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 Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:26 am
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Faustite had been trying to push the crux of their meeting out of his mind. Easy enough to attribute the summons to 'the Negaverse has been slacking, pick it up' and that the lot summoned were the ones most dependable for it. Though, that did nothing to clear Laurelite's bad judge of character. Faustite had to let that go; she was still his Queen.
It was natural to invite Kamacite for another round in the city; he needed informed company, and he was sure Kamacite had more ideas on where to loot starseeds without causing too much of a stir. He'd exhausted the few ideas he had, and without the full backing of Infiltration to create a cover story, he was reticent to push harder. They had energy to drain, too, but there was only so much they could scalp before even that attracted attention.
Hours passed before Faustite made the decision to send Kamacite a text as Eion. Half that deliberation was spent on punctuation -- whether to use a question mark, a period, or none at all, for the text held so many different meanings depending on one character alone.
Quote: MEET ME ON THE FARNSWORTH AT 10P?
It gave Yuuri a half hour. Part of him thought it wasteful to burn the day's glamour on a single text, but there was too much to do as Faustite over the next twenty-four hours that he couldn't justify delaying his glamour. Once worn away in a fit of fickle flame, Faustite took his seat on one of the HVAC vents protruding from the Farnsworth's roof. Felt strange to be back, he thought, but it felt stranger to know that aliens paid a visit to Destiny City.
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Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 12:14 pm
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Kamacite's arrival was unannounced but for the blackened aura spreading over his senses. Knew the flavor of it, the wavelength — something warm, a lighter shadow than his comrades, and far reaching as Kamacite's magic when he turned himself brilliant against the midnight sky. He needn't hear a voice to know that.
And when he did, he wasn't surprised to hear it framed in worry. Faustite seldom asked anyone anywhere, made a habit not to inconvenience his fellow officers with any requests. Kamacite was no exception; Faustite didn't know how he spent the last two years of his absence and hadn't pried into Kamacite's affairs, but as with anyone in the upper echelons, he assumed Kamacite had his hands full with other projects. He couldn't simply drop what he was doing to babysit his friend — if Faustite could till call himself that.
His hands sat curled against his knees. He told himself to speak without them. Told himself to speak in complete sentences. "I wanted —" the sentence wanted to be too many things. An apology he didn't mean because he wasn't sorry. An insistence that they could forget it ever happened, and go on as friends, but he knew he couldn't do away with that moment. A request to go further. An assurance that they didn't have to.
He knew he didn't want to say he was scared. Faustite let go of his impetus to speak with a long breath. Once the smoke-tainted thing evaporated, he stood.
With all the streetlights shut off in the area, he only parsed his friend's silhouette. Beyond that, the open parts of the city, bright and unassuming. Filled with aliens. "She wants us on starseeds, too." With a hand on his hip, Faustite strode to the edge of the yet-to-be-reopened place. "Don't trust myself with them. Wanted you to come with me," he finished, and his free hand finished dancing with the words. His attention strayed to a distant football field and its dogged floodlights.
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Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 12:50 pm
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If Faustite had asked, Kamacite had not had his hands full with other projects. He spent most of his non-powered hours curled up under blankets and being miserable. But maybe it was better that Faustite never knew how many times he only stopped crying because he’d fallen asleep. Even now, the lack of closure and the hope Faustite’s return gave him was eating at his heart.
He didn’t think he could survive losing someone else he cared about.
Kamacite’s head tilted curiously at Faustite’s start and stop and redirection. He was going to say something else, wasn’t he? Kamacite could feel his cheeks flush lightly, but was grateful for the darkness.
“I don’t mind helping with starseeds,” he said, although he wondered if he should. He’d been trained by a half youma to collect starseeds, but he’d perfected his own technique. “Do you have somewhere in mind?”
He didn’t like pulling civilian starseeds, especially not after what happened to him, but he was willing to help. Especially after Wolframite had warned them to work in pairs.
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Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 1:16 pm
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Faustite shook his head in confession. "Already hit the usual spots." He'd been reticent to go back to them ever since he found that girl, and the Page sprung on him. Pages were a natural consequence, as were mistakes, but that mistake hadn't let him yet. There were few other places that a youmafied officer could stalk for starseeds, however.
