(Backdated to September 2nd)
He knifed the eye out of a boy who was his husband. That same husband, if the maid was to be believed, would somehow cherish that gored look, find meaning in it, rewrite its outcomes with a renewed devotion that far surpassed obsession. After he had returned home, Eles sat with that knowledge for hours, in the dark, waiting for some sense of what to do about it. It sounded like a satire. Like a mouthy transgressive fiction piece that was as scathing as it was preposterous and overwrought. Except nothing about this was fiction.
He tried to divine what to say out of the pile of dogs flopped across their dog bed, looking more like a possessed pile of black rugs than three distinct furry forms. Eles supposed he could say sorry, or that he didn't know at the time, or brush it off like it was some unforeseeable coincidence and he was somehow enlightened now.
Except none of those options were true. He wasn't sorry that he protected Hybris. He knew the consequences of goring the man's face with a jagged blade. And even if he'd been told that he was indeed Faustite, and Albite was indeed his husband, he still didn't remember any of it.
So with absolutely nothing resolved and all his patience for this circular introspection exhausted. Eles spent the next fifteen minutes consulting the user guide to his phone, typing in Waru's cell phone number, and pressing 'call' on a thing that wasn't using any mechanical buttons. Then he stared at the phone in stark confusion as it sounded much too quiet for him to hear properly, before he realized he was supposed to hold it to his ear like a handset.
When he heard the line pick up, he said the first thing that came to mind: "I never would've guessed you were Albite. Do you think the eye injury would've given it away?"
***
It’d become rote habit to answer strange new numbers, the automatic action one more tally scoring the list of ‘things I’ve done to myself’; not that he’d ever truly screened his calls before. No, why should he have? Not when the urge to talk was as prescient and demanding as the chances to do so were plentiful. There was nothing more entertaining than seeing how fast a caller would get off the line once they realized he was going to find a way to talk about anything besides his lapsed car warranty.
Nothing more satisfying than seeing how long someone would stay on—
Where his own thin, red line of tolerance lay—
Like a strange game of chicken; where said chickens crossed sixteen lanes of traffic during rush hour, and every speeding truck was a fully loaded semi. If only so maximum carnage was assured; because that was obviously the best way to play chicken! The way that left no regrets, save a very minor few. Like how he was regretting putting the phone to his left ear first, the way it felt disjointed to hear what he couldn’t see, twinging an ache that’d dulled while he’d slept on it.
Because everything was supposed to be recuperation, relaxation, listening to his better peers better angels and getting the ******** out of his own healings way.
Which would’ve been easier, he thought, if some things weren’t ******** made for tv-trope lies! Like the idea that one’s senses were supposed to heighten *exponentially* post ‘loss of important bodypart or sense’. The only thing that had heightened in his life over the last four weeks was the amount of stubbed toes, broken mugs, peripheral blind spots, and a growing collection of patches in arrays of styles that would — he swore — be temporary accessories only.
Though maybe I’m being impatient and the extra super powers come later on? Maybe the super smell comes *after* the temporary conformer is fitted — in eight weeks — in ten —
His expectations for Tanuk from Nantucket, or Henry from Hannover to be on the other line were soundly dashed when the voice that greeted him instead arrested his breathing for long enough that he had to remind himself he could very well answer like a person whose mouth still worked properly.
He was missing an eye. Not a tongue.
“Did your signing give you away?” The answer felt snatched out of thin air, the way it flew free of his lips without him really thinking too deeply about it. Surface oil, neatly skimmed. There for the easy plucking in spite of everything else he wanted to ask!
How’s Mark?
Have I missed the wedding yet?
Was the invitation genuine?
Was anything genuine?
Who the ******** are you now — what do I even call you —
Do you still even love me?
“S’all glamor s**t….it’s a hell of a drug…” a weak cover thrown over his blunt answer, as if injecting more words onto the end of a sentence would somehow make anything better here.
I clearly still need better coping skills.
