|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 5:54 pm
Faustite's life had gotten quiet since the incident. The urge to speak was fading more quickly than he expected. There was a part of him that wanted to be irate about it, to tell the doctors to do more, to try more, and damn the consequences because he was a half-youma General-King with physiology that stumped most of the people who ever worked with him.
There was a happy ending for it in his head, one that he built up over the long days where he laid in bed like an abandoned pillow, good for nothing more than taking up space. In it, the surgeon tried a third time to restore his voice. Perhaps the surgeon could do nothing about opening up his esophagus more — Faustite wasn't terribly married to the idea of chewing and swallowing his food anymore — but he could speak again. He might sound different, but he could sound. He could scream over someone. He could whisper sweet words to the boys he loved. He could carry a conversation.
But it was just a fantasy. His psych eval made that clear. Before he was discharged, they tried to empathize with him. Tried to apologize that there was little else they could do with modern methods, but they wouldn't just brush his case aside. Faustite was already exhausted, however. He had already given up.
They said he needed physical therapy. He was going to decline them, for if they couldn't save his voice, and he could still breathe, then physical therapy wouldn't matter for his throat. But they came prepared with a rebuttal: the therapy wasn't for his throat at all. His legs took enough damage, between transient arrows and teeth, that he could not walk as he was. He thought it preposterous, so they let him try to stand. But they were right — his legs folded under him immediately, unable to support his own weight.
So there he was, being wheeled down the long, barren road to his house in the sunken city. Listening to a nurse frantically fill the silence with what she guessed he needed as he stared at the horizon line between two hulking, derelict disasters. He wondered how long he would be trapped in his own body like this. More than that, he wondered how long he could tolerate it. What good was a body when it became a prison? Was there some way they could rectify this? they had so much ******** magic at their disposal —
Then they were in the foyer, and the nurse had just finished droning the myriad responsibilities of caring for the now-crippled General-King to his first husband. Already he felt like a wretched drain on resources that he couldn't justify wasting on himself. Worse yet, Waru looked as lost as Faustite felt.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 6:05 pm
There were a thousand yards spanning out endlessly between where the fantasy he wanted to exist in, and the overwhelming, all consuming, nightmarish reality of the facts being laid bare at his feet by a woman who looked for all the world like she was trying her hardest not to teleport to safety as quickly as was possible. Like she was speeding through boring yet necessary facts at a militant pace because she could see where she was losing him entirely—
Oh, how ******** badly he wanted to be lost. To be elsewhere for even a single moment. He yearned for it with glassy-eyed brevity. More than that? He wanted for Faustite to be there with him. There and *whole*. Felt like he’d skipped a stone and scratched a record and missed every single ******** beat and now he and his love would suffer for the most slight of follies–
In silence.
And when her noise stopped he finally focused on doing more than just holding in a white knuckled grip the material that made up the handlebars of the chair the’d managed to seat Faustite in; feat of engineering the thing must’ve been, to survive his boys heat, and if the engineering seemed magical enough to reek of being ‘mau made’ then there must’ve been magic in it! Or a really good mix of steel and whatever other metals could survive his beloved General-King.
He could feel her staring – the silence open for questions – Faustites barest crackle that should’ve contained a derisive sigh or a half scalded retort because ‘medical s**t’ and ‘been there done that before!’
Just not like this, never before like this–
He blinked through the moment, trying to find some rare bit of his own spark to pull on. Failed. He didn’t have anything for this. No well moored riggings, no plethora of knowledge to pull on from incidents past. Faustite *exploding* hadn’t been this jarring, his little meltdown in the Rift? His every major and minor meltdown in the Rift. Waru’d had his belief to shore himself up on, his lackadaisical optimism that demanded he love whatever piece of his husband the world let him clutch at desperately, even if it was just a single nut or bolt.
He had the whole man for this, the half youma, and yet?
There was all that ******** silence like dark matter filling the void—
Albite took a breath, strangled on the inhale, found the air he lacked and exhaled a polite yet trite “Thank you–” he nearly followed on the heels of it with a curt ‘get the ******** out’, but that would’ve been unkind, or rude, or— “but we’ve got this. Swear. F’there’s any questions? S’not like we don’t have y’all on speed-dial at this point.” The smile he wore on his face came nowhere near his eyes. He felt momentarily possessive, straightened up to loom over Faustite – over the woman – easing his grip off the wheelchair and let his hands frame Faustites shoulders covetously.
He figured they had s**t to figure out together. s**t to figure out alone as much as together. Without extra eyes and extra ears and extra input—He was tired enough of the cloy of hospital stink that followed all its occupants – that clung to every piece of thing that entered and exited the place. The chair, the woman, himself—The sooner she was gone the sooner he would stop hearing the sounds those scents conjured unbidden.
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 6:14 pm
Faustite heard words, but they were a distant backdrop to his thoughts. Waru's voice had a greater tendency to pull on his attention, but even that did not reach him. His mind was spinning with unsolved possibilities — how could he give commands on the battlefield now? If he couldn't speak, then how would he be able to relay information? Headache only typed out what he wanted sent if he said it out loud, and now that wasn't an option anymore. His job was difficult and exasperating enough when he had a voice, so being compelled to silence was punishment layered atop failure.
Just like he told Ren moments before it happened, he didn't know what to do. He didn't know anything. There he was left, sitting in a chair, like an overpriced doll waiting to be a burden on someone. His burden was passed from the nurse to Waru, along with the endless list of instructions for care.
They told him he'd be able to walk again eventually. That it would take a few weeks, but it was possible. Not guaranteed, but possible. Faustite would sooner swallow half the world's starseeds to be able to walk again, and if it turned him into a youma? Then perhaps he'd be more useful that way. More useful than an invalid dependent on other people performing acts of service just to keep him alive and where he was supposed to be.
