Ask Two Sith In A Kitchen

[Drane T'keen]

Spoiler: Music IC

Finally, the puppet went quiet, and the broken man and the torn woman stopped moving, stopped speaking, stopped eating.

Drane took Cheriss’ hand in his, shifted it down his arm, to his chest, as he had only moments ago done when he was about to put himself inside her.

Only now, he simply let her feel his heartbeat, to remind them both that they were alive, that this might not simply be some dream.

Maybe that’s why he was so terrified.

“I…can’t…Cheriss…”

Drane admitted, eyes into eyes.

“I can’t even remember how we got into the kitchen to begin with. I only remember as far back as…”

His golden irises brightened. He could feel them widen. Not his eyelids. His irises.

“A pot of coffee. A pot for cooking things in. Pour a cup. Take a sip.”

He blinked at Cheriss, expressionless.

“Delicious.”

As music played in the kitchen.

@Sicadorito (@Cheriss Ktrame)

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

It was quiet again, and Cheriss didn’t know if she liked it. The man and woman on the floor had stopped moving, stopped eating each other, and the puppet had stopped laughing and spinning. What was this?

She could only look to Drane, and she was glad to feel the rhythm of his heartbeat in his chest, but he gave her the answer she had feared.

“Oh.” Her voice broke and she closed her eyes. Cheriss couldn’t remember anything from before, either. All she knew was that she and Drane were in the kitchen together, and she did remember him offering her coffee. Already that felt like years ago. Delicious… Even the same music was playing.

Cheriss looked up at him again and saw that his irises had widened. Yet there was nothing on his face. Did he feel the same fear that she did? Sith were supposed to be fear, not feel it, but she knew as well as he did that it was futile in denying it now.

She slid her hand out from under his and instead wrapped both arms around his body in an embrace, resting her cheek on his shoulder. She just needed a moment to breathe him in again, to remind herself that there was something that could bring her comfort in this place.

@Die Shize

 

[Drane T'keen]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Fear. The fear of the apprentice. Of punishment. Failure. The fears in the person. Of loss of loved ones as with Anakin. Loss of power. Humanity as with Vader. The fear of the person. A tool to gain power. Using it. Just as Sith do.

Yet a true Sith, whether Sith, Human or Thyrsian, commanded both fear and respect. He knew balance. That kept him from becoming weakened. In the end, those Sith ended up dead. Too much fear led to resistance, resentment, rebellion. It made them…tyrants.

That’s what Sidious was. Was that what Altair was? Drane had entered this game of thrones putting down a rebellion before the Sith-Empire split. He didn't hesitate or waver with his loyalty to Empress and Dark Lord. Yet he was ever a warrior for the Sith Order over the Empire. Who were the true traitors?

Maybe Drane’s strength was being drained this moment, as he became the fear he craved from his opponents, he wondered if all of this, from kitchen to puppet, was a hallucination, a vision, a dream, from spice maybe, or a simulation, something that wasn’t actually happening, like floating in a sea of Sith alchemy.

“Am I…in a dream…Cheriss?”

He kissed her atop her head, her face buried at the crook of his neck. His golden irises sought her chocolate almonds, wanted to devour them, to take her right there and then.

She looked so delicious in his own shirt. He could rip those buttons in an instant, squeeze her breasts, then her hips, and slam her against the wall in their hall and moan between her lips.

Because that was their kitchen and that bloody puppet had ruined their moment in it.

Fear motivated the Sith, and the deeper its depths, the deeper the sea of his heavy memories and buried secrets, made that fear as cherished as Cheriss as Drane pictured her belly rubbing against his, her hips gyrating and grinding with his.

“These violent delights…”

Spoke a voice. It croaked.

“What…is…that..?”

It came from the kitchen.

But...wait...there had been no one and nothing in the kitchen except for the broken man and the broken droid, and they were motionless on the floor with the severed woman so...where had this other creature come from?

“...Have violent ends."

Drane pointed.

"Nice...dress..?"

Her hand shot up in an instant as Drane was sent flying down the hallway the next moment. Had he anticipated his opponent knowing those tricks then he might have resisted it, whatever Cheriss did.

@Sicadorito (@Cheriss Ktrame)

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Was this a dream? Drane asked her the same question that she’d asked him earlier. Maybe in different words, but it meant the same thing.

