paradisalogs | All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy

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All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy

Who: Felix and Ashura
What: Breaking up is hard to do
When: The evening the Fairfield/Winchester expedition team returns
Where: Room 626
Rating: Likely pg-13 for yelling

Sitting in the dimly lit dining room, Felix had to admit that he was a coward. He was afraid to lose anything to the point that he often stopped himself from getting it in the first place. Still, despite the many dalliances he'd had in the past, he'd never actually left anyone whom he genuinely cared for. Once he had something, he tended to cling rather tightly to it. So this was a first. A terrifying first. But he'd made his decision, for all the pain he knew it would cause.

Everything was in order. His clothes and sundry other belongings already packed and moved to his new room across the hall from Chimera headquarters. There were only two items remaining. The first, the ring Ashura had given him, was clasped so tightly in his hand the design was starting to bite into his skin. The other, a faintly glowing stone on a long chain, was still hidden under his shirt. This was the last time he would wear it, but he was loathe to give it up as easily. Sibyl was still in residence as well, but uncommonly quiet and wary, as if sensing the impending storm that was about to befall their suite, her ears pressed back and eyes watching. Felix wasn't sure she would follow - but he would make to move to force her from Agni's side.

He waits patiently, knowing from the journals that the expedition is due back soon. That Ashura will be coming home with the hopes of a happy reunion that he'll be forced to quash very quickly. That was the one benefit of his delay. No painful period of coming and going while he removed himself from the other man's life. Just a goodbye. Quicker, but not likely to be simple.

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The expedition had been rather pleasant, which came as something of a surprise. It had been odd though, going to bed at night and realizing Felix was not due to come to bed with him. He had become used to the other's presence, a constant at his side during certain points of the night, and the loss of it was something like loosing a limb. You knew it should be there, feel it, and yet it wasn't. But that was due to change as they arrived home, Ashura carefully putting away Svitana and running through the notes he had taken from Felix along the way.

He was sure that Felix had been following any notes and announcements made by others, and while he was sure his own notation skills were not nearly to the density Felix could manage, he did his best for his lover. Tucking the papers into his sash, he made his way up to the Castle, eager for a bath and a night with his red headed mage.

Stepping into his rooms, though, he knew something was wrong. The wrongness of it sat in the air like a miasma, not quite choking, but palpable. It made him almost afraid to step into the chambers, wondering what would cause this when their rooms had always been a place of rest and sanctuary. To have that twisted, even minutely, was alarming to say the least.

Crossing the threshold, the fireplace came to life with a thought from the king and a few more lamps scattered about the room, but the golden glow seemed sour rather than welcoming. Turning his head about, it was easy to catch site of Felix in the room the sang of 'wrong', but he wasn't yet sure how.

"Felix?" he asked, making his way slowly to the other, brows knitted in concern.

Felix looked up from the table as the door opened and waited. The fire made his hair fairly light up in the evening darkness that filled up the corners.

He smiled faintly in greeting, though for all his practiced veneer the sadness in it shone through easily to an eye trained to see.

"Have a seat," he said, waving the hand currently not clutching the ring at a nearby chair, "I'm sure you're tired after the trip."

The uneasiness sank in further, looking to the chair opposite Felix as if for a moment he feared it might bite him. A brief pause, a heartbeat's hesitation, and then he moved. His mind was swirling a mile a minute, trying to figure what could be wrong. Had he done something? No, Felix hadn't said he shouldn't go on the expedition, and they had not fought recently...

He took a seat in the chair, his usual splendor dampened by the soft trousers and jerkin he wore for such long events, his robes simply to heavy and complicated except for his battle attire.

"What is this, Felix?" he asked, not wanting to play the game of pleasantries, to on edge for that.

He couldn't fault Ashura for that, and he too was unwilling to drag this out through manufactured smiles masked words when the mood in the room was all too apparent. He simply did not want to start a shouting match when Ashura was standing and he was not.

It was not easy to start. To get those first words out when part of him did not want to. He's sure he will always regret it some, but his beleaguered heart feels he has little option but to do what he is.

Eyes glances away for a brief moment, uncertain and guilty, then snap back to the king's face. He will not suffer the additional guilt of saying this without looking at him.

"Ashura...I've had...time to consider things. It has not been easy for any of us. But I cannot continue to lie to myself...or you...about how I feel. It's far more complicated than that, but I don't know how else to say it than simply. I'm leaving. In truth I already have. Everything of mine is gone from the suite, so you don't have to deal with me any longer than necessary."

He caught Ashura's hand before he could have a chance to react properly or cut in, and placed the ring in his palm, closing fingers around it. "This is yours. It represents a promise I can no longer keep to you. I am sorry."

