[The Bond is hemorrhaging across neat partitions and divides. Maybe even Near and Light feel something of this, and that makes all of this so much worse. Weak and pitiful, hungry for things that shouldn’t matter to him, the warm gentle fiction and the stupid crush he occasionally takes comfort in is stripped and exposed.
He thought he’d hidden it well. He thought he’d done a good job keeping it from burdening one who deserved better. Is it out, is it on land now...?
He realizes that Myr is correct. His fear is deafening; he’s ruining what was good, because he got greedy.]
Sorry... I’m sorry. S—-
[An apology both excessive and half-formed. He’s got a job to do, and he’s failing; some part of him believed he stood a chance when it shouldn’t even have been a fantasy. He dropped the ball utterly on keeping Myr safe from something he can’t kill, and this time he can’t kick Myr from a dream that is here and horrible.
The door is tempting. The impulse to rifle through a medicine cabinet for some semblance of control is overwhelming. But even if he should be muzzled, he knows it’s wrong to leave his blinded, confounded Bonded this way.]
I’ll turn it off. I’m going to help you...
[He could be sick; he could use the chance to see what’s in the cabinets in Myr’s home away from him.]
Let me fix this.
[He needs help. Any help; already a plan is forming to find a problem solver, somewhere, so that he can solve a problem.
A problem remains, though: he can’t walk away from that look on his faun’s face.]
[Don't apologize, he wants to say, and cannot find the words around the feeling of drowning in something he does and doesn't understand.
Does: Because he's known what it is to want something, someone forbidden and having to bury that deep to avoid shattering a friendship. Has known, too, what it is to fail at that quarantine and lose something precious because of it.
Doesn't: Because for all his own self-image has suffered in the past few years, he remembers to his bones what it is to be instantly desirable to others. He was handsome once (still is, he's been reassured over and over again); even if he feels undesirable now, the notion of his own desire having always been an intolerable imposition on others is as foreign a feeling as breathing water.
He's in no place to try and sort through the knots and skeins of this right now. He doesn't even realize half of it, what points of their history align (or don't) to make this moment both profoundly sympathetic and profoundly discordant. He only knows that they both hurt, they are both afraid and nearly ill with that fear, and both want to be anywhere but confronting this thing that they can only stay and confront together.
Myr dimly registers how his fingers ache as he unknots them from his sleeves and reaches both hands up in supplication to his Witch. It's a gesture with a powerful longing beneath it, a need to draw L to him and hide his face against his Bonded and erase every other sensation in his awareness (scent-touch-sound-Bond) of the other man.
Let him fix this.]
Please. [Very quietly.] I trust you to.
[Even if he is gashed inside and still bleeding, still confused. He trusts the hurt was incidental.
[Trust is a form of grace. In L's world, and in his particular sphere, it's a profound thing to give it to someone, and in spite of the fact that they are Bonded, that they have been for over a year and were friends even before that point, it hasn't lost its weight or significance.
In L's mind, there's no if; there's no maybe or hopefully. He'll fix this; it's as certain as if it's already done, and the only thing he has to worry about is what connects the intention with the result, a simple tether tied between two stakes driven firmly into the ground.
Such certainty has a way of quieting fear, at least momentarily. His breathing is shallow and soft as Myr reaches for his bony shoulders, drawing him close, pressing against him like he's any source of strength or security and not an outright mess of a human being who can't help but damage even what he means not to.]
I'm sorry I accused you of lying.
[It's easier to say it over Myr's shoulder with a face that's hidden against his own. His own hand hovers, not quite touching the faun's back.]
When reconciling what my heart knows, with what the evidence seems to say, I don't always know where to place my own trust. Especially since...
[That whole Kira thing; that whole dying thing, which is why in his mind, and his dreams and his attitudes toward the future, he is a pale drowned man who just happens to still move and speak.]
[This is better. The storm across their Bond is quieting; Myr has his Witch in his arms and can reassure himself through contact that L wasn't about to slip away from him. That L hadn't judged him faulty, mad, dangerous and worth abandoning.
Myr's Witch is a source of strength to him, even if it's often the sort of strength one must dig up to protect another. Right now, though, the detective's conviction--and physical presence--are a more straightforward support. Which is why--
I'm sorry I accused you of lying.
--the Faun's embrace tightens; he pushes his face further against L's shirt and shudders in a soundless sob. It's ordinarily so easy for him to forgive, to understand the strange twists his Bonded's mind takes and know whatever offense was given wasn't meant. It's ordinarily easy but right now it isn't despite how desperately he needs his Witch's help. Guilt writhes in the pit of his stomach at the contradiction and at his own utter weakness in this moment, born of old curdled terror and new fear and exhaustion.
I knew you weren't lying.
What does one say through all of that?]