“I don’t know.” What was a dream? Cheriss didn’t know that now, either. Before, when they were in their kitchen, she’d been prepared to let reality go. To pretend that she was living a fantasy world, living in a dream. It was too good to be true. But now she didn’t know whether anything that had happened in there, what was happening now in the hall, was real or fake. Maybe this was all just some hallucination that she would wake up from soon enough. Was it still a dream if she felt fear? Or was it a nightmare? She blinked a few times, trying to wake herself up.

But she couldn’t. She didn’t know if she wanted to wake up. And Drane felt so real. She felt the cold sweat on his skin, the heat of his chest, and the hard muscle beneath his soft flesh. His gentle kiss. She hugged him tight the way a little girl who was afraid of the dark clung onto her stuffed bear.

Then came another voice, a new one. Cheriss wished she had two more hands to cover her ears. Then Drane asked what it was. Cheriss closed her eyes so she didn’t have to see. Then she felt him shift as he pointed. No…

And then, before she knew it Drane was ripped away from her arms. Cheriss staggered back and nearly fell from the power of it, but the Thyrsian had taken the brunt of the impact. Forced yet again to confront reality or whatever this was, she turned to see a woman, her face covered by her hair. The Sith didn’t care that she was apparently able to use the Force and that one little motion on her part had sent Drane flying across the hall. All she felt was an intense hatred because once again, they were being interrupted.

Cheriss hadn’t noticed that her saber had slipped from her grip earlier, but it was still on the floor. She pulled it into her hand and her crimson blade came to life as soon as it did.

Though she was trained in the art of Makashi, this was anything but elegant. Cheriss simply grabbed her hilt with both hands and swung it down at the woman to cleave her in half.

@Die Shize

 

[Drane T'keen]

Getting up after being sent backwards, Drane watched as Cheriss swung at the woman, or whatever she was, whose hair clung to her face like a curtain.

The Thyrsian had been taken by surprise, as much as his mind had been taken by visions, but there was a power in the attack of that sorceress or witch.

Whatever she once was or still was, she no longer was. Cheriss’ blade cut her in half as intended. Perhaps the creature’s power had already been spent on Drane? Whatever the case, he did not want to wait and find out or delay in getting out.

“Nice.”

Now, moments ago, back in that kitchen, the clown within him might have mentioned that comment with sarcasm. At this moment, however, he genuinely meant it.

“She’s right though. Negotiations were met with violent ends.”

Whatever became of that joke, Drane didn’t wait to hear it from Cheriss. He had something else to compliment. So bloody hot in that shirt like a white dress with those legs.

And so he promptly slapped her on the ass and squeezed her cheek. That’s what Ktrame gets for standing there like that with a burning lightsaber and whatever burned within Drane and his blade.

“This way...before I decide to shove you against that wall and get us both killed when someone hears you moan.”

The corridor would end with a junction, hallways running either side, dark or dimly lit. There was a blinking white light at the end but Drane’s senses felt weakened. Was that a coincidence?

“Doors on either side. Wonder what’s inside?”

A scream came from behind one of them.

“Then again…”

@Sicadorito (@Cheriss Ktrame)

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

The woman didn’t fight back, instead falling in two halves as the Sith had intended. Cheriss frowned as she looked down at her work. She didn’t know how she felt. Seeing the faceless woman now, she looked frail, but both of them had felt what she’d been capable of before. Drane more than she did. If this is a nightmare… let it be over soon.

Lost in thought about what else could possibly be awaiting them and barely hearing what her companion was saying, she suddenly felt a harsh slap and a squeeze on her backside. Out of pure instinct, she whirled around and moved to cut whatever it was that had done it, only stopping her swing when she looked up and realized that it was Drane. Her blade was only inches from his bare chest, and she lowered it with a sigh.

“Kriff, Drane, I could have killed you!” She shook her head at his next comment before following him down the hall. They were back where she’d looked earlier, and it was still just as empty if not for the two doors at either end.

Except for the scream that came from behind. Cheriss glanced at Drane before turning around.

The corridor looked empty. At least it did at first glance. But when she blinked and looked again, she saw a pair of pale yellow eyes staring right back at her. Cheriss clutched her blade tighter.

“Violent delights… violent ends.” She whispered to herself as the creature moved closer.

@Die Shize

 

[Drane T'keen]

Violent ends…violent delights…

It didn’t make sense. Not the statement, not this environment, not his emotions, none of it.

Fear gripped him one moment, the kind he fed on from others, left behind in his past, a kind of fuel to his fire, never burning away but kept at the base of the flames.

Until that moment. Until this vision. Until the kitchen. When dread was what Drane was attempting to suppress, as terror burned, but lust burned brighter than bloodlust despite those yellow eyes; a bright red.

