wild-cryptid
Free as a Bird
this was a song prompt I got, and I found I rather like this story. I'm currently writing the full story.
He turned away from the outside, walking back through the station’s archway that separated the barren moon’s surface from the marble floors of Outpost Alpha, tracking the rain water that plagued this moon inside. Loneliness ripped at him, coming in waves and leaving behind the aftertaste of betrayal and hurt.
She had promised. She had promised to return. She said she would come back and they would leave for a new home, somewhere safe. She had found a planet they could live on together, in peace, in a shack that stretched far beneath the planet’s surface, protecting them from the acid rain that fell against the oddly grassy plains of Gamma 7 Delta. They could live outside the war, never being threatened by the battles, no more missions, no more jobs. They would never have to fear if the other would die on the front lines, or at the bad end of a paycheck gone wrong. They would never have to fear if they would see each other at the end of the day.
But she wasn’t there. She wasn’t parking her ship against the cliff-side docks of the outpost, holding her jacket over her head to avoid the heavy rain.
She was gone for another night, a week past when she said she would come home, and the saint was never late.
She was probably dead. Or dying.
Or gone.
He resisted the urge to spit on the floor. It wouldn’t do him any good with his helmet still on after all. Besides, who in their right mind would want him anyway? The galaxy’s most feared assassin, who was nothing more than a bitter, disgusting mess of gruesome flesh beneath his helmet? Who would want to live out their days with him?
Certainly not the Saint his love had become. Everyone loved her, the beautiful, charming, good-natured saint from a destroyed planet, born to a father that caused chaos. She was looked upon with respect, regarded as a benediction to all battles. If you had her, you had the fight.
On the opposite end, he was hated. A feared killer, whose only moral lines allied with whoever paid the most. He was the Deadlock, the Silent Phantom, the Veiled Demon. He was Wrath, and he was feared above all. He did not want the title, not at first. He was born into the life, paid killed was merely a means to an end, but when he began hearing his name whispered, he began to crave the power. A mercenary should be a redoubtable one, and he was going to be the most dangerous killer out there. Surikovs didn’t half-ass things, and he wasn’t about to start.
But the title, it seemed, had ultimately lost him more than he could gain. Saint Pesquet had abandoned him, and as much as the realization of this came to pass across his mind, he found he wasn’t surprised. She was too good for him, and they were, conclusively, a marvelous, ephemeral, daydream.
So he did what any self-respecting, indignant, torn-up mercenary would do. He threw himself back into his work, taking job after job, breaking the 5-year spell that had become the latent killer’s career. He had become immortal in legend, a ghost story told to (not just) high profile people to keep them in line. ‘Best not piss off so-and-so, they’ll hire the [enter moniker here] to get you.’ He had raised a whole new sense of fear of himself, a galaxy wide terror that no amount of hiding could protect you from. He had become Wrath, with no qualms about his killings, and no remorse for the funerals televised because of him. This was his job again, his life.
Just as before, the station at Outpost Alpha become a sort of hiring point for him, and while the moon base wasn’t nearly as crowded as it once was, it still held a lot of refueling foot traffic which meant plenty of customers under the ruse of ‘refilling’. He guessed the real reason why he stayed wasn’t for the familiarity for his costumers, but of the minuscule amount of hope that one day a politician wouldn’t walk through the double glass doors, but Pesquet and all her beauty. Or better yet, he would arrive in the morning to see her there, waiting. He refused to let himself openly think that though. He didn’t need her. He could depend on himself. Still, he sat at that table, outside the closed-down snack-shack, the one where they sat together frequently, sharing drinks and stories, and eventually even missions. Outside of her he wasn’t sure why he continued to sit here. Before he had sat on a bench against a back window, partially hidden by shadows. He made the argument to himself that the table provided a good view of the opposite entry doors, the only way in and out of the rectangular-shaped station. He had to watch for potential customers, after all.
