Liushen AU where SY transmigrates into SJ's older brother, and subsequently nopes them right out of the slavery backstory by using his general knowledge of the story and actually being an adult in a kid's body to just leave (basically) with SJ and YQ.
SY carts them both up to Cang Qiong for the next sect trials. It's actually not all that hard, the trickiest part is getting enough to eat and finding safe places to sleep between leaving the slavers and taking the trials (SY manages just barely, with considerable help from his new little brothers.) Nobody bothers to go after them because it's before Qiu Jianluo and this style of human traffickers mostly operate by virtue of their merchandise having nowhere else to go. Chasing down runaways is an expense not worth indulging, given that most of them either come straight back or die of exposure.
Anyway, they take the trials, and as expected YQY gets chosen to become a personal disciple for the sect leader, and SJ gets chosen by the Qing Jing Peak Lord, but also as (kind of) expected (by SY alone) nobody wants SY. He's older the Yue Qi, so too old, and unlike YQ and SJ his cultivation potential isn't striking enough to make any exceptions for him.
SY, however, can't leave it at that. He's spent more than five minutes with the street kid codependency gang, so he's gotten attached to both of them. And he knows what will happen if they're left to their own devices and The Plot proceeds accordingly. (Also, they keep threatening to not stay at the sect if SY doesn't stay too, for some reason.) So with a heavy heart and internal candle lit for himself, SY heads to Bai Zhan Peak. Which is the only peak that accepts disciples by way of them turning up and refusing to leave.
SY's not much of a fighter. He actually really hates the atmosphere on BZP, he's not bad at physical cultivation (his health's pretty good in this life, ironic considering how much worse his situation was) but the random ambushes and survival-of-the-fittest stuff is just not his brand. But that's okay, because it turns out that BZP actually DESPERATELY needs disciples on the actual peak who are interested in things other than fighting and cultivating their own strength. Stuff like, filling out requisition requests for An Ding every time things break, apologizing to An Ding every time things break again, organizing schedules, browbeating senior disciples into actually teaching, educating disciples on virtually any artistic or social skill, hosting lectures on how to beat vicious beasts without just overpowering them, and etc.
Okay so some of this stuff isn't and has never actually been on Bai Zhan's curriculum but Shen Yuan is going to make this place tolerable. And stop these children from needlessly getting acid burns or lyme disease or scurvy or whatever. He keeps internally chewing out Airplane for designing a sect system that means there are a lot of largely unsupervised 12-year-olds running around the wilderness on a mountain picking fights all the time. (When he actually meets Shang Qinghua and figures him out he switches to doing it in person, of course, in twice-monthly bitching sessions that look a lot like budding friendship.)
Of course one of the worst offenders is the Liu kid, who SY would suspect was actually raised by wolves if he didn't know for a fact that Liu Qingge has a younger sister, and also the kinds of nice clothing and letters from home that strongly imply not only does he have a family, but that the family is pretty well-off. Liu Qingge is at first deeply offended by SY being a BZP disciple. He rarely fights anyone, and uses tricks and evasion tactics whenever a fight can't be avoided. And he does other annoying stuff, like pestering him about meals and baths and lecturing him on identifying dangerous plants and the early signs of qi deviation. This is not what their peak is about! He should get with the program already! Just fight stuff until you're too tired to keep fighting stuff!
Also SY's younger brother, SJ, is pure evil (at least according to baby Liu Qingge) even though his other younger brother (?) is cool and nice.
Anyway, Liu Qingge stops complaining about SY after their first mission together, where Liu Qingge doesn't lose a fight but does get into a kind of pyrrhic victory situation where he's really badly hurt, and it's SY who helps him win (correctly identifying the monster and then pointing out its weakness) and takes care of him afterwards and gets him safely back to Cang Qiong. SY expresses surprise at LQG actually being polite to him, and LQG realizes that he's been a colossal ass if people think he wouldn't be grateful to someone who saved his life, so the usual Liushen dynamic proceeds from there. Liu Qingge starts bringing SY fans he leaves behind and hunts down animals that are supposed to be useful for bolstering weak cultivation, SY invites LQG to tea and keeps the critters as pets, etc etc.
