Tampering with devotion.

Tempo (1)

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Tempo (1)

"Okay."

"Okay." I copied him.

Zions' thumb presses into the first pad of his middle finger, going down and back up. I watch with mild interest, because Dad used to do the same thing when he was in deep thought. My head falls into the crook of Geminis' neck; he's been glued to me since we've come back. The funny thing is we all came into my room, due to the anticlimactic ending of the evening, I had forgotten that I left a messy floor of clothes. In my frenzy of piling it up I tripped over a trenchcoat and fell backwards. Where? You guessed it, right into Geminis’ lap. His violent grunts had me flinging myself off of him so fast you'd think I was ready for takeoff. It took him all of two minutes to coax me back into his lap where we were eventually sewn into our own little world, with him listless, giving soft strokes to my palm.

Zion cried out dramatically. "No one saw her leave the note there, but everyone is still suspicious of her." His timbre plucks a melancholic chord, trying to play a brighter version of itself but he doesn't seem his usual vivacious ball of energy.

"Nah, she’s kind of ehhh— ya know? Cause she really did that because no one was paying attention to her, so, like, narcissistic much?”

"Pretty much." He murmurs. This was hilarious; we just picked random shows to watch and we ended up binging and cracking on them while eating some meat and rice. Well, Zion and I have been, Gemini has just been feeding me every now and again from his plate. We’ve been at this for maybe two hours, I guess it’s time to try out Vallones’ suggestion.

Zion is apparently on the same page, so he plops himself down and mimics my posture: criss cross applesauce and what I like to call- the Gemini posture: super primp and proper. We both stare at each other. He was probably waiting for me to go ahead, because Vallone said that the youngest of those involved should initiate it. No idea what that has to do with anything. While I was trying to remember what to say to begin with, Zion lifts his forefinger, ring finger, and thumb to his mouth one by one and nips the skin. Red colors the surface of his digits so prettily. "You forgot the words, didn't you?" He smirks.

"Hold on, hold on…what the heck did he say.."

"It's four words, Z."

"Give me a second…" I nip at my fingers and hold them out and twist my hand upside down. Zion keeps his right side up so when our palms touch our fingers press against each others' wrists. I pause and crook a brow at him. He looks confused so I flick my gaze at his gloves, because we need to draw blood. As he registers, the color drains from his face, his pulse skips underneath my touch. "Zion?"

He frowns at his hand in mine. He looks like he really doesn't want to take them off, so I suggest something else. "You could cut the tips, or if you have other gloves you can wear."

"Right… I do, right. Hold on."

He's out of the room in a flash. And returns just as quickly. He resituates himself, seeming fine again and looks at Gemini, then expectantly at me. I give him a reassuring nod and say the words, with a bit of a fumble.

"I sever this bind." It's difficult to say in this tongue. It's from the Xenchir. An older alien race. Zion repeats after me, per Vallones' instructions. We say it two more times together, then scoot closer to each other and smear the blood across our necks. Gemini clicks his tongue. I narrow my gaze at him, gesturing at his indentations on my hips

"Easy…love." I sincerely hope, hope, hope my heart doesn't pound out of my ears. Gah! I finally used a pet name on him! His response is an amused huff and to push his soft head of hair against the middle of my back. "Okay. Then we grab each other." I mumble as I spread my fingers over as much of the span of Zions' throat as I can. He does the same, the whole process and how we must look doing this makes my shoulders shake in barely contained laughter. I almost burst when I felt Zions' hand shaking, too. "Okay, then we say it again and scratch an X above our hearts, right?"