It occurred to him, during her long-winded explanation, that he'd have to ask Waru to carry him to the bathroom. That he'd have to ask for help bathing, or getting from place to place where it might be inappropriate to just teleport. His mobility wasn't entirely gone, but it was heavily compromised, and continuing to fight was out of the question. Perhaps for the rest of his career. What a ******** scandal when he had spoken with Axinite about his dislike for being trapped behind a desk. His own impotent city patrols had condemned him to one regardless!
Faustite laid his face in his hands, even as those hands ached to move. He tried to scream, but heard nothing but a rush of air pass his lips. Then his shoulders began to shake.
He felt imprisoned. Doomed. With all their might and magic, the Negaverse could do nothing but leave him a crippled shell of a boy. The White Moon impelled him to suffer fading away in silence, a fate worse than that of a starseeded senshi. For as much as they loathed it, becoming youma would have been kinder.
Jerking when he felt hands on his shoulders, Faustite spared a glance to confirm they were Waru's. The nurse was gone, though he didn't recall hearing her leave.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 6:16 pm
“Hey–” the sound full of soft relief for catching Faustites gaze, finally. The moments had ebbed too long and as he’d brushed his thumbs over his husbands thin, shaking shoulders he’d begun to feel the deep seated worry that always lived in his core begin to churn and gnaw its way loose. It was better once the nurse was gone, once he had Faustites eyes on him again; he could sigh away the tension that had built, maintaining contact in the lightest brush of touches as he moved to crouch in front of his husband, rather than strain them both by trying to have an impossible conversation upside down and backwards all at once.
It was all hard enough as it was, and he would’ve rather been knelt. Before his husband. Before his General-King. To give Eion a smile that didn’t feel reassuring in the slightest—He wouldn’t lie and tell his love that everything would be alright, this time, that things would be fine as they ever were and return to normal faster than it took to blink!
Not this time.
Not when he couldn’t tell himself that same wholesome lie, that nothing would change, that everything would come easily, that they’d figure it out like some blessed storybook; where there were only happy endings and the grim reality had cut down and bleached out for babies in particular. He couldn’t look at Faustite as he was, and tell him any of those sweet nothings. Hardly needed to when there were other, far closer truths he could clasp between his teeth and shake the life from far more easily.
“First things first—” he could tear apart his own thoughts the way he wanted to Cybele, the failed medical staff, Faustite’s forever marred and soundless throat. They’d left his love crippled and silenced, left him bones of steel with too thin skin and sallow, haunted eyes stretched across them. ******** hadn’t the decency to finish things properly, not kindly or otherwise—
But that was fine. They could all live to regret their mistake of not having been strong enough or smart enough or fast enough to crush his loves starseed between their soft, weak little teeth. It was easier to live in the red hot coil of imagined revenge, the looks on their faces when Faustite came back, rather than drown under the dauntingly icy task of rehab that lay spanning weeks, months, years.
If recovery was possible at all. Youma were special though, right? *Faustite* was special. If anyone could—
“We’re gonna need *some* way to communicate. You n me firebrand. M’talking barest of basics….” he knew of the pen, knew of earrings, knew of—things overwhelming, even for him at times. “M’thinking–yes or no s**t for awhile, yeah? M’thinking – blink once for ‘Yes’ n twice for ‘No’....” and if Faustite wanted to nod or shake his head? Workable. If everything was broken and he broke it down to the barest basics—
If he could get through a night with Faustite home. Without making things worse. Without his voice breaking for how he wanted to gnash and wail and howl about how ******** fair all of it was -– all the power, all the trauma, all the near misses and close calls and dodged deaths. How none of it felt ******** worth it if *this* was what lay at the finish line – how it hardly seemed worth it at all. He wanted to loose a tirade of sounds till their too quite home echoed endlessly. To do so on Faustites behalf, and a little bit selfishly? For his own.
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 6:18 pm
Faustite stared at Waru. He didn't want to keep moving forward. He didn't want to deal with his own silence by trying to dredge up some other way to answer simple questions. It didn't matter how straightforward the ask or the method of answering — he wanted to crawl back into the cold, dreamless blanket of anesthesia and quit the night.
It occurred to him, distantly, that his mom might have felt that way, too. She might have seen the future as unacceptably bleak, each potential fix only ending in failure, and the slow decline of her family an indelible scar on her reputation. Maybe she thought she couldn't talk to anyone. That no one would understand her. That no one would miss her. That there was no other way to resolve her situation but to resolve all situations involving her by taking herself out of the equation. It could have been the same way for Aelius, too, back when he laid miserable between those hospital sheets.
But feeling anything close to what they felt brought him shame, and it brought him a simmering, miserable rage. To commit to that would be to sentence all his friends and loves to an agony they didn't ask for. He wouldn't be there to help them. He'd have deprived them of any remaining seconds to spend with him.
But Faustite didn't want this, either. This undignified, inevitable decline. As much as he may have wanted to beg Waru to put him down like a family dog, he knew he wouldn't.
He wasn't waking from this intolerable moment. There was no being roused by those same gentle shakes, to which he could respond with bleary-eyed invective. He wasn't waking in the hospital again, or waking to having fallen asleep at his desk or on the couch. He didn't need to pinch himself to know that everything ached in a dull, smothered way that only their medicines could enable. Each blink confirmed that the Waru before him wasn't changing, his situation wasn't changing, and what happened to him wasn't getting any better.
Faustite understood what Waru was asking, and he understood what lay beneath it. That Waru was asking him to persevere, to keep going despite his latest in a series of catastrophic failures. Blink once for yes, blink once to keep up, to move on, to learn how to cope with this for however long it lasted. Blink twice to tell fate to go ******** itself, to tell Waru to hunt Cybele down and to beat her into the bloodied pulp that she deserved to be and to beat her feathered friend into a splattered mash alongside her. Blink to tell Waru to donate her starseed to Metallia.
