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The only time Makkari truly feels still is when she’s looking at him.
It’s difficult in the beginning, when there are so many deviants to fight that it almost feels like their lives are made of battle with short interludes of rest. But eventually the attacks grow sparse and they begin to settle.
Makkari does not understand why Ajak is so insistent on helping the humans develop. She does not understand why they’re supposed to help them grow and develop, but not stop them from fighting each other. This world, their mission, does not make sense to her. But it is the only way back to Olympia so she carries on.
It’s not until they’ve been there for nearly 10 years that she first really starts to notice him. He’s surly around the others, as though removed, and she feels a strange amount of kinship for that. For all the other Eternals are kind, they do not understand how she cannot just sit still, how she cannot just wait and watch the humans grow.
Ikaris is complacent, he watches Sersi, who cares deeply for these humans and works with them constantly. Phastos is busy, constantly developing new technologies and help for them. He grows frustrated when his designs are too advanced, and it’s entertaining the first few times, then boring, repetitive. Thena and Gilgamesh spend their time hunting, not just deviants but for food, teaching the humans to fight. They work together seamlessly. Ajak watches over them all, always with a smile in her eyes. Sprite watches over them all too, though not so much with a smile as with a smirk. Her illusions entertain them all, even Makkari when she can manage to sit still enough to watch.
But Druig, Druig stands apart from all of them, never coming close to the others. Occasionally she sees him with the humans, sometimes the children or the outcasts of their societies. He talks with them but never does she see him smile. He doesn’t make much of any expression, except occasionally a wince of pain when they are fighting deviants.
She catches it once, a wince of pain as he moves humans out of harms way. There’s three deviants and she’s been running the humans away as fast as she can but neither of them are fast enough and some of the human warriors had ran too close before Druig gained control.
She watches as one of those warriors, eyes glowing gold and running, is speared through the neck by a claw. She watches as the light vanishes from his eyes and Druig gives a full body flinch.
For the first time Makkari feels the need to stop, to be still. Something in her mind is telling her to pay attention, to focus, that this is important. She’s about to listen to that instinct when one of the Deviants suddenly breaks away from the fighting Eternals.
She doesn’t need to chart their path to know, with a dangerous amount of clarity and fear, that they are going to reach the humans before either she or Druig can. She’s running already, but she follows that instinct from before and instead of making a suicidal attempt for the humans she grabs Druig instead.
The sudden yank and pull of her arms around him shocks him, his eyes drop their golden hue and blue eyes look up at her. She can’t tell what he’s thinking, his face is still a mask, but when the vibrations beneath her tell her than the humans have been cut down, and there’s no flinch on his face, she feels an overwhelming amount of relief.
She drops him close enough he can still help the humans, but far enough that the danger won’t reach him, and then she’s gone.
The battle ends quickly once she joins, no longer busy with moving humans. She blasts the deviants into Gil and Thena’s path, and they’re quickly done for.
She doesn’t go back to Druig. Now that the battle is over she feels almost embarrassed about her behavior, and ashamed that she didn’t even try to save those last few humans. She escapes the celebration and runs for a forest she found a week ago, lets herself sit there until she can calm her breathing again.
Makkari is never truly still but in this moment she wishes she could be. Wishes she could freeze her muscles and stand in place, just stop for one second. But even after just a few minutes her muscles begin to vibrate, to beg with excess energy, so she gives in and runs back.
Everyone cheers when she arrives, celebration in full swing, but the one face she looks for isn’t there. She smiles and waves and gives in to one dance before she manages to escape, and then search for him.
He’s below the cliffs, near where she deposited him before, just staring out at the desert. She joins him in a flash, and he doesn’t even startle, just looks at her blankly before his eyes turn back to the sand. She watches him while he does it, wondering what he’s thinking about, until she sees a flicker of something on his face.
“What?” She signs before she can stop herself, and in that moment realises that while she has been watching him her body has not ached, her muscles have not begged to move. She had been content just to stare. It’s a startling realisation, and she almost misses his response because of it.
“I can feel it, when they die.” He signs and says. He is the only one who always does both, she’s realised. She moves until she’s standing in front of him fully, blocking his view of the sand, and he’s forced to look at her.
“Are you okay?” She asks, and he gives her the smallest of smiles, barely more than a twitch of his lips, but she feels a strange flutter in her stomach at the sight of it.
“I’ll get over it.” He says, which is not really an answer.
She frowns at him, and is about to sign her thoughts, when that little twitch of a smile grows bigger and he takes a single step towards her. Every muscle in her body stills, and her breath catches for a second in her throat as he leans down just an inch closer to her face. They’re barely a foot apart, she cloud easily touch him, move her hand just a bit and she’d brush his chest. She doesn’t know why she finds that thought so tempting, why she wants to feel him beneath her hand.
