chrisisofaith | IC Contact

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.

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."

"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.

He shakes his head a bit and wrestles with his words. "No...it was never meant to do anything...it was ceremonial. It was meant to ease your heart and mind, but no magic I have -here or at home- is enough to fix the feeling you carry now. That's not how it works. That is the harsh truth."

And not the only one. He gestures to a tall, jutting, rock that stands like a tower from the sand. At their angle, it makes it look taller than the lighthouse further down the beach, but Chris knows it as the half-way point between his tide pools and the lighthouse. It was about as close of a marker as they were going to find since he'd retreated there to make his call to Wolfe after her murder.

"We're here. Close enough, anyway. Tell me...why'd you come down to the beach? And why'd you call me by the wrong name if, as you claim, it was purposeful?"

Ah, so she misunderstood from the start what it was supposed to do. She'd truly thought it was for him, but her goal with every conversation after she woke was to reassure the ones she loved that she was all right, to make certain they were well after days of not knowing what was happening, if she'd come back, what she'd be like if she did. It doesn't really matter anymore who it was for or what it was meant to do, now that they're here.

An entire year of carrying this, with the knowledge she'll carry this every day forward. It's a terrible weight, but she can bear it. It's not so much that she can't when she's not alone.

"It's fine, Chris. Every life is filled with things a person must carry, good or ill. This one is heavier than others, but I can do this. Not because I simply must or I think I have to above all else," though those things aren't untrue, "but because I'm not simply hiding myself away the way I used to. If I struggle for any reason, I can say it. I do say it, otherwise we wouldn't be here talking through any of this." It's only a weight, painful as it is. She'll bear it and still make the most of her life because she refuses to be held down by everything. This, at least, she won't bury the way she has the deaths of her family. That should count for something.

She frowns, eyes turning to the waves and the surf. "I couldn't be alone in the house back then. Even after being drawn out to lift my spirits, living in it was reliving the heartache of remembering I was alone every second of every day. The beach can't remind me of someone who was never associated with the sea, and I'd heard it was a dangerous place to be. The combination felt appropriate, given how little I cared for my life at the time." She shakes her head, sighing so softly the sound is covered by the water lapping at their toes.

"I was still grieving openly, then. Seeing you, even changed as you were... I wanted it to be true that it was him again. It didn't matter that I knew who you were, because I needed him to be there." Her frown deepens as she forces herself to look back at him. "It wasn't to hurt you, it was to make myself feel better. It was selfish, and I didn't care if I hurt you in that moment because I couldn't think past my own pain. For that, I'm sorry beyond all measure. Even more so because you..." She struggles briefly for a breath. "Because you stood your ground against all of that when I needed a chance to say goodbye."

Dreams, she still regrets how she hurt him with that. Even if they've talked it through and everything is fine, she'll carry that guilt even into death. It'll weigh more heavily on her heart than anything else that's happened in between them.

Slowly, she takes a step back from him and bows her head low. She lingers there for a few breaths, then stands again to face him. There's no hiding from this, and she won't think to try. "I'm sorry, Chris. I love you, and I know at times it means we hurt each other, but I'm so sorry for this. I swear to you now I will never ask anything like that of you again, nor will I ever call you as anyone but yourself. I love you for you, no matter how we might hurt or hinder each other. You're family to me, and I never want you to think I don't want to make things right between us when the inevitable happens."

Edited (adding a small clarification in dialogue) 2024-06-23 04:42 (UTC)

Too much goes through him for him to fully process just then. The knowledge of the weight combined with her assurance she would seek help…the knowledge she’d called him the wrong name because he was the wrong person, that she’d come out because it was dangerous…

And she’s crying and offering him words he wants to fall into, but he can’t…not yet… he needs to ask, needs to know even ss he doesn’t. Tears well up and ring his eyes in red as he watches her.

“If…if I’d not been there that day…if it’d simply been other monsters…do you think you would have died regardless?” Was he the sole cause for having stolen a face from the planes, or did he not actually matter and had simply been caught in her suicidal urge?

He didn’t know which option was worse.

Her chest tightens at seeing tears in his eyes, watching his proud face tighten in ways he always resists. She knew this would be hard for them both, but as she watches him struggle to keep together, she wonders if it was too much to ask of him. If he falls apart or has to flee, it'll be her fault. He can't claim otherwise, nor should he. This was her choice, her ask, and that makes every part of this hers to own.

