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 Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2023 5:30 pm
Even if Faustite set them? Waru wasn’t sure how well Aelius would heed anything like a limit right now, the man had been kept in the box so long, underwraps and underheel, now that he was out? Except no—it was different then that—he’d been free and come back and Waru could’ve gnawed on his own lacking, a self-imposed sort of reprimand for not having the mouth sounds he needed to express, even in his own mind, how he felt where Aelius was concerned. It was like touching his tongue to the tip of a battery every time he tried to wrap his head around the man–
Even when they made progress!! And they had, did, would continue to do so—It was micro-cheese grater roughness–pumice stone for the senses–He realized with a heave of un-bodiced breath that maybe, for this thing? It was better to let it go, better to not know and let it lie and just—try things out to see what happened?
That if Faustite didn’t know, then he sure as hell didn’t either, but what harm could come of it! Of simply trying things out, setting limits once the pair had found talking points and less volatile pedestals to stand on and speak their own kinda truths from. Aelius seemed to rail at the thought of having any limits at all that weren't focal points to setting up his own demise, but maybe if the limits came with reasonable explanations? With answers to all the whys? With taglines and hashtags and – Maybe if only some ‘No’s seemed solid – or softer than that – If no sounded like later? If he could get through to one the importance of taking what was given and the other that not every question had to end in traumatic answers where his boy bared all his soul because that was all of him that was less. Faustite was practically hollow as it was, if any more meat got carved off the bone what ever would be left for him to hold onto? Metal and fire and bits of a crown wrapped in the tatters of cape and laces even Waru couldn’t devise the ends of.
It reminded him of how happy he was to have Faustite without shoes, every time. Not just because it gave him one more way to tease the ever-loving-hell outta his husband, but also because the new footwear made his boy so damn grouchy sometimes, and a happy house-fire made for an even happier himbsband–anddd….
“Let’s give your boy a little more credit where it’s due, yeah? He survived the rest, wants his lion's share—or maybe just to feel like it’s okay to share the sliver that crushed him? Senshi n stars above know *I* can’t be the one he gives it up ******** telling how the only thing a pair’uv empire-esq dragons’ll bend to is you! The literal ‘King of Fire’ in flesh n form,” teasing because he could as he nuzzled his way into Eion’s hair once more, even if it was just for another breath of his boy, his fingers finally idle around pieces he deemed warm enough to cling to and close his eyes against in thought.
“Halfuv the things the world worships as a whole’re long ******** dead, stars, n poets, n lessr’more grand things than that. Ooh! Hey! Was your mom french? My mother, Sheabell” and it felt weird to use her first name instead of Ma’ or mam, or some iteration of such, “She’s not french, but you know this, yeah? S’the language influences out there I think? Course I could always call and ask her more about it since it’s just me, n Maven, n Miracle, and Feliscitus. ******** terrifying, that their all basically adults now–but they get to stay home with her like they should...”
It felt like there was something he was missing — someone? He was glad for Faustites weight, to watch him talk with half lidded eyes as he did his best to commit the new names to memory. It felt special, even if it was only honoring ghosts. They’d once been Faustites loved ones, they’d once been alive! He knew he should know them, at least, in name alone…
“Ushindi is her maiden name, don’t think she gave any of us our fathers? Cause there was no marriage, which makes her a hell of a dark horse in her community, yanno? Most women don’t even leave their families until they are married n having kids. There's no point to it, breaking up a family unit in that way when it’s not at its strongest point. So children usually stay with their parents until their wed off n such..”
Which, there was someone he was missing—the uglier puzzle piece that clicked when he thought hard on it enough.
“Oh! Speaking of untis, ******** ‘Alberic’. Can’t complain for the height I suppose? Would’ve liked to hit 6’4..buuuhhttt…” there, the man could have a name, Waru would allow him to exist in this moment and this moment alone. A nice bit of trade so long as he kept himself distracted by Eion’s nicely nestled heat. It helped too that he’d run his mouth long enough to beg more answers, or to even let the silence that followed settle nice n still as a blanket over all his constant talking.
