Quote:
Immediately follows You're Unbelievable.
The crowd parted as waves broken over bitter rocks. Elex shouldered his way through with a specific insistence, only pausing once to check that his unnaturally silent quarry was in tow. He trod cobblestone and brick and finally paved sidewalk toward the sharp corner of the tea house, where shadow bit through midday sun. He rounded it with a certain ease, with his palm flatted against that very corner as if daring it to chew his skin.
Once settled into cooler shadows, Elex tugged his wool coat tighter about himself. Thin fingers teased at the material until Sinope joined him, and even then, they worked tirelessly. Elex kept up a pace. "You don't know what you just did. I'll explain it to you.
"My brother doesn't know why I went missing. He only knew fragments of the story -- nonsensical fragments that never fit together in a meaningful pattern. He couldn't recognize it for the whole. Didn't want to. And that worked for what it was. He trusted me enough to let me set my own boundaries. To guide the conversation. I led, he followed. It was a simple arrangement." Elex clucked his tongue against the roof of mouth, drew a breath. "Then that tenuous process hit a snag, and that snag was you.
"You gave him the idea that I left on a whim. That I left home on impulse, left my family to grieve for a son who met a worse fate than death, all because I found someone to court. That all their grooming and thoughtfulness and money and tears and fruitless searches meant nothing to me. All the billboards seen, all the flyers raised and awareness campaigns made were noticed and dismissed. That I resented them for it. For their love and devotion." A faint smile threatened to grow. "And I, in all my passive-aggressive grandeur, spited them with my nonexistence. It's an easy story to believe. A dangerous one at that. Erol bought that lie. I know you saw it in his eyes, in the way he slapped me." His gaze fell on Sinope, piercing.
He halted, but his heel still bobbed off the ground with a certain restlessness. "What was it for, Jack? Why the charade? Has it been your dream to cozy up to a wealthy family, living on their dinner scraps and fundraiser preambles? Did you tire of your middle-class life? Of shoddy suits and misadventures into fantastical parties? Did you angle for this life the moment you laid eyes on its opulence?" The smile grew, empty as his eyes.
"Tell me. Did it fulfill your every dream to play boyfriend to Elex Yorke?"
The silent Sinope trailed behind Elex until the latter brought them to an alleyway and it seemed they were out of earshot of anyone else. His gaze had gradually descended to the ground as he'd walked, his hands stuck in his pockets, and he kicked idly at a stray bit of asphalt once he was stationary. His companion continued to pace before him. Lifting his head when he was told he didn't know what he'd done, he adopted a slight frown. Well no, I don't, but you don't have to rub it in my face, he answered mentally. I'd actually rather know what you just did.
Sulking, the senshi listened as he toyed with the elastic of his glove and the edge of his copper brace. He fiddled with his overlay and picked at the ear of his hood; anything other than face Elex directly. Am I feeling guilty? The teen removed one of his gloves and examined his nails. This is ridiculous. I'm getting guilt-tripped by the person I set out to humiliate. I messed with his plans as I'd intended – more plans than I'd even realized he'd had in motion - and now I'm regretting it. If anything, I feel like I should be patting myself on the back. He sneaked a momentary glance at his addresser out the corner of his eye. There is something seriously wrong with me. Maybe he's a more conniving manipulator than I'd thought.
He had come to the conclusion that Elex had kissed him to mock his attempt at playing a boyfriend. The captain had ridiculed him by undermining his actions with the reasoning that Sinope had been protecting him, adding insult to injury with the fact that it was Sinope who had conducted that decoy train of thought in the first place. Somehow, it was as though he punished the senshi for his spiteful scheme by going along with it, effectively proving that it had been bound to crash and burn even before Elex had stepped in.