SY doesn't get the Head Disciple position, because that's only acquired via beating the current peak lord in combat and lol no. Also he's not interested in stealing it from Liu Qingge, to whom it rightfully belongs (in his mind). But that's fine, because Liu Qingge takes the position when the next generation ascends and then he lets SY exclusively handle all the peak duties SY actually likes (mainly teaching). It's perfect -- Liu Qingge gets to focus on his War God antics and occasional administration/meetings without having to deal with students his has no patience for, but the disciples of BZP don't get neglected because SY is actually teaching and organizing classes and student care. BZP hasn't enjoyed a golden age like this since it was founded!
Things are pretty good overall, but Shen Yuan knows that it's only a matter of time before The Plot shows up, and so he can't rest completely easily.
Meanwhile, the will-they-or-won't-they bets on Liushen have been going strong for a while now. The thing is, most of their martial siblings are convinced that these two are already "together", and just being circumspect about it. Those who know SY well (like SJ, YQY, and SQH) know better but think that SY's romantic obtuseness is to blame, whereas those who know LQG well (LMY, WQW, and MQF) are pretty sure that it's actually LQG's obtuseness that's the problem. Of course it's actually both of them, so efforts to "fix" matters by getting through one of their thick skulls inevitably run afoul of the other's.
An additional complication is of course: SJ doesn't like LQG (mutual), and now that he's the leader of his own peak, he wants to poach SY to come and live there. Not only so he can have one of the 2 people he trusts actually close at hand, but also because SJ also hates actually teaching the atrocious little brats on his peak, and would like to have SY come and do it for him. YQY is still a total pushover for him too, and is also now the sect leader, so YQY agrees that SY can change peaks if SY and LQG both agree to it.
Liu Qingge, of course, is a no, but he's a variable "no". He's not going to hold Shen Yuan against his will or anything.
As for Shen Yuan, it's... complicated. He doesn't really like BZP, but it's gotten a lot better than it was at the start. These days he's actually pretty proud of his accomplishments, and it's more comfortable, but it's still a rough and rowdy place with fewer creature comforts, libraries, or other appealing points than QJP. Also, if he goes to Qing Jing to teach, he can personally ensure that SJ doesn't go around persecuting any of his students!
But... SJ never lived with the Qiu family in this AU, and even though SY's not totally clear on what the PIDW backstory for SJ was, he knows he's a better guy now than the scum villain in the book was. He has a reputation for making cutting remarks, not for being an abusive snake or a lecher. SY's honestly less worried about him doing anything bad at all, and there are other people on QJP who can teach. It might even be good for SJ to promote more people to fill out a social circle he can rely on! That guy needs more friends, seriously.
And QJP really doesn't need more layabout literary intellectual types who get into pointless arguments, which is all SY would be if he went there. Just yet another nerdy scholar for the rich kids with middling cultivation that the peak favors to ignore. At least on BZP he's filling a gap.
SY is clearly torn, and the fact that SY's considering it has LQG upset, and LQG doesn't handle being upset very well, so of course they have an argument about it. SY storms off to cool his head and LQG is like, this is it, he's gone to Qing Jing Peak, I've drive him off by being too aggressive and he's probably remembering all those times I told him he didn't belong here and oh no what have I done maybe if I build him a heated bath and get him books he will come back???
Turns out that SY just went to An Ding to vent at SQH while SQH was like "I think you would have fewer problems if you and Liu Qingge just got married and my disciples could call you Shigu to your face instead of behind your back" and SY threw melon seeds at him and sulked on his fainting couch (which is always cold for some reason...)
Thus begins the Liushen Divorce Arc where SY tries to be anywhere but BZP or QJP, Liu Qingge tries to figure out what thing he can punch to fix this not-punchable problem, SJ is like "I don't see what the big deal is they should break up Liu Qingge is awful and I want my brother to teach my classes for me" like the spoiled youngest sibling he's finally allowed to be, YQY is trying to moderate this Hades vs Demeter situation and is all "well maybe SY could spend half the year on QJP and half on BZP?", and Liu Mingyan is going "I know my brother if this doesn't work out he is going to die single and pining like an idiot" and so keeps conscripting other disciples to y'know, lock SY and LQG into storage closets together (ineffective: LQG can punch through walls) or at least get them in the same room (underestimating SY's willingness to yeet himself out of windows to avoid awkward social interactions.)
By the time Luo Binghe joins the sect (as a Qiong Ding disciple), the drama is in full swing and is the main topic of gossip across most of the peaks.
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It’s the questions that keep us going, that taunt us so we’ll come back again and again, whether we’re given any “definitive” answers which we might each interpret differently or left to wonder and imagine possibilities all on our own.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this, warrior nun.” Doesn’t this line invite us to ask who Adriel might be talking to, exactly?