“Violent…”

Torn between two swords, Drane looked away from the stalker in the shadows, as if it didn’t exist, and toward Cheriss, one hand on his hilt, the other fingers just then pressed against her chest.

“…Delights.”

Before she knew what he was doing, he shoved Cheriss against the wall, pressed himself against her, and kissed her open lips.

@Sicadorito (@Cheriss Ktrame)

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

When Drane echoed her words, Cheriss had been expecting him to ready his saber like she did, holding onto the lightsaber hilt with both hands to prepare for a potential incoming attack. What she hadn’t expected was that the “attack” would come from him. Before she knew it she was pinned once more against the wall, both arms raised up at her sides as he kissed her again. Her eyes closed on instinct.

Not here, Drane, Cheriss wanted to say, but with his lips pressed onto hers, she couldn’t say a word. His hand warm against her chest, a soft moan escaped her throat. It almost felt like they were back in their kitchen. But then she remembered those yellow eyes— the eyes of a predator that was surely still closing in.

Breaking the kiss by turning her head to the side, Cheriss moved her free hand to push him away, but when she opened her eyes again she saw that the yellow ones were gone. All she could see were Drane’s of black and gold, molten with desire. And much as she wanted to lose herself in them, as much as she wanted to have him in this moment, to feel him against her and in her… this wasn’t the right time. She took in a sharp breath.

“Drane.” Firmly but gently pushing his shoulder away, she looked him in the eyes. “Not now.” Cheriss looked past him for a moment, searching for any sign of the mysterious yellow eyes again before her gaze went back to him. “What if they find us again?”

@Die Shize

 

[Drane T'keen]

She resisted. Pushed against him. Broke their kiss. For a moment, Drane just looked at Cheriss, and listened.

She had beautiful brown eyes, deceptively hazel, as hazelnut as chocolate, milk chocolate even. A man could get lost in them. No, a man had already gotten lost in them. In this hallway. In their kitchen. Back in that ship.

His own eyes, golden irises, let the galaxy call them whatever it wanted, they were open in that moment only for hers. He wanted to eat her eyes with his own. Her eyes were like almonds.

Cheriss was so gorgeous. What idiot had ever called this woman, or the kid within, a bitch? What idiot had meant it? He didn’t. He hadn’t.

As far as Drane was concerned, this woman was his, that was their kitchen, which made this building and everything in it theirs.

“You’re so beautiful, Cheriss.”

He stepped forward again, fingers trailing a path up her neck, curving over her chin, thumb dipping into her lower lip.

“You make humanity the envy of every species.”

He might have been distant, like their kitchen, like this environment, but there was no doubting those plump lips, that button nose. Those arched brows, the cute bun when her hair was done up, but it was still loose this moment, as lazy as that buttoned-up shirt that once covered his now bare chest.

Inside, he knew her to be enticingly tight. Warm. Wet. All too inviting. Soft as her skin on the outside but softer. He wanted to be inside her that moment. To devour her, golden eyes into brown, no yellow, for maybe those were the eyes of a Sith in the shadows.

Maybe, though, they were not two Sith this moment, for they no longer had a kitchen, it was broken. Maybe they were just a man and a woman.

"If they find us again..."

Drane slid his thumb from her lip to her breast, to her hip, to the hem of the shirt that was his, pinched the fabric, and began to lift it up, and would not stop unless Cheriss stopped him.

“Then let them watch,” he promised, stealing her lips with his, as his lightsaber burned as bright as the fire within.

@Sicadorito (@Cheriss Ktrame)

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Cheriss liked to think that flattery didn’t work on her. In the past it never had, because she’d always known that they never meant it. They’d always wanted something back. But when Drane did it and his eyes bored into hers like that, as if she were the only one here in this hallway, this building, and this planet… she almost believed him.

Maybe it was something in this place that was affecting her. She didn’t know what it was, but she knew she wasn’t thinking clearly. She knew this wasn’t her, yet despite that she didn’t want to be herself right now. Drane’s touch felt familiar, and as his hand left her head and neck, going down her chest and then finally to her hip, she decided that he was right.

If they decided to come back, they could watch and see just what they were missing out on.

Drane’s fingers pinching the bottom of the shirt wouldn’t make it very far up before Cheriss decided to help him. Her hand moved to undo the few buttons she’d put in earlier and she shrugged out of his shirt easily enough, letting it flutter onto the floor behind her.

