Complications of Mortality | Druig x OC

XVIII | Malgre

"Yes."

"And you regret it." Akiva didn't skip a beat. Her answered her with the word and she wasted no time linking it to her next question, or rather, statement. She was simply announcing what they both already knew.

Druig's jaw shifted slightly as they looked at each other, refusing to break the eye contact this time around. Akiva swayed slightly as she watched him, unable to stay nearly as still. His hands moved to his backside, clasping behind him as he didn't allow himself to speak. He was scared of losing her but regretted keeping her.

She broke into a hopeless smile as a result of the silence, gaze flicking away as she shook her head to herself. The war between mind and heart was a great one, but she expected him to have a better grip on it all at this point in his life. All was fair in love and war, but at the moment, she didn't know which one was more enticing. His mannerisms were so passive. It was infuriating.

But by the gods, he looked so pretty when he was sexually frustrated.

Akiva kept pressing into him the same way he had poked and prodded at Ikaris for years on end. As her dark eyes returned to the misty blue, her curled up lips remained. Only this time, they were held with bad intention. "You don't have to pretend to be so high-minded," she remarked. "You've been lonely for so long that you can't handle the idea of actually having company."

"He's deflecting," Sersi pointed out, leaning herself to the side slightly to meet Akiva's eyes. "It's kind of Druig's thing," she joked, wincing slightly at her own words. He always created conflict with the other eternals around him in an odd effort to bring attention away from himself and his own issues. Chastising the fame Kingo had built up for himself in order to distract the group from the way he restricted himself to self-imposed exile. Fighting against Sersi's reasoning about stopping Tiamut's emergence by expressing renounced pity about their very existence.

"I don't need either of you to try and read me like a book," he spat, unmoving as he watched Akiva.

Her eyes shifted back to him and she nearly laughed in response. "It must be heartbreaking," her voice dropped into a sarcastic low tone. She leaned her head towards him, shoulders falling slightly as she ducked down to look at him from lower in the air, "feeling someone get into your head."

Druig's chin tilted upwards slightly once more, looking at her from slightly above his bottom lashes. Her face was straight and cold, while his own was just about to quiver on the edge of amusement.

"Oh it is," he claimed, quite pleased with himself. "You're tearing me apart, m'darling," he whispered, squinting slightly in her direction.

Akiva breathed exclusively through her nose, glancing at his mouth for a second before turning away completely. She didn't want to hear any more from this conversation. As she moved towards Phastos, he remained watching the place where she had just stood. Druig was satisfied. After a short moment, his head fell forward slightly in tandem with his steps, beginning his approach to a table on the outskirts of the room. His charcoal skirtpiece moved around each of his legs as he walked, hands unweaving themselves from behind his back and hanging suspended in the air naturally at his sides.

"Whatever that was—I hated it," Phastos remarked, pointing between the two of them.

Akiva plopped herself down on the steps, feet on the stair below where she sat. Her hand reached up to unhook one side of her mask, letting it fall beneath her long strands of hair. With her knees bent and propped up, she rested her elbows on them enough to be able to put her face in her hands. She rubbed her eyes, fighting a little smile at Phastos' words. It was no wonder he didn't approve. Hell, Akiva didn't even know exactly where she stood on her thoughts about Druig. But she couldn't refute the pull in her chest that swelled with her desire to see him, to interact with him. She had sought him out once the sun had set for the first time after meeting. And in the same vein, he had discovered her as well.