***
A hum sounded through the phone. Were he downstairs, he would have sat against the wall, coiled the phone cord around his fingers. It would've been a nice distraction. Helpfully, he could still get up and fetch a sketchbook, a pen. Start drawing from memory the boy he maimed without a second thought.
"You're still sore about it." Eles flipped to a clean page where his pencil hovered over it. "But I forgive you.
"Hestia told me about you. About the rest of the team." He started with the intimations of how a person moved, and from that came perspective, and from that came the first shapes that made the face and body. "She said you were all looking for me. You and some others. It must have been maddening, never finding me. But the punishment was in the retrospective, right? That you were soooo close." The susurrant syllable faded on his tongue.
He wondered as he drew — if they met, would Albite try to kill him? Eles doubted he could get the jump on Albite twice; he guessed this boy would know far more about his tactics than he did. Earning his revenge wouldn't even feel like a challenge.
Albite, a swamp of a man. Faustite must have gotten sucked in before.
"Did they save it? Your eye."
***
He shivered as—
What do I even call him now? What would he like? What he told me? What Hybris left scrawled in Guinevere's note?
Am I Lancelot?
The ******** boy. His boy. Still and always and forever! Even if everything was changed. Even if both of them were changed forever. He resolved to cling to that sentiment as he roused himself to standing, sockless feet padding careful across a floor still warm in the face of slowly changing seasons.
Hearing your voice is so strange—
It felt wrong, almost, even though he knew he’d heard it before. This voice. New and old and familiar and not. Once, twice? In a smattering of happenstance chances, and clipped snippets. It felt like a gift unearned. Like a slap in the face to be called up and called out and met with phrases that rankled ripe with what he’d decided were ‘Marks’ bad habits. Had to be. For his own sake and sanity.
With Hybris being so easy to blame….
“I’ll heal…” Blunt statement as he wandered the small space with the lights off, making a game of retracing the familiar without incident in much the same way a child would tackle their placemat maze at a fancy diner. “and I don’t remember asking. Not you. Not ‘him’ either.” He bared his teeth at nothing, the fingers of his left hand skating along drywall as he found the hall. Thinking on how he bled apologies so often — like summer rains at the reservoir — ‘sorry’ was so easy to roll off the tongue! And so to be forgiven without first asking for it? When he didn’t feel like he’d done wrong?
Not by Eles — not by Eion — or — have I?
But the mention of Hestia—
Of course it was Hestia.
Hestia, a power lifting champ in spite of her slight frame. The way she handled what burdens he knew he couldn’t have with such ease. He owed her so much…
The team…
“N’I’ve never really been sane,” he huffed, half dramatics, for he must have been once upon a some-when? “not that it matters…not that any of it matters s’long as someone did.” It felt dismissive to say as it did distancing from the broiling hot center of it all. Cold. To deny how right the boy on the other end of the line was. That he’d spread his own agony like a sickness and razed the stable Earth of all his other relationships, irrespective of whom it harmed, and all for the sake of finding what wasn’t truly lost to them.
Alive. Alive. Alive!
He should’ve been crowing.
Found. Found. Safe and sound.
And it shouldn’t have mattered who by! Whether it was whatever scores of silent operatives he was now sure Laurelite or Hessonite must have had out in ninja-like force, or their Teams own combined efforts. Or ******** Hybris? So long as it was someone! So long as Faustite was safe and whole! All things that should’ve been enough! And yet weren’t. Couldn’t be. The way he’d wanted it to be him and still needed to wrestle with that in ways that didn’t drive his blood pressure so high it’d rupture something important..
Better to build a low wall between his feelings and watch his emotions wander in the distance like gentle cattle. To be momentarily cold. Than—
Everything ******** else, right?
“The real punishment was dealing with Headache for so ******** long.…” and he paused for a moment, wondering suddenly about how much Faustite did or did not know about anything anymore! Struggling his way through that. He needed tea. Hot. Familiar. Something sweet enough that if Eion had been present? He would’ve likely made a face about it, and Waru was suddenly determined to wring every tea bag with his fingers like a wet rag. A private, brutish, ‘******** you’ in the face of knowing better. Doing it improperly out of spite to sooth himself.
