Equivalent Exchange ( 18 ) - It seems as though this place has been forgotten by the world for a long time, and those laid to rest here were forgotten along with it. Some graves have been given small, strange little gifts, and some have flowers that are old and withered. There are many graves that have nothing. If you bring a gift down to the graves, you will be filled with a soft warmth, and it feels as though your worries are lifted. The sensation follows you home, and when you sleep that night, you have pleasant, safe dreams. When you awaken, you will find some sort of strange gift next to your bed–a dried flower, a string of beads, a small charm–something strange and dated. It is not often something of value, but there is a warmth in the object. It feels like a gift given with love.
‘Sup firebrand!’ - too vague.
‘I love you’ - too obvious.
‘I miss you’ — and it felt asinine to put those words into text when he could’ve said them with his mouth. He erased his every thought several times over, watched the three dots hang and hover and blink endlessly as he tried and failed to be the poet he’d never been. Eventually? Waru gave up entirely on texting his husband anything at all. Instead pulling on his big boy Eternal pants and going *home*.
His true home.
More his than the ramshackle thing he’d prepped topside, where he still went whenever he’d finally pissed someone off enough that he needed to go sleep on the proverbial couch that his old modular had become. That space carved out in the underdark, just south of the citadel, and how it was more his even than the fractal shard of a moon that bore his predecessor's name, because this home wasn’t his and his alone.
*It was theirs.*
The ancient brick and decayed mortar that’d been forced back into function beyond its time. Miraculously solid and imposing amidst the backdrop of the fallen cities shadows and desolate roads. A door mat that needed a good sweep to rid it of the ever present dust it’d accumulated from the feet of human and youma alike.
It was good to be home — to hunt the edges of window ledges with deep auburn eyes, hoping for the flicker of living flame within. To grin for the barest hint of those ambient oranges, that smoky aroma, and the aura that blazed hotter even than his husband's own body.
It was good to be home!
Their home. The least empty place in all of the cosmos, and Albite had subspace gifts, brazen ideas, a mess of eventful plans whirring to life behind his eyelids, buzzing on a rarely held tongue! He aimed to loose them en masse as he crossed the threshold something like quietly; his movements decibels lower than a herd of elephants, but still louder than a mouse. He wasn’t careful with how he wedged the door back into its offset frame, wanted to make sure it stayed closed as he swept his way through the open foyer and into the kitchen — and stilled — there was a pan melted into to the ceiling — a set of cleaning supplies reduced to ash and kindling — the lithe form of his love looking so distant and alone that it felt like his soul would break once he remembered to breathe past every raised hair and red flag flash of warning that existed amidst all the random disarray.
Talk of tea-bricks and questions about whether his boy and Tama ever got to have that clandestine ‘good time’ fled to simmer at the back of his mind. All things secondary to how he paced stoically forwards—- open arms and open mouth and the urge to ask if some hulking youma had gotten in and wrecked the place.
“Ei—-”
Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 3:26 pm
Faustite sat in the aftermath of his own ire, hunched like a bar urchin, head in hands as he tried his damndest to settle himself. Smoke left his nose in slow wafts — less than before, but not quite back to baseline — and too-bright eyes bored a hole in the stone countertop. Just as the flame in his gut, his thoughts were aswirl in his head, never once giving him a moment of peace. They were all the same nagging criticisms that would never leave him be, despite any efforts made to rectify his own shortcomings. They would always return. And in his conduct, there would always be glaring flaws to show him that he fell well short of his much more esteemed colleagues. It galled him, too, that he couldn't see what others saw in him.
Thus did he live with a perpetually explosive temper. This time, it was making lunch that caused it to burst. He knew that, eventually, he'd have to clean it up before the damned maid came in and fixed it all for him like a magic ******** wand that relieved him of the consequences of his actions. How else was he supposed to punish himself?
