What is Love? [Invite]

The moment Derry enters her room, he waves his hand very briefly and replies to her little jab, “Eh, I’m gettin’ a bit o’ a break from starin’ out into the vast nothingness that is space. Very exciting. Thought I could swing by here and see what’s going on. Beats having to look at a nearly black screen for hours on end.” He closes the door behind him and takes a quick look around the room before making his way towards Hazel. The mob boss sits on top of Hazel’s bed and he continues their little conversation, asking, “Have ya been keepin’ yourself busy? Notice ya got your guitar out.” He stops briefly to hear her response before he suddenly brings up what was taking up his mind right now. “I’ve been meanin’ to talk to ya about what happened back at the office, and, well, on Plant.”

Derry takes the opportunity to take out a box of cigarettes from his pocket and puts a single stick into his mouth. With a snap of his fingers, he lights the tip of his index finger on fire and lights the cigarette. He takes a quick puff before continuing, “Forgive me if I’m bein’ a bit forward but… have ya thought more ‘bout this whole ‘love’ thing? Anythin’ concrete?” He's been meaning to ask her that for quite some time, since despite how affectionate the two were of each other on plant, the demon always seemed hesitant to call Derry his love. He was growing more and more concerned that Hazel is too intimidated by what's going on to continue forward in their relationship. 

Derry probably should’ve guessed that she would be practicing on her guitar with all of this time just waiting around, though it did make him a bit curious as to what specifically she was working on. “New song?” Derry asks, “Think ya got time to give a little demonstration a bit later?” For a vast majority of the times he’s heard Hazel perform her songs, they’ve mostly been on stage when they were completely finished. Very rarely did he ever get the opportunity to get a sneak peak into the makings of a song.

He notices Hazel’s face getting a tiny bit red as she states that she didn’t really know too much about Derry himself, nor did Derry know too much about Hazel herself. The demon does have a fair point that neither of them know the other too well personally, so perhaps it was finally time to change that. Derry takes a quick puff from his cigarette as he rubs the back of his neck. He wasn’t exactly in any rush to tell her about how he got to where he is today since it was a story he didn’t really want to share. Considering that this is Hazel he’s talking to, however…

He sighs and states, “Fair point. This ain’t exactly a story I share too often. It’s a bit o’ a long story, though, so be warned.” He pauses for a brief moment before continuing, “Twenty years ago, I was livin’ in an orphanage ‘till some local gangsters came by and burned the place down. They knew of my affinity with pink flames, so they got some chemicals to make the flames look pink, and that really did the trick. Nobody believed that I wasn’t the one who burned the place down, and I fled.”

Derry pauses for a moment again, not wanting to give too many specific details about what was going through his mind at the time before he looks back at Hazel and continues, “They jumped me that night. All nine of them attempted to end me right then and there. I… didn’t know what happened next, but by the time I came to, three o’ them were nothing but charred skeletons and the rest ran away for their lives. That day, I was…” He looks away from Hazel yet again and takes a deep breath.

He skips over the details yet again about how he felt before starting the story back up. “By the time I was thirteen, I managed to track down and kill five more, but the final one was a bit slippery. It took me eight more years to finally get the last bastard. The things I did to him that day were…” Yet again he opts to avoid details about what was going on through his mind. “Once I was twenty two, I was wanted on nine counts o’ murder, and I had no other place to go. That’s when I met the Dirty Snakes, which were completely unrecognizable from what we have today.”

He takes yet another puff of his cigarette before continuing, “The boss was rather ineffective, so I managed to convince some o’ the other boys, including Satanael who was with them at the time, to make me boss after the boss’... unfortunate accident, if ya catch my drift. From then on I sought to make a name for the Dirty Snakes, to seek true wealth and power beyond my wildest dreams, dreams I had since I was a kid but never thought would come true.” Yet again he pauses for a moment before turning back to Hazel and stating, “Again, sorry for the long story.”

Word Count: 627

As Derry expected, Hazel notices that he left out certain details in regards to his little story, more specifically how he felt about the whole thing and if he enjoyed killing them. If it were anybody else in here Derry would just ignore the question entirely. Digging up bad memories wasn’t exactly very pleasant for the crime boss, after all. He was telling Hazel all of this, however, so was there really any harm in telling her how he felt? If the truth could help her figure out how she feels herself, is ignoring the question even a choice?

