destro & enrion

[onefellswoop]

-you're my home, too: introduction to coldharbour. (rook needs to edit and repost this holy shit)
-betrayal: silvanus imposes a visit. destro fucks up real fucking bad. enrion tells daddy to stay.

-dungeon doings.

Comments

[onefellswoop]

Silvanus: (He watches steadily, his fingers drumming on the back of the seat.)

Destro: (he's going to rip your fingers off, silvanus)
Destro: (he might be considering that now)

Silvanus: I've never seen you so wound up about any of your.

Destro: (Watching those fuCking fingers tapping against his fuCking couch)

Silvanus: (Hm.)
Silvanus: Acquaintances.
Silvanus: (People used and tossed aside, or killed, or paid to go.)

Destro: (silvanus is getting an open-palm swat, heavy-hitting swat, against the side of the head, swift and sudden.)
Destro: (well yes that is all true BUT BESIDE THE POINT U SHIT >:C)

Silvanus: Hey! (He swats back, but from an awkward fallen over position on the sofa, it doesn't land well.)
Silvanus: You miserable old *fuck*.
Silvanus: Calm down!

Destro: (yeah he's gonna. dodge that. and grab that loose-swatting hand, yank it upward)
Destro: do you want that, silvanus?

Silvanus: My hand, or for you to get a hold of yourself?
Silvanus: (His voice is raised, and unfortunately-)
Silvanus: (Unfortunately, being grabbed brings him into better proximity to suckerpunch his brother in the side.)

Destro: (sharp smile, of, that's not the worst idea, taking the idiot's hand; he's done his best with his fuck of a brother and--)
Destro: (RUDE)

Silvanus: Now, STOp. I have a right to know!

Destro: (a curse barked as he sidesteps, grip on silvanus's wrist loosened.)

Silvanus: (He yanks away, rising to put some distance between them.)
Silvanus: (...And the sofa.)
Silvanus: (Distance AND the sofa.)

Destro: 'i have a RIGHT to know.'
Destro: you scarcely have a right to exist, brother.

Silvanus: He hasn't done much for your disposition at all, has he?

Destro: (100% taking a quick step closer, teeth bared)

Silvanus: (He's not teasing anymore. His mouth is set in a frown, and he draws a hand up in a loose fist - )
Silvanus: (WILL FITE U back off )

Destro: (super. super. scared. :|)
Destro: (GO AHEAD FOREST BOY PUNCH HIM LET'S SEE WHAT HAPPENS >:C)
Destro: (BRING THE FIGHT >:O)

Silvanus: (Something. Catches his attention. A movement in the corner of his eye. He doesn't look over to see, but he thinks in the ruckus, in the shouting -)
Silvanus: (The door must have opened.)
Silvanus: (He spreads his hands, surrendering.)

Destro: ...

Silvanus: Okay. All right.

Destro: (wise choice, destro thinks. not entirely convinced his brother's run through with his antics, but knowing silvanus is usually - usually - smart enough to keep from pushing over the edge.)

Silvanus Destro, really. I'm only curious. I certainly have no intention of upsetting your routine.

Destro: (fuck, but he came close.)
Destro: don't fuck with me.

Silvanus: (Earnestly - apparently:)
Silvanus: I'm not. Not in the least.
Silvanus: I didn't come for money; I don't mind doing a good turn for you now and then.
Silvanus: I wanted to know if it was true. About a young man you favor.
Silvanus: (He shrugs, looking utterly. Mostly. Sincere. And not looking at the door.)

Destro: (it almost throws him. the show of sincerity (how silvanus manages to present himself as earnest, to be disarming even in the midst of asininity). it's a ploy; it always is. but it might be a sign that the idiot's at the edge of backing off.)
Destro: looking for gossip, silvanus.

Silvanus: Of course.

Destro: say it as it iS.

Silvanus: But!

Destro: :|

Silvanus: *But*. That isn't mutually exclusive with my desire to see you settled.
Silvanus: And to know what sort of companion you've found

Destro: (that. doesn't. make a goddamn piece of sense.)
Destro: what in fuck's name is in your head.