As he kissed her, she grabbed a tuft of his mane and drew him in closer. With their lips still locked, Cheriss wrenched him to her left, only stopping when she heard the thump of his back hitting the wall. Then she broke away to breathe, her eyes just as bright as his as her hand slid from the top of his head to his cheek. Just as he had, her thumb brushed over his lower lip. She could still taste him. So dark, so sweet, and so irresistible, like a chocolate dipped strawberry.

“God, Drane,” she whispered. She couldn’t stay away. She was as desperate as a wanderer in the desert was for water, except the difference was that she had just found an oasis.

“I said…” Cheriss leaned in and kissed his cheek. “...you were a bastard…” Then his chin. “...but it’s just…” His neck. “...not true.” His scent was driving her mad. “C’mere.” She switched off her blade and dropped the hilt, letting it roll to who knows where before she grabbed both of his cheeks with her hands and kissed him again.

@Die Shize

 

[Drane T'keen]

Violent. Delights. Both words applied. Two Sith fought with words, with fists, with the Force. He was forceful with her. The way Drane shoved Cheriss against the wall, pushed himself onto her, ready to thrust himself into her any moment, kissing her, touching her, asking for neither permission nor forgiveness, because she was already his.

Yet she was no less rough with him. He didn’t gasp, didn’t say anything back, just let her turn him so that his back was against the wall, and he was the one being pinned.

Good. Cheriss felt it too. The same need. The same desire. The same fire burned inside her. Only growing higher. A hunger yearning to be satisfied. Only there were no words for this. The only way to feed it was through instinct, not thought but action, not emotion but passion.

Then again, that was probably nonsense. It was everything. It wasn’t anything. It was the body of a woman, her eyes, her lips, her breathy words she whispered, the smoothness of her fingers as they tugged his hair and held his cheeks and deactivated her blade.

Drane did the same. As Cheriss kissed him, showed him who and what she wanted as much as he did, he returned his saber into its hilt, replaced with something else, another instrument that grew against Cheriss as both their fallen lightsabers crashed into one another, rolling across the floor to who the bloody hell knew where.

Drane didn’t care. Only about her. He only had emotion and attention for her. Every element of his being was beating. Every fiber pumping. Bastard, she called him, but if Cheriss was no bitch at least she hadn’t made the same mistake as he did. She was not wrong.

Oh, Drane, you are a bastard.

He would prove it. As Cheriss shifted her grip to his hips, ripped his pants away from him, Drane slid his hands in the same direction, only he grabbed the backs of her thighs and lifted her so she could wrap her legs around him yet again.

He wouldn’t wait. Drane pushed off from the wall and hurried to the opposite side, shoving Cheriss against it yet again. He bounced her up a moment, slid her bare back against cold metal, getting a firmer grip on her thighs, fingers nearing her backside.

A daring thumb grazed over onto her rump as Drane’s blood rushed and screamed for his body to penetrate, take and break, make her squirm and squeal, feel every inch of her outside and inside.

“Ch-Cheriss!”

Unable to finish, he kissed her lips, her cheek, her neck, shifted his lips to her chest, let his tongue talk to her in ways that words could never say.

Are you ready, baby? Ready to show this infernal pit who its masters are?

Not like Drane would wait on an answer anyway, though he had been wrong about not thinking. He just let Cheriss hear his thoughts as he breathed into her skin in the light and in the dark.

I’m going to pound you into this wall until it falls down.

Curious. If amusing. How this building thought these two Sith, this man and this woman, were its prisoners within it.

Maybe that’s what the owner was thinking. Watching them. Listening. Getting a demonstration of complete and utter defiance. Maybe. Then again, maybe the owner planned for this, but Drane wouldn’t know, too focused on Cheriss, oblivious to the noises of lightsabers rolling across the floor, forward, toward darkness, away from Drane and Cheriss.

@Sicadorito (@Cheriss Ktrame)

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Cheriss barely heard the hiss of Drane’s lightsaber as the blade disappeared into its hilt, nor the crash as it fell to the floor. Only the sound of his breathing mattered. Heavy, like hers, as she pressed her hips against his, yearning, burning for what she could feel beneath his surface.

Those yellow eyes, those zombies, and that puppet were all but memories long gone, and the only thing Cheriss cared about was the man in front of her.

Her hands went down to his hips, gripping his pants before shoving them down. She had just gotten to her own when she felt hands grip her thighs, and soon she was in the air and being shoved backwards across the hall. A gasp escaped her lips as her back crashed against the metal wall, her arms and legs tightening around Drane.

