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 Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2022 5:57 pm
Turned his head toward the boy when he elt him against his shoulder, raised a thin hand to brush against Waru's neck before he straightened up. "Like a youma," he offered, though that hadn't made it into the vernacular. They could make their own, though, and youma had more than a few instances of ruining someone's good time. Besides, it suited Waru — suited the way he admired the posthuman ones.
Sighed for all the goosebumps that raised up after Waru's touch, that found his way up his forearms and bloomed across his biceps. Eion leaned back against his boy, tipped his head up to kiss his jawline, and — was course-corrected for dumping water over his hair. "Tease," he murmured, the word particularly broken between angle and hoarseness. Could've pouted for the denied kiss.
His hands found Waru's thighs instead, as he adjusted the way he sat in the water. Easier, then, to finish washing his other leg without having to use his right hand.He hadn't understood the apology, didn't know how to respond to it, so he let it sit between them unanswered.
Even if Eion only half-listened to Waru's ceaseless rambling, there was something to the pitch and timbre of his voice that Eion found relaxing. When he didn't have to be aware, when he didn't need to be a Negaverse General, he could let his mind wander without having to tune the boy out. So wander it did, forming loose images to accompany Waru's descriptions, all his activities and forays and visits. He envied that freedom; Waru was so much a fully-lived human, just as he was a productive senshi.
Though, he would've found it difficult — weaving his time between the Negaverse, a job, and the people he loved. Finding time for himself in all of that, to recharge and sleep. Small wonder Waru described it as a whirlwind.
"You don't like being alone." He retired the luffa for now; better to give his arm a rest for how it trembled visibly when entrusted with any sort of activity. Here, he could relax, let the hot water penetrate deep into his muscles, relax away some of the tension that came with being sore and bruised. "But people are like that — fleeting things. Better breezes than mountains. Shame you can't get a youma; they stay for longer." Until they got dusted by Princesses.
"You have me now," he pointed out as he toed one of the spinning balls of glitter and garbage. By now, the bath was a ruddy, opaque red with gold glitter floating about. The smell opened his sinuses, weighed in the air intensely. He imagined the bathroom would reek of mint and pine for a few days afterward.
"Hard to imagine you with a plan. Must be rubbing off on you." He reached up, grazed the underside of Waru's chin with his index finger.
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Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2022 6:01 pm
He hated being alone, vehemently, violently, couldn’t abide a vacuum, ever. Not of bodies or of sound. He was extra matter to its anti. He would always need something second to himself to survive. As many somethings as he could have, even.
The thought simmered as he laced his fingers and wove the cream in, stroked it through until he held silken pools of ink, til the gold flecked the way he liked in the dimness from soft yellow sink bulbs just overhead.
Felt touch - and smiled for the open offer. There was only so much he could tease before giving in.
Even the urge to make an off-handed joke sputtered and died, because rubbing off - but Eion was right there, he could squelch the conditioner in and let it sit like it was supposed to - could eat the minutes of waiting by taking up Eions hand in his. Finebone fingers he could press kisses to, then palm and inner wrist, and if Eions face was right there, too? Oh so very ******** kissable, unavoidable as a gravity well.
Then Waru kissed it - gave Eion his shoulder and broad chest to lean on - sidled back to take his weight and just — just sit warm. Safe and alive as Waru ever could’ve wanted him, even if his body told tales of ten-thousand ways he nearly hadn’t been. Nomatter, in the face of him being there.
His.
He did have him, didn’t he?
“S’eternal in a way even Senshi aren’t, are they? Youma. It’s the perfect pairing, yanno….Shame we don’t all have ‘em — heh — but then there’s you ‘n me, isn’t there?” unbidden glee and Waru didn’t bother to tamp it down, to chase the smile from every kiss. Let them be wide and soft as they were languid.
“I can’t imagine a being that's better, Ei. It keeps circling back to you. Like a ring — like — and did you know Faustite is a green mineral? Do you know how long it took me to figure that out about you? N’ I dunno if that means anything—sept - your teams ******** fulla all the colors on the other spectrum of you— Mmph, is that kismet or coincidence?”
Albite didn’t know s**t about his mineral name, if it had a color or a taste or could’ve been shoved up his a** - He was too simple for that, he liked the sound and play on words. That had been all he’d needed, if he wanted more, ever? Well, he was a ******** Senshi too, wasn’t he? Some Jovian being of a long-standing line that he could’ve traced back to over centuries he was sure - if he’d cared enough to do so. A shattered moon that ringed Jupiter eternally - the hunk of rock had been there before and would be there after.
