chrisisofaith | IC Contact

[She doesn't like starting this conversation this way, but it's too painful to ask him directly. The conversation to come will be hard enough.]

Chris, I'm certain you know what anniversary is coming in a few days' time. We didn't really talk about it when I came back, and I know it's painful for many reasons, but would you sit with me for a while now? Wherever you feel most comfortable for such a talk, if you are at all. My home, yours, the park, the beach - anywhere.

I want us to both be all right, or as much as we can be. I love you. Please, I promise you can walk away if it becomes too much for you.

[Please let them be able to work this out.]

[This...takes him a bit by surprise. If anything, he'd half expected them to maybe avoid each other come day-of and just let it pass. Now she wants to spend time with him about it...and even offers the beach as an option.

It's braver than he'd give most credit for, but coming from her, it's maybe only a mild surprise when he thinks on it.

It's not like he can say no, even if he's not sure what she's hoping to get from this. If it can help, he owes her that.]

If we do this, can you promise not to back away from how you feel? Even if it hurts? Cleaning a wound can help it heal, merely pressing at it over and over again will only do more harm.

We'll meet at the beach. As close to the site as we can figure.

I will face this as fully as I can. It will be difficult, and I know I'll struggle, but I want to be open and honest with you. The only way to heal, as you say, is to work through this.

When are you available? I can meet you near the tide pools and we can walk together. Or we could fly there together, if you prefer? I won't ask you to carry my weight if you'd prefer not to.

Wolfe talks and says words as pretty as gemstones that deserve to be set into gold and it causes another waver in Chris' breath as his eyes close tight for one moment...two...and then open again. He doesn't shy from it. He needs it for how it feels right even as it feels uncomfortable.

Even the clarification that it wasn't a matter of 'worth' feels like balm and blade at the same time. That wasn't...quite what he'd meant was it? No, maybe it was, but he needed the reminder they weren't like that. They'd never been like that. And still, something tugs at him.

He leans his face into Wolfe's neck and brings his arms around so he can curl his fingers in the front of Wolfe's shirt and better feel those arms around him. "You're right...I just...all I want from you is you...but all I want for you seems to be something I can't offer and it tears at me. I just want to be safe for you. I'd...The siren had made me think you must be, even in my deepest level, because I never once thought about drowning you. I hurt you, but all I wanted then was your safety. Yet...I pushed your boundaries then too. I'm scared. I don't want to wake some day and find you're staying cause you love me...and not because y-you're safe with me."

The words catch a bit in his throat as his mind, again, flashes to Jon. Flashes to things his other partner has implied or said to him in the past...and now Chris can see was for much the same fear. And what had Chris' answer been?

He sighs and it sends a heavy quake through Chis' frame, but his voice holds when he speaks again. "But I...I I'll have to trust you that you'll know if that line is ever crossed. If it's ever too much or not enough for you. I...have to trust you'll help me as much as I'd help you in the reverse. Your heart is too precious to me to break intentionally."

"Oh, Love..." Wolfe moves his arms as he always does when Chris curls into his chest, wrapping around his head to create a small cavern of safety there against his chest. Or what he hopes is safety. What Chris wants for him he wants to give in return. Nothing is safe so long as they're in Duplicity, but it's the intention that matters. The action all the rest of the time. Wolfe has never felt more safe than in Chris's hands. Having that used against them in testing had been harrowing and cruel, but it hadn't changed that Wolfe knows beyond any doubt that if they were someplace else - in Deismyr, like they dream - nothing could take that safety away.

"I'll tell you, if it is," he concedes, because he knows it will set a little ease in his cleric's mind, sorely needed after all of this. He means it, too. He will tell him, but he doubts it will ever reach that point. He may not believe that Love is the only thing you need for a successful relationship any longer, but he a willingness to work through what comes, to face these things together, that they do have.

"I...have to trust you'll help me as much as I'd help you in the reverse."

Yes, they do have that.

"We'll work through anything that comes. Together, I promise you. I know you, Chris Sonom, and I know you would do me intentional harm in all the same likelihood that I would visit it on you." Which is to say, he wouldn't be in his right mind if he did.

He stays in that cocoon of arms and love and things part of him still struggles to feel worthy of…but he has no further argument against it. Not right now.

