The tears fall, they're so easy to wipe off onto my sleeve

[lord_wizard]

Who: Felix + Mildmay, Ashura, Dextera, and Thamuris
What: Felix handles the appearance of his stains like he does most things - trying to hide.
When: Anywhere from Saturday 4/13, after the Chimera meeting, to before the removal of the stains (please specify)
Where: Room 626
Rating: pg-13

He couldn't have left the tower quick enough. There were too many eyes and too many uninvited questions, but nor could he bring himself to outright run back to the room. That only would have brought him more attention, as much as he wants to.

He slams into the the apartment tearing off jacket and shirt as he makes his way to the bathroom, twisting desperately to get a look at his back and reaching back to touch. He feels no pain, and realizes that his scars are just as they've always been, except not. They were a silent and unseen reminder of his past until now. Now they stood out and called attention to his misery - to the sordid nature of his past - no longer able to be hid under the veil of cloth. Frantically he tries to wipe the blood away, but it only wells up again, the blood on his hands only making things worse rather than better. He tries to bathe, and the waters run red with the residue of his shame, but the stains themselves never leave.

Eventually he gives up, letting the water drain but staying right where he was was, curled on his side in the expanse of his marble bathtub as his scars left smears of red over the surface, face buried in a gathered up towel, which is slowly soaking through with the blood from his hands.

By the next day he's made attempts, but after the marks soak through more than one jacket, he limits himself to just trousers and a blouse. It doesn't much matter. He refuses to leave the rooms anyway, nor makes any overtures to speak to anyone. He keeps to himself - a morose huddle at the dining room table (the only furniture he can't stain by sitting on it), pouring over the journal and the available maps of the continent. His only solace is that maybe, must maybe, this will stop once they get into the Dead Zone.

Comments

[kethedammit]

"So?" Mildmay shrugs. "That ain't your job."

[lord_wizard]

"I would think this would make it my job," he said, gesturing peevishly at the chains again.

[kethedammit]

Mildmay can be just as peevish. He's tempted to be-- he's tempted to throw it all right back in Felix's face-- but that's just the blood getting to him. The thought that everyone's looking at his face even more than they do already... he puts the thought aside before he does something stupid with it.

He chooses, instead, to answer Felix directly. He's tried indirectness, but it hasn't worked. "Y'know what I was doing, before I met you? I mean, I ever told you? After I left Kolkhis, but before everything else?"

[lord_wizard]

That pulls him up short a little.

"You mentioned being a burglar," he said, cautiously, always caught off guard by any gesture made to share information about himself, "though never in much detail." And he had never asked, because to do so was to openly acknowledge their common past, which he denied as strongly and as much as Mildmay's general existence. But that had been back home.

[kethedammit]

"Cat burglar." It's different, but Felix knows that. Felix would know, should know, everything. Which is why they are where they are. Metaphorically dragging his feet, Mildmay continues. Blood sputters from his mouth as he speaks, dribbles down his chin, bubbles with his breath. He tries to ignore it. Focus on the story. Focus on the unrealness of it. Be calm.

It works.

"I didn't do nothing for nobody. I mean, I had jobs. But I wasn't anything to anybody. I could'a died, nobody'd've noticed... except maybe Cardenio, and just because he'd've fished me outta the Sim."

[lord_wizard]

It's hard to watch Mildmay struggle with this. Hard to not try to intervene or maybe just look away. But he owes his brother his attention. In the very least, after everything, he can manage that.

He doesn't think Mildmay's assessment is fair. He didn't get to know Cardenio well, but he suspects his friend would have cared. But that isn't much solace. It's the same reason he's agree to binding by forms int he first place - he knows what Mildmay says is true. The Lower City was a harsh place for anyone without a somebody around to keep them afloat. That that person should be him was patently unfair to them both, but that's how it was.

It shows in his eyes, that he understands what Mildmay has told him.

"I really did miss you," he says, weakly.

[kethedammit]

In Mildmay's posture, there's shock; in his expression, awe. And through all of that, quite plainly, love. He looks down quickly, and shifts his back, trying to reclaim a posture of neutrality.

There's really nothing to say to that.

He looks up almost shy, aware, distantly, that there's still vulnerability, open and waiting should Felix choose to pounce on it. He speaks, and finds himself mush-mouthed, though for once it's with gratitude rather than reticence. "And I would'a missed you, if'n I'd been here first."

[lord_wizard]

Exploiting that vulnerability might have been him in the past, and could still be. But neither of them was at any advantage over the other. There was nothing to be gained from making his brother more miserable, except making both of them feel worse in the long run. Perhaps that was the castle's point in all this, but he refused to offer up any thanks for it.

A sad flicker of a smile twitches on Felix lips and he gingerly holds out his hand.

[kethedammit]

Mildmay's expression is singularly shy, cautious, but he takes Felix's hand anyway, giving it a supportive squeeze.

[lord_wizard]

He returns the grip as well as he can, stiff fingers and all. He needs his brother to know that he understands, even if he cannot finds the words to voice it. And that even with the years between them now, they will always be in this together, united by their common ground, like the blood on their hands mixing together.

[kethedammit]

Mildmay huffs, an aborted laugh, and looks down at their hands. the songbirds'll start and they'll have to get married, Nikah would say, just like in the stories. He looks back up at Felix, smiling warmly with his eyes. "So you'll stop moping, then?" Said kindly, always kindly. "Not that I'm one to talk." Cough.

[lord_wizard]

"Not likely," Felix admitted, though with a trace of dark humor, mostly for Mildmay's benefit. He pulled his hand away and refolded his arms in his lap with a sigh.

"But I will keep it confined to our quarters for the time being."

[kethedammit]

"Okay," Mildmay says, with an unmistakable warmth and affection in his tone. His eyes are light, bright with kindness. "Wouldn't wanna make the neighbors talk."

[lord_wizard]

"Powers forbid I cause a scandal," he answers with a tired almost-smile. They both know that's usually the last thing he minds.