When the redhead had seen the impending train wreck, he'd done his best to derail it by changing his tactic and altering the shape of the situation. But with almost no effort at all, the captain had returned it to its original course, forcing the sailor scout to watch and suffer the consequences of his actions; consequences largely consisting of guilt which its bearer couldn't justify the existence of. Being unable to justify said guilt only provided him with more reasons to question himself until he almost felt like more of a mess than the one they'd just left behind. He loathed Elex for having turned the tables on him simply by continuing a façade he himself had started, but the most infuriating thing about the whole debacle was that he had to admire and respect the officer all the more for it. Not that he would ever say so.
And then there was the whole other issue of having given Erol the wrong idea and essentially having wrecked whatever delicate balance the two had been maintaining as a relationship. Sinope sucked in a breath to obliterate his pride and produce an apology in a phrase, but he choked on it when he finally looked up to see Elex's disturbing smile and that penetrating stare that was somehow seemed to terrorize more potently when human. He immediately dropped his attention back to his glove and concentrated on returning each individual digit to its sleeve.
His silence was over, however. "What was it for?" he repeated, that smile still imprinted in the forefront of his thoughts. It chilled him like no other look he had seen on the agent. He had to buy a few seconds with the redundant inquiry to get his tongue to properly dispense what he wanted to say. "Honestly, it was to see you vulnerable. It was to get back at you for the occasions you'd already seen me weak and helpless. I just thought a little fairness was in order and I'll admit I can be a spiteful guy." Sheer-sleeved shoulders rose and fell.
"But then he hit you and it was out of my control. It got out of hand and was more than I'd bargained for, so I was determined to fix it. Not to protect you," he clarified, tone dry, "but to prove to myself that I could and bring the situation back under control. If you had let me finish, I would have been able to fix things. I could have redirected his ire toward me and you two would have been fine. But you just undid my efforts to repair what I'd done like you'd wanted it to go that way. So you really can't blame me for that. I did try." Rubbing an arm, he added, "I don't like being responsible for other people or what happens to them, whether good or bad. I knew I'd messed up, so I tried to fix it. It's as simple as that. From the beginning, all I was trying to do was even things out."
The sight of Elex's suspended heel quivering above the pavement agitated the Dark Mirror Senshi until he felt compelled to chance another look at him. He instantly knew that'd been a mistake, but he couldn't bring himself to turn away this time. His name spoken aloud triggered a flinch despite the fact that its speaker couldn't have known its truth.
"If you're doing this to show me how annoying it is to have assumptions made about you, consider your point made. But I doubt you're asking those questions because you really want to know the answers." His eyes narrowed. "Even so, you must already know how much I like talking, so let me take this opportunity to clarify some things for you.
"Before I met you, I was perfectly content with my life. I actually prefer being middle-class. I like temperance and balance; not too much or too little of anything. Your stupid, superficial, high-class society is so full of s**t, I bet it never even made you happy, even if it'd been all you'd ever known. Why the hell would I want that kind of life for myself? I wouldn't trade my own for that kind if someone begged me." He shook his head. "I didn't even want to be a super senshi; a mirror sucked me into it and spat me out a higher rank when I was stuck in this crazy queen's castle. The way I see it, the more power and money you amass, the more responsibilities and the less freedom you have. Things like those always come with huge price tags and I'm not willing to pay them."
The senshi sighed and tore away his gaze at last. He couldn't maintain eye-contact when it came to talking about relationships. "As for being a boyfriend, the only reason I claimed that was because it was the first thing that popped into my head when I tried to think of what role I could put myself in that would irk you the most. I never thought you'd play along, but it was my mistake for forgetting your background and what kind of upbringing you've probably had. You can probably play along with anything.
"I didn't imagine the notion of you having a partner would rile your brother more than you, nor to that extent. I wonder if it might have been better if I'd pretended to be your girlfriend instead, heh, but I don't know the first thing about relationships, so it all probably would have fallen apart in the end anyway. I don't even do regular old friendships because of how hazardous they are to peoples' health." His voice softened then so it was nearly inaudible as he addressed his gloved palms. "I'd imagine a real romantic relationship would almost certainly be fatal to people like me."