Unless — maybe they could try something different.
"Probably burdensome if I come with you as I am." He started to pace with the idea. "How often does the enemy come after you when you're alone? Could be Eion for a while. Play your hostage, your victim." He wasn't sure how effective it would be — if it'd be effective at all — but it was adjacent to the games that he and Tibby would play, when the cat was around. Fat thing would waddle off on him, pretend to be lost, scam some credit cards off a good samaritan that tried to return him to Lauri's place. Eion would answer the door, invite them in, skim all the energy off their do-gooder bodies until they collapsed in a chair and he vanished them back out to the most inconvenient locations he could remember.
There were already a thousand holes in the plan: no way for them to call White Moon to their location, no guarantee of anything in the three hours he had, it put Kamacite in primary danger, and as the list rolled on, his regretted saying anything.
Veritable mantra, that — he regretted saying anything. Too late to take it back now.
For the hundredth time that week, he asked himself why he kissed Yuuri. Why he did what he knew would ruin any friendship. Then he looked out at the sodium lights, expecting an answer, a suggestion, anything to fall out of the ******** sky that was helpful for once.
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Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2021 5:31 pm
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Brought a small smile to hear Kamacite say something of confidence. He wondered if Kamacite was being sarcastic — his friend wasn't common for it, though; Faustite couldn't remember a time when Kamacite used sarcasm. Which, he was glad to hear something self-assured from him. Looked like he was finally growing into his robes.
Which, as Faustite looked at him now, still swamped Kamacite's slight figure. He remembered how the sleeve hung awkwardly off Kamacite's shoulder when he sported that injury in the Rift; it seemed fine now, no crippling from that. Likely that was the best news to come from that disaster of a mission.
"Don't worry about me." Faustite turned, started to pace to sate his perpetual restlessness. Cinders came off him and fluttered down to the ground, died on contact. "Doubt I'll be threatened. Teleport if you need to; haven't spent enough time as Eion to be attached to that identity. Don't care if I use them as tissues, if it's necessary." Axinite might complain, but maybe he'd find it justified if burning his identity brought home more starseeds, killed more enemies.
For now, he needed more immediate plans. "Will run from them like I run from you. Find a place to drop the guise. Need a signal, though — something you're comfortable shouting if you need help." Better that they supported each other.
But Kamacite's question — Faustite stopped pacing. He couldn't recall the last time someone asked him that, and it took him unaware. He shook his head to the aliens, then clarified out of respect for the darkness. "Not worried about them." They hadn't enough information to begin worrying; Laurelite was careful in dispensing as little as possible.
But he hadn't the words, or the practice, to frame what did worry him. Better, he thought, to speak around it. So he neared his friend, careful to conserve conversational distance, and paused beside him. "Everything's fine, right? Between us?"
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Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2021 6:26 pm
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Kamacite continued to watch Faustite curiously, his brows furrowed with worry. There was something going on with him, he knew. But he hadn’t realized it was them Faustite was worried about.
“Should everything not be fine?” he wondered, thankful for the darkness that surely hid the color that flooded his cheeks. “I want things to be fine,” Kamacite clarified, shifting awkwardly where he stood, and pulled his hands from his robes so he could tuck some of the hair that got loose from his braid behind his ears. He could feel the heat permeating off his cheeks, so he glanced away from Faustite before he could get too close of a look.
“What? Friends can’t kiss each other? You should use more chapstick, by the way. I’ll get you some on the way home,” he offered, because that was what friends did, right? They looked out for each other and if they happened to kiss, then that was fine too.
“Did you want more than that, Faustite?” he heard himself ask, because if he didn’t then he might just linger and fester and nothing would ever get resolved. “I want to be friends. I don’t know what I would do without you in my life again. But… some affection is nice.”
He wondered if Faustite really did want more than a somewhat physical friendship. Kamacite cared about Faustite. Deeply. But there were so many things that he wanted to say that he wasn’t sure if it would just push Faustite farther away from him.
