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 Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2023 7:16 am
Faustite was tired of the office. Tired of smelling his own smoke. Tired of coughing endlessly, regardless of what he did. Yet, there was always more to do.
This time, he decided, it was fitting to make a house call. He hadn't seen Cryolite in some time, not that he expected to encounter him much; Cryolite was Albite's charge, and since the boy earned his wings, Faustite was content to let him manage his subordinates (or, more accurately, let his subordinates manage him). Yet, with the understanding that there was a mole in their midst, Cryolite's regular absences from his office and minimal involvement in their meetings grew more conspicuous by the day.
Faustite knew that Fulgurite and Cryolite had some kind of a kinship. He suspected that the bond went deeper than that, so speaking to Fulgurite about the Basic Senshi was out of the question. Better that he went himself, unsettling as that may be.
Syrus was the type to stick to convention, so Faustite understood — after some deep dives into an era long since past for him — that Eion would have to bring a housewarming gift. He'd seen the boy drink, which was the only thing he really knew about him outside the dossier Albite had him pick from, so that would be the item of choice. Then he went to Albite with two questions: beer, wine, or hard liquor; and the follow-up question, red or white? Once he'd gotten that far and Albite spoke up that he had no ******** clue what Sy drank beyond that (only spoken in the boy's easy, confident padding and whole sentences lacking substance). But that was fine. Eion could roam a liquor store. Assuming they didn't decide he had a fake ID.
Luckily for Eion, the single clerk minding the store's register had negative ******** to give. Sold all his ******** for a profit, likely, and was glued to a livestream on his phone the entire time that Eion perused the aisles. At opening, there was no one else in the store, so Eion read over each label until he found one — a b***h Red — that looked appropriate for Syrus. When he checked out, the clerk hadn't bothered to look at him; the man only scanned his ID and closed out the sale with the wadded-up twenty and two fivers that Eion handed over.
The following evening, Faustite donned Eion's skin again to stop by Syrus's apartment. Deciding that it was less invasive to knock and be admitted than it would be to teleport into the still-familiar kitchen, Eion rapped his knuckles on the door and waited while he slouched against the doorframe. He clutched the very obvious nondescript brown bag in his left hand as he waited for that blonde b***h to answer his damn door. While he waited, Eion heaved a few tired coughs, half-expecting smog.
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2023 6:08 am
Slouched in black-silks held together with tiny pewter buttons and trimmed in silver piping, Syrus was comfortable; washed up, ready early, snacking at a bowl of mixed berries and clotted cream like the most pampered sort of b***h he could imagine himself being. It was a nice fantasy to indulge for every now and then. That he was wealthy, cared for, powerful, standing atop a pedestal above the rest -- only now that space was wider than the narrow spiked stilt it had been in the past. A precarious thing that only he could stand upon, like a stripper in 15 inch pleaser brand stilettos.
A large dias, stage enough for them all, for those he deemed worthy, and of course room to push any interlopers off unto a messy end.
He was knee deep in Paget's Law of Banking from 1904, so it could at least be assumed that he wasn't going anywhere for the rest of the night. Which made the sudden sound of soft knocks the sort that startled him choking on a burst of raspberry; he wasn't expecting company....
Sometimes he had to remind himself that he was a Senshi. Couldn't be gotten the jump on except, maybe, by others of his kind. He was still cautious enough to check before unlatching his door and swinging it inwards. His peek through the peephole didn't reveal whatever he expected -- and, well he didn't know what he expect, but the sight of Faustite leaned up against his door, knocking for once? That certainly wasn't it.
Someone must have died, no, was in the process of dying, because since when did any of the people who knew where he lived have manners born of man to knock?! Matt, mabye, but the rest?
"Eion? I'm surprised Waru isn't with you," he expected the man, the mouth, the being bonded so tightly to Eion as to be married; that he might've been as attached to him as a tick to a dog. Some amalgamation of a single being. Especially recently, they'd gone their own ways after the mission, but Waru had been some uncanny valley of *off* during, behaving for once, strange as that had been. It was all the after in which Syrus felt the distance keenly. Not that he couldn't entertain himself, he'd put in legwork on getting to know people, branching out amongst within group lucratively, "but not unglad for it. Is that a gift?"
