Not something silly to wonder. The salt in his bed a testament of emotions that had been strung to tight until she broke. But no, this was different. Heat radiated around her.

The hazey cobwebs in her mind would start to clear, consciousness coming in degrees. Awareness. She remembered the scent well, remembered it from her past.

Cira froze. Bright gold eyes that were lit like soft embers would snap open. She held her breath.

No, that thickly muscled arm with a dusting of hair was resting round her bare waist, tangled against the robe she'd borrowed earlier. But that wasn't what made her pause. It was the fact that the arm was connected to streaks of scars of flesh over a wide chest. Further up, she'd follow the cruel pattern, past dark veins that would coil up and finally... settle on a face that had haunted her nights on worlds as distant as Yuuzhan'thar.

Cira began to tremble.

Her eyes went snapping shut, facing burying against the pillow she had saturated earlier with tears. There, she was frozen, at war with action and inaction. Fear and guilt. But laying under that deep sea of conflicting emotions, an undercurrent would push and guide the gulf of her whole.

A deep breath came to her then. His scent was so much stronger now, smelling of evergreen and distilled male strength. A reminder.

A calm.

Stay. The plea would float from a past distant memory. One of many lives; one of many lives that were tied to him.

Always him.

Her body would move without thought, like a moth to the flame, seeking the heat of him. She inched closer until her forehead hit the curve of his scarred shoulder.

It had always been him.

He was so hard, like a stone wall, but he was warm, and her body relaxed. Next to him she was able to feel the weight of her own bones, the firm bed underneath her, the currents in the room as the air conditioner came on.

Nobody said it was easy...

Through his presence, Cira was connecting to the galaxy around her again. His scent surrounded her. A comfort.

No one ever said it would be so hard.

More. Closer. She went pushing herself forward until she was flush against the front of him, from breast to heel.


I'm going back to the start.
 
Sleep had edged itself into the recesses of his mind and along the corners of his eyes. There was a heavy weight on his eyelids, dragging them down and sheltering the darkness of his eyes behind their protection. He was just so tired. So very tired. There was little he wanted more than to sleep; sleep forever until the galaxy was torn asunder and he could join with the Force.

Last time I saw her it was turning colder...

But it wasn't until he felt the trembling that he realized what was going on. Sleep was stolen from him at the whim of the woman next to him. Part of him worried he'd made a terrible mistake. Perhaps this was someone who wasn't supposed to be here, now afraid to run lest they give away they weren't his apparent significant other.

One eye opened slowly, catching a flash of gold just long enough that his heart stilled.

...but that was years ago.

Breath caught in his throat for a second time that night and when he drew in a halting, shuddering breath he could have sworn the dark aroma of salt slid up into his nostrils. And there they were, afraid to move, to speak.

And where she's now... I don't know.
A forehead came forward, finding its way up against his shoulder and it was the heat of their bodies blending together that caused his arm to tighten around her waist, forearm bending up to run parallel to her back.. His other arm slid under her pillow, giving it a place to rest. He dared not move forward until not only did she get in close, but she pressed herself flush to his chest.

This time, the salt he smelled came from him this time, the dark contrails of salt-filled-pain running down his tired features. Eyes closing again, the arm under the pillow shifted, wrapping around her shoulders so his palm could rest on the back of her head. Dreadlocks weren't the hair he knew, but those eyes.

They'd haunted his sleep for as long as he could remember.

Cause what she's doing now is tearing me apart.

A pain rose in his sternum, threatening to split his chest apart. He couldn't get her close enough then; there was no way the softness of her body could get closer but he just... he desperately had to try. Chin lowering to rest atop her head, he took another shuddering breath.

"I'm so sorry." He mutters, voice breaking. "I told you I'd get you back."

Filling up my mind and emptying my heart.
His arms slid forward, leaning his chest into her to draw her into his embrace. Like he could protect her from the galaxy if they didn't know where she was.
I can hear her call each time the cold wind blows.
But even that was a lie, because he couldn't protect her. He'd failed at that task.
And I wonder if she knows....
"But I never should have let you go in the first place."
what she's doing now.
 
It is not in the words you see.

Never is.

It is in the unspoken. What went unsaid. It was in that bed that the conversation began, when he drew me as close as possible, holding me tightly, his face in my hair, and those hands that don't speak went moving over my skin and told me I'm cherished, honored, seen.

Beloved.

I remember this. I remember him. I...

I touch him, trembling fingers rising to drift over the contours of his collarbone, placing into it all those things I never said into my hands as I trace the puckered scars on his skin. A map of his past, etched in cruel ripples of cast in his agony, my guilt, and our twisted reality.