Still, in the back of his mind he hoped, secretly praying for the day she returned. In some dreams he would enter the station in the early morning and see her sitting there with her bright, fanged grin, and fiery colored hair, asking where he’d been all night and something about how justice never sleeps. In other dreams she would come running into the building, trying to escape the rain that only seemed to have gotten worse since her disappearance, and she would jog over and steal his coat, which she had always called ‘the warmest thing a Averion has ever touched’. But she never came, and so he stopped watching the doors. Weeks turned into months, months into a year, a year into two, and yet, never any sign of her.
He accepted her dead; after all, the galaxy never spoke of new adventures and murmurs of mourning passed along species and worlds.
His work become empty, no emotions or incitement, even as he watched life after life drain from the eyes of his mark. He couldn’t even attempt a spark of happiness, or a sense of achievement or even grief, or regret. It had become a void where his soul once sat. At first he figured he could find peace by traveling again, but he only found everlasting emptiness.
It seemed the mirrors could reflect that, and his dark eyes turned empty. It didn’t matter, he hardly looked at the mirrors anymore.
He took his gear off to clean it, to wash it of the pervious mark’s blood, and only to shower on the rare occasion. He only ate when he desperately needed it, and he stopped finding joy in the gold soda he had begun drinking because of her. Foods tasted bland, drinks lost their fizz. Everything tasted of the grey his world had become.
Logically, he knew it was ridiculous to be this sad over a crush. He should get over her, move on. People died in their line of duty daily, he had lost a lot of partners. But Sha’heys was more than a partner, bigger than ‘some friend’. She had meant everything to him. She had been the only one to trust him, to look after him, to care about him even when the helmet came off and his true, mangled face shown in the light. She trusted him with everything, and she knew almost everything about his dark, sordid past. She was literally his better half, and she had cut him into such pieces when she vanished. Sometimes he couldn’t figure out if he had really been in love with her, or because she was the only to be nice to him he had developed some sort of twisted savior-complex.
He tried not to think about her.
When he wasn’t on a job he spent a lot of time at the outstation, staring numbly at the table, imagining where the two of them used to intertwine fingers over a milkshake or soda, with two straws and one drink between them. They had always shared drinks, since the first time she talked to him; it was a tradition of sorts. She had bought him that Chochi-haz drink, the one of some sort of thick, black goop as the liquid and the two shared it and never looked back. It was their thing, something she didn’t do with anyone else. Loathe as he was to admit, it made him feel nice that he was the only one who got to share drinks with her.
He remembered the day they met and when she introduced herself. She was a Averion from Averi 6, which was a planet of half-bird folk. He remembered laughing when she told him her last name, Pesquet. On her planet her name was a royal one, on his planet her name meant Pidgeon. Much to her annoyance he began to call her that; Pidgeon, Pidge. He remembered the first time he yelled that in fear that she was about die.
He remembered the day they went on their first real mission together, after knowing each other for a year. Sure they had been on adventures together, but she had been hiring him to help her fix her ship. No, this time, they two had been hired together as a unit. She was becoming something around the galaxy after all that time of helping people. The rumored ‘Saint Pesquet’ of Averi 6. On that first mission, their mark was a politically condemned prisoner of an enemy state who had to be killed before he could be interrogated. The mark, apparently, knew way too much.
The mark also knew how to put up a fight, even after Pesquet rescued him and tried to set him free, he had still tried to come after the mercenary himself, punching the visor on his helmet in before Surikov finally shot him, much to the Saint’s duress. The two made their way back to the ship, where he had tried to slip away to remove his gear; after all, he hadn’t taken his helmet off in front of anyone for years, fearing their reaction to his mullured face. But he had been bleeding too heavily for too long from both fight wounds acquired rescuing the prisoner, and from the shards imbedded in his face. For the life of him (and for the death of his ego) he couldn’t muster the strength to get to his room, collapsing halfway down the hall in a heap of pain and abasement. She had been at his side in seconds, worry all over her face, but it took almost blacking out, and feeling his heart start to stutter to allow for her assistance.