“Nah-uh….that’s privileged info, firebrand.” It hurt to wince for the nickname, but some habits couldn’t be so easily cleaved. “Want it t’be a surprise…”
***
He knew the boy wouldn't hear him rolling his eyes. Briefly, he considered announcing it over the call, but he wasn't interested in burning this bridge yet. Eles might never be. For now, Albite was a magnetic curiosity, something to catch and observe in a bell jar. Something to pin in a specimen display, arms out, legs out, one or both eyes as lifeless as a stuffed animal. But to reduce him to that was to do him such a disservice, wasn't it?
Eles might've carved his damn eye out and the boy still answered his call. Still responded to him with more than invective and threats of divorce papers. He was gruff, yes, but that was all Eles caught in return. Some jabs here or there, a little stoicism, no threats of murder.
To him, it was a marvel. That anyone could love him — some past version of him — so strongly and sincerely had touched him in a manner unexpected. Stirred and warmed what was normally cool curiosity. How could that be? What was it about Faustite that compelled him so? Such questions accrued and Eles found himself cataloguing them along the margins in his sketchbook. Beyond the curvature of a man half-remembered.
"It takes grit to love a burning boy. Devotion. Determination. To express love is to accept violence. Holding hands is pressing your palm to a lit stove." There was no love without hurt. Loving Faustite may have been more literal than that sentiment was meant to be. An entire team of people accepted that possibility. Trusted Faustite not to burn them unnecessarily. It must have been a very careful life — one spent weighing the costs of reaching out and touching a doorknob, serving tea, tugging on a sleeve to get someone's attention. His was a body of violence.
His. His. Eles shut his eyes for the moment.
The slight toward the youma came unexpected, earned a snort. "Hestia called it as much, too. Is that its name?" How cute of past me, he almost said, but he thought youma deserved a little better than that. Especially from someone who was part youma himself.
Alone on his bed, separated by cell phone towers, Eles expected he was safe. That any violence transacted between them began and ended with their first brief encounter as Albite and Faustite. He didn't anticipate the knife, its quarter of a twist, the way it cinched his throat and threatened to bleed him of tears. The memory of that nickname descended on him like a haunting; both an identity and an emblem of connection to this boy, he remembered precisely how it felt to hear that name leave those lips. He remembered what that name carried.
Eles swallowed, and in an imperfect voice, he said, "I want to see it. In person. Spare me that?"
***
“Technically?” Another thing Hestia could handle that he simply could not, not with any kind of aplomb. Headache. Such a saint of a woman to be oh so nice about a monster like *that*. He couldn’t curb his obvious disdain for the creature, regardless of how tactful and correct it ever was. No matter how ‘helpful’-- He still hated it. “Headache..Bugs…I like t’call it ‘Migraine’ when it gets on my last nerve.” That the youma was almost always on his last nerve went unsaid, he was sure Eles could hear it in his voice, past the jarring chime of a teacup gently rattled and caught as he foolishly reached for it without looking.
It was maybe safer to put the phone on speaker. To set that on the counter. To look with his good eye before he flipped the little whistling bit up and watched the steam soak the hood above it, lest he actually press his palm to a lit stove and scalding kettle…
You made it easy, Ei. You made it so, so damn easy. How could I not have loved you? How could I not love you still?
The words argued with themselves, left him huffing a sigh past the clot of them as he wondered how vulnerable to be in the face of all this *new*. How much to throw at a stranger that technically *wasn’t*.
He knew Eles, didn’t he?
I ******** dont.
He knew Faustite, right?
Am I sure it’s still even Faustite anymore? That I should put that on him? Is that even ******** fair to do?!
The way his boy spoke of his own damn self like some ghost of armageddon’s past was jarring enough to make Waru pause. To make him think. Before the next set of words came ambling out. Handpicked, carefully measured. Honest. Because he’d never thought of loving Faustite the way Eles explained it. Not quite.
