AND YOU WERE THERE, and YOU were there....
He wakes up in the wrong place. That, he knows. He knows it the same way he knows his cheek is resting against stone, the way the air tastes like night time and high altitudes.
Slowly, he blinks his eyes open, staring at the wall of the alley for several long seconds until he realizes that's what it is. He's in an alley, with cobblestone paving, with architecture that he doesn't quite recognize. Everything aches, everything, from his crown to the bare soles of his feet.
He rolls onto his side, then it's onto all fours, onto one knee, stand. He doesn't walk so much as lose his balance in a forward direction, stumbling into the street in an emerald green suit that would be quite at home in 21st century Manhattan.
Slowly, he blinks his eyes open, staring at the wall of the alley for several long seconds until he realizes that's what it is. He's in an alley, with cobblestone paving, with architecture that he doesn't quite recognize. Everything aches, everything, from his crown to the bare soles of his feet.
He rolls onto his side, then it's onto all fours, onto one knee, stand. He doesn't walk so much as lose his balance in a forward direction, stumbling into the street in an emerald green suit that would be quite at home in 21st century Manhattan.
no subject
But Loquatius is coming, and he distantly registers how wretchedly complicated that is and how Evandrin wouldn't even know and -
As always, his husband's voice brings him back to himself, to his best self; it's barely a heartbeat later that he murmurs, "Of course," and resists temptation just enough to place his kiss on Ev - on Neal's forehead before pushing himself up on unsteady legs.
"I. I'll watch out for Quay." One last squeeze of Evandrin's hand, and a much lighter one to Laerryn's elbow, and he's given them their space.
no subject
Laerryn barely standing until he's out of sight, when she crumples onto her knees at Evandrin's bedside.
Tears on Neal's face that don't belong to him, tears on his hand as Laerryn clutches it against her lips.
An apology, whispered over and over, and Evandrin waiting until she can stop repeating it to say I forgive you.
Not because there's anything to forgive, in his mind. Because she needs to hear it more than he needs to tell her she didn't do anything wrong.
That's what he doesn't see.
When he comes back with Quay, he'll see Laerryn sitting calmly on the cot, stroking Neal's hair absently, less like a mother and more like someone preoccupied by their neighbor's cat. She's not looking at him. He seems asleep.
She glances up when they walk in, her expression as neutral as possible when her eyes are still a little too bright.
"I think he's gone."
no subject
He most have heard something, in Laerryn's voice. There's a grim intensity to him now, a focus sharpened into something uncanny, and those gleaming silver eyes only turn more piercing as they take in his friend's expression.
"What's going on?"
Zerxus explains as much he can, walking Quay up to the room, but he can feel the moment it all really hits: seeing Laerryn there, clinging to composure with her fingernails, tender and brittle and so horribly, beautifully stubborn.
"Well, fuck."
no subject
She stands. "His breathing doesn't sound great."
She could clarify that she means Neal's, but clarifying means further assertion that Evandrin is gone.
A spark of rebellion lands on something in her spirit and starts to burn. Gone, but not out of reach.
Neal drifts back to consciousness as he feels the closest person move away. His limbs all feel leaden. The rest of him is one solid weight.
When he manages to open his eyes and focus on Zerxus's face, he gets hit with the other mark Evandrin left behind. An anguished affection, a love and a longing so deep and broad it's already starting to carve new canyons through his heart.
A god was in his body, loving Zerxus with every folded space, every prismatic refraction of its being. That doesn't vanish easily. Neal doesn't know much about anything, right now, but he knows he's rapidly falling in love with his rescuer. He also knows he would be attracted to Zerxus even without echoes of Evandin's devotion making it hard to care about anyone else.
"Ow," Neal rasps, and coughs a bit of red onto his lips.
no subject
Then Quay hurries forward, just to the edge of the couch, and rests a feather-light hand on Neal's forehead. It's enough to shake Zerxus out of his spiral, so he can kneel down again and take Neal's hand.
"He's using healing magic, too." It feels a little different, he knows, in ways that are hard to describe. "I know - I know you're letting this happen but it's hurting you."
no subject
"That's what healing magic is for, right?" Still a rasp, but at least speaking doesn't hurt. That lets the joke land a little lighter.
When his vision starts to clear, he immediately focuses on Zerxus's face. He tries to remember how it felt when Evandrin looked through him. What was achingly familiar, which traits and details were new. Christ, every foreign line and wrinkle cuts into his spirit like a scythe.
"I know- Wait, let me rephrase that. I might not know much about myself, but I do know that I would consider all the possible outcomes before I said yes."
no subject
"...So would he." Evandrin took risks - of himself above all else, but he sent people into horrible danger when he had to, when the stakes were high enough. He'd have known without being told that the city was at stake, and there's clearly so much more. "We - I don't know how much worse it's going to get."
There are so many promises he can't make.
no subject
"I want to remember why I made this choice, and it looks to me like you and yours are my best chance for that." He reaches up with his free hand to touch Zerxus's face without thinking about it. He only hesitates once, for a breath, before stroking the knight's lower lip with his thumb. Neal can't keep the wonder out of his voice at the second-hand force of it all. "He loves you so, so much."
He can't adequately explain.