Blue Moon (original) (raw)

Yet more HUity. This takes place about a week after Shield's invasion of Heaven ;p

Blue Moon

Devin had a particular spot in Conjure's rooftop garden that he had discovered in the past several days was excellent for his meditation in the evenings. He knew that the ninja used the garden for the same purpose himself, and hoped that the ever-unpredictable man wouldn't mind his presence there too much. Even though Conjure wasn't currently in residence, Devin tried to be a courteous houseguest.

He was laying on a small patch of grass, hands behind his head, looking more like someone catching a fresh-air nap than a student of magic purging the world's distractions from his mind. Though his eyes were closed, he could feel the starlight and the light of the blue moon falling from the clear sky. That this was a blue moon seemed ironic; the actual phenomenon of two full moons in one month wasn't that rare, but in light of what they had just done, the commonplace euphemism for rare occurrences was laughable. Storming Heaven? Probably a bit less frequent than the blue moon.

His mind shuddered away from recalling the disturbing events barely a week past, however. He had not come here to brood over that, but to try to relax and find at least a few moments' peace. And for perhaps half an hour, he did exactly that, his mind going quite comfortably blank.

But in that same way a sleeper might wake the second before their alarm began to bleat, Devin's mind snapped back into consciousness before he heard the door onto the rooftop open, and then shut again. Someone else had come out here. A magical "glance" at the intruder's aura, however, revealed a familiar presence. Assured of his safety, but by no means relaxed, Devin maintained his lying pose, looking up into the sky.

He made no move as footsteps approached him, stubbornly refusing, perhaps a bit childishly, to give his visitor the satisfaction of a startled response.

"I thought you might be up here, but I didn't think you'd be sleeping..." The voice was slightly apologetic. "Sorry."

Devin finally looked up at Zack, who, despite his apology, was wearing a grin that was almost a smirk. "I'm not sleeping."

"Ooh... Meditating, then?" Without waiting for an invitation, the man sat down on the patch of grass, far enough from Devin to not be touching, but still closer than the mage would have liked.

"Yeah," he replied somewhat shortly. It bothered him a little that Zack knew him well enough to simply guess at that. He really wasn't used to being "understood", and he didn't know if he liked it much.

Zack was silent for a moment, perhaps trying to gage how annoyed Devin really was at his interruption. His next question was unexpected.

"Does it help any?" His tone wasn't sarcastic, but honestly curious. He didn't need to clarify what he meant by "help" -- Devin had been moping about listlessly since they had returned.

"...A little, I suppose." The mage stared up at the full moon. "Thing is, I usually meditate to enhance my concentration, not clear my mind... and I don't need to concentrate right now, I really don't."

Zack sighed quietly, and when Devin glanced at him, his expression was uncertain. "Devin... We won, right?" It was clear from Zack's tone that he didn't need affirmation of their success; rather, he was trying to determine why Devin was acting as if someone had died.

Well, that was simple enough. Someone had.

"Yeah... We won. Everyone was brought back. Except everyone wasn't."

It took Zack a moment to think that over. "The two angels...?" He had never met Sky and Eli, but like everyone else in Shield, he knew about them, and more than that, he knew they had been Devin's teammates.

Devin's friends. Almost the only ones he had.

"Yeah. Them." Not trusting himself to speak any further for the moment, the mage continued to stare at the dark sky. He didn't think that the two human-angels were dead; the angel who had announced the Rapture had said that they were somewhere where they couldn't interfere. But where the hell was that? For all of the technology and magic Shield possessed, they hadn't been able to find a trace of the star-crossed angels who, by striking each other down, had realigned Heaven and Hell and sparked these events to begin with.

"I'm sorry," Zack said quietly, his tone sincere. He shifted his weight, obviously a little uncomfortable. "You know... that was virtually the first thing I'd ever heard about you... that day when we had that big meeting in Midgar, remember?"

Frowning slightly, not sure he wanted to dwell on that particular day, Devin nodded. That had actually been the first time they had met, as well, when Zack had come to pick them up at the landing strip and take them to the assembly. It was also the same day the pure souls had been snatched away.

"Noah asked me to go pick you guys up from the Phoenix, and 'please ask Devin to come to the stage' when we got there. I said, 'Why?' So he said, 'Because he's just lost two teammates,' and gave me the uh... abridged version of what happened."

Devin sat up slowly and looked at Zack, surprised he was talking in detail about this, but the dark-haired man was gazing into the middle distance. The mage suddenly wondered what Zack, coming from a different world entirely, made of any of this.

After collecting his thoughts for a moment, Zack continued. "I was thinking, 'Wow, I bet that guy's in pieces,' and then I see this stony-faced, grim-looking bastard." He turned and smiled slightly at Devin to remove any sting from his words. "Then I told you they wanted you on stage... and then I saw, you really were in pieces, and trying so damn hard not to let anyone know."

Devin had to look away from Zack's unnaturally bright blue eyes, away from the compassion and sympathy there. He swallowed hard against the lump rising in his throat. Damn, he had come up here to not think about all of this!

"Maybe that's when I decided," Zack said quietly, leaning back and propping himself up with his hands.

The mage took the bait. "...Decided what?"

He was answered with that familiar grin. "That I was going to try to get to know you better."

Well, it was the pretty obvious answer. Devin sighed as he considered his "relationship", such as it was, with the other Shield agent. There wasn't much -- they had literally shared sleeping space a couple of times, Zack had stolen a few quick kisses when he could get away with it, and there had been plenty of one-sided flirting. And it wasn't like Devin didn't find the man attractive in a number of ways... it was more that he had no idea what to do about it. He was a skilled linguist, but interpersonal communication was by no means his forte.

"I guess you held to that, heh..." He looked over at Zack, who was watching him more intently than usual.

"Yeah. I'm not some kind of player," the other man said with a slight smirk.

Devin had to snort at that -- the mental image was ridiculous. "No, I guess not..." It was sort of... weird, yet heartening, to know he had been the single object of Zack's affections. He couldn't really understand why, but...

"Look..." Zack seemed on the verge of saying something important, but he hesitated, apparently to consider his words carefully. "We've been dancing around this for a little while, but... after all the crazy stuff we've just seen, I feel like things shouldn't just be left hanging..."

The mage frowned slightly, not sure exactly where this was going.

"I just..." Zack ran a hand through his hair, seeming uncharacteristically nervous. "I want to know where we stand." He looked squarely at Devin. "Are we... together?"

Devin scowled almost instinctively, then sighed. "I don't know... I mean... I haven't been thinking we were, but..." He glanced at Zack, realizing belatedly that that sounded a bit harsh.

The other man hadn't seemed to take it that way, though, fortunately. "Well..." He grinned his foxish half-grin. "Should we be?"

Even though he had expected the question, Devin still didn't know how to respond. He looked back up at the full moon as if it had an answer for him. "I don't..." He glanced back over at Zack. "I mean, I don't know_how_..." It was a little painful to admit that, but... he had the feeling Zack knew that anyway.

"Gotta learn sometime, right?" Slowly, giving Devin the chance to move away, Zack put his arm around the mage's shoulders. "If that put me off, I would have given up a long time ago, heh."

Devin was silent for a moment, thinking about what it would mean to actually have a boyfriend. Really, it wasn't something he spent a lot of time considering. Again, the concept was simply outside of his experience. But if Zack was willing to deal with that...

"If you can put up with me," he mumbled, "then..."

Zack grinned. "Seriously?"

"Yeah..." The mage looked away, embarrassed now. But Zack pulled him a little closer and reached out with his other hand to gently turn Devin's face back towards him.