First Demonic Dragon - Chapter 1154: Gas Leak
Chapter 1154: Gas Leak
Bashenga never thought he would actually put furniture in his room. From the moment he was born, he detested the idea of anything physical.
Physical things could be broken. Destroyed.
And as a being who resented the function he was born with, Bashenga never really wanted anything around him that he could destroy.
But his parents brought him out of that negative thinking. Albeit not knowingly.
It was a combination of watching his father care for his sports memorabilia or watching his mother sincerely admire her food before she devoured it, as well as watching them marvel over colored lights in the wintertime.
Their behavior, as well as their constant presence made Bashenga realize that the physical was comforting. It was a form of support that he was unnecessarily depriving himself of.
By telling himself he didn’t need anything, he was unknowingly telling himself that he didn’t deserve anything.
When he finally overcame his fear of the permanent after several years, he finally realized that there had been something permanent around him all along. He just hadn’t taken the time to acknowledge it.
Sometimes, gods are together because Yesh decreed they would be, and it stays much the same throughout the multiverse.
But that doesn’t necessarily translate to love. It is a duty. Their union ensures that another crucial part of Yesh’s grand design comes into fruition. Like all of the gears that turn to make a machine function.
But from watching the people around him interact with their spouses, Bashenga eventually had to concede that Gaia really did love him.
She never called him grumpy or edgy like the others. She never complained about the hours upon hours that they spent doing absolutely nothing.
Perhaps the only thing that she had ever asked him for was some photographs to be hung up in their room.
Bashenga had denied it back then. And while he was away, he had spent an incalculable amount of time questioning that very decision.
It should have been the first thing they had done once he got back.
But now, he had to hope that Gaia would come out of whatever was ailing her so that she could see, even though it was late, that the space was officially theirs.
He had forgiven her for the past, and now only wanted to look towards a brighter future.
But Gaia’s eyes were shut so tightly that she wasn’t looking at anything.
Her body was wrapped in a sheen of sweat as tremors seized her. And all Bashenga could do was hold her hand and hope she knew he was there.
Two days had gone by, and he hadn’t moved from her side.
He figured that he’d already left her enough for the next several lifetimes. A good man, a good partner would not leave her alone again.
Bashenga stirred for the first time in several hours.
With his knees still on the floor, he leaned over Gaia’s face and dabbed her forehead with a cloth.
He took a moment to straighten her hair, and make sure that she was every bit as beautiful as she was when he first saw her again.
Though admittedly, it would have taken a lot more than a little bit of bed head to dilute her perfect looks.
“…I’m… so very sor-”
“I’m okay!”
*Crack!*
Gaia sat up abruptly and slammed her head into Bashenga’s mouth. Splitting his lip open and causing him to fall flat on his back.
Gaia was also reeling from the collision. Her forehead was in so much discomfort she felt like she’d been hit by a nuke again.
“Oww… what are you doing hanging over me like..”
Slowly, Gaia’s eyes settled on the dropped photo frame that lay between her and Bashenga.
She went to pick it up with all the reverence of a religious artifact.
“…What’s this?”
Bashenga sat up with his lip already healed and the pain a thing of distant memory.
Though it appeared his mind had suffered a bit of a damage that wasn’t easy to shake off.
“W-Well that was, uh… I-I wanted to make it like a kind of… I-I’m sorry, I just… I’m not doing a very good job at this, am I?”
Gaia looked down at the photo that depicted a poorly taken selfie.
In it, the earth mother was asleep and Bashenga was lying beside her with a sort of neutral, flat look.
It was the kind of photograph that would be used to convict a stalker or a serial killer in a court of law.
“…I love it. Thank you very much.” Gaia smiled as she held the photo close to her chest.
In that moment, Bashenga had many questions he wanted to ask.
What happened to you?
Are you okay now?
Is there something, anything that you need to feel better?
But there was one thing that Bashenga definitely needed to know above all else.
“Will you be my wife again?”
“…”
Gaia tensed up so quickly that she accidentally cracked the photograph in her arms.
