Hot Drinks
Title: Hot Drinks
Description: Attempts to comfort a haunted general.
A/N: Day 8 of Advent Drabblender 2011. No idea what ‘verse this belongs in, but I’ll tentatively shelve it in the General Destiny ‘verse. Apparently my mind thinks Mako and Neph need angst too…
Prompt: Mulled wine & hot cocoa
Hot drinks are not for when it’s cold outside. Hot drinks are for when you’re cold inside, so cold you think you’ll never get warm again.
Oh, hell, who’s he kidding, anyway? Nothing works.
The truth is sewn into his skin, stamped in his bones, and written over the list of sins his soul will present at the Farthest Gate. He wonders if the Keeper has ever have seen a list as long as his before.
Nothing can make you forget that redemption will always be beyond you, that past betrayals follow more closely than your own shadow. At least you can’t see your shadow if you stay out of the light. At nighttime, the absence of light is more than deadly; it is damning. You forget the sun will rise because you didn’t destroy the world, after all.
The memories from his past engulf his mind, filling his eyes with images spun from an endless movie reel. It stops only when the door is pushed open by a strong shoulder.
She is lovely in a way her sleep-tousled hair and weary green eyes cannot hide. Her smile brings with it a reminder of the warmth of sunrise, but he can only hope that she is not a hallucination of his dearest victim. He hears the thunk of two mugs being placed on the nightstand, ceramic meeting wood, before the lamp is switched on.
Her brow puckers slightly when she notices how his fingers clutch at the bedcovers. She doesn’t say anything, but he’s pretty sure she knows that whenever she leaves him, he’s afraid she won’t come back.
“Take your pick,” she tells him, smoothing back his sweat-matted hair as she offers him a choice of mulled wine or hot cocoa.
He doesn’t have the heart to tell her it doesn’t matter which one he picks because they both taste of blood.