“Hah..as if you allowed any of us to burn ourselves on you. It was a ********’ effort t’even try…” He hummed gently, thinking of every time their boy ever pulled away to spare them. Of every ‘end’ Faustite had thrown himself at for some others sake, no matter who. Love of a violent sort, love with purpose, love for the sake of keeping those around them safe! “...you were so…protective? Eles. Truly.” Mocha, honey, cinnamon, cardamum? Yeah. Cardamum. Into a pouch, tied clumsily with a string, leaking grit that he didn’t care to strain well enough. “Least, where it counted. Of me. Of the team. You hated unnecessary bullshit at everyone's expense save your damn own…” Waru chuffed, soft with humor while rummaging cupboards for aforementioned honey. “C’n you imagine how amazing that felt? T’be loved like that. By you. By all the others…”
He was sure Eles must know, at least now? Loath as Waru was to admit it aloud – let alone mentally – that Hybris was clearly the sort willing to do the same. To put his scrawny, stupid, useless neck out for the sake of saving Eles from…whatever the ******** it was Hybris believed he was saving Eles from. Even if it wasn’t his ******** job to do so! Even if Eles didn’t need Hybris to fill a spot already taken and shared in equal measure by so damn many!
Or maybe Faustite hadn’t known? Maybe that’d been the problem all along. One he’d overlooked for too long, so happy was he to sit in the protective embrace at the center of his boy's fire, in the circle of others strong arms. Maybe he’d not been protective enough in turn? Maybe he’d leaned too much one way and not enough another?
It was maddening not to know.
“N’maybe I shouldn’t have needed all that babyguarding n’bubble wrap, yeah? I can never tell if I put too much on people for the wrong sort of thing? N’never enough of the right sort..Idunno…”
It didn’t make it any less nice. It didn’t make him crave it any less. The way his surprise was endless in the face of the strength of those around him. That Faustite wasn’t the only burning rock or ‘kill for you’ hardplace Waru could squeeze himself between when the need arose.
The barest waver of Eles’s next ask, and Waru froze looking for a tea-spoon to stir and squish his lump of flavoring and mound of honey with. Simply stood there and staring at the phone in unblinking wonder.
Didn’t Hybris tell you? Do you even know he wrote me?
He wasn’t as angry about it now, not after the third-hundred pass of reading through a message that still smelt of baccarat and what he wanted to call the essence of ‘knight magic, or maybe it was just Guinevere's cherries? A letter, wrapped in a letter, wrapped in solemn urgings that had made him see red. The way time had turned down the brightness of it, changed the hue entirely.
“Course you’re gonna see it in person, Eles. N’less m’univited from your wedding? Or like….banned from ‘Starlight’? Which m’sure Laszlo would probably be ********’ fine with...”
***
The questions continued to percolate, to spider out and escape his grasp. Each a ripple that encountered another small fact and multiplied, exponentially, until those ripples created the chaos of a seismograph. There would never be enough time in the day, battery life in a phone, to weather everything. Such exchanges were better done in person where body language could carry through where words would falter.
Of course, he had a thousand of those questions reserved for Headache. Did he name the youma or did it name itself? What was it like? What did it look like? What could it do? How could it do his paperwork tasks for him? Where did he find it? And with each question came the potential for follow-ups until he was scattered as a handful of sand thrown into the wind, and perhaps no more educated for it, either. It was an affront to have to hold back, really, but when faced with this strange gateway to a life he hardly remembered, a life that seldom felt like his? Eles had to accept, however begrudgingly, that the separation of a phone call was a kindness. That he could've been pulled deep and abruptly into that everburn life and turned out so terribly ill-prepared.
Living with Malory hadn't set him up to be Faustite. Hell, in all his wanton whimsy and hedonistic impulses, he knew so little about his old life. About what that life was supposed to be. And yet, it to fill that empty silhouette left behind by the burning boy intimidated him; he didn't know how to compel an entire team to love him, to follow him. Eles wasn't on fire; he didn't seem like he was or should be suffering in eternal pain.
But here he was. Lying in his fiance's bed, talking to a boy who married him long before his fiance ever would. Talking about himself, a stranger. Always reaching past a life that he couldn't quite remember, that he wasn't sure he wanted to remember.