He’d care then - later - but now? Now he was Albite who was Eions and Praxidike who served a Youma by choice. Volition of will and a middle finger to the universe. ******** their hundreds of years when he had twenty, fifty, ninety-nine. It was still a hundred-thousand scant too few to enjoy his time properly like this.
So he was going to do as he ******** pleased with it. Was going to make insane plans that haloed the most deserving boy he’d ever known.
“Whatever….” he assumed Faustite knew what he meant, maybe? Handwaved it all as little ripples formed from baerst movements, sent the colors spinning and stirred up swirls and glints of bright beneath the murk of the bath water like jostled sediment. Eion was praising him on managing a plan; however haphazardly he’d done it.
He only wished Eion wasn’t so distracting sometimes, except he also knew that wish to be an outright lie.
“I did plan something....it was important. Mnn, is..it is important.” soft consonants pressed to the shell of Eions ear, a kiss that held an edge of teeth. It was so easy to just ‘be’ with him, all the time. Suffused in mint and pine and drowning in bottomless choal eyes.
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Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2022 6:04 pm
He turned, leaving his braced hand on the damp side of the tub while Waru took up his good hand. It felt good, having someone else wash his hair, conditioning it, leaving a mop of it to weigh against his back. He watched Waru play with his fingers — it was easier than following for eye contact, for how he only ever wanted to kiss him — and it was stranger, still, to watch him kiss Eion's hand like it was something of royalty.
Schörl was so diligent to tell him otherwise. Insistent that, even if his family came from some money, he was as much a mutt as the people on the street. Waru hadn't minded, or noticed. He wasn't sure Waru knew he came from money. He was pretty ar from it, now.
Watching him come up, seek him out — Eion wrapped an arm about Waru's shoulders, opened himself up to receive those minute kisses. Warm water lapped over his chest and biceps, warming him when he was so easily chilled. And leaning back against Waru was another bed of warm. It was easy, then, to press against him, to trust the water to his back, even if he had to bring his left hand to bear on the other side of the tub. He wished, then, that Michel hadn't broken it. Would've been better if he could still use it to its fullest in the bath like this. Perhaps that would've distracted from Waru''s softness.
"Don't know," he admitted, so close to his boy's lips. Hardly above a whisper, he continued: "Only known one to die." It didn't discount that they might fade away, someday, if they had a lifespan. That they might starve for too long without energy and evaporate, or become dust forever. Would that happen to him if he starved for too long?
And Waru kept on — Eion wondered if he had an ulterior motive. But why would Waru have an ulterior motive? Could he even plan like that?
He wondered what he had to do with a ring, or what Faustite had to do with a ring. "No," he admitted, "never looked into it." He scrutinized the boy, wondering what had gotten into him. Who planted in his brain the idea that he should look up minerals? And who taught him what kismet meant, and how to use it in a sentence?! Was this Waru? Or was he talking to an impostor?
So his attention left the boy's face, went looking for scars he knew existed on his boy's body. And yet, they were all there. And his eyes were the correct color, his hair the correct length.
So his brows furrowed.
Then he realized it might've been terrible that Faustite was green, especially if it was a green similar to Schörl's green. Was this an alternate reality? Was he becoming more and more like her, was he planned to be like her, and it was all evident in the mineral that Umber picked for him so long ago? Or was he becoming his destiny out of some subliminal message through that mineral?
Eion took a breath, told himself to come off it. That couldn't be why Albite was bringing this up, or mentioning his team's colors, or whatever other bullshit he was on. Likely he was just doing some oral fingerpainting, or trying to hint that the team made a rainbow because their leader was so ******** gay. Which wouldn't be wrong, but even that seemed to be above Waru's level.
The bath bombs were forgotten. His focus settled on Waru, and decoding his little nonsense messages.
He felt the kiss, then shifted, and Eion watched Waru for any tells. "What is it, then?"
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Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2022 6:06 pm
Too ******** cute - his boy - caught in a whirlwind of consternation that showed in flashes and furrows. So expressive that it snapped Waru’s focus back from the lull of languid bathtime fun. Eions ever-scrutinizing gaze, eyes so like obsidian - like space - for how he could’ve gotten lost between them and the way his hair fanned out; an alluring ichor where he twisted and the water pulled gently at the long ends, playful as a breeze.
