Starlight Cookies and Moonlight Milk (4) : A new shop has opened up, just in time for the Star Festival! It doesn’t have anything on the menu except for Starlight Cookies and Moonlight Milk, but they are the talk of the town! Everyone who’s anyone has tried them, and without a doubt, they’re the most delicious things that they’ve ever tasted! Though...the reviews don’t mention that after you've had any, your eyes begin to glow strangely and sparkle like little galaxies are swirling within them. It’s beautiful, if a little strange! The effect fades after an hour, and your vision isn’t impacted...though, if you go to try the cookies again, the shop seems to have disappeared…
He'd stared down some withered little scrub of a lieutenant until they'd led him in, down, and eventually all the way to Faustites office. Something about number 430 - paired with an insistence that he could have found it himself, but Albite was ******** if he had to navigate the castle on his own and the Lt.'s muted little utterances about Albite's personhood hadn't earned him any sort reprieve from Albite being as much of an annoyance as possible; just to see if the kid would grow a spine.
If he were being honest, he hadn't really known that the General had an office. Logically it made sense, but it wasn't like Albite was in the habit of seeking out peoples offices. He tended to avoid all offices and association with those who resided in them like the plague. It was a primal survival instinct, as nothing good had ever come from dealing with offices of any sort. At least, not in his own personal experience.
He was sure Faustite was waiting inside, maybe doing work of some sort, by way of the Lt's sudden halt four doors before, like his watery little spine had been yanked on by a strong chain. Albite eyed the kid as he skidded to a halt, and did a awkward little quickstep backwards. Eyebrows raised into his hairline as he'd shooed Albite on, and then aboutfaced his way outta there before Albite could offer so much as a 'thank you' or even a cheery '********'.
Like a bull in a china shop, Albite entered without so much as a knock on the door, not quite barging, but also not giving more warning than necessary. Either Faustite would see him, or tell him off. Albite would plant his a** outside and wait if he had to. He was on the sort of mission that was worth waiting for, even if patience was furthest down on his list of virtues.
"Hey Faustite, got a minute? Cause like, I've got a serious question." and his gaze was fixed on the general himself. Moving into the interior and kicking the door closed after. It was as if he'd had blinders on to the room around him, uncaring of its contents, save the desk in the room, where Albite carefully deposited a gleaming box of freshly baked cookies. Still warm and fragrant, even from within their sealed confine. "What's a guy gotta' do to get under you?" and while his tone held a hint of severity to it, the smile that stretched his face was anything but...
"Yanno, chain of command wise - in service of - do you even like...idunnoo..have subordinates?" Albite beseeched, the words heavy with tease and accompanied by an exaggerated waggle of eyebrows as the Senshi firmly planted his hands on the mans desk, eying both the cookies and Faustite encouragingly. "Like, seriously if it's the whole setup under Axinite....." a mirthless snort for that, because Albite didn't want to think too deeply about all that would have entailed. Not that Axinite wasn't a hot piece of turkish delight, a literal battle-axe of a man. He just couldn't hold a candle to Lepidolite. Not only that, but IntOs seemed like it required a lot of detail work. All the things that came with that particular bag had never been anything that played to Albites strengths.
"Oh, alsoooo...." a further nudge of the cookies across Faustites impressive desk. Heedless of whatever he'd disturbed with his intrusion, or what lay in the way of his offer. Albite was on a personal mission for more than just information, he needed to see Faustite eat the cookies. The intrusiveness of that singular thought had plagued him since the star gazing party he'd attended. Haunted by the image of burning coal eyes; intense and persistent embers that bored into him with unparalleled heat.
He'd seen firsthand in the mirror what the cookies did to his own gaze, he could only imagine what they might do to the Generals eyes. Living without that knowledge wasn't living at all. So he'd taken great lengths to rectify it. Mainly in the form of being an intrusive little ********, but whatever - Faustite could chew him out about it after he'd eaten one.
Faustite had no love for his office. Fires weren't endemic to offices, and while he had replaced his old Captain's furniture with metal and glass pieces (and continually marveled at his own stupidity for not seeing his combustion coming), the office would never become safe from him. Offices demanded a measure of self-discipline and domesticity more at home with a military-minded sort, or someone used to being sedentary, or officers who liked to surround themselves with their own accomplishments. Offices were for people like Roselite, who were skittish and soft, and their natural talents paired wonderfully with an office's tameness.
The flamegutted General tried his exacting best with this office. Stone walls and stone ceiling were the only choices for each hollowed, derelict room waiting for a worker. He chose one with a number of Negaspace's violet, limned crystals, which minimized the amount of extra light he needed, and any remainder was supplied by his own gut. His desk was a metal frame with a glass top, black on each side over the two sets of large drawers. They each had metal pull bars. The chairs were metal, too — two backed chairs sat between the regrettably wooden office door and the desk, and Faustite sat on a metal stool on the opposite side (though he considered a backed chair for himself, now that he lacked so many pipes). Lining two of four walls were bookshelves, each metal, each with a glass front preventing him from burning them. Layers of dust crawled over the tops and into the cracks so thickly as to evince their years of disuse. The third wall not shared with the wooden door had a writing desk, similarly metal, its contents similarly locked away, its surfaces similarly evocative of disuse.
On his desk lay various kindlings about the Princess. Before Albite so willingly barged in, he had been trying to compile a more coherent, objective writeup about the self-righteous dogma-in-human-skin that murdered his youma. But each time he tried, he grew more sour over it, and more disinclined. and had settled for exercise to burn up some of that anger.
When Albite barged in, Faustite stopped at the height of his push-up. One arm was folded behind his back, both splits of his cape tossed over that arm and left to drape, and the elbow of his opposite arm was locked. He turned his head toward the disturbance. Above the lip of his desk, he watched his visitor approach.
This one, again. Verbal diarrhea with a side of beefcake. Faustite was skeptical that Albite knew how to get to Negaspace, or that he would bother with it, given how much more invested he was in action. He was similarly surprised to hear that Albite had anything serious in him, let alone a question. But he plainly stared at the man once that question was asked.
