deercountry | wolves in the middle of town

[ falco, once finding a page that may be of value, folds the corner and closes the book up, putting it between them. now, he could free his knees, bringing them close to his chest and resting his head to it, tilted toward paul. ]

Not what she told me— what she showed me. [ either because falco was highly perceptive on the emotional front, sensitive to heart-to-mind shattering tragedies or just a mix of both. he doesn’t need to wet his lips to continue, but he does somewhat whisk some air out. it’s getting into his mouth, that stuff. gross. ] Something happened when she was gone. Something she doesn’t know how to deal with, and— You know when . . .

[ he presses his lips together once more, but this time, exhales through the nose. hems trying to recall something. something that brings a wince to his eyelids. gabi had done the same for so long. gabi was gone, now. ]

You’ll do anything . . . To be noticed by someone? Because you think that’s what’ll make it all better?

I think she sees that in John. But she’s not happy, Brother. [ he thinks it’s important to take down that farce from the network, understand it from a different angle. ] She’s really, really sad. She’s lost in it.

[ he’s afraid that time will be the only solution, but, it could be a peaceful one. if they all stepped back and had a bit of perspective. ]

—But she’s not gone.

Edited 2022-10-22 02:23 (UTC)

[Every time Paul has to smother the impulse to offer Falco something that he does not have to give - a gentle touch to the shoulder, a handkerchief, a cup of hot cocoa, even a scrap of believable comfort - it feels like it cuts a little piece of him away. The language of care was one he didn't realize he'd become so fluent in until it was plucked away from him, and his hands struggle to suppress their habits.

(Or it's something else. The thing he does not and cannot trust. That helps him remember to stay exactly where and as he is.)

But he can still listen, so he listens, and this is another kind of story, in its own way. The things Falco says all add up to a horrible logic he can follow all too easily, beginning to end.]

I do know. [He shakes his head, leaning back to the extent his looped arms will let him.] I wanted him to see me, once. I thought it would make things different.

[As if being understood might allow him to, at last, understand himself. He had wanted so badly for God to see him. He had wanted even worse for his Teacher to.]

I've never seen her like this either. [And he has seen her in the pits of it, beaten down nearly too much to even fight. Is she broken, now? Can she still pick herself up? Can she do it without their hands to help her to her feet?] Even besides - all the rest of it.

It scared me, too. [A very quiet, close admission.] But you're right. She's not gone. And neither are we. So nothing's over, yet. No one is giving up.

[ the sand is a prompt distraction for both of them. falco has pressed his fingers in, grabs and crunches with the minerals sticking to his palm until its caked in a thin layer. he repeats the act, in hopes of it becoming soothing with his agreeing nod. ]

Even if she's Kiriona now, it doesn't mean— It doesn't mean things have to break apart? It could just— It could be different, we just— don't have to lose more . . . [ the implication here is that he doesn't care if she's changed her name or gone through a daunting makeover. he's covered in parasitic slime. what bubbles up between the words are thoughts that become a pause to gather his trouble, to breathe, to strangle the urge to reach or ask for a touch he could not have today. it would make paul feel worse, he thinks. so many things could make him feel worse. the thoughts come unstoppable like a landslide, and before falco knew it—

he wasn't saying anything at all. he's caught himself at losing more family. that couldn't happen with kiriona. even though kiriona looks dead. he'd be dead in some years, too. that'd mean disappearing and more family lost. that would mean more devastation. and also—

and so on. ]

[Something slight stretches to a certain point, and no further. Paul soaks up Falco's words with silent watchfulness until he's done, then shifts forward a handspan on the earth beneath them, shoulders a firm, hard line.]

We don't.

[It's an absurd thing to say so fiercely in the midst of all of this wreckage, him consumed by flames and Falco infected by slick, stifling slime, their sister hollowed out and lost, the heart of their family violently seized and pulled at by the cataclysmic force that is a God's wanting. But he says it anyway, meaning it, and where other flames might leap higher at this passion, these ones cool and dim. More of him can be seen than has been so far, the true colour of his hair, dark and brown as bark, and the unshadowed line of his set jaw.]

Not as long as there's a light in any of us. We find each other. It's what we do. It's what I do. Through the dark and the storm, we come back to each other.

And that means you, too. More than any of us, you're the one... [He struggles, visibly, for the words.] You keep my hope.

[ it should come like a battle cry. it should fill him with heat, tenderness and sweetness— a light of pride should have sweltered. even if falco could palpate the love accompanying paul’s words, they also bring bitterness only he could see. it is a balming blanket and a painful stab that twists so slowly that it pries the puffy greenness around his eyes. his eye contact is held, but gradually—

his features hold back his crying with a stiff choke and palpable self-control. his vision sinks to his lap, where he could instead watch the colors the fires provide. ]

What’ll—[ tight-throat. cracking. stifled. ] What’ll happen when I’m not here for that?

[ alarmingly, he does not use if. he uses when. he affirms his absence, because eventually— that is what will happen. ]

[There's something wrong. Something wrong beyond the reaches of this conversation, and even the snotty slickness that infiltrates Falco's brimming but swallowed tears. Paul leans even further, the hook under his sternum undeniable in its pull.]

