just say when

SUNJATA

angel loves to keep me spinning, much too high to see
that all these chains have started thinning & hell is breaking free

All children, she says with a force that does exactly as she intends it to. It brands that surety into his mind, that nothing would come of Kamaria in terms of harm – and perhaps it never would have, given the blood that ran through the child’s veins. It helps loosen a fraction of the tension in his shoulders, unable to answer her audibly, but he can send the small pulses of relief down the bond, coating it with something that almost seems frozen in the face of her fiery anger. A balm, as it were, an understanding.

He keeps her close just as she burrows herself closer, Sunjata’s breath easing as his pulse slows, at least, until she mentions Vi and Sunjata can’t help but to let the huff of a laugh leave him. It isn’t humorous, it’s more a cause of disbelief. He was nothing in comparison to Safrin, let alone in comparison to Vi. Why would he answer him?

Sunjata feels as though he already knows the answer to that. “I doubt it would do me any favors.” He says quietly, managing to brush past the rest of the anger, the rest of the buildup for something else to fall from his lips, waiting for the right time. “Ronin, perhaps… I’ve been avoiding going to seek her out, though.” He admits with a touch of sensitivity, a moment where he pauses and he’s sure she can feel the purse of his lips against her skin. Still, he breathes in her scent, he grounds himself, before he dives in and buries his face into her neck, placing the bridge of his nose right in the crook, eyes shut tight enough that his long lashes brush against her like feathers.

“She asked me to be one of her demigods. And… I learned from last time. I asked for time, to see if it was something I wanted or should do. I went home… Talked to Nate. I’m inclined to tell her no.” And yet again, the fear that settles there in his chest at the idea of telling Safrin no, what might come of it.

All he can do is clutch Hotaru closer, tangle his legs with hers, pretend that maybe just for a few hours or a night that there wasn’t that gaping void between them, that things could be normal, even if he’s sure it’s just the alcohol speaking. “I’m not sure if I’ll be granted enough good will to decline her offer and then ask her in the same breath whether her word is good.” It’s quieter, something softer, a glimpse at the Korofian boy she had witnessed so long ago before a fireplace with a drink in hand and a panic attack on the horizon. He buries his face into her neck, lips unconsciously pressing against her pulse. “I haven’t even seen her since I lost Haai.” Back when he'd see her last, he’d been whole enough, his companion close to his heart and his mentality better since moving to King’s End.

All before everything had gone to shit again. As it was prone to do.

every choice, every lie, demons that he kept inside
angel now that i've stopped spinning, could you come clean?

Hotaru

It works. Damn her - or him - but it does, the simpering of his relief taming the angry red miasma that overtakes her so easily sometimes. Until her heartbeat slows, and the press of her fingertips against his spine eases slightly, the urge to somehow impossibly flip him over and hide him beneath her away from the world now seeming nonsensical. He can fool himself with the haze of drunkenness, but Hotaru cannot. She had forgiven him already for Kamaria, and all that night had entailed. That forgiveness is not met in equal, and she has accepted that, but in doing so she now has to face that even now she is taking advantage of him as they cling to one another like nothing has changed.

Still, she is selfish, and so she refuses to pull away. Trying to commit every moment to memory, so that this night will sustain her once she departs come morning.

"Remi despises Safrin, and Ronin knows this. If anyone would understand your hesitation to see her, the difficulties of a husband being at odds with your Goddess, or the reasoning of her mind, it would be him." Though her voice is far gentler now compared to the crackling fire of moments before, it is an urged suggestion. Ru isn't privy to the heart-to-hearts the men have shared or how deeply they've spoken of these matters if they have at all. Still she clings to the option he had shown some shine to, unlike Vi which he had dismissed out of hand.

Soft eyelashes tickle at her skin, and the press of his lips and accompanying scratch of his stubble is distracting. There is no lust here with the topics at hand, but it burns her all the same with a longing for that old closeness, the easy affection they'd once had. In some ways she's grateful for the way his next words make her go cold because she can't hide much from him, even when he is more easily distracted when drunk. Hotaru has promised herself that she won't make him bear the burden of her feelings, and she doesn't intend to break it now in the height of all things.

