Whatever drugs they had given him were doing a fairly good job. Otherwise he was pretty sure that he’d be feeling a whole lot worse off.
A nurse, bless her, had made an appearance not long after he awoke and filled him in on the night’s events since his arrival. Aelius cringed even more as she went into the details of what they had to do to his leg to mend it back together. The young woman, a brunette with poker straight hair and matching brown eyes fussed with the machines and checked the bag he assumed was administering his blessed pain medication. “The doctor will be in later to check on you.” She paused a moment as she wrote something on her clipboard. “You have some visitors, too. If you’re feeling up to it I can let them in.”
Thick brows furrowed before he opened his mouth to respond. “Uh, yea, sure. That’s fine.” His voice was still sore and raspy from the previous night’s events. Events that were...somewhat foggy. Now whether that had been from the pain he was in or his meds, he wasn’t sure.
The nurse offered him a smile as she slipped out of the room, leaving Aelius to wonder who it was that had bothered to see him. Taking a moment, he found the button for his bed, and raised the top half so he was sitting up more than laying down. His shattered pride at least wanted that little bit.
Rowan Cameron. No, Drayson. His name… Aaron? No. Aelius. Aelius Drayson. D-r-a-y-s-o-n.
That makes me who. Reven Drayson.
Identity shifted as amorphously as the feline at his back, and the nameless youth adjusted the straps to center the live load. Visiting times for non-family spanned a meager three hours, starting at the crown of the day and slipping past its peak. An ironic mirror to his glamour, he knew. For once, his pocket watch read right. A pocket watch bequeathed to him by the proud new owner of a shattered leg.
Accompanying were Lauri and Yuuri, both tepid over the meeting. Former captain Faustite couldn't begrudge them that; with his new skin pulled too taut over his natural body, he felt every tight string of anger thrumming beneath it. So much of his ire roiled in a bitter symphony behind his strained voice. The nurse was first to hear of it — his meat grinder politeness left her taken aback, and she jotted names and times to reference against the room number. Room 304, she said, near the ICU. He didn't stop to listen for her directions.
He didn't care that Tibby jostled and rustled and poked at his back with needle claws, sometimes touching nerveless skin, sometimes drawing up pain and blood. his expression flickered for it like a Tourette's tic while he walked the halls. The elevator shot them up to the atrium in silence.
A shorthand map gave him the information that he ignored. Left through a long hallway, follow the obtuse angle, left again through the double glass doors. 304 stood unimpressively on the right, the door shut, the innards quiet but for a telling beep beep beep of a living subordinate. He didn't knock.
And when he entered, all the roiling words that built his song of rage escaped his grasp. They flew to the corners of the room, far beyond his grip, and dissipated like smoke. There, in the depths of the narrow bed, laid a teen that tried to kill himself. That sought his own death at the hands of another. That lost all the succor and status and sprightliness wrapped under the name of Rowan Cameron. He looked so terribly much the same, absent all light in his eyes.
But his piteous look failed to temper the incognito captain's ire.
The only greeting given was a first name uttered as he took his seat at the side of the bed. Shirking the backpack, he unzipped it for its feline contents, lifted the living pillow out of his prison, and deposited him on the bed. Inwardly he hoped Tibs would pace across that cast and use it for a scratching post.
Lauri had insisted Yuuri see Aelius in the hospital though neither held much affection for the corrupt senshi, transformed or not. Heliodor had made some ridiculously asinine choices, one after another, leading to his attempted suicide by Knight. That kind of stupidity was dangerous and did not a high opinion make in Lauri's eyes. As Aue, he'd met White Moon senshi he liked more...and that was saying something.
Faustite's clipped tones and sharpened edges, the simmering anger barely contained within the slim frame spoke volumes if one had eyes; the Finn felt no obligation towards Heliodor for saving what might amount to a worthless life, but he did feel some towards Faustite, Tiberius, and the General in command of both.So he followed the half-youma's new glamour with Yuuri in tow, expression configured into something approximating concern since he knew the staff would expect at least one of them to show it.
As sibling, 'Reven' could get away with tight-lipped anger - families often reacted strangely to crisis situations - but as 'friend', Lauri was expected to behave with care and concern, as was Yuuri. Which was why he'd insisted his packmate come bearing a cheerful looking Dracena reflexa in a plain white pot; his packmate could hide his annoyance at having been ordered along behind the many leaves while also looking like a gift-bearing friend.