He'd heard footfalls, heard one of the stone doors move. She was here, then. Already. Already fixing and organizing all the s**t that he'd left decimated in his wake. Next there would be lunch for him, because he couldn't ******** feed himself properly regardless. He was sure that, if he bemoaned the dearth of Albite's cooking and had some recipe on hand, she'd duplicate it nigh perfectly to fill that void, too. But Faustite deserved his voids. He deserved all of those needling, everlasting pains. To fix them was itself a crime, answerable to the business end of a knife.
One stuck up from the countertop, slightly angled, like some sword in a stone. Once he heard footfalls cross the kitchen entrance, he was grabbing the hilt of that knife and whorling around, releasing it to flight just as he heard and saw that it was Albite, but that oh s**t reaction came too late, for the knife had already left his hand.
His face said all the apologies that never reached his tongue.
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Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 4:32 pm
He should've been faster, further away, had his guard the ******** up---- He knew by now his love and being 'snuck up on' were things that paired just about as well as bonfires and kerosene. That they ran together sour as wine and fetid meat did to most senses, but something about his husbands stance conjured up the urge in him to do absolutely none of the above. All the red flags singing warnings in a smoky breeze and he was too worried to actually heed them.
Not with Faustite looking so--soooo---
It was reminiscent of every time he'd caught Faustite hunched hollow-eyed over a map just before a big mission, seized over asphalt while ill, or curled atop his own desk and looking like death and exhaustion had chased him there. Like it wasn't his choice to sleep, he'd been made to do it, and was only keeping on by will power and spite alone---There was no single time it hadn't broken his heart, even if he'd never said as much. Including now. Especially now! When he wanted to apologize in such a way as to match the clear as dawn sorrow-wound-horror that mirrored his own brightly pained and shocked.
The downsides with being a hulking, spongey target were just about the same as the upsides. He'd never found himself regretting it, not then, not now; while his body curled with the impact of a blade just dull enough to feel the grit in it's edge as it slid cleanly across his left side, just beneath his worst rib, and embedded in the wall behind him. It all happened so fast it left his mind to belatedly wonder if he needed to pass all their household sharps over a whetstone or two or three or four times more to get them to have just the right sort of slice and make up for all the ways they'd been dulled by stabbing stone and youma alike. It'd been a wedding gift after all, that set. Jet's set, because of course the man would gift them weaponry meant for meat and of course it'd be quality! Waru' insisted he couldn't cook properly for his endless void of a husband and his whole entire team and his own damn self with anything less than what could cleave cartilage n bone and then double in the aftermath as a defense against greedy little ceiling spiders with more eyes than mouths and porcupines with teeth for spines, simping for starseeds...
"G'd ********>..." small thoughts and even smaller words grit between clenched teeth, his eyes locked onto his boy even as his hands got busy. Pressure was good -- everything was fine! He'd be fine! Besides, he'd always thought their floors could use some color, not that it'd stay. The stone was porous enough to absorb all their mistakes, no matter how dark red, or wine white, or ash black and oiled.
Even this one.
This too it'd absorb, absolving them of the problem with barely a scrubbing and the passing of time. Albite was sure of that as he was the color of Faustite's blazing amidst black eyes. So cutely volcanic today, prettier n lava pools.....
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Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2023 2:34 pm
"Damn you, Waru." The words a breath as he was already up, already making for the boy and his covered wound. "Take that gorget off a minute."
He froze scant feet away, already harried over his own ********. Why was it always like this? How he ******** was he supposed to change? Could he change? As he grimaced at the growing rivulet of red, he wondered if anything could possibly fix him, or if Faustite needed to live the ascetic life and only go out to murder the White Moon. It would keep Albite safe from him, but — that hardly seemed a good trade. And his absence seldom made up for all these little slights. These slips of hand, these instances where the shadows cut a little too close. Where he had to be on edge, unyielding.
It was all the time now. Something had to give.
"I'm a ******** b*****d," he breathed. "Let me cauterize that."
