chrisisofaith | IC Contact

[Thats…a small surprise. He was usually the one so adamant against the center, he figured potentially choosing it would be indicative enough that he’d thought it through.

But Wolfe doesn’t ask if he’s sure, he says please.]

Id not be in it and they’d know

There’s probably a sex line I can call

You seem overly concerned, love

not overly

[ Chris isn't concerned enough. ]

I don't want to see you like that.
To know they

DogLord is typing...

Amelia went to the centre last month. She hadn't wanted to take the drugs they gave us and she gave me very good reasons.
It's only right that you both be allowed the stands you wish to make, but
They just pumped her full of something that made her need it anyway
And I
id told her I'd wait for her and take care of her myself because I love her and I thought I could just make it...

How she and I are.

But they made her crave sensitivity and I couldn't simulate it with my magic.
I had one pill left over, so I
Give it to her
Forced it on her.
I put it in my mouth and kissed it into hers.
I thought it was for the best in the moment, that she could hate me for it but I would bear it because it meant she wasn't in agony not being able to find relief.
I took her choice from her. Knowingly and intentionally I have her that pill expressly against her wishes and I did it with no outside influence.

We've talked since but I find it hard to bring myself to even touch her.
If that's how you're feeling too, then I am so sorry, my heart.
But please... Please don't go there.
I can't-
I can't handle it.
It's selfish, I know it's so selfish, and I'm so sorry

[ He's never felt weaker than right now, asking for such a thing. ]

[He waits and reads through it all twice before he lets himself sit with that information.

If that had been him in Amelia’s place…he would not have responded well to Wolfe. Not before he’d been forced to brutalize him himself. Now he might just call it retribution for Wolfe’s part.

He knows better than to put that into writing.]

Thats a horrid place to be in. And not a kind thing to do to either of you, but I won’t argue it when it isn’t my place.

And that’s not what you’re after.

[He knows what Wolfe is after and he types and deletes a few things before sending anything.]

You don’t have to see it. Or deal with it. I wouldn’t put that at your feet.

But alright
I’m sure some dom will be happy to provide phone sex
Or whatever he thinks is phone sex, I don’t expect it to be inspired

[Which suited him fine, really, he wasn’t looking for intimacy, just utility.]

Thank you

[ He's a mess. Wolfe thought he'd been keeping himself together alright, trying to work past it all, but that's different than working through. It's different than facing it. He thought they had, maybe, the day of the Finder when he and Chris had found each other in their own darkness, but it wasn't enough.

Maybe it never would be. Not if they don't talk.

He'd rather do this in person, but Chris wouldn't. Chris would let him bleed it out and keep everything of himself tucked safely away until Wolfe pushes too hard. But Wolfe's no longer sure he can push like that and not break them both. ]

I'm sorry
I don't know what else to do...

[That new, acrid, sting of self hatred that had been following him about for the last couple years had only grown more sharp in the last couple months and it spikes in his stomach and his throat now.

He should have just lied and resolved to do the call on his own time. Soared Wolfe the fear and worry. Gods had he actually ever gotten better at this or was he always such a terrible partner and foolishly believed he’d improved?]

You've nothing to apologize for, love. Thank you for checking on it while I’ve still got time to fix it. I’ll keep on next month better, you shouldn’t need to ask after me; gods know how many times I’ve harped to Jon on how it’s no different than regular hygiene or meals here.

I’m more worried about you

I'm doing as well as I can be.

[ Which is the diplomatic way of saying he's in a constant state of teetering between doggedly pushing through anything that comes his way and deciding that staying in bed for days is an entirely normal thing to do.

He can't keep going on like this, pretending everything is fine and going through the motions. He's going to turn out numb, and that's even more terrifying than this feeling of something large an sinister clenching his chest. ]

neither of us are alright
I hate this.

You feel so far from me and I know why but I don't know how to fix it.

[ I don't how to bring us back to where we were.]

I used to know but something in me broke these last few months.

I'm not even sure this makes sense.
I want you to lean on me. I know you don't want to because of what happened
But I want to fix it
I need to fix it because the alternative can't happen.
I won't let it

Please just talk to me. Even if it hurts.
Especially if it hurts.