Inside 304, the sharp scent of antiseptic was tempered by the smell of sick, that particular tang that got added to sweat when one was unwell, in pain, and freshly healing. "You kept the leg. You're welcome." Lauri moved to let Yuuri in, holding the door for him and closing it after, likely they would not want any part of their conversation heard by outsiders.
Riding in the backpack wasn't the poshest means of conveyance, but Tibs put up with it to see his senshi.
And, if he were honest, to see just how much of a dressing down Smokestack was gonna give said senshi. Because really - what a ******** mook. Aelius had a great life, some of the best opportunities in the whole goddamn Negaverse, and he deliberately screwed the pooch in the most spectacular way possible. It would be akin to Tiberius himself walking into Axinite's office and shitting on his paperwork, or pissing in his chair and then leaving his signature card there as evidence of whodunnit. Smokestack wasn't stupid, so either Rowan had blinded him with the majesty of his ******** the kid had gone way the hell off the deep end after corruption and needed some cognitive recalibration right quick to fix this s**t.
Either way, Tibs didn't have much sympathy in that arena.
'Reven' set him down on the bed and the Mauvian stretched his cramped limbs out gratefully. "Thanks Smokestack, man I do not envy books!" Tibs didn't pace across the cast as the former captain secretly wished, instead he picked his way carefully up the bed until he was in position to launch himself directly onto Aelius' solar plexus, all twenty-two gloriously fluffy pounds of him all at once like a feline wrecking ball. "Hey kiddo!" Ignoring the pained hnng-hnng sounds as Aelius tried to get his diaphragm to draw air back into his lungs, Tiberius stomped further up the invalid's body so he could jam his head against the wheezing teen's face, scent marking him and purring like a fighter jet.
"You smell like hospital and gross! God, when are they gonna sponge bathe your a**? Whew!" Tibs drew his face back and sneezed three, four times directly in his senshi's face before rubbing his very damp nose against the hospital johnny to dry it. "Glad you don't smell like you're gonna rot your leg off though."
With that, the giant menace of a Mauvian flopped to sprawl across Aelius' torso, paws at the hollow of his throat so that any time he flexed his paws to extend his claws it would prickle in the most obnoxious way possible, and so that his back feet were likely pressing on his bladder, or digging off and on into his upper thigh and belly. Just because. "They got you on the good s**t? Smells like it. You look stoned as ******** style="font-size: 11px">Regardless of Lauri insisting that Yuuri go to see Aelius with them, Yuuri had already planned on it since Faustite had asked him. Not that Yuuri told Lauri that Faustite asked him and therefore was planning on going anyway. Either way, he was there with a plant, feeling out of sorts and miserable because hospitals were miserable. And Faustite - Reven - seemed miserable as well.
There wasn’t much Yuuri could do at the moment other than trail silently behind and stay out of the way, ducking around Lauri as he held the door open for him to slip inside. For a few moments he shuffled awkwardly in place, not really knowing what to do, so he stepped aside and held the plant in his arms while Aelius spoke to the others.
Which included Tiberius.
Yuuri wasn’t sure bringing the talking cat was a good idea, but since he had no say in the matter, he kept his mouth shut on the subject. And Lauri hadn’t said anything against it, so clearly it was going to happen whether he thought it was a good idea or not.
He stood for a few moments before stepping forward to place the plant on the side table while Tiberius chittered away.
“Please don’t let his effort go to waste,” Yuuri quietly followed Lauri’s comment as he gently plucked a couple of dying leaves from the plant. He only spared a small, wary glance in Aelius’s direction before he retreated to stand near the back wall and out of the way. He was unsure if the other had even heard him over Tiberius, but figured that didn’t matter.
What walked into his room could only be described as the most depressing parades of people. Two he vaguely remembered from hazy memories and the first the enter, someone he was sure he’d never seen nor heard of before. What’s going on… It was hard to keep up with everything, but try he did as his attention moved to the tall brunette at his comment. “Yes.” He said with little elegance. “Thank you for that.”
The small dark-haired boy carrying to plant threw in his own remarks and Aelius winced at the salty words. If their demeanor didn’t get the point across their words did. Or, in ‘Reven’s’ case, lack of words, but the other boy had brought along a visitor Aelius hadn’t expected to see.