Of course Ava currently occupies the rank of warrior nun that gives the show its name… But we also know Ava is not a nun and that her qualification as a warrior is recent (setting aside the psychological fortitude she surely possesses as a survivor of the traumas that have shaped her past, to be sure). Even from his prison, Adriel was aware of the happenings in the outside world, be it from his connection to the divinium once used in his armour, be it thanks to informants such as Vincent in whatever modes of communication they might have had between them — so Adriel knows this, he knows of how unconventional it is for Ava to be the warrior nun. Isn’t it possible that, in this moment, he’s not talking to her, at least not as Ava Silva, the individual?
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this, warrior nun.” Only a couple of months have elapsed since Adriel has been freed of his tomb and made Ava’s direct acquaintance. Why would he make a reference to the millennium spent beneath the Vatican to her while calling her by her title rather than her name? It certainly cannot be a mention of those two months, as those are negligible in the conscience of an immortal being who has already waited a thousand years for reckoning.
He isn’t hinting at a vengeance against Ava Silva, as herself, even if she is the one standing in front of him in flesh and blood; he’s orchestrating a vengeance against “the warrior nun”, the abstract class of those responsible for his captivity in the first place.
It’s hard to say he necessarily sees Areala in Ava when he says “warrior nun”. Perhaps so, perhaps not. But he does seem to see in the current halo bearer an avatar of someone (or multiple “someones”) he intends to defeat, the echoes of the past embodied in a single woman, a vessel through which their voices may yet ring after they are long gone. Perhaps he can see more than any of us can — just as he sees the wraith demons and passes the ability on to Lilith, might it not be possible for him to see something else when he looks at Ava or, at least, in the direction of the halo?
Could the halo, as once suggested to me by @ghostofcatscradle, carry some of its previous bearers’ “essence” — providing one explanation to Ava’s “meetings” with Shannon or Areala in season one — preserving some portion of them even as it inhabits another woman’s flesh? Could that be readily visible to a being of Adriel’s species and provenance, as the wraiths are?
Or could he think he saw something? Adriel is posed as a much more powerful creature than a human, with much more knowledge at his disposal. He mentions how no human can carry the halo for long before becoming somehow twisted — but what if there is truth in the reversed idea as well and his own long stay on Earth has warped him? Sometimes we find that those deemed “mad” are the most lucid, but would it be such a strange inversion to consider that this amazing being who boasts of his greater lucidity might be the greatest madman himself? He barely attempts to solve the contradictions so clear to Ava when she points out how his discourse of wanting to save the world from Reya's oppression is unaligned with his own forceful, violent methods of combat which cause suffering to the same creatures he claims to champion. Perhaps he comes from a pre- or post- logic realm. Perhaps he is insane. Maybe he is just a power-hungry sophist who will use whatever justification is at hand to legitimate his own selfish cause.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this, warrior nun.” Vindication, yes, but in what form? At the end of season one, Adriel sought to seize the halo, yank it out of Ava and be done with it. In season two, he wants a fight instead of just trying to reach for it and accomplish his goals. Yes, his plans concerning Reya had just been spoiled… But if he had been “waiting a long time”, then this battle is not about what just happened in regards to Reya and the ark. It’s ancient, it’s personal. It’s not just the halo anymore — was it ever?
When Ava resurrects, is that the halo’s doing? When Mother Superion is brought back to life, is that the halo’s handiwork? Could it be sentient as some like to hypothesise it is? Or, as an object said to have been stolen from Reya, is it accomplishing her mysterious will by manifesting such powers? Or could it be that the equivalence between Reya and God made by Michael after a lifetime under the former’s spell is not as true as he was led to believe and there might be another, grander, perhaps even will-less entity pulling the strings?
Or could it be that the miracle is not divine, but Ava’s? Perhaps not even just hers, but something available only to humans, that Suzanne might carry as well, something that recognised her as it recognised Ava while she was brought back. There are no records of the halo resurrecting people…
… But it is said to give different bearers different powers. How or when does a bearer develop a new ability? Is there a limit to how many she can find and use? Might they not overlap sometimes?
Moreover, in an environment that firmly believes the halo is a weapon against its enemies, did anyone ever bother to ask whether it could do the opposite of slaughter, if it could be used for purposes unrelated to war against so-called Hell? It takes Jillian, an outsider to the Order, to voice that curiosity.