With a painstaking slowness, the Saint had eased his helmet off, avoiding the shards and cuts. There was a moment when it finally came off that, for the first time in nearly a decade, he felt true fear. How was she going to react? Would she be so disgusted with him that she would just up and leave him there to bleed out? But then the moment was over and Pesquet had made no indication that she was abhorred or that she was going to leave him there, instead she gave him a soft smile and set about fixing his wounds, continuously asking how he was doing throughout the half hour it took to remove the shards and stich the wounds closed. He had other wounds across his chest and torso, but he could take care of those himself now that he was out of danger of passing out. He certainly wasn’t about to strip in front of her, he felt naked enough without his helmet on. But after she sat back, wiping her blood-drenched hands on a towel, he found he couldn’t look her in the eyes, muttering something about how he was sorry about his face and he would put his helmet back on if she wanted him to.
But her only response had been to laugh. To laugh that gorgeous, chime-like laugh, and then kiss him. He felt fear and elation all at once, like it was some sort of sick joke, that as soon as she pulled away she would sneer at him, spit at his feet and tell him that he was as ugly as his job.
But, she didn’t. Instead she told him she was being silly, that he was fantastic. She told him that she loved him. He remembered having a strong sense of being lost, unsure where this was coming from and unsure if she was telling the truth. But she was, and soon he became truly lost. Lost in her eyes, in her strength, in her arms, in her never ending sea of love for him and every one of the galaxy, in the kindness she emanated at all times. He became lost in the kisses, in the affection, in the sex, the mind blowing sex.
He was lost in her and for the first time in his life he stopped caring about the next paycheck. He cared about her, someone that wasn’t himself. Even when they argued he loved her, the only thing that brought him back from solo missions was the knowledge that she would be there, waiting for him. They had each other and that kept him strong.
They never said exact days they would be back, only time frames; one month this mission, one week this one, two weeks the next one. She always promised to come back, and she always did, right on time.
But this time… this time was different. She had said two months. This would be the last mission, the last separation. The mission would take a month, maybe, but then she would find them a home. Through her many connections she would acquire them Gamma 7 Delta, an undesirable planet, one that would provide them the peaceful, quiet life they so desired, and then she would come back for him, get him from the moon base and leave everything, all the hurt, the pain, the jobs, all of it, leave it all behind.
She had said two months.
It had been two years.
The rain pounded at the moon-rock, barren ground outside, and as Miles O Surikov, the galaxy’s most feared, cold blooded assassin, watched the dismal skies, and for the first time since having accepted Saint Sha’heys Pesquet’s death, a harsh sob tore its way out of his throat.
And suddenly he broke, the pain that he had repressed flared up, ripping through him and tearing his heart into shreds. Grief gripped at him like the cold fingers of the wind passing through the empty outstation, cleaving him in half all in one stroke. He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried, but there he sat, the most fatal mercenary in all of the galaxy, chastened by tears from a woman from Averi 6. Tears slid down his face and made small pools in the crevices of his helmet, one that she had made for him when his old one shattered, and they became them.
Surikov sat there, the chair he had always sat in, across from his bird, his Pidgeon, in the place they always snacked together, fingers intertwined and lungs filled with laughter. The difference now was that he was alone, and his lungs were filled with agonizing sobs.
He sat there until the rain ceased, and the sun vanished from sight, leaving the always dark moon’s skies.
He returned to his ship that night empty handed and, once again, empty inside.
He slept maybe an hour that night, the rest of the time spent staring at the walls, wishing she were there, wrapped in his arms, the way the two spent the night before solos missions, wishing the other wouldn’t leave, fighting off the morning light with hushed voices carrying words of love.
But the sun rose the next morning, and he too, with it, no better than yesterday; still tired. Still empty.
The rain started again at noon, driving away travelers and business alike; the outstation empty except for him by midafternoon. He thought of leaving too, but he couldn’t find it in himself to move. He had honest to god been crushed. He was broken. He would die there, in that chair, no one would notice as his only tie to the outside population was as dead as he would be. Maybe they could find each other in the afterlife.
He heard it, the roar of engines just barely hanging on, like the sound her ship made before she hired him to help her across the galaxy to fix it. He heard it, but he heard it distantly, through a veil of disinterest and apathy. He couldn’t care enough to see who had come to this dismal moon base in the worst of the afternoon rains. He heard boots, frantic running outside and a yell. Albeit uncaring, he found enough momentary curiosity to glance up, wondering briefly if it was a client.