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Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2023 8:31 am
"He can share whatever he wants, long as I don't have to talk about it." It wasn't hearing someone speak about it that sucked, it was having his private, relived hell pried out of him and put on display. If Aelius wanted to b***h about Schörl, fine, but that didn't mean Faustite had to toss his experiences with her out into the open. Or it shouldn't — but that was likely going to be what Aelius wanted from him. Solidarity by hearing similar experiences, even if those experiences were set to two different magnitudes. Didn't matter if it would crush Faustite to do so.
He could dread that conversation later, perhaps. Long as Waru kept jumping from topic to topic, he could count on his safety from this one.
And jump the boy did .Faustite breathed a soft sigh while he tried to recall what he could about his mom, who was so concerned with outward appearances that it was difficult for even him to disentangle the veneer from the genuine. "Think so," he muttered after a moment. "Was born and raised here, though. Think her parents were from France. Never met them. Think she begrudged them." Not that he could guess why, or if it ever could've been resolved. He could've gotten it backwards, too — perhaps they begrudged her for her choices, her decision to marry, who the ******** knew. It hardly seemed a problem for him when his parents were alive, but now he was wondering why he never got involved for the mystery behind it. It just seemed natural that he had only one set of grandparents.
'Language influences' was a sanitized way to frame what Faustite expected had happened in Waru's hometown, but that was a problem they would one day solve if they won the war. Better that he didn't press Waru to go after those origins.
Was better, then, to hear about him go on about his living family. That he got to experience them grow up, even if an ocean existed between them, must have been exciting, right? Maybe? As he thought about it, he became more unsure, for any promise of a positive outcome was just as likely to be supplanted by a negative outcome. Would it be better to have watched one of his sisters die or get addicted to drugs? Would it matter if that same sister was happy now, in reality? The thought alone was exhausted, let alone the effort he had to expend to avoid applying some of those thoughts to his own family. He needed to let the dead lie still.
"Must've gotten your willfulness from her. All those standards and expectations you so love to break…" He'd been infuriatingly good at it, for years, and his mom must have been the same in her community. All those expectations gone to pure s**t.
The indignity for Waru's bitching about not being six-four was white hot, however. "Don't ******** complain about your height," Faustite commanded, jabbing a nailed finger into Waru's chest. "Not ******** one of the men in my family got to five-ten, so you piss off with your six-four!" A trail of sizzles petered out with each sibilant sound.
Huffing, Faustite wrenched himself upward enough that he could reconfigure himself away from Waru's lap. He turned on his side, settling into an S-shape with his back to the boy. Precisely the punishment he deserved for running his mouth like that.
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Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2023 11:24 pm
"The parts of him that wished to beg Faustite be ******** *careful* with his stitches were the same that bayed his own grievances in half-cooed whines. A hound that decrying his own abandonment of so-hot-they-were-just-right cuddle times! All the barely suppressed nuance of ‘how ******** dare!’ and the span of moments that twisting, ever-clingy feeling existed before dissolving beneath his own mirthful smile. He tried to huff the laughter that swelled up at Faustites expense into submission, because Faustite was, as always, too damn cute for words, for sense, for silence!
Even in the moments he could see his boy turning the distance of inches into a punishing force—- Waru wanted to talk after him, touch after him. Give his beloved his win while conceding nothing else at all—- Because Waru admired him from every angle; spitting sparks and giving him his perfect curve of a thin spine, curled catlike and clawsure in his lap. Admired his boy beyond the physical pale, the tar-pitch flesh, those ******** eyes he wanted to up and godamned die in like one more tiny, snuffable, sky-held star—-
Always it’d been Faustite’s mind he coveted the most. To be on it and in it. Even if it was only as a nuisance—-even if it was to distract his boy from himself.
Just like this.
It made him want to leave the rest for later. To let it all sit, barely steady as it was, for just right now. Everything to do with Aelius shoved beneath an imagined roof inside an unsteady stilt-house built in sand at the beaches edge; labeled a very careful ‘work in progress’ - underlined mentally with bright red sharpie (because crayon washed out, so if he imagined sharpie? Obviously it’d stick permanent as any thought should’ve!) Everything to do with family; Eions, his own, traipsing about the hidden landmines and testing the hot cold pressure of each precious subject till he inadvertently tripped a trigger. It could all wait a little longer—
Couldn’t it?
