



#997495#6B3740
Leon had momentarily forgotten the cold space between him and Ben. But when the mage looked away from him, it came back. Leon felt oddly ashamed of himself again, and lowered his eyes. He bit his tongue as Ben stepped forward, didn't watch when he laid a hand on the caims shoulder and uttered a brief apology. And, somehow, that stung. So the stranger was the one he could apologize to. But not Leon. For everything that had ever happened, he'd received no apology. It wouldn't have helped, he supposed. After all, the one thing he really wanted an apology for had been years and years past. Maybe Ben had well and truly forgotten it. But the fairy could tolerate the bruises, the breaks, and the discolorations. Ben had hardly been the first to give him those gifts. But he couldn't forgive him for that one thing. He couldn't forgive the way he held his chin and made him look into his eyes when he said the words. When he told him never. So Leon didn't look when Ben walked away.
I'm not. You know I'm not.
He had known no such thing. But maybe the fairy had been deluding himself as a teen, thought he could coax out feelings that weren't there. Maybe he'd believed it because Noel made it sound like it was possible. Maybe Noel only believed it because he'd fallen for Ben first, or at least realized it first. None of it mattered anymore.
But for Maluk, it wasn't lost, and he didn't doubt that the mage knew what he was doing when he laid that living hand on his shoulder as he steadied his breathing into the tissue pressed to his face. That brief, consenting touch, permitting the caim to see, to feel, and even as he was still wrung with Leons guilt, he'd taken the chance Ben offered. And the caim felt it. Just for a moment, he felt the emotions the mage worked so tirelessly to smother. They were coiled around each other like snakes, and Maluk felt a dread in him, that sooner or later, those snakes were going to coil up Bens spine and devour him from the inside out. And he knew that the words weren't for himself, a stoic stranger, and he knew why he couldn't, wouldn't say them to Leon. And then the hand was gone, and so was Ben. That left Leon and Maluk. The caim couldn't stand situations like these, feeling both Bens distance and Leons desperation, and both of their foolish and understandable reasons for constantly orbiting around each other and never drawing too close for too long. Feeling them both in his skull, he practically wanted to rip his head in half. But he couldn't do that. There was work to be done. So, as forcefully as he had learned, he tamped down the squalling emotions of Leon and Ben in his head and pushed his consciousness back into the forefront of his head, in between his eyebrows, wiped his face of the lingering tears, and sat up straight again.
When his gaze met Leons, his expression had returned to its stony rest. But the fairy couldn't mistake the understanding in his eyes, and it washed over him with a fresh wave of shame. He squirmed before asking again.
"Are...you okay? I'm really sorry, I can't thank you enough for what you've done..." But the caim simply waved a big hand.
<<'Please don't worry, this is normal. It happens each time, and it will fade soon enough.'>> Leon nodded sheepishly, but didn't truly feel very comforted by it. He glanced at the door behind Maluk, and quickly hopped out of the bed, hurriedly yanking his slacks on and - crap, he kept forgetting, he'd left his belt at Bens apartment. But even as he quickly yanked his clothes on, no longer limited to short, staggering movements, Maluk waved a hand to get his attention.<<'Try to take it easy. I can heal wounds, but the toxicity in your system is still there. You'll need to get clean on your own. Drink plenty of water, by the feel of it, you're going to be sick when you get home.'>> Leo looked away, a little abashed, as he buttoned up his shirt. Ben still hadn't given him his blue back. He knew that the caim meant well when he wrote out 'get clean' but... well, Leo just didn't have the resolution for that. Especially not after this. When he got home, the only thing he planned on doing was taking something to help him forget everything for a few days. He just needed to get it back from Ben. He straightened up and faced Maluk one more time, his expression a mix of guilt and anxiety, trying to smooth it all over. The high from the Blue had mostly faded away, so it was safe to open his mouth.