Waru wondered if he looked that way too? When he was thinking like the gears in his head were churning up a fire. If his ears bled smoke - like something out of a cartoon? Except he knew from experience that he was far more puppy at play and dog who’d lost its bone than he was a mind set ablaze with thought, because that would’ve taken an ability which he sorely lacked. Thoughts --
With exception for this instance which had required something like that - forethought and honest to goodness planning. However haphazardly he’d enacted it.
“Oh, Ei—Elex. You know that I love you, yeah?” Trailing his nails in a way that felt satisfying, could never get enough of touch. Kinesthetic for learning, Eion had taught him that one, tactile - for his need to do this. To find Eions lifelines and span his hands over them, thread thick fingers through his draping hair and ease Ei’s way in crawling up — till he could hear the confusion etched into each flutter of heartbeat between them.
How rare it was to find Eion looking at him like an alien’d slipped into his bones skinwalker style. It made him eager to laugh and assuage any worries away. To smooth water-slick thumbs over Ei’s finebone cheeks. Such a noble looking b***h, and ********, but he wanted to express that feeling properly. That Eion was lovely enough to be worth all his time. Different than the rest, he’d realized that long ago — yesterday. Hell, he couldn’t pin down *when*, only that he knew he and Eion could burn on along the path of a sun and neither would stray the course too far to be lost to the other.
Eion wouldn’t let him wallow in loneliness any more than he’d allow the same for a boy who’d suffered endlessly; yet deserved so much better than that. Waru wasn’t sure what he could do for ‘better’, had endless doubts about himself and his own abilities, but he wanted to try. <********, did he want to try.
At something like permanence, the facade of it, the lie? Craved something solid and unchangeable as the ink under his skin. Making it right between them *always*, because this? Felt all sorts of right. Because Senshi were eternal and Youma were long lived beings. Maybe Ei’d find him again in a millennia, show him this one thing – take him back time and again – with golden vials and ancient memories. With a ring. His smile was soft for that
“So much. More than myself or my moon…” he could’ve had seventy-nine sisters (he googled that s**t!) and a court, beck and call with ease. Could’ve had a different sort of power. He’d met a princess and tasted sunlight, sticky-sweet as honeydew, such an easy pit to fall into. It’d been an option, and yet? He knew he would’ve pissed it all away for this. Would’ve become a prince to reign dominion and cast himself down time and again for this moment…For Eion. It wasn’t even a thought, to toss it all away without pause. “…more n’ anything.“ rough sigh a hair's breadth from becoming another kiss.
He had to impart its truth though. Eion being worth more even than his beloved Lina, and Eion had never met her, would have to; if she was going to give him away. “I think there’s only one proper way to express that — with the colors that should be your own, ******** obviously. N with the colors of your team, because I don’t ever expect you to be anything less than free with yourself…amethyst n evergreens....heh, cause it’s gotta contrast all that red in your eyes when they're burning.” His boy in his arms and he could buoy Eion up to make it easier on all the places still hampered with wounds made by the shitiest knights who needed course corrections that resembled deep holes and headstones.
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Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2022 6:08 pm
Hummed his suspicions through Waru's soft kisses, and slipped his soapy hand out of the boy's slow, careful tread over the still-young creases in his palm. He let Waru touch his face, knowing that his lover's attention would be on him for his half-lidded stare. All this talk of love, of promising Eion the sun, the moon, the stars, every ******** starseed on this derelict, ******** up planet. And he believed his boy, felt guilty for not paying that love back for all that it had meant to him, but it had to be said. "You're up to something," he charged. Pointedly.
As far as he was concerned, Waru didn't have a right to be up to something. Waru wasn't a schemer. He cleared his throat of some of its hoarseness. "Would've called you Headache and sent you back to the Rift." But this Waru spoke, so either a more adept impostor was in his arms, or Waru had truly learned to plan.
Still, he distrusted it. Waru brought up that Faustite was green, after all.
Which led him to wonder – except – "Would've thought you met Her, but you wouldn't be so put-together afterward." She wouldn't give him so much time to languish. Both of them would've been called to heel long ago, if Schörl returned to the city. Would've razed it by now, too.
So what was Waru on about, then? As the boy sat back, Eion folded his arms, one atop the other, over Waru's chest, and rested his chin atop the edge of his wrist brace. He studied his boy. Searched every crease, dimple, and twitch in his face. He spoke of colors, of stones, of Eion's team, of his love, and none of these seemed terribly related to each other. Their mineral names were just codenames, derived from nothing special, unlike senshi names. What of Eion's team? What did their colors matter? Staring Waru down afforded no answers.
