'I... I just want you to have something...'
And he wanted to have less something. Less duty, less people depending on him doing everything right, less people asking him. Anger flared a deep red. Oh, Dolores, his twin, his equal. In all ways but one. Dolores, Dolores, Dolores. She was in the room even when she was not. Such an interesting character, her. What character? Whatever one imagined that she was when he was right there. Carrying everything hard that she didn't find the will to do, taking those risks, so Dolores could live a quieter life with less cares that he dreamt of.Should have. Should, could, must, never led to 'why'. Why was he still here?
So he gave the paladin his own 'should' to ponder.
His head filled with noise, a quiet surrender. Smells, colors, even most of sensation from touch but pressure mixed slowly like stirred molasses.
Oh gods, he must have been... He should have stayed in bed.
Words danced on his tongue. A competition? No. It was a confession, over now that the picture became clear.
That Aelius walked out of this barely knowing anything of him for a reason, and by design.
For a reason of gateway opening with tears flooding only in one direction - that was the rule, the one who spilled and the one who held the gateway, because both could not afford to be ruined at the same time. The switch didn't flip on a dime to change places, when you were strong you were bracing, bracing harder, because being entrusted with a burden was the opposite of sharing yours. Aelius, at least, seemed to spot the petition where many would keep talking. But... Walter was too used to listening to people talk.
By design, because Aelius still walked out of this having given him all the levers and having received all the spokes that would break the will with time, with any amount of thought and want - and sans want, well, the paladin would not return to loving his yoke easy, because those thoughts tinged by anger and grief, the two most powerful emotions besides lust, would get stuck in his head and sting.
To want Aelius in the simplest way bodies could want, and not dip into lust as the easiest tool of control.
Because he was not safe. Because want did not mean need.
To feel soft about Aelius, and expedite his ruination, if not by his then by Walter's own devices.
Because this was political. Because Arshaka could breed more pyromancers, but this one's loyalty could be cracked.
It did not mean he did not like the man. It meant that, like with everything in his life, desire coupled with function.
And function trumped desire, almost always. It had to. Only he could carry what he had. What he could. What he should.
Like with his own feelings, he had to coddle them and analyze them at the same time.
"Good night."
He wished it could be otherwise.
'Let's run away to the Free Cities. I could find work. We'd get a house, another wolfhound. Go to the sea. I think the tan would-'
He never spoke of David to Aelius, after all. There was just no space to add his own grief.
His body moved, but his mind was far away. Fingers ran down the vest buttons, and he remembered hands atop his own. Another soft, kind boy, long after David.
I swear, another voice, imperfect memory, I won't leave your side again. I ran because I was afraid, of what was in my heart.
'But you did leave. Where I could not follow.'
You are not one of us, so your... status will be complicated.
'But I was as powerful as you, and more so outside the ocean.'
He didn't see nightmares often anymore.
But he did sometimes, in the corner of his very sharp perception, see tethers.
And a grey-brown murky silhouette by the window, in the city that was warded against undead, that could have only arrived under his own... cloak.
Go to sleep, Walter.
He slipped the boots off, and went back under the covers, mask slipping off with a whining sob of relief stifled against the pillow. No tears came. The choked breathing eased.
Hours later, hours before dawn, Anthea entered the room. Silently placed a small bowl of oils mixed into water. For an hour or two, it smelled like an old shrine. And then, it was quiet.
[END]
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