gt oneshots

omen pt. 3

"They thought I could see into the future. Determine the outcome of the war, the number of soldiers we would lose in a battle, things like that."

"You can. . .can't you?" Ambient squints at me, dark eyes searching my face.

Sometimes it's agonizing, being looked at by him. I feel like a butterfly pinned to a cork board, like he's inspecting me under a microscope, ready to rip me apart.

Sometimes I never want him to stop.

"No. Yes?" My chest tightens. I hunch my shoulders and cover my face with my hands, pressing hard against my eyelids with the tips of my fingers until my vision goes spotty.

It's the same feeling I got when I was with the High Priestess in Vesuvius, this swift, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that drops like a cannonball. I can suddenly hear the icy, chilling disappointment in her voice when I told her I couldn't see anything. When my mind went completely blank.

My voice comes out small and muffled, like my cheeks are stuffed with cotton. "It's. . .complicated."

"We don't have to talk about this right now."

I breathe shakily. "Or ever."

"Or ever," he confirms. I hear him tugging at the end of his sleeve. He does that a lot. Especially when he's nervous.

I'm making him nervous.

He keeps fiddling with his sleeve. I notice a line of dark blue ink etched into his skin as his cloak rides up his arm, revealing a pair of symbols I recognize immediately.

"The Dagger and the Diadem," I say softly. "You fought under the High Priestess's command."

He stiffens beside me. I hear his breath catch, only for a second. Then he blows out a sigh. "Not by choice."

"You were a soldier."

"So were you."

I glance at his hands; he stripped off his gloves ages ago. Abandoned them at the edge of the Moonpool. Thin scars curl across his fingers and wrap around his bruised knuckles. He has the strong, rugged hands of a soldier.

Then I picture those hands ending someone's life. Grasping the weathered hilt of a sword. Pulling a trigger. Holding me gently. Stroking my hair aside with the softest touch I've ever felt.

I peer down at my own hands. Soft. Unblemished. The hands of a cartomancer. Or a coward.

"They never let me fight." I whisper it.

"Of course they didn't. They needed you. You were their weapon."

"I guess. But I couldn't do much. I couldn't save anyone."

"They called you the Seraph, right?"

I haven't heard the name in so long, it makes every muscle in my body seize up. I can't breathe.

"Seraph," he repeats slowly. "Like an angel. Are you an angel?"

"I, I don't think so." My voice shakes slightly. When I look up, he's smiling.

My fists unclench. My body seems to realize I'm not in any immediate danger and my lungs learn how to be lungs again.

It's a smile I would die to see one more time.

"I showed you mine." He tugs his sleeve down over the blue ink. "Show me yours."

I rise to my feet slowly, making my way toward him. The oil lantern flickers as the bottom of my cloak sweeps the ground beside it, casting strange shadows across the cavern walls that move like ghosts fluttering in the wind. Ambient's sharp eyes follow me through the dark.

I shrug off my cloak and unbutton the front of my jacket, tugging the collar down over my shoulder; it's stiff with weeks' buildup of sweat and dust.

I hear his breath catch again. Even through the darkness I can see the flush on his neck as he scrubs at it with the back of his hand, awkwardly averting his gaze.

I snort. "Relax."

He turns even redder. "What are you doing?"

I turn slowly, peering over my shoulder at him as he squints at my back. Then his confused stare melts into realization.

"They branded us."

"Like pigs." I frown.

He nods. A pause. Then he asks, "Did you cry?"

I shake my head. "I don't think so. I knew it was coming." I swallow thickly. My eyes flick up to meet his through the flickering lamplight. There's a smear of black dirt under his chin. "Did you?"

"No."

We lapse into silence as I tug my stiff collar up, buttoning the front of my jacket with trembling fingertips. I don't know why my hands are shaking all of a sudden. I tie my scarf around my shoulders.

"I really thought you were an angel. The first time I saw you, I mean. In Vesuvius."

I feel heat rise in my cheeks. "What?"

"You were kind of shiny."

"They made me wear that big frilly cape," I say, and I'm smiling so widely my cheeks ache.

I always hated wearing the silks. But the Priestess always insisted.

"No, no, I liked it. You looked good." A smirk tugs at the corners of his lips. He looks so ridiculously pleased with himself. I want to kiss him.

Somehow I already know what's coming.

Part of me wants this. The rest of me needs this.

Ambient's voice is surprisingly soft. He leans down, blocking the lantern light with his body. When his fingertips graze my arms, I feel the ground give way beneath my feet to gentle hands. I let him hold me.

"You look so beautiful." Ambient's voice is surprisingly soft. His lips are softer. I feel warmth flood my chest. "Don't go back to Vesuvius, Eddy. Stay here. With me."

I'm so used to his rock salt rasp, each word crunching like gravel and dripping with anger, laced with something venomous as we hurled insults at each other that shattered the silence of the cave ruins.

Never like this, whispered against my neck, like he's trying to seal the words into my skin for me to keep. When he turns his tired brown eyes on me, I shiver a little. His eyes are always half-lidded. A tiny scar splits the corner of his mouth, the skin mottled white around it and slightly raised. I run my fingertips across it.

I could rattle off a list of all the little things I notice about him.

The way he kisses me, parts his lips slightly and lets out a soft little whine from the back of his throat when I start kissing back. The way he traces circles along the edge of my jawline with rough fingertips, tilts my chin up with the pad of his thumb. He smells like a campfire. Or like petrichor, earth after rain, the scent of the forest lingering on his hands and on his collar.

He calls me Eddy when everyone else calls me Edwin, keeps the moonstone I gave him in the pocket of his cloak for good luck, and he holds me like water in his hands.

When his voice breaks the hushed babbling of the stream, my heart stutters. I look up slowly.

"I get this feeling in my stomach, when you do that," he says.

I blink slowly. "Do what?"

"This." He breathes the word against my cheek, and it takes everything in me not to melt into his fingertips as his warm breath flits across my skin.

"Oh, yeah? What does it feel like?" I feel myself smiling.

"Magic." His voice is feather-soft, delicate breaths curling around us, floating whispers bathed in golden lantern light as he cups me in his hands like something small and precious. "You feel like magic."