Gods preserve them this. How much more heartache could they take?

Chris takes a long breath in and slowly lets it out as he turns to press his cheek to Wolfe’s shoulder.

“I love you. More’n anything.” And nearly more than anyone. If he took his boys home and found his thief and his bard couldn’t handle there being new loves in Chris’ life…he knew who he’d have to choose…no matter how cruel or unfair it would be to Ra’ah or Kallian.

Jon and Wolfe were the supports of his soul, the threads bound so tightly to his own he wasn’t sure he’d be strong enough to stand without them any longer.

It’s not something he’s prepared to say out loud, now or ever if he can help it.

Some of the tension leaves his limbs even as the static plays at the corners of his mind and he shifts again to be able to kiss Wolfe’s cheek. “Sorry for yanking you to the forest.”

Your weight is not my concern. You feeling trapped with me is. We'll meet at the tide pools. I can always take you home if all goes well.

[As to when...gods, he'd rather she just decide what she needs in this case..]

I'm available day-of if you'd like, or day after if you have something else planned.

[It's difficult for her to accept his answer, but she does. Nothing about Chris has ever made her feel trapped, and she's certain this won't do it either. She's making the effort to listen rather than assume, though, and that sometimes means hearing things she doesn't want to. She can do this; it may only hurt and frustrate her a little along the way.]

The tide pools it is. The day itself. We don't work the night before, but would you meet me at dawn? I doubt I'll be sleeping at all, and I'll not let Wolfe stay with me until we're contracted again.

[He'll save his nights to give to Chris later in the month, damnit. This is a terrible anniversary, but she's not so fragile as to need their lover that night when she can speak to him the next day.]

[He could prepare his spells the day before, he rarely had to move them much, so he wouldn’t need his meditation time.

And maybe, after their talk…maybe he’d go for a swim. Or a drink.]

Day-of at dawn at the tidepools, I’ll see you then, darling. I’ll be sure Wolfe’s on standby should you need or like him after.

[Certainly, the day of, he wouldn’t be sleeping much either, he’d be ready to remind their partner of their meeting.]

She wants to fight him on that, too, but doesn't. At least one of them will be grateful their mage is ready and waiting after this conversation, she's certain of it.

Thank you. I'll see you then.

Her feet take her down the beach and to the tidepools in the hour before dawn that morning. Sleep had eluded her, as expected, but that didn't stop her or slow her down. This is where she needs to be and what she needs to be doing. There's no reason to hesitate or resist that truth.

While she's wearing her usual linens and leathers, closer inspection will find she's without any weapons on her person. No knives on her hips or thigh, nothing tucked in her boots. Her hair is braided low, and she's left every piece of jewelry at Shadows' Rest. It's a distinction she makes and gives to those she loves as a sign of respect: when she's with them, she wears only what they've given her. Chris has given her nothing, and so she wears nothing. She is his alone today, and this helps her feel it.

She offers him a soft, rueful smile when he approaches. Instinct and need war with her desire to take care of him, but she offers him a hand to take once he's closer.

"Thank you for coming to me here. Are you all right to do this? My exhaustion notwithstanding, I promise you I'm ready." As ready as anyone could ever be for a conversation as heavy, strange, and heart wrenching as this.

He hasn’t slept well, it was a more fitful thing even wedged between Wolfe and Jon as he’d done. He’d dressed quickly in a simple pair of slim, black, jeans and his flowing, loose, shirt from home tucked just into the edge. He doesn’t even wear his leather jacket, deciding instead to put the clasp that gave him his wings on the front pocket.

His holy symbol and the coin necklace he was never without still adorn his throat along with his collar, but any other ornaments are left behind. They didn’t feel right. Besides, if he was going to end up transforming and swimming away for a while after this, better to have less to take off.

He meets her with a small smile, his uncertainty and hesitation not a thing easily hidden, despite his attempts.

“I’m fine. I…suppose I’d only like to know what ‘this’ is…what you’d like to do, but I’ll defer to you to tell me in your own time. I’m unquestionably at your disposal.”