"Deimos told her no," she divulges in a whisper, voice trembling slightly. Scared to name him, to put the two men she loves most at odds once more, but unwilling to watch the Flood suffer in his fear. "She asked him, and he denied her. She was disappointed, but still granted him a boon. And to be stripped and made anew...you would be so weak in the coming war." I would fear for your safety, she is unable to say. Just as she would have been for Deimos, as she will be for Noah when news reaches her of his ascension to godhood. Mighty power may be awarded in time, far beyond those of Attuned and Abandoned men and women, but it took time as all things did. "You can tell her that much as well. There is so little time remaining." And Hotaru can feel the sand slipping through the hourglass these days.

But I am just a broken machine
And I do things that I don't really mean

SUNJATA

angel loves to keep me spinning, much too high to see
that all these chains have started thinning & hell is breaking free

Her voice is softer, gentler, but when she names the fact that Remi hates Safrin, it’s a fact Sunjata already knows. “It’s reciprocated.” He mutters against her skin, recalling his frustration and anger and sorrow at the fact that Remi had essentially killed him in a dream, and yet come away with nothing from it. Perhaps that’s a similar feeling that Hotaru had felt when Sunjata’d offered that betrayal, and yet it was Sunjata who had mentioned it to the starry goddess. That Safrin had suggested trapping the demigod somewhere beneath the ocean where he couldn’t rise again for some time, immortality be damned.

Though the Flood can’t tell if that’s Safrin pining after Ronin the most or the fact that Remi was a demigod of Ludo. And at this point? With their closeness and his own mind at odds with himself in pretending that nothing of the past year had happened? He doesn’t care. Even the thought of Remi, the fact that Hotaru bore his twins, doesn’t stir him much like it used to.

No, the name that stirs the discomfort of frustration and anger is Deimos. Hotaru would be able to feel the tinge of jealousy, however, that Safrin had chosen the Sword over himself, but he dampens it down with the way his jaw tightens, the way he quite literally and physically bites his tongue, teeth edged in sharp points that draw a few pinpricks of blood.

The only way I think it would be worth it is the immortality… But, He pauses in a feigned attempt to try and get his temper and pulse under control. What good is immortality when everyone else is gone? It’s a quieter admittance. That if he were immortal that he’d outlast his daughter. He’d outlast Nate if the war swings in a terrible way. He’d outlast everyone he knows aside from Remi and Ronin… Is that a future he wants?

Suddenly he shakes his head, loosening the way he clutches her to him like a lifeline, taking a deep breath before he forces himself to pull away, dragging her closer so she can rest against his chest and so that he can roll more onto his back, so that he might have the ceiling to stare up at. His tongue runs along his bottom lip, the brief scent of iron accompanying the alcohol and the slight tinge of red to the corner of his scarred lip. “It’s a losing battle on either side.” For him, especially, it feels like.

He feels lost in the middle of a tightrope while he's just missed his next step - tumbling down into a lot of nothingness, and it's a hollow feeling he unconsciously pulses down the bond.

every choice, every lie, demons that he kept inside
angel now that i've stopped spinning, could you come clean?

Hotaru

Hotaru laughs mirthlessly into his neck. "I know." Her hand travels slowly up and down his spine, "But all the more reason to talk to Ronin, who is her demigod despite it. See if he would change things, or advise you on the right way to say no." Because too often Sunjata ignores his gut instincts, and in doing so takes the wrong road. He had already said moments ago that he wanted to tell her no; that's all Hotaru needs to know to see into his heart.

The serpent inside him is one filled with a venom she knows all too well, considering her experience with it on the other side of the coin towards very different people. There is no real way to comfort someone through a bond, but she can project a level of calm to try and help ease the bared fangs and fury there. "Immortality would be a temporary bandage to ensure you would survive the war - beyond that, it is a curse." Her voice is weary and wise beyond her years. So many times she had beheld the children of Helovia, tied to their godly lineage, live through horrors that the Valkyrie knew would be carried in their memories eternally in a way that was far too literal. Her own daughter, her firstborn, had bled out in her arms and lived despite it all. She knows too well that immortality is a cruelty, and she wouldn't wish it on him, even if he would have Nate at his side - effectively immortal as The Voice's son.

