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Occurred March 10th, following this arc.

Two weeks had gone by since Yuuri had heard anything of Faustite. Texts and calls went unanswered and no one seemed to have any idea where the part youma teenager might have wandered. It was difficult not to be concerned, especially since the last time they’d spoken, Faustite hadn’t exactly been in the best shape. Emotionally or physically.

A week had passed since Kamacite had the unfortunate opportunity to cross paths with the eternal white moon senshi and his cat.

He felt helpless in trying to find Faustite. Aelius had no idea where Faustite could have gone. Lauri didn’t seem interested when he’d voiced his concern, but Yuuri had a suspicion that Lauri had sought additional help to find the teenager without telling him.

Worst of all, he was helpless, himself. With his injuries, he was forced to rely on Lauri for most of his basic needs, especially for the first few days, which was both embarrassing and utterly pathetic.

It wasn’t as though he was ungrateful for Lauri’s help, and he definitely didn’t want Lauri to think that he didn’t appreciate everything he’d done for him, but being unable to do things for himself was rather demotivating.

Yuuri supposed it could have been worse. He could have ended up dead.

Since it had been so long, the text that appeared on his phone had Yuuri immediately jumping up from where he rested on the couch, mindlessly watching the television. The movement was regretted, because there was still a lot of pain he was met with, but he was too relieved, and concerned, to care.

He didn’t bother sending much of a response back, just a request for location and he was out the door. With a lot of difficulty, but he was still out.

Out of breath and pale from exertion, Kamacite pushed the door to Faustite’s room in the intermary open with his foot, staring at the young man on the bed for a moment before slipping the rest of the way inside and letting the door shut behind him.

He knew he was a husk. A discarded shell of a boy who no longer was. A mistake made left him so weary and withered that infirmary aids spoke solemnly around him. Twice now he overheard grimdark lots taken for precisely when he would perish, with the sum total of their interest amounting to a hundred dollars. It grew after he coughed something of a death rattle.

His body betrayed no signs of elation. Starvation ate the meat from his face. Dehydration stood his veins out, parched and yawning for an intravenous onrush. His time in the Rift did him ill as ill could be, and he felt weightless in a way that weary muscle couldn't comprehend. Wouldn't ever, with the way it stood so yoked to his will. Delightedly, that did not matter, nor the state of his self, nor all the marks of his culture gone awry, nor the cynics in the hall with their too-loud voices or their too-loose monies.

Faustite's hundred-hundred texts from Kamacite went answered, at last, his phone now too heavy with all the missed correspondence and all the too-human worries spent on too-treeish thoughts. He did not castigate his friend. He did not warn of the misadventures, of the sights awaiting him. Even now, simply answering felt obscenely simple. Obsequious and strange. But for as oleaginous the act, he craved the answer. The straightforwardness. He wanted to see expressions writ on a familiar face again, hear words again, speak and be spoken to, live and behave and act parts cast unto him where his too-real too-raw met with the toothy edge of the world. Kamacite would come, he knew. His answers -- im here and citadel infirmary gave no breadth but the barest of bare, like bedclothes whispers on kept bodies.

The door retched its infernal announcement. In spilled a sunset unseen in weeks, all aglitter with societal highlights and manmade achievement. Manmade tragedy wrote in all his mannerisms. Faustite felt imminently no longer the victim.

He spoke with words unpracticed. "Kamacite." Even the rise from prostrate was decorated with the jerks and cringing jitters from the geriatric. "Thanks for coming. I spent a forever without you. Or anyone." I can still see the gap in the earth when I blink.

It's just a hole. An incomprehensible, unending, comfortable hole.

Faustite looked like death warmed over. Even the retrouvailles Kamacite expected to feel after weeks of worrying was stifled by the heaviness in the air, the whispers in the corridor, and the general eeriness of Negaspace.

Tears welled before he could stop them, emotion and pain overwhelming him even as Faustite pushed himself shakily up from the bed. Kamacite only managed to take a few steps forward before he allowed himself to collapse to his knees by the edge of the bed, the cascade of black hair and bright fabric overdramatizing the movement.