With no better recourse, Eles would do as he often did: let instinct take the reins. "Was that care or carefulness?" He thought it pragmatic to avoid injuring battle-ready team members. Could it have been both, though? Would he ever get the chance to know with certainty? To remember all this half-spoken history that drew in Albite, Hestia, Fafnir, Borax? (And could he smack the s**t out of himself for bringing in that smarmy self-impressed b*****d?)
Could he imagine how amazing it felt to be loved like that? Breathing an audible sigh, Eles replied, "Wish I could remember.
"What I do get, it's all fits and starts. Snatches of feeling, a smell, a sensation. Something I could almost picture, if I'm lucky. But if I reach for any of it, it scatters like a handful of dust. Then I've got nothing, all over again. Like when I woke up. Pain in the back of my head and empty pockets."
Dropping the pencil, Eles slumped bonelessly on his side. He watched a pair of furry ears stick up, followed by part of a face, followed by the entire face of a happy little dog who brought him a well-chewed, fuzzy calculator in the Best Boys' earnest bid for outside time. Fully aware that he couldn't deny them, Eles shifted off the bed with a resigned huff and followed the happy herd of thumping paws down the stairs and through the rest of the house.
"You tried to starseed him, of course you're still invited. And the only one banned from Starlight is M-mmm… him, obviously. Besides, Laszlo likes you. He thinks your taste in drink is s**t and that pisses him off, and you're not changing your ordering habits to try to impress him, which pisses him off even more. And he likes getting pissed off. Probably takes it out on his meat."
In the background, a squeak, an excited bark. "But I want to see you, for your sake. Before the wedding."
***
“We’re the least careful group of self-sacrificing ******** you’ll ever have the privilege of meeting, Eles.” Hs thought he could count on one hand the number of *actual* adults in the room whenever they were all together. Trey, and Emmy, and Jayce…Tama too? Sometimes. Not that the rest were a total toss up of a loss…
But?
“At least I am?” He sucked residual honey off the spoon, realizing it was maybe only himself? That he should at least consider the issue was ‘him’ before lumping himself and his entire team together into one large broil pot. “Always looking for sharp drops, sharper rocks at the bottom of those drops. Even before you.”
Especially before Eion.
“Which means it must’ve been care, right? Anything less than that and we’d probably all be dead a few times over...” he bit the metal, chased the tang of steel that remained once the gentle sweetness was gone. Shut himself the ******** up because he *remembered* that ******** letter, like a burn screen of words on the back of his eyelid—-
I wish you could remember too. I’ll ******** remind you of it!! How good it is. How much better we can be compared to him!
We all will.
Oh, if only it was so easy as that! But how many jagged, dagger-like reminders did he need? How few eyes before he could see clearly? Did he need a sea of public dumpings and spurned exes?
‘But this is different!!’ His mind cried, as the spoon met the sink in such a way that the garbage disposal threatened to swallow it. He watched the spindly handled object teeter, considered turning the damn thing on and letting fate and gravity decide whether or not the inanimate object would end up ground to death.
‘Is it really? Different from who? Different how? And while I’m ******** at it I should call up Nikki and have a long chat about Alexa — or Cybele — or — Elex and ******** Rowan —’
The spoon got glared at, before being granted disposal reprieve, he was a merciful god. Not bitter at all. Not aching over every stolen prospect. Not fine, either. To admit otherwise was a lie too far. He was supposed to be getting better at — ******** — any number of things? But especially things like that! So the spoon lived as he listened on, the tea bag only dribbling across the counter slightly while he squeezed the last drops into the cup with unfeeling fingers.
Not fine. But not murdering spoons either.
“I’m sorry…” For himself, for Eles? For what they’d both had to go through, for what he’d done to himself and their team in Eion’s absence? He didn’t clarify, chasing Eles’s words with raised brows and a newfound excitability. He suddenly wished he could see the boy on the other line, if only to reassure himself that he wasn’t being teased with an over-large yet out of reach carrot.
He was still invited to the wedding.