Kamacite took in a deep breath, and tried to reach for Faustite’s hand through the somewhat protective fabric of his robes. “I was in a relationship before, and looking back… it wasn’t that great. When I told him I wanted to break it off with him, it broke my heart in a million pieces because I liked him a lot, but he didn’t even try to stop me. I don’t know if I’m ready to commit to something like that again, but I liked kissing you. I don’t know if that would be enough. I hope it is, because I care about you. And I will always worry about you. And I have gotten attached to Eion.”
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Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2021 9:38 am
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Felt the urge to pace, but Kamacite reached for him. Told himself to be still, told himself to try to navigate that instead of going off in a thousand directions. His body couldn't decide if it had its usual excess of energy, or if his concerns had drained him by now. Faustite couldn't make a conscious decision about it, either; he took up his friend's hand. He thought, distantly, that they must've looked like two people ready to jump. Felt that, in a way.
Then he scoffed. "You think I need chapstick?" He'd have laughed if their prior conversation hadn't drained all the humor from him. It was a serious topic, a tender one, though the joke was not without its place.
If it was a joke. He hadn't known Kamacite to joke before.
Maybe it wasn't a joke. Maybe his lips were cracked like the parched grounds in the Rift. Maybe that was a problem. Faustite rolled his eyes at himself.
Frowned for what Kamacite told him. He never asked about his friend's history — Yuuri seemed more comfortable when he spoke on his own — but Yuuri had been alone as long as he'd remembered. It'd been years by now; two years was long enough to afford a relationship or two, and this person could've happened to Yuuri while Faustite was in the Rift, or sometime before. Kamacite didn't give a timeframe. But, he hadn't mentioned this person before, either. A deep-seated hurt would be something to protect.
Supposed he should explain where he was coming from, too. "Growing up, my brother had a lot of female friends." Teared up for that, chewed his lip a moment. "And… Always took it too far, eventually. Asked them out, or kissed them. That always ended their friendship. They'd never want to see him again, or it'd devolve into this dysfunctional relationship — his fiancée, we joked that she stuck with him because they weren't friends before. Thought if," took a breath, "I did the same thing, it'd end the same way." He paused, then added, "Glad that it didn't." Because, as he thought on it, Yuuri was his only friend.
Felt those pools of black push over, run down his cheeks. Scrubbed them away with a sleeve. <******** ********. Why am I this pile of broken glass lately. ******** sake, stop it.
"Want more than being friends, but I don't want it at the expense of being friends. Assumed we were friends," he clarified, and he reminded himself that he was terrible at this. "If we're not, tell me." He could hear Schörl's mockery as a ubiquitous backdrop.
"You don't have to commit to anything," he found himself saying. "I'm not human, anyway." That had colored most of his experiences with other people, inside of the Negaverse and out. He didn't mind leaning on it if it could benefit his friend somehow. "And you don't need to worry about me." Brushed a thumb over the top of his friend's delicate fingers.
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Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2021 9:46 am
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It hurt, probably more than it really should, to see Faustite cry. Kamacite felt as though something was tearing him apart from the inside, breaking his heart again. They weren't normal tears, but Kamacite didn't care as he waited patiently for Faustite to finish speaking before carefully turning and reaching up to use the sleeve of his robes to wipe the tears from Faustite's cheeks.
"That-- thing you wear sometimes. To tame the fire. Could you put that on, please?" he asked, because he could feel the heat radiating from Faustite, and he needed to be careful otherwise the silk would surely catch.
"You're not your brother," Kamacite gently reminded him, thinking this was the first time Faustite mentioned having a brother, but figuring that was understandable since his life was basically taken from him to join the Negaverse. "And I'm not female, anyway."
It was an attempt at a joke. Kamacite couldn't really manage it. He wanted to try and lighten how heavy their conversation had become, to reassure Faustite that a simple kiss wouldn't ruin their friendship. More than that wouldn't ruin their friendship.
"How many times do I have to tell you that you are human, Faustite," he sighed softly, but it was out of gentle sadness more than anything else. "If you're not, then I guess I'm really an alien like it's said all Senshi are." Although in this context, it was a little more terrifying for him in particular. If they were going to be fighting aliens, what was going to stop anyone from lumping him and the other Negaverse Senshi into the same group?