Of all the things to be said to him, of all the things to pass Felix's lips, somehow, Ashura had never quite imagined those would be the words. He had clung to the hope that he meant more than Gideon, than... than he did not know, but that he was more than that. That he had brought enough joy into Felix's life that Felix would keep him at his side, red to compliment his green. It honestly took a moment for the words to penetrate, to sink into his brain and then drop into his gut. It felt like a lead weight had settled there, and it did not even have the comfort of being warm. Rather it chilled, sucking the air from his lungs for a precious second.

The ring settling in his hand brought him out of the moment of shock. He stared at it for a long, long moment, as if by doing so he could will it back into Felix's hand, get him to take back what he had said.

Instead, he managed only one word. "Why?"

He wasn't sure how to answer something he could barely articulate. It was not a matter or less or more, exactly, in terms of how strongly he felt about either Gideon or Ashura, but a matter of history. Or perhaps there was no good reason at all.

He was silent a moment, staring down at Ashura's hands, feeling physically ill by the words he was being forced to say.

"Because I have to."

Ashura's eyes jerked up, looking at Felix at first in surprise and then shifted to anger. In the back of his mind, he understood the answer. He did, but right now he didn't want to. He couldn't. The rejection boiled inside of him, twisting, writhing, biting at his insides like snakes, heat and poison flooding him.

"You owe me a better answer," he hissed at Felix, drawing on the anger to keep his composure, to keep from breaking down then and there, in sinking into the darkness that had claimed him before. He had managed to crawl out of that darkness by his fingernails and the skin of his teeth, and it helped him craft a path his people and he himself needed.

But this... he wasn't so sure.

His palm turned, slamming the ring into the wood so hard that it cracked the table top. "I deserve a better answer."

He flinched as if struck, his mind for a minute caught on the thought that the ring was probably warped entirely out of shape by that blow, which only seemed fitting. The next words, an outright demand he couldn't help but hear, snapped him back to attention, and he answered half in anger and half in fear.

"Because he was there! He suffered through the results of my insanity, and he witnessed every misstep I made. He was a friend to my brother. And he's dead because of me. Because I lied and cheated and drove him away and I owe it to him!" He realizes he's started shouting, his throat already aching to hold in the flood he feels might break free at any moment. He continues after a beat, swallowing hard, his voice stern but a bit more quiet." Everything I have done since then...the promises I have made to you...were in part because of the mistakes I realized I had made. I need that second chance. I need to make those mistakes up to the man I wronged in the first place."

He took the yelling, his face falling into a smooth, unreadable mask. He was not Ashura, he was Ashura-ou, that title a shield now. It did nothing to lessen the growing ache, the shattering of his heart in his chest. Each word from Felix's mouth is another hammer blow, and for a moment he truly thought his heart would burst and he would turn to ash and ink like the figures in his dreams.

The worst of it? The worst of it was that a part of him understood. Through the haze of anger and pain, he understood, because he remembered Yasha, remembered what they had shared and if he had come here, could he honestly say he would stay beside Felix? Of course, he did not examine such thoughts to deeply, not with his heart once again crumbling into dust.

"So you wrong another in the process."

He said it with that smooth face, that quiet regality that was surprisingly icy for a king born from fire. And, truthfully, it was how he felt.

The coldness, as always, hurt worse than the anger. He had no illusions that what he was doing was terrible, but to have that rejection turned around on him was even worse than the shouting.

"If I must," he answered roughly, "even if it means none of end us end up happy for it. Every minute I am with you is salt in his wounds, and I cannot do it anymore."

His wounds. His wrongs. His pain. What about his own? What about his wounds? Had he not bled enough for so many things, for so many people? He would give Felix so much, and here he was, throwing it down, going back to someone who was dead, a ghost. Oh he knew he was alive enough here, but it still felt like coming in second best to a shadow.

When would he find his happiness, instead of having it taken away and thrust back into his heart like a killing strike?

"I am glad to hear you seem to care for the wounds of at least one person."

He did not mean to be cruel with his words. He did not want to be, but his emotions spilled into them and became barbs of ice. He wanted to wound Felix as he was being wounded, and he did not care if that made him uncharitable or petty. He wanted to not be the only one with an aching heart, who would walk away from this with more tears than soul left.

"I should have heeded your warnings better."

The strike hits home and he gasps, jumping to his feet. But even in the absolute rending hurt there is fury and the knowledge that Ashura is playing the game he knows very well. And he will not let Ashura win. He will not let Ashura make him hate him.

"Maybe you should have. But do not act as if this were easy for me. You can say what you wish, darling, but I never lied to you about one thing. I don't feel any differently about you. Gideon's presence changes nothing about that, other than the fact that I had to choose."

He did not wince outside, but inside he did. He hated hurting Felix, but here he was, doing it. And he felt ashamed for that. But at the same time he needed to lash out, to watch him go away hurt and understanding just how much this was tearing him apart. Perhaps, on some level, he had thought in a twisted way it might have made Felix stay. Why did Gideon get the comfort of Felix's affection while he was left with an empty suite?