Presumptuous to hope for wine, if only because wine would've been delicious with what he was already eating. The shape of the wrapped bag might've given it away if he'd cared to stare long enough, but he didn't want to surmise what could be untrue. Many things came in brown paper bags. All of them delicious.
"It hardly matters, come in. You look--- exhausted, actually. Do you sleep at all?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2023 6:34 am
Eion waited for a time. Looked at his nails. Looked at the label on the wine. Looked at the fine cracks in the paint along the moulding that framed the door. Looked at the peephole. Looked at the people that passed by behind him, down the corridor, down the corner, where he would probably never encounter them again.
It didn't take long for him to hear the latches and the scrapes of door chains being unclasped, but it felt like forever. Felt like three days and three hours.
Then there was Syrus, poking his head through and asking about Waru at the first opportunity. "He doesn't follow me everywhere," Eion explained, though he sounded raspy enough that his voice was made of rusted fan blades spinning in the summer sun. "Only ever seen you with Waru around. Thought I'd see you myself, this time."
He didn't answer whether or not the bottle in his hand was a gift, but he shouldered himself away from the doorframe enough to hold the bottle out to Syrus, crinkling in his hand, for him to take.
"And unglad isn't a word, Cummings." He felt a little better, saying that. Being just a touch surly, but it was a compliment in its own way, for Eion liked Cummings, or he did as Elex. He still enjoyed the man's manipulation of language, even when it grated on him the way that petting a cat often irritated them. But it was a pleasant sort of irritation, if that made any sense whatsoever. Eion wasn't about to dissect how he felt about it in Syrus's doorway, though.
Eion let out a slow breath when he'd been bidden inside. He kept his head down, more because he'd been stumbling more, lately, and didn't want to trip over some housepet or accidentally cast-aside thing or Syrus's own made-b***h-style drapey silks that Eion didn't have a name for. He supposed that drapey wasn't a word, either, but he wouldn't say it out loud anyway.
"Sleep more than I like," he answered, but Eion wasn't elaborating on that one.
"Came to talk to you, though." Not complain about himself. "Wanted to hear how your training was going. How you've been adjusting. If you've been adjusting." And if Syrus wasn't going to offer him a place to sit, he was going to make one out of any ******** surface in the apartment.
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Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2023 4:30 pm
Based on the facts? Syrus was beginning to believe people might've assumed that neither of them existed without Waru tagged on; a frog from a log fallacy involving their shared eternal attaché and echoing mouthpiece of a lover. Syrus couldn't blame Waru though, it wasn't his fault that he was a being built like lumbering backsplash that unnecessarily drew the eye. How out of place could make himself seem; like spotting 'The Penitent Mary Magdalene' hanging on the wall of a modern day brothel. Painfully on the nose, egregiously distracting. Loving both. Syrus also knew how Waru could do that s**t on purpose, too. Could make shadows seem dull compared to his own smiles, could loom less like a friend and more like a man praying for the bad kinds of entertainment to abate his own boredom with. Syrus would attest to witnessing such happenings on any number of occasions.
Syrus smirked at the thought and knew it was probably best that Waru wasn't there, b*****d would've enjoyed himself all too much.
Rolled his eyes for the backlash, pursed his lips like he might've thought about blowing Faustite a kiss -- or maybe offering to ice him down only to leave him woefully unsatisfied at the end -- a blue ball special. Fiery boy might've enjoyed it though, which really wasn't to Syrus's detriment. He wanted his friends husbands to be happy and just the right side of alive. If a little icing down could make up for all his late attendances and quasi-absences? No. If he knew it'd make Waru happy. That was the undeniable reality of the fact.
He could be less self serving here than was his norm...
"Sorry, Lovecraft. Just give me a moment to put my appalling middle English away. Maybe I'll start describing in detail how purple space is instead," that was a trick, Lovecraft never actually described the Colour Out of Space, Syrus found that out years later, during a re-read, and marveled for how fascinating it was what the mind supplied when given no earthly description to cling to. What sights an active imagination could conjure, "that s**t's for the poors anyhow."
He could remember manners enough to take the proffered gift with a bright coo, his own excitement evident, no need to bother hiding it behind narrowly coy glances and a lie. At least not with Faustite.
