(Backdated Jan. 12, 2024)
“And here I thought you only married me for my charming abs and fat a**—†Waru cooed, toasted marshmallow warm, trying his best at being as appealing as possible for what he knew was to come. Always better to lay pathways of pain over with sugared words and honeyed looks. To offer a thousand carrots to his stubborn mule of a husband shaped steed. He offered all that tease wearing only half of what he should’ve been– wearing Faustites favorites – gray sweats, and fresh, short twists. Both his husbands rings on their respective fingers in place of the collar proper, because he wanted to *feel* Faustites heat anew, to be able to gauge it more like a thermometer and less like someone with too much immunity.
He felt cleaner than he had in weeks, clean enough that it would’ve been a joy to get dirty all over again! That it would be something to relish, all the exertion to come, for him, for his husband. All the ways he knew they’d be going through it together or not at all. Especially as he held Faustites main mode of transportation hostage, practically dancing around his boy in it while looking like he was as ready to turn the chair to scrap as he was to place Faustite back in it one more time. He could make the ******** thing pop a wheelie now, and that in itself absolved some of his need to run his – *everything* – to run his mouth, or pace, or panic like a small mousy creature over all the things that could go wrong in the next five minutes.
In the next hour. Month. Year.
Nah, better to do this, to distract himself as he sought to distract Faustite from the looming inevitability of what so many a specialist had laid bare before them in writing, with kind but stern words, in tones set in stone. As if Waru would’ve missed the severity of it all should they have dared try and use anything other than simple words and rudimentary pictographs. As if he didn’t know how bodies worked intrinsically, and just because he couldn’t pronounce the word ‘atrophy’ didn’t mean he couldn’t grasp the concept all on his own! He’d decided that he would take it all good naturedly. Their attempts to help this way, that he couldn’t be mad at every person with a degree and titles heaped with acronyms.
“Truth is? You just wanted someone who follows orders n looks hot in a nurse outfit,†laughing as he nearly lost his own balance, but never Faustites eyes. “Which—Tell me I’d rock it better n Hestia at least?†He knew maiding was more her thing, but it never hurt to hear a compliment! To feel it in the way Faustite rolled his eyes or blinked, cat lazy and done with his absolute bullshit. He lived for Faustites looks now, his faintest gesture, had never watched the man more closely in his life and knew this must be true love for how he’d not yet grown tired of being pavloved into looking.
“Though–goodness knows she might beat me in the tits department–oneahthesedays–m’mah seriously ask her about her workout routine.†huffed as he finally let the thing touch ground with a heavy thud, both wheels level and no longer tempting gravity to drag him backwards and bash his brains out all over hard cobble floors. He had to give props to how well made the thing was, at least. How they’d crafted a wheelchair that would accommodate Faustites heat was surely a feat of both magic and engineering combined! Oh, in the back of his mind he knew it had far more to do with all their other imbued items, Faustites cincher, the whole like, but it didn’t lend to him marveling over things any less whenever he saw his boy use them without them going up around him in a molten blaze!
For all the good this particular device actually did them both. For all the potential harm that lay in something too well made.
Waru had watched the ginger way Faustite took to it using the thing, like a much loathed aid, a terrible necessity of a crutch; like he’d be forever beholden to Waru talking him on walks – doll in carriage and ever unable to do more than be a burden – a cherished pet dragged along on rolling jaunts to and from wherever Waru’s whims took them both on any particular day.
Luckily for Faustite? Waru loathed the thing too! For all that the chair had its uses there were also limitations to it. Worst of all were the fabled warnings he’d heard ten million other times before. How once a person got *into it*, if ever they could walk again? Then eventually they had to get *out* of the ******** thing–
Had to, had to, had to!
If they didn’t start now, then when? If he didn’t make Faustite start *now*-- then it would never happen.
Waru vowed he’d make it up to his boy, make it worth it for him. Would snuff his own fears of causing hurts and rifts miles long between them if it meant Faustite ******** walking. They were doing this now, they were doing it today.
No matter what.
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Faustite was silent in the face of all of his boy's teasing. While he learned some sign language, it wasn't coming easily to him — the gestures that came more naturally to him seldom found their way into sign language vernacular, if it could be called that, and found just as much difficulty in trying to teach Waru how to understand it himself. Faustite didn't expect Waru to learn how to use ASL, for there was little need when Faustite could still hear, but sometimes that was integral to his boy being able to learn anything at all.
The boy was so often denigrating himself for fun that Faustite lacked the wherewithal to even roll his eyes anymore. It was just noise. Surely Waru understood, by now, that Faustite felt no impulse to marry meat.
Though, maybe it wasn't so clear, for how often Waru's head was completely empty. Faustite could put his head against Waru's and hear the ocean coming out of his ears. Particularly now, when Waru was entertaining himself with the rolling prison that Faustite had been confined to for the past weeks. And while Faustite was eager to regain some independence, there came a measure of anxiety with it, too. How long would it take to return to normal? Could he return to normal? What would happen if he failed these first steps? Could he set himself back further? What if some of his ability to walk never returned?