Fiery hair, and sunrise skin with piercing white eyes and a familiar silhouette against the glow of the ship. Death had finally come, and Pidge was here to greet him.
The rain poured down around her, plastering her feathery hair to her face, and she pulled her long, black traveling coat tighter around her.
“Miles.” Her voice, it was… real? Not- not death? His mind ground to a halt, and distantly he felt a small spark of hope and warmth. “Miles, please it’s me.” She took a small step forward, tears shining against the outstation lighting as she came out of the shadows.
“Baby, come home.” He stood so fast the chair was knocked backwards, clattering to the ground and the world swam for a moment.
Real? The broken mercenary thought distantly, his breathing shaky.
Just like the previous day he felt a crushing amount of emotions all at once, confusion and rancor being the loudest.
“You’re dead.” He found himself saying. Pidge shook her head.
“I was captured.” She said, choking on sobs. “Baby, please come home.”
“You left me, Pidge, for two years.” His voice was soft, disbelieving, cracking at the end of the sentence.
“I fought for freedom for two years. I’m so sorry.”
He walked slowly towards the entrance, standing just inside, at the edge of the rain, not 5 feet from her. This was fake, it had to be. Sha’heys Pesquet was dead.
Rain drenched hands, still warm like her, touched his arm, snapping him back to reality. She was so close, her ghostly eyes staring into his visor. The scar just under her left eye, light from the years that had passed since the day it was placed there was still in the same spot; the split on the right side of her top lip from where she had bitten down on a knife to pull it from someone’s hands was prominent as ever; her hair was a deep orange up close, less of the red it seemed to be from so far away, shining the perfect shade in the setting sun of the desert planets she loved so much. It was her, in every last detail.
Her face was gaunt now, though, her skin clinging to the bone like she had the same eating schedule he had had over the past two years, namely nonexistent.
Both of her hands came up to remove his helmet, pulling it off so she could see his green eyes, his skin pulled and ripped to show the actual underlying muscle and bone, a living zombie-esk body. Destroyed, she would say about his skin sometimes, but so much you.
Tears fell from both their eyes, and shakily, slowly, he reached up to cup her face, trying to process what was happening. She was alive, so very alive, and warm and there. She had returned to him- no, for him.
“Where have you been?” He asked quietly, even as the pain made him want to scream. He was angry and hurt and betrayed and happy and confused. He wanted to strangle her, and wrap himself around her simultaneously.
He didn’t really know how he was feeling.
“I was captured, Miles. I’ve seen hell.”
“But you’re here?” He couldn’t hear himself, disbelief making everything sound muffled. But her voice was clear, like the sound of his own personal savior. And she was, wasn’t she? His own Saint Pidgin. Saving him from himself.
“Yeah, I’m here.” Her voice cracked, her hand shaking, the helmet falling to the ground, splashing in the rain drenched land. Her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling down into a kiss, the rain sliding down his back, beneath his armor. His arms tightened around her back, a sob crawling up his throat to insert itself between their lips, his was heart breaking and putting itself back together simultaneously.
She was back in his arms, his bird, his Pidgin.
When he opened his eyes again she was crying, pressing her forehead into his.
“Baby, come home.”
But he was already there, wrapped in her arms, hearts breathing together in the rhythm of the rain, bodies crushed together in a shaking embrace.
He as at home when he was with her, as he always had been.
So when he sat bolt upright in the dark of his room, back on his own ship, sweating and sobbing, his heart breaking all over again at the cold sheets next to him, he knew he would always be lost without her.
They would find his body 6 months later, blank eyes staring at the blood stained wall, and the famous Black Bullet Pistol of his laying against his left palm, and a picture of himself and Saint Sha’heys “Pidgin” Pesquet in his right hand the only photo on the entire ship.
At least, in their minds, he wasn’t lost anymore.
Saint Pesquet would return 8 weeks later, having been spat out of deep space in a starving body and almost atrophy muscles, rushing back to the see nothing more of her love than his single gravestone.
Her body would be found there, next to him, but her grave would be 3 solar systems away, at the Royal Gardens, an honor to be buried there with the royalty and heroes of the time.