[ Begging isn't going to help. He might just be pushing Chris further away, but the words fall out of him like spilled over tears. He's a little glad Chris can't see or hear him like this. ]

[He's on the verge of typing 'bullshit' and accepting the hypocrisy in calling Wolfe out when his mage does it for them and Chris deletes what little he'd written.

Especially when he reads those painful words: 'you feel so far from me.'
By design, wasn't it? Lingering touches that no longer linger quite so long. Kisses that remain chaste. Smiling off any innuendo because they both know they're not going to follow through with it. Little things to put space between them when they'd been so tightly entangled before.

Yet his fingers hover over the letters with no ability to move them. 'I want you to lean on me' wars with 'something in me broke' and Chris' reactions to those are too opposed.]

You say something in you broke and then ask me to be selfish and lean on you? I don't know that I can. I'd rather help you to right yourself and find stability in you again than take what you can't afford give.

And if I can't help you, then I'd rather find out who can. I need you to take care of you because I don't feel I've the right to any longer.

It's not selfish if I'm asking
Fuck, that is helping.
If you want to help me then don't treat me like I'm as fragile as I think I am.
Prove to me I'm not.
I would rather hold you up from the ground then stay standing on my own just for the sake of it.

I don't want to fix anything if it's without you.

[ A year plops on the screen of his phone, starling Wolfe as he didn't realize he was crying. Fuck, why can't he stop? It feels like the only times he's able to stop entirely lately is when he can share Chris' space.

There's a long pause while Wolfe struggles to figure out what he wants to say and how to say it. ]

I know that was indescribably awful. I know you'll remember it for the rest of our lives.
I will too.
But the part I will remember is when you came back to me.
When you looked at me with recognition and we decided together that the only way out was through.

You're not the one who broke me, Chris.
The city, maybe, but not you. From where I'm standing you did the best you could when it was you.
It was your body before that, maybe even your decisions and your magic, but it was missing a fundamental basic pillar of who you are.
It was missing your care. The affection that can sometimes be sharp and leave marks but always protective. Always safe.
That didn't feel like safety and so it wasn't you. It's not you without being able to care for the wants of someone else.
So no, Chris. You're wrong.
You have the right because I gave you that right and I have never once regretted it.
Not now or ever.

So please... Unless you don't think me worthy of your time or effort anymore on my own flaws...

[ He hopes the autocorrection feature is working because he can't see the screen anymore. All he wants is to go fine Chris and hold him. To barrier them both against the world, but he's not even sure where he is right now.

Wolfe himself is hiding upstairs in the corner of an empty conference room. He shouldn't have come to work today, not feeling so empty as he does, but he hadn't really thought about it. He thought he'd been getting along alright but today it's become clear to him that he's simply been going through the motions. This conversation has simply cracked the dam he's been trying to shore up since testing. ]

I love you. Need you.
I feel like I can't breathe.

[The words batter his mind, his resolve, some kindly others less so. He types out more than one response and deletes them.

'I wish I'd died instead.
I wish I could peel my skin off and find the rotted part of me I can taste to at least be rid of that.
I wish I'd switched back to Bane sooner...but would he have condone all of this? Would he have condoned what I was? If he had how could I ever have considered forsaking the Raven Queen?'

All deleted in the span of moments between messages until all he can see is the last few. Doubt. Still, doubt that Chris thought any less of him for what he'd been made to do despite his assurances.

I need you. I can't breathe.

He shouldn't go to him. Would it help?
If it would help Wolfe...

He tries to cling to the assurances he's been offered. That he would never do that, be that in his own mind. That, were all the pieces together, that heinousness wasn't of Chris Sonom.

But what if they drug him again? What if they break him apart into what they need? That part of him was still in him, still part of him. Somewhere in him, he was capable of that violence to someone so important to him...
After the Siren...he'd thought there was a line he wouldn't cross...but maybe the siren's instincts should have been a warning.]

Chrystal didn't deserve to die just to become me. She'd be disgusted. And disappointed.
My family back home too

[A sob cracks through, unbidden, from his chest and tears dampen his lashes even as he blinks them away. Where would Wolfe be? Switch Street...

