abraxaslogs | [closed] they told me all of my cages were mental

A mother having that much control over a son would be considered strange in Basawar. It'd be the father putting that pressure on his male children, especially the oldest. He wonders what it is that Wilhelm has unwillingly become heir to within his family. A replacement for the brother he's still grieving.

He watches Wilhelm's hands as he gives up on fidgeting with the blade of grass.

"What would you choose to do with your life, if it wasn't in your mother's hands?"

Not the impossibility of his brother returning to life but - what would he do if he returned and found his responsibilities gone?

At first, he has no answer. When people talk about what you do with your life, they invariably mean career, ambitions, passions. None of which he possesses the vaguest idea about.

"I don't know," Wilhelm admits. He just knows that he doesn't want to be king.

Now that he's no longer in motion, the cold sinks in, and he curls his hands up into his sleeves a bit. For a moment, he studies Kyle with a guarded expression, measuring if he's someone safe to confide in. Then his eyes settle on the grass beside him, as his fingers fidget at the edges of his sleeves.

"There was...someone important to me. We couldn't be together, because everything got in the way. So..." He shakes his head with a little shrug. "I don't really care about anything else. I'd just want to be with them."

There are markers in the language of his answer that Kahlil recognizes. Someone important to me. Them instead of her. It reminds him of one of his last conversations with Yu'mir, about how easily she assumed his own someone was a woman, a prostitute no less. That couldn't be further from the truth, but he couldn't tell her that the note he'd left earlier for that day was for a man, even if his intentions weren't romantic. It would have been suspicious in an already precarious situation.

The other truth was, though, that he did feel something for the man he worked for. And to confide in Yu'mir... he doesn't know what would have gone over worse: that he was reporting to a rival gaunsho's captain, or that he's attracted to men.

It was always, always better to let people assume what they naturally wanted to, in both parts of his life. In Basawar, in Nayeshi -

Here, it's different.

There was...someone important to me. We couldn't be together, because everything got in the way.

"I was roommates with someone for almost a year," he starts, meeting Wilhelm's guarded gaze. His own expression is regretful, and his brow pinches slightly. He glances up at the bare tree branches.

"He was very handsome, and kind, and smart. Sometimes I wondered what it might have been like if we met under different circumstances - I think he thought I was very strange, and I... didn't want to make things more awkward."

It's not Alidas he means, but John.

Jahn, Jath'ibaye. The Rifter. Kahlil's whole reason for being. The god he failed to kill, the god gave his life to. But for almost a year, on those nights and mornings they sometimes spent watching baseball or eating breakfast, he wasn't the Kahlil. He could pretend to be only Kyle, and John was just John - a graduate student obsessed with environmental sciences and a sports team that never seemed to win anything.

He looks up when Kyle describes his erstwhile roommate as very handsome, and the walls comes down to reveal a look of stark recognition. Wilhelm knows all too well the ache of what could have been, which is only sharpened by the glimpses he got of it. A collage of stolen moments with Simon.

Even now, he hardly ever frames the what ifs in terms of what he could have done differently. In his mind, he had no choice but to make the statement denying his involvement in the video — one of those stolen moments that got taken from him and passed around online. Something tender that got twisted into a scandal.

He frames them in terms of his circumstances, to which he was helpless. Because he's a prince, he couldn't be himself. Because he's a prince, he couldn't be with Simon.

"What...ended up happening?"

The question stumbles out hesitantly, because Wilhelm supposes Kyle wouldn't be telling this story at all if it had a happy ending. There would be no what might have been.

He reads Wilhelm's expression, and his heart hurts for the young man. Basawar might be more extreme in its ways, but Nayeshi has its own flaws and cruelness.

At the question, he just shakes his head again.

"Nothing. We separated and I lost track of him. When we met again... we were both different people."

It's a version of the truth. John got away from him, and thirty years passed in the White Space. Two more years of not realizing that the Rifter and Jath'ibaye were the same person. And when they met again he couldn't recognize the young man he'd grown to love in the warlord that held him by the throat and threatened to kill him.

It was only fair, he supposed. There's something wistful in his expression.