Her head was pounding, from the impact against the wall or from maddening lust she didn’t know. Dazed, Cheriss buried her face into Drane’s hair, trying to catch her breath but unable to as she heard him mutter her name. One of her hands gripped the back of his neck, holding on to him for dear life, while the other ran down the hardness of his arm as he kissed her here, there, and everywhere. His lips and tongue warmed her like the sun did on a winter day. The Son of the Red Sun, her one and own, her sun and stars.

She felt him on her body, heard him in her mind. She could only nod at his question, whether or not he saw it. Still in the air thanks to Drane, Cheriss’ fingers tugged on his ears as if pulling him back up. How lonely it was up here. As he continued to tease her, she tilted her head down to kiss his again. His curls were so soft, so smooth, and she would stay in them for a lifetime if she could. Then he spoke to her again, promised her something she couldn’t refuse.

She traced three fingers behind his ear, down to his chin, and tilted it up so that gold eyes could meet brown. Cheriss’ mouth didn’t move, but Drane would be able to hear her voice loud and clear in his mind. Then may it never fall.

@Die Shize

 

[Drane T'keen]

It was such an odd thing. There they were, one man and one woman, two Sith, but suddenly they were becoming one. They would be in union soon. Once he would arrive in her ocean her, they would be together. One voice. Joined.

She lifted his chin, met his eyes with hers, only inches away like their lips. Her voice was silent, quiet in his head, yet as firm as her flesh.

With her legs locked around his hips, leveraging herself against the wall, he had no need to support her from the floor, allowing his hands to explore.

Drane grazed his fingers from her thighs to her backside once more, not being shy about squeezing her cheeks as he pressed himself against her. He delayed. Did he hesitate?

He burned. But he wasn’t sure. Whether he was here, she was there, this was their shared universe, or if this was reality, fantasy.

Who cares, you idiot? Do it.

He did.

The Sith, the Thyrsian, the Son of the Red Sun, bold as if in a battle, stole a kiss from this woman and would position himself at the entrance, sword’s tip before the gate.

Cheriss…

Then, all at once, Drane became as light as heavy, breathing as much as breathless, a rush of blood, fire that became an inferno, oceans swirling, fingers curling, eyes into eyes.

There was a weight in his chest. Needed to explode. Fire inside, higher and higher, yearning to burn her. She leaned into him, and he wouldn’t let her go, won’t let her down, but hoped she was the type that might shout.

When Drane was done with Cheriss, she would be back on the ground, laying naked on her back, legs lying lazily, all too relaxed.

Only that moment had yet to pass as he still stood tall with her back against the wall.

“What’s this?”

Came a voice from the void. A woman’s voice.

“A pair of Sith caught off their guard?”

Drane turned to see those same yellow eyes, but now with a red light on either side.

“Ha.”

Red blades pointing downward that hide a shadowed face.

“Want a tan?”

@Sicadorito (@Cheriss Ktrame)

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Drane didn’t hesitate when it came to touching her. Her skin tingled as his hands brushed by, and the more he squeezed the more she leaned into him. But, as her cheek nuzzled his shoulder, Cheriss noticed his hesitation. She turned her head, looked at him, eyes into eyes. She knew he wanted it as much as she did. He said so with that kiss, that whispered name in her head.

As it had with Drane, that raging fire within her threatened to engulf her being. She had been waiting so long, and it was past time for both of them now. They were just about to cross the bridge, past the point of no return. Afterwards, Cheriss would be content to watch it all burn because they would be one.

But something kept that fire at bay. Something told her that something was wrong. So even before the voice spoke, Cheriss’ head was up, looking in the direction of those yellow eyes. She couldn’t even comprehend the tightness in her chest. Whether it was desire, fury, or pain, perhaps all three. This was torture. This was hell. It was worse than being flayed. To have what she wanted so tantalizingly close but then taken away again, and again, and again. It made her lightheaded.

It only added insult to injury when the figure had both Sith’s lightsabers in her grip. It was like she was taunting them.

“Kriff you,” Cheriss whispered. She hardly resorted to such rudimentary insults, but she found that she couldn’t think straight. Her head swam. Even the figure in front of them seemed somehow distorted in her vision. As the eyes burned into hers, the Sith had to blink. Something was wrong. With her, with the yellow eyes, with everything about this place. “Give us… our weapons back.”

@Die Shize

 

[Drane T'keen]

Spoiler: Music OOC

What he would have done. What he could have done. Had the moment been given to him.
It wasn’t. That was the twisted secret. The delicious deception. That it’s all an imagination.
His. Hers. Didn’t matter. It wasn’t reality. It was fantasy. Realistic, yes, that taste of her lips.
The kiss on Cheriss the Champion. It was real. May feel real. Made it real? Or lies for idiots.

