It had been a long time since Quince had been this happy.
For the longest time it had only been him, and his mother, and sometimes his sister, when she wasn’t too busy to come back to Meridian on Saturdays for a family dinner.
But now, as he mixed together the ingredients for his favorite cookies, he hummed, and he smiled, and anyone who interacted with him on a normal basis would probably think he killed someone.
But, as much as it may surprise, it was quite the opposite.
The door bell rang as he put the tray in the oven, and he checked how he looked quickly in the shiny door of his fridge. His hair looked fine, but he was convinced it looked a mess. But he couldn’t leave him waiting any longer.
“Door,” he commanded, and Blep beeped along to the door and opened it.
“I see you got the hover capabilities working,” he heard, just as as familiar face rounded into the kitchen
“Liam!” He smiled, small and tentative. He didn’t want to look too eager.
“Hey Quince,” Liam was smiling too and he bent to deliver a swift kiss as he approached the shorter man. “It smells good in here. Baking again?”
“Cookies, this time,” he said, he couldn’t stop smiling. This was the first time he had invited Liam back to his house, and he was both excited and nervous.
“I hope you like the food from Aurora,” Liam said with a smile, as he began pulling the contents out from the bag he had brought in with him. “Its from a place near my flat.”
“As long as it doesn’t kill me I think I’ll be fine,” he laughed. He’d told Liam about his recent less-than-savory encounter in Aurora, and Liam had told him he needed to be more careful, and offered to escort him anywhere he needed to go in the city. It had made Quince nearly swoon.
“I think we should be safe in that department,” Liam grinned back, and Quince couldn’t help feeling that he had gotten extremely lucky.
The rest of the night was good food, bad movies, and warm cookies, and somewhere during it Quince had thought that this is the kind of guy he would want to be Fated to.
The movie had ended sometime when he wasn’t paying attention, somewhere between Liam’s lips on his neck and his own hands in Liam’s hair. It was good, familiar. They had done this before on occasion, in hidden corners, and closed rooms, and once on a park bench, because Liam liked to show off.
But as Liam pressed him down into the couch; that part was different.
“What’s the matter?” Liam asked, and Quince realised that his whole body was rigid in panic.
“I...” He looked ashamed. “I’m so sorry. I don’t think I can--”
Liam backed off, and Quince thought he had ruined the moment until Liam pulled him up into his lap.
“I can wait,” Liam murmured against his skin. “Don’t worry.”
Who or what is the one thing that makes your character feel safe?
He wasn’t like the other kids. He wasn’t big and strong, he wasn’t into video games, and he didn’t like playing outside.
Kids, he remembered, are cruel, and he could recall nearly every mean thing he had been called. It was only for a few weeks; they needed a new target to pick on every now and then, and after a particularly embarrassing incident during Physical Education, it became his turn.
But he couldn’t be weak, they tormented you more when you were weak, so when his mom would ask him what happened to this pair of clothes, he would tell her that he tripped and fell.
Back then he thought she believed him, but now, he realized that she didn’t know what to do, why her son would come home covered in scrapes, or how to get him to talk about it.
Which is why, he supposed, that his mom asked Pyria for help.
Seven years older than him and nothing alike physically, no one could tell from first glance that Pyria was his sister; sometimes, on his worse days, she didn’t feel like his sister either. She had arrived at Meridian Academy to pick him up, and found instead a group of broad-shouldered kids shoving him into the decorative fountain.
He was afraid, at first, that she might yell at him, but as she kicked each bully to the ground and sent them running, he found he felt a different sort of emotion. She pulled him out of the fountain, wrapped her jacket around his shoulders and held him close. His sister never showed much emotion, but, to him, this small gesture spoke volumes.
He cried, and only begged her not to tell their mother.
“Only if you promise you’ll come get me if those kids bother you again,” she was stern, and left no room for argument, so he didn’t answer. “Promise me, Quince, or I’ll tell mom!”
“O-okay, I promise!” He was soaked, and he was tired, and he was crying, and his sister embraced him and pet his hair like their mother used to do to help them sleep.
“You don’t have to worry, Quince,” she said, not minding that he was probably getting her wet as he clung to her and cried. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
The best moment of your life, a drabble under the cut!
Most would believe that Ciggma Khint’s favorite memory is of his graduation day. Proud parents with proud smiles, and a firm handshake as he received his diploma. Head of his class in the Academy, the makings of a perfect defense corp officer. He stood straight with head held high. All of his hard work had paid off and he’d achieved his dream, at long last. How could anything be happier than that?
But no. The best moment is a bitter-sweet one, of a tiny child in the hospital. Her records had her as Lily, but Khint had taken to calling her Amira-- princess in a language that was no longer remembered. He remembered that his father called his mother that, and that he had said that his mother had called his sister the same thing. It was a nickname that stuck and would never go away.
The toddler was sick. She had been sick since the accident that her parents had died in. Lung complications, they said. Too much smoke, too much fire. New lungs, new bionics, that would fix it, but she was too small, too young, and those things cost too much. She would not die. Little Amira was too much of a fighter, and the hospital staff as too skilled for that. But she could not leave. She could not play, or run, or dance as little girls did. She could barely even laugh at times. It broke his heart.
Khint did his best to keep a smile on her face. He brought her movies and sweets, read her bed time stories, and held her when she was upset or overwhelmed. He could not be there all the time, but he did his best, forgoing sleep and food to be by her side.
It was one of those long nights. Amira curled into his side as he read her her favorite, a story about a little ballerina. She was already looking drowsy, he was sure that soon enough, she would fall asleep. Once she did, he could, as he felt himself nodding off as well. “And then... Amira?”
The little girl had put her hand on his, expression as stern as she could make it, despite her sweet features. “No more story.”
Khint was confused, but turned the tablet off and put it away. “And why is that?”
“Because. Gonna sleeps. Daddy’s gotta sleeps too. Daddy’s tired.” She looked resolute in this, snuggling close.
There was a moment of stunned silence. He hadn’t realized that Amira had noticed his fatigue. Moreover...
“...Alright, alright... Daddy’s going to sleep too.”
That was the first time she’d called him her father, at least to his face. He could have cried, had he been any quicker to tears, but he instead settled on a smile, and a kiss to her head. “Good night.”
Quince didn’t often think of the type of person he might end up with. Most days he was content with the interactions he got at the Pharmacy and coffee shop he frequented, sometimes even the Battalia Laser Tag Area, and he had Blep at home to beep at him uncomprehendingly when he spoke to it. It didn’t understand the verbal commands he was giving it because he wasn’t giving any, just talking.
But sometimes the silence got to him, Blep’s unfeeling beeps got to him, and the loneliness got to him.
He daydreamed about seeing the Cipher on those days. He thought about asking her to pair him with his Fated. He dreamed of getting that red envelope, the same ones that his parents kept framed in their front room. He fantasized about the kind of person he would want to be fated with.
Tall, he hoped. Taller than him, with a killer smile. Smart, and a nice body wouldn’t hurt. And male.
It was always at that thought that forced him to push the whole matter from his mind. There was no way a guy like that existed in the Triad, and his biggest fear was that he would receive his envelope and a woman’s name would stare back at him, and he would know then that he was fated to be alone forever.
