[Closed] Headful of Ghosts (Lars)

[Fionn]

Vortas 22, 2719 | Late Afternoon
Painted Ladies

.

What was he meant to think anymore?

The teenager didn’t know. He hardly knew what to make of his own childhood anymore. It should have been so simple really. He should have walked into that house and seen confusion on their faces, quickly followed by horror once they realised what he was and who he was. Toibin Madden had reacted in the way he’d expected. He hadn’t had a clue who Fionn was and of course, he’d realised what the boy was once he was in range. Not straight away, admittedly because the idea that his daughter had brought a passive from Brunnhold had been too difficult for him to swallow. The idea of a passive dressed up like a galdor with none of the bearing of a creature that should have been downtrodden but no human could be like that. When he’d realised what the youth was, he’d become an ‘it’ and ‘that thing’ but when he was told who...

In all honesty, the servant didn’t know if the Incumbent had been more shocked, horrified and indignant about his passive son being brought into his midst or at his daughter’s very clear refusal of her engagement. Fionn had already begun to space out by the time that Niamh had dropped that bombshell, mainly because Eliza Madden had been the one who realised who he was having stared at him since he’d entered.

After that, many things had unravelled in his head.

Niamh had intended for them to return to Brunnhold today, assuming that they’d have everything done and dusted by midday — the worst over and done with as she’d put it — and be back by midnight or so. That had been the plan before they went but after it… The young woman had tried to be kind to him, patient and gentle as well but he hadn’t wanted her anywhere near him, hadn’t wanted her to use soothing words to calm him. Fionn had changed into the clothes she’d told him to, ones more suitable for a human or even a personal passive, if a bit rough, but then he needed space. He’d told her that he needed to be alone, that he needed to walk — or he thought he’d said that — and then he’d been gone, leaving the prosperity of Upper Vienda behind him.

The young man had put as much distance as possible between himself and the hotel where they’d been staying. He’d wanted to get away from galdori as well, every one of them that he encountered sending shivers through him. None of those fields felt like Eliza’s, or even Toibin’s, but he just hadn’t been able to stomach it. So he’d found himself in the rougher areas, the poorer ones, roaming around with his hands in his pockets and his head full of memories — ghosts of the past. He pored obsessively over them, trying to reconcile everything in which he’d come to believe while in Brunnhold with the mother he’d known before his gating — and the one that had sobbed and embraced him today.

Nothing made sense anymore. The teenager should be angry — maybe he was and didn’t know it — but he was mainly bewildered. Bewildered and lost and haunted. Fionn stumbled along as if in a dream, avoiding bumping into others somehow — some habits were difficult to break — including the one for self-preservation because he seemed to sense when he was in rougher areas — potential trouble — and steer himself away. Perhaps in the near future, he’d look back and realise just how lucky he’d been, his disconnected state making him a prime target for anyone who wanted to victimise him.

Maybe it was funny, the Circle exhibiting a sense of humour when they placed a cat in his path, amusing because it dragged him out of himself. Sort of.

When he’d been at home, a lifetime ago, Fionn had had an osta. It was a feline but different in many ways to an ordinary cat. He’d always liked cats though, had always had a strange affection for them but he hadn’t been allowed a pet. It had been Toibin who’d gotten the osta, Toibin who had intended to be the master of the creature but felines could be incredibly choosy and so it had settled on Fionn — after biting its would-be master on the nose. It had been Eliza who had saved it from being destroyed as the man of the household danced about in a fury and it had been her present to the lonely boy. It was an odd connection between mother and middle child, now at least and perhaps that was why this smaller, far less colourful creature — this was a little silver tabby rather than a rusty orange — caught his eye and held it. The fact that he wasn’t in his right mind was why he set off after the thing. The poor, frightened animal trotted away because it didn’t understand why this stranger was coming at it with such intent and he followed it anyway.

Some deranged part of his mind decided that he needed to pet it, that the youth needed a friend and so it became his purpose, one he pursued with bloodyminded intent, even when it took refuge under an odd little nook under one of the colourful houses. The residential area was slightly hilled and this was one of the spots with a bit of a slope where ground and foundation had chosen to be at odds with each other, parting ways instead of kissing. It was here that the young man hunkered down, crouching low and stretching forward so he could reach into the little gap. He was heedless of the way the rough ceiling of the space scraped at the back of his hand, or the frightened, warning hisses of the creature. The servant also didn’t notice that his erse was basically stuck up in the air, wiggling as he shifted around, reaching desperately for the cat.

He didn’t know when he started crying because he wasn’t paying any attention. Fionn wouldn’t have understood the why of it either. Just a few little tears, welling up so that his vision blurred but he was crying all the same.

And then he felt something… impossible.

The areas he’d been through had contained wicks with their smaller, freer fields and humans with their vast emptiness. The nothingness that surrounded the humans had gotten through to him at first and then it had become a blessing, a relief, his senses wonderfully free of that press. He hadn’t encountered any passives though — none within the range of his senses — but that made sense; free passives weren’t really a thing. So the feel of a passive was unexpected but that wasn’t the truly shocking thing.

This one was familiar. This one… this one belonged to a ghost.

It was there, just on the very edge of his range and it made him pause then reverse, straightening up abruptly as he turned, wildness in his brown eyes, blond hair stuck up at every angle and red and pink marking the back of his hand. He’d only intended to move off, to start hunting but then he saw something familiar as well. Familiar and yet strangely unfamiliar — unheimlich. A pale version of the man he remembered, quite literally in this case because the hair had been drained of colour, stark white on his head, although that was probably contrasted by the warmth of his skin, a tan still lingering from the warmer months, although faded now. The resemblance was uncanny. Aside from the changes in appearance, including a choice of clothing so different to the uniform to which he’d grown accustomed to him wearing — the one he usually wore himself although he was in a white shirt and worn black slacks now — there was something in the manner.