Higher my fingers went, dribbling beyond until the pads would slide over damp contrails of salt. Like a blind woman seeking familiarity of self, of existence, of some kind of truth, I found myself desperately stroking my thumbs across the rasp of his beard, tracing the planes and hollows of his face, until finally, I buried my hands into his dark hair.

The hand at the back of my head would curl slightly, weaving through the thick dreads that remain a lingering trace of something dark inside of me. The shattered parts of me all would scream, each clutching and writhing through my mind. Limbs shift, and I found myself drawing my face into the crook of his neck. Every breath would draw him inside me, around me, enveloping me whole.

Memories bleed into the other. I think I would die to have those memories back. There was a hole. Now there is a hole where the hole was.

And only he could fill it.

He always did. Why was that? A thought came to mind, a measure of lucidity in my broken mind that would whisper in a soft voice what he had been trying to tell me all along.

Strength wasn’t about being able to do everything alone. Strength was knowing when to ask for help and not being too proud to do it.

But even as I felt his arms around me, the dark familiarity that churned within told me that it would be easier for him if he would just let me go.

So there we lay. My fingers would curl, tightening against his short hair, as if I could just draw him as close as I possibly could. As if I could drive him around me, inside me, filling that void.

With his strength.

I'm so sorry

With his essence.

I told you I'd get you back

With his touch.
But I never should have let you go in the first place


Aye. His touch. A brand. A reminder; a reminder of what I held back all this time. My lips would tremble, mere inches from his own before I found myself answering.

"Then don't..."

My glittering gaze would lift, and in the darkness, that tortured expression would be a mirror of my own. A face that held the dark, unfathomable depths of his eyes.

An image that had haunted me through the orations of Yun-Amon. A thousand-yard stare with the conscience of an immortal.

Death itself.

No.

Not that. Another name. I knew it. I could not forget it, no matter how hard I tried. It was always there. One that would coat my tongue along with regret.

"Brandon."

With need.

"Don't let go."

And a desperation.
 
There was little to indicate that this wasn't just another memory given life by his mind. That he wasn't holding a ghost, talking to himself, and acting like everything was alright. It hadn't happened in years, not since his last alcohol fueled bender. But it was still familiar enough to leave a taste in his mouth he knew all too well, and so he was quietly convincing himself she wasn't here.

That she'd never been here.

And that's why he was crying. Or, rather, had been. A million lightyears and a decade ago he'd broken into the office of a cold, calculating woman with a frigidness that put even Cater to shame. Auburn hair, thick curves, deadly stare; all business. He'd thought it funny how that worked. All the good women where obsessed with their work. There would be no one in their lives to make them wish they were anywhere else but behind that desk.

But, in that manner so typical of him, he'd taken on that challenge.

Some measure of success had been had, over the years. However, he'd never known if it was him or just proximity that had done it. Perhaps that's all it had been, proximity. But that knock on the door, all that time ago. She'd been right there, across the threshold. As ever, the angel from his nightmares.

And then she'd spoken.

"This is yours."

She'd been holding out a mask he'd left her; one from his past. But as she spoke now, filling his ears with what he'd always wanted to hear... he couldn't forget those words. This is yours.

Drawing in a shuddering breath, he leaned down, brushing his nose up along the flank of her neck even as her fingers found purchase in the renewed growth of his hair. Exhaling slowly, feeling the heat backwash across his face, he tightened his hold further with arms that were, suddenly, shaking.

This was real.

She wasn't a dream.

Inhaling deeply, breath suddenly coming a little quicker, he pressed his lips gently along the flesh of her neck. He moved upward slowly, towards her ear, pausing to nip gently at the lobe.

Don't let go.

"I won't let you." He responds quietly, tears threatening to burst the dam of his eyes once more. She'd been his galaxy for as long as he could remember, and he'd give anything to feel those fingers trace his chest just one more time. To fill that hole that was always left when she wasn't around. The one that said he needed her by his side, and he hers, in order to feel complete.

But he wasn't complete now. Not yet. In time, however, the feeling would return, as would her memories and her life. It wasn't until she was herself again that he'd feel her filling every last crack left by his long, weary life. Until then... she wasn't going anywhere.
 
He was everywhere at once; his strength a pillar to rest upon as he drew me tighter into his embrace. Then tighter still.

But who was he really holding?

Her? Me? A deep wretched need would ache in my chest. A hollow, a void. A place I kept the feelings in and really thought it had cost me. My grip would tighten on renewed growth of his hair at the nape of his neck, almost painfully so. Tangible. Real.

Or was it?

Was it really real?