But Faustite's face sank wordless into his hands once more, mouth frozen into a silent grimace.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 6:23 pm
It wouldn’t kill either of them, would it? To have this moment in its silence. To have this one be as silent as the long lonely parade home had felt in spite of all the information relayed to him like their General-Kings life depended on him hearing it properly and following through on each exacting detail exactly as he’d been told—
Because in so many ways it did. For the sake of quality. For the sake of Metallia. For the sake of a kingdom and its denizens, the team, every single living, breathing being that loved his husband just as much as he did if not more. Waru thought no one loved Faustite more. Felt the cold coil and bite of an urge to fight anyone who would dare lay claim to that particularLu poetic nuance of an idea. They could all love him, surely, could love him differently even.
But more?
He thought ******** not. Sighed as he lost Faustite’s eyes like an eclipse—but let his lover have the moments. Let himself have them as that possessive bit of selfishness grew. Faustite was the Negaverses — the teams — his other husbands — but he was his too. He’d chosen him. Demanded him. He wore the proof of it, the silvery scars, the bite of bone carved ring round his finger, the dig of engraving into the flesh of it as he worried band with his thumb.
All his love for sharing and caring, all his heart, lanced open and bloodless for what he’d gladly given. What he now wanted to keep close and secreted away. To tell them all to ******** off. At least for a time. Until the fact that he could barely hear Faustite breathing dragged his last nerve less raw—until the silence felt safe to live in instead of feeling like a life sentence.
Like something he could sit in easily as he could kneel at Faustites feet. Letting the coolness of hard stone seep beyond magic donned clothes, until his legs were numb with it. ********, he knew getting up would be an aching b***h of a thing—if and when he decided to bother with so much action as standing again.
Knew he wouldn’t complain about the pins and needles that’d follow either. Not while he still had legs for standing on at all.
“You know—“ hummed notes, he tilted his head as if searching for the sun to come back out again. “If I had to pick one bright bit of good out of all this bullshit? It’s that now I can say whatever I want to—whenever I want—and you can’t really tell me off for it,” he smiled, stupidly, knowing how the words made little sense. Because when was it not like that between them? But Waru settled into the idea as he had his statuesque form, knelt in it and stayed knelt in it, leant into Faustites lap without giving over his weight to fragile, healing limbs.
“At least, not yet.”
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 6:25 pm
Waru was basically talking to himself. It was something that Faustite always suspected he did, whenever Faustite wasn't around, but now that he was in Faustite's presence? Even if he understood that Waru was talking to him, the lack of an answer pervading the air felt like a one-sided conversation. Half of a phone call. Response texts with all sent texts deleted. But Faustite couldn't share his responses — they were locked in his own head now. Forever.
Waru knew it, too. For as preposterous as he sounded when he started talking s**t about a silver lining, some sort of positive he could scrape out of the bottom of the s**t-filled bin that was Faustite's situation, something that felt so akin to laughing at Faustite's powerlessness and passing it off for a joke — it was as if that boy was hard-wired to seek his ire. To find any pulse of anger left in his defeated and morose body and dredge it out just for the sake of feeling physical pain instead of a similar sense of failure.
Now Waru had to play nursemaid, but he got to talk all the s**t he wanted. Wasn't like Faustite could tell him otherwise.
He'd have kicked the boy, but that would hurt him more than it would do anything to Waru. He'd slap him, too, but his hands and wrists had been shot up enough that applying that amount of force would make them ache a thousandfold worse than they already did. Trapped by constant pain, there was little he could do to prove the boy wrong.
All he could do was flick his boy in the forehead with his index finger, but even so small a gesture earned a flinch of pain. He was being conditioned to total, unresponsive silence.
He wished he could crawl back through all the years. Back through seven years of pain and endurance and disgust, back before Waru or Haru or Ren or Aelius, back before he became a General, before Schörl, before Umber, before he ever joined the Negaverse. He wished he could take the tales of his exploits, the warnings of his many failures, the saga about how he kept falling deeper and deeper into the unknowable pit and plant all those stories into Elex's young mind. Impart on him the myriad warnings that said to avoid the realm of magic at all costs, because their cost was more than he could pay or carry on his shoulders, no matter the strength it bequeathed him. And if he could convince that version of himself to stay home that fateful day, then maybe —
He could've had something better than this. Met Rowan, who didn't have to be Aelius anymore. Met Waru and Waru could've been that black sheep that his mother so disliked. He could've had his old dreams of getting married in a legally recognizable fashion and started his stupid, romantic career in poetry. And by a career in poetry, he probably meant working full-time as a barista while he wrote his freeform bullshit on Tumblr to the tune of maybe a hundred likes and reblogs.
It would've been better, that fate. It would've been kinder, perhaps kinder than anything he would ever deserve, and that was why it was prised from his grasp. But Faustite knew of nothing that could reverse time. Nothing that would spare him from this.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 6:28 pm
“Ow–” the briefest hisst of hurt hemmed in by a smile that grew in magnitude by small degrees. Caught the flinch, and ignored the way it ignited all new ire in him. Hate for all the hurts Faustite suffered still–for how those hurts would now be managed with regiments, treatments, patience, time– Wouldn’t let all his newly held foreboding crush of knowledge kill the joy he’d scraped out from beneath his own nails like old blood and cartilage, nasty stuff, but somehow bright and recognizable even after it’d decayed a bit. If faustite had it in him to be pissy? To tell him off in even the smallest of ways?