I understand, [he mutters, cloth-muted, into L's shoulder.
(He does. But put aside what's been revealed about Light, for later. If they make it to later. When they make it there.)
A moment, a breath. Myr swallows hard and pulls back enough to be heard; it puts his lips nearer his Witch's ear.] I do understand.
[But.]
I rely on you. You're my Witch. My partner. [Helpmeet. Beloved.] And that--hurt.
[It still hurts.
His voice drops to a whisper, guilt and guilt and guilt in their Bond that he has to ask, has to make his own forgiveness conditional:] Please don't do that again.
[If being faulty, mad, or dangerous were enough to render someone worthy of abandonment, even if L believed those about his faun, making that judgment would be hilariously rich coming from him, wouldn't it? L can be a hypocrite, but in the places he recognizes where cognitive dissonance or double standards exist, he can at least try not to be ridiculously obvious about it.
He curls his shoulders, head hanging lower as Myr's embrace tightens. His hovering hand makes careful contact with his Bonded's back at the sound and sensation of that soft sob, and he can feel the guilt rolling off of him in sick waves. He holds, until Myr pulls away to better be heard.
Does he understand? L nods, wondering if his meaning came through, if his meaning is something he himself can even fully parse.]
...of course.
[The fear is still suppressed, but it wants to rise again. L's intuition, or what he feels in his heart and his gut, is good, almost preternaturally so... or at least, it was. His final case and difficult time adapting to Aefenglom had taught him to doubt and dread that innate certainty.
He'd dropped the key to his apartment down a storm drain after the SQUIP left. He'd abandoned all his paychecks in a dresser drawer in Mello's spare room. He'd had his "talk" with the Leviathan, committed to the cold and dark, pledging to the often-contradictory paradoxes that often precluded an elusive, secure truth.
Truth can be beautiful, worth the long and grueling chase. It can cause the world to make perfect sense for just a few moments. It can also wound deeply... and grow more tangled than objective facts and deliberate untruths.]
I won't.
[He's not lying now. He believes, as certainly as he believes he will fix things for Myr, that this will come to pass. His intentions are as gleaming as the key, as plentiful as his paychecks, as earnest as the notion that walking into dark waters is an acceptable sacrifice to confront what they hide.
His intentions are frail, in the face of the doubt and distrust he has come to feel for his own heart. It's good for making a fool of him lately, it seems, and precious little else.]
I can't stay long.
[He has to get started on this. He's anxious to throw his process behind something that will yield results he can stand on solidly.]
But I'll stay, if you want me to. For a little while.
[Whatever the strength L's intentions will prove to be in this instance, it is enough right now that he intends--that he will try. Myr gives a fractional nod, leaning in once more to rest his face against his Witch. The tension's fled from him, leaving behind it a shaky storm-washed ache in his heart--empty of the passionate fear that had filled it to overflowing, but so suddenly that the vacuum's painful.
Hearing L say he's got to leave wakes a new tendril of it, quickly wrestled down. You're not a child, Myrobalan. Whatever's wrong won't get worse while he's gone.
Yet:]
A little longer, [he mutters. And then, quieter still:] Is there anything else you can do for it?
[The absence in his head. The one he can't think of without losing it.
He'll certainly understand if there is not; he's still mage enough in training if not actual power to realize there are problems magic can't solve.
[Tired and vaguely humiliated by the fact that Myr had blithely called out affections he'd believed were subtle, it would be easier for L to leave, perhaps. He could go somewhere quiet and dark and nurse his shame, alone or at least anonymously.
What's easy has never impressed Myr. He sighs shallowly, reaching a hand once more to rest against his faun's temple.
He withdraws it almost immediately, with a short, impatient exhalation.]
It's like it was before. I haven't seen something like this... it's not even like when Light and I looked into matters for Lora Hastings.
[And given the timing, he rather expected it to be.]
I can get started. Faster than a little longer, if you want.
[It all depends on where Myr believes he'd be the most useful, at this moment in time. If that's researching, he'll go; if that's comforting, he'll be substandard, but remain.]
[They will need to talk about it later, that shame, and the feelings behind it Myr had been oh-so-careful around up until confusion and worry robbed him of pretense.
There are many things they need to talk about later. Later, after his mind is his own again--which it sounds will be a matter of days, at least, and not hours.
He slumps a little as L withdraws his hand and pronounces his diagnosis. Too much to hope for, then; better to let his Witch be about researching the cause of his distress.
The urge to hold L to him lingers, anyway. Myr draws in a deep, deep breath to steady himself and releases his hold on the other man--though he does reach in passing to catch L's hand and press a kiss to the palm.]
Maker walk with you and guide you, then, amatus. You'll know where to find me.