He could still go to Starlight! However different it’d feel to do it now that he knew Eles had not only a voice — but a fiancé — and that the face he’d coveted so much with all its shrouded mystery was a face he should’ve recognized from the start! That Laszlo’s hate was genuine — a relief in so many ways — because it meant he didn’t have to change the way he behaved around the man. Nothing had to change.
Except for how it did.
“I was actually gonna ask if Obscura landed well? Wasn’t sure what you tweaked it with…” He nearly missed the cup again, glaring at it like it’d wronged him personally before taking it and the phone ticked between his ear and shoulder back to bed. “N’what do you mean by ‘my sake’, exactly? Not that I don’t wanna see you before.…” He did. He did! ********, but he did! His heart rate picking up as hesitancy crawled up his throat and into his voice like throned vines, the way he could hear his own pulse even over the sound of squeaking in the background.
Waru wasn’t sure what the ******** had come over himself. Because Eles was asking to see him!
Before the wedding!!!
Everything he could do with that — missing eye be damned — everything he could do if he could just say —
I do. I do. I do.
***
"You couldn't promise me a better time," he said with a smile. Then he laid on the chaise, back to the sky, as he watched a gather of dogs disappear around the bushes. They would be back in short order; Eles was already betting on Dreary to be the one to return the calculator. "People who are ******** in the head are so much more fun.
Wasn't Albite just the epitome of a death drive? Freud would've used him for a thesis, Jung would've found him repugnant. Something that terrified, something to cure. Did Albite look at Faustite and see his sharpest drop yet? Spikes that would have gored him in half? Oh, and how disappointed he must've been to find that, every time he leapt from that cliff, the ground rose up to meet him halfway. The spikes, suddenly so conscientious, got up and moved when they saw Albite plummeting toward them.
What was worse: knowing he'd survive the fall before he hit the ground, or hitting the ground and realizing he'd survive the fall? It was a question he didn't dare ask; he'd rather deduce it for himself.
"It might've been care." Another squeak. A few squeaks, then an excited bark as those dozen feet scampered away. "Or careful planning? You only get one death. Best be a spectacular one." Traumatize enough people and they'd live on forever, like Nero of Rome, who outlived even his splendorous statues.
Something clattered over the phone, but Eles couldn't guess what it was. Something domestic? Something absurd? Eles didn't know him well enough to hazard a bet.
That apology earned a frown, however. "We're doing this all out of order," he reminded him. "But I kind of like it. Really shows how arbitrary and capricious all these little niceties are." It was, as expected, dreary who returned with the calculator. Seems the Best Boys were more predictable than their swampy friend. Uncle?
A short hum, then Eles added, "Oh, he liked the idea. It's up to him to decide the end result, though. Guess it depends on availability of certain liquors, price point, what he can reasonably acquire. All that boring business s**t. Think it's all rather soul-killing, so I tune him out whenever he tries to talk about it with me. But,
"Since you're so insistent, I'll try to explain. I only ever knew you — knew of you — juxtaposed to something else. You-as-the-burning-dumpster-man. You-as-Faustite's-husband. You-as-Hybris's-assailant. You-as-Blarney's-dom. That sort of thing. You were interesting for how you related to those other things. How you influenced them. How they influenced you. But now? I think I'd like to know you. Just you, in spite of everything else. You, for your sake," he finished, as if it was a most obvious conclusion.
"We could have lunch at North End park. Mmm… No, actually, make it Destiny Gardens. You can bring the alcohol."
***
“Fun. Heh— I guess I’m just grateful that no one expects me t’be sane n’normal about any of these things. Or like…maybe it’s a curved grade? I get t’sit on the lower steps of it all n’need the underachiever...“ His return journey across the short hall went well, the placemat maze solved, as he got back to his starting point with all toes accounted for and unstubbed. A small win that he cherished childishly, resettling to enjoy the tea at recline. Because someone (who needed a sharp ******** jab in the back of their EMT knees) had told him ‘laying down was good for things other than ******** and sleeping’, and he wanted to prove he could listen, if only out of spite.