It was magnetic really, Fionn drawn forward against his will as he felt himself compelled to do so. One step, two and then it was there — the nexus. Except it was impossible. He’d managed to reconcile himself to the fact that he’d never see him again because he was dead. He had to be dead. Except that he wasn’t. He was changed but not dead. He staggered another step, legs suddenly a-tremble, and stared. Stared because his voice wouldn’t come to him — it had been stolen by shock.

His heart moved, swelling, squeezing, throbbing, he didn’t know but it hurt, oh sweet Lady, it hurt. It had been broken and yet now it seemed to be trying to stitch itself back together, stirring with a feeble hope, a hope that he couldn’t explain.

Impossible.

If it was a phantom then he didn’t care. He wasn’t thinking enough to care. All he could do was approach it, touch it, see if it was real or if he’d gone mad. The middle Madden must have lost it so he moved to feel him, hesitant and frightened as he reached out to let his fingertips graze that face, to trace features that seemed familiar, oh so cruelly familiar.

“Lars?”

It was a question and a prayer, a plea. A desperate, disbelieving plea.

[Lars]

PAINTED LADIES
VORTAS 22, 2719 - LATE AFTERNOON

The city of Vienda was a dreadful place to be. To be fair, he supposed anyone coming from Vienda to the harbor probably felt the same about his new home - they were such drastically different places, and the passive wasn't quite sure what to make of it all. He had only been in the city for a little while, having found temporary residence in some inn above a tavern, but his attempts to stay in his room had turned out to be utterly pointless and needlessly painful.

Sitting around simply wasn't something Lars could do.

So the passive had opted to spend his days wandering the city streets instead, avoiding fancifully-clothed galdori in their carriages, accompanied by their servants, and avoiding stiff green uniforms even more. If there was one thing he didn't want, it was to be found out in Vienda - certainly the particulars of his crimes wouldn't have been widespread knowledge, if Brunnhold's authorities didn't want confidence in their keeping of servants to falter, but the simple fact of being a passive at all was too much to have noticed. He didn't want to be put to work, nor did he want to be sent back to the place he'd still so recently escaped.

No, it was not a life he could go back to. Nothing on Vita could make him return to the looming fortress walls of Brunnhold; he'd sooner return to the cycle before he set foot back on that campus.

Still, Vienda was... interesting, in it's own right. Lars didn't find it to be quite as refreshing or unrestrained as the Rose, but it was a proper city, unlike anything he'd seen in a long time. Walking across well-maintained streets, not being met with the sight of tumbles (he'd finally learned what that meant) and drunks on so many corners and alleys - he'd not explored the entirety of the city, and was certain that he never would, but it was new and different.

He felt terribly out of place. Perhaps if he was years younger, he might've found it in himself to just blend in, and pretend he was one of them - one of the galdori - that was simply repressing his field. He could not, however, find any part of himself that desired to do so any longer. He wasn't one of them - he never would be - and he didn't want to be.

By the time Lars came upon a stretch of bright, colorfully-painted houses with their little cracks and scratches in the paint, it must've been later in the afternoon, and the Hessean knew that he would have to turn around and head back to the inn soon if he didn't want to be out after dark. He wasn't sure how far he had traveled, or if he had even looped around and come back, closer to where he was staying; he'd found the tendency to get mixed up and turned around in the unfamiliar city's structures, and didn't love the idea of getting truly lost.

He might've turned around then, if it weren't for the woman in front of him (a human, he supposed, blonde and dressed in soot-stained, patched up clothes) tripping over the hem of her skirt. Lars would have stopped if he'd been looking forward, but seeing as his gaze had been cast out upon the rows of rather eclectic houses, the passive didn't stop walking until he'd bumped right into her - he reached out to catch her elbow before she'd fallen properly onto the ground, but still, it was enough to distract him from anything - and everyone - else around.

The woman straightened herself up with his help, turning around to face him and offering a small apology and words of thanks for helping her not to fall - all met with a smile from the taller passive, who offered his own apology for having stumbled into her in the first place. She continued on her way afterwards, passing him by and turning in another direction, and Lars was suddenly made aware of his own distractions.

Admittedly, it took him a moment or two to even register that someone was approaching; he'd let his guard down for just long enough not to notice, a mistake he couldn't stand to make, and now this boy was coming closer, reaching out and touching his face -

"Fionn?"

He'd said it in the same moment that his own name had been spoken, and Lars blinked, his expression faltering in his confusion before it settled into something more neutral. No, how was - this couldn't be Fionn, Fionn was still in Brunnhold. He hadn't followed him, hadn't even tried, hadn't even spoken a word to him for a while before he'd left. Not after Dorhaven, not after - no, this couldn't be him, and yet... it was.

How? How in all the gods' names had he gotten out? Here he was, hair messed up and sticking out, dressed in something other than a servant's uniform. Lars blinked again, swallowing down the numerous questions that threatened to spill out of his mouth, settling on just one.

"How are you... what are you doing here?"

His voice was quiet, disbelieving. Lars' pale gaze settled on the boy's face, narrowed slightly with concern. He didn't pull himself away from the hand on his own face, even if the contact had been jarring at first - he was far more comfortable with being touched nowadays than he had been in Brunnhold, that much was a given considering his work, but it was still strange to suddenly have someone from the past reach out and touch his face out of nowhere.