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Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2023 5:27 pm
"You're 'my' ******** b*****d, okay? And--I learned this recently! But---I think your parents were married when they had you, right? So technically I'm the b*****d here--" and there the words were, as his tongue unlatched from where it'd been bolted behind his teeth while he spewed some sound other than 'oh thank god' and 'yes, please!' The debate he had with himself about powering down entirely got shunted aside in favor of the clear as day direction---direly needed, quickly heeded, direction!
It was far easier to get the gorget off than it was to flash through Henshins, he wasn't any less vulnerable, but he was probably less likely to catch fire as an Eternal than he was as a man!! Which left him wondering how *hot* Faustite was for humans now -- when was the last time he'd tested that one out? Would clothes catch in a certain vicinity -- would hair -- would -- any other number of morbid curiosities that he didn't quite have the ability to tack on as extra questions just yet! Things he would file away for later mid 'good drunken time', during another bout of 'twenty one questions' where half went unanswered, but he was no less happy for it!
"Yanno---the upside to an injury is the amount of ******** clarity it brings! Ahmn, mentally, for thinking, ahnd--ahm--" as soon as he moved his hand that clarity was gone. He could not talk and chew gum at the same time. The act of talking and removing clothing in a way that had nothing to do with innuendo or the chance at making said innuendo sound like suggestive advances left to him being short of words and short circuited in general; his fingers only slipped the once, blessedly. He blamed his own clumsiness rather than the slickness of the blood across his palm.
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Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2023 12:10 pm
"Shut up, stop making excuses for me." Patience was already short for the urgency of their little mishap, and Albite running his mouth meant he wasn't doing what he was already instructed to do. Faustite only had so long that he was willing to wait while his oafish husband got his s**t together.
Finally, the damned corset was gone. Finally, he could see the wound. Shallow enough, but still more severe than he would have liked. With a frustrated sigh, Faustite flattened the side of his hand against the wound. Undoubtedly it would hurt, and Faustite didn't know how long to apply pressure before the bleed was cauterized. Whenever he grabbed someone in a fight, he hardly held onto them for more than a few moments, and that amounted to little more than a sunburn. He'd have to keep checking as the seconds passed.
"What the ******** are you doing here, anyway? Thought you were at Aelius's." Not that he minded — normally — but lately? It was easier with the house empty, with no one around to witness everything that was wrong with him.
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Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2023 1:58 pm
"You first---" the words shortly huffed and held for that first heated touch. He'd been wearing the damn gorget just long enough to forget -- to resent his own forgetfulness while he tried not to flinch from the steadily growing warmth -- so different on his bare flank than when muted at his fingertips, or by magic, or through cloth, or....
It took him a moment to settle for it, to unscrunch his features and marvel at how Faustite was so cruel with his own center while being so gentle with others. Stop making excuses--- Albite could've laughed, it wasn't as if no one had ever made an excuse for him in all his life, out of kindness, or love, or because they felt sorry for him. If he tried hard enough, did that make him pitiable? If he didn't know better, that mean he lived forever without blame? And he knew the two things were different and incomparable -- fresh apples and steak stew levels of unsame in all ways.
Maybe it was that he didn't consider what he was doing as making an excuse for his husband, no more than he considered any of the others were really making excuses for him when, inevitably, he ******** up in some bright new way. It felt a lot more like offering forgiveness, and Waru knew he would never stop forgiving Eion. His boy hadn't crossed some threshold of unforgiveable just yet---
The next question stung in a way the knife never could have, it was worse, somehow. There was the way the wound itself sat on comfort level somewhere between Jada's glare <---------> Schorls smile, how it'd hovered right around Borax levels of *ouch* that ******** smarts and I'm paying attention!
Up until now.
The words burned more than the creeping sear of heat at his side, flared hotter and faster by far. Distracted him, if nothing else, from clenched stillness and grit teeth into open, blinking awe. Was Faustite really asking him why he was here? Was it a 'why right now' question, or a 'why at all' or a 'why the ********> kinda ask!? The color wheel of feelings spun - landed on sullen - shifted into some multi-mix, all encompassing blend of sad and angry. His initial desire to forgive the 'clearly an accident' falling like stone.
