Enrion: (Enrion doesn't know when his legs gave - before or after the floor heaved, which was certainly after Destro said.)
Destro: (destro spent a good couple of minutes just watching enrion, not really hearing anything, did not fully register silvanus's exit, recognizes vaguely that he's gone and mostly it's just. just and only.)
Enrion: (Oh, Destro said.)
Destro: (...enrion was there. and enrion heard.)
Destro: (anything that mattered.)
Enrion: (The thing is. He wants to look away. The thing is, he wants to put his head on his arms and close his eyes and not...be here right now. Because his chest feels hollow, and he feels - like an idiot. The biggest sucker. But he can't. Stop looking at Destro.)
Destro: (it'd been so easy to say. all of it, skating on top of feeling as he'd been, constructing a bridge to carry him above silvanus's asinine attempts at drawing truth. because it isn't silvanus's business. because it isn't ANYONE'S business. (because destro doesn't. feel for people. like that.) (because no one needs to know. or ought to know.) (but.))
Destro: ((but this is different.) (enrion is different.) ((and deserves. better than to hear himself dismissed. better than to hear lies regarding destro's... feelings. (they are. feelings. for. well.) deserves better than to be woven into such lies, within hearing or without.))
Destro: (he can't feel much of anything. or it's all gone cold, which amounts to the same. and he hasn't stopped watching the boy, looking back and sideways, unable to registers the details of... the form crumpled in the corner (that's no good, fuck, fuck it's no good). (of whether the boy is watching or curled in on himself or ireful, but, no. destro knows the feeling of the boy's anger, and this is other. this is far, far more worrisome. (echoing emptied.) (something hollow growing through the room.))
Destro: (he doesn't know how much time passes before he manages to move. is surprised he can move at all, stuck and rusted as he feels (he said he feels nothing at all; he damned well deserves to feel nothing, know nothing, but the boy hasn't merited this hollowness).)
Destro: (when he moves, it's a slow walk, careful, as if making a sound might shatter things worse. (As if, perhaps, afraid of being seen, or found. afraid of what he's done.) he tries to gather confidence. to act with seeming certainty, because someone ought to keep this together, and really, there's nothing (there's everything) to be upset about.)
Destro: (he halts abruptly, finds he can move no further. finds he's watching the boy's posture now, finds he can, thinks he can register the minutiae of his presence.)
Destro: (this isn't.) (this isn't.) (this isn’t right, at all.)
Destro: ...puppy?
Destro: (he should say more. something. but for the moment, it’s all he can manage.)
Enrion: (Enrion has been watching Destro, and the room around Destro, with single-minded focus. (If he looks away. If he looks away, what happens?) And he's thinking of. A ring. And of a bed. And of an indrik. He's thinking of blood spilling down the front of a Nord, and of an underground lake, and a blue-glowing shoreline. Of a strange, grey, cold sky, and Destro kneeling (equitable) on the ground before him, and kisses, and a vow of fondness. He can remember all of this vividly. Those things - happened. (Destro.) Those things happened to him, and he constructed a belief upon them. (Destro lies.) He knelt in front of this man and told him, 'I believe in gods.' (Destro disappeared his wife and lied about her.) Enrion feels just now the hollowness of his chest, something cracked open and removed in one rusted, unkind scrape. (Destro is a good liar.) He knows this hollowness, the comforting familiarity of it right before the pain rushes in. (Eras.) (He felt this) (Loss.) (Lost.) It's going to hurt in a moment. It's going to rush back in like air into a void, and it's going to hurt more than he can bear. But maybe blessedly, maybe unkindly, the only thing settling on him is the thought that he's more of an idiot than he ever really thought.)
Enrion: (Destro says something, and Destro's coming near, and Enrion's hand shifts to the back of his neck. To rub the hair there, up the base of his skull. (It needs to be brushed, Destro likes when it's brushed.))