Silvanus: (He looks off, ostensibly at the ceiling, contemplating this question.)

Destro: altruistic's a bad ploy from you.

Silvanus: (Gets a good look at the altmer, who has taken up a loitering sort of stance in the entranceway. Eavesdropping.)
Silvanus: Well. They did rather make it sound like you're enamored of the boy.

Destro: (he's still annoyed, still bristling, but this is a little easier to manage. this idle toying, he can bat away. (and maybe he's relaxed his guard jsut a little. and maybe the combination of still-bristling irritation and a shaken defense isn't the best situation, and--))
Destro: (……………………………………….)
Destro: ...i beg your pardon.
Destro: (it does and doesn't sound like his voice.)

Silvanus: (Oh, rich. Rich, to see - Enron? Enrion? The Altmer's face light up with warmth, with a smile.)
Silvanus: (Silvanus nods, to Destro's question and to the boy, his smile for them both. And Enrion smiles back. Trusting little pup.)
Silvanus: You know. Smitten.
Silvanus: I've never seen you in love before -

Destro: (this shouldn't be a... topic of conversation. he can feel himself numbing, can feel the scene growing distant, and this. isn't. territory open for discussion. (this is nothing he would ever permit.) (this is nothing that can be known. could be known, were it ever a thing.))

Silvanus: I wouldn't really know the look of it.

Destro: SILVANUS.
Destro: (not loud, but harsh, forceful)
Destro: (he. needs to. dial back. he's giving too much away, he--)

Silvanus: (Enrion starts, but Silvanus holds steady, his eyes seeking Destro's, wide and aghast again.)

Destro: you give too much heed to idle chatter.
Destro: (and.)

Silvanus: (Silvanus's head cocks questioningly.)

Destro: you and i both know i've not heart for... (teeth gritting as he looks for a thought, or feigns to look for a thought)
Destro: ('no')
Destro: being' smitten’. as you've pointed out many - MANY - times before, i'm too far gone for that.
Destro: listen to yourself, brother.
Destro: 'love.'
Destro: you know what i am.
Destro: your gossips have gotten to your head.

Silvanus: (Silvanus doesn't see Enrion's hopeful pleasure leech away, but he can imagine it. And he'd like to. Drive that final stake home.)
Silvanus: Oh. Hm.

Destro: ...

Silvanus: (He frowns.) I. Really had thought -

Destro: ....

Silvanus: Not in love at all, then?
Silvanus: Pity.
Silvanus: (He does look terribly disappointed.)
Silvanus: It would have done you a world of good. Are you quite sure?

Destro: (destro doesn't trust that look at all. IF silvanus is disappointed, it's at not having word direct from the horse's mouth. and if destro can divert his brother from this (dire) (not anyone's business) (difficult to approach, let alone fucking speaK) subject, he'll be in the clear, and silvanus might scuttle off for another six or seven months.)
Destro: (so, rolling on with the almost-ease and cool seeming-certainty he's manufactured through speaking-)
Destro: you'll be disappointed to know i am indeed QUITE sure.
Destro: and you sound like a complete fool, speaking of love at all.
Destro: what use, silvanus?
Destro: it's nothing for me.
Destro: (he feels very certain he is going to be rid of this pest thank fuck. (feels a little... guilty, maybe? about what he's said, but. what's said to silvanus doesn't matter. and he'll. he'll give the boy extra care tonight. to make up for it.))

Silvanus: (Silvanus hums, nodding rather mournfully. His attention drifts sideways - oh, poor puppy, slumped back against the wall, his eyes unfixed and his brow furrowed.)
Silvanus: I see. I see. (And now Silvanus nods more pointedly, and then gestures a vague index finger in the same direction.)
Silvanus: Does he know that?

Destro: (which is when time turns still.)
Destro: (which is when the ground falls away - precarious ground he'd built through lies that shouldn't matter (lies that might matter) (lies running his spine frozen))

Silvanus: (Lies that didn't fool Silvanus even a little. :|)

Destro: - and the air turns stifling turns noxious turns thick, too thick to breathe.)
Destro: (shitshitshit)
Destro: (Destro's current response is absolutely not unconfirming anything silvanus has seen. 100% that's horror written clear in his expression - wide eyes gone blank, lip wrenched mortified, hands falling to his side)

Silvanus: (Well, that's a look.)