Pained gasps for air followed as Tibs continued on his merry way to shower Aelius with the only kind of love it seemed he was going to get out of the crew. Enjoying the feline’s attention wasn’t in the books for the day though. Not when he had 3 pairs of eyes practically boring holes into him and a brain that was having a difficult time of it focusing on much anything else.
“Tibs. Please.” He said as a hand rose to scratch the Mau’s head. “You do realize you aren’t a small cat, right?” None-the-less, Aelius was pleased to have the feline there if nothing else as a way to anchor himself and not completely want to crawl under his blankets to hide. Not that he’d admit it, but having the three in the room, was daunting. Not to mention absolutely tiring at the mere thought of why they had even bothered to come.
The silence was….awkward and Aelius wasn’t sure how to navigate around the elephant in the room that he was doing his damn best to try and ignore. “So...Reven?” He raised a questioning look at the other dark-haired teen. “Have we met before? Or were you pushed to come in and pretend to care for a teen you don’t even know?” His words were cold, but by the end of them his eyes had trailed from Reven to the sheets on the bed by his injured leg. Whether he was angry at himself or something else was debatable.
“Thank you for coming, despite whatever the reason is.” He mumbled softly as fingers sunk deeper into the mass of fur that was Tibs on his chest.
Reven worked his jaw, his face carefully still, his arms and legs ever pricking tapping picking while his expression sat corpselike. Tiberius worked as a diffuser, breaking up the stillborn anger that filtered in with their arrival. Reven was at once enormously, monstrously furious, and helpless to act on any of it. No great power rested at the fingertips of 'Reven Cameron Drayson'. So let Tiberius take his lead.
The rest were the same. Yuuri rendered impotent in his softspoken way, hidden behind an overgrown plant. Lucky he was th be spared part of the show. Lauri reverse-engineered some gratefulness out of an otherwise graceless, pointless, useless, pride-swollen, vapid, morose, mentally comatose and emotionally mercurial Aelius Drayson. 'Brother'. Negaverse agent. Suicide survivor.
Survivor. Like you know the meaning of the word.
Reven's gaze poached answers out of Aelius' sorry face when he asked the question. The question of a name — where did it come from, who did it belong to, why was it there. What meaning was there in a name so obviously fake, in a promise to claim greater visiting hours than the pair at his flank and back. Why should one with these extra visiting hours demand the time of a Mauvian, being his sol bearer unknown into the hospital itself. All those answers lie in inference, however, and Reven seldom kept company that knew which lines belonged to which dots. Most never applied thought where thought was needed, and instead chose fist or sound or pissing in the wind. The lattermost must've been Aelius' favorite.
When Reven drowned enough ire in spit to speak, his tone was soft with subtle tumult. "When you reached the warehouse, there were four. Tiberius, Lauri, Yuuri, Faustite. Here, there are four. Look around you. Who's missing?" Tight-lipped, brows quirked, he halted to collect more anger beneath quaking skin.
But there wasn't enough skin.
Too-thin hands clutched the hospital smock, wrenching, domineering, forcing Aelius upright and towards Reven's lean. With all his rage vented in a low voice, his words gained the sizzle-p***k of popping flesh. He tasted acid on his tongue. "Look at me when you talk to me.
"I came here, my dear senshi, in a skin that reeks of poor memories to face the sum failure of my commanding capacity. I came here to see if you survived. If you kept your leg. If you washed your nauseatingly contemptible self-pity out of your system that I could stand looking at you again."
His hold tightened, knuckles bone-white in woven ire. "I watched you fight and flounder and fester and fail and foment. I know what you're like — you haven't changed. You still piss and moan about how poor you have it. You still complain to hear yourself speak. To dig runnels in everyone around you. You try to drown others in your self-made misery because your life isn't the same hollow opulence you suckled on for eighteen years. You cry about the pain you put yourself through. You cry about the pain you choose. And when your commanding officer gives you every chance to succeed, you piss it all away in the name of misbegotten obstinance.
"But I won't watch it again. I won't watch another selfish gadabout choke me with their suicidal aftermath." Fingers shifted and thin thumbs formed their bony butterfly over his apple. But long before he could apply his pressure, stronger arms swept him away in a breathless, feeble hiss.
Faustite.
Those bird-like fingers held a strength to them that seemed impossible for someone of ‘Reven’s’ size and stature, but Aelius didn’t bother to pull away. In fact he would have happily looked away from his commanding officer’s eyes if he hadn’t been so guilt ridden and obligated to stare the young man down when requested. Each word uttered struck hard and deep at a soul just beginning to attempt it’s healing process. It’s road of acceptance of what had transpired barely a month ago.