Chris moves to the edge of the cliff in the forest, the crash of the waves below a comfort. This wouldn't be a kindness, but maybe he was simply made of unkindness.

Just a few weeks back, he's said using Gate to pull someone through to you was a waste of energy, and yet he lets loose his most powerful spell now, the swirling vortex opening there in the forest as Chris stands at the edge of the cliff in front of it. In the empty meeting room in Switch Street, a matching vortex opens just before Wolfe, the tugging power of it overwhelming to pull its intended target through.]

I do n 5 √°×✓¥

Wolfe's hand slips at what he's typing as a portal suddenly appears before him, buffetting him with arcane winds. It pulls at him insistently, his hair flying towards it and making it hard to see as it gets in his face. Wolfe barely makes it to his feet, stumbling for balance and ending up tumbling through the portal and into someone on the other side.

Into waiting arms and the smell of sandalwood and leather.

He doesn't ask about the portal, doesn't scold Chris for scaring him. He doesn't have words at all, just the will to wrap his arms around his love tightly, bury himself in that scent, and let out a silent sob that shakes his core not for himself, but for the man in his arms.

Edited (Disjointed text too disjointed ) 2024-05-24 00:11 (UTC)

One moment, he's standing there waiting, the next he can feel the tug of his target coming through the portal and Chris moves forward to catch his likely off-steady boyfriend into his arms. He's braced and ready and just wraps his arms about him tight, his fingers digging into the cloth of Wolfe's shirt as he does.

He can feel the sob rather than hear it and it just pulls more tears to his eyes even as he grits his teeth hard against them. He hadn't meant to make this worse. Gods, he always made these things worse, didn't he? 'These things.' As though he had any familiar ground to stand on.

He'd never sexually assaulted someone he loved before. Even if his hand had been forced, he'd still done the deed.
And maybe that thought makes him understand Jon's reticence to punish him more...but it didn't make him feel less guilty. It didn't make him feel less...hollow.

Still holding Wolfe, he keeps his eyes on the forest beyond them. "I'm...I'm sorry. I don't know...how to...you're not fragile. You're more than any of the times the city has used you or hurt you or forced your hand since this year started...but I can't stop thinking...you're the victim. My victim. It isn't right- it isn't your place to comfort me. To help me. That's what I need to do. There has to be some other way for me..." His voice, rough and low and wet already, grinds to a halt as words finally catch and choke him.

It strikes him for a moment that Chris sounds like Jon, saying Wolfe is his victim. It's true, to a point, but he shakes his head regardless. His voice comes thick and miserable, but there's still an edge of softness to it only ever reserved for Chris. "We're both victims. None of this is right, or fair, or just."

Wolfe's hands tighten in the back of Chris' jacket, bunching the stiff fabric as if he's afraid Chris will pull away from him. "I don't know what way there is, but I'll do anything to get us back to rights again. I can't keep feeling like this. Like I'm hurting you by reaching for you. Like I'm just a reminder of what they made us do."

That's what he feels like; a tool for harming others. A focus of misery and a reminder of failure. Wolfe burrows his nose further into Chris' shoulder. "It is my place because I won't let myself be just a victim, Chris. I'm your boyfriend. I'm your Champion, aren't I?"

He steels himself to lift his head, eyes red-rimmed and puffy on a face that nearly never shows such sorrow, but he locks them with Chris' all the same. "I don't have any answers. I just have this heavy, hollow feeling and how it's less when you're near."

It’s too much. It’s too many words in just the order to dig and press and some part of him wonders if he can shatter his own teeth for how hard they’re clenched. He doesn’t want to say anything. He wants to say everything. He wants to say the right things and not anything that will make Wolfe hurt worse.

“I’m sorry.” His voice shakes. “I put distance…I didn’t know what else…I don’t know how to work through this…and I’m scared to tell you what’s in…what I think and feel. I…” his voice cracks and he buries his face against the side of Wolfe’s hair.

“I don’t think I…deserve to feel better. You always make me…you make me feel better…but I’ve never felt this…twisted up. Not even after the Zoo…not after my own death…I should’ve-” he takes a wretched gasp of air that goes rough through his lungs and he has to stop again. If he breaks down now, he’ll simply fall to pieces.

