My best enemy

Maea

The worst of all blessings

As they talked, the difference between this easy comfort and the nerve-wracking thrill she'd experienced with Sunjata became increasingly clear to her. Though she didn't really compare the two men, the emotional maturity of both them and herself was unmistakable. It did boost her confidence, honestly; confirming that time really had passed, that she had grown and learned - and, perhaps, that the foundation of this relationship was built on something steadier than lust and pity.

Closing her eyes, Maea let the peace of the evening wash over her. With Liam's arm around her and his shoulder beneath her cheek, the treehouse felt more like a home than ever. The rich aroma of the pie cooling atop of the stove mingled with the scent of the man beside her; of woodsmoke and clean clothes, and the subtle musky tang that was purely him. Breathing it in with a deep sigh of contentment, it was hard to imagine how anything could be better than this.

Peeling open one eye as his voice rumbled subtly against her brow, Maea considered the question. Several things did drift past her mind, of varying importance - questions, untold details about her life, things she had yet to discover about him - but in the end, only two topics remained that felt pressing enough to risk this peaceful moment over.

"I think... yeah. Since it's a big topic. Firstly, you should know that I've done... some bad things, in the past. After the breakup - I kind of went a bit crazy. I, uh, set fire to a hospital to hurt his new partner..." It was hard to admit, and harder still to not make excuses for herself - but since they'd just agreed on the importance of honesty, there was no reason for her to hide her ugly past. "Fortunately no one got hurt, but not because of anything I did." Thinking back, she still recalled the bitter disappointment that her plans had failed, that she hadn't made them feel even a fraction of the pain she'd lived with... "So. While I'm very grateful to you for seeing good in me... I need you to be aware that there's plenty of darkness too. And sometimes it has won."

Stilling beneath his arm as she waited for him to process, it wasn't without a certain dread that she listened for a reaction. She'd done exactly what he hated the most - gone after someone innocent to exact selfish revenge on another - and while it was a long time ago... it had happened. It was something she was capable of. Something she didn't want to repeat, but couldn't swear to never doing again - because she knew herself too well at this point.

The most beautiful of curses

Base by Skylark

Who was it that led you on
And makes you want to hurt me so?

Liam had been trained for years to protect innocents, and it was easy for him to assume that his perspective was shared by others, even on their darkest days. So Maea’s revelation surprised him, enough that he glanced down at her with a furrowed brow - not necessarily from judgment, but from concern, because to reconcile that person with the woman he cared for, he could only imagine the kind of pain she had been in.

Because he knew all too well what loss and hurt and anger could do to a person. Maea might have turned her rage outward, but Liam had turned his inward, finding his only solace at the bottom of a bottle that it had taken him years to claw his way out of. He wasn’t proud of the person he’d been, of the things he’d done - and while he had never attacked innocents, he had wanted to, back when he blamed all Ascended for what had happened to his family. If he’d had the option, would he have done something like what Maea had done, determined that anyone in his way should pay for the crimes of the few?

It took him a moment to process, but when he did, he tugged her gently closer. ”We all have light and dark in us, Maea. And sometimes we all lose the fight to be good.” He tilted his head to catch her eye. ”All we can do is keep trying, one day at a time.”

Who do you want to forget?
Who forgot you long ago?

Liam

Maea

The worst of all blessings

If he did judge her for her lack of restraint, for taking her pain out on others, she wouldn't blame him. If he'd needed longer to think about the ways her admission altered his views on her - not simply the quiet, caring person she strived to be but far more multifaceted and mercurial than she usually let on - she would have understood. If he'd let go and needed a minute, or days, or reconsidered everything they'd said today... Terrifying as that prospect was, she would accept it.
But he didn't. When he stirred, and she was about to apologise for dropping a confession like that like a stink bomb ibto their moment of bliss, it was only to pull her closer. Squeezing the quiet dread from her lungs with a compassion that had her tearing up in relief. Squeezing him back, she needed a moment to compose herself before she could meet his gaze. Grateful, ashamed, relieved - but speaking up had been worth all of it, for the weight it lifted from her chest.
"This is why you're the kindest person," she murmured, blinking treacherous dampness from her eyes. "Not sure many would accept something like this so easily..." Which made her more than fortunate, beyond blessed - desperately undeserving of the regard of a man like Liam. Could she be forgiven for wanting him anyway? She'd do anything to live up to the version of herself that he saw, if it was good enough to make up for the bad parts. Anything at all, in order not to disappoint him or cause him pain. 