Those thin fingers sought what Aelius had once wanted to do to himself, only to, once again, be pulled away by some twist of fate.
“What do you want from me?” He said through clenched teeth while emboldened by spoken words and the meds in his veins. “You take me from a life I was happy with. I was doing what I wanted and you act as if I should just merrily walk behind you like some lost puppy in need of a home.” Eyes burned as he watched Faustite. “Like I should be grateful for what you did for me?” A bitter laugh escaped him as eyes shifted from Faustite to flick to the other two humans in the room. His fingers, no longer roving the thick fur of the Mauvian on him, but locked with fur in fist. “There wasn’t an ounce of care given to how I felt about all of this. Not once did you ask me how I was doing or feeling. Not once did you even care to stop and make sure I wasn’t absolutely miserable because if you did you may have actually noticed more about me than the fact that I was making your life terrible.
“But, I messed up. Is that what you wanted to hear? Is that will make all of this better for you? Hearing me tell you how much I went and let myself spiral out of control? How depressed I was that I felt like no one in this god-forsaken world cared about me anymore. After all, who the hell knows Aelius Drayson? Who cares about him? Certainly not the person he interacts with on an almost daily basis and certainly not himself when left to think about all that he lost and what little he gained. I have no one, right now.” His breathing became ragged as the heart rate monitor attached to his finger increased it’s steady rate.
“So please, tell me, why is it so crazy that I attempted to end my life? Why is it so hard to fathom that, when all I could see is absolutely nothing ahead for me but a life of hollow meaning? What do I get out of all of this?” Heaving Heliodor let his head fall back to the pillow, his body ached despite the meds and his head was beginning to follow suit. “I realized I want to live. I am just not sure how to do that when it appears there’s not a soul in this world who cares I exist past whatever energy I can provide for them.”
Finally he had spoken his piece about all of this. He wasn’t exactly sure how clear he had been considering the circumstances, but a great weight felt lifted from his chest. He let himself sink into the pillows fully, his body visibly deflating as he reduced the tension in well abused muscles. Fingers once coiled in fur loosened and he gently rubbed the offended area.
With a softened, almost defeated tone, “I realized I wanted to live as that wolf was chewing away at my leg. It’s why I didn’t try and make sure the job was done.” A wry cough. “I suppose it takes being on that precipice to make you realize how much you want to live even when you don’t want to. So go ahead, blame me for being ignorant for doing what I did. I won’t argue that one bit. I deserve what I’ve got right now laying in this bed.” He paused as his tongue darted out to wet lips. “Thank you for getting me out of there.”
He shifted focus to Lauri and Yuuri. “And I did mean it when I said thank you. If you hadn’t helped I’d likely have lost my leg and...I don’t know if I could even attempt to come back from that.”
Tiberius hissed in pain when Aelius gripped his fur, sinking his claws into the puddled blankets as though he could dig through and reach the tender human flesh underneath cloth and medication. He would have slunk away, growling after the impassioned speech about the injustice of no choice - ******** - except there were apology pets and grudgingly he accepted them. Leaving would have left the teen without any buffer at all, and while Aelius was proving to be the quintessential angsty moron as most teens were...he was one of Tibby's people and he couldn't just abandon him.
So the Mauvian huffed and lashed his tail to show he was annoyed but stayed put.
Aelius' head moved slowly to follow what little flow of conversation there was outside of Tiberius, his eyes glassy and unfocused from whatever pain medication was being drip-fed through his IV line. Having broken bones before, though nothing as utterly shattered as what he'd presented to the emergency room the night previous, Lauri assumed Moprhine, Dilaudid, or Oxycodone since Darvon wasn't as favored in the US as it was in Finland. Still, he has more trouble than he should. Was he concussed? I'm sure it's being monitored and is none of my concern. At least he has brains enough still to be grateful.
Tiberius mauled the boy affectionately and Lauri's attention wandered until Reven's voice answered inane question with enough venom behind it to be a warning, softly spoken or no. He's an idiot. This boy is an idiot. He addresses command with contempt and such carelessness it's like he's begging to die. Faustite will oblige when invited so bluntly, you stupid child.