Then he realized the overly gregarious senshi hadn't meant that, and he almost relaxed, were it not for the nature of the question. Faustite rose from his spot behind the stool, then seated himself in it with legs crossed. One arm folded over the desk, the other was a perch for how his cheekbone rested against his fist. His eyes wandered to the aromatic box, the distraction, as he considered the question. It had been years now, but he carried that bitterness with him.
Oh, Heliodor. If you could hear this.
"Don't have subordinates," he answered carefully. He searched his desk, found a metal pen in the metal drawer of his metal office, and used the butt of it to begin teasing open this clearly-not-a-bribe. "Nothing to do with Axinite." Heliodor had something to do with it. Schörl did. Being only loosely recognizable as human did, too.
He prised the lid up with a few well-practiced tilts of the hand. The smell billowed out, rich and saccharine and enticing. He swallowed his sudden torrent of spit.
With all the restraint he could manage, his attention returned to Albite, all confidence and brusqueness. All ********. All big, dumb meat wrapping around a starseed. The question he returned was just as grave: "Why do you want to be my subordinate?"
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The emaciated little hamster that ran Albites ability for higher functioning thought briefly flatlined. Had itself a little hamster coronary. Which left Albite stalled out on the idea of wanting to watch Faustite do 'that', again, all day long, until one of them died. Did the guy have a physical limitation, did being part youma give him more stamina? Slender little firestarter didn't look like he should've been able to manage one handed push-ups so fluidly, surely his body had a lot of weight to it, what with the wrought iron where flesh and bone should have been. Not taking into account whatever other components went into holding together his being, but there he was - being increasingly interesting in ways that held Albites rapt attention.
Distracted him from his goals, detracted nicely from the office that felt like it'd been ripped out of a super villains lair of the month catalogue. Sterile, but disused - fireproof, and cold. Albite figured the warmest, most personable thing in the place was probably Faustite himself, seconded only by the cookies atop his desk.
Albite watched with a lidded gaze, pleased to see him check the cookies while he listened. He let the silence linger for a moment, let his poor little brain hamster get a few good shocks from an AED and breathe some fresh O’2 while he focused enough to answer - and promptly came up short. There was no succinct way to explain ‘why’. Nothing that Albite could have so neatly strung together with words that would have summed the whole of the parts that became the answer. Like a thousand piece puzzle, and if he could have shown the man the end results of that, the picture on the box. It would have been easy. If he could have expressed in a multitude of actions, that same exact thing - maybe he’d thought he had to some extent?
"That, yeah..." His fingers drummed briefly across the glass surface of the table, a discordant little tapping, that led straight into Albite being in motion. Promptly grabbing up one of the metal chairs from in front of the clinical feeling, imposition of a desk, and hefting the thing up and around to the other side. A simple enough task to flip it backwards before dropping himself into it, knees splayed, chest pressed against the backrest.
Near enough that he could comfortably feel the natural heat Faustite radiated, without actually crowding in on his space. They were adults, he wasn’t going to loom over the General, any more than he was going to sit prim and proper across a desk from him. He wasn’t some errant school boy who'd been brought into the principal's office for bad grades. The new angle also helped with the purpose of getting to see Faustite eat something and enjoy it. He wanted to be right there, up close and personal for the inevitable light show that followed eating those particular cookies, but that need was somehow secondary to the 'him enjoying it' part.
“Hope you weren’t expecting a quick explanation from me? So, yanno, feel free to dig in while I go off about it. Cause the whole thing needs context to make any sort of sense.” Albite made a show of settling in, crossed his arms over the backrest of the chair in such a way that he could easily tilt his head to use the crook of an elbow as a convenient pillow. Dreads shffing gently across the roughhewn stone floor with the movement. It was a far more comfortable space to gauge the firestar's reactions from.
I will offer to feed you the entire box by hand if you ask, but for the love of all that is, eat one.
"So...Senshi? Are the ******** herbivores of the universe. Like, the textbook definition of prey and yeah they’re deadly, powerful prey...but still?" Albite didn't care if the opinion was popular or not. He'd met enough of one or the other and determined drawing Senshi was like drawing the short straw. He'd decided early on that Senshi’s just had no damned teeth to them. They weren't like knights with their weapons, or Agents with their youma, or even the DMS and their wraiths. Senshi were something other, strange, alien - and wasn't that the problem? They were the rabbits, horses, and bison of the solar system. A man could get kicked to death by a cow just as easily as he could get snapped up by an alligator. Didn’t change the fact that 90% of cows ended up a future menu item.
"A Corrupt Senshi? Hell, on the one hand <******** traitors' and on the other hand? The literal enemy with a convenient change in ideals." Which left Albite a teensy bit lower on the totem pole than the cannon fodder that most Lt's served as on a regular basis. It also ensured that his life was just slightly more important than a youmas chew toy to some; convenient starseeding practice dummy to others. The craziest part was that none of that s**t really phased him. He'd been blessed with having a certain presence that left him less targeted for more corporal actions. He wasn’t afraid to stand up to people when they got overly pushy about things, which sometimes began and ended with the action of him standing up. It helped that he didn’t typically balk at doing a lot of the lesser tasks sent his way. Even when he knew it was grunt work - hard work. People almost seemed to take advantage of the fact that a lot of the moral ambiguity issues that tripped up the younger recruits didn't bother him on the same level.
"From the moment that cat walked into my life I understood I was in a zero sum game. I’d already lost the coin toss long before I’d known there were teams to play for.” How did he explain that Bob had ******** up. Not that Albite was going to blame all his worldly woes on a cat, but he hadn't exactly planned on being a Senshi. Anything else could have been better. Then there was Auro. Auro was gone, had been gone, and even if he hadn't been gone? Albite knew he'd ******** that one up from the word 'go'. Of course without Auro he was no ones subordinate - and he would have ******** loved that - except belonging to no one, meant he was beholden to everyone, and that? That had started to grow old.