[Because making another appointment right now seems...fraught, if he might forget them at any time.
(He does not want to be here alone with his own thoughts.
He does not want to be any more of burden on the one who's suddenly had to shoulder him.)]
[Once this has passed, later, L will have to reexamine what was safely and comfortably guarded, and what's been drawn reluctantly out into a far more open and vulnerable position. In the meantime, however, he has a purpose, and purpose is his refuge. Purpose promises to be a distraction for matters of the mind and the heart alike, and it's the only guide he needs.
He'll still take that blessing, and that kiss. His fingers curl against Myr's cheek, a caress that also just happens to close his palm.]
I'll know. In the meantime... I'm going to talk to some people.
[Monsters that can affect the mind, those closest to him. More witch's power that can do the same. Tomes in the dustiest corners of the library, experiments in the most shatterproof practice rooms.]
Change nothing, OK? Just for now. Unless it's to let yourself worry less.
[He's got this. Myr's witch might be riddled with frailties, but his strengths are diamond-tough.]
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no subject
He thought he’d hidden it well. He thought he’d done a good job keeping it from burdening one who deserved better. Is it out, is it on land now...?
He realizes that Myr is correct. His fear is deafening; he’s ruining what was good, because he got greedy.]
Sorry... I’m sorry. S—-
[An apology both excessive and half-formed. He’s got a job to do, and he’s failing; some part of him believed he stood a chance when it shouldn’t even have been a fantasy. He dropped the ball utterly on keeping Myr safe from something he can’t kill, and this time he can’t kick Myr from a dream that is here and horrible.
The door is tempting. The impulse to rifle through a medicine cabinet for some semblance of control is overwhelming. But even if he should be muzzled, he knows it’s wrong to leave his blinded, confounded Bonded this way.]
I’ll turn it off. I’m going to help you...
[He could be sick; he could use the chance to see what’s in the cabinets in Myr’s home away from him.]
Let me fix this.
[He needs help. Any help; already a plan is forming to find a problem solver, somewhere, so that he can solve a problem.
A problem remains, though: he can’t walk away from that look on his faun’s face.]
no subject
Does: Because he's known what it is to want something, someone forbidden and having to bury that deep to avoid shattering a friendship. Has known, too, what it is to fail at that quarantine and lose something precious because of it.
Doesn't: Because for all his own self-image has suffered in the past few years, he remembers to his bones what it is to be instantly desirable to others. He was handsome once (still is, he's been reassured over and over again); even if he feels undesirable now, the notion of his own desire having always been an intolerable imposition on others is as foreign a feeling as breathing water.
He's in no place to try and sort through the knots and skeins of this right now. He doesn't even realize half of it, what points of their history align (or don't) to make this moment both profoundly sympathetic and profoundly discordant. He only knows that they both hurt, they are both afraid and nearly ill with that fear, and both want to be anywhere but confronting this thing that they can only stay and confront together.
Myr dimly registers how his fingers ache as he unknots them from his sleeves and reaches both hands up in supplication to his Witch. It's a gesture with a powerful longing beneath it, a need to draw L to him and hide his face against his Bonded and erase every other sensation in his awareness (scent-touch-sound-Bond) of the other man.
Let him fix this.]
Please. [Very quietly.] I trust you to.
[Even if he is gashed inside and still bleeding, still confused. He trusts the hurt was incidental.
He absolutely trusts that L can help.]
no subject
In L's mind, there's no if; there's no maybe or hopefully. He'll fix this; it's as certain as if it's already done, and the only thing he has to worry about is what connects the intention with the result, a simple tether tied between two stakes driven firmly into the ground.
Such certainty has a way of quieting fear, at least momentarily. His breathing is shallow and soft as Myr reaches for his bony shoulders, drawing him close, pressing against him like he's any source of strength or security and not an outright mess of a human being who can't help but damage even what he means not to.]
I'm sorry I accused you of lying.
[It's easier to say it over Myr's shoulder with a face that's hidden against his own. His own hand hovers, not quite touching the faun's back.]
When reconciling what my heart knows, with what the evidence seems to say, I don't always know where to place my own trust. Especially since...
[That whole Kira thing; that whole dying thing, which is why in his mind, and his dreams and his attitudes toward the future, he is a pale drowned man who just happens to still move and speak.]
I knew you weren't lying.
no subject
Myr's Witch is a source of strength to him, even if it's often the sort of strength one must dig up to protect another. Right now, though, the detective's conviction--and physical presence--are a more straightforward support. Which is why--
I'm sorry I accused you of lying.
--the Faun's embrace tightens; he pushes his face further against L's shirt and shudders in a soundless sob. It's ordinarily so easy for him to forgive, to understand the strange twists his Bonded's mind takes and know whatever offense was given wasn't meant. It's ordinarily easy but right now it isn't despite how desperately he needs his Witch's help. Guilt writhes in the pit of his stomach at the contradiction and at his own utter weakness in this moment, born of old curdled terror and new fear and exhaustion.