Destro: (it's a wonder he's still standing. and he knows he should turn. he should confirm... what he suspects. (What he knows. what silvanusw as playing to for... how much of this? how long has... has...)
Destro: (there's terror in anticipation. there will be loss in looking. and still, he can't leave the question unseen. can't not confirm the worst of it, and for the first time since his brother entered, destro tears his focus away, glancing over and sideways, looking for-)

Silvanus: (He really doesn't look like he knew, Silvanus thinks of saying. But maybe the better part of valor just now is to leave before Destro recovers himself.)

Destro: (oh, puppy.)
Destro: (and, softly, unaware of his own speaking or voice-) enri.

Silvanus: (Silvanus slips out the back door, offering a sympathetic look over his shoulder at, ha, Enri, as he goes.)

Destro: (this is loss. he doesn't know how he's so certain, he doesn't know why the world is falling into tatters, its every motion every could-be-motion ceasing. but. but.)

[onefellswoop]

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.))

[onefellswoop]

Enrion: Your brother. (He echoes the word solemnly, softly, as though this means something. (It doesn't.) (It does.) (It will.) He thinks about saying, almost does say, I had a brother --)
Enrion: (but he doesn't let the words rise past his tongue. (Destro doesn't. Shouldn't. Get to know about Eras.) (Destro is wearing Eras's ring.) (Enrion thinks, deep and sudden and painfully --))
Enrion: ((He gave Eras's ring to Destro.) (How's he going to get it back.)
Enrion: ((He doesn't want it back.) (He wants -) (Oh, he wants.) (Why the fuck did he come home.) (Why did he have to hear that. He could have pretended, his whole life. He's so good at pretending.))
Enrion: (He lowers his head to his arms and stares at the stones through the gap between his legs until they blur, and the howl building in him (a different howl, not the settling of love but the unsettling of it) claws into his throat. --)
Enrion: (He thinks he's going to scream, or wail, the older remnant of the sound he made that echoed through an Alinor townhome years ago. But the only sound is a hitched breath, like a sob.)

Destro: (it could have taken on so many registers. that... upheaval. that breath turned unsteady, brush of a sound, of lungs wrung hopeless. destro comprehends the meaning of that sound, or. some meaning in it. saw in the boy a coiling of could-be-reactions, all of them turmoiled, some of them raging, could-be-wild, and--)
Destro: (and what came of them was this choked sound, only. a strangled sound that strikes destro as ageless, as inextricable from this moment - from what, from what, from what destro said (did) (lied about) ((what does the boy believe to be lies, and what true?)) and informed by histories destro can't begin to guess at. (because the boy never told.) (because destro never had a chance to hear.) (and now.) ((and now. he never will.)))
Destro: (the boy said. he would follow destro to the end. and the boy had flourished when destro said the same. spoke and MEANT the same. now, though. the sense of that's gone severed. (by his own hand.) (as easy as slicing a tendon, only. he hadn't intended this.) (as devastating as slicing a tendon.) ((the boy's hands capable in their work; the muscle cut and presented. the boy smiling, bounding off into the fray.)) ((that was the last of it. there's nothing more to follow. destro doesn't care to dwell on endings, but can't he hear the ringing of the end? the boy won't look at him right. the boy isn't here with him right, and he knows well enough why.))
Destro: (he doesn't know why he's speaking. hears the words and thinks, oh, no, that... isn't right. an error, again. -)
Destro: he doesn't know anything.
Destro: (what he means is. is. that silvanus is a fool, a gossip, a liar in his own right.)
Destro: (that silvanus doesn't DESERVE to know anything, that information in his hands becomes a tool for meddling, for flaunting, for prying in places he doesn't belong.)
Destro: (now, in the aftermath of his speaking, destro realizes his meaning maybe didn't channel through. that maybe, maybe, he said precisely the wrong thing. again.)
Destro: (and he doesn't know what to do with that. and he hopes against hope the boy won't take the words awry, that he'll hear destro's meaning (but it was so damnably unclear) (but the boy needs and deserves clarity) (But everything destro says and does only muddies the entire situation.))
Destro: i didn't--
Destro: ('mean that.')
Destro: (more words lost to falling silence.)

