chrisisofaith | IC Contact

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.”

"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."

He nearly goes tense again when Wolfe seems to hesitate, like he isn't sure he should tell him...but then he does and it stings, it puts a clamp in Chris' throat, but he's glad to have Wolfe tell him, regardless.
He should have been there for his partner more, rather than curling in on himself like a wilted flower.
He should have checked in on Wolfe more instead of assuming he had other supports who could help him or that Chris had done enough.
Wolfe shouldn't need him as much as that, wasn't that dangerous for his mage? Shouldn't he have been able to recover without him? Gods, what if he hadn't even come back from the testing as had happened with some?

Chris takes a deep breath and squeezes Wolfe's fingers and turns his face to kiss Wolfe's cheek, his voice low but steady when he finally speaks.
"I'm looking forward to it. I expect you at my side evermore, my Champion...my love. I promise to be at yours as well...I'll not leave you alone if I can help it."

IC Contact

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