Why was he here?!
"Guess---you absolute a**."
'I live here. It's my home too! I bought the mat and the frying pan and the little cooler!' the thought dragged on like a barbed thing, raked up all the good will in his mind. Even as he hissed for the curling heat and reached for Faustites arm--careful enough to drag his too blunt nails over that brocaded cloth, down to where it met all that pitch black skin. Until he could wrap his large fist around that slender arm and let his own nails dig.
He didn't intend on letting go. He didn't intend on being let go *of*. Encouraged the press of his loves palm as if it'd chase every fresh, mean thought out his head.
Why was he there----
"And if you guess anything other than 'I am your husband who ******** loves you?' I will beat into this floor with a tea-brick, I ******** swear."
He'd named so many of the youma that came and went, even the ones with faces that were new and everchanging! They had a ramshackle sauna out back, they picked the black silk sheets and who cared how many times they ended up shredded nesting materials for Cerbs' tree tower in his office, or as toys for the Maus, Albite would happily steal more!
Anything for his husband, anything for their home.
"Though I'll also take 'because we're married and he missed seeing me', or even 'My fingerprints are seared into his a**, and if that didn't turn him off of me nothing will!' Permanent as the ******** clawmarks alongside'em, Firerbrand! M'pretty sure that means m'contractually allowed to come into our home, whenever I please, and worry about you to your face! I don't need anyone's permission, or leave, or ******** forgot how much this could ******** ********>" all the words that spilled off and sounded like a mangled litany of 'leave it's!' because if his boy pulled off before the work was actually done and then had to be done more?! He'd scream. Not even in a badass way, and he didn't quite have the urge to look undignified in front of his boy just yet!
No more than was his norm at least---
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Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2023 3:50 pm
For a moment, Faustite just stared at him. The outburst seemed to have come out of nowhere, unbidden, as far as he could grasp. Normally Albite wasn't explosive at all — that was more Faustite's personality flaw — but something about the question must have struck a raw nerve. Maybe all of his nerves were raw since he had been living on Aelius's couch.
Faustite immediately directed his attention to the wound. "Thought you needed something — left something behind." he mumbled, immediately feeling uncertain. And he was uncertain of what he was feeling, too, something like a cold emptiness? Like a chill that stifled all that fire, however momentarily. The answer to it all, the only answer that seemed reliable and reasonable in all the time he spent in the Negaverse, was to leave, right? Quietly excuse himself so Albite could go about his business in a house that was just as much his.
But forgetting things — coming back for things — those were altogether different than what Albite was saying. Going on about how he'd missed Faustite, leaving would do no good. But he ******** up, so what was the answer?
He concentrated on the wound. Already the boy was squirming. Already the room smelled of bad pork. Reticent to accidentally do more damage, Faustite removed his hand, though part of the wound wanted to come away with his fingers. When he looked at it, he found it frankly repulsive, but that was just as much a reminder of his own ugliness. He caused the wound. The worst of that punishment was that his husband had to bear the mark.
What the ******** was wrong with him? The question had eluded him for months now.
"Should cover that," he advised halfheartedly. Pacing over to the sink, he started to wash the excess debris from his hand.
As he scrubbed, he spoke over his shoulder. "Know I've been a pain in the a** since the promotion. Can't ******** figure it out. Thought you'd rather stay with Aelius, or Ren, or anyone else. Even at your own place." He shook his hands out, though the heat would dry them quickly enough.
"Glad to see you, though." He wasn't able to shake the dolor from his voice. "Sorry about the knife."
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Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2023 5:18 pm
Faustite wasn't a bit wrong, but the thing he needed, the something he'd left behind? He wondered if Faustite knew that it wasn't a thing at all-- if he realized the only thing Waru would ever come back for was him; most cherished, blazing low, looking to Waru more dog kicked down than he felt on his own worst days.