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Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2021 9:51 am
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Faustite grunted at the suggestion; he'd forgotten, must've felt human for a moment. Terrifying. Felt a shock of numb for it.
Pulling his hand from Kamacite's he wrenched the cincher from subspace. Convenient for how he never needed to adjust the sides, for how it would always fit the grate, for how it would always bring him down to a fever instead of a blaze. He fastened the metal hooks with enough experience to bely its frequent use, and when the brilliant flame was covered up, he reached for his friend again.
This conversation went in a very different direction than their responsibilities, and he felt a steady pressure for that.
"I'm not, but I used to get advice from him. Hasn't done much good, anyway." Never date your friends was advice he should've taken for himself.
Faustite thought the argument Kamacite gave was weighted differently; senshi had no biological differences from humans that Faustite could determine, but he couldn't pass for human except with the cincher on during Halloween. But, maybe it was semantics to argue that he wasn't human, when he was made of human plus used-to-be-human. But that would mean redefining youma. Irksome.
But Kamacite had a point — he wouldn't be yoked to all these human thoughts and feelings if he wasn't, to some extent, human.
He spared a look at his friend. "Female alien", he corrected. Didn't feel mirth from it, but that would have to do.
"Ah, you should know —" he hated this part the most, trying to dredge up what he should say, and not knowing how to say it. Trying to learn from books and apply it to life when his life long since deviated from the path of books. "Slept with some boys. But I can. Stop doing that. And -- one of my subordinates, doesn't motivate to Negaverse tasks the normal way. Promised he could sleep with me if he promoted to Eternal.
"Doubt he'll make it that far."
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Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2021 9:52 am
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He waited patiently for the thing Faustite used to dull his flames to be put in place, and took hold of Faustite’s hand again when he reached for him.
There might have been a twitch of his lip, and it might have been a shadow, when Faustite made his comment about him being a female alien.
But for the rest of it -- for Faustite’s confession -- Kamacite waited until he was done speaking before gently pulling his hand away, only so he could reach out and wrap his arms around his friend in a tight hug. Whatever the thing that he wore was, it was perfect, because Kamacite was tired of not being able to hug his friend when he wanted to.
“You can sleep with whoever you want,” Kamacite promised, feeling his cheeks flush a little at the thought of -- no he was trying not to think of Faustite with anyone. He didn’t want to know.
“You can kiss whoever you want, too. I don’t want anything that changes between us to change everything else about our lives. I don’t know if that makes sense,” he frowned, and pulled back a bit so he could look at Faustite’s face and make sure no more black tears were getting ready to build up.
“I care about you, Faustite. You matter to me. What happens to you matters to me. Your happiness matters to me.”
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Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2021 10:00 am
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Mattering was a difficult concept to confront, especially in front of the one who insisted on it. Especially in the face of the Negaverse's — no, the world's — every gesture to dismiss him as insignificant. Even holding Velvet's faintest flacks of memory, Faustite knew that youth's power and import reached only the individual; Velvet was powerless to influence the universe in which he lived, just as Faustite was powerless to influence the war, or even his own organization.
But cold logic hadn't displaced the warmth of those words, even if he had none to return to Kamacite's care. Even if the Negaverse ruled them both easily expendable, he cared dearly for his friend, beyond the scope of spoken word, cared more than his fire could burn. Was it necessity that he couldn't show it? Was it protection?
Silent in his frustrations with himself, Faustite pressed the bridge of his nose to his friend's shoulder, breathed the shampoo and fine silks. His clawed hands meandered up the twin peaks of his friend's shoulder blades, found rest on the aerie of his shoulders where he stilled for a minute.
He knew this wasn't the place to relax into each other, but if the war could wait just one more minute —
"Won't care about our mission anymore if we stay like this." While it could've been a joke, his statement suffered from his hopeless solemnity.
Hands slipped back down and gripped his friend about the waist, gave a last, fleeting squeeze. "You seem thinner. Let's get some food after."
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