There were so many things he wanted to ask, to make sure Faustite was going to be okay. Where had he gone? What happened? Was he in pain? Was there anything he could do to help? But Kamacite couldn’t manage to make the words form. So instead he sobbed out his frustrations at himself for being completely useless, and his worry and fear.

Hands hid his face, his fingers curled over the edge of the cast over his left palm to keep his tears from ruining the material. He was glad his robes hid everything from view, too concerned about Faustite to want to explain his own, less pressing ordeals.

“I was - so worried,” came a muffled sob through his robes that hid his blotchy pale and bruised face. “No one - knew where you were.”

Faustite watched the flight and fall impassively. Muscle lost its memory for how to emote, instead sticking staunchly to lethargic states. Gesture grew to be his main explanatory mode.

Shuddered sobs sounded foreign coming from Kamacite again, after the time they spent in company with one another. A sigh escaped through his nose. Ash-stricken fingers reached for the hair and cloth that informed Kamacite's entirety, hoping to pare away enough of its loathsome intrusion to see his face (he never craved so dearly for raw expression, he realized, and wondered distantly at the staunchness of his interpersonal passions). While Faustite lost track of the days, he remained aware and awake and alive. Perhaps a week passed. Ten days? The worry-laced weariness in Kamacite's voice coiled the lengthy time within itself.

"I know." The words sounded with a parched rasp, possessed of a warning that he might still crack his throat. "I got lost in the Rift." I lost myself in the Rift. Found myself in the Rift.

And you lost your nerve. "Come here," he urged, as his hand pulled away to better center himself. The weight of his own existence pressed so hatefully onto his bones that his spine crushed under sitting up. Only the taped IV promised an obstacle for Kamacite to avoid.

"Schörl said it's been two weeks. What's happened since?"

One of the things Kamacite had always hated about himself was the lingering feeling of helplessness. He knew now that he had more control over his life and his actions than he’d previously thought possible. So being unable to do something, whether because it was physically impossible, or because of his own emotional distress, weighed heavily on him. He could do better, could be better, and yet there were still obstacles that prevented him, himself included.

“The Rift?” Kamacite choked back, scrubbing at his face and the tears that welled, the feel of fingers in his hair coaxing him to glance up at his friend. Faustite looked horrible, and it made Kamacite feel sick. What had he gone through? He knew there were part youma officers who went into the Rift, even lived there like Wolfeite did, but it wasn’t safe.

There was a moment of hesitation at the invitation, teeth worrying at his lip. Faustite looked like he would fall apart with too much rough handling. Was it wise for him to move closer? But it was requested, and Kamacite wasn’t one to deny a request, especially one so simple…

Kamacite slowly rose to his feet so he could turn to carefully sit on the bed, making sure not to get tangled in the IV. A hiss of pain was bit back as he tried to turn enough to face Faustite, the brace keeping his shoulders from moving made it difficult for him to turn.

Nothing was on the tip of his tongue when Faustite asked for an update on what happened in the past two weeks. Worrying Faustite over needless things like Kamacite’s injuries was a waste of energy, as by the time Faustite was released from the intermary, surely Kamacite would be doing a lot better.

“I can’t say much for others,” he sniffled, keeping his eyes lowered to his hands. “I tried looking for you. I know Aue tried to as well. Then I was injured and couldn’t do much for the past week. That’s all.”

Faustite nodded for as much as his neck could hold him. "I needed to get away. I needed a place where Schörl couldn't pull me back through time." He knew of no other area similarly reachable by him where Schörl could not exert influence. The sheen of sweat on her brow postfacto proved nary a clue to the cost — nor to her stretch of power.

"I didn't expect to get lost." The first night spent woke him with raw nerve; he tasted fear on every whim of the air, doom on every scent. How long had he wandered that day? To what ends? That naked unhappiness sounded frivolous in hindsight. Pointless and self-absorbed. Boring. The whims of a boy who experienced limited culture, even in his removal from it.

