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 Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 1:01 am
Though Faustite stayed current on his duties as a Negaverse General, he wasn't completely present. He imagined that others had noticed it — he knew Waru did, that Haru and Cela did, too — and could likely trace it back to the day that Fafnir and Heliodor learned that they were brothers. Since then, Faustite had endured their wrath however he could, convinced that he deserved it.
But it was starting to affect the team. It was starting to affect him, who was part of the team. His confidence had eroded; he struggled to make some critical calls that he should have done as a leader.
He should've been over it by now. Accepted the loss and moved on. Aelius may as well have, for how the boy was so sharp in how he responded to Eion, and for how he snubbed Waru, too. But he wasn't satisfied with the idea that everything was over because of a call that he thought was the best call at the time — that he'd have to live without them, now, for the rest of his life, and count down the days until Heliodor became an Eternal and left forever. Didn't want to think about the boy taking it too far and leaving the Negaverse entirely, if only to have a chance at beating Faustite bodily, maybe snuffing him out.
Knowing that the mission was impending, Faustite elected to sort out their elongated spat. Standing up from his stool, the burning boy rolled up the map that sat before him carefully, rubber banded it, then set it inside the glass front to one of his bookcases. Then, as he stood, he turned toward the desk and beckoned the boy from nowhere.
He waited until the familiar figure was posed before him. Forced his tongue to move. "How long are you going to hold this against me?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 3:06 am
Life since that eventful night at Emmy’s apartment had changed more drastically than the corrupt would care to admit. He had his brother back. His brother! It was something he could never have fathomed even being possible. Now they were reacquainting themselves. So much had changed for both of them over the past 4-5 years after all. Helio knew he wasn’t the same anymore, not since his corruption. Rowan was long dead.
In gaining something he also lost. There were people out there that believed in that whole ‘even-exchange’ nonsense. That to receive something good you needed to loose something else. Such thinking felt absurd even if it seemed to fit like the perfect puzzle piece in this situation. Gaining his brother back he lost his lover, the one boy that Helio had pined for for so long.
It had been a slap to the face, honestly. A slap that Helio had not taken well, and like the grown a** man he was, he opted to step back and away from Faustite. There was too much pain and hurt in knowing that the boy he had been intended to wed had kept such a large secret from him. Slap on top of that the obvious lack of trust that came along with it and a plethora of other mixed emotions Helio needed space. A lot of it. And keeping his distance meant snapping and doing only what was expected of him as a negaverse soldier. He obeyed orders but never stuck around for anything else.
So when Helio was summoned by the exact person he had been avoiding, he answered with a cool expression with zero expectations on what the meeting was about. Good thing, because the first question out of Faustite’s mouth would have thrown him for a loop otherwise.
Silence weighed heavily between them as Helio let the question hang a moment. Another.
“Honestly, I didn’t think it mattered.” He said pointedly as he met Faustite’s eyes. “I am not sure what you think I am holding over you? The fact you kept my brother a secret, that you obviously have zero trust in me as an agent and a significant other to keep secrets, the fact you told Waru about Trey and I instead of us, or maybe the fact that you have no faith in any of my capabilities to handle information like that.”
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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 5:24 am
Faustite stared up at the boy. "Are you ******** with me." His hand curled against the desk, fingernails screeching over glass.
"You ******** snap at me for it then play victim. You get ******** depressed and assume that I have no faith in you. You think it's all about you." Then he pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, sighing mightily. "This is ******** nonsense.
"Use your brain, Heliodor! You used to ******** have one!" The burning boy opened his arms out in his incredulity. "You knew I had a life of my own before I was Eion. Knew that I had a family. Knew I was careful. What ******** happened to all of that? Gone, from one ******** mistake! And you think I couldn't trust you? I couldn't trust me!" He spat, words all crackle and cinder.
"I didn't know what the ******** to do about it, worried about it 'til my ******** stomach guttered, and made the ******** mistake of asking Waru how to handle it on some pissant whim while I was drunk. Because I was going to ******** this up if I trusted my own judgment. But that doesn't matter now, does it." Faustite smiled, mirthless, and his upper lip twitched on the left. "Because you've already decided for me.
"I don't trust you despite folding you back into my team. Despite having a whole ******** piece of my mission hinging on your performance as an officer. Earth to ******** Heliodor, you wouldn't be alive if I didn't value you." He finished, sighing smoke as his anger guttered.