But then still, the Saint and the Criminal were separated in death, just as the galaxy viewed them.
-Fin-
He turned away from the outside, walking back through the station’s archway that separated the barren moon’s surface from the marble floors of Outpost Alpha, tracking the rain water that plagued this moon inside. Loneliness ripped at him, coming in waves and leaving behind the aftertaste of betrayal and hurt.
She had promised. She had promised to return. She said she would come back and they would leave for a new home, somewhere safe. She had found a planet they could live on together, in peace, in a shack that stretched far beneath the planet’s surface, protecting them from the acid rain that fell against the oddly grassy plains of Gamma 7 Delta. They could live outside the war, never being threatened by the battles, no more missions, no more jobs. They would never have to fear if the other would die on the front lines, or at the bad end of a paycheck gone wrong. They would never have to fear if they would see each other at the end of the day.
But she wasn’t there. She wasn’t parking her ship against the cliff-side docks of the outpost, holding her jacket over her head to avoid the heavy rain.
She was gone for another night, a week past when she said she would come home, and the saint was never late.
She was probably dead. Or dying.
Or gone.
He resisted the urge to spit on the floor. It wouldn’t do him any good with his helmet still on after all. Besides, who in their right mind would want him anyway? The galaxy’s most feared assassin, who was nothing more than a bitter, disgusting mess of gruesome flesh beneath his helmet? Who would want to live out their days with him?
Certainly not the Saint his love had become. Everyone loved her, the beautiful, charming, good-natured saint from a destroyed planet, born to a father that caused chaos. She was looked upon with respect, regarded as a benediction to all battles. If you had her, you had the fight.
On the opposite end, he was hated. A feared killer, whose only moral lines allied with whoever paid the most. He was the Deadlock, the Silent Phantom, the Veiled Demon. He was Wrath, and he was feared above all. He did not want the title, not at first. He was born into the life, paid killed was merely a means to an end, but when he began hearing his name whispered, he began to crave the power. A mercenary should be a redoubtable one, and he was going to be the most dangerous killer out there. Surikovs didn’t half-ass things, and he wasn’t about to start.
But the title, it seemed, had ultimately lost him more than he could gain. Saint Pesquet had abandoned him, and as much as the realization of this came to pass across his mind, he found he wasn’t surprised. She was too good for him, and they were, conclusively, a marvelous, ephemeral, daydream.
So he did what any self-respecting, indignant, torn-up mercenary would do. He threw himself back into his work, taking job after job, breaking the 5-year spell that had become the latent killer’s career. He had become immortal in legend, a ghost story told to (not just) high profile people to keep them in line. ‘Best not piss off so-and-so, they’ll hire the [enter moniker here] to get you.’ He had raised a whole new sense of fear of himself, a galaxy wide terror that no amount of hiding could protect you from. He had become Wrath, with no qualms about his killings, and no remorse for the funerals televised because of him. This was his job again, his life.
Just as before, the station at Outpost Alpha become a sort of hiring point for him, and while the moon base wasn’t nearly as crowded as it once was, it still held a lot of refueling foot traffic which meant plenty of customers under the ruse of ‘refilling’. He guessed the real reason why he stayed wasn’t for the familiarity for his costumers, but of the minuscule amount of hope that one day a politician wouldn’t walk through the double glass doors, but Pesquet and all her beauty. Or better yet, he would arrive in the morning to see her there, waiting. He refused to let himself openly think that though. He didn’t need her. He could depend on himself. Still, he sat at that table, outside the closed-down snack-shack, the one where they sat together frequently, sharing drinks and stories, and eventually even missions. Outside of her he wasn’t sure why he continued to sit here. Before he had sat on a bench against a back window, partially hidden by shadows. He made the argument to himself that the table provided a good view of the opposite entry doors, the only way in and out of the rectangular-shaped station. He had to watch for potential customers, after all.
Still, in the back of his mind he hoped, secretly praying for the day she returned. In some dreams he would enter the station in the early morning and see her sitting there with her bright, fanged grin, and fiery colored hair, asking where he’d been all night and something about how justice never sleeps. In other dreams she would come running into the building, trying to escape the rain that only seemed to have gotten worse since her disappearance, and she would jog over and steal his coat, which she had always called ‘the warmest thing a Averion has ever touched’. But she never came, and so he stopped watching the doors. Weeks turned into months, months into a year, a year into two, and yet, never any sign of her.
