[SE] It only cost everything

Can't touch me, like Gojo—Look good in all my photos

Coming from a home full of laughter and conversation every night to one only filled with the sound of his breathing and the pacing of his footsteps has been a change to say the least. He's found himself talking out loud more, like just the sound of a voice, even his own, can bring some comfort. It's why he adopted Steve Stone, the pet rock, and why he later asked Mateo for a plant and received a surprise girl friend, Ruby Rock. The introductions went well, and Steve and Ruby seem utterly blissed out in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, so at least someone in his room is happy. His plant meanwhile, hasn't died yet, the instructions sent with it ones he follows religiously, but while it adds some cheer to the room, it hasn't really managed to fill the ache in his chest.

Maybe he needs more plants? He'll write Mateo again soon...

So it is that he's taken to spending more and more time at the House of Midnight. Not for the company of a woman, or a man, but for the access to the rooms that he can turn back into his old room, or into the Sugar Tide again, but even those feel far too empty. Instead he sits at the bar, half hopeful Flora might return, still surprised the day he showed up and she was gone, her scars healed enough. He'd been nursing a beer, soaking in the idle chatter so full of life and activity, like he could hold onto it when he finally wandered home to the dark and the silence of his new home. It's there he ran into Sunjata again, and had agreed to help the Flood with the day's task.

"Sooooo, remember your warning to me about Safrin?" he says casually as they walk to Frey's shrine. He's in a long-sleeved tshirt that's patterned with little purple ghosts all over on the black fabric, matching the brush of purple on his sneakers beneath his black joggers. "I get what you were sayin' now, about boundaries. She asked for a bit of a wild all in or nothing deal last time I asked for her help." He frowns, uncertain if he can depend on Safrin again now. There's caution where there had previously just been adoration.

Kaisel

Sexy jutsu, I feel like Naruto—Fightin' demons in my head like I'm Itadori

// ships are launching from my chest
some have names but most do not //

The days weren’t that different, now, in between changing up the regular day to day of his governmental duties (it was easier having Alys around to take some of the brunt), which left him with more time to figure out the situation of the House of Midnight. Today’s tasks were making sure that they received everything they needed from the crates that arrived. A bunch of liquor to restock the bar, fresh fruit and produce from Torchline that they couldn’t grow out here in the cold, more reserved climate of King’s End. And with it, snagging a few offerings from it to bring to Frey as a quick little break.

“Yeah. I remember.” Sunjata says, glancing over at Kaisel as he hoists the bag over his shoulder. His steel gaze flickers along his face, trying to read through the things he isn’t saying when he speaks again. “Oh yeah? You wrong her in some way? Usually she gets all like that if you've got other interests.” He hums with a laugh, clearly unbothered by it. The club was small, given how few of them there were, but he’s ready to invite Kaisel into it if he wanted to.

the flood

// if you find one, please,
let me know what piece i've lost //

Can't touch me, like Gojo—Look good in all my photos

"I mean not her, exactly," Kaisel clarifies as they draw up to the shrine. Seems a bit out of place, talking about Safrin at Frey's shrine, but who knows, maybe gossip is an offering too. "Her daughter, Caly, the one I told you I liked sir? We dated briefly, and I messed it up, so I went to Safrin to ask for her help to fix it. Something to make for Caly." In hindsight, he could have worded his ask better, as Safrin pointed out, but much as he's dwelled on everything she had to say, he's still certain he wouldn't have picked the end of it any different.

"She was... mad. Which, I mean, I expected that." He'd rather that than the silence, than the way Caly had withdrawn from him, shut him out with a layer he'd never seen her put on before. Yelling at least meant the person cared enough to keep taking in a breath. Although Kaisel had never doubted Safrin cared about her children. "I asked a question though, when she gave me my quest, and that really set her off." He frowns at the memory of it as he crouches down by Frey's shrine, reaching into his pocket for the container of assorted berries he'd helped carry. "She tried to get me to put her daughter first, above anyone else, always." Kaisel places the berries then looks up at Sunjata.

"I dunno sir, that didn't sit right with me. I mean, that's not love, is it?" A type of love, maybe, the unconditional kind, but love shouldn't serve as a shield like that. "I just feel like... if you love someone, it shouldn't mean everything else becomes less. Am I wrong?" Not to mention, you should be able to call someone out on their shit, tell them they're wrong, not stand with them even, if they're gonna make a shit choice. Doesn't mean you don't love them, just means you don't love that choice.

Kaisel

Sexy jutsu, I feel like Naruto—Fightin' demons in my head like I'm Itadori

// ships are launching from my chest
some have names but most do not //

Sunjata perks up with a touch of confusion when Kaisel explains, clarifying the fact that it wasn’t the starry goddess herself but one of the daughters. Which, to be honest, grants a wince from the Flood as he tries to imagine it. “Shit.” He mutters, letting his steel gaze linger on the young Accepted briefly before he puffs out a sigh and looks way again toward the shrine they head toward. “Yeah that sounds about right.” He murmurs, drawing silent again to let him explain further, not wanting to push Kaisel into explaining things he didn’t want to share.