He remains quiet for a few seconds and lowers his head before answering, “Back then, I was taught to be on my best behavior, to be the best person I could be. It’s what I was always taught by the caretaker. That night, however, something stirred up inside of me, something that’s been lingering in me for gods know how long. I… didn’t feel anything with the first three, but seeing how terrified the others were as they ran away as fast as possible, I felt a sense of power, of pride… That felt good.”

Derry’s tone throughout this part of the story was much darker in comparison to his normal self as he continues, “Hunting each one down one by one brought forth satisfaction from murder I haven’t felt since then. They all deserved it, I know it, and I was makin’ them pay their debts. Once I killed the last one… I never felt more alive… and then I never felt more scared. I didn’t know where else to go, and I didn’t know what purpose I really had. I was a wanted man. Who would ever take me in?”

Derry’s breathing grows more heavy as he ends sharing the details of his past deeds before he finally looks back up to Hazel and right back into her eyes, which slowly seems to calm him down. Now that he was finished with his story, it was time for him to hear what Hazel had to say. He made sure to look straight at her for the entire story, daring not to miss a single detail about her own life.

He remains unfazed for the vast majority of the story, listening in on everything before it looks as if Hazel is having a little breakdown as she grabs her own head. She admits that her head has been broken for a long time, and Derry gets off of her bed and makes his way over to her chair. He presses his hand onto Hazel’s face before stating, “That’s alright, Hazel. No need to hurt yourself over this.”

Derry stares right into Hazel’s glowing blue eyes once again and asks her, “Well, ya think it’s about time to lighten the mood? Any ideas?” Derry quickly glances over at the guitar that Hazel put away earlier as if subtly suggesting that she should show him her recent work. Typically he would only hear brief snippets of Hazel’s performance or have earplugs in to avoid being hypnotized by her voice. Maybe she’s only worked on the actual guitar bit and not the vocals, but he’d have no way of knowing.

Now that Derry was finished with his side of the story, and once Hazel was finished with hers, he believes it’s time to move on to something that could make both of them feel a bit better. Having to trudge up some real bad memories can have quite the effect on the two of them, but at the very least, Derry believes that it was best for Hazel to know what kind of a man he really was. She grabs onto his hand once again after she swatted it away moments ago, her soft touch loosening up even more once he looked over at her guitar and music sheets.

Hazel starts stammering a bit as she claims that the piece wasn’t done yet and how she has yet to write a love song before. Considering all that she’s been through, it was understandable that such a task would take quite a bit of effort to finish, especially when this is her first time exploring it through music. “It doesn’t matter to me,” Derry claims as he continues staring right at Hazel, “I just wanna see what sorta progress ya did make.” Hazel also claims that it wasn’t about him, though given how she’s feeling at the current moment and Derry basically being the first person to make her feel like this, the crime boss didn’t exactly believe her. It didn’t really matter to him if she lied about it.

The demon brings out her guitar, but sets it aside in exchange for what appears to be some sort of music board, one that Derry hasn’t seen before. After checking the setting to make sure that everything was all set, Hazel begins singing to him. His attention was completely focused on Hazel and Hazel alone for the duration of the song, and yet he felt as if something was off about this. It was only when she placed her hands onto Derry’s knees that he realized what was different about all of this.

Normally when she sings, people tend to fall under a sort of hypnotic trance due to her magical singing voice. Anyone who listens in are affected by it and are completely enamored with her even after the song was over. In this case, however, Derry didn’t feel any different than when the song first started. He didn’t feel as if there was some sort of trance, so it made him wonder what exactly was happening.

Was he finally capable of resisting her hypnotic voice through sheer will? That can’t be it since he knows his willpower hasn’t changed since the last time he heard her sing. Is she not using her hypnotic voice? It's the most likely answer considering the range of effects she could pull off. If she can inflict pleasant dreams or horrific nightmares onto anyone who listens to her songs, she can probably just avoid any sort of hypnotic effects completely.

Hazel begins floating away from Derry and extends her hand out to him as if she was inviting him to dance with her. She looks at her hand and back to her eyes rapidly before accepting her hand and getting up into the air with her. Derry wraps his free arm around Hazel and waits for her to lead in their little dance since this was something he wasn’t quite experienced with himself. For now, all he could really do was stare right back into her opal eyes and give a little smile.

As the two were twirling around in the air and once Hazel’s song has reached its conclusion, the demon begins to laugh and smiles right back at Derry. He has never seen Hazel act like this in all the time that they’ve spent together. There have been plenty of times where Hazel has very much enjoyed herself, but it felt particularly special this time around as the two continue to embrace each other. “I’ve had plenty of fun too,” Derry admits as he continues to stare right into Hazel’s eyes.