A half-hearted grin stretched his lips as he studied Elex and asked, "Why? Did you want a boyfriend, hot stuff? You sure did seem to have fun playing along. You think just because you're rich, prestigious, and easy on the eyes, people will throw themselves at your feet, fantasizing about you lavishing them with your attention, wealth, fame, and power?" Sinope examined a few spots on his overlay and sash where the Oolong tea had splattered. "If that was all you had to offer, I wouldn't have bothered even remembering your name the first time I'd heard it. None of those were what made you such a pain in my a**." He paused to consider something. "Well...maybe I could have done without the first. Might have kept us from ever having met in the first place."
So you think you've never seen me vulnerable. Interesting. Elex resumed a pace the moment Sinope set through his own returning thoughts -- black eyes raked over rocks, pavement, broken bottles. He kicked at glass shards with too-expensive shoes, sending them skittering like youma through the shadows. You did it for fairness. Like you're keeping score between us. What does it mean to come out on top, Sinope? Is it a victory at all?
I think you're doing it to impress me.
The pace continued, his fingers wound between each other behind his back. Knuckles intersected, bone on bone. You don't like being responsible for others, yet you took responsibility for me. You took responsibility for the situation you created -- twice. Your story is falling apart faster than a leper, Sinope. Keep digging that hole. See where it leads.
Elex's pace halted momentarily and he looked askance to Sinope at the mention of responsibility paid. He eyed him queerly, suspicion reigning in his disposition. The moment passed, and he resumed his pace. You want to be nobody but you never disappear. You make yourself known -- to dangerous people. To the Negaverse. To a half-monster. You sought me out all those times despite your aversion to responsibility. Why make yourself a target if you just want freedom? Your story doesn't make any sense. You're digging for answers because you don't yourself know. You have no idea why you act the way you do, what you seek out of it, or how to read your own impulses. You know less about yourself than I do about me, and you lack the upbringing I had for an excuse.
You're starting to bore me now.
"I can tell." He halted, looked straight at the senshi before him. He knew their power distinction, but it mattered little here. "You're a lonely little boy, Jack. You're afraid to feel, but you want to. Why else would you keep coming back to me? I incensed you once, didn't I? That was taste enough. You decided you wanted more. You found me again and again and again, you looked up the one who disappeared, you hunted me down when I was half-youma. If you're always pushing to die, Sinope, what would a relationship matter? Have you asked yourself?
"Have you even decided why you're throwing yourself away?" Elex looked out toward the dispersing crowd. No one lingered by their table anymore. He checked his watch -- tick, tick, tick went the seconds. He grit his teeth. I can't be at this forever. Three hours feels so impossibly short.
"So you want vulnerability. Consider this your consolation prize." He looked to the ground between their feet, swallowed, and searched Sinope's eyes afterward. "I've never dated. I will never get the opportunity again -- not like I am now. I'll never know what it means to love someone the way that you can. So to toy with me…" He stifled a chuckle, broke into a sardonic smile, "is more a slight than you imagined.
"It doesn't matter why I went along with it." He swallowed, hard. "If you're still looking for that last laugh, have it. Do it before I can drown you." He shifted his gaze, taking a steady breath. His throat tightened, and his knuckles knit harder against the small of his back.
His name, repeated once more, caused him to wince, and with the other youth locking eyes with him, he wasn’t so sure this time that Elex didn’t know. He wasn’t about to back down from just that, though. “You’re wrong,” he hissed. “You can’t be lonely if you’ve never had companionship. I may be afraid, yes, but that has nothing to do with why I keep coming back.”
Sinope took a step toward the captain. “You may have incensed me, but it’s not like I haven’t had any effect on you. I wanted to know why. It’s not as though I wanted to die. The first time I was too angry to see sense and the second time I was too scared. Neither time did you actually follow through with killing me, which gave rise to curiosity. And we all know the dangers of curiosity.”