Did context matter? They were both lounging in a tub of hot, stained water, covered in glitter, smelling like concentrated Christmas juice in Waru's ramshackle outhouse of an apartment. Nope, nothing more to be gathered from that.
Frowning, Eion poked at Waru's chest. "Speak plainly."
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Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2022 6:11 pm
Waru snorted, quirked a smile and he felt silly for having to say it ‘plainly’. Breathed a clean sigh full of fragrant air and met Eion’s suspicion with soft severity; determination etched into the grooves on his face. The crunch of them at the corners of his eyes, roved Eion’s form once more, twice - spied the floating balls that lingered beyond. Until he could nudge with a toe the messy decomposing remains of the dying bath bomb; squishy drifting thing that was fast becoming nothing more than the sludge which’d created it.
He snatched it up in easy reach, smushed a thumb through the grit and burst more glittery clumps and scented lumps of red free. Broke open the powdery insides round a circlet with inlaid gems; poor man's substitute for the true thing, but the colors mattered far more to him than the price.
Just like the silver engraving that spiraled round the interior professing a promise of eternity, no matter their forms.
“Not sure that Vow’s can be plain. I thought of writing ‘em down, then I thought of all the ways you and I have said ‘em to each other. Over and over and – how many times do things have to be said before something gets done about it, right?”
Would it be the right size, would he like it, would — squinched the bit of bright and shiny into the water once more, before holding it aloft. Swallowing whatever insecurities that lingered, because of course Eion could say No. He’d wait, sling it on a chain and shove it in a drawer until later - until never - until Schorl resurfaced, a nebulous bleeding ghost of Her that luejes like a demon-eyed sniper in the background of nightmares and shadowed halls.
He’d present Eion with her severed head. Ask again then. With a mouth full of death and outsides to properly match the jagged landscape of his beloved's innermost glasslined thoughts; cutting things for how jagged they were, but Waru’d never minded bleeding a little for the sake of love.
“Course - this is ******** ‘me’ - so — whatever time I took in planning it kinda fell apart in ways I didn’t imagine, and then I buried the damn thing in a ********, soap ball?” winced for that because he’d nearly forgotten - no - because he’d planned for it to go differently?
“Tried to pick out things you’d like..yanno..Something soothing for all the godawful endless nastiness we’ve been slogging through. I swear Ei’ there’s always some new bed of coals to walk over, every damn month, without ******** end….” and if anything Waru sounded bemused, gleefully excited for whatever new bit of challenge would rear its head to face them. To be there for it. With Eion, his team, together~
“...but that’s alright. Cause it’s ‘Til death do us part’. That’s what you said, yeah? What you meant.” and Waru crushed hope tight to his chest. Held it in like a breath of air underwater, a fluttering thing he was wary to let go of. Except there was no one else he’d do this for. He chased his tail on Eion and came back to him time and again and bit down on the thing hard enough to bleed for because he couldn’t get the thought out of his head.
It was anything but traditional, it was a mess of a thing, especially the way he was going about it he was sure, but that felt so right to him and he couldn’t help himself but go about asking the way he was.
“It’s what I meant, at least, when I promised it. When I agreed to an eternity. I’m tired of losing people – I’m always afraid of being alone — but not with you. Never with you. N when people feel things like that, the way I do? They buy rings – or just the one ring in my case? Then they ask the person they bought it for to marry them.”
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Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2022 6:17 pm
Oh, he thought, when he looked from Waru to the ring in his hand. Small flecks of glitter collected in the corners, around the stones, and he wondered, distantly, why Waru was showing him a ring. Didn't look like it had any power to it, like the strange flotsam that they dredged out of the Rift sometimes. He'd seen vials of pure gold, strange little bones packed with healing smoke, and Waru's stupid candies, but no encrusted rings.
His boy spoke about vows, and he wondered if he'd lied to him by accident. Why else would something need to be done about it?
But there were no charges in his boy's voice, in his touches or smiles. No malevolence hiding in the way his skin bunched up at the corners of his eyes. So Eion stared on, increasingly perplexed, and his brows furrowed farther. He began to wonder if Waru was possessed; could the White Moon have devised something so terrible? Was this how they planned to kill him? With his boy?
Was the ring supposed to kill him, then? Suck all the power out of him, youma side included? Was that what the bath was for? Holding his entrails as they fell out of his hollowed corpse? Then they'd release Waru's feeble mind, and his boy would be left to clean up the mess, to seek his revenge?
