Edited by KitWulf                                        22-5-2021

*

She snuggled closer against his bare chest which heaved up and down with every breath he took. Steady and rhythmic. It kept her calm and grounded. Sane even. Without him, she would have lost her mind a long time ago. He was her beacon, her light in the darkness.

Her fingers traced along his skin, counting ribs and moving along his chest, feeling the curve of muscles and the lean body she had grown to love. She couldn't help but smile as she felt his chest heaving up one more time as if he was taking a deep breath and dropped again as the exhale came. She waited for the next one but it didn't come.

It had stopped.

His breathing had stopped. She felt his skin grow so cold it was starting to hurt her. Azura tried to slip away from him, panic rising up as his frozen fingers grabbed hold of her arm and kept her in place. Her skin started to blister where he held her. She struggled harder and felt her skin rip open as she managed to free herself. Azura staggered a couple of steps backward and stared at the man before her.

He was stark naked just as she was, yet his skin seemed almost icy blue as he pushed himself up from the ground. His movements were rigid and it seemed like his whole body was frozen. Every time he'd bend a joint she could hear things snap, twist, and turn. She winced at the unnatural sounds it was making. His face was recognizably Lucas but at the same time, it wasn't. The eyes were completely white and the wicked grin plastered on his face was one she had never seen on him before.

The wounds he had inflicted started to burn and Azura stared at her arms as the blood oozed out of them. The edges of the lacerations had turned black and the skin curled up at the places where it had been ripped apart. The red liquid moved along her flesh down to her hands and fingertips but the drops didn't fall. Instead, she watched as the diverse trails seemed to flow upwards again along her arms, past her elbows to her shoulders. They connected with each other and separated again, leaving a web of blood on her arms.

Azura flinched as her own blood was starting to burn into her skin. She tried to move her arms, to wipe away the blood, but it was impossible to move. He was holding her wrists down, his body mere centimeters away from her. Azura's breath hitched when he'd suddenly appeared before her, restricting her movements without her even noticing. The trails of crimson started to work their way down her neck to her chest as a couple flowed up to her cheeks. It burned into her breasts, scorched her nipples and cheeks.

He grasped her wrists so tightly she could only cry out in pain. Tears formed at her eyes as more blood oozed from her wounds, feeding the existing rivulets and making the blood run faster across her whole body. He was relentless as he squeezed harder making more blood emerge. Any more pressure and he would snap her wrists. The trails of blood had reached her legs now and were leaving an intricate pattern on her whole body. She was starting to tremble as the searing pain only intensified.

A sickening crunch, more pain, and black spots formed in front of her eyes.

Azura felt herself fall as he snapped her wrists as if they were twigs. She fell backward, more black spots danced in front of her as the rest seemed to be consumed by darkness. His face was the last thing she saw before the black void fully consumed her.

*

Azura sat squatting down on the roadside between the tall grass with her head between her knees. Her airpipe felt like it had closed itself off and she had to fight for every bit of oxygen. even though it had only been a nightmare, she could still feel where her own blood had burned into her skin. There wasn't a single mark visible on her skin but the pain was still very much present. Lucas was leaning against the car, waiting for her to get up again. A sign she would feel better and he could actually start talking to her. Traffic passed them with high speeds as Lucas had pulled over into the emergency lane the moment it was clear she was having another bad dream.

"Are you feeling any better?"

Azura huffed in response and slowly got up. She stretched her legs first, keeping her head low as she stood hunched over. After taking a few deep breaths she pushed herself up against her knees and got into a fully upright position. She looked up at Lucas with glassy and red-rimmed eyes and slowly made her way over. Without uttering a single word she walked into his arms letting his embrace comfort her.

"I can't believe you're still with me..." The words passed her lips in a whisper as she slowly backed out of his hug. Lucas raised an eyebrow and a deep frown showed itself on his face.

"What do you mean?"

"This! This whole shit! The nightmares, the past, the fucking future!" The sudden outburst caught him by surprise but she calmed down soon after getting it out of her system. Lucas gently stroked her face and let his hand linger on the side of her cheek.

"You are absolutely right. I have no fucking clue why I keep hanging around. I never signed up for this. All I want is a normal relationship with a normal girl and a normal life. The only reason I stick around is that if I leave, I'll be burned to a crisp by you and your anger issues. I actually don't give a damn about you; and this whole Phoenix thing? I fucking hate it! Let me say it again, Azu. The only damn reason I'm staying with you is because I have no other choice! Oh, and the sex. That's another reason. The sex is surprisingly good."

Azura stared at him with wide eyes during his short-lived explosion. She had taken a step back and felt like she had to support her jaw to prevent it from falling to the floor. Lucas had said everything with the same stoic and stern expression on his face. He watched her reaction shortly before the corners of his lips turned upwards in a smile and he continued to talk.

"Now out of all that, only one thing is true. It's up to you to decide what. While you think about it, get in the car. We have a long way to drive till Norbury. Seeing what time it already is, I don't think it's wise to keep on driving much further so in the next town I'll find a place to spend the night."

Lucas walked around the front of the car to get in at the driver seat. He was already ready to go the moment Azura finally started to move and quietly sat down next to him. He pulled up and after getting to the same speed as the rest of the now scarce traffic, he joined in on the official lane. Azura blindly stared ahead for a while overthinking what he had just said. She counted the white stripes on the dark grey tarmac as they passed by. When a hundred was reached, Azura turned to Lucas.