[Fionn]

Vortas 22, 2719 | Late Afternoon
Painted Ladies

.

The Hessean simply allowed himself to be touched. If their positions had been reversed, Fionn would probably have leaned away from questing fingers, even at the moment of recognition but not the phantom before him. It struck a chord of memory, a first meeting which seemed like a lifetime ago now. He’d gained two new roommates and it had been the quiet one that had intrigued him, the seemingly submissive one who had allowed the middle Madden to thread fingers through his hair to tilt his head back, even while something spirited flashed beneath the surface. The lack of a flinch might have reminded him of that day but this young man was so different. The angles and curves of his face were the same, still that beautiful blend of masculine and feminine, his nexus, his voice shaping his name, they were all Lars — his Lars.

There were definite differences though, differences that he couldn’t help noticing even as his fingers told him that what he saw was no apparition, unless ghosts could conjure mass as well as corporeal shape.

Alive.

The skin was darker, still carrying the hallmarks of a tan gained in summer, sun kissed now instead of carrying the cool luminescence of the moon from being veritably trapped in the dark. If it hadn’t been for that, he might have thought the man looked faded, colour having been taken out of everything else. His hair was no longer a rich gold but had brightened considerably right down to the roots, although it was unclear if it was actually white or if the contrast with his skin made it seem as if it was so. It couldn’t be dyed, couldn’t have been so utterly stripped of colour that it wasn’t even visible on the strands freshly sprouted from his scalp. Except not entirely white, no. It was like a faint shadow had been cast over the crown of hair to make it off-white, grey, albeit subtly. And his eyes had altered their colouring as well, the blue he had committed to his memory as being vivid had paled, grey now with flecks of blue. If it was a disguise then it was an ingenious one, not that Fionn even considered how it might have been done, not when the man was so solidly here.

Alive!!

There was a moment of animation, something indecipherable crossing his face as tears came to the blond’s eyes and blurred his vision. The other seemed surprised to see him, but he couldn’t have been as shocked as Fionn, speaking as if the air had been sucked out of his lungs, voice hardly above a whisper as if he didn’t dare risk being heard. It was the emotion that stole his breath, all the emotions at once in fact. He was already so raw from the encounter with his parents and now to be so unexpectedly confronted with the sight of a man he had assumed dead but hoped was alive undid him utterly.

Shock, anger, joy, grief all surged up within him, the volatile combination setting him all a-tremble, his quaking heart at the centre of it all as sobs hiccuped out of him. He didn’t think that he could keep his legs under him?l, didn’t think that remaining upright unaided was possible anymore. It was a wonder that the teenager hadn’t fallen in a dead faint already.

“Lars?”

It sounded like a question and in truth, it was one, the youth seeking confirmation that he wasn’t hallucinating, that none of his senses had managed to deceive him. Hope could be a wonderful thing but it could also be terrible one, sometimes more horrible to dare to hope than to live without it. How could he dare to do so after everything? How could he trust his own stupid, fallible senses? How could he trust his heart even as it cried out from within him?

“I thought… I thought you were… w-w-were d-dead,” he whispered, something cold creeping up his spine as if suggesting it aloud would make it true.

“I thought you were dead!” he wailed, clutching for some purchase on the other’s torso as his shaky knees buckled beneath him. If Lars didn’t let him hold onto him then the young man would end up on his erse in the middle of the street, plain and simple. He was crying but he had so much to say, so many questions to ask. Did his former roommate not realise how his vanishing act had seemed? Did he care? Did Fionn care now that he had him before him, solid and breathing, albeit altered?

“Y-Y-You disappeared and that girl- I thought- I-I-I- One d-d-day but two, three- I hoped but I didn’t really- I really-”

Fionn couldn’t get words out, couldn’t make himself coherent and he was trying, gods help him, he was really trying but all he wanted to do right now was hold him and sob, know that the other was alive and well. Happy. How could he not be happy given that he was out? He wanted to apologise for everything but he couldn’t make his tongue work, couldn’t find a way to vent all of the emotion that had swelled within him and now threatened to burst him apart at the seams.

“All I could th-th-think- I never told you- You p-p-probably thought I h-h-h-hated you or I didn’t- I-I-I-I-”

It was too much. He was choked by it, hardly able to breathe never mind speak around all the feelings he had kept stored and buried, shoved down where he didn’t have to acknowledge them. The teenager had always been good at bottling his emotions — until they exploded of course.

Bloodshot brown eyes turned to the other’s face, trying to communicate everything, trying to tell him everything that he hadn’t before and hopefully showing his willingness to do anything. Lars could have lifted him bodily and flung him into the wall like a rag doll and Fionn would have allowed it.

[Lars]

PAINTED LADIES
VORTAS 22, 2719 - LATE AFTERNOON

Lars was left feeling uncertain as the younger passive began to sob, his body trembling, and he wasn't sure if it would have been better to reach out and steady him or to let him deal with it himself. He didn't quite know how Fionn felt towards him anymore - it hadn't seemed like he'd felt too fondly before, in fact he'd taken the avoidance as an admission that it had all just been a mistake. That Fionn had simply mistaken his feelings for him as something more than they really were, and didn't want to be honest and deal with the consequences - but it hadn't even felt like they were friends anymore, let alone the lovers that he'd thought they were.