That's the entire Negaverse infirmary, Faustite signed back with exasperation. Mainly it was the male nurses, assuming that their uniforms carried the nurse motif. And Hestia didn't belong in that category because she was dressed like a maid in her senshi uniform, not a nurse, but perhaps nursemaid being a combination of nurse and maid meant they were the same thing in Waru's head. How would anyone know?
Faustite sat uneasy in his chair, even as he watched Waru ******** around unabashedly. His hands gripped the handles on his crutches, wringing the plasticized cushioning uneasily in his hands, as if he could reassure himself if he gouged it enough with sharp fingernails. But there were no reassurances, none save for what his husband's body could provide if Faustite fell. And he would fall, he expected. How could he not?
There was little purpose to continue stalling, even if he wanted to tell Waru to quit ******** about and come stand by him in case he couldn't make it up. He wasn't sure how much muscle he still had in his arms, since the incident put a stop to his workout routines. Maybe he could still support himself enough to hoist himself up. Maybe that was lost to him now.
Uneasily, Faustite leveraged the crutches against the ground. He tried to push himself up with them, using as little weight on his legs as possible, but one of the crutches slipped before he even made it off the chair. Huffing, Faustite stared at Waru with a measure of exasperation.
There was no need to sign. He beckoned.
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He watched Faustites hands, caught a quarter of it, and smiled. In his spare time started learning there was a vast difference between letters, words, phrases so nuanced and full of depth that even the way a person held their hands or pointed their fingers could change the way those things were perceived. It was both familiar and strange at once and he found himself fascinated by it.
Even if he was taking to it like a dog took to swimming in tar. The fires of determination were there— and he *could* learn other languages! Not prettily, not with the same silkenly fluency as one to whom it was their native tongue, but he could—
Spoke more than one already even if he barely spoke English anything like properly. Even if he’d grown out of touch with how the words of his and his mothers home felt in his mouth, she would say his milk tongue and curdled. Would admonish him in French — in Baas — he should’ve bugged Kama more, even if just for the sake of having someone who spoke it so prettily around him *there* so he could soak it up, differences in diction and phrasing aside!
Everything aside — if it was necessary? Then he would; for a month, a year, a lifetime. For however long it served him well to do so. Already forging the shortcut of simply plugging himself into his husband's head and sharing their thoughts via earring jack-in often as he could've—Because where was the fun in that? Where was the challenge!! Besides—if nobody was currently dying and only one of them was actually on fire? Not even in a bad way!! Then there was no urgent need to tap the techs short hours usage, least, not for something like this.
Not yet.
As he caught Faustites features, the sharp gesture, he smiled all the wider — didn’t need words to grasp *that* — the wheelchair got abandoned with ******** haste — kicked away and left to roll off into obscurity while he took up what he deemed to be his husbands weaker side. All his praise withheld, teeth tethering tongue because he could be patient enough to wait till later—
“Maybe I’ll have you write me a list, huh? After we finish trying out your new training wheels here— an ‘All the reasons I married Waru!’ list! In your sharp, pretty cursive, signed in blood—“ he purred while placing his hands supportively, offering to be a body to lean on as much as he was an instrument of leverage.
It would be slow going, learning new tools, re-learning old motions. But it would ******** happen. It had to.
“And then — a reward? An actual reward. Maybe we make up a list of rewards— ******** knows you’ll be earning ‘em!†His beloved had earned them already by Warus count, but motivation was key to preventing any possible setbacks from being so devastating! A thing to earn other than the obvious goal they were working towards. Something more than what he gave already — what was part of the routine — stretches ng and healing and eating and meds and sleeping and little massages of joints and around areas so bruised and wounded at the edges they made even the darkest blacks of Faustites skin appear to have a purple sheen.
“But we can go over alluv that later, yeah? For now, let’s just get you up—“
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It was now that Faustite truly wasn't listening to a word Waru had said. Normally, the boy was talking to waste air – Faustite had understood this for as long as he'd known Waru. To his credit, he could occasionally get serious enough that he was worth listening to for short stints. Other times, it was as if Waru tried to be as obtuse and confusing as possible. But at that moment, as Waru was rambling on, Faustite wouldn't have been listening even if Waru told him that half his team had been killed. His concentration was entirely taken up by trying to stand with crutches.
Even with Waru's help, it was an arduous process. Waru was a comfort – someone who would keep him from feeling a world of hurt by falling, someone who would help him balance should he slip or miss where he should have placed a crutch. But Faustite wanted to walk on his own, he desperately wanted to be able to wander without having to know the destination and invite transit time back into his life so he had space between appointments, meetings, and tasks, so he had time to think between people he had to see.
Walking was time to breathe. It was quietude. It was meditative. It was the restorative breath between sentences. Faustite needed it back.
