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 Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2022 6:12 pm
The apology was unexpected despite Helio wanting just that. A single simple word from the fiery General. He sat for a moment, watching Faustite as if measuring the boy and the single syllable. Eventually, Helio offered a gentle smile and nodded, leaving it at that. There was no reason to pursue the old hurts any longer. Apologies were made and tempers had significantly cooled. Mistakes had been made in abundance and it was time to let them go.
“I would have earned it.” He replied, as he stood to walk over to Faustite’s desk. “I have faith you would have stopped there.” And if he hadn’t? Waru would have made sure of it. As much as the affection between Waru and Faustite ruffled Helio’s feathers are times, Waru was without a doubt dependable and loyal to Faustite, and the last thing that the man would have wanted was to watch Faustite tear himself up form the inside out over devouring Helio and Treys’ starseeds. Some would say he was being reckless thinking that way, but Helio had grown to put faith in friends and those who earned his loyalty even if at times things got prickly.
A graceful hop and Helio parked himself on top of the glass desk with gentle ease. Reaching down he covered ove of Faustite’s hands with his own as he leaned over. “We’ve been through a lot together. This was just another hiccup along the way. We;ve gotten over worse than this before and I have faith we will figure it out again.” With the passion that both boys had, Helio was not at all naive enough ot hink there wouldn’t be more arguments in the future. A healthy relathionship required them in Helio’s personal opinion because it it was all give and no take there was a very good chance a breaking point would hit that they wouldn’t recover from.
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Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2022 6:32 pm
"So you forgive me?" He asked, looking up at the boy. He was reticent to cover Heliodor's hand lest he burn the boy accidentally — doing so just after tentatively patching up his egregious ******** would have frustrated him immensely.
His boy was right, however: they had endured years of strife. Years of keeping to themselves, of hiding their fleeting time together, of missions, of abuse, of any outside force trying to pry them apart or sabotage them both. And if Faustite became the thing that separated them with finality, he would never forgive himself.
It also brought to mind the fact that he was seeing several boys, and hadn't made mention of that to Heliodor. Would that upset him, too? Or would it be better to wait until tempers were down and he'd smoothed over affairs with Trey as well? Maybe he'd ask Lilith this time — she was good with people, and might have better luck about the brothers than he or Albite did. Hard to know with any certainty.
Faustite sighed. He would've traded his human half for certainty.
"Relieved for that. Don't know the mission would've fared well if we were still against each other."
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Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 10:46 pm
His hand, carefully steepled over Faustite’s own eventually lifted away. His need for touch had almost garnered him a good right burn. Like a child he was still learning that the container of fire was detrimental to his health if touched unequipped. Perhaps, it was his own stubbornness too that didn’t want to ring home that message. So, also like a child, he tempted fate over and over again, ignoring the marks of burns past. Pulling his hand away he let his fingers oh-s-o-briefly brush against Faustite’s as he ignored that small pain.
“Yes, you’re forgiven. And I hope you can forgive my blatant insubordination.” He replied with reserved smile. He knew that the two were willing and ready to forgive each other, but having the words spoken felt like putting the nail in the coffin. They would be done and put it behind themselves.
His train of thought was quickly diverted from past qualms to the aforementioned mission. “I’ll have you know, I would never have jeopardized a mission because of some squabble between us.” He said with assurance. As much of an a*****e could be, Helio was able to seperate his social life from work.
”A mission?” What was this? What was going down now. A subtle shift in his body said that Faustite had his full attention. He pivoted enough on the desk to comfortable look at Faustite. “Now that you brought it up, care to enlighten me?”
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:36 am
Faustite sighed his relief. He wasn't going to lose a boy over this, let alone the boy he'd been with the longest. Heliodor, even under a different name, was special to him for earning the title of 'first boyfriend', and even if he couldn't be 'first husband', he wanted to keep the boy in his life for as long as was possible for them. Heliodor was special, deserved to be special, and earned every modicum of love Faustite ever gave him.