The super sailor scout crossed his arms over his chest with his legs out, planting himself firmly in a defiant stance. “I’m not throwing myself away. I want to learn. I want knowledge. That’s the only true power I seek. Secrets, for example. That’s why my magic stirs people up so much.” The redheaded teen watched Elex shift his focus to his timepiece. Was there something more he intended to do before his time appearing as a human ran out? Just how much time did he have? But then the youngest Yorke spoke of vulnerability and Sinope’s dark, thick brows rose.
...He’s acting like I was acting, he noted, watching the tell-tale bob of his Adam’s apple. But he couldn’t be doing it for the same reason I was. I never strangled him. Is he mimicking me? To what purpose? But Sinope knew better than that. Nervous. He’s just nervous, he told himself. ...Why would he be nervous? The sliding of Elex’s attention from his feet to the senshi’s eyes and yet another swallow was somehow making Sinope nervous. He cleared his throat to respond.
“I wasn’t…” A false start. Perhaps a second try. If he got the words out fast enough, maybe he could keep them from dying on his tongue. I wasn’t toying with you, he thought, but then reconsidered. Hadn’t he been? Yes, but he hadn’t thought the impact would be so substantial. Had he unwittingly upset whatever balance they had had between them again? Did it really count as his triumph if he’d had to be told to recognize it?
A flurry of thoughts blasted him in a blizzard so thick, he couldn’t find himself. He’s going to change back. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to cry. I need to stop him. He’s only half-human. He said so himself. It’s not breaking my rules this way. Is it? An impulse possessed the Dark Mirror Senshi to take the disguised captain’s face in his gloved hands. He branded the sight of Elex’s features in his mind, closed his eyes, and crushed his mouth against his peer’s.
So you think people have to experience something before they learn to want it. It's plain you haven't grown up watching the world pass you by. Maybe playing bystander wasn't a complete wash.
The way Sinope reacted to his own behaviors reminded Elex much of a scientist observing a petri dish. Sinope lorded over him when he could, his esoteric magic brandished at both Elex and his brother. The senshi pushed to measure his own spread of influence, with Elex as his phenolphthalein strip. How maddening, he thought with a smile. I wonder if this is how other people think of me. Am I their litmus test? Or am I the scientist? or have I never learned to integrate with society? Maybe we're two shattered dolls trying to emulate people. Maybe we're no different than Chrysocolla, than Arsenopyrite. Than Schörl.
Or chaos has eaten us away.
The thought threatened to erode his sense of self in all its fragility and timidity. He observed well enough that chaos pervaded and manipulated those in which it claimed its home. It rooted its way inside the soul and warped it irrevocably. The starseeds he pulled -- they likely looked nothing like his own now. And Sinope's, he knew, took a strange appearance. They took their poison from separate sources -- his from Metallia, and Sinope from the Dark Mirror -- but they reached the same result. Pieces of them stretched too far, while others came up short. Their bodies and minds deformed themselves for fleeting purposes. Sinope and Faustite and Chrysocolla and Arsenopyrite and Schörl weren't people anymore, not in the natural sense. He tasted blood in his mouth.
Elex felt off-kilter. "You're not a very good listener," he observed. He resumed his pace once more, his too-long hair obscuring his eyes in obstinate waves. "Maybe pulling your starseed upset your memory. You can't just manipulate me to get your answers, Sinope. I'm not a harebrained youma with a tepid intelligence. I'm not one of your braindead peers." I'm not even human, personhood be damned.