But it seems like he’s getting the full story, and he settles in for it as he flits through the bag he’d brought, producing a variety of fruits and vegetables - peaches, because of course he’d always had to bring peaches - and an eggplant because that definitely fit the vibe well enough too. He saparks his water magic to life, utilizing it to place the produce around the shrine and to make the water glitter in a misty, rainbow kind of hue for the moat that surrounded the shrine itself. “I think it depends.” He admits with a quiet sigh. “I mean… I loved my husband enough that I stepped down from leading Torchline and essentially self exiled myself here in King’s End when it was still wild because Safrin hated him so much.” His nose wrinkles with the memory, before he twists his head to look back over at Kaisel, an apologetic gleam in his gaze.

“But unlike her, he never really asked much of me. It felt… Unconditional, you know? With Safrin it always felt like a transaction. The treatment I received was solely based on how much I put her before everything else. Guess it extends to her kids.” Offering him a crooked and apologetic smile, he sinks back on his heels. “I think you did the right thing, though. For what it’s worth.”

the flood

// if you find one, please,
let me know what piece i've lost //

Can't touch me, like Gojo—Look good in all my photos

Kaisel reaches into the bag to grab more of the offerings Sunjata lugged along, listening to the Flood talk about his own experiences. He grabs hold of a cucumber and some apples, and shamelessly arranges them like a cock and balls near the small waterfall. "So she's always been like this? Even when her kids aren't involved?" He glances through the rainbow haze of mist to the Archon, his frown deepening with the thought. "She seemed so... nice before." Kind didn't feel right, but she had certainly said things that made him preen, made him feel seen and valued, which feels like a lot more than something when it's coming from a god.

He leans onto his hand as he thinks, still poised over his juvenile display of vegetables and fruit. "Do you regret it? Exiling yourself like that, for him. Seems lonely." Doesn't sound like it repaired anything with Safrin either, so what had Sunjata accomplished with closing out the world and focusing on love? The exact thing Safrin wanted, just on the wrong person. He can't really fathom what doing that would be like, his own decision to stay in King's End less about hiding than peeling everything away and trying to look at it closer, or at least differently than under a familiar light.

"Do you think it's possible, to be enough for more than one person?"

Kaisel

Sexy jutsu, I feel like Naruto—Fightin' demons in my head like I'm Itadori

// ships are launching from my chest
some have names but most do not //

“Oh yeah.” Sunjata says with a soft laugh, humorless, in the way that he knows because he’s been there before, right where Kaisel was. He’d been in the space where he’d thought all Safrin wanted was the best for him, until it turned out she’d only ever be happy with what was best for her. “That’s how she does it, though. It’s a manipulation. She’ll give you all kind of shiny trinkets so long as you think about her and only her. Or her kids, I guess.” He pauses, withdrawing another fruit to place amongst the shrine before he plays with the water again, shifting it this way and that in a gentle swell as he glances over to Kaisel with a raised scarred brow.

Not the it was a terrible thing, in a way, to be protective of your kid. But Safrin always had a habit of taking what was usually a 5 and dialing it to a 10. He can remember from when Kamaria was a child, the things Safrin had told him to manipulate her away from him and Nate, and it’s those thoughts that have him hesitating for a moment before he shakes himself out of it, catching onto Kai’s question with a soft smile.

“Nah. It was the happiest I’d ever been.” He admits quietly, over the rush of the moat he’s playing with. “We went from crisis after crisis to finally having a calm, quiet life. He had a garden, we had a couple of cats. Our companions, before mine died.” He shrugs a little before he shakes himself out of the nostalgia — because reality had a much more difficult grip on him than the memories of the past had.

Such that when Kaisel’s question reaches him, Sunjata takes a few moments to try and gather his thoughts — after all, he’d always been shitty with words. “I don’t really think that you can be enough for one person, let alone two, and have it be healthy?” He starts off, jaw working slightly before he’s dropping forward from where he’s crouched, knees planting in the edge of the moat’s bend and wicking up water quickly. “You can probably be mostly enough for them, but you can’t give all of yourself away to people just to keep them happy. That just gets you hurt when it doesn’t work out and you’re left empty because you’ve lost yourself along the way.”

the flood

// if you find one, please,
let me know what piece i've lost //

Can't touch me, like Gojo—Look good in all my photos

"Sounds like she's lonely," Kaisel thinks with a frown, of Safrin and all her schemes that strive to hold everyone so tightly to her she ends up suffocating some of them. "Never really considered what the gods need or want before," he admits with a lower chord of disappointment in himself for this. "Seems like they should have it all already, but I guess the stars aren't really things people can touch or hold." They're cold, distant, too much to keep in your hand. Compared to Frey, at least, who's nature shapes the world in tangible ways, who's arousal is the unfurling of all the attention Safrin desires.

Maybe he's got it all wrong, but people don't do something for no reason, and seems like gods are no different.