But damn if he couldn't be a right b*****d sometimes. Even his acceptance of an apology stung.
Luckily, Faustite lacked pride to wound. He grunted his assent to his boy's statement about jeopardizing missions, though they were on two different lines of thought with that subject. "Isn't about jeopardizing it. More like…" He paused, looked about the room as he tried to think of a proper example. "You need to make a split-second call. Life or death. Answer's automatic to you — call on me. But we had bad blood, so you hesitate. One ******** second. Then — that's it. Dead from a brief hesitation. That's what I want to avoid.
There should be no doubt. No room to reconsider." Heliodor would understand, hopefully.
The boy's next question prompted Faustite to rise and don his cincher. He opened the glass bookcase, withdrawing a rolled up piece of parchment from the corner. Once he laid it on the table, he spread it out and pinned the edges under a teacup and an inkwell, revealing a detailed map of a canyon-like area.
"This is the Scar," he said, his finger encircling a staggering mountain that was split in half. "Part of the Rift. Led a mission there before.
"While afterward, the area sustained an earthquake. One of my contacts told me something was wrong in the area. All the youma left. Went looking — found a building. Something old, like the sunken city. Mission is to explore it. See why it's there now, and what it did to clear the area of youma."
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Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 12:49 pm
“Ah.” He said in response, letting that little nugget of a thought sink in. Faustite was right though. In such a situation it was more than just acting professional. Trust needed to be there if the mission was at all going to be successful without any casualties. Plus, considering his rank..anyone not of Eternal or General rank weren’t going to be able to throw weight around quite as much. It put them into a more precarious situation. “You’ve got a very good point.” He watched as Faustite turned away, cinching up to gather something out of the glass cabinet. “I take it you’re not expecting this to be a simple mission.”
The conversation had taken so many turns. Shouting at one another, airing frustrations, to making up and now it was very much all business. The map was carefully spread out between them as Helio slid from the desk to properly stand opposite of his General to study the piece of parchment. Vaguely he wondered who had taken the time to create the map. Vaguely he wondered if it had been Faustite himself considering the time the boy had spent there.
At the gesture, Helio turned his attention to the Scar. He studied it and the areas around it. It seemed large. Quite large in fact. Thankfully it seemed they wouldn’t necessarily need to investigate the entire area according to Faustite, but missions could be fickle things sometimes. Even the most well laid plan could fall apart.
“They all left?” He said not actually questioning Faustite. “That’s peculiar. I can see why you want to get in there and investigate. If something is possibly scaring off the youma then it’s worth knowing about. Maybe we will get lucky enough to find some h istory on the place too.” Maybe it all coincided together.
“How big is this building? I am assuming it must be fairly large if you didn’t go in yourself.” Faustite was more than smart enough after all not to possibly trap himself in a building. If there was one thing Faustite was good at was looking at things in a large grand scale. A tactician for sure. “How many are you bringing?”
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Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 1:25 pm
"No." He watched Heliodor. "Was in the Rift for years. Never found a part of it that lacked youma. Auras were ubiquitous. Anything that could chase them out of their own home requires utmost caution." He expected that Heliodor would understand the gravity of it better than Albite.
Faustite studied the map in silence as Heliodor spoke. They were of a similar appreciation of the youma problem, then. However, there was more to consider than all of the youma leaving — they could well be dead, or simply gone. Ripped from the fabric of reality, for all Faustite knew. In that respect, the nature of the building was deeply unclear, and worth respecting by dipping into its confines carefully. Perhaps Faustite was being too cautious with it by refraining from breaking into the place himself; if he could conduct enough recon to give the others something to follow, then wouldn't it ensure greater chances of success?
"Don't know how big it is," he admitted. He didn't know its history either, but that seemed commonplace for buildings lodged in their austere backyard.
"It's, mm, upside-down. So we have to descend into it from ground level. No telling how deep it goes.