If Faustite had it in him to be angry? Then Waru imagined his husband had it in him to walk, to swallow, to sing and survive. Like roaches, he supposed, living morbidly, refusing to die. He wondered if those who called the sky their homes ever looked down and saw them that way? Found it somehow funny to imagine. Their subterranean colony – their army – bugs yes, but oh, resilient to the ******** last of them. Undyingly so~
Waru thought it was its own type of poetry. That every fresh twitch from his boy was akin to the sun coming out, finally! It was Fausites eyes, dark pits that glint within pinched and wan features, but still *glowing*, still *his* – Alive, alive, always alive! Alive and worth any ask, every atrocity, a tower of bones. Albite wondered if someday, truly, if there was an end to them? To him and Eion as they were, if maybe he could gift his love the kind of eternity that meant something more than ten more millena of Praxidikes blipping into existence in ever new and exciting forms. If he could emancipate himself from the very sky, from all his beloved sisters, from the Moon herself and Jupiter’s cloying hold over his shattered moons orbit –
Maybe he’d give Faustite that at the end of all this? Set the stars on his boy's doorstep. Set a world's core and the rest of his own eternity at Faustites feet–not for the Negaverse, or Metallia, but for love. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to be? How he always went on about Senshi being *Eternal* – reveled in it – like he was the distant cousin of some god.
Looking at Faustite now? He wondered if being finite was the more humble promise. If now was where he belonged and what he should live in and what he should *promise* – that they could have each other now – no matter the state of things. That he would stay with Faustite *now*, because his husband was worth it, wasn’t he? Having the one life. The one final time. Together.
Just. Like. This.
“There’s my love–” possessive awe with pain in his heart behind it. It almost hurt not to touch, to only frame Faustite with his words and bracket him with his shadow. To want for more, always as he ever had. To know consciously that touch would only ever make things worse in the short term, that it was an inevitable thing, an unavoidable consequence of getting goals met and moving even just out of the foyer. He couldn’t leave Faustite to sleep in a chair. Couldn’t leave him alone even if the man grew vocal chords and ordered him to it. He wondered if Faustite would come out of this, alive, healed, and hating him for being the one to beg him through it. To push and pull him quite literally across one threshold and into the next.
It would’ve only been fair. Deserved.
“My husband—” spoken like an apology, like all the sorrys he would feel, bone deep, an endless migraine of them. Apologies that would sit on his tongue unsaid because if he started now the litany of them would outlast his own lifespan. He’d go on forever. He’d find endless things to dredge up new and increasingly woeful sorries for. They’d never leave the front of their home. They’d maybe die there, once he’d sucked out all the oxygen with his own lungs and extinguished what was left of Faustite in the process of doing so. “Oh..Ei…this’s gonna be such a pile of s**t to slog through….”
“If you think that puts me off though? You’d better ******** *don’t*.” he let the emphasis sit thick as pudding, let his determination growl, even as he used the arms of the ******** wheelchair to help leverage himself up and off, felt the ache in each knee like crackle-corn – weighing his options for dragging the damn thing upstairs – of shoving it deeper into the house. There wasn’t much point to it yet since Eion couldn’t use it on its own…
And wheels and stairs seemed a bad idea for all that it could’ve been fun. It also felt like a recipe for his own boredom to breed chaos and impregnate some disaster into an already abysmal situation. Yeah, probably best to leave the chair out of things for a while!
“I don’t actually know where to start…There's like..a list…and I know what you need, but not what you need most or in which order or when..save the ******** ******** I’ll make a list of three things you c’n tap? Like…Bathroom, Kitchen, Bed – could draw cute little pictures for ‘em too. We can make this thing work for us. I know we can. S’not like you weren’t ever quiet before, right? Like you weren’t all body language n eyes for so ********’ long…”
It’s not like I’ll stop loving you over this.
Words he wanted to say with his eyes as his hands moved with his mouth, roving, rambling, hovering ghostlike and cloak close over Faustites body while he sought his loves embered gaze, looking for permission even as he wondered how much longer he had till he could administer one of the many things he’d been handed – like an entire kit for taking home a newborn – he had more timers on his phone with names of pharmaceuticals than he could ever hope to pronounce. He planned on finding new ways to butcher every single one until he got some fantastical new reaction from every nurse, doctor, amd poor beleaguered pharmacist he called about them—
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 6:30 pm
Waru seemed a little upbeat, but Faustite couldn't meet him there. He tried — reiterated to himself what the doctors had said about regaining the use of his legs, how the road to being able to move as fluidly as he used to was a long and difficult one, but not an impossible one — but he couldn't imagine surviving the coming days. In order to get to the parts where he had to overexert his body to walk a block, he had to learn to take a few steps without falling. And in order to get that far, he had to endure the coming days where he was entirely wheelchair-bound. Where he was dependent. He knew Waru would do all in his power to ensure Faustite got through it, but Faustite had always been such a willful thing. Even after Schörl got her hands on him.
What Waru was doing was akin to rekindling a fire with wet leaves. He'd gotten himself the briefest flicker of flame before all evaporated into smoke. That was what Faustite could manage before the pain and despair mediated him. Before he was reminded that he was poised to live through hell because he wasn't strong enough to down the ******** Princess that he so sought.
The one that was supposed to redeem him for his mistakes had doomed him instead. There would be no whining, as Ren put it, about his reputation when he would be lucky to walk with a cane and swallow small sips of water. Perhaps it wouldn't be a surprise, either, if some of the rings fell off his fingers. Aelius's already did, and as far as he was aware, the boy was kept entirely in the dark about what had happened. Would he be smug for it now? Faustite assumed so. Snarling thing was always looking for a way to jab him.
He almost wished the rest would break it off to spare themselves whatever humiliation would come from being married to a crippled boy in the Negaverse. Even if it turned out to be temporary. They didn't need to be dragged down with him, for however long this lasted. If it ever faded. But Faustite couldn't stand to be alone, either.