“Are you worried about me, beautiful Makkari?” He asks, and Makkari thought she was still before but she knows now that was wrong. In this moment everything within her completely freezes, muscles locking in place, breath ceasing. Everything stops save a flush that rises to her cheeks. His smile grows the longer she stands there frozen, until it’s become almost a full smile. The sight of it, of his eyes expressing something for once, breathes life into her. A shallow breath and a twitch of her fingers and he must see the way it surprises her, feeling both those things again, because then his eyes start to crinkle. Makkari is certain she has never seen something so beautiful, so mesmerising, and it takes all her control not to reach forward and brush a finger against his face, to feel him underneath her hands.
She runs. It is the only thing she knows, the only comfort she has, so she runs, turns back towards her forest. As she goes though she swears she hears a chuckle, echoing in her mind. It takes her the rest of the night to dislodge it from her mind.
After that things change.
Druig keeps to himself still, on the outskirts of everything, but occasionally she catches him watching her, eyes heavy on her. When she turns he never looks away, never seems embarrassed to be caught watching. But she is embarrassed, she blushes (that’s the word the humans use) and she feels her stomach flutter like that first time.
This goes on for months, months of Druig watching her, of him slowly creeping closer and closer to her when they celebrate, when they have dinners, when there is any excuse for them to be in the same room as each other. She is so hyper aware of him that she starts picking out the vibrations of his feet, of his voice, by accident. She recognises it from across a field, across a busy room, like her body is slowly growing more and more attuned to him.
She expects the feeling to chafe, to bother her, but it doesn’t. She feels lighter with his attention on her, feels more at ease when she can feel where he is in a room. It’s a strange mix of emotions, the new comfort of his presence mixed with the flush she feels as he stares at her. Under his eyes is the only time her body accepts stillness, allows her to really breathe and relax. The feeling of move move move fades under his gaze.
She watches him too, but not when he’s expecting it. She doesn’t watch him at the parties, around the others. She watches him when they fight, when he has to use his powers and connect to the humans. She still runs, still fights and moves the humans, but in those moments in between she watches him.
He makes it look effortless, but she begins to notice points of tension, those same flinches when they both miss a human. For a time she grows upset, that he doesn’t tell anyone what’s going on, that she’s not fast enough to stop the pain, that he doesn’t pull back when it’s too late, save himself the pain.
She asks him about it, only once. At the end of a fight, before they send the humans back to their homes, she stops next to him and signs, “why do you let yourself feel it?”
He knows what she’s talking about, looks at her with that same little smile, the twitch of his mouth that makes her feel flutters in her stomach. She ignores them this time and waits, and then nearly jumps out of her skin when she feels his voice in her head.
Perhaps I could show you? His voice echoes strangely in her mind, tentative. She did not know this was a power he possessed and for a moment she is in awe, staring at him. This time a blush rises on his cheeks, and she realises his presence is still in her mind.
You can hear my thoughts . It is not not a question, so he doesn’t answer. She looks at him a moment longer before giving in. Okay, show me.
He’s surprised at her acquiescence, she can feel it, and she wonders if he thought she would be angry he had not shared this part of himself. She’s not.
The images come slowly, entering her mind like they’re being squeezed through a small tube, and she thinks it must take all his concentration to do this.
It’s an ocean, she realises after a moment, calm and still, and she stands above it all on a cliff. A sense of peace permeates the image, and she feels everything in her relax and calm. The image fades after a few seconds and her vision returns. She turns to him, the question already forming on her hands, when he speaks in her mind again.
I give them that, before their death. If I cannot save their lives then at least it can end in peace . It’s dry, almost self deprecating, but in that moment she realises that everyone’s opinion of Druig is wrong. So wrong she’s almost ashamed, and before she really thinks it through she’s stepping forward and placing a hand on his cheek.
He sucks in a breath, shocked, and she wonders if anyone has touched him before. His cheeks grow pink and his breath goes shallow and she can’t help but smile at it.
You are a good man . She tries to send to him, unsure if she’s doing it right, until his blush deepens. From a soft pink to a bright red that spreads to his ears. She smiles even wider at the sight of it, but lets him go, gives him the space she can feel him wishing for. Then she gives herself space, lets herself step further away, and then move back to the humans gathered far away, to lead them back to their homes.
When they begin moving again she catches one of them with glowing gold eyes, and nearly gasps when the human signs to her, clearly controlled by Druig.
“Thank you, beautiful Makkari.” The man signs, and it is Makkari’s turn to blush, for her breath to grow a little shallow. Then the human shakes its head, eyes going back to brown, and continues walking with the other humans.
Makkari does not stop watching Druig, does not stop catching him watching her, but now she finds herself cataloguing everything. Every little movement, every little twitch of his face. She memorises him in a way she can’t seem to help, until she can almost predict every movement, every twitch of emotion on his face, in his body.
Makkari never stops watching him, but then it’s not like Druig isn’t watching her right back.