Realizing that she was sqeezing him with all she had, Maea made herself ease up on the death grip and relax back into the couch. "Do you have anything..?" Surely no topic or confession could be heavier than this - if he did want to talk about something it should be easy now.

The most beautiful of curses

Base by Skylark

Who was it that led you on
And makes you want to hurt me so?

If Liam had been the same man he had been when he first joined the Dragoons, he would have found Maea's lapse in judgment to be an insurmountable obstacle to any relationship he might have had with her. The Liam of those days had seen in black and white, without admiring any of the many shades of grey that existed in the world. But the man he was now had made his own mistakes, had his own regrets - and could see the good in Maea, even if she had done bad things. She wasn't unlike him, in that way.

So maybe it wasn't kindness, not really; maybe it was recognizing a kindred spirit, understanding that there was more to this world than reducing every action to either good or bad with no in between.

And maybe it wasn't easy, but neither was it as difficult as it might have been in another world, in another life.

Maea's grip on him shifted, and Liam reached to brush an errant lock of hair behind an ear, the motion tender and gentle and altogether loving as he realized that there was, in fact, one thing that he should share, since she had bared her soul in such a way. It wasn't, perhaps, quite as big as setting fire to a hospital, but it weighed on him just the same.

"You already know that I had a drinking problem," he started, his voice quiet but resolute, unwavering in his decision to share this with her. "It started after my family died, and it was... it was bad. Sometimes... sometimes I even showed up to go on duty while I was still drunk." There was shame in his voice, and guilt, because in those days, he'd had no business calling himself a Dragoon, and yet he'd done it anyway. "There was one night that I was supposed to be training a new recruit, and we were trying to break up this bar fight - and I was too out of it to realize I should have called for backup until the trainee was dead on the floor."

Liam shifted uncomfortably, bracing himself for any judgment that might come his way. Maea might have gone after innocents, but she hadn't actually hurt anyone. Liam had gotten a man killed, all because he couldn't get it together enough to do his job. The drinking - at least off duty - he could live with. Frequenting the underground fight clubs that festered in Stormbreak's Silk Houses district, he could look back on without guilt. At least everyone there had known what they were signing up for. But this... this was one thing he could never take back, and he'd never quite learned to live with it, either. "I resigned the next day." It had been his fault, and he'd been too much of a coward to stay and face his demons. He wouldn't blame Maea for reacting poorly, not when everything he tried to be - moral, brave, loyal - felt like a lie.

Who do you want to forget?
Who forgot you long ago?

Liam

Maea

The worst of all blessings

Melting just a little bit under the tender gesture, it was tempting to let the tingle of his fingers brushing against her ear distract her. But as he responded to her question with equal measures of trust, she made herself push aside the sensation to focus on what Liam was saying, the mistake he was owning up to.

Her stomach dropped with the weight of it. A younger version of her would not have understood, would perhaps have listened to his mention of addiction and called it an excuse - labelled him as careless and selfish and recoiled - but that was only because the young Maea couldn't relate. The person she was today knew better the kind of demons that drove you into bottles, into self harm just to make the voices in your head go quiet. She'd been there, too, lived with her own shadows day by day – and she, too, had blood on her hands.

