all this work gone to waste

[lipochrome]

Who: gideon nav and cr
What: a july catch-all
When: mid-late july
Where: the beach, cobra kai, gaze

Content Warnings: marked in comment headers, but expect death, grief, corruption, religious and family trauma

Comments

[terriblepurpose]

[ Paul falls into her arms with unfettered gratitude. She is cold and ragged and hurt, dredged up from the deep, dark places that lie so much further below than the sea, but she is here. She has heard him at last.

He is not restrained when he wraps his arms back around her and sinks his face against her shoulder with a muted but profound sound of relief, a knot inside of him finally giving way. He doesn’t know if he could hold himself up now if he tried. He wouldn’t try. All he does is lean, his forehead throbbing, into her and this moment. ]

Yeah. Well. [ Husked, overwhelmed. ] I’ve been putting protein powder in my oatmeal.

[ Like I love you, again, the same feeling in other words, and he felt the first brush of it from her even then, even if neither of them knew. But still, and again, and as many times as she wants to hear it: ]

I love you. Just like this, or however you want to be.

You’re my family. You’re my sister, and I won’t give you up. Not to him, not to the ocean, not to anything. So you had better listen to me, because I’ll come after you, as many times as it takes.

[ Defiance against a god, and the gods, and the order of the universe itself, but he has never shied from any of them. Not when he has anything worth fighting for; not when he has anything worth trying for. ]

And we’ll start over. We’ll get it right this time, you and me.

cw: reference to mass death

[lipochrome]

[ Gideon laughs. For real, this time, more of a breathy exhale of relief. A rock has been rolled away, and it's still terrifying, but she has people to keep her afloat. Her skin warms a little, and Gideon presses harder, drinking in the contact like someone starving for it. ]

You already have come back for me.

[ She's a touch bewildered that he has. It's so much to get used to, all this love said out loud, given so openly, as if it could never run dry. As if it's meant for people like her. ]

But I can't -- I can't go back there. [ She admits, and it's still shameful to be this weak, but hasn't Paul seen the worst of her already? And the levee is broken. She couldn't even stop it if she tried. ] I'm so fucking sick of ghosts.

[ Two hundred lingering in the walls, one bound to a sword, another sealed in a Tomb. ]

So I'm gonna kill him, I'm gonna finish this fucking mess and then -- and then -- I'll find you. Just. Not there.

[terriblepurpose]

[ The first times Paul had let anyone touch him again, in those cold winter months, he'd thought he'd understood how vast the gulf of need for it could be. Gideon clutches him now, and he knows he stood by a tidal withdrawal and imagined it a drained ocean. He presses back, resolute. ]

None of us are going back there.

[ He shakes his head, a little rocking motion that never fully levers him away from he enclosure. He's sick of ghosts too, sick of fighting for space among them, sick of them painting the walls and creeping along the floorboards. ]

Come to the dojo. I'm there. The Ninth, Johnny.

[ He flattens his palms on her back and pushes down, grounding, anchoring. He still doesn't want her to go, and fear trembles hotly in his fingertips, a familiar burn, but something between understanding and intuition stills his protests. This is going to happen. This was always going to happen.

And even if it wasn't - even if no gravity of fate drags them on this collision course - Paul remembers another night on this beach, when he asked her if she thought he played games with people. ]

Whatever you do. It doesn't matter. [ If she kills him, if she doesn't. ] Not to me.

[lipochrome]

Okay.

[ Gideon whispers, the closest she's ever been to obedient. Crux would be proud, except no he fucking wouldn't. Fortunately, this isn't about him.

Gideon doesn't want to go, either. She wants to stay on this beach. She wants to crawl back into the sea. She wants to feel the warmth of blood on her hands, and the thought of that makes her sick.

She wants Paul to tell her he loves her, again. She wants God to hear that. She wants him to know what he's missing.

In the end, Paul helps her out, one more time. It doesn't matter. A balm, a relief. Gideon stays in his arms a long, long while, listening to the sound of the waves and trying to get warm, before she says: ]

Yeah, well. It's time for me to live up to my family name. [ A lopsided grin, like a bandage. ] And he's gotta face full life consequences.

[ Said like that, Gideon almost believes she's making the right choice. ]

I'll come back afterwards, though. Don't worry.

[ Even though she knows he will. It's an I love you, all over again. The weird thing about those words is that there's so many ways to say them. ]

[terriblepurpose]

[ It's still horrible to laugh. He still does, nuzzling into the breadth of her shoulder like a second home before he draws back with damp, boreal green eyes, his inhale suspiciously close to a sniffle, but that's all right. It's all going to be all right. ]

You have more than one.

[ He touches his forehead to hers more gently this time. He runs his thumbs over her collarbones, cradling the moment for another string of heartbeats, and then pushes up to his feet unsteadily. He could be the one who just washed back up on the shore even when he reaches down to offer her a hand up. ]

Don't forget that.

[ He's serious with that, but he follows it with a smile to match hers, a crooked, binding thing. It gets into his eyes and bruises them, but it's the good kind of bruise, the tender ache of knitting whole. ]

And don't be too long, so I don't worry.

[ But she'll come back. That's I love you, too. That's the curl of his fingers around hers when he helps her up, the brush of them across her back when he'll see her off. That she will - that he believes it - that he'll worry until she crosses the threshold, but he won't stop waiting for her, for as long as it takes her to get there. ]