abraxaslogs | [open] I was tame, I was gentle, til the circus life made me mean

Kell doesn't name Rhy, but Wilhelm feels the ghost of his presence anyway. They used to do that together, back when he was full of butterflies for Rhy and desperate to convince him that he was cool enough for his consideration. Setting the bottle down, he rises from the armchair he'd spilled himself into. His eyeroll is all fondness, not annoyance.

"Fine, your highness."

He does, in fact, have a small collection of assorted dinnerware that he's neglected to return to the dining hall. None of which includes actual wine glasses, but he grabs two copper mugs and, returning to the sitting area in front of the fireplace, passes one to Kell. He fills his roommate's first, then his own.

"Cheers," Wilhelm says cheerlessly, raising his mug.

Late evening summer sun still slants through the windows. It's too warm for an actual fire; the hearth is dark and lifeless. Above it, the mantle is cluttered with artifacts of Wilhelm's time in Abraxas. A wooden frog Rhy once carved for him, and a glass one patterned after those that inhabit the magma pools of the Nether. The amphibian mask he'd worn at the masquerade ball in the Feywilds, a pewter snow globe Jesper bought him on their first date in Nocwich. A vase that Elrond used to fill with flowers, now sitting empty.

Sinking back into this chair, he tries not to think about how Kelson once sat across from him and agreed to try out a relationship. Even if it was different from everything he'd known before, even if it wasn't going to last forever.

Well, about that.

Edited 2024-06-09 23:49 (UTC)

Things have memories attached to them. Is it the reason why he didn't unpack his own yet? Maybe. Or maybe it still haunts him how easily he forgot out the in this separate world. Mirror Abraxas, like he ended calling it in his thoughts. Just like the other Londons were reflections, no, variations on the city he grew up in.

Kell ignores the jab and takes the glass. His eyes wander the crowded shelf over the fireplace. He recognizes the frog that Rhy carved for Wilhelm. He saw him do it, remembers it like it was yesterday. So why he forgot there? There, it was only him and Sabine. But even she is lost to him. Like he can't keep anyone to himself. And as he sits there Kell notices one more absence. One more hole in the fabric of their lives.

Kelson.

They both have been orphaned by the people they put their hopes in. By no fault of those who are missing. It was all Singularity doing.

What kind of cursed pathetic losers they must be that everything they hope for, any semblance of normalcy, a tiniest sliver of happiness, they claw themselves into, turns into ash the moment they get a little too comfortable.

"You know," Kell raises his mug in respond to Wille's toast. "The Singularity must really hate us."

Wine tastes awful from a metal cup, and copper is probably the worst choice for it. It seeps into the alcohol leaving it with faint hint of metal. Like there was blood mixed with wine. Kell doesn't complain. Somehow it feels fitting for the moment.

Wilhelm makes a face as the wine slides down his throat, leaving behind a faint coppery taste in his mouth like he's bitten his tongue. They should have just drank straight from the bottle, but he holds that thought in. Otherwise, his thoughts follow the same brooding bend as Kell's, the same ruts they've circled ever since Wilhelm woke up in the crater and found that Kelson was gone.

Sabine was gone too. Wilhelm never really knew her, but he knows Kell was close to her. Losing her so soon after losing Rhy must have felt like a kick to the gut when he was already sprawled out in the dirt.

Closing his eyes, he can still see the searing threads of light that burst out around him when he and Jack combined their power — and their reckless stupidity — to try to locate the ones they'd lost. Their failure felt like a door closing forever, but it couldn't keep out all the what ifs that stalk him.

He puffs out a sad, staccato laugh.

"The Singularity can go fuck itself." No, that doesn't make any sense. No, Wilhelm doesn't care. "You know, the best thing about that weird future was that...we were all, like, bound here. Because we were gods. We couldn't leave, right? So we didn't have to lose anybody."

"Stupid rock, stupid people who dragged us here."

Those are the weakest insults he's ever spoke, but Kell doesn't have the strength for the effort required to invent something better. Which is a great indicator of how bad is his the current state. His insults always were very creative. Now? He can't force himself to care.

"It felt nice." Eight hundred years to experience the world. With others, or on his own. "And you what was as good? Being able to go anywhere we liked. It felt like being myself again."

Kell realized that he relied on his ability to move between worlds with ease. To move around them with even less effort. Being stuck in Thorne castle - again! - feels like a prison. They don't need to throw him into dungeon, to make him feel like he's in one.

There's also the part he didn't like there. It feels quite terrifying remembering what he turned into. The one thing he never wants to become, and yet, having god powers has turned him into it anyway.