Pulling her legs up beneath her, she squeezed his hand momentarily just to let him know she wasn't recoiling from him. All she did was sit up on her knees so she could coil her arms around his neck and hug him close, achingly tender.
"So that's why you felt so bad about drinking,  that time..." she murmured, comprehension blooming now that she knew more. "Oh Liam, I'm so sorry – you never should have had to live through any that." From the loss of his loved ones, to the dreadful accident, it was utterly unfair for it to happen to someone as good as him. She might strive for it, but Liam embodied the trait, always giving of his time and care without asking for anything in return. "Certainly it was a mistake - but everyone make those, though not always with that awful a consequence. That's part of being human, too, I'm afraid." And as someone who'd very nearly killed a friend while wrapped up in her own misery, she fully believed that it was one situation he would never put himself in again.

The most beautiful of curses

Base by Skylark

Who was it that led you on
And makes you want to hurt me so?

Maea shifted beside him, and if not for the gentle squeeze of his hand, Liam might have braced himself for her to tell him she couldn't understand, for everything that they were beginning to build together to go up in flames before the foundation was even complete. But then her arms were around his neck, and he wrapped his own around her waist, burying his face in her shoulder as she sought to comfort him. He didn't deserve this woman, who could so kindly handle his deepest shame; but he would do his best to keep her, all the same. Maybe that made him selfish, but for once in his life, he couldn't bring himself to care.

"I think the hardest part was knowing that it was a choice that I made. That it wasn't something that just happened. I knew better, and at the time I just -" He huffed out a sigh, squeezing her once before pulling back enough to look her in the eye. "It won't ever happen again," he promised. "I won't ever knowingly put someone else in danger because of my decisions."

He leaned his forehead against Maea's, closing his eyes for a moment to simply absorb that she was still here with him, that this was a safe place in which they could reveal their darkest moments without fear of retribution. Then, softly, he murmured, "I can't tell you how grateful I am for you." Not the least because she was still here, in his arms - but for all the changes she'd brought to him, for all the purpose she'd given him, these past few seasons. It might not have been a lot of time, it was true, but it was more than enough to assure Liam that Maea was someone he didn't want to be without.

Who do you want to forget?
Who forgot you long ago?

Liam

Maea

The worst of all blessings

It was only the second time they hugged like this, and the first when it was not in response to near-death situations and necessity. Yet the impulse had been irresistible, and now that she was in his arms with hot breath tickling her throat and those golden, sun-bleached curls draping like silk over her hands, there was no room for awkwardness. Later she would marvel at her own forwardness, and maybe die a little from giddy embarrassment as the memory replayed itself on the internal movie screen... but for now, caught up in the moment, all she felt was golden comfort and inextricable rightness. Like she'd been meant to be exactly here all along.

Easing her grip somewhat reluctantly, Maea's arms lingered in a loose drape around his neck as Liam shifted. Closing her eyes, she touched her nose to his  with a little smile. "I bear witness," she replied, soft yet in the formal way of one accepting a vow. He didn't have to swear anything, but since he chose to she would help him keep his word, no matter what happened.

The longer they remained like that, sharing breath and trading confessions, the more real it became. A warm glow kindled somewhere near the center of her being, growing brighter as doubt and disbelief was banished one by one. "Mmh... as much as I'm thankful for you, maybe?" she breathed. "I was so sure I was deluding myself, just hearing what I wanted to when you said nice things... This is happening, right? I'm not dreaming...?" Had she truly not fallen between the pages into another sentient book, to repeat a story that could never be hers? It felt real, but so very sweet, so incredibly delightful that it had to be too good to be true.

The most beautiful of curses

Base by Skylark

Who was it that led you on
And makes you want to hurt me so?

It was Maea’s quiet acceptance, her solemn response to his murmured vow, that wound Liam more tightly around her finger. If he hadn’t already fallen for her, this moment might have been what tipped the scales. He didn’t know what to say - but really, there was nothing more that needed to be said. The moment simply stretched, quiet and understanding, between two people who had lived through so much and made it here, into one another’s arms.

At Maea’s quiet words, Liam chuckled, the sound warm in the scant space between them. ”If this is a dream,” he murmured. ”Please don’t wake me up.” There would be nothing worse than to wake to find that this had all been in his head, now that he’d felt what it was like to have and to hold her.

Who do you want to forget?
Who forgot you long ago?