He had kissed her in the kitchen. She kissed him. After moments of playing, arguing, all so silly.
Again when they aimed to play a different game, flirtatious, frustrated, if the same thing, really.
On that counter, where he had planted her, and she had first trapped him with her legs of fury.
Furious, maybe just another silly adjective, but they sufficed to describe her strength. Yearning.

That fire in him? It burned within her too. Only an idiot refused to admit the truth between two.
For theirs was a fire born in a forge that was not paved with nonsense, but with spirit, in purpose.
He had smelled the sulfur since the Sith’s first encounter in that ship, with tea and coffee planted.
Yet even it was positioned to be poisonous, like a Killik’s enchantment. Drane may know, granted.

Oh, how he just wanted to take her that moment, though. To press her into the wall and slam her.
No, that was too simplistic in vocabulary despite this Thyrsian’s violence. There was more to this.
Drane wanted to fill Cheriss with his fire, with his light, that the dark side could not deny, as it burned.
He would gasp above the floor, he would make her roar with her back on cold metal, wouldn’t give in.

Love. Lust. Had come up before in thought, in silence, in speechless transmission, no telepathy
Come. As one. Might have been the words in his head if the galaxy favored them, had empathy.
It didn’t, and neither did he, and neither did she. They were Sith so no surprises of their poison.
As if poison is the cure, and theft is the gift, for this was their moment, and darkness is voiceless.

“Pointless,” Drane promised as he grazed his lips over Cheriss’ cheek.
“Shhhhhhh,” he tempted, as his hands gripped not a cheek but cheeks.
“Ignore it,” he commanded. “She isn’t there. Isn’t real. None of this is…”
He spoke truth. He lied. He held her against him and he won’t relinquish.

“Weapons,” the void’s voice repeated.

“Don’t listen,” the Red Sun beckoned.

“...Nemesis…” Her word came closer.

“Look at me,” Drane tipped her chin.

“Cheriss,” he bid. “Shut up and kiss.”

He kissed. He could. Not could not.

In a moment, he could take her, could shove her, thrust into her, earn his stripes by breaking her back on the wall until the pain and strife felt right above it all.

“Hm.”

If only reality would give him that hard hat, and steel toes on his feet in place of a saber.
Maybe, then, the boy within the man, that childhood idiot, would yet be able to save her.

“Tell me you want me,” he urged into Cheriss in her ear, yearning for her words, oblivious to the words of a curse.

“That you need me,” he summoned, shifting his fingers from her backside to her back, to slide behind her spine, fingers firm along its curvature, to those blades behind her shoulders.

“Because if I die here…” He nibbled, promised.
“I die in your fire, Cheriss…” He was yet honest.

@Sicadorito (@Cheriss Ktrame)

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Cheriss turned her head back to look at Drane as his lips grazed her cheek. Even his face was blurred. She still wanted him, but those yellow eyes were still there, burning into her and him. Despite not having them in view at the moment she could still very much see them in her mind.

“But—” Drane shushed her. She looked back at the yellow eyes that seemed to be getting closer every passing moment. How could it not be real? Just thinking about it made her head hurt. Her brain and her body sent opposite signals, and the confusion was only making it worse.

“Weapons.”
“Give them back.”
“Don’t listen.”
“Nemesis.”
“Nemesis…?”
“Look at me.”

Cheriss did. Nemesis sounded familiar, but her head hurt too much to remember where she’d heard it before. So she did the only thing she did remember how to do, and she kissed him like he bid. A light kiss that was interrupted once again by Yellow Eyes. She looked past Drane into those bright yellow orbs before he spoke again. Then she found herself looking into that familiar molten gold. As he leaned in, her hand cupped Drane’s cheek as he spoke into her ear. She heard him. Distant as it sounded, she heard him nonetheless.

“I do, Drane,” she murmured. “I want you. I need you.” She didn’t know what she was saying anymore, but his fingers felt soothing and warm on her back. Cheriss didn’t want to hear anything about death right now. His least of all. “No. You won’t die. She will.” But she didn’t want to look at that other woman.

How she wished that she could wish these yellow eyes away.

@Die Shize

 

[Drane T'keen]

Spoiler: Music OOC

I want you. I need you. He didn’t know why he needed to hear it from her, to see it in her eyes, to witness it in the light of her life.

Maybe he just needed to feel alive. However they had entered that kitchen, arrived in this environment, it was one of death. It carried a stench. The kind that didn’t quite cater to Human or Thyrsian, not even Sith or Jedi. It was...different.