There was no way to tell Waru that he wished it would put him off, for his own sake, because taking care of someone like this sounded utterly miserable. Waru was right when he assessed it. It was a pile of s**t. It was all a pile of s**t, and no matter how he thought or fought, Faustite couldn't keep the ink from running down his face or leaving blotches in his lap.
The nurse had handed Waru a list, basically sentencing him to providing intensive care because Faustite couldn't tolerate being trapped in the hospital any longer. Waru understood the strangeness of Faustite's existence better than most of the nurses did, so he would be the one to unscrew the circular faceplate to the grate and dump food in at regular intervals that the nurses hadn't gotten down over the week and a half that they had him. Waru, who might've only been shown once, would have to use one of those horrible-looking syringes to draw up his pain medication and stab him in the thigh with it. They talked about sending him home with a liquid, but Faustite could barely swallow his own spit, so Waru got shackled with that, too.
There were creams to use, ones that were supposed to help with pain. There were ones to prevent infection, too, ones to use with dressing changes, but they spared the boy from having to pull bandages off his skin more than once a day. Faustite didn't understand any of the science behind it, but he guessed it had something to do with his heat and the scarcity of bandages that wouldn't burn when exposed to him for long periods of time.
The cincher was still on him, guarding his heat from the wheelchair. Faustite guessed that Waru would have to keep that toward the front of his mind, too, lest Faustite set the wheelchair on fire or boil his own medications from the inside.
But there was still more, and Faustite didn't know it. Faustite didn't know what he was supposed to have when, or how the dressings were supposed to go, or what he was or wasn't supposed to do beyond his physical limitations. They didn't tell him. Maybe they thought it wasn't necessary, since he now could not take care of himself.
Faustite forced himself to nod, though, when Albite mentioned pointing to things on a list. He'd have to do it. There were no more choices.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 6:32 pm
He watched the brief flash of a catching spark smolder out and die, hiding his own sadness for the vanished moment in a tender brush of lips atop the crown of Faustites hair. The nod would be enough. The brief peek of *something* — he’d store it away until later, turn it over in his head the second it seemed like Faustite was finally asleep. Talk himself into untangling it – text Ren in the dead of pre-dawn hours and let him blunt all the barbs of his own endless internal monologue.
Maybe even invite him over to trade shifts with when he was finally feeling decidedly less like he wanted to bar the doors, the windows and block out all the living, breathing world.
That part felt inevitable, the moment he’d reach out to draw the others in. The ones he trusted most. The ones Faustite trusted enough to allow. The way some sort of message would end up needing to be conveyed beyond the cocoon of dark stone halls that cast Faustites every shadow like the centerpiece Waru’d always wanted him to be in his life.
If I were alone in this?
But that thought was pointless noise, a useless thing to consider when he prodded the bruised surface of it any further. He didn’t want to be alone in this. Not ever or always. Didn’t want to doom Faustite to him as his sole source of care and comfort always. No great fire survived off of one small, single source of fuel forever. And he would see his husband great again; towering, molten, a force to be reckoned with and adored in one.
“It’s stupid that they want us to use this thing so much—I mean? I get the point of it for later, but right now, honestly? I’d rather just carry you everywhere.” His every thought process spoken aloud, the noise of new cogs slotting into place and being greased so they turned less rustily than before. “It’s not like m’letting you live anywhere but the bed for awhile anyways—” he let his greed be evident as the caution in his eyes, hadn’t the energy to wiggle his brows and make it all innuendo with the best intent behind it. Even as he was saying the words aloud, still, he rolled the chair and its precious contents deeper into their home; slow as sleep walking, holding the arms so he could speak to his husband rather than over him. Contemplating the way the stairs loomed like a new and exciting obstacle he wasn’t at all yet willing to entertain making a course of.
At least, not with Faustite as a passenger. Maybe on his own?
“I remember—when we first started out—all the things I ever wanted to thank you for. Mmhn, like trusting me? Likeeee—” he realized he wasn’t sure when it’d started. When he’d noticed Faustites respect, his trust, his love when he’d started taking the looks he could feel like a sunburn more seriously. If he knew how to take anything seriously at all, finding that he had the ability to do so when it was Faustite? That too was something like a marvel. The way his Firebrand dragged new things from him, demanded them in such a way that he was eager to meet and follow, even when he frustrated the ******** out of the man as he was so sure he must have a thousand times over by now.
“Like how you do now, yanno? And it ********’ amazes me everytime I think about it. You used to be so ******** flinchy, and I could be such an a** to you–” he would talk rather than apologize for what came next, would lay his words out like distractingly red carpet in an otherwise grayscale filmpiece. There was no point in warning Faustite that he would take him out of the chair, cradling him gently as fabrage in his arms. He didn’t long to make his husband tense for the inevitable anymore than he wished to give him warning and watch the reaction for that—-
There would be worse things to warn him for, greater hurts to soothe and wear them both down in the motions of doing it. For every cat bath, wound dressing, but of pressure put over a new pain while singing about how someday all the healing would be worth all the hell — that this — here — *now* — was worth going through for a future he couldn’t begin to paint a verbal picture of. For how everything was wrapped carrot tight around the concept of survival that spanned days and weeks rather than years.
Just get him through this. Just wait and see. Just believe us even though we’re making no real promises—
He wanted to look forwards to watching Faustite claw his way back to standing, walking, running the world. He wasn’t looking forward to all that lay out inbetween; to Faustite suffering it all in silence that he could only fill for so long before he knew his own need to hear Faustite would peak, even if he could only have his boy's voice in his own head.
Knew a point would come where he’d inevitably demand that too!