He wanted a tell. As he looked between Waru and the ring, he wanted some glint to prove the sham. Because Waru was right — they plodded through hell, and hell was never-ending. Another loss, or fight, or betrayal, or fumble, or tax waited for them with every step. And he'd always let his spirits raise with the few good things they were given, and those spirits invariably wilted when those good things were smoke and mirrors.
And now, this?
His mouth ran as dry as his veins. He asked himself — if this was another falsehood, would he be able to survive it? He'd found no tells to the contrary. But there was one last test to perform —
Eion held a finger to Waru's lips. "Hold that thought." Then he pushed off his boy, back into the water, back under it, where he saw nothing but color and glitter that stung his eyes.
He waited, breath heavy in his chest. Seconds ticked by. Nothing grabbed him and kept him under. He wondered, would Waru still be there when he resurfaced? Would he vanish? Would he become something other and try to strangle Eion?
He wondered, was Waru really asking to marry him? Could someone like Eion get married? He'd never considered it before; Waru knew full well that he had three hours as a human boy, and yet he still asked for this. For him, for Eion. Was he allowed to have this? And if he was, what was the cost? If he said yes, would Waru die in a week? Assuming all of this wasn't a trap, could they be allowed happiness?
There it was — that nagging reminder for air. Eion surface, caught a quick breath, wiped the food coloring and glitter out of his eyes. When he opened them, Waru was still there, looking as confused as Eion felt. But it was him, steadfastly and dependably him.
Eion bought time with a few breaths before he responded. His organs curled in on themselves as they anticipated a terrible end. When would Waru dissolve into Schörl?
"Not dreaming," he clarified. Then he rejoined his boy, always watching, suspecting, as he slowly took the ring. He supposed Schörl would make fun of it, but he rather liked it more for that. And the colors — each resembled a member of their team. He slipped it on his ring finger, left hand, where it sat primly past the knuckle.
Not a trap. Not a dream. Not a setup.
Just Waru, a ring, and his uniquely terrible way of proposing to someone. To Eion. He breathed, let himself feel.
"Troublesome boy," he murmured as he slipped his arms about Waru's neck, wrist brace be damned. Pressed his lips near his boy's ear, and added, "of course I'll marry you."
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Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2022 6:19 pm
Waru gaped, a fish of a man, closed his mouth when bade to do so. He wondered if he could’ve simply pinched him and told him that - ‘dreaming’. That this was anything but. That in his dreams he’d hadn’t proposed to Eion in a tub surrounded by handcrafts, sparkles and steaming oils. No, he’d made sweeping gestures. Knelt before Faustite in the Rift and offered up the most precious gem he owned. Taken the run of Rens ‘not a mansion’ and thrown a party to rival that of the greatest bacchanal event ever known, hedonism and depravity with Eion a pristine centerpiece amongst it all.
A beacon worth worshiping.
Taken Elex to his Moon. Let him eat it like one of Axinites cookies; the most impressive dowry he had to his name. The one thing he truly owned outside of his own soul - enough so that he could call it forsaken and walk away clean of it. But Warus dreams were strange things far removed from reality and the limitations he lived within. Settled for proposing on Christmas and missed it by a mile - put it off - tucked it away until it became an accident that felt right enough to put into action, to give meaning to.
Even as he worried on, watched and held his thoughts like he held his breath. At least until Eion resurfaced, dripped watercolors glossed in glittery hues. Breathed better once he had his boy back in his arms. Whispering what felt like sweet nothings — except it was everything.
“You mean it?!” Shuddery little nothing of surprise, a whisper, hushed, just in case he’d misheard. Couldn’t hide the wet that pricked at the corners of his eyes and Waru didn’t know why he was crying. Maybe for how good Eion looked slipping it on, maybe for the Yes. Being troublesome and loved despite it, unabandoned, unalone and - holy ********, Eion said yes!!
“I love you.”
Today, tomorrow, the rest of forever.
“In flesh or in fire. I ******** love you,” and his laugh was soggy, his hold gentle as he tried not to squeeze the breath from his boys lungs, had to remind himself to be careful even if he wanted to crush him into his center and sob out of sheer joy, “and now the whole world gets to know! Just like they should. ********, either of us would be pretty in a dress - and my mom would love you - and Lina is going to think you're divine....”
*He said yes he said yes he said yes*
The details of his few thoughts became lost in the mess that ran down his face as he remembered to breathe properly, promptly gave the ******** up on doing that because jagged little catches of air around a grin felt better; especially if he buried it all in as much of Eion as he could get his hands on.
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