Trust

[Tydeus of Tion]

Ryan turned, heart at war with itself. Storms roiled behind his eyes. Don't do this. Don't do this again. He grit his teeth, the muscles in his jaw writhing as he clenched down hard. Grandmaster Grayson was either dead or being tortured to death and here Quinn was, ready to go running back to the One Sith. Back to Isolda and Zambrano.

"Come with me," he growled, voice raw with the desperateness of a man whose self-control now hung by a thread, "Don't go back to them. Don't go back to the Sith."

The pleading in his voice had a hard edge to it. Even a rapier's wobbling blade could cut.

"You can't hide your thoughts, Quinn. I feel the good in you. The conflict."

[member="Quinn Vos"]

 

[Quinn Vos]

[member="Ryan Korr"]

The ache in her chest widened until it felt like she would be crushed beneath its weight. It suddenly hurt to breath. She pulled quickly to Ryan. Mocha-fingers came to grip the fabric of his robes. Another hand pressed roughly against the side of his grizzled-cheek as if she could pull him closer and remember what this felt like for the journey she was about to take. The journey he was about to take.

"Think what would happen if I came. They lock me up. Trial? Sentence? More lock up or death. Can you picture me in closed space?"

Eyes searched his as she pulled closer, pulled him closer. "I love you Ryan Korr. That is why you need to go."

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

"And I love you."

The warmth of her touch set him on fire while desperation and helplessness savaged his heart. He could imagine her in a cage. And the image burned.

"Which is why I won't leave without you."

Calloused hands enfolded her own in a tight grip, a grip of iron that refused to let go. With a voice run raw, Ryan tried to draw her gaze toward eyes filled with tragedies.

"You can go back to them. You can continue a saga of violence, written in the blood of your innocence. Or.... you can trust me. I'm not saying it will be perfect, but you don't have to live out your days in a cage. We can make a deal. It doesn't have to be that way."

His hands tightened.

"All I'm asking is for you to try. All I'm asking... is for you to trust."

[member="Quinn Vos"]

 

[Quinn Vos]

[member="Ryan Korr"]

"Ryan," fingers tightened within his. The warmth of his hands swallowed her up while the look in his eyes drowned her. Stepping forward, her lips sought his, desperately, hungrily - with a hint of savageness. When her lungs screamed for oxygen, she pulled back.

"What about Isolda?" The whisper trickled up to his ears. "If I come with you - she will be more likely to see us coming."

Didn't he understand? She was telling him to go for her but she was willing to stay for him.

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

Fierce lips drowned him in a sea of passion, leaving him breathless when she pulled away.

He inhaled deeply through his nose, mouth closed in a firm line. Gray eyes studied her.

Isolda would see them coming anyway. One couldn't hide from the Dark Lord's Eye. Quinn knew that. He felt as though she were reaching for excuses, as if she were falling from a cliff and seeking to grasp ahold of something, anything, to stop her fall.... because she was scared of what lay at the bottom.

A hand came up and clasped her cheek, thumb gently tracing just beneath her eye.

"Do you trust me?"

[member="Quinn Vos"]

 

[Quinn Vos]

[member="Ryan Korr"]

Face like polished, unyielding stone stared at the jedi for a long time. Fiery-green orbs that threatened to consume met orbs of steel. She was as unflinching in gaze as he was, though his touch sent shivers of warmth down the proud warrior's spine.

Three words as her fingers pulled him closer.

"I trust you."

Four more.

"Do you trust me?"

She could not allow him to pause any longer. She felt his distress through his touch - his urgency. If he insisted on not leaving without her, she would go with him even as Odium's blood in her veins threatened to destroy her.

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

Two stubborn, too stubborn. They struck on each other like iron on iron, sparks flashing when they met. She asked him if he trusted her, yet just the other day she'd cut down one of the people who he was duty-bound to protect. The Dark Side ran through her like oil on water, visible to him and repulsive, but he knew the good lurked within her, just beneath the surface. He could trust her to do what she thought was right, that much he knew.

Love continued to make war in his heart, crashing against better judgement.

He could not give her an answer now, for his head was filled with contradictions and words ceased to make sense.

Korr pulled Quinn close with arms that refused to move against her, fingers running through the hair at the nape of her neck. Maybe he'd earned her ire by failing to answer back, but words had never seemed her way... and his answer was not yet finished.

All his confusion and passion flowed into a single kiss that he planted on her lips, as fierce as it was gentle, a contradiction only to those who are strangers to love.

[member="Quinn Vos"]