Enrion: (Destro said. 'My fondness'. And 'forever'. And then he said something else, something not that, to that man just now, and who even was that, and does it matter, because Destro said. --)
Enrion: (Enrion looks as though he's been slapped, startled and hurt by the memory of (what Destro said) what he heard. And the pain rushes in, forcing a little noise from the depths of his throat.)
Destro: (he nearly sinks to his knees.)
Destro: (that sound. (that loss.) (despair.) (oh, puppy, his puppy.) (his own doing.) (he doesn't sink to his knees. (he doesn't deserve that mercy or that show of sorrow. doesn't deserve the relief of falling, or to be any closer to... to enrion. (his. (or did his speaking breed a forfeiture? he can't and his heart can't stand the thought.) to the boy, the man he's wounded. (daggered. he'd just as good as plunged a knife deep through the boy knows this with shuddered certainty. and there's no blood to be seen. and the wound runs frigid silence, runs unmeasured absence.))
Destro: ...
Destro: (he can't watch the boy any longer.) (can't look away.) (remember this, he'll remember this. the worst he's wrought.) he. should mend this. (there's no mending it. a laceration gaped too wide for stitching.))
Destro: (he tries to step forward. can't. can't manage much of anything until he shouts himself down internal, grits his teeth and at last speaks again, voice still holding tenuous, cautious, as it prowling against glass.)
Destro: puppy, you know that wasn't...
Destro: what you heard. wasn't.
Destro: (it should be simple to finish that sentence. one fucking word. but he speaks, and the words lose their focus. but he speaks, and each sentence dissipates.)
Destro: you know that.
Destro: (and he thinks, 'don't you?' and even that, he can't put into speaking.)
Enrion: (Enrion can feel another pain, a burning against his eyes. But he doesn't cry. He hasn't cried in, since - oh, since. (Eras.) (A long, raw wail, an unendurable absence, how could he - how. How could he exist without that other existence, without his twin, it didn't feel possible or natural, and yet his heart kept mercilessly beating like it's beating now.) He doesn't cry. But his eyes burn and his nose stings and his mouth fights a rictus grimace because he's not. Going. To cry.)
Enrion: (He hears a word (puppy) (he wants it badly, he still wants it) (it's all Destro wanted from him) (is that true?) and there's another noise, a shuddering breath that has nothing to do with pleasure or fear or excitement or longing.)
Enrion: (His hand falls from his neck to his knee, dangling from the wrist limply, and his eyes drift from Destro because his vision has blurred, anyway. They settle on Clementina, and the painting behind her, and he thinks of when he found that big fucking thing, and of all the other presents he dragged home for (daddy) Destro's pleasure. Approval. Praise. Love. He - does love Destro. Of course he does. Of course he fucking does, he thought they settled that, he thought he knew that was understood and Destro felt the same. But he. Doesn't love anyone. He said - He said. "You sound like a complete fool, speaking of love at all." Like Enrion. A fool. Yeah. His eyes shift back, settle on the vague outline that is...oh, all he wanted. His whole everything. He blinks to clear his vision and a few stray tears slip free.)
Enrion: I don't know. I'm really not as smart as you.
Enrion: (His voice holds no emotion. Little of anything except the breath he needs to be heard.)
Destro: (it's wrong. everything wrenched out of place. (he wrenched it out of place. wrapped his hands around a gentle heart and tore. birds' bones broken. everything worth keeping broke away.))
Destro: (and his own voice, again hushed, wavered, though he tries to keep it even (a losing battle, that's going to be a losing battle.)
Destro: that isn't true.
Destro: (and he should say something more.)
Destro: (he should (Assure the boy) (what good could an assurance do) (what right does he have to endeavor an assurance). -(he manages a few steps more. he manages to... kneel. not falling, not easing himself, only. seeking the boy's eyes. showing enrion that he is... listening. here? (destro knows he has no right to be here.))
Destro: what i said, puppy. i... you know what i-
Destro: (the echo of his own words catches him. collision of this intended truth with a lie just told, the lie that burns against him now, ringing through his memory full-force.)