She goes where he leads, as she has so many times in the past, and settles as a barely-there weight upon his chest. The thrum of his heartbeat is a steady knock against her sternum, and she lifts a hand to gently wipe away the shadow of blood at the corner of his mouth with her thumb. Caressing his jaw briefly in a moment of weakness before returning her hands to his chest. "It doesn't have to be," she whispers. Reaching out through the bond where she is not brave enough to do so physically, flooding him with as much peace as she can by recalling spring afternoons with the twins up to their knees in the 'Song, the shared laughter with Deimos in the Feverlands. These are closer, more tangible memories that she can draw on to try and fill that aching void she can feel in him. "One step at a time. Talking to Ronin, to Nate about the protection over the children of Caido. Denying Safrin. When the war comes, we can only hold on hour by hour - and only then can you consider the future beyond." She has lived through so many wars, these steps are written into the inside of her veins, and she carries them with her through every new one.

But I am just a broken machine
And I do things that I don't really mean

SUNJATA

angel loves to keep me spinning, much too high to see
that all these chains have started thinning & hell is breaking free

“I told him I was concerned and he mentioned the last time he told Safrin no, she took all of his abilities away.” He mutters, refraining from mentioning the fact that he’d started to focus on training where he didn’t have to use his shifts. But the more he argues about it the more he feels like a spoiled, petulant child, and he works his jaw against those thoughts once again, drawing in a deep breath to steady him, exhaling it out slowly through his nose. “I’m trying to be better about split second decisions.” He admits, ruefully, thinking that he’s done a fairly good job thus far, having not made too many huge events since the results of the last one he’d caused.

Regardless, he shifts onto his back and she settles against his chest, his calloused hand running along her back in idle strokes as if it works to quell the anger and frustration building up within him. Sunjata’s never been an angry drunk. More often than not, he’s simply just sad, searching for any outlet to alleviate the issue. And right now? There’s little to none aside from the anchor that Hotaru offers in her words, in the pulses that slip from her end of the bond, trying to calm the stormy waters of his soul.

She wipes away the speck of blood and caresses his jaw and it tears his gaze away from a spot on the ceiling, to tilt his head to look down at her with those same tired eyes, the stormy steel reflecting in the flickering glow of the fire. She’s right. He knows she is. He knows she’s trying her best to not drag up a bunch of sorrow and bad memories, but he can’t help the way the muscles in his jaw flex, the way his hand stutters in its motions against her back when he accidentally lifts the threads of her shirt enough to feel her soft skin beneath it.

“You’re right.” He offers her, his throat scratchy and hoarse. He fails to try and get his mind to put together the words he wishes to say, instead choosing to let his fingers slip beneath the edge of her shirt, pressing those idle symbols into her spine as he thinks, a sudden shift of gratitude and his sorrow to her. “I’m sorry. For all the shit I put you through.” Because she’d always managed to be a guiding light, a northern star, the one that laid out everything in a way that made it feel far less daunting. She could speak and know the right things to say, the things that would burn and the things that would soothe, which perhaps makes tonight all that much more confusing and tender.

every choice, every lie, demons that he kept inside
angel now that i've stopped spinning, could you come clean?

Hotaru

"But he was already a demigod then, and tied directly to her," she points out in soft undertone. "Deimos was similarly only Attuned, and you have already given her a daughter. If she seeks a new demigod, she has many followers who would be willing - you don't have to be the martyr, Sunjata." As he has been so many times. Constantly sacrificing himself for the sake of others, or led astray by his own good intentions gone wrong. He is doing better, and there is a new undertone of bittersweet pride from her side of the bond, because for her it was too little too late. But it didn't have to be for Sunjata, and Hotaru would do whatever she could to ensure that would come to fruition.

In this too they are opposites, because for Hotaru it is so much easier to be angry when she's drunk. Or, perhaps that's not quite right. Hotaru spends nearly every waking hour controlling her emotions, overthinking every interaction, parsing intentions and projecting different faces to those she holds at arms length - most of the general world, really. And without that control so tightly held, she can finally just feel, and every time it is with an intensity that blinds her. It makes it hard to hide things from him through the bond, even muted as it is when they are both tangled up human and flawed in a bed that belongs to neither of them.