Wasn't this how it always went though? Nice and smooth sailing and clear skies! Then he opened his mouth and rained down ruin. Even now, though they were sharing the space of the kitchen the way he'd been itching to do for weeks! He still felt just as far away as he had on the threadbare, no personality to show, couch in Aelius apartment. He hated it --- the way it felt like every day of every week he'd spent sharing a place with someone else who didn't want him there, and with Aelius it'd been fine! Hurting people hurting people was water off a duck for him, but if it was Faustite too? If he only ever got to see the mans face in sorrowful glimpses and angry frowns---If he only ever got his back like they couldn't face each other at all? The very idea left him shaken, twisting to stare at the fine line of man hunched over the sink now instead of over a countertop.
"Why in the name of Metallia would I ever wanna be anywhere you aren't, Ei? That's not to say I don't go places n do things without you---we're not hip-tied quite like that, because I'd drive you out a ********' window if we were....but?" grasping at straws, and ******** the bodice, it could stay where it'd slipped to the floor in all its blacks n greens n corseted ties. The gorget he needed though, that fireproofing that did nothing to take the edge off of gored and scaring skin. He'd get to putting something on it later, it wouldn't sting any less under wrap than it did in the open air, would heal no more quickly, and right now?
Right now he had a husband to pace after, with ginger hiss, bemoaning only that his hair seemed to get most in the way when he was trying to get something important back on. Like the thing that'd keep him from catching ablaze!
"You know you're my home, right? That the thing I keep need'n n ******** leaving behind --is you." and he was more careful this time in his approach, careful with his words as he hadn't been before. To search for his own damn leash and reign his worst whiplash impulses back in, the ones that drove him to come n lay claim to Faustites time as harshly as they'd caused him to lash out. "Which technically makes me the a** for basically abandoning you with half a word here n there, and no updates at all!" he let all the ways he felt remise seep through, winced for his own sorrow in being the primary cause of that. He'd known he'd needed to do something about the lack of communication between them--not an email, or a text, but something where he'd actually see Faustite in person!
Coming home had made the most sense in the moment, he just hadn't expected to see Faustite soooo----And the house sooooooo!! There were words and there weren't at the same time, he floundered in spearing them down and pinning them into his mouth as he loomed in Faustite's periphery.
"It's--its actually kind of stupid, really? I fell into this tea ceremony rabbit hole--all these little vids; there's bricks, n pets, and so I got some. Cause at first I was thinking of your family, how their gone--and you--how you're alive, n right here, n mine, hearth-fire n charred roofs n all! Literally---" and he couldn't help the little chuckle that seized him whenever he looked back to the roof, to the wall, to every fresh bit of destruction that had been razed back over the sturdiest stone in all the Negaverse.
"Thanks, by the way....for the apology...but I think I owe you one more." because he didn't give two flying ******** about the thrown knife, preferred Faustite be a pain in his a**. He had a type, a hot under the collar and deeply caring type! He meant it when he said he was into that kinda pain -- to Ren -- to Eion too --- now if he could just make either of them believe him. That was the trick.
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Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2023 4:33 pm
"Not what I meant," Faustite replied with a shake of his head. "Don't expect you to want to be somewhere else. If you did, you'd have moved your s**t out. But you're on a mission, that mission has you at Aelius's. Wasn't expecting you back 'til that was over."
Maybe that was enough to placate Albite? He seemed like he was almost apologizing. Dancing around antsy with the words stuck in his mouth, like 'sorry' got pushed around and shoved down with his torrential levels of verbal diarrhea, but the sentiment was still left in his tone. Faustite didn't need an apology, though, nor a reaffirmation of love. But if it pleased Albite to be able to say it, to fill with words what actions had lacked in the past several weeks, Faustite wasn't going to discourage it.
Turning, Faustite locked his elbows and braced his hands against the rim of the kitchen sink until he found out that was a terrible idea for his wrists. Wincing, he drew them both away and let his elbows prop against the edge as he slouched instead.