Not yet, not yet, not yet—
“Not that you weren’t an a** too sometimes!! The Negaverses tightest a**….” he teleported them because it was the gentler of two painful choices, because it gave him time to breathe between spews of words and eye the enclave he would arrange Faustite in before arranging everything else; a bedside table and sterile medical supplies and clean linens in piles and—-
“My favorite a**, but the trust part? The way I’m grateful for it. Wonder if I deserve it sometimes, like, how the ******** I managed to earn this? I know we’re married n s**t—but holy ********, love. You just find ways to keep flooring me, every damn time. So a’course I gotta thank you for it..keepn me on my toes..giving me new n exciting reasons to keep on loving you...” and there was a secretive joy in letting his mouth run heedless of any and all obstacles off the nearest cliff while he found the best angle to kneel from, to settle and prop the tight bony bundle he nearly didn’t want to let go of, if he’d thought Faustite could’ve tolerated being held for longer? For more than would ever be comfortable against any wound…
He’d never set him down again if he didn’t do it now.
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 6:32 pm
Waru's words circled around him, much like his arms. Faustite was confined to the wheelchair, having experienced firsthand the utter uselessness of his legs no less than a dozen times before he was finally convinced that they would not hold him, and another dozen painful falls had him resorting to an attempted army crawl for the autonomy it promised. But all of these attempts ended in invariable failure, in pain and crooked and deceitful healing overcoming his will to live without assistance. His new, dependent nature was by no choice of his own, though it seemed that Waru wasn't going to mind it as much. Faustite, however, detested the idea of lying in bed all day when it wasn't his own terms.
Faustite didn't need the reminder of their early days. He knew them well, remembered them well, for how he constantly had to debate with himself if it was better to let Waru overcome one more mistake or if he was better off cutting his losses and eating the boy's starseed. That hunger remained in him, even now, paler for some of the control he learned, and more threateningly insistent for how he swallowed a starseed before Cybele nearly finished him. Waru never mentioned why he used to be flinchy, though Faustite couldn't recall if he asked, either.
What whine Waru would've earned for picking Faustite up was no more than a hiss of breath, impotent as it was fleeting. His breathing afterward dragged in his tightened throat while Faustite stiffened up in the boy's grip. He was at once loath to relax lest it hurt more and desperate to relax if it would hurt less. His claws found Waru's shoulder and clutched tightly, despite how his hands screamed and its tendons threatened to rupture.
They were there, then they were in his bedroom. By the time his mind caught up to understand that Waru was retiring him to the bed like a babe to the cradle, he felt his heart creep into his throat again. That, too, would hurt, much like being picked up in the first place. His legs already throbbed for the few short moments that Waru held him. Now he'd be consigned to a bed again, left to gain bedsores and rot in all of his idleness. He couldn't tell the boy how he felt about it, but maybe he would take pity on Faustite sometimes and bring him with him on walks around the Castle or whatever mundane s**t that Faustite was allowed to do anymore. Anything to feel like he wasn't surrounded by bars again.
He was entrusted to the bedding, and his body found reason to complain anew. Limbs and joints were aflame with pain once again, throbbing with the beat of his boiling heart, and Faustite could only curl in on himself for it. But doing so only assuaged some hurts while it exacerbated others. There would be no true relief until Waru gave him whatever medicine chased the pain away.
Faustite was covered in a layer of chilled sweat while it felt like his whole body pounded. He tried to concentrate on Waru's words — that small cicatrice for Faustite's unflappable meanness, and Waru's never ending bullshit parade about how Faustite was somehow good for something. Listening was all he had anymore.
For now, however, he needed sleep to take over and relieve him of his thoughts. Pain exhausted him, and only more pain was to come from then on. But there was no way to explain to Waru what he needed, let alone what he wanted — which was an easy night where he could nap against his husband and coast on the pain medications they gave him.
There was little else for it. Faustite tried to point to his thigh, as if to jab it with a needle. But the pantomime wasn't as specific for his liking; he wondered if Waru would even understand it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 6:34 pm
It was all a mess—and Waru knew if he let himself dwell on it, on any fleeting second after the next that wasn’t task oriented? Then he would drown in it. This mess. His mess. Would shred Faustites backless garment made of only string and rough, baby blue plaids, its cloying hospital stink, chuck it into Faustites own fire, and chuck himself in after it—-
As if that would’ve left things clean and tidy instead of worse off for the people who’d miss him most. For the people he’d leave behind if he simply up and died in order to dodge his own creaking, weeping soul and the daming way every fresh emotion grated like sand buried beneath his sockets. No amount of crying, or rubbing, or distraction would lessen the ache there. The itch to give into it and curl up at Faustites side until his love's vague gestures became pointed ones, more deliberately desperate, instead of the reflexive, instinctual sort.
But he had a job to do, and a husband to keep alive, and he couldn’t snarl or flinch over every breathless hiss and stilted shudder that stole over Faustites body. He promised himself his own time, later, to kiss the claws that left marks he barely took notice of at times. The god-kings cat-scratches, maybe they’d make neat little scars to remember the moment by later! If they didn’t eventually heal and fade.
A part of him hoped they wouldn’t, he liked having stories to tell terribly and embellish even more terribly every time he re-told them. The way he liked to ramble— As if that was all he could do, as if everything was autopilot as his motions were trained. To settle Faustite the best he could and not overdo it – to catch the stilted pained - new - old grimace and note with surprise how sour every fresh wave of copper tinged sweat smelled this close on fever-hot skin.
All the sick coming out – or taking root? All the pain eeping free, and he would’ve had to have been blind to miss its slow crawl across Ei’s form, been a cruel sor to ignore it…
“Wanna hear something else?” he reached for lightness in tone even as he reached for supplies, followed a protocol that had been hammered into his hard head; so redundantly run on were droll words from the mouths of nurses, in tones sometimes as annoyingly shrill as the beeping the iv’ machines made when they were done emptying their bags into a body–
He wondered if he could follow some of these steps in his sleep? Sure as hell they’d made him practice enough he probably could have! He wasn’t about to test that all out now, though. Not tonight, at least. Maybe some other time, half awake, between tasks with labels and the tepid attempts he knew he’d make at dragging his husband back to stand on equal footing against the world.