They lock eyes, and Hotaru can't so much as blink, even as anxiety creeps into the back of her mind. Had she gone too far now? The lines have already been crossed so fully tonight it would be laughable, but the Valkyrie knows how quickly a situation can become too much even with the most innocent of actions. For a moment as his calloused fingers touch her back, she is ready to use her newfound command over air to encourage the cloth back down to make the choice easier for him, to fix things and take the decision out of his hands. Until he continues a moment later, and she is torn on what he needs from her. What he really needs, and not what the alcohol is telling him he wants. Hotaru isn't good for him, and she can only let him indulge so much before things go too far and he will inevitably awaken and be hurt by all she let him do.

Even now, she is just trying to protect him.

It's why she laughs wetly and averts her eyes, unable to hold his gaze in the dim glow the fire provides from so far away. Lays her forehead against his collarbone so that the absence of her gaze isn't so obvious. “I’m sorry. For all the shit I put you through.” "It was never a burden. Not to me. And everything else...there is nothing more to forgive." And there is a finality there. She can give him nothing more than what he already has from her. His apologies were needless.

But I am just a broken machine
And I do things that I don't really mean

SUNJATA

angel loves to keep me spinning, much too high to see
that all these chains have started thinning & hell is breaking free

Her words ring true and yet all Sunjata can feel is the underlying thread of jealousy there. Just because there are others doesn’t mean that he wants to get lost in the abyss. Surely he’s just as disposable as the rest of them, nothing more than a soldier in her war. Nothing more than someone who had fathered one of her children, regardless of what Safrin said otherwise.

Perhaps that’s his Achilles heel. The fact that someone can praise him and tell him that he’s doing everything right and yet beneath it all sits the never ending thrum of anxiety that tells him it’s all a lie. It’s simultaneously too much and yet not enough to keep his mind away from feeling like he’s got to prove himself more. Perhaps that’s just the broken boy of Korofi managing to get a grip on him.

And so for the sake of some semblance of relief, he simply hums a quiet agreement, locking eyes with her the second his calloused fingertips slip beneath her shirt, the way he stutters with it before he continues. Weakly, he manages to clear the lump in his throat. “I feel like that’s what I was always meant to be.” He offers her quietly, briefly, before she’s turning her gaze away from him, before the weight of her head on his collarbone becomes more like a weighted blanket in its comfort, and the hand drawing idle designs into her back slows until it stops, his head tilting so his cheek rests atop her blonde crown of hair.

He’s not sure why but her words soothe him, his tension alleviates itself and he finds himself staring at the shadows dancing on the ceiling again, a tightness slipping into his scarred throat as the world swims with the alcohol that burns within him. “Thank you, Ru.” He says quietly, meaning every word of it, his accent thicker and rougher in every single way. And internally he fights himself away from the urge of trying to distract himself from the reality of the situation he’s found himself in.

A bed. An Inn. His ex in his arms. His typical coping mechanisms. All of it he tries to parse and separate, tries to work through his sluggish mind.

Most of all, the thing that tones him down the most is thinking of what Nate would think. After everything. He doesn’t know what was shared between Nate and Hotaru, but he does know Hotaru named herself Queen in Halo and that Nate had shown up to get it back.

Aside from that, most of the ire had gone to Noah, a sentiment that Sunjata shared. But the rest?

He has no idea. And it stays his hand.

every choice, every lie, demons that he kept inside
angel now that i've stopped spinning, could you come clean?

Hotaru

"You are already the greatest thing in the world to one person. You don't need to keep proving yourself worthy of love, Jata," she whispers into his skin, grieving for that boy he used to be, the one that she can still see in him so easily now. "You've sacrificed so much already. None of us were born to be something. Would you expect Kamaria to be something just because she is Safrin's daughter?" Hotaru has had to teach herself many lessons in this same way. Would she expect these things of her children? Say the types of things she thinks about herself aloud to them? And sometimes, she has to look back at the girl she used to be, naive and foolish and so very in need of love that never came, and try to see her in that same tender light. It isn't easy, because self-loathing never is, but they have to try.