"I didn't know you'd turned or come here," she begins slowly. It's not fear of her own answer that gives her pause but a realization she's had but never put into words. "If you'd asked me then, I'd have told you I only wanted a flight. I wanted to hurt physically in a that could pull my thoughts from the ache in my heart. But..."

But...

Her expression falls into something close to despair. "Without admitting it even to myself, I would have done almost anything to end that pain. It mattered little how it happened, so long as someone or something did it. I couldn't take the knife to my own chest, but I was willing to let someone else do it for me." A short, tense breath. "I didn't know it would be you. I wish it hadn't been to spare us both so much pain now. In that moment, though... I was grateful it was you. It made the sting worse for who you are and who you are not."

Why did he ask when he's now not even sure what to do with the answer? So it could have been anyone...wasn't it better it had been him? Someone who could try and work through this with her as opposed to someone uncaring or cruel? Yet a selfish part of him wishes it hadn't been him as well. It felt like another layer of filth on him. He was capable of knowing he was killing someone he loved and doing it anyway...out of malice. He was capable of assaulting and violating someone he loved while knowing exactly what he was doing and his twisted why. Even if his mind had been not entirely his own in either case...what sort of monster did that make him? What else could he do and rationalize away?

Some of the despair Wolfe had shaken from him settles back into the core of his heart and he gives a small nod and wipes at his eyes to clear them. None of that.

"I'm glad it was me...I'd rather be the one to help you now. What...what can I do to help you with closure now? What will soften the ache to start?"

None of that. None of that need to hold himself tall or hide himself away. None of the thought that he has to be strong for her when this is hard for him, too. She won't stand for it.

Without a word, she steps into his space and wraps her arms around him. One around his chest and the other across the back of his shoulders. A grip light enough to escape, but one that speaks of a need to protect and comfort as much as it's a desire to be held. She hugs him, and if he doesn't pull away she tightens her grip, asking and giving reassurance with every part of herself.

"Let yourself feel this with me," she murmurs, just above the sound of the crashing waves. He can't see her face, but he'll hear the tears in her eyes and feel the dampness of her cheeks against his shoulder. "Please. I don't want either of us to be alone right now."

She doesn't want him to think he can't be as upset and sad about this as she is.

She steps in for a hug and it's instinct over thought to wrap her tightly in his arms. Hadn't they used to simply brush the air near each other without touching? A respect for both of their issues with too much contact...and yet now they had this. Now this kept the pieces together even as they threatened to shake apart again.

They had this, even now...even after all of it.
Couldn't that be enough?

It could be enough for now. For this moment. In the next moment...they could figure something else out.

Chris buries his face into her neck and hair, the scent of her its own balm even for all the complicated and torn emotions he still can't settle. Maybe he never would, a wound he could carry all his own for having given one to her.

"I love you." It's only for her and the wind, but it needs saying. He hadn't responded to her words before, but he needed to now, for both fo their sakes.

A smile forms on her lips as she holds herself to him, tears of relief in her eyes. "I love you, too. I always will."

This is what she needs for closure. She needs the reminder that he's Chris and that no matter what they do or say to each other in the heat of the moment, they choose to be here. They choose their love and connection and come together to simply... be. She knows it, always, but feeling it is always better than simply hearing it or reading it through text.

There's so much else she'll want or need in time, but this is where it starts. This is where it will always start: with the two of them, together, facing whatever's come their way.

"Walk hand-in-hand with me until we reach your door." She doesn't let go of him as she says it, arms clasped around him as if she'll float away without his solid weight beneath them. "Tell me about--" She exhales a tense breath. "Tell me about the siren. I... I haven't asked because I was afraid to know, but it's part of you now. I want to know all parts of you, the same as I always have." The same as she always will.

"Tell me all this, and help me understand more fully who you are with it. That's what I need right now." After she can finally let him go to start their walk. Dreams know that in these first few seconds, she's not yet willing to part from him to make their way toward home. Even when she does, she'll take them on the most meandering path she can.

They have all day together, and with him is where she needs to be. Where they are now that the worst is out barely matters at all.

He keeps her hand tight in his and walks along with her as she decides. To his door, around the entire city, he would go wherever she wanted in that moment.

"Alright...Someday...someday I will show it to you again. In a better light." Maybe that would help as well, but for now it felt like a step too far.

"It was difficult to change at first -scary- I felt less like me when I was like that. Now...now I have more control, I know the instincts better and know myself. I can be myself more. You and I...we sometimes have a hard time getting the words out or getting them right, but singing as my siren doesn't muddy anything with my clumsy use of language. I can share my feelings and thoughts and wants with clarity. Sometimes too much clarity, but even that's...freeing." He sighs and looks out at the ocean, that longing song in the back of his mind a faint echo easily ignored these days.

