abraxaslogs | [ OPEN ] the fate of the game is moving my way.

Ronan has been desperately trying not to think about about his own brother, whose entire survival depends on his existence. He's been trying not to think about his best friend or his psychopomp or his pet raven or any of the others who rely on him. His dreams. He knows exactly what Rhy is talking about because he's describing a kind of magic Ronan knows too well, only from the other side.

Pulling him into a real embrace, Ronan cradles Rhy against his chest and lays kisses into his hair. He's not angry with Rhy for keeping this from him. It's a surprise, really, that Rhy trusts him enough to even tell him now.

"I think I know what you're feeling," Ronan murmurs.

Rhy crumples against him. He clutches the bottle just upright enough not to spill it all over Ronan's bed, the fingers of his other hand clawed against his chest as though if he were able to just dig hard enough, he might find Kell in there somewhere, after all.

It's been weeks since he let himself cry. Since those first few days, when he'd done nothing but lie in bed and weep, wander the halls and drink. Now, he only does one of these things.

Until Ronan Lynch decided to embrace him, and it's like all the carefully rebuilt walls he'd cobbled together around his heart come crumbling down all at once, dragging his flimsy façade of being okay down with them.

"You don't," Rhy sobs, shaking his head and smearing tears and spit into Ronan's collar. "You can't."

Maybe not. Grief and isolation manifest in all sorts of ways. Maybe the fact that Rhy's crying in his arms instead of destroying everything in sight is proof of how incapable Ronan is at understanding anything.

It's alright. He'll hold on and let Rhy cry as much as he needs to cry, until he's exorcised as much pain as he can and he goes looking for words again. Ronan's arms are strong and steady, a surprisingly good place for someone to pour out their sadness, and he is patient.

He doesn't bother to say the things everyone else always says, like: It'll be okay or You'll see him again. Ronan doesn't make promises like that. Usually, things aren't okay. Most of the time, people are gone for good.

It is for the best that Ronan isn't the sort to try to assuage Rhy's pain with platitudes; Rhy might have simply punched him in the nose.

In the silence, Rhy simply cries. Sometimes, the crying is cathartic. Sometimes, it simply leaves him exhausted and aching, eyes swollen and throat raw, wanting to scream himself into oblivion and leaving him seeking another bottle to drown in instead. Usually, he is alone.

With Ronan's arms around him, Rhy sinks into the warmth, lets the support of a solid body beneath him carry him like a life raft through the storm. After a minute or two of wracking, horrible sobbing, he seems to calm just enough to breathe. His hand loosens from his chemise with shaky effort; it settles instead on Ronan's chest. His face tips up, nudging underneath Ronan's jaw, pressing his mouth against his pulse not to kiss but simply to feel. He had become so used to another heartbeat alongside his own in those months since Kell had done the unforgivable.

For a long time, Rhy lets the tears dry in silence, his body matching the rhythm of Ronan's until he feels spent and sad, but more or less like a person again instead of a heaving creature of unfettered grief.

Ronan envies him a little. It must feel good to cry. Not good like enjoyable, but like lancing an infected wound. Getting everything out with tears and screaming so it doesn't come back later, when you least expect it, to kill you in the dark. Ronan can never manage to cry like this. All his pain gets buried deep, hardening into something radioactive, until eventually it explodes.

Now that Rhy's all wrung out and easing back into a kind of calm, it feels safe to move. Ronan gingerly pries the bottle from him and sets it aside, then takes that hand and brings it to his mouth. He kisses Rhy's knuckles, his palm, his wrist. He can't stop feeling it now — the Singularity's energy coursing through Rhy like the blood in his veins.

"What do you feel?" Ronan asks him.

There is no protest or resistance from Rhy. He only leans more heavily on Ronan, and turns all the focus he can muster on memorizing the sensation of every point of contact between them. Throat against his lips. Lips against his hand. His hand on Ronan's chest.

Rhy answers the question honestly. It is nothing against Ronan or the comfort he's doing his best to provide.

"Like someone scooped out spoonfuls of me and tried to replace those parts with sand that's constantly sliding out of place."

Ronan gives the slightest nod of agreement. Yes. That is precisely the feeling.

He didn't really think there was anything he could do to ease it. How could he? When he's in the waking world, he's as helpless as anyone else. Even more helpless, actually, because he's rapidly eroding with every passing moment.

"I can't give you your brother," Ronan begins slowly, though it would be more accurate to say won't. Ronan won't make another human as long as he can help it. "But I might be able to help with that feeling."