Destro: (a phrase contorted by. by. his own words. (it shouldn't happen this way. it shouldn't matter. he should use words as he PLEASES, only. the speaking felt soiled, and he feels... wrong. mired, and squallid himself.)
Destro: i'm.
Destro: ('sorrry,' he intends to say. the word doesn't arrive. his breath for speaking falls away. what in fuck's name is he going to do.)
Enrion: (Enrion feels the wet on his cheeks and thinks. He shouldn't cry. (He shouldn't let Destro see him cry.) (He doesn't know what's really in that man's mind.) He draws the palm of his hand across each cheek (funny how that makes him want to cry more) and then stares at the stone floor, at the rugs, at the crevices between each stone where the mortar is greyer and unimportant, or unimportant compared to the way his chest hurts, the way his lungs don't move right anymore --)
Enrion: (He thinks about how this place was just starting to feel like home (Destro is his home) (was) (everything is turned to 'was' in his head and he feels a flicker of panic, and then deep sorrow.)
Enrion: (And he thinks, sadly, /Oh. It's going to be over./ All of this. Everything after this moment is going to be part of his life before Destro said those things to -)
Enrion: (To.)
Enrion: (He breathes slowly, ignoring Destro's staggered efforts to (lie) (?) convince him of something besides what he heard, the things Destro said unstaggered and haughty (and he said them so easily, so...readily.) Enrion stares at the back door now and then ventures, tiredly, monotone -)
Enrion: Who was that man?
Destro: (enrion isn't looking. he isn't watching. (he isn't listening!, but, ah, he'd heard enough. another clenching in destro's chest, and he wishes, badly wishes he'd hurled silvanus out the front door. (or that he HAD stabbed the rotten shit-stirrer, but neither of those options would have... what? changed the tendency in destro to speak as he'd done.)
Destro: (and, disconcerted by the way the boy's ignoring his words, destro blinks, then responds without further pause-) my brother.
Destro: he shouldn't have--
Destro: (been here, but that isn't the point. that. doesn't matter. and again he trails off, watching enrion and willing the boy to... look at him, see him. (to. smile?))
Destro: ((he doesn't deserve that, at all.))
no subject
Destro: (destro spent a good couple of minutes just watching enrion, not really hearing anything, did not fully register silvanus's exit, recognizes vaguely that he's gone and mostly it's just. just and only.)
Enrion: (Oh, Destro said.)
Destro: (...enrion was there. and enrion heard.)
Destro: (anything that mattered.)
Enrion: (The thing is. He wants to look away. The thing is, he wants to put his head on his arms and close his eyes and not...be here right now. Because his chest feels hollow, and he feels - like an idiot. The biggest sucker. But he can't. Stop looking at Destro.)
Destro: (it'd been so easy to say. all of it, skating on top of feeling as he'd been, constructing a bridge to carry him above silvanus's asinine attempts at drawing truth. because it isn't silvanus's business. because it isn't ANYONE'S business. (because destro doesn't. feel for people. like that.) (because no one needs to know. or ought to know.) (but.))
Destro: ((but this is different.) (enrion is different.) ((and deserves. better than to hear himself dismissed. better than to hear lies regarding destro's... feelings. (they are. feelings. for. well.) deserves better than to be woven into such lies, within hearing or without.))
Destro: (he can't feel much of anything. or it's all gone cold, which amounts to the same. and he hasn't stopped watching the boy, looking back and sideways, unable to registers the details of... the form crumpled in the corner (that's no good, fuck, fuck it's no good). (of whether the boy is watching or curled in on himself or ireful, but, no. destro knows the feeling of the boy's anger, and this is other. this is far, far more worrisome. (echoing emptied.) (something hollow growing through the room.))
Destro: (he doesn't know how much time passes before he manages to move. is surprised he can move at all, stuck and rusted as he feels (he said he feels nothing at all; he damned well deserves to feel nothing, know nothing, but the boy hasn't merited this hollowness).)
Destro: (when he moves, it's a slow walk, careful, as if making a sound might shatter things worse. (As if, perhaps, afraid of being seen, or found. afraid of what he's done.) he tries to gather confidence. to act with seeming certainty, because someone ought to keep this together, and really, there's nothing (there's everything) to be upset about.)