For each possibility listed above as far as who is behind performing miracles, what accompanying conclusions might there be?
The halo as a sentient object seems to open less interesting consequences than a world where a higher force has confusing aims or is truly neutral and both favours and hampers the living; or one where even common people, even “freaks”, as Ava calls herself more than once, are capable of miracles, of changing their world given the right support and tools.
We don’t actually need hard, official answers.
It’s the suggestions, the maybes, the could bes that really hook us in — is it any wonder that the more dedicated avatrice shippers are so focused on the potential for that time period spent in Switzerland, off-camera, which we did not witness?
The questions are inexhaustible — even with just eighteen total episodes, even when there was yet so much to see. If we can keep asking questions, if we see the beauty in them and how much more enticing they can be compared to a creator’s answers or incomplete plans (Mary taking vows and replacing Superion, really?!), we’ll have perhaps even more on our plates than another season would have given us. Which isn’t to say we shouldn’t mourn the loss of a continuation but merely to duly cherish what we have effectively received and give it its due attention.
It’s what’s left unsaid or unexplained, it’s what even creators might say isn’t set in stone and still open for debate (such as the halo being sentient or not); the blanks, the doubts and possibilities are where we come in with our understanding or our own stories. Why? How? What if?
Keep finding questions to ask... And Warrior Nun lives on.
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Hello birdie 🖤✨
I've got something for the Life Interrupted AU.
Thena isn't feeling well lately and is considering to go back into this hellhole where she's getting drugged to unconsciousness. She's packing her stuff when Gil shows up. He's trying to talk it out of her.
(And I definitely didn't had this Idea because I'm stuck in one of those hellholes, lol)
✨🖤Hugs an Love🖤✨
"Going somewhere?"
Thena sighed, setting down one of her shirts and staring down at her bed. "I was thinking about it."
Gil walked further into her room, having just arrived. "Druig texted me. Really surprised me to hear from him, but he said you've been acting weird--wants me to 'talk to some sense into you'."
Thena let out a humourless chuckle. "I'm surprised he decided to entrust you with that task."
"Gotta say, I am too," Gil agreed quietly until he was standing behind her. "I have to agree--you seem a little anxious lately."
She had been nervous, jumpy, and Gil knew it. They hadn't been able to go out on a date in weeks because she felt on the verge of a panic attack at the thought of having to navigate crowds or risk running into someone. "Maybe...maybe I should consider-"
"Don't," he whispered, placing his hand gently over hers. Her bag was already half full. "Don't say you're going back to that place."
Thena squeezed her eyes shut, tears already burning the insides of them. "Where should I go, Gil?"
"Anywhere else," he concluded. He pulled her hand away from packing up as if she were sailing off into the horizon. He moved slowly and gently until he could sit on the chair in the corner of her room and look up at her. "Please, Thena, just talk to me."
When he was seated lower, she had no excuse not to look at him. But she stared down at his hands, holding hers so, so gently. "Druig and Makkari have been looking at places again."
Gil raised his brows. "That...that's good...right?"
It was. It was what she wanted. She wanted their lives to continue on after the ugliness of the last year. She wanted her brother to feel free to settle down and marry the love of his life. And he could do that without worrying about his sister, she was determined.
"He keeps asking me to see them," she admitted quietly, as if Druig had his ear pressed against the door and would be wounded by overhearing her. "He keeps picking rooms that he says can be mine--if I so choose."
"So," Gil prompted, giving her hands a little squeeze, "what's so bad about that?"
Thena shook her head, looking up around the ceiling of her room to keep her tears from falling. "I'm not some child he has to drag around with him. He should be choosing a home to suit him and his wife, not worrying about his burdensome sister."
"Come on," Gil whispered, his eyes drifting downward from the sheer weight of Thena's discouragement. "You know he doesn't think of you like that."
Thena sighed, pulling her hands from Gil's and plopping herself on the corner of her bed. She pressed them to her head, trying to keep them from shaking. "I know he doesn't. That is exactly the problem."
"Okay, so you don't want him worrying about you," Gil shrugged, turning in the chair to face her head on again.
Thena stared down at her knees. She wasn't wearing her work dress and stockings with a tight ponytail. But she couldn't bring herself to wear soft sweatpants anymore, opting for athleisure leggings and a cardigan at even her most comfortable.
"What else?"
She toyed with her fingernails. "I don't want to live here alone."
Gil nodded again, leaning back in the chair.