He accepted her dead; after all, the galaxy never spoke of new adventures and murmurs of mourning passed along species and worlds.
His work become empty, no emotions or incitement, even as he watched life after life drain from the eyes of his mark. He couldn’t even attempt a spark of happiness, or a sense of achievement or even grief, or regret. It had become a void where his soul once sat. At first he figured he could find peace by traveling again, but he only found everlasting emptiness.
It seemed the mirrors could reflect that, and his dark eyes turned empty. It didn’t matter, he hardly looked at the mirrors anymore.
He took his gear off to clean it, to wash it of the pervious mark’s blood, and only to shower on the rare occasion. He only ate when he desperately needed it, and he stopped finding joy in the gold soda he had begun drinking because of her. Foods tasted bland, drinks lost their fizz. Everything tasted of the grey his world had become.
Logically, he knew it was ridiculous to be this sad over a crush. He should get over her, move on. People died in their line of duty daily, he had lost a lot of partners. But Sha’heys was more than a partner, bigger than ‘some friend’. She had meant everything to him. She had been the only one to trust him, to look after him, to care about him even when the helmet came off and his true, mangled face shown in the light. She trusted him with everything, and she knew almost everything about his dark, sordid past. She was literally his better half, and she had cut him into such pieces when she vanished. Sometimes he couldn’t figure out if he had really been in love with her, or because she was the only to be nice to him he had developed some sort of twisted savior-complex.
He tried not to think about her.
When he wasn’t on a job he spent a lot of time at the outstation, staring numbly at the table, imagining where the two of them used to intertwine fingers over a milkshake or soda, with two straws and one drink between them. They had always shared drinks, since the first time she talked to him; it was a tradition of sorts. She had bought him that Chochi-haz drink, the one of some sort of thick, black goop as the liquid and the two shared it and never looked back. It was their thing, something she didn’t do with anyone else. Loathe as he was to admit, it made him feel nice that he was the only one who got to share drinks with her.
He remembered the day they met and when she introduced herself. She was a Averion from Averi 6, which was a planet of half-bird folk. He remembered laughing when she told him her last name, Pesquet. On her planet her name was a royal one, on his planet her name meant Pidgeon. Much to her annoyance he began to call her that; Pidgeon, Pidge. He remembered the first time he yelled that in fear that she was about die.
He remembered the day they went on their first real mission together, after knowing each other for a year. Sure they had been on adventures together, but she had been hiring him to help her fix her ship. No, this time, they two had been hired together as a unit. She was becoming something around the galaxy after all that time of helping people. The rumored ‘Saint Pesquet’ of Averi 6. On that first mission, their mark was a politically condemned prisoner of an enemy state who had to be killed before he could be interrogated. The mark, apparently, knew way too much.
The mark also knew how to put up a fight, even after Pesquet rescued him and tried to set him free, he had still tried to come after the mercenary himself, punching the visor on his helmet in before Surikov finally shot him, much to the Saint’s duress. The two made their way back to the ship, where he had tried to slip away to remove his gear; after all, he hadn’t taken his helmet off in front of anyone for years, fearing their reaction to his mullured face. But he had been bleeding too heavily for too long from both fight wounds acquired rescuing the prisoner, and from the shards imbedded in his face. For the life of him (and for the death of his ego) he couldn’t muster the strength to get to his room, collapsing halfway down the hall in a heap of pain and abasement. She had been at his side in seconds, worry all over her face, but it took almost blacking out, and feeling his heart start to stutter to allow for her assistance.