This place…

Drane thought the words even as he watched Cheriss’ face. She told him he would not die, that Yellow Eyes would die, but he didn’t want to look at that woman. He had only eyes for her. His fire burned for her. He just wanted to be inside her.

Fades away…

Trapped in time. So far away from civilization. No telling what had happened between one moment and the next. How it had gotten to this instance of existence.

In one another’s presence, Drane and Cheriss had a need to feed on each other, as if in that kitchen they might have baked each other's person in an oven with their conflict.

At the moment, they just had no room for some bitch with yellow eyes to interrupt their performance so she had to be given the kick even if she wouldn't listen. If not dismissed, then she gets their ignorance as if she didn't exist.

Go away.

Drane commanded. He wouldn’t look to his side, however. He could hear the lightsabers, humming and droning, feel their fire, see their light from the corner of his eye, but suddenly all was quiet despite it. All was still. All was motionless. No, that’s a lie.

He kissed her lips again. Drane’s upper lip brushed against Cheriss’, nudged it upward, the tip of his tongue poking between her lips, drinking in her heat.

Their bodies shifted along the wall. Thirsted. Urges. Nothing worse than suffering the pain of this delay wherein interruptions came from every which way.

This place.

Brightness. Darkness.

His hands slid to her hips, squeezing her to him, pressing pelvis to pelvis. Nothing had happened. Yellow Eyes had not attacked them with their own crimson lights.

Taking a breath, damning himself for wanting to say something again, Drane held it, closed his eyes.

Right

A useless word in his mind. Fingers snaking their way again, taking what was his, that flesh and skin on a woman’s thigh, curving over her leg as both of hers trapped him like that shallow moment in their hidden kitchen.
Shallow, but only because it was broken by those who this man and woman had never permitted in to begin with.

Side

He opened his eyes, having forgotten the last few seconds already, having lost that time to the kiss, to the embrace, of Cheriss and Drane.

Up

His hands found her waist, biting his lips as he breathed through his nose, finding her ribcage, fingers slipping between the crevices of her ribs, resting on her skin. Shifting further upward, cupping what was above them.

Side

"Trite."

Down

He bowed his head, taking a second to taste her again at her neck, nibbling it. He wanted her fingers in his mane again, to graze and cradle his head, and he knew she would listen to his silent request.

In

“Sith? Pathetic.”

“Cheriss.”

Drane did to her what she did to him. Fingers curling into her hair, caressing her head in his hand, sliding down the back, the nape of her neck, to her back. Okay. Ready. Finally. In position, it had to happen.

“If I am dead, if we are dead, let this be a dream!”

Between

“Ha.”

She laughed, but Drane never wavered, never looked her way, as the hallway began to shake, as if from some earthquake.

@Sicadorito (@Cheriss Ktrame)

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Under normal circumstances, the humming of her lightsaber was a comforting sound. When it burned, so did anything she used it on. It was both a weapon and a shield. But right now it wasn’t in her possession. Yellow Eyes had not only her saber but Drane’s.

But did it matter? When he kissed her again, it was as if the sound disappeared. She only heard her breathing and his, her gasp as Drane pulled her hips ever closer. As his hands roved her body and his lips nibbled her neck, she decided to ignore the woman watching them and settled into him instead. Her fingers played with his hair, and one hand brushed over his ear as if to block out the sound of the lightsabers moving ever closer.

Despite all their craving for each other, their desire to burn each other, the world wasn’t so kind.

“A dream.” Cheriss echoed him, closing her eyes just as the ground began to shake and the other woman began to laugh. “What…”

Then, out of the corner of her right eye, she saw a crimson blade arcing down toward her and Drane. As the ground continued to shake, it was all she could do to twist around and throw up a Force barrier to stop it. However, that left her one side exposed… and another blade unaccounted for. Combined with her sluggishness and lightheadedness that had yet to go away, she didn’t have time to react before the other blade was thrusted forward directly into her right shoulder.

“Drane…?”

The pain didn’t register when her eyes first met his. But then she felt her shoulder start to burn as the blade pulled out. Searing hot pain shot through her then, and she only saw white as she collapsed forward.

Spoiler: Dice

Rolled 2

@Die Shize

 

[Drane T'keen]

Spoiler: Music OOC

The quake. The blade. The pain.

Yet, if Drane could rewind time and digest the seconds prior to it, time might have slowed for him, unbroken, his mind so zoned into the moment, with a fire flowing freely between two hearts before a sword had forced them both apart.

