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 Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2024 4:49 am
in the past weeks, Albite had helped him begin to use crutches. The disasters spawned by that move were many, as Faustite soon learned that basic tasks like opening doors or going down stairs became exceedingly difficult when his hands were full with crutches. He found that it was actually easier to pilot certain youmas' bodies over trying to function with crutches. But, if he needed to be in his own body, and he needed to walk to build strength again, then he was stuck with the vile things. As a result, any sort of decoration, youma, pet or person who was left on or around the floor usually got bashed at least once. Sometimes on purpose.
But, over time, he got better with crutches. Less clumsy. More able to open doors or get up stairs on his own. More graceful about it. They were tools, then, and the main bother he had with them was that he still needed them.
All the while, there were PT appointments keeping him sweaty and miserable. Frustrated at himself for not making the progress that he needed to be able to stand on his own two feet and nothing else. The instructors were kinder to him than he was to himself, telling him to stop when he ran the risk of doing more damage to himself in his quest for progress. For each modicum of progress made, he went home sweating profusely and aborted the rest of the day for a nap. But, for as long as he had boys to support him and a dogged determination to get back on his feet for good, he was able to make it a little farther each time.
But then came the dreaded next step — embodied by the taunting reminder that Headache so thoughtfully secured for him. What he faced now wasn't so much a struggle of how to use the cane, but how to overcome its implications. Faustite knew few who would be able to relate in any meaningful capacity, and to an extent, those demons were unique to the people who suffered them. Of those he held close, though, there was only one who he could call on where he felt certain that his concerns would be fully understood. He dared not ask Headache to draft the message from this, and instead struggled through typing on the tablet by himself.
The message was addressed to Alkmene. Its phrasing was rudimentary. It lacked Headache's almost compulsory perfect grammar. He sent it before he could reconsider.
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Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2024 1:07 pm
There was no mistaking a text from Headache for one from Faustite, and vice versa. All caps, a typo, slightly messy--that was Alkmene's husband, no doubt. For the briefest of moments, a fond smile crossed his face, and there was a bloom of little white flowers in his hair. He composed his expression just fine, but the flowers did not disappear so easily, and, well. Faustite had gotten good enough at reading them. But there was reason to be optimistic--he was walking again, albeit not unaided, which had felt impossible all those months ago.
The response was quick; his arrival even quicker. Teleportation was as easy as breathing, a convenience he could never imagine giving up. Though it still felt like an appropriate piece of courtesy to only bring himself outside that house in the Dark Kingdom, and let himself in to go find Faustite the less magical way.
"I'm here," he called, as he stepped into his husband's room. "Everything alright? You know, relative to the circumstances?"
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Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2024 7:04 am
That Alkmene took the time to type out a response at all often surprised him, when the boy had the ability to vanish from place to place as easily as Faustite did. Really, Faustite never thought about forewarning people when he would appear. Maybe he liked the spontaneity. Or it just never occurred to him.
But, seconds after reading the text, Alkmene was at the door and entering the room. His head was full of flowers again. Faustite knew better than to try to say something.
Faustite was, again, seated at the bay window inside the turret bedroom. It became a preferred place whenever he was reading or trying to while away his thoughts. For months after the incident, he tried to keep his reading material cogent to Negaverse operations — reports that were filed and hadn't yet seen follow-up, new database entries, new proposals from Generals and below, even requests for new office equipment or personnel. It was a patchwork fix to provide him the feeling that he was still engaged with his position, but just as often, he found himself frustrated for being confronted with decisions that he was reticent to pick from, in the event that he made the wrong decision. It was the same decision paralysis that haunted him since his most recent promotion.
This time, when Alkmene entered, Faustite had one of his old journals laid open on his lap. Next to him was the one he had taken into the Rift, when he began chronicling the different youma that he found fascinating while he was on his mission. That journal laid open to a creature that looked much like a living lion rug.
He looked up when he heard Alkmene enter the room. He let the journal slip between his thighs and shut itself as he began replying to the boy.
First, he shrugged for being unable to determine if things were alright or not. Then, he signed very carefully: I don't want to deal with that. Then he pointed to the cane that hung off the railing that surrounded his bed.
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