And now he faced Kamacite, ever entrenched in it, and Faustite found an easily yoked pity for him. Kamacite could never touch the Rift in such a way. Could only dream of its horrors, its vast spans of emptiness. But some were better left to their trifles — more accustomed they were to the toils of workers over those of leaders. More suited they were to empathy work, to knit communities of themselves, and Kamacite stood far superior in that category. The way he splayed his emotions out so recklessly at times was its own endearment, a crucial honesty in an organization so bereft of it. So founded on misguidance.

And seeing Kamacite then, as he sat beside him, bruises and cast bone commended his story silently. He looked victimized by the way the brace held his shoulders straight. So strange was it to see Kamacite without a characteristic, depressive stoop that Faustite caught himself with his lips parted.

His gaze leapt from bloom of bruise to green cast. "Order fight?" It stood to reason with their line of work. Kamacite survived it, plainly, and knew well enough how to persevere through it. He must have kept himself out of commission for the prior week with awareness paid to remodeling bone. The injuries left him looking ever more delicate.

Finally Faustite's arms groaned too loudly for a reprieve, and he retired sidelong with his head against Kamacite's lap. He knew how to complain if the gesture was unwelcome; whether he would or not was a concern that Faustite found no energy to entertain.

I needed to get away.

Kamacite could relate to that, the desire to escape, to get out of arm’s reach. It was why he was there and not in a university in another country. The farther from the reach and influence of his family the better.

Even if it was only for a little while longer.

“Yes,” he admitted weakly, his eyes still red and face wet with the tears that he tried once again to brush away. Faustite was alive he reminded himself. He needed to breathe, to hold himself together for Faustite’s sake. And for himself. He was alive, as well.

“A senshi with a scar across his face and a black cat,” he shared, moving his hands out of his lap as Faustite shifted to rest against him.

For a moment he was unsure what was okay to do with his hands, before gently lowering them back down. One pet at Faustite’s head, brushing dark hair from his forehead, while his other hand rested against the side of his neck, dull nails lightly scratching like one might do a cat behind its ear.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he sniffled, feeling another wave of emotion well up in his chest, but he did his best to fight it and hold it back, his throat tight around the words. “Did you find your way back on your own…? We don’t have to talk about it, if you’d rather not,” he added, realizing it might be difficult to discuss.

Is it the same senshi? "Blonde hair? Flowers?" The cat was unfamiliar; his encounter with the senshi that broke his wrists showed no signs of a cat — only an aura, a bed of flowers, and a host of pain. That Kamacite encountered him too spoke of an irritant. A rash unchecked that would grow worse to perpetuity unless salved. A thought for a stronger day.

Confirmation abided, Faustite left the conversation to Kamacite's steering. Nails traced their patterned dances against his skin in intimacies long missed; he closed his eyes to their closeness. Their first steps pulled the thousand-thousand marchers of wary awareness from his sallows, but they soon disbanded and smoothed away. Kama knew how to touch with the same surety he had for panic attacks against heart attacks. Even his hair's looming inspections were welcome for the intimate weight they brought to bear. So many of these moments were lost to the Rift's complacent austerity. He learned to love both — in presence and in absence.

"I didn't." Summoning the strength to speak proved the greatest trial; his ribs heaved and his throat shuddered under work's yoke. "I slept in one place and woke in another. When I walked to exhaustion, the Rift stole away my progress. Sometimes I found where I started at the end of my consciousness. Other times I woke in an unrecognizable place. I never saw the Citadel through the mist.

"There isn't food in the Rift. There isn't water. There's a river of caustic poison that stretches farther than you can see. All that time was spent without edibles — without water but what came from my own body. It must've taken an hour to crawl a hundred feet on my last day there. My hands still don't want to open." To prove his point, Faustite flexed cut-laden and swollen fingers. When he continued, his even tone belied his detachment from the retelling of events. Carefully, methodically, he carried them. "A bear youma sniffed my face after I couldn't stand up anymore. I thought it would eat my starseed.

"But a general commanded that youma. Titanlåvenite. He carried me back."

Kamacite nodded confirmation as he took a breath to try and calm himself more. The initial shock of seeing Faustite like this was slowly wearing off and being replaced with relief. It wasn’t enough to douse all of his worry, but enough for him to be able to reassess everything and organize it better in his mind.