Destro: (he halts abruptly, finds he can move no further. finds he's watching the boy's posture now, finds he can, thinks he can register the minutiae of his presence.)
Destro: (this isn't.) (this isn't.) (this isn’t right, at all.)
Destro: ...puppy?
Destro: (he should say more. something. but for the moment, it’s all he can manage.)
Enrion: (Enrion has been watching Destro, and the room around Destro, with single-minded focus. (If he looks away. If he looks away, what happens?) And he's thinking of. A ring. And of a bed. And of an indrik. He's thinking of blood spilling down the front of a Nord, and of an underground lake, and a blue-glowing shoreline. Of a strange, grey, cold sky, and Destro kneeling (equitable) on the ground before him, and kisses, and a vow of fondness. He can remember all of this vividly. Those things - happened. (Destro.) Those things happened to him, and he constructed a belief upon them. (Destro lies.) He knelt in front of this man and told him, 'I believe in gods.' (Destro disappeared his wife and lied about her.) Enrion feels just now the hollowness of his chest, something cracked open and removed in one rusted, unkind scrape. (Destro is a good liar.) He knows this hollowness, the comforting familiarity of it right before the pain rushes in. (Eras.) (He felt this) (Loss.) (Lost.) It's going to hurt in a moment. It's going to rush back in like air into a void, and it's going to hurt more than he can bear. But maybe blessedly, maybe unkindly, the only thing settling on him is the thought that he's more of an idiot than he ever really thought.)
Enrion: (Destro says something, and Destro's coming near, and Enrion's hand shifts to the back of his neck. To rub the hair there, up the base of his skull. (It needs to be brushed, Destro likes when it's brushed.))
Enrion: (Destro said. 'My fondness'. And 'forever'. And then he said something else, something not that, to that man just now, and who even was that, and does it matter, because Destro said. --)
Enrion: (Enrion looks as though he's been slapped, startled and hurt by the memory of (what Destro said) what he heard. And the pain rushes in, forcing a little noise from the depths of his throat.)
Destro: (he nearly sinks to his knees.)
Destro: (that sound. (that loss.) (despair.) (oh, puppy, his puppy.) (his own doing.) (he doesn't sink to his knees. (he doesn't deserve that mercy or that show of sorrow. doesn't deserve the relief of falling, or to be any closer to... to enrion. (his. (or did his speaking breed a forfeiture? he can't and his heart can't stand the thought.) to the boy, the man he's wounded. (daggered. he'd just as good as plunged a knife deep through the boy knows this with shuddered certainty. and there's no blood to be seen. and the wound runs frigid silence, runs unmeasured absence.))
Destro: ...
Destro: (he can't watch the boy any longer.) (can't look away.) (remember this, he'll remember this. the worst he's wrought.) he. should mend this. (there's no mending it. a laceration gaped too wide for stitching.))
Destro: (he tries to step forward. can't. can't manage much of anything until he shouts himself down internal, grits his teeth and at last speaks again, voice still holding tenuous, cautious, as it prowling against glass.)
Destro: puppy, you know that wasn't...
Destro: what you heard. wasn't.
Destro: (it should be simple to finish that sentence. one fucking word. but he speaks, and the words lose their focus. but he speaks, and each sentence dissipates.)
Destro: you know that.
Destro: (and he thinks, 'don't you?' and even that, he can't put into speaking.)
Enrion: (Enrion can feel another pain, a burning against his eyes. But he doesn't cry. He hasn't cried in, since - oh, since. (Eras.) (A long, raw wail, an unendurable absence, how could he - how. How could he exist without that other existence, without his twin, it didn't feel possible or natural, and yet his heart kept mercilessly beating like it's beating now.) He doesn't cry. But his eyes burn and his nose stings and his mouth fights a rictus grimace because he's not. Going. To cry.)