"It isn't your magic that stirs people up." He paused once more in his step, from where he walked and walked and walked again through all the same, grueling paces. His hands unknit from behind his back for better use of gesture. "It isn't --"
His breath caught when fingers touched his face. Nailed tips needled their fire across his cheeks and he drew back from the heat of it. But a super senshi's strength proved vast -- too fast for a meager facsimile of a boy. Bird bones and brittle fingers pressed against Sinope's chest, curling their will into foreign fabrics, circling over the dried-out driftwood of Sinope's heart. His avian spine leaned with the shadows. Elex drew his soul into his throat with a single breath. Lips met his and the sea towed him down at once, all a violent torrent, all a roil of thought and hate and time and bitterness and resentment and fear and assurance. He uttered soundless syllables against Sinope, now too close to bear.
So this is how it is. This is what it means to drown. To die in algid darkness with your lungs crushed shut.
Who is the monster here? Sorrow cut quick runnels down his face. Seawater songs left their aftermath in droplets on his too-expensive jacket, his too-tight shirt. I feel like I'm dying. Like I'm falling apart. Like I'm raveling out into smoke and darkness.
I should have killed you.
He felt the dampness through his gloves, first. Alarmed, he opened his eyes and drew back, wondering what he’d done. His own mind had gone completely white; the thoughts so numerous and dense that he could no longer distinguish one from the other and the whole thing was just one enormous mass hindering his capacity to contemplate. As the wetness reached his skin through the silk, however, a jab of pain pierced his chest and it was then he knew his fate was sealed. Elex had surely doomed him this time. He was physically hurting at the mere awareness of the other boy’s tears.
How is this even possible?! he screamed inwardly. This is the ONE thing I - no. No, it’s not. This doesn’t count. It’s - maybe it’s just like senshi magic. It’ll wear off.
It wasn’t wearing off. It wasn’t even diminishing as the moments continued. If anything, it grew. What had he done?
“E...Elex,” he began shakily, his grip sliding down from the agent’s cheeks and jawline to be relocated on either side of his shoulders, reestablishing itself on his upper arms. Maybe it was too soon to try to formulate sentences, but he had to try while he still had the nerve to even speak. “...Why are you crying?” I wanted to prevent those tears, not trigger them. One hand left his arm to try brushing away the trickles with a swipe of Sinope’s thumb. “Did...did I hurt you?” He’s still human. Maybe I held him too hard. I’m still not used to this level of strength. Damn it…
The place where the officer’s fingers curled into his shirt ached badly and the senshi realized Elex couldn’t have missed the rapid thudding of his blood-pumping organ. He grew awkwardly self-conscious, but stood his ground. Why do I care if I hurt him? How many times has he hurt me? ******** hell...maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he really did just decide to end my sorry life now. I ******** it up big time.
“You…I don’t know why you did it,” he strained to say, “but when you talked about how you’d never dated...how you would never be able to love someone the way I could…ha. You almost sounded envious.” He tried a small smile. It lasted half a second before it became too painful to bear. “I would have thought it a boon to have an excuse never to love someone that way. But…” The teen took a shuddering breath.
“You want a chance? You can have it, for all the good it’ll do you. My bet is it’ll only bring you more suffering. You want to at least experience love and I want to avoid it at all costs. But if I continue to run away from it, I never know when it’ll overtake me one day. If I give it to you now, at least I can say it was my choice and I won’t have to worry about it creeping up on me when I least suspect it. And you can learn why it’s not such an enviable thing to have.”
He didn’t know what he was saying. Not really. He was treating love like it was some creature to escape or hunt. Like something he could tame or control. That was the best way he could describe it, though, having only been able to guess what. exactly, the emotion consisted of. It also calmed him somewhat to think it might have been conquerable. All he knew for certain was that it was dangerous, but it was too late to regret poking sticks at it and shoving his hand in its jaw now. Now it had him - them? - caught in its teeth. Perhaps, with time, it would get bored and leave them be before it ravaged them too viciously.
Elex whetted his lips. While his eyes remained heavily lidded, his gaze cast down on one of the arms framing his vision, he felt and saw them fall to shoulders. A margin of retreat, however small. But Sinope reached for assumed signs of weakness, and Elex turned his cheek from the grasp.