So Lars didn't go to help immediately, but once the boy's hands clutched his shirt within their grip, looking to keep himself afloat, the older figured it would be alright to at least help out. His hands went to rest against Fionn's shoulders in some attempt to steady him, his ears taking in the words but not quite processing all of them just yet. It was too much all at once - the passive didn't know how to react. In some attempt to make him stop his desperate rambling, Lars leaned in, one hand sliding gently upwards to hold the side of his face as he pressed a kiss to his lips.

He hadn't realized until now that he'd gotten taller - perhaps he would've noticed before, if he'd spent more time in close proximity with the other passive before he'd left. The kiss was short, more an attempt to shut him up than anything else, and Lars kept his face close afterwards to meet the boy's watery gaze.

"Fionn," he began, his voice firm and steady, "it's okay. I'm alive. Sit down with me," and he gently nudged for the younger to walk with him, keeping a hand against his shoulder as he turned, "we can talk, just sit down before you knock yourself over."

The Hessean did his best to lead his former roommate gently away from the middle of the street, not bothering to pull away from him whatsoever but keeping close until he'd brought him between two colorful houses and into a mostly-clear alleyway. Lars was pushing him down then, moving with him to sit down on the cool ground - he wasn't sure how great of an idea it was to sit on the dirty ground like this, but it was better than watching Fionn fall over onto it, right?

Lars didn't speak right away, taking a moment or two to find his breath and try to reign in his thoughts. He was staring across to the peeling, painted wall of the house on the other side of the alley, his knees pulled up while his arms rested over them.

Gods, he hadn't been expecting this at all. He didn't even know what to say - didn't know what he should say, or if he should just pretend like everything was fine and console Fionn until he was well enough to leave. He didn't know. So he glanced over, pale gaze tracing over the places where dirty blonde hair stuck up, before falling to look over his reddened hands. What had Fionn even been doing out here, to get himself looking like that?

"You're... are you..." free? He didn't know if he could ask that. Fionn wasn't wearing his uniform, and it certainly didn't seem like he was here with any other passive or galdori, so what was he doing? "Fionn, what are you doing here?"

[Fionn]

Vortas 22, 2719 | Late Afternoon
Painted Ladies

.

He clung to Lars’ shirt because he was drowning. There didn’t seem to be any way to remain afloat on the rising tide of emotion but that didn’t suppress his desire to survive, to hold onto the one person who might be able to help him weather this. It was a desperate act, instinctual really, the young man doing his best not to collapse on his erse right now. His companion’s hands came to rest on his shoulders, comforting on some level but also weighing heavily on his wobbly frame. He felt the tremor go through his legs, even as he rambled away and softly sobbed. The gesture probably wasn’t as helpful or as comforting as Lars had intended, the contact only managing to make the teenager shake more and not serving to calm him down much. Then his hand shifted and whatever rambling the blond had been doing came to a stop as the other’s lips found his. It was brief but it silenced him. It shocked and thrilled him at the same time, a new tremor going through him. His death grip slackened and he damn near flopped against the Hessean, the sobbing continuing but quieter now, perhaps a little calmer. He managed to find the other’s grey gaze, something new for him to hang onto, something to ground him.

The firm voice helped him, Fionn nodding in mute agreement and allowing himself to be guided. He still shook but he managed to walk with the other man without collapsing. He tried to bring his head down on the other’s shoulder as they walked, the height difference—or the lack of it rather—going unnoticed by the middle Madden. He wasn’t in the mindset to notice such things at the moment, far from it.

They ended up in an alleyway, the youth’s legs finally giving out on him as he half-sat, half-collapsed onto the ground, scooting himself over beside the other. Now that he didn’t have the threat of imminent collapse, he could take the time to scrub at his face, first with the sleeve of the coat that Niamh had given him and then with the handkerchief that Aura had gifted him — once he’d fished it out of his pocket, of course. He blew his nose loudly, struggling with the lump in his throat, but unable to find words that he wanted to say.

For the first time, he registered the scrape on the back of his hand, wincing as he touched it gingerly. When had he done that? Fionn had no idea. It was of no importance but it didn’t look particularly nice. He wet it and rubbed at the small bloodstains that had marked his skin. He didn’t spend long doing so though, more inclined to gaze at the other’s face in an attempt to imprint it on his memory.

Lars. Alive.

He had no idea how it was possible but it seemed like a miracle or as if the thing that he had wished for so strongly, that Lars had somehow escaped Brunnhold alive, had taken place because of all the tears that Fionn had shed. He’d spent months thinking that maybe, just maybe he could cope with his former roommate’s unknown fate. Despite all his hopes, he couldn’t truly believe that he had survived and so there had been many nights where even now, he sobbed himself to sleep or found tears clogging the back of his throat during the day as some memory of the other occurred to him. Had all those tears somehow paid for this or had he cried them in vain?

Should he be angry? Maybe later he would be but for now, he couldn’t find that fire within him, the emotion that had risen up effectively smothering it.

“What am I- How can you- I should be asking you!” Fionn threw back, laughing a little hysterically as he drove a hand through his hair, clearing his throat.

“What am I- What am I doing here?”

He paused, puzzled, brow furrowing. He had to reach back through the fog of the recent past, trying to piece together what had happened so that he could provide some sort of answer. He dabbed at his eyes again, the passive moving his head closer to his companion’s knee, intending to lean against it but continue gazing into his face.

“Niamh brought me. We went to see her- our parents. I-I-I had to h-h-help her with something. Support her. She was engaged and-” the youth broke off with a sigh and a shake of his head. It seemed stupid now, insignificant. He’d been used and he’d known it, had felt it and he’d known that he was being trotted out, given the illusion of freedom to shock their parents and he’d done it for his sister. And he’d been confused, that was it. The visit had confused him and he’d gone walking and he’d found Lars. Perhaps he had come here for a higher reason after all, one that had only presented itself now.