Easier said than done, easier if he was busy staring wide eyed into his tea as he soaked up Eles’s every remark.
Oh, the irony, for the Schrödinger of boys to talk about a singular, spectacular death in one off terms. Waru’s short laugh moving the steam that plumed just before his nose, knowing that Eles couldn’t possibly know otherwise, knowing it was both a blessing (for his boy) and an abject cruelty (for himself). To own endless shelves of ******** up memories and treat them like the prettiest things. To be left the one who could choose whether to polish them all to clarity, or let them die a dusty death of disuse and avoidance.
My husband keeps coming back from the dead — dying and undying and dying again — exactly how much am I supposed to mourn him? Hybris? How often should I set the dates? How do I stop myself from wanting what you have only by ******** happenstance—
It was a mean thought, but Hybris was easy to be mean to. Mentally. Bulliable, even. Punchable in the throat — at the very least!
“Only you could say that with what m’guessin is a straight face and mean it—“ Soft little puffs over scalding liquid in a cup, he sipped it tentatively, sighed, blew some more. “I agree though. It should be spectacular. A spectacle. Every Senshi should die big or go the ******** home. Be reborn bigger. Repeat. Whether we’re pissing on our cosmic legacies or not isn't the point…it’s that stars n’ the like shouldn’t ******** die quiet in a void...the physics of space be damned...”
Appeased and pleased and it was so damn easy to listen to Eles go on, unhindered by tension born of stillness, missing certain cindered qualities. His boy, and not. Eion's voice, and not. He wanted to ******** live in it until he knew it better than the man whose throat it belonged to. Until the ache stopped….
I could do it. He could be here now. He could be here every night. He could spend his and Hybris honeymoon in my bed. I out ******** rank him in this —
How many starseeds would it take? How much magic would he need to expend? Questioned with clipped claws that he let the heat of the drink soothe and shush. Quieting what rustled in his head. A thing gently penned and pining. Waiting waiting waiting. But hell, what else was new?
Order be damned, they were chaos born and bred anyways, weren’t they? He couldn’t remember one standard thing about their relationship that could’ve been put into a rom-com or hallmark feature. It didn’t matter if they started backwards, upside down. Not to Waru, and clearly not to Eles, and he was never more glad to hear it!
“So long as I get to try it once it's out…you can see the kinda face I make…tell me if I look good drinking it. Feed it to me through a funnel for fun..” He snorted, knowing how stupid the idea likely sounded, not caring a lick. His interest piqued and repiqued as Eles broke it all down just for him — a shiny bit of sameness that gave him wicked deja vu — that his boy still cared enough to bother explaining it at his level, in ways that made so much sense.
In ways that hurt. <******** you want to meet a me who relates to a you that isn’t anymore…me as myself…n’you as…Eles, yeah? Just Eles. Not ******** several thousand other names I want to call you by…” His laugh cracked, he knew it, and didn’t care if the sound ran on rough in spite of how warm tea was supposed to be soothing. The way he wanted to break — something — someone — if only so as not to end up broken himself by being inert. It was better always to be the rock going sixty than it was to be the windshield it hit.
“I’ll be there.”
Quick to agree. Hungry for it. Like it was easy.
“And if it turns out Hybris — or whoever the ******** he is when he isn’t playing as three chihuahuas in a trench coat? Is hiding in a bush somewhere.”
“I’ll make him watch as I steal you back from him...”
“And m’bringing blueberry wine. It's something new. Either we’ll like it, or by time we’re done with the bottle it won’t matter anymore.”
The question of ‘when’ lingered on his mind, but it was Eles with the life now. He could let the boy decide, could check his phone for necessary dates and times of appointments and balance the ‘when’ off of that.
***
Now wasn't that a curious jaunt into senshidom? Eles knew quite little about it, but he lofted his brows in pleasant surprise to learn that they had a cosmic legacy. Of course, it could have been metaphor or hyperbole, but Albite didn't seem the type for metaphor, so that just left hyperbole. It was nice to think about, though — what if Hybris had a cosmic legacy out there that he was unknowingly pissing on? By doing what, Eles didn't know, but the thought that they could find a way to visit that cosmic legacy and piss on it proper tickled him pleasantly. Or, wait, would it be more like pissing on Hybris? He'd already vomited on the boy and that wasn't very fun. He supposed he'd have to ask Hybris about this cosmic legacy later before he let his mind run too far with the idea.