I didn't know anymore. I remember it all. The shouts. The yells. The scent of burnt flesh. Him. Me. Them. Everything.

Nothing.

I gave a wince as a stab of pain went ripping against my head; there where the sting ray had latched onto the nape of my neck. Visions of things that were unspeakable and personally did came to the fore. My heart went kickstarting in my chest, panic rose. She was there; rising, stretching, transforming into Zhaera, telling me, in graphic detail, what I've done, lacerating me with red-hot blades of hatred and cold black blades of despair.

Agony screamed inside my skin.

Closing my eyes, I clung to him like I had never done before. Not as Cira. Never as Cira. I couldn't. Wouldn't. But then if not Cira.. then who?

I can't.

I don't want to know what she did. She isn't who I am. At least that's what I thought, but now I am second guessing myself. I felt like crying and I hated myself for it.

But, the rasp of his beard against my jawline would draw my attention. The warmth of his breath at my ear, the steel in the velvet of his voice, the promise they held.

I won't let you.

I was shaking. Desperation and need was an open wound in my chest, as if crashing against a dam and threatening to spill over. I just wanted it to go all away. Block it all. Push it away. What came next, well maybe it was him. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was the dam bursting after ten years worth of deflection. Of formality. Distance. Of that facade of civility that made us able to work together when we had to.

It came crashing down.

People are capable of varying degrees of truth. The majority spend their entire lives fabricating an elaborate skein of lies, immersing themselves in the faith of bad faith, doing whatever it takes to feel safe. The person who truly lives has precious few moments of safety, learns to thrive in any kind of storm.

It’s the truth you can stare down stone-cold that makes you what you are. Weak or strong. Live or die. That's when you gotta prove it to yourself. Answer it plainly.

How much truth can you take?

I was raw. I was badly off balance. Love. Hate. I was lost in that sea of confusion with only his strength to hold me above water.

What am I? Who am I?

The scent of dark musk with an evergreen spice would surround me then. Latched onto me; got under my skin. I lost all sense of time, my hands reaching up to cup his cheeks, thick growth of hair prickling my palms.

I didn't know who I was. What I was. But I did know this.

Brandon did.

So my lips sought his, searching. Raw. Unhindered and bare. No holding back, tears cutting the membrane and carving silvery contrails down my cheeks, as a desperate mental cry went lashing out.

Please, don't let me go.
 
Who was why.

Why had she come here.

He didn't know, well and true. Perhaps it was the last place she'd felt safe. The closest place she could go that was recognizable as home. That made sense. She never made sense. It's exactly that which had enthralled him about her. There was an insatiable need he had for a puzzle. Something to solve. And this woman before him was the ultimate puzzle. Ambition. Pride. Strength.

Everything but warmth.

How he needed that warmth.

It was there, you know? There in the warmth of the hand on the back of my neck, pulling painfully at hair as if the last lifeline of a drowning man. It pulled down on my heart, drawing me ever closer to the depths with which she fought. A riptide was pulling me in, and it was one I gave into gladly. I could still see her there, that first day. Auburn hair tumbling in carefully manicured curls about her shoulders.

The huskiness of her voice, the sharpness within it. So pointed. So barbed. Just as she'd remained for so many long years as we had danced t o a song all other ears were deaf to. By any standards, I was obsessed. By some, a stalker. But I'd been her bodyguard. How could I not watch her every moment? Well, not every. She had her privacy at the end of the day. But when she was in public, I was too.

A buffer.

And by doing so I subjected myself to a beauty of a woman who didn't understand herself. Who didn't understand just how much of herself she was showing, even as she thought herself protected.

But she had. And she'd been loved.

She was still loved.

And all I am is a man.

Ferocity surged to the fore of her mind, mingled with anguish and despair. I could sense it in the desperation of her body, trembling as it was in my hands. And the more she shook, the firmer I became. The tears that had threatened my eyes disappeared, though the pressure remained. A threat I could live with if it meant being strong. But even as those thoughts entered my mind, I knew they were false.

They were proven false the moment her mouth latched onto mine for dear life, drawing me into half-dreamed of citrus flavors. I didn't even taste her, but rather the heat of her mouth. The sheer need that came from warring lips and dueling tongues. Closing my eyes. Willing my eyes to cease their treachery, my arms locked around her like a vice, drawing her supple frame in against my body.

Each scar was a lifetime, each memory a torture.

But perhaps now as I surrendered my mind and body to the woman clinging so desperately to me, perhaps now I could understand why storms were named after people.

Beautiful. Tragic. Majestic.

Destructive.

And I stood gladly in the path of her, arms spread wide to welcome every wave that broke upon my shores.
 

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