The Keepers' Evil: The Shattered Star

Taken for a fool by the lie that was love

Gabriel never woke Celeste. He never woke her, even if it was four in the afternoon and she had not woken, he would never wake her. He suspected that she had a lifetime of sleep to catch up on from all of the nightmares that had interrupted it, and so he swore that he would not wake her. But he needed to that day, and although she would never be upset with him for it, he was sure she may even be excited.

"Celeste, sweetheart." He whispered beside her ear, his fingers lightly tracing pieces of soft hair behind her ear, kissing her skin until he felt her eyes flutter open into a slightly more awake state that made him chuckle at her sleepy confusion. He perched beside where she lay, and he would have considered it her side of the bed, had she not been splayed out in the middle of both of their sides as she always was.

"Gabriel, it is too early." Gabriel tried hard to hide his amusement at the grumble in her tone as if she had not slept for over eleven hours that night. Celeste liked to sleep, loved it even, and it always made him laugh how she would sleep for days if life did not need to occur. There had been one time, or perhaps three, that she had nestled herself into him and he had not the heart to move her, so they had slept until the afternoon, until his arms were so numb that he was not sure if they were truly there anymore.

Celeste did not pull her cheek from her slump into his pillow, the soft surface sending her eyes back into a closed lull that he did not know how to pull her from. Gabriel bit his lip, hard, to stop his continued laughter; there had once been a time not long ago that she had desired nothing less than to rid herself of his acquaintance, and so to be unable to wake her from his bed was a welcomed inconvenience.

"I know, I'm sorry, I wouldn't wake you unless I needed to." His words reached her through the gentle peck of his kiss, the one that woke her fully and made her smile widely. If she had to be woken at all, she would gladly be woken by Gabriel and his hands against hers, his lips against her temple. She could not ignore that his choice of words made her somewhat nervous, he had never woken her before, not once.

Celeste pulled herself to a sit before him, resting her spine on the headboard of their bed. She was entirely aware that her hair fell is mismatched ringlets and her eyes bore sleepy dark circles, but she also saw how Gabriel watched her as though he had not known beauty like her. Celeste looked to the window that he had let open for her, the one that let the cold breeze gently tap the redness of her cheeks away, the one that let the silver light of winter help her breathe until she was fully awake enough to understand that his smile did not mean that something was wrong, that she could feel the peace of his presence that morning.

"Is everything okay?" Gabriel was unsure of how to answer her then and there; sure, things were fine, she was not in any immediate danger and that is what mattered to him. But his people were dead, a lot of them anyway, and his mother was locked in his basement with an unbreakable vow that tied her to the man that wanted them dead. But she was okay, and he would not ruin what he was yet to ask of her with the burden that his mother had brought to them.

"Yes, in fact, I am sure you will be more than thrilled with what I must say," Whilst she frowned, Gabriel chuckled sweetly though his words in a way that Celeste had not heard before. He was excited about something, and it forced a smile for something that she did not yet know. It was a kind feeling, a soft one, and when Gabriel took her hand to tap within his palms, she saw how he could not shake this happiness that he had found somewhere that she was yet to understand.

"I need you to go and spend some time with Hemera, Josie will come too. I think she is feeling rather lonely, Corvinus mentioned that she may be in need of a few friends." There was a twist of her own excitement in his request, one that emanated from the rather sad idea that she had not seen Josephine nor Hemera in close to a year.