[BL] I Didn't Sign Up For This-Chapter 50: In Which I Close My First Rift (And Accidentally Announce Our Presence to Hell)

Chapter 50: In Which I Close My First Rift (And Accidentally Announce Our Presence to Hell)

The rift looked like someone had taken a knife to reality and left the wound to fester.

We’d driven out before dawn, me, Azryth, Mara, and Henrik, in a beat-up SUV that handled the backroads like it had a personal grudge against suspension systems. The rift was in a clearing about thirty miles from the safehouse, hidden enough that civilians wouldn’t stumble across it but not so remote that we couldn’t evacuate if things went catastrophically wrong.

Which, given my track record, felt like a real possibility.

"There," Mara said, pointing.

I saw it immediately. A tear in the air, maybe six feet tall and two feet wide, hovering about three feet off the ground. It pulsed with a sickly purple-black light, and the air around it looked wrong and distorted, like looking through warped glass.

"That’s a minor rift?" I asked.

"Relatively speaking," Henrik said, pulling equipment from the back of the SUV. "It’s stable, not actively growing, no major entities attempting to cross. Perfect for practice."

"It looks like an infected wound."

"Accurate description." Azryth said. He’d rolled up his sleeves at some point, forearms on display, and I had the deeply unhelpful thought that nobody had any business looking that good before sunrise while standing next to a dimensional horror. "Rifts are essentially dimensional injuries, the barrier between realms has been torn, and it’s not healing properly." 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"Wow, so we’re now supernatural doctors."

"More like surgeons." He glanced at me, and something in his expression shifted, amusement, maybe, or awareness that I’d been staring. "Ready?"

"Absolutely not."

"Good. Honest self-assessment." He moved closer, and the binding sparked to life between us, anticipating. "Remember what Henrik taught you, we’re not fighting it, we’re convincing it to close."

"Right. Convince the dimensional wound to heal, with my brain, while channeling catastrophic amounts of energy. No pressure."

"All the pressure," Mara said cheerfully, setting up what looked like monitoring equipment about twenty feet back. "But you’ll be fine. Probably."

"Your confidence is inspiring."

"I’m a realist." She gestured to the rift. "Whenever you’re ready, we’ll be monitoring your output, watching for destabilization, and ready to pull you back if the feedback gets dangerous."

"What counts as dangerous feedback?"

"If you start bleeding from your eyes, that’s bad," Henrik offered helpfully.

"GREAT! Good to know. That’s definitely the kind of information I needed right now."

Azryth stepped directly in front of me, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. "Ignore them, focus on the binding, on synchronization. We move together or not at all."

I swallowed. "Okay. How do we start?"

"Feel the rift first, not with your eyes, but with your power." He extended one hand toward the tear, not touching it but hovering near. "Tell me what you sense."

I closed my eyes and reached out with that sixth sense that had been developing since the binding formed. The rift felt wrong immediately, hungry, desperate, like an open mouth that wanted to keep consuming. But underneath the wrongness was something else, pain, maybe, or exhaustion. Like it was tired of existing but didn’t know how to stop.

"It’s hungry," I said. "But also... tired? Like it wants to close but doesn’t know how."

"Good." His voice had gone quiet, focused. "That’s exactly right. Now feel me, feel the binding."

That was easy. The binding was always there, but when I focused on it directly it flared brighter, a current of energy flowing between us, warm and steady and increasingly insistent. I could feel his power coiled beneath the surface, vast and patient, I could feel his absolute certainty that this would work.

"Now reach for the rift," he said. "But channel through the binding, through us. Let your power merge with mine before you touch it."

I extended my awareness toward the rift, but this time I pulled on the binding deliberately, letting Azryth’s power rise to meet mine. The sensation was strange, intimate in a way I hadn’t expected. Not physical, exactly, but not not physical either. Like our energies were braiding together, winding around each other until I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.

The binding flared hot between us.

I pushed that merged energy toward the rift.

It resisted immediately. Not violently, but stubbornly, like trying to close a door that had been propped open too long. The rift wanted to stay open, that was its nature, its entire existence.