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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:55 am
“I am not you, Faustite. The situation is different with Trey and me considering we are both on the same ******** team here.
“And what would you have done had you found out that a part of your family was alive and it was all kept a secret from you from someone you trusted with the whole of your being? We are on the same team, Faustite. How could you possibly expect that we wouldn’t find out. You should have used your own damn brain instead of trusting Albite’s and being incapable of making your own decision on this.” He snapped back, knuckles turning white at his side.
“It ******** sucks when someone makes a decision for you doesn’t it?” He quipped back, arms folding ove rhis chest in an attempt to keep from physically lashing out. “When they don’t think about how you’ll feel or think about something they’ve done. Maybe now you can begin to understand a small measure as to why I am so angry at you, why I’ve been nothing more than civil. It took you this ******** long to even say anything since th emeeting in Emmy’s apartment. It’s been months and here we finally are.”
He tossed his arms and turned away, pacing to the other side of the office as far from Faustite as he could (not tha tis was very far in his own personal opinion) and stopped, turning back. “This whole situation had nothing to really do with you. All you needed to do was let us know about each other once you knew. Easy as that. Sit us down as our General and explain things, Instead you p***y footed around the whole situation. Tried to avoid making a decision until it finally bit you in the a**. Sorry if I am not worried about the fact that I hurt your feelings because I am upset. I think I am fairly entitled to be angry.
“I came back to you because I trusted you. Missed you.” He said quietly. “I can only assume it was shared considering how you quickly brought me back on and I appreciate that.” And what ******** mission was Faustite referencing? Not that it mattered in the interim. There were much more pressing matters. This meeting was obviously not about anything but them and the fiasco that was their current emotional status with each other.
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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 12:31 pm
Small wonder that his words met a wall. Heliodor was seldom one to acknowledge anyone else's perspective aside from his own, and never credited Faustite for the way he thought himself in circles about what would best benefit the boys on his team. It was a stark contrast from Albite, who, despite the lack of folds in his brain, could intuit that Faustite had ruminated on a decision thoroughly. It reminded him so much —
Fastidious as your namesake, your feet are always spotless, Broomite.'
— of her. That easy dismissal. That recognition that his best was better cast aside for how seldom it was up to standard. What had changed, really? He surrounded himself with people, not of his own volition, and he hadn't gotten any more comfortable with social situations. Still had weekly thoughts about slipping away to the Rift, escaping to a time when he had only one mission and only one person to look out for, with nothing else to distract him or posit complex interpersonal matters.
But he stuck it out and got what he deserved. Got Heliodor jumping down his throat at every angle. Much as be begrudgingly accepted that the boy was correct on some fronts, much as it pained him to be read for filth in his own office, by his first subordinate who never put much stock in his ability to lead (because he didn't have any, he knew this, and he fought with Albite about it constantly).
It reminded him of when she pushed his face into cat vomit. Called it penance for refusing a starseed.
'Please, Faustite. Go on. You missed some under the nail bed. Do tell us more about the mess you made with your boy-toy.'
Heliodor still spoke as though Faustite hadn't paid one iota of thought about his position. About Trey's. Still thought he didn't dwell on this widening ravine between them, though Faustite didn't lose sleep over it or swallow his words whenever he inevitably thought that, perhaps, now had been long enough.
Heliodor walked away. Faustite's attention dropped to his useless, loathsome hands.
This obfuscated, empty feeling burgeoning into being — he remembered it. Felt it but once, like a yawning, endless darkness. An assurance that no mission would ever end in victory, nothing would ever be fixed, and all relationships he painstakingly built were destined to crumble. Felt it when he faced that Basic with the wings on her back, when Sessrumnir and an Eternal he didn't recognize rushed to her aid. He hadn't cared if he died. Antagonized them to try it — to send him back to the Negaverse in a coffin, because what did it matter?
'You'll have one just like you someday.'
On and on and on and on and on —
Faustite covered his face with his hands. Grit his teeth against the sharpest breath of his life, the way a dozen barbs had worked under his ribs, into the soft give of meat as every breath would cost him. Felt like breathing through the pen that Arsenopyrite had stabbed into his back for how his throat constricted so. Kept himself as quiet as he'd been in that broom closet, years ago, when even the walls had ears. Yet, thin streaks of ink wended down his wrists, his cheek, meandered to the tip of his chin and touched the glass desk in a few scant drops.