He’d never been in a rush for the answer to his husbands every thought before. He wasn’t about to start racing for those answers now, even as quasi-fireproof as he’d become. Some things were better had slow—-
At least for him?
And Waru could sigh at his own inner machinations as he finally managed to quell his mouth and turn the so yearning as to be pained sounds into something like words that made sense and had meaning. He could sigh for Aelius, the boy he knew had spent so much time that there was no longer any patience remaining — that maybe in all the ways he could wait for things to change, Aelius maybe couldn’t? Not anymore.
Being a bulldozer in their China shop seemed just as wrong as doing nothing at all—-That faustite was open to listening was enough. That his husband was willing and able to take a stand for himself and affirm his own boundaries —
“Sharing is caring—S’ah good start as any. N’he’ll appreciate you bein’ willing to listen. M’sure….and you’re right!” knowing tone that bled wanting as Waru walked his fingers over cooked sheets, followed them with his body like he was being sly. A hulking thing attempting stealth, halting only to hover at the edges of Faustites body. “I got all her willfulness, and yet none of her sense in how to use it—-“ This kind of dance, it was exhaustive as any workout, the kind that left a person winded and aching after. The lines of tension and the way it ebbed and flowed even if it was all tension of the mind—
Magical all healing bones be damned!
They did ******** all for healing a persons mental bandwidth stretched rice paper thin. They didn’t glue back together the past and make it sensible n whole, they didn’t erase the knowing of the mind — the kind of marks that knowing left — the way they reflected in a persons body so long after an event had begun, ended, dissolved into non-being.
“Though, for what it’s worth? I think you’re perfect exactly as you are, Firebrand. Like a big gifts comin’ n’ lithe n compact packages kinda deal—now come back here n let me love on you, yeh? Pretty please—with cherries—with—me coddling you for the rest of the damn week. I’ll even cook you all the things you like most—“ aiming for enticing as he left the words half buried in the sheets at Faustites back, ever-hovering die that most coveted but if permission wrapped in forgiveness-dipped tones.
He’d made sure to take his time, all the time that Aelius had granted him. All the time they’d agreed upon so they didn’t strangle each other for the sake of going stir crazy! Waru intended to use it to its fullest. Every second of it.
Especially now, when he was practically vibrating with the essence of ‘let me make it up to you for enduring all my bullshit!’
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Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2023 5:22 pm
Faustite struggled to imagine Aelius being grateful for anything. He thought it more likely that the boy would complain that he wasn't getting more out of Faustite, that Faustite wasn't reading his ******** mind for him and giving him everything he ever could've wanted out of life while offering every kind of apology that Aelius ever craved. That even if he worshipped Aelius's ******** feet, the boy would find whatever he did wanting. And that was an exhausting thought.
Always falling short had worn him down over a count of years. He didn't think he could be ready for more of Aelius's vitriol in a month, let alone a week. Not when it drained him so to consider hypotheticals. It was easier, then, to fall into the way they occasionally ******** with each other. Sometimes it was Albite bringing all his innuendo to bear on a conversation that Faustite was trying to keep serious, and other times it was Faustite acting petulant that instigated this little game of closeness. He felt the bed shift under Albite's weight whenever he moved — seldom could it be missed — but Faustite pretended to not noticed it. Laid still, defiant, insistent that Albite was not worth looking upon in that moment.
And when Albite insisted he come over to him? That wasn't how this worked. "No," he responded in kind.
But he listened to Albite's propositions, his attempts to sweeten the deal for forgiveness in this mock situation. Faustite waited in silence for a time, as if weighing the offers and considering whether he found them wanting or satisfactory. He'd never admit to them being more than he could've wanted, even if they so often were — that would concede too much, ruin the game.
With a sigh, he made his decision. "Guess I could let you cuddle." But he wasn't about to move from the spot. Already the stitches felt like they were pulling, and the rigamarole of turning over and laying on top of them to give Albite what he wanted promised to send him right back to the infirmary.
"But you have to come to this side." He tapped the swath of sheets in front of him. "Don't get to be the big spoon just because you're ******** tall."
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