Welcome to Gaia! ::

Autsu left his shift at work shaken and confused. He hadn't had to break up a fight the whole night. A glance had done the trick, just a single haunted, burning look. Total buzzkill.

He'd intended to take the bus home, it was time for that, and he was tired. But he didn't. Maybe he knew he wouldn't sleep. Mostly he was afraid he would. He could control the line of his thoughts as long as he remained awake. Or at least, he could try.

So he took the bus in another direction, watching the neighborhoods improved, staring blank eyed at empty sidewalks. His hands kept shaking. He didn't know why. When he stared at them, they stopped, but a shuddering pain worked its way up his arms and made it hard to breathe.

So he let them shake.

Easy enough, to let himself in to the house where Kian was sleeping, and make his way upstairs. He wasn't silent, exactly. He wasn't meant for stealth. But he was quiet, at least.

At Kian's door, he hesitated, before turning the knob and stepping into the bedroom. Anne was sleeping. Of course he was. It was... early. He shouldn't have come.

He shouldn't have come, because he was standing by the door, shaking and frozen, like he had when he'd first realized his attraction to his comrade. And that was a long time past. And maybe, maybe, he just wanted to wake Kian up, and whisper Stay.

That wasn't why he had come. He took a few steps into the room, his eyes on Kian, and licked his lips.

"Blade at my throat." A whisper. Almost reverent. And then, slightly louder. "Anne."

Autsu was not in the best of states. And he hadn't exactly planned ahead, either. In fact, other than knowing that he needed to see Kian immediately, he had no idea why he'd come.

He hadn't lied when talking to Iamel. Kian gave him purpose. And he was feeling very lost at the moment.

So when Kian started to wake, Autsu only stared at him, watching the play of shadow over skin, the fall of his hair. The feeling that he'd been trying to isolate to his shaking hands twisted in his stomach and caught in his throat and he nearly turned around and walked back out.

Instead he walked over to Kian's bedside and sat sideways. His shaking hand rose as if of it's own accord, traced its way up Kian's arm, over his broad shoulders, and tangled itself in his hair. Right now, Autsu didn't care about what he usually did and did not do. He needed assurance that Kian was there.

When he was done speaking, the other might not allow these intimacies.

"Blade at my throat." Still a whisper. No longer reverent. Desperate maybe. "Ally. I would... speak with you."

Autsu wished he had started a war. That would be a simple problem. He liked things that he could hit or shoot until they went away.

This was not like that. Still he smiled, the corner of his lip quirking upward as his hand freed itself from Kian's hair and traced lightly down his spine. He gave that hand an accusatory look. It wasn't helping.

What was he going to say? 'Iamel almost killed me' or 'I hear your in love with me' or 'I think maybe you don't really want me around' or...

He looked at Kian, saw mussed hair and eyes still dream touched.

No. He shouldn't have come. He should leave. His shaking fingers were making their way back up toward Kian's neck.

"Iamel. Do you talk to him about us?" It was a round about way to start, but an important question. If Kian had told Iamel those things...

He didn't doubt the truth of the Bird's words. But it made a difference, somehow, if Kian had been confiding in his brother about hurt Autsu had caused.

They had never done this before. Affection between them was a rough thing. Watching Kian stretch and shift between his fingertips was enchanting. And Autsu, hollowed out shell of himself, stared. His fingers brushed Kian's jawline, traced downwards to his collarbone.

A last truth shining in the ash. He turned away from it. Closed his eyes. His fingers fell still though they lingered on Kian's skin.

"He came by my workplace, tonight." As he began to speak, something new entered his tone. Irritation. He had believed Iamel, yes. But he still thought the man was a fool to so misunderstand what it meant to stand at Kian's side. To not see what Kian was.

They could have a war, if they wanted one. Take the world. He believed it.

"To tell me I was not to come near you."