“We’re heading back tomorrow, I think. Heading hom- to Brunnhold,” he corrected himself hastily, feeling the flush of shame crowd his cheeks and finding himself unable to meet that unheimlich gaze. He bit his lip, fresh tears welling up.

One of the reasons why Fionn had been avoiding his love in the weeks before his disappearance was that he hadn’t been able to tell him that Brunnhold was home to him. The Hessean had hated it there, had been suffocated there and the proof of that was before him. Look at him now! Yes, he was altered oddly but he looked better, happier, changed favourably. He hadn’t wanted him to look at him as if… as if he was mad. Actually, he’d been afraid that just that one feeling would make the other withdraw from him. Was it really that important now? He’d kept secrets and look at where it had gotten him?

“I thought you’d hate me. I-I-If I told you about how I felt. About Brunnhold. I-I-It’s horrible and I thought they’d m-m-murdered you but it’s st-st-still my home. Vienda was never- So I didn’t tell you a-a-and I couldn’t. There were so many things that I didn’t- And then you were gone and I… I… I had so many regrets! I never told you-”

Fionn’s voice broke and he pressed his fist against his lips, eyes squeezed tight to contain further tears that wanted to fall. He put his back to the wall, drawing his legs up so he could hug them. Even now, he was still a coward. Even now, there were things he couldn’t bring himself to say.

The servant sniffled. He couldn’t talk about this now. He didn’t have the courage.

“How… How are you- What happened, Lars?”

[Lars]

PAINTED LADIES
VORTAS 22, 2719 - LATE AFTERNOON

The older passive didn't push Fionn away when he went to rest his head against his knee, though he did straighten up slightly, leaning his head back a little while his gaze remained on the other. It was such a flood of information, coming from the boy's mouth, and Lars had to focus all of his attention onto his face just to make sense of it; he was used to slurred words and slang, nowadays, not the fine, proper speech of a gated passive that he'd grown up around. That, among other things, was jarring.

So he was here with Niamh, then, and not on his own. It was still quite strange that he was out here without his sister, in normal attire as opposed to his uniform, tattoo covered - he could run, if he wanted to. If he had already helped Niamh with her engagement, in whatever she was doing with that... then why go back? He could even... come with Lars, if he wanted, back to the Rose, but then Fionn was speaking again, telling him that he was going home tomorrow, and the older wanted to shrink back at the word, though his frame remained still.

Home - Brunnhold. He'd thought of it as home once, too.

There were new tears in Fionn's eyes now, and Lars almost moved a hand to his face, to wipe them gently away - but he didn't, keeping his fingers painfully still as he listened to his former roommate. If his confusion hadn't been made clear before, then his expression surely gave it away, his eyebrows drawn together and pale eyes subtly narrowed. He'd thought that he would hate him? What was he thinking? None of it made any sense to the Hessean, not one bit.

"You never told me what?" he inquired first, uncertain of what the younger passive could mean. He'd never told him that he thought of Brunnhold as his home? No shit, most unfortunate passives did. It wasn't as if they had anywhere else, even if the university was far from ideal. He couldn't understand Fionn's line of thought, there - why would Lars hate him for that? If he had moved past the fact that the younger had beaten him nearly to death, then surely he couldn't truly believe that.

Lars took a deep breath, allowing a bit of the strain to dissipate as the air filled his lungs, and then spoke.

"Professor Devlin," he gave, "he showed me the way out. I was..." he hesitated, considering the truth for a moment before he opted not to give it.

"I ran, as soon as I was out. I've been living in Old Rose Harbor," it felt so formal now, to give the place such a name. Quickly in his mind it had simply become the Rose, it had simply become home.

"But that doesn't matter. Fionn, why... why did you think I would hate you? Did you really believe that I would ever hate you, then, when all I wanted was to be with you?"

[Fionn]

Vortas 22, 2719 | Late Afternoon
Painted Ladies

.

Fionn didn’t think that he could get close enough to Lars but he was extremely glad that the man didn’t attempt to pull away or stop the teenager from leaning against him. It was hardly the most comfortable location. They were sitting on the cold, hard ground, the stone beneath them chilled by the Vortas temperatures. It wasn’t as exposed in the little alleyway as it had been on the street but it was hardly as intimate or private as the youth would have liked. It would have been far better to be somewhere soft and comfortable, on a nice yielding surface where he could curl around the Hessean and ideally never let him go. This was far from how he’d have liked this reunion to go — not that he’d known there was going to be a reunion — but Fionn was still delighted. In truth, he couldn’t have explained just how overjoyed he was to have the other man with him again.

There were other emotions here, emotions that he would have preferred not to have present to sour things but unfortunately, the servant hadn’t managed to leave such feelings in some dark corner where they couldn’t have bothered him. The teenager always came with baggage though and this time was no exception, especially given that some of his feelings had been very justified here and given that they had to do with Lars, it was fully understandable that they’d be present.

There was shame and hurting and guilt but the other’s initial question brought something else and it was odd. Lars had picked up on what had almost been a love declaration and the middle Madden was embarrassed of course but he couldn’t deny that there was something warm and pleased within him as if this sort of embarrassment was somehow good. It was embarrassing how close he’d come to announcing his love for the other passive and yet it was exhilarating and left him feeling something akin to smugness at the prospect that the other really wanted to know, perhaps sensed his intent and wanted to hear his words after all.

