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

"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?