'Midnight's passed, and your hour of usefulness expires. A terrible pity; I almost had hopes for you.'
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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 4:57 pm
Helio had been anticipating an outburst from the half-youma. Was prepared to dodge or even counter back if needed to bypass yet another terrible burn. Arguing or fighting it out always seemed to be their MO after all. Time and time again, even from day one since he’d been corrupted. Perhaps that should have been the indication for them both to perhaps reign themselves in, but Helio never was good at containing himself. Even during the worst of the training, beaten and battered down he still found his passion and temper there, if a bit more sedated in those days. Arguing, fighting it out was what he expected but it was far from what he got.
Instead, he stood on the other side of the room as the silent break down happened. At first he didn’t realize what was going on, it seemed to almost happen in slow motion. Even thought perhaps Faustite was attempting to calm himself to fend off a possible fiery explosion, but no. The thin trail of black slipping down too thin wrists spoke of something else.
Instantly Helio’s temper flared again and he ran a hand through his bangs and back to press his ponytail against the base of his head. He turned away from the scene, taking a breath in an attempt ot calm himself. How dare. How dare Faustite cry! The boy did this all to himself. This whole ******** mess was his damn grave to sit in and he’s incapable to fessing up to his own damn mistakes. Accept it. Apologize. Realize why all of this hurt Helio so much. Instead he got half assed explanations.
An extra deep breath. Then another.
He glanced in Faustite’s direction again and heaved a heavy sigh. “I ******** hate seeing you cry.” He finally said. It was the truth. As much as it infuriated him in this instant, he didn’t like seeing those dark tears. He didn’t move though to approach the General. Partly for fear of a sudden outburst and partly because he didn’t know what to do. He was still to angry to offer any coddling.
Perhaps he was being the a**, but there needed to be more than the expectation that all should be forgiven and forgotten because of the passing time. They hadn’t even spoken since that day and now all of a sudden things should be expected to go back to how they were?
“I don’t know what you want from me right now.”
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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 5:08 pm
Frustrated with himself as much as Heliodor, Faustite tried to snort back some of his tears. The rest he tried to scrub away with his sleeves, resulting in ugly, smeared layers of black over his cheeks. The youth glowered and refused to raise his gaze to meet the senshi's. "Say the same to you. Can't say anything right. Can't do anything right. Reminds me of —"
He waved away the rest of the sentence, dejected. What did it matter?
"Just tell me what you want."
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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 5:34 pm
No. Perhaps he wasn’t being fair. Perhaps, what he wanted was too much to ask for, but at the same time it didn’t feel like too much. That still didn’t keep the corrupt from visibly flinching at the left opened statement. It didn’t take much to figure out where Faustite was going with it. Maybe Helio was wrong with his assumption, but he feared knowing the answer and instead chose to ignore it. Left it hang in the air between them like a guillotine waiting to fall.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” He said instead dropping his hands to his sides. “That’s not my intent, but you don’t seem to understand how much it hurt to know that you didn’t think I could handle the truth about Trey. It’s frustrating.”
Moving back towards the desk, Helio braced himself against the glass top with both arms as he leaned in.
“I want to be trusted. Relied on. Not be some second-rate guy who's just another ring on your finger.” He eyed Faustite for a moment curiously, as if trying to see if the boy actually did regret his decision; That Faustite could accept that he’d make a mistake.
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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 5:40 pm
"You've made that clear." Faustite turned where he sat, then used his foot to nudge open the bottom drawer of his desk. While Aelius spoke, he rooted around for the pitcher of water, then set it atop the desk. Then he ripped away one of the twin split capes, folded it up, and pressed it to the lip of the pitcher as he poured a spot of water on it. He listened as he wiped away more of the remaining black on his face.
He felt exhausted. Dejected. Leaden. Part of him still thought it best to give up altogether, walk back into the Rift, resign himself to living there for another couple of years with whatever impotent project he could scrounge up for approval. He was sure the rest of the team, including Heliodor, wouldn't mind after what transpired. Better to be rid of the cause of their problems than continue to suffer it. Besides, Jet would rest easier knowing that a self-identified starseed addict was in a land furthest away from starseeds and sentient beings. Would've worked out better for everyone, if not for the fact that Albite would follow him inside.