As the rigidity and tension eases from him, his gratitude rumbling against her cheek, Ru tries to rejoice in having done something right. Instead, all she can focus on is the way his hand slows to a stop, the trickles of hesitation and doubt on his side of the bond. She smiles against his collar where he can feel it, if only to trick him, because if he were to see her eyes she knows he wouldn't buy it. "It's okay," she whispers, refusing to let her voice choke up and instead keeping it to an even keen. One hand rises to gently grab his by the wrist, removing it slowly from her skin and folding their hands together - fingers not intertwined intentionally, but holding on all the same. I understand, she tries to say in actions alone. "Just...just sleep, Sunjata." She will be his guardian tonight, keeping him from the brink, guiding him away from paths he shouldn't trod. For him, she will forsake her selfish nature.

But I am just a broken machine
And I do things that I don't really mean

SUNJATA

angel loves to keep me spinning, much too high to see
that all these chains have started thinning & hell is breaking free

Oh but if he doesn’t prove himself time and time again, what is there left of him? What good is he? Proving himself is all he has, that never ending need of trying to be better and trying to do the right thing. It’s everything.

She brings up a good point and he takes a slow deep inhale, one that passes through his nose in a slow exhale shortly after. “No. I want her to be happy.” And right now she isn’t. Because war looms on the horizon and if anyone is more attentive to the emotions of those around them? It’s the children.

There’s still a part of him haunted from when Kamaria mentions she wished for a split second that she could be back up in the stars. That she could stay far away from it all.

He doesn’t know if it hurts because it’s a place where he isn’t, or if it hurts because he can’t be there too.

She smiles against his collarbone and his stomach flips in more uncertainty, feeling like a losing battle when her hand pulls his away, when her fingers interlace with his, pulling him away from the threat of her skin. And he warbles, his heartbeat thundering again. “I don’t know if I can yet.” He admits, turning his head away from her, swallowing the lump in his throat.

Perhaps this was a mistake.

every choice, every lie, demons that he kept inside
angel now that i've stopped spinning, could you come clean?

Hotaru

Don't they all? Being a parent right now is one of the hardest things Hotaru has faced in her years as a mother, and he doesn't need to speak the rest of what's on his mind for her to know the struggle he's dealing with. "She will be. You'll tell her that her mother, who loves her no matter what relationship you have with her, has ensured her protection. You'll ease her mind the moment you return home, just as you'll ease Nate's should he have any doubts." Her voice is melodic, as if whispering things to dream of instead of assurances. "She will see one less burden on your shoulders. And if she needs friends, there are plenty for her to meet - Paige, the twins, Remi's boy." Friends to keep her mind off the war, so close to it as she is. "She will be happy. But until you are, it won't matter." And to ensure that, he needs to deal with these grievances, these anxieties and decisions that she can only advise on, incapable of taking the choice from his hands.

Feeling his uncertainty, his doubt, is like a knife to her heart. She goes very still where she lies atop him, though she presses her knees down into the mattress to begin lifting herself off him. "I can go," she says softly, keeping her voice carefully clear of any emotions or accusations. "Or I can perch on the headboard, until you feel you can." For once she doesn't know what he needs. To talk? To separate? Go for a walk out in the moonlight? Hotaru would do any of it if he would just say the word, but for now she can only try to tread water, wanting to be less of a dagger in his side but unable to help the sharpness of her nature.

But I am just a broken machine
And I do things that I don't really mean

hey young blood, doesn't it feel like our time is running out?
I'm gonna change you like a remix, then i'll raise you like a phoenix

He could tell them everything, how the worries of whether Kamaria and Romeo and Amadeus would be safe when war came knocking. But it still doesn’t alleviate the fact that perhaps only one of them would come home. Or the worse fact, that neither of them did. And he’s not sure if he’s ever going to be truly happy, not with everything that he has to face.

But he can pretend. He just needs to dust off that mask of Korofi a bit more, to fix those cracks and affix it into place.

So instead he nods to her answer, sure she can feel it, before he lets his worries overwhelm him, unknowingly pushing her away as he’s so good at doing. He feels the way she shifts, moving to get up, and Sunjata immediately tightens his hand in hers, preventing her from leaving. Don’t go. He says abruptly, desperately, weakly through the bond before he shivers a split second.