"Knowing that the game had already been called didn’t mean I could quit playing. No, what it meant was that I had to find a way to make it work for me, by finding control, finding purpose. Which all culminated in how I chose to do things within the confines of this, within the rules of all of this.” lazily pantomiming the rough edges of a box with his fingers, motioning in such a way as to suggest the whole of the space they sat in and beyond. Negaspace, the rift, the moon, the world. “That? Means I make choices - how much s**t I'm willing to take, who I do things for, how I wanna go out. I get to decide whether I want things hard or easy, and to take my own liberties with that - all of that - so long as I color mostly within the lines - which around here?” and the slow smile that built on his face for that, small creases in the corners of his eyes that if he lived long enough would become proper crows feet, deep crevasse of happiness etched into his face with time.
“Those lines get really blurry in some places. Sometimes? You can't even see them at all." the joy in his tone for that, secretive heat, as though he'd found a loophole to readily exploit and was proud of himself for it.
Albite had been a grown a** adult, who'd made grown a** choices. They hadn't had to lure him in with lollipops and a promise of a better tomorrow - he didn’t treat it like some dark side v.s light side free for all. Absolutes were for children, adults? Understood shades of grey and where they lived in those shades, how they formed themselves between those muddled colors. He'd liked the way the name Albite tasted in his mouth, just a bit more than Praxidike. He'd looked damned good in black. He'd thought the world had too many useless people in it anyhow - and that the Senshi, no matter how lofty their ideals, were worthless without the means and will to govern themselves with some semblance of cohesion. There was no reality where things came together and thrived on good intentions alone.
"That's really what this is. My choices, choosing you? Is an exercise in free will, because I want to, because I can." the one sided shrug a mere ripple of muscle while his heated gaze lingered on Faustites frame - the idea that someone so lithe held such power - a quiet gravitational pull like a central mass of a star calling all else to circle it and burn in a macabre dance with the inescapable end. Albite wanted Faustite, because he wanted, no ulterior motives, no greater reasoning. If he had to answer to someone, to be in service of something, there was none better than him. Albite wasn't about to prostrate himself and tout his potential usefulness to the man, either Faustite already found him useful, or he didn't.
"You make me want to punch your teeth into your face the least out of everyone else here, and I ******** love the looks I get when I agree to go out on missions with you." Looks from Faustite, looks from his peers. Albite smothered a chuckle against the skin of his arm for that, the way the faint little wallflowers who hid behind desks and assigned tasks paled, stammered, and balked further when he outright demanded them, as if their little tablets would protect them. As if he cared enough about them to waste his energy on being anything more than a slightly intimidating nuisance.
"Besides, if everything went to s**t? I'm sure you'd find a way to get something out of the arrangement, and I'd enjoy that.”
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Faustite knew he'd have to wait through five hundred words to get five words that mattered, which meant Albite could exercise his mouth while Faustite ate some of his bribe. The lid popped open as Albite started into his tirade, and Faustite folded that paper top over with his pen. He knew it wouldn't catch fire straight away — most things didn't, even when he felt completely himself — but he wouldn't risk this little bounty.
Unsurprising to him that Albite started on a bend that had very little to do with the creature in front of him. Faustite absconded with a cookie, careful to hold it between daggered nails, lest the heat start to overcook it. Bad habit, he knew; the thing would turn to charcoal in his mouth regardless, especially if he took too long to chew. He bit into one just as Albite went off about corrupted senshi. Faustite gathered that he picked good cookies, judging by the crunchy outside and soft inside, by the delectably sweet and buttery flavor. Whatever his hangup was about senshi, Albite could pick a great bakery.
He finished one cookie, then another, than a third. Toffee nut then chocolate chip then sugar. Each masticated lump fell into the furnace that was his stomach, where it flared and crackled and burnt away.
Albite had rambled something about rules. Faustite manipulated the box with his pen so he could check for a logo. Nothing — just a plain folded box. His mouth pressed into a line.
Whatever. The next looked like a chunky white chocolate macadamia nut affair. He bit into it, and to his pleasant surprise, the chunks were pieces of cheesecake. How imaginative.
A fifth went down, this one a dark chocolate chip, and Faustite sucked the chocolate smears off his fingers. "You don't choose in a vacuum," he corrected, somewhat tuning into Albite's monologue. He could choose any General in the system, sure, but that General had the free will to accept or reject that choice, and what that General said trumped whatever Albite asked for. Even if he rose to Eternal, Faustite doubted that this chain of command would change. Aue couldn't tell him what to do, but the Finn begrudgingly yielded to his direction.
So all this was a combination of 'because I want to', lesser evil, and vanity. Faustite supposed, then, that he wouldn't need to feel remorseful if this one got himself murdered, or if he had to put Albite down. He wanted to be used. And another person would treat him too much like a person.
"I could tell you to go ******** yourself." Faustite took a break from the cookies to level Albite a discerning look, a blazing don't you ******** get ahead of yourself.
He seized his heat-colored pen, clicked it against the glass table. He overturned one vellum paper concerning Ganymede's abilities, then scribbled in a series of cuts what he thought of this overbearing lummox next to him. The words grew into a flow chart as Faustite cut arrows with severe strokes, chopped boxes into the surface with his pen. Midway, he wrote GenOps — this one would stay there until he built some skills worth keeping. Then — the boxes split off. SpecOps seemed most likely, but he would have to learn discipline. Otherwise… He supposed InfOs. Albite wasn't very witty, but charisma and attractiveness would carry him anyway. He only had to be more useful than his starseed.
"Most people choose a human CO." Faustite barely corralled his contempt behind his teeth. "But you detest that. You choose danger because you want the possibility of surviving it, or dying from it. You justify your own merits on the fact that you survived so far. What better than a volatile CO who could cremate you for putting sugar in their tea. What growth if you survive that, too.
"Better if your CO knows what to do with you." He looked back to Albite, and waited for a rebuttal.
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"Got it all in one, firebrand."
Albite practically purred, noting Faustites poignant precision with every movement, breath, and stroke. He envied those parts of Faustite the most. Wanted to emulate it himself. To immerse himself in the mans mannerisms until he could absorb fractals of it via osmosis. The General was simply everything he wasn't.
Smart, succinct, p e r f e c t.