"Between the wings for flight and the gills and fins for swimming...the whole thing feels like the freedom that had slowly been choked from me here. It's just...another facet now."

What a strange and unexpected boon to come from something that was so painful for a time. To have a way to overcome something you struggle with is always welcome, but this is the most unique way she's heard of it coming to pass. She's not ready to see the siren again today, but she's grateful to know he's found peace with it. Having known about it since the finder outed him about it, she's been curious. It never felt like something she could ask about until today.

"I can't imagine what that's like," she admits with a squeeze of his hand. "For all the things we share, I've never felt trapped the way you have." By his body when he was young, by the crown he wears in his world, by the extra limitations the city puts on him. She chose to tie herself down and stay that way in Ragneux, the same way she chooses to toe the line here with only a few violent moments to sate that need to give back some of what they get. He struggles to speak in ways she never has, too, and the siren frees him from all of it. Temporarily, but if it's enough to ease his mind and worries for a time, isn't that enough?

"When you share your thoughts as the siren... is it always in song?" The way it was a year ago on the very beach they're slowly leaving behind?

He's quiet while they walk, while she seems to think his words over and he, in turn, thinks over her words. How she's never felt trapped quite like that. He hadn't considered it before, but it was true to a degree, wasn't it? Part of her fear of going home lay in losing who she'd become. Who she'd found with the freedom to simply be here. She had more freedom as a dominant, sure, but beyond that she was clever and resourceful and could make it work for her in a way Chris isn't even sure he could manage if their designations were switched.

He pushed against everything around him, where she flowed to fit the crevices and wear them like a crown. If she'd been the one to turn into a siren, she would have made that work for her from the start as well, he was sure.

"No, I can talk as normal, just...comes with an odd sort of echo to it, like my voice has more sound to offer and no where to put it. Although, if you mean 'can I speak in my head to other people' then no, that's just through the songs and I don't have much control over it. It's like...an impression of thoughts through the songs, as opposed to actual words." He shakes his head. "I'm likely not doing it justice, but it's a little like trying to explain walking to someone who's never done it before, it's just something I learned I could do."

If he ever meets a siren expert here, he'd definitely be picking their brains about it.

It sounds beautiful and she can understand why stories call the songs of sirens hypnotic. She's felt that pull, but the way he explains it makes it truly make more sense. Now she has to wonder how many fall prey to these creatures back home, whether to pleasurable ends or terrible ones doesn't really matter. Her curiosity wants to know all.

"Thoughts and feelings through song that don't require words," she muses, a small smile on her lips. "It suits you. Many things about the sea do, but this above many other things feels right for you." A creature of beauty and death, of feelings too big to get out without help. Chris is many things and she'd never have chosen this for him, but now that it's a part of him she can't imagine him without it.

"It's all right if you're not getting it across well. I've experienced some of it already, and someday I hope to know it again so I can understand it even better." She squeezes his hand gently. "I could no sooner explain how or why I do or experience certain things. What you've offered is plenty, I promise."

He squeezes her hand back and then, after another moment, brings it up to kiss the back of it in quiet thanks.

"Some day I'll show you...but thank you...for trying to understand for now. Gods know you didn't have to and I'd not have blamed you."

They're not too far from their homes now, a few more blocks and Chris feels...lighter. It's still complicated, maybe not entirely healed...but better to talked out. Maybe more what he'd been hoping for a year ago, but neither of them were good enough at words to figure that out.

"If you think of anything else you might need from me...to help, even if I can't fix...promise you'll let me know it."

That small kiss makes her heart soar. He didn't have to be so gracious about any of this, yet he does so now that they've talked through this and made more space for themselves to feel everything that happened. It was difficult, but she's so grateful for this time with him. She smiles warmly at him as he speaks, choosing to listen and think before they finally come to a stop at the edge of Marzipan Terrace's yard.

"I will tell you if I think of anything, I promise." She turns to him and lifts her free hand, brushing her fingers across his cheek as she tips his face to allow her to kiss his forehead. "Thank you for being here with me, Chris. I love you so much, and I'm glad we had this."

Slowly, she withdraws and gives his hand one last squeeze before turning him toward the door and letting go. "For now, I ask you rest and focus on yourself. Our mage will be there for you if you need him, and I'm but a message and short run away if you need me." She nods to the door. "Go, my cleric, and know my heart is with you always. We'll see each other again soon."

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cw: talking though past suicidal ideation

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