He rises from his crouch to gather more of the vegetables, an impressive eggplant among them, as Sunjata explains more about the effects of a self imposed exile. Maybe him and the Flood are just too different, or he's still too young to get it, but isolation like that still doesn't sound appealing even when Sunjata describes it like a paradise he'd managed to find, for a time. "Sounds nice," Kaisel admits with a smile as he leans the purple produce near the waterfall. "Didn't you miss it though... the life you left behind? Everyone else who you knew and loved? The people who had depended on you?" Sometimes where you are isn't where you're meant to be, and maybe whatever ties Sunjata had back then weren't enough, not compared to what he's maybe built now, but Kaisel does have meaningful ties right now.

He arranges citrus in an alternating scheme of yellow, green, and orange around the edges of the moat as he chews on Sunjata's wisdom. He'd not even considered that he might fail to be enough for one person, much less any more. He never tried to be there just for one, isn't really sure you're ever meant to be, to be honest. "Yeah..." he sighs. "That's kinda what I mean though. If I can't be enough for one, doesn't that mean maintaining a lot of connections is better? I don't mean, be with more than one person." Maybe he hadn't clarified that well enough. Kaisel uses love broadly, a feeling that can take shape in different ways depending who it's applied to, but he only means to be in a relationship with one person at a time in the romantic sense. "There's the one you're with, then your friends, your family. You love them all, you are there for them all, not just one." Equally, the other people should have more than him, creating a network of support, hearts shaped by the pieces you give away and are given.

Crumbs, Safrin had said, but cake pops are arguably more delicious than cake slices.

There's truth to what Sunjata said though, that he had to make sure he didn't lose himself with every piece he offered. "Can you know, before you've done it? Before you've given too much and lost it?" Has he already hit that point, with every bit of his network currently strained?

Kaisel

Sexy jutsu, I feel like Naruto—Fightin' demons in my head like I'm Itadori

// ships are launching from my chest
some have names but most do not //

“Well if she wasn’t so pushy about shit, I probably wouldn’t have felt like leaving her.” He mutters with a little bit of annoyance, nose wrinkling even as Kaisel grows more introspective. “Trust me, you can touch and hold her when she wants you to.” He’d done it before. He had a child with her. If anyone had a chance to touch and hold her, it was those that had a time being her favorites until they no longer suited her.

Or they grew out of her, like Sunjata had.

The Flood continues toying with the water, though, as Kaisel speaks, his steel gaze lifting to scan the younger man curiously — as if he can read between the lines of the things he isn’t saying. “Not really. I mean, home to me was more of a group of people that it was a place. And they knew where to find me.” So while he’d self exiled, those he cared about could - and did - come and visit.

It made it a perfect little piece of paradise.

He watches idly as Kaisel arranges the citrus fruits in varying shades of hues that look almost like a beaded bracelet around the little moat that Sunjata’s still playing with, casting rainbows across the brief bit of sky above it. “Maybe I’m not the best one to answer that.” He admits with a soft laugh, flashing the young Dragoon a smaller, apologetic smile. “I… Grew up in a broken home and I made lots of decisions after that and here that pissed off a lot of people. But I was true to myself and eventually shit came back around.” He shrugs idly, puffing out a sigh past his lips before he shrugs.

“You know when it starts to hurt worse and worse.” He admits softly, as if from experience. “Then you know to cut it off before it gets worse.” Rising from his crouch, he swipes his hands on the outsides of his legs before he goes to collect the empty bag. “Well, you ready to head back?”

the flood

// if you find one, please,
let me know what piece i've lost //

Can't touch me, like Gojo—Look good in all my photos

Kaisel chuckles a bit at Sunjata's brusque response. There's no humor to it, just a dry, understanding sort of noise. Yeah, he gets it. Whatever Safrin's reasons, doesn't mean it excuses some of her actions, her words, her choices. You can understand, or try to anyway, the why of someone all day long, doesn't mean you have to accept them any more for it. Maybe, sometimes, if you want to. If you're fighting to change that why into something else, it could be worth it. Sounds like in this case, not for the Flood. For Kaisel? Remains to be seen, but he's planning on avoiding her for a while, give her some time to cool her head, give him some time to do his best with Caly by his own means.

Glancing over at Sunjata as more rainbow mist covers the offerings, Kaisel just nods along, trying his best to listen fully to everything the Archon offered. Yeah, maybe the sex demi-god isn't the front runner for relationship advice, but Kaisel's heart feels a little more buoyant now after hashing some of it out together. Maybe he didn't get all the answers he'd been looking for, but with every person he's talked to so far, he's starting to recognize a trend that no one actually knows what the hell they're doing. Everyone's just fumbling around in life, trying their best not to completely fuck it all up. That looks a little different for each person, for each life. A multiverse of fuck ups, essentially.

"True to yourself..." Kaisel murmurs as he stands, brushing debris from his knees. Yeah, he thinks he can manage that. The knowing when to cut it off though, that'll prove more challenging. "Thanks, Sunjata," Kaisel says with a bit of a tired smile as they head back to the House of Midnight.

[FIN]

Kaisel

Sexy jutsu, I feel like Naruto—Fightin' demons in my head like I'm Itadori