"I will. And, again, thank you so much. I'll come back and repay you somehow, soon. I don't have a card. I, uh, dropped my briefcase. But if you need any help with anything, just get in contact with Crownless, they can get me to you." And Maluk nodded, eyes still a little red around the edges, and stood to walk him out. Leon hurried along behind him, ducking through the iron doorways as Maluk held them aside for him, and waved goodbye at the steps. Hazel eyes watched the fairys back as he left, and he could feel Bens snakes coiled around his throat, full of things he wanted to say, but Ben and Maluk both knew why he couldn't. He closed the door on them both quietly.
The moment he was outside, Leon shrank down. His wings splayed out behind him through the tiny incisions in the backs of his shirt and jacket as they shrank down with him, and without slowing down, he went from walking to flying, just a glimmer of gold-white in the air. He had hurried so much to get dressed and get out, Ben had only just reached the top of the stairs when Leon caught up to him.
"Ben, wait!" and even as he said it, he knew he shouldn't have. the cold space was there for a reason. Ben was trying, he knew, to do as he'd asked. A clean break was easier. But as he flew up the steps and around Bens shoulders, stopping to hover about a foot in front of the mages face, all the cold cruel words he'd rehearsed in his head just seemed to evaporate. All Leon could see was Bens face in front of him, and desperately he tried to trace the lines of it in an instant, so that when he looked back later he could remember it clearly. He swallowed, self-conscious all at once again. Why did he stop him? To ask him for his drugs back? To tell him not to go? He couldn't remember, but with the last remnants of the Blue, a thought started to slip out of him.
"I... I was always-" and sober Leon and Logic caught the words by the tail before they could escape completely. I was always what? No, don't say it, don't even think it."I-I..." His wings fluttered and he dropped his gaze. "......thank you for everything." Before he could make a further fool of himself, before Ben could say something that might break the cold again, he turned away. And as fast as his wings would carry him, he flew away. He flew as high as he could bear, above the slums and the smog of the city, leaving the mage and the car and the steps and the stupid empty words and useless apologies. He never let himself look back, never let himself look down. Never, never, never.
It was midday by the time Leon got back to his shoddy little apartment. His keys had been in his briefcase, of course, so he'd had to shimmy through the little gap in his window, still the size of a thumb. Fortunately, it looked like Nanny was out, so Leon didn't need to fear as he changed his shape again, resuming the size of a full-grown man, albeit a small one. He peeled off the day-old suit, crumpled and sweaty from the full-speed flight. He cracked the window to let Nanny come in, if she showed up, yanked on lounge clothes, and opened his laptop. He spent hours shooting emails back and fourth, apologizing for his absence, explaining that no, no, nothing had happened, his bag had just been stolen and his phone with it. Everything was normal, everything was fine, he was sorry for the delays and yes, just send him emails until he got a replacement phone. He checked his messages and saw that the transaction he had been waiting on had gone through. That was good. By the end of the week, the word of the mistrial would be out, and he could waltz into Saxon City Prison and out with a valuable Crownless asset. These were the things he needed to worry about. These were the things he needed to concern himself with. He worked all day, pouring over legal texts in his underwear in front of his laptop, firing off emails, never letting himself slow down enough to think. Nothing had changed. Nothing had happened. I'm not. You know I'm not.
Tell me you understand.
Every time the thoughts came up he bit them back with those words. Tell me you understand. You under stand. You understand. I understand. And when night started to creep across the horizon, Maluks prophecy had come true. He could feel the food from the morning trying to force its way up. He clamped a hand over his mouth and hunched over, shaking, trying to will it back down, but to no avail. He'd run to the bathroom and made it to the toilet just in time to be violently ill, expelling everything he'd taken in that morning, the tainted smell of blueberries scorching his throat. He laid on the cool tile of the bathroom floor, breathing heavily, and his glance strayed down to his wrist. Like all of the rest of them, the bruise there had disappeared. He brushed his fingertips over the place where the bruise had been.
And he laid there.
And he cried.
Too softly for anyone to hear.
"I was always yours."
nowSERENITY

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███ ☂ l o c a t i o n ♦ The Seven Steps xx ███ ☁ m o o d ♦ Somberxx ███ ♥ w i t h ♦ Benjamin St.Jude, Maluk/Leon
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