he made andres smile. with his fucking presence, he made him sme. made him smile by assenting to stay the power trip was unreal. it was heady and dangerous-- even moreso than what had happened the club.

because a quickie in the dark corner of a skeezy nightclub was an entirely different sort of venom than this exhaustion posturing as domesticity. it was scary. it was nice. it was the kind of thing someone could get used to and the kind of thing they’d inevitably be destroyed by.

Andres must be reacting on muscle memory, from different times, with someone else. But Onyx goes willingly into destruction when the warm palm cups his cheek, goes willingly into destruction to press his lips against Andres', nuzzles into the apple of his cheek, before settling in, allowing himself the softness of wondering how things will naturally coalesce, who will spoon who, how their limbs will entwine.

Andres sleeps, real, genuine; Onyx doesn’t. Despite the exhaustion, he’s wired. He wants to soak up every tiny piece of this he can-- the warmth of Andres’ wrist on his neck, the way their ankles are slightly hooked, the quiet, cool bedroom, the peace of it-- before he does what he knows he has to do and cut the cord.

it’s early-- early-early, still dark.

onyx braces himself.

“andres.”

nothing. so he tries again, a little louder.

nothing but the quiet of andres’ breathing, the rise and fall of his chest.

onyx shifts, slowly, like a plant shoot unfurling after a long winter buried under leaves. he leans into andres and places his lips to the other man’s forehead, a barely-there contact that muffles the way his own breath catches.

then he disentangles himself from his lover nightly conquest and stands. he dresses quickly and leaves before he can have second thoughts, the heat slowly draining out of him until he’s cold as the night he walks into.

andres buenaventura
costume

☉

Part one of getting back on his feet meant testing his mettle as a Pokemon trainer against someone objectively better than him. See part one in progress, elsewhere.

Part two was getting himself physically back into fighting shape. It wasn’t, necessarily, a difficult task: he hadn’t been down for long, and most of his physical limitations came in the form of wounds that really shouldn’t chance reopening.

Mostly, though, it was his eye. His right eye had been viscerally ruptured and rendered useless. He had a patch, now, but he had to get used to not having vision on the affected side. Onyx learned best through suffering, as his life so clearly illustrated. The fastest way back on his feet would be to jump into the fire with both.

He rolled his neck from side to side, feeling the tension in his chest wounds. They would hold. He needed to avoid getting hit in the lower back at all costs; the doctors all assured him that ruptured kidneys were a typical thing seen in sports medicine and could heal on their own, with time.

Onyx didn’t have the patience for time.

He stepped between the ropes into the ring. Mordekaiser just sailed over them. The once-Gabite had been responsible for failing to stop the Alpha Ursaring from savaging Onyx; he’d gained some measure of silent savagery, in his evolved state.

It was a dirty, underground fight. They didn’t really make dirty, underground referees-- and the only emcee was the roar of the crowd. He tuned it all out, locked eyes-- eye-- with his opponent, and cracked his knuckles one by one, waiting for her to make the first move.

blue murtagh

☉

His association with Rocket and general trajectory in life might be a mystery, but his reasons for being here today are not. He wants a fight. A good fight, against someone who is proven and might be even better at this than he is.

andres buenaventura was once better at this, he thinks, but the thought is quickly subsumed by Alexandra Briarwood ’s arrival. He doesn’t know her, of course, but everyone knows of her.

Her entrance comes with aplomb, her walking out of the inky void, close enough for him to feel the latent chilling factor of the ethereal shadows that warp and weave around her. He doesn’t startle-- he’s been in the business too long to startle. Besides, startling takes more muscle control than he feasibly has right now.

He fixes her in a cold, single-eyed glare, because that’s all he could do, now. “Probably not, but that’s what happens when you get mauled by a bear.” His voice is hoarse and he does just sound exhausted. “I’ve laid around enough for a lifetime. I want a fight.”

Alexandra Briarwood
HI |D

☉

Little magic words. If Andres looks close enough, he can see the ellipses popping above Onyx’s head like a Sims character.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll stay.”

He peels off his shirt, the little plastic horns he'd forgotten he was wearing crinkling in the motion. He unsnapped his pants and let them drop to the floor-- no fucking way he was sleeping in those. Belatedly, he thinks maybe Andres just meant, like, hang out in the apartment, and not, you know, physically get in bed with me.

But he'd spent all night engaging in this cat and mouse, spent so long preventing himself from having this, that he was exhausted, and ready to give in. He'd deal with the repercussions of it in the morning.

So he pulls the covers back and slides into bed, his depleted energy warring with his sense of propriety, and winning.

andres buenaventura
costume

☉

He’s not the type to take care of someone after a bender but he’s already established that Andres does weird things to his brain, so out to the kitchen he goes. He roots through the cupboards to find a plastic cup (not breakable) and fills it with cold water from the fridge.

For posterity’s sake, he grabs a capri sun pouch, as well, and finds a box of crackers in the pantry that he also brings back to set on Andres’ bedside table, having hopefully given him enough time to get changed.

“Better than eating plain bread,” he says simply, setting up the meager spread of hangover-fighting food and drink.

andres buenaventura
costume

☉

Andres was marked all over by lip and teeth and tongue. It was infuriating, all the ones he could ping that weren’t his… but his were, by far, the deepest. They’d been left to remain. They’d been left with purpose.

Andres pauses in the moonlight, gestures Onyx towards the kitchen. He doesn’t want to go, but it’s obvious there’s something stopping the man who’d just repeatedly bent over for strangers in public from taking his clothes off in front of him.

It’s a slap in the face. Water on the fires of… it's not-- it's not love, certainly, but it's a warmth, a closeness he hasn't felt in years. Hasn't felt a need for in years. Ashes and smoke, now.

“Do you want me to grab you anything?” he asks, turning away, but pausing in the doorway. “Water, or…?”

andres buenaventura
costume

☉

He tries to go fast at the summons without looking like a fucking freak, torn between just tucking him in and leaving and pushing him back against the wall and revisiting the scene at the club in the safety and privacy of a known locale.

He follows Andres into his apartment and shuts the door behind them, locking it out of paranoid habit over any pretenses of privacy or solitude.

Trailing after him into the bedroom, he hesitates, just for a moment; surely he can let go, his job is done. Instead, he peels back the covers on the bed, arranges the pillows into something he thinks will be more comfortable, expecting Andres to just flop down and pass out.

andres buenaventura
costume

☉