He could have finished his statement and answered the other at the same time. Instead the young man chose to hold his tongue, keeping that tidbit to himself because he’d never intended to tell him, not like this and certainly not now. So he waited, blushing all the while, not able to meet the other’s eye as shyness took hold of him. If he met his gaze now then Alioe only knew what he’d say but it would probably be stupid and entirely the wrong thing of course.

The teenager was damn good at saying entirely the wrong thing, especially at the wrong time.

He hummed in acknowledgment as his former roommate continued, what he said making sense. Devlin seemed like the sort to do what Lars had said, the sort to bend the rules utterly because it suited him. It had suited the galdor to assist the pair of passives after Lars had killed Fred so why not do it when-

Wait, why would it have suited him in this case? Why would he have been willing to show Lars the way out? Well, the Magister was beyond his understanding honestly and he regarded his motives with great suspicion and scepticism. After all, the man had claimed to care about passives, to care about helping them and yet he’d been largely missing in action these past few months. Oh, he cropped up now and then but not nearly enough; Moore had been running the show on his own for awhile now.

Had it just been a matter of it being no skin off Devlin’s teeth to help Lars get away after… something happened? It seemed doubtful that there hadn’t been some impetus for the servant’s departure, something that had pushed Devlin to risk breaking the status quo. After all, it was one thing to cover up the murder of a passive and quite another to help a murderous passive escape Brunnhold. Devlin knew that Lars had killed Fred and perhaps…

Perhaps he really had killed that passive girl and it would have been too difficult to hide it again. Perhaps he had done Lars a favour by putting him out of the reach of people who would have had to do something about him. And his love had been about to say something before he switched back to the present so it was possible he’d been about to admit something more about the past, something he’d thought better of saying.

Fionn wasn’t in the place to speculate, not now but he had spent plenty of months thinking about why the powers in the university had disappeared. The fact that Devlin had helped with the disappearing act really didn’t change his mind about the many scenarios he’d envisioned. At least he was safe, no matter what he might have done. It wasn’t as if Fionn cared all that much in any case. He knew that Lars was dangerous; after all, hadn’t he been willing to let the man kill him?

“Old Rose...” he murmured wonderingly, head shaking slightly. He’d always been led to believe that the Rose was a wild place, full of criminality fuelled by the lower races, not fit for galdori. Fitting really. For a moment, he wondered what the other had been doing there for these last few months but hastily shut down that line of mental enquiry. The next thought that occurred was whether the man had been happy or not but that was stupid; how could he be unhappy when he was away from the university and free?

He shrugged in response to his next question, squirming against the other passive’s leg. A hand found its way into the blond’s hair, ruffling the strands as he glanced straight down.

“I don’t… know. It… it made sense at the time,” he mumbled, brow furrowing. It had made sense at the time but now it seemed ridiculous. Lars had wanted to be with him in spite of everything, no matter how unfit the teenager had been as any sort of lover. It seemed difficult to believe that he had ever thought such a thing.

“I thought… you’d hate me because I… I had a chance to be outside and I-I-I couldn’t wait to go home. I’ve been outside and I still-”

He waved his hand vaguely, dragging fingers through his hair and slowly lifting brown eyes to meet blue-tinged grey ones.

“You hated it, really hated it and if I- Well, I don’t love it but I- So I might have- I didn’t want to be guilty by association,” he admitted, gazing at the other’s face and finding himself drowning, tears blurring the vision of the Hessean’s face. He found himself reaching out to touch it again, unthinkingly.

“You were s-s-so unhappy and I didn’t want you to-”

The blond broke off, twisting around so that his back was to the wall, his head tilting down towards Lars’ shoulder.

“I should have… I should have said something. Told you th-things. I’ve regretted so m-m-much. Felt like… felt like I’d been… been such a coward.”

The youth was ready to start sobbing again, possibly because they were so close. If his companion didn’t object then he’d nuzzle against his shoulder.

“I… I never said...” he mumbled, feeling his face burn, feeling his heart beat in a more insistent rhythm. Tears and nerves caused a sticking point in his throat so that he had to clear his throat softly before he continued.

“I never told you that… that I...” he hesitated. He’d never said it out loud before and it seemed ludicrous to admit it. Lars would think it ridiculous, he’d probably go rigid and then lean back and look at him like he was… like he was…

He inhaled and exhaled sharply, rapidly.

“I… I-I-I love you!” he blurted in a whisper, holding his breath even as his heart continued to beat insistently in his chest, ready to batter its way through his paralysed lungs. He was excited and nervous and terrified all at once. There was something giddy rising inside him ready to get out.

Perhaps he was going to throw up.

[Lars]

PAINTED LADIES
VORTAS 22, 2719 - LATE AFTERNOON

Fionn still wasn't making a whole lot of sense to him, even as he tried more of his explanations and excuses. Lars wasn't... bothered, exactly, by anything that he was saying, even if he couldn't fully understand the point he was trying to make, if he had one in mind at all. He thought of Brunnhold as home, alright, and he didn't want to leave despite knowing what it was like to taste freedom, to get outside for at least a little while - that part was a little harder to believe, but he didn't dispute it, didn't argue it, he just let the younger passive keep on and try to explain.

His eyes were distracted, momentarily, by his former roommate's hand, waving as he spoke and then pushing back through his hair like that would somehow help him speak. It reached out towards him, too, and Lars didn't move away from it, didn't react at all. He didn't get it. Fionn didn't get it either, if he truly believed the things he was saying - he thought Lars would have hated him by association, because he hated Brunnhold? Because he wanted desperately to leave, while Fionn wanted to stay? Leaving hadn't even been an option, then, and it wasn't as if he would have faulted any of his fellow servants for not wanting to risk trying. He had hated Brunnhold, yes, and he still did, passionately, but he didn't hate his kind for being kept there, for being so manipulated and broken by their superiors that they didn't even want anything else.