She hunched over herself more, despite her sore back. "It's not about the cost, it's...I can't be here by myself, thinking all these...things."
"Okay, so we'll find somewhere else for you," Gil leapt at the opportunity to suggest an alternative. He leaned forward again, even scooching toward the edge of the seat. "I'll help you look."
She smiled, although she still wasn't feeling the intent behind the action. "Druig offered the same. Even Makkari--but that's not the point."
Gil seemed to understand what she was getting at. And of course he did, it was Gil. He was sweet, and understanding, and he always seemed to know what she was trying to say, even if she didn't have the words. "You want to find a place for yourself."
She sighed, looking at her hands again. "I don't seem capable of anything these days."
Gil took her hands in his again, rubbing his thumb over her skin. "You know that's not true."
She wasn't as sure as he was. She never was--never had his confidence, or positivity. It was something she both envied and admired about him. She loved it about him. "Maybe-"
"No!"
She blinked, taken aback by his outburst. He was always so soft spoken, especially with her. She had never heard him so much as raise his voice. The only things he did loudly were laughing and sneezing.
"Maybe nothing!" he pressed, standing from the chair. "That place never did you any good. I don't think it does anyone any good! And I will not let you go back to that misery!"
Thena's eyes fluttered, her back straightening. Her heart began to squeeze at the sheer volume of things, but this was Gil--she was safe with him.
"Thena," he finally quieted again, kneeling in front of her. "You never have to go back to that place, okay? I don't care if you have a nervous breakdown--I'll take care of you. I'll take better care of you than they ever would in there. Just--just promise me you won't go back there because you're worried about burdening people."
She blinked, those tears she was trying to hold back finally falling. It was completely dark outside, her small bedside lamp offering minimal lighting. But it caught Gil's features in just such a way that made him seem so beautiful. "I don't want to go back there."
"Good," he nodded, turning her hand so he could press his lips to it.
"But," she gasped, her lip wobbling. She clung to him. "But what if I'm not me, anymore?"
"You're exactly who you need to be," he said without a hint of doubt in his voice. "You're Thena."
So completely unwavering, her Gilgamesh.
"You're my Thena," he repeated, softer this time, kissing the back of her other hand before pulling her up to stand with him. His hands slipped around waist to rest at her back. "That's all you need to be."
She wasn't sure who 'Thena' was, at times. At least, not as she knew herself before all this. Gil kept saying that the past year was a part of her, for better or worse. But she just wanted to leave it behind--to revert to the version of her that had existed before it all.
"Look," he whispered, still holding her so gently. "Maybe that's easy for me to say. I didn't know you before. But the Thena I know is pretty damn amazing."
She let another laugh, still not humoured in the least.
"She is," he chuckled, though, and he did mean it. He leaned closer, touching his forehead to hers. "She's this badass translator, works in a big, fancy office. She's actually pretty funny, if she's in a good mood. Kinda likes messing with me."
"I do not."
"Just a little," he contested, scrunching up his nose faintly. "But I think that side of her is cute. And she's tough--way tougher than she thinks she is. And she's an incredible sister, even when her brother is being a pain in our ass."
"Our?" she interrupted.
"Our," he confirmed, touching the tips of their noses together to silence her. "And I know he's just worried about you. That's why he keeps saying you can stay with them if you want. But I guess he doesn't really know it's stressing you out."
Thena sighed, dragged back into the depths of her problems like plunging into ice cold water. "How do I tell him?"
Gil skipped over that question, still busy holding her, almost swaying as his weight shifted from foot to foot. "So, this Thena--I mean, to me, she's the most incredible woman in the world."
"Gil," she sighed, trying to pull him from his reverent description of her.
But he nudged her head until he could kiss her lips, also gently. As gently as everything else about him. "She's the woman I love, plain and simple."
Oh, did she ever love him. She had gone from being someone who probably didn't really believe in love for herself at all to being head over heels for her sweet, gentle giant.
She sighed as she kissed him again, leaning up on her toes to loop her arms around his neck. Kissing Gil always made her feel more human--more grounded and real. It took away the buzzing in her head and replaced it with with a heavy and pleasant sedative that could spread through her veins.
Gil stayed close, his forehead against hers, lips still faintly puckered. "Better?"
"Hm," she sighed. She didn't need to explain herself--not to him. She ran her fingers gently through the hair at the back of his head. If only she never had to go to work, or take public transport, or go to house viewings where the realtor would look at her oddly. If only she could stay in Gil's arms every second of every day.