Rhy doesn't look up. He brings his knees up a little, curling his leg against Ronan's thigh. The first part is expected. The second makes his head lift slightly, not away from Ronan, just a minute shift.

"...how?"

Ronan gives Rhy's hand another kiss before releasing it to reach into the pouch that hangs from his belt. Most of the things contained within it are weapons, but not all of the dreams he carries with him are dangerous. The one he pulls out looks like a large silver coin, a metal washer with a hole in its center, which he cradles in his palm.

"What I was doing before I was summoned here..."

He taps the washer with his thumb and a sphere of light gently rises from the hollow center of the coin, floating like a bubble, rising in the air. He tosses the metal aside and catches the light in his hand before it can drift out of reach, pulling it back down for Rhy to examine, pinched between his thumb and forefinger.

Although it's quite bright, it isn't difficult to look at. If anything, it's soothing on the eyes. A suggestion of peace and hope emanate from it, illuminating the space between them. Ronan's sharp features look softer in its light, and so do Rhy's, although only Ronan can see that.

"The whole reason I exist is to bring magic back into the world. Go ahead, touch it. It doesn't burn."

Slowly, Rhy raises his head, parting reluctantly from the touch of his lips to Ronan's skin to look at what he's showing him. The light is... beautiful, in a way Rhy can't quite describe.

He reaches out, offering his palm for Ronan to drop the lit-up ball of magic into it. Rhy cups it gently in his hands. It looks like a palm fire, a tiny enchantment popular in his London in winter for folks to warm their hands and light the dark nights.

"It's pretty," he mumbles, unsure of what he's supposed to do with it.

These little lights are uncomplicated dream things, fanciful delights Ronan created for no purpose other than comfort. He doesn't expect it to do much more than that for Rhy, either, but it's a sample of what he's talking about.

"Do you feel that?" he asks. "Does it help at all? I can give you something like that, but bigger. Something to fill the space better than sand."

The magic is warm. There is a soothing quality to it, certainly, like sitting next to a fire on a cold night. Rhy cups it in his palm, staring down into the gentle light and taking slow breaths. He feels calmer, but it's difficult for him to tell if it's the ball of magic or Ronan or simply that he's exhausted himself.

"Something bigger? Like what?"

"I don't know yet," Ronan answers. "I'll know it when I see it."

It's useless to try to work out the problem while he's awake. He has no resources when he's like this. Even in Abraxas, doing magic in the waking world is like trying to sculpt with one hand tied behind his back.

"Does being near me... Does that do something to you? Kind of like that light. Have you noticed?"

Rhy's brows furrow. He shifts his focus from the little palm fire-like ball of magic up to Ronan's face, and his eyes are red-rimmed and tired, an ashen wanness to his face that is evidence to how drained he really is, the truth of what he usually hides.

He is too exhausted to ask questions. Rhy nods faintly, letting his head tip onto Ronan's shoulder again, as though he's lost the strength to keep his neck upright. He closes his eyes, concentrating on the warmth that emanates from Ronan instead.

"Being near you feels better than the light," he confesses softly. He'd thought it was just the loneliness. That being near someone, anyone who wanted to welcome him, would be enough. Ronan seems to be suggesting, however, that there's something about him in particular.

"When we were... together... it felt even better than that."

Ronan nods slowly.

This is all starting to make a lot more sense. Rhy jumping on his invitation that first night, the way he'd held on and tasted Ronan and even bitten him trying to get at... something. How eager Rhy had been to see him again after that, refusing to let Ronan quietly slip away. He feels so stupid, looking back on it now, to have believed Rhy was feeling something real for him. If he'd used his brain even a little, he could have worked it out and given Rhy what he was really looking for.

"Don't worry," Ronan assures him, wrapping his arms around Rhy again so that he doesn't have to keep supporting his own weight. "I know exactly what you need. I can fix this."

Rhy leans into the embrace, closing his eyes again, letting Ronan wrap him up in his long, solid arms and hold him so that he doesn't have to hold himself together all alone.

"How can you possibly fix this, Ronan?"

He is tired. Not exasperated, not upset, tone flat and exhausted. There is nothing in his mind that can fix this, except the brother they both know Ronan can't bring here.

The same way he can turn light into tranquility or dust into apathy or fire into hunger. Ronan is a most unique sort of alchemist.

"Leave that part to me."

Rhy wouldn't understand even if Ronan had the words to describe it, which he doesn't. He brushes a kiss to Rhy's temple and sighs, aching to do so much more than that, despite knowing what he knows now. It feels good to be exactly what someone needs, even if it's never going to be the real kind of love one human feels for another.

