Welcome to Gaia! ::

One of the many benefits of sleeping with Eles was that the matter of actually sleeping was generally peaceful and rather comfortable. Malory enjoyed the near luxurious position of little spoon, not simply held, but held safe and treasured, with certain nightmares kept at bay. Of course there were exceptions. Like a certain blue morning, and now, as the body behind him first jerked, then tightened, and stayed stiffly so for a too-long stretch of time.

Feeling the bed shift and that hold slip away, Malory turned to look up at his fiance. No puke. No blood. No spontaneous combustion. Well. That was good.

“Is there a break in?” He asked, voice quiet and a little furry.

The little querying noise turned into a snort. Then a comfortable groan as Eles settled back into their typical indulgent press. Hand seeking out hand, Malory not-quite laced his fingers through the other boy’s, instead flexing and stretching them around that fine-boned shape.

“That’s rare. Was it very bad?” Because why would he avoid the little discomforts, when he could willfully poke at them instead.

“You really should dream of me more often. Let me poison your sleep along with everything else.” Shifting, he pressed back against Eles like a particularly accommodating bolster.

Bottomless hate.

His fingers began to trace and toy with their captive hand, and Malory considered that for a long enough stretch that the other may almost have fallen back asleep. “It could’ve been a memory.” The General King certainly left that impression. And Malory had begun to consider it (mostly) justified (except against him).

“Sets of feelings are how some people remember.” And given the very sensory focused pieces of his past life that have floated up so far, it wouldn’t be surprising if Eles tended toward that sort of thing. At least when he wasn’t in control of said memories.

Having been on the receiving end of his boy’s hand, swinging down with grim intent, Malory certainly agreed that it was much better to simply break than defy. As that palm pressed against his back, the words in his ear describing a warped frame for the intimacy of it, Malory shuddered. But he didn’t move away. Pushed into Eles’s hand all the more instead.

“Sounds like corruption. What the laundry man tried to do to you.”

Sure, Jan.

But Malory wouldn’t argue. When it came to Eles’s past existence, he’d only suggest, only nudge. He didn’t force that past on Eles. He could be idly, teasingly cruel for fun, but there were limits, and with this boy, there was also the utterly foreign desire to protect. Just a little. As long as it didn’t involve too much effort.

“So what you’re saying is,” Malory began to muse, “past you was probably a dipshit who would have been better served by writing in a diary or getting an actual hobby.” Turning his head, Malory placed a kiss against those waves of fool’s gold.

“Good thing you’re much smarter now.” By osmosis maybe.

A travel sketch journal absolutely did not count. But Malory liked that childish, defensive tone, and so let his boy have that one. But he really did hope the dream was a memory, that they could start bubbling up gently and unprompted in the comfort of their bed. Otherwise, there did seem to be some things Eles could do to prompt memories.

Things like drowning.

Things like eating a starseed and going to a small, personal hell for it.

In other words, be miserable. Die a little.

Cute and fun in measures, but a bit much for the privilege of eventually remembering what middle school Eles had gone to.

“We’re in Appalachia,” he assured with a low laugh. “So no need to cancel the wedding if you are.” And finally he turned fully, dislodging his boy to take him in; the dark of their shrouded bed softening all edges, blunting all swung blades, and the keeping fires of whatever hatreds safely banked.

“Do you want to remember? Fully and truly?” Sometimes the wanting was what’s most important. When it came to magic. When it came to this city.

Coward.

But the caution was justified. If Faustite felt like he was on fire, constantly, for years, the who the ******** would want to remember being Faustite? Malory recaptured one of the other boy’s hands and lifted it to his mouth. Idly pressed each knuckle, one by one, against his lips in thought.

“If you’d rather I never met him, then I never met him,” Malory began. “But I did ask around about him. Big Bro and some other order people. A Negaverse agent. I even got a knight to read me out his bad boy status in their Bad Guy Database.” Which had been very cute of them, especially when it came with a stern, mid-puberty lecture on slippery slopes. Which, sadly, Malory was just all too fond of.

Smiling against the hand of his often slipperiest of slopes, he went on, “He’s considered a high level threat. He has a very loyal and large team that loves him, and he’s fairly dedicated to them. He’s clever. He’s angry. He hates humans. He’s pitiful. And charismatic.”

Turning the hand over he kissed the palm. “He’s a dramatic little b***h.” Then brought it in to cup his chin. “Who apparently has anywhere from one to a dozen beautiful young husbands. A whole harem, crying at home over him. Including Albite, who’s either the nicest guy on earth or absolutely crazy.”