So what if Albite wanted to be wielded properly by someone who knew what they were doing. A brick was no more a sword than a hammer was surgical blade. He was tired of being misused in all the wrong sorts of ways. Even if Faustite assured him there was no real choice, Albite still felt like he was making one. Even if it was the illusion of choice, a nice little placebo effect that mimicked the real thing. It was better to have that illusion, than to lose all sense of himself and become like the others. All those other Senshi, thin cowering shadows, who flinched under every slight or footstep as if it'd break them. Or absolutely cracked; the sort of crazy one didn't come back from.
Albite refused to become that. He could see it looming though, distant as it was, if he continued on without direction. The inevitable end for all who gazed into the darkness of the abyss, and blinked when it looked back.
"You'd know what to do with me, better than anyone else here. Helps that I won't flinch from you, because everything you are? I'm into it, even if you're not." Albites tone brooked no argument, offered only sincerity and promise, where he could have teased. Partly entranced in the reverie of watching Faustite eat. The mechanism of it, every neat little motion. A flicker of tongue around razor sharp claw, the way the flames ate the remnants - crackled and popped like a soothing campfire. Albite was reminded of well fed fires and how they'd always sounded the best. He'd learned that in trips to distant hunting cabins with crackling pine chips in wood burning stoves, and around rock ringed fires at campouts on the lake. For all that every line of the flame bearing General promised cruelty, and pain. Albite found it calming.
If Faustite was cruel - Albite didn't believe it was for cruelty's sake, but for a purpose. If Faustite was pain - Albite was more likely to get off on it, than get bent up under it. Albite didn't wither under his scorched gaze like a fragile spring flower in the summer heat. He soaked it up, returned it even, for all that it felt like facing down a barely contained inferno.
Fire was only dangerous when it wasn't respected, when it was played with in all the wrong ways. People still breathed, danced, and walked through it. Time immemorial, humanity had managed it unscathed and uncharred for thousands of years.
"Besides if you really wanna tell me to go ******** myself? You do it any time." Albite was still surprised Faustite hadn't done it yet. He'd pushed, waited for it, only for the Firestarter actively ignore the obvious bait, and easily divert him onto a task like a wildfire set loose. Every single time, and Albite didn't know how he did it, but he loved it.
"I'll get real creative about it even...send you a file...Hell I'll find a way to get you fire proofed hard copies. If still shots are what do it for you." Albite offered a slant of a thousand watt grin, all innuendo and brag.
Mostly to get Faustite to glare at him a little longer, because he wanted to see the stars in his eyes. Even if they would have looked far more like blazing goliath suns than the cute little dots seen from beneath earths protective atmosphere.
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"'Course I did." Faustite shot him a look of exasperation, his pupils now spread and fractured into a hundred thousand firestars in a blazing galaxy. Albite was one of the easiest reads he encountered, especially for how the blackbound senshi carried himself in action.
Albite's exposition brooked reticence, and Faustite recognized it for the same apprehension he felt in Axinite's office. Not one of imminent hurt, but one borne from a pervasive feeling of wrongness. Like he watched the reflection of the world through a sinister glass, and could not discern what it had twisted and what it left pristine. He was certain Albite thought he spoke the truth, that he believed everything he said. That unease warned him — his best had never been enough before. Why would it be for Albite? Or for Axinite?
Faustite breathed a smoky sigh through his nose. Thick tendrils wended out of his missing back as he slouched forward, chin framed on the palms of his hands. Could he take another subordinate? Scattered ember eyes lighted on his sketch of Ganymede. Could he lead someone else to slaughter?
He supposed he had to. There was nothing left but to keep moving.
When he'd decided, he broke the hung silence. "Put a Roman column up your a**. That gets me going," he quipped back.
Better that they didn't press too far in that direction. Albite flaunted his practiced teasing, and Faustite leveraged every scrap of self-control he had against it. It'd be easier to give in, he knew (oh, how he wanted to know more about that french maid outfit), and it wouldn't mean much between them, but there was a propriety to waiting until this one was formally recognized as his underling. He could do what he wanted with his things, and none could tell him otherwise.
"Need to know how you got your start. Organizational history. What you know, what you don't." Pushing off the desk by his elbows, Faustite angled his body more fully toward this stupid, misguided senshi. So much hair and muscle and rude nakedness, he was. "Need to know your plainclothes life, too. Pity if something happened to you off-duty."
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"Mmph-hmnnn..." Albite quickly stifled his retort to 'that', several retorts even, that largely included candles and a man of the same name, whom Albite knew laid claim to quite a respectable column. His wide grin ended up smothered against the inside of his bicep, a press of teeth against skin, as he willed himself ignore the urge to sass Faustite back by spouting provocative nonsense. Even if it would have been so easy to keep playing. To go full word association and innuendo - for research purposes.
Because knowing where the line lay with Faustite? Meant he could learn, early-on, how to walk it. Mostly though? It lit Albite up inside, to be able to hear that Faustite wasn't third degree severity 24/7. He didn't want to ruin the moment by trampling all over it with his mouth.
Albite breathed through the compulsion to speak, bit his lower lip and nodded contemplatively. Opted to pay actual attention to his boss's words, to drag his mind away from 'pillars' and instead let it drown in the hollowed depths of Faustite's stunningly fractured gaze. The faint natural glow of them amplified by the cookies delectable abilities. Albite was warmed by the brief notion of burning beneath such a firestorm of stars. Space - negaspace - it had always felt like such cold vastness to Albite, and yet at the center of it all lived blazing kolidescopes in the form of its agents and all those who'd chosen to serve. Virile heat signatures that had survived, unquenched. Whether they burned out of rage, spite, or just to prove something for the sake of it.
"Uhn-course you'd want details..." the distracted huff for that, because Albite abhorred detail work. At least he'd get to stare into Faustites eyes the whole time, prize enough to be worth the drudgery of going over 'his life', even if it was information of such banality that he felt he should have been filling out some DMV forms to go along with it. "So like - Auro- yanno, Aurostibite? Started with him, and of course one of the cats. I'm not really a fan of felines, so I don't bother them. Ever." annoyance threaded through his tone, his face scrunched briefly as if searching for details as to why, aside from his own biased opinions on Senshi s**t in general. He had no real reason to dislike the cats, he just didn't.
