Supernova

Chapter Thirty Eight - Let Me Show You Something Breathtaking

A/N: To everyone who has read this far, thank you so much. This chapter is really dear to my heart and I'm really proud of it. I also cry pretty much every time I read it, so do with that what you will. 

I tried to tell myself that I had made the right choice, but somewhere deep down inside, I knew I was just trying to justify the fact that I'd already made it. I told myself in the happy moments, the wrestling matches in the training gym in front of the other pairs, the target practice, that I had made the right choice, because they were with us, and they were alive. Demon and Needles were going to hate me after all of this was over, and I wouldn't blame them.

But they'd be alive. It would be worth it.

I thought we would just fall back into our old dynamic of pairs and allies being completely misaligned, which they continued to be, but things felt very different. Elias' hands were almost glued to me, same with Needles to Demon's lap. There was such a steep reduction in quiet lustful looks between the black and blue eyes that I barely even noticed them. There were, however, looks of hunger that lingered on Demon's face, but they were only directed at me, in moments he was convinced he was being sneaky. Rightfully so. I was the prize, the trophy, the one that needed to be won over and convinced, and he knew how to do it well enough by now. Even though they seemed plentiful, Needles never noticed, because he wasn't looking for them. I didn't know if it was because he trusted me, or didn't see me as a threat, and I didn't know which was worse out of the two options either.

Even though our family was now intertwined by a web of strategic omissions and creative lies, mostly crafted by my mind and tongue, Demon and Needles had never seemed happier, and I let myself be comforted by that. The laughter came easier. There was less jealousy in the form of side glances or flares of dejection. They almost seemed the way they did that first month I knew them, when I lived alongside them, a bystander to their story. Elias had joined me on the outside, and neither of them saw him as a threat any longer. Or so it seemed. He was their ally now. I decided to enjoy this while it lasted too, mourning it simultaneously all the while.

I didn't know how Elias felt about the arrangement, truly. And maybe I didn't want to know. He had shown me his own brand of being apprehensive and disapproving during that first conversation, but he had never said another word about it to me. When I tried to ask him if he was alright, he simply told me that I was the hero, and that he was the sidekick. His tone was polite enough, but his eyes hit me with such an intense cold that I didn't dare ask again. I just watched as he fell into the charade with such ease that it almost had me questioning whether the two of us had ever spoken candidly about it at all. There were no flares of sadness, or mourning, or even uncertainty as he sparred with Demon, did target practice with Needles, or when the four of us would play volleyball or tennis or practice pirouettes. He simply smiled through every activity and interaction, his hand on my lower back whenever it was unoccupied. His only deviation that reminded me of the charade we were playing was that he would place his scarred hand on me when we were in public and in Demon and Needles' eyeline, a blatant reminder of where we came from and where we were pretending to be heading. Both of them reacted to that subtle action very positively in different ways. When the two of us were in private, he'd never dare lay that hand on me. In our room, he'd even gone as far to keep it gloved. Nice while it lasts. But it's not real. Not a single second.

Well, maybe that wasn't true. There were snippets of real. It became easier to tell the difference when we were broken away from each other and there was less to hide behind. What Elias and I had was real. What the two of us shared in private was real. It was real contentment. It was real understanding. It was real heartbreak. It was real risk. The weight of it was real, and albeit silently, we shared it and held it together.