Blessed by Night

Though, this wasn't intentional on Malachi's part.

But every time he tried to say something, Celeste would stuff a plastic glove into his mouth while claiming that she needed to concentrate.

However, she had underestimated the difficulty she would be facing when it came to this task.

Not only had she never performed a surgery on her own before, but she had also never done a surgery where her patient was awake and staring at her the whole time either.

If she was feeling the weight of Mal's gaze while she was just working on his finger, she couldn't imagine how she was going to feel once she cracked his chest open.

"Are you... sure you don't need anesthesia...?" Celeste finally asked. "Luna stocked us more than enough for a long time, so you don't have to worry about rationing it."

Unsurprisingly, Mal shook his head as he continued to stare at his attractive surgeon without hiding his interest. "Nah, I'm alright. It doesn't hurt and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work anyway."

"Hmph... I hope you're not acting tough so that you can keep staring at me like a pervert."

"Pervert? Me??"

"You see any other young boys around here who go to sleep with a bed full of beautiful women every night? Pretty sure you guys aren't just singing campfire songs..."

"Well since we spend so much time with the baby it's usually something 'Disney' based..." Mal admitted.

"Don't joke with me." Celeste rolled her eyes.

He wasn't joking.

Mal noticed that the mature beauty seemed to be a little more prickly than normal.

"Is there any reason you're acting like you don't like me all of a sudden?"

His question was simple, but it effectively acted as the straw that broke the camel's back, because all of Celeste's feelings and anxieties came spilling out at once.

"I don't like you, Malachi, a-atleast not in the way you want me to. I thought you were a nice young man when we first met, but I had no idea you would start behaving like... this.

How can you claim to have feelings for me when you spent months dating my daughter? D-Do you even understand the kind of position your confession has put me in..?

J-Just looking at Melanie makes me feel guilty, and I'm afraid that she's going to hear something strange one day and think that I betrayed her, or that I'm so desperate that I-I just ran to jump into the arms of the first man to show me attention in twenty years!

A-And you just seem to want another notch on your belt! You already have six women in your bed, but now you're chasing me? For what purpose??

Are you just doing this out of some twisted need to get revenge on her?! She's already apologized and I just d-don't get why you would want to hurt her further using me!"

Celeste rambled so quickly that she could have given 'Busta Rhymes' a run for his money if she ever decided to release an album.

And Malachi listened to every single word, without showing even the slightest change in his expression or interrupting.

When Celeste was done, she was slightly out of breath and her cheeks were flushed red with anger.

She only seemed to get angrier by the second since Mal had yet to say anything and just stared at her.

"S-Say something!" She yelled.

Malachi sat up on the bed and healed the finger Celeste had already cut open; inadvertently undoing all of her hard work.

He started to reach for her, and Celeste shook her head weakly.

She didn't want him to do something to make her feel even more guilty.

Mal cupped her face in his hands and removed her face mask before pulling her in closely.

Despite Celeste's earlier fiery dialogue, she was now surprisingly meek as Mal continued pulling her face towards his own.

She didn't even try to pull away.

However, she did seem like she was on the verge of crying.

"Please don't do this…" She immediately feared the worst.

However, instead of the action she expected coming to fruition, Mal only pressed his forehead against hers.

Their lips barely grazed each other, but that slight friction seemed to make Celeste shiver for reasons she couldn't explain.

"I'm sorry... but I don't have feelings for you because I'm trying to hurt Melanie. How I feel has nothing to do with her, and everything to do with you.

Ever since you helped me get my head back on straight in the hospital and showed me how to move past my mistakes, I've always held a candle to you.

You had just gotten out of a literal coma, but you were so full of life and passionate; exactly what someone like me needed to pick my head up and grow up a bit.

I know it's wrong, and I know you think I'm just being greedy, but my feelings for you are incredibly sincere.

But I want you to know, just because I told you about my feelings doesn't mean I'm going to ask you to reciprocate them. I'll be the only bad guy here; you just keep being the upstanding mother that I know you to be."

Celeste shut her eyes tightly as Malachi kissed her on the cheek softly.

He grabbed his shirt and started to leave quietly, leaving her mildly confused.

"What about the surgery...?"

"Ah, don't worry about it." Mal twisted his hand behind his back and the totems came floating into his palm. "I can just put them in myself."

"What? T-Then what was the purpose of all of this?!"

"Isn't it obvious?" He smiled sadly. "I just wanted to spend a little time with you."

Celeste watched Mal walk out of the med lab without looking back.

Unsurprisingly, she had no idea how to feel right now.