Kell is miserable to be back in the castle, and Wilhelm knows that there's more to it than mourning Rhy's absence. In leaving Nott, he has given up a measure of freedom to accept a shorter leash. Selfishly, Wilhelm is glad that Kell came back. He doesn't think he could stand staying in this room by himself, drowning in all this vacant space, and he didn't know who else to ask.

Now they can be miserable together. Tipping back another gulp of wine, he sits with his thoughts for a moment. His somber brown eyes settle on his roommate.

"Kell..." His fingernails tap on the side of the copper mug. "Do you ever wish you'd never been brought here?"

The question hurts to ask. Despite the cage of the castle and the crown, this world offers him a freedom that he didn't think he could ever have back home: the freedom to choose his life's path. And despite everything he's been through and everyone he's lost, he still thinks it's worth it.

"Sometimes."

It's not a reply that he thinks Wilhelm will like, but it's true if overly simplified one. Kell know Wilhelm deserves better than this.

"Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I remember that the precise moment they, Ambrose, Singularity, however that trick works... What matters is that then, I was dying. Bleeding out on the floor of a cage. And I was there as result of many bad choices, mine and others. So, in some sick way, being dragged here could have saved my life."

For what it is worth. In his darkest moments Kell wonders if Rhy is even alive, sort of, back home. Is he there? What Singularity did with the connection it stole from Kell. What he thinks now that he's there and Kell is not. Do they all think he run away? There's no way of knowing, and yet he can't stop himself from thinking about it.

His eyebrows fold together, expression crumpling in empathy, as he imagines Kell collapsed in a pool of blood. Kell fading away one jagged breath at a time. It hurts to imagine. His fingers tighten around the mug.

"Then isn't it better that you're here?" he asks softly. It has to be. There was a time, during that brutal first year in this world, when Wilhelm wished he didn't have to exist. He didn't want to feel or think anymore — he wanted to be a perfectly blank space. And even then, he couldn't choose death.

He doesn't know, of course, that the Maresh brothers are bound by one shared fate. Either both live, or both die. That's how it should have been, anyway.

Kell shrugs. It is already bad that his immediate reaction is not Of course it is! I don't want to die. It's a lot more tepid than that. As if he's unable to make himself have a reaction to it anymore.

"Probably." An understatement. That's most likely worst way of phrasing it. He doesn't want to scare Wille. "I mean, it is. I kind of like being alive. I just hate it that it had to be this way."

That's the thing. Kell is not worried about himself. He very rarely ever did. He didn't mind Abraxas all that much as long as Rhy was here with him. Now, that he's gone, Kell can't imagine himself a way, a direction. A purpose.

"I wouldn't have an issue with it so much, if I could just know that he's fine."

Which is yet another problem that tries not to think about.

He knows at once that Kell is talking about Rhy. In a fucked up way, he's almost lucky that Erik had already died when he came to this world. He doesn't have to worry about the one thing tethering his heart to his old life.

Of course, it never occurred to him that his brother could die until it happened.

But he hasn't had to fret much about what's happening in his absence. He used to feel a little guilty that he was letting his family down once again — letting Erik down. Over time, the guilt surrendered to his growing elation at having the chance to make his own life. Every once in a while he wonders about his parents, who are probably more aggrieved by not having an heir than losing their son. At least, that's what he tells himself.

"I wish you could know too. If Rhy's okay." He sighs. "Some people think that...time stops back home when you're here. Or that there's another version of your home where you're still there and things go on like they're supposed to. I don't know. It's really confusing. I don't know if I believe it."

Kell always fought tooth and nail for even the scraps of independence. From the moment he realized that he's not really son of the royal couple. He might bear their name, but he is not and never will be their son. They acquired him like one acquire a weapon or ship.

Now, that his finally untethered, with no obligation to anyone or anything. That his finally free to do with his life what he wants. The way that their three months disappearance has shown that he can. Now, he doesn't want it.

"You know, there's this one theory that says that the Summoning ritual takes out your own time, and if ever gets kicked out by Singularity you return the exact moment it pulled you from."

Of course, he doesn't believe it. None of the theories has any real proof to it, just a bunch of speculations. The longer he thinks about the more he's convinced that even Ambrose has no idea what his doing.

"I think I'm going to stick to it."

It's desperate and disingenuous move. He just resigned to lie to himself. But he has to hold on to something. Otherwise, he won't be able to get off his bed, and he doesn't want to drag anyone else into his own private abyss. He'd want them to believe he's fine. Even if it's a gross lie.

[open] I was tame, I was gentle, til the circus life made me mean

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cw: brief mention of suicidal ideation

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wrap on mine?