“General Titanlåvenite,” Kamacite quietly repeated in order to commit it to memory. He frowned as Faustite showed him his hand, and Kamacite pulled his own away from where he smoothed back Faustite’s hair. He then reached out to gingerly trace the lines of the dark, battered fingers.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, swallowing the tears that threatened again, lips pressed tight together and jaw clenched as he delicately placed his palm over Faustite’s hand, wishing there could have been something done to spare him from the pain he must have suffered. The hunger and thirst. And Faustite always felt overheated, so he could only imagine how miserable it would have been in the Rift for so long.

“I wasn’t able to do anything. I thought… I knew something was wrong when you didn’t respond to me. But I didn’t know what to do,” he tried to explain, not sure how much of the excuse Faustite would accept. Not enough had been done to help find him. He could have died and they wouldn’t have known where he was.

Faustite's gaze sharpened at confirmation; he grew mute over the subject while turning over thoughts better left to paper.

"You didn't need to do anything." His continued awakeness pushed the strength out of his body, pressed his bones to the bed with a certain heaviness. Like life produced a buoyancy that very nearly left him from the prior weeks. "A captain can be replaced. Especially one with a record like mine.

"Dying didn't bother me at the end." He knew the end he faced — tasted his own fear on its hot, wet breath. Watched the many teeth gnash together with its dumb curiosity. Accepting death held none of the profundities he expected from the long-lauded sensationalism in books and movies. There was no momentous realization that spurred him on with a lasting adrenaline. There was no blinding light coming to steal him to the heavens where his fettered soul belonged. There was no rapacious dignity seizing hold of him while the bear youma buried its fanged muzzle into his throat, into his chest. No, the end of life held a plainness to it that both disgusted and tempered him.

But he never met an end. He met Titanlåvenite, then Schörl, then Kamacite. He met perspective.

He still tasted salt on his tongue. Snorting, he began to laugh, though he could not determine why. "I must have given you a scare. You didn't cower from looking. You could have, but didn't." You didn't cry and shackle yourself to the ground like when we first met. You took action. Just like when I called you. What moves you forward?

What moves you to stay? He knew he must have smelled rank for his time spent in the Rift — for the grueling trials and tribulations that painted their marks all over his body and deep into his bones. But Kamacite protested none of it — nor did his nose even wrinkle at the new, wan tendrils of smoke that began venting out of his back. He loved that care, that dedication to a straight face. Kamacite controlled himself here where at other times he could not, or chose not to. And while he could wring his hands and look to the floor at their next meet, Faustite would remember brisk touches at his neck and tousled hair, visits paid at first beck, and self-deprecation paving over good intentions.

"But if you're broken up about it…" Faustite struggled to sit up against rickety groans. "You can make it up to me."

Although he wanted to counter Faustite’s comment about how a captain could be replaced, he knew it was true. It would be easy for the Negaverse. As a whole, individuals did not matter. They were soldiers meant to be used and disposed of, and yet Kamacite would not dare think of leaving. There were too many people his life was now tied to for him to even consider it. Faustite being one of them.

For a long time, Kamacite saw himself as an investment. It was how Wolfeite treated him, and his General did nothing to say anything to the contrary. At least not until recently.

Most of all, Kamacite could relate to the thought of dying, and how he hadn’t fought for his life when certain death stood before him in the form of a part youma General the night he was corrupted.

The laughter was startling, and Kamacite paused for a moment, before placing his hand back against the top of Faustite’s head, smoothing his fingers through his filthy hair.

At least until Faustite tried to sit up. Kamacite reached out then to try and help, a hand placed against shoulder to steady him, while his other hand fluttered in front of Faustite’s chest, not touching but prepared to assist if necessary.