"Don’t force it," Azryth said. "Offer it something better, stability, peace, an end to the constant hunger."

I adjusted my approach, softening the push, making it more of an invitation. Don’t you want to stop? Don’t you want to heal?

The rift pulsed, considering.

Then it rejected me.

The backlash hit like a slap, energy snapping back through the binding. I gasped, stumbling, but Azryth caught my elbow, steadying me.

"Again," he said. "You’re holding back, commit fully and trust the binding to stabilize you."

"What if I lose control—"

"Then I pull you back." Simple and absolute. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Again, Riven."

I gritted my teeth and reached out again, this time letting more of myself flow through the connection. The binding flared brighter, hot enough that I could feel it like a physical thing between us, twining, merging, synchronizing.

The rift resisted again, but this time I didn’t pull back. I leaned into it, offering not just power but structure, framework, the promise of closure and healing and rest.

Close, you want to close. Let me help you close.

The rift wavered.

My concentration slipped, just for a second, and the rift snapped back open, rejecting me.

"Damn it."

"You’re overthinking." Azryth’s voice was calm, patient. "Stop trying to maintain control, let the binding do the work. Surrender to it."

"I am—"

"No, you’re not." He moved around to face me fully, blocking my view of the rift entirely. "You’re still fighting the merge, still trying to keep your power separate from mine. Look at me."

I did. Mistake. This close, with the binding flaring between us and dawn light turning his eyes molten, looking at him was a terrible idea for my focus.

"We are synchronized in combat," he said quietly. "We move as one unit without thinking about it. This is the same,stop thinking and just feel."

"That’s a terrible instruction for someone about to channel catastrophic energy.."

"Riven." He waited until I met his eyes again. "Trust us, trust what we are together."

The binding pulsed warm agreement.

I took a breath. Nodded.

"Okay, together, no holding back."

I turned back to the rift, and this time when I reached for it, I didn’t try to maintain any separation at all. I just... opened myself to the binding, let Azryth’s power flood through me unrestricted, let our energies merge so completely I couldn’t distinguish between us anymore.

The sensation was overwhelming. Intimate. Like every nerve ending had suddenly become shared, like I could feel his power moving through my channels and mine through his, two currents becoming one river.

The energy that rose wasn’t mine or his. It was ours.

I pushed it toward the rift, not as force, not as attack, but as inevitability. As a promise, closing is better than staying open, healing is possible, peace is real. Let me show you.

The rift shuddered.

Then, slowly, reluctantly, it began to close.

I felt it happening through the binding, edges pulling together, dimensional fabric knitting shut, the hungry void collapsing in on itself. It hurt, not physically but energetically, like forcing a wound to heal before it was ready.

"Stay with it," Azryth said, and I felt his power surge, compensating where mine faltered, stabilizing where I wavered. Perfect synchronization. "Stay with me."

I held on, watching through my second sight as the rift shrank, six feet to five, five to four, four to three. The resistance increased as it got smaller, but we pushed back together, unified, relentless.

Two feet. One foot. Six inches.

Then, with a sound like reality sighing in relief, the rift sealed completely.

The backlash hit both of us at once.

I staggered, legs going weak, and would have collapsed if Azryth hadn’t caught me. He wasn’t much better off, I felt his exhaustion and how much power he’d just channeled through himself to keep me stable.

We ended up on the ground, me half-sprawled against him, both of us breathing hard.

"Holy shit," I managed. "We did it."

"We did." His voice was rough, strained in a way I’d never heard before, vulnerable. "Are you all right?"

"I think so. You?"

"I’ll recover." But he didn’t move, didn’t let go of me, he just sat there in the dirt with me leaning against his chest, both of us shaking from energy drain and adrenaline.

Through the binding, I felt everything, his exhaustion mirroring mine, his satisfaction at our success, his concern for me overriding his own discomfort. And underneath, that ever-present current of awareness, stronger now after what we’d just done. After merging that completely.

Intimate wasn’t a strong enough word for what we’d just experienced.

"That was," I started, then stopped, not sure how to finish.