"To me and about me are two entirely different things, Eion. But yes, I'll bite all the bait since you brought a brown-bag full. Waru has thoroughly beaten my a** into shape in a myriad of ways - I find all of the missions we go on so amazing as to be theatrical, appalling, and morbidly-fascinating at once," like trying a new dish he'd loved and then later learning what it was made of. Sometimes ignorance was really bliss, sadly? Syrus was not made to be ignorant, he wanted to dissect the components it, learn its ingredients, even if it lead to the unfortunate event where he never ate that same dish again...
"I'm about as well adjusted as one without a chiropractor can be. Though I'm worried that, for someone who 'sleeps more than they like', you look like you've half slept if at all -- let me get us glasses, find a surface to your liking--" and he was waiving Faustite on, in, re-latching his door as he was speaking, and stepping by the man -- through -- oh and the sight of the bottle out of the bad made him snort some hideously ugly type of laugh. He had to shove it behind his hand, because really?
A b***h Red.
At least it wasn't boxed.
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Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2023 5:52 am
Eion recognized that Syrus was being tongue-in-cheek, but took it for a different sort of cheeky — more of a critique on Lovecraft's meandering prose, which Eion thought was fairly deserved. His prose was, indeed, as purple as it came, and Faustite had shut works like The Shadow over Innsmouth after getting only a few pages deep. He liked other people's retellings and extractions of the horror value without the racism and misguided critiques of other cultures. But Sy's comment also had him wondering — was he racist? Did he seem racist? Eion didn't want to be any of those things.
So he pressed his mouth into a line, feeling off-kilter for it, training his eyes on whatever else there was in the apartment. Sy did sound like Ren briefly, and that pulled Eion's gaze to him as he wondered if they'd met or something, but then Syrus changed the subject and Eion didn't think to press him.
"People talk about themselves all the time. Those two different things are often found together. Like Syrus and Waru." That was more a shot in the dark, a supposition dependent on how Waru came to him with a couple of dossiers detailing every part of Syrus's life, likely authored by Syrus for how it made sense and had more words than pictures. Still, that Sy trusted him enough to write his entire life down for some stranger he'd never met to deliberate on whether he was a good fit for a shadowy, supernatural organization? Eion assumed they'd been together often, and enjoyed each other's company enough to put themselves at risk like that.
Eion frowned as Syrus waved him on. "You're not telling me anything." A mild warning, but a warning nonetheless.
As Syrus led him in, Eion found things to touch. Ends of countertops, edges of tables, backs of chairs. His fingers liked dancing across all things within reach, checking for dust after. But Syrus was detail-oriented, as he expected — there was no dust to be found. He'd also remembered that Eion had an unconventional preference for places to sit.
"Anything without a back. Was being honest, though. Twelve hours a day and it does nothing." But maybe that was — "They think it's. Some kind of youma virus."
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Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2023 10:00 am
Oh, wasn't he?
"I'm sure I was being very telling, but I wont tease you. You manage the burden of leadership better than most, you don't hover," the smile he held, like some lofty pinky at a proper party, full of smarm, he heard the warning though. Took it in stride and poured away the idea of pressing that warning for real heat over with red wine; more than would be deemed as 'polite' for merely an acquaintance, but he was home for the night, and Faustite? "and for the record, I appreciate that from you. I swear if I worried I was lacking you'd be the first I'd come find. Luckily for us both Waru's good with pointing me at connections he's deemed helpful."
Faustite sounded like he could've emptied an entire winery, burned it off, and still taken on more. So to the rim with b***h Reds for the both of them, it'd make the bottle go quicker - one less thing to store in his fridge.
"Waru and I work a bit like phases of the moon, the intensity waxes and wanes -- exerts a tidal pull that ebbs -- the interactions can be marked on a calendar," it wasn't always the sex either. For all the ways that'd been an initial draw, it hadn't remained a constant need. Syrus had learned later that it wasn't even a necessity. That their relationship could be more or less than physical and entirely on his terms. "Specifically mine, because I'm sure he doesn't bother to keep dates or times unless someone else has already set it up for him," hummed as he came around, thought of how he wanted Eion comfortable though he couldn't quite place his finger on why, because there was a rumor about that he wasn't feeling well? Because having him in his home admitting as much concerned at least some things about his dear friends distant mood--
Faustite mentioned something backless -- and he could only think of dresses, then thought of an ottoman he could pull out from his room. He was not putting the man on his table like a seasonal centerpiece; like a human vase waiting to be stuffed with flowers, or a turkey motif for thanksgiving.