“You should be resting,” he gently scolded and sniffled once more as he used the back of his hand to wipe at the lingering tears. “And of course. Whatever you need I will do my best,” he promised, wondering if his guilt would be settled if Faustite let him do something else to make it up to him, as he’d suggested.

he tasted speech through a mouth unhis didn't want to tell you right away and saw his face through eyes unhis coal past like coal unpresent he liked the way all that hair jailed the boy's youthful face when was he free to think and speak and feel and love and live

the heartpin fury that thrummed his chest still simmered when unhis gilt hand left the brocaded chest it's been so long since i saw that one

do you like watching yourself through my eyes?

the smile twisted in unhis chest before it found unhis face and he smiled at two points in time how long had it been his hand retreated it stepped in its broken shadow among silks and embroidery and idle hands made these gifts like the idleness in his lap

the way he smiled ever fluttered a heart unsettled and he wanted to speak out the fury of that love you should be resting

His gaze had on the desiccated, gritty doorframe, the enigmatic smile unknown to him until he banished it. Blinking away the dregs of that austere daydream, he struggled to find the thread of the conversation. "I don't want to sleep." Faustite braced against the assistance Kamacite provided, settling indefinitely against the senshi's vivacity. "I won't risk waking up in the Rift again. Not until I can have someone watch me — and stop me if necessary."

The Rift graced him with enough of its vast, desolate adventure that he saw no great reward in returning to it. He found dread — he found damnation creeping over shoulders and down the length of his spine. The prospect died before it found fruition. He would not return to the Rift, not in the waking hour or the sleeping hour. And if ever the Negaverse mandated that he return, he would choose an accompaniment to chase away the raw frights of losing himself again. Of crossing distances unknown to him and inadvertently burying himself in a labyrinthine tomb.

"I need toothpaste. And a toothbrush." Faustite issued a tired smirk. "I don't feel human."

A strange expression seemed to cross Faustite’s face as he sat up. Or maybe Kamacite had imagined it. They were both tired, after all. Both in pain. And Kamacite could understand not wanting to sleep. How many nights had he spent, kept up by his own anxiety? Too many to count. They lessened these days. It seemed unlikely that he would find solace in being part of the Negaverse. Perhaps not the Negaverse itself, but the people his life was now tied to because of it.

Kamacite frowned, perturbed by Faustite’s distress. Was it possible he was sleepwalking? Everything Faustite had described seemed to fall in line with that, or was it something else? Either way, it was no less terrifying.

“I could watch you,” Kamacite quietly offered after a moment of chewing nervously on his lip, forgetting his own fatigue for the moment. He could feel his cheeks burn, but there was nothing wrong with wanting to stay by his friend’s side, was there?

Thankfully, he had an excuse to hide his face when Faustite voiced his request, and Kamacite gently pulled himself away so he could once more rise to his feet. It was unforgivable that Faustite hadn’t already been provided such necessities. “Of course. I’ll bring what I can find.”

"No. It's better left to a lieutenant. Someone who hasn't eaned better jobs." In a word, Heliodor. Schörl confirmed that he still lived, and while Faustite had yet to see him, he imagined the obstinate wreck of a senshi continued his erring ways. But Schörl never tolerated such insubordination to her person — she would cane him to a withered husk, until he was better left to paperwork towers of bureaucracy before he received a real mission. And if he endured as much pain as Faustite imagined, then the wretch couldn't do much more than walk these days. He needn't get up much for this. "But thank you.

"And for the toothpaste."

Where Kamacite stood, Faustite reclined. His bony figure met the hard bed and single pillow that the Negaverse spared him, with no sign of displeasure for their meagerness. Watching Kamacite leave was its own distant sorrow, still buried in shellshocked distance. They talked, but they never really spoke. Never said the vital lines that made their persons. The Rift taught him that his life, however stayed by youmafication, was impeccably short. Kamacite's perhaps shorter. Heliodor's shortest of all. So how many chances between them could he afford to let slip through his fickle grasp? How many more chances were there to watch Kamacite walk away?

Or should he ban himself from such chances? Should he deny his nameless self and continue as an agent foremost?

And what of these waking dreams? They seemed nothing more than feverish fancies, with point of view so convoluted that Faustite never understood who he was through them. Ever they revolved around a jeweled handpiece and sweetened, empty words. Who were they? Was it all real? Did it even matter?

Faustite licked dry lips and watched the steady drip of the IV bag. He hoped he would be free to distract himself again soon.

guine