Auro had been his first general, plucked him out from the crowd with Bob to make something of him, and at the time Albite hadn't been able to tow the line. He'd been in dire need of taking his life in hand, and making solid changes, which had meant getting his hands on some power he could wield for himself, no matter what form that took. The fact that a talking cat and a man with wings for weapons were the ones to offer him a chance to grab at it? It was too sweet a dish to resist, no matter how poisonous and bitter it tasted going down.
"I must have been eighteen or nineteen when I joined up? It feels like it's been a few years now, and a large portion of that was me getting life outside of 'this' put together. I'm mostly self taught, always picked up more by doing, since I've got a tactile learning style or whatever." Albite heaved a sigh, disinterest writ across his features for even needing to broach the subject. It'd been such a large, long, unforgiving portion of his life. It'd been nigh impossible to be full time into 'The Mission' when he'd barely been keeping his head above water outside of that.
"Really though? It's not so much that I don't know things...I ********. I haven't ever paid attention to anything I didn't need to know. All the higher up s**t, rank n' file gossip, whatever else comes to die in this place. If you need specifics, I'll make you a list....." Albite trailed off, and he could say with certainty that he knew the basics about what he needed to do, and occasionally rumors about everyone else and what they had done. He'd tried his damndest to avoid negaspace, and anywhere near the castle or barracks as much as was humanly possible. He did better out there - up there - getting s**t done, storing energy up, and turning it all in when he felt he'd hit his own version of a quota. He'd realized early on that so long as he attended when called, for whatever extraneous tasks were added to his plate, and occasionally ones he'd picked up himself. That no one bothered him overly much for more, and on the rare occasions that they had? It was never more than he'd been wiling to give from the start.
"Oh yeah, all's the pity." all easygoing snark while he tipped the chair gently forewords, balanced it with his toes on the floor and the legs tilted just so. "I promise if I slip in the shower and break a hip, you'll be the first one I call." a lie, he'd call his girl first, let her laugh her a** off and hang up on him, but Faustite would have been the second one on that list. "But since you insist - I don't have the sort of job that interferes in 'this' at the moment. If were talking name, address and phone number stuff. It's all yours. I'm not really het up on trying to hide things from you..." It felt pointless to consider. Faustite was literally 'the info guy'. Albite couldn't tell if the General was asking out of genuine curiosity, or because he was paranoid. Maybe it was just part an parcel with his job.
"Here - leme see that for a second.." and Albite casually reached over for one of the metal pens on Faustites desk, snagging a flap of the well eaten cookie box and tearing it off neatly at its seam. "It's Waru by the way - Waruhiu Araullo Ushindi..." the scrawl of information across the blank cardboard flap was only quasi neat, immediately telling of someone who'd failed to perfect basic penmanship. Still, Albite made sure to put down the most pertinent parts - name, address, cell number. "I'm up late. If I'm not home just hang out in the back and give me a call. I don't think there's anything flammable there..." the porch was more a small concrete slab than a porch. Two brick pillars and an awning. Sometimes in the winter he'd stick a little fire grate out back and some metal folding chairs, just to watch the bits of the night sky that filtered in through the city lights.
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Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2021 4:50 am
Faustite blinked at him, then decided whatever Albite was stifling was better left unsaid. A slow shake of his head and he returned his eyes to the paper in front of him.
He retrieved his pen, pressed the gold nib to paper beneath his earlier quick note. His writing was stop and start — shorthand well-suited to speech, but he stopped for long stretches where Albite dwelled on thoughts that the cindered General found extraneous. When it became obvious that Albite's explanation would last longer than the paper, Faustite slipped a small plate of metal from a side drawer and placed it under his hand.
Interesting that Aurostibite was the one to corrupt him, and that he was so familiar with this General that Albite first cited a nickname. "Met him before. He used to hold Negaverse tournaments." Faustite had always spotted him from afar; the man was too busy to suffer company during those events.
He wondered if Albite made a habit of nicknames. Jealousy wanted him to think there was something between them that earned a clandestine nickname, but that failed the test with his own nickname. He and Albite hadn't done anything untoward, he thought. Could've, perhaps, if he was human.
"I like the cats," he muttered, mostly to himself. Albite had no name for the feline, so Faustite left it unwritten. Implied enough by now.
Joined up at eighteen or nineteen. Faustite paused to feel his surprise, then kept writing. Strange that someone would join so late; he'd just been nineteen a few months ago, after years of service. And perhaps it was less beneficial to join up around then, given that Albite had done very little for the Negaverse beyond fetching a quota. Disappointing, too, that he was self-taught. Meant he never picked up a Negaverse training handbook, never learned the basics.
"Kinesthetic," he corrected as he kept writing.
He paused, frowning at Albite's reach, his entitlement to the pens he kept. "They're expensive. Don't break it." If he even knew how to write with a nib-tipped pen. Not that it was hard, but people had a habit of digging the page when the ink ran fine on its own. He hadn't wanted to pick paper fibers out of the tips again, either.
Albite was already writing before Faustite could fetch him a ballpoint, so he scooted closer with a sigh and watched the hand at work. Penmanship was s**t, not that his was particularly better. He could still hate it, though, and hate the splotchy bubbles where Albite had no idea how the ******** to use his pens.
Faustite clicked his tongue against his teeth as he nudged the finished flap in his direction. Waru was a lot easier to say, he supposed. The rest of it — helpful, though he didn't recognize the street, and he couldn't look it up in his phone (or add Waru's number) without overheating the thing.
"Don't misunderstand me. Prefer my subordinates free of unnecessary stress so they focus on the job. Worrying about bills or apartment break-ins — won't tolerate it."
He set the pen down, rose, tapped a long nail on the address, looked askance at his company. "Won't have you living in filth, either. Show me where you live. I'll be incognito so we don't bring the White Moon into your living room." He wasn't about to wait on the back porch like a goddamn barbecue, either. He could let himself in as soon as he saw the place.