"Here--come sit," a gesture to the living space, the glasses found glastop of a bland gray, glass-top coffee table; could've been from wayfair for how modern priced and lifeless it seemed to be, "--I'm not putting you atop my stove like a kettle, and there are better places for your a** than my kitchen. More comfortable at least--" mutterances, and he was sighing as he shifted something from down the hall, dragged it out careless of how velveted legs scraped over false wood.
"This virus you've caught...is it zoonotic, do you think? Are you...are you going to be alright?" and Syrus knew he wasn't asking for himself as much as he was for others. For the one person in particular it'd matter most to, because sleeping all day and being none the better for it sounded quite a bit like dying, or at least it would've if Syrus knew a damn thing about Youma.
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Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2023 4:45 pm
Eion disliked feeling like a flounder who wandered its way into a seak of sharks, but that was precisely the feel he got from chatting with Syrus. He did not know the boy half as well as half his team, and half again as well as he knew someone like Bloodstone or Lavendulan or even the Queen. That made for an acquaintance that was fractioned to the point of being a stranger, and it was stranger still to remember that he was the one who had Syrus welcomed into the Negaverse. Even as Syrus told him that he 'managed the burden of leadership', the comment had him feeling like he left something to be desired. Maybe it wasn't the words, but the way that the blonde smiled at him like he was trying to show off bigger fangs, or send a warning embedded in a kindness.
Maybe that was the biggest sign that he needed a drink. That they both needed drinks. He knew that, if he was drunk, he wouldn't care if Syrus talked clever circles around him. He'd likely stop giving a ******** about all this social play, because he was a General, and he was on fire, and if Syrus opened his mouth one too many times, he'd best hope he had renter's insurance that would cover the place exploding from the inside out.
If Sy survivedit. And if Faustite didn't defenestrate him while actively torching all those law books.
As Eion slouched himself onto the ottoman, he considered Sy's earlier comment. "Waru wouldn't know a calendar from a colander, but he doesn't need to when you can do that for him." Mutually beneficial transaction, he supposed. Reaching for the glass, he added, "But you're right about him being tidal."
Much as he teased, Eion knew that Waru had a dozen good points to make up for any single bad point, and all his flaws were what endeared Eion more, for the boy was both good and tragically fallible. Eion wouldn't give him up for anything.
He decided that, to avoid getting himself into further trouble, he wouldn't touch the comment about preferable places for his a**. He was there for a purpose, even if wine threatened to defeat that purpose. Eion knew that he had to let the wine work well enough on Syrus that he might get to that purpose before getting too wasted to think straight. Which might not pan out in his favor, but —
"Don't know," Eion responded helpfully when Sy asked after his health. "Why? Worried or excited?" He sipped the glass, watched the blonde.
"Know there's some people waiting for me to drop dead so they can take my place. Pick up my unfinished projects. Collect accolades from the team." He took another pull. "Just a matter of waiting, isn't it."
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Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 4:10 pm
"A useless life is only an early death, and so I aim to be needed. Even if it's only as a secondary spell checker, and to remind Waru that in America; it is month, day, year, and not the opposite. I'd tell Waru to use his phone, but I've seen what autocorrect does for him..." the words sighed around a familiar tiredness, the sort that showed affection, and also where Sy's future wrinkles would be. The errors Waru's forays into technology led him through were never pretty. They were worse than any stream of consciousness emoji spam the man managed on his own, no matter what time of day or night it occurred.
Then Sy's brows rose to his hairline, a startled little flash of widening ice-blues, and now he had to sit down. Cross his silk-clad legs and balance the base of the thin stem of glass and its circular base atop a knee.
Oh, for the love of--
Thank god for the wine, the alcohol content being high enough that he hoped to get blitzzed on it rather quickly if Faustite's demise was going to become the main topic of the evening. He realized they didn't live in each others back pockets, that he and Faustite were not the most bosom of ********, and really? They weren't even ******** at all really, but to go so far as to be perceived as wanting the other man dead? For what purpose, for why reasons? Jada did not yet sign his non-existent checks and Faustite didn't manage his check-ins. His direct superior was a Himbo of the most hefty proportions. His friend. Even more dear because he could dole out death as readily as herculean hugs without blinking twice. Syrus liked that about Waru specifically, unwavering loyalty even in the face of the worst sorts of betrayal.