What do you mean, when you're not here?

[Paul keeps the frigid possessiveness out of his tone, for the most part, but there are still slivers of ice in him.]

Is the ocean asking for you?

[Always a possibility. Paul knows that. He accepts it, as best as he can bring himself to accept it, but it's been different, before. It has only been people he knows have anything to go back to - but what is there for Falco? A life of pain and violence, doomed to a too-quick end?]

I won't let it take you back.

[ falco avoids eye contact and retreats into himself physically, curling up into a tight ball and pretending it hasn’t been just his own arms squeezing him. underneath his arms, just around his kneecaps, is a shake of his head shedding silent tears. ]

I don’t . . . Want to go back. I want to stay here, with you. With all of you.

[ there’s hardly much to go back to at all, at this point. his gooey disposition is simply an effect of reaching that conclusion, and if the ocean calls one day, he’d much prefer to be a squid than go back (as much as he’d reach the conclusion that he had to finish what was started). ]

You’re what I have left. [ it’s vague, what comes next. he almost wishes to leave it at that, the way they come word for word. but his voice is too tight from withholding the tension that would comfort us features. he mustn’t. he still hides half of it. ] And I’ll— I’ll, um . . . Have that for a few more years, I think.

[ breathlessness builds up in him, and his parted, silent lips give his hesitation away. when a bead slips from his eye, it falls with the viscosity of syrup. ]

I have— only a few years.

[No.

The word comes to him so fierce and swift he almost thinks he speaks it aloud. He flares like an accelerant was cast over him, brilliant and consumptive, and digs shallow, bloody half-moons into his palms as a ward against the flames. He doesn't take his eyes off Falco's awful, slippery huddle of grief, as if looking away might risk losing him here and now, years peeled off and vanished like curls of ash.]

Falco.

[Paul expects his voice to split and twist into the dreadful chorus, but it doesn't, and somehow that's worse, that he hears only himself: young, controlled, knifed through with hot and hideous panic.]

Falco, look at me - [he slides across the cave floor, heedless, halfway to the younger boy] - whatever is wrong, whatever you think is going to happen - I'm not letting it.

[ his gaze resists to rise, but only for a moment. they meet with his elder brother's in a way that is wide, raw and hideously wet like an animal already cornered, already knowing what is to come. his breathing stops for a second to listen, because he knows, what would come after was a snort meant to keep the strength of his tears at bay. it doesn't help much but make his voice more muffled, drowning and nasally. ]

How—? [ it was good to have hope, sometimes. hope may lead to ways out made unaware to the eye so blinded by desperation. today he cannot see it. he wishes to, but there seemed to be a difference between hoping for the possible and relying on something unrealistic, proven. false hopes. ] It's biological—

Then we find a treatment.

[A stranger might interpret his intensity as fury, and they'd only be half wrong. Paul was fashioned to pursue goals relentlessly, to behold the universe as a place meant to be bent to his will, and to this engine was yoked a heart that beats too human for him to have ever become the thing he was meant to be.

But the thing he was meant to be wouldn't already be sorting through the internal library on the metaphysics of transformation and alteration he's built over the past months. The thing he was meant to be wouldn't tear off a strip from the bottom of his shirt and toss it to Falco as a handkerchief. The thing he was meant to be wouldn't soften himself along his sharp edged concern into the steady confidence he has sought to show Falco in his hours of need before.]

I'll help you. We'll find other people to help, like the last time you were sick. I'll talk to your fathers. Whatever it takes, however long it takes, we'll find a way.

I won't give up on you just because you say so, you know.

[ would it be easier to accept an inevitability or open the horizons to a possibility? at first, falco had thought (and was conditioned to accept) the latter of the situation. it was the truth and the truth, facts, had been that was for hundreds of years. would hoping change that? would technology change that? would a world that was not his, but has grown to be— be the answer? where magic and ritual are as fact as science was to marley, should he believe paul?

he wants to. he finds the shivering in his core, from his heart within the cage of his ribs, wants to so, so desperately. to have a long enough life to live with his brother for however long trench would have them. he hoped it was beyond them getting old and making their lives, since he couldn't quite have one back home. not the way and with the family constructed here.

how he wishes to reach over to him. how tightly is he holding in his tears to the point that his flattened lips are puffed. at the top, jerking his shoulders up and down with as silent hiccups could be. it doesn't stop his crying. it makes it inherently worse, so much of them streaming at once and ribboning at the end of his jawline like thick paint rather than simple beads of water— and he still manages to stay quiet. ]

When we get rid of that— That curse— [ he's wiping the entirety of his arm across his face, and god does he make a stringy, slimy mess of himself, but that pulls out a choked gasp that wants to laugh at how much he looks like a slug. ] I can hug you all I want, right?

[Paul is propped up on one hand like he needs another anchor to the earth to remind him to stay still, and still he stays for a heartbeat after Falco's question. A smile comes across his face, unexpected and crooked, and his shoulders heave like Falco does. The noise he makes isn't laughter or a sob, but both, a burst of tension breaking like a storm cloud.]