Lots of things were said, and a few intimate acts were almost exchanged, and in the end it was revealed that Mal had never actually needed her help at all.

He had her perform an entirely unnecessary and elective surgery... while awake… just so that he could get her alone and stare at her.

"I... don't understand young people at all."

-

Malachi ended up outside of the base on the cliff overlooking the forest.

His arrived outside just as a golden blur passed through the trees and stopped next to him.

Though she can be a bit of a couch potato like her daughter, Joanne built up certain habits from all of her years in the army that were hard to break.

She usually got up in the mornings where she wasn't too exhausted from night activities and went on runs to atleast a different state.

Afterwards she would take a shower and usually watch some shit tv with Nadine or just go back to sleep.

"I'm back." Joanne held out her fingers in a peace sign and greeted Mal with a robotic expression.

"How far did you make it this time?" Mal chuckled.

"Florida. Turns out that it's actually pretty nice when all of the people are dead. Surprised the hell out of me."

Joanne gave him a small peck on the lips and paused when she smelled an unfamiliar perfume.

It was then that she remembered exactly what her fiancé's plan for this morning was.

And the fact that he was out here could only mean one thing.

"Didn't go well, huh..?"

"Not really."

"What'd she say..?"

"Nothing that wasn't true." Mal shrugged.

He burned away his skin until he was standing around in his avatar state.

Ever so casually, he pulled out the drum of Raijin and inserted it into his chest and then pulled out the claw of Bast and made his finger reshape itself to fit it like a plug and an outlet.

After giving his hand a shake and doing a quick jump to ensure that nothing would fall out, he was confident that they weren't going anywhere.

"How do you feel? Divine?" Joanne poked Mal in the stomach like he was a dead frog.

He started to answer and say that he didn't really feel all that different when he noticed that it was getting a little warm out here.

And as the seconds went by, the warmth he felt only grew and grew.

It spread to every corner of his body until it was nearly impossible to remain unresponsive to it.

He started to double over in pain and Joanne immediately came to his side to help him.

However, he was just barely able to use the shadows to move her out of harms way when his body self immolated.

The winds blew hard enough to blow down trees and dark clouds formed in the sky overhead.

A bolt of cyan green lightning fell from the sky and landed on the spot where Malachi once stood, and a chorus of animal sounds shook the mountain range.

First was the screeching of a bird.

Second was the roaring of a large cat.

Third was the ever familiar hissing of a serpent.

And lastly...

"God, that shit hurt!"

Joanne waived her hand and the dust that was kicked up by the storm was immediately dispersed.

Once her vision was no longer obstructed, she could see her fiance sitting on a crater in the ground; completely in the nude.

"Babe, you're... back to normal?" Joanne muttered in shock.

Malachi stopped holding his stomach and groaning long enough to look down and realize that she was right.

His black hair, normal white pupils, chocolate brown skin, and lack of snakes coming out of his back were all changes he wasn't quite used to anymore.

He kind of felt naked.

Well… even more so than he currently was.

"But... Why is there a small petting zoo behind you?" Joanne finished.

Mal finally looked behind his back at the three animals sitting and staring at him patiently.

One was a large black lion the size of a horse with a shining grey mane.

Another was a large black snake with horns coming out of it's head that was large enough to wrap around a house comfortably.

The final one was a bird the size of a large dog with black feathers and a golden serrated beak.

It's feathers seemed to constantly crackle with the same brightly colored lightning that fell from the sky before.

*Whistle* "... You're some big guys, huh?" He muttered in shock.

However, the last thing he ever expected was to get a response back.

Lion: "We have been born for all of two minutes and you're already calling us fat..?"

Snake: "It's so improper of you to make comments on a girl's weight... Have you no manners..? I will never understand why so many women decided to marry you."

""What a dick.""

The two large beasts turned into pure energy and jumped back inside of Malachi's body.

Oddly enough, he felt a well of power return to him that he didn't realize was missing, and his body returned to it's previous N'Kai condition like nothing had ever changed.

Though the snakes on the back of his head refused to look his way after his comments...

Stunned, Mal turned towards the final bird that still had yet to leave and it let out a happy caw.

"Don't worry, brother! I'm not offended, I like being called big!"

Malachi let his jaw hang open and slowly turned to face Joanne for an explanation.

Unfortunately, his fiancé held up her hands in surrender.

"Don't look at me, babe. I'm still trying to figure out how our daughter teleports."

With no other options, Mal just lay back on the ground and closed his eyes.

"It's... been a long day."

"It's only 7:30?"

"I said what I said."