"Honestly, Eion -- and do you prefer Eion or Faustite? You must tell me..." a pause long enough to swallow, because a sip would've been *pretty*, save the fact he was in his own home and trying not at all to be pretty for s**t. "Then you must agree with me that if you were capable of giving him any diseases in the slightest? He'd happily catch them all, but if you -- his one and only husband -- up and died? From something curable, even?" His ankle jiggled unattractively, a twitch of stress attached to a shake of a blond head, a slight softening of his usually prim posture so he could lean in to look at Faustite honestly, with focus, because he'd not thought things were that bad off for the man!
"Have you seen Waru's reaction to losing his friends? These are not even the people he is sleeping with, darling. They're not his greatest loves of years on end. These are just people he's known for numbers of days or weeks and has made some greater than normal attachments to...So, I'm explicitly not imaging the acts of violence he'll attempt to commit against whoever it is he think's has wronged you -- even if it was some intangible -- unknowable force. He'd simply tear himself apart instead..." And maybe the entire team with it, unintentionally, blindly, brazenly. It was a little bit frightening to consider. So Syrus thought it better not to consider at all; like a draft horse losing its s**t with the world as its stall. All gentle giant of a beast until it remembered it was a nineteen hands high, two-thousand pound animal. So yes, Faustite dying was a terrible thought. World ending for Syrus, in some very direct ways. As he was more than just a little bit tied up in all of Albites world. There was no untangling it all now, not in any way that didn't lead to dying...
That had never really bothered him though. He was self aware, aware of what was in his periphery, of those he brought into his home even on a regularly scheduled basis. In fact the dying would be the easiest part of it all, if any fallout were ever to occur.
"All of this is a very long winded way to say - No, I do not want you dead," it was thirsty work, speaking, and so he drank a little more.
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Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2023 8:09 am
"So you're the reason that sometimes his texts are comprehensible." Eion had suspected that it had to have been one of the boys on the dossiers, but which one was a toss-up. Law Boy made sense enough for being meticulous and keeping everything as perfect as it needed to be. He'd also found it relieving that Sy thought Waru just as wearisome as Eion did at times. His boy made as much a habit or getting on nerves as Tama made a habit out of getting on Faustite's desk.
He did like Sy, but he didn't know the boy well enough to have tripped over feelings for him, and hoped that perhaps he wouldn't, just to save himself the strife. If Sy proved to be the one who shared their secrets after the wedding, then it wouldn't do for him to have to kill a boy he liked — even if it was an amicable sort of thing.
But a lawyer — even a would-be one — was the hardest catch of all, Eion supposed.
He was silent through much of what Syrus had to say, save for a perfunctorily offered Eion, and otherwise left his wine untouched for the moment. He sipped at it, certainly, if only because he was told many times before that it was polite to eat and drink when offered it, and he did like wine, but didn't want it spoiled over a necessary but difficult conversation.
It wasn't Syrus's words that caught his interest. Certainly they were refined, directed, posed in a particular order to elicit a particular effect. Syrus's domain of interest was law, and what was law but a set of life-or-death situations writ into word? Of course he'd be good at speaking. But the law never relied on gesture or tic — that was the domain of detectives — so Eion's attention was preoccupied with the way Syrus didn't seem quite as put-together as the day he was awakened, nor did he seem quite as comfortable with the topic of conversation.
Eion's attention found Sy's face again, while Sy's face found the wine glass. "Then find the one who's speaking out of turn and I'll consider your loyalty proven," Eion answered simply.
Then he thought the matter discussed well enough. Now it was time for wine. He took a long pull, found the flavor just a hedge terrible, and discovered a particular pain on swallowing it. Must've been coughing too much, but that wouldn't stop him from getting wine-drunk and possibly stupid.
"How did you meet Waru?" The question came with all the gentle transition of a sledgehammer meeting a china bowl. But Eion wasn't much for those soft social things anymore, and youma cared little for such empty turns of phrases.