"How did you two meet?"

"Oh," is all Wilhelm can say, more exhalation than solid word. The thought that somebody you love, somebody with whom your own sense of self has become intertwined, could one day become a stranger pinches in his chest.

"It was at school. I saw him singing with the choir. He just looked so happy up there, and...I don't know, free."

Like he was floating on top of the music he was creating. Peacefulness momentarily alights on Wilhelm's expression as he remembers it. With a quiet sigh, he sinks back into pensiveness.

"After that...I looked for every excuse I could find to talk to him."

Fussing with a strand of hair that hangs in his eyes, he sneaks Kyle a glance. Then his gaze floats up to the sky, which at this hour is filling in blue. Though it's still hard to share what he'd held in the deepest privacy for so long, he feels safe opening up to the man beside him.

"I didn't really understand it at first."

The enormity of his feelings. How a brief conversation or a shared laugh could make his whole day, and somebody else beating him to the seat nearest Simon could ruin it.

He remembers what it was like to be Wilhelm's age, the intensity of his own feelings the first time he met the gaze of another young man in town and recognized the same wanting that he'd tried to ignore. His face is blurred by years, but at the time he could recall every detail, and at night he could play back every conversation and every small touch they shared.

How it could make him feel whole and hollow at the same time.

There are those other memories, too. The ones that don't fit, that make no sense. The ones where he watched John from a distance in Rathal'pesha, not Nayeshi. Where they went months without being able to talk and it was maddening. There's more, so many more intimate details that he tries not to fixate on. Especially now, here. He makes Wilhelm his focus again, watching him as he seems incapable of sitting still - or meeting his gaze for too long.

"Your mother didn't approve?"

Wilhelm shakes his head, fingers tightening on his knees.

"It was...complicated."

Which is why he spends a moment sorting out how to explain without forfeiting any details about his title, which he prefers to leave behind him as much as possible.

"I don't think she would've cared that I'm...you know, except that I'm supposed to get married and have kids someday. Carry on the family legacy. That's all that matters to her, legacy and tradition."

And in those narrow confines, there was no room for a crown prince who loves another boy. Bitterness bites in his voice. He had tried to balance both, his duty to his family — to Erik's memory — and his own desires. If he denied the video, the heat of the media circus would cool down, and he could continue seeing Simon in secret.

Except it hadn't worked that way. I don't want to be anyone's secret.

Even if Wilhelm speaks around the details, what he says makes Kahlil think of the gaun'im. Blood and power meant something different to the nobles than it did the church.

And Wilhelm's older brother.

"That's a heavy burden to carry." Even without being the way that they are. He lets out a breath and closes his eyes for a moment.

"I can see what you mean about having more freedom here."

No one in Thorne cares if they're with a man or a woman. They can be with whomever they want, without fear - to a degree. There's no promises that Thorne might someday use those relationships against them.

He keeps that to himself, though. Wilhelm has enough to worry about.

It's a heavy burden to carry, and yet he feels that it shouldn't be so hard. He should be capable. Erik was capable. Inside of him tangle so many things. Relief that he can set aside the weight of the crown looming over his head. Guilt for that relief, for failing his brother. Frustration that his newfound freedom comes at the cost of losing any chance he had to be with Simon.

Wilhelm hums in acknowledgement of Kyle's words, which feel something like forgiveness, then settles into silence. It's the sort of silence that follows after you've pulled yourself open for someone else, and you both sit there in your shifted perspectives of one another. You take a minute to get used to being a more honest version of yourself.

Hauling himself back up to his feet, he stretches his limbs and releases a breath.

"I think...I'm ready to try again, Kyle."

It's hard to trust someone else with your secrets. With your true face.

Maybe it's in part a self-serving impulse, that he sees so much of himself in the young man and wishes to protect him. No one looked out for him when he was Wilhelm's age. He does care about him, though. And he's glad he could share this much with him.

"C'mon, then." He shifts onto his feet in one swift motion.

He'll continue drilling him for a little while longer, then nudge him toward breakfast when they're done.

[closed] they told me all of my cages were mental

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