And That’s Why We Broke Up
Obviously this isn’t for everyone (nothing really ever is though...) and if you’re not into Vega AT ALL, don’t worry about skipping this. You take care of you and I’ll just keep supplying different fics! <3
(I personally like to just pretend that horrible Caelum moment didn’t happen, okay? Caelum still finds out about Ivan and hatches a plan to rescue the humans from the sadism daemon. Vega is still a mega jerk but just, you know, not a Caelum breaking jerk… because that shit was bad. But you do you!)
And I absolutely gave Vega galaxy eyes because of the recent art @pearl-kite did with the galaxy skin! <3 <3 <3 I asked first. They said it was okay.
Cam/Vega
Vega pays his long ago ex, Cam, a visit after escaping the Department only to discover Cam in some danger of his own.
tags: Vega isn’t being Vega level bad here but he is in it so if you hate him maybe skip it?, drugging, threat of danger, protective Vega, non-con feeding.
And That’s Why We Broke Up
Vega was not checking on him.
He absolutely wouldn’t do that.
But he drifted close, sliding backward through this world just to watch the other, physically bound, demon’s face.
Cam didn’t lose step or flick his gaze toward where Vega was, he just sighed. “Have you come to gloat about your jailbreak?” he spoke aloud.
Vega grinned even if no one could see it. “You didn’t come to see me, Camelopardalis. Not even once.”
“How would I see you, Vega? You don’t take form.”
“You want me to take form? You want to feel me?”
“Stop.”
Vega did. The words that had been rising in his mind withering like poison blooms with too little water. He had always stopped when Cam said to—at least when it was about Cam. “I could tell you were in the building,” he went on.
Cam shook his head a little, but Vega saw that twitch at the corner of his mouth. Almost a smile. “No, you couldn’t,” he argued, turning down another street.
Why did he walk? Why not just rift? How many times had they argued about that exact thing? If Vega asked again, would he finally be able to explain it after all these mortal years? “Of course, I could. I always know when you’re close. Don’t you know when I’m close?”
The almost-smile was gone, that cold mask in place again. His gaze locked with Vega’s, even when Vega had no form at all. “No.”
Vega laughed. “You always were bad at lying…”
Cam had stopped walking, standing on the sidewalk in the night with his hands in his pockets. His shoulders were back and his body screamed comfortable ease. He wasn’t afraid. He had no reason to be. They both knew Vega would never hurt him. He loved that Cam still knew that, it might have broken something in him if he’d doubted it. But so much time had passed since they had any sort of relationship, let alone a good one.
“I asked you to come with me,” Cam reminded, his voice softer when he spoke of what they had once been. His voice had always been soft with Vega then, sometimes edged in playful banter and sometimes whispered intimacy.
“I didn’t want to go,” Vega snapped.
“I told you I’d be back,” Cam sighed.
“I didn’t want to wait.”
Cam looked right at him, into him. There was a sadness in the serenity daemon that hadn’t been there when they’d been in Aria together. There was a weight bearing down on his soul that had formed in this world over all those years since, because of the humans. “And that’s why we broke up.”
Vega seethed. It was true and he hated that Cam could always fall back on that. That what ended them hadn’t been arguing over the treatment of their food or any unresolvable difference in their personalities. It had been location and impatience. Cam hadn’t even faulted him for refusing to spend more time on Elegy back then or saying he wouldn’t wait around for moments of Cam’s time. Cam, the son of a bitch, had been understanding. He had let Vega go. Really, he had called his bluff and Vega was too stubborn to admit it.
They both waited for the other to say something, but Cam finally shook his head and started walking again. Dismissing him? Ignoring him? Few would dare.
Vega lingered on the sidewalk, not yet decided on where to go. He wanted to follow Cam but he couldn’t—wouldn’t.
But then Camelopardalis staggered, drawing Vega’s full focus once more. His body listed to the side until he had to put a hand to the wall of a building to steady himself, head down. What the fuck? Vega came closer again, drifting around him and in front of him, getting a look at his face. His eyes were struggling to focus and his breath coming fast. Vega was familiar was the looks of distress and panic. “What’s happening?”