"Intense," Azryth supplied.

"Yeah. That."

Mara and Henrik approached, both staring at their monitoring equipment like it had personally offended them.

"Energy readings peaked at twelve hundred units sustained over ninety seconds," Henrik said slowly. "That’s.."

"Unprecedented," Mara finished. She looked at us, still sitting in the dirt, and something like approval crossed her face. "You two just created the first confirmed permanent rift seal in over a century."

"Congratulations," Henrik added. "Also, you might want to see this."

He turned his tablet to show us. The readings spiked exactly where we’d sealed the rift, but at the very end, right as it closed completely, there was a second spike. Smaller, but distinct.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Feedback pulse from the other side," Azryth said, his voice going cold. "Someone felt us close it, someone powerful enough to send energy back through a collapsing rift."

"Someone on the infernal side," Henrik confirmed. "Which means whoever’s coordinating these rifts now knows there’s a warden-demon pair capable of permanent closures."

I looked up at Azryth. "So we just announced our presence to whoever’s orchestrating the apocalypse."

"Yes."

"Oh, how sweet! Perfect, love that for us."

"On the bright side," Mara said, "you succeeded in your first permanent seal. That’s worth celebrating."

"Thanks. I feel super accomplished and not at all like we just painted a giant target on ourselves."

Azryth’s arms were still around me, one hand pressed against my back, the other resting on my knee. Through the binding I felt his concern warring with pride, felt the way his focus had shifted from the rift to me, protective and possessive in equal measure.

"We knew this was coming," he said quietly. "Whoever’s behind the rift crisis was always going to notice us eventually."

"And now they know we can stop them."

"Yes." His hand moved, just slightly, fingers flexing against my back. "Which means they’ll escalate."

"So business as usual."

He almost smiled. "Business as usual." Then, quieter: "Can you stand?"

"Probably, give me a minute, everything feels like jelly."

"Energy drain, that’s normal after your first major channeling." But he didn’t rush me, just sat there holding me while I recovered, solid and warm and patient.

Eventually I managed to get vertical, though my legs protested the entire way. Azryth rose with me, one hand hovering near my elbow like he expected me to collapse again.

"I’m fine," I said.

"You’re exhausted."

"So are you."

"I’ve had five centuries to build stamina for this kind of work." His eyes were shadowed with fatigue, but his voice was steady. "You just channeled enough power to permanently seal a dimensional tear. You’re allowed to be tired."

I smiled.

We made our way back to the SUV, moving slower than the trip out. My whole body ached in ways I couldn’t quite name, not pain, exactly, but deep exhaustion that went past physical into something more fundamental.

"Is it always like that?" I asked once we were in the back seat, Mara driving us back toward the safehouse. "The merging thing, the—" I gestured vaguely. "All of it."

"I don’t know." Azryth’s voice was quiet enough that only I could hear over the engine. "I’ve never done this before, never merged power with anyone like that."

"Oh."

"But yes," he continued. "I imagine it will be like that every time. Perhaps more so as we get better at it."

I wasn’t sure if that was reassuring or terrifying. The level of intimacy required to merge that completely, to let go of all separation, it wasn’t something I could do casually, it wasn’t something that could stay purely professional.

Through the binding, I felt his agreement, I felt him processing the same realization.

"One down," Mara said from the front seat. "Forty-six to go."

"And whoever felt us close that rift now knows we exist," Henrik added. "They’ll be preparing a response."

I leaned back against the seat, exhaustion pulling at me. Azryth’s shoulder was right there, solid and available, and after what we’d just done, after merging that completely, it felt completely natural to lean into him.

He shifted to accommodate me, one arm coming up to steady me as the SUV hit a rough patch.

I felt his contentment at the simple contact, I felt his satisfaction at our success, the ever-present undercurrent of protectiveness that had been there since the beginning but had intensified since...

Since we’d merged completely.

Since we’d proven we could work as one unit not just in combat, but in this too.

I closed my eyes and let exhaustion take me, safe in the knowledge that Azryth would wake me when we got back.