"Good," he sufficed to say, tapping his fingers against the back of her sweater. He moved his hand to her hip. "So, about this living situation-"
"Right," she sighed the heaviest she had yet (which was saying something).
"Hey," he nudged her gently, pulling her eyes up to him. "A unit in my building is going on the market for next month. It's the one above mine--sweet old guy is moving out to be closer to his grand kids."
Oh. Living that close to Gil--being neighbours?
"I can always ask him if he'd be open to a lease trade-off," Gil suggested, although he was unable to hide his excitement at the prospect in his smile. "What do you think?"
Being that close to Gil? Being his upstairs neighbour?
His smile wobbled faintly, turning sheepish as he looked away. "It's a little more modest than this place. But it's a one bedroom, and it's not a bad location. And-"
Thena stood on her toes, pressing her lips to his, even with a cliche 'mmwah' sound. He looked dazed after the firmer kiss, which made her smile genuinely for the first time that night. She leaned against him heavier, but he steadied her without a second thought. "I think that sounds perfect."
"Really?" he asked, beaming like a dog about to receive a treat with a wagging tail.
She took his cheeks in her hands, "it sounds wonderful, Gil."
"O-Okay," he laughed, sounding near hysteria. But he pulled her against his chest in his arms, even lifting her off the ground slightly as he spun them. "This'll be amazing, sweetie, I promise!"
He needed no promises. The thought of having him a mere flight of stairs away was already comforting, in a sense. And she had been to his flat plenty of times. He was right, it was in a good location, and it wasn't any further from her office than she was now, all things considered.
Gil set her on her feet once more. "I'll talk to him tonight."
"Don't get too ahead of yourself," she advised gently. It wasn't often she was able to offer a calming voice of reason these days; it felt familiar, even soothing. She toyed with some some stray hairs of his. "I may have to apply, like everyone else."
"Peh," Gil waved in dismissal again (making her laugh, again). "The old guy loves me. And that's before I tell him some sob story about wanting my girlfriend to move in so we can be closer."
Thena blushed softly, toying with the hem of her cardigan. Sometimes she had to remind herself that Gil wasn't just 'someone she was seeing', and actually the man she had known for more than half a year and had been dating for more than half that time, now.
"It'll be great," he whispered, pressing a kiss to her cheek. "We can carpool to work, I'll be right downstairs if you ever wanna talk--or cuddle."
"Gil," she admonished, but it came out as a light and air whisper as he kissed her cheek again, his five o'clock shadow against her skin.
He stopped nuzzling her just to look at her more solemnly. "You should tell Druig."
"It was your idea."
"Exactly," Gil made a face, shrinking somewhat. "He'll kill me."
Thena rolled her eyes, her spirits lifting by the moment. "It's not as if you're offering to shack up with me yourself."
He didn't laugh at her joke. He didn't even seem to realise it was a joke, just shrugged one shoulder. "I mean they're both only one bedroom units. Plus, I imagine you want some space for yourself for a little. Feel like you have some more control?"
Well, he was exactly right about that, as always. Although she hadn't expected his rebuttal to be that they would need a larger space if they were to live together. She just blinked, "precisely."
"So it's decided," he grinned again, and gave her another kiss for good measure. "I'll go talk to Karun, you talk to Druig. He really is worried about you."
"I know," she mumbled, feeling properly chastised. She unlinked her hands from behind his head and squeezed his forearms. "I'm sure he was desperate to call you."
"And I'm suggesting you move into my building instead of in with him?--he's gonna have my head."
Thena laughed genuinely for the first time that night. "Don't worry, I'll protect you from him."
Gil stared at her in a way that made her toes curl. He bent his head down to sneak into the crook of her neck under her jaw. "I know you will."
She shivered as he left a kiss on her pulse point.
But he left it at that, pulling away and standing to his full height again. It left her feeling chilly, needing to pull her cardigan tighter around herself. "Okay."
Thena nodded, letting him take her by the hand. She did have to talk to Druig--about everything. About moving and also about how she would be okay without him hovering over her shoulder. She would be okay without that hell hole and its medication and she would be okay even if she felt like this different version of herself, possibly forever.
Gil grasped the doorknob with his other hand, the door not fully closed and letting in just a sliver of light from the rest of the house. He held her other hand, giving it a squeeze. "Ready?"
She nodded, holding his hand tighter, just in case she needed it. But she smiled, "ready."
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