As much as you want.

[It's the things he doesn't expect that catch him up. His breathing doesn't steady, but stays trembling. His voice is crumpled by pain and wonder, and his shoulders won't stop hitching.]

You'll get sick of me first, I bet. Tell me to go away.

[Falco would do no such thing, but that's the fragile soap bubble of the joke. Paul brings his free hand up to rub at his sore eyes, tearless and aching.]

Have to get you a bath first.

[ a hiccup of sound comes from falco's throat in a way that would've allowed him to laugh. his lips aren't quite brimming with a grin, but there's a little chip upwards, there. a sign that things could get better. he believes them to, and quite wants it to. he could never imagine growing tired of paul, especially not now when he wished for all his loved ones to keep secure under his wings. if he could help it, they'd all stay right there. ]

Maybe if I don't, I'll stick to you.

[ obviously another jest; falco greatly dislikes when he slimes, but while paul has decided to consider something so outrageous as him getting sick of his brother's hugs— well, so will he! ]

[Another answering rasp of noise. The two of them could go and pass for the seabirds squawking outside, if they wanted to. Paul sits back on his heels and mirrors the crooked little not-smile on Falco's slime covered face.]

That's disgusting.

[But it's as close to normal as they get: a little brother teasing his older one about being a sticky mess. It's a promise about the future that isn't an endless mess of this, one of them in flames and the other running against a vicious internal clock.]

You'll get - all covered in hair and bits of leaves. We'll be run out of town - have to live in the woods -

[He's rambling. He never rambles. Talking a lot isn't the same thing. But here he is, words tripping ahead of his thoughts before he takes a breath and settles, expression turned serious and soft once more.]

But that'd be all right.

[ falco had been close to living in the woods twice as is. it shouldn't be too bad of a possibility, and even in jest, it wasn't. if he were ever run out one day with paul because of becoming a blob, they'd be able to survive. skills they had to function in an environment like that were already moves of power. they'd be unstoppable, but not because of the former. ]

As long as I have you— I'll be alright.

[ as long as he had paul to return to, it was as if he hardly needed much else. his little hermit camp here, with fire and cursed books (and the book he has also brought, and leaves at their feet for paul to touch upon later), something does occur to him in this crackling silence doused in dancing lights and embers. ]

Do you have food?

[ he hasn't been eating due to his upset stomach brought on by so much slime, but he doesn't forget to at least try to nibble. he'd never forget to take care of his people, in that regard. ]

[How the tables turn: Paul snorts wetly, some trace of moisture left within him after all. He's not amused by Falco's concern for him directly, but by the absurdity of it all - the fact that the small, mundane needs of life persist even in these terrible moments.

He recalls following Confetti back to Falco's cave, the little creature's arms piled high with stolen food. Paul is even in a cave full of light too.]

I have food, but...

[I miss you. It's not the same. I get too sick to eat. I want you to have a reason to come back. I want you to have something to do, because I know how awful it is to be helpless in the face of things like this.]

It's not as nice as what you make.

[Falco is right. If they have each other, they'll be all right. Paul believes that.]

[ so that’s how it is. being hounded for real food—!

(no, you can easily tell that it butters falco up, even when the breath past his teeth accompany his head shaking side to side) ]

I’d bring you more things, anyway. [ there was no way around that. paul was doomed to a close to infinite amount of lunches made with absolute care— bread rolls shaped like mutated sparrows, steamed roots, and smoke dried fish meat, if he came across a filet for trade. ] What if I bring dinner— and tell you a story?

[ it had been quite funny, or rather amazing, how the night had started one way, his mood on the verge of foul and depressed— to this. the power of self care and loved ones played an important pillar to his support web. he would not be able to do it without them. ]

[It's not a full break in the clouds, but it's pale, lancing sunlight still to see Falco melt with something besides discoloured slime. He looks more like himself when there's a spark of hope in his eyes, and Paul thinks that's what brothers are for: cupping hands around that light when the sky greys over and the wind whips cold.]

I'd like that.

[There'd be no stopping Falco, but there's a difference between help foisted on someone and help invited in. Falco should always feel like he's welcome. Paul breathes out with a ripple of light threading through his curls, and the air temperature drops by half a degree.]

As long as it has a happy ending. Promise?

[Another inevitability, but if he asks, he gets to pair it with a crooked smile and the new lightness of his voice. If he asks, that's more proof he believes in them.]

Promise.

[ falco stands, pushing at the sand to stay upright, taking his arms and wrapping them around himself— just a gentle gesture that this is where he would hug him quite tightly. actually, he would've hugged him so much more, but he wants to make sure to send this one. he leaves with a face always looking back, the book left to paul's taking and study. when he returns, it will be with a little box he's prepared just for him, no matter the time. it wasn't as if he was sleeping well, to begin with.

the story, to some surprise, was not romance. the genre still stung falco in a way that loss has created some advertence to the stories, at least for a while. what he prepares for paul is a classic to some: a summarized version of the whale. ]

wolves in the middle of town | october catch-all

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

and that's a wrap!🧡