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Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2023 6:54 pm
Comprehensible? Syrus wanted to argue he was the singular reason Waru' knew words with more than two syllables in them! He'd take the compliment though, let it boost his pride. Smile like the cat who got canary and cream served up on a silver platter all at once; until Faustite hit his cat with a mac truck of speculation labeled 'curiosity'. He nearly choked on the b***h of a wine that passed his lips, hacked softly into a flat palm and swallowed, wide eyed and wondering aobut --
"Wh-Come again?" Then there they were moving on, whiplash quick, Faustite was asking him to prove his loyalty without hedging on the how. Someone was talking s**t -- apparently -- and Syrus would look into it. The order handed out as if it was an already discussed 'given' of a thing that they'd been going over months prior. Though Syrus did wonder, morosely, as he swiped errant red from the corner of his lips with his palm like a heathen -- what in the flaming ******** he had to prove any sort of loyalty for? More importantly to whom!
He let his frown be what it was on his face, smudged some hint of spill off the rim of clear glassware to suck off his thumb, because he wasn't prim enough to waste wine. Whether it cost pennies on the dollar or dollars on the ounce? Wine was wine was wine -- and he was want to waste it for anyone. A snob yes, but a snob with priorities nonetheless.
"No, never mind, we're apparently moving on and I'm honestly surprised he didn't tell you?" Syrus waved and found some balance again, following the zig to Eions Zag in topics; he'd assumed Waru shared all with his beloved ringed love of choice. Knew he should've known better, because what Waru thought was pertinent information, and what was information he only shared when asked? The man was an open books on all topics deemed 'himself', but seemed surprisingly good at keeping the details of his lovers quiet until the lovers in question came up for conversation. "It is...it's a bit embarrassing...for me, of course. I don't think anything truly embarrasses him."
And if Faustite was prepared for a story? All settled into his backless stretchy sprawl and eager for one.
"Lina's bar -- and he must've mentioned Lina by now? His best kept secret that one. I cannot tell if he finds a mother figure in her, or a friend, or a gatekeeper of his worst decisions...reminding him to evade them, always. She's a good influence, in that she's not a good person, and so has exponential experiences to draw that influence from," he suddenly wondered if he should've had a set of sipping straws, glass, to be annoying, but mostly because he found he wanted the wine to be in marginally bigger goblets so he could cup his fingers around them and look like a wine gremlin instead of a sophisticated man. An odd desire that sometimes struck, but nonetheless was a want for this discussion right now.
"But that doesn't matter. Her bar isn't discerning in age, so much as it is maturity, because I know for a fact Waru was 'working there' before anyone like him ever should've been of age to do so. Adulting early, him." Syrus thought Waru was doing far too many things before anyone should've been, who the hell had let the man emancipate himself!? What city in what state, surely not DC -- He supposed, Waru could drive, hold a job, seemed charming enough to appear as if he had 'something' together in the way of proper connections. Fronts, on fronts, on lies that he knew the man believed. While Syrus had no such allusions about his own aloneness; whether it was state imposed or self imposed wasn't important.
"There I was though, feeling some -- oh -- brand of youthfully self destructive? Rebellious with no one to rebel against save me, myself, and irony. I graduated top of my class in high school you know? Graduated early, and whether that did more good or harm I cannot tell--" and while Eions eyes had been striking to meet before, with confused looks, with blues peering into pools so brown that they were likely pitch black in reality. He'd never bothered to ask. Now he looked into the depths of red that met the space between his fingers and chilled glassware; "--the fact that I had no idea of self love, no supports, didn't want any." All that had been true and the way he'd kept it all up to an extent, except for how he'd learned to let people in over time, and leave his castle, and climb down the stairs into the open world without falling absolutely apart about it --
"Waru loves his family with his whole heart and hasn't seen them in years. Save whoever his biological father is -- he hardly mentions him -- I'm of the system, and came into it too late in too many ways. So school was my answer to the utter lack of supportive circles while his was whatever he's been comfortable telling you of. None of that changed the fact I was overwhelmed one night and bad idea of all bad ideas walked into a place I shouldn't have; he was sweet whereas Lina was a velvet wrapped snake, just full of poisonous ideas -- She convinced him to take me home before I got into the kind of trouble I knew nothing about asking for. The kind that might've become an end to schools, my future in lawyering, the way out I'd sacrificed my time and efforts for. I do owe that b***h..." and though it was said meanly, with viciousness, it was also said with love that existed somewhere deep and buried.