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Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2021 9:13 am
It was the easiest thing in the world to misunderstand - even as the words left Faustites pretty mouth - Albite had to bite back the urge to jump in with a thousand retorts. The visceral need to justify what he'd worked hard for, however menial, to find the strength to resist asking Faustite who the f u c k he thought he was.
If it'd been anyone else...
It was his firebrand though, all literal phrasing, and deadpan seriousness that may have been genuine kindness - even if it was almost spartan in its nature - he just didn't like his people to worry...or to have stress...So maybe that meant he wanted them cared for, whatever that entailed? Albite wondered what his tolerance or lack thereof meant for those whos livelihoods weren't up to snuff. If Faustite had some place he kept those subordinates he supposedly didn't have.
It almost sounded nice...
Albite knew he was already susceptible to it, that wanting something like that was so ingrained in his nature, that even now he had few defenses against it. The search for ease of circumstances, to be provided for by someone else, and wasn't that the easiest trap of all to fall into? A trap built of easement by degrees, giving up each little thing until it was all someone else's burden.
Albite wasn't sure when 'worry free' had become synonymous in his mind with 'kept boy' - he couldn't even pinpoint when it'd grown such a negative connotation, likely because it'd come on slow. Frog in the pot style, the increase of heat so negligible that he hadn't realized he was boiling alive until it was already to late to escape it. Everything turned up by degrees, little by little, until there was no way out that wasn't self destructive in nature.
He'd been there, done that, hopped out of the pot and into the frying pan of the world - par boiled - but alive. The fear that Faustite would take that victory from him, unwittingly, the even greater fear that Albite would enjoy it if he did, because he always had with others before. He had a ********> type.
"Soo..yeah.." the quaver there for that, a brief cinch of unexpected unease like a band pulled too tightly about his insides, and Albite tipped the chair back onto all fours, lost the lackadaisical pose for a moment so he could gauge Faustite properly, eyes tracking his form as he stood over him.
How ******** dangerous it was that he'd come in wanting that - useful subordinate role - and the only difference between Faustite and every other ******** out there, was that he got it in one, read him like a children's picture book. So well, in fact, that Albite had wanted - all big picture demands - without considering the details, the fine brushstrokes that made up the final masterpiece. Albite, the picture of an overeager fool, he wondered that Faustite hadn't cast him out for already for stupidity alone.
"Just...." Albite took a deep breath as he searched for the right words, and lost them, because it was all feelings. Any words at all would have lacked the same punch as the feeling held for him. "I'm all good with being yours, yeah? There's a difference though, between being yours and being kept. So I'm gonna need some parameters for that? Like - a better descriptor of what me having 'unnecessary stress' means, visually speaking? Because I'm fine with you seeing my place, but adults...functioning adults? Are supposed to have some stress in their lives. It teaches us how to cope with reality, in like...healthy ways? I'm not worried about where I live, I handle everything just fine." Albite faltered even as he stood, available for Faustite to drag him off, oh so fun teleport style.
If the man needed to see it, get an idea of cross streets, Albite would just pull it up on his phone so he could have a destination to drop them into.
Despite all the apprehension that lingered in the back of his mind, Albite couldn't help but be ready to fall in and follow - because wasn't that what this had all been for? He couldn't truly be stunned by his own damned intrinsic need, time and again, to put himself in situations where he could belong, because he always had to be someone's, and if it had to be anyone? It was going to be Faustite.
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Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2021 11:04 am
"Kept?" Faustite grit his teeth, tried to straight-face his way through any history the word held (it didn't work. It never worked). What Schörl had done with them, her team, her toys, wasn't so far from what Albite wanted delineated. He knew well what kept meant, and what it meant to earn back the independence that he once thought was his right. She was the reason he hadn't believed in rights.
Worse was the implication, however minute, that his treatment of his subordinates could be likened to Schörl's treatment of her subordinates. Simplified, that he could be likened to Schörl. Had he become like her?
Ghostly now, Faustite reclaimed his seat before all of his blood retreated to his feet.
They didn't have time for him to lose his mind. He forced a steady breath, focused on the question. There's a difference between being yours and being kept. I need some parameters for that. This, he supposed, would be easier for someone who had a taste of real life. Faustite knew nothing about taxes, paying bills on time, budgets, finding a job, or having a robust social life. But, he had a passion that all humans necessarily participated in, so Albite could surely relate to that.
Faustite picked up his pen again, and while his hand shook, he nevertheless took it to paper. He drew a simple, if squiggly, apple. "You have enough money to eat the diet you're used to. Fine." He added a checkmark. Below it, he drew a ketchup packet. This one had slightly more steady lines. "You don't have enough money to afford groceries; you're pilfering ketchup packets from discarded takeout bags to try to get by. I'll intervene." He just wasn't sure how yet. He added an X next to it. He drew a house under that, lines steady now. "You live in an efficiency studio. Fine." Checkmark. Under that, a cardboard box. "You're facing eviction. I send you to the Barracks." Another X.
"Don't have time to babysit, but I'll intervene where it's reasonable. Understood?" He dropped the pen lest he start warping it, then looked to Albite.
This one looked like he couldn't respect anything the normal way, his use of the chair and abused familiarity with his office both supportive points, but Faustite didn't care about that. He dealt with direction thus far, but could he deal with it consistently? And, most importantly, could Faustite keep his hands off this one? It was stupid to hope, he knew, but —
"If you need more, we'll talk while we move. Give me a landmark and we'll get gone," he finished, and reached for Albite's elbow.
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Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2021 3:51 pm
The unease that he'd held quietly in his center burst, and gave way to a sense of relief he hadn't known he'd needed. The sigh that accompanied Faustites words a mere wisp of released breath, as he leaned a hip against the desk and observed the etchings - followed easily the track of words and pictures.
He'd nearly reached out to steady him before. Watching the firebrand sink into his own chair like he'd just snuffed his flame with ******** buckets of cold, iced, water. He'd held back, let the brief flare of tension melt away naturally while he nodded along.
He got the distinctive impression that Faustite understood - a flare of warning and flagged signs that read -landmines beyond this point, enter at your own peril- He wasn't about to poke at the firebrands psyche - no point in dragging things into the harsh light of day when he could grasp the idea that it was all sorts of unpleasant just by the look on his face.