Mouth pressed to disapproving line, Lauri simply watched as Reven grabbed Aelius by the thin hospital issue, spewing vitriol at his ridiculously ignorant recruit and sending the Mauvian sliding-falling from his perch into the crook of the teen's lap to be clutched at like a life-line. It wasn't until white hands moved to close over throat that Lauri stepped in; rattling the moron was fine, but murdering him was not on many levels. He knew Faustite would agree, if he were thinking more clearly than the thrum-pulse-press to destroy the angsting waste of oxygen glassy-eyed in the hospital bed.
"Not now." If he wished to murder his senshi later, fine. That was his right as commanding officer. Lauri gathered the glamoured half-youma into his arms in a princess-style lift as the teen glowered in thwarted anger.
Even better, Aelius responded to command's ire with petulance and whining as though there were choice - as though any of them had ever truly had a choice. Once the Negaverse found you, your options were to capitulate and serve...or be ground up into the machine for your energy and starseed. That was 'choice'. As Aue, he'd made his choice and joined willingly, but from what the s**t cat had said, Heliodor had ******** waltzed in with opened arms - and legs - and had played a game of chance. Purify or fail, with failure meaning his corruption. Had the idiot not realized his life was at stake? Madness to not.
Reven was thrashing about as Aelius spoke, all elbows and sharp angles until he went completely limp in Lauri's arms, which was nice because the little s**t had managed to knock into the Finn's nose with one of his murderously pointy elbows in a manner most painful and now he had to deal with all of this and a slight nose bleed.
Just ******** perfect.
Once more the teen offered thanks for assistance, but Lauri brushed it off and spoke over Reven's head, "I helped only because your commanding officers are allies. I do not approve of your actions in disobeying and dishonoring them repeatedly. If you wish to give thanks, stop wasting everyone's time. None of us have the luxury of fairness or story-book choices. This is the Negaverse and we are at war. At best you chose to live or die."
"You want to live? Then grow stronger, be someone your team can rely on." Stop being a ********> Lauri hefted Reven in his arms, adjusting position slightly - he was heavier than he looked - and fell silent. It really wasn't his place to be dressing down Aelius...plus, he needed to wipe the trickle of blood from his nose on his shirt. Delightful.
Yuuri didn’t mind the silence that had fallen on the room. He preferred silence most of the time, but along with the silence in the room came an inescapable tension. Confusion as to who Reven was, a mumbled thanks, followed by clipped words laced with sarcasm and growing rage as Faustite’s glamoured form approached the injured man, hands on his smock and then reaching for his neck.
Lauri was quick to react, and Yuuri remained where he stood by the wall, arms crossed delicately one under the other low across his abdomen. A casual stance for observation. Possibly too critical of an observation since the man named Aelius had come close to death, and closer to losing his leg had it not been for Lauri’s efforts.
Wolf?
Yuuri frowned, but thought maybe this was a bad time to ask what the other young man meant. There were many magical wolves, his General included, but he wasn’t the only wolf he’d come across as Kamacite. There were still faint scars on his leg from where a wolf had bodily dragged him back to a knight clad in green and gold, just prior to his promotion.
“You should be grateful you were given a chance to be apart of something bigger than yourself. Grateful that your starseed wasn’t taken and you were left in an alley to rot,” Yuuri said, watching as Reven gave up his struggle in Lauri’s arms.
“No one has to care about you for you to live for yourself, if that’s what you want to do. If you don’t want to live for yourself, find something else to live for,” he continued after a moment, very much speaking from his own experience as he lifted his eyes to frown at Aelius for his display. He’d already nodded in agreement to Lauri’s comments about how disobeying and dishonoring commanding officers was definitely not going to be tolerated.
He probably wisely held back a comment on how it would have been easier to collect a starseed if the leg was lost then, if Aelius couldn’t even make an attempt to come back from that.
Yuuri hoped he was never this impossible to deal with. He would have to apologize to Lauri later for any trouble, even if he’d apologized many times over by now.
Fury met struggle met mute resignation. Too-tight skin choked out all his breath between action and diatribe, and Reven knew he overreached his boundaries. But as he fell silent, hanging boneless with legs spilling over Lauri' arm, the others echoed the benign indifference granted by the Negaverse. First Lauri, then perhaps more surprisingly, Yuuri.