With a painstaking slowness, the Saint had eased his helmet off, avoiding the shards and cuts. There was a moment when it finally came off that, for the first time in nearly a decade, he felt true fear. How was she going to react? Would she be so disgusted with him that she would just up and leave him there to bleed out? But then the moment was over and Pesquet had made no indication that she was abhorred or that she was going to leave him there, instead she gave him a soft smile and set about fixing his wounds, continuously asking how he was doing throughout the half hour it took to remove the shards and stich the wounds closed. He had other wounds across his chest and torso, but he could take care of those himself now that he was out of danger of passing out. He certainly wasn’t about to strip in front of her, he felt naked enough without his helmet on. But after she sat back, wiping her blood-drenched hands on a towel, he found he couldn’t look her in the eyes, muttering something about how he was sorry about his face and he would put his helmet back on if she wanted him to.
But her only response had been to laugh. To laugh that gorgeous, chime-like laugh, and then kiss him. He felt fear and elation all at once, like it was some sort of sick joke, that as soon as she pulled away she would sneer at him, spit at his feet and tell him that he was as ugly as his job.
But, she didn’t. Instead she told him she was being silly, that he was fantastic. She told him that she loved him. He remembered having a strong sense of being lost, unsure where this was coming from and unsure if she was telling the truth. But she was, and soon he became truly lost. Lost in her eyes, in her strength, in her arms, in her never ending sea of love for him and every one of the galaxy, in the kindness she emanated at all times. He became lost in the kisses, in the affection, in the sex, the mind blowing sex.
He was lost in her and for the first time in his life he stopped caring about the next paycheck. He cared about her, someone that wasn’t himself. Even when they argued he loved her, the only thing that brought him back from solo missions was the knowledge that she would be there, waiting for him. They had each other and that kept him strong.
They never said exact days they would be back, only time frames; one month this mission, one week this one, two weeks the next one. She always promised to come back, and she always did, right on time.
But this time… this time was different. She had said two months. This would be the last mission, the last separation. The mission would take a month, maybe, but then she would find them a home. Through her many connections she would acquire them Gamma 7 Delta, an undesirable planet, one that would provide them the peaceful, quiet life they so desired, and then she would come back for him, get him from the moon base and leave everything, all the hurt, the pain, the jobs, all of it, leave it all behind.
She had said two months.
It had been two years.
The rain pounded at the moon-rock, barren ground outside, and as Miles O Surikov, the galaxy’s most feared, cold blooded assassin, watched the dismal skies, and for the first time since having accepted Saint Sha’heys Pesquet’s death, a harsh sob tore its way out of his throat.
And suddenly he broke, the pain that he had repressed flared up, ripping through him and tearing his heart into shreds. Grief gripped at him like the cold fingers of the wind passing through the empty outstation, cleaving him in half all in one stroke. He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried, but there he sat, the most fatal mercenary in all of the galaxy, chastened by tears from a woman from Averi 6. Tears slid down his face and made small pools in the crevices of his helmet, one that she had made for him when his old one shattered, and they became them.
Surikov sat there, the chair he had always sat in, across from his bird, his Pidgeon, in the place they always snacked together, fingers intertwined and lungs filled with laughter. The difference now was that he was alone, and his lungs were filled with agonizing sobs.
He sat there until the rain ceased, and the sun vanished from sight, leaving the always dark moon’s skies.
He returned to his ship that night empty handed and, once again, empty inside.
He slept maybe an hour that night, the rest of the time spent staring at the walls, wishing she were there, wrapped in his arms, the way the two spent the night before solos missions, wishing the other wouldn’t leave, fighting off the morning light with hushed voices carrying words of love.
But the sun rose the next morning, and he too, with it, no better than yesterday; still tired. Still empty.
The rain started again at noon, driving away travelers and business alike; the outstation empty except for him by midafternoon. He thought of leaving too, but he couldn’t find it in himself to move. He had honest to god been crushed. He was broken. He would die there, in that chair, no one would notice as his only tie to the outside population was as dead as he would be. Maybe they could find each other in the afterlife.
He heard it, the roar of engines just barely hanging on, like the sound her ship made before she hired him to help her across the galaxy to fix it. He heard it, but he heard it distantly, through a veil of disinterest and apathy. He couldn’t care enough to see who had come to this dismal moon base in the worst of the afternoon rains. He heard boots, frantic running outside and a yell. Albeit uncaring, he found enough momentary curiosity to glance up, wondering briefly if it was a client.
Fiery hair, and sunrise skin with piercing white eyes and a familiar silhouette against the glow of the ship. Death had finally come, and Pidge was here to greet him.