"But… Saw lights down there last time. Seemed to react to our presence. Only started to glow when we got close. Whatever's in there, it's not completely dead." Power supply or otherwise. Considering it always bolstered his caution about this affair.
"Be easier to pick a number if I knew the size. Given the entrance, I want at least a dozen. Think this works better with a few seasoned, trusted officers than with a legion of idiots. Learned from that mistake last time," he finished, rolling his eyes. "Want to make sure there's more leaders than just me. Need to know we can all coordinate. Still have to see if comms work in there." Pausing, Faustite straightened up.
He looked over the map, all its sketched locations, all his attempts at intimating depth. "Still so much unanswered. Don't like to go in blind like this."kolina almost done crossposting!
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Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 1:37 pm
All of the info was troubling. “You’re definitely right to be cautious. Something like this could be a big problem.” A hand reached up the cup his chin, a finger gently tapping just below his lower lip as he thought. There was a lot to think about and even more they could theorize on. In fact, they could spend fruitless hours, even days speculating on what could be going on to create such a reaction from the youma.
“If it just killed the youma in the area of fI’d think more would eventually move in.” So it was unlikely it was a single event or burst of power that could have done something to wipe the youma out. Though that in itself was a terrifying thought. He could only begin to imagine how strong something like that would need to be to wipe youma out of their own home. His gaze lifted form teh map to meet Faustites. “So whatever is there is either making sure youma don’t come back or it’s a side effect of whatever is going on there. I am curious about the lights though and how they reacted. Was it just you there? Perhaps it was reacting to your half-youma nature? I wonder if it would react to someone who isn’t connected to the youma.”
There was a lot they could use information on. “Yea, this sounds like it’s going to take more finesse than going in with pure brute strength.” He eventually dropped his hand to brace against the desk.
“The entrance, is it a tunnel? Will it make it difficult to manuever do you think?” The idea of going in from underneath gave him the suspicion it was going to be a fairly enclosed space at first, but he hadn’t been the one to see it. “All of us moving into one singular entryway make me a bit nervous. There’s a lot that could go wrong from the beginning. Especially since it was able to sense you when you were there last.”
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Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 1:38 pm
"It's a hole," he explained. "Almost as large as what we saw of the first floor.
"Could've been reacting to me." Faustite shrugged, already at a loss for answers. "Been reticent to bring more of the team in. Only Jadarite's an officer with good command of herself — rest are senshi. Going to aggravate the youma by being there. Puts everyone at more risk.
"Need to think on it more. Maybe get drunk and go in there myself," he added, with a margin of levity. "Maybe that's what it takes. Reckless endangerment until I learn what we need to know." And if that worked, then he'd be eating his words later. Likely the whole team would come down on him and beat him half to death for taking unnecessary risks — or he'd like to think they would. Realistically, given some of their past behavior, Faustite expected they'd think nothing of it. He hadn't died, in theory.
With the cincher on, he could clasp his hand on Heliodor's bicep in wordless gratitude. That he was willing to part ways with his explosive anger was itself a great feat, but to try to help Faustite brainstorm a solution to his current mission conundrum in the same conversation demonstrated his willingness to stay loyal. Even if Schörl called him useless and cursed him a dozen times over, Faustite felt immeasurable gratitude for having Heliodor come back to him.
"Let's put this away for a while. Go to your place. Unwind," he suggested as he started rolling the map back into a cylinder.
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Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 1:48 pm
Would it be possible for a senshi to get into that area and not tick off the youma enough to lure them in? It was a possibility he supposed. Perhaps something worth attempting if the risk seemed worth it. A single senshi to two agents may prove a good match-up in that instance.
“If you so much as step a single foot in there expecting to go and do reconnaissance yourself…” Helio let it hang, but his eyes bore into Faustite with the promised threat. Joke or not, If his boy went and did something as stupidly reckless as that, Faustite would truly see Helio’s fury. But he wasn’t oging to push the matter anymore for now. Hopefully Faustite had gotten the idea that such nonsense wouldn’t be tolerated and to go any further with it would probably only cause more strife. Strife that Heliodor really had no interest in starting right now. It made him tired just thinking about it. So he moved back to his original train of thought.