Faustite tried to lift himself up, using his crutches for leverage, but the attempt was messy – he found it hard to hoist himself without using his legs, and when he tried to use his mangled legs, he felt pain so sharp and wild that it felt as if the hounds were back to make a meal of him. He let out a shuddered hiss of pain for it, but kept pushing. He wanted to be upright. He wanted to walk, no matter the implement he had to use to do so.
Crutches weren't a cane. He could do with these. And if he could get himself down to one crutch, then he could throw the other one at the gaggles of stupid Lieutenants that liked to gather in the halls and do nothing. There, goal-setting. Waru should be ******** proud.
The first attempt had failed. The second attempt, with Waru there like a guardrail, had also failed when Faustite mispositioned his other crutch and started to fall. But his boy was ever present, and ever good at catching him, so the consequences weren't more than the pains from his body tightening up in response. In the third attempt, he learned to keep the crutches perpendicular to the ground and push down on them, and finally got himself to the upright position.
He was already sweating, already feeling a little breathless. He glanced at Waru with exasperation for himself.
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Waru was proud enough that he nearly crowed about it–
“You can give me one more, can’t you Ei?†the words spoken joyously instead, the pride all in his smile! Withholding every other ounce of praise he wanted to heap on Faustite, like a weighted blanket, like chains. Until his boy was too leaden to escape it all, pressed into the floor and bound there by him, unable to do more than take the honest words for what they were.
Waru bit the inside of his own cheek and begged his ten-track mind for patience, for focus on the point – the point being? Get Faustite from step one – to step ten – with help, with care, with encouragement that wasn’t so much that it’d ruin things. Because as he watched Faustite gather himself up and get the crutches under his body where they belonged; sweating and huffing like a thoroughbred after a long run…
He could see a future in this. Could see progress. Every little inch of it, hardwon and clawed for, in Faustites tightened grip, in the shiver of muscles trying to fall in line and work as he was sure his boy's mind bade them. Failing at points, but not falling! Even if his love was Looking a pissy sort of ruin that his body wasn’t taking orders as it should’ve. Fed up, but still determined to try in spite of it all. That gave Waru all sorts of hope, gave him ideas about how things would be once Faustites legs were healed up. At that point? Well, then there’d hardly be a need for crutches at all, would there? His boy would need something different then, better, flame-painted, and maybe with a wider base of a nub on the end of it to support whichever side still held a hint of weakness beyond what healing and hard work would fix all on their own.
“C’mon, firebrand, one more rep—I bet you something nice that you can get back to the chair without me baby-guarding you the whole way? You can do it the once if you take it slow–†and there was nothing to do for how Faustite looked like he was sweating out the sickness, that sour ozone of pain, how he smelled vaguely of what must’ve been in the injections paired with the copperyness that came to him naturally. Waru wanted to wipe it from his brow, to kiss the look of strain free from Faustites thin lips.
Promised his future self he could do that too, if only he managed this now.
“S’nothing wrong with slow. You’re already standing. S’the hardest part–bet you’ll be balancing good enough to beat someone with one of these in no time. To stomp squingy into dust with it when he gets nosy enough to come down from the ceiling…We’ve really spoilt all the ******** youma that ever have come round here..â€
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If Waru kept on like this, then the next thing Faustite was going to give him was a crutch to the balls. He didn't need someone talking at him like a ******** football coach, but he lacked a method to tell Waru that. Instead, he had the boy barking at him the entire time while he tried to force his body to continue moving, which was precisely what his body protested so much.
Faustite understood what he was supposed to do. Rely on his better leg and use the crutches to do most of the motion. Hop, essentially, from one point to the next. The crutches provided an arc of motion for his body to follow, as long as his body could tolerate them.
Which wouldn't be long, he was discovering. He wasn't used to being upright anymore, and his body protested it so. Screamed for him to lay back down and give up on stressing his muscles with maintaining weight and balance. His armpits, in particular, screamed with soreness for how the crutches dug into the narrow space. His hands hurt while grasping the grips. His feet throbbed for having to bear only part of his weight. The rest of him was groaning, too, for being so used to being idle. He hated all of it, and he particularly hated how winded he felt for doing something he never would have paid any mind before.
But there was more to do. With Waru hovering over him, ready to catch him should he misstep and fall, Faustite knew he had to move farther. He swung the crutches around and forward, immediately regretting it for how acutely painful it was to entrust all of his weight to his feet. As soon as he could lean on them, he did, though the act of using his arms to hoist himself over was nearly impossible. Having to push off with his foot promised nothing but pain, however. Faustite had little recourse.
He hoped that 'something nice' was Waru shutting the hell up and giving him a massage afterward. Or Waru buying him food that he wanted to eat drink. Or Waru bringing home the head of one of his most hated enemies, particularly Cybele.
Faustite snorted for the effort involved. Managing but one step, and needing to take another. Needing to navigate the whole way back to that single damned chair, where he could at last sit again and take another injection to banish the pain for a while. They'd only gotten so far, though, and his arms were starting to shake.
How ******** pathetic. Setting his teeth, Faustite tried for another step.