Cam dragged a breath but didn’t use it to talk. His other hand touched his neck like he was feeling his own pulse. “I don’t know. I feel… I don’t know…”
“Rift,” Vega snapped, immaterial hands ghosting over the other daemon’s arms, shoulders, neck, and cheeks. “Go home.”
Cam’s breath came faster and the panic that had started to bloom turned to fear. “I can’t.”
The way he said it, Vega knew he’d tried just now and gotten nowhere.
A group of empowered humans lumbered out of the dark mouth of a street, closing in. “Camelopardalis,” one called, butchering the name with his sloppy human tongue.
Cam turned, leaning his back to the wall. He rolled his eyes like this was a nuisance rather than a nightmare. He leaned his head back to the bricks and cut his gaze to the advancing group. “Go,” he told Vega without looking. Vega realized he was taking care not to let them realize the other daemon was there—to keep them thinking he was all alone. “Go back to Aria.”
“I kind of love when you demons play human,” the man at the lead of the group said when he came to stand in front of Cam, grinning big even though his aura screamed contempt and rage. “You make it so easy to hunt you.”
“Why?” Cam asked, almost a growl to defy the way he still hadn’t moved. Would he fall down if he stepped away from the wall? Had they drugged him?
The dreamwalker shrugged one shoulder. “You’re not really worthwhile, but you’ll get in the way, you understand? We have plans and we can’t have your kind just walking around…”
Not worthwhile?
One of the men behind the dreamwalker, an elemental, took a metal collar from his deep pocket, holding it open and at his side. Vega recognized it. A power dampener. They meant to cage Cam? The thought was repugnant. After everything, the serenity daemon had done for these meat sacks? Vega understood why they would try to judge him and contain him, but Camelopardalis? The idea of him in one of those cells, being mistreated and spoked down to, like Vega had been in the Department facility, had a tendril of fury rippling through him. But this wasn’t Department. These humans were something else. Their loathing was sharp and acidic with an undertone of lusty excitement.
“Go away,” Cam sighed, looking like he might pass out any second now. He was barely hanging on.
The humans laughed like they thought the words were meant for them. They weren’t. They were meant for Vega and the idea that they thought otherwise was acutely offensive.
Cam’s breathing was slowing, his lids visibly heavy.
The human stepped forward and Vega felt himself straighten, felt the disbelief turn to outrage when this piece of shit reached out toward his serenity daemon. He was going to put his dirty human hand on Cam’s neck.
He didn’t have to think about what to do, and it never once occurred to him to leave.
Vega caught that wrist before the man could touch Cam. He took form at the same time, and not just any form, he took a form they’d fear and loath on instinct. He was more than a head taller than them, not counting the high points of his horns. His eyes were washed black with a sea of moving galaxies between his lashes. Bystanders screamed on the street and the other men jumped back.
“Do not touch him,” Vega growled in their minds and then drank deep from the well of their hate and violence, growing taller before their eyes. He didn’t sip or borrow or skim the tops of those feelings either—he took them. He cut them on the points of his teeth and swallowed them down where they could never get them back, leaving them quieted and passive for the moment. Oh, they would find their violence and anger again soon, that well never ran dry, but not just yet.
The man in his hold trembled, eyes growing big with fear. Sweet, sweet fear.
Vega flashed teeth with lots of points. It wasn’t quite a smile. He tightened his grip, feeling those fragile bones in his hand. It would take so little effort to snap them. He could kill all of these humans with barely more than a thought. He could—
Cam touched his back, palm to skin, and all of Vega’s thoughts stilled. When was the last time they’d touched? Actually touched in any meaningful way? Why was it still the same, even in these forms, in this place, so far from who they had once been to each other? Why did it quiet his soul and send a shiver through his spirit? “Vega…” Cam said, his voice strained. How long had it been since he said his name? It cut through him in the most amazing way. All at once, he realized that he had missed him, for years, for lifetimes—he just hadn’t thought about it. Vega did not miss anyone, or so he’d thought. He had no trouble finding companionship when he wanted it. He was a sadism daemon, which made him truly rare. He turned his head to the side and down, not letting the humans go or entirely taking his attention off them.