"I just need a few hours," he murmurs into Rhy's hair. "I can't give it to you now. I might take too much from you if you're in the room when I do it."

Rhy's heart sinks. Ronan tells him there's something he can give him, volunteers to help, and Rhy's traitorous heart just wants to decline and cling to him instead. He sighs.

"Shall I go, then?"

He is too drained to even insist on asking again what Ronan plans.

"No," says Ronan.

There's nothing that prohibits him from holding Rhy in his arms and comforting him, no need for Rhy to go wandering off and suffering alone. Dreaming will happen when it happens.

He cups Rhy's cheek and gently redirects him, bringing their lips close. "Be with me for a while," he murmurs. Ronan can still taste the salt of Rhy's tears when he kisses the corner of his mouth. "I'll make you feel better for now, and then I'll figure out how to make you feel better for good."

It is not the answer he expected, having already resigned himself to worse-- but it is the answer he'd been desperately hoping for. Rhy kisses back, gentle for now, the need soft and innocent, wanting only comfort.

He still doesn't think Ronan can help for good, but the fact he is willing to try is kindness enough in Rhy's mind. He loops an arm around Ronan's neck.

"I want to stay," he confesses, which is no surprise at all. "Here. With you."

For now, at least. For a few more minutes, or a few hours, or until the morning comes again and chases away some of the pain with time and sunshine.

"Good."

Now that he understands the problem — emotional and metaphysical — he can do a much better job of treating it. It's a relief for Ronan, too, in a way. Everything that had hurt Kylo before isn't an issue anymore. Rhy had never been a real threat to him, but especially not now, especially when Ronan understands there's nothing here that could ever possibly tempt him away from his master.

If it's the energy inside him that's attracting Rhy, then obviously closer is better. Ronan gathers him up, pulling Rhy onto his lap and practically surrounding him in his embrace. Let Ronan be nothing but a fire for him to warm himself beside.

Rhy has had many intimate partners, yet so few who would do this. Hold him like this. He sighs, letting Ronan move him as he wishes, pliant and subdued in a way few get to see. He nuzzles his face into Ronan's throat again, kissing his pulse, curls up in his lap and tucks his arms between their bodies.

It is a few minutes before he speaks again, after basking in the warmth and the steady beat of Ronan's heart against his palm.

"Why do you know all this, Ronan?"

"Because I've made life before."

Ronan has been sitting so still that if not for the beating of his heart and the slow rhythm of his breathing, he could pass for a very convincing Pietà. Now his thumb runs a soft caress along Rhy's jaw.

"Every life I make has a little spark of me in it. And when something happens to me, they can feel it. Like everybody here felt the Singularity dim. We're kind of the same thing, me and the Singularity. I'm just a lot smaller."

Made life.

Rhy has never thought about it that way, what Kell did for him. He'd considered it an anchoring of some sort, something to keep his soul tethered to a body that hadn't died because his is no longer enough. Had Kell actually restored something, using his own life force as magic? There is no way for Rhy to understand that, and likely no way for Kell to either, as the magic had not been his own or even from their world.

He tips his head slowly into Ronan's hand, eyes still shut. If he is shocked at what Ronan has just admitted, he doesn't have the energy to show it much right now.

The Singularity. A source of magic. The proverbial fire keeping all the worlds warm. (Or at least some of them, those within reach, as Stephen had said.) Somehow, it only feels like it makes sense that Ronan is a little piece of the same.

"It's keeping me alive," he finds himself explaining, almost absently. For having been so reluctant to bring it up at first, now Rhy just wants to say it, just let all the words fall out of him and let Ronan do what he will with them, so they are no longer only in his head. He talks without thinking, lips soft on Ronan's throat, long lashes brushing his jaw.

"It's tethering me. The way my brother did. Stephen thinks it's because he can't reach this far, even though his traveling to other worlds has never been a problem before. That maybe this universe is simply too many other universes away. But it is only a rock. I used to feel his heartbeat. Now there is silence. I don't think you're the same thing. You're something more than pure magic with no heart."

But that's not true at all. Calling the Singularity a rock is like calling a ley line an old dirt road. Like calling Lindenmere a bunch of trees. All of them have a heartbeat of their own, though he understands how difficult it can be to hear it. He couldn't do it, either, for the longest time.

"That's not... silence," Ronan begins slowly. "If someone's screaming at you in this room, you're not going to hear someone trying to talk to you from the other side of the door. It's not that he's too far. It's too loud. And you can't tell because you're part of it now."

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