The rain poured down around her, plastering her feathery hair to her face, and she pulled her long, black traveling coat tighter around her.
“Miles.” Her voice, it was… real? Not- not death? His mind ground to a halt, and distantly he felt a small spark of hope and warmth. “Miles, please it’s me.” She took a small step forward, tears shining against the outstation lighting as she came out of the shadows.
“Baby, come home.” He stood so fast the chair was knocked backwards, clattering to the ground and the world swam for a moment.
Real? The broken mercenary thought distantly, his breathing shaky.
Just like the previous day he felt a crushing amount of emotions all at once, confusion and rancor being the loudest.
“You’re dead.” He found himself saying. Pidge shook her head.
“I was captured.” She said, choking on sobs. “Baby, please come home.”
“You left me, Pidge, for two years.” His voice was soft, disbelieving, cracking at the end of the sentence.
“I fought for freedom for two years. I’m so sorry.”
He walked slowly towards the entrance, standing just inside, at the edge of the rain, not 5 feet from her. This was fake, it had to be. Sha’heys Pesquet was dead.
Rain drenched hands, still warm like her, touched his arm, snapping him back to reality. She was so close, her ghostly eyes staring into his visor. The scar just under her left eye, light from the years that had passed since the day it was placed there was still in the same spot; the split on the right side of her top lip from where she had bitten down on a knife to pull it from someone’s hands was prominent as ever; her hair was a deep orange up close, less of the red it seemed to be from so far away, shining the perfect shade in the setting sun of the desert planets she loved so much. It was her, in every last detail.
Her face was gaunt now, though, her skin clinging to the bone like she had the same eating schedule he had had over the past two years, namely nonexistent.
Both of her hands came up to remove his helmet, pulling it off so she could see his green eyes, his skin pulled and ripped to show the actual underlying muscle and bone, a living zombie-esk body. Destroyed, she would say about his skin sometimes, but so much you.
Tears fell from both their eyes, and shakily, slowly, he reached up to cup her face, trying to process what was happening. She was alive, so very alive, and warm and there. She had returned to him- no, for him.
“Where have you been?” He asked quietly, even as the pain made him want to scream. He was angry and hurt and betrayed and happy and confused. He wanted to strangle her, and wrap himself around her simultaneously.
He didn’t really know how he was feeling.
“I was captured, Miles. I’ve seen hell.”
“But you’re here?” He couldn’t hear himself, disbelief making everything sound muffled. But her voice was clear, like the sound of his own personal savior. And she was, wasn’t she? His own Saint Pidgin. Saving him from himself.
“Yeah, I’m here.” Her voice cracked, her hand shaking, the helmet falling to the ground, splashing in the rain drenched land. Her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling down into a kiss, the rain sliding down his back, beneath his armor. His arms tightened around her back, a sob crawling up his throat to insert itself between their lips, his was heart breaking and putting itself back together simultaneously.
She was back in his arms, his bird, his Pidgin.
When he opened his eyes again she was crying, pressing her forehead into his.
“Baby, come home.”
But he was already there, wrapped in her arms, hearts breathing together in the rhythm of the rain, bodies crushed together in a shaking embrace.
He as at home when he was with her, as he always had been.
So when he sat bolt upright in the dark of his room, back on his own ship, sweating and sobbing, his heart breaking all over again at the cold sheets next to him, he knew he would always be lost without her.
They would find his body 6 months later, blank eyes staring at the blood stained wall, and the famous Black Bullet Pistol of his laying against his left palm, and a picture of himself and Saint Sha’heys “Pidgin” Pesquet in his right hand the only photo on the entire ship.
At least, in their minds, he wasn’t lost anymore.
Saint Pesquet would return 8 weeks later, having been spat out of deep space in a starving body and almost atrophy muscles, rushing back to the see nothing more of her love than his single gravestone.
Her body would be found there, next to him, but her grave would be 3 solar systems away, at the Royal Gardens, an honor to be buried there with the royalty and heroes of the time.
But then still, the Saint and the Criminal were separated in death, just as the galaxy viewed them.
-Fin-