“The pro of no youma being in that area may mean it’s safer for senshi.” Helio pointed out. “It could be worth mulling over.”
Faustite was ready to step away from the problem at hand. At least for now, and Helio was more than willing to let his General to clean up the map and store it back into it’s tube for safe keeping. Right now, considering how this whole meeting had started, he was more than willing to let the hard decisions and thought be thrown to the back burner. Faustite was clearly on the same page.
He gave a knowing grin. “I am not going to complain to that.” He said as he moved around the desk, wrapping his arms around his boy before the maps could be safely stowed away in it’s glass case.
“Just don’t keep me out of the loop. I want to help with this where I can. I wasn’t there before to assist, but I am here now; For this one. I want to make sure, as much as you do, that we all make it out of this alive. So, whatever you need let me know, ok?” With that cincher on Faustite was a pleasurable warmth in his arms and Helio gave the boy a gentle squeeze before releasing him. “And do me a favor? Don’t do anything reckless.”
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Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 1:52 pm
Faustite knew Albite was in possession of one of several pendants; he would be a prime pick for some more testing prior to the mission. As Heliodor said — fewer youma meant a safer time for Negaverse senshi, even if Albite had to use the pendant along the way. It would be less of a hassle than trying to make deductions on his own, and with a second person, they could test how well their comms worked.
The plan was shelved for now, however. He would rather the distraction offered by the boy who now joined him, and even if he couldn't directly feel the arms about his waist, he placed his hands over them nonetheless. It was only in times like these that Faustite wished he still had a stomach, and all the nerves that went with it, but those moments seldom outweighed having a boy with him. He spared the boy a brief glance, hesitant to spoil Heliodor's newfound contentedness.
"I won't," he promised. He would, however, spare the boy the grisly details of the prior mission.
Faustite smiled, though he tried to stifle it. "You're sweet," he murmured, sparing Heliodor a light kiss. That the boy would offer so much so quickly was too kind, and Faustite was happy to take full advantage of it in their moments together.
"Gotten tired of staring at it. Could use a distraction." He knew Heliodor would always be up for one of those.
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Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 1:55 pm
Heliodor was a young man who gave everything of himself to those who warranted his energy. Faustite had been one of those people for so long, that falling into old habits and affections was as easy as powering up at this point. It was easy, simple, and welcomed even if their relationship wasn’t necessarily all of those things. Still, it was worth every challenge along the way. Perhaps it was all the challenges that let him throw himself into the good times with his full self. Whatever it was, he was quite ready to make-up for the past month’s mistakes.
“Good.” He replied with a smile, returning the small sweet kiss.
“Let’s give you something else to focus on then.” He said teasingly as he took the tube from Faustite’s hand to return it to the glass cabinet the boy had pulled it from. “Make sure you won’t have to worry about it again until at least tomorrow. Give you some time to refresh yourself.”
After returning the map and closing the glass door, Helio turned. He paused for a moment, just watching Faustite. It honestly was amazing. The amount of trials that Eion had gone through over the years and he still found himself capable of caring about his subordinates and chosen loves. There were so many things that could have turned Faustite away from any form of affection but there he was, waiting expectantly for Helio to join him. To spend an evening just enjoying Helio’s company.
A smile danced it’s way across Helio’s face before he laughed softly, nothing more than a soft exhale of air through nostrils, at the odds of it all as his head dropped in a soft shake.. “I missed this.” He said finally before looking back up. “I didn’t realize how miserable I was these past months until now.”
He walked back over holding a hand out to Faustite. “I’ve got some wine and liquor at the apartment. I am sure we can enjoy ourselves well enough, tonight.” Helio was going to make sure of it. After all, there was a lot of apologizing and making-up to be had. Alcohol, would be a nice precourser to help alleviate any remaining tense feelings between them, but the hurts were well on their way to being healed.
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