Edited 2024-05-24 05:39 (UTC)

"I know, I try to do the same thing, only you usually don't let me," he inhales roughly, holding Chris against him. "So I won't let you either. Right now I don't care what either of us deserve. I just want to hear what's in your head. Even if it hurts."

He takes another breath, harsh and sore, his arms around Chris like he can shield him with them both inside and out. "Maybe neither of us deserve to feel better, but..."

Leaning back a little, Wolfe shifts so he can press his forehead to his love's. Tears still run down his face, but slower and fewer than before. He sniffles, rubbing the back of one hand over his eyes. "So be it, then. We can be undeserving together."

He takes another shaky breath under the fortifying feeling of Wolfe's forehead pressed to his own. He wants to claw and fight the words that Wolfe wasn't deserving. It was Wolfe's way of trying to compromise, trying to put them in the same place to move on from...but it feels wrong and sickening to think. Yet he'd made such compromises to Jon before for the same reason. 'Start here and we'll work on the rest.'

Tears slip free from his lashes and run down his cheeks. "I keep...coming back to the thought...I should've fought. I should've fought and killed and tore at anything and everything to keep them from doing what they were doing. Being complicit...wasn't a kindness. I should've died rather than do what they wanted...for me and for you. At least I'd have died the man you love...the man I want to be...rather than letting them turn me to something I can't stand."

He shakes his head and pulls away only to not have to look at Wolfe. "I can't stand the thought of you or anyone else forgiving me cause I can't...that's in me now...and they can pull it from me again. They might have forced me into it, but if there'd been no way to force that from me at all...if it'd not been there to find? I...I know I'm a bad person, but I didn't think I was like that..."

"I'm sorry," it's whispered as Chris pulls away. It's his fault. He'd asked, pleaded to Chris with his gaze to keep going when even Wolfe'd had the urge to fight too. He'd been too frightened. Scared of how that would have ended and then he fought anyway, after the fact, and found out. They should have fought.

It wasn't worth it.

Chris isn't looking at him - can't look at him - and a lump forms in Wolfe's throat that he can't quite choke down, but his tears stop. His trembling stops. The pressure on his chest remains but it's the same as it had been in Kirkwall so much of the time, there so much that it simply became part of him.

"I don't think you're a bad person," he shares quietly, standing still and watching Chris move from him. "Bad people don't worry if they're bad. They don't think of themselves as monsters for crossing their own lines, just that that it must have been justified or they wouldn't have made that decision."

He runs a hand across his face, doing what little he can to dry it, then looks at his palm. "Dying for someone doesn't make you a good person. It just makes you dead. Or here, it makes you forget for a time, but that isn't the point I'm trying to make."

Finally, he's able to swallow that back and speak from the chest. He feels calmer, that numb sort of calm that comes over him when he's facing a crisis. Maybe he is. Maybe he has been this entire time and just hadn't realized. "The point is they took something from you to make you do it. They had to artificially drag the tyrant to the fore. You, my Chris, are not that. You're capable of it, but it doesn't define you. Grieve that it's there, hate us both for complicity, but don't you ever believe that it's all that makes you."

Pressing his lips into a thin line, Wolfe resolutely steps back into Chris' space. He puts his hands on his love's shoulders and he kisses his forehead with probably more pressure than necessary. "Don't leave me because you're afraid of yourself."

Leave him?

It echoes in him and cuts where it lingers. That wasn’t…did he want to leave him?
No. Never. He could know he was the most acrid person in existence and he wouldn’t want to leave Wolfe.
But could he? If it were for his safety?

Yes.

More tears fall to his cheeks, but he only looks up to meet Wolfe’s eyes.

“I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to go anywhere…know that if I felt I needed to or wanted to, I would make that decision with you…but we’re not there yet. I just…I feel like a sickness and I don’t know how to heal it…but…please know I want to.”

He sighs and closes his eyes. “I want to feel worth your effort and love again. I want to feel like I can be safe for you…at the minimum.”

He’s still not sure Chrystal wouldn’t hate him…he’s still not sure he can ever face his guardians again with all that’s in him now…but if he can hold onto this, hold onto his love and life here, then that could be enough.