Aelius had tried to couch his sudden change of mind in reaching a precipice, but Reven guessed at the true nature of it — like anyone, when cut, Aelius bled survival instinct. Pure and simple need to preserve the body. Staring down that wolf like he did, watching it gnaw through much of his leg, he felt that urge rekindle. At yet, even then, he turned himself out a liar; even with all that renewed vigor, he never once used his issued tablet pen to call for assistance. He never once understood the impersonal act with which an eternal senshi may have traded his life for him. He never once understood that Faustite risked Lauri's identity and paid another person's life to see Aelius come back from that precipice.
He simply continued muttering the mantra of 'no one cares'. Reven rolled his eyes with graduating bitterness.
Could they leave him? Reven wanted to. Yuuri undoubtedly wanted to. Lauri likely did by the edge of his voice and the straight cut of knuckles as they held against the legging-clad swell of Reven's thigh. He bled, too — evidence enough that Aelius was too expensive an investment with no promise of return. High risk. GPO. Fingers tentative in their gesture, Reven reached to wick away some of the blood from Lauri's upper lip.
He reached out to brush the lot of it away on square-sewn linen blankets. Again his gaze found the invalid incarnation of Heliodor. When he spoke, all the fueling anger left his tone, leaving it dull and very nearly dejected. "I wanted you to try." Was there point in chasing this poor conversation? Laying in Lauri's arms like an impotent, emasculated doll, was there any worth to his words? To Lauri's, who applied improvised medical treatment for a leg that shouldn't have been saved? To Yuuri's, who offered care and distraction when Aelius begged for a familiar face? Aelius' adamance assured him for the fate of starseed or youmafication, but Schörl's deviousness grew beyond that. If Faustite smelled Heliodor's despair on him, Schörl watched it for a cheap show. Laughed at it. Reveled in it. And when boredom rang in — which it often did in short order — he would find a fate so efficient that she would've found a use for that very Sturm und Drang.
Reven shifted in arms, sighing as if another attempted pained him to the bone. He anchored the back of his head against Lauri's robust chest. "I knew your despair for a long time. I tried to starve it. Gave you tasks that occupied your mind and honed your body. Reading that separated you from it. Interpersonal activities that exposed you to the people you were expected to fight and die for — people who would fight and die for you without even knowing your name. I saw the way your tragedy hung on your shoulders, how it slipped up your neck. But I can't agree with that pain. Can't sponsor it.
"The definition of 'care' has shifted. No one needs your name to care. No one needs your history. Your family. Your arts. Your style. Your vivacity. Your past. To you this looks like a nihilistic, Nietzschean nightmare, but you miss the beauty in its benign indifference.
"I have to break you as your commanding officer. There's no choice. You can't know the depth of friendship that comrades offer until you know that desolation. Until you live and breathe your wretched existence as just another number. Everyone here went through that. Everyone here knows that the Negaverse isn't a family — it's an organism that subjugates other organs, brings them to heel, and works them so seamlessly into itself that it paradoxically can and cannot function without them. Everyone here understands that we're expendable, and that makes us irreplaceable." Reven paused to lick the dryness of his lips; he seldom spoke so much in a sitting.
A hand pressed to Lauri's shoulder in an ask to be let down — to remove himself from this piteous scene. "Your suicide is crazy in that it undermines the very thing you want. Stop trying to die, Aelius. Start trying to live."
Aelius looked from Lauri to Yuuri as each spoke. Neither had any kind words to say except, ‘Be glad you aren’t dead’. Funny that those were the chosen words to say to someone who had wanted to die only just yesterday. Everything they’re saying is just proving my point. How do these people live from day to day? What keeps them wanting to wake up each morning? Aelius wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the answer to those questions. The last thing he needed was to find yet more reason to despair.
Dejected, Aelius glanced down at Tibs who had thankfully not vacated his lap. Gold eyes watched as fingers sunk into grey fur. It worked as a lovely distraction, immersing himself in the feel and visual of the fur moving around his fingers. He wanted to just lose himself right then and there. To curl up and wallow in the misery of the life he now had to live, but Reven still had his own words to say, and Aelius looked up at the sound of that all too familiar voice.
“I don’t understand how immersing myself in it was supposed to starve it.” I felt more alone and useless because of it. “All of it felt...purposeless. Well…” He paused a moment trying to find the right words. “Purposeless with how I was viewing things. Excuse me for thinking that I had a right to...anything. Even common decency of knowing that what I was feeling wasn’t being utterly ignored.” Eyes drifted back to Tibs, his fingers returning to their silent petting which had stopped during his contemplation.