"Didn't want to admit this at the time," Faustite said softly, as he retired the makeshift handkerchief to the desk. "Someone on the team's leaking information. Even if I had wit enough to tell you, your identities would be at risk.
"Don't mistake my dedication for collection. There are no second-rates on my fingers. Don't have time — or room — for that.
"But you can be a ******** b*****d when you want to be."
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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 6:11 pm
“Yes, well, you’re not some perfect angel yourself.” He responded back with a hint of his usual jovial jesting.
A leak? Well that was news. “Alright. That connects some dots, but I have to ask, why risk that Trey and I meet like we did? Obviously, things hadn’t been planned to converge like that, but wouldn’t it have been better to quietly inform us? Make sure that no one else was involved?” It was an obvious shift. Helio had gone from raging, unaccepting a*****e to trying to wrap his mind around the current ebb and flow of Faustite’s decisions and thoughts. Having a bit on context helped. Accepting things at face value wasn’t a strong point of the purple-haired senshi. He needed to have a why. Needed to comprehend and understand thought processes and directions.
Having a rat in their midst, and Faustite knowing about it, made a difference. He did wonder though if that had been a secret he himself kept or another one intimately shared with Albite. A bitterness coated his tongue at the thought even as Faustite swore that every boy he was involved with were as important and needed as the other.
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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 6:26 pm
Faustite stared up at him, already exhausted, then decided against explaining to Heliodor how thoroughly he understood that he wasn't some perfect angel. Little reason to explained that he planned to leave the team in more capable hands once he sorted everything out with Murikabushi.
Then his attention went back to the folded up strip of cape that he fussed with between long claws. He toyed with threading the rings onto his nails, then the fingers themselves, then took them off entirely. "Made a mistake. Wasn't thinking about it. You changed a lot since you were Rowan — Trey's brother." Likely he'd get yelled at for admitting as much, called a careless idiot, ******** knew what else Heliodor had to say to him. The boy could never stop screaming sometimes, and Faustite was never able to tell what the boy needed to come away from that.
Waru would know, he guessed. The boy was much better at understanding people, and Aelius struck him as someone who wanted — desperately so — to be understood.
"You saw the Princess that bloomed under our ******** noses. Between that, the Mirror Senshi, and a shitty ******** starseed addiction, do you think I could've been clearheaded about you two?" Faustite shook his head.
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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 7:07 pm
He chewed at his bottom lip as he leaned forward, elbows resting on knees as he contemplated Faustite. “You’re not wrong. I am not who Trey would have recognized, glamour beside. But, Trey is my brother. We were always close growing up and having him back has meant a lot.” Looking at hands now clasped in front of him he sighed. “Even though I am not the same, he’s not the same, we are still brothers. We still have a connection. We’re figuring it out.”
“You were incensed by that princess. It was obvious between how you reacted during that fight and then you turning and just grabbing that mirror senshi on a whim like that.” He half smiled as he looked back up at his half-youma General. “Not that I don’t blame you. Seeing a princess awaken in front of us like that was surreal and not good news.” That whole fight has been both enlightening and exhausting. He’d personally never seen royalty awaken. Instead they’d had to deal with them after the royal’s new powers were figured out. They had missed an opportunity to take care of her there and then. Unfortunately, the odds had not been in their favor. Not in the favor by a long shot.
“But you admitted yourself that you knew about Trey and I before that night.” He tilted his head similar to a pup trying to suss out a curious thing. “Why the secrecy?” He opened his hands in front of him as he finally sat back up. “I am just trying to understand your train of thinking.”
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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 7:53 pm
"Don't remind me," he muttered, dejected. He had burgeoning ideas for how to address the Princess Problem, but not the resources or wherewithal to move forward with it yet. It was strange to think about; they had just gained a new General-Sovereign themselves, and then their enemy gains a Princess. They couldn't have been related, but Faustite didn't want to think about their enemy finding out about Jet and retaliating by securing another powerhouse.
Faustite hesitated to look at Heliodor for the following question. How was he to explain himself? And would his thoughts be found wanting for justification that Heliodor would write him off again? They'd been through so much strife and adversity; he reminded himself to trust that the boy who said yes didn't evaporate away because of this.
