Quote:
Follows a locked tomb.
People typically ran when they saw fire. They certainly ran when they saw fire that was shrieking all the ways it would kill them as violently as possible while more fire collected around that fire. That was when even the bravest of people spared a hard look at their lives and decided that continuing to exist was worth more to them than talking to rocks.
Because that's what it was. And Faustite knew that's what it was. But he'd never tried it before, and everyone else acted like it was somehow cathartic or worthwhile, so with no other recourse available, Faustite was going to do it. Just as soon as the last screams faded from earshot. It wasn't a long wait.
He couldn't call for Albite while he nursed his hopeless ravening for home, not when Murikabullshit tossed such a snide insult at him about his husband. Albite never knew his home, anyway. He'd never met him as Elex — only Heliodor had, and he was ever on such a volatile bend with that boy that he'd never risk something so wounding and distempered. He would do this alone. He would talk to rocks alone, without the company or protection of his boys, with only his mounting misery for the home that he'd never get back.
So that fiery, hateful demon of a kid wandered the clearing. He looked at rocks, didn't find the words he was looking for, and passed them up for more rocks. The air was stagnant. It smelled like cut grass.
He kept passing rocks while his imaginary guts twisted. He wanted to hear his dad call him kiddo again, or hear his brother tell another work story around a cigarette. Maybe one from the gas station, since those were always the more scandalous ones. He'd even take tea with his mom while he listened to her tell him to shape up and get his head on straight, how all those fantasy books spoiled him for the world he'd have to acknowledge eventually.
Then he found precisely the rocks he wanted. He'd call it bittersweet, but it felt mostly bitter. Deleteriously upsetting. Destabilizing. Disquieting.
Faustite sat in a wearied manner — lacking any grace, more like putting his body down on a patch of sun-dried grass. Some of it started to catch under his hands; with no better place to put them, he pooled his hands in his lap. Then he started wiping his face, because the tears had started and they wouldn't stop.
All this over a bunch of ******** rocks. Over a boy that kept using his magic because Faustite was ever a threat. Because he was a threat, wasn't he? A threat made of unhealed ******** all of you," he said when he found his broken voice. "You ******** left me. I hate you," His face grew hot as he wept, as his throat shut and he couldn't swallow anymore.
"I hate you."