“I get it. Do what i am told. Ask no questions. If a puppet is what is wanted, then fine. What else is for me anyway besides that? I suppose it’s a step above death, if barely.” He looked back to Faustite. “Congrats, I’ll do what you want. This was your goal all along, right? Break me?” And dry chuckle. “I don’t know if there was much to break but…” He shrugged.
You ask me to live, but for what? What am I supposed to live for? I don’t understand, but I have nothing else to do but live at this point.
“Why am I here?” The question was odd, off topic, and drawn from, what would seem to be, thin air. “I don’t even know how I ended up in this whole situation. Being in this war. All I know is Elex,” he winced slightly at the name, “had something to do with it, because that’s all you would bother to tell me when I last asked.” Another pause and a shake of a head.
“Nevermind. It mustn’t matter.” His fingers glided up to scratch behind one of Tib’s ears.
One after another the humans had their little s**t show back and forth. Tiberius wanted to roll his eyes but settled for being pet by an increasingly upset Aelius. The Mauvian couldn't really fault Smokestack, Lemons, or Sparkles for being upset - they had put a lot on the line just to save his a** and he was acting the fool. Had been, for a long-a** time and bills were coming due.
The Finn was a Finn - emotionally constipated, bigoted, and as likely to kick you as look at you. But he'd helped Helio because Faustite was his ally and had stormed his home. He'd done his best even though it had been potentially been a huge risk, even with Tiberius there. Yuuri helped because he was Yuuri, even though the little s**t was arse over teakettle for the Finn and likely wanted to murder Aelius for putting the Finn in danger by being stupid.
And Faustite. Well. He had the most on the line. Mistress could - and maybe would - quite literally devour him for Heliodor's failures. No, his senshi would find absolutely none of the softness he was obviously seeking in his delicate state. Of course, Tibierius was pretty sure that Aelius didn't know any of these things - he'd forgotten pretty much everything during the corruption process and he just didn't know Lauri and Yuuri.
Of them all, only Tiberius had little to lose by offering comfort. Which was why he was jamming his head against Aelius' stomach and chest as the teen was petting him; why he was crawling up his body again so he could place fluffy paws on his mouth like 'shhhhh'. Tibs was okay being that buffer, being the wall between the growing anger radiating almost tangibly from Reven, from Lauri, from Yuuri. The distaste and annoyance. I'm gonna have to get this kid alone and give him the low down before he gets himself knocked out. C'mon kiddo, shut your yap and just pet me.
"I think we're all a little excited and overwrought." Probably the only thing he'd said since coming in that wasn't con-artistry at work, "It's gonna be okay kiddo, I told you. You're home. It just doesn't feel like it 'cause you ain't been looking from the right angles. We'll fix that. Yep. Sure will--oh, yeah, right there--"
The ear scritching distracted Tibs from whatever rattle-prattle spiel he'd been about to spin and instead he just put his foot back on Aelius' mouth, eyes half shutting as he sprawled along the teen's torso like a very large, purring pillow.
"It mustn't," Reven echoed in a snarl, "because you bit back the question." Aelius' inability to reconcile starving despair out of action with knowing it utterly and completely did not escape him, either. The attempted call-out to a nonexistent contradiction burned him further in his unwilling seat. But Lauri soon relegated him to the ground, and Reven honored Aelius' inability to commit.
The room sufficiently soured, only Tiberius spoke of decent spirits. But try as he did to diffuse the ruined air, he couldn't banish all that had been said. Reven tucked his thin hands into fluffy armpits and lifted the cat back into his backpack. Once zippered, he donned the wear with no glance spared to any of the room's occupants. A heaviness settled on his shoulders, born not of the cat, but the crushing ineffectuality of all he had done. It smothered his ire into impotence. It reminded him that all words were lost on this senshi, as much as all action. It reminded him that he wasted Yuuri's time. That he risked Lauri's glamour, twice now, for nothing.
Reven kept his gaze cast to the floor, aglitter now with Aelius' miles of self-sabotage, and he walked in ignorance of needle-pokes through the back of his shirt. The room felt ever longer then, as if the tiles stretched before his feet could find the floor. Pressure welled in his throat and he vented with a careful sigh.
"Come on," he muttered as his hand found the door. What else is there to do when he traps himself in this vacuum? Flinging the door open with a flick of the wrist, Reven walked out to the too-long, too-busy halls of the Destiny City Hospital.
Strickenized
Guine
Syrie