"The reason I think our relationship must seem so strangely contractual and strained to others is likely in the foundation of its beginnings -- but I do have no end of things to thank him for. I do -- there are feelings, you know? He tells me he loves me. I simply have to remember to remind him I need to hear the words because I am utterly terrible at asking for something so viscerally intimate from most anyone." Faustite didn't ask him for all of that, not even half of it, but there he was going through his bitter bile of a glass like it had affronted him and needed swallowing os it could be properly killed -- pouring himself another glass to chase that first one, because ******** it all, he was in for the night, so why not?
It had to be said.
It did.
He was saying it to Eion in the manner sewage dumped into the endless sea. He blamed those dark eyes and the reality that the man had some illness and was suddenly at his doorstep about it.
It was important to have it said. (He'd tell himself that tenthousand more times)
Because he did love himself now, even if he hadn't then. He had to, had to learn it the hard way -- the manners of how to accomplish such a monumental feat, but oh he had indeed learned. Waru was a being of words, sounds, noises, if Syrus didn't speak? They'd both suffer for it. Tiny hurts, pilling thin papercuts of things. He'd had to learn how to open his mouth and make demands -- and if not with his voice then with a pen -- and then they'd gotten into reading, writing, him hounding Waru about tiny things and the man accepting that hounding eagerly! And then -- the relationship blooming from closeness even though they differed so vastly on the outsides. There was that kinship within.
"It was not love at first sight, if that's what you're asking? There were not and never will be an exchange of rings for us. I would've set him on fire in my bed if he'd come onto me so strongly and so quickly as that..." the words followed by an odd smile as he considered the fact that Waru might've liked being set on fire, knowing what he knew now. Then the realization that he was happy for Faustite and Waru -- for Eion and Waru -- being happily paired in matrimony. Did he ever congratulate the two of them properly!? Bring a wedding gift?!
"Remind me to buy you something commemorative -- the ceremony was so sudden and unexpected -- I never got to properly express my, lets say, happiness for you two."
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Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2023 3:03 pm
Eion stared at Syrus in silence. He wasn't sure what part of 'find the mole' was so damn confusing, especially for a boy who wanted to be a lawyer. Maybe that was detective work? Whatever. Didn't matter. If he was so terribly confused about it, he could ask Albite for details. Or —
Maybe this was how Schörl felt when she handed down an order to him and he demanded that she tell him how to carry that order to completion. It was a galling feeling, that, but he doubted that he needed to shorten Sy's sleeping hours and take over his life with Negaverse training until Sy learned how to think for himself. It wouldn't do the man much good, nor would Faustite take much pleasure in it. Control was only so desirable.
As Syrus got the hint to keep going with the conversation, Eion leaned back against his braced arm and crossed one leg over another, letting his lifted foot bob aimlessly in the air. As he listened, he swirled the wine in his glass and knocked it back whenever a cough threatened to come up and interrupt the conversation. Most of the time that worked, though there were some instances where he was swallowing against a few hacks and suffering the insolence of alcohol against his young, unburnt throat. But even when that happened, he was back to refilling his glass and getting slowly more shitfaced as Sy delineated his and Waru's story.
He'd heard of Lina, but rarely. "You mean she's a warning. Not an example." Made sense — Waru was always after that kind of sultry draw with all the bad habits attached. He wanted Faustite, after all, though he was none of the sexy and all of the bad decisions.
It did not surprise him at all to hear that Waru had been on his own. He'd explained as much to Eion before, and his home reeked of 'I got this far and no further'. Faustite thought it was a ramshackle shithouse on first visiting, but the boy had been diligent about renovating it into something… Less ramshackle, more mediocre. There were steps in a direction, but if they were the right steps in the right direction? Faustite had precisely no adult experience to have known himself. In that way, and perhaps in that way alone, Waru had been more mature.
But now the story was starting to get good. Little glimpses into how Syrus had been before developing the Ikea front that he maintained today. Rebel without a cause sort of boy, with great grades and nothing to do with them. It was a familiar story, though not his own — he'd never been the self-destructive sort when he was a human boy, not in an intentional manner. He didn't hate himself beyond how he looked, so he ignored mirrors and tried to find the fun and the magic in the world, wherever he could. But Sy? He was much like Aelius after he was placed in the Negaverse, or Murikabushi from what he divulged in the dank, claustrophobic mess that was the Farnsworth's innards. Both were boys he very much liked, which had him sighing at himself in the case of young Sy.