"Understood.." it was everything he'd hoped for, Faustite just cared, a great deal apparently, that the people he worked with had the barest of essentials handled. Simple little pictures and check marks, Faustite checking up, checking in, and Albite's grin returned soft and appreciative.
"Nah...that's everything I needed to hear, but just to let you know? If it ever comes down to me living out of a box or living in the barracks? I will take up residence under your ******** desk first, pay rent in here ******** the barracks." an exaggerated snort of bemusement, something to break the tension down further as albite leaned up into Faustites grasp. Pressed closer into the heat while he whipped out his phone - after watching Faustite with the wisps, it'd taken him a moment to realize he could store 'other things' away in the little space cubbies of the void, and then to practice that.
"There's a closed out gas-station on the corner. Place is half boarded and tagged up, all the images on this thing are old - street view wise, but I guarantee if we pop in there we wont be bothered. " a simple thing to bring up his own location, single handedly, and give Faustite a view of the nearest landmark and pathway leading up to it. "Not even a whole block away. Think it'll work."
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Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2021 4:22 pm
Faustite had enough experience with the barracks now, given that he roomed there, to agree with Albite's sentiment. His room was no more than a blank square, one small, barred window to the nowhere hellscape surrounding Negaspace, a piece of sheetmetal scalped from a scrapyard, and a pile of trash that expanded or shrank depending on how often the kitchenette was empty of others. He heard some agents likening it to dorm life, of which he heard wildly disparate reviews.
Faustite didn't care for getting close to Albite, mainly because he didn't care for how much he wanted to eat him, but he endured necessarily for an idea of this gas station. He watched with interest as the street view rotated. He recognized some of the surrounding buildings — the church, in particular, he remembered falling off of as a Lieutenant. Scraped his knee pretty badly, sprained his wrist falling. Got lucky that he hadn't landed his ribs on the fencing. That gas station had been there for years, sitting derelict while the lot changed hands. Cursed thing, every owner went bankrupt til there weren't any owners anymore.
But that was an old story. Five years out-of-date, by now.
"Know where that's at." He'd been inside, too — could still picture the loud checkered tile, layered with dust, furtive footprints telling of children's adventures from years past. Broken glass, old beer bottles, burnt spots between the aisles where people broke the law however they pleased. He remembered the cashier's area most clearly, and in a moment, that remembrance became real.
Faustite felt weariness crawl into him once they resolved in the gas station. He braced his hands on the counter near the dustless square where the register used to sit, and waited for that heady drop to pass. Wasn't long — those exhaustion gaps shortened by the day, now. "Hold on," he urged Albite, then passed him to reach the store itself.
There was no light but for the moonlight that peered between boards on the windows, so Faustite saw mostly by his own luminance. Made walking lantern, he paced the aisles, checked for tenacious youths in a clandestine rendezvous. He found nothing, no one but a stray scuttling floor snack, which was promptly plucked and deposited into his grate. It flared up and crisped.
Satisfied, Faustite stilled. Shut his eyes. Dredged up what he remembered of their extra skins, their false shadows of personhood that they donned to walk unnoticed. Unnerving to feel it pouring over his skin like a layer of latex, sucking over his elbows, his eyes, his mouth. He felt it ravel over his body, his stomach, make a stomach out of him. Felt clothes form over that — birch patterned leggings, a black tank decorated with NON DUCOR DUCO written across it in rhinestone. Some bracelets felt heavy on his left wrist, one of tooled, knotted leather and the other of painted wooden beads. He felt flat-footed, looked down, saw a pair of bright green Converse graffiti'd with quotes from poems he hadn't read in years.
He looked like a human. His nails were long for a boy, but looked much too short for him. Long pink beds with white cusps. His hair was black, his irises black, his sclera normal. No one would guess he was youma, but he hadn't felt safe, either.
Rather, he felt cold and powerless, and choked by his own skin. Wrapping his arms about himself in the wake of an automatic shiver, he nodded toward the door. "It's Eion. Now lead."
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Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2021 5:25 pm
It was strange being on the inside of the gas station for once - to laugh as he hopped over the counter to the other side without repercussion, while imagining some errant and worked out graveyard shift manager yelling after him for being a nuisance. A trail of dust kicked up in his wake of movement as he waited....watched...
Dark brown eyes trailing every new detail of Faustite - now 'Eion' - and Albite repressed the urge to touch. Fists clenched at his sides for a moment before settling lazily on his hips, forcing himself to be lax and easy. Even though everything in him screamed 'touch'. He leashed the feelings down. Left them barely lashed and fluttering within his ribcage to be dealt with another time.
Tactile..or..kinesthetic...whatever Faustite had called it. He wasn't sure if it was the same thing that made him want to feed the guy, to want to throw an arm around his shoulders and drag him bodily into feeling better. To get him to snarl, to bite back, anything to make him claw out a semblance of being alive - even at the cost of Waru's own flesh and energy. If that would be what did it, he'd hold it out on offer. Faustite didn't need his ******** protection, but everything in his slight curled form played on Albites instincts to offer it.
He shook himself out of the thought, realizing that Eion was barking at him to lead on.
He'd never not be Faustite in Waru's mind, never not be fire and brimstone personified. The poor guy looked uncomfortable simply existing in the same space as his own flesh. He preferred Faustite looking comfortable, as if he'd flay the nearest thing that breathed wrong with a glance. Razor sharp tongue, bladed claws and coals for eyes, not a snuffed skinny man. Handsome. Undoubtedly handsome. Faustite couldn't ******** ever not be, dark hair or firebrand red. It just wasn't how he could have ever imagined Fausttite being outside of his flamed self.
"Eion huh? I like it, and I'm thinking we go with Waru...cause as much fun as it'd be to listen to you pronounce the whole damned thing, its the sorta name that sounds better in ones milk tongue, yeah?" and it was easier to slink out of being Albite, to drop the form like dropping weights to the floor after an extended use.
Simple green cargo shorts, with numerous pockets for easy storage and a plain white t-shirt. The only thing that spoke of nicety were his shoes, some faded version of a well worn Nike, clearly well loved and by that virtue well used. His hair infinitely shorter, the same chocolatey brown, shaved up on the sides while the rest was pulled back into a ponytail.