"You can't take me with you to Aelius's," he stated matter-of-factly. He tried to trace the words with gesture, but soon found that to be too painful. "So it's not neglect. Could text me on the tablet, but beyond that? There's aught else you could do." And they'd been decisive about minimal to no updates, hadn't they? That it might have been better to protect Aelius's privacy as a means of earning his trust. That it would be easier to help Aelius if Albite wasn't simply 'Faustite's other husband' to him, and one of the ways of reaching that point was removing Faustite from the equation entirely.
But, he supposed, Albite was allowed to miss him. Even if Faustite couldn't imagine why someone would.
"You bought more tea s**t?" He almost smiled, but the energy required to do so felt astronomical in the moment. "Look at you. Like you're begging your way back into hearth and home." It was as much of a tease as he could manage.
"Been a while since I visited," he mumbled offhandedly. Rubbing one of his wrists, he tried to recall the last time he saw to the graves. Must've been February. They must be covered in leaves, dirt, and overgrowth by now.
Couldn't even keep up with that. What a fine ******** officer he made.
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Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2023 6:11 am
“I know—I know—but I wanted to do more,” bitter frustration wrung out like the final drops of water from a rag. There was the bare minimum, the mission parameters, reaching out in ways that didn’t let him touch his concerns physically. The way some absences weighed heavy enough on his soul that he wondered if the cracks would show through to where Aelius n the others could see. Hadn’t it been Aelius who’d asked him if he had anything the ******** else to do? Hobbies, friends, a high cliff to walk off of!! Not in so many words — not those words exactly, but?
Time had passed — some small hurts had been assuaged — talked over and through until an understanding was reached —- b u t . . .
Waru figured the other man could have his dance class without harassment for once, could get himself there and home and have some kind of air clear out between them for the day. Could maybe turn it into a night — a tomorrow — if he played his cards right. He could recognize now when they needed a break from each other, and how it wouldn’t bring the whole house into ruin.
Could see in himself too, when he needed to check his own s**t before he wrecked it. He just hadn’t expected to see Faustite looking so…
Vulnerable.
Didn’t think he’d seen it since their last little check in, not in this way.
“I needed to do more, didn’t mean to snap on you like that. ******** funny you brought that up though! Since I can’t take ‘myself’ with ‘me’ to Aelius’s either. Sometimes? I think there are roaches that’d be more welcome in his home than I am. Really big ones, with wings and ******** little antenna…” he could laugh at himself as he said the words, pull on a tight little half thing of a smile, grateful beyond words to have Faustite facing him again. To catch those familiar winces on that ever expressive face of his love, and frown for them utterly anew.
The tea could wait and the tease could wait and they would visit those graves later! He’d show him the cute ceramic tea pets picked out to represent each of them, show him the little tricks he’d learned and botch them entirely in his own impatience. Later, later, later his heart thrummed hastily, his feet finding new momentum that left him framing Faustite, careful with with his words this time as he plucked them up like they might get lost in his minds own tumultuous breeze. <********, are you okay? Are we? I walked in and saw you standing there and I swear to ******** you scared me…..it’s been…it’s been a long minute since I was scared like that…*for you*….”.
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Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2023 7:35 am
He wanted to do more, whether that meant checking in more, or spending more time with Faustite, or writing more ridiculous little notes that Faustite would wake up to on his tablet. The thought was sweet, it ever was. While intention wasn't enough in the eyes of the Negaverse, nor could he abide intention alone as a General, it was enough for himself. To hear that Albite wanted to do more was tantamount to doing more.
"Probably right," he conceded with a sigh. "Don't know anyone better than you at people, though. If you can't get through to him, I don't know what else to do. Shove a youma bug in his brain? Put him down?" He just knew he couldn't let Aelius go on like that — not for anyone, including Aelius. And while Faustite couldn't relate to such concentrated misery, he understood that there a came a point when it might be better to excise all that misery from their own lives. Maybe that's what Aelius needed? Either to leave them all behind and start completely fresh, or maybe take it further and be reborn? There was no way to know. The boy wasn't coughing up any answers, nor did he seem keen on working with Albite. No, he just wanted to be a misery zombie, sucking the life out of the rest of them and verbally abusing them to unknown ends.