"Good," Wolfe says softly, his arms sliding down to embrace Chris instead, to pull him to his chest and tuck his head against his shoulder. His heart is still beating fast, but not as badly as before when he'd been on the edge of panic. Tears threaten his eyes again, though this time more in relief than sorrow. He holds Chris there for a long moment, hand on the back of his head, buried in blond curls.

Wolfe closes his eyes, taking a shaky breath that's full of the scent of sandalwood and salt. "I could live without you, Chris, if you ever decided. But when you've been my dearest friend and my strongest support, why in the name of your Queen or the Maker would I want to?"

Turning his head, he kisses Chris' ear, whispering softly. "One instant of blackness doesn't erase years of our history. We'll come back from this if we both are willing to work at it, and we'll be stronger for it."

He lets the words wash through him, even as some hateful part of himself wants to refuse and push back for no real reason. And he nods.

One black moment doesn’t erase the rest.
It puts him in mind of when Wolfe held him in a back alley, the Topher-like entity melted away for good beyond them.

Something feels like it shifts with a terrible crack in him and Chris’ hands find clinging purchase where they will as a shudder shakes through him. The tears drag from him like his lungs are made of sandpaper, but it doesn’t stop the wretched sobs that claw from him. For this, for himself, for them, for three and a half years of uncertainty and tension and abuse. For being so much better in some ways and so, so much worse in others.

Chris slowly falls to pieces in his arms but Wolfe holds him in shape as best he can, his own fingers digging into the leather of his jacket and the fabric of his shirt. Chris needs this; they need this. A reaffirmation of what brought them together in the first place. It's not just love but understanding, a willingness to step in for each other and a want to see each other grow and thrive and heal in the ways they can't allow themselves. To push back against everything in the city and in their lives that tells them they're not strong enough or deserving enough or good enough to have or hold what they have.

In this moment, with the sound of Chris' heart bleeding out against him, Wolfe would fight every one of those thoughts until his last breath. Beyond his last breath. He's pledged before Chris and before his Queen that he'll stay by his side into eternity and he holds to that, regardless of what the city and the Creator try to throw at them.

It centers him, that assurance in himself, and while his eyes prickle with sympathetic tears and he tucks Chris' head against his cheek to hold him close and forever, he feels a calm he hasn't felt in some time steal over him. This is the right choice for them.

Chris is the right choice for him.

"I've got you, my Chris. I'm never letting you go, not for this or anything else."

He cries until there's nothing left but trembling and the feeling there's still wracking sobs trapped in his chest that simply won't leave. They never fully do...they just wait and build again for the next time Chris Sonom falls apart. This time, at least, he has his Wolfe to remind him of his own shape again.

Eventually, Chris takes a shaky breath and turns his face to wipe away the tears and clean them both of his wet emotions. When he looks back, there's still vulnerability in his expression and a touch of fear in his eyes...but there's hope too. Hope that they can actually come back from this. That there is a way forward, even if he's not entirely sure of the right steps still.

He leans in to press a simple kiss to the corner of Wolfe's lips. "Thank you...I don't...want you to let go. I'm just...not sure what to do next. I just know I want to do it with you...at your side. I want to do right by you. I want...I want to make sure you know how much I love you."

"I know," Wolfe whispers softly, reaching to cup Chris' jaw with one hand and brush the tears from his cheek gently with his thumb. "I know on my bones how much you love me. I know in the way you curl your fingers in my shirt and how your eyes twinkle when you've a wicked thought you want to visit on me one way or another. I know in how it makes you so happy to know I love you the same, how you lean into me... I have never and will never doubt your love, Chris, because your heart is one of the most precious gifts I've ever been given, and it's my life's purpose to make sure it's safe." His soft smile tugs a little, wrinkles at the eyes for the anxiety that always creeps in. "You talk about being worthy of me or doing right by me but that feels... That feels wrong. This isn't a matter of worth. You and I, we've had to grow into big spaces. Champion, King, heroes, saviors, responsibilities... But with you I can just be... Me. And I want you to be able to feel that with me as well. You're only Chris, and everything that entails, good or bad. All I ever want from you... Is you."

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.”

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