Enrion: (There's something as bad here as Destro's words to his brother. (Lies to someone, his brother or his puppy, both unconscionable). Destro says his brother doesn't know anything, and Enrion feels a twinge of something shameful that shudders his frame, shakes his shoulders. Drives another soft, pained sound from him.)
Enrion: (Destro's ashamed.)
Enrion: (He doesn't want his family to know. He doesn't want anyone to know. About.)
Enrion: (Him.)
Enrion: (He turns his head in his arms, and thinks, I need to get my frog.)
Enrion: (It's not the most important thing. It's not the only thing. It's not the problem, or the thing driving lightning-sharp pain through his heart.)
Enrion: ((But he can't leave his frog.))
Enrion: (It's the only thought he can hold on to right now. Everything else feels too big, too burdensome, too. Decimated.)
Enrion: (Too lost.)
Enrion: (He raises his head and wipes his face with his hands, then stares blankly ahead for a moment. (And Destro is right there (on his knees) (equitable) (it was never equitable, because Enrion is an idiot, a gullible child))
Enrion: ((But he's so near. He so near, and Enrion could stretch out a hand and Destro could reach back and their fingertips would brush.) (His heart clamps painfully and his face contorts in a flash of pain.) (He closes his eyes and leans back, and lets his head fall back against the wall, a solid presence (he could just stop here and everything would maybe work out, or he'd stop breathing and that would work out, too.) Swallows. And then exhales. And gets up off the floor.)
Enrion: (He pauses beside Destro, and waits, looking at the other man out of the corner of his eye.)

Destro: (that flaring pain. (how it shoots through him when it crosses enrion's face. how it settles itself into destro, muffled by practiced not-quite-calm, by necessity that learned to muffle everything when everything becomes too much to manage. when he needs to push through, and can't risk a total drowning.)
Destro: ((he IS drowning, anyway. feels his lungs choked with something not-quite-air. feels his head swimming, vision dazed with colorless blotches. (he should have. died years ago. never let himself enter that hideaway. should never have... so many things.) ((and above all else. he should never have said. ...he. can't. think about that now. lest the drowning wholly take him.)))
Destro: (so he scarcely thinks. feels shattered through again, again, but keeps the world in relative focus, and. when the boy stands (a brief leap of could-be-joy; is enrion coming to him?) (a wilder, louder quiet-shrieking fear: the boy is leaving) (a hopefulness, almost: the boy is going to have it out with him, TELL him he's wronged enrion - which is true - tell destro he deserves better, which is also true, enrion deserves better thana to witnessa self-serving set of lies (necessary (NOT. necessary) set of lies). the boy could do it; he's claimed his place before. (but before, the atmosphere never sparked hollow like this. vaster than coldharbour's sky, and infinitely more hollow.))
Destro: (enrion stands, and even before he pauses, destro's moving his hand, a rusted-feeling motion, his muscles not in his control. and as the boy pauses, destro sets a hand against his hip, unable to look up (Afraid, perhaps, of what he'd see) (unwilling, perhaps, to see the damage he's wrought) (knowing, as well, he has no right to look.) and he'll keep his hand lingered there for a moment, a lasting length of moments, if he can. looking ahead without seeing anything, now that enrion's moved from his vision. and trying to speak. swallowing. trying to shift his fingers enough to caress the boy even once, but that much is beyond him; he can only, barely linger.)
Destro: enri.
Destro: ('please,' he thinks, but again his voice, his lack of speech betrays him.)
Destro: (or. more to the point. he fails to speak in full, and so betrays his puppy.)