"I think I got it figured out. The one true thing is that I will indeed burn you to a crisp if you decide to leave me. My anger issues are indeed that bad." She gave him an innocent and sweet smile while he looked at her as if she was crazy.

"Wait really? That's your answer? What about the sex part? He switched between watching the road and her as he asked her.

"Easy. The sex ain't surprisingly good. It is, in fact, better than good. I'm freaking amazing at it. So knowing that the sex part was a lie, the next logical thing to be true, is me burning you to a crisp."

Lucas started to laugh as he heard her reasoning. His laughter had an infectious effect on her and she joined in soon enough with a burst she couldn't control. It took them a while to calm down enough to be able to glance at each other without bursting out into laughter again. There were moments she almost believed it was better if he would pull over again and stop the car altogether. He didn't do it though and managed to keep on driving straight the whole time. She loved the comfortable silence that followed after it. There weren't many people she would feel so at ease with when nothing was being said. It just felt plain awkward with most and she always felt the drive to keep talking even though she had nothing to talk about. That usually resulted in total gibberish coming from her mouth that didn't make any sense.

"You killed me this time..." She softly spoke up after keeping quiet for a while. The vivid images of the nightmare had come back to her and she couldn't keep quiet. "You turned to something like ice and inflicted strange wounds on my arms. When I broke free, the blood became like a net over my body and you grabbed my wrists so tight you eventually snapped them. It wasn't anything like the other nightmares I've had before. You weren't yourself anymore."

"You know I would never hurt you. It was just another stupid nightmare. Besides, why are you so distraught about me killing you for a change in your dreams? You tend to kill me almost every time and I'm still here. It's just a nightmare. We're here, together, very much alive and the worst we'll do to the other is headbutt each other because we're both a little too enthusiastic with kissing at times." He chuckled as he saw her frown make place for a small smile. Instead of replying, she leaned back in her seat again and gave his hand a quick squeeze.

"Is now a good time to brief you on the chat I had with Floyd?" Half an hour had flown by and not a single town was in sight yet. It would probably be another thirty minutes before they would reach a place where they could stay. Azura had not shared anything with Lucas yet about her meeting with Floyd the day before and figured now would be as good a time as any.

"Yes, please! I've been dying to know how that went. I'm actually a little hurt that you didn't tell me straight away, missy."

"You can't expect me to spill all the good stuff straight away! I need to keep you wanting for more all the time, you know." She chuckled at her joke and brushed some of her hair behind her ear. "No, but in all seriousness, it was...different. Apparently, he had a very vivid dream in which Nora showed up and bossed him around telling him to not kill me even though he knows I'm the Phoenix. She demanded him to drop his grudge against me and actually help me when needed. That whole thing got him pretty spooked and together with Andreas threatening him to stay away from us made him have a couple of sleepless nights."

"So what did you do? Slam a door in his face again? You have to admit, that was pretty funny." Azura quickly wiped the grin of Lucas's face as she hit him on the leg pretty hard.

"No, you idiot! I had to confirm whether or not the dream was real or not so we talked about the conversation he had with Nora. Turns out, it was real. She told him things only I could know. Floyd still doesn't like me obviously, he made that pretty clear. There's a cease-fire between us right now though. He's not crazy, he sees how Kaenan and Reyna are relaxed around us, so maybe...just maybe one day we'll actually become more than enemies. Friends is a long way off, but just...acceptance of each other would be nice."

Lucas turned off the main road following a sign for a hotel not far from the road. Traffic around them ceased to exist on the small roads they drove on now.

"So, your chat with him was a rather short one?" Azura nodded and stared out the window up to the sky. "Then what the hell had you been doing the rest of the day?! You were gone for ages!" She smiled as she saw some familiar constellations in the sky.

"I went for a run. What else? After that meeting with Sloan and Andreas then talking to Floyd, I was desperate to clear my head. I even let the Phoenix out to play in fused form. Before you say I was being careless, I know. It was needed though. I needed to let out some steam and so did the Phoenix. It was the only reason we could have a sensible talk about what to do if I would lose it regarding the fight after."

They had reached the hotel and Lucas parked close to the reception. Before he got out he turned towards her in his seat, replaying the conversation they had the evening before. She had told him that it was serious when she had told him to kill her if needed. The difference was that now her emotions were also playing a part and it resulted in her admitting she really hoped it would not come to that and the thought alone scared her to death.

She had grown silent again, engrossed in her mind as she had apparently not noticed they were standing still. Lucas observed her for a bit before glancing at the bottle of water he always kept close.

"You know you're beautiful right?"

Azura backed away from Lucas as far as possible while looking at him as if he was the devil himself. He just smirked and quickly exited the car. He knew she hated it when he was acting like this. Slowly she got out of the car and walked over to him, still wary of his unpredictable and strange behavior. His sudden teasing did always work to get her mind of other things though.

"What the hell? I was expecting you to empty a water bottle on me just now and you didn't." He just laughed and placed his right hand on her lower back.

"Don't worry. I have missed two opportunities to actually do that so I plan to make up for it. Don't you worry, my dear Firestarter."

She eyed him warily as he gently nudged her towards the front desk of the hotel with a big grin on his face.