"... Found out who Fafnir was by chance. First thought was to tell him." But he hadn't, and explaining why he hadn't was like asking him to work in a library without the use of his cincher. Claws curled and dug into the glass desk.
"Knew that, after I left, you left. You were under someone else's orders. My orders for staying away from your old family were invalid. During those two years, you could've reconnected with Trey. Could've considered bringing him into the Negaverse. Knew you've always been headstrong, and I never cut off your ear for disobeying orders," he continued, his hands starting to follow his words again. "So I thought you chose to keep your distance.
"Wanted to respect that. Wasn't my place to change your life – or his." He finished, then braced for more vitriol.
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Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2022 9:30 pm
“I honestly had never thought about the fact that your orders would be null and void when I left.” He practically blinked at Faustite as he realized the implications of the boy having been gone. Not once. Not for a single moment had he thought to go against any old direct orders. In fact, it felt surreal to imagine having done such a thing, even if Faustite had truly been gone for good. Likely, it would have taken Helio quite some time to wrap his mind around it and accept that orders from the fiery General were of the past and able to be ignored. “I guess you trained me a bit too well.” He offered as his blank look turned chagrin.
“At that point I’d been so acustom to Trey and my mother being out of my life that I rarely wanted to think about them or the possibility they could, possibly, be there for me again. It was a wound I hadn’t realized was still raw, just hidden under a bandage and that damn bandage got ripped off in such an abrupt way that I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t realize how badly I had wanted to see Trey again until he was there in front of me.”
He sighed, tongue running along dry lips. “I owe you an apology. What happened at Emmy’s was out of line on my part. I shouldn’t have said what I did in front of the team. I know better than that I just…” He huffed. “I was in shock. The last damn thing I had thought to see was Trey just sitting there like it was the most normal thing and then the rush of emotions at seeing him and Waru just pushing it all along with how he told Trey and…” He stopped himself again to reign in the anger that was bubbling up again. In comparison to that day it was nothing more than a gentle brook than a raging river, but it wasn’t justified now.
“I ******** up and have come to realize it now even if the emotions I felt were warranted, in my opinion. I just should have restrained myself until we could talk privately.”
Faustite had taken the time to think about repercussions before doing anything. It was a trait that Helio wished he himself could adopt. Emotions were his downfall. Always had been and likely would always be. They were the reason he somehow was still alive to this day. “Honestly, I am amazed you didn’t starseed me then and there, and right now I can’t say I’d be surprised or angry that you had. I would have deserved it considering.”
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Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2022 10:53 am
"Guess I was more effective than I thought." He remembered how he trained Heliodor from the beginning — sternly, tersely, in the same manner as one would expect in the military, but Heliodor was always so obstinate. To hear that he never even considered defying Faustite's orders astonished him. Between Heliodor's constant complaints and Schörl's chiding, Faustite assumed that he had performed terribly and Heliodor went straight back into old habits once he left the area.
Too well was correct, if it kept him from the brother that he so desperately missed. In that, Faustite was just as culpable as if he deliberately obfuscated the truth from the pair.
Faustite flinched, however briefly, at Heliodor's admission. "Sorry," he muttered, and the word brought him back to his and Albite's conversation concerning apologies and when they became insulting. It might insult the boy, whether he meant it to or not, but he hoped Heliodor was past his anger nonetheless. Faustite, for one, was tired of his own — tired of being pissed at Heliodor, at Trey, at Albite, at himself, at the world.
Would've been better had he and Waru come to a decision that drunken, desperate night. Instead of asking each other about their pasts and passing a bottle of whiskey back and forth, they could've deduced what to do about the brothers who never realized They were now on the same team. Then all of this would've been averted — everything from choking on his wine and spilling it to Heliodor blowing up at him again.
"Thought about starseeding you," he admitted. "Thought it'd be easy, too. Two supers, both emotionally compromised. Wouldn't give you time to defend yourself.
"Was hard to swallow that. The instinct's still there, still impossibly strong. Knew I'd regret it forever. Couldn't stomach another mistake." He sighed at himself. "Don't like how easy it is to rationalize starseeding someone. Especially a boy I asked to marry me." Or, almost asked. Implied. However stupid and socially awkward he was, Aelius understood him well enough.
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