It was not their fault.

Fionn pushed himself back against the wall, leaning his head to the side until it rested upon the Hessean's shoulder, and again, Lars remained still. The blonde nuzzled closer, and still, Lars didn't move, nor did he make any attempt to turn towards Fionn and return the contact. He was uncomfortable, in truth, because it didn't feel like it was his to give or to take. It felt as if he had just dropped into someone else's life, right at the important part, and it all felt stolen, and hollow.

The boy's attempts to speak were quite clearly difficult for him, as he had to clear his throat and try again a handful of times. It made Lars' heart race, anxiety rising up within his chest, locked uncomfortably behind his ribs. What Fionn was trying to say, well he had no clue - only that it was obviously something important.

But then he managed, and Lars could not remember the last time anyone had said those words to him. Not the last time they'd been meant, anyway, he supposed Clover could've said them, and gods he could've even said them back, but clearly they hadn't been true. Lars didn't answer, not at first, his expression carefully blank as he processed the confession.

"I..." the older began, quiet, "...you're not a coward, Fionn. I don't hate you - or blame you - for wanting to stay."

Lars' heart was still beating hard in his chest as he stared across to the other, painted wall, and he took a deep breath. It slowed.

"But you don't love me. Not the way you think you do. You don't even know me," his fingers started to tap, quietly, against his knees, "I'm happy for you, Fionn, and I'm glad to know that someone in Brunnhold still thinks of me, but you didn't love me then, and you don't now. You're just clinging to an idea of me."

"I thought I loved you," his voice was different, there, like he struggled to say the softer words, "I thought I could make it, if I at least had you. But I didn't have you."

[Fionn]

Vortas 22, 2719 | Late Afternoon
Painted Ladies

.

It seemed wrong for Lars to be so quiet. Truthfully, he had probably done enough talking for the two of them, something that was hardly new in their relationship. The middle Madden had always managed to find words to spit into the air between them, not done purely to make up for the Hessean’s conversation deficit as he always found words for everyone, but it had helped with them. That being said, the other had been better at making more succinct statements, managing to say precisely what he meant in a few words rather than beating around the bush like Lars did. Fionn never did it intentionally, he just couldn’t find the right vocabulary for all of the things that he felt.

That the man didn’t consider him a coward was a small comfort, a bit of external validation that he found he needed. In fact, the youth had been seeking reassurances. He’d branded himself a coward but he had hoped that his companion would disagree with him, inform him that he’d gotten it all wrong.

However, when Lars spoke again, he wished that he really had been a coward because if he had been then he would never have admitted what he had. It had been no small thing for the passive to say what he had, to effectively present his heart to the other in a somewhat tentative fashion. Fionn had been scared to do it — of course he had been — but he’d managed to muster bravery from somewhere. It had been these past few months of heartache and remembrance and regret, every time he’d considered what might have been or what he should have done.

He should have told him so much. He should have admitted so much. He should have revealed his fears and doubts, his anxieties and uncertainties. He should even have spoken to his former roommate about Aurelie. Clock the Circle, he should have properly explained what he meant to him, how almost killing him — accident or not — had almost killed Fionn. But he’d never said any of it and now…

He hadn’t made his admittance in order to get a reciprocal response — he hadn’t expected one — but it would have been nice to hear in return. It would have been nice to hear anything that had at least a positive spin, even if it was only sympathetic, an ‘I’m flattered’ and an embarrassed moment where nothing was confirmed or denied.

What the older man said didn’t fit with those parameters at all. Instead, his words were like a hammer blow to his chest, somehow passing through his ribcage to strike his heart directly, the surface seeming to crack and fragment, buckle as his heart continued to beat, like earth during an earthquake. It was fiery, an agonising burning that should have brought forth lava instead of his life’s blood, although even that managed to stay in there somehow instead of spilling from the epicentre of his pain. He should be haemorrhaging from that death blow but he was somehow suspended in a torturous limbo where he was far too aware of all the ways that he was alive, even as his body went slack with shock, veering towards lifelessness.

He thought that Fionn didn’t love him. He really believed that the youth wouldn’t know-

The blond couldn’t say that he’d known a great deal of love in his young life, he certainly hadn’t had many candidates for the sort of feelings that he harboured for Lars but he didn’t think that he was so naive, so inexperienced, so unaware that he wouldn’t know in this instance. The teenager knew that love could hurt — a lot — and he’d had to deal with it just today when his mother had been so oddly tender towards him, treating him like a precious son that she had never wanted to give away.

Love hurt.

It was probably why when the Hessean spoke again, his final words were like an assault on his person, shockingly sharp and barbed, cutting deeply with astonishing speed. He flinched away from the body he’d so recently leaned against, face turning away as his features scrunched into a mass of agonised lines, each one etching a separate misery into his skin. Tears came, acidic as it felt as if his eyes would burn right out of their sockets to slide mournfully down his cheeks. The blond didn’t even want to turn to see that face, the beautiful contours certain to make his pain worse, especially as he could only imagine that the expression that Lars wore would carry less emotion than one carved in stone.

“Did… d-d-did I mourn an idea too?” he asked hoarsely, his voice as hollow and pain-filled as his heart right now. His chest didn’t simply ache, such a poor and passive descriptor didn’t even begin to convey the psychosomatic agony inside him. The initial pain that had been like a sledgehammer blow had faded somewhat but there was still something throbbing within there, pain crackling around it and through it like a sharp electrical current. Maybe what he felt was simply the organ operating, albeit in a fashion that could hardly be considered normal.