But Albite was already moving off of that thought and onto Faustite. Not that he could blame the boy, for his entire life had been about Aelius for weeks now. Aelius was likely the last person he wanted to discuss now that he gleaned a little freedom.
But Faustite wasn't sure he wanted to be the topic of discussion either. The question alone was exhausting, particularly with Albite caging him in like this was an interrogation. "Think so." He wasn't dying. "Just bruises. ******** up my wrists again.
"I don't know." As he pinched the bridge of his nose, he vanished to the other side of Albite, where he could pace by his back. "Can't explain it. You don't look too good yourself."
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Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2023 3:08 pm
Yeah, no.
Waru could feel himself shaking his head, knew his answer reflexively. Here he was venting, making Aelius look bad when they weren't even done yet, and why? They hadn't exhausted every avenue yet, the process hadn't run its full course or headlong into a brick wall! Hell, not enough had gone *wrong* even by his own ******** metric for him to be talking like this right now!! Tongue pressed the back of his teeth till he could feel the indents of their sharpness there --- his own selfish little desires rearing up ugly -- as if he wasn't attended to -- as if Faustite wouldn't still love him as much four weeks from now as he did yesterday. As if everything they were working on was so unimportant to have been risked by him coming here now; ruffled, n ragged, and impulsively raw---
There was shame, so distracting that Faustite slipped by. Got free.
"Hey--" twisting to follow and cursing for the way that quick jolt pulled at his side. It was easier to steal Faustites place instead, let their positions reverse as he put his a** to the lip of the sink and gingerly thumbed the edges of <********> flesh. The very picture of wounded consternation, the ******** everyone was running from him lately!?
"How--exactly, did you ******** your wrists up this time?" as he watched Faustite move, giving the firm stone behind him his full weight and listening to his boy like Faustites voice was the only sound in the world. He wondered why the scene felt oh so suddenly familiar. Was overcome by a terrifying sort of deja vu, like he'd done this exact same dance before: once, a hundred times, in his own home, in Aelius's apartment, in Haru's---mid snow-storm and post-hovel-haunting.
As ******** Praxidike -- in whatever those people would've considered a kitchen in their time....
It was too eerie to shake, to be shifted off the topic of 'Eion', those brushed off bruises, a nothing at all comment about his wrists. The way it suddenly drove him to wonder who or what sort of activities could possibly be roughing up *his General King*! He wasn't here to talk about himself, his aching spine, his spiraling friendships, the deep gaping wound that he desired to fill by throwing himself at working with the team as a whole, as bunches, as individuals if they so desired it! He still had a recruitment or two he was working on -- some knights -- some civilians -- a ghostly problem to consider and decidedly NOT vomit-cry-laugh over at length! That took some real internalizing and he wasn't doing it here n now!!
He knew he looked like hell had run him over n spat him out to save money on the burial proceedings. But what he cared about most just then?
"I mean, I know I look like s**t, I even know why I look like s**t. What I don't know, firebrand. Is what's been going on with you? M'not real 'chalant' about most things -- yanno? M'pretty damn 'non' -- most of the time. What m'feeling right now is the furthest damn thing from 'non'---n I haven't felt this way since, ********, idunno? Picking you outta my drain pipes, orrr--when Aelius tried his magic on you outta desperation?" determination that sprouted outta his own curiosity, that wove itself up and into roving stares. Like he was looking for the answer in Faustites body now instead of in his words. For newer marks, older ones, shinier blacks and the way it was so hard to find them on his boys skin if you didn't know what bruises there could look like---
He figured, if something was wrong? They'd right it. if they weren't good? They'd get good. And if they needed a map to find that place again? He knew they'd draw one out, in crayon, with silky metal nibbed pens and delicate scrawls. Waru would ********' divine an explanation outta the damned stars sooner than he would stand for living in dangerous sorts of uknowns!
