Work Text:
the first thing Starlight saw after being dragged through a rift was stars.
concentrated. spilling out across a tiny section of the dark sky in front of their blurry eyes, long streaks of white crossing them before fading out into the night. a voice broke them out of their trance, eyes still flicking between the dots to connect the invisible lines between them.
“what’s this?” the voice was lilting, coming from somewhere behind the stars, now flexing and shifting with the sound. “a visitor to my glorious hovel? however did such a boon come my way?”
starlight’s eyes had finally adjusted to the immense darkness around them, finally able to see the surface the stars were settled on.
a face. richly dark skin, dark enough to blend in with the void around them without a second glance. the speaker had hair tightly bound behind their head, streaked with blinding white that cut through their eyebrow and eyelashes on one side like a wound. a crooked, wry smile and narrowed, dark eyes. “oh, wait. I brought you here.”
oh .
---
Starlight spent most of their time watching Avior, when they weren’t shoving their hand into the Meridian and inviting disaster. despite the stress of the situation clearly wearing him down into hunched (broad) shoulders and slow (graceful) walking, he moved like a dancer. everything from the line of his body to the sweep of his hand as he tucked a stray strand of hair out of the way from his eyes was like watching a living art piece.
sometimes, when they were lucky, Avior would be so focused on his thoughts that a strand of his hair would fall just between his eyes, hiding the furrow in his brow, and Starlight would entertain the thought of brushing it away themselves.
they never did. they would just watch, breathless, until he half-noticed it in his field of vision and pushed it away like the tide pushing at sand.
they would watch the flex of his shoulders as he stretched his back, the freckles across his skin flexing like the reflection of the night sky in a clear lake. Starlight thought that maybe they could stay here forever, as long as they could watch.
---
falling out of the hellscape was almost as bad as falling in, the world seeming to shatter around them before they hit concrete with a painful thud. they heard Avior groan in tandem with them, coughing out the air pushed from their lungs with the impact.
the street they landed on was, thankfully, quiet. Starlight grinned just a little at the thought of the chaos it would cause had they just appeared in broad daylight on a busy street, the hell it would bring to the Department, before they were distracted by Avior heaving himself into a sitting position.
the line of his back was free of tension, finally, making him look so much bigger. the dying light from the sunset carded through his hair, whatever magic he’d been using to keep it up finally broken. the white was gold in the light, the black so much richer against pink skies. he turned to look at them.
he said something , but Starlight couldn’t hear over the sudden pounding in their chest. his smile was crooked, a dimple on one side and a sharp tooth on the other. he was practically glowing in the light, one streak of a sun ray crossing where the white in his hair spread across his brow, his lashes. Starlight hadn’t known the meaning of serendipity before now.
Avior’s smile faded in the quiet--“Starlight?”--before he yelped at the force of them leaping atop him, clutching at his face to bring his lips to theirs.
he stilled for a moment. then two.
then the tensing of their fingers along his jaw brought him back to consciousness and he laughed . full and giddy, he kissed them back over and over and over again.
the sky was dark by the time they broke apart, panting and flushed and huffing breathless giggles. Starlight traced the lines of the constellations on the bridge of his nose, ran a finger across his lips, finally kissed the lines of white through his hair.
it wasn’t fireworks or rushing heat as they sat together on the concrete, curling themselves together until they could barely feel apart. it was home.
they were home.