She looked into Bashenga’s eyes and saw that they were unwavering. This wasn’t like the last time he asked her. He was serious now.
And Gaia could not so easily wrap her mind around such a drastic change.
She flopped back into their bed, unconscious but no longer sweaty and wracked with shakes.
Bashenga blinked slowly as he slumped onto his back.
“…Maybe I should have taken a different photograph.”
–
Zheng slowly opened his eyes to realize that his bed was a bit empty.
Adeline was still wrapped in his arms and sleeping silently. Nubia on the other hand was long gone, based on how cold that side of his bed was.
Zheng slowly got out of bed so as not to wake his wife.
For all of his proficiency in stealth, he was unable to get away clean and felt a slender woman crawl onto his back.
She muttered something unintelligible as he picked her up.
“No, we can’t do five more minutes. It seems we’ve been asleep long enough already.”
More indecipherable dialogue followed.
“Yes, yes, we can get coffee on the way.”
“Hooray…” Adeline finally said something easy to understand.
Zheng donned a black robe to cover his snowy white skin.
Once he made sure his wife was covered as well, he exited their room and started to make his way downstairs.
While walking, another door opened down the hallway and Bashenga stepped out looking more depressed than Abaddon after his team lost a national championship game.
“Hey, bud… You okay there?”
“I am going to ask father for permission to kill myself.”
“…”
It was far too early for Zheng to possess the wherewithal to deal with any of this.
“Oh… okay then. Good luck with that.”
“Indeed.”
The three of them crossed from the east wing to the center of the estate.
There, Zheng entered the kitchen looking for his wife who had spontaneously gone missing.
He found her, along with Gulban, Lilith, and most of her other siblings. That wasn’t necessarily anything out of the ordinary, but what was strange was the newborn baby wrapped in a white sheet.
It clearly wasn’t quite human. It had deep, purple-tinted skin laced with scales, and the beginnings of silky black hair.
It’s eyes were large, black, and bulbous. It almost seemed insect-like.
When it saw them, it pointed at them with small, chubby fingers. Capturing the attention of everyone else in the room.
“…Who’s goddamn purple baby is that?” Zheng tilted his head.
“Babe! Not the time to be quoting ’School Dance’ !” Nubia scolded.
“My bad.”
Zheng walked over to Nubia’s side and leaned down beside the bundle.
He stared at her curiously, and she did the very same to him.
“Can’t tell?” Nubia grinned.
“Can’t tell what?”
“It’s Yggy!” Nubia beamed.
Zheng compared the small, purple-skinned child to the overly rambunctious Caucasian girl from his memories.
The difference was impossibly large. Not only in temperament, but in appearance as well.
Zheng smiled at Nubia reassuringly.
“You did it. I knew you were determined but this is quite the extraordinary feat…” Zheng murmured, impressed.
Nubia smiled softly as she stared down at the child in her arms.
“I’m glad I was able to do something for her… Yggy has never harmed anyone. She didn’t deserve to be harmed herself.”
Apophis raised his brow at that. “Oh yeah, let’s just ignore that time she stomped on my head for something I didn’t even do.”
“And didn’t she try to beat up dad the last time she saw him?” Straga reminded.
“You both deserved it. No one told you to keep bothering her.”
Thrudd folded her arms. “She called my Bebe a Dino-Dyke.”
“She indulges in a bit of clever wordplay from time to time, that’s hardly something she deserves to die for.”
Nubia brought Yggdrasil closer to her and gently leaned her forehead against the child’s.
“You all need to forget whatever prejudices you had against Yggy in the past, because she’s a new person now… and I think I want to be the one to raise her.”
Adeline woke up fully at that revelation.
Her bright, white eyes shone with utter incredulity.
“I’m… we’re… a-and…”
Nubia smiled at her helplessly. “I know it’s a bit sudden, but… I really wanted to-”
Suddenly, Zheng went down like a house of cards in a windstorm.
As Bashenga watched his brother-in-law tumble, he came to one very simple conclusion.
“We should probably check this place for a gas leak. There’s too much fainting going on.”