Enrion: (He doesn't shake off the hand at his hip. This strange, unnatural way of being, of- Destro, at his feet. (As though he's pleading. Or. Apologizing.) (But not.) (He hasn't said those words at all.))
Enrion: (Enrion swallows again and thinks, Better say everything now. And he takes a sharp breath (oh, no one's going to call him Enri anymore) (he won't let anyone else ever again). His hand is shaking, but he does manage to shift it, to draw the backs of his fingers along Destro's cheek. A trace of them through his hair, drawing it aside from his face tenderly. Tenderly. And he turns his palm up, his fingertips under Destro's chin, coaxing his face up (hey, look at me, he said once) (this is the third time he's touched this man this way, turning his focus) (he deserves his focus, in this confusion, this ruin.)
Enrion: (Doesn't think of what he'll say. Only looks down and meets Destro's eyes, holds them if he can. Thinks, no matter how far he goes or how long he lives, he'll always, always belong to this man. (This liar.) (Broken. Terribly broken.) (God.))
Enrion: (His words are preceded by a sharp intake of breath, and the fallen streaks of tears.)
Enrion I love you.
Enrion: (Under those words, /Even if you don't love me./ His expression contorts again, and he can't wrest it under control, can't hide the agony --)
Enrion: (His next words come shattered, weak, words on the bitter edge of lost composure.)
Enrion: Don't follow me.
Enrion: (And, helplessly, unhappily:) Stay.
Enrion: (And.)
Enrion: Daddy - stay.

Destro: (for a moment he thought, 'mercy,' and the room turned brushed with breeze, a clarion fresh freeing. enrion's hand found him, and he thought maybe, maybe, all will be well, and the boy is wounded but the boy is offering a chance, and destro will take it, will... find the work, work his way to cohesion and to proving how much, just how much the boy
Destro: means. to him; as a vital piece of the world. central to destro's world. (has he been forgiven? the fingers at his cheek say maybe. and for a moment, he begins to shift his head into that touch, allows himself the beginning of unthawing.)
Destro: (only.)
Destro: (...only.)
Destro: (it's worse, after. like burning anew, like plummeting through the earth itself. the adoration in those eyes and the knowingness of ruin. the presence of (Reverence) (love) (oh, the boy said, the boy sayS love, and at once the boy's expression, eyes, his presence all speak--
Destro: loss. unshakable, speechless loss.)
Destro: (which is only the beginning of the blow.)
Destro: (which is only the first drop, and the next strikes harder, could burn the world to ash, does, maybe, singe the center of destro's mind. sets his heart to combustion, to flaming, to nothing. (he wasn't so far off, perhaps, telling silvanus he has not heart to speak of. what he said was prophetic.) (don't be. fucking ridiculous. what he said was the cause of this ruin.))
Destro: (those words don't give grounds for compromise. for argument.)
Destro: (orders given. orders familiar, reflected resonant of his own, he... understands. that this is no game, no space for negotiation. i'd follow you, he'd said. i'd pursue you, watching, unable to keep from following you. he'd said.)
Destro: (but this. this isn't his decision now. enrion... says. orders in their... ... it doesn't. matter. why he knows the meaning. how earnest the boy is in speaking, and he'd said...)
Destro: (that last word. (that last time, that last calling.) he'll never hear that word again. from enrion. (From anyone.) how could he tolerate it, after this? its resonance becoming loss. its speaking disappointment (that betrayal, again), farewell. commanding absence.)
Destro: (stay away.)
Destro: (enrion says. (his puppy.) (his enri.) (says.) stay. (a farewell to destro.) (an end to daddy.) (an end to all of this.))
Destro: (he doesn't speak. he can't speak; can't tell now if enrion is here or elsewhere. if everything's already gone. he doesn't comprehend the way he's sunk a little further, elbow on his knee. doesn't know the way he'll draw his hand against his chest when enrion does move, or the way he'll stare unseeing a the floor as minutes, hours shift by. doesn't know how he'll watch over nothing until night wears into morning.)
Destro: (what he does know is that after - after staring, after night's end, after everything - there will be no enrion.)
Destro: (not here or elsewhere. and never, not ever again.)
Destro: (he doesn't say goodbye. he can't say goodbye, or make a sound. and the night. and the night will wear on.)

Enrion: (One last drift of fingers, loving, faint - and then gone.)