Liam

Maea

The worst of all blessings

A quiet giggle escaped her before she could reign it in. His laughter was so unexpected, yet somehow cemented the reality more than any reassurance ever could. There was no room for that kind of pleading in cruel pranks, nor did delusions usually bleed out into brevity. If it had been simple growing tension and mounting desire she'd be more wary - but that wasn't it. Not just, though it certainly crossed her mind how close they were, how near to her lips his mouth was. There was simply... no rush. No pressing need to hurry anything, or speak unnecessarily. She would have been perfectly content to remain like this for the rest of the night, into the next day and the rest of their lives - forever, or until they fell asleep on the couch.

It was her stomach that interrupted the peaceful moment by letting out a low, persistent gurgle. The sound was so sudden and out of place that she snorted with laughter, embarrassed halfway out of her mind. And once she began, it just wouldn't stop. Bright, silvery cascades of mirth overflowed ceaselessly - just like the tears that finally escaped her control. They were good tears though. Happy, slightly overwhelmed - the kind that washed away the grime of a decade of lonely nights and resignation and wiped clean the slate.

Like a deep healing gone full circle.

The most beautiful of curses

Base by Skylark

Who was it that led you on
And makes you want to hurt me so?

Liam, too, might have been content to stay just like this, wrapped up in Maea until the end of time - but then her stomach gurgled, startling another chuckle from the soldier. He might have offered some teasing remark, might have released her (however reluctantly) to allow her to sate her obvious hunger - but then she was laughing, and it was such a glorious sound that Liam wasn’t sure he’d ever recover from its beauty.

Her tears came next, and Liam reached to brush them away with his thumbs, cupping her face in his hands like something beyond precious. They were so close still that they shared breath, and there was a thought, for a brief moment, that he would very much like to close the gap between them to press his lips to hers - but having just requested to take things slow, he refrained. He didn’t want a passion that would burn out before it had a chance to truly shine; he wanted an everlasting glow that would carry them through the rest of their lives.

And it was a life that he could picture, so clearly that it made him ache. There were surely things to work out between them, but they could do it now together, and that made all the difference in the world.

”I believe there’s still pie,” he said through his own laughter. ”And I would very much like a piece.”

Who do you want to forget?
Who forgot you long ago?

Liam

Maea

The worst of all blessings

With his hands wrapped so tenderly about her cheeks, Maea felt precious. Long after the shockwave of emotion subsided and her tears dried, she was still falling back into helpless fits of giggles - thoroughly wrung out but in the best of ways. "Yeah," she chortled, all but forcing the steadying breaths down her lungs. Again, and again. "Me too. Do you prefer ice cream, or whipped cream? I have both."

Out of all the questions she'd asked today, this was perhaps the one whos answer she looked forward to the most, for the sheer triviality. Ice cream, or whipped. Chocolate or vanilla, peaches over strawberries - the numbeer of green items in his wardrobe, that he preferred the couch over the dining table and the way his expression didn't change when she reluctantly slipped out of his grasp to serve them both dessert; like she wasn't actually out of reach, and that her return back into his space was as easy and natural as breathing.

She supposed it was. Would be, once the mere thought didn't drive up a swarm of moths inside and her smile didn't turn silly with joy by simply meeting his gaze. Normal - she might need a moment to rediscover what normal meant, now that 'I' had become 'we'. "Liam?" she asked for the sheer pleasure of saying his name, while returning with the pie and plates and his choice of condiments. "What's one routine in your current life you don't want to give up?"

The most beautiful of curses

Base by Skylark

Who was it that led you on
And makes you want to hurt me so?

"Ice cream," he said instantly, as Maea slipped from his grasp, leaving him to lounge on the couch as she gathered up slices of pie. Perhaps another time he would have risen with her, to try to be helpful or to simply stay nearer to her, but at this particular moment, it was enough to be able to watch her as she went about the task, no longer relegated to fleeting glances slipped in here or there. No, now he could keep his gaze affectionately on Maea.