“No one’ll ever know how many kinks I’ve got that’re based solely on you just – being – not even you – not even me, maybe? Sept’ we’ve got time right. Time to talk and not a ******** soul between here n hell to interrupt us for it….I should’ve been more selfish before, I think. Should’ve kidnapped you off somewhere…for as long as you’d have tolerated it…n just talked both your ears off…” he trails off and on, listens to himself so he doesn’t have to think overly hard about anything new. The smell of antiseptic cleaner, the plastic caps on a syringe, how all the vials are glass and clink rather prettily—-
“And y’know what else? For all that you said you thought you’d make a poor parent—I think you’d make an excellent one.” It didn’t feel like multi-tasking, to settle up against Faustites side, to let his gaze rove everywhere save his boys eyes. The way tiny foil packaging tears from tiny foil wipes and frees – is it chlor – iod – alch? The colors of the things matter more than his ability to pronounce each and every other word even in his own head.
“Better n your own, better n mine…”
Clean is clean, is –
“Everything you do for us, yeah? For the others–” And he can’t meet Faustites eyes as he does this part either. Delicately pinching the skin around the injection site and wondering why the length of a needle is the way it is, if its something to do with intramuscular, something else? Or– Why the large a gauge is the smaller the actual needle becomes? Wondering if he should go back to school just to learn these sorts of things—that thought alone makes him snort some soft half-mirthfilled sound. The noise not matching the action not matching the words – all of it scrambled like eggs and there sure as ******** are bits of shell in there – he can feel their illusory crunch between his grit teeth, the sound only he can hear set in time to the depression of a plunger. “For me.”
“And don’t tell me you don’t. I know you do–” and it’s easier to meet Faustites eyes after, as he pulls the not knife from his husband's thigh and lays pressure over a cotton ball atop it. He thinks bandaids are useless for this sort of thing, that medical tape tears skin – theres that false skin s**t…what was it? Tagaderm? Something of the likename–
He’ll bother the people who need bothering for it later. Right now? He’s busy bothering his boy, watching the way the fire in his guts gutters and snaps behind its binder – watches Faustites eyes with his own sad yet determined ones.
“Some of it has to be for yourself though. Right, Ei? M’thinking some of it needs to be just for you. Now more n ever. Doesn’t mean you can’t siphon offa the restuv us if you need to! Energy, or will, or—whatever it is you need. Cause ******** knows we’re here for you…but…” and if he lost the already derailed train of thought that ran conductorless off the cliff of his lips, all for thinking Faustite looked cute while the meds took hold.
“And did I ever mention how much I love your eyes? Blink twice I have before—”
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 6:35 pm
It was always difficult to follow Waru's thoughts. They seemed to duck and weave constantly, as if trying to lose their point like it was a red laser sight over their vital organs. Whatever path they could take to best obscure their own existence, their intended destination, had to be the most convoluted and impossible to track. Thus, over the time that they've known each other, Faustite learned to ignore most of what Waru said, let it play out like background noise, until something like a point or purpose surfaced such that Faustite thought he could respond to it. Then he got praised for listening, though Faustite always thought it was more like filtering — panning dirt and rubbish for the rare, infinitesimally small, nugget of gold.
But panning for Waru's points grew far more complicated when Faustite was compromised by pain or his own anguish. He struggled to justify to himself why he should listen if he couldn't respond, since his boy so often expected some kind of response out of him, or needed one, and the overgrown boy looked like he was trying to pack in all his tears and wait for Faustite to tell him to put his damn emotions away. But there was no telling him that now, nor ever; Faustite had been silenced.
Since Faustite could do so little else but feel his own pain and watch Waru move, he watched his husband ready that vial of medication in the same way the nurses had done. And maybe Waru wasn't as practiced at it, maybe he went slower, maybe a bead of it dribbled out beside the needle and down the barrel of the syringe, but the end result was the same. Waru had medication in hand for Faustite, who sorely needed it.
Faustite wiped his face with a throbbing hand as he waited for Waru to get through the next steps. Swallowing felt thick, almost impossible, for how bile had risen in his throat. The pain of being shot everywhere had long since caught up to him, his heartbeat echoing through every wound left over from that hail of arrows and the beat of shoes against his sides. Faustite was losing the shape of Waru's words, their meaning devolving into a droning hum more than distinct phrases —
And then that oppressive blanket of pain was lifted. Faustite could release the breath he was holding, and the echo of his heart faded from his limbs. The pain of it all dwindled away, leaving Faustite simply tired. Leaving him in a state where he could simply nap.
He would never understand how medicine could rob him so quickly and so thoroughly of pain, nor did he want to understand. He rather preferred it as a kind of magic in its own right, lasting longer than senshi magic but shorter than whatever magic still allowed him to have the parts of himself that he lost during their generator trap with the aliens. And perhaps there was some residual pain left in him, but the medication was such that he did not care about it. He finally felt relaxed. He felt a pleasant level of relieved of his burdens.
Now he could hear Waru again, and the man was still talking nonsense. Faustite opened his mouth to admonish the boy for wasting words again, but no sound left him, and he shut it in belated recognition that he could not speak anymore.
Faustite wasn't sure why Waru was on about his eyes, when his eyes only ever seemed to reflect the fire in him, and Faustite was certain that the fire attracted more of Waru's lizard-brain attention span more than his eyes ever did. But there was no way for him to condense that into pointing here or nodding there, so he just stared at the boy quizzically, as if staring harder might somehow communicate his confusion with more clarity. Then he shrugged, palms up, brows scrunched, to express his consternation.