Enrion: (He hears a word (puppy) (he wants it badly, he still wants it) (it's all Destro wanted from him) (is that true?) and there's another noise, a shuddering breath that has nothing to do with pleasure or fear or excitement or longing.) Enrion: (His hand falls from his neck to his knee, dangling from the wrist limply, and his eyes drift from Destro because his vision has blurred, anyway. They settle on Clementina, and the painting behind her, and he thinks of when he found that big fucking thing, and of all the other presents he dragged home for (daddy) Destro's pleasure. Approval. Praise. Love. He - does love Destro. Of course he does. Of course he fucking does, he thought they settled that, he thought he knew that was understood and Destro felt the same. But he. Doesn't love anyone. He said - He said. "You sound like a complete fool, speaking of love at all." Like Enrion. A fool. Yeah. His eyes shift back, settle on the vague outline that is...oh, all he wanted. His whole everything. He blinks to clear his vision and a few stray tears slip free.)
Enrion: I don't know. I'm really not as smart as you.
Enrion: (His voice holds no emotion. Little of anything except the breath he needs to be heard.)
Destro: (it's wrong. everything wrenched out of place. (he wrenched it out of place. wrapped his hands around a gentle heart and tore. birds' bones broken. everything worth keeping broke away.))
Destro: (and his own voice, again hushed, wavered, though he tries to keep it even (a losing battle, that's going to be a losing battle.)
Destro: that isn't true.
Destro: (and he should say something more.)
Destro: (he should (Assure the boy) (what good could an assurance do) (what right does he have to endeavor an assurance). -(he manages a few steps more. he manages to... kneel. not falling, not easing himself, only. seeking the boy's eyes. showing enrion that he is... listening. here? (destro knows he has no right to be here.))
Destro: what i said, puppy. i... you know what i-
Destro: (the echo of his own words catches him. collision of this intended truth with a lie just told, the lie that burns against him now, ringing through his memory full-force.)
Destro: (a phrase contorted by. by. his own words. (it shouldn't happen this way. it shouldn't matter. he should use words as he PLEASES, only. the speaking felt soiled, and he feels... wrong. mired, and squallid himself.)
Destro: i'm.
Destro: ('sorrry,' he intends to say. the word doesn't arrive. his breath for speaking falls away. what in fuck's name is he going to do.)
Enrion: (Enrion feels the wet on his cheeks and thinks. He shouldn't cry. (He shouldn't let Destro see him cry.) (He doesn't know what's really in that man's mind.) He draws the palm of his hand across each cheek (funny how that makes him want to cry more) and then stares at the stone floor, at the rugs, at the crevices between each stone where the mortar is greyer and unimportant, or unimportant compared to the way his chest hurts, the way his lungs don't move right anymore --)
Enrion: (He thinks about how this place was just starting to feel like home (Destro is his home) (was) (everything is turned to 'was' in his head and he feels a flicker of panic, and then deep sorrow.)
Enrion: (And he thinks, sadly, /Oh. It's going to be over./ All of this. Everything after this moment is going to be part of his life before Destro said those things to -)
Enrion: (To.)
Enrion: (He breathes slowly, ignoring Destro's staggered efforts to (lie) (?) convince him of something besides what he heard, the things Destro said unstaggered and haughty (and he said them so easily, so...readily.) Enrion stares at the back door now and then ventures, tiredly, monotone -)
Enrion: Who was that man?
Destro: (enrion isn't looking. he isn't watching. (he isn't listening!, but, ah, he'd heard enough. another clenching in destro's chest, and he wishes, badly wishes he'd hurled silvanus out the front door. (or that he HAD stabbed the rotten shit-stirrer, but neither of those options would have... what? changed the tendency in destro to speak as he'd done.)
Destro: (and, disconcerted by the way the boy's ignoring his words, destro blinks, then responds without further pause-) my brother.
Destro: he shouldn't have--
Destro: (been here, but that isn't the point. that. doesn't matter. and again he trails off, watching enrion and willing the boy to... look at him, see him. (to. smile?))
Destro: ((he doesn't deserve that, at all.))