He’s the one that moves now, lifting her hand with his own, slipping his hand out of hers as he sits up a bit more fully, pulling at the loose threads within his soul. And after a few moments, instead of a man, sits a dog. The German shepherd shift within him replacing him, ears wavering in uncertainty. Just… Just get comfortable. I’ll be fine. He rumbles, lowering his triangular head into the blankets, ears pulled back, tail tucked in.

wearing our vintage misery, no, i think it looked a little better on me

SUNJATA

Hotaru

She pauses as his hand tightens, and tries not to despair, because she doesn't know what to do. But that's selfish, and her internal mantra is a reminder that she can't be, that she has to check and double check her own desires because she can't trust herself drunk - as if she can even trust herself sober. So instead she goes still and waits for Sunjata to struggle through whatever he needs to, trying to wait him out.

Ru shifts slightly as he sits up, allowing him the room he needs, although she wasn't anticipating him needing it to shift. Blinking down at the dark shape in the dimly lit bed, she tries not to feel like this is a barely-adequate bandage for whatever he is feeling. "Okay," she relents all the same, because what else is she supposed to do? Sunjata clearly isn't stable enough for her to push and pry, and that's not her place anyway. Not anymore. So instead she lays back down beneath the sheets, reclaiming the lost pillow to wrap her arms around in the hopes it will prevent her from reaching for him in her sleep, regardless of what skin he wears. Damp golden hair spills out over the pillow, and she watches him silently for a moment. Hundreds of words on her tongue. Heavy, bloodied, pleading she open her tightly clamped teeth and let them free.

Instead, she lifts a hand to run gently over his snout, up over his ears, to rest upon his back. "Goodnight, Jata." It's scarcely a whisper in the night, and she closes her eyes against a sudden childish sting, uses a moment of wiggling to get comfortable to conceal the hitch of breath in her throat. Sleep will come quickly for her. It always does - insomnia is not a battle she fights. Instead it claims her quickly, but always with the assurance of horrible, misshapen dreams. There's no point in fighting them, so instead she twines her fingers in Sunjata's fur and tries to accept them with open arms.

But I am just a broken machine
And I do things that I don't really mean

SUNJATA

angel loves to keep me spinning, much too high to see
that all these chains have started thinning & hell is breaking free

He shifts and she sinks back down and Sunjata’s at war with himself. One ear perks when her hand touches his snout and runs her hand along his head and his head, the Attuned’s body relaxing only slightly. Still, he closes his eyes, rumbling a quiet goodnight through the bond to Hotaru, and waits until his anxiety settles enough for him to sleep.

It works for the most part, he stays asleep for a majority of the night aside from the few short bursts where he’s half woken with quiet canine whines, like pain seeping out of him like a sponge that’s been squeezed. But Hotaru manages to quiet him down, little touches that he’s barely conscious enough to notice, and before he knows it?

Sun filters in through the window of the Inn, overcast as most Flowerbirth mornings are in Torchline. Steel eyes pry themselves open, a shiver that races down his spine as he shifts back into himself, face burrowing underneath the pillow as he tries to push away the throbbing in his head. It’s only belated that he realizes that this isn’t his room, that the scent is wrong, but his body feels too much like lead to do anything about it.

Instead, he simply manages to press the pillow into his face more as if it might alleviate some of the pain until he can get his bearings, completely forgetting for the moment that he’s not alone in the bed.

every choice, every lie, demons that he kept inside
angel now that i've stopped spinning, could you come clean?

Hotaru

Sleep is nearly as good a destroyer of inhibitions as alcohol, and when combined, there's nothing to stop her from awakening as Sunjata's nightmares force soft whines from his body and comforting him through them while still half-asleep herself. It's still instinctive even after all this time. Her own nightmares she contends with on her own. Not due to any fault of Sunjata's, but only because her body refuses to communicate it to the outside world.

Were she not such a light sleeper - a trait only reinforced by having the twins so recently - the Valkyrie would have slept a while longer. Far from a morning person. However, when Sunjata shifts and the weight of the bed changes as he shuffles about and automatically searches for a spare pillow, Hotaru stirs and awakens slowly.

Blinking up at the ceiling, she lies still, taking stock of her surroundings before acting on the impulse that tells her she's somewhere strange. As the memories of the night before trickle in, she groans softly and lifts a hand to massage the bridge of her nose where the ache behind her eyes is worsening. "This is precisely why I don't drink," she mutters just loud enough for Sunjata to hear, her headache demanding nothing louder.

But I am just a broken machine
And I do things that I don't really mean