Waru was so damn hard to follow. However, he could be led.
Now able to move with a little more ease, Faustite patted the bed beside him. Waru must have changed them to their softest blankets, which smelled quite unlike the antiseptics that he had been around for weeks, for they seemed freshly washed with a familiar detergent. The pillows, too, were fluffed and had their covers changed. Hestia must have gone through everything while he was away. Idly he wondered what sort of story Waru had fed her about his absence, and he quickly realized it didn't matter. She could learn the truth in a day, or hours at least.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 6:36 pm
“You look so ******** sckepticle of me sometimes, it’s goddamned adorable..seriously, Ei. Especially drugged—jeezuz….”
It was a thing to watch the drugs take hold, the way they stripped Faustite of his pain, and yet not his faculties. Or maybe only some of them? It was hard to tell without asking directly, and in some ways? He simply didn’t want to know. He wanted to admire the shift of expressions on his husband's face, the flare and dimming of his eyes, the way the black took hold expansively across the usually flame bright sclera while he petted around the pitch of untattooed flesh of his loves upper thigh.
He could’ve done it forever, nearly snorted some ugly bit of laughter for how ******** skeptical his love managed to look! The confusion obvious enough that he could taste it—That he could savor knowing, even half dead to the world and carved nearly hollow, that Faustite heard him *enough* to find him ******** confusing.
He didn’t ever want it to be any other way.
And as Fauatite gave him permission, no — gave him *orders* — to take reprieve and do a task as simple as lie next to him — Waru couldn’t help but think of how he shouldn’t. Couldn’t dodge the brief fear of laying down and not getting back up — taking that break and breaking from it and failing every other task that remained!
There was still more to do, but wouldn’t there always be more to do? A never ending task list that followed an extensive healing routine— wheelchair rides, joint compression exercises. Getting Faustite back to a point where he could walk and talk and convey his every desire with newfound ease—
With ink on paper or nails on skin or just his ******** eyes and a sharp gesticulation.
Never the same as it was, never again, but he could imagine a close approximation. He could envision behind his briefly closed eyes some flash of new to indulge in. Ever changing as the nature of the Rift he knew his husband had spent years in and crawled back out from.
So if he lay there next to his love and told the guilt that wanted to gnaw on his last nerve for doing so to go ******** itself? Then he did, mentally, quietly, to himself!
Because he couldn’t deny Faustite this — couldn’t deny it to himself either.
“I love you—-“ soft and on the edge of being weepy as he crawled where bade and curled there, “I’ll always love you—“ reaching out to soothe, to hold with fingertips, to run his knuckles along one sharp cheekbone and slip the pads of those same fingers into Faustites hairline. “You’ll never be less beautiful to me—“ until the words came unstoppably wet at the edges, determined as steel at the core, unyielding as they were gentle.
“Not even if you were a puddle. Hell, not even if you crawled into the Rift tomorrow and went full feral ******** on us all — and then only loved me after the fact cause my soul resembles ******** candy….” not that he believed his soul would ever be more fascinatingly beautiful than Faustites gaze as it was now, when he dared to peek up beneath his own clumping lashes to catch it. “Which? My moneys on the idea that I secretly taste like folere, and palm wine…don’t let the color fool you. ******** fruity at my core. Fruity — and tired — and ********….” the syllables groaned at the end as he writhed closer and tucked himself in. Thanked Hestia on high for worshiping their shared fire god enough to have the things prepped in ways he’d never had the sense for! With downy softness and silken chill.
“If you need something from me you goddamned stab me a little okay? You swear it.” His tone pointed, yawn edged, spoken as though he wouldn’t be up every few hours thanks to the needling of his own conscience. The words were there on his tongue and he’d never learned to shut the hell up and so on they flowed like trickling waters over a steep drop and into an even deeper ravine.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 6:38 pm
Waru had but one job left to perform, as far as Faustite was concerned, and that job was 'body pillow'. It was easy, straightforward, perhaps boring even for Waru, but Faustite didn't have to listen to his complaints about it. The boy would run his mouth no matter the occasion; Faustite need only find ways to fall asleep to that ever-present drone. And as long as Waru was obedient enough to lie still, he would suffer no further problems with his quiet, if terribly ephemeral, reprieve. He needed it, after all he'd been through in the hospital.
But the boy always had something to say, even as he crawled over the railing and joined him in bed. Even as he was settling down, prone, he was saying his I-love-you's like they were evening prayers, like this was the last time they could ever be uttered or the last time that Faustite could ever understand them. Seeing and hearing the boy cry was maddening for how easy it was to cry himself, and black tears threatened to escape even as he shut his eyes to it. Now wasn't the time, and such a tactic was a cheap blow, for Waru knew well that Faustite could say nothing in return. He could hardly do anything, either.
Whatever he looked like after this, it wouldn't be any worse than before. If Waru wanted to find him beautiful, that was his malfunction, as it had always been. No, the tragedy here wasn't Faustite's looks. But perhaps Waru was sparing him the need to think about it.
So Faustite let him ramble on and on, meandering between different ways that Faustite might someday die. All the while, Faustite made himself a bed within a bed, with Waru playing the pivotal role of body pillow while Faustite snuggled up against him. Gingerly, he took up an arm and pulled it up over his shoulder so Waru could wrap an arm around him. Then Faustite rested his head on one of Waru's pecs, for they were soft when relaxed, and worked well enough as living pillows. Then Faustite curled somewhat like a shrimp — whatever took the pressure off his worse wounds and his bone bruises. Waru probably wouldn't mind.
And Faustite wouldn't either — not for a while. Not while that medication lived on in his veins, quelling all pains for a brief window of respite like this.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