And herein lay the issue with being Autsu. Autsu, for whatever reason, slept with the men he served. He could not, if asked, explain the attraction. It was, at least in his mind, a defect. One was not to go outside ones caste, above ones station. Maybe Narin had started a trend, or maybe it was something that'd waited inside him for such a chance.

It didn't matter. The fact of it was, the part of him that wanted to keep Kian as a lover was inclined to protect what they had by choosing words carefully. It would not be so dangerous to say 'he thinks you will be stronger without me', which, after all, Iamel had indicated. It would be an acceptable answer, and one that was likely to make Kian angry, but not bruise the fragile framework of what they had.

But he was Kian's second. And as such, he had a responsibility to be complete in his answers, especially when addressed in such a tone. Kian needed to know what his brother had said, as it indicated that Iamel knew more than Kian would likely want him to know.

It's possible, that at another time, the first side would have won. But it was choked with ash, fragile and trembling and frightened. It wasn't up to the argument. It was busy hiding from the shining thing in the corner.

"He said he believed-" But that wasn't true either. Iamel hadn't claimed to believe anything. He'd claimed to know. "He said that you were in love with me. That it caused depression and anger. And that it was wrong for you to need me."

He spoke in his soldier's voice, measured even words. But he was shaking all the more as he spoke, so much so that he balled his hands, both the one Kian held by the wrist and the other into fists.

Autsu was frozen. He was a slender silent statue in the dark of the night. It was not that Kian was revealing anything new. He had believed Iamel. He would have been confused by a denial.

No, it was the word's chosen, dismissive, leaving what the emotion might represent ground to glitter under the heel of reason.

Funny thing about Autsu, cold, dangerous b*****d that he was. Love had shaped his life. In Ex'Di'Ne, in Gaia. Love had been the tool used to build him, to break him, to carve him into the statue frozen at Kian's side.

Eyes met his own, but Autsu wasn't there. His expression was utterly blank. He had stopped shaking.

A last shining truth, exposed in the night's inferno. Hard to hide from such a thing. Impossible maybe.

Always had been.

His breath hissed between his teeth, life to stone. Pygmalion would be impressed. His head lowered, his gaze on his hands.

"I can not have you both." That desperate hissing again. A retreat. But were did one retreat to in a field of ash?

"I told him that I would stand at your side and burn the world. I would do almost anything for you."

And that almost was the problem, wasn't it?

"It is not-- you should not love someone you can not keep." And then, with a dawning confusion, "Why do I always love the one I can not keep?"

Kian was talking. Autsu was pretty sure of that much. Also, the other criminal was quiet possibly moving him around, and touching him. These things all seemed likely. He allowed it. Eventually, he discovered he was standing. And he allowed that too.

Autsu was not there.

Not again. By the Lady and any other listening gods, not again. He couldn't do this twice. He wouldn't survive it a second time. He would not wish to survive it a second time.

What had he done? How? What kind of fool was he?

Narin would come. And he would go. And loving Kian he would mourn him as he had mourned Narin, and he would be haunted by him as he was Narin...

And he would leave Kian in the same state.

He looked, more than anything, like a whipped puppy who, finally gaining trust in a kind master found himself returned to the one who had beat him. He didn't speak.

Kian's voice became audible again about the time that his hand hit Autsu's face. The winged man blinked at him in confusion, like a dreamer coming out of a deep sleep.

Listen to him? He could do that. He could listen. His eyes started tracking again, focusing on the other. His expression was still that of one in shock, but at least he seemed aware that he wasn't alone in the room.

Autsu wasn't what he once had been. He lacked his people's ability to physically adapt to circumstance and desire. But mentally, emotionally, he still ran the same way. Somewhere in the dark of his soul, the part of him programmed to 'serve Kian' was being reassigned with the task 'love Kian'. New hormones. Different paradigm. His mind would take a bit to catch up.

"I am sorry, Kian." He murmured, at last. His voice was low, careful. "I should not have."

What he should not have done was left unspecified. "We are walking?"

It would be inaccurate to say that he seemed comforted, or at ease. But he was functioning again.