"A conversation. A chance for us both the air our thoughts without being weighed down by the fact that everything's barely a few days old." Everything had been so fraught when she reached out to him after she'd returned. Even with a night's rest and the solid reminder of everything she is given back to her by Wolfe's presence, she'd been so distressed when she'd seen Chris that next day. It's not much better now, but the distance has allowed her enough clarity to make this work.

"I want to talk to you about what happened, both while we were here and after at Shadows' Rest. What I was feeling and why..." She frowns softly. "Why even after all this time I can't blame you completely for what happened. It was complicated, and I'm still trying to sort some of it out in my head." She pauses, lips pressed together as she looks up at him. "I was hoping I could talk it through with you and hear your own thoughts. It helped me address things with Wolfe after what happened at the start of last month, and I was hoping it would help here, too."

There's nuance to everything, and she didn't allow for it after she came back. Everything was so overwhelming then that she tried to assert control by making everything a certain way, without letting him truly speak his mind. This won't solve anything, but she wants to make things better, if possible.

She gestures down the beach so they might start walking together. "Does that all sound well to you? You can tell me no and I'll simply spill my own thoughts if that's what you'd prefer. I don't mind, and it will still be helpful to tell you everything I've been too afraid or hesitant to say aloud until now."

Chris takes a deeper breath of sea air to steady some of the nerves he'd been nursing over the simple unknown. At least that made some sense. And wasn't...entirely without appeal in theory.

He nods and starts off down the way she indicates, much the same way they had when they'd only been able to communicate with each other. Though, this time, he tries to keep an eye out for the stretch of land from his clouded memories: when he'd dragged himself ashore in a panic after her death.

"Alright. We'll start as you suggest, I'll offer my thoughts where I can. I'd like to start with why you think it wasn't my fault entirely...and if you say it was the city, I might just scream so please don't." He says it very calmly, at least.
Wolfe might have been able to convince him that was the case with what had happened between them in the experiments, but it wasn't going to work here. Not with how many people had worked to convince him he was still himself with his Siren. What he'd done to her had been him.

A year ago she'd blamed the city, but she knows the siren is as much a part of Chris as anything else now. There's blame to be laid everywhere, in her eyes, the same as there is with what happened between her and Wolfe. It's picking it apart enough that she can properly convey it that's the true challenge.

"The city may have changed you, but it didn't force you to pull me into the water." She starts there, because it's important to address his concerns. "It's not your fault entirely because the siren was new to you. New instincts are the same as new hormones as a person grows: you don't always know how or why you do something, only that you need to do it. It can be resisted, but temptation is harder to resist so early into the change." A beat as she takes a breath to steady herself. "I looked at you and let my grief change who you were in my eyes. I called you the wrong name and knew it was wrong. I hurt you, and our relationship has always been one where we hurt each other in our anger and sadness.

"It wasn't right of either of us. I shouldn't have spoken to you like that or ignored the fact that you were in front of me. In that same way, you shouldn't have worked with whatever creature it was you rode on to take me under the waves. I was out of my mind with grief, but it still-- you still..." A long, shaky exhale. "You killed me, and that lingers even as I walk among the living again."

She's not scared of him, nor of the siren. She's not even scared of death. What does scar her is losing him to something that happened when they were both living outside themselves for circumstances temporarily beyond their control.

"I'm glad you did," he replies softly, returning his own kiss to the side of Chris' head again in those curls he loves so much. "I wasn't-"

His pause stretches for a moment, then he sighs and lets the weariness soak the edges of his words again. He's not going to keep anything from Chris. He'd asked for his love not to treat him as fragile even if he felt it. Wolfe owes him the same in return. "I wasn't doing well. Haven't been, really. My thoughts scatter and I dwell too long and keeping myself from simply falling apart has been a trial. I mean it when I say it's easier by your side. I've felt so alone recently, this is... Better. So much better."

The relief in his voice is palpable, and even if he can still feel that weight on his chest, it's eased just for being here, curled together in a knot with the man he loves.

Gently, he slides one hand from Chris' shoulders and finds his fingers instead, pressing his thicker digits in between to lace them securely. "I love you too. More than I can ever say. I'm going to spend the rest of this life and all of the next showing you."