He couldn't forget that this boy was a conduit to his own history, too. Perhaps it would hurt Albite — Waru — to recollect these things for an audience that should have remembered them. Perhaps Eles would even feel bad about asking. He felt compelled to ask, nevertheless, for how else could he decide whether he wanted to live his life in spite of what he used to be, or in relation to it? In recognition of it? He needed the tales of who Faustite was before he made the decision of who Faustite is.
And with Hybris? They could overcome such trials. The boy let him break his ribs, after all. Such devotion deserved devotion in turn. A promise to hurt and heal. A promise to live and die and live beyond death.
Eles blinked as he tuned back into the conversation. "You're into butt-chugging? Oh, my dear boy, you'd break Laszlo's heart. He makes drinks for people to taste with their mouths. But if that's your idea of fun, we can compromise — I can funnel you some grain alcohol instead. I'll even hold off on calling the ambulance if you want me to."
Another squeak, another throw, another gaggle of doggy legs flailing into the distance. They were getting slower, panting louder now. They'd be due for a nap soon, and Eles would invite them up onto the bed with him to shove their little black butts and noses wherever they wanted. Darkest really liked Mal's pillow.
"You can tell me those names. I want to know about them. It's important for me to know about my own history, right? Otherwise I might be walking into my own murder and be none the wiser for it. But, I suppose you'll want to know the little bit of me that exists outside of all those things. Me under the Ebon coating, sans Malory — that's his name, by the by — and sans Faustite.”
"I'll let him know, too. He can show up to spy if he really wants to. I hope he brings the dogs, though. They'd give him away quite nicely." A pleasant sigh.
"Tomorrow, then. At sunset."
***
“Butt-ch— so stupid— holy s**t —“ He snorted laughing, had to set his little teacup aside less he spill the thing. It was stupid, charming, and since when had Faustite sounded so…
Easy with it all?
His boy had always been sharp tongued, quick witted, and what Waru wanted to believe was easy going and happy, but?
Not like this.
It was impossible not to note, even in the small span of a conversation, the way small human concepts no longer escaped his boy. The way some edge was absent under what he expected to find in Eles’s tone. He couldn’t imagine Faustite shrugging off getting his a** slapped by Kandi with a K, or making boufing jokes, or…
Human. He sounds so human. He is human. I’ve met him already how many times?!! And he’s human now. It wasn’t a ******** hallucination — or some cruel mirrors trick — it doesn’t matter what ******** color his hair is — Eles is —
Faustite is —
I’m such a moron.
I can’t do this!! I can’t I can’t
His laugh falling quiet as his heartbeat picked up, the way it felt like it would burst out between ribbed gates within his chest even as he was humming gentle ascension, breathing through panic that he couldn’t define, setting up a date. Agreeing and agreeing and grasping at what he knew would hurt to hold with both hands. Because letting the opportunity go felt worse somehow, like closing doors on squeaky coffin lids and adding nails.
I’m not ready for this.
He wouldn’t let himself say no.
“I’m probably the shittiest memory of the bunch t’be picking any kinda fruit from…n’less you want raisins? But I’ll try my best. It feels like fair trade considering there’s nothing I don’t wanna know about you — just you, Eles. Hah— maybe the dogs too? But…“
‘Malory can go ******** himself.’ He didn’t say. In case Malory was listening, in case Malory would like that, in case he’d somehow offend the dogs if they too were in the room and on the line? Never good to cuss someone out in front of their children. Even the furry sort.
“Tomorrow.” With the finality of a goodbye, hanging up before the tremor that had seized his sprinting heart managed to find its way into his voice, his hands, and — there was no amount of tea that could soothe his nerves now.
What the ******** did I just agree to? ********>