"Then you could have at least chosen neither of us."

At least then it would feel less like losing, less like he was somehow beneath Gideon. He would feel less like he had failed. He wondered what words Gideon had said to draw Felix from him, and then it occurred to him none might have been necessary. Felix was a carnal creature, as he well knew, and his gut shifted again. Felix had given his reasons, but the 'how' bothered him as much as the 'why' now. This, though, he dared not ask. He didn't think he would have the strength for the answer.

It was different than Ashura's imagining. He has simply been so obsessed with the question of what might have been that he could not let it go while he had the chance. Gideon was lost to him otherwise. Ironically it was obsession of another sort that had lost him in the first place. He was aware that he was trading one hole in his heart for another. The division there was never more real that it was now.

But he could not dissuade a thought he could not read. He could only answer to the words he was given.

"For now, that's all this is. Gideon has promised me nothing but a second chance. I'm leaving. Not going to him, though I'm sure the distinction changes little for you," he said, bitterly, biting his lip a little to contain the agony in his chest.

The simply irony of that nearly made him laugh, though the sound would have been so twisted that it would have made the universe cringe away. He kept it inside, listening to the sound of it in his own head, but his lips twitched, hinting at the shadow of a snarl, of the vicious hurt that raged inside.

"You leave me for a "chance"? You do not even have the promise and you..."

He shook his head, the ache only growing. Gideon had persuaded Felix on a chance. A chance! He had not made the promise, not taken him back, and still Felix left. No, no he had not lost to a shadow at all.

He had lost to the faintest flickers of redemption.

He had given him a new reality, a new opportunity, but not redemption. Ashura could never give Felix that, and this he knew. Which only made it worse, a failing.

The chair creaked as he stood, turning his side to Felix, no longer able to look at him. On the table, the ring remained, the epicenter of the spider-web cracks.

Felix stood where he was, looking at Ashura's turned back, wanting to scream or vomit or cry or even beg for him not to be angry, which was as craven and ridiculous as he felt. But in Paradisa everything was fleeting. He loved Ashura more than he could articulate. The man had given him everything. Had held him together when the castle had threatened to tear him apart at the seams. But he was not the quiet, scholarly, uncompromising, and fiercely intelligent man he had fallen for first. Perhaps even for the first time. He was not the man who guided him. Who had coaxed him off the edge of a bridge and gotten maimed as a result of trying to help a madman. And nothing he could do would change that.

In a quiet, unsteady voice, drained of his brief bout of anger, he finally says, "Chances are all we have here. Any of us could leave at any moment. Any chance can be wasted. But it is still a chance. I think you understand that. You'd feel the same thing if Yasha came here."

Reaching behind his collar with a finger, he drew out the long chain and the red stone pulsing with warm light. "There is one last thing. You gave this to me, and you should have the chance to take it back if you desire it. But...I'd like to keep it. The same as anything I've given remains a gift."

In that moment, he almost turned and screamed at Felix. It would have no words, just pure hate and hurt and sorrow and so many other things. Even love, still, in this hour of betrayal. He almost turned back, knowing what it was the other had around his neck, and he fought the urge to slap it from Felix's hand, from demanding how the man thought he deserved to have that, to have any piece of him.

But it had been a gift, a heartfelt one, and even now he hoped that Felix would change his mind. If he left it with him, he just might, though that hope was dying so fast it hardly even lived.

He turned his back fully to Felix now, refusing to look at him. He simply could not do it anymore. He thought himself strong, but this... this was to much.

"Go."

The words were icy, cold, the voice of a king dismissing someone who had displeased him beyond the measure of atonement. It was the only way he could hold onto himself, could keep himself from crying and begging, from shattering entirely.

There was nothing he could say. The finality in that tone was irrefutable. So he went, head down and posture stiff as he moved around Ashura to the door.

"Sibyl. Come, if you are coming," he said, terse and rough, as he opened up the door. The animal jumped up from the couch and bolted for the opening, pausing there to do what Felix himself could not - she looked back, letting out a plaintive meow in the direction of the broken kind and her friend Agni - before darting though as the door closed with a snap. She followed at Felix's heels, a worried look on her feline face as he walked with purpose to the elevator. But rather than down he pressed the button for the top floor.

He was shaking by the time he reached the roof, and could only afford a brief glance around before his calm broke, leaving him a weeping heap at the edge of the railing. It was over. All nearly three years, more than he'd ever gotten with Gideon, was crushed flat at his feet for a foolish hope. He had no way of knowing if it would be worth it, but there was no turning back time. As he'd said to Gideon, there was only moving forward. Even if the process felt like turning himself inside out.

Eventually he found the power to get up, wipe the mess from his face on a sleeve, and head back to his room and the refuge of his share of the liquor stores. Reality could hit in the morning.

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All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy

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