The two’s faces move closer and closer towards each other until a sudden alarm from the ship blares loudly. While it spooked Hazel a bit, Derry was all too familiar with that damn alarm from his previous travels. Once again, they were cut off from going anywhere further with each other, though hopefully it’s just their scheduled bed time that's interrupting them instead of a handful of demons. “Damnit,” Derry mutters under his breath as he slowly descends back onto the ground below.

Hazel was taking it a bit better than Derry, commenting on the fact that sleep can help with her writer’s block and his boredom. He looks down onto the ground, still slightly disappointed at the fact that everything was already ending for the day before looking back to meet Hazel’s gaze. “Heh, I’ll bet it’s gonna land on Earth when we’re sleepin’, and it’s gonna be in the middle o’ the day for ‘em,” Derry jests, though he was already too familiar with the whole ordeal. Too many times has he landed on a planet fully awake only to find out that the place he landed at is still sleeping soundly, and vice versa.

Once she is done packing everything away, the demon turns back towards Derry and states that she’ll see him in the morning. He gives her yet another soft smile and replies, “Of course, Hazel. Good night.” At first, he was a bit hesitant to move out of her room and let her sleep, especially since he heard earlier that she’s had to deal with nightmares surrounding her previous ‘death.’ Even so, he knows that if Hazel ever needed anything from Derry, she can come right on over to his room and he’ll do what he can to help.

Derry steps outside of her room and shuts the door for her. He stands completely still for a few seconds before turning his back on Hazel’s room and making his way further down the hall to the captain’s quarters. Upon opening his room, Derry suddenly realizes just how dull his room was in comparison to Hazel’s. While she had all sorts of music sheets, strange artifacts, and instruments around, his room possessed papers, coffee bean packets, and plenty of extra cash lying around. Maybe he’ll have to ask Hazel at some point to help with some interior decorating. That could be a nice way to pass the time tomorrow.

Upon reaching his bed, Derry starts preparing to go to sleep, changing out his clothes until he was now in his plain white pajama bottoms. The crime boss's scars were now visible on his chest, with two gunshot wounds and a slash across his body from the old days. Derry lifts up the covers on the right side of his bed and hops right into its warm hold. At long last, he removes his scouter sunglasses and places them on the nightstand right next to him before stating, “Ship, lights out.” The room goes completely dark, with the only light being from the stars outside his window out into space.

Derry wonders how he’ll do this night, especially considering how things ended up on a high note for the crime boss and the fact that he hasn’t had to drink coffee today. As he closes his eyes to finally drift away, his last thoughts were about Hazel and some plans for tomorrow. Within minutes, he was already beginning to enter a deep sleep.

As Derry was beginning to drift away into his sleep, he could’ve sworn he heard a rather familiar noise, almost like his door was opening up. He continues to close his eyes and presumes that the ship might be acting weird and that he’ll have to fix it later in the morning, giving him even more things to do to keep himself busy. It was only when the bed shifts around a bit that he realizes that he was no longer alone in his room. As Hazel makes herself comfortable and the two of them look right at each other, she asks if she could sleep with him tonight.

He raises his eyebrow, not out of confusion as to why she’s here, but rather because of the fact that she’s asking this despite already being in her bed at this point. Once she utters her desire to avoid another nightmare, Derry’s eyebrow lowers and he replies, “Yeah, of course. Whatever it takes for ya.” In an attempt to help her out, he wraps his arm around the demon to make her feel just a bit more comfortable.

He moves around ever so slightly so that he can get a better look at Hazel herself. Her crimson hair was practically all over the place but just barely avoids getting in Derry’s way as he looks right back at the demon. He had always found Hazel rather attractive, without the whole stretched open mouth of course, but never wished to admit such a thing to her. Now that she was laying right next to him, it was more than just physical attraction that brought him in closer to her, but rather how they share a rather special bond.

Since he was so close to Hazel’s face, Derry leans in and plants a kiss right on her forehead before attempting to go back to sleep. Unlike earlier, however, he wasn’t going down so easily as Hazel’s presence was stirring something up inside of him. He had never been this close to anyone before, and with Hazel being his very first, well, partner, he just didn’t know how to act. “So...” Derry whispered to Hazel, just mere inches away from her face, “You havin' trouble sleepin' too?"

Word Count: 386