The tattoos remained, he'd had them long before he'd dipped his toes into the darkside - the sheer glee he'd gotten from them becoming a crucial part of his abilities would likely never fade. That everything was so interconnected.
Waru missed the power when it was gone. Would have worn it like armor all day long. That hair though? Waru pressed the flats of his palms across the back of his neck, rolled it until it cracked nicely, having the weight lifted from there was always a relief. He liked his dreads, he was growing them long, but that? ******** 20lbs of monstrosity and entanglement, a death trap of hair waiting to happen.
"Yuh-huh..I'm thinking, Eion? If it's gonna be like that - you putting me on lead - I've got some leather at home. ******** supple if you ever get re-a-llll into the concept of leash 'n collar s**t." Waru snickered as he moved through the store, ducked towards the back end and shoved a board out of the way of a window that had been long smashed through. The plywood only ever placed back over the hole by those who'd sought to spend nights in the place. Little kids and spooky stories, sneaking through boarded frames.
Waru knew he'd have to taste the name in his mouth a few times. Wrap his tongue around it just like he was wrapping his mind around it. Saying Eions name, thinking Faustite. The new word cold, event though the visual his mind lay over the mans form ran hot.
"Fair warning by the way...It's not like...a mansion or anything like that?" The walk to his door was blessedly short, and Waru made most of it backwards, showing off, he knew the pathway there like the back of his hand. He didn't want to spend time where he wasn't looking at Faustite 'Eion', had to ease his wonder about how real it all was - if pulling on himself - his far more human self, was for him what pulling on Albite was to Waru.
Which was the guise and which was the man, and all Faustites insights on that, because he wanted to ******** know. Because Faustite was going out of his way to make things easy for him, and he didn't have to, but he was - being careful and caring without Waru asking. Even if it was for the sake of 'ensuring his subordinates survival'.
The meaning of the gesture wasn't lost on him. He'd find a way to pay Faustite back. Maybe more goodies from bakeries.
He played with a ring of keys, more keychain than actual key. With all that there were less than five on it. Two of those belonged to his girls home - open door policy all the way with her - the other three were a mail key and two door keys to this home. His car key was back with Lina, he remembered absently, as was the rundown beatemup truck he'd left in her drive. He wasn't in any state to have driven it out of there, and then he'd had business..so there it'd stayed.
Eventually he found the one that fit, screwed it into a scarred pair of dead bolts and nudged it open with force. The foundation of the place clearly shoddy, from the way the door stuck in its frame. The whole of the place pitch dark from where everything had been turned off during the day, and Waru moved into routine, the motions automatic as he systematically went around flicking on various lights.
"So, livingroom, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom are all in one...Its uh, cozy?" that was a word for it. A couch a coffee table, a T.V - a bare bones card table where a kitchen table would never have fit, a pair of metal folding chairs that doubled as outdoor chairs when Waru felt like it.
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Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2021 7:09 pm
Where Eion detested the feeling of personhood, Waru looked at home in it; Waru spent decades growing in that skin, working on that body, learning how it moved and how it couldn't. Waru wore that skin far more and more often than Faustite wore Eion's, all false name and false pretenses, viper in a velour bag that it couldn't shake loose. In the dim, as he watched Waru crawl through the window, Faustite Eion felt a fleck of envy for the way that white shirt hugged that back so tightly.
Years passed since he was Eion. Even walking demanded extra attention, and he looked down at where he was going until he felt less graceless in flat shoes. Then he was climbing up and through the window, out into the warm night air, though he thought it couldn't be hot enough.
Humans were cold creatures, he decided. Couldn't ascertain how Waru felt so comfortable in a tee and cargo shorts, when Eion was convinced he'd freeze to death in this weather. Handsome, cocky thing.
With a mouth. Eion scowled, rolled his eyes at the back-walking boy on their short trip. Felt his face flush at the thought of it, which left him glad for the dark. "Gonna be r-e-a-l into barbecuing you if you don't ******** knock it off." Last warning Waru would get, he decided, as he ran his hands over his arms glissando quick. With every breath, he expected it to cloud his face.
Down the street, still in eyeshot of the gas station, he realized, as he looked over his shoulder. He remembered this stretch of road when he was Elex, remember thinking it was slum territory. That there must've been murders and fights and thievery and drug use and whatever debauched criminal activity TV and books explained to him. Now he was here as Eion, and he finally got to peer inside. Got to dispel the childhood stories he cooked up about the place.
Eion said nothing as he followed Waru inside. Too dark to see until his subordinate-wannabe started turning on the lights, and Eion caught himself wondering why he bothered with all the lamps instead of asking Alexa to do it for him. Or using an app on his phone. Obviously, by the aged cracks in one of the walls and the dated carpet and the mismatched furniture (and that disgusting card table), Waru wasn't in a fiscal place to have Alexa for a digital maid. Those lamps might be too old for her, too.
He gave the room a quick once-over before nodding to himself. "Vile," he appraised it. He wasn't taking his shoes off and he didn't care what Waru thought about that.
Most of it was seen from the entry point. Eion stepped through it, skirted between couch and coffee table (half-expected to find porn mags lying out in the open, for how much the man teased), ran his fingers over the kitchen table (used enough that dust didn't come away, and nothing stuck to his fingers), then poked his head in the bathroom. "What the ********," echoed back out of it. "Your ******** tile is a deathzone. What sort of drunken ******** reno…" Loosing an exasperated groan, he ducked out of there.
"Where's your bed?" He hadn't seen one; Waru mentioned all rooms being one, so there had to be a bed somewhere. He'd seen built-ins in old Victorians before, but nothing on the walls said pull me. Was the couch a daybed?
Floors looked like they hadn't seen a steamer in a century, and the carpet was decades past replacing, but the place was otherwise a step above a cardboard box. Automatically he went for the coffee table, shoved Waru's s**t to the side so he could sit crosslegged on top of it. "Any break-ins?" He looked at the windows, the path to the porch. "Nothing worth stealing if they did…"