He reached to accept the pie and ice cream, though what he really longed for was to reach for her again, and waited until she'd sat back down with him to shift so that his knee was brushing hers. Slicing off a bit of pie with his fork, her picked up a bit of both that and the ice cream to pop into his mouth.

"Hmm," he hummed thoughtfully, waiting until he'd swallowed to continue. "This is good, by the way. But probably going to Stormbreak - to visit my family's graves," he added quickly, not wishing to ruin the evening by returning the topic of conversation to the Family. While he would likely visit the city again in future for more than one reason, he knew that he would break with the Family if Maea asked him to. But his family, his loved ones who were gone... they would always hold a special place in his heart, and to ask him to leave them behind him would be an impossible task.

He turned hazel eyes curiously to Maea. "What about you?"

Who do you want to forget?
Who forgot you long ago?

Liam

Maea

The worst of all blessings

The weight of his gaze upon her was a tangible thing, near physical as though a hand pressed lightly to the small of her back as she moved about the kitchen. It could have been unnerving if it didn't feel so comforting; the pale haired little woman suppressed a smile as she returned, melted into the connection of their knees and hummed contentedly as the first spoonful of ice cream and pie melted on her tongue. "It's a miracle," she agreed around the crumble of crust, fruit and sugar. "Maybe I should stick to baking?" They did say that while cooking was art, baking was a science. It would track, made a lot of sense.

Sobering only slightly as Liam mentioned his family's graves, she gave him a considering look. Did he really worry that she might deny him that? She hoped not; they had never felt like a threat to her, no rivals for his affections and loyalty. If the wife had been alive still, then maybe - but how could she resent the dead for the life they once lived, long before she even knew their names? "Can I come with you, sometime?" she asked quietly. "If it's alright with you, I'd like to know them..." Fix their names into her memory, befriend their ghosts until they felt as much like her family as his. It wasn't sharing, the way she couldn't tolerate - at least she didn't think so. It wasn't as though Liam would ever forget them though, so... she simply had to make peace with that and remember not to compare herself to someone else.

When he returned the question, her head cocked aside in a thoughtful gesture, leaning aside against his upper arm in a totally casually but maybe not manner. "Hmm, probably traveling. I think I'd get claustrophobic if I stayed too long in the same place. This place does feel like home, and it's wonderful to have somewhere to come back to... I just like feeling that sense of freedom. You know what I mean?" Another thought came to mind, but for the first time she hesitated before bringing it up. "Also... mh. This is probably way early and getting ahead of things, and I don't know if it's even relevant to anything, but..." Her face began to heat up, a splotchy red color that consumed the pallor of her skin. "I don't... think I'll ever want to become a parent." And she worried about that, given that the man she wanted to be with had been a father of three. Clearly he liked children, which meant... she was probably closing a door that could mean a great deal to him.

The most beautiful of curses

Base by Skylark

Who was it that led you on
And makes you want to hurt me so?

Liam chuckled lightly around his pie. Although he would gladly try any meal that Maea put in front of him, he had to admit that the pie had turned out far better than he’d expected, given what she’d told him about her cooking and baking abilities. He took another bite, then considered her as she asked to come with him. ”Of course,” he said, without a moment’s hesitation. ”I’d like that. Very much.” Indeed, it meant more to him than he could say.

As for traveling, Liam nodded. ”Of course. There’s so much of Caido to see. It seems silly to stay in one place for all eternity.” He glanced at her with a smile. ”I’d like to travel with you, sometimes.” They’d already gone to the Climb and Torchline together, after all, and he’d enjoyed it immensely. But he also wouldn’t begrudge Maea her freedom to come and go as she pleased. She was her own person, and deserving of her own life.

He just wanted to share in part of it.

Her next revelation sobered him instantly. He’d already had children, and he could see how one might assume that he wanted more. But there was something about losing them that made him hesitant to try again - and that was besides the fact that Maea didn’t want them. ”Honestly? I didn’t think I’d have more,” he admitted. ”Maybe it’s cowardly of me, but I would be terrified, all the time. I don’t… think that would make me a very good father. Not anymore.”

Who do you want to forget?
Who forgot you long ago?

Liam