There's a few things to process and address in that. The city had changed him...and he had been ill-prepared for dealing with the urges and needs of the creature, even if he knew what it was when he'd turned. He'd nearly drowned Wolfe and Jon and assaulted many others in the meantime. It had been him, but he'd been no better than a child handed a knife with no concept of death or dying yet in his head. His fault, but not without cause.

And, honestly, she could have been anyone.

Which begged a few other questions to his mind that weigh with what he actually wants to tell her a moment. In the end, he decides to let the questions wait.

"Back home, I fell before a golem made of metal and electricity. I died...well and truly, just as my sister before me. When Amnos brought me back, the others hadn't noticed and he didn't wish to speak to me of it...so, for a time, I kept what I was feeling to myself. It was Rhyt who pushed me, who asked me what I'd feared to put into words: 'does it feel like there's a hole in you that can't quite be filled?'"

The waves crash and the spray comes up to kiss their cheeks and he knows his words won't be enough for what he's trying to get across. "It's what I was trying to tell you a year ago...the living aren't meant to die and come back. We're allowed to by whim or gods or whatever happens here, but the soul isn't meant to remember something so traumatic. It scars and takes pieces of you every time it happens. What you're feeling now? That lingering...I'm sorry to tell you it will always be there. There might be times it feels less, particularly when you're laughing or loving...but there will be times it feels heavy, when it aches like an old wound...and there's no magic or herb that will lessen it, not even time. That's why I mourned what I did to you. Why I tried to do that ceremony before."

Hello, Chris. It's Wolf...I wanted to check in and see how you're doing. I would have come by to drop off something sweet, but at the very least I wanted to see how you are feeling.

I appreciate the thought regardless, I assure you there’s been baking done here recently to keep spirits up.

I’ve been better, I admit. My mind’s full of nothing useful or good

But I was worse when you last saw me, and not just for the situation I was in.

Thank you for your help, by the way

"I know it will." Parts of the experience are certainly less than they were in the days and weeks after she'd died. Having someone else living in the house after a few months had helped with much of it; a reminder of life that didn't exist when she needed it most in those first quiet nights. But that didn't stop the occasional nightmare, didn't take away the feelings that lingered until she could push thoughts of what she'd remembered down enough to forget about them. She'd been changed by the experience, and even if she didn't let herself show it most days, it didn't mean that wasn't true.

She could still remember being so enraptured that she couldn't look away. The euphoria of being wanted while water filled her lungs. The pain of being torn apart while she reached out to touch Chris' face one last time. All of it was there, as was the gaping feeling of nothingness that lived in the space between those last moments and waking up in Shadows' Rest days later.

"I don't know if it helped, the ceremony. I don't know if that's because of what this place is or the fact that your gods don't exist where I'm from." Her lips tug into a soft frown. "I wish I knew so I could tell you and ease your mind, even if it was to tell you a harsh truth, but I can't. The best I can offer is assurance that I'm grateful for the attempt. Knowing you cared and wanted to try after what had happened... it helps as much now as it did then."

It changes nothing about what happened, but it makes all this - her death, their suffering, this moment - a little easier to bear.

question for you.

vaguely ominous
go ahead?

say i'm interested in impressing a lady called amelia royer

what would you tell me?

fucking hells nate
really?

amazing

well be straight with her, she’s practical. used to run a house of assassins and spies.
she’s secretly a romantic though and can be swept off her feet with sweet gestures
she’ll also likely be charmed by your humor

gods the two of you will be a force in bed

yes really, i think she's brilliant

and somewhere in between both of us switching genders at each other, she threw out your name
so
i thought you were the man to ask

turns out i was right.
secret romantic you say?
you wouldn't happen to know things like, favourite colour, favourite flower. that kind of thing?

she’s one of my best friends and is the partner of one of my partners

we fight like siblings and have destroyed lives at each other’s sides. she’s about as close to a partner without being my preferred gender as anyone’s gotten

so I know her house color is a darker green than mine, though she likes most greens and blues and she looks killer in red
her favorite flower doesn’t grow here but I think you can get by with lillies and snowdrops

She is brilliant and you should start by telling her you want to take her on a date if that’s what it is, cause she’s an idiot about people’s intentions when it comes to her. She’s only had serious relations here.

IC Contact

Text | un: LadyRogue

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text --> action (also moving us to prose)

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Text, un:WolfSchaeffer

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@nate

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