He had wanted to kiss every inch of Cheriss, from toes to fingers, wasting not one taste of her skin. Not one moment. He would have made her naked body his, taken it over and over again, and she would have loved every second of it. Pleasure to wrap around his hips and plunge past her lips.

He would have filled her with his passion, showed her why he desired her ever since he first laid eyes on her in that freighter, in that simpler time of Joined Killik victims and two Sith in a ship. She had awakened a long lost flame within him, shaken his core, before T’keen had been taken.

Fast forward from then to that kitchen, when they were still two Sith, but more like just a man and a woman. She wouldn’t have been the first to surrender. Would he have been to her? They barely knew each other, but he felt like he had known her for forever, or was she simply some reminder?

Who was she, really? Who was Cheriss? A killer. A dancer? A liar. A mother? Whether she had children, he hadn’t asked of her past or seen that far ahead when he had parted the hair on her head, but if she did then it would be all the more reason to keep her, because mothers should be cherished, yes, and every inch of their spirit relished.

After a sense, because Drane T’keen was also a killer before he had ever become a Sith, and he decided it was finally time to remind this pit of it. This labyrinth that had mistaken this man and this woman for its prisoners. It would burn. Because of it what it did to her.

In the present, she collapsed forward, falling into him, searing pain shooting through her shoulder, and he felt it. He felt it as surely as if that blade had penetrated himself. He caught her, held her, his arm wrapping around her behind a Force barrier.

Yes, it still protected them or, rather, him. He was hardly conscious that his free hand was still up, pressing against the crimson tip of the weapon as it attempted to punch into his grip. Yet it could not push past the defenses of his tutaminis. His vexation. His vengeance.

“Cheriss!”

She felt limp in his grip, but not lifeless, not unconscious.

“She is weak.” The yellow-eyed woman beside them said with their own lightsabers. “You should leave her.”

“Cheriss…”

This woman, suddenly so precious to him, would never be left. And maybe it was senseless, the way this place made Drane's brain break into a maze, draining his senses, his spirit, and hammering him with memories of his lover long since burned away.

“Hm.”

He felt the lightsaber lower.

“Keep her then. Bathe in your misery, you wretched thing. I’ll take my own leave.”

“Wait…”

Drane said simply, even gently, but he didn’t yet turn to see. He kept his woman close, pressed up against him, breathing slowed, then finally faced his foe.

“No one walks away from me.”

At that, he took his lady’s pain and twisted it into rage, and thundered lightning from his hand. Not blue but yellow like the creature’s eyes, white like what Cheriss had glimpsed, orange, like sunlight. It struck true, and their assailant flew backward, dropping both lightsabers.

@Sicadorito (@Cheriss Ktrame)

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

He hadn’t left her.

Even through the pain, Cheriss recognized that. She hadn’t fallen, and her other hand felt the firmness of his shoulder even if it had slipped from his cheek. His arm, the warmth of it, went up around her back, holding her close. She didn’t know how she felt about that. Certainly glad, but it was all too much to process in one moment.

Her head pounding and her shoulder searing, Cheriss leaned against Drane as she struggled to catch her breath. The initial shock was wearing off now, at least, and her vision had begun to clear. She heard words, but she couldn’t make sense of them. What she could interpret was that Drane had turned so that she was no longer facing the opposite wall, but the corridor behind them. She knew what that meant.

As he extended his other arm, Cheriss pressed against his shoulder to prop herself up. From there she could see his face. He had never looked so appealing as he did now, with fire and lightning reflecting off his eyes. She wanted to kiss him right then and there, but that could wait.

Now, the pain in her shoulder that had momentarily crippled her had twisted into utter rage for the woman that had interrupted them. With more clarity now than she’d ever had in this place and Drane supporting her back, Cheriss turned around as their opponent fell.

That fire that burned in them both? It would burn her, too. The Sith lifted her hand, and a fireball set the yellow-eyed woman aflame as soon as she landed. She might yell, scream, react or not react however she wanted. But it wouldn’t change her fate, or the fact that both Sith were now fully committed to making her pay for her mistakes. The fire burned, and so did she.

When the woman had stopped moving, Cheriss turned back to Drane. Her shoulder still hurt, but the pain wasn’t as severe as it had been at first. Her other hand went back to his cheek where it had started, and she managed a small smile even if it was tired.

“Thank you, Drane.” It was the most genuine gratitude she’d felt for a long time. He could have left her, but he hadn’t. She wouldn’t forget it.

@Die Shize