He cleared his throat of glass. "You didn't let me finish." Too-bright eyes settled on Sinope's too-concerned face. His own hands gripped the brittle driftwood arms now framing his shoulders, half-searching for a means to stay above the tides and half-holding the boy hostage to his impetuous designs. He drew a steadying breath, forced himself to let it go. Too-long hair tried to conceal his face. A toss of the head shook it out of the way. Shadows cast about them, searching for a source of light to spread their animosities -- a half-world all his own.
You are brave, I'll grant you that. But now isn't the time to mention it.
His voice softened in volume. "I was trying to say… It isn't your magic that stirs people up. It isn't you. It isn't…" He drew in breath with a slow rise of shoulders. "The feeling of having your secrets wrenched from their quiet corners. It isn't anything you could do to someone -- it's them. It's all their shrapnel memories shifting in the undertow. People are riven with mistakes and regrets. Your magic is the net they use to trawl themselves up out of the sea, all grit in their eyes and dust in their bones. All loss and sorrow and self-destruction. I've seen it enough times to know. And now I think I've experienced it myself.
"My mother often warned me that I was very young. It sounded pointless to me to make mention of it. I knew my age. I've always known that I was smart, and wise, and strong. I still am," he added, perhaps bitterly. "But she never meant my age. She meant my experience. A young heart aches more than an old one.
"I am envious, Sinope. I am covetous of someone's chance to feel something that whole and honest -- because I can't anymore. And it isn't because no one could take a chance on a boy who's half-monster. You obviously would."
He struggled to keep his expression neutral. He sighed, avian shoulders rising and falling with the sun. "I never told anyone this, but -- it feels like I'm being rent in half. It started physically. When I was a lieutenant, and someone caught me in the swell of the monster, I couldn't breathe. Not well. Not like I used to. Don't mistake me -- I never had diver's lungs -- but it felt like a part of me wasn't mine anymore. Something claimed that space with a certain smugness. I didn't think much of it at the time; I knew eating starseeds had its own side-effects.
"But when I was promoted, that part of me grew. I couldn't breathe anymore. I had to get pipes put into my back to vent the smoke or -- that sac would grow and grow and grow until it crushed my lungs. That dependency -- it's an uneasy feeling. It's hard for someone like me to live knowing that I rely entirely on the Negaverse's good graces.
"You aren't the only one reticent to take more power. What happens to me if I do? Will I survive it?"
He paused, gathered his thoughts. "It spread mentally, too. Hindsight being what it is, I could tell you now that it affected me as thoroughly as a lieutenant. For every reaction I had, every emotion I experienced, a second one tugged me in the opposite direction. If someone tried to kill me -- fear and inspiration. If someone tried to reprimand me -- anger and excitement. If someone tried to kiss me --" He sighed.
"Breathless and hateful." Elex chanced an ironic smile. "So I'm not looking for a chance from you or anyone else, but from myself. From this feeling of being pulled apart. Drawn and quartered. Whatever you want to call it." He waved a hand in dismissal. "So I could never commit with all of me.
"And even if I could, I wouldn't do it to be toyed with by you," he finished, all hurt and resentment and distrust.
When Elex turned his face away, Sinope realized what he was doing and retracted his hand instantaneously. But then those eyes were on him again, shining more than they should have, and the teen felt like his starseed was being squeezed again. The ?! How the ******** is he doing this? It was almost worse because there was no warning, no clenching of muscles to alert him to brace himself. No, it was worse because the pain was physical and emotional. It resounded in his body, head, and heart, making it hard to function any which way by any means. No wonder people in love were such morons. He felt like he’d barely just dipped his toes into the puddle and yet was overwhelmed with the sensation that he couldn’t swim. His own sight was blurred by a thin film of moisture, but he blinked it away as the agent finished speaking his piece.