The teenager didn’t know what to think now, didn’t know what to believe because his mother and his former roommate had shaken him to the foundations of his being. He didn’t know what to think or how to feel. He’d thought that his mother hated him, that she was glad he’d been gated and ashamed to have him as a son. Perhaps relieved as well because his passivity meant that she hadn’t had to keep him. He was a burden, a failure and something she’d wanted gone even before his passivity was revealed. And yet now she’d admitted that she loved him whereas Lars…

Fionn had thought that his former roommate felt something positive towards him and he’d been certain that they would cling to one another and that Lars would whisper love back to him or at the very least accept all that he had to give, even if he didn’t feel the same way.

Fionn had clearly gotten a lot wrong.

“I thought… I th-th-thought I mourned a p-p-person,” the teenager chokes out, finding that he was sobbing anew, unbalanced by it as he flopped over sideways, arresting his fall with one hand and a pained wince. The blond wondered why he hadn’t just let his skull crack off the stone, perhaps it would have given him some relief from the splintering that had taken place within his chest.

Fragile, he felt so impossibly fragile. Maybe that was why he stopped himself from face planting on the ground; if he dropped then he might just shatter into a thousand pieces— a million!

“I’m sorry! I w-w-was meant t-t-to be there for you and I- When you n-n-needed me, I wasn’t- I w-w-was better off th-th-thinking you were d-d-dead. It was wh-what I deserved. P-p-punishment enough,” the servant gasped out, his free hand finding his face, embroidered handkerchief — a cruel reminder in this moment — blotting at his streaming eyes. The hand that supported his weight slowly buckled and teetered, the teenager flopping onto the ground at last as he gave up trying to maintain something vertical. He tried to curl in on himself but he couldn’t make his limbs work and didn’t have the drive to force the issue.

“I-I-I-I love you. B-b-believe it or n-not. I l-l-love you, Laurentius. Lars. I-”

The blond’s voice cracked and he buried his face in the crook of his elbow.

[Lars]

PAINTED LADIES
VORTAS 22, 2719 - LATE AFTERNOON

Lars remained still as his former roommate spoke, as the tears sprung from his eyes anew and his body pulled away and collapsed beside him. He didn't reach out to him, or offer words of comfort, or even look in his direction until the boy had finished, sputtering words of love once more as if the declarations would somehow change things, now, as if they would take away all of the things that had been done, and the things that hadn't been that should have. As if telling him that he loved him made it all better. As if saying it made up for all of the things he didn't say (though that wasn't much), as if saying it would bend Lars back into the pliable little servant he had been when they'd met. Fionn had liked him then, yes, he had liked having power over people then. Brunnhold hadn't felt like home to him then. He had disliked seeing the servants around him so resigned, so willing to stay in their bad situations, and now here he was, crying beside him because Brunnhold was his home and he loved the man that had escaped it.

Fuck that. He was sick of pretending to care. He was sick of it all.

His fingers stilled, no longer tapping against his knees, and Lars took a long, deep breath.

"Stop talking," he snapped, "I want to talk. I'm sick of listening to you and your godsdamned self-pity. You think you're the victim of everything, Fionn, even when you're the problem. So shut up and listen to me for once. I know it's hard for you, but try," and he pushed a hand against the wall behind him, using it to help himself stand up. His face was no longer blank, his mouth set in a deep frown and his eyes narrowed just enough to betray how the passive was feeling, and the feeling didn't need to be said to be known.

But he said it anyway.

"You made me think I was important to you! You made me think that I meant something, and then you fucking threw me away without a word, like I wasn't even good enough to get rid of in the first place," Lars walked across the alley to the opposite wall, his bruised, bony hands shaking now at his sides, "don't fucking tell me that you love me, Fionn, because I don't believe a word of it. Do you love Jamie, too? And everyone else? Do you love Aurelie, Fionn? The girl you spent all your time with while you avoided me like some disease?"

Lars took a shaky breath, his voice louder now, more insistent, more emotional, more enraged, and he turned to look at the other passive with a hard glare, "do you think I'm that fucking stupid?"

He couldn't stop the tapping now, the awkward and restless movement of his fingers at his sides.

"You didn't come to see me once," his breath hitched, but he wasn't crying. "You left me all alone so you could watch fucking ballet like a real golly. You never cared about me. Don't pretend that you did. Did you care when my whole fucking family was killed in a day? Did you care when I couldn't take it anymore? No, you didn't! You were off with some fucking girl!"

"And Brunnhold -" the pale-haired Hessean shook his head with a scoff, quickly crossing his arms and beginning to pace, "don't get me fucking started on Brunnhold. Home? Home? You're a slave! We are all slaves! You treated so many of us like we were moony little children because we tried to fit in, to not get in trouble, you called me a bitch for doing what I was told and making a home out of it all. You were so cruel to us, you beat us, and then you made me feel like I could trust you just for you to leave me again. I'm done being left, Fionn, I am doing the fucking leaving now."

"And you -" his leg stomped, hard, against the ground beneath him as if the passive couldn't contain everything inside, "you find me again and you want to tell me that you love me? After everything you have done to me? If you love me, Fionn, then I hope no one ever fucking loves me again. Look at you now, Fionn. Look at you! And you called me a bitch?"

Lars laughed, then, it bubbled up from his chest and came out all rickety and wrong.

"Go back to Brunnhold, Fionn. Fuck you."