I knew you weren't lying.
What does one say through all of that?]
I understand, [he mutters, cloth-muted, into L's shoulder.
(He does. But put aside what's been revealed about Light, for later. If they make it to later. When they make it there.)
A moment, a breath. Myr swallows hard and pulls back enough to be heard; it puts his lips nearer his Witch's ear.] I do understand.
[But.]
I rely on you. You're my Witch. My partner. [Helpmeet. Beloved.] And that--hurt.
[It still hurts.
His voice drops to a whisper, guilt and guilt and guilt in their Bond that he has to ask, has to make his own forgiveness conditional:] Please don't do that again.
no subject
He curls his shoulders, head hanging lower as Myr's embrace tightens. His hovering hand makes careful contact with his Bonded's back at the sound and sensation of that soft sob, and he can feel the guilt rolling off of him in sick waves. He holds, until Myr pulls away to better be heard.
Does he understand? L nods, wondering if his meaning came through, if his meaning is something he himself can even fully parse.]
...of course.
[The fear is still suppressed, but it wants to rise again. L's intuition, or what he feels in his heart and his gut, is good, almost preternaturally so... or at least, it was. His final case and difficult time adapting to Aefenglom had taught him to doubt and dread that innate certainty.
He'd dropped the key to his apartment down a storm drain after the SQUIP left. He'd abandoned all his paychecks in a dresser drawer in Mello's spare room. He'd had his "talk" with the Leviathan, committed to the cold and dark, pledging to the often-contradictory paradoxes that often precluded an elusive, secure truth.
Truth can be beautiful, worth the long and grueling chase. It can cause the world to make perfect sense for just a few moments. It can also wound deeply... and grow more tangled than objective facts and deliberate untruths.]
I won't.
[He's not lying now. He believes, as certainly as he believes he will fix things for Myr, that this will come to pass. His intentions are as gleaming as the key, as plentiful as his paychecks, as earnest as the notion that walking into dark waters is an acceptable sacrifice to confront what they hide.
His intentions are frail, in the face of the doubt and distrust he has come to feel for his own heart. It's good for making a fool of him lately, it seems, and precious little else.]
I can't stay long.
[He has to get started on this. He's anxious to throw his process behind something that will yield results he can stand on solidly.]
But I'll stay, if you want me to. For a little while.
no subject
Hearing L say he's got to leave wakes a new tendril of it, quickly wrestled down. You're not a child, Myrobalan. Whatever's wrong won't get worse while he's gone.
Yet:]
A little longer, [he mutters. And then, quieter still:] Is there anything else you can do for it?
[The absence in his head. The one he can't think of without losing it.
He'll certainly understand if there is not; he's still mage enough in training if not actual power to realize there are problems magic can't solve.
But oh, he wishes...]
no subject
What's easy has never impressed Myr. He sighs shallowly, reaching a hand once more to rest against his faun's temple.
He withdraws it almost immediately, with a short, impatient exhalation.]
It's like it was before. I haven't seen something like this... it's not even like when Light and I looked into matters for Lora Hastings.
[And given the timing, he rather expected it to be.]
I can get started. Faster than a little longer, if you want.
[It all depends on where Myr believes he'd be the most useful, at this moment in time. If that's researching, he'll go; if that's comforting, he'll be substandard, but remain.]
no subject
There are many things they need to talk about later. Later, after his mind is his own again--which it sounds will be a matter of days, at least, and not hours.
He slumps a little as L withdraws his hand and pronounces his diagnosis. Too much to hope for, then; better to let his Witch be about researching the cause of his distress.
The urge to hold L to him lingers, anyway. Myr draws in a deep, deep breath to steady himself and releases his hold on the other man--though he does reach in passing to catch L's hand and press a kiss to the palm.]
Maker walk with you and guide you, then, amatus. You'll know where to find me.
[Because making another appointment right now seems...fraught, if he might forget them at any time.
(He does not want to be here alone with his own thoughts.
He does not want to be any more of burden on the one who's suddenly had to shoulder him.)]
no subject
He'll still take that blessing, and that kiss. His fingers curl against Myr's cheek, a caress that also just happens to close his palm.]
I'll know. In the meantime... I'm going to talk to some people.
[Monsters that can affect the mind, those closest to him. More witch's power that can do the same. Tomes in the dustiest corners of the library, experiments in the most shatterproof practice rooms.]
Change nothing, OK? Just for now. Unless it's to let yourself worry less.
[He's got this. Myr's witch might be riddled with frailties, but his strengths are diamond-tough.]