Strickenized
Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2023 4:12 pm
Faustite hummed as he tried to recall exact details. "Target ducked and I punched brick with this one," he said, holding up his right hand. "******** up everything above the elbow. Other one got twisted. Didn't break; got a headbutt off before that happened." They were small points of pride for the fact that his combatants hadn't survived the altercation. Others had escaped, of course — he couldn't claim a perfect track record, even with the power granted to him — but some hadn't, and he had a starseed to show for it this time.
But those were themselves dangerous for their temptation, for even now, he couldn't help but feel his mouth run dry by looking at them. His hunger ravenous, it seemed so terribly easy to pop one in his mouth to sate what gnawed him. Jet's bracelet proved a boon there, for there were a handful of times when the trinket stopped him from crossing a dangerous threshold.
Faustite kept up his pacing, though it was slower than usual. He was tired; it showed in the darkness moored under his eyes and the manner in which his shoulders sagged. Pain was draining, but so, too, was dwelling on his own ineptitudes. Watching his failures mount and mount until he was buried in them.
But how did he express that to Albite? How did he connect his struggle to learn his new duties to the constant altercations to his abysmal moods of late? He couldn't even explain why he was so bothered that each waking day was met with violent tantrums and inexplicable moroseness. He couldn't say why he was struck with so many of the same paralyzing losses of time that he suffered as a Captain when he could not rouse himself out of bed or move, so trapped in his own mind was he. Nor could he say why he was glad for the solitude he had of late, save that it spared the others knowledge of what was going on with him, and therefore spared him from their worries.
So he reached the end of his pace, turned, and started back down the path. "Don't know that there's much to mention. More training, Been hunting down the White Moon in my spare time. Avoiding the office when I can. Just ******** moody and I don't know why."
He tried to manage an expression for that, but didn't have the energy to emote. So he kept pacing, and kept his attention level with his path. "Why are you worried?"
shiningamisgirl
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Shiningamisgirl
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Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2023 4:10 pm
Because you're hurt, because I love you, because I can! All flitty little answers that sounded far too accusatory even to his own mind. He reeled it all back in, breathed it down and sighed it out as he tried and failed to hold his position. He was terrible at being still, worse? He was terrible at being still while Faustite was in motion. It took effort -- work -- mental, phsycial, to watch with some growing level of trepidation while Faustite laid out his every fresh hurt and the newest harm he'd come to.
"It’s a new hobby I’m taking on, worrying about all the badass people who show up in my life with shiny new injuries,” he reached for levity, finally, found it a small and dim bit of thing buried deep enough that he had to dig for it now, how it was further away every time. He knew he was tired, burning out in small degrees, that he had no one to blame for himself over those key facts right now. “The people I think are invincible---because I keep making that same a**-I-am mistake of assuming everything's fine, and that people've got other people, ******** hell, Eion, the amount of times it's blown up in my face now, to keep doing that same exact thing...."
He needed Eion to understand, didn't he? Pulled himself with a wince to sit atop the sink properly and reached out to the boy before him, curl of fingers and arms and *options* --
The choice was always his boys to refuse, he'd realized recently it had to be that way, when one had the power to draw others in and hold them against their will? To take the chance at choice and mold it selfishly into something only his own. It felt better to ask like this, from the sinktop, with wide pleading eyes and a smile that could've been a million miles brighter.
"But maybe a hug would fix it? The worrying I've got going on. Or we could just hold hands—I miss that too---all the little things," it sounded silly enough to his own ears that he laughed at himself while he traced Faustite's every step monotonously, found the tone of those heels back and forth and back again to be somewhat soothing for how familiar it was to all their talks before.
"M'not all sex, talk, and violence. Not all the time. It's not so bad, right? If I just wanna touch you, and then take you out---and have tea---Heh, and not look at you hunched over like you might be dying again even if it's only on the *inside*. How the ******** it is I didn't notice...how you forgive me every time I *miss* things it's my job *not to miss*. Not with you, not with the team---so I'm worried--and maybe I don't really know why either, but ******** -- who said we had to come up with those answers right now, yeah?"