Cam pushed off the wall, not just touching Vega’s back but leaning against him for support. There was so much trust in that one act, in complete contrast to the way everyone else on the street was running or gawking at his glorious, nightmarish, form. Cam’s eyes closed, finally too heavy to keep open, and he pressed his forehead against Vega’s spine, his breath against his skin. “Get me out of here.”
It wasn’t a question or a plea. It wasn’t even a demand. It was just the easy instruction of someone that trusted wholly in being heard by the other. It was the way Cam used to talk to him when they’d been a couple. If he didn’t want to be someplace anymore, even if Vega was still in the throes of a party or a conversation, he would just quietly come up and tell him to take him home. Cam was not a selfish person by any means. He didn’t say it like that because he didn’t care about what Vega wanted—he said it because all their many years together had taught him that Vega would want what he wanted in that moment. They’d never discussed it, Vega had never admitted it, but they both knew how much he loved being the one that took Cam home.
He let go of the human and turned, collecting Camelopardalis against his chest and rifted off the street. It wasn’t as easy as it should have been. It was like Cam couldn’t reach his own magic, couldn’t pull himself through time and space, so Vega had to do it. It was no trouble, but it was worrisome.
He rifted to Cam’s apartment but didn’t immediately let him go, both of them still veiled from the human world. Really, he wanted to take him to Aria, but he wasn’t sure what that would do to him if he was poisoned and couldn’t use his magic. Plus, he knew that wasn’t what Cam had meant when he told him to get him out of there. It was the tone he used for home and Aria wasn’t quite home anymore. The apartment was empty, no trap or humans lying in wait. He unveiled Cam but didn’t take a physical form himself this time, carrying him across the big loft to the bed.
Vega laid him down and then hovered. What should he do? Would he get better on his own? Would he get worse?
“It’s a drug. It’ll wear off,” Cam muttered like he could hear his thoughts. He didn’t open his eyes, but he reached up and settled a hand on Vega’s wrist, gently pulling his hand down to his chest.
Vega stared, his not-entirely-there palm over Cam’s heart. Which was very much there, thudding inside his chest in slow steady beats. He took form again, wanting to really be there with him—to really have his hand to his chest in this world, in their skin.
“Thank you,” Cam said, voice quieter. His hand twitched, holding on to Vega’s. “Can you stay? Just… Until I wake up?”
Vega exhaled hard at the little note of uncertainty there in his voice. Was it fear? He had never heard his Camelopardalis afraid before. Angry, sure. But afraid? He moved, sitting on the bed with his back to the mound of pillows against the headboard. Why did one man need so many pillows? He easily pulled Cam into his lap, reclining him against his chest so that he could drape his arms around him and feel his breath and pulse through his back, echoing into his chest. Cam sighed and leaned back into him.
The big windows to one side of the loft looked out on the city. It was almost beautiful from this angle, just the tops of buildings and stars.
“You knew where I lived…” Cam mumbled.
Vega tensed. He heard the smirk in the other man’s words. With a sigh, he stroked Cam’s hair back from his face and then trailed the points of nails behind his ear and down his neck. Cam didn’t flinch or tense. The trust reminded Vega of what they had been to each other—of all the moments that had been just like this one.
Yes, of course, he knew where Camelopardalis lived. Elegy was dangerous and growing worse every decade. What if they needed to escape? What if he needed to find him?
“This world is terrible,” Vega whispered viciously.
“You like terrible things,” Cam reminded.
It was true. It had always been true. Cam had never been to Elegy before Vega dragged him along to see that ridiculous, awful, dimension. Vega enjoyed the nightmarish people of that world and all the possibilities and easy meals. But Cam? Cam had seen it differently. He had seen a sadness and a need that he could help, even if just for a handful. Vega wished bitterly he had never dragged him along that first time. This world was cruel and Cam could not save them all. Vega had realized what that would do to the other daemon over time—what it had done. “But you don’t,” he reminded, not for the first time, but this time he added, fingers still stroking skin. “I should not have left you alone to face that.”