In some ways, though, Eion and Syrus were like two possibilities on the same decision tree. On one hand, Sy walked into bad decision bingo and the game master had him forfeit his card, sent him home and saved him from what might've come of that mixed-up night. Eion, on the other hand, played until he could call out bingo, and realized the grand prize was a hand in his chest and a set of impossible-to-satisfy conditions that ended in death and permanent separation from the succor of a family.
Maybe Elex would have been something like Sy if he'd been spared that kind of bad end. He decided, soon after, that it didn't bear thinking about.
If Sy thought it condemning, thought he could loathe himself over speaking aloud those subtle weaknesses, Eion did not share that conclusion. To acknowledge that he needed to hear those words was itself a strength, for many of the people he'd met refused to see and accept their own weaknesses. Eion knew he had perhaps more than his fair share of personality flaws and petulance, but he doubted that Sy needed to be raked over the coals for this one, admittedly endearing, aspect that he seethed about like it was a flaw.
Eion tried not to smile as he imagined it — Sy and Waru, in bed together, after all the fiasco and tears, and Sy asks in his pleading little way for Waru to just say those words again. Maybe Sy couldn't bring himself to say what, exactly, those words were, but Waru was intuitive enough, and sensitive enough, to spare Sy the insult by asking.
He took another sip of his wine and told himself the warmth was from the alcohol.
"Fire wouldn't stop him," Eion explained as he set his glass down on the ottoman where he sat. "Hasn't yet." If Waru wanted to marry Sy badly enough, if he thought the idea fit, he would find a way to make it a reality. Sweet talk Syrus into it, maybe call it something else, who the ******** knew. Waru's mind worked in mysterious ways.
Eion coughed into the crook of his elbow. "Don't have to buy us anything. Mole's head on a pike is good enough for me," he returned nonchalantly, then reached for the wine glass again.shiningamisgirl 4 million years later, a tag!!
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Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2023 10:56 pm
Lina, as bold a warning as the rattle on the end of a snakes tail. She could’ve been covered in crime-scene tape and radioactive signage—- and Waru wouldn’t’ve been deterred, not even if he could read the letters on them! Because ultimately Faustite was right in ways that had Syrus grinning stupidly for exactly *how* right he was—-
Such a foolish force of nature his friend made, the way he committed so fully to things he’d made his mind up on. The way the only thing on Earth that could ever change Warus mind was Waru myself.
“Honestly, until meeting you? I might’ve thought otherwise, but you’re right. Nothing stops him when he puts his mind to a thing—In fact? I’m rather glad I didn’t ever have cause to set him ablaze in any bed….he might’ve married me first by mistake.” the tease gentler by drunkenness, padded by wine soft quirk of lips that mirrored what could become a genuine smile. He thought he would’ve been a terrible first husband — he still wasn’t sure he’d ever make anyone a good matrimonial match at all — least of all Waru — but he hoped. Hoped one day he could take the actions as clearly as the words he needed to assert a claim on. Could find someone who would entice him enough in all facets of his life to ask for something so legally, spiritually, emotionally binding as what Waru and Eion had…
“A mole?” and finally they’d gotten back around to what Faustite had been alluding to, Syrus linked the threads and tied the knots and made a soft amused ‘Ah’ of sound as everything cinched into understanding in his mind. Faustite was worried — that he was a mole? That their team had a mole? That someone meant to do them irreparable harm and—While Syrus’s inner circle held so few — while he was, at best, a mild participant for the sake of others and far more suited to looking out for himself? That did not mean he wished to see anything terrible befall the rest, he found he quite liked some of them, the other members, their quirks, the way they secured Waru’s happiness and how he could comfortably anchor his own success to theirs.
He didn’t own any pikes, but? He knew enough people who did, that if he simply pointed them at the right head?
It might show up atop the end of one…
“I think I can do that for you, Eion. At least I promise to try, now, tell me more about the ‘wedding night’. The home in the underdark seems to be coming along—the bedroom more than the other areas for sure…I couldn’t tell if Waru was serious about trying to build you a sauna down there?? A steam room of all things!” And now his goal was to share and pry amicably, friendly like, to keep Eions glass full as his own until they were entirely too drunk to think or function anymore for the rest of the night!!
Syrus would go mole hunting in the morning….
Strickenized 3 million years later - a nice wrapped fin!!
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