“That’s true,” he conceded, gently lowering both their arms. “They’re the ones who give me whatever power I might have over them. I hadn’t seen it before today, but evidently people like your brother don’t need that net, so my magic is useless on them. Sometimes I think someone might not have anything to hide, though, and more often than not, they do. It’s just that some are better burying and concealing those insecurities than others.” It usually was fun to go about casting that net - right up until the point where he couldn’t handle what he caught. On the particular occasion that he’d attempted to drag it through the fathomless depths that were a smoke-seeping captain, he’d unexpectedly found Elex Yorke.
As he thought that was whom he’d been seeking, he’d initially felt successful, but Sinope had also failed to acknowledge that there was more to the single facet of the person he’d met at the library. And now that he’d completely hauled him up out of the sea - memories, mistakes, regrets, smoke, and all - there was no tossing him back in. Sinope didn’t have the strength for it. It had all been exhausted simply striving to pull him out on the pretense of wanting to examine more facets.
Yeah, a young heart would ache more than an old one because the former is new to agony, not because the latter is impervious, he reasoned. I could have gone through life and experienced a great deal without learning this particular sort. “Was your mother implying that old hearts were never hurt in their youth, or that they'd just experienced so much that they'd developed a tolerance for pain?” the sailor scout asked, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “Because I’d like to think it possible to get old without feeling this sort of hurt.”
He didn’t really expect an answer, especially not once Elex began to enlighten him about his affliction. Sinope was rapt. He had yearned for such information ever since first laying eyes on those half-youma features. It seemed there was more to it than just his appearance, and as the senshi had suspected, the condition sounded like it affected Elex’s emotions, too. Did that include his thoughts? His personality?
“...You ate starseeds?” the redhead repeated, astonished. “That’s how you became like this?” By devouring what may as well have been the equivalent of other souls, did that mean he had absorbed their combined consciousnesses? How many must he have consumed? Sinope thought he’d heard of other Negaverse officers keeping a few on them for an extra boost if they’d needed it, but at what point did one begin to suffer side-effects like Elex’s? It couldn’t have been a long-term thing since the captain was still so young compared to many other generals who continued to keep human physiologies.
A furrow appeared between his brows as they drew together. “So...did they fix you with those pipes? Or is this only going to get worse as time goes on?” It stressed him to consider, so he locked the slowly-forming notion aside for now, but it existed nonetheless; Elex’s well-being directly correlated to Sinope’s emotions, now. And it was quite possible that, through those emotions, it could also have corresponded to his own welfare. There was nothing to be done. However much he regretted it, it was unnervingly binding. He didn’t want to think about all the implications, but the big picture reiterated to him that he had signed up for his own destruction. It would have been nice to grasp an idea of how much longer he had to live, though.
Mental conflict...was that why? “That duality you're talking about - is that why you almost killed me those two times, but didn’t?” Sinope wanted to know. Despite the subject of his almost-murders, his voice held only curious interest. “Part of you wanted to and part of you didn’t? Is...that why you were hurt when I found you, but no one else was around?” Perhaps the conflict manifested outwardly, too. He might have thought Elex had been speaking in metaphors when referring to contradicting emotions, but coupled with the more literal explanation regarding the sac crushing his lungs, the senshi understood said duality must have been literal as well. “Is it like another person inside you?” he wanted to know. “An alternate personality?”
He had been about to ask if the glamour kept that other side at bay, but the comment that having been kissed also elicited double reactions answered that for him. Sinope inhaled with every ounce of space he had to occupy in his own lungs, his heart still thrashing painfully against his ribs, and caught the hand that had been waved in dismissal. He breathed out through his mouth in a steady stream of air.
“I never asked for full commitment,” he started seriously, lifting the faintly-shaking side of his index finger to Elex’s chin to ensure his eye-contact. “Balance in all things, remember? Heh, I guess the term ‘all’ there kinda undermines that, but…” He lost his nerve for a moment, gaze flickering away, before he forced it to return. “I promise I’m not toying with you. Even before, I didn’t mean - I just - “ He sighed. “I just wanted to know more about you. I thought I could only do that if I could mean something to you, and the easiest way I know how to mean something to someone is get them to hate me. So I messed with you any way I could think of to earn your enmity. I didn't do it for fun.”
Those lips taunted Sinope, reminding him of what he had just done. Laughing at his undeniable craving to do it again. He moved in to try to steal another brief brush of contact, this time light enough to be refused if unwanted. “If I make a promise, I’m bound by it. I keep my word. This isn’t some bargain you have to fulfil. I’m offering you what I can in the opportunity to seek that chance from yourself. You’re not obligated in any way to utilize it. I just want to make things as fair as they can be.”
The corners of his mouth turned up in a feeble smile. “Whatever you decide to do from here on out, though, it seems it’s already set in the stone of my grave that you will be the death of me. Perhaps at least part of you will find contentment in that.”
"You ask a lot of questions that I lack answers for." From his mother's insights to his brother's lack of secrets held against nobodies to his own innate struggles with breathing, Elex struggled to parse topics he could comment on satisfactorily. He released his grip on Sinope's arm. The urge to pace returned; Sinope's catch of his hand tethered him in place.
"Yes, I ate starseeds." The admission alone burned in him. His own smug iniquity bubbled up against self-disciplining ire. He held a thousand discussions with himself over his youmafication in a thousand different locations. He asked himself the same tortured questions whether in the utility closet, the database room, Stroud's own apartment -- and he knew the fruitless findings of every single mental venture. Never once had he trawled a proper answer out of those depths that explained what happened and why -- how. He looked to the sky, at the overcast screen, in search of better phrasals.
"I was encouraged to do it. Conditioned." He looked to Sinope, his gaze too vigilant. "I trained with a general that insisted I fight him myself. He seldom held back. I broke a lot of bones. A lot of bones," he reiterated sardonically. "He told me that I needed to take starseeds to recover quickly. That an agent's injury is inevitable. And starseeds -- do you know what they're for? For us? They're a source of energy and healing. They're a second adrenaline rush to knit our bones and keep us going. The fliegerschokolade for World War II soldiers. And it comes with just as many side effects. Worse ones.
"My consent wasn't needed. He'd chew one up and spit it into my mouth if he needed to. He did, once." Elex still blanched at the memory of the taste. "But…" Elex licked his lips. "I think he was angling for this outcome somehow. I don't know if he knew what would come of it or how." And I haven't seen him since.
His pace resumed until his arm caught in Sinope's grip, and he abandoned the effort invariably. Soon he resumed bouncing his heel above the ground in a feverish tempo. "You're only half-wrong about the duality. There's no second person that I can feel. Nothing but --" he paused, breathed a dry chuckle. "It's such a strange topic to discuss. My injuries that night had nothing to do with it."
You promise that you're not toying with me. You, who has done nothing but. And where do you expect to draw your credibility, Sinope? That well ran dry ages ago. My trust isn't an ocean of sinusoidal empathy. What you're looking for -- these reparations -- you find them in humans. In people. In the whole and unsullied. I am neither of these.
And you -- you're indulging in a very dangerous honesty. Have you thought about its repercussions? Or have you yet to learn from the mistakes you made an hour ago?
But Sinope leaned for another kiss, and Elex relented. With a greater hold over his own antipathetic existence, the sharp pining of fear pealed tolerably. He felt the undertow relent. The sand rise up to touch his feet. He could breathe a little easier inside of a wordless gesture. Elex parted not far from the senshi, and despite the finger to his chin, raised up his pocketwatch once more for examination. The long, silver chain swept over delicate knuckles and wavered, suspended. "I have an hour." He said nothing more, nothing less.
But hedonism caught his eye, and he would indulge it with the meager scraps of his borrowed time. He pressed for more, as much as he could take.
Kitomyx
