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

[lord_wizard]

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.

